First of all, let me assure you that I do not claim to be among God's chosen few - one who has been granted special understanding of or access to the divine and therefore feels uniquely qualified or entitled to tell you how you can be saved. I am not building an ark, establishing a mission, or trying to sell you a plastic Jesus for the dashboard of your car. In fact, the childhood faith instilled in me by my good Baptist parents had devolved to agnosticism before I even reached puberty. By adulthood I avoided even mentioning the G-word, as if shunning was an entirely justifiable sentence imposed after I found Him guilty of ignoring our prayers (or maybe just not being there to hear them). And I am not “born again.” So relax. I know how little I know. And the little that I do know - well, I know it is just my truth, not a truth which necessarily works for anyone else, or a truth which I could have any expectation at all of converting you to.
On the other hand, after decades of reflection I have developed a model of how things might be which often seems to work - for me. So maybe some of it will work for someone else - someone or perhaps some few among the many who, if they were to be honest with themselves, might be willing to admit to just a bit of uncertainty about eternity.
Some will dismiss any necessity to even consider my particular “God model” by proclaiming a faith which rises above the need for examination. I want them to know that I do not dispute the validity of their faith. Indeed, I concede that there are non-logical ways of knowing. And though some may label me a non-believer because there are examples of Dogma which simply do not work for me personally, I am not necessarily without faith. As I already suggested, there are things which I know and, arguably, have faith in.
Others will want to reject everything I suggest which can not be logically proven and physically measured. To them I say I acknowledge the power of logic. I consider myself to be a generally logical person and even have a degree in Mathematics. Logic is a tool which is at times not only desirable, but absolutely necessary. However, logic is just a tool – it is not God. The Universe is a big place. There is more in the universal toolbox than just logic and (believe it or not) more to eternity than can fit within the bounds of human logic.
So, back to the things which I know. Foremost among them is this - there is more to me than my physical body. Call it my soul, or my spirit, or my higher self, or perhaps the multidimensional being which both interpenetrates and expands beyond what my purely physical senses are capable of measuring. I know this because I have experienced some of it, and because I believe that experience to be true. If you want me to prove the reality of spirit, I can not do that. It exists beyond logic and despite the denials of those who would limit reality to that which can be understood via the chemical reactions within someone's brain (theirs, presumably). The acceptance of spirit or even the possibility of spirit, if it ever comes, must be personal.
That there is more to us than our physical selves does not mean that the physical world is unreal. If you cut me I will bleed. So the physical world is a reality which must be dealt with. And while we exist within this physical reality, we do the best we can (each with our unique combination of genetic and learned capabilities) to navigate its currents. Predictably, because our physical reality is but a small piece of a much bigger picture which we at best get mere glimpses of, we make mistakes all along the way. But despite our inevitable mistakes, our lives within this reality are worth living. More on this later.
Since each one of us is unique, we each perceive the world around us in our own, unique way. This is why I know I can not expect to convert you to my truth. If there is One ultimate truth (and I think there may be - call it God if you wish), then our individual existences within this physical reality pretty much force us to perceive that One truth differently. Our perceptions will likely overlap - but they will be colored by our glorious individuality. So as physical beings (which we undeniably are despite the fact that we are also more than that) the best each of us can come up with is an approximation of the One truth, an approximation of the Bigger Picture which we each experience our own unique piece of, an individual approximation which (while sharing some aspects of other people's models) will be unique to each of us.
I have already touched on some features of my particular approximation, or my model. Before filling in more of the details, I would like to remind you of a quote attributed to the great statistician George E. P. Box: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” I proceed in humility with the hope that you might find something useful in what I say.
As important to me as my physical existence is and should be, I know there is something beyond that which, though I am unable to adequately define or fully understand it, I am part of. It is not “out there.” It is everywhere. Let's call it “God.” God is beyond place and beyond time. (“Time,” after all, is really just a concept our brains have invented to help us keep track of movement within the physical dimensions.) Everything that ever was or ever will be, always is. There is no thing and no place and no time where God isn't. God unifies everything and is that unifying force. God is Love. Through God, we are all connected.
