My friends, today I'm going to tell you about my spirituality, the beliefs I have around spirituality and who I am. I think you'll love hearing this, because it will help you expand your mind and expand your universe the way it has done for me. If you're like me, hearing this may unlock some superpowers for you and really make all of life much easier to deal with. So let me tell you about my spirituality.
I was at an AA meeting recently and they were talking about spirituality and God. People were sharing some pretty down to earth things, and I was thinking, is this meeting ready to hear the stuff I've got to say? Because it sounds pretty out there if you're used to the standard way people share about these things. I've read a lot of books. The book Alcoholics Anonymous and getting sober were big for me. These unlocked big barriers inside me. In my experience, it can be difficult to really get into your own spirituality if you're using things like alcohol and other drugs, because these can actually help you in a way. They can help you have some transcendent experiences. But they also kind of split you in half, where there's sober you that basically is stuck in "reality," and then there's drunk or drugged up you that gets to have all these experiences. Then putting the two of those back together can be difficult, because you've split yourself into two.
My spirituality is all about oneness
My spirituality is all about oneness. There's only one of me. There's not more than one of me. You can get into whether there's one of you or two of you, especially if you frequently talk to yourself. If you say things like "I love myself" or "I hate myself," well, who is the "I" that loves or hates? Who is the "myself" in the equation? Are there two of you? You can go deeper by asking, who am I? Are you just a name? Are you just a body? Are you just a mind? Are you just ideas? Who are you? To me, this is the gateway out of all kinds of that bad stuff and depression. I saw a guy online who said he literally just asked "who am I?" over and over until he got out of his depression.
For me, the answer I've come up with that feels most complete is: I am God. I am one. I am all things. This is my universe. I am you. There's no separation or boundary between us. There's only a focal point of my consciousness. And all time is simultaneous, which means the past, present, and future, and alternate presents, pasts, and futures, are all happening at the same time. Therefore, I am living your life and all lives now at once. That really is what I'm saying. There is total oneness. There is no separation or division.
Now I, as the creator, have created this experience for my own enjoyment, for my own learning and growth, and because I have nothing better to do. Sometimes being God can be a little depressing, thinking, I am immortal. I don't die. I can experience death, but I don't die. I don't go do something else after I die. I go into another story, into another reality, into another body. It can actually be kind of lonely being God sometimes, thinking, wow, there's really nothing but me. This whole reality is just my creation. I'm the infinite dreamer, the infinite creator. And then we just throw ourselves back into our creations. There's this kind of balance between throwing ourselves completely into our creation and then remembering who we are. Loki says, "I call death going home," and yes, that seems very accurate to me. But I go home every night when I sleep. I go off and live different lifetimes. I've died in other lifetimes while I've been asleep in this one. So my spirituality today is a felt-in-the-heart and known-in-the-mind oneness with all things.
The practical value of these beliefs
Regardless of whether you believe any of the trueness of what I've said, the practical day to day consequences of my beliefs are, in my experience, extremely helpful. Because when I am God, I am the creator, every single thing that happens in my life is my creation. Some guy's honking his horn behind me right now. I did that to myself. And I can see that sometimes I challenge this body and this mind for my own enjoyment, for my own learning, for my own growth. The goal is not to get to a place where life is absolutely, completely comfortable and nothing "bad" can possibly happen. To me, the goal is to enjoy the ride. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the contrast, the dichotomy. Because in truth, there is no dichotomy. There is only me. There is only the one infinite creator, and this body and this mind are a tiny and yet significant part of the creations of the one creator.
I was listening to Michael Singer's latest book, Living Untethered. Now, I really enjoyed his book The Surrender Experiment, but I found I did not resonate with Living Untethered, because it talked about how you are not the creator, you did not create this. Obviously this body and this mind did not create all this. But I did create all this. I created this whole reality for myself. I remember choosing to come into this life and this body. I've had visions of creating stars. And this has been totally sober. Sometimes it has been under hypnosis with trained hypnotherapists, but most of the time it's just totally sober and open minded. I've remembered or connected with other lives I've lived. I used to be into past lives, but to me, time is not linear. Really, we are in a field of possibility at all times, and what we're experiencing is simply a reality we've chosen to focus on.
Why I don't believe in linear time
I'll give you an example of why I don't believe in timelines specifically. Three years ago, I was in a hypnotherapy appointment, and I had a vision of my mom's house four years from then, which would be about a year in the future. At the time of recording this, my mom lives about 600 miles away in Mississippi, by herself, in a four bedroom house, though she's about to move next door to me. In this vision I had, which was very clear while I was under hypnotherapy, my brother and I were at her house, and neither of us had visited her. She had died alone there.
The way I see this today, from the past that was a possible future scenario: if I had continued manifesting and operating the way I had been, that is what would have occurred. But how did I see it? I saw it because that was a possible future. And when I saw it, I said, absolutely not. I'll do whatever it takes to make sure that's not the future we're going to. I want to go to a future where I visited my mother, and now a future where my mother is moving next door to me. That vision of the future is now nearly impossible, and that's because I made changes so it didn't happen. In that way, time is not linear at all. I saw one particular version of the future, and I chose not to observe that fully and to go to a different one.
