Do you ever contemplate why a perfect, all powerful, all knowing God would create such an imperfect world? Would the true God make a world with so much violence and negativity?” Why would God make a world where human beings do such bad things to each other? In short, if the one true God really made the world, why did he make it so screwed up?

Most of us, especially those of us growing up in the US, got some form of the biblical christian answer to these questions – Well God made the world in 6 days, then created Adam and later Eve, and put them in the Garden of Eden where life was perfect. But then, Eve misled Adam, who then in turn, ate of the forbidden fruit tree. This disobedience would cause God to turn away from the humans he had created, and to kick them out of the Utopian Garden of Eden.

Buy that Explanation???

Frankly, that explanation never worked much for me. If God were truly God, wouldn’t he/she have known where this was going to lead? And why would God favor one group of people over another. That didn’t make sense if he was truly God, right?. And even if God did decide to have a chosen nation, why get angry with his chosen people and punish them over generations – that was not very Godlike???? That seems more ‘humanlike’. I could go on and on about this view of God which still permeates our world today, but I have come to think of Adam and Eve stories as symbolism for the hidden reality????

After struggling with these kinds of questions for many years, I ran across a book by author Neale Donald Walsch called “Conversations with God”. Here was a book that changed my life. Walsch had been struggling with life Questions just as I had. In frustration, he wrote a letter to God, asking the same kinds of questions that we are asking here. I don’t think Neale really expected a reply, but to his surprise, God started to dictate answers to him in what became his book series called “Conversations with God”.

A Different Idea about Life’s Beginning

Now here was an idea about God that I could get behind. God told Neale that his purpose for creating the universe, and his offspring to populate that universe, was to create a way for him to “know himself as God”.

Prior to our creation, there was only God. Since there was nothing but God, there was no way for God to know himself, to look back on himself, or to experience himself as something good, decent, happy, loving, or some other characteristic. So God decided to divide himself into multiple divine pieces. This would allow him to set up a relational universe where one could compare one thing to another. This way of comparing or separating one object from another is known as duality. By being able to compare, we can now know and experience up from down, hot from cold, bitter from sweet, good from bad, right from wrong.

Why Duality is Important

You can think of these dual opposites as opposing poles of a characteristic or idea with a sliding bar in between that allows us to compare, rate, and understand each other and God. Without this initial separation/division of God, there is nothing to relate to , thus no way to experience or know who or what we are or what characteristics we may carry – no way to rate if we are good or bad, tall or short, attractive or ugly.

After this initial separation or the setup of duality, we are no longer “One”. You can now tell each other apart and describe and compare characteristics. So God then created the physical universe as a place or sort of playground to actually “experience” who you are in a relational world. Since we are all a part of God, It allows him to experience who he is through us.

So while this world of duality and relationships allows us the opportunity to display positive characteristics, it also introduced the opposite of those characteristics on the other (negative) end of the duality spectrum. This produces the hate, hostility, dysfunction, and all the other negatives in the world we live.

So although we now have a logical explanation of God’s reasoning for creating the world the way it is, it doesn’t really make the human condition any better.

Another Book – Another Approach

Although I had come to accept duality and the negatives that idea entails, I still find myself troubled by the fact that the human beings are still fighting, arguing and killing each other. Though there have been gigantic technological developments to make our lives easier and more comfortable, there is still way too much hostility and dysfunction in our relationships with each other.

Against this backdrop of dysfunction, instability and negativity, I found myself being led to another spiritual book called “The Disappearance of the Universe”, by Gary Renard. Similar to Conversations with God, the material in the book was channeled to Gary, not by God, but by two spiritual Masters that came to him in his home. The intent of the Masters was to help Gary understand the meaning and functionality of “A Course in Miracles” – a spiritual book supposedly channeled by Jesus and providing a way to understand and explain God and Heaven.

I had owned the book “A Course in Miracles” for over 20 years and had tried to read it many times, but could never make much sense of it. I found it to be difficult to read and even harder to understand. The Disappearance of the Universe, however, brought great clarity to the Course’s principles for me, and sparked a desire to learn and unlock its mysteries.

Dream World or Real World?

In Disappearance of the Universe, it was explained that this duality or separation from God only occurred in our minds. This universe/physical world that we believe we live in was not created at all by God. It basically describes our physical world/existence as a dream world of our imagination – a creation of images through our minds. It is not real!

Although our current existence is in this dream world, there is a real world! The real world or perfect world is a non-physical one created by God in perfection and Oneness (heaven). It still exists just as it always has, waiting for us to wake up from our dreaming and return to its beauty and perfection.

