A personal credo

What is it that you yourself believe, I was asked. A challenging question, and one which has taken me some while to think about. The A J Balfour poem I quoted in my post of 6^th April 2015 contains the following lines:

“Our highest truths are but half-truths;

Think not to settle down for ever in any truth.

Make use of it as a tent in which to pass a summer’s night,

But build no house of it, or it will be your tomb.”

Those are wise words and I quote them again here to indicate that what follows is a summary of what today I believe to be true but which I may modify at some future time, as my own insights and understanding unfold. I also think that, at our present stage of human development, any truth ought to be regarded not as a literal, objective truth but as a metaphor for a truth way beyond what we are currently capable of comprehending. But you have to start from where you are and this is where I am right now.

I believe in a Prime Cause or God, the creator of all universes, the origin of life itself, a being that is at present beyond human comprehension but who has created everything that exists, and indeed is everything that exists, including countless other realms of life and existence stretching forth into infinite eternity.

I believe that I am part of God and so are you and so is everybody and everything else; and that God lives through us and understands its own nature through the experience of the totality of creation.

I believe that at the deepest levels of our being there is in each of us a yearning to return to union with God.

I believe that we get hints or glimpses of the nature of God the unmanifest, in many different ways, but especially through our experience of loving and of being loved.

I believe that the sun is a physical symbol of the Cosmic Christ, the great spirit who came from the spiritual sun and who overlighted Jesus of Nazareth for the last three years of his life; and who is as close to my idea of God as I can currently encompass.

I believe that, just as the sun shines on all, so the Cosmic Christ overlights all human beings, irrespective of race, nation, belief or non-belief.

I believe that the Cosmic Christ is also present within the etheric body of the earth, thus every aspect of the earth is holy and should be treated with reverence.

I believe that the Cosmic Christ is that aspect of God which gives light and warmth to all life and also permeates all life, so that all of creation, including each human being, has a spark of the divine sun within itself.

I believe that we are spiritual beings currently having human experiences in physical bodies; and that we are subject to a constant cycle of birth, death and re-birth over many lifetimes.

I believe that the divine spark within each of us grows during our successive incarnations on earth; and that after many lifetimes this spark grows into a fire strong enough to transmute the physical particles of our body into light itself.

I believe that, when this stage is reached, the soul is freed from the necessity to reincarnate; but that some great souls voluntarily reincarnate so as to help the rest of struggling humanity to make progress.

I believe that the overall pattern of our present life has been set by how we lived our previous lives; and that the pattern of our next lifetime is being determined by how we live each day of this life.

I believe that the purpose of human life on earth is:

• to unfold the divine plan for each one of us, to work out our karma and develop our consciousness in ways that can only occur in physical incarnation
• to prepare for our return to God and our ultimate destiny of becoming co-creators with God, by learning how to use our creativity and free will with wisdom
• to release the spirit that is encased in all matter and so transform the world through love that the earth eventually becomes the planet of love, thus fulfilling the evolutionary task of humankind.

I believe that free will is a privilege that has been given only to human beings.

I believe that life on earth is governed not only by physical laws such as gravity and action/reaction but also by a number of cosmic laws, including:

• Reincarnation, the Law of Rebirth
• Karma, the Law of Cause and Effect
• The Law of Opportunity
• The Law of Balance and Equilibrium
• The Law of Correspondences*

I believe that the most powerful and all-pervading force in the world is Love.

I believe that Evil is also a reality in human evolution, the task of which is to divert human beings from their true goals and evolutionary opportunities.

I believe that there is no such thing as time but only one continuous moment and that consciousness is the only thing that exists.

I believe that there is nothing and no-one, however small or overlooked, that is insignificant or meaningless.

I believe that human beings are part of a world in which everything is intimately connected with everything else and “That Art Thou” is a statement of profound truth.

I believe in the existence of angels and archangels of many kinds; and that each one of us has a guardian angel.

I believe in elemental beings and the need to acknowledge their existence and work with them for the benefit of all life.

I believe that there are very many forms of non-physical life and intelligence not only on the earth but throughout the countless universes that God has created.

I believe that ‘death’ (meaning permanent extinction or non-consciousness) does not exist in any of the universes and is an illusion within the human mind.

* I have written in more detail about these cosmic laws in my posting of September 16^th 2014: “Karma and the Steiner Waldorf teacher.”