Right after an experience with God

There is a danger lurking for each of us who want to come closer to the Creator. This hazard does not wait for us in our struggles of initial deepening our relationship with God, it arises right after we made a breakthrough.

Originally we each are creations or children of God. Normally the relationship between each of us and the Creator is very close. It is a love relationship. But the world as a whole is not very close to the Creator. There is much misery and pain and egoism and misuse of power. All this does not come from God.

Also in ourselves there are barriers that prevent us from deeply feeling God all the time. In order to overcome these barriers we do all kind of things. We pray, meditate, do cleansing ceremonies, go in therapy, study religious texts and so forth and so forth.

The barriers are not only in the physical world around us and in our selves, they also are kept up in the spiritual world. In fact, here lie the main causes of why man got separated from God.

I have seen this happening to many people who made much effort to deepen their relationship to God. They struggled for long with themselves and finally reached a most welcomed and inspired result. And soon after that they fell in deep darkness once again. Some people realize the darkness, others get sidetracked there and believe they still have this relationship to God while in fact it is more in their imagination than real.

How and why does such a thing happen?

I believe that it mainly has to do with a misunderstanding of God’s love. When you try to come more in God’s love and you believe God’s love is mainly for you to feel good and elevated, then you certainly will be trapped several times.

God’s love as I understand and feel it is not only for us to enjoy it and indulge in it. God’s love is for me, it is for you, and it is for everyone. This means that from the moment that we feel more deeply God’s love, a new task is waiting, the task to spread on this love to others. This task can only be accomplished by keeping our own inner relationship to the Creator. The love we pass on is not our own, it is given to us by God and only when we give it out in real life, this love becomes part of us.

I have seen people who once had a deep experience with God and after this they set out for their life’s journey and mission and never even really attempted to go back to their initial deep connection with God. They fill out the details of their mission themselves and believe that the task once given to them can be fulfilled in such a way. Some of such people are well-known worldwide public figures.

Other people who are more sincere lose the light they found as they failed to act from it. They enjoyed the love and light they felt but did not right away begin to pass it on to others.

To gain a deep feeling of connection to God is something very precious. It is also something that is much resented by those forces of darkness that try to keep the world under their control. When light shines somewhere in the darkness, it is seen immediately by such spiritual dark forces and they go to it and try to extinguish it, as this light hurts their eyes. This means that when we make a breakthrough in our relationship to God we must expect life to get harder after that, not easier. It is the beginning of a lifelong new and difficult responsibility. Such a life is profoundly rewarding, but it will never be easy.

March 20, 2008

Do you dislike the word 'sin'?

Image via WikipediaThe medieval Christian view of God creating the universe, "by number, weight and measure."

Some people don’t like the word ‘sin’. I also don’t like it, because I don’t like sins and their results. Please read on when you tend to back off as soon as you read the word sin. I am just trying to understand what ‘sin’ really means.

Some people don’t like the word sin because they don’t want to look at their own mistakes after they made them. Like when you know that your spouse or friend doesn’t love you anymore, but you try to maintain the image of a happy relation. Or when you know you are ill but don’t do something against it because you fear the truth.

The truth about ourselves can be frightening. Sins are being made all the time and their results are always bad. You sin when you act against the original principles of the universe. You also sin when you unite with those who made it their custom to live against the principles of the universe. Whenever you do this, you fill yourself with deathly and contagious energies.

The laws of the universe come from God. They exist regardless what we understand or try to make from them. They are also independent from what religious organizations or state authorities tell us. When we align with the laws of the universe, we find ourselves spiritually healthy and prosperous. When we go against the laws of the universe, we attract trouble from everywhere.

I know that many people reject the concept of sin because it was used against them to make them feel guilty. But feeling guilty is a sin in itself. When you make a mistake you must make it in order again. People who feel guilty are just busy with accusing themselves and never come to the point to restore what they did wrong.

Everything works based on principles. We are healthy when we understand and live according to good principles. This is true for our physical life and it is true for spiritual life. Maybe we need another word for ‘sin,’ or we need to understand better what is really meant with it.

Can our sins be forgiven? I am sure they can. But what about the mess we left behind? Is that mess cleaned up after we have been forgiven? Who is going to wipe out the trash from our world?

Jan 20, 2007

Arrogance is disturbance of the vertical axis

Image via Wikipedia

Adam & Eve, Russian Lubok woodcut 1792

In the beginning of the existence of man, there came about the evil nature of arrogance. Until today, this fallen nature makes that people and angels are causing disturbance of the vertical axis of the universe. Because there is the false nature of arrogance, the universe does not function as it should.

Lucifer was an angel and therefore put in the position of servant to Adam. When Lucifer put himself above Adam, the archangel was motivated by self-centered desires. Lucifer wanted to have a higher position than he really had, because he felt that to be like God would mean to have more power and therefore to get more satisfaction. Lucifer wanted to get the love that God has, but Lucifer did not want to make the same investment that God had made. Lucifer wanted to take, and not to give.

