9 characteristics of tomorrow's god

1. Tomorrow's God does not require anyone to believe in God.

2. Tomorrow's God is without gender, size, shape, color, or any of the characteristics of an individual living being.

3. Tomorrow's God talks with everyone, all the time.

4. Tomorrow's God is separate from nothing, but is Everywhere Present, the All In All, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Sum Total of Everything that ever was, is now, and ever shall be.

5. Tomorrow's God is not a singular Super Being, but the extraordinary process called Life.

6. Tomorrow's God is ever changing.

7. Tomorrow’s God is needless.

8. Tomorrow’s God does not ask to be served, but is the Servant of all of Life.

9. Tomorrow’s God will be unconditionally loving, nonjudgmental, non-condemning, and non-punishing.

thanksgiving

Let us rise up and be thankful;

for if we didn't learn a lot today,

at least we learned a little,

and if we didn't learn a little,

at least we didn't get sick,

and if we got sick,

at least we didn't die;

so, let us all be thankful.

-buddha

endless gifts

If you just look at all that already exists in your life,

all that youalready have:

unlimited air to breathe,

ample lighting to see,

music tohear,

books to read,

stars to dream by,

trees to gaze at,

floors to dance on,

friends to cavort with,

enemies to befriend,

strangers to meet,

woods to walk through,

beaches to comb,

rocks to scale,

rains to cleanse you,

rivers to float you,

animals to comfort you,

you do have toadmit,

there's more of it than you could ever, ever, ever spend.

how do i pray?

Dear God,

who resides in me as me and works through me in every moment of my life,

help me to be more like Jesus,

and like all the saints and sages and spiritual masters who have come before me. Bring me the gentleness of Buddha,

the conviction of Moses,

the love of Jesus,

the strength of Muhammad,

the awareness of Baha 'U'Allah.

Shower me with the insights of the Q'uran,

of the Bible,

of the Upanishads,

of all Sacred Scriptures of all religions.

Bring me the wisdom and the insight --

but, mostly, the love and compassion,

the caring and the gentle kindness --

that all spiritual teachings invite us to experience in, as, and through ourselves.

This I ask in the name of all that is good and holy and divine.

Amen, and amen.

death penalty

The death penalty is a prime example of insanity. It is the use of force to end the use of force. It is the use of intentional killing to demonstrate that killing is wrong, and punish a person for it.

No problem can be solved with the same energy that created it. You can't end hatred with hatred. You can't stop anger with anger. You can't bring a halt to the hurting of others with the hurting of others. There is a certain immutable logic to this that cannot be denied.
Unless it can.

Where does one's spirituality fit into all of this?

Does God really want us to kill each other to stop each other from killing each other?

Is this what God wants?

inspired by Neale

what religions have taught us

GOD
Many humans have been told that What God Wants is for humans to understand that God is the Supreme Being, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Giver of Life, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Wise Beyond Human Understanding.

God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the Unmoved Mover, separate from humanity, but the creator of it in His own image. Separate from life, but the Creator of it, as His gift to humanity.

Most humans have been told that God is a single God, a unified God, the Only God there is. The word Allah means, literally, the God. Some humans have been told that this One God is divided into Three Parts, one of which became human. Some humans have been told that there is more than one God. And some humans have been told that there is no God at all. The majority of humans in the Twenty-First Century believe in a God of some sort.

Most of those who do believe in God have been told that What God Wants is Love and Justice. To fulfill the first mandate, God has granted each human being ample and repeated opportunity to be reconciled with Him.

To fulfill the second mandate, God, at the end of each human life, sits in Judgment of every human soul, deciding at this Reckoning whether the soul has earned everlasting reward in Heaven or everlasting damnation in Hell.

Most humans have been told that God is a jealous God, God is a vengeful God, God is an angry God who can be filled with wrath and who uses violence directly on human beings—and who invites and even commands human beings to do so on each other.

They’ve also been told that God is a caring God, a compassionate God, a merciful God, a loving God who wants nothing but the best for human beings. All that humans have to do is obey Him. It’s easy for humans to know how to obey God because God has told humans exactly what to do and what not to do. It’s all there in Sacred Scripture. It can be found also in the words and in the teaching of God’s personal representative on earth.

These are the beliefs of much of humanity.

One result of this teaching: Many human beings are afraid of God. They also love God. So, many humans confuse fear and love, seeing them as connected in some way. Where God is concerned, we love to be afraid (we have made it a virtue to be “God fearing”), and we are afraid not to love (we are commanded to “Love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, all thy heart, and all thy soul”).

