Dear Pogue,

With this letter let me start by posing a question.

How bothered by sin is God? Is it really such a massive deal? Was that two questions? Never mind.

Let’s think this through. There were no laws in the beginning that we know about. Oh, there was one about an apple. I nearly forgot. But nothing else. No other fruits. No long list of “you shall’s” and “you shall nots”. God has said that God will write the law’s on our hearts. That we will know what is right as an intrinsic response to any given situation but, underpinning this is an acceptance that we will abide in God. Abiding is presented as if we were to go to God’s house, enter and stay. An easily understood metaphor. But maybe if we interrogate the use of “abide” we will find that it is more about higher consciousness or being as one with God (two terms for the same experience). If we have achieved God consciousness, then we will only do right behaviour because, firstly, that will be our overriding awareness and, if doing anything else is to step outside of God consciousness and experience non-God consciousness, why would anyone do that? It will be the least desirable thing once we have known God consciousness. Maybe it is what the religious refer to as hell? It may help to think of a radio that receives your favourite station when tuned to a set frequency. As long as you keep it tuned to that frequency you can enjoy the music but if you turn the dial you lose the station and the enjoyment. You have to be on the right frequency. Simplistic I know but makes the point.

The Bible is taught as God and man with a gap between the pair. Yet the language of the Bible can be read differently. The divide between the two can be broken down and the two can become as one. Jesus throws open the possibility with his declaration: “I and the Father are one”, further saying: “I am in Him and He is in me” and finally: “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you”. A sharing of consciousness? So I feel I need to search out all the verses that can, within context, be read as a shared consciousness and a possibility of enlightenment. A rereading indeed. And…are we back to our starting point of our very first letter “when the wave realises it’s the ocean”?

So what is the issue with sin? Is it the fact that it brings hurt to others? Or that we lessen ourselves? Or does it separate us from God? And, what does “separate” mean? Is there a total parting like an electrical cable that is cut?

Have you ever wondered why God can’t just deal with sin. I have, often. Like, forgive it, wipe the slate clean. “No, that would be unjust” the voices cry. But if God can’t just deal with sin without some elaborate plan, doesn’t that suggest sin has a power over God? Sin is like: “You can’t just ignore me. My existence compels you to deal with me and take action. By the way, you are also limited in the actions that you can take because certain actions stand against your nature”.

Oh, and while your getting your head around this let me ask who determines where sin begins and finishes. Where do moral, amoral and immoral start and finish. Why is a crime in one culture a crime and not so in another culture?

If we attain God consciousness , become one with God, we will enter into a single overriding awareness. Whilst there will not be rules to define right or wrong or a code there will be an all knowing whereby, intrinsically, we will know what is a right action and what isn’t. What isn’t will have the effect of moving us from the centre of God consciousness if we perform it.

 

To me, growing into spiritual maturity is becoming less self-conscious and more God-concious.

Mark Batterson

 

The fact that God, in all God’s manifestations and settings has deemed it necessary to hand down a code to live by suggests that the path to enlightenment is not sought by the masses. If the pull of the attractions and concerns of this world  did not, in the lives of the many, trump the beginning of a search for higher consciousness, there would be no need for the Ten Commandments or any like document written elsewhere. Our hearts, or more correctly, our conscience would tell us all God needs us to know and we would live accordingly.

In God Consciousness we have the highest state of being. There can be no higher. So can I conclude this is heaven? Heaven is in fact not a place but a state of being?

Dr Richard Hawkins has, following years of research, concluded that a person who is living at this, or approaching this level of consciousness will massively affect the other people he or she comes into contact with. For those that don’t understand, such people will manifest what will be described as godliness or divinity. We are calling it higher consciousness (Read Power vs. Force by Hawkins).

So returning to the original question: “How bothered by sin is God?”. I want to say not as much as we would like to think. Consider a scale with the deepest darkest acts of human depravity at one end registering zero and God at the other end registering one thousand (the numbers have no actual significance other than than to enable us to see a divide). Can God come down the scale to the lower end? Yes, but as God descends the deeds of men cannot carry on in such a presence. This makes for an interesting letter on Jesus yet to be written. “Can God look upon sin?”, may not be a good question as obviously an omniscient God has full awareness of sin, it’s actions and consequences. Maybe we should be asking: “Can God come into contact with sin?” The answer to this is, I think, both yes and no.

There, hedged my bets.

God can come into contact with whatever God chooses to come into contact with. However sin does not have the same luxury.  If God presents in God’s purest form, not cloaked in humanity then sin will be brought to an end. Hell is a good metaphor to describe how sin is burned up and another idea for a later letter. Another doctrine I have come to struggle with I’m afraid, and even more so its use to scare people into a religious commitment. How can you and I reconcile with a God who loves us and loves us and loves us, despite ourselves and then we die and we are condemned to unimaginable pain forever! What does God gain from such a move other than some really bad press? God’s love is so great that God can torture people (supposedly a lot of people) forever! Can any rational being hold that thought without being troubled? I understand there is a law of consequences but this is a step too far. Can Love look on unimaginable suffering, that Love created, for eternity? Surely the consequence of sin is the fact that it disables us from realising God and causes us to not be able to move into our most natural and intended state of being, god or higher consciousness? The wave has forgotten it is the ocean. Maybe to be denied god consciousness is hell and those who live this life at anything less than such consciousness are already experiencing torment. Only when we start to ascend to these levels will we realise the pain of our current existence. I guess it is relative as much as knowing what hot is because we have experienced cold. We judge what we have according to our total experience today.

Remember my scale? Actually it’s Dr Hawkins’. Zero to one thousand? If we have lived or live at seventy or a hundred on the scale then to reach one hundred and fifty may initially seem like heaven. But for those living over eight hundred it will seem unimaginably poor, even suffering and pain, maybe Hell. How great the divide between God at one thousand and those at seventy. Would looking on this be as looking on Hell?

I ought to close this letter before it begins to become a thesis. How to conclude? I think the question at the start was the wrong question. The question is better put: “Is sin bothered by God?” Undeniably yes because it can only exist by reason of its distance from God.

Sometimes it’s the question that we should take to task first as I hope you’ll agree.

Yours, turning heresy into an art form,

Wic