Archive for the ‘Spirituality’ Category
So far in this series on the meaning of life we have said that there is one Universal Intelligence or God energy. You are that God energy and everyone else is that God energy. So whose Virtual Reality ride is this life? Are we minor characters in your Virtual Reality ride, or are you a minor character in our Virtual Reality rides?
The answer to this question is that, in spiritual terms, there is absolutely no ‘you’ and ‘us’. As so many ancient traditions have said, we are all one. Thus it could be said that your life on earth is, in the larger sense, our life. We don’t currently know the details of your ride because we are currently on another ride, but when we go to the spiritual plane we will remember ‘your’ life as one of our own.
Similarly, our life is your life. You might not be aware of taking the particular ride which we are on right now, but that is because you are currently taking another one. Again, when you return to the spiritual plane you will remember ‘our’ lives as your own.
This concept may be hard to grasp at first, but meditate on it and all will become clear. There is no ‘you’ and ‘us’ because there is only one ‘energy and we are all manifestations of that one energy. We just perceive ourselves as being individuals because that is the way the dream is experienced.
It is quite possible that when we – being the one energy – have experienced every possible combination of dreams, we will progress to explore other manifestations of life. Perhaps the human race itself will be replaced with something even more challenging and exciting. If so, we should be looking forward to experiencing a whole vista of new ‘realities’ and so increase our self-knowledge even further.
And so that is one position concerning the meaning of life. We are all aspects of the one Universal Intelligence or God energy. We are all infinite and eternal. We perceive ourselves to be living different lives because we are dreaming ‘dreams’ in which we experience the same ride from the vantage point of different individuals. When our physical body expires, we will find ourselves having completed a particular ‘dream’. And then we will be ready to dream again.
In the previous part of this series on the meaning of life we told the story of Jack and how he experienced life as a kind of virtual reality ride, and the point we want to make today is that maybe you too are experiencing some cosmic kind of Virtual Reality right now. Maybe we are all Virtual Reality dreamers. Of course, our lives seem real enough, but we all feel deep down inside that there is more to it than living on earth for a certain number of years.
Our position on the questions of life before birth and life after death is that this life may not be true reality at all. It could simply be a ‘dream’ that we are experiencing – a dream which we ourselves chose to have in order to learn specific lessons.
The bible says that in the place called heaven, ‘A day is like 1,000 years, and 1,000 years is like a day.’ Could this mean that our 70 year lives here on earth are just dreams which take seconds on the spiritual plane? We think that is certainly possible.
If we view our physical lives from this point of view, we can finally begin to understand and cope more readily with the ‘negative’ aspects of life. If a human being dies in infancy then although this is a very sad event from our earthly perspective, we can take heart from the fact that one game is now over for that particular manifestation of spirit and that a lesson has been learned.
Similarly, if we see other people suffering then we can do our best to help, but understanding that this suffering is all part of the ‘dream’ that they may have chosen for themselves and that in real terms it lasts just a few seconds puts the whole affair into its proper perspective.
Think about your life from this new ‘Virtual Reality’ point of view and note the lessons you have already learned. Every action you have taken since birth has yielded a result. Every decision that you have ever made has altered your path at least a little. And now, right at this moment, you are reading these words. Is this merely a coincidence? Or is reading this an essential part of your own Virtual Reality dream?
We can tell you that out of every one hundred people who read the first part of this series, just a handful will continue reading to this stage. We do not mind this. Every manifestation of spirit must dream their own dream and progress at their own pace. The very fact that you have continued reading to this point in the series signifies that you are working on a similar wavelength to ourselves, and so this final understanding of Virtual Reality as a possible answer to life’s most difficult questions should be coming quite naturally to you.
The idea of reincarnation, and that we must continue having physical lives until our knowledge is complete on a spiritual level, is very similar to our own understanding. The only substantial difference is that we propose that physical lives are ‘dreams’ experienced by our higher selves and are therefore to be enjoyed and welcomed, whereas proponents of reincarnation see physical life as being more of a burden and something to be avoided ‘next time round’ if at all possible.
What happens when we treat life as though it were a ride or a dream? Well, several things.
Firstly, we tend not to take physical problems such as paying the bills, finding a job and fixing a broken computer too seriously. We know that these things are just obstacles which make the Virtual Reality ride or the dream more interesting and useful.
