Spiritual Atheism.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
I have been on a spiritual quest for years and have moved from organized religion to a place that is kind of a combination of Buddhist philosophy and atheism. I meditate and practice yoga and these are an integral part of my daily life. I know there are many people who would say they no longer are a part of an organized religion or do not even believe in God in the traditional sense yet they do seem to believe in a "Source" or "the Universe" or "the One". I really hate to say this but…I don't get it. Isn't a believe in one of these still a belief in a supernatural power ie "the Divine"? Isn't this just a different slant on believing in "God"? I respect the beliefs that people have and am not trying to criticize. I'm just trying to understand how, why or what gets people to this point? If one "sends their intentions into the Universe" what do they think the Universe is? Again, I'm not trying to be critical, just trying to get my head around this. Thank you so much for any insight you can provide.
Response:
When people say they no longer follow traditional religion but still believe in a universal source underlying all existence, they are not speaking of a physical source of the universe. They mean the basis of their own physical existence as well as the basis of everything in the universe shares a unified source. That doesn’t make it anymore supernatural than our own non-material existence. There very fact that you conceive or experience a ‘you’ inside that wrote this email to me, means that you implicitly believe in your own non-physical existence. That doesn’t mean you believe in a personal Deity. And if they believe that the universe responds to their thoughts, that doesn’t mean it is a who that has to respond. Thoughts are activity from our mind, the subtle aspect of our nature, and it is not unreasonable that that activity would have a reaction from the corresponding subtle level of nature in our environment.
Love,
Deepak
Perhaps "essence" or " univsersal ether" is the best way to describe it. Jesus spoke of the visible and the invisible worlds, both very real. In our physical form, we grapple with the invisble, since we cannot see it, and our world and society is based on what we can see, however, it is there and we have our emotional guidance system to guide us with it instead.
Perhaps it`s helpful to consider that words such as "God", "Allah", "Yahweh", "Source", "Supreme", etc. are simply signposts, like signs on a highway. That is, all these words point to the same Reality (there`s another one of those words!). That Reality is beyond the illusion of time and space, and yet that Reality is directly knowable without being describable. It is not the mind that knows this Reality, of course, for the mind cannot know what is beyond consciousness itself. God, the Supreme, (insert the word you like most), etc. is nothing perceivable or imaginable. It certainly cannot be defined, though the mind would love to do so. It is the Supreme that Knows itself. The only way to Know what stands beyond time and space is to Be beyond time and space. That we can Know the Supreme can only mean that we Are the Supreme. Would love to hear others` thoughts on this, regardless of whether we agree. I don`t take my own opinion too seriously!
There are definitely forces and influences at work that we do not yet understand, and religion is the closest explanation available to us that addresses the many questions we have concerning where we come from, where we are going, and why we are here. All of nature that we understand, JUST IS, and seems neither malevolent nor compassionate. Religion has not held integrity in it`s history and seems, to those who question, more superstitious than reassuring in its perceptions. Religion requires a faith in the unseen that allows no questioning. For the more rational minded, forbidden questions does not inspire faith. Science is far from answering these prevalent questions, but there are insights into the possibilities revealed often enough to validate the pursuit.