In a previous post I described how I grew up in a very conservative Christian denomination and spent years as what one might a Messianic Jew before turning to more esoteric forms of western theology and finally towards an even more eastern form of spirituality. Today, if I had to define myself, I would call myself a Gnostic Buddhist but that’s a term I’m not sure anyone would really “get” from just the title. I’d like to share a bit more of my personal journey and current beliefs just so those who want to know what perspective I’m coming from, know a little more about how I think.
Paganism and “Pure” Religion
My road out of of Christianity began in part during the days I started writing a blog and running a chat room titled “Leaving Babylon”. For me, “Leaving Babylon” summarized nicely my spiritual journey at the time. Let me explain what “Leaving Babylon” meant to me at the time. Many Christians have come to understand that two cities are mentioned more than any others in the Bible – Jerusalem and Babylon – and that Jerusalem symbolizes the city of God while Babylon symbolizes all that is opposed to God. Furthermore, nearly all Christians are familiar with the story of the tower of Babel where God confused man’s languages because they were trying to build a stairway to the gods. There is a LOT going on in those stories but the summary is this. Babylon (and the tower of Babel) has come to be associated with confusion and “false religion”. When one rambles on with words that make no sense we say they are babbling for example. In the book of Revelations angels proclaim warnings just before the end time return of Christ. The angels tell us that Babylon has fallen (Revelations 14:8) and then asks God’s people to “come out of her” (Babylon) before they partake in the punishments about to befall her (Revelations 18:4).
The more I studied the modern “Bible,” the more I realized that a large part of the collection of books concerned itself with the issue of “pure” religion vs amalgamated religion. What I mean by that is that Israel was given a very specific form of worship and told EXACTLY how to worship their God. However, as Israel spent more and more time around other nations, in captivity to other nations, or intermarrying with peoples of other nations, they began picking up “pagan” customs of the religions (or gods) around them. Frequently God would rise up “righteous” prophets or ruler who would punish Israel for forgetting HIS form of worship and picking up the practices of the pagan nations around them. At times God was so angry at Israel for adopting pagan religion that he would order entire pagan civilizations to be wiped out (or murdered) down to every last woman, child and even animal. That is how important keeping a pure religion was to God. When King Solomon took multiple wives, we are told that his wives began to turn him towards pagan forms of religion so God divided Israel into two kingdoms (tribes of Israel and tribes of Judah) then drove them into captivity to the Babylonians and Assyrians.
To me, I found it it ludicrous for Christians to claim that the United States of America is a “Christian” nation or “Godly” nation and yet allow the erection of pagan temples and worship of pagan gods in every major city of the country. Many Christians pride themselves on being religiously tolerant, but for me, I saw ZERO religious tolerance in the Bible. God never allowed Israel to mingle with other gods or allow them to erect pagan alters and temples in their midst. I see no words of Jesus telling people it is ok to worship whomever they choose. How did the religion get so off course that they do not see the problem with this sort of practice? Now don’t get me wrong here. I never was about to go kill anyone who didn’t worship the way I do nor do I think people should not have freedom of religion. What I’m saying is, the BIBLE and GOD (as recorded in the Bible) does not believe in freedom of religion. There is a big difference.
For years I became obsessed with the idea of finding anything “pagan” in my personal religious beliefs and getting rid of those beliefs so I could return to a true or “pure” form of worship as God intended. I did not then, nor do I really now, care what other people do. This was MY personal conviction and I tried to live it as best I could. This meant, for me, the rejection of celebrating Christmas (an entirely pagan ceremony adopted and reinterpreted by Christians to say it is now about “Jesus”), the rejection of many aspects of celebrating Easter (another entirely pagan fertility ceremony complete with bunnies and eggs representing the sexual appetites’ of breeding adopted by Christians), and the rejection of many, many more symbols used by Christians that came straight from pagan origins, etc.
Unfortunately my desire to rid MY SELF of pagan influences only brought about ridicule and scorn from other Christians. As just one example, though I never told my ex wife she couldn’t celebrate Christmas if SHE wanted to or even put up a Christmas tree in my home (things I believe are of pagan origin), her best friend urged her to divorce me because “what kind of man doesn’t celebrate Christmas”. To her I was clearly not a family man or husband material because my ex wife had a daughter and I, as her step father, should encourage her to celebrate Christmas. How dare I confuse the poor child. A man who cares about his family will celebrate Christmas, PERIOD. I was mocked for not celebrating Easter, I was mocked for not eating pork, I was mocked for choosing Saturday over Sunday as the day of assembly. Over and over my personal decisions and convictions were mocked and ridiculed by Christians who would argue with me and rudely try and educate me with things like, “Don’t you realize that all those silly laws have been done away with” or “don’t you think God is smart enough to know who you’re worshipping?”
