Does God Exist? Is There Consciousness Outside of the Body, Or Life After Death? Part 1 by Anny Vos

 

Stonehenge_sun

The questions in the title of this post have always been asked by humanity. Spirituality and religion say yes to most of these questions, whereas science mostly denies it. For a long time matter was all that was real to science, although there are scientists who somehow manage to combine religion and science.

Science and spirituality are like mind and soul, like male and female, two opposites that have got out of balance since we ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is duality in action. It is right and left, whereby in past millennia the left has got a bad reputation. Even the words say it. Right is being right, being in possession of the truth. Left is sinister, literally so, because the word “sinister” is derived from the Latin word “sinister” which means left.

Of course this is a very strange interpretation when we look at nature as it functions in duality. The human body has two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, two lungs, two kidneys, etc. Are they supposed to fight over who is “right” or are they created in order to function together and as such give depth to our vision, stereo versus mono to our hearing, and so on?

Even in politics I think right and left should stop fighting, each presuming they are “right,” because left alone each side would go off at the deep end, harping on one aspect only and forgetting the other. When they meet in the middle, there will be harmony and balance and a prosperous society.

And that of course is what the involution and descent of the soul into the world of duality and matter, and its evolution and ascension within the same, is all about. This is also true for science and spirituality. They should not fight each other but also not behave like they are about two totally different areas of life that have nothing to do with each other. By now we are discovering that everything is connected, entangled as quantum physics calls it, and that we cannot expect the world to keep functioning as before when we are destroying one aspect of life after the other. Or when ten percent of the world population claims eighty percent of all resources, if not more.

The exciting thing is that the frontiers of science and spirituality are approaching each other, as Joshua already mentioned in his article Could God Really Be Outside of His Creation?

In the context of spirituality it has already been mentioned that this world we live in is not real. It is called an illusion. Buddhists call it maya and the Bible calls it a deep sleep, “tardema” in Hebrew. In my article, The Inner Beauty of the Bible Stories: The Soul’s Journey Beneath the Literal Interpretation, I explained this sleep as the descent of Man into the world of duality and matter. It is, but the literal meaning is also true. The world of matter is a world of a deep sleep, which was created for us to experience everything we wanted to experience in order to gain conscious awareness.

You could compare this dream world to a computer game, a virtual reality, in which we start to play a game but after a while get so involved that we totally forget it is a game. We become deadly serious about it and think it is the real world — the only real world.

In Reality there is no time involved in this game because all possibilities have already been programmed into it from the beginning and when you play the game, you determine what you want to experience by choosing one of the possibilities that are already there. These different possibilities are sometimes also called parallel realities or even parallel universes. In each of those “universes” there already is a you who has made a certain choice. By choosing which one of them you want to play you close off some other possibilities for the time being, but you open up a whole new range of choices, and so on and so forth. At the same time the choices you did not select do remain part of the game, should your path lead you there again later in the game. Or in a new round.

Each player is the star of his or her own show and determines by the choices he or she makes how the other players will behave (from the numerous array of their choices/realities/universes. In that way we each create our own world with its own truth, which is sensible within its own frame of reference, but not necessarily to another player who has created a totally different world, in which completely different things are true. Because we are all entangled however, we do tend to share ideas with other people and as such often make the same or similar choices, which will result in our worlds being largely (though not totally) the same, which causes us even more to think that we, our group/religion/political party etc., must be “right.”

 As it is just a game, however, a world of illusion, it is no use to start fighting about who is right and who is wrong, as everybody is right in his own world and wrong in that of the one he disagrees with. But then again, fighting also creates experience, and through it, in the long run, greater awareness. That will only happen though when we let go of our “right” to be right and start to look at other people’s view from a more open perspective.

Of course this dream world is not only about problems and difficult experiences. It is also an incredibly beautiful world in which we can choose to have amazing experiences by being appreciative of its beauty and its gifts and by being thankful and loving and willing to share. It is about letting go of judgment. By this attitude we will be steered in the direction of the centre of Unconditional Love and awakening, regardless to what religion or  political party we belong (or not).

The concept of time, place and matter, cause and consequence, and karma and reincarnation, was created to be part of this game, because it gives us the possibility to define things, to give things a place and a meaning, to learn and grow by experience, which is after all the idea behind the creation of this game, this dream world. Maybe we could see this game also as a self-creating game towards the end, as its possibilities may have been pushed further than was originally intended, judging from the depths we have sunk to. But then again … when we wake up after all that, the conscious awareness we will have gained will be all that greater too!

All this should make it a bit clearer why God does not interfere more in all that happens in this world. Why there is no judgment. Do we interfere when our children play cops and robbers and do we take the robbers to the police when they come home afterwards? Do we interfere, as long as there is no Real damage?

Everything that happens, whatever happens, in this dream world is not Real, no matter how real it all may be to us. And we are slowly awakening to this Truth. Because the only Truth with a capital “T” in this game is Love, Unconditional Love, and that steers us in the direction of awakening again. And everything that steers us in that direction, even if it is not the Absolute Truth yet, is a step on the ladder as it were, because it leads us upwards. And the only thing we can take with us when we leave this dream world, is the conscious awareness we gained during the process of our awakening.

To be continued in Part 2.

Copyright © 2013 by Anny Vos

Published in the December 2013 issue of Spirit of Scripture, used by permission.

**********************************************

About Anny Vos

Anny Vos lives in Holland with her husband. They have four adult children. Anny has studied Judaism and speaks Hebrew. She’s also interested in other religions and spiritual pursuits, including Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Anny is a regular contributor to the Spirit of Scripture blog.

******************************************

Please share your thoughts, comments, and questions with us below.

8 Responses

  1. Anny

    Hello,

    Thank you very much for this nice article. I agree most of the time. However, as loving parents we do interfere from time to time: when our little loved ones are crying from a delirious dream or when they are scaring each other out of their pants while playing an impetuous game.
    But we also choose our path through the game. And so we do choose our experience with God. I will take my chance and create a God that is no longer indifferent. A God that supports my very own path and gently wakes me up from unsettling dreams.

    Thank you for your wonderful blog, John, and all the effort and love you put in. It is a great inpiration.
    Warm regards from Germany,
    Anny

    • Anny

      Hello Anny,

      Thank you for your comment. I understand what you mean but it is by no means my intention to imply that God is indifferent to our sufferings (which are God’s sufferings as well after all as we are all One). And I also added, as long as there is no Real damage done. On the contrary, God is Love and we only have to open up to this Love in order to be comforted and guided as well. That is all our choice though. Which I think is really what you also say when you write: I will take my chance and create a God that is no longer indifferent. A God that supports my very own path and gently wakes me up from unsettling dreams.

      So your name is Anny as well if I understand correctly? And we are neighbours too, if you are living in Germany. I live almost on its border.

      Love,

      Anny

      • Anny

        Hi Anny,

        thank’s for your reply! I agree with you.
        And yes, my name is Annette, so I’m called Anny. And I live near the German border, too. 🙂
        I love synchronicities like that which remind us that everything is beautifully interwoven.

        So I wish you and John and all the readers a most magical day!

        • anny

          Hi Anny,

          That certainly is a synchronity. Do you live near the Dutch border? If so that would really almost make us neighbours.

          I join you in your wishes and wish you the same of course.

          Love,

          Anny

  2. Anny

    Hi John,

    Thanks for publishing this so quickly. One small remark, in the following sentence: “..Or when ten percent of the world population claims eight percent of all resources, if not more.” a “y” seems to have disappeared!I would not have objected to ten percent of the population claiming only eight perent of the resources. As it is, they probably claim even more than eighty percent.

    Love,

    Anny

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.