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For a long time humans have relied on belief to explain that which was unexplainable. Humans have generously extrapolated that which they perceive and understand into that which they do not perceive or understand. This is a common practice of the ego: we draw conclusions about that which we actually do not understand and proclaim our conclusions as truth.

Yet it would not be accurate to categorize religion strictly as a phenomenon of ego and belief, because in fact religious phenomena also arises from the individual’s very real personal experience with the greater reality and with the divine. God is real (whatever you call God or don’t call God), the spirit is real- in fact, whether they are recognized or not, they are more real than the objects that appear to be around us. And as the individual processes experience, including the very common and natural personal interaction with the spirit, the physically oriented portion of one’s awareness seeks to intellectually and emotionally secure form for that experience. The form that one seeks to secure then is sought within the context and history of what one has experienced in the physical, including what one has learned or been taught, which can include a religious context.

We might say then that our physical religion has two parts to it: first, the human-derived mythology (comprised of ideas, which are a type of form experienced within the physical universe); and second, the individual’s interaction with the transcendent loving substance of the spirit (the divine in and through all of us which transcends the physical universe). (In fact these two elements are intertwined and not ultimately separate, but to the human intellect which seeks to understand reality through dualistic ideas, the distinction may be helpful.) Differentiating the former from the latter has proven to be very challenging for humanity! This is understandable considering that the divine can seem invisible, unless we personally equate it to one or more forms (words, ideas, beliefs, etc.). In truth, the spirit transcends all of the forms of this universe, including our many objects, words, and ideas.

It is natural that we seek answers within the form, for we are indeed immersed in an experience of form. The experience of dualistic form is the very nature of the physical experience. And as experiencers of form, form is often very important to us- sometimes it even seems necessary- as we reach for the divine. For instance, revering a name, book, idea, or any set thereof can in fact be deeply meaningful and genuinely important to the individual along his or her spiritual walk. Yet eventually it can sometimes also benefit one to recognize that the form itself does not hold the answer, because form only exists within and is completely transcended by the realm of the spirit. Put another way: conscious awareness itself exists, and the forms it entertains are secondary, so the forms will never truly hold the answer.

Regardless of the forms (or lack of forms) we utilize to pursue the divine, the spiritual walk of the individual is indeed very important and very real. Your relationship with the divine is real. YOU are real! You are more real than the forms that you are lost within. And that which stirs your soul, your truest self of selves, also dwells and exists beyond the ideas that you have temporarily adopted.

So how can we who are so bound to the experience of duality differentiate between the mythology of form, and the true substance of spirit?

It is important to recognize that the realm of the spirit is not far away. In fact distance itself is not fundamental and exists as an experience only! Spirit is the most real thing you know: your awareness is spirit. YOU are spirit. The awareness of being here now, reading this blog with your intellectual mind of form, is an exercise ultimately being undertaken by spirit (your awareness). You may have gone very deeply into the dream of form, so deep that you don’t remember how you got here- but you still have the ability right now to exercise your most inalienable spiritual power: your power to intend, your power to choose.

What can you intend or choose to help you separate the substance from the illusion? While the answer is complex and cannot truly be articulated with words, and while the path for every individual will most certainly be special and unique, we might say the following: be willing. Your intent is your most fundamental inalienable power. Point it towards LOVE!

Humble yourself. Face your fears. Let go of your power, and choose love. Rather than listening primarily to your rehearsed beliefs, admit to yourself all that which you actually do not know. Intend to open yourself up to what the spirit is saying to you. Intend to let everything fall away that may wish to fall away, even if it causes you fear, even if it be your very life. Listen humbly to your intuition. Be willing to be wrong. Encounter what you feel. Feel what you feel. Feel what you are! Be willing to challenge anything, yet be gentle with yourself, for nothing can ever truly be wrong.

Humanity is ready to grow. We are ready to move away from fear-based dogma, self-righteousness, competition, anger, and the “survival of the fittest” mindset that has dominated much of our collective past for so long. We are ready for a more loving future!

It is time to stop fearing. In order to stop fearing, we need to be individually willing to actually face our pain, and process it. We need to take individual responsibility for all aspects of ourselves. We need to be willing to challenge and change our beliefs as our personal experience, reason, and intuition actually guide us. That path is a very personal path for each individual: it is sacred, and no one can walk it for us. But as you walk your unique path today, please know this: you are LOVED! You are full of light! You are free, and powerful, and good! And the power of our incomprehensibly loving Source is always with you, no matter what metaphor set you may use to seek or serve it.

