By Cathy Eck
A lot of spiritual teachers tell people to ask “Who Am I?” over and over again until they know the answer. It’s an interesting question, but I’m not sure that the answers that people seem to get are helpful. Some seem to decide that they are something beyond the physical and pull themselves away from real life. Others seems to look for or find some deeper purpose or meaning to life. But what if life is meaningless except for what we give it?
For me, it’s just not a practical question. I love the esoteric view of life, but only if it has practical application. I can’t be bothered with trying to escape the world I’m in while I’m in it. I’ve always wanted to know how to really live in the world and be the best me I can. How do I give meaning to life?
Ever since I was young, I’ve been asking myself questions, but these three questions are the ones that I really wanted to answer. And if people are honest, they want to know the answer to these questions as well. Sadly, most people think they know the answers, but they only know what they’ve been told. When we let go of our beliefs, we start to see why people go to psychics and listen to prophets. When we don’t own the true masculine role of creator in our life, we fear what will happen next. Not allowing us to know we’re creators certainly works well for those who want us to support their creative endeavors.
The three questions, which I continue to ask myself all the time, are very similar. And yet, the answers tend to be very different. Each time I ask the questions, I go deeper into my mind. I never get the same answer twice.
I sometimes ask the people I mentor these questions when they’re stuck. The questions pull us deep into our unconscious mind. Strangely, they’re questions that almost no one ever asks. It’s like they are forbidden questions.
I also ask these questions of people I can’t understand or relate to — the people who look good but feel bad or the people who are stuck in a very rigid view of life. I’ll ask them to explain their perspective to me rather than me trying to explain myself to them. It took some letting go to get to the point where I could do this without anger or judgment. I also had to work hard to let go of my fear of their judgment; it often sent my mind into confusion where I felt helplessly stuck in the feminine role. But letting go of beliefs solves everything in time.
I’m not saying I walk up to everyone and physically ask these questions. No, sometimes I just hold the questions in my mind. I look for the answers in what they say or do. I listen carefully to their words, and I ask myself what would cause them to believe as they do. I’ve learned that doing this helps me to connect with the person in a compassionate way. Most people connect around shared beliefs. When we question what another says, we don’t automatically take their beliefs in. Thus it feels as if we have no connection. However, if we can get to our True Self and recognize that the other’s thoughts are simply false, then we can rest in compassion and have a comfortable discussion with them while not sharing their beliefs. With some practice, you’ll find you can connect to anyone and enjoy it without feel drained or confused.
People who are very rigid in their beliefs, like Bible thumpers, have a lot of conviction in their point of view. So many people cower before them. They feel like no matter what they say, it won’t make a difference. This means that they have been firmly wedged into the false feminine role. This always refreshes our powerless childhood memories. We usually get very angry or walk away. Because we can’t hold our own around such people, we often just give them our power. We might even become like them. How stupid is that? It’s real stupid, but we just don’t see another choice. We can’t see our True Self when we’re stuck in the illusion.
Since no one challenges these people, or can speak to them without judgment, they don’t think about what they’re saying. They don’t feel the emotions they generate with their own words because they’re so psychologically reversed. In truth, they aren’t bad people. They have a mental disease that allows them to speak complete and utter bullshit with confidence. They never doubt, even when they should. Nothing changes when people have too much confidence in their beliefs. Things change when we lose confidence in our beliefs. It’s win-win for everyone on this planet to challenge other people’s beliefs, especially when we can do it without judgment; it’s even win-win for the believer.
You see, when we question someone who’s speaking from their True Self, they don’t mind; they enjoy the opportunity to explain what they know. They don’t feel threatened. It’s the believer that avoids questions, feels threatened, and defends their turf.
Question 1: How do you get what you get in life?
