Tag Archives: Faith

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The Salvation of Jesus

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Writing as the Mystic Tourist I have altered my presence in the collective mind. Of the people who have known me and been my community, none knew the Mystic Tourist, until I created him and gave him a blog. Of course I am the Tourist and I am as I was before. The difference is that I have let anyone who can find my work, know. Additionally I have done what I can to make myself available so any who know me personally might also know, The Mystic Tourist. It creates a different consideration of my self.

My concerns are spiritual. I know of no other way to consider anything, even as I am distracted. I am happy to share my view of current social-political concerns. The way I think we ought to behave as a society. I enjoy letting people know where I think we have fallen down and how I think we might best stand ourselves up. These are distractions. It is what I do as filler. Something, anything to do with my mind and the small measure of time apportioned to it for it to spend. There is always something that I might otherwise do. A different way to spend myself. I think we can do a lot to improve the condition of life here on earth and to create a future more to our liking. I also think that we do all of that as spiritual persons. That it is the spiritual part of our being that is power and authority. The bridge that is creation.

My concerns are spiritual and I while my time to bring spiritual living into animal form. I did this first by creating a spiritual place for myself. A place to discover something true about my experience as a spiritual person. That was very powerful. Step two has been to shine a light on that, to let people know of the rich spiritual experience I have known. Step three is a shared experience. To end the mystery of spiritual life by living it in the open, not as an act of  ’faith’ but as a fact of life. To demonstrate our spiritual form, not as a philosophy, not as an interpretation of theology or scripture, but as my life. The purpose of my life can not be to die and go to heaven. To imagine that as the answer to life, as its purpose, is to be dishonest. If I can only know after I am dead and gone, why I am here, I have told myself a lie. This is the place, this is the form, this is the person to know the answer and now is the time or I am lying to myself.

In the Christian tradition we are all waiting for Jesus to return and when he does he will bring a harsh judgement, except of course, for the few. The chosen few. Mind you this is the Jesus who reportedly, in his last agonizing moment, sought the forgiveness of those who humiliated him, tortured him and brutally murdered him. Such a man could have no part of a judgement so harsh that it landed almost all of us in hell. Not just any hell mind you, but a hell so unbearable that it never ends.

The story of  Jesus is meaningless if Jesus is God. Its only possible value is if it is our story. The story of our human nature and of how and who we are. That is the message and it is not a message of how to be after we are dead. It is how we must be now. If you would know Jesus then know yourself. He is the same as you are. The story of his return is your story, it is my story. If Jesus or anyone else could live the life that he did, then surely, someone else will do it as well.

There is no reason to believe that Jesus founded a church. Others did that in his name. They assembled a book and then claimed that the words therein were God’s words. It is not true. You must have faith to believe that. I have no faith, but I do have confidence, all of it rests with God. Fear of God? I have no fear, certainly not of God. I fear those who claim to speak for God, who claim they own God by some book, written words. I fear those who claim to speak for God and threaten me with hell. Forgiveness, that is what it is about. It is the narrow gate. To deal with those who make false claims of God, for and about God, forgive them, by acting out the truth concerning God. Let God be God and make no claim on Gods behalf.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

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Freedom From Faith

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Inviting my divine existence to explain life is the reason I write. I imagine that by making my private space public I will have no place to hide and some underlying truth will be revealed. I look to understand the condition that is experience. In writing I share my interpretation and explanation of life. Instead of looking to others to explain my experience, to comfort me, I believe that my experience is intended to be that explanation. I look no other place and seek no other authority. I can not imagine that being aware that I exist does not also come with understanding that existence. I feel that is what I have to do, replace the question of existence with its understanding. I see no other activity worth my effort.

I believe exploring my experience publicly will bring that understanding forward. That eventually I will no longer be in a position to avoid the issue and the truth about my experience will be obvious. Inescapable. I think that my experience is the same as everyone else’s. We are all the same and that is the value in understanding our experience. Are we spiritual beings? Do we have a spirit that animates us, something independent of  animal life? More durable. If we do surely it is something that can be understood and experienced. It must be something that does not require faith. There is no faith needed to understand things as they are. Faith helps us find confidence when we are unwilling or unable to build it from our own experience. I decided to abandon faith long ago settling on the strength of confidence without faith.

I think it is possible that we have the freedom to choose our spirit. Obviously we are animated and spirited. Emotion is the spirit that moves us and it has many forms. Certainly we can control our emotions, the spirits that animate us. I think some spirits are so familiar that they have form and just like you or I, a person. It is a spiritual form and some people see these spirits. I do. The question then is what do I see and what causes it. Imagination? Perhaps. While I can not rule that out it seems unlikely. I see these kind of spirits as born of our own creativity. We created them some time ago or perhaps we continue to do so. That is my interpretation and I offer no proof. It is an empirical observation. I see other spirits as well and they seem to be of a different nature. I consider them to be Angels and Ascendant Beings.

