I found this picture on FB today. It made me wonder. When I was 17 I could not wait to turn 18 so I can leave home and move in with my boyfriend at the time. I wanted to be independent and free. So, what has changed? Why would a healthy young man or woman wait until the age of 28 to leave home?
Most people would probably respond by saying “because of lack of money”. Well, I am not sure about that. We did not have much money when I was 18 but we wanted to forge our life on our own terms.
I think that young people of today have less confidence in themselves as we did when I was young. By the age of 17, I had been through a lot of challenging experiences. I was a latchkey child. I learnt quickly how to make a sandwich if I was hungry and did my homework without private tutors being on stand-by.
The Y and Z generation appear to be ‘overprotected’ to me that resulted in having a lack of self-confidence, unrealistic expectations and low self-esteem among them. It seems to me, that in this new age of the internet and media, people’s ideas of a happy and fulfilling life has been forged by factors that have little to do with the young person.
I often find that young people either have little dreams or have fantasies of the future.
Staying at home ensures that one does not need to face reality or make efforts towards creating a fulfilling life.
God is the solution. Not God as a white bearded Santa Clause looking guy inhabiting the Heavens, but God that resides in each of us. As young people start looking within, not only do they discover an inner connectedness with the Divine but they also discover themselves. KNOWING ONESELF is the only true foundation for a good life.
Having a clarity on WHO I AM, WHAT I AM GOOD AT, WHAT MY TRUE ASPIRATIONS ARE, and having a solid relationship with an innate LOVING PRESENCE that is GOD automatically creates HAPPINESS AND CONTENTMENT that cannot be matched.
When I see young people who are lost, unhappy, addicts, overachievers, etc. I simply note that they have not looked inside for the answers yet!
If you wish to start LOOKING WITHIN, CREATING A SOLID RELATIONSHIP WITH SELF AND GOD, get in touch,
Pentecost Monday, also known as Monday of the Holy Spirit, and most commonly as Whit Monday, is a holiday that is celebrated the day after Pentecost, a moveable feast that is determined by the date of Easter. Whit Monday specifically represents the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, also marking the resumption of Ordinary Time after Easter.
The name “Whit Monday” actually comes from the English name for one of the three baptismal seasons in Pentecost, being “Whitsunday”. The origin of “Whitsunday” itself is generally believed to come from the white garments that used to be worn by those newly baptised on this feast.
In my understanding, the Holy Spirit is the ‘guide’, the ‘connecter’, the covenant between the individualized soul – which is a spark of God – and the Divine Presence . The energy that we call God or theDivine Presence is our source of being but we not able to connect with it because we have ‘turned away’ – often called sinned or errored – from our source.
Imagine that you always look downwards – which we actually do – instead of looking upwards that would enable us to connect with God.
The Holy Spirit is our covenant, it connects us seekers with the Divine Presence through various means such as ‘hunches’, inner experiences, unexpected events and more.
In a way, God, realized that the souls living in each human being had gone dormant because of their downward gazing state. So, God ‘sent’ a covenant, the Holy Spirit, to help the souls finding their connection back to God.
Enlightened masters, such as Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Mohammed, etc. were ‘carriers’ of the Holy Spirit because of their deep connectedness with the Divine Presence. In their teachings they extended the gifts of the Holy Spirit onto those who were attracted to their teachings.
The Holy Spirit has different names in different traditions but the functions are the same.
Below is a quotation from Charles Fillmore, one of the founders of Unity. Please remember that this text was written in the later 1800’s by someone who was raised in the Christian faith but was later inspired to create a spiritual movement that embraces all religions, all faith, all races and other spiritual movements.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
The dwelling place of God is ‘within’ man. As we walk the inner journey of meditation and contemplation, we start feeling the Loving Presence of the Divine dwelling with us and guiding us throughout our lives.
Revelation 3:21 ESV
The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
As we remove the barriers and limitations from our consciousness, as we conquer our own fear based ego, we start becoming aware of the presence of God, and we will feel as if we were sitting in the presence of the Divine all the time.