Most people will answer this question by simply saying, “God.” But as you know, that doesn’t answer anything unless you know their definition of God. Since the beginning of time, there have been two versions of God. There’s the God of Genesis I — the creative principal or Creator (our True Self). Then there’s the God that takes over the rest of the Bible, the false Yahweh God who breeds fear and represents authority and control; he’s the template for our false masculine. This false God was the invention of men’s imagination and the leader of the illusion. So if this God runs their life, they’re really saying that authority runs their life. If you can see this, now you can understand why they sound so insane. They’re terrified of authority; and they support their authority figures in order to stay safe. Their answer is the belief that covers up their fear so they can look strong on the outside while fragile and small on the inside. And that’s why they often become defensive when we challenge their fragile beliefs. They are warriors for their false God; and they will be punished if they don’t defend him.
My ex-husband was sure that he was afraid of God. He said he was sure that he wasn’t afraid of people; he loved people, and they loved him. So one day I discussed this with him, “You aren’t afraid of God; because if you were, you’d obey all of God’s Biblical rules. You joined the military, and luckily you didn’t have to kill anyone; but you could have. You often distort the truth to avoid an argument. You want everything (covet they neighbor) that others have. You don’t even know, let alone follow, most of the rules of the Old Testament God — there were many more than ten. You sure as hell don’t treat others the way you want to be treated (just in case he was counting Jesus as God). You really aren’t afraid of God at all. You’re afraid of people in authority — your parents, your priest, anyone who is masculine to you. You’re terrified of their wrath and punishment. You blindly obey them while looking friendly so you can look like you’re choosing to obey them. Those who don’t obey your false Gods are bad in your mind. You want me to get punished by the God that punishes you, and I don’t. That proves your God is in your mind. You can’t love someone and secretly hope they get punished for being disobedient to the rules that you’ve chosen to blindly obey, especially when those rules are just someone’s made-up idea of how humans should behave.” He never admitted that I was correct, but he didn’t deny it either. I know that I made sense to him. No one had ever put it logically to him before because they were too busy enforcing their rules on him. In fact, they brainwashed the guy into conformity from the time he was born. They were his evil, not me. I was showing him that you could break the rules and nothing would happen. My ex-husband was quite normal and a nice guy; he taught me why people are stuck, he got me stuck, and he was a worthy opponent when I decided to escape his illusion; I’m grateful for that experience. Once you escape by letting go, you don’t fall again. He taught me a very important lesson. The biggest fear that most people have is other people — false authorities. Most humans are terrified of their own species.
Everyone has a True Self; and our True Self is an atheist because atheists don’t believe in the Old Testament God. Few atheists deny the creative principle; in fact, most are very creative. But they don’t subject themselves to creativity. What they don’t believe in is the false judgmental, punishing God. And they don’t get punished for that. You have to see that we can’t get punished by someone who isn’t squatting in our mind. But if we see them as having power over anyone except for their loyal believers, we’ve got some letting go to do ourselves. We’ve given them that extra power.
The most religious do the most harm. In truth, the only harm we can really do to another is to impose our beliefs on them. After they accept our beliefs, they harm themselves without our help. If people knew this, they’d change their mind, but they don’t. And that isn’t their fault. We all have human handlers in the illusion until we fire their asses by recognizing that they are false authorities. You see, if we think God is making all of our choices, then we don’t monitor our mind. We let anything in; we judge, gossip, condemn, and hate. We listen to others without discriminating or thinking about what they said. What does it matter? God is running our show. But God isn’t running our show; our handlers are.
Last night, I watched a great show on television about Christian “Deliverance” or “Exorcism.” One slightly sane expert admitted that people see others go through the deliverance process; they learn how to shake and fall and vomit, and then they do it to. They then believe that they too are possessed by evil demons. Then they seek deliverance. They go back to the creators of evil — the pastors. Now he takes away what he put in or at least it looks that way. And they praise him for his power. WTF? Of course, the evil demons were all beliefs that the preacher put in their mind. And this was obvious if you aren’t a believer.