Let’s consider ascendant beings. Some people, it seems to me, escape the cycle of incarnation and ascend while others repeat it. Generally these are people who have a spirit, in this life, that makes ascension seem reasonable. Although I have seen exception. It leaves me thinking we are a creation that can know our creator, if we choose. I refer to that creator as a soul. It is not ours and we are independent of it unless we surrender our identity to it. Surrender the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, ownership, and become who we are instead of the how we created. We can choose to be the creator instead of the creation. We just have to give up possession, the notion that we own anything. It is not necessarily a vow of poverty. It can be but abundance is the law and that is what gives a vow of poverty its value. There is no poverty. That is also what makes the pervasiveness of poverty such a crime. If my view of this is true then poverty is something we have created for our amusement.

I do believe that a person can live in both worlds at the same time. To invite the creator to be the creation. An immersion in both realities, divine living. Actually I think it is expected of us. It is easy to have such an experience privately, at least for me it is. Divine living is not a private thing and I have yet to see a way to do that. I remain convinced that it is something I can do, and therefore, what I am expected to do. I am uncomfortable in that role. I think the difficulty I have boils down to my spiritual state.  The emotion that is generated by my discomfort, my spirit-state, prevents success. Any measure of success requires an honest appraisal of  what is possible and acceptance that my consideration of all of this may well be in error is a must. This is not to be confused with doubt but rather it is the foundation for confidence.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

Death of a Seminarian

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I continue to maintain resentment that spiritual wisdom is my only interest. I first chose resentment by virtue my eighth grade epiphany that women are considered less than men. I had long thought that I would graduate eighth grade, go on to seminary and eventually be ordained a Catholic priest. By the time I reached eighth grade I realized that the church was teaching that if a man took a wife, that condition would so defame him so as to make the man unfit as a priest. Was this a rule I was taught? No, but it implication is unmistakable. The silly rules I knew of and that were imposed on women, by the church, took on a new meaning and a new urgency to make sense of it all troubled me.

There were rules designed for women only. Women could not be priests. They had to cover their head in church, men could not. What is that supposed to mean? At the time the church taught that it was a sin for women to wear pants. It was also a sin for a woman to use a tampon. I think the list was a bit longer, but being a man I am ignorant, these rules did not apply to me. It was not hard to notice that women did not make these rules, men did. I could not abide by this shaming of women. It made no sense to me and I began to question my expectation to become a Catholic priest. I never went to seminary and I resented the lies I had been told by the church. If I could not trust the church, how do I reconcile my life with God? This was when I first realized that I would have to find my own way. That men did not speak for God.

I would like to trust the church. I could have made a career out of that. How about the sense of community, of belonging? None of that for me. If you are a part of a church you are part of a network that enriches life in many ways. The God Club supplies support in countless ways. It can be a powerful tool for wealth. People in turn claim that their prosperity, and good fortune, is due to their faith in God. Without the church, a like-minded support group, I think things might be a little different. There is a vested interest in seeing the members of your church succeed. The success can be pointed to and the claim made that it is due to God. What about the network of support, could that have anything to do with it? You need to raise funds for a charitable enterprise and you turn to your church. It is not hard to see that it is the network of like-minded people gathered together for a common purpose that deserves the credit given to God. Churches do wonderful things and it is good to have support but the notion that God favors one above the other is insulting. Not to God of course. What insult could God possibly suffer? It is an insult to ourselves.

Reading that last paragraph it is easy to see that the vein of resentment, my resentment, runs deep. Before sitting to write this post I had long believed resentment of my spiritual drive was rooted in my high school years. I had always thought of this eighth grade epiphany as a turning point but never as the onset of my spiritual resentment. I have learned a great deal by finding my own path. My determination that no man, no book, reveals God has left me to trust God. I believe that wherever I am God makes God available. Providence. I do not seek the false shelter of religion to shepherd God.

I like to think that my pursuit of God, on Gods terms, reveals a secret that is itself success. Well that is a nice thought, maybe it does. And there is that resentment jumping out like the boogeyman. I am writing about this to unravel the physical sensation that is caused by this resentment. I can feel it and it is uncomfortable. In looking to understand what it is, this is what I find. The words I am writing.

One of the things I have long associated my spiritual resentment to is the belief that I would have to make public my spiritual curiosity and its product. That was a realization I became aware of in high school. Now that I am actively doing that it has forced me to deal with the resentment and so this post. I need to find a way not to feel this way about it, to grow past it. My curiosity is a good thing as is whatever it reveals.

Thanks for reading.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

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Faith No More

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My process of enlightenment involves a purity of experience presumed to be possible by reliance only on providence. I expect experience to be guided by providence and to be my teacher. I expect that anything that has been written, concerning matters of enlightenment, can be understood by providence, by experience. To expect that some great truth is scribbled in a book seems a stretch to me. If it is not available to each and every one of us, simply because we are curious, it does not exist and so book-reading has never been very high on my list of priorities. A curious mind is all that is needed and I am curious. Faith, I believe, is harmful to curiosity and so I abandoned it long ago. Religion, I have found it to be useless in my pursuit of enlightenment. I long for community and a sense of belonging but for me religion is an empty bag. My search is for a broader community than it seems religion could hope to provide. I have no faith. To me, faith is an impostor, it pretends to be confidence but confidence has no use for faith. I have confidence. I believe that things are as they are and that can not be disputed. I believe that knowledge of that is the fact of existence. This is not a knowledge of intellect, of sophistication,  it is the simple knowledge that is acquaintance. Providence. Providence, I think, is the inexhaustible reservoir that assures that whatever we pursue, consequence is certain.

