Tag Archives: God

No Traditional Path

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Human spirituality is my basket and God is its handle. A boundlessness that accommodates every possible concern. I feel good sharing my spirituality, my thoughts of God and our spiritual nature. A calm and ease is seeping into my life. It is due to my decision to bring my spirituality into the open. To make public my spiritual life. I expect that casualness, that is calm and ease, to unleash my creativity.

For whatever reason, I am a mystic. I always have been. I came to understand I am this way in my middle teens. I did not receive the news well and I decided to break my life. Oh the joys of youth. I was not satisfied to break it just once and I managed to ruin my life four times. All because I did not want to be what I am. A mystic. I have no other drive, my sense of mysticism encompasses my whole life. Everything I have to do. I knew then, as I know now, I would have to acknowledge my mysticism in a public way. I also knew that I had no traditional path. I could not look to others to find my way. No teachers, no books, just walk the walk. Providence alone would guide my way. Well here I am.

What will I do with my life now that I have discarded my self-imposed taboo and replaced my outrage with approval? What will I learn about human spirituality now that I have decided that I will live openly as a spiritual person?

The life I might have had, as a young man, that choice, has been restored. The gift that was success, by the circumstance of my birth, is offering me a second chance. To choose the life that was before me then, instead of the mess I made. The difficulties I built into my life have been with me a long time and are like an old friend. This kind of familiarity lends itself to permanence and a certain delicacy is needed to let it go. As I take up my promise, making my best choice, my gifts begin to take form. I am who I am but I have yet to do what I am about to do, what I have always refused to do. Much like this stuff I write, I will find out what those gifts are capable of as they present themselves.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

The False Prophet

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The name of Christ will be restored, it belongs only to Christ. Much has been said about Jesus Christ by those who never knew him. They tell a grand story, making great claims on his behalf. It begins with his mother, a woman, so pure that even God could not resist her and she gave birth to God’s son, Jesus. This man, Jesus, was in turn, no ordinary man, he was God. Being human we each can be certain of one thing, no man is God. All men are ordinary and Jesus was a man. We know this because a woman gave him birth. He taught us what ordinary men are capable of. He is not the only one and Christ will return. If you would know the true story of Jesus then know Christ, not the stories others tell about Christ.

It is an insult to the legacy of Jesus to suggest he was other than human.

I suspect many have known Christ in their lifetimes but not all are called to do what Jesus did. It is sad that we have taken the life and actions, of this man, Jesus, and reduced them to a fanciful tale we know is not true. A story we can not believe except by faith. We do not need faith to know God, to know Christ, we only need to ‘be’ and choose their acquaintance. This secret is known by each of us. It is an understanding we can not escape although we are free to ignore it. Mostly that is what we do, creating a fiction we call reality.

The fictional life of Jesus Christ is false and those who repeat it are false prophets. Have confidence and find your strength. Walk the path that Jesus did and you will know Christ.

It is this action of knowing Christ that tells the truth that Jesus knew. It seems there are different degrees, or appointments, in our acquaintance with Christ, ranging from ignorance/denial to full-blown companionship. A state where Christ makes an appearance as a person, a human being that anyone might know. It seems that Jesus was that Christ. Clearly few are called to do this but I believe this is what he did and I am confidant someone else will do the same. That was his message, the lesson, the example of his life.

What of the of the power of faith, of faith in Jesus? The good works done through faith and faiths ability to affect us. Faith is a mask for confidence  It pretends to be confidence but confidence has no need of it. For a healthier mind, and relationship with God, skip the faith and let all of your confidence rest with God. Make no claim on God’s behalf. Allow for naught and then God can present God’s self, as God is, or as God is naught. It is alright. What threat could you be to God and any God worth knowing is no threat to you.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

The Ordinary Life of Jesus Christ

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Ordinariness. I have written of this before. I believe in what is ordinary, that only the ordinary exists. Anything we consider extraordinary, most notably for the purpose of this blog, human endeavour, is the work of ordinary people. Conversely, I might consider everything to be extraordinary but I do not, I believe in ordinariness. That is not to say that we are all the same or that each of us has the same thing to do. We are just ordinary people, each of us, no matter what we do.

As a mystic this has always been my guiding principle. As a Catholic, a Christian, it is what drove me from the church. To my mind Jesus was as ordinary a human being as are you or I. That is the whole point of the story. Dogma and doctrine paint him as something much more than that, God incarnate. It is not true. A woman gave him birth, the same as you or I. The story of his deity is the story of power and undue influence wrought by those who tell such stories. It is not hard to believe that in the fourth century, around 326 A.D., when the Constantine ordered the Council of Nicaea, for the purpose of organizing the christian church, that these were the men who founded Christianity as we know it. They assembled the books that would become the New Testament. A small sampling of a larger collection, doctrine and dogma was set in place. Jesus did not do that. Others who claim to be his church did. Or course the books of the New Testament support their position and their claims. They were selected to do just that.

