The end of a year, an era, a model.

Tomorrow is the start of a new year, and the start of an exciting new part of my journey.

The picture on the left is a model of a molecule. The coloured spheres represent the nucleii of atoms, and the silver spheres represent the electrons which orbit around them.

No-one has any trouble understanding that this is a model. There are not really tiny little red and blue balls with even tinier little silver balls spinning around them. It’s just a model. Models approximate an underlying reality to which we have no direct access. Our human minds are unable to grasp complex realities directly, so we create models which simplify things to a workable and manageable level. The model helps us to understand that reality by simplifying it to a level that we can grasp. A more accurate model (but also more complex) of electrons, for instance, would portray then not as small hard balls that orbit around the centre of an atom, but more as a fuzzy cloud of energy the totally surrounds the centre of the atom. Harder to visualise, harder to grasp, but also a bit closer to the actual underlying reality that it models. Harder still to grasp if we say that the electrons can be in several places at the same time!

Over the centuries, mankind’s grasp and understanding the reality has progressively increased, and with it the models we use are becoming both more accurate and more complex. There was a time, for instance, when the model used to understand the world was that above the skies where “the heavens”, and below the earth was “the underworld.” Not reality, but a model that was useful at that time. Later on, as our understanding of reality increased, we revised our model. In fact, the earth orbits a star we call the sun, which is itself part of one arm of the vast milky way galaxy, which is itself one of countless galaxies, which is itself … well, our current model runs out that this point!

I have come to the opinion that all religions, Christianity, Islam, New Age, whatever you want, are also models. Approximations of an underlying reality too complex for us to grasp directly. Each model has its relative merits and deficiencies, but each is just a model.

My great liberation of thought that will define 2007 for me is that this was the year I realised that Christianity is just a model, and that for many years I have wrongly believed that it was the truth, not a model of the truth.

It has been said “All models are wrong, some models are useful.” 

It is with great pleasure that I look forward to 2008 as a year of great discovery and growth as I leave behind the old Christian model that no longer serves me, and embrace newer models that God has now revealed to mankind.

The Age of Aquarius

What is the Age of Aquarius?

The Age of Aquarius simply means that we are leaving the age of Pisces and entering into the Age of Aquarius. This change in the Age happens every two thousand years – the last one coincided with the arrival of Christ. Alternative medicine, astrology, vegetarianism and other subjects previously considered weird are growing rapidly in popularity, and are all subjects associated with the sign of Aquarius.

These subjects will become more and more commonplace. Astrology and other mystical methods of self understanding will help people to become more in tune with their spiritual selves. People are already beginning to look within for the answers they seek, instead of outwards to money, possessions and other people.

This Golden Age is destined to synthesize all religious regimes and free the minds of ignorance and delusion. Each human being will begin his or her individual journey within, and strive to become the new race of super conscious humans awakening seekers of Truth and the eternal Spirit, healing peoples of many tongues and nations in the process.

The holy book of the Zohar says: “All the celestial treasures and the hidden riddles that have not been solved for generations will be discovered in the Age of Aquarius“.
There are symbols that reveal hidden knowledge from the forgotten ages, knowledge that the Zohar spoke of and the cabalists hinted at. This knowledge reveals the basic essence of people and nature. The nature of this knowledge is essentially geometric and millions of people all over the world have been drawn to it in the past few years.

“You need to engrave very deeply within your mind and know that there is no reality without the blessed one. He is within every single movement in the world. The nature, (HATEVA in Hebrew) has the same numerological value as the word God (ELOHIM in Hebrew). The blessed one wore the nature clothes inanimate, vegetable, living, speaking”
(Rabbi Nachman from Braslev)

The Kabala says that The Creator and the Nature are the same and brings the same numerological equivalents (in Hebrew), HATEVA=86 and ELOHIM=86.  For thousands of years, humans have lived in a state of chaos, hatred, fear, diseases and destruction all of which are caused by duality.

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The above text from this post has been copied in part from: http://www.ka-gold-jewelry.com/p-articles/age-of-aquarius.php
 

Aquarius, however, is an eminently revolutionary sign, and its occult significance is knowledge. The constellation of Aquarius is governed by the planet Uranus, which is a completely revolutionary planet. The sign of Aquarius shows a man with two pitchers of water who is wisely combing these waters. The doctrine of the Age of Aquarius is thus termed the “Doctrine of the Synthesis”, the synthesis of all authentic religions and systems of self-realization. In the Aquarian Age dogmatic types of Christianity will cease to be taught, and all dogmatic forms will disappear. In this age science will become religious, and religion will become scientific. Disagreements between science and religion will come to an end, and people will begin to comprehend that both spirit and matter are derived from the same source, and are only modifications of the One Universal Energy. In the Age of Aquarius humanity will have marvelous breakthroughs in many scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, astronomy, medicine, aviation, etc.

quoted from: http://home.earthlink.net/~gnosisla/February5.html

Being kind to myself

Over the past few weeks, several people have commented to me that I am very hard on myself. As I have thought on this, I can see that so often I do tend to focus on what I haven’t done well, what I haven’t finished yet, what I could have done better.

So I have decided to be kind to myself. Congratulate myself. Thank myself. Encourage myself.

And, like so much of the stuff of life, it’s all in the little things.

Here’s some examples of what I’m talking about:

“Well done Jon, you just brushed your teeth really well!”

“Nice going Jon, you walked up the stairs”

You get the idea. Little stuff I know, but I have to say that I’m finding a little self-praise each day goes a long way to feeling better about myself!

Bravo Jon … well said!

Moving on … and up

Last Monday was the last meeting of the year for our “Heretics / Christians who don’t want to go to church” group, and I announced that I was retiring from the group. Along with this, I announced I am also retiring from Christianity.

Next year I will be starting up a new discussion group called something like “Exploring New Age Teaching.”

I intend to use this blog to record our discussions, gather my thoughts, and of course enjoy the feedback and ideas of all you interesting people in the blogosphere who are engaging on a similar journey.