“We must be willing to make the daring decision to choose God—in a brand new way, in a way we may never have done before—or not to.”   …Neale Donald Walsch

I sometimes wonder what the typical answer would be to the question, do you believe in God, if it were asked to a group of people? There’s no doubt that many different answers would be given. Even so, I believe the majority would answer something similar to: Why yes! Sure I believe in God! There has to be something more than this – Yes, I believe in God. 

But I still wonder. I wonder how many of those who are quick to say they believe in God really do believe. If a person believes in God, would it not follow that he or she also believes that God is the Creator of all things, including him or her?

And other questions jump and frolick in my mind, namely; would God create anything that isn’t perfect, pure and whole? Are God and LOVE not synonymous; are they not one and the same thing? If God created you and me would He place us in a world of misery, negativity, war, sickness, suffering and death?  And if so, then what kind of a god is he; for he’s sure not a God of LOVE. 

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty…”     …Albert Einstein

Is it any wonder why Albert Einstein couldn’t imagine a god such as this? I’m no Einstein, but there’s no way that I can accept that a God of LOVE would place His creations in a world of misery, negativity, war, sickness, suffering and death?

Not only that, but many millions of people believe there’s something worse than this awaiting those who don’t live just right during this experience we erroneously refer to as life when it’s over. Or, at least, we have to wait until it’s over to find something better.

I often wonder how people can reconcile the belief that God is a God of LOVE, who loves His Creations with an unimaginable Love and yet can sit idly by and watch them live their so-called lives in a world such as this. For it matters not how you perceive this world it is as Jesus Himself describes it in The Course, an insane world, and he went on to say, do not underestimate the actual extent of its insanity.

“We must give ourselves permission to raise questions about our most sacred beliefs regarding life—and even regarding God”   …Neale Donald Walsch

The first belief we should give ourselves permission to raise questions about is the idea God created us as bodies of clay and placed us in a world of misery, negativity, war, sickness, suffering and death. 

It just ain’t so, as they say. And neither is the god that the creation myth portrays. As I keep repeating throughout these posts, when God created you He made you part of Him, and He is not a body of clay dwelling in a world of misery, negativity, war, sickness suffering and death — and neither are you.

“…I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”   …Zhuangzi

The following paragraph — which I have included here simply to present a bit of background to the above quote — is taken from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“According to the Chinese philosophical classic Zhuangzi, the great Daoist thinker of that name fell asleep one day and dreamed that he was a butterfly. When he woke up, he did not know whether he really was a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly or whether he was a butterfly now dreaming he was a man.”

I know very little about Zhuangzi, except that I have heard the above quote many times throughout my lifetime. The first time was from the late, great, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. It’s one of those quotes that resonated with me, and therefore, I have always remembered it. I decided to use it in this post because it reminds me of the predicament we humans find ourselves in. According to the legend, Zhuangzi didn’t know what he was; he wasn’t sure if he was a man or a butterfly.

“Nothing at all has happened but that you have put yourself to sleep and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself and but a part of someone else’s dream.”   …ACIM

Throughout history God-realized Beings such as Jesus, Buddha, Lao-Tzu, Krishna, Muhammad and many others, including many in modern times, have understood and taught that this experience we refer to as life is nothing but a dream.

Because it is a dream is the reason we don’t know who we are, where we are, why we’re here, where we came from, where we’re going nor what awaits us when it’s over. But that being said, there is hope for those who can accept the idea and realize it is a dream.

If it is a dream – and it is – then it shouldn’t take a whole lot of understanding to realize that the dreamer’s part in it, like all of it, is not real. But nothing can be realized, believed nor understood without acceptance. Unless we can come to the understanding that it is a dream, and then accept it as such, we’ll keep on experiencing the same type of dreams over and over and over again.

“A dream is like a memory in that it pictures what you wanted shown to you”    …ACIM

In the second quote above we are given the reason for every negative condition we imagine ourselves to be in: You have put yourself to sleep and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself and but a part of someone else’s dream.

In the above quote we’re told that what we wanted is shown to us in our dreams. And now these questions arise: What is it we wanted and who is this someone else of whose dream we have made ourselves a part of?

Let’s look at the first question first; what is it we wanted? What we wanted could never be, it was something our Father could not give. Which is why we used the mighty Power of Creation that we’re endowed with, to put ourselves to sleep and dream it happened. We wanted – or thought we wanted until it seemed to happen – separation. We wanted to be on our own, as the saying goes. We wanted to be separated from God, which is an impossibility, for nothing can be separate from Him and still exist.

What we wanted is being shown to us every day in every aspect of our so-called lives. Every moment of time shows us exactly what it would be like if it were possible to be separated from God. I think most of us will rejoice as we learn to accept Jesus’ words, nothing at all has happened.

And now let’s see if there’s an answer to the second question; who is this someone else of whose dream we have made ourselves a part of? When God created you He made you part of Him, and part of Him cannot be broken off and separated. Therefore, you could never be separated from your Self, and take part in your own dream except in illusions. And if it’s a dream then what else can it be except an illusion?

The world you see, along with everything and everyone in it is an illusion, which is being dreamed by yourself. The someone else of whose dream we have made ourselves a part of doesn’t exist. We perceive ourselves as being in a world we believe to be real. We don’t know we’re dreaming the whole thing, and therefore see ourselves as being at its mercy with no control of our own.

The Ultimate Choice

There’s only ever one choice to be made although in this world of illusions there seems to be a myriad of them. The only real choice that can ever be made is between the thought system of LOVE and that of fear.

But the ultimate choice to be made in a world where there seems to be a myriad of them it to make the choice to accept that this world is nothing but a dream, and most importantly, YOU ARE THE DREAMER. For if you are the dreamer then you can awaken from the dream. But if someone else is doing the dreaming you cannot awaken from it.

I’m going to close this post with a quote from A Course in Miracles which verifies this: “No one can waken from a dream the world is dreaming for him. He becomes a part of someone else’s dream. He cannot choose to waken from a dream he did not make. Helpless he stands, a victim to a dream conceived and cherished by a separate mind.”

 

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“Identify with love, and you are safe. Identify with love, and you are home. Identify with love, and find your Self.”   …ACIM

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