All of this I have observed in my life and as I live it proves its validity errorlessly. This is because I believe in providence, I expect a great deal from it and live my life by it.

I do concern myself with enlightenment and expect that providence assembles what does prod me along a true path. Whatever path I choose, providence assures that consequence is immediate. Should I choose a career, education, whatever, providence works the same way. When we are not right, not at ease or comfortable with our self, that is providence. It knows what we are in need of and tirelessly works to bring that to our attention. Distraction from what we are given, by providence to do, is perhaps more obvious than providence. There are many good and worthy pursuits and when we choose one we walk with providence and it calms us with contentment. For my pursuit of enlightenment I have learned to use divination as my primary tool. Others might use a book or find a wise teacher but I have found the divining rod is well suited to my person.

Trial and error. This is an excellent way to determine the way things actually are. I have found it helpful to assume no knowledge, other than the knowledge that is acquaintance. Knowledge, in matters of enlightenment, is acquaintance. There is no sophistication of intellect that can purchase enlightenment. The moment a person thinks they have earned enlightenment, by any kind of merit, intelligence, God’s favor, whatever, it is lost.

In my experience providence never fails. Whatever our true pursuit is providence assures success. For some of us providence makes certain that we can not avoid a very narrow path. Any error is met with low tolerance. I have reduced my life to that state a number of times but sometimes people arrive here in such a condition or conditions evolve that are very tough. When I consider the reality that we share and the extraordinary hardships that abound I am driven to enlightenment. Enlightenment is a realization, I am confident is just lying around waiting for discovery. It is not to be accomplished and some people have discovered it.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

The Spirit of Ignorance is Denial

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In the world of spirit there are many inhabitants and we produce much of what populates our spiritual experience. It is typical for people to ignore the spiritual realm and ignorance, when held over time, always produces denial. It is understandable that people are confused about an aspect of our experience that so many are certain does not exist and others accept on faith alone. People have direct experience of what is spiritual and so it is a component of our shared reality. Due to ignorance and its inevitable denial, our spiritual experience is controversial. Faith is of little help because one of its prerequisites is that it should not be questioned. Faith is usually associated with religion and the requirement that the tenants of the religion be accepted on faith. It is understandable that many of us find this to be disingenuous and dishonest. Faith is very powerful. If you have religious faith it is likely you are part of a religious community. There is great support in community. Faith also gives confidence to those who exercise it. Confidence is very powerful, it makes a big difference in everything a person does.

I prefer to have my confidence without faith. I see faith as unnecessary and cumbersome. Confidence does not need it. I think faith is often used as a shield. We can know and be certain, we can be right, without looking, without seeing, without questioning. It gives us permission to keep ignorance and denial firmly in place. My experience of the world of spirit does not need faith. Spirits populate my world.

Ignorance gives birth to a spirit and its name is Denial. This is a very busy spirit and it is able to represent itself in countless ways. It is also a very popular spirit that multiplies and populates the spiritual experience we share. In living a spiritual life this spirit, and all of its ramifications, must be addressed. An agreement must be made if progress is to be realized. The popularity of this spirit and the work that it does in our spiritual experience makes certain that each of us has an existing agreement with it. Over time we compound and fix these agreements forming a matrix that intends to keep us in place.

My passage to spiritual living, here in human form, requires that I attend to the agreements I have with all spirits. Each of us is in constant communication with spirits and so we each have active agreements with them. What sort of agreement do you have with the spirits that populate your world?

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

Confidence is My Faith

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Faith was not enough, reason and curiosity needed help and I found it by abandoning faith. Faith had become a contradiction. It is the articles of faith, doctrine and dogma, that I found this way. To me faith represented a place to stop, an end to the journey and that is the contradiction. My experience of faith was as an alternative to verification with the implication that verification is somehow wrong. Faith of course is not without its merit, confidence, but faith only gave me a sense of confidence. Faith needed confidence but confidence did not need faith. In fact, confidence worked better without faith.

Faith is like a gate, that someone else goes through, and the rest of us are to have faith about what is on the other side. This is the contradiction, the pretense of confidence, instead of verification. Actual confidence does not need verification but you get it anyway. Faith presents itself as verification, in and of itself, and in exchange you get a sense of confidence. I have known people who find true confidence through their faith but when faith is the confidence, the freedom and liberty of true confidence is lost. Those who employed their confidence, who found their way and left their mark, gaining durable notice in the passage of time, did not intend for us to exchange confidence for faith. Their example was that of true confidence, that we might also find it.

I have no use for faith but I get it anyway. When confidence is true, faith comes along for the ride, free of charge.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012