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Most of you know of my long interest in the power of the mind. I have been fascinated by the practice of hypnosis and guided imagery and how thought can create physical change. The research into the placebo effect has become an important scientific fact: that our beliefs and expectations are as powerful as any medical treatment.

It has taken hundreds of years to change our beliefs about mind-body approaches to health and life. And, unfortunately, this is not understood and practiced by many physicians to this day. But just like learning the importance of washing hands before surgery, we are realizing that what we believe has real consequences.

My interest now is to have you consider your spiritual beliefs. In my personal and academic studies, I discovered that religions disagree on most things. And that their sacred texts that have continued to be used for thousands of years are full of fallacies and beliefs about God, which have led to enormous suffering.

In 1984 I published an article in The Official Journal of the Association for Religious and Value Issues in Counseling titled, “Suppression of Women by Religion.” I found that for thousands of years, societies were commonly matriarchal; that women were considered equal to or above men. With the advent of civilization and more patriarchal reform religious, women came to be considered generally the property of men; a women’s place was in the home. I learned that ignorance, prejudice, dogmatism, intolerance, guilt, discrimination, myth, sexual dysfunction, and low self-esteem can be traced to religious attitudes and practices.

I learned that as far back as 7,000 B.C. to 25,000 B.C., until the closing of the last goddess temples about 500 A.D., many people worshipped a supreme female creator. Earthenware tablets of Babylon dating from Sumerian days tell of the simultaneous creation of men and women in pairs by the Goddess, of the union between a female deity and a mortal man, that it was a man who tasted the forbidden fruit, and that salvation was to be gained through a female deity.

Particularly noteworthy is that many of the myths and writings of early cultures explaining their origins were simply superseded or replaced by the newer culture, and piously affirmed “this is as it was in the beginning of time.” The Babylonian god, Marduk, creator of heaven and earth, was replaced by the Assyrian supreme deity, Ashur, by simply recopying old Babylonian tablets and substituting the name of Asher for the god, Marduk; the copying was not done very carefully, however, for both Marduk’s and Ashur’s name still appear on the same tablets.

Krishna, the god of the Hindus, was born about 600 years before the Persian god, Mithra, who preceded the supreme god of Christianity, Jesus, by about 400 years. Throughout history, older religious doctrines were carried over and incorporated into the newer religion, such as the case of Christianity paralleling its predecessor, Mithraism. Many examples could be given, but the number of “god-men” known in religious history totals 34, 17 of which became “saviors”, whose lives were extremely similar to Jesus’s.

So, is one religion or God greater than another? Which has the Truth? Adonai? Allah? Elohim? God? Hari? Jehovah? Krishna? Lord? Rama? Vishnu? Yahwey?

The fact is that divine inspiration is the birthright of every human being, and always has been. This is not what we have been told to believe. We have been told we are sinners and unworthy. Indeed, most of the killing and suppression of people have been done in the name of God. These are our models, which have become our beliefs, which create our behaviors.

The world is in big trouble, but this does not mean that now is a time for despair. In fact, it is despair that has created the problem. It is a time for change. We need the courage to change our old beliefs about God and life. I believe this can change the world.The book, The New Revelations: A Conversation With God by Neale Donald Walsch lists “Five Steps to Peace” we can choose now to shift everything on our planet:

1. You can choose to acknowledge that some of your old beliefs about God and about Life are no longer working.
2. You can choose to acknowledge that there is something you do not understand about God and about Life, the understanding of which will change everything.
3. You can choose to be willing for a new understanding of God and Life to now be brought forth, an understanding that could produce a new way of life on your planet.
4. You can choose to be courageous enough to explore and examine this new understanding, and, if it aligns with your inner truth and knowing, to enlarge your belief system to include it.
5. You can choose to live your lives as demonstrations of your highest and grandest beliefs, rather than as denials of them.

We need to understand God’s greatest gift of all: free will. God has no requirements and loves us perfectly. No one is better than anyone else. You cannot fail God. God wants or needs nothing. There is nothing that is not God. God/We are happiness itself. Sin is the denial of your divinity. The challenge is not to get to heaven, but to know you are already there.