You exist. If you explore that sincerely enough, past all of your beliefs, you will become aware that your fundamental nature is pure, worthy, and good. You just are something that is, unto itself, wondrous!

When you as a conscious awareness decided to come into this experience of limitation, it did not fundamentally change what you are. You committed to being seemingly bound to having the human experience. Meanwhile then, within that experience, it was fully understood that you would make choices. It was known that you would have to make very difficult choices, and often those choices would be made under ignorance, fear, or duress. It was known that you might act out of selfishness or cause others pain. Even now then, everything you’ve ever done is understood. “All That Is” fully understands everything, and so the reasons for your making imperfect choices are always fully understood.

Does that mean you should be selfish or cause others pain? No, of course it doesn’t, not at all. You’ve come here to experientially grow so that in fact you can be more effectively loving, more selfless, more fearless, more powerful for the good. You’ve come here to actually experientially learn not just how to perform loving actions, but how to be more loving within a rich context. Selfish or fearful choices do not fulfill that purpose, are not in alignment with your true nature, and often lead to one eventually having to experience certain challenges so as to grow past that selfishness or fear.

But never-the-less, there is nothing you can truly do wrong. All of your choices, even the “sub-optimal” ones, are understood completely for what they are. Your fundamental nature cannot be less than wondrous, no matter what may happen in the play of life. And God always, always loves and completely accepts you with a profundity that is beyond imagining.

In Neale Donald Walsch’s “Conversations With God,” Neale is told this too. He responds by asking, “if there is no punishment, then what prevents people from doing bad things to each other?” And the response came, “do you need punishment to not do bad things to each other?” Perhaps many of us on Earth do currently need to believe in consequences to prevent us from harming others, because that is “where we actually are” in our own development.

And yet when we are ready, it can be profoundly meaningful to relinquish the fear of judgment and to embrace the unimaginably deep and forgiving love that exists for us! For when we know that love, we can act out of gratefulness, out of true deepest desire to do good, rather than out of fear of punishment. We can drop guilt and shame, and allow ourselves to shine bright, knowing that we are always completely loved and accepted- no matter what!

True personal growth is not done in the intellect, or through action itself. True personal growth is a change in one’s very being. While “right” ideas and actions do emerge from that, they are not growth in themselves.

It is the quality of our intent that must grow, not the correctness of our ideas. Like dream settings, ideas and environments change. What remains is us– the consciousness that experiences those things, and the quality of its ability to make choices from love rather than fear.

Too often we believe that we are growing when our ideas change, or when we do certain things, or when our circumstances change- when in fact what matters is when we change. The forms that we play with (ideas, sensations, objects, circumstances, beliefs, and even bodies) are temporary; but improving the quality of our intent itself is growth that endures beyond all of the form.

Thus rather than finding new ideas or simply performing some specific actions, we must strive to actually BE more loving! We must strive in every choice to accept personal responsibility, to face our fears, to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, and to put others before ourselves. If we truly pursue that every day, we will fulfill our purpose for being physical.

Imagine for a moment that you are absolutely free and absolutely powerful. Imagine that nothing can limit you, nothing is impossible, and nothing can thwart your every desire. Imagine you are everything, you and those that are of you are all that is. How would one, in such a state, truly create and expand? How would one in such a state be able to choose something even greater, be something even greater? If absolute freedom were already yours, how tantalizing would it be to have the choice to experience a true challenge, so that you could fully personally know unique contrast, deepen your experience, and in so doing, become even more? How exciting would it be to be able to experience a new level of limitation, that you could once again see how well you could exert your incredible powers of choice?

What would it be like to be so free, that you could choose to be constrained?

This is what we really are. We are really limitless, absolutely free beings. In absolute freedom, we have chosen to participate in a truly incredible experiment to push the very boundaries of freedom and expansion: we have chosen to forget what we truly are for a while, and be mortal beings on Earth.

From the perspective of man, the choice to be frail, challenged, powerless, and decaying can seem almost impossible to comprehend. But from the perspective of spirit, having the opportunity to actually experience those things, and actually impact others while they are on their own rich journeys, is an incredibly profound gift. How much greater of a gift could be given by the Creator to spirits who are already absolutely free than the ability to fully experience contrast, that they may in fact exercise their freedom even more, actually be more than they once were, and learn to express the LOVE that they really are in new and very real ways?