The pastors in the show were sure they were called, but there is no such thing as calling. God doesn’t have a phone. What they hear is their own false God voice — probably the voice of a parent who wanted to be a preacher but never was or who wanted their child to preach. They’re called to be the people who keep the illusion alive. Some fucking calling huh?
Creativity doesn’t call us; it just answers when we call it. People spend their whole life waiting for God to tell them what to do; and the phone never rings. What a waste!
So the answer to my question can’t be “God.” God doesn’t cause our life to happen as it does; authority figures do. We put their rules in our mind and those rules and beliefs become the complex false God mindset that we hold inside. When we obey our false God, things go pretty well. When we don’t, we punish ourselves. Think about that. We fucking punish ourselves with our own false beliefs. Most people don’t want to punish themselves so they pretend they’re good by putting on the good mask, and they project their punishment on to others — the evil ones who don’t obey their God. This was exactly what generated my conversation with my ex-husband. Since I didn’t obey his God, I deserved punishment in his mind. This is why I tell people that emotional connection isn’t love; you are generally just meeting up with someone that can play the role of your punisher or someone you can punish. We call that relationship! LOL!
Having been an evil one myself for longer than I want to admit, I know that often I was wondering what did I do wrong? You see we are only evil in their illusion. This is exactly why we should never elect a religious leader — and our Founding Fathers in America understood this — so they created separation of church and state for this very reason. Religion creates good and evil; and false good can’t help but fight with their enemy, false evil. While wearing a proper mask, religious people can kill in the name of God, steal in the name of God, and curse everyone who doesn’t listen to their God. And no one will lock them up or even make them wrong for it.
There are some other answers to my question, “How do you get what you get in life?” Some say life is chaos or chance. Chaos means, “I have no fucking idea.” Luck is kind of like chaos with a tinge of specialness attached to it. If you don’t like chaos, you will flip to its opposite, destiny.
Others say, “My choices,” which was my answer for a long time. I saw the world through physically oriented eyes. But I eventually realized that I was choosing from options that others gave me and that was causing me to believe that hard work got me what I wanted. Eventually I hit barriers in the road where the choice I wanted didn’t exist. That caused me to realize that there was something beyond choosing. The real choice is between letting go and holding on to our beliefs. When we let go, the rules all disappear; the false God vanishes. And there are no choices to make. We’re back in Eden fulfilling our desires in pleasurable ways.
Then there are the fill-in answers of our genes, evolution, nurturing, etc. These are effects, not causes. Below the surface, there’s a reason that these beliefs are hard to let go. The Genesis II God was really the person’s ancestral voices speaking in our minds — dad, mom, grandpa, the shaman, the leader of the tribe; that hasn’t changed. Roles became popular because if I’m in the masculine role, everyone has to follow my false God inner voice. Since I’m an expert in my own false God, I win!
Question 2: Who is Your God?
We can presume that most people will say Lord God or Jesus (Son of God). But remember Jesus himself said that God was within. Adam, Abraham, Moses and all the other Old Testament creepy dudes saw God outside of them. Jesus didn’t say he was our God. He said, “We could do what he did.” He could do some pretty cool shit. Religion doesn’t teach how to be or think like Jesus; but to do what he did, we have to think like him. This is why religion is worthless. Religion teaches how to turn the Son of God (wise True Self) into the Son of Man (intellect or false self filled with beliefs) so we can’t create crap.
