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The
Future of Religions
by
Neale Donald Walsch
Editor's Note: Following is an excerpt from Tomorrow's
God by Neale Donald Walsch, in which it is predicted that humanity
will create a new God and a New Spirituality within thirty years. The
book takes the form of a dialogue between the author and God, with the
author speaking first.
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So,
religions are not our opponents. We merely have to cooperate with
them and assist them as they continue to seek higher truth and
help us to find our own way to that.
That is correct. The New Spirituality will never condemn traditional
religion, but seek always to include it in the process by which
divine truth continues to be revealed.
There are far too many treasures in your religious traditions
to abandon them. The future of humanity with regard to religion
is not about desertion, but dissection, not about rejection, but
rejuvenation.
What humans will do in the years just immediately ahead is begin
to dissect their religions, looking at them closely, exploring
them piece by piece, examining them doctrine by doctrine, to see
what makes sense and what doesn't make sense, what is functional
and what is dysfunctional, what works and what doesn't work
in tomorrow's world.
Then they will rejuvenate those traditions, gently releasing what
is no longer beneficial, and adding new insights, new ideas, and
new truths, born of the new awareness and the expanded consciousness
that will be the basis of The New Spirituality.
So, religion will not disappear from the face of the earth.
On the contrary, it will be more ubiquitous than ever. But gone
will be the teachings of an angry, jealous, punishing Deity. Gone
will be the moral justifications for vengeance and retribution.
Gone will be the doctrines of exclusivity and 'betterness'
that have cast their shadow across the face of many religions
in the past.
And alongside religion will stand a new form of human expression
of the impulse toward the Divine, an expression that will not
be rooted in codified texts and teachings, but in the moment-to-moment
experience of each person sincerely seeking God.
And, hopefully, neither form of expression will claim superiority,
nor will either diminish the other in any way.
That is how it will be. Difficult as it is to now imagine, your
established religions are going to stop making each other wrong.
And The New Spirituality will throw the doors of acceptance open
to all forms of the true and honest search for wisdom. This will
be the new way that humanity will interact with God, and it will
produce a new way of interacting with each other-a way that could
change the world forever.
How will this happen? Who will bring all of this about? And
how can I help if I want do?
This will not occur through the leadership of one person, but
through the leadership of many.
It will begin through the process of waking up. That will be the
first step. Many people will suddenly awaken.
There are many things that will occur during this awakening. Some
of them are occurring right now. All will add to the creation
of critical mass around the idea that there must be another way.
Yes, I can see that as the one-line message of the “Wake
Up Movement:” There must be another way. There
must be another way to do religion. There must be another way
to do politics and governance. There must be another way to do
business with each other. There must be another way to educate
our children. There must be another way to have relationships.
There must be another way to live our lives! A way that makes
sense. A way that works. There must be another way.
There is. It will be called The New Spirituality, and it will
extend into all areas of life, not just religion, because there
is no area of your life that is not a demonstration of what you
deeply believe about Life Itself.
Politics
is your spirituality, demonstrated.
Economics is your spirituality, demonstrated
Education is your spirituality, demonstrated
Relationship is yourspirituality, demonstrated
Sexuality is your spirituality, demonstrated
Parenting is your spirituality, demonstrated
Your life is your spirituality, demonstrated
As you
begin to collectively wake up to this, more government decisions
will be challenged. More major corporations will be asked to explain
their accounting and other business practices. More violence and
turmoil will be seen for what it is: attributable in far too many
cases to religious teachings. Religious teachings that have never
been seriously challenged. Instead of challenging the teachings,
you challenge each other. Why not challenge the teachings? Why
not challenge what sets you against each other?
It is the culture from which you emerge that is causing you to
destroy the culture from which you emerge-and you cannot even
see this, much less admit it. Why not retain what is best in your
culture (that which is Life Enhancing, Life Supporting, and Life
Sustaining), and release at last that which is self-destructive?
As more and more of you embrace Tomorrow's God and practice
The New Spirituality, more and more of you will be calling more
of what you see all around you unacceptable. Not because it is
“wrong,” but because it simply is not who you are and
who you now choose to be. Neither individually, nor as a society.
Tomorrow's God was released in March, 2004 by Atria
Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Author Neale Donald
Walsch will appear at Unity North Atlanta in March. See their
ad for details, click here.
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