To Tell the Truth

For about a month or two at the beginning of this year, I spent a lots of time sitting on the steps at the far end of the patio intensely contemplating the domino effect vision(s) I had seen after God, the Universe, and Everything revealed itself to me on Christmas Eve of last year.

My lovely supermodel wife was more than little worried that I had lost my fucking mind, and finally said this, “What the hell are you thinking about when you stare off into space for half of the day?”

She knows now.

Yesterday, she said this, “I read your blog. I’ve read every one of your blog posts. I’m afraid the content of your last post is going to be over the heads of most of the people who read it. I’m not saying this as a criticism, I just think you’re writing about stuff that’s probably too deep for a lot of people to understand.”

Yep, she’s right about that. In response, I told her the water isn’t going to get any shallower, so take a big breath, and hold it as long as you can. We’re diving deep — very deep. I’m going to start to try to explain the Truth about God as I now understand Him.

Most of the things I’m going to say, if not all of them, are going to go directly against the grain of everything you currently believe. If you want to get anything out what I’m going to say, you’re going to have adopt the attitude of that famous German philosopher, Sergeant Hans Schultz from the American TV show Hogan’s Heroes:

You might think that’s a joke. It’s not. Your intellect and personality are going to try to reject everything I’m going to say. And the only thing I can say in advance is you’ve been forewarned.

* * * *

To Tell the Truth is an American television panel show in which four celebrity panelists are presented with three contestants, one of which has an unusual occupation, or a unique experience — and this contestant must tell the truth when questioned. Hence, the name of the show. The other two contestants are imposters, and they can lie their asses off. When the celebrity panel has asked all the questions they’re allowed, they have to decide which one of the contestants is the real deal. Then the host says, “Will the real Billy Bob Thornton please stand up.”

I picked Billy Bob simply because I like saying his name.

If the panel can’t guess which Billy Bob is the real Billy Bob, the contestants get to split more money. So being a convincing liar can be very advantageous for the contestants.

Apparently, this show is still on the airwaves, but I haven’t watched it since I was a kid. The host of the show back then was Bud Collyer. And the celebrity panel was a bunch of has-been actors that I don’t think I’d ever seen in any movie, ever. Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean, and Kitty Carlisle are the panelists I remember the best, though there were probably a boatload of other has-beens that appeared on the show from time to time.

* * * *

Okay, let’s get back on track. Why do you believe all of the things you currently believe to be true about God and your relationship with Him?

I can tell you what happened to me. People started telling me the things I used to believe about God back when I was just a little kid. And that’s what had happened to the adults that were teaching me. They taught me what they had been taught to believe. And that pattern has been repeating itself for centuries.

It’s been a long time since I was a kid. I’ve spent years independently researching everything I had been taught to believe, just to check and see if it made any sense in the harsh light of day.

It didn’t. After years of what I thought was unguided study on my own, I’ve come to the conclusion that goddamn near everything I’ve been taught to believe about God, the Universe, and Everything and my relationship with Him — almost all of it is a lie.

If you’ve been wondering why I’ve decided to go down the road I’m on, that’s why. This bullshit has got to stop.

* * * *

If I were to ask you to describe who and what God is — when you think of God, how do you imagine Him to be — almost everyone that believes in God will likely say something like unto this: Well, I see God as the Supreme Being/Deity, of course. He’s a Spirit, right? So He’s probably invisible, unless He’s far, far away in Heaven with all of His angels, and then He probably looks like Orson Welles. God is mysterious and unknowable, and I never really know if He answers my prayers or not. If I really analyze it, God probably scares the shit out me because I want to be a good person, but I’m afraid He might send me to Hell because I don’t always succeed at that being good thing, and I’ve done some pretty bad things in my life…”

Am I close? Feel free to leave a comment at the end. I might respond to you…

If you’re afraid I’m about to get all theological and start quoting a bunch of scriptures from the Bible, fear not, and be of good faith. If you really want to understand God, the Bible is the last place you should go. In order to understand God, the Universe, and Everything, you need to research an entirely different genre of study. You need to go to the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of Barnes and Noble.

Here’s a little Best Practice tip for you: the better you are at abstract thinking, the easier this may be for you. Even then, you are going to struggle with this. I am one of the best abstract thinkers I know, and even I find this stuff baffling at times.

If you don’t like SciFi/Fantasy because the genre is too “abstract” for you, reading anything I have to write from this point onward — I’m probably going to be wasting your time.

* * * *

Just in cases you were wondering: Abstract thinking, also known as abstract reasoning, involves the ability to understand and think with complex concepts that, while real, are not tied to concrete experiences, objects, people, or situations.

Here, I have an example for you:

* * * *

Her: “Thanks for coming to the Museum of Modern Art with me today, honey!”

