Have you struggled for most of your life to find good answers to the big questions? Things like: what happens after we die? Why are we here? Who am I? I've struggled with these a lot too, and I hope some of the answers that work for me might be helpful to you. The biggest question I want to begin with is: who are you and who am I? If we can start by figuring out who we are, I think that makes answering the bigger questions much easier.
Who am I, really?
Am I my body? Am I my thoughts? Am I what I do, or what I've done, or what I'm doing? In my mind, I am none of those things. I am that which is aware of everything happening. That means I am the one who is aware of the thoughts in my head. I notice them. I notice the world in front of me, the beautiful green grass in my yard, the fact that I'm standing up right now. I notice that. That is me. That's who I am. And when I am done noticing what this body does, I will separate from this body, because I am not my body. I am what I am. I am what watches, what notices my body. That's me. That's who I am.
That, to me, is a spiritual being, a divine being, a being that is not killed, a being that nothing bad can happen to except what I allow myself and choose to watch, or what I'm stuck in the middle of watching. That has a big impact on me, and it has a big implication for everything else. If I separate myself from this body, then what am I? To me, that makes it really easy to figure out all of the tough answers to life's questions. If the true nature of who I am is divine and spiritual, but I am merely watching through this body during the course of this body's lifetime, then all of the big questions become easy to answer.
We are all the same divine being
If the true nature of who I am is divine and spiritual, I think that means the true nature of who you are is divine and spiritual too. And if we are all divine and spiritual, why would we be different divine and spiritual beings? Why wouldn't we all be one divine, spiritual being? I think each of us is the same divine, spiritual being. All of us. That means you and me. We are the same "I." We are the same spiritual being. And I think that spiritual being is often referred to as God.
The frustration I've always had with religion is the idea that God is somewhere else, that God is off in heaven. I even like the idea that God is in my heart, but the notion that God is somewhere else and that we should be afraid of Him is one I don't like. I think God is within all of us. When we pray, we are praying to the divine part of our own being. We are talking to the God we have within us. When I pray, I believe I'm separating myself from this body, from the constraints and limitations placed on this body, and I'm talking to the divine part of myself. And that divine part of me is who you are. That divine being is the same. We are all the same divine being.
That has awesome implications for all of the big questions. It's utterly simple. It's so ridiculously simple. You, I, all of us: we are a divine spiritual being. We are the same divine spiritual being. That being, that higher power, is often called God. We all have God in us, just the same as we have God outside of us. That part of us that watches our lives go by and is able to take action, that to me is the power of God. And watching it work through everyone else in life is God. Our true nature is that of a son or daughter of God, and we are all the same, the exact same being.
How this answers life's biggest questions
That answers all of life's big questions. All of them. Do we go to heaven or hell? We experience both heaven and hell based on what part of life our spiritual being chooses to watch. What happens before and after we die? We don't change. We simply move points of view. I might live your life next. You might live my life next. We are all the same divine being. So that takes care of all the justice in life. If I do something bad to you, then at some point after I die I will be you, and I will have that same thing done to me. It answers every big question in life.
Where did we come from? We've always been here, and we will always be here. We created this. We experience it. And we will create and experience new things when this life is over. Do I have a soul? Yes, that soul is that divine energy we all have inside of us. We are all the same. We all have a soul and we all have a spirit, and it is the same one for all of us. It all works together so magically.
How does that fit in with religion? Religion is confusing because it combines this knowledge I'm talking about with history. Combined with history, it gets very confusing. But I have taken out the most simple part and given it to you, just in the most basic form. We are all connected with God, because that is who we are in our most core inner self. After this body is killed, and before this body was born, that which is us is I, is you. It's all the same. We're all one united spiritual being, often called God. When you pray, you talk to that most inner part of yourself. You ask that most inner part of yourself, which is also everyone else and everything else, for whatever you ask for. You admit that you, as this body, are weak, that you, as this body, are frail, but that you as the spiritual being, together with all the rest of us, are strong.
Simple, like E = mc²
So with religion, I get all of these ideas from all of the religions, and I put them together in a way that's utterly simple. It's like what Einstein did with math. E equals mc squared. It's utterly simple, and it's taken from a lot of other math, but it's simple enough for everyone to understand. I am not any more special, better, or worse than anyone. I am not any kind of religious figure. I'm just me, which is just the same as you. We are all together.
My goal with this life is to do the best I can to serve you, to serve all of my fellow human beings, and to serve all of life and God as best I can, because that's the best I can do as this body. When I leave this body and am rejoined, as Jesus says, "You have to die to see the kingdom of God." To me that means separating from this body, separating from this body's point of view, and rejoining that which is the same, the truth that we all are the same. I share more of how I'm working through these questions in day-to-day living across my Life playlist. Though I am here, I am trying to do the best I can in this life to make all the other versions of my life better.