Secondly, we strive to make every second of our dream count. We know that the dream won’t last forever and so we aim to help those around us develop their own potential and insight so that when we leave this plane, they can use some of what we have learned to help them enjoy their own Virtual Reality dream.
Finally, we no longer fear death, because death is simply the end of this particular ride and there are many more rides to be experienced if that is what we wish to do.
Right now you may think of yourself of being an individual, of being separate from other people, of living ‘your own life’. But no matter how strongly you believe in this illusion, that is all it is – an illusion. Even now you are simply energy and that energy exists in all times and in all places. You are even now an infinite and eternal being with no limits. In case you need us to say it just one more time, you are energy. Or, to express the idea in the bluntest and most direct way, you are God.
So what is this life all about? If you are God and we are God and we are all the same God, why do we perceive ourselves as being separate, of being individuals?
Our notion is that this physical life is nothing more than a training ground or ‘dream’. God, being infinitely creative, desires to experience every possible permutation of human life, and so it experiences this through physical life. It experiences existence as a single mother and at the same time as a member of royalty. It experiences abundance and lack. It experiences pain and it experiences ecstasy. It experiences being black, white, yellow, male, female, old, young, able and unable.
If you have battled hard all your life against poverty then this is God experiencing poverty. As God you can turn this poverty into abundance, and so learn more about the way that poverty and abundance work in your particular situation. If you decide not to turn poverty into abundance then that is something you will learn at some point in the future – perhaps in another ‘dream of life’.
We would like to talk more about this ‘dream of life’ belief, and perhaps the best way we can do this is to tell you a short story…
Once upon a time a man called Jack who fell asleep and had a dream. He dreamt that he was walking through the spiritual plane when he came to a small amusement park. In that amusement park there was a man selling tickets for a ride on his new Virtual Reality machine.
“Would you like a go Sir?” the man asked with a smile.
“Is it good?” asked Jack.
“Good? It’s the best! In sixty seconds you will experience a whole other life as though you’re really there.”
“And what’s the point of that?” asked Jack.
“Well, wouldn’t you like to learn more about yourself?” the man replied. “Wouldn’t you like to know how you’d deal with different circumstances? Wouldn’t you like to try life as a completely different person and see how well you could cope?”
Jack nodded. “That sounds good. What programs does your machine offer?”
The man smiled. “More than you could handle in a million years of being in this place. You can be black, white, male, female, poor, rich, sick, healthy, relaxed, uptight, tall, short, thin or fat. You can live in London, Birmingham, Fresno, San Diego, Acapulco….”
“I think I get the idea.” Jack said, knowing full well that this friendly salesman could probably go on forever. “I’ll give it a spin.”
The man smiled again and helped Jack get aboard the machine. A helmet was placed on his head and gloves on his hands to make the Virtual Reality experience as plausible as possible.
“Hold on tight, Sir. You’re Virtual Ride starts now!”
Before he had time to say anything, Jack was catapulted into another world. He was born and experienced life as a baby, learning to walk and talk. Then he went to kindergarten, then school, then college, then university. Then he found himself a great job as a lawyer, met a beautiful colleague and a couple of years later they married. They had children and watched their children grow into adults themselves. Jack took vacations, played golf and grew old. And then he died in the arms of his wife. And just as everything went black….
Jack opened his eyes and found himself on some sort of ride.
“Where am I?” he asked.
The man standing next to him smiled. “The ride is over, Sir. Now tell me, what did those sixty seconds teach you?”
And then Jack remembered. He wasn’t really a lawyer at all. It was just a ride. “Sixty seconds? It felt like 70 years! And I learned a lot,” Jack answered. “But I could do with learning some more. Could I take another ride?”
The man nodded. “Sure you can. Any place in particular?”
Jack shrugged. “Oh, I don’t really mind. But it would be good if it was a life in which I had the opportunity to learn more about the deeper aspects of the universe and about who I really am as a spirit being.”
“No problem,” the man said, and helped Jack put the helmet and gloves back on. “Now hold on tight because this life is going to be a lot more challenging than the last. You’ll encounter difficulties at every turn, but it’s all for teaching purposes so you’ll be fine.”
Jack nodded.
