A Credo

Since I do not follow any official spiritual path I have sometimes been asked what I believe. I could say that beliefs are secondary and I simply try to follow the inner path as it has been revealed by the Masters who instructed me, and by many saints and sages throughout the ages. But, of course, I do have beliefs. We all do because we have to make sense of the world, the meaning and origin of which are not immediately apparent. A belief system is the way we do this. Even if we choose not to have beliefs, or consider that nothing can really be known, that is still a kind of belief.

Our beliefs will be based on a number of factors, intellectual, emotional, cultural and so on, and these are predominantly personal things. But deep-rooted spiritual beliefs can derive from an intuitive understanding of the nature of reality, and this goes beyond the merely personal. With that in mind, I will set forth my beliefs here. Some of them are absolutely fundamental though the form and expression they take may change as and when I develop a higher understanding. Others are less unshakeably held and more truly beliefs in that I have learnt them on my travels. They are not what caused me to set out in the first place. Consequently they belong more to the mind than the heart even if they were only accepted by the mind in their current form because the heart inclined towards them anyway.  

Here then is my credo.

I believe that the basis to life is spiritual by which I mean that we are not the body and we are not the mind. We use these things but are something much more than either of them. Call it the soul.

I believe that this material universe is the expressed form of a living reality that transcends it. Call it God.

I believe that God has a personal aspect which relates to creation and an aspect which relates to non-manifest being, and that these may differ in expression but do not in reality.

I believe that all life is one. There is one God and there is nothing else other than God. God created all the worlds out of His being and He is present within every atom but He also transcends the entire manifested universe. He is the Absolute but he is also the most intimate.

I believe that, at root, God and the soul are one and that the experience of life in this world is designed to bring that to our full attention. Hence Earth is a school. The sole purpose of this school is to make the individual soul fully conscious of itself as pure spirit.

I believe that, despite appearances, all is working out as it should because God is love. The pain and suffering we experience now will one day be seen in their true light as tools designed to open our eyes to the truth about ourselves. I don’t believe that this means we should ignore the suffering of others or that we should not try to relieve it whenever we can.

I believe in the hierarchy of existence. Life is one but the moment it manifests the one starts to become the many and hierarchy necessarily emerges. It appears in the structure of the planes of manifestation that descend from pure spirit to gross matter and it appears in the great chain of being that stretches from the mighty archangel  to the humble cell.

I believe that the goal of life is spiritual realisation and nothing else is of any real account. I also believe that many people are sidetracked by ‘lesser goods’ and diverted from their true paths as in (for example) attempts to improve this world. These will never succeed if they do not grow out of spiritual understanding which must always come first. This world will only improve when we acknowledge our true nature and are faithful to our primary purpose, and that is to grow in spiritual understanding. All the attempts to establish a kingdom of heaven on Earth are doomed because the kingdom of heaven is within and if we have not found it there we can never make it here.

I