“Us versus them” thinking currently prevails in our society. Because of the physical rule-set of our reality, life on this planet evolved in a “kill or be killed” environment, and it was physically beneficial to ensure that one’s self and one’s group succeeded even at the expense of other individuals or groups. Our cultures enshrine the importance of supporting one’s group, whether it be a tribe, a sports team, a nation, or- especially- one’s family.

And yet, where we truly come from, we are all family. We are intrinsically connected to one another. That statement is not just a nice sounding platitude- it is a statement of actual fact. The spirit is fundamental. Spiritually, all of us are a part of one incredible whole. We are all not only connected- we are a part of one another!

This is true no matter what role we temporarily come and play on Earth. This is true of every single person we meet. The cashier behind the register at the grocery store, our best friend, the person collecting our trash, the worker in China who made our clothes, even the next door neighbor’s dog – we are a part of one another.

Thus we do not need to differentiate between “our people” and “other people.” It may have been natural to do so in the context of our long history on Earth, but it is not fundamental to what we are. Our true nature is one of love! In fact, we have come here to this place partly so that we can explore what that means and to learn to truly love everyone more fully, even within a rich and challenging context. That means learning to genuinely love and accept others even when they are not a part of our immediate group.

The next time you interact with someone that seems like a stranger to you, take a moment to be present with them, and try to peer into what they really are. Can you drop all of your preconceptions, all of your identity labels, and truly see them? Can you sense that you are indeed connected to them? Can you feel the wonderfulness of their unique presence? If you look close enough, past all the ideas of your human mind, you just may sense their brightness, and it will speak to something in you too. For none of us are truly separate from each other- we are all family!

You are unconditionally loved by God. You can never lose that love. Source accepts you entirely. You have nothing to prove, nothing to do, nothing to fear. You are loved! Nothing can take that away from you.

That is true even considering the fact that you will make sub-optimal choices while you are on Earth. It is understood that you will. All things are understood- so how could your “mistakes” not be?

In fact, the act of being human, even in all of its messiness, is recognized as a profound and meaningful contribution. Why? Because as the soul expands, so does the ocean of which it is forever a part.

The soul “strives.” It has everything available to it, and yet (on a post-fundamental level) it is not flawless or perfect, but can in fact grow in love toward the perfection of God. To participate in that process, the soul cloaks itself in a context so it can have the opportunity to make choices.

The soul can always “be more.” That “growth” is very meaningful to the soul. It permits it to be and express itself in new ways. The soul can develop by being something within a context and striving to forever improve the quality of its intent toward love by playing that context. It can conquer fears. It can better understand duality: it can better know the light if it first knows the darkness. The experience of unique contrast is useful. Other realities are affected by the soul’s decision to become physical, too. Incarnation is an absolutely amazing and precious opportunity for the soul! We are so unconditionally loved that we are permitted to choose to have the experience of not being unconditionally loved. For in so doing, love- the nature of God itself- is that much better understood. Indeed, every detail of our lives is a unique setup within duality that helps the soul better know itself, and helps All That Is gain new meaning and insight- and that adds to Creation. You are participating in that very valuable activity right now!

Thus you did not come to Earth to prove yourself, or to earn the love that is already given to you. In fact, you are the brave one who has embarked on the great journey of being human so as to participate in the expansion of Creation itself! That is not only forgivable- it is admirable.

 “You are not just a drop in the ocean, you are the mighty ocean in the drop.” -Rumi

We are “what is.” We are the experiencers and the interpreters of our experience. We are the creators of our experience. Every single element of our world, every single experience that any being ever has here, is ultimately our collective responsibility.

Collective experience is rooted in individual experience. As an individual experiencer, you are a fundamental and key part of the play that is occurring. Never overlook the importance and the power of individual responsibility- it is the root of all responsibility.

There is never anyone other than “I, the experiencer” who is making the choices that affect others.

And thus the responsibility for everything is yours, mine- ours. There is no other group out there, no other individual, or government, or idea, or location, or force that can be blamed. We are the only ones that can be blamed. And the “we” is rooted in you the individual, and in me the individual.

