What about the pain and suffering of wonderful people, like my grandmother, who suffered a stroke and lived the last years of her life in much suffering and debilitation? What was God's purpose there?

The earthquake in Chile three weeks ago is what brought this all up for me again---and the tsunami in Hawaii that "never was," even though for a while there we all thought (my wife and I were on the Big Island at the time) that we were in major trouble...

Why were some people in harm's way, and others not? How does Fate decide these things? Is there some rhyme or reason? Is there some point or purpose?

No. There is not, and we must become clear that there is not. Not in the sense that most people mean when they think of there being some "point" to it all.

For there to be some "point," there would have to be a person, a being, who would GIVE it all a "point." There is no such person or being. Some people disagree with me on this. They say that the Person or Being is God. I am saying that God is not a "person" or "being," with likes and dislikes, frustrations and resentments, a need to judge and a need to punish, and an agenda for humankind and for each person on the earth.

I am suggesting to you that "God" is an ineffable Essence-what the Upanishads call Brahman-that permeates the Universe; that IS the Universe, and all things, seen and unseen. I am suggesting that Brahman is Pure Intelligence, and that Brahman is a Process. I am suggesting that it is the Process called Life.

Life does not have a preference about how Life expresses Itself. Life always was, is now, and always will be---therefore Life is not worried about the thing we call "death," and demonstrates no concern about it. If you die, you die. If you live, you live. In both cases you continue to Be.

You cannot NOT Be, and therefore Life (God) has no concern, worry, or agitation about whether you are going to Be or not. Nor does Life have a preference in the matter of how your Being is expressed. Only you do. Because you think that you Are, and the truth is, you Are Not.

That is, you think that you are "you," and the truth is you are not who you think you are, you are not "you," but rather, that which comprises you. The "you" that you think you are is merely a conglomeration of that which comprises you, globbed together in a particular form. Put in CwG terms: You are an Individuation of Divinity, a Singularization of The Singularity. You are a Process, not a Person. And that Process will continue forever. It is called Life. In this case, Life manifesting in the form that you call "you."

Even that form is not a form for more than one millionth of a nano-second. That's why I have said "you are a Process, not a Person." The "you" that You Are is constantly changing form. Like a flame burning atop a candle. Is the flame the same flame in Hour 2 as it was in Hour 1? It is the same flame even from moment to moment? No. It cannot be. By the very nature of what the flame IS, the flame is not. For the flame burns itself out even as it is being what it is. It is thus ending its Present Form in every Present Moment.

A flame is the outward manifestation of the using up of fuel. When the fuel is gone, the flame disappears. In the case of Who You Are, the fuel is never gone, so the flame that is You never disappears. Yet it equally never stays the same. In this sense, "you" are not. You are only what you are Right Now. And then, Right Now. And then, Right Now. You can't stay the same for even one one-millionth of a nano-second. So who are you, anyway...?

There is a continuity to "you," even though "you" are different and changing in every moment. What is this Continuity? Is it Atman (the Soul)? If so, does Atman have a role to play in determining whether you die in an earthquake or are one of those spared in the "tsunami that never was"? What determines who lives and who dies?

I am going to give you a startling answer to that question. There is no such thing as `living' and `dying.' One might as well ask, "What determines who is `being' and who is not `being.'?" Yet nothing is not Being, therefore there is nothing and no one `determining' who is being and who is not.

Okay, you might say. But certainly there is such a thing as changing form. We may all live forever, we may all Always Be, but who or what determines the Form that we take from time to time? Those who died in the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile lived on, but changed Forms. Those who lived through the "tsunami that never was" in Hawaii lived on in the same Form. Who or what decides which Form the Beingness takes from time to time?

I am going to give you a startling answer to that question. There is no such thing as `time,' therefore the Being that You Are takes All Forms At Once. It is merely a question of which Form you are paying attention to, which Form you are choosing to experience, in that part of Always that you call Now.

The Formulation of Brahman that called itself the people in Haiti and Chile who "died" in the earthquakes focused its attention on physicalization and de-physicalization (that is, "living" and "dying") in the way that it did during those earthquakes in order that Brahman Itself might Know Itself in Its Own Experience AS THAT.

This is all part of a holy process that CwG calls "God godding", or, if you please, Brahman Being. Being what? Being everything. All at once. Being life. Being death. Being good. Being bad. Being fast, being slow; being up, being down; being big, being small; being male, being female; being all of It. Being, literally, All Of ItSelf All At Once.

Phew. Okaaaay...

So what does that mean about how we, here and now, are experiencing life? You tell me.

No, I mean that literally. You tell me. By your thoughts, your words, and your actions, you tell me, every day of your life, what that means. You are also telling yourself. You are literally telling your own mind what to think about all this. You're doing it right now. Watch yourself. You are reading this, and you are telling your own Mind what to think about what you're reading. Or, you are saying to yourself, "I just don't know what to think."

Translation: Nothing has any meaning save the meaning you give it.

Now, let me say here that I embrace the Upanishadic tradition and teaching of Atman---the Soul; a part of us that lives forever, retaining its Essence and dropping its Individual Expression of that Essence during Samadhi (Oneness with the All), then picking up its Individual Expression again, then dropping it again, over and over through all Eternity in a Divine Rhythm that perpetuates Perpetuity Itself.

I embrace the notion that the purpose of it all is to allow God to know Itself in its own experience, as I have said before. This is done through the process of Individual Souls evolving and experiencing more and more of what they Always Are. I believe that Souls pick and create the Right and Perfect circumstances allowing them to do this.

To put all this simply, some Souls "die" and some Souls "live" because it is perfect for them to do that in that portion of All Time that they call Right Here, Right Now. When they "die" they realize that they have not "died" at all, but continue living forever. Then they decide (after reemerging from the moment of Samadhi) what aspect of Who They Are they wish next to experience---either as their "old self" (the person they were before they "died") or as a new and other self (the concept known as reincarnation as another individual being).

Explaining this further, I understand that souls have the ability to return to the Timeline of Forever Always at any point, in any Form they wish---including the Form they just left behind. Put simply, you can live as the "you" that you imagine your Self to be again and again, experiencing Life in a hundred thousand different moments in a hundred thousand different ways, until you have experienced and expressed the Self in this particular Form at the level of absolute Divinity. And even then you can keep coming back to experience that as long as you wish.

Or...you can come back in another Form (i.e., as another person) and experience Life in that Form as many times as you wish. You ultimately realize that you are Life in All Forms All The Time. You are Always All, and you are All All Ways.

In other words, you are God, godding.

Okay, that's a lot of esoterics for one week. But how to make any of that work for us in any practical way during This Life, Here and Now? That is the question. And that's what we'll look at in Part II of this series, next week.

In the meantime, suggested reading: HOME WITH GOD IN A LIFE THAT NEVER ENDS.


Love and Hugs,
Neale.