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Religion and Our Children
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Introduction
- Armando Sanchez
Welcome!
In this issue, I will continue with part 4 of the series of "Speak
to us of Children" sub-titled "Religion and Our Children". I would also like to
clarify something for those of you who may not be sure. Whenever I use the words
Divine Source, Universe, S/He, love, life, Light, Creator, Joy, Nature or any other
abstract terminology, I am referring to God.
I prefer to use different terminology when referring to God because of all
the baggage that has attached to that name for the last
two thousand years. I personally like to use Divine Source because I think
it the most accurate description of our Creator, since our Creator is Divine and
the Source all that is.
As before, I will first state the quote then share my understanding.
"You are the bows from which
your children as living arrows are sent forth."
After reading this quote I asked myself,
“If I am the bow, then what kind of bow am I? Am I a strong and stable
bow that can assist my son with his potential? Or am I a unstable bow that
gets in the way of it?"
I have learned in order to be a stable bow, parents must be consistent
with a positive attitude. I want to emphasize the word "positive"
because most parents already are consistent, but just with a negative attitude.
The reason being, most parents are either worrying about their children or angry
at them for not meeting their expectations. In either case these emotions create
a negative attitude within the parents.
We live in a society that believes when you worry about someone
it is an indication of your love for them. This is belief is true for most
parents. This sounds logical on the surface but lets take a closer look.
Whenever we worry about our children it is because we are thinking
that something bad is happening to them, thereby experiencing
the emotion called worry or fear. When we think of something good
happening to them we experience the emotion called joy or happiness.
It may seem that there is a broad range of emotions. In truth there really
are only two, one feels good, the other feels bad. The good set of feelings
like love, passion and joy will connect you to your Source. The bad
set of feelings like anger, worry and jealousy will disconnect you.
When you become disconnected from your Source you are rendered powerless,
having nothing of real value to offer your children. When you feel
connected you have access to Universal wisdom which will empower you
to be of real value to your children.
The problem was created when our parents taught us, by example, to worry
about the people we love, especially our children. The truth is we cannot
worry about anyone and maintain our connection to our Source at the same time.
Worry and love are two different energies that are opposite of each other.
We can tell by the way we feel that one is negative and the other is positive.
Many parents have told me, "I know I love my child! I can not even
entertain the thought that I don't." I am not saying you do not love your
child because a parent's love for their child is as natural as a rainbow after a
a mid-summer rain.
What I am saying is that worrying (worry is just another word for fear) is
an energy that restricts the essences of how you are, which is love. When love
is not allowed, it is like a cloud that comes over your rainbow and cast shadows in
your life. You can be of more value to your child when you are standing in the
Light of Love then you can in the shadows of darkness. The less fears
a parent has in their life the more love they have to offer. And the more love a child
receives the more they flourish.
To become a better parent you must re-parent yourself first. You do this by
questioning everything you believe, and letting go of the ones that don't serve you.
Then by default you will return to the likeness of your Creator.
At birth, you where born fully connected, however by the
time you became an adult you have made a transition from love to fear.
This gradual transition occurred while growing up as we where exposed to religious,
social, and parental fears. This is why fear feels normal, however, it does not mean
that it is natural to us. Normal just means something we have become accustomed to
through repetition.
I believe what Kahlil Gibran meant when he said, "Seek not to
make them like you," that we need to stop transferring
our fearful beliefs to our children. And when Kahlil said,
"You may strive to be like them," he was saying we
need to return to the love, joy and laughter we once where as
children. It is our natural state of being.
A good example of a fearful belief is when a parent see
their child climbing a tree. They tell them, "Get down from there
before you fall." What the parent is doing is introducing the
thought of falling (fear) into their child's mind.
Parents justify their fear by saying, "I told him to get
down from the tree because I was afraid he might fall and break
his arm." What else did the parent expect to feel when in their mind they
saw their child falling? Keep in mind nothing can happen to anyone, positive or
negative, unless it is first a thought.
I believe a child is experiencing joy as they see themselves
reaching the top of the tree. Then comes a worried, well meaning
parent, introduces the fear of falling and down comes the
child, cradle and all.
A parent that is standing in love would say something like,
"Climb higher. You can reach the top. Nature will always love
you and support you."
I know all this sounds confusing because the belief that has
been handed down to us by our parents and religions is, "We worry about
the people we love." This suggests that to love is to worry, and nothing is
further from the truth. All worrying has ever done is lead to suffering.
We have been handing down to our children the same old fearful beliefs for
thousands of years. We are sending forth our living arrows with fear because
the bow itself has become fear-based.
All this is in contradiction to what religions have been teaching us since
the beginning of time. They said, "You must fear God."
When the people started to question that belief, because it did not
feel right to fear God, religion then said, "Oh, what we really mean is
you must respect God."
In my book respect means respect and fear means fear. One feels
good and the other feels bad. How do you want to feel when you think about your
Creator? I personally want to feel Peace, Love and Joy when I
think about Him. Not fear! There is no Joy in fear, no
peace, no Love and no creation. Because fear voids life!
I believe the problem with organized truths is that at some
point the organization has become more important than the truth.
The reason being is that truth is designed to set you free,
so you do not have be to dependent upon anyone or thing outside
of yourself.
Religion soon saw their members not returning, and without members
there is no organization. Instead of religion trusting what they where teaching,
they became afraid and weaved fear into their teachings.
They soon began to teach about an angry God you must fear. And
that God had all these rules and agendas you must follow. All these
different religions began to say that they alone are the only keepers of
the truth, therefore the chosen ones. Join our organization, they
continued, and you will be chosen too. This kind of thinking appeals to the
ego, since the ego needs to feel better then other people. This better then
thou attitude is just a sign of a deep spiritual deficit.
