Ever wonder what it's like to be touched by an angel? Ever felt the hand of God sweep you off of your feet and cradle you in comfort letting you know that everything is going to alright? Now, I'm not talking about a literal hand coming down from the sky to hold you. I’m not saying that there is a man in the sky through which the whole universe is born and comes to death in. I am not saying that there is even a life after death because maybe this is all we have. Maybe this life is the only opportunity we get to feel what it means to be human. Maybe this is as good as it gets, and maybe not. Who's to say I am right, who's to say I am wrong? Who's to say that a Christian's view speaks anymore truth than a Muslim's view? Who is to say that an Atheist is no more right than a Spiritualist? We can never know for sure because the reality is that no matter what belief we use to guide our lives, in reality it is only a piece of the whole. No one belief is more real or less real than the next. All belief is a truth to one and a misconception to another; but from the eyes of the observer, what is witnessed is indeed truth.
Allow me to give you some prologue into my article this week. A few days ago I found myself wondering through a charming book store in Old Town Arvada, driven by the need to find something which would set my heart on fire. I was looking for something with insight in the matters of life and death. I wanted something to get my creative juices flowing and philosophical mind thinking. As I read the genre label of “Metaphysical” I knew I was in the right place.
Despite the annoyance I was causing my girlfriend, who just wanted to get out of the old and cluttered bookstore, I found myself behaving like a child in a candy store, mouth watering and mind wondering from cover to cover searching for a book which would grasp my attention. I scanned the eight foot tall shell from top to bottom, bewildered and overwhelmed by the selections I had the opportunity to choose from. It would seem they had everything I was interested in from the reality of mind, premonitions of the afterlife, and conscious interactions with otherworldly, dimensional beings. I was taken aback by how many interesting topics stood out to me and pulled me in for a good read. It took me a good 10 minutes to debate between four books I wanted to buy. Having only twenty dollars in my pocket, I was torn with the idea that I could only really afford three of the four I felt I needed to read. With a little bit of back and forth debate, I finally made the logical decision to pick the three books with the most creative and interesting covers. (The Golden Rule always says to never judge a book by its cover, but in this case, I did.)
Two of the three books come from recorded interviews with psychic mediums as they would channel “spirit” for insight into life and death. The third seems to be a self-help book into living the art of allowing and the power of deliberate intent. I am only going to touch base with the first book I read titled, To Dance With Angels written by Don and Linda Pendleton, as this is the only book of the three I have read so far, but I do plan on giving my thoughts on the other two books in articles to come.
To begin I will give the reader a little bit of the description from the back of the book to give one some understanding of how this book really plays out.
“James Martin Peebles, the ‘Great Spirit,’ was born in 1822 and lived almost a hundred years. Now from the Other Side, he shared his wit and wisdom with all of us, speaking through the mediumship of Thomas Jacobson who has been called ‘the clearest window to the world beyond.’ In a series of recorded conversations, Dr.Peebles regales us with his thoughts on death and birth, heaven and hell, the past and future lives, ghosts and guardian angels, world politics and cosmic realities, love, and sexuality.”
In this book, To Dance With Angels Dr, Peebles talks about the planet Earth as a school and every one of us is a student here to learn. What are we here to learn one might ask? The answer is not simple nor singular as each soul as it is said in the book, comes here for their own lessons and karmic responsibilities. We have lived many, many lifetimes, pre-chosen in the between state of life and death. We are here to live out our karmic debt but also allow our souls the opportunity to enjoy the playground of life, be who we want to be, and experience what we want to experience. All experience, the good, bad, beautiful and ugly are all experiences of what life has to offer. All roads that each spirit takes along its journey from lifetime to lifetime lead us back home to god.
Now, as I explained earlier, the term God is used too specifically all too often as the dominant religions of the world strictly portray who “God” is from their point of view. What is lacking is the recognizing of god from a universal or higher perspective. When we get outside of the norm expectancy of who god is said to be when we drop the borders, take the lid off the container and quit making god in (our own image), then god can begin to be understood.
From the beginning of human time, we have created the idea of a God which closely represents ourselves. Neolithic Indians worshiped nature, the plants, animals, and stars as their God. This was their reality, this is what made the most sense to them. The three dominant religions of the world have all created their identity of god, and rightfully so but the truth is none come close to fully expressing the true nature of reality.
God is everywhere, within everything. Every moment which passes, every thought and action, each breath, each beat of the heart and blink of an eye is a moment with god. It is impossible to be without God because all of the reality (the universe) is God. So from the limited perspective of only knowing one inhabited planet in an inconceivably cosmic expanse of space, how are we as humans to say that we know god in his entirety? What is a god from the perspective of the snake, the worm and dirt beneath our feet? Are we all really on the same page as to what universe we are living in?
To understand God is to have an open acceptance that all perspectives of the divine and undivine are indeed just fragments of the whole beauty. It is impossible for the human mind to come close to fully understanding the true nature of the universe, but we can begin our journey simply by opening up the door to our mind and thus crumbling the walls of our imprisonment which limit the reality we create for ourselves. God is only as real as we believe him to be, to gain a higher perspective is to keep one's mind open-ended, drawing no conclusions, continuing to absorb and acknowledge that we have very much more to learn. The journey is never going to end.
How does one begin to rap their mind around the idea of god? It is a never ending topic of discussion and I hope not to offend nor influence the reader of whether their god is real or not. I write this in hopes of breaking down the construct walls of our mind, freeing an expanse in awareness and understanding that there are always multiple, multiple, multiple sides to one story. The next time someone tells you what to believe, acknowledge it and be steadfast in knowing there is more to this story which has yet to be known.