Him: “When you said we were going someplace fun, I thought you were taking me to the ballgame…”

Her: “This is a special exhibition with works of art from over 100 different counties, from some of the most amazing artists spanning every important era in the history of art — from all across the world! Like this painting here — Oh, I just love this painting, don’t you? This is just so powerful! Look how incorporates the rigid structure and symmetry of the Renaissance, but it’s punctuated with free-flowing elements from Pointillism and asymmetry from Cubism. I think this creates the perfect juxtaposition of classic Romanticism, counterbalanced with the Post-Modern, Neoclassical, Minimalist Rococo eras! This painting speaks to my soul. What do you see when you look at this painting?”

Him: “Well… It looks like a vagina… Marching in a Gay Pride Parade… With, like, the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings on top of its head.”

Her: “Hahaha! Vaginas don’t have eyes. That’s the clitoris.”

Him: “What’s a clitoris?”

* * * *

Are you ready? Avengers, assemble! We’re heading to Narnia to stop the evil Bavmorda from killing Harry Potter, and find the Holy Grail. We’re going jump aboard the Federation starship USS Enterprise. Don’t panic, and don’t forget your bath towel. Is everyone wearing their secret decoder white gold rings of power? Did you remember to pack your lembas bread? You’re going to need to eat a snack every now and then. Did you bring any ale? Every good fantasy story has a lots of ale in it!

* * * *

Does anyone remember the Eleventh Universal Truth from my last post? God is Every Thing in the Universe. Every Thing in the Universe is God. Do you remember these verses from the Gospel of John: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.

I don’t think I’ll be citing the Bible very often, but even the Bible concurs that everything that was made — was made by God. I’ll have more to say about the Word at some latter point in time yet to be determined by my Muses.

* * * *

According to the current understanding of modern science, the universe was born out of something called the Big Bang. Anyone disagree with that? However, if you were to ask a scientist person to explain just exactly what the Big Bang was, they’d probably tell you they couldn’t.

This is the way I have come to understand this phenomenon: Imagine, if you can, that the first suicide bomber in history was none other God. And then understand this: God wasn’t trying to kill Himself to death when He blew Himself up. I just need you to understand this was an intentional act.

The Big Bang was exactly that, it was an enormous explosion. And the thing that got blown into a million, billion, trillion, ga-zillion little pieces was God Himself. God did not die in the process. He continued to live on as the All-Powerful, All-Knowing Supreme Being that lives in Heaven with his angels and looks like Orson Welles — but wait, there’s more! God also continued to live on in the form of every other particle of matter, mass, energy, and any other obscure piece of the material world that exists or ever will exist.

* * * *

Even though I consider the Bible to be an inadequate source of information about God, the Bible makes at least one point very clear. God is not human. He is not like us, not in any way. In order for God to blow Himself up and still survive — God has to be an alien lifeform comprised completely of energy. Incredibly complex, sentient, and unimaginable fucking powerful, ENERGY.

When God described Himself as being All-Powerful, this is why. If He can create an entire universe without breaking a sweat, is there anything He can’t do? God, as I have come to view Him, is not merely an alien lifeform, He is The LifeForce. Without God, I wouldn’t be writing this, and you wouldn’t be wondering why you ever started reading it.

We are accustomed to energy in several forms: potential, kinetic, electrical, nuclear — and there are several others. We may know many, maybe most of the forms of energy that exist, but that doesn’t mean we know them all. Nor does it mean we completely understand all of the potential uses or applications of any of the forms of energy that we’re familiar with.

* * * *

“There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” ~ Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5. That’s Shakespeare’s way of telling us we don’t know as much as we think we do.

* * * *

Do any of you remember this law from Physics class: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. That’s the First Law of Thermodynamics: ΔU = Q − W. It was developed in 1850 by a German physicist named Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius, William John Macquorn Rankine, a Scottish mechanical engineer, and William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, a British mathematician, physicist, and engineer.

If you take the Big Bang of God and analyze it with this law, it lines up perfectly.

* * * *

Whoa! Time out, dude! I think my brain just fucking exploded!

See? I told you that you’d have a hard time accepting this. Your human brain will tell you that’s not possible. I don’t expect anyone to read this and say, Oh! That’s how it works!, and not question anything I say. That is impossible. But consider this: In 1799, the first time the scientific community in Great Britain saw the preserved specimen of a platypus, they thought it had to be a hoax.

Just because you don’t think something is real doesn’t mean it isn’t. Conversely, if you refuse to acknowledge an alternative reality, you will never be able to gain any benefit from it…

* * * *

Your brain is going to tell you none of these puzzle pieces are going to fit together. Not the way your brain is programed to process this information, so try thinking of it this way: God is just like Deadpool. And the Wonder Twins.

God cannot be killed to death — He’s actually better than Deadpool in that regard. And the Wonder Twins, if you remember them, could transform into anything — gas, solid, liquid, animal, mineral, vegetable — any shape or form they could imagine, but the shape and form they morphed into still retained their own personal consciousness.

Now apply what you just read to God. Not only can God survive blowing Himself into a million, billion, trillion, ga-zillion little pieces in order to create the universe and everything in it — every one of those minute particles of God that are floating around the universe, and the galaxies, and the solar systems — every little itsy-bitsy atom created in the Big Bang contains a fragment of the consciousness of God.

