Dear Universe
I have always referred to you as universe, as the word given to you by humans is one of the most divisive words in humanity today. GOD. Just as the Gay population have stolen the rainbow and the word Gay, it would seem that religion has stolen the word God. As a result I find myself having to refer to you as the Universe, in order to avoid being put into a religious box, which is often steeped in rules, rituals, boundaries, and concertized beliefs.
Ever since I stumbled upon you by mistake on my journey into myself, I have found myself shying away from speaking about our relationship. Especially as it is so different from others. When I speak with you to many in the religious world, I am often made to feel that the Universe/God I speak with in my deepest meditations, in my conversations with trees, oceans, animals and yes even rocks, is not their God, or the true God.
That every time I have been saved from dying at the hand of five cheetahs, the ocean, a car, a wild dog and a hippo it has been luck, rather than your doing. Because my God is illusionary and theirs is the true god.
Then there is YOGA, the path I was and am still on, to heal my sufferings, give rise to bliss and peace, and connect with my true self. It was on this path, to my greatest surprise I found you. Really, who would have thought that all the time I had been running away from you, you were inside of me.
However, the deeper I have dived into the ancient discipline of YOGA, swimming towards the mystical, the teachers that swim beside often wear the bathing suites of Hinduism or Vedanta. Many seeking to tie yoga to the Hindu gods. As a result I once again find myself on the outside when it comes to you. Why? Because you come to me in all your manifestations, none of which I can pinpoint to one religion. Most of which sit outside of the dominant religious beliefs in the world today.
I am beginning to understand why good witches and pagans were eradicated from this world. Why I seem to have more in common with them, than the religious world.
Therefore Universe I am writing you this letter to challenge the YOU that religion speaks off and the you I keeping meeting in myself and in all of nature.
Please know, I am not seeking to discredit the former, but rather give weight to the later.
Because after awhile it gets a little trying having my narrative thrown into the box of illusion, non truth, and non-believer. If I did not know better, I would think I was crazy for the relationship you and I have accidentally fallen into. Accidentally on my part off course, you seem to know what you have been doing all along.
Here is what I know:
In most major religions in the world there is a similar belief of what happens when one dies. What the afterlife looks like, who will do the judging, where one will be allocated and so forth. There are off course some discrepancies in terms of the levels of the after life, if one will be allocated a body, and what label you have to wear in order to gain entry. The label of Muslim, Mormon, Jew etc.
Then there is the on going debate as to weather your spirit returns to the planet in a new form, a story told by Hindus, Buddhists and Taosists; or once we are gone, we are never coming back to this fabulous place. Though even those that subscribe to reincarnation, know of the higher and lower realms that exist and our ability to reach them, depending on our journey on this planet.
As you can see there is no one truth as to where we have been before we came here and where we shall go once we leave. Or is there? Every religion and discipline on the planet believe there are a number realms that make up the universe. Each believe that which one we enter is dependent on our words, actions, thoughts, behaviours, and which god and prophet we hold allegiance to on this journey. That we will be judged according to our actions and that there are higher and lower realms. Some even acknowledge, that we are just one of a multiple of universes, each having their own god.
But that is where the buck stops. Some say only those who commit to Jesus shall have access to the highest kingdom. Some say it is Mohamed that decides. Some believe there are three levels, other claim that there is eight. Nearly all of them disagree on the rituals and forms of worship you have to engage in and who you must worship.
Universe, I am beginning to think that we were not meant to know the answer, because if it was something you wanted us to know, you would have given us the memory of both. Or downloaded the same narrative to all those that connect to you.
Instead you hid yourself in us, gave us freewill and then dropped us on this planet, filled with diversity and a creativity that connects everything to a central consciousness. You. Something every human can actually experience for themselves if they take the journey into themselves to reach the state of pure awareness.
This connection to everything is not surprising off course as you God, Allah, Yahweh, Universe are the creative element of the non changing, infinite ALL. The non existence from which the illusion of existence was born from. Thus everything in our universe was birthed from you and therefore holds your DNA. We are ALL creative manifestations of you, on a journey to evolve ourselves through the washing machine of the Human form.
It has been an incredible gift to experience all the facets of my powerful self from a place of awareness.
Now having highlighted the chaos that comes with our attachment to you, I must tell you, that on my journey with religious men and experts it would seem that all of them agree on what constitutes a good human, and what covenants all humans should follow, to establish a more enlightened world. Especially if they seek an audience with you at some point. In general they are as follows. Treat others as you would want to be treated. Don’t lie, cheat or steal. Give selflessly and care for to all sentient beings. Don’t be greedy and always respond to other beings with compassion and kindness. O yes and don’t judge or engage in any violence towards others or oneself. Basically all the guidelines I had once broken but now lived my life by.
You would think that alone would unite all humanity, and by extension all of us to all sentient beings.
Now here is where I normally get ejected from the conversation or the relationship. For some reason, it seems to be important that to the holders of a certain belief and label, that everyone should believe the exact same thing as them. It is not enough that someone believes in YOU and is a good human. No, that person should hold the same belief system, otherwise they get put in the box of infidel, non believer, crazy, one that does not know the truth, different. It does not matter what a person does, who they are, but what they believe. In some cases they can not even marry unless they both believe the same version of you. I know that this was not your doing, for we are all equal to you, because we are all versions of your creation.
Humans are obsessed with the afterlife, so much so that few of them every truly experience the magnificence of this life or themselves. Fewer actually seek you inside of themselves, choosing rather to be told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, by a person in a position of influence. A person often using fear rather than love to motivate us towards you. Fear of hell, of getting stuck in the pipeline, fear of pain and suffering.
