Is There Only One Path To Salvation?
Victoria Hardy
April 30, 2008
I´ve always said I´m a little dense around people, not the brightest bunny in the bunch, but I am beginning to accept that this slow turtle is really walking in two worlds. When you´re asking my opinion of your new shoes, I really don´t see your shoes, but do notice the beetle crawling in the grass and I wonder where he´s going. When you point out your new car, I see the car in my periphery, but my attention may be caught by the woodpecker hopping up a tree and the knowledge that the weather is about to change. When I watch the television I hear and see what is being shown, but I also hear and see what is not so obvious. And when I look into my yard or most any landscape, I see what is there, but I also sense something overlying it, a heaven that I have yet been able to reach.
In the Bible, Jesus said the Kingdom of God was inside of us and in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus stated that the Kingdom is both inside of us and outside of us and men do not see. I once heard that heaven was only 3 feet up, here, but not here and we are simply unable to see it, until we can achieve it, but the Bible uses the word heavens, not heaven, implying, of course, that there are many heavens and not just one.
There is a lot of talk these days about end time scenarios, the ascension, the rapture or the coming tribulation of wars, disease and famines, we are taught that we are nearing the ending point and we must prepare. We understand that these are forgone conclusions describing events that must unfold as predicted, but what if they are describing both the past and the future? What if the events foretold have happened before and through our ignorance, they will happen again? It has been said that there is nothing new under the sun, yet, in our arrogance; we know that our technology and our society is the one new thing that exists. I sense we are just repeating the same misguided actions again and again, keeping civilization locked in a never ending cycle of suffering.
I have often heard there is but one reality and I have to smile upon hearing it, does the homeless, teenage prostitute have the same reality as the small town banker with a family? Is the reality the same for a child playing outdoors in Iraq, as one playing in rural Ohio? Do the slave and master experience the same reality? Of course not, and is one reality not truth? There are a lot of realities, but there is only one truth and there lies the heart of all the deceptions. I think the layers of realities we see surrounding us only serve to distract us from perceiving the single thread of light and truth that runs through this world.
They say man once got it into his head to build a tower, this tower reached the skies and the goal of these men was to see God. Apparently, the God these men were seeking did not appreciate the effort and tore down the tower, separating the seekers through language. I am speaking, of course, of the Tower of Babel and I have always been intrigued by that tale. And since the wide popularity and acceptance of the Internet, I have often wondered, is this the new Tower? Mankind has joined, across the globe, unhindered by language barriers to seek, but this time it is not called a tower, but a web or a net. Will history reflect, thousands of years from now, how ancient man created this great net in the sky in their attempt to reach the heavens? And is the god of this world preparing to tear the web down, leaving us to do it all over again?
I think there are two Gods down here, confusingly disguised as one. When we see beyond religions and labels of faith, there are two forces, a distinct duality and yet we have been trained not to see or speak of the oddity. If God wants us to find him, why would he tear down our means? Perhaps it was not the God that we sought, but the god of this world who destroyed the tower, jealously protecting his power. Jesus instructed us that the Kingdom of God was within us, but all manner of beliefs teach us to look outside of ourselves, to trust another to lead us to the Kingdom. The god of this world supplies buildings, middlemen, words, books and deeds for us to find the Kingdom, but if we are to listen to Christ, the only way to accomplish this task of salvation is by looking inside and trusting what we find there.
The world seems focused on telling us that what is inside of us, is what is wrong. Religion, psychiatry, new age belief systems and government continuously tell us that it is not the world that is the problem, but a lack inside of us, a confounding glitch in our perception. And we believe, we buy the books, the potions, we go to the doctors and shrinks, we attend the churches, temples and seminars, we accept the offers of help from those that tell us we are deficient and the world is full. We have surrendered to the wrong god. When a child cannot sit still in class, it is not the environment he finds uncomfortable; it is an issue in his brain, which must be corrected. When a being finds himself exhausted, overwhelmed, overworked and unhappy, the wrongness is not in the world, but resides inside of him. When a person loses their connection to God, it is not the teaching that is misguided, it is seeker.
In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you." So we must ask ourselves, what is it inside of us that we must bring to fruition? Is it our spirit, our talents, our thoughts and emotions? Is it our creativity and our opinions? Is it our voice and our words? Is it our differences and idiosyncrasies? Is it our love and vision of a better future? Could it be all those things? And how are we to find those things when we are blindly following the herd?
