Bill asked me if I believe in the last judgment?
I said, "Yes, but not the way most people probably do."
Bill said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "God doesn't judge us. God just strips away all the pretense, all the lies, all the conditioned patterns of our unconscious defense mechanisms, and asks us to look ourselves the way we truly and authentically are. If we like what we see, we are in heaven, and if we don't, we are in hell because that is what we will experience for all eternity."
"So," said Bill, "to thine own self be true?"
"Sort of," I said. "That's a start, but it's more like to thine own self be true that you believe is God's will for you to be."
"Well, okay," said Bill, "but how does God want us to be?"
"Loving, and at peace," I said.
"God wants heaven for everyone," asked Bill?
"Exactly," I said.
The idea of the Perennial Philosophy of Aldous Huxley leads one to the idea that God is too big for any one religion. How is it that sometimes people outgrow their religion of childhood? James Fowler, among others, has mapped out a model of spiritual development. Osho says that a person cannot enter into a spiritual life until he/she rebels against childish religious beliefs. Notes On A Spiritual Life intends to explore deeper understandings of an authentic spiritual life.
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