Hopelessness Leads to New Hope

I think hopelessness is part of the journey when we realise that the past religious notions about God that we have been fed by the institutional church systems are no longer valid or true. I agree with the view that by removing God (which would refer to the religious kind of God that is controlling and petty) gives us the ability to live life, and there is a lot of hope found in life. The analogy of death and resurrection came to mind - for every death, there will be a resurrection. In this case, I think hopelessness is a form of death when people realise that the popular view of God of the Bible turns out to be false or unable to be proven. But through that death, people will then be free from religion, and experience a resurrection of hope, when they realise that the illusionary kind of god with its mythical threats of hell and wrath can no longer bind them with fear and condemnation, and they can live their life freely, lightly and boldly, enjoying friendship, intelligence, rationality, nature, physics, beauty, even things like suffering and tears, which make up the richness and diversity of all that life is.

Similarly, I remember learning about the story of the two disciples who were walking to Emmaus and they met Jesus after His resurrection. Initially, they didn't recognise Him - they were dejected when news spread about Jesus who died like any other man, and it seems like "God" has failed to prove himself. Like them, we experience that hopelessness, when we don't know what to believe anymore, when nothing seems to prove that God exists. It can be a difficult thing to accept. But as the story goes, when the disciples' eyes were later open (spiritually), they realised who Jesus was, and He disappeared. In the same way, I believe through that hopelessness and removal of the religious god concept from our consciousness, we are ripe for understanding God in a new way - one that is not known literally or by the senses, but is known intuitively, subjectively, esoterically.

The author of the book "Conscious Love - Insights from Mystical Christianity" wrote in the Introduction:

"According to esoteric teaching, many of the ideas expressed in Christianity are not and were never meant to be taken as literal truths but refer to states of consciousness 'further in' ourselves. Even the story of Christ is not to be taken at face value; rather it symbolises our own predicament and destiny as humans. The God-man is born on earth; he lives and works and plays his part on the stage of history. He is crucified in wretchness and humiliation on a cross known as time and space. Ultimately, however, it does not matter. He is resurrected in a higher, purer form because what is truly real in him can never die; it can only be transformed.

This is the story of Christ. It is our story as well. Intuitively we know it to be so, and it is a fact, rather than the endless proselytising and self-aggrandisement of the faith's innumerable sects and denominations, that I believe most truly accounts for the enormous success of Christianity around the world. If we have some more conscious glimpse of this truth - and probably we will never have more than glimpses - we will not only know ourselves better but be able to love better. This is the central idea that I hope to explore in this work."

Yea, I think any worthy fruit of any spiritual study, whether of books or people's views, or at least from our own experiences, would be unconditional love. At the end of the day, I think it doesn't really matter whether we have all the right answers about God, because there are also people who are illiterate or have never read a sacred book, being born in a village, for example, and who can demonstrate love, kindness and acceptance. If any teaching about God results in a more loving community, in which people live loved and loving others, then I would say well and good - that teaching would sit well with me.

If there is a God, surely He is big enough to handle all our misgivings and doubts, and continue to love us immensely and infinitely