Accepting Non-Acceptance

It's not always easy to stand in the midst of a group of people (particularly if those people are people that we have known and are attached to emotionally) and be different. To think differently, to believe differently, to respond differently, to live a different life than our friends and our family are living is, in a sense, the "toughest challenge" of manifesting our spiritual self. The threat inherent to this situation is that those we love, those we care about, those we have always depended upon for emotional support and encouragement will turn against us because we no longer follow the same belief system that they do.

In some situations, this fear of un-acceptance is not an invalid one; it is a fear based on a working knowledge and a working understanding of the prevailing philosophy within that group of individuals. If the prevailing philosophy is one which denies all truth except their own, then it is, indeed, a major risk-taking to suggest that another avenue of truth might have some truth within it.

Because the foundation of most individuals who work from a single truth basis - that is, who believe that their truth is the only truth - is based more on an emotional acceptance of the truth as it has been presented through other people than on an inner acceptance that the truth that they profess has been confirmed within their inner self and is, indeed, the truth, these individuals have a tendency to respond to any "different idea," any "different thought," from a position of defensiveness.

Defensiveness is not usually manifested as defensiveness. In some cases it is manifested from an authority position in which one individual takes it upon themselves to lecture another individual and tell them "what is truth" and remind them of "what is right and what is wrong." Sometimes it is manifested as anger: personal insults that come as a result of feeling that their belief system is being questioned or invalidated. Sometimes it is taken as resentment; this resentment is usually much deeper than the individuals involved recognize, for the resentment is not so much for the new chain of thought as it is for the willingness on the part of the other individual to step outside of the confines that have been established through their religious belief system and explore on their own.

While the mouth may profess that this is wrong, the inner self recognizes that this is right, and resents the fact that one individual had the courage to pursue their inner truth while he did not. Anger and sarcasm are often used to manifest a personal power that will enable one individual to manipulate the wandering individual back to where he needs to be according to that first individual's perception. All of these are very effective tools against "straying from the fold," but not the MOST effective.

The most effective tool against spiritual growth is guilt. The religious structures of today are based on doctrine that very clearly states "what is right and what is wrong behavior" on the part of the follower; any individual who breaks this code is made to feel guilty, not only on an external level but internally, for his conscious mind has been taught that this is wrong and this is bad, and until the personal growth process has been completed - and all of the elements are in place to support that spiritual exploration - the conscious mind will continue to remind those individuals that they are doing something wrong. The conscious mind will question their faith. The conscious mind will question the goodness of pursuing spiritual truth. The conscious mind will question other issues as well: "If you believe in God, why do you need any other answers? Acceptance is God's way, and you should simply accept things at face value. That is the true measure of faith in God."

Faith in God has nothing to do with faith in the ability of mankind as a species to record and maintain the record of God's relationship with man.

Faith in God has nothing to do with faith in various individuals throughout the ages who have served as God's emissaries and have taught spiritual learning in a physical existence.

Faith in God is not the same as faith in individuals who chose to follow one or another of these great teachers, and later put their working knowledge of what that individual accomplished into a permanent record, and faith in God has nothing to do with faith in the ability of monks throughout the centuries to translate those original documents so that nothing was lost in the translation, nothing was reinterpreted in the translation, nothing was changed in the translat