SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
The evangelical Christian
pastors/reverends fill their churches with people that are eager to find God.
They spend their time preaching that everyone needs to find God through Jesus.
This is great, as long as you find Him. I really don’t think it matters how you
do it as long as you find your way back to God. But they all tell their
followings that all you have to do is say “the prayer” and believe on Jesus as
your savior, and you will find your way back to God. This is OK as well, and I
believe somewhat necessary in some cases. Many need something to believe in and
believing in God and the only way to find your way back to Him is to say a
specific prayer and believe in Jesus as your savior is far better than not
believing at all.
This reminds of the gnostic
teachings where they describe someone who is new on the spiritual path as being
in their spiritual infancy. Eventually everyone advances to the next stage but
this is to be done in steps, so to speak. For one who is in spiritual infancy
must be fed spiritual “milk” or formula if you will and one who is more mature
can be fed spiritual “food” or solids if you will.
Allow me if you will to
expand on this a little and let you know what I believe. I believe that we are
all here on earth to find our way back to our Father, and everything that shows
up in our lives are things put there as tools to help us learn, grow and
eventually reach our ultimate goal. Finding our home once again and reunite
with our Father.
Things happen in our lives
for a reason; you hear people say that all of the time, “everything happens for
a reason”. Have you ever stopped to ask the question “why”? What is the reason? Well the next time you
hear somebody say that ask them if they know the reason why that particular
incident took place. I believe that the reason “things” happen to us, is for
the sake of guidance and learning and a chance to advance, spiritually speaking
of course. If we are unable to learn from a problem or a particular incident
that arises, then similar situations/problems will continue to arise until we
are able to learn and advance through the utilization of the particular
incident. As well as correct the underlying cause of the situation.
So, how did I arrive at this
theory? Well …… everything that is going on currently in your life and
everything that has happened in the past is nothing more than an accumulation
of every decision (conscious or not) you have made in the past. You have nobody
to blame but yourself or more correctly, your past decisions for what you are
and your current state of affairs in your life. For instance, let’s say, God
forbid, the car you were driving was hit by someone driving a car at an
intersection. The other person failed to stop at a stop sign and was legally at
fault. But it was your decision to pull out into the intersection under the
assumption that the other person would stop, and not pay any attention to what
they were doing while you pulled into the intersection. So you can see, it was
a number of decisions (most likely, subconscious) by both parties involved that
resulted in the above said accident.
We must learn from the things
that get thrown at us throughout our lives, or as in the above case life can be
very traumatic and expensive. But, the lessons most people think they have to
learn are associated with the materialistic aspects in one’s life, which is
fine, but usually the material wealth one obtains, the further from God they
move. This is because they believe, mistakenly, that everything they have done
and or acquired during one’s existence, they have done on their own. When in
truth, nothing is done or gained without God. The true lessons one is to learn
while here on this earth are the spiritual ones. In the incident above, the
individual hit by the other car, may have to learn that life can end at any
moment and one is to live in the now and not worry about the past and/or
future. True there are other reasons that appear to be very obvious to us, but
in reality they are nothing more than mere distractions. I say distractions,
because anything that is related to the physical world is nothing more than
just that, distractions. They distract us from our true purpose of being here,
which is spiritual. The vast majority of us here on earth get so wrapped up in
these physical, materialistic aspects of this life and start accumulating goods
and money. Too what end? We need to remember that we are children of God. We
are not what our egos (our little selves) would like us to believe, which are
human beings that have occasional spiritual experiences. We are truly spiritual
beings that are experiencing a brief human existence. Our ego wants us to
believe that we need to grab, or at least try to grab all the wealth and
worldly goods we can before we die. When the truth of the matter is we are an
eternal soul searching for the path that leads back to our Father. And the only
way we are going to find our way back to the path and subsequently back to our
Father, is by proving to Him that He is our number one priority. We must do
this by putting Him 1st, above everything in our lives. God will take care of
all of our needs, in this world, once we learn how to truly and sincerely put
Him 1st above all else. I believe that when God gives people
abundance in their lives it is for the reason to assist others, that have very
little or nothing, through this abundance from Him. Jesus explains this to a
young man who asked him what he must do to gain eternal life. He tells him that
if he wishes to enter into life he is to keep the commandments. The young man
then asks Jesus, “Which ones?” And Jesus replied, “You shalt not kill, commit
adultery, steal or bear false witness; honor your father and your mother and
love your neighbor as yourself.” The
young man told Jesus, “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?”