If you give me just a few more minutes I would like to tell you a little about the journey that led me to meet you. The journey of a black sheep in a world where you either believe in a god through the lens of a set religion or discipline or you believe in nothing. I know the latter as I was in that box for 45years, and lord did I experience some suffering and trauma in that box.
My journey started with Yoga. It started out as an adventure into myself, to try and finally understand the source of my suffering when it came to men and religion. Having been kicked out of so many relationships with the former for not being the right religion. Never mind, that my own religion shunned me for not playing by the rules and dating those we were not meant to date. BMWs, black, Muslims and whites.
Men and religion, it was a karma I had to break, or it would break me. Thus began an exploration into the depths of my being. The exploration of my mind and brain, the layers of my consciousness and my being, my ego, the biological and neurological workings of my body, the influence of desire, my memory bank, and my energy systems. In order to do all this I practiced nearly every form of Yoga, plus sects of the Chinese meridian systems. I learnt from sound healers and holders of mantras, the power of vibration and the Chakra system. I practiced Buddhist heart yoga, and learnt enough about our brain and inner workings to over come trauma, from trauma doctors and neuro surgeons. I studied the body and the working of our emotions and the five elements both inside and outside of us.
I took no one words for anything and instead practiced all that I learnt to see for myself. And that God, is where I found you, inside me, in the reflection of my newly purified mind. You started to arrive not only in my meditations, but in the form of an eagle. Everywhere I went, you arrived to greet me. I began to hear you as I walked barefoot in the desert. I heard you when I swam in the ocean, as I sat with ancient rocks, and in all of nature.
At first, don’t get me wrong, I thought I was imagining it all. But you were persistent, as was I to meet my true self. The self that I had buried under so much ignorance. Only to discover that my true self, my consciousness was what connected me to you. The more I sat in awareness of our relationship the more aware I became of my actions, words, and the power of my thoughts. Of my own power, to change my reality, just by interacting with the energy around me from my soul, spoken through my intuition. In return, you offered me miracles and love everyday from nature, from strangers, and the stars.
When I lost everything, a gift I thank you for, I listened in the silence between each breath and you guided me to wealth and success in its purest form. Not in the form of paper money. You gave me that as well, but it no longer defined what I did or who I was. In purifying my mind, so that it no longer held lies, violence, anger, jealousy, what entered into all that new found space was Love.
I could write an entire book, on all impossibles that have become possibles in my life. Of all the mystical and extraordinary experiences that have arrived into my reality. Of the unique creativity that flows endlessly from me. Of the changes in my body, both internally and externally from the release of all the pain and trauma I had buried in it. Of how often you have saved my life. Of how on an island that is 16 by 32km in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, you brought the world to me when I got stuck in my journey.
You sent me exalted religious teachers from around the world, to release me of my anger towards religion. You did this bringing me teachers that showed me that religion, when unfiltered by man and institutions and followed as a personal devotion is beautiful. When that devotion does not exclude any other human or path based on their beliefs, than that devotion is pure.
Since meeting you, the holder of knowledge and wisdom, by removing all my ignorance, I have become the source of my peace, joy and security. No matter what chaos reigns around me, I remain at peace. For there shall always be chaos, as nature seeks balance and all is impermanent except for my soul/spirit.
I have grown up around religion my entire life. I have watched people go to a place of worship, follow a set of rituals, give to charity, do a little giving here and there, and pray outwards when needed. Give money, pay others to give charity for them, and throw a box into a recycling bin. Do confession, chant a mantra and walk away forgiven. I have watched those same people then do bad acts, live selfishly, drown in trauma, mistreat animals, and rape the earth with their material desires. But most of all I have watched those same people exclude love and other humans on the sole basis that they don’t hold the same belief as they do.
I have learnt that it is not the label of a religion or discipline that we carry that makes us great good humans. But our acts, thoughts, and behaviours towards ourselves and all others. For if it was the label that made humans great, then really our world would be a beautiful enlightened one. Because more than half the world carry the label of one religion or the other and yet not every single one of them live simple humble lives dedicated to uplifting ALL sentient beings.
If I am correct Jesus, Buddha, and all the other great spiritual leaders found you under a tree, while they journeyed within. They did not find you in any opulent structure. Their relationship with you was a personal one, bound not from fear, but from love.
They did not carry a label of a religion or exclude any human. We gave them that label and then excluded anyone that did not share it.
Is it not time we liberated your name and did not attach it to a set path, or put it in a box and label it. Maybe then others may begin to connect with you rather than run from you, because of all the fears, wars, discrimination, exclusion, and hatred that has been attached to your name.
God, I don’t follow any path set out by any religion or discipline. I have taken a little from all of them to guide me to my soul. You could not put a label on me if you tried, and yet I am so deeply connected to you. You only have to observe my life to know that is true. I manifest your love in my every act and thought. The earth is my church, the ocean and fire my purifiers, the air my life, and the Akash/space the medium through which my vibration connects me to everything, through the greatest force in this universe. Selfless Love.
Say what you may, but when my human form dies, I am going to spread my wings and ascend to an unknown place of pure beauty. Even without a label we shall meet, and if there really is a judgment process I do not fear it.
I don’t need to know where I am going or what it looks like. Because in every moment that is my limited life on this planet I experience my magnificent world through you. For you Universe have shown me that I can 100% trust you to take me exactly where I am meant to be. Even though my journey looks like no other that I know, but then again why should it. It is my journey.
Sheena