Churches, in particularly large churches, are political institutions. Designed to control people, often the result is violence and oppression. When a person or a group claims to be right, because of their ‘sacred text’, written words, they have undue influence. No words are sacred unless all words are. I do not believe any church. No truth can be written down. We write about it but the truth represents itself. It is its own evidence. Any who seek it can find it. It is important to first let go of what is not true and make no claim of ownership of what is true. Written words for example.

“I am the way the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me”. I can not arrive at a beautiful vista and share it with someone who is not there. To share the view of anyone who has found anything, regardless of its relative value, you have to be there. You are also that way, that truth, and that light.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

Creation

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God. What did God create? Us? Perhaps. Maybe God just is and we are the ones  that create. It is true, we are to blame, or to thank, for what we do, or do not do. God is innocent and if you would know evil, find it in yourself, that is the only place it lives. Dispatch it and it is gone. Perhaps I will dispatch evil even as I walk with it hand in hand. That is the world and the task that I see. I’ll let you know if I decide to do it.

IMG_2495Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

The Matrix of The Possible

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I believe that we are spiritual beings snared in a web of ignorance. As spiritual beings I believe we have the authority of creation and the web that is our ignorance is our creation. I believe it is possible, and that occasionally, a person discovers the trick to walking in the realm of ignorance while being immune to it. Free of the normal constraint that is our agreed condition and creation, ignorance. This can only be done by using the magic that is ignorance, our communal agreement of constraint, to prove the truth. Everything is magic, nothing exists outside of its boundless influence. We are the masters, the authority, the creators of the reality we share. By the authority that is God, we create. We are imbued with creative authority by God but we do not name God. We are the creation that creates. We name and the name defines what is, we do not name God. It is God who names us and we in turn name and create. None can name God. God is self evident, even if God is naught.

The past and the future, I do not believe in them. I believe in creation. That the past and the future are constantly being created in the only known time, now. Nothing has ever happened at any other time. So what shall we create? This is something we do together, none do it alone.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

 

How To Be Who

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I am not the way. I am not the truth. I am not the light. I am the door. I am the window. I am the gate. I am. However I consider myself, that is how I am. It is different from who I am. Who I am has a single desire. Who I am has endowed in me the authority to create. It desires that I should create who I am. In that way, how I am, becomes who I am. It is intended that they should not be the same. That how should be chaotic, unless we choose something different. In choosing who we are, over how we are, we let go of all that is naught and how becomes who. This simplicity lacks the complication we are so fond of and we feel threatened by that. It’s OK, it is supposed to be that way. It is the mystery we entertain ourselves with. Of course each of us is fully aware that there could be no mystery, after all, we do exist, we are sentient beings. It should be obvious that nothing could exist without first understanding. That is the only way anything can organize itself well enough to exist. What we see, what we experience, we create, not because we are God, but because we exist and we are aware of it.

Who is; the much maligned or much revered soul. It all depends on whether or not you think you have a soul. I never used to give it much thought. My soul was always cast in the most impossible of scenarios by those who would have me save it, if I failed it would spend an eternity in hell. That is pretty damn harsh. To teach me a lesson god (I never the give the hideous god who would design hell the respect of capitalization) would send me to a place so unbearable, so hideous, that only eternal suffering could convey it. A place so awful that a person could only survive it because god would have it never end. Fine. Let that god go to hell. Neither one of them exist except that we have imagined them. As for my soul, I can not possibly save it, it saves me. I, the how of who I am, must choose it.

Why do I write with such authority? Presenting myself as understanding the things I write about. Do you have faith, certainty that things are as you want them to be due to religion or some other construct? Perhaps you are an Atheist and presume yourself as having no faith. Why? Are you sure, as I am, of what you consider to be true. I write with authority on these matters because I have considered it at length and tested it to the best of my ability. I have stepped beyond the social norms to see what I can see for myself and am reporting it here on my blog.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

Remembering God

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Ask God; Surrender, recall and speak. Surrender perception inviting true recall and speak of what God is.

