I feel great! This weekend was wonderful for me! Saturday began with a little flight in my airplane over the Rockies to Invermere, B.C. This was something I had been wanting to do for a long time. Flying in and over the mountains is a very different feeling than flying out over the prairies. Over the prairies there seem to be endless landing possibilities in the event of a crisis. In the mountains, watch out! Anyway, made it without incident, had a cup of coffee at the local Super 8, flew back. Returning I encountered considerably more clouds than outbound, so had to fly quite high, up to 14,000 feet, to avoid them. But it was a great feeling of accomplishment!

So, a positive start to the weekend. Then home, lunch, nap, and mowed the front lawn. At my house this is quite an undertaking, it being almost as much vertical as horizontal!! Cleaned out some grass and weeds around some trees, and then tackled my fence. We are contemplating building a deck in a few weeks, and my decrepit old fence has to go for that. It had to go anyway, as it was in danger every big wind we had! Got a little over half of it down.

So Saturday was a day full of physical work. It felt great! Also, I am on a restrictive diet and have been operating at very low energy for quite a few weeks. That I was able to accomplish as much as I did with such low energy felt like a huge deal!

Sunday morning, traditionally a Church day for me, I spent on the internet, catching up on numerous spirituality websites I more-or-less keep track of. And it was wonderful! The overall impression I am receiving right now is quite optimistic. It seems to be the consensus that May and before was a difficult time for many spiritual people. But June is seen as bringing in more light and positive stuff. There is a lot going on behind the scenes, spiritually. Things may look dark on the physical plane, but in the spiritual realms things are happening. There is definitely the sense that a shift is occurring.

This shift has been foretold for a long time now. At first many anticipated it would happen at the change of ages predicted in the Mayan calendar. This prediction was usually thought by scholars to be the winter solstice of 2012. Nothing really happened then. At least nothing visible, nothing “big”, or noticeable. There was some understandable disappointment over that. But the sun keeps coming up in the morning, so we have to go on.

This would accord with my opinion that setting the Mayan calendar date so precisely was a big mistake. It was based on scholars interpreting some very mysterious and enigmatic carvings on ancient ruins of the Mayan culture. I felt it was a mistake to pin it down to our own modern Julian calendar so closely.

Now the thinking is that the next few months promise significant events to occur. Will this have the same outcome? Will there be noticeable shifts, or disappointing sameness? I don’t know. Huge grains of salt are needed to take any of this seriously, until events actually begin occurring. However, for me personally, my past weekend certainly makes me feel that my own spirit is in accord with what I am reading from various outside sources. I resonate with the opinion that the months leading up to September will be significant. Hang on! The ride may be interesting!!! Like flying through the mountains in a small airplane!!!

That is the question, isn’t it? What is the core of Christianity? Where is the heart of religion? Did Jesus come to establish a religion?

I find looking back on my religious/spiritual life that I have been very gradually moving from belief to experience. “Very gradually,” although sometimes in huge leaps, other times enduring long dry plateaus. “Gradually” is the overall view provided by the long look back over time!

On a recently-watched video of a BBC interview* with Carl Jung he was asked about his belief in God. He stated he had some trouble with that word, “believe”. “I know, I don’t need to believe. I know,” he replied. If someone knows God, if someone has experienced the Divine, has experienced the Spirit realm, there is no need to believe in it, or him. There is direct knowledge. This statement from one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century helped clear things up for me. It went a long way to explaining my own path, my current position.

Early Church experiences in the 1970’s (see Chapter 2, Out of Winkler, for example) had started me on the journey of experiencing God, as opposed to only a rational belief in him. Gradually I began realizing how limiting dogma is. Don’t get me wrong. I think, at the beginning of one’s walk, that doctrine, scripture, etc, are a help along the way. I certainly value highly my own biblical training. It still informs me. I have not rejected previous training and experiences; rather, I have built on them, and continue to build on them. However, increasingly I realize, as Jung says, “Religion is a defense against religious experience.” (Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul, Claire Dunne, p 152). In a letter to a friend, Jung says, “People speak of belief when they have lost knowledge. Belief and disbelief in God are mere surrogates.” (Wounded Healer, p 153).

More and more I am encountering this idea: that experience and direct knowledge supersedes belief. For example, in my recently-reviewed book by Anita Moorjani, I find the following quotes: “Instead, letting go of attachment to any way of believing or thinking has made me feel more expanded and almost transparent so that universal energy can just flow through me.” (p 160.) “So these days, I don’t follow any established methodology, order, ritual, dogma, or doctrine. . . . For me, life is a spiritual experience, and I’m changing and evolving all the time.” (p 154). “To advocate any option or doctrine as being the one true way would only serve to limit who we are and what we’ve come here to be.” (p 155).

Again, from another recent review: “At last, I understood what religion was really all about. Or at least was supposed to be about. I didn’t just believe in God; I knew God.” (Proof of Heaven, Eben Alexander, p 147).

It is almost precisely two years ago that I had my own profound experience of the Divine. I had my first soul regression session, and was gently ushered into the Spirit realm. (See especially, Chapter 15 in Out of Winkler). I experienced what every other person who has been there has experienced: unconditional love, complete lack of judgement, affirmation of who I was and what I was doing on earth during this lifetime, encouragement that I had what it takes to do what I needed to do and to be who I am. So I know. I know who I am in God. I know what the afterlife is like. I know God better for this experience. I no longer need to merely believe. As Jung says, “‘God-awful legalistic religion’ and over-reliance on faith [gets] in the way of gnosis, or direct knowledge of God.”  (Wounded Healer, p 152).

If there is a God you must see him;

If there is a soul we must perceive it;

Otherwise it’s better not to believe;

It’s better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite. (source unknown)

__________                                                                                                                       BBC interview: “Matter of Heart”, conducted in the late 1950’s, when Jung would’ve been in his early 80’s.