Religious Upbringing

I was raised in Canada as a member of the Anglican Church—a variant of the Church of England. For those who may not know, the Church of England was King Henry VIII’s answer to the Catholic Church, which came into being when he didn’t care too much about certain aspects of the Catholic doctrine—especially those pertaining to marriage and divorce.

As a youngster, I went through the trainings offered by the Church, but I often found that I had more questions than anyone seemed able to answer. And even as a teenager and young adult, I tried hard to honor, accept and embrace the teachings of my faith, but[lmtv_moreTag] I often found myself in resistance because there seemed to be so many contradictions in the teachings that I simply could not reconcile—even by surrendering to the notion that “God works in mysterious ways”. Nevertheless, I persisted! I even went so far as to try a couple of different “born-again” routes, thinking that there must be a path for me somewhere that would keep me from going to hell! No such luck—even those routes seemed to be filled with contradictions.

Eventually, I gave up. My unanswered (and seemingly unanswerable) questions led to skepticism (and even some cynicism), and before I knew it, I had come to believe that if any of these religious teachings were true, then I was bound for hell no matter what kind of path I chose, so I decided to just live my life in the best way I knew how. Mind you, this didn’t stop me from believing in our collective inherent Spiritual Nature and recognizing that there must be a kind of “supreme consciousness” out there that was guiding us. But I didn’t really know how to articulate what was in my heart, or to find other people who were going through similar experiences.

Then, in 1999, I had the good fortune to stumble upon a book called Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch. When I read his amazing book, I was overwhelmed by the brilliance of a voice that seemed to be saying what my heart already believed to be true. There was so much in Neale’s book that touched me, and his writing had a profound impact on how I began to see myself.

At one point in his book, Neale talks about All-That-Is and the dilemma of Knowing versus Experiencing. This idea struck a chord deep within me, and it seemed to awaken a very old understanding that I had had long ago, perhaps even in an earlier lifetime. I can still feel the joy in my heart at the sudden remembering of something I had long forgotten. As this awareness grew within me, I took Neale’s story and reshaped it into a form that resonated more powerfully within me.

Here is my version…

Once upon a time there was a giant viscous universe of infinite pulsing plasma. This Infinite Plasma had a name: OMnitude.

OMnitude was everything: All-That-Is, pure energy, pure beingness, pure Consciousness. OMnitude encompassed what we humans recognize as the good, the bad, the right, the wrong, the curse, the blessing, the living, the dead, the yes, the no, the male, the female, the light, the dark, the past, the present, the future…, everything there is, all of it—and all at the same time. There was nothing that was not OMnitude; there was nothing that OMnitude was not. OMnitude knew Itself to be All-That-Is, knew Itself to be the Infinite Plasma, and It was perfect.

One day, OMnitude the Infinite Plasma said, “I want to experience myself fully”. Alas, OMnitude existed beyond the limited dimensions of the dualistic physical world familiar to humans, and there was nothing that OMnitude was not; therefore, there was nothing for OMnitude to compare Itself to. OMnitude knew about all of its aspects, qualities, and characteristics, but because OMnitude WAS (and is) all of that, OMnitude hadn’t yet had the opportunity to experience Itself as such.

OMnitude pondered this curious dilemma for a while, wondering “I am the Infinite Plasma, and I know myself as All-That-Is, so how can I experience myself as that?”

After an instant or an eternity, OMnitude found the answer, right there inside, for this answer (like all answers) was a part of All-That-Is too.

“The solution is simple”, smiled OMnitude, and a delightful, magical, exquisite experiment came into being.

In this experiment, OMnitude the Infinite Plasma created a scenario in which It appeared to subdivide Itself into a countless number of individuations, each of which was empowered to create its own life experience within a dualistic universe. Each individuation of OMnitude would seem to be separate from all others, and would therefore be able to compare itself to all those other individuations. In this way, every individuation would have its own lifetime to experience some aspect of All-That-Is, and the sum and substance of all such experiences across the universe of individuations would add up to the collective experience of Itself that OMnitude was looking for. It was (and is) a brilliantly elegant idea!

At some point along the span of each strand, the plasma-energy coalesces into an energy-form, unique and perfect in its expression, whose purpose is to live and experience a lifetime as one particular aspect of OMnitude. The individuation’s unique experience is communicated through the corresponding strand of plasma-energy into the main body of the Source, where it is stored in the Infinite Library of all such experiences. At the same time, the Source continues to feed the energy-form with Its endless truth, wisdom, knowing, and love—in a continuous connection between OMnitude and the individuation.

In this way, OMnitude the Infinite Plasma gets to both know and experience itself as All-That-Is, and the dilemma is resolved.

The Moral of the Story

What I love most about this parable is that it gives me great hope, and the notion of “hell” simply disappears into the realm of “stories we make up in our minds”! But that is not all; the real beauty of this story for me is that it reveals something wonderful. Every individuation has one common over-arching purpose:

This is an amazing and liberating perspective, because it means that every energy-form everywhere in the universe is equally important! There is no energy-form anywhere—animate or inanimate—that is any more or less important than any other! Furthermore, every purpose—imagined or otherwise—is also equally important as every other, because it helps to shape the individuation’s experience and therefore provides vital information to the OMnitude Library.

What this Means for All of Us

Every energy-form—and that includes you and me—is connected through its own plasma-energy strand to the ultimate Source, to the main body of OMnitude. Because we are all individuations of the same Source, we are all connected to the same Source. And as a consequence, we are all connected to each other—even if we are not always aware of that connection.

That’s right, you are OMnitude and OMnitude is you. You can resist it if you want to, you can argue with it if you want to, you can fight it if you want to, but ultimately you have to accept the truth of it, because your true essence already knows this intuitively. To put it into more familiar terms:

The Implications

If this is true—and I believe it is—then it has enormous implications for all of us:

Bottom Line

If you can remember your connection to OMnitude—and therefore remember the importance of your own individual existence and why you are really here—then you can begin to live your life from the field of Gratitude that constantly surrounds and infuses you. And that means that you can choose to be happy and fulfilled all the time—no matter what your life may look like on the outside. So…