The question is not whether our beliefs and behaviors are “right” or “wrong”, but do they work? Are they bringing peace and harmony? Are they functional, adaptable, sustainable, which are the basic principles of life? The New Revelations proposes that we create a new two-sentence Gospel: “We are all One. Ours is not a better way; ours is merely another way.”

There are many paths to God. It’s all made up. How do we know what’s God’s Truth? (Go within). God has never stopped communicating directly with us. God talks to everyone all the time. “Inner peace is not achieved by outward means… God is the essence of inner peace.” Self-realization is knowing who you really are: God (peace, harmony, love, joy, and compassion).

In my book, Why Love Heals, I wrote that self-love or loving yourself is the core issue that underlies all of our concerns. I stated that if I could create a new diagnostic code for physical or mental disorders, it would be called “Forgotten Identity”. We have forgotten the Truth of who we are and the connection to our Essential Nature. I implore you to have the courage to explore these new understandings.

Belonging means being a part of, connected with, held by, member of, included in, and allied to. It’s feeling truly “at home”, peace and joy. Spiritually, it’s a deep realization of who we are – a part of God/Ultimate Being. At the deepest level we are most ourself, most authentic and at peace when we realize our oneness and connectedness with God, the Source of all that is.

This is what every major religion and spiritual group has taught and believes. This is perhaps the greatest truth of all – that we are a part of and connected to the wholeness of all that is.

There is One with many parts. We are a full-fledged member and part of the wholeness of the universe – a thread in the Grand Tapestry and web that connects the entire universe. We can feel small, insignificant, even completely separate from all that surrounds us, but what happens if we pull a thread? The tapestry begins to unravel.

You, your thread, matters as much as any other. All belong to and work together to form the grandest vision ever imagined. We in our human form are a human thread in the tapestry of humankind. All threads matter. All lives matter. Black lives matter. Women’s lives matter. Gay lives matter.

We are all a part of a grand master plan of discovering the truth of who we are, the core of which is aligned with God, love, and complete harmony and order. And when we open to this truth is when we open to the grace and benevolence of the Universe. This is the ultimate purpose of meditation and prayer – opening to and connecting with our spiritual awareness and reminder that we are completely safe and loved and never alone.

It’s knowing that spiritual support and guidance is closer than a breath away. The Bible (Matthew 7:7 and Luke 11:9) state in almost the exact same words, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. The same message comes from many contemporary sources, such as the channeled messages in Ask and It is Given by Esther Hicks and A Course in Miracles.

My book, Why Love Heals, defines love as oneness. And my research concluded that cancer patients lived longer and fared better when they felt loved and cared for. God has a consciousness that connects to our individual consciousness. We have an immediate connection to this consciousness because we are never disconnected from this source of Divine Consciousness.

In Voices of Love from the Light channeled by Philip Burley, is a conversation with twenty great souls in the afterlife. My favorite is with Albert Einstein who said, “Love, the essence of God everywhere, holds everything together. That is what holds life together, that is what holds the atom together, and that is what energy is.”

In Dr. Kelly Turner’s doctoral dissertation, she discovered there were nine key healing factors in spontaneous remissions from cancer. In her books, Radical Remission and Radical Hope, she claimed that the common healing factor of “deepening your spiritual connection“ appeared in every case they studied.

In his book, Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease, this acclaimed cardiologist and researcher concluded that the key was to heal people’s isolation. This included 1) isolation from our feelings, our inner self, and inner peace; 2) isolation from others; and 3) isolation from a higher force. In the end he said it all comes down to, “Do you feel loved and cared for?”While teaching my wellness program to thousands of cancer patients and their families, I discovered what matters most to people are their spiritual beliefs, family, and friends. It’s all about relationships and a feeling of belonging, about wanting to love and be loved. Loneliness and feeling isolated can be devasting. Make sure you’re getting the social support you need, whether from family, friends, church or support groups, or any person or place where you feel nurtured, at ease, and most yourself. Of course, you will never feel more yourself and at peace than by connecting with the eternal core spiritual truth of who you really are.