Jesus replied, “If you wish to be perfect go, sell what you have and give the
proceeds to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow
me.” Upon hearing this, the young man turned away a left sad, because he had
many possessions.
This is the 2nd
time Jesus tells us we are to be perfect if we are to get back to heaven. The 1st
time (Matthew 5:48), he tells us, “So be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father
is perfect.” Jesus is not only telling us we are to be perfect, but he is also
indicating how we are to do this. In order to be perfect we are to follow all
of the commandments and we are to sell all that we have in order to help those
who have nothing and we are to follow him (Jesus). Now to give all that we have
away is not feasible in this day in age, but this by no means implies we can
live in excess. We are to be comfortable but not get attached to the material
“things” in our lives. We are to take care of those that are less fortunate
than ourselves, which is the same as loving your neighbor as yourself. This
means that if we were hungry and needed food and we had the ability to get some
for ourselves, we would get some. Hence, when we know of someone who is in
need, whatever the need, we are to help that someone fulfill their need, if we
are capable. Now a need (food, shelter and clothing) is not to be confused with
a desire rooted in a materialistic/egoistic nature. In other words, something
we want that will make us look better or feel better about ourselves.
I believe God gives people
excess in life in order to give them the chance to do the right thing and love
our neighbors as ourselves. And if people were to give the vast majority of
their wealth away, the good Lord would just replace that which was given away.
This way God is using an individual to carry out His work here on earth. When a
person starts to do these things for their fellow mankind, their focus changes
from the Me-Me attitude, and becomes attitude of giving. Not just any giving
either, it is an altruistic giving, giving without expecting anything in
return.
Back to the pastors/reverends
of the Christians; they do an excellent job of putting people in the seats of
their mega churches and introducing people to God and Jesus. They tell them
stories of heaven and their Father who dwells there, but do little in the way
of showing them how to get back to Him. Be that as it may this is an important
step in finding one’s way back to God. This is where I began my journey.
Everybody for the most part
has heard of Darwin’s theory of evolution. This is just a theory, and in my
beliefs is a flawed one at that. Why did the chimps and ape stop evolving? But
that is another story in and of itself. The true theory of evolution, in my
mind, is the spiritual evolution. This spiritual evolution is a perpetual one
that will continue until everyone has reached full maturation. I believe we get
to keep on coming back here and continue our learning process until it finally
sinks in why we are put here on the earth. Then start nullifying our egos and
begin our journey back home to God.
The evangelical Christian
belief, that all one has to do is to say “the prayer and believe in Jesus as
one’s savior, and you get back to heaven, seems a tad simplistic and easy to
me. But if that is what you want to believe it is perfectly fine. There is no
right or wrong when it comes to spiritual evolution, only choices that either brings
us closer or further away from God.
Jesus alludes to the fact
that we are reincarnated in Matthew 11:14 where he says, “And if you are
willing to accept it: he is Elijah, the one who is to come.” And again in Matthew 17:12, “…, but I tell
you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to
him whatever they pleased.” Jesus was referring to John the Baptist in both of
these passages. He is saying that John the Baptist was indeed Elijah, thus
implying there is in fact reincarnation. With that being said, it makes perfect
sense to me; the reason ware here is to learn to find our way back home, to
God. The reason we keep coming back here, is because we get attached to the
worldly way of life and all the sensations associated with it. I have finally
come to the realization that the money and all of the material goods of this
world truly mean nothing. They are nothing more than distractions and
deterrents that try to keep me from my return to God. I am not implying that
the “things” keep me coming back, but the ego’s attachment to those things.
