Someone asked me “What made you a Buddhist?”
I did not like the idea that we are all born sinners and need to be “saved” by an external God who is also Father. That we go to “heaven” when we die, if we are “good.” And never come back.
Rather, I think each of us is divine. We are a manifestation of the divine in the material world, which is but one plane of existence. Thus through meditation and experience, we evolve our souls to “realize” the true nature of things, which is that “this immediate material life is not the whole story.”
We are not sinners. We are born to evolve our souls through particular challenges that we choose. We have “spiritual contracts” with people to help us develop our souls. The cycle of rebirth and karma allow us to try again and again to gain understanding and act in the world in a way that re-creates the world to be better.
Many of my ideas come from experiences like the one below.
Lowell K. Smith, a spiritual and holy man, “channels” higher entities, who explain the nature of being, becoming, existence and reality (a.k.a. ontology). (“The channel” is what the higher entities call Lowell when they refer to him.)
Excerpts from the transcript of the Spontaneous Channeling Session June 24, 2015
“Blessing upon this gathering from the Council of [the] Most High. … Your responsibility as a sentient being expressing in your physical form, is to learn to unconditionally to love yourself, and as you [learn to] do so, begin to learn to unconditionally love everyone else. You do not have to demonstrate or actively reach out for but you have to energetically, [and] continuously send light and love to every other being who is also struggling through their process. Each of us – each of you, the channel included, are in [the] process of gaining understanding, and as being a part of this gathering, having the opportunity to express that understanding, and to question that understanding, and to gain insights about that understanding so that you grow in your own personal awareness of who you are. … You make choices in determining who you desire to become. For as you consciously become more aware of same, … knowing who you are and knowing who you desire to become, and then making the effortfulness through meditation, through listening to your dreams, through sharing your experiences, and your understandings with others, and allowing yourself to listen open mindedly to others as well. These are the things that will allow you to become more in alignment with the purpose for which you, as well as this channel, came into this earth plane.
…
With this we say a blessing upon each of thee, and a blessing upon this channel as he continues his processes … So with this we release the channel back to his normal processes and we say “We are through.”
You can learn more about “the channel” from his website: Rev. Lowell K. Smith
http://www.ReflectionsInLight.org
Regarding channeling: I am a fan of Madame Blavatsky (1831 – 1891), an occultist and spiritual medium who founded Theosophy and the spiritualist movement. She became one of the first Euro-Americans to officially convert to Buddhism. She also channeled and published “ancient wisdom” as told to her by spirits. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Blavatsky for another great story.
I did not like the idea that we are all born sinners and need to be “saved” by an external God who is also Father. That we go to “heaven” when we die, if we are “good.” And never come back.
Rather, I think each of us is divine. We are a manifestation of the divine in the material world, which is but one plane of existence. Thus through meditation and experience, we evolve our souls to “realize” the true nature of things, which is that “this immediate material life is not the whole story.”
We are not sinners. We are born to evolve our souls through particular challenges that we choose. We have “spiritual contracts” with people to help us develop our souls. The cycle of rebirth and karma allow us to try again and again to gain understanding and act in the world in a way that re-creates the world to be better.
Many of my ideas come from experiences like the one below.
Lowell K. Smith, a spiritual and holy man, “channels” higher entities, who explain the nature of being, becoming, existence and reality (a.k.a. ontology). (“The channel” is what the higher entities call Lowell when they refer to him.)
Excerpts from the transcript of the Spontaneous Channeling Session June 24, 2015
“Blessing upon this gathering from the Council of [the] Most High. … Your responsibility as a sentient being expressing in your physical form, is to learn to unconditionally to love yourself, and as you [learn to] do so, begin to learn to unconditionally love everyone else. You do not have to demonstrate or actively reach out for but you have to energetically, [and] continuously send light and love to every other being who is also struggling through their process. Each of us – each of you, the channel included, are in [the] process of gaining understanding, and as being a part of this gathering, having the opportunity to express that understanding, and to question that understanding, and to gain insights about that understanding so that you grow in your own personal awareness of who you are. … You make choices in determining who you desire to become. For as you consciously become more aware of same, … knowing who you are and knowing who you desire to become, and then making the effortfulness through meditation, through listening to your dreams, through sharing your experiences, and your understandings with others, and allowing yourself to listen open mindedly to others as well. These are the things that will allow you to become more in alignment with the purpose for which you, as well as this channel, came into this earth plane.
…
With this we say a blessing upon each of thee, and a blessing upon this channel as he continues his processes … So with this we release the channel back to his normal processes and we say “We are through.”
You can learn more about “the channel” from his website: Rev. Lowell K. Smith
http://www.ReflectionsInLight.org
Regarding channeling: I am a fan of Madame Blavatsky (1831 – 1891), an occultist and spiritual medium who founded Theosophy and the spiritualist movement. She became one of the first Euro-Americans to officially convert to Buddhism. She also channeled and published “ancient wisdom” as told to her by spirits. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Blavatsky for another great story.
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