God. Who can claim any knowledge of God? God of course. How can God be understood? By recollection. Begin by remembering the future. Remember a future you want to remember, a future where God is understood. There is a place, somewhere between birth, and what preceded it, where God is understood. It is something that is best remembered in the future thus avoiding the clutter and confusion between our present state and the past experience of God. In looking to a future, where all is understood, the pitfalls and obstacles of past perceptions are avoided. Remember a future that understands God, free of the prejudice and preconceptions of the past. The past is very insecure and is desperate for us to own it. It is usual for us to do this and carry the past with us into the future, reminding us that it is the same thing. Being the same thing we can remember a future and reverse the trend from the past with a future free of past shortcomings. It seems obvious that we must fully understand the identity and nature that is God as we do in fact exist. It is also obvious that confusion lies in the past. Repair the past by the memory of a future that has already repaired the past, working back from where you want to be and the past becomes the future-past. The answer, that is God, is revealed in a future we choose and the past restored to its whole state by the future. This is the Magic of Now. Now, the only time that exists.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

The Antichrist

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Christ. Christ is the dominate theme in my life. No, I am not a Christian or in any other way religious. I am the Antichrist. I am here to dispel the myth of who Christ was. If I were religious the notion that a woman gave birth to God would be blasphemy. Jesus was as ordinary a man as there ever was. How can I be so sure? A woman gave him birth.

When we say that Jesus was any way other than the way we are, we insult Jesus as well as ourselves. If it were possible to insult God, obviously it is not, claiming that God was so taken with a woman that she became pregnant and bore God a child, well that would pretty much do it. The same logic applies to the sin of blasphemy. How could we possibly offend God? We only sin against ourselves.

The story of Jesus Christ is meaningless if he is not who we are. The Christian doctrine has turned the story of this simple mans life into a cautionary tale. Complete with the implied threat of crucifixion or worse. See what happened to Jesus when he lived as he did. Only God can do as Jesus did. Step out of line and you will go to hell. A woman gives birth and a child is born. A child just as were you. The child Jesus grew into a man and made proof of our divine nature. It really is that simple. Why so much disrespect for Jesus, for ourselves? Why so little confidence in God?

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

The Invention of Time

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Inventing time. As we cobble together the conditions allowing experience we determine what parameters will be used. Using the template we call the past the future is invented. This is the familiar time-line, the progression from past to future. We tend to think we are at its mercy but as I see it we are its creator. No we are not God, but this is one of the ways we are created, “In God’s image and likeness”. We are creative and as such we are responsible. The world is the way we find it because we have made it that way. If not then we are created in some image and likeness other than God or God is that which is naught and all that we experience is some chemical-electrical fluke. Maybe you prefer some other explanation. It does not matter how we consider what is, it remains unchanged and what we think produces much of what we experience and even determines what we allow ourselves to experience.

We repeat the past or invent the future, that is time and its natural rhythm is predictable. It is understandable that much of what we do is just the past repeated over and over again. It need not be, we can invent, create, something much different. Our history tells stories of people who have. It is regrettable that the way we have treated those who prove our heritage and creative authority has so often been with rude and violent reward. While the past is required to invent and create time, we do not have to make its repetition what we create. I do not know why we are so threatened by who we are that we make how we are so opposed to it, but we do.

One of the rules that govern time is the need for consensus. We have to build an agreement that establishes precedent. Much of the content of the human community is spiritual. This is where the consensus for creation is made. Where parameters are set. There is a communication between us that is subtle, spiritual. We mingle with each other spiritually. When we do this we establish what is allowed, what we will share in the world we consider real. To establish an agreement spiritually, contrary to accepted norm, a consensus has to be built. The language is thought, presented by the clarity or lack thereof of our spiritual condition. From here we create what we experience, by agreement, first spiritually and then in the realm we refer to as reality.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

Providence Grace and Divination

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The spirit of providence is grace, or, in other words, grace is the spirit of God’s constant presence, providence. Is God or is God naught? The answer to this is constant and it is known as providence. It does not matter what the answer is, as ultimately it can not be disputed, and so it makes no difference. God is revealed only if my habits support fact. Fact is the construct of what is. We do imagine things differently than things are but fact assures the true nature of things, even as we imagine it differently. When the fact on which I base my imaginings is followed, the truth is revealed. We center our self, so that falsehood is lost, by imagining understanding, acceptance, grace and compassion. These qualities create an environment where providence is known and its spirit, grace, is active. We are no longer forcing the world as we want it but accepting it as it is.

Being mystic I practice divination. I use it to decide pretty much everything. This is no guarantee for good decision-making. If the qualities of understanding, acceptance, grace and compassion are not at the center of the world I imagine divination is frustrated. This is providence guiding me back to my true center. When my center is true falsehoods gain little traction. The fact that they exist remains but the true path of providence is revealed and grace clears the way. Divination is a crude tool to guide me to this center, should I ever decide to stay there long enough it becomes unnecessary as the good choice becomes a constant habit and grace adds itself to the spirit that animates me.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012