aeternus0

I have been struggling with the concept of God ever since I became old enough to question what I had been taught not to. I found it eventually becomes impossible to question God without undermining virtually all the other fundamentals of existence - Life and Death especially. How can one reject God without rejecting those things too, or at least changing them beyond recognition?

When it got right down to it, it was fear of Death, or of ceasing to exist altogether that made it so hard to let go of God and truly let myself explore all the possibilities. Although far from finished, this exploration has led me to some interesting thoughts.

The word "God", I believe, is what must be abandoned, for it implies a conscious, personal being living in some alternate dimension. Why must this be the case? Does the source of all this energy, the driving force behind the universe, need to be sentient? Can not the very majesty of this natural world be taken as the creative force in and of itself, the womb of all Life?

We are not separate from the universe, we are an intrisic PART of it, the embodyment of creation. Of course, if our lives are thought of as distinct, fleeting shells of nothing but our own egos, we are bound to be driven to seek out eternal Life and to fear Death in every form, because Death, we think, is the END.

Death is not the end - we are fleeting, but we are nonetheless manifestations of what is already eternal, the incredible universe that is all around us and permeates EVERY SINGLE THING. The illusion that we are separate from this eternal flow is the only real Hell.

The world is transient, constantly changing. The sun rises, the seasons pass, the moon grows, then shrinks, the mountains rise, then fall ... friends leave, relationships change, the very stars above us shift, and the sun sets. When our physical bodies stop functioning; when our heart ceases its beat and our brains die ... this is just another change. And, just as the sun is never destroyed when it sets, we are not gone, but simply merged back into ... well ... EVERYTHING.

We are so much more than what we have. Think about it - we say MY body, MY mind, even MY soul. We possess those aspects of ourselves, but should never let them define us, or else we risk losing touch with the reality our true selves.