One of my biggest difficulties so far in this lifetime was handling the transition from just accepting what I was always taught as true to discovering for myself what I am now realizing as truth. The learning curve itself of transition, from one "reality" experience of acceptance to the other reality experience of discovery is a journey in itself!
When I speak of things that I was taught as true, and what I now perceive to be true, I am not referring to the specifics of a dogma or specific religious belief, I am referring to the passive mode of acceptance that swept over me, not being encouraged to examine and question, but rather to accept. I came to experience a different sense of reality over time, a reality that not only encouraged me but required of me to do my own seeking.
This change from one mode to the other meant shifting into seeing life from a perspective that is
outside the box but from
inside the self. To be able to do this, to see life from this visual perspective, we need to be very flexible in our perception of spirituality, allowing for us to actually receive information by looking within. After all, we have been conditioned to seek our understanding from outside ourselves, accepting what we are told like a passive consumer.
If we look at spirituality from a conventional and dogmatic perspective, we are given certain theories and premises to go by. Immortality of the soul, for example, is a 'given' for many people in many dogmas, but this very idea of immortality is also often connected with very controlling fear issues stemming from the institutionalized dogma itself.
These fear issues prevent people from easily questioning or doubting what they are told - fearful of the price that they may have to pay for this pondering. Some may fear going to hell, some may fear some sort of punishment here in this life if they question such institutions. After all, that is what the actual dogma had led them to believe.
My issue is not whether there is a hell, in the literal sense....it is whether or not an individual has the right to question that, and so many other issues, without feeling guilty or afraid. Christian Churches as dogmatic institutions do not usually tolerate such questioning with open mindedness causing its members to easily avoid questioning and examining many such beliefs that were handed to them.
But that fear of questioning and searching is actually in opposition to what Christ taught.
Christ said "Seek and Ye shall find". He encouraged people to search, to seek their answers, not to go by the spiritual laws of fellow men if they do not seem right...he encouraged them to follow the spiritual laws of the Father. And these 'laws' were quite logical, very rational indeed. They did not encourage people to provoke or hate others, they did not want people to harm to others - they sought to create a climate of tolerance, love and peace.
He also referred to the scriptures as "dead", explaining that one finds knowledge through life, not dead things....life meaning the self, the soul.
So I think that we have every right in this world of free will, to question what we are told and to seek truth and answers for ourselves. This world was created and bestowed with so many blessings (before we, under the influence of denser energetic forces, corrupted nature and the planet). It is a paradise that holds the answers to all of our questions...in fragments of history that have been recorded, written word, oral legends, "myths" and in the archaeological bits and pieces that have been staring at us in the face for ages. Interpretations of these pieces of information differ, and that is where we need to discern and interpret for ourselves.
Also, many people around us have been inspired to seek truths from around us, and they express these truths as they see them. Many have been mocked and ridiculed, or ignored...however, they also have been appreciated by a few people that are ready to take their ideas and learn from them. Sometimes the ideas and the thoughts of these people are the stepping stones necessary for us to be inspired, to think and to realize for ourselves many things that we were not able to see before.
(For example, there is so much evidence for ancient astronauts in our world, but we were conditioned to not believe it, or to ignore it.)
But many times, these tidbits of information cause us to see things in a different light, to understand things and to realize a "truth" that we had been missing up to now.
It is not just the facts that are contained in these books, histories or depicted in archaeological artifacts that caused this realization, but the energies that they represent which cause the light bulb to go on in our mind...an energetic connection is made, where we have reached out and tapped into energies of this information that further enhanced our field, causing it to expand.
The information we received, coupled with our intention to learn, are responsible for the understanding and knowing that we experience. Learning and understanding is not a mechanical cognitive function of gears and chemical reactions, it is an energetic act where our field interacts and connects with the informational field in a new way. A new link is created. Our field just expanded, the more we "learned" and understood, the further we expanded, as so many new energetic links were made. Synapses and their behavior are biological reflections of these energetic links that are made when understanding and realization take place.
When our field expands in this way, when new links are made connecting our energy field into the informational realm, we are able to tap into our extended energetic breadth of our field. We have reached into the informational field and tapped into new energies, "understanding: or resonating with them and linking to them. The actual linking to these new energies from the informational field is what we perceive as an "AHA!" moment, when we suddenly perceive and understand something to be true. A new energetic connection was felt, learning took place and yet the actual "realization" traveled from around you, outside of you to a stirring and a change within you.
Within you is the key here. The stimuli may have been outside of you allowing your energy field to tap into the informational realm in new ways, allowing for new links to be made, but the perception of your expanding energetic field was felt and marked within you (the synaptic brain activity).
Food for thought: Is the informational realm outside of you, or within you?
Christ said that "...the kingdom of God is within you". That in itself is a very transcendental statement. Looking within is what causes us to 'transcend'. Many Eastern philosophies are built upon this idea of transcending oneself to see cosmic or divine truth, reality and "knowing" by traveling within in order to go to where we perceive commonly as "without" or "beyond".
So we must keep on seeking. We must keep on searching. We must keep on seeing what others have discovered, to see if it resonates well with us, if it can be a stepping stone that helps us to expand our own selves. After all, everything is information around us.
It is important for us to discern whether or not this information around us - be it from a book, a lecture, a conversation, a film, or simply from our own insightful realization, is light filled, positive energy or denser, darker energy that serves a manipulative and negative purpose.
So,we need to seek and take in all that is positive and light filled from around us.
Once we are able to do this (to soak up information that is light filled), locking us firmly onto our path of light, we can seek the Divine truths and achieve greater and greater understanding of our reality, of "what is", by using the energy of information to help us in our journey to the depths of our inner self. That is where the understanding and realization will come from.
Looking inward , we experience a sense of knowing and expansion...the further inward we travel, the greater the illusion that we are expanding outward, but the truth is that we are traveling further and further inward...but traveling on a journey through the vast infinite towards the divine.
Therefore, the question is "Is the universe within us or outside of us?"
English: Jesus Christ - detail from Deesis mosaic, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (Photo credit: Wikipedia)I have always felt an amazing link between the positive light filled star seeds that are in harmony with the Creator and with the teachings and being of Jesus Christ. I feel that institutionalized belief systems have isolated us from the fact that we are circulating in the cosmos that God created, and that he sends his special messengers at all times to help and to save, according to the situation at hand. 
English: Pleiades Star Cluster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)That is why we have angels, that is why we have prophets like Elijah, and that is why the world was graced with Jesus Christ. Jesus is not the organized religion that man created in his name. Jesus is a mystical being, a son of God who came to anchor certain energies into this world, in order to transform it. He also is a King of a spiritual kingdom and we were given access to it through his teachings.
