The following questions attempt to explain:

Q. Are you a Christian?
A. Yes.  I was raised in the Baptist Church and still subscribe to much of how they present the values and nature of man relative to our spiritual destiny.

Q.  In what way do you disagree with your Baptist training?
A. From the religious standpoint, I believe in a just, true and merciful God as opposed to a god of vengeance, retribution, and jealousy.  The latter characteristics found themselves in the Bible as a result of man’s defective mind and from influence of personality.  Philosophically, I see God as “All That Is.”  In this form we humans share equal status in Nature as the birds and the bees, the rocks and the trees, and the rest of all there is.  We are privileged, however, in having the quality of spiritual awareness that allows us to enjoy the beauty of Nature.  That privilege comes with responsibility, a duty to care for and nurture what we have co-created.

Q. You say “co-created.”  Does that mean you have equal status with God?
A. No more than a single drop of water has with the ocean.  Yet, without the drops, there could be no ocean.  Religionists would put God in a box and make Him a single and separate entity.  In the sense of master and slave, we are expected to glorify a single point in the spiritual realm and suborn our existence to the master in totality.  From our own personal experience, we have learned that more is accomplished through cooperation than singly.  Why would it be different in the spiritual nature?  The Bible says, “Let us create man in our image . . . .”  The “us” in that sentence is taken by religionists to mean the Trinity, but it might just as well indicate a collective of spirits, of whom we are a part, bound together by the common ground of divine consciousness.  The “Collective Consciousness,” then, would be the philosopher’s god.  Neither notion can be judged as “incorrect” if both serve to enhance spiritual growth.

Q. How is the Collective Consciousness involved in spiritual growth?
A. If it is to be useful and feasible for spiritual advancement, the Collective Consciousness must be a place (heaven, astral plane), it must be an embodiment of ideals, and it must be or contain a Spirit of complement to the soul on earth.  Oddly, these three seem to correspond to the Religious Trinity as well as to Buddhist concepts.  Apart from that, spiritual growth could be defined as the continual process of purification in which the soul on earth throws off its mantle of desire for terrestrial pleasures in exchange for continuous fellowship with its Parent Soul in heaven.  Since human conduct is of an errant nature, its effect is one of creating obstacles to the attainment of spiritual purification.  By injuring others, we reserve a future return in order to have the opportunity to neutralize those injuries through restitution mandated by the Law of Karma.  Eventually, all will triumph over their inadequacies and reclaim their divine heritage as Jesus indicated, though it may take a million lives and span several ages.  How close is that to “never?”

Q. If what you say is true, does that not take Jesus Christ out of the picture?
A. Correction: Jesus, the Christ.  Many make the mistake of combining Jesus, who was a human like we are, with the Christos, which is a perfected spirit.  The Christ is the embodiment of the ideals in the Collective Consciousness, described as the “Word” and couched in divine love or, as the religionists put it, “Christian Charity.”  Jesus is the only religious leader who has been generally venerated as the “perfect” spirit.  All the rest, by their own admission through what they teach, are at the “Chrestos”  (enlightened) stage, but not perfected.  This is in keeping with my belief that Jesus, rather than being dropped from heaven as a perfect entity, went through the same process of spiritual purification as we are in now.  From Adam to David to the Messiah (AdDaM), Jesus can be better accepted as one who “walked the walk” rather than as an instant icon.

Q. Do you consider Jesus as your personal savior who died on the cross for your sins?
A. All spiritual matters are “personal.”  The verbiage in the question is an example of one tenet designed to bind the will of man to the blood of Jesus.  His death on the cross “saved” me from an inordinate number of wasted lives since I believe and follow what he taught, which fact works toward my spiritual growth by providing guidelines of conduct.  His crucifixion did not relieve me of my responsibility for restitution and restoration to those I have injured.  Do you really think the Master wants us to be irresponsible, groveling worms forever in search of forgiveness?  Who profits from such a thing?

Q. There are those who would judge you guilty of blasphemy.  What say you?
A. I realize that the “brethren,” who are locked into the slave/master paradigm, have written me off as a permanent denizen of Hades, third hot plate on the left.  But I would remind them that to judge is to invite judgment.  In the name of blasphemy (heresy), some of the most ruthless, unconscionable campaigns in history have effected the annihilation of large blocks of humanity simply because they did not buy the dogma.  In the massacre of the Cathars of France and Italy, a “crusader” asked the church “father” how he could distinguish the “flock” from the heretics.  His reply was, “Kill them all.  God will know His own.”  Forty thousand men, women and children were slaughtered in one town alone.  Can you not hear their cry?  Would it be impertinent of me to expect to find that “father” a little farther down the line, say, on hot plate number six?

Q.  Do you believe in Hell, then?
A. Hell, no!  Not in the eternal, fiery tormenting sense.  What kind of god would subject his children to such a thing?  A kind, loving and merciful god?  Hell is a state of mind dependent upon one’s perception of his situation.  To the wealthy, hell would be not having money.  Being deprived of something we cherish would be hell to many.  But as in all things, we create and live our own hell.  We can escape what we consider hell by simply not recognizing it as such, by changing the perception from one of distress to one of opportunity and selflessness.  As Neale Walsch indicated, if you recognize it, you accept it.  It becomes real.

Q.  If there is no hell, where do the evil spirits go?
A. In the spiritual nature, there is no good and evil; there is only appropriateness.  Some souls are so steeped in the vagaries of earthly pleasure that they refuse to let go.  They place themselves in limbo between heaven and earth until some event enables them to continue.  It is a situation of their own making and their responsibility to respond to the pull toward assimilation.  Eventually, they will continue, and ours is not to interfere with their choice and dispensation.

