It’s not that I don’t believe in God. It’s that I don’t believe in your God – the one you have made in your image and that seeks to protect and preserve only the people you can tolerate, excluding the people who are not like you and do not believe like you do. God is not who you think God is. And God is not who your religion says God is. If that were so, then God would be small and containable inside your finite brain. God is not who I think God is, either. God is bigger than that.
We ...
The point of religious practice or a belief system is to set you free. If it is not doing that, it has become a hindrance to you that you should examine and maybe abandon. Remember, whatever your practice – Yoga, prayer, being part of a church, or reading sacred Scripture – was there originally to lead you to God and to liberation. Any time your practice becomes an end in itself, it fails to fully achieve its purpose, which is to set you free, even from itself. If that happens, you should ...
Don’t be afraid to let your faith and beliefs evolve. Everything in us is geared toward figuring out all the “right” things to believe and then defending them and promoting them as what everyone else needs to believe, like they’re perfect in their current form and don’t need any revision or reformation. But the real truth is being uncovered, it is evolving and it is conversation. It’s not that the truth is changing necessarily; it’s that it is still emerging. You’ve just ...
There is nothing wrong with having some working idea of what you believe about the world. Just know you are wrong or, at the very least, not finished learning. Come to some conclusions, but hold those conclusions softly. Soon, you will be presented with information that challenges what you think you “know”. If your grip is too tight on your current assumptions, you will not listen well and you will spend a lot of energy furiously defending the things you think you need to believe.
It is tempting ...
Be thankful for these little frailties, mistakes and woundings that routinely throw you off your path. They remind you of your true nature: you are human and wanting. When you are in pain, worried, weak, disoriented and confused, slow down and pay attention. These are your entrance into what you really need: an experience of God in God’s tenderest form. Your little weaknesses are also what keep you tender and vulnerable. That is the best thing that can happen to you.
These little setbacks and ...
Everyone begins their life inside some context. Inside that context, things make sense to you. People who were also born into the same circumstances live there, speak your language and have similar ways of thinking. There is nothing wrong with the place you come from. It is home. You might always feel most comfortable with people who have a similar background and come from the same place you do. The problem is when you think the way you are is the best or only way to be and you devalue others, ...
Deconstructing is about breaking yourself apart so you can become more malleable and also receptive – able to accept and handle more and more. The more things you are able to accept and love, the more you are becoming love yourself. Then you love all manner of people and things; there is nothing you don’t love. Deconstructing is also about becoming open to how big the world is and all the people who are different from you. Not everyone is like you. Your goal is to love them ALL.
We tend to ...