When God described Himself as being All-Knowing, this is why. He is consciously part of everything within our universe, and every thing in the universe contains a part of His consciousness. How could He not know everything?

* * * *

The only example I can think of to illustrate this comes from one of the books in the Dune series, by Frank Herbert. In the third book, Children of Dune, Leto Atreides II merged his human flesh with an unknown number of sandtrout, the harmless larval form of the monstrous and deadly sandworms that inhabited the planet Arrakis. Over the next few millennia — because of the sandtrout in his body, Leto became a human/sandworm-hybrid; the only part of him recognizably human was his face. In every other way, Leto had become a sandworm.

In the fourth book of the series, God Emperor of Dune, Leto was assassinated when his enemies blew up a bridge spanning a river that Leto’s procession had to cross. When Leto’s sandworm body hit the waters far below, the dormant sandtrout that had been trapped inside his body were released — each of these hybrid sandtrout contained a pearl of Leto’s consciousness.

If you haven’t read Dune, I highly recommend you read it. At least the first six books. There’s, like, twenty books or more in the series. And then you’ll have a better understanding of the above “nonsense” that may or may not be making any goddamn sense to you right now.

* * * *

Maybe you remember this bit of cinematic magic:

“The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.”

* * * *

Um, excuse me…

Yes. The guy in the back of the room. I thought you were sleeping, but do you have a question?

Yeah, I do. So, God is an alien lifeform that blew Himself apart, but somehow didn’t blow Himself apart — and in the process of doing that — God became The Force?!? From Star Wars??

Hmm… You’re close, but I was hoping you’d be able to make the jump to this conclusion:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”

Oh… But does that mean I can still become a Jedi knight?

Um, yeah. I mean it’s possible, if that’s what you want to do…

Can I have a lightsaber, too?

Sure, why not. But you should know this: a true Jedi knight wouldn’t need a lightsaber. It’d be about as necessary as a catcher’s mitt is to a ballerina when she’s dancing on stage.

* * * *

God. He reigns in Highest Heaven, and is about as attainable to us as humans living on Saturn is possible for humanity at this time. That’s what I imagine most people think when they contemplate their relationship with God. But now you know that God isn’t an icy deity a couple of thousand parsecs away. God is diffused throughout the entire universe. He is part of everything in the universe. and there is nothing in the universe that doesn’t contain a particle of the consciousness of God.

And when I say everything, I mean everything. Even you.

Yes! We, and by we, I mean every single human being living on this planet right now. We are part of the Everything that was created when God blew Himself to pieces to create the universe, are we not? And if you’re really good at abstract thinking, you will realize that the implications of this version of the Big Bang are truly mind-boggling.

We are composed of flesh and blood, but within every cell of our bodies, we contain a microscopic piece of God’s consciousness. We have the very DNA of God and His angels written into our genetic code! It’s dormant, just like the sandtrout trapped in Leto’s body, but if you are able to attune your mind, your heart, and your body to the correct frequency — you can awaken the presence of God inside your body.

* * * *

If, in reading this, a part of you feels compelled to continue on this journey, you’re going to have to start reprogramming your brain. And how am I supposed to do that? you ask. The solution sounds simple. All you have to do is change the way you think. To phrase it another way, your task is to elevate your level of consciousness.

I used to teach a class on this when I was a psych nurse. It’s called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. There are a couple of tons of information available on CBT on the InterWeb, and you don’t have to sign yourself into a psych ward to get any of it. All you have to do is use the Google. Or sign up for Noom…

Be the change you want to see. Reframe the way you see yourself in the world, and how you see God. You are not separated from God. You have never been separated from God. You have always been united. He lives and breathes within you. You are one with God. All you have to do is wake the fuck up and realize it.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within me.

Say that to yourself, like, a thousand times a day.

Place your faith and trust in God. Fear not, and be of good faith. And don’t worry that you’re not making any progress. You are un-Doing almost everything you’ve ever learned. This is not like going to LensCrafters and getting a new pair of glasses in about an hour.

If you open your heart to Him, your mind will follow. If you open your mind to Him, your heart will follow. It doesn’t matter how you do it, it only matters that you do it! Meditate on the new way you see yourself and God for an hour a day. If you don’t have any free time, do it whenever you can, but the greater effort you put into this, the greater your return will be.

* * * *

I don’t know. This sounds like a lot of work to me.

And that’s the first insightful thing you’ve said. It is a lots of work. Actually, it can be extremely exhausting. But remember when I said we all have to try to make the world a better place? And God, the Universe, and Everything had some very, very very cool ideas on how to make that happen?

Remember how Bastian saved Fantasia from complete destruction by using his imagination to create a brand new Fantasia?

If you can battle through the arguments of your intellect and personality, if you can cast aside your doubts and anxieties and put your faith in God — if you can find the Key to unlock the potential of your dormant Divine DNA — if you can do that, all you’ll have to do is imagine something/anything — and it will become a reality in less than a blink of eye.