“Okay then. Your Virtual Ride starts now!”
And then Jack woke up.
Now, which one was the ‘real’ Jack in the story? Was it the Jack who was dreaming in bed and finally woke up? Or was it the Jack who was strolling around the spiritual plane taking ‘Virtual Reality’ rides to learn more about himself as a spiritual being?
Think about your own physical life. Have there been times when your life got so crazy and out-of-perspective that it seemed more like a ride or a dream than reality?
Then maybe that’s just what it is…
Since the beginning of time people have searched for the meaning of life. They have asked the questions we have all asked at one time or another: Why are we here? Where did we come from? Does any part of us continue beyond death? And if so, where does that part go when our bodies die?
This search for the meaning of life has led to all manner of teachings and theories about heaven and hell, purgatory and paradise, but still something seems to be missing. In this series we will attempt to offer our own ideas about why we are all here on the earth plane and where we will go when our bodies become obsolete.
Of course, we could never be presumptuous enough to say that our ideas about the meaning of life are any more or less accurate than others that have been put forward. We offer this series simply as one possible explanation for our existence on this planet and in the universe. If you have strongly-held opinions about the matter which are not in agreement with the ideas in this series then you should feel free to maintain them. The universe is a big place and there is room enough for all attitudes, approaches and beliefs.
That said, we do hope that you find this series to be both insightful and valuable as you progress further along the road of your life…
If you are like most people, you probably view the beginning of your existence as the time when you were born on this earth. If you are a little more thoughtful, you might view the beginning of your existence as the moment in which you were conceived by your parents.
Whilst either of these events could be viewed as the beginning of your most recent earthly existence, neither of them are accurate in describing the beginning of your existence as a spiritual being. The fact is that spirit is eternal. It has no beginning and it has no end. Therefore you as a spirit being have no beginning and no end. You have always existed and you always will exist. This is the meaning of the word ‘eternal’.
This view of your existence throws up much more than the question of where you will go when your physical body expires. It also throws up the question of where you came from before your physical body came into existence.
If you study the scriptural texts of any major religion or philosophy, you will find that – in the majority of cases – one point is agreed upon. That point is that, in the beginning – before anything had manifested itself on the physical plane of existence – all that existed was pure potentiality. This potentiality, from which all things were created, is traditionally referred to as God.
Now most people have broken free from traditional views and come to the conclusion that God is not a white-bearded man sitting on a celestial throne and wielding a big cosmic stick. God is simply energy, and can probably be more accurately described as a Universal Intelligence (which may or may not be related to the so-called Dark Matter which many scientists believe to occupy 96% of the known universe). It knows all because it is all. It is everywhere because no place exists without it. It can do all things because it is all things.
Now if all things came out of that one energy which we call Universal Intelligence, then everything which exists in the universe is a part of that Intelligence. On a quantum level everything that exists is energy. In other words, everything you see around you is a manifestation of the same energy. You are energy. Your cat is energy. Your next-door neighbour is energy. All is energy and nothing is not part of the same energy.
So the question of where you were before you were born physically onto this plane is both simple and complicated at the same time. You were everywhere, because you are energy. And where will you go when your physical body dies? You will go everywhere, because you are energy.
Life on earth is like a dream. Birth is the moment when the dream begins, and physical death is the awakening. The time in-between – the dream of life – is totally under your control, whether you believe it to be so or not.
Let’s talk about dreams a little, because this is a metaphor which can be very useful.
When you are dreaming, anything can happen. You can be rich or poor, old or young, thin or fat. You can experience anything and everything. You can date celebrities, dine on the world’s most exotic foods, enjoy unlimited financial wealth and even fly through the air like a bird. On the other hand, you could be the victim of a bug-eyed monster, be chased by giant insects or wrestle with crocodiles in a sewer.
The dream is created by you, and no-one else. What you experience in the dream is determined by your frame of mind, your beliefs and your expectations. If, during a dream where you are flying, you suddenly realise that it is ‘impossible’ to fly, you would soon come down to earth with a crash! If, on the other hand, you believe that flight is natural, you would continue to soar until the dream came to an end.
So it is with the physical life, which is but an extended dream of around seventy years – sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. What you experience here in this dream is governed solely by your frame of mind, your beliefs and your expectations. If you think you need to work hard and long in order to make money, then that is what you will be forced to do. If, on the other hand, you believe that money comes to you automatically, then it will!