How did this dream world come to be?? The Disappearance of the Universe described it as follows; God created the world in perfection and Oneness. He also created Christ (or the Son) as a perfect extension of himself in all ways. Then, a small inconsequential fraction of this Christ/Son, for just an instant, appears to have an idea that is not shared by God. – It wondered what would it be like if it went off by itself and separated from God!

This idea of separation from God created duality. This Duality is not of God nor any part of his creation. The real world (heaven ) continues on as it always has and always will with God and Christ. However, this tiny mad idea created in the mind of a small part of Christ/Son goes on today as a delusional dream world, created as images in our own minds with its own thought system called the EGO.

The Course in Miracles Approach

According to ” A Course in Miracles”, this idea of separation, or EGO thought system, is the cause of all of our problems in this illusionary world, All the attacks you get from your brothers and sisters in this world, all the hatred and negativity, and all the hostility is really a cry from the EGO to hold onto the idea of duality/separation and to the dream/illusionary world. Dropping the idea of separation and forgiving your brothers and sisters is the way out of the illusion and back to the real world/heaven!

Now this obviously is a very simplified and pretty inept attempt by me to give you the basic concepts presented in A Course in Miracles. The reality is the book is a very detailed and masterful presentation of an idea about the world and why it is the way it is!

How Can it Help You?

Now I don’t claim to be smart enough to know nor understand who to believe or what to accept about some of the ideas advanced in these books, but I have been able to use some of the concepts to better my life and gain some understanding of these life questions.

It may stretch your powers of creativity and imagination to get a grasp of the idea of a dream/illusionary world, and that we (human beings) have the power to create this world we appear to live in our minds. However, if you can, it certainly provides the answer to the question of why God would create the world as it is, (he didn’t create it, we did), and why we would create it in our minds (separation creates our identity and independence – both intoxicating prospects to our minds).

If you can get past those ideas, A Course in Miracles may be able to help you gain an understanding of some of your own life problems and help you to help others as you move through life’s moments.

Week of 11/25/19

How Do You Feel About Channeling??

A Course in Miracles is a fairly well-known and widely discussed Spiritual book first published in 1975. It was sort of a collaboration between Helen Schucman and William William Thetford, both professors of Medical Psychology at Columbia University. Marie and William were not particularly religious people, but Marie started receiving images and information from a Voice that was both compelling and unusual. So much so that she and William decided it should be published.

A key point about this widely distributed volume is that the Voice was channeled directly to Marie by Jesus himself! So a lot of how much you get from the book’s content will depend on if you believe its source.

Most people don’t have a problem with the Bible being channeled through Moses or some of the other biblical prophets, but many struggle believing anything written today could be channeled from God.

Two of my favorite spiritual books today are channeled. The first was “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch. This was really a series of books channeled by God to the Author which answered many of the questions we all have about God, our existence here on earth, and the universe.

The second was a book called “Disappearance of the Universe:” by Gary Renard. Gary was visited in his living room by what he referred to as Two ascended masters who shared the secrets of the universe with him over a period of several years. This book was noteworthy to me because those secrets really came from “A Course in Miracles” so these masters basically explained the secrets found there, and presented a better understanding of its concepts and Principles ,and how best to use those principles in your quest for salvation and a better life.

I had actually purchased “A Course in Miracles over 20 years ago. I had heard it was a must-read volume for anyone on a Path to a better spiritual understanding of themselves and the world. I tried to read it several times but just couldn’t get into it at all. I found it boring at times, impractical, and difficult to read and understand. However, after reading the “Disappearance of the Universe, it gave me a much clearer understanding of the Course concepts and a desire to go back to the Course volume to get a more complete understanding. When I went back to it, I found that I couldn’t put it down, and what once seemed dry and impractical now seemed wise and earth shaking in it appeal and approach to the world.

In terms of channeling, it certainly is easy to wonder if the person is a fraud, just making it up, or just has an active imagination. However, I have decided I am not smart enough to be able to tell for sure if that is the case. In the books above, though, I think some of the information provided is so new, groundbreaking, and thoughtfully presented that I can see the possibility that it comes from somewhere else. And even if my logical mind wont allow me to accept that, I can at least try to follow the precepts to see if it brings about positive change in my life.

Over the next several weeks, I will be sharing some of those concepts here in my blog as a Course in Miracles “Thought for the Week”. I hope you find them useful or at least thought provoking as you go about your every day existence. Please share your thoughts if you feel an urge to!!!