If there is one thing I know about truth is that it can't be
owned, controlled or monopolized. The reason truth can set you
free is because it is freedom itself.
Most parents were raised to believe that our Divine Source is
an angry, vengeful deity to be feared. I believe whenever someone
uses or teaches fear is because they are trying to control others.
Then they try to disguise their controlling issues with doctrines
and theologies. We then are told to trust and accept these religious
teachings. To question or doubt them would be a sin. And God hates
and punish sinners.
We use the same techniques that these religions used on us to
parent our children. We attempt to control our children with
threats and fear, because we are modeling the God that religion
taught us about. If we don't see this it's because we don't know
ourselves or God.
We conditionally love our children as we believe our Creator
conditionally loves us. The message we send to our children is, I give you
love when I approve of you and withhold it when I disapprove
of you. Anger is the outcome when Love is withheld. And we cannot
withhold love from anyone, regardless of the reason, without holding
God/Love from ourselves. This is why forgiveness is so important. With
forgiveness we put Ourselves/God first.
We where taught that we must follow certain rules in order to keep our
Source happy with us. As soon as we do something that our Creator
disapproves of, S/He withholds His/Her love and threatens us with vengeance
and destruction. Then with the same breath we are told God loves us
unconditionally. I believe the people who teach about a God with a dual
personality do not know who God, or they are.
We do to our children what religion has done to us. We give
them our thoughts of fear, distorting the view of what Self,
Life and God truly are. And Self, Life and God are synonymous
to Love, Joy, and Laughter. Anything less is not who we are!
If you take an honest look at how you believe God treats
you and the human race, you will see the parallel between how
you treat yourself and others. If God gets angry whenever someone
don't obey him, then he must be angry all the time, since it is
not likely that 5.5 billion people would be obeying Him at the same time.
How would you treat your children if you where always angry with them?
Would they want to be with you under those conditions? They would be
stressed out just from being around you. In fact, you would even be
considered a neurotic and dysfunctional parent. This is the
kind of needy God most of us believe in. Many of us believe in a
mythological Greek god that governs with fear, anger and vengeance.
It is time to share a secret that has been kept from humanity for ages. This secret,
if fully grasped, is so powerful, it would be like pulling a thread that will unravel
all the struggle and confusion in your life. Here it is! It is impossible for God to
forgive you. I will repeat myself. It is impossible for God to forgive you, regardless
of how many times you ask for his forgiveness. The reason God can not forgive
you is because he never became angry with you to begin with, regardless of what you
have done.
In the realm of unconditional love there is total understanding and compassion.
God, the all knowing, understands why you do what you do. There is no judgment
and punishment in God's world. Man, with his limited conciousness can not see outside of
his current beleif system, and judgement and punishment is the box they live in. This
truth is difficult for many people to accept, because in their disconnected state they
can not even see the box they live in.
Our lives are plagued with fear because we keep falling short of whatever
we believe God's wants from us, then we dread his vengeance. How can we
feel safe in a world where the God we believe in is insane? Then to
traumatize us further we are told we are created in his image and likeness.
What does a god like that have to offer us, except to become neurotic ourselves.
And we have, because we use all of the same fearful tactics that our religions
used on us to parent our children, and ourselves.
The insanity has to stop. We are repeating the same behavior
and ignorantly expecting different results. It's the adults
that are the problem not the children, but our ego does not
let us see that. We have too much invested in our self-image.
We too have become like the religions. Our egos have become
more important than the truth. What else did you expect!
We can start to change, simply by taking a close look at ourselves and
asking who I am is. The Master Jesus said, "I AM the truth and
the way." When I repeat that statement, "I AM"
means - me!
In other words, "I AM" the truth and the way for me, and you
are the truth and the way for you. Because God lives within his
greatest creation. The only way to know God is to go within ourselves,
and there God will reveal Herself to you.
To go outside of yourself, to someone or something,
is to make that other person, place or thing your authority (Thou
shall have no other Gods).
The misunderstanding was created when the first person that tried to translate
the meaning of this statement did not have the spiritual discernment
to fully capture the meaning. Then again this is the difference
between religion and spirituality. Religions beleive they know and spirituality knows.
That is why the path is narrow and traveled by few. Because most people won't
take an honest look at themselves and much less do anything about it.
God dwells within his greatest creation, which is man. You won't find him in a bible
or in any religion. You can use these external tools to assist you with your inner
journey, but if something don't sound or feel right, and you go with it anyway,
you will allow the Judas part of you to betray the Christ within you.
Your freedom lies with your ability to think and feel and come
to your own conclusions about life based on your own experiences.
Since it is our yown life experience that will confirm what is true
for you, individually.
I've learned in order to know God I have to know myself first.
The only way I know of doing this to be still (meditation)
and allow God to reveal us, to me.
(...be still and know that I am God.) The question
know is, "Who I am is?"
I believe fear-based teaching is at the core of all of our problems.
The fracture is at the very foundation of our spiritual beliefs,
built on half-truths at best. By examining our religious and
spiritual beliefs and replacing the ones that don't serve us,
we re-connect to our Divine Source at a deeper level. Making us a stable
bow for our living arrows.
Quote of the month:
Religion ask you to learn from
the experience of others. Spirituality urges you to seek your
own.
The book: Communion with God, by Donald Walsh
In our next issue
I will share a story of two parents that have the same problem.
One parent saw her daughter as an individual and allowed the
solution to emerge from her child's experience. The other parent
saw her daughter as her property that had to listen to her. She still
struggles with the problem till today.
Thank you for your time we will see you next month. Remember
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