We realise that this sounds a little simplistic, but it is an essential truth. As a man thinketh, so he is. What your mind can conceive and believe, your mind can achieve. Ask, and you shall receive. These are all ways of saying the same thing:
Limitations in life are created by limitations in the way you think.
Do away with mental limitations and your life can be anything you want it to be!
Of course, breaking through the barrier of mental limitations is not easy. If it were then everyone would be doing it automatically, and there would be no need for a website such as this.
Breaking free from limitations may mean that you have to discard something that you were brought up to believe as being ultimate truth. For example, if you were brought up to believe that your way of thinking was the only correct way of thinking, you will need to get rid of this idea so that you can truly appreciate the customs, beliefs and essences of other people. This is by no means easy, but if you go with the flow and discard everything except that which you know intuitively, your life will become altogether simpler and more enjoyable. Life will lose any nightmarish quality and will instead become a wonderful, exhilarating dream.
So where does all of this talk about life and death and dreams bring us? Well, let us summarise the principles that have arisen from our discussion in this series:
- Our physical lives are finite. Death is inevitable, but not to be feared. Death is a gateway – a gateway home to the place where you truly belong.
- Because our physical lives are finite, we should make sure that we use every minute wisely. We should, when the time comes, be able to greet death with a smile and say, ‘I have accomplished and experienced all that I wanted to accomplish and experience. I am ready to go home now.’
- Our life experiences are determined by our beliefs and expectations. Just as a dream is created solely through our own consciousness, so are the experiences of our physical lives.
These principles form the cornerstone of all forms of advanced spiritual knowledge, and so it should come as no surprise that we here at Create Good Things view them as being vitally important.
Changing The Dream
You visited Create Good Things because you want to change some aspect – or perhaps a few aspects – of the dream we call physical life. You want to enjoy a greater level of material success and prosperity, or you want to experience a better level of health, or you want to improve your relationships, or you simply want to increase your spiritual knowledge and power.
All of this is perfectly possible. All you need to do is recognise that change comes from within, and that you hold the key to your own success. We can show you different ways of turning that key, as it were, but it is you who must actually turn it. Just as you must follow a recipe in order to make a cake, so you must apply what you read here at Create Good Things if you actually want to get tangible results.
With that new understanding in mind, why not visit our Archive page and explore the information that we have made freely available for your benefit? Diligently apply what you learn and you will be able to start changing the dream of life as you desire.
Last time we discovered how Life and Death are intimately linked, and we said that it is very important for us to live life to the full. If you don’t know what it means to squeeze every ounce of living out of your life, set some time aside to carry out the following exercise:
The Last Day
Imagine that you knew you were going to die in exactly 24 hours. Let that scenario sink in, then ask yourself the following questions…
- What would you do in the next 24 hours that you hadn’t previously planned to do?
- What plans have you already made for the next 24 hours that you would now cancel?
- Which people would you make every effort to spend time with?
- What specific things would you say to these people which you wouldn’t otherwise have said?
Once you have answered these questions, you will soon realise whether or not you are living life to the full.
If you are then you probably wouldn’t do anything different over the next 24 hours – you would continue with your present plans and see the people you have arranged to see.
If you are not living life to the full, however, the chances are that you would totally rearrange the next 24 hours so that you can ditch the trivial plans and spend time doing something more meaningful.
Now, imagine once again that you have just 24 hours left, and write down a list of ten things you wish you had done during your lifetime but never actually got around to. Here are a few examples to start the ball rolling:
I Wish I Had…
Visited the Grand Canyon
Prepared for the financial well-being of my loved ones
Climbed a mountain
Taken my partner on a second honeymoon
Been less judgmental
Helped people less fortunate than myself
You get the idea. Once you have a list of ten or more of these things which you would have liked to have done (and not before), you may continue…
Now that you have decided exactly what you would have like to have achieved during your lifetime, you have a perfect list of goals which you can now pursue with enthusiasm.
At this point, some of you will scoff. ‘Life is not that easy!’ many of you will exclaim. ‘You can’t just make a list of goals and then expect to achieve them. You need money to achieve some of these goals, and money takes work, and work takes time!’