While living in Ecuador, my housemates were all Christian Fundamentalists. One day the question was posed to me, “Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God?” I politely answered, “No, but I think he’s a cool guy or story character depending on if he ever existed.” They then asked if I believed in God. I suspect they wanted to ask “Who is Your God?” but they had limited vision; they could only see a few possibilities. I replied that I knew that there was a creative mind or consciousness, but I didn’t believe in the Old Testament Yahweh God. No real comment or denial came from them. They just got quiet. I suspect that was because I wasn’t talking against them. I was just expressing what I knew as the truth from my point of view. The conversation evolved and eventually, they said, “In our religion we see Jesus as the Son of the Old Testament God. How can you see it otherwise?” My answer was, “I’ve read the Bible and that God was mean as hell. I’m not the greatest person, but I would never, ever do the things that God did, not even to my worst enemy. So how can I worship someone I don’t admire or look up to. That would be like me asking Hitler to be my mentor.” The room got silent, and I saw them nodding. The subject completely changed. You see they were in a corner. If they now admit to worshipping that God, they’re admitting to being lower than a clearly documented horrible being. Now their false beliefs were pinning them in a corner, not me. And that’s how it should always be. If we want to hold on to a false God fine; but then our problems, our stresses, and our suffering are our fault alone.
I find hypocrites to be the most fascinating people alive. They belong to a church and do the tongues, praise the Lord, and hand waving on Sunday morning, but on Monday they’re convincing us to join their multi-level marketing scheme or to buy the car we don’t need. They sell us some pharmaceuticals or tells us we have a fake mental or physical condition. That’s spiritual all right!!! That’s because their God is green — money. If the hypocrite can’t stand when you say “No,” or they want you to be responsible for their emotions (which they are generating by their own false beliefs and thoughts), then their God is power and control spiced with a little jealousy and envy. If they want you to accept their beliefs and obey them blindly, then their false self God needs to be right. In each case, their minds are psychologically reversed to hold beliefs that support their illusion of God. If you don’t obey that God, then you deserve punishment. This is why we often feel such strong emotions around these types of people. We sense they want us punished or cursed just like their Lord. They’re sure that their beliefs are true; and if you hold the Creator in your mind as the God principal, then you’re their enemy. But the reverse is not true; they aren’t your enemy. They have no power if you are really hanging out with the Creator. If they can get you to join their illusion, then you lose your advantage. If you don’t accept their beliefs at all, then you’ll always win.
Now we reach a very important point where many of us get hooked. We don’t like when others lose. When the false self loses, it’s win-win. The only way people will remember their desire for freedom is when their false self no longer serves them — or when we no longer accept their punishment. They have to hit the place where they no longer get the rewards that they believe they deserve by wearing a false mask and obeying a false God. When they aren’t successful anymore, win-win will rule the earth. This is why we must keep letting go of our beliefs that they still have any power at all. They only have the power we give them when we believe them.
Questions 3: When Do You Get Rewards? Or Punishments
I recently saw a youtube video of Seth McFarlane, the genius behind such hits as Ted, Family Guy, A Million Ways to Die in the West, and American Dad. Seth is an actor, animator, writer, producer, director, and damn good singer (which I have to admit even though I am not at all fond of crooning). Seth is an atheist, but damn is he ever creative. Turns out that Seth was booked on one of the flights that flew into the World Trade Towers on 9/11. People told him that he was saved for a reason — perhaps to clean up his life and quit doing his controversial version of comedy. Seth said, “No God didn’t save me. I slept in.” But of course, that isn’t a good enough answer for most. They find some coincidence in his sleeping in — some meaning that isn’t there. So he handled that beautifully. First he explained that he sleeps in all the time and misses a lot of flights. Then he explained, “If my life was spared by some nonexistent God because I happened to please him (which is highly unlikely), then what does that say about the people who died? How does that comfort the friends and family who lost people they loved? Did they have no value or meaning?”
He’s so right. Oprah and other movie stars often accept their accolades by giving the glory to Jesus or God. They believe in a God that chooses favorites, like the Jews and a few other religions; and they believe they were chosen to do what they do. No they weren’t chosen; they chose. And I think it’s great that they chose. I enjoy what they do. But they won’t admit that. Because then we’d all choose too. Or then they wouldn’t be humble. Why do we think it’s arrogant to choose? Because we were taught to think that way.
Earlier in my life, people described me as living under a lucky star. I did get the things I wanted easily, and I wasn’t saying affirmations or carrying a lucky charm to get them. I’d think of something, and then I was inspired to the actions that got me there. I had beliefs and sometimes the work was hard, but it wasn’t agonizing.