What we call evil in the physical nature is that which we know to be inappropriate with regard to the common good.  The criminal element represents a major obstacle in the path of creating a new heaven and a new earth.  Until all crime is wiped out, we cannot duplicate or draw out the “kingdom of heaven” that is within us nor can we liberate Christ from the shackles of our conscience.

Q.  What would you tell those who say reincarnation is not biblical?
A. I would say that the Bible is ill-suited to prove water is wet.  At some past time, the Bible was the inspired Word of God, come from the Collective Consciousness, to inspired men who recorded it faithfully.  Understand, however that these men were personalities projected from their Over-Souls, and the fact that they were on earth indicates they were chained to the wheel of births owing to the affects of Karma.  In other words, even under divine inspiration, it is likely that bits and pieces of their personalities were incorporated into the original scripture.

Secondly, succeeding copies and orators who repeated the texts over time included men who were products of their times.  They had hidden agendas and, if they could profit from a little twist, they were unrestrained in their efforts.

Thirdly, on what basis did the early church fathers select which books should be included?  In the normal evolution of the Bible, as the threat of reincarnation became prominent, it soon led them to take steps to crush the notion since, in their misunderstanding, they felt the basic tenet of blind faith would be destroyed should the people catch on, as did the Cathars.  Additions, deletions and reworking are evident in today’s Bible, which makes it doubly hard to understand.  Context does not match for a reason.

Finally, what man gets hishands on, man corrupts.  Tell the first in a line of people the meeting will be over in fifteen minutes and, by the time it gets to tenth person, it turns into something about fifteen meetings.  What is left of the Bible is a skeleton and useful as a religious text.  For the philosophers, the Truth can be found there through diligent search.  Most fortunate is the fact that the principles taught by Jesus seem to be mostly intact.

Among the two dozen or so references in the Bible, the one that stands out concerns Elijah (Elias) in which Jesus said John the Baptist was, in fact, Elias.  This statement of fact crosses the span of the Old to the New Testament.  Proponents argue that John the Baptist came “in the power and spirit” of Elijah but not as the real McCoy.  But then, don’t we all come in the power and spirit of our Parent Soul?

Q.  How does that work, I mean the Over-Soul thing?
A. There has to be a constant presence of part of our spirit on the astral plane, sort of like a placeholder.  Otherwise, we would be completely cut off from God, which would be a perfect definition of Hell.  The Over-Soul is the Individual that throws off personalities (us) to do the hard work of living.  It’s a joint thing, however, because the Parent looks out for its offspring, and the bliss reported in most NDE’s is a preview of the essence of the personality with its Over-Soul.  In an NDE, the personality has a quick meeting with this Entity who usually informs him/her that he has to go back and finish up.

Most who experience an NDE, report that the entity is a being of light, but chances are the same works as a spirit guide or guardian angel, depending on how you want it to be.  Incidentally, the vast majority of those involved in NDE’s come back to their bodies with a new sense of purpose and without the fear of death.

Q. OK. To recap, you believe that we are personalities of a permanent resident of the astral plane; that we return for the purpose of ridding ourselves of earthly desires; and that eventually, if we follow the models of those sent to instruct us, we will reach a state called enlightenment, at which time, we can stay in heaven.  What happens after that?
A. Further  growth, but we have sufficient to deal with already.  Enlightenment is most likely a long way into the future.  We should focus on the here-and-now.  When we do reach the state of enlightenment, we will most likely return to render assistance to our sibling spirits.  It’s what a completely selfless spirit would do.

Q. So, how are you doing with your mantle?
A. Not bad, really.  Greed has never been a problem for me, but it represents the greatest and most widespread defect in the world.  Having been raised in poverty, I came away with the idea that I could survive anything, and while money was important then, it didn’t take on a dominating force when I reached adulthood.  All I need is just enough to get by, and I hate to waste anything.

I am not a prideful person.  The only pride I allow myself is for my daughters and children.  Children benefit from adults making a big deal over them from time to time, as long as it is a genuine response to a real, earned event or quality.  To me, any other  pride has karmic consequences.

Honesty, integrity, character issues are very important to me.  I stopped lying in my early teens mainly because I was not good at it, got caught all the time, and I have always shied away from possibilities of failure.  Since then, my motives for telling the truth and maintaining integrity have been more in line with my morals code.  It’s just the right thing to do.

In the emotional area, I have always had an affinity for children’s causes.  I have a feeling that in the past, I have had some involvement with the welfare and nurture of children, perhaps in a string of lives of a different gender, and as a result, the carryover colors my perception in their favor.  However, the feeling does not project to adults who frustrate me with their pettiness and generally selfish concerns.  So, brotherly love is an issue as well as tolerance for unorthodox responses to society.  Got to work on these.

The big daddy of them all, however, is a major issue in my life.  Patience.  I think most of all, humanity stays in the shadow of the eternal return because of impatience.  It is a continuing and constant problem that we all have to work on in varying degrees.  But it is something I can focus on because I don’t have to worry about greed and all that goes with that.

Rabbi Sholem Asch stated that in order to become enlightened, one must master 631 precepts, noting that one might not be able to do that in a single life; it might take another life or two.  Are you kidding me?  Rabbi, one life is not enough time to remember to put the toilet seat down every time, and who is this superman you are talking about?  I think that if we work on the major items, those 631 will take care of themselves, so just keep plugging along and don’t bother me with the details.

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