Scriptures tell us that our
hearts lie with our treasures and if that is anywhere other than God, we are
moving away from Him. How does one know where your heart truly lies, all one
has to do is stop and think about what you think about most during the course
of any given day, and that is where your true heart lies. The ego wants us to
believe that accumulating things (money, fancy cars, big houses, relationships,
etc…) is the reason we are here. The ego wants; needs, us to believe this,
because once we come to the understanding that these things truly needless and
worthless, it signifies the beginning of the end of the ego (our smaller
selves). This also signifies the beginning of our journey back to whence we
came.
Jesus says, in Matthew 6:19,
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay
destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For
where your treasure is also will your heart be.” He then goes on to state in
Matthew 6:24, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Mammon being material things
and/or money, which implies one can either live a material (worldly) oriented
life or a spiritual one. You cannot live both. A camel has a better chance of
fitting through the eye of a needle than a wealthy (worldly) person getting
into heaven (Matthew 19:24).
There is a popular saying out
there that says, “Let go and let God.” There are many people that utilize this
saying and yet they truly don’t understand the true power that lies behind
those words. To see if you are the type of person capable of doing exactly what
is stated above, all you have to is think back in the last few days and recall
if there were any situations or incidents in your life where you were worried
or concerned about what had or was going to happen. If you are a worrier or if
you are one of the many individuals that utilizes a planner, then more than
likely you the type of individual who would have a difficult time letting go
and letting God. In other words, you think that you have to do everything
yourself without the assistance of God.
The worrying is a sure fire
sign that you won’t or are incapable of trusting God with the situations and
incidents that arise in your life. And you think that you have to do it all,
but are not sure how you are going to get it done or even if you are capable of
doing so. The person with the planner is a very goal oriented person, which can
be a good thing, when the goals are not materialistic and self-reliant. They usually
are successful and are storing up treasures here on earth. The first thing,
storing up treasures here on earth, we have already addressed as well as the
heart thing (Matthew 6:21). The other thing with this is that they believe
everything that they accomplish, is done solely by them. And lastly, they
forget what their ultimate goal is. I am always amazed at the reaction of
people when I ask them what their ultimate goal is, and the vast majority of
the time I will get, “To get to heaven.” Then I will ask them, “Why be afraid
of dying, because one cannot get to heaven if one is still on earth, right?” We
all have to die, that is a given, but to have as an ultimate goal of reaching
heaven when we do die and not be taking the steps everyday necessary to achieve
this goal, sounds somewhat strange to me. Especially from those individuals who
plan everything out.
This brings me back to the
evangelical preachers/pastors. After getting all those people into their “churches”,
instead of preaching from an egoistic stand point, that God will provide them
with all their egoistic goals if they just believe and pray, they need to teach
their congregations from the spiritual stand point. One where God allows us to
make our own decisions in life, but also allows us to live out the necessary
consequences. This is a necessity of free will. God does not create anything bad;
we create situations that we do not like with our not so good choices. Then we
turn and ask God to get us out of the situation because we are uncomfortable
with the outcomes of our choices. They need to teach their congregations that
they need to align their will with that of the Creator. They need to preach
about the unimportance of the material world and the importance of loving your
neighbor as yourself, taking care of people who are less fortunate than them.
Direct them to the path that leads back to God, and once they get them there,
keep them on the path. But from what I have seen and heard from the pastors on
TV and the evangelical churches around my home they have not found the path yet
themselves. This is evident from the cars they drive, the clothes they wear and
the houses they live in; all of these indicating that they have no idea, and no
intention, of living a spiritual way of life. Nowhere in the New Testament does
Jesus say anything about being wealthy is a good thing or that is what we
should strive for. Jesus abhorred wealth and everything to do with it, to the
point of preaching against it. As I stated earlier, it is a good starting
point, but like any starting point in life, we must continue to advance or run
the risk of having our spirituality stagnate. Life cannot be lived in neutral,
nor can we coast through it. We are either moving closer to God or away from
Him.