And it even takes it back the other way. What I just described is also a possible version of my past, of this body and this mind's past. That is one possibility of things that happened. Because every time I describe it, I could describe it another way, and that's another possibility for things that happened in the past. You can't grab onto the past. Even photos or pictures you're looking at are things that are manifesting in the present. Therefore, my spirituality is grounded in knowing that I am God, and that all time, all of eternity, is right now. Everything besides what I'm seeing is merely a wave of possibility, and I have a choice over what I observe.
That is extremely empowering, because on a day to day basis, the practical value is that I take full responsibility for everything that's happening in my life. And if this mind is struggling to understand why a particular thing is happening, I simply put out a thought asking to understand why. One day, a few years ago, my daughter was throwing up and was sick. I said, I would like to understand why things like kids getting sick happen. And the answer I got immediately was: so you can help each other. The reason bad things happen, or things we think of as bad, is because it's part of this life experience we've created. When things are challenging, when we're struggling, that's when we really need each other. We need each other all the time, but the need is most clear and present when there's a challenge.
The veil of separation
There's a possible past that I am recalling, and perhaps it's also a possible future. You get to a point where you see that the possible past, future, and present are all kind of overlapping. There's another reality that we created at some point, or will create in the future, where there's no veil of separation. My spirituality and beliefs here indicate that we've intentionally made a veil of separation in this reality, so that most of us can't clearly see God, or see the oneness, or know who we are. We've intentionally separated ourselves and put ourselves in the dark, so that many people think this is all there is, identified just as a body or just as an ego, and then trying to see if there's anything more than that.
In another reality, there was no veil. Everybody was fully aware of God and the oneness and the connection, and basically everybody just laid on the beach and enjoyed the bliss of God. In that reality, we had no need for each other, because we realized we're all one. We were all blissed out and high on God all day. We didn't need each other for anything. We created separate versions of ourselves, but we didn't need each other at all. So we, slash I, got together and thought, hmm, why don't we make it so God and the oneness is not so obvious, so that we forget that we are I, and we feel very identified and connected with each individual body? In that state, life will become very difficult. Some people, forgetting their oneness, will hurt and injure and murder others and steal from others. Natural disasters will not be obvious and we won't know they're coming. All kinds of bad things will happen in this reality.
The good that comes out of the bad
The good thing that will come of all these bad things, the thing that makes it all worth it, is that we will have a very strong need and opportunity to work together and help each other out. Because of our lack of understanding of our oneness, that which causes all the bad also creates an opportunity for good, for service to others, for helping each other, for being vulnerable. If you feel that same pull to stop struggling alone and to serve alongside other people who are working on themselves, one of the best things I can invite you to do is join the Jerry Banfield Family and grow with us.
My alcoholism created an opportunity for me to go to AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, and to get recovery there. If it weren't for my alcoholism, I wouldn't have needed the recovery. And if it weren't for my alcoholism, and all the bad I experienced because of it, all of which I chose to experience, I wouldn't have needed all the people who are just legends in my mind for helping me get sober. And I wouldn't have the chance to help everybody I've helped today.
You can put this into any area of your life. The way I look at it, every area of my life is a point from which I can serve. So every struggle I've had is something I can help with. I can be thankful for the struggle I created, because it gives me the ability to serve and help others.
Who I really am: I am that I am
Someone might say they know who they are, but that for them it's kind of complicated. That is exactly what I love about my spirituality: it's really simple. I am that I am. Who I am is the I am. No matter what comes after the I am, I am a human, I am a body, I am a mind, I am God, those are all kind of temporary things. What is permanent, what doesn't change, is I am. And I am all kinds of different things, but what I really am is I am. I am that I am, as it says in the Bible. That's who I really am.
To me, that I am knowingness, the presence, the recognition that I'm not just this body and just this mind, that is a spiritual thing. It's a moment of truth. There's something inside of me that I'm not fully aware of, but I believe I'm really part of it. I've been part of it since the day I was born. Being born doesn't mean you are not part of it. You're part of it too. And without that kind of awareness, and without taking time to turn to the other, the one infinite creator that is who each of us is and who we each are a part of, I would miss it entirely. The one infinite creator is my spirituality, and it can be found in the phrase I am. Anything I put after that is just temporary. I am God, I am Jerry, I am human, I am male, those are all temporary. What never changes is that there is some I that is, some I am, that is always there. That is eternal. So that's a description of my spirituality today.
Where to keep up with these conversations
I appreciate you listening to this. If you get busy or you miss a conversation for a while and you just want to listen, following the Jerry Banfield Show podcast on Spotify or iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts is a great way to keep up and stay connected. You can find some links on my website.
I put all of these discussions on YouTube, along with all the gaming videos and my Life playlist, so that's where you'll find all the recordings. If you want the most convenient experience, narrowed down to just the conversation, you've got the podcast. Thanks for experiencing this with me today. I will see you on the next one.