Dear God, ONLY The Experience Is Real

I was raised in America, without a religious belief.
Not ‘Anti-religious’.
We just did not talk religion or go to church in my family.

My parents came from an era of “Everyone Must Go To Church”!
They wanted to ‘break that cycle’.

My parents encouraged me to explore ‘religion’….

… allowing me to decide for myself, what to believe.

So I did.

• I experienced several denominations through friends.
• I witnessed adults who lived a ‘worldly’ week,
  knowing that going to church,
  would erase the wrongs.
• I discovered there was a God, behind religion.
  • Each religion seemed to have their own way to worship their God…
    which was actually the same one God… maybe….?

“Who is this God?” – I often asked myself.

As a child, I was feeling mixed emotions about who/what ‘God’ was. 

Here is what I discovered, as a young child, about an invisible ‘source’ my people called, God.

• God is of Love, God also has wars and kills.
• God is caring, yet God will take our loved ones away from us.
• God is all knowing, I know nothing.
• God is a he, but I can never set eyes upon Him.
• I must obey God’s written word, or burn in hell.
• God lives high above the clouds in heaven, I am on Earth.
• I am to fear God All Mighty, and always do what is right, be saintly.
  • I felt there were a lot of rules to follow,
    in order to be ‘worthy’ in God’s eye.

 

photo by ren

As I entered adulthood, I had “my own personal relationship with God”.
(That is what I told people, so they would not talk religion with me)

photo by ren

The whole religion thing never felt right to me.
Rarely did it resonate with my heart.

I could sense the genuineness of the people, within congregations.
I could also see the divisions among them.

photo by ren

How could there be so many churches and beliefs?

The competition of who’s church you joined,
became a community battle.
A mini-war.

Not to mention the perplexity of ‘Bibles’ on the market.
My years of research revealed several discrepancies regarding
accuracy of what we call, the Bible.
Not to mention all the ‘books’ that were removed from original text.

photo by ren

So, who is this one, that some of us are taught to call God?

Here is what I have discovered.

I now believe that religion is man made and part of the corruption on this planet.

Churches will/have/are falling away, when they do not have the foundations and teachings of LOVE.

I refer to God, by many names:
Source, Spirit, All That Is, Universe, Divine, Creator,  etc

I have come to understand,
that God is within me.
God is not Out There,
He is part of me, deep within my cells, within my DNA.

OMG-self!
I am NOT this physical body.

I am a spiritual being,
having a human experience.
and ONLY the experience is real!

ONLY the EXPERIENCE is real !
Nothing else matters.
There is no out there, ‘out there’.
It’s an illusion.
<><><><><><><><>

I appreciate you all being here,
ren

this post is a revised edition of my original posting:
OMG-self
08.06.2016

Daily Prompt: saintly