Perhaps when we are taught that there are heavens, it is purely man´s interpretation of what he knows and what he sees lay before him. Perhaps he is seeing only as far as his eyes and knowledge can reach. There are layers of achievement spread out on the earth, and perhaps on each one is a heaven that man can understand, but perhaps it is not the Kingdom of which Jesus spoke, the one that can only be reached inside. Perhaps when religions say there is only one way to achieve salvation, they are correct, but when they claim they hold the key and we must follow their way, there is deception. Maybe there is not one way for all humanity to reach salvation, but there is only one way for the individual, which is to seek inside and reveal what God planted within.
In the Bible, Jesus said the Kingdom of God was inside of us and in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus stated that the Kingdom is both inside of us and outside of us and men do not see. I once heard that heaven was only 3 feet up, here, but not here and we are simply unable to see it, until we can achieve it, but the Bible uses the word heavens, not heaven, implying, of course, that there are many heavens and not just one.
There is a lot of talk these days about end time scenarios, the ascension, the rapture or the coming tribulation of wars, disease and famines, we are taught that we are nearing the ending point and we must prepare. We understand that these are forgone conclusions describing events that must unfold as predicted, but what if they are describing both the past and the future? What if the events foretold have happened before and through our ignorance, they will happen again? It has been said that there is nothing new under the sun, yet, in our arrogance; we know that our technology and our society is the one new thing that exists. I sense we are just repeating the same misguided actions again and again, keeping civilization locked in a never ending cycle of suffering.
I have often heard there is but one reality and I have to smile upon hearing it, does the homeless, teenage prostitute have the same reality as the small town banker with a family? Is the reality the same for a child playing outdoors in Iraq, as one playing in rural Ohio? Do the slave and master experience the same reality? Of course not, and is one reality not truth? There are a lot of realities, but there is only one truth and there lies the heart of all the deceptions. I think the layers of realities we see surrounding us only serve to distract us from perceiving the single thread of light and truth that runs through this world.
They say man once got it into his head to build a tower, this tower reached the skies and the goal of these men was to see God. Apparently, the God these men were seeking did not appreciate the effort and tore down the tower, separating the seekers through language. I am speaking, of course, of the Tower of Babel and I have always been intrigued by that tale. And since the wide popularity and acceptance of the Internet, I have often wondered, is this the new Tower? Mankind has joined, across the globe, unhindered by language barriers to seek, but this time it is not called a tower, but a web or a net. Will history reflect, thousands of years from now, how ancient man created this great net in the sky in their attempt to reach the heavens? And is the god of this world preparing to tear the web down, leaving us to do it all over again?
I think there are two Gods down here, confusingly disguised as one. When we see beyond religions and labels of faith, there are two forces, a distinct duality and yet we have been trained not to see or speak of the oddity. If God wants us to find him, why would he tear down our means? Perhaps it was not the God that we sought, but the god of this world who destroyed the tower, jealously protecting his power. Jesus instructed us that the Kingdom of God was within us, but all manner of beliefs teach us to look outside of ourselves, to trust another to lead us to the Kingdom. The god of this world supplies buildings, middlemen, words, books and deeds for us to find the Kingdom, but if we are to listen to Christ, the only way to accomplish this task of salvation is by looking inside and trusting what we find there.
The world seems focused on telling us that what is inside of us, is what is wrong. Religion, psychiatry, new age belief systems and government continuously tell us that it is not the world that is the problem, but a lack inside of us, a confounding glitch in our perception. And we believe, we buy the books, the potions, we go to the doctors and shrinks, we attend the churches, temples and seminars, we accept the offers of help from those that tell us we are deficient and the world is full. We have surrendered to the wrong god. When a child cannot sit still in class, it is not the environment he finds uncomfortable; it is an issue in his brain, which must be corrected. When a being finds himself exhausted, overwhelmed, overworked and unhappy, the wrongness is not in the world, but resides inside of him. When a person loses their connection to God, it is not the teaching that is misguided, it is seeker.
In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you." So we must ask ourselves, what is it inside of us that we must bring to fruition? Is it our spirit, our talents, our thoughts and emotions? Is it our creativity and our opinions? Is it our voice and our words? Is it our differences and idiosyncrasies? Is it our love and vision of a better future? Could it be all those things? And how are we to find those things when we are blindly following the herd?
Perhaps when we are taught that there are heavens, it is purely man´s interpretation of what he knows and what he sees lay before him. Perhaps he is seeing only as far as his eyes and knowledge can reach. There are layers of achievement spread out on the earth, and perhaps on each one is a heaven that man can understand, but perhaps it is not the Kingdom of which Jesus spoke, the one that can only be reached inside. Perhaps when religions say there is only one way to achieve salvation, they are correct, but when they claim they hold the key and we must follow their way, there is deception. Maybe there is not one way for all humanity to reach salvation, but there is only one way for the individual, which is to seek inside and reveal what God planted within.
Print
Email