One day, my ex-husband was complaining because our friends inherited a lot of money. He was jealous of their good fortune. I was confused. I said to him, “Why would I want to inherit money when it’s so much fun to create my own?” He had no answer because he had no concept of creating his life. He was trained from birth to live a life of obedience, hard work, and servitude. I could always see the beliefs that held him back, and sometimes I could convince him to let them go. But as life went along, I became more and more concerned that my good fortune was somehow creating bad fortune for others. His good and evil way of thinking was slowly infecting my mind and my perspective. I eventually fell completely into his world, and then it was all clear. Things came easy to me simply because I didn’t have a lot of beliefs. Later, I had all his beliefs in my mind, and everything was so damn hard. I didn’t realize others had all those beliefs in their mind because I thought everyone thought like me. How can you imagine beliefs when you don’t have them? This is exactly why we all fall sooner or later; and hopefully we find our way back to freedom.
I learned a lot from his point of view. I now understood that there were many people who had lots of beliefs, and they also got everything they wanted because they had authority or power over others. They got into a masculine role and held on for dear life. Now I could clearly see the difference between holding no beliefs and holding the masculine power role. And as I let go of the beliefs I accepted from my husband, I saw my natural power slowly return. Now, I really understood the illusion — how it draws us in and how we escape it. Letting go didn’t change much of anything; it simply got me back on my old path.
Now I remembered what I used to care about. I cared about things like: Why did some people seem unable to get what they want? Why do some people struggle and suffer so much? Why do bad things happen to what look like good people? How could I help people to see more choices in life? How could I get people to let go of their beliefs? I now had the answers to all of that and more. And I also was willing to allow people the freedom to let go or not because I was no longer afraid of my own species. I could ignore people. Tough love became easier to pull off; and I now understood that allowing someone to suffer the natural consequences of their own thinking and deeds is completely fair.
Suddenly, I understood how the Creator would think. We’re given free will. We get to think as we want and suffer the consequences of that thinking. And it’s only irresponsible people who blame all that on a projected made-up God. That’s their illusion. Just like I get to pick what movies I watch. They get to pick what illusion they want to live. If I believe them, I’m responsible for that choice; not them. However, I realized that there was a gaping hole in the circle of life. No one tells people how to discriminate or let go; no one says that we can. No one explains that beliefs aren’t the truth. And thus, I decided or chose to fill that gap. I decided to breath life into the illusion’s old exit ramp — initiation.
Getting Real About Life
So as you can see, these are all slight variations of the same question. But the questions really get to the heart and the source of most of the beliefs that exist in the illusion today. If we blast the cause, the effects just disappear.
If we’re honest, those who appear successful obey their belief system to the letter even if it tramples over others; they find that trampling to be justified. People aren’t punished by God for being hateful to minorities or different people. People aren’t punished by God for killing their enemy. People can take all your money, and they don’t suffer.
Humans punish for not obeying. We’re more afraid of the humans that want to send our child to war to kill their own enemy, than we are of the God that says, “Don’t kill.” We need to get real honest about that, and then we find the incentive to do the work of initiation.
The Creator’s punishment is entirely fair, we live the results of our beliefs — cause and effect. Humans and their imaginary God look through lenses of good and evil, win and lose, or right and wrong. They’re always good and right from their point of view; and they hope they’ll win. Everyone else is wrong and evil — vermin to be expired.
Most of us have this false masculine God in our mind; and often it causes us to avoid leadership. These questions reveal that sneaky bastard so we can take him out of our mind. Some of us, who would make great leaders, fear being an ass like our own false leaders. We fix that by letting go of the false attributes and beliefs that appear to be powerful. They aren’t. These false leaders only have power because we believe them. When we don’t believe them at all anymore, we live outside of their illusion; we’re invisible to them. We’re free.
