You Believe What You Choose to Believe, You Live it Everyday

I visited a Christian family about three years ago.  These people did not know me, or anything of my past.  They had dedicated their life to Christ years ago and now were missionaries in the military with "The Navigators." (A Christian based Bible study lead by this couple on this base)  These folks are good people and when we sat to talk and get to know one another, the husband sat with his Bible in his right hand and a confident look on his face to address me.  The look was one I have seen in my brother's eye after he became a minister and also felt it is his duty to spread the word of God through his announcement of "the good Book" to everyone he meets in life.  After all Christianity saved them, the Bible teaches "it can save all." To believe this you must also believe everyone needs saving.

What this couple did not know is that I have been an "born again" Christian all my life and in my teens became a missionary and studied the Bible in depth for over 20 years before I met this couple. I had studied to become a reverend and in my studies found, there is no need. No need to save anyone but yourself. No need to judge another religion is not equal to your own.  No need to be "born again" because we all got it right the first time.  We were born as good as it gets but the religious doctrine that we are taught by our elders as true, begins to be our safety blanket when we are convinced we cannot think for ourselves and choose the high road. We can.

Peace is a natural state of mind. Thoughts tell us to stress.  So as this wonderful, loving man began to teach me his "Word of God" I asked him one question.

"To believe what you are sharing you have to believe you have the one truth, the one way.  Do you agree that you accepted that this Word of God is your moral compass for your life?"

"Yes."

"Then can you accept that I choose not to use this Bible with all its divisive judgments including that a man is the head of the household? This is the one thing I have, my choice, a freedom to choose to believe or not. I choose not. You do not need to be a "believer" to live a life of compassion and kindness to your fellow humans."

This gave him pause.

When I became a student of thework.com by Byron Katie I chose to go to a live workshop to meet here and hear her teach.  One thing she did repeatedly to the audience is hold up a glass of water and ask,"What is this?" 

We all answered, "That's obvious. Ir is a glass of water!"

She said, "Who told you this was a glass of water?"

"Everyone in the world can see that is a glass of water! Duh!"

Again she held up the glass of water and asked, "Who told you this was a glass of water?"

This went on for quite a while until it dawned on me what she was teaching was the same thing I told that couple years before, you choose to call it a glass of water because you were taught it was a glass of water.  Without words attached to this material object, a glass of water, this glass of water "just exist.  When I believed it, I called it a glass of water.  I could have just as easily been told this glass of water was "a jug of mud."  If this was my belief then it would be "a jug of mud" to me.

So I discovered my thoughts create my world and I can choose what to think about everything that has ever happened to me or not.  My reality is I am.  Much more than that is a dream. 

When I am not confused about this, my peace enters inside my mind to stay as long as I continue to live in the present moment.  Surely my life goes on everyday as I make more and more choices, but the freedom and confidence of knowing reality brings me joy.  So this is my joy to the world.  I actually choose to believe Jesus was not teaching he was the savior of the world, he was teaching we each save ourselves through our own beliefs and thoughts about our world, the world we live in everyday.

You believe what you choose to believe, we all do, and we live the life of those thoughts, no way around it. Namaste.