Anyway, the point of all this is that I left Christianity because the more I studied the more I realized two things. The religion was FULL of pagan icons, ceremonies, doctrinal beliefs and such that the modern religion looked NOTHING like the original followers would have recognized and two, that Christians not only didn’t give a shit about any of that but they would actually be rude to me for following my own personal convictions. I could no longer fellowship with Christians of any sort and choose not to attend a Christmas event or “Easter” service or sing songs to what I believed was a pagan concept of God as three gods in one. Instead I was told that I do not have the Holy Spirit in me for coming to a different conclusion than “the church” and I was invited to leave. And so I did.
Fortunately for me, cutting ties with organized religion (specifically Christianity) was the best thing that could happen for my spiritual growth. I was finally allowing myself to study the Bible with ZERO fear of conforming to organized religion. I began to view the book differently, began to compare it to other ancient religious texts from around the same time, and I even began to look at what other religions taught and look for what might be true in all of them. The more I studied the more I realized how many similarities there were to other spiritual ideas and kept looking at the Bible in new and fascinating ways. And then I had a spiritual awakening.
To make a long story REALLY long, I had a spiritual awakening where things suddenly just clicked. I came to realize a fundamental secret about human beings and human nature and the world around us, that we were ALL God in some respect. Everything that exists only exists because it flowed out of the same universal consciousness. When it really boils down to it, EVERYTHING was made from and IS part of God. At the time I had no idea that this concept was astonishingly closer in line with Buddhism than Christianity.
Spiritual Beings “Trapped” in a Material World
One of my more strongly held philosophical beliefs today is that we are ALL spiritual beings who have become trapped in a physical reality or dimension and have simply forgotten who and what we really are. We have become “trapped” in this physical dimension due to what the Buddhists might call “attachments” and the belief that this place is “real” when in fact it is merely an illusion. We are all essentially living in an illusionary dream in which we THINK we are “Bob”, “Sally”, “Fred” or whatever and have forgotten that the concept of “Bob” or “Sally” is just an illusion. It is only a role we are playing right now and it is not the REAL you. Furthermore, our continuing to believe that this illusory self is real is what keeps us trapped here in the physical dimension unable to “ascend” to spiritual enlightenment. In this understanding, “enlightenment” (or “resurrection” as the Christians would word it), refers to our coming to finally remember who and what we really are and thus escaping the physical attachment to our ego and the constraints of this physical prison and return to the spiritual realm which is our true home.
I want to point out that the above differs philosophically from Christianity which essentially teaches that God and the angels are spiritual beings but humans are not. Humans are physical beings. However, through faith and obedience man is able to (after the death of his physical body) be transform during the resurrection into a new spiritual body and live in heaven with God. I understand not all Christians would agree with the wording here, but I’m trying to summarize what I believe is a fundamental difference between believing we already are spiritual beings (i.e we are like god already) or that we are merely physical beings hoping to one day become spiritual in nature.
Gnostic Christianity
It is my understanding that the viewpoint above (that we are all spiritual beings trapped in a physical illusion) is a bit more “eastern” in nature (i.e. Buddhism and Hinduism), however, a large number of early Christians (as well as a number of modern Christians today) developed and still believe in a form of Christianity that has come to be known and Gnosticsm. Gnosticsm is sort of a blending of Christian and Buddhist thought that was eventually rejected by the majority of Christians and driven underground due to it’s HIGHLY controversial interpretation of the Bible. If you are not familiar with it you will soon see why.
To summarize a long complicated theology, the Gnostics came to understand that there are “many” gods (beings, entities, etc) in the spiritual realms, not just one singular “god”. The Gnostics also came to believe that ONE of these “gods” in the spiritual realms decided to create a physical realm and make other lesser beings to worship it. Most Gnostics, I believe, feel that this “god” (known in Gnosticism as the Demiurge) was simply delusional and began to believe that he was the only “god” or spiritual being like him. This “god” is, for the Gnostic, the God of this physical reality and the one who Christians worship and follow but he’s not necessarily a “good” guy. In fact, for the Gnostic, the God of this physical reality might even be a bit evil considering that the sole purpose of his creation is to have beings to worship him. Furthermore, many Gnostics believe that this “god” bound (and is still binding) spiritual beings and placing them inside of a physical form or body (what the Bible calls breathing the breath of life into man), thus imprisoning them in the illusion of this world.
No, I Do Not HATE God
One thing I realize when many Christians hear of Gnosticism is that they assume Gnostics just hate God and are twisting the Bible to justify their hatred of God. I would like to say that this is a VERY inaccurate understanding. In my personal understanding, ALL is God. All comes from the same source. To hate “God” would be to hate oneself since fundamentally we are all God (or a manifestation of God). The “God of this world” is also a manifestation of that same god-force.
Now all of this information about my beliefs is additionally some good background information for my next blog post on the watchers. Specifically we will talk about beings of “light” and vibration and the colors of the rainbow.