Some may say, “But I cannot change other people” or “I cannot change the entire world.” There are two important responses to that. First, you are not responsible for every other soul’s choices- but you are responsible for your own. Very importantly: from the spiritual perspective, taking personal responsibility is enough! Second, you are far more powerful than you imagine! You are intrinsically connected to every single other thing in existence, everywhere. You are connected to every single other person, animal, and rock on the planet, and every star in the sky. When you change, reality changes. When you grow toward genuine love and conquer your fear, the world is positively affected. That is true even if you do not see the effects visibly. A change in consciousness space always precedes a change in physical space. Thus the state of the world is not one of gloom, but one of hope- for you do personally have the power to bring about meaningful positive change.

So take responsibility! Take responsibility for your intent. Notice your thoughts, your actions, your reasons. Why in fact are you doing what you are doing? What can you do to make things better? What personal fears can you take ownership for and confront? What one single step can you take to help make the world a better place for someone else- today? You will find that as you accept responsibility, rather than being burdened, you are in fact FREED- for acting from love always moves us closer to our true Source of freedom and joy!

When deciding whether something is true, especially when it comes to philosophical or spiritual topics, we tend to immediately consult the intellect. We think: “Does this information jive with my own understanding?” or, “How does this information fit with my existing beliefs?” We tend to seek and interpret truth through intellectual understanding, or through intellectually held beliefs.

And yet genuine spiritual truth fully transcends the human intellect. Truth transcends form.

Thus, if we wish to seek out what is true, we need to do so with more than just our minds- we need to do so with all of our being. Our being lasts. Our being is actually connected to All Things. But our human intellect is only a narrow specialized sub-set of what we truly are, the portion of us focused to processing the seemingly dualistic nature of our physical world. We are much more than that.

Because the physical universe is not fundamental, it will not do to try to understand all of reality with the physical mind. Consciousness is fundamental, so to explore reality, look there.

We are not here to struggle, suffer, and merely survive. We are here to thrive as the beings of joy that we truly are!

But oftentimes, what we perceive to be the “demands” of the world cause us to fall into seriousness. Our worldviews require things of us, and in heeding them we quickly get bogged down by the responsibilities that we have heaped upon ourselves.

None of it is required. None of the seriousness, heaviness, or stress is required. At the most fundamental level, nothing is required of us- for awareness itself is perfectly free, and in fact awareness fully transcends the forms that it allows itself to get lost within.

Thus while you are here on Earth, allow yourself to let go, and to choose joy! There is never a circumstance in which you are not allowed to choose joy, should you wish.

There is nothing you believe that you didn’t first decide to buy into at some point. Even your deepest assumptions about how reality works are viewpoints that you had to establish.

Physical reality is a defined context that provides a neutral mirror through which you may experience the nature of your perspectives and beliefs. Physical reality is such that through its constraints, you may very richly experience your unique perspective. In a reality like ours, that perspective can get incredibly “deep” over the course of a lifetime- so convincingly deep that you can forget entirely where you have come from, or even what your assumptions are! This in fact is one the reasons the physical experience is so very valuable to the soul: it allows you to truly experience a defined and unique perspective first-hand. Another reason is, such a deep perspective allows for a very rich place from which you can make choices, so that you can ultimately evolve the quality of your intent toward love.

As we undertake our exceptionally long journeys across space and time, we seek to grow towards love. An important part of growing towards love is growing past fear. And many times as humans, our beliefs are put in place to protect us from our fears. Thus, in fact, we are doing a great service when we decide to confront our beliefs and face the fears that they were protecting. That awakening process is a very meaningful one indeed! When we face our fear, not only are we able to free ourselves from its shackles, we are able to then actualize a more loving presence in our world for everyone else.

Even as deep and convincing as this physical experience and its resulting beliefs can be, if you remove or look past all of the thoughts and beliefs, you will find that beneath them is always what you truly are: your awareness. Your awareness is the silent witness to all of your thoughts and beliefs, the presence that beholds your entire physical experience. Your awareness is you; your current beliefs and identity details are not. In fact, you do not need to believe anything, or think anything, or do anything. If you feel otherwise, it is because you believe it.

You do not need to fear changing your beliefs or viewpoint at any level. You are free to do that! In fact you will find that as you let go of the assumptions that have bound you, and truly face and process your fears, that you are more free than ever! For the spirit itself is much more than the forms it temporarily beholds, and there is always great joy when you take a step closer toward what you really are.