A couple of years ago, I was interviewed by a lovely host on self-love. it is one of my favourite topics because I grew up with being taught how to hate myself. The society I grew up in was condemning and judgemental. People believed that by pointing out your faults would make you a strong and capable human being. Well, I don’t think it worked because at the age of 21 I had a nervous breakdown. This experience made me look for ‘other ways’ of becoming a strong and capable human being. I found that self-love does the trick! 🙂
Listen to our discussion and let me know what you think.
This morning I was thinking about confidence. We regard confidence as one of the most desired personality trait but we fail to notice how confidence was built in the first place. Does your sense of confidence come from a place of ‘fear’ and self-defence? Or does it come from a place of ‘knowing who you are’ and connectedness of Spirit?
Listen to my thoughts here and let me know what you think.
In Unity we do not suggest an understanding of God. We strive to support everyone to seek out their personal meaning of God and to create a personal relationship with the Divine that serve their upliftment and growth.
INTRODUCTION
They say that ‘all roads lead to Rome’. The same way, there are as many approaches to God as many people there are on the Earth. In my understanding, everyone is attempting to move back to Oneness with God or the Divine Presence that I call ’being in the Loving’ whether they know it or not.
In my observation, every person tries to create a relationship with whatever they believe God is depending on what they were taught and how they see themselves.
I learnt distinctively different ideas from different people. As a result, I first became an atheist and then as a result of that, I started to look for ‘my version of God’.
God is not a separate being, or an old guy looking down on us from Heaven judging our decisions in life. As a result of my journey ‘looking for God’, I realized that God is simply a loving being, an energy source that keeps on lifting us up and out of the drama and madness we, humanity, have been creating for ourselves through our collective thinking for ions of time.
In my experience, as we meditate or commune with this loving energy source we start peeking out of the fear-driven craze and start seeing the greatness and the goodness that is ‘beyond’.
DIFFERENT INFLUENCES
The Banned God
The utopistic socialist regime that I grew up in created a rather odd predicament with regards to God. Though religious acts were discouraged and if still practised punished with ostracism, churches were kept intact and Catholic religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas were held. We were nevertheless dissuaded to attend any of these events or suffer the consequences.
We, as children, were taught that there was no such God that the churches talked about – they were liars – and we should worship our political leaders – flesh and blood perfect specimen of a human being – especially the main leader of the socialistic party that we called ‘Big Brother’.
God as a Father Figure
My grandmother needed a father figure because she never had one. What I gathered from observing her, her relationship with God was ambivalent. After having lost her second husband, she lost her relationship with God with him.
I think the Bible made her assume that God was a male character, and that he was like a good Father to all his children. Through her words, God was a loving father whom children can run to for shelter when hurt. He was protective and fair.
Because what my Grandmother communicated to me about the God she knew, when I first went to the church I went there to beg God to protect me from the abuse, I was experiencing at the time. I was looking for a father figure.
It was disappointing to learn that God does not show up in your school to tell the abusive teacher off. I understood there and then that God is not a substitute for an absent father.
God as a Prosecutor
My great-aunt, my grandmother’s cousin, was a bigot Catholic and was on a mission for a while to turn me into a Roman Catholic, except my grandma would not have it. She was a Calvinist.
My great aunt’s God was a Prosecutor. We were to fear God who was always angry because we were misbehaving. God had a ‘whip’ called the Devil who, we were told, would come and take us to Hell if we were naughty.
My great aunt in her dread of her righteous God was a goodie-two-shoes who condemned everyone who did not believe or behaved as she thought was right. She wasn’t a nice person. Nevertheless, she believed that her God approved of her behaviour because she was doing the right thing.
In her relationship with God, she lived in fear of an entity that would punish her if she wasn’t a good girl. She was convinced that she was one of God’s messengers whose job was to ensure that others also follow God’s orders and were on the right path. As a psychologist it was her mission to bring all lost souls that landed on her ‘couch’ to the God of the Roman Catholic Church. She was in some ways a prosecutor herself because she believed that those who did not see things the same way she did were all sinners. She taught me that we should be grateful for our suffering because in our suffering we are closer to God.
