My organized religion experiences as a youth.
My name is Rod Nelson.
This article is a summary of my youth religious experiences,
how I viewed it then, how I view it now. What were the commonalities
in the religions that I studied? What resonated within me and what felt
uncomfortable?
Let me clearly state – I believe
that every religion on this planet has an extremely valuable and
Truthful message to share. I also perceive control, corrupt and
manipulation messages. With a few exceptions - Everyone on this
planet truly wants to find and create harmony for themselves and
their children. Just because someone was indoctrinated into a
dogmatic religion that differs from your beliefs does not mean they
are different from you. Each religious group has ceremonies,
rituals, songs, events, and a history that may feel foreign to you.
They are simply on a different path but the goal is the same.
My current belief systems are based
on my own personal experiences, my own knowingness, and I do not
seek the Truth from any other source but instead I look inward. I do
read others material, attend seminars, work with teachers, practice
rituals and ceremonies. I use
these tools to ‘remember’ my own Truth and other teachings help to
spark my internal guidance system. Some things I hear touch me so
deeply that I cry and some information feels yucky. I accept the
things that make me feel connected and I allow the other information
to pass right by me with no affect.
My intent is to provide solid
concepts of our true nature that are congruent with the climate of
the world at this time. I am sending this to you with the hope that
you will understand what I am trying to present and that you could
help me facilitate some discussions within your own community. A new
belief system is needed for the world as it moves forward.
Like any well designed promotional
article I will first start by identifying myself. I grew-up as
Christian Scientist. I became a member of the
Mother
Church in the early 70s.
As a youth I went to AU summer camp, attended Principia, and
held leadership roles in church youth programs. There are many
youth, teen, and adolescent stories that I would like to share but I
would like to focus on the objective of this letter.
Having grow-up in and with CS as a
big part of life I was intimate with the Truth that was described in
the Bible and Key the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
But for me, there was a growing disconnect with the Church
teachings. I knew I was spirit. I knew that this physical plane was
a dreamscape. But the CS explanations about, purpose, Life, Truth,
Love, and God that I was getting for 20 years were not enough for
me.
The bible was written a very long
time ago and from my personal experience at an early age I realized
that it is nearly impossible to get an accurate account of any
event, action, re-action, of even first hand experience even if it
happened with in the last hour. Often the account is filtered by the
observer. The observer almost always has a belief system, bias,
judgment, misunderstanding, or possibly limited background
information that filters the truth of account. It’s is also my
observation that writers, lectures, teachers, leaders, and healers
use convention. They use conventions for their words, concepts,
topics, descriptions, and other methods of communication that are
socially acceptable for that time and space.
What I am suggesting is that the times have changed and that
the messages could be updated. The thoughts that MBE presented to me
each week as I read my lesson made the Bible much more
understandable. But still it was not enough. I could heal myself but
that was not enough. I was an outsider in a world of materialism and
materialist had nice houses and cool cars and did not give a damn
about whether they were spirit or flesh. They, from an outside
appearance, looked like they had life figured out.
I lost faith in God. Around the age
of 28 I started meditating seriously and that opened up a huge
opportunity for discovery. What most religions present is prayer.
That is talking. What most religions do not teach is listening –
meditation. CS failed me in teaching how to listen. What I now
realize is that I lost faith in the God that was presented to me and
what I wanted was a direct experience with God. What is not taught
is that every thought is a prayer. So basic prayer is effortless and
needs no instruction. What is not taught is how to hear
effortlessly.
I want to take you on a bit of a
journey. For all but the most adventurous, you will pass through
three phases/stages during this journey. The first thing you will
feel is denial, disbelief, or uncertainty. You will not believe the
input and you will rationalize, hypothesize, or flat out turn off.
If you make it through the first phase you will enter the fear
phase. As you grapple with the concepts that erode your foundation
of reality you will inevitability feel fearful.
It is at this stage when people burn witches, launch wars, or
crucify. If you are fortunate enough to have made it past phase one
and two you are at the point were you begin to feel the Truth within
the paragraphs, pictures, or words. Once you have made this journey
you will have a more solid foundation to evaluate your own Truth.
Each person has their own internal
Truth detector. As you read, hear, or sense something take a second
to analyze how you feel deep inside. If you feel empowered, happy,
Love then put that input into the “Truth” category, if you feel
helpless, scared, fear… that it is not right for you at this time
then put it in the “Not helpful” bin, if you feel confused,
ambivalent then put it into the “not sure” bin.
