What about religion?

A family of turtles

What about Religion?

Our parent's religion most often determines our first exposure to a given religion. There are those who would say we choose our parents before we incarnate into this material plane.

It is interesting to me that many people accept the religion of their parents as their own without question. As children there is much we do not know yet about the world's history. I can only imagine that most parents assume their children will embrace the same religion they follow. Perhaps a few out there say to their kids, ..”research all the religions of the world, and pick the one that resonates with you the most”. Ha, wouldn't that be special. I did not have that said to me growing up. I am also not a parent so I cannot tell you I did that. But it would seem to me a very courageous thing to say to one's kids.

The poet Kahlil Gibran has written this about children, “you can house their bodies, but not their souls”.

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

Gibran's best-known work is The Prophet, a book composed of twenty-six poetic essays. Its popularity grew markedly during the 1960s with the American counterculture and then with the flowering of the New Age movements. It has remained popular with these and with the wider population to this day. Since it was first published in 1923, The Prophet has never been out of print. Having been translated into more than forty languages, it was one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century in the United States.

I was born into a Jewish family. I know for me that something did not feel right when I was exposed to religion in my own home. One of my darkest memories was an exposure to the separation of people. You are not of my faith became a type of unspoken declaration in the home where I grew up. Where was the love for all fellow human beings? I knew something didn't feel right to me when I went to public school with kids of all denominations, and yet there was an unspoken rule you did not invite them to your house. Did my father have any friends that were of different religions? Not that I could see. So I suppose as kids we choose to do one of two things. Embrace our parent's view of friendship which for me meant excluding people from my life or rejecting that closed minded view and embracing people on their own merit, not using their different religion as a reason for rejection.

As a result of my awareness that organized religion, as far as I could see, separated people from one another, I rejected religion altogether. The hypocrisy of it was glaring. Is there a religion on this planet that is not organized?

I learned from Wayne Dyer that often some of the most influential people in our lives are the last we would think of initially. He never met his biological father while the man was alive. It was not until after he was dead and buried in a pauper's grave did Wayne “meet” his father. He always knew that his dad abandoned the family days after Wayne's birth. So years later, how is it possible that Wayne Dyer named this man, his father, the most influential person in his life. His answer was simple. As he explains it, Wayne learned one of the greatest lessons on earth. He learned how to be self reliant, self sufficient as a result of his dad's abandonment of the family. It was not until I read this story in one of Wayne Dyer's books that I too could name my dad as the most influential person in my life. Often its the most challenging relationship we have that causes us to go down a certain path for our own growth.

In hindsight I would say that as a result of my disappointment over organized religion I began a quest for more spiritual exposure. I have always loved reading books and this was one way I could learn about the “metaphysical world”. It got me thinking early on, what if reincarnation does exist? How do I explain all those meaningful coincidences, aka synchronicity, I felt over the course of my life. Curiosity has served me well over the years.

Back in the late '90s I had a horoscope done by a lady who specialized in Past LIVES. Years earlier I had my birth chart done. For those who don't know, this is a chart of the sky, based on the relative positions of the stars and planets at the time of that person's birth. The word horoscope comes from the greek word horoskopos, hora for “time” and skopos for “observer”.

In the introduction of the past lives report I was handed, it said, ...”for many people, the idea that we have lived before (and will again) makes sense”. It is one possible explanation for deja vu (this feels familiar). The report goes on to explain that (1) an examination of Saturn and the Moon's Nodes (considered “karmic” factors by most astrologers) in regard to major life lessons & ingrained psychological patterns (2) an explanation of enduring issues signified by stellia and other repeated themes in the chart (3) a discussion of planets in and ruling the 4t, 8^th, and 12^th houses of the zodiac (considered keys to one's past lives) (4) a look at potential karmic debts and gifts signified by aspects, intercepted, and retrograde planets (5) a discussion of likely past life relationships to current people in our lives (Moon for mother, Sun for father, etc).

The report I received is 13 pages long. I cannot possibly share all that it contains. I will say that as I have re-read it over the years a lot of it resonates with me. One in particular I will include.

It's from a section called Karmic Gifts.

“With Uranus in Cancer (retrograde), you and some of your peers were active in times when attitudes toward family were shifting. When one set of roles was melting away, you helped to provide something new to take its place. Your ability to take a broad view of family helped you and your peers to transform definitions of domestic units. Your expanded transpersonal perspective will be particularly valuable in our swiftly changing world. Your past experiences increased your ability to see family within a humanitarian perspective. You incarnated to help people learn that the Earth is one family; that our interconnections are much more vital than our differences.”

If any discussion of past lives, religion, spirituality, and synchronicity resonates with you, I invite your comments.

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