You can choose to worship the “Christian God” or the “Jewish God” or the Prophet Mohamed. But though Islam differs from Christianity, the one God is there in the hearts of those who practice Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, as well as all religions that ever were and ever will be. God is not on one side or the other.
You can choose to deny that there is any unifying force, perhaps worshiping ego instead, or money, or many gods instead of one God… You can even choose to worship a god that DOES take sides, using that belief to justify hate or violence towards people within whom you mistakenly think God does not exist. It is through such denials of the One universal, unifying God that we impose upon ourselves the “Hell” of separation from God. But since God is omnipresent, that separation is an illusion.
Our physical reality is composed of three dimensions: length, height, and width. That's it. God, however, is not limited to just those three dimensions. The “higher” or “less dense” dimensions (as they are referred to in some traditions) are also part of God, and are what makes the Big Picture so difficult for beings such as ourselves (whose focus is on the lower, most dense, physical dimensions) to fully understand or even appreciate. But since God is everywhere, including within each of us, we can experience flashes of the higher dimensions even if complete understanding of what we are experiencing eludes our logic. Also, though God exists in more than just the three physical dimensions (how many more - I have no idea), our three-dimensional reality is also part of God. So in a way, our three-dimensional reality is holy. Though limiting ourselves to physical existence can be said to “separate” us from the fullness of God, that separation is, again, illusory, for God is with us. Indeed, the physical part of God is (along with the supra-physical dimensions) a necessary part of God and we (by simply living our lives) are manifesting that necessary part, serving as absolutely vital co-creators with God of the ever-expanding universal experience. Because God is infinite, anything that even might exist must exist. The lives that each of us live must be lived, and it is our job - our holy duty - to live those lives. And we must have free will in order to make the choices which enable us to live, to create unique lives. Our lives and our choices are not PRE-destined (time is an illusion) - they are eternal.
I know this can be a lot to swallow. So let me restate it in a slightly different way. God is the infinite, ever-expanding, unifying consciousness of all that ever was and ever could be. Some of what “could be” is created by each unique one of us and the choices we make as we live our lives. Like a hologram (in which the whole is contained within each piece of the whole), God (and every piece of God) is within each of us. We really are One. And we are co-creators with God, enabling God to experience our own unique parts of creation, enabling God to experience God.
This might be a good place to stop. But there is always more. So...
Besides, I really do not want to stop before at least touching on the importance of Forgiveness.
As has already been suggested, given free will and incomplete understanding, poor decisions are inevitable. Someone might even base their entire life on poor decisions. But would that life then be a “mistake?” Would such a person be evil? Well, since everything that could be must be, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no - that life was not a mistake. Whether or not the person who lived that life was evil, however, is a bit more problematic. Within my model, there is no place where God is not. Evil is only the illusion of separation from God. Yes, people make horrible decisions – decisions which we would be justified to judge as being “not what I would want to do” - decisions which, if resulting in repeated harm to others, would deserve condemnation and perhaps even punishment. But the person doing those things is not by nature evil, for God is there.
If an evil nature is illusion, what is good? I think that both good and evil are behaviors, or choices made by physical beings. An evil behavior is one which is inconsistent with what would be done if one was fully aware of and celebrated the oneness of all things. Good behavior celebrates that oneness. The Golden Rule (a form of which can be found in most if not all major religions) is one guide offered us in our pursuit of being good. But what if we fail to be good? Well, first of all, because beings living within physical reality can not be fully aware, it is a virtual certainty that we will so fail. Secondly, as I already suggested, it is through our failures as well as our successes that we make our own unique and necessary contributions to creation. So our failures are and must necessarily be Forgiven. What could be the alternative? Banishment to Hell? I don't think so. God is part of us as we are part of God. So I just don't see God banishing God to someplace where God isn't when God is everywhere.
We will make evil choices, and we will be forgiven. More accurately - we are making evil choices, and we are most assuredly being forgiven. The lives we are living must be lived. Once beyond living them, the illusions of separation from God (which we experience as part of living those physical lives) drop away – leaving us aware of our greater interconnectedness, our eternal oneness with God, which is, I think, the definition of essential, inevitable forgiveness. Eventually, we even have to forgive ourselves.