When you are arrogant, you are leaving your position. This means that you try to give yourself a higher position than you really deserve to have in God’s world.
But God’s order is perfect. The position that you got from God is the right position. So how can you justify to take a higher position than you deserve?
Only because you value higher that which is lower and you value lower that which is higher.

Adam was a higher creation than Lucifer was. Nevertheless, Lucifer was much more knowledgeable about God’s world of creation. Lucifer’s intellect, at the time that the archangel brought Adam and Eve to fall, was more developed than the intellect of Adam and Eve. Still, in God’s eyes, man is a higher creation than angels are. This is mainly because the heart of Adam and Eve, God’s children, is more developed than the heart of angels. The difference between man and angels on the level of intellect and feelings is not as big as is the difference on the level of heart.

Man is created as God’s children. Man is created to take responsibility for the entire creation, just like God Himself feels responsible for all that He created. Angels don’t feel responsible to have dominion over all of creation. Angels were created as specialists. Some angels are very good to perform one task, other angels are very good to perform other tasks. But no angel was ever created to have dominion over the whole cosmos.

Lucifer put himself above Adam, and by doing so, Lucifer wrongly introduced the false nature of arrogance, which means that someone in a lower position puts him- or herself in a higher position than someone who should take that higher position.

How does this happen?
This happens whenever you are putting something that takes a lower position on the vertical axis of the universe on a position too high on this axis. For example, people who value more their ability to perform actions with their physical body could be arrogant in relation to those people who have more intellectual abilities. This is the arrogance of people who have a strong body and feel that they should therefore dominate their surroundings.

Many people feel that they should be leaders in this world because they have a lot of money. This means that such people are very arrogant, because they put their ability to get money, to get creation, above the more elevated abilities of many other people.

When you think that because you have much knowledge, for example about the construction of buildings, or about how computers work, you might feel that you are at the top of the world. When you meet someone with deeper love for God, but maybe with lesser knowledge above construction or computers, you might be tempted to put yourself on a higher place than this person with deeper love for God. And then you are wrong, you are arrogant, and you disturb the order made by God.

Just like Lucifer put his intellectual and spiritual abilities above Adam’s love for God, so all arrogant people are putting something of lesser value in God’s world higher than what God finds more important.

Now you might think to solve the problem of arrogance by trying to act in a humble way. But that won’t solve your arrogance. When you are arrogant, then what you did wrong is that you failed to accept the order in God’s world. You might know how God’s order should be, and bow for people whom you think are standing higher, or admit in a so-called meek way that you know that you are a big sinner. But that doesn’t solve your arrogance at all.

All what you do is to play an act as if you are humble. You are trying to hide your arrogance for others and maybe also for yourself. In that way you do nothing to solve your fallen nature of arrogance.

What you have to do is to first of all go to God. You are God’s child. You are supposed to be object to God because you are God’s creation, you are God’s child. How can you be a child of God if you don’t speak to God, if you don’t love God. You have to begin with accepting the order in the way that God made it. In God’s vertical order, God stands on top, and therefore you first of all have to accept that God is your subject. You should not only accept God as your subject just as a way of philosophy, but you should do this in your personal relation to God. You should only act when God tells you to do so.

Most of all, what you should do to overcome your arrogance is that you must make your own heart in order.
When you committed a sin, than that sin was not first of all a sin of the intellect. You have a heart as most important aspect of your self. And when you sin, you first of all sin with your heart. All sins are first of all sins of the heart. All sins are first of all expressions of hatred against those whom should be loved by you. Each sin is in deepest essence a sin against God. Each sin means essentially that you gave pain to God. And to solve your sins should first of all mean that you solve the fact that you gave pain to God and to others.

When you are arrogant, you do give pain to God and you also give pain to those who are actually loving you and who are therefore, and only therefore, put higher in God’s order. You cannot solve your fallen nature of arrogance with knowledge about God’s principles. You have to change yourself on the level of heart. You have to really love God, which is only possible when you take the right position in relation to God. You have to really love those loved by God and therefore put above you in God’s order. And to love such people, you have to take the right position of loving those people as your subjects. Maybe your subjects of love are little children. But if those little children have more love for God than you have, should they not be respected for this by you? Or should you think that because of your cleverness in whatever field of life you should put yourself above them?

You might be able to dominate the ignorant pure Adams and Eves put above you in God’s world, but then you have to do this with your intellect, with your clever experience. You cannot do it with your original love, because if you would express real love you would love those put above you as your subjects. That is what you have to do to overcome your arrogance.

There are religions in the world where the highest leaders have much knowledge. There is nothing wrong with that if they would also have deepest love for God. Some of those religious leaders speak about love for God. From their intellect and with their mouths they speak about God’s love. But intellectual speaking about love is not love. Intellectual speaking about love while not practicing that love is actually arrogance.

To overcome your arrogance you have to practice and to fulfill the tasks that God has given to you. To do that, to fulfill your tasks entirely, that is demanding real love from you. Then you cannot speak from your knowledge, but you have to act from the bottom of your heart. It is in that way, that you can really learn to love God and overcome the fallen nature of arrogance.