We too used to think along similar lines. We used to think that life was difficult – that the only way to survive, let alone thrive, was to work hard and long. We used to think that you needed luck to be happy and do all the things you wanted to do.
But we were wrong, and in the final part of this series we will explain why.
Life and death are always intertwined. It is a paradox, but to truly understand and master life, we must first take a close look at death. This might sound morbid to some people, but really it is not, as I hope to explain in this short series on Life and Death.
Death is one of the few things that we know is going to happen with absolute certainty. The only thing we don’t know is when it will happen. Since the event is inevitable, it makes sense that the worst thing we can do is avoid thinking about it in the foolish hope that it will go away. It is far better to face the fact of death square in the face, for in doing so, the mystery of life itself becomes dramatically clearer.
The majority of people – including many ‘enlightened’ individuals – have a fear of death. They see it as the end of something beautiful – as something that should be postponed for as long as is humanly possible. Thus modern society is endlessly concerned with prolonging life on this world. One thousand and one diets are launched onto an unsuspecting public, new exercise fads appear every week and scores of scare-mongers advise us not to eat eggs, or cheese, or beef… the list goes on and on and on.
Of course, life is precious and should be sensibly preserved if at all possible. But no diet, no exercise routine, no abstinence from cigarettes or alcohol is ever going to alter the fact that one day, every individual on earth must face death.
So let us face the facts. You were born alone, and eventually you will die alone. Of course, you may be in the company of others when the time comes, but from a spiritual point of view both birth and death are solitary journeys from one plane of existence to another.
This should not frighten you, but it should make you see that your preparation for this event cannot be passed on to someone else. Whatever your religious beliefs, you cannot rely on others to make the journey for you. For example, if you have Christian beliefs then you cannot rely on the faith of your minister to help you through death.
Likewise, this series itself cannot help you except in the form of guidance. You must face the event alone – like a warrior passing from the safe haven of his home into a gloriously new, unexplored territory. The amount of preparation you make in this life, in terms of spiritual progress, is entirely up to you.
Many people talk about life after death. They believe in something called eternal life, and assume that their human birth was the beginning of this life. This is incorrect. Eternal life has no end, but it also has no beginning. You existed before you were born, and will continue to exist after your physical death.
So if you look at the situation from another perspective, you have already gone through a ‘death’ experience when you were born. Before birth you existed in another form on another plane of reality. Then you ‘died’ on that plane and passed onto the physical plane through birth. When your physical body dies on this plane, all you are doing is going back to the plane you came from.
So what is the point of all this talk about death?
Well, the main point is to help you realise in a conscious manner that your life on earth will not go on forever. You do, of course, already know this – but how many people actually let that fact sink in? Not many. If they did they would see the futility of becoming too engrossed in material pleasures, or in wasting the time they do have here in shallow or even pointless pursuits.
Now that you realise that your time on earth is but a blip on the scale of your whole eternal existence, the question arises as to what you are here for. We believe that before physical birth, the spirit that is you actually decided where and when it was to be born. We believe that you chose your parents, your social status and even your neighbourhood because those people and situations would give you the best possible chance of achieving your life goal.
If you have experienced what you might refer to as a ‘hard life’ then you will know that this life has already taught you plenty. You may know what it feels like to suffer poverty, sickness or physical disability. Yet through these things you have learned more about yourself and the universe. However, you have not yet learned all there is to learn. If you had, your physical body would have died so that your essence may return to the other plane and ‘report back’ as it were.
Consider the old American television series Mork and Mindy, which starred Robin Williams as Mork – the alien from the planet Orc. His mission was to visit earth, spend some time here and report back to Orson – his superior – on a regular basis. Each episode had Mork experiencing something different – be it love, anger, jealousy, kindness, honesty and so forth – and then reporting about what he had learned.
If you see yourself as a spiritual ‘alien visitor’ who is here to experience life in all of its fullness and then ‘report back’ to your origin when you physically die, death holds little to fear. It will be seen as nothing more than ‘going home’ to the place where you truly belong.
Since you have so little time here and are meant to be experiencing everything which life has to offer, you can’t afford to waste a moment of it. You should treasure each week, day and hour of life as a precious gift – as another segment of time which has been given to you to use wisely.