My great aunt’s idea of God made me scared of God and wanted nothing to do with a vengeful God.
The Buddhist no-God
There was a moment when I thought that I had enough of the confusion around God and looked for a path with no God. Though Buddhists have many deities they do not actually have a God concept. Buddhists strive to attain Nirvana, which is a level of consciousness, total freedom of desire but it is not an alternative to God.
At first, I was relieved that I did not deal with others’ idea of God, anymore. I loved the meditation sessions on ‘nothing’, the focus on striving for ‘thoughtlessness’. I found a sense of freedom in that.
Soon, however, as I progressed in my meditation, I started to face a sense of ‘lack’. I felt a sense of being and connectedness in my meditation but I could not place the sensation anywhere.
In a way, the Buddhist no-God-ness helped me to look for and find ‘my God’ and create the kind of relationship I wanted with God.
The Sufi God of Fire
After my Buddhist adventure, a friend who in my experience had a deep and personal relationship with God, introduced me to Sufism. I started to read poems by Rumi, learnt about Shams de Tabrizi, Rumi’s teacher. Then I ran into a book called ‘Love is a Fire’. The writer of this book talked about a kind of meditation that I had never heard of before: looking for fire and passion in meditation. She talked about an intimate and personal relationships with God that was new to me. So far, I had only met people who had a concept of God rather than an experience. As I was reading the book and practising the Sufi type of meditation, I started to feel a movement of ‘unexplainable’ energy that was strong and lively, with a burning sensation as it showed up within my consciousness.
I loved it! The first time God was not someone else’s concept but my own experience.
MY KIND OF GOD
I prefer calling God ‘Divine Presence’ or ‘the Source’ because the word ‘God’ is corrupted by different religious ideas that I cannot relate to.
God as Loving
This experience I mentioned above and that I still have today, is passionate and fiery. I understood later that my ‘burning like’ sensation in meditation was not the result of reading the book but because of the essence of who I am. I am fiery and passionate.
My relationship with God
And so is my relationship with God. I talk to the Divine Presence, but I still do not see God as a person. For me God is an energy field of pure Loving that is alive and is in constant movement.
As I step into this field, into Oneness, and connect with this Divine Presence, my Essence gets energized which becomes the foundation for my connection with God.
God is a vibrant presence in my Life, not only in my meditations but in my day-to-day living. I sense God all the time.
Interestingly I do experience the Divine Presence as the ‘Father’ and also as the ‘Prosecutor’ but very differently from that of my family members. God as ‘a Father’ to me means that God cares about me, I am important, if I listen, I can hear ‘him’ guiding me through the wilderness of life. God is also ‘a prosecutor’ means that I am held responsible for my experiences through my free will. My thinking, my emotions and my actions create my reality. If I want to have different experiences in life, it is not the Divine who would bring it forth, I am to think, feel, and act differently. How to bring that change about is a whole other story. God in his Goodness, however, wants me to learn my lessons and free myself from my limitations. I call it ‘tough love’.
Most of all, however, my relationship with God is like the relationship between a sport team/person and its cheering squad. God is always on my side cheering me on! Similarly to Rumi, in my inner experiences, God sometimes shows up like a goof-ball dancing and singing to make sure I don’t lose faith when time gets rough. Our relationship is constantly evolving as I am evolving, opening, and becoming into my True Being.
In Unity we do not suggest an understanding of God. We strive to support everyone to seek out their personal meaning of God and to create a personal relationship with the Divine that serve their upliftment and growth.
I love churches. They say that all of them was built on holy ground. There must be something about that because every time I am in a church, temple, synagogue, or any other building filled with Spirit, I feel touched and in a way blessed.
I do not believe that churches of any kind are ‘homes’ where God resides. The only temple where the Divine resides in the physical is ‘physical bodies’ of different living beings. The Spirit of God dwells in us all whether we are aware of it or not.
Nevertheless, spiritual centres regardless of the way they are called give us a place where we can turn within, meditate and turn our attention back to God.