Humans fear what God will do to them if they do not obey Him. They have been told He will punish them with everlasting torment. Many human beings therefore rely heavily on their understanding of God’s word and God’s desires and what meets God’s approval when regulating their lives, interpreting situations or events, and making decisions.

Earlier it was said, “Humanity’s ideas about God produce humanity’s ideas about life and about people.”

This is painfully clear. This is painfully obvious.

GOD’S WORD AND GOD’S MESSENGER
Many humans have been told that What God Wants is for God’s Word to be recognized as being contained in the Holy Scriptures and Sacred Texts, and for God’s Messenger to be honored and listened to and followed.

There are many Holy Scriptures and Sacred Texts, including the Adi Granth, the Bhagavad-gita, the Book of Mormon, the Hadith, the I Ching, the Kojiki, the Lun-yü, the Mahabharata, the Mathnawi, the New Testament, the Pali Canon, the Qur’an, the Tao-te Ching, the Talmud, the Torah, the Upanishad, the Veda, and the Yoga-sutras, to name a few.

Many humans have been told that only one of these texts is the right one. The rest are wrong. If you choose the teachings of the “wrong” one, you’ll go to hell.

There are many Messengers, including...
...Noah, Abraham, Moses, Confucius, Siddartha Gautama (who has been called The Buddha), Jesus of Nazareth (who has been called The Savior), Muhammad (who has been called The Greatest Prophet), Patanjai (who has been called The Enlightened One), Baha’u’llah (who has been called the Blessed One), Jalal al-Din Rumi, (who has been called the Mystic), Paramahansa Yogananda (who has been called the Master), Joseph Smith (who has been called many things), and others.

Many humans have been told that only one of these messengers is the right one. The rest are wrong. If you choose the message of the “wrong” one, you’ll go to hell.

One result of this teaching: Human beings have been trying to figure out which is the right text and who is the right messenger for thousands of years. The followers of certain messengers and the believers in certain texts have sought to convince the rest of the world that the messenger and text of their persuasion is the only one to which people should turn.

On many occasions throughout history these attempts at conversion have turned violent. There has scarcely been a day on this planet when a battle has not been fought or a human being not killed in the name of God, or for God’s Cause.

The Holy Scriptures of all major religions indicate that vanquishing, punishing and killing is something that God Himself has repeatedly done, and so vanquishing, punishing and killing in God’s name and in the name of God’s Messenger is acceptable and, in some circumstances, required.

This is, many of the world’s people believe, What God Wants.

HEAVEN AND HELL
Many humans have been told that What God Wants is for people to live good lives, and for good people to go to Heaven or Paradise after their deaths, while bad people go to Hell, Gehenna, or Hades. Those in Heaven will live in unending bliss in reunion with God and those in Hell will live with other evildoers who have been damned to eternal torture. Where each individual soul goes will be decided at the Reckoning on Judgment Day.

Some humans have been told that hell is a temporary experience during which sinners are tormented by demons until the debt created by the evil of their lives has been paid, while others have been informed that hell is but a phase in a soul’s journey as it passes through many experiences of reincarnation.

One result of this teaching: Millions of people have structured their entire lives around the struggle to avoid “going to hell” and around the hope of “getting to heaven.” They have done extraordinary and sometimes shocking things to produce this outcome.

The concept of heaven and hell has shaped not only their behavior, but their entire understanding of life itself. It has also shaped human history.

LIFE
Many humans have been told that What God Wants is for life to be a school, a place of learning, a time of testing, a brief and precious opportunity to migrate the soul back to heaven, back to God, whence it came.

Many humans have also been told that it’s when life ends that the real joy begins. All of life should be considered a prelude, a forerunner, a platform upon which is built the soul’s experience of eternity. Life should therefore be led with an eye toward the Afterlife, for what is earned now will be experienced forever.

Most humans also believe that What God Wants is for people to understand that life consists of what people can see, hear, taste, touch and smell—and nothing more.

One result of this teaching: Humans believe that life is not easy, nor is it supposed to be. It’s a constant struggle. In this struggle, anything other than what is perceived by the five senses is considered “supernatural” or “occult” and false, therefore, into the category of “trafficking with the Devil” and “the work of Satan.”

Humans are struggling to get back to God, and into God’s good graces. They are struggling to get back home. This is what life is about. It’s about the struggle of the soul, living within the body, to get back home, to return to God, from Whom it has been separated.

Most people of religious persuasion focus heavily on Heaven and Hell. Those who believe that “getting to Heaven” is the ultimate Purpose of Life, and who truly and fervently believe that they can guarantee their entrance into Heaven by doing certain things while on earth, will, of course, seek to do those things.

