Written by Wes Annac, The Culture of AwarenessI’m reaching a point where I no longer want to pour my faith into any specific belief. Every belief contains its truths and untruths, and like a lot of people have realized, we can take what works for us from each belief and let the rest fall away.
I’ve been writing about open-mindedness lately, and like I said in a recent article, an important part of being open-minded is being diligent enough not to put all our energy and attention into a certain belief just because it’s more appealing than the distorted religions we’ve grown out of.
It’s obvious that contemporary religion’s been distorted to keep us from genuinely understanding spirituality, but we don’t really help ourselves by embracing other philosophies that are more appealing.
We essentially trade religion for another belief, and if we aren’t careful, we could close our minds just as much as the religious zealots out there who do awful things in the name of their ‘god’.
I think true open-mindedness is the ability not to stay at one spiritual destination, but to observe them all from a balanced, centered point of view. I enjoy eastern spiritual philosophy, for example, but I also keep my distance from it because I don’t want to get lost in it.
I’ll probably continue to present material from its teachers, but that material isn’t very helpful until we can read it from an open, self-empowered perspective. Part of me wants to advocate every belief since they all contain glimmers of truth, and another part of me wants to be distant from them all.
It’s understandable that people would create so many different beliefs around spirituality, but I don’t think those beliefs are as helpful as the things they try to teach us. In each belief system, even if it’s hidden, lies the basic philosophy of love, service and meditation.
Practically every religion encourages us to love our fellow man, meditate often, and realize that we’re God in a lower-vibrational form.
Most religions have heavily distorted their own philosophies, and they teach us that God is an angry man in the sky who judges ‘sinners’ and welcomes the ‘good’ religious people into an exclusive golden city in the clouds. We know better by this point, but most of us have swapped out those distorted beliefs for other, less distorted ones.
The genuine philosophies out there have told us that God isn’t an external authority figure that judges and condemns – it’s the universally loving Source of all creation that can be found within and that, as we continue to evolve, we’ll realize we actually are.
No matter what belief we follow, most of them tell us we’re the creators of everything around us. They also tell us that with meditation and diligent open-mindedness, we can rediscover ourselves as the Source of our existence and fly freely, as opposed to being weighed down by oppressive doctrine that teaches us to search for God externally.
I’m reaching a point in life where I want to flow with every belief – not resisting nor wholeheartedly embracing any of them. They all have something to offer, but in the midst of our exploration of each of them, we run the risk of losing ourselves in their philosophies.
The greatest religion is love, and it can be embraced free of any idea or belief. Together with open-mindedness, love will show us the way back into a higher state of consciousness, and we can maintain a higher vibration on earth without looking to any belief system to get us there.
I honestly think the best way to liberate ourselves is to be free of the limitation our beliefs can cause. Every belief has its upsides and downsides, and some beliefs seem to encourage us to explore our consciousness while, at the same time, giving us a strict set of rules and condemning those who don’t follow them.
Eastern spirituality is rife with rules, for example, and some of them are obviously helpful for the seeker who genuinely wants to attain enlightenment. If full-on spiritual enlightenment is your goal, feel free to follow the fairly strict rules that come with eastern spiritual philosophy.
You might actually need them to find your preferred state of consciousness, but not everyone’s here solely to attain enlightenment. Some of us are here to show the way for others, and admittedly, we can’t really do that unless we have solid spiritual or philosophical ground to stand on.
I study a few different beliefs, and they help me stay centered and embrace certain helpful qualities. I don’t think I could ‘join’ any one of them, however, because spiritual evolution isn’t meant to be hindered by rigid, unbreakable beliefs. Spiritual evolution is essentially a breakdown of everything that no longer serves us, which is necessary so we can welcome things that do.
There are things out there we can’t hope to know about until we’ve cleared the obstructions from our lives, and the best way to clear them is to do the inner work that’s required without leaning too heavily on the advice of certain teachers.
There’s a lot of great advice out there that really will help us, but at a certain point, we have to turn within and empower ourselves. We have to see that we’re the greatest source of spiritual knowledge and inspiration, and as easy as it is to lean on the advice of other teachers, we have to become our own teacher.
There are certain values in having a guru, but I don’t think they’re as necessary as some beliefs tell us. It’s always good to have someone around who can help us step into a more centered or authentic version of ourselves, but when it comes down to it, nobody can teach us as potently as we can teach ourselves.
I think we’ll have to take responsibility for our path and, instead of focusing on certain philosophies that we assume will show us the way back home, understand that it’s all within. Everything we could hope to attain lives within, and it helps to realize this when we don’t feel helped or served by the beliefs we’ve embraced for years.
At a certain point, everyone realizes that their beliefs can only do so much. They offer a lot in the beginning, but after we follow them for so long, they become a hollow shell in comparison to the genuine experience we can gain when we take responsibility and depend on ourselves for our spiritual evolution.
We have more power than we give ourselves credit for, and it isn’t necessarily egotistical to have faith or confidence in ourselves. We can be confident in spirit while having faith in our ability to explore our consciousness, free of resistance to (or embracement of) any concept.
I think it’s important to be confident in ourselves and our abilities, and with confidence and the understanding that we can do anything we put our minds to, exploring our greater perception will be a breeze.
A lot of beliefs out there are helpful in our quest to lighten our vibration, but they can only help us so much and at a certain point, it becomes our duty to explore spirit without external influence from a teacher, a guru or anyone else who claims to have a greater connection than the rest of us.
The people out there who’ve done the inner work that’s expanded their perception deserve credit for their achievements, but despite that some are further along the path than others, we’re all worthy of developing our spiritual perception and, in my opinion, the best way to develop it is to be free of too much external influence.
We’re here to help each other learn and grow, which is why sharing what we’ve learned with others is important, and we’ll all support and uplift each other when everyone’s successfully empowered themselves, thereby lightening the collective vibration and finally enabling our planet to evolve.
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I’m a twenty-one year old writer, musician and blogger, and I created The Culture of Awareness daily news site.
The Culture of Awareness features daily spiritual and alternative news, articles I’ve written, and more. Its purpose is to awaken and uplift by providing material about the fall of the planetary elite and a new paradigm of unity and spirituality.
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