Christianity The Whole Answer MP3

The speaker questions whether Christianity is the only path to truth and living in alignment with God. They acknowledge the power and authenticity of the Christian message but mention several conflicts they have experienced, such as the acceptance of homosexuality and the richness of other cultures and spiritual practices. They also find limitations in the wording of Christianity and flaws in the church. The speaker believes in the importance of mindfulness and being present in the moment, which they feel Christianity does not address. They conclude that they want to be both a Christian and a spiritual person open to insights from different sources. They mention examples of successful individuals who integrate Christian beliefs with other spiritual understandings. They believe this is the direction spirituality is heading, even though it may go against traditional church teachings. I wanted to just talk about whether Christianity is the whole answer, is the sole path to truth and a life in alignment with God. I think this trip, my answer to that is no, I think, and there's a whole heap of reasons for that, but firstly, I think the Christian message is an extraordinary one, an extraordinarily powerful one, and I also still do believe that Jesus was the Son of God and the message is sent from God to guide certain people on earth to a better life was this gift. So there's so much power and authenticity and truth in that message, and it is real, and what I'm saying in no way demeans Christianity, but I think there's a number of, if I follow the current letter of the Law of Christian Doctrine, there's a number of actual experiences I've had that really conflict with that, and I'll just list them. I think, firstly, that the whole homosexual thing, obviously with my friend Leo, I can see it then and there that he is authentically being who he is. He is born gay, he is being authentic to who he is, and he's a beautiful person. I've experienced the Christian doctrine would go in and tear up his relationship with Nabu and say, look, it's wrong for men to love each other, and all the evidence is coming out now that people are just born that way. So I just think that, I genuinely believe the goal of our life is just to be fully authentic, to find out who we truly are and explore and experience that in all its love and beauty. My experience is that there's nothing wrong with being gay. Secondly, again, my experience is seeing the Balinese people and their beautiful, beautiful culture and nature and their spiritual sense to their life, and I think there's more than one truth. There are some fundamentals about the universe that I've talked about before, that there's a higher being and meaning, and we call that God. There's our life, which has value, there's our free will, and there's the capacity for us to follow our ego or grow into our authentic self, and they're the things that all cultures and peoples have been struggling with throughout humanity, and they've come up with different ways of exploring and expressing that concept of how to live one's life, given the spiritual things we know and our intuition and our hearts and our souls, and, you know, again, with Christian doctrine, going to all these Balinese people, their beautiful life, their beautiful culture and religious beliefs and practices, and their spiritual sense of how to be, and you'd say, actually, guys, by the way, you've got it wrong. All that stuff you've been doing for thousands of years, can it, and it's just not the case. Another thing is I look at my own experience and how I just really struggled with some of the concepts of Christianity, and how I tried to feel it or experience it, I couldn't, and then I went away on this retreat, and the words of the self-authenticity and this idea of the ego, and I understood it, and I know it's exactly the same as what the Christian theology is, but it's just expressed so differently and so much more relevant to who I am, and I think that's one of the weaknesses with Christianity, you know, for example, when they talk about life as sort of sin, I think that's a very narrow concept of the ego, because the ego is sometimes just unconsciously doing things that aren't authentic, and that's what life is, sort of exploring that kind of unconscious self of us, what practices have we picked up at childhood, or have we just adopted from our friends or from society or from our school business that aren't really us, and how do we peel away the layers of both our sin and all these learned behaviours and these societal beliefs that aren't us and actually make authentic, courageous decisions in growing to who we are, and I don't think that the wording of Christianity really sort of describes that very articulately. I think it was a message at a particular time, at a particular place, with a particular language, and in some ways with all this new understanding of spirituality and this new understanding of how the brain works in science, I sometimes wonder whether the Christian wording, you know, how that sort of plays into it, and it's that concept between giving your life to God, which sounds extraordinarily scary, living under his will, versus doing what his will actually is, which is finding our authentic self, and so there's a weakness there in the words of Christianity, I find. And that's why I had to sort of go overseas to unlock it. The fourth thing is that there's obviously, you know, flaws in the church itself, and we just can't deny that the church has its own, each of the different denominations has its own ego and its own flaws and weaknesses. Again, this doesn't necessarily go against the Christian message, it just means you have to take things with a little bit of a grain of salt, and that's why, you know, you look at the Catholic church and their belief that, you know, priests shouldn't have sex, and look at all the harm that's caused. It goes completely against the whole purpose of life, which is to fully grow into our authentic self. And that's just one example of, you know, you've got to realize we're dealing with human institutions that have their own ego, so that's number four. And I suppose number five is that there are some really, really important concepts, and probably the one that stands out the most is this concept of mindfulness, living in the present rather than living in either the past or future. That's probably the one that stands out. I think I'm still growing in that, that's something I haven't got, but I understand that to be mindful and to develop some skills around that awareness, that's a key element of fully growing into our authentic spiritual self. Yet that's a topic that Christianity is really silent on. So what does all this mean, I think? When Jesus came down and their message, you know, you had the Roman Empire, you had the Jews who were following all these ridiculous little rules, and all the religious leaders that fool themselves with their arrogance and their practices, and there was the typical things of sex and power and money. And he came down and he said, look, this is the truth. I am the truth. All of this other rubbish that's going on and that people are idolizing, that's not the truth. I am. And so for the people of that day, and then he rose up to heaven, and that was the spiritual moment where people realized, hey, he was the light, he was the truth. And that was 2,000 years ago in that society in Palestine. Now, I don't necessarily think that excludes there being other truths. Again, I refer back to the Balinese continent, to me, they are just extraordinary people. I just think it just doesn't ring true. It's not authentic to me to say that's the only truth. I think it is a truth, and that should be enough. And it's our pathway to living a spiritual and a whole life, and it's true, and it is deeply spiritual. But I think where I am is I want to be both a Christian and also a spiritual person who's open to insights and practices that come to us from all different sources around the world. And I think the two are consistent. And you look at some people, and these are just based on books I read, but the most successful coach ever to live in sport, Phil Jackson, he interwined Christian and beliefs and other spiritual and psychological understandings. Oprah Winfrey is the same, very much has a strong Christian ethic to what she does, but interweaves mindfulness and other new spiritual understandings. So I think that's where the game is. That's where it's all heading. And it's not the agenda of the church to kind of acknowledge this, because in some ways it's sort of going against the thing that all you have to do is look to Jesus. It's sort of saying, well look, there are other insights too that if you want to fully grow into your spirituality, there are other things out there. So that's what I think I am. I think I'm a Christian, but I'm also spiritual and open to other ideas that will help me grow into my fully authentic self.