At one point, religion and politics were one and the same. The priests were also the doctors, the psychologists, the judges, the rulers and the lawmakers, all rolled into one. Religion is a means of social control based on a supreme being and stories of reward and punishment, heaven and hell. Tools religions use to control are: laws, threats. fear, blame, shame, guilt, anger, sorrow, belief, superstition, rites, rituals, and so on.
Scriptures themselves are not religions. They are descriptions — as much as words can accomplish — of a state of union with God. This state is something we have all touched upon. It is our golden moment. It is intimate, honest, and touches us profoundly. It takes us through and out of the chaotic matrix that surrounds and envelops us so that we can return to where we were when we were created, to pure peace and the awareness of Oneness. Even a moment of that experience touches us deeply. It’s the ultimate inside job.
Scriptures contradict and correct a lot of superstitious religious concepts and fill in some blanks in our understanding of how things work. And all scriptures are in agreement in the essential areas. “God is love” and the angry, punishing “god” who demands blood, is exposed like the little man behind the curtain in the land of Oz.
In the “Introduction” to A Course In Miracles it says,
Nothing Real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
The course encourages us to hang on very tightly to what is Real and to release anything less. Love is Real and eternal, it says. Fear is an expression of forgetting love.
The bible says “God is Love.” ACIM expounds on that, “You have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered by the eternal to the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it increases as it is given. The other has many forms.”
Other than “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” the other most significant things Jesus may have said were, “Love one another,” “Judge not,” “Forgive,” and “Fear not.”
Christianity leans heavily on the idea of love, almost as if it is a duty or a chore, and a sin to not be good. But the masters do not send their disciples into the fray empty handed. We need a heart full of love to accomplish those lofty goals. We cannot extend unconditional love without knowing how to dip into the source of love itself.
We are very powerful spiritual beings. Nothing can harm who and what we truly are. We need not fear. And this is where the course touches on the subject of Knowledge. Knowledge, it says, is beyond its scope, for Knowledge is the lab after the lecture. Knowledge is where we meet what all scriptures call “God.”
God is light; energy can be seen as light. God is the vibration of life; energy can be felt as a pure vibration that fuels all life. God is what everything and everyone, everywhere is made of. God is immortal; energy had no beginning and will have no end. Both God and energy are omnipresent and omnipotent, without which there is no consciousness.
We learn and parrot, “And God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness”, “God is Light”, “God is Love” “Our Father” and so on, but we do not realize the full implication of those words. The course tries to explain them from many different directions. It is relentless in its effort to help us distinguish between what is Real and unreal, so that we will choose the One and take the other lightly. And we will know. In the ACIM Text, Chapter 18, it says,
“This course will lead to Knowledge,
but Knowledge itself is still beyond
the scope of our curriculum.”
Read my book on the subject of Knowledge: Knowledge, The Essence of World Scriptures. Knowledge is a gift, a set of tools that you can use to dig the gold mine in your heart. What you find there, in your heart of hearts, is the most beautiful thing you will ever see. It is familiar. It is your original home. Knowing how to go home even while you are having a human experience, is your birthright.
“The peace of God is shining in you now.”
All that is needed to receive the gift of Knowledge is a sincere desire to know the Truth. We are designed to know God, to live with God, to walk with God every day.