The following is my current
interpretation of my personal experiences. These are my beliefs
based on my personal experience.
So let’s start off with some of the questions
that I was not able to get deep enough answers to. I am spirit – so
what does that mean? And how does that change how I walk down the
street. I always felt that I was a spirit being in a physical body
but that understanding did not help me pay the bills.
I knew as early as I can remember, age 3, that there was more
to this world then my physical senses could gather. I could sense
other non-visible beings since I could remember. Some comforted me
and some scared me. I learned how to ignore that input. At age 15 I
started to see a holistic counselor. He believed in intuition,
telepathy, and all the other unseen stuff that I could pick-up on.
Helpful but no real progress even after years. I have many stories
but will cut to the point since I have several concepts to present.
As I mentioned I began practicing
meditation, expanding my awareness, and unfolding my consciousness.
I expanded my awareness to be more sensitivity to the vibration of
energy. I expanded my
consciousness to understand what the energy was and to get something
useful from the experience. At the age of 41 I experienced a life
changing event. I experienced segments of my life relived in my head
like a film strip. With the experience I felt that I understood how
all these random piece of my life fit together. It did not matter if
got my heart broken or fell in love. Everything was perfect and
harmonious. As this was happening I ‘felt’ what it would be like to
live your life from a higher perspective.
I had merged with my spirit consciousness and I could observe
my life from that consciousness. Since then my ability to merge with
my higher consciousness has increased dramatically.
The next question – What is God.
Based on my CS education I did not think God was a person, place, or
thing. Yet, I was urged to understand God completely not just by
text or words. I had
always sensed my spirit guides even if I did not know what or who
they were. As I expanded my awareness and consciousness I was
constantly being given ideas, thoughts, and concepts. As I started
to pursue these topics of interest a story started to build for me.
I was not alone; there were a multitude of beings that I could not
see. I was taught how to merge my consciousness with layers of
consciousness that vibrated higher and higher.
I was now able to merge with the Source. I experienced a
merged consciousness where I was an individual consciousness and at
the exact same time I was fully aware of other consciousness and
also I was aware of being merged with the Source consciousness.
It is my perception that this is what is referred to by many
as God.
God is within! We are of God. God
knows every detail. We are constantly in communication with our
higher consciousness. We are in constant communication with God.
It’s just most people do not know how to access this experience. I
can not stress enough that this is not a dream, visualization, or
other illusion. This is
a real experience that anyone can live.
Why are we here? The simple and
short answer is we are here to experience how our thoughts create
reality at the slowest vibration of spirit manifestation.
Good/Evil; right/wrong; … do not exist in spirit. We as
spirit monads creating universes to experiment with our experiences.
As each monad experiences free will, that experience is shared with
the Source consciousness and through this process the Source is able
to experience varying degrees of detail.
As with any of these topics I have
way more detail but my intent is to help CS move forward.
I could write and write but at this point I hope that I have
peeked your interest enough to pursue further discussions.
It is not my intent to attach any
religion in any way shape or form. I have no interest in Church
other than to share my experiences with others so they can pursue
their own path. It is my perception that Jesus, Abraham, Buddha, and
all the other masters and avatars that walk this earth were humans
just like you and I. They discovered how to merge with their Source
consciousness. They learned how to expand their consciousness and
from that place a human can effortlessly raise the died, heal the
sick, and cast out demons.
As 2012 approaches we will see many
people “wake up” and come to realize the Truth that has been ever
present. While CS was leading edge for it’s time it is my personal
opinion that it lacks some of the detail that the world is ready to
accept. Have you seen “What the Bleep” or “The Secret”? These
concepts are exactly what CS is all about.
So why are there millions of DVD copies sold but very few
acknowledge CS?
If MBE stated your incarnate body
is made of vibrational energy which contains your physical, etheric,
emotional, mental, and spirit layers people would not have
understood what she was talking about. If she told the world the
difference between a being and an entity people would have gone into
fear mode. If she told
in great detail what demons, sin, and disease were people of that
time would not have been able to grasp it. If she taught the details
of magick healing it may have been misused. Times have changed and
the world is ready for more details.
It is my impression that most
religions treat the founding doctrines as the Truth and twist and
distort it to meet the goal messages of the clergy, or it is
interpreted so strictly that it can not grow with new
understandings. There are new tools and concepts that we have
discovered in the last 10 years and it would be a shame not to use
the new discoveries to better refine and define our understanding.
I hope this task will be far easier than trying to teach that
the world is not flat. – rod -
