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Often times, I have mentioned Minerva in my babbling
and rambling. I'm sure most folks understand that I'm referring
to some concept of a divinity. But, am I serious, or is it just
a figure of speech? I am serious, but I think the questions deserves
a more complete answer. The answer requires some background.
I have though a great deal about my own spirituality.
I think most other folks also think about their relationship with
the divinity. Everyone who is spiritual has some sense of God
and, when we get to talking about it, we find that we do not always
agree. The fundamentalists, of course, would like to force us
to agree; with them, of course! Most of the rest of us, who are
truly spiritual, have differing views of what the divinity is.
Given that, for the sake of peace, we must necessarily agree to
disagree.
For myself, I was raised in a Christian religious
tradition which emphasized faith over thought. I gradually drifted
away from that because I have this mind which refuses to shut
up and believe. The darn thing wants to understand. The other
thing I had a problem with is in communicating with God. I didn't
think I needed an agent to talk to the Divinity on my behalf.
After thinking about it, I concluded that
organized churches and their spokesmen are nothing more than middle
men and they just get in the way. Initially, at least in the Christian
tradition, J. C. sent his disciples out to spread the gospel.
Those who received the gospel were expected to live the faith.
There was no church, just the gospel. Somehow, somewhere in history,
a church came about. Then came Luther with his reformation, and
his action spawned a variety pack of different sects.
Now, I think, in some cases, the current crop
of Gospeliers spread mostly manure. Bible thumpers seem to get
confused about the relationship between God, us, and themselves.
You can often hear them say things like my flock, or my parish,
or my church. Heavens! How arrogant can we get. It's God's flock
and God's church you silly, pompous turds.
I have read parts of the Christian bible and
I don't see anything in those Scriptures which makes the Pope
or any other holy man my agent. In addition, I have a deep mistrust
of people who claim they can intercede on my behalf, be it a union
steward, a literary agent, or a priest. As far as I can see, agents
just take a slice of the pie without contributing much of anything.
I think if I was going to become part of some
formal structure in my relationship to God, I would become a Jew.
The Jews, to my knowledge, are the only group who seem to understand
that they can talk directly to the Big Guy. They can also talk
to a Rabbi but that does not seem to be requisite to being a Jew.
As to my current view, I have come gradually
to this theory about the divinity. It is some kind of huge undefinable
entity existing somewhere outside of time and space to which we
are all connected. Some of us are aware of it, some are not. Some
of us don't care. Some of us have such messed up connecting software
that we only get bits and pieces and we don't even know where
they came from. Some of us can sometimes access it, some cannot
access it at all, and none of us knows the nature of it. I like
to think of it as some sort of huge database server containing
all knowledge, wisdom, and power.
From my own thinking and limited experience,
I believe it is an infinite source of all information, past, present
and future. It is an infinite force which we can use. And, a really
scary part is that our ability to access it does not seem to have
much to do with our personal morality. It only seems to require
some form of discipline. Whether that discipline is, of itself,
a form of morality, I know not.
I think one confusion about the nature of
God is that, like any really well designed system, it allows us
to have our own view of the totality. Of course, many of us will
mistake that view for the totality of it. We don't seem to realize
that it is just a view which we created. To be sure, our view
is valid as far as it goes and all other views are valid as well,
but limited.
It is rather stupid to have fights and wars
over different views and appreciations of the same thing. God,
Yahweh, Buddha, Mohammed, Krishna, whatever. Yahweh is nothing
more than a culturally created view of the totality. He is, in
fact, a designer God. All are just different views of the same
totality. None of us knows the totality. We probably never will.
But we can access it.
Understand that I present this only as a theory.
It is totally unprovable, so far as I know. The only beauty of
this theory of God is that it resolves or accounts for all the
known facts and experiences. Nothing, and no one, is excluded.
This is the only theory I know of that includes it all.
I could now figure out a string of logic which
would show how I came to this theory of The Big Server. That would
be baloney. The fact is, this idea just popped into my head. Now
that I have it as a theory I could go backwards and construct
a string of logic from what I know and knew. The only usefulness
of backward logic is that I can say I now have a theory which
accounts for all known information.
Out of this theory, I created my own view
of the divinity, to which I can relate. If the Hebrews and Luther
can create their own cultural designer Gods, why can't I do the
same? Although, I believe the divinity is without gender, my view
is feminine. I call her Minerva. There is some historical justification
to that view. Historically, she is the goddess of wisdom, the
goddess of invention, the goddess of the arts, and also martial
prowess. It may be my imagination, but I have had some successful
communication with this view of the divinity. I have learned things
and actually seen some future events.
I understand that we ought to be careful about
creating our own personal views of this totality. They will be
necessarily limited by our own limitations. We must grant it infiniteness
and just deal with that, even if it frightens us. That Minerva
is infinite means that I can continue to learn from and about
her while I are trying to connect to her.
Although I have done so , I believe it is
not really necessary to create a particular view. It is enough
to create coherent, consistent tools for connecting to her. Then
the view can evolve from the reality like a giant puzzle but with
no limiting boundaries. There's that shiver of fear again! From
my experience and observation, the tools that seem to work best
are meditation, prayer, introspection, and psychotherapy. All
those kind of things seem to help me connect to her. I think what
I need to do now is figure out a consistent method which is not
mystically based. I know shouting does not work. I get a quick
disconnect when I do that.
As to morality, We seem to have a great deal
of confusion about the morality of the divinity. So far as I can
tell, the divinity is not a moral arbitrator or force. Neither
is she on anyone's side. We can use her whether we are moral or
not. she is available and accessible to anyone who has the patience,
discipline, and will to open to her. Thus, our morality must depend
on us and not upon Minerva. Perhaps this is what we mean by free
will. We don't have to obey Minerva. I don't know; perhaps, she
has to obey us.
One thing is clear. We can be evil if we choose.
However, when we choose to be evil, we are simply destroying ourselves.
When we damage or destroy parts of the totality we are destroying
our own source of information, wisdom, strength and power.
We can probably say that it's a sin to harm
another entity because it's connected to the totality as we are.
In a sense then, if we harm another entity we harm ourselves because
we diminish the totality of which we seem to be a part. This appears
to be true, by the way, whether we do the damage deliberately
or inadvertently. Perhaps that is the only sin; to do harm to
another living being. This would include, of course, doing harm
to ourselves. So hurting other beings is, after all, rather stupid.
We shouldn't ought to do that. We should just be simpletons and
open to Minerva.
I think everyone has done things which they
regret. I have for sure. Thus, one of my major reasons for trying
to connect to the divinity is to draw on that infinite power to
heal my own soul. This requires, of course, being able to forgive
myself. As far as I can tell, I'm the only holdout. Everyone else
who has been harmed by me has forgiven me long ago. Looking back
on things, I understand that I can never repair or make up for
the harm I did. It's done. The only salve I can ever have will
come from letting go of it and forgiving myself.
Now I come to the strange part. This is the
gospel according to Minerva. It seems, in order to be empowered
to forgive myself, I must sincerely and systematically forgive
everyone who has done me ill. That's the rub. I can't forgive
myself until I let them off the hook. Thus, one of my main reasons
for opening to Minerva is to open my own heart. Only then can
I heal my soul. Only then can I have it all.
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