They’ll make sure that their sins are confessed regularly, and that their absolutions are up to date, so that if they die suddenly their soul will be ready for Judgment Day. They’ll fast for hours, days, or weeks at a time, travel on pilgrimages to distant holy places, go to church or temple or mosque or synagogue every week without fail, tithe 10% of their income, eat or not eat certain foods, wear or not wear certain clothing, say or not say certain words, and engage in all manner of rites and rituals.

They’ll obey the rules of their religion, honor the customs of their faith tradition, and follow the instructions of their spiritual leaders in order to demonstrate to God that they are a worthy person, so that a place will be reserved for them in Paradise.

If they are distressed enough and oppressed enough and unhappy enough, some humans will even end their own lives and kill other people—including the totally innocent and the absolutely unsuspecting—for the promise of a reward in heaven. (If that promised reward happens to be 72 black-eyed virgins with whom to spend all of eternity, and if the humans in question happen to be 18 to 30-year-old men with little future and a dust-laden, poverty stricken, injustice-filled present, the chances of their making such an extraordinarily destructive decision will increase tenfold.)
They’ll do this because they believe this is What God Wants.

But is it?

reposted from Neale's blog

5 attitudes of God

When I was a child I had a deep fascination with God.

What was He like, I wondered?

Where did He live?

I know now that my ideas about God as a man living somewhere in the sky were the products of my childhood upbringing in a Roman Catholic family.

I know that God is not limited to being a "he" or a "she," but that God shows up in every form in which Life Itself displays itself.
Still, I hold onto this idea that there are some attributes of God.

I ask myself sometimes,

if God chose to show up as a human being, what would that be like?

What kind of personality would God have?

"In the moment of your total knowing (which moment could come upon you at any time), you, too, will feel as I do always," God said to me.

And what way is that?

Said God: "totally joyful, loving, accepting, blessing and grateful."

This is the way the soul always feels as well. That is because the soul of humans and the essence of God is one and the same thing. So our soul is always totally joyful, loving, accepting, blessing and grateful. The trick is to bring our body and our mind into alignment with that deep inner nature of our being.

The soul is always joyful because...

...Joy is what the soul (and what God) IS. God IS that which we would call, for lack of a more technical or clinical description, "pure joy." Ultimate happiness. Or what some Eastern mystics have call "bliss."

Because the soul is always in a state of bliss, or pure joy, it is always loving. As is God. God loving everything, because God is so excited with Itself! There is nothing that exists outside of God, nothing that is "not God," and so, everything that God is happy about and excited about exists within God -- and precisely because it does exist within God, God is happy about it! And so, God is eternally loving. God is loving everything about Life, because God is Life Itself, expressing.

If you were totally joyful all of the time, you, too, would be totally loving. There is no way you could not be. Yes, you might say, but how can anyone be totally joyful all of the time? Look at the world around us. The trick is to see the world as it is -- as it really is -- and not as it appears to be. This is how God sees the world, and so God is always totally joyful, and that causes God to be totally loving.
Because God is totally loving, God is totally accepting -- for pure love is the rejection of nothing. Pure love is unconditional. In fact, all love is unconditional. Anything less than that is not love, but some counterfeit version of that.

Because love is unconditional, it accept everything. It does this by making no value judgments whatsoever. It does not call one thing "good" and another thing "bad." A thing simply "is." Where we get into trouble in our lives is by attaching goodness to badness to a thing. We make value judgments, and those judgments create enormous difficulty for many reasons -- not the least of which is that we keep changing them. One day we call a thing "good" and the next day we call the very same thing "bad," depending on whether the thing we are judging serves our purposes or not.

Let me give you a simple example.

Rain.

One day we call rain good, the next day we call it bad. It all depends on whether it's raining on our crop or raining on our parade.

Killing is another example. We think we have an absolute Right and an absolute Wrong around this, but the truth is, we can't make up our mind until we know and understand what the killing is for. Killing in self-defence, as an example, may not be called "good," but most people and societies agree that it is not "bad." So we find a third word. It may be, we say, "necessary." That means it is required in order for us to do what it is we want to do. It is because of this reasoning that we call all attack a "defense." In this way, we can morally justify it. Yet what if nothing in the world had to be morally justified? This is the State in which God lives. Because God does not feel the need to morally justify (or condemn) anything, God can be totally accepting. But how can God be in such a place? Easy. Since God is the All in All, nothing can hurt, damage or destroy God. And since nothing can hurt, damage or destroy God, God has no need to judge it. Therefore, in the experience of God, a thing simply "is." So, too, is it in the experience of Godliness. If we truly want the experience of what it is to be Godly, we will begin by removing our judgments from everything. The only way to escape our judgments is to escape our illusions. Once we become, as God is, totally accepting, we move to the next level of Godliness, which is to become totally blessing. This is where God resides all of the time. God not only accepts what "is" in every single moment, God blesses it.

To bless something means to give it your best energy. Your highest thought. Your grandest wish. You send a thing good energy when you bless it -- and this is something physical that you are doing, not merely something conceptual or philosophical. Life energy can be moved around, manipulated, and we do this all the time with our thoughts. We also do it with our words and actions. Thought, word and action are the Three Tools of Creation. With these devices we create, and co-create with others, our individual and collective experience. We are literally producing the world around us.

That is why The New Revelations says that all behavior begins with beliefs -- and that it is beliefs we must change if we really want to change the world. Interestingly, no one who says they want to change the world -- international political leaders and worldwide religious leaders -- talks very much in these terms. Political leaders don't talk about beliefs at all, and religious leaders talk in terms of other people changing their beliefs, but insist that they, themselves, have all the right beliefs. Then they deny that this is precisely what causes the world to be such a dangerous place.
Now the true Master blesses all of this, she does not condemn it. And in so doing, the true Master transforms it, for the impact of his blessing energy shifts the energy of the condition itself. That is why blessing, and never condemning, is the greatest spiritual secret.

It is why all Masters have said, each in their own way and their own words, "judge not, and neither condemn. For that which you judge, judges you, and that which you condemn, condemns you, and that which you bless, blesses you."



Finally, God is always totally grateful, for thankfulness is the experience of God recognizing Itself. To recognize means to "re-cognize," that is, to "know again." When God knows Itself again (which God does in every single golden moment of Now), God once again becomes joyful and the glorious Cycle of Life which is Life Itself continues, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.


These are the Five Attitudes of God, and they are the five attributes of the human soul.



When we allow these characteristics to fill our minds and our hearts, we become Godly. Our whole lives change, as do the lives of those around us. For life around us cannot help but change when we fill it with God Stuff. And Joy, Love, Acceptance, Blessing, and Gratitude is God Stuff indeed.


The wonderful thing about these Five Attitudes of Godliness is not only that one produces and creates another, but that they can be run in reverse. That is, one start with Gratitude just as easily as one can start with Joy. Either way, if the feeling is fully expressed the first domino falls, and all the rest follow.

I have tried to overlay these Five Attitudes of God on my daily life. For me it is sometimes easier to begin with Gratitude. Sometimes when I first wake up, or during my day when I encounter some very unwelcome news or moment, it is hard for me to "get into joy." I just can't seem to go there, no matter how much I try. But Gratitude for me has been a real key. I can move into Gratitude, even for moments or events that I do not particularly welcome, because I know that all things lead to my highest good.

Nothing that happens in my life happens without good purpose. Everything is perfect, and when I can "see the perfection", I see the hand of God, and I know that there is a higher reason and that all things are good and that everything is bringing me to my highest expression of Who I Really Am.

We are all Celestial Scientists, creating something utterly magnificent in the laboratory called Life. We are creating our Selves. And there is no way we can wrongly do that. Nor is there any way that we cannot ultimately get to where we wish to go -- which is back to total union with All That Is. That is, back home to God.

When we know this, when we deeply believe it and completely embrace it, we find the grace to move through our lives -- and any moment in our lives -- with joy, love, acceptance, blessings, and gratitude.

And when we do that, we change our lives and change the lives of those whose lives we touch. And in this, we truly change the world.

neale's blog

cwg

woman

If you kiss her, you are not a gentleman

If you don't, you are not a man

If you praise her, she thinks you are lying

If you don't, you are good for nothing

If you agree to all her likes, you are a wimp

If you don't, you are not understanding

If you visit her often, she thinks it is boring

If you don't, she accuses you of double-crossing

If you are well dressed, she says you are a playboy

If you don't, you are a dull boy

If you are jealous, she says it's bad

If you don't, she thinks you do not love her

If you attempt a romance, she says you didn't respect her

If you don't, she thinks you do not like her

If you are a minute late, she complains it's hard to wait

If she is late, she says that's a girl's way

If you visit another man, you're not putting in "quality time"

If she is visited by another woman, "oh it's natural, we are girls"

If you kiss her once in a while, she professes you are cold

If you kiss her often, she yells that you are taking advantage

If you fail to help her in crossing the street, you lack ethics

If you do, she thinks it's just one of men's tactics for seduction

She is a woman

If you stare at another woman, she accuses you of flirting

If she is stared by other men, she says that they are just admiring

If you talk, she wants you to listen

If you listen, she wants you to talk

In short:

So simple, yet so complex

So weak, yet so powerful

So damning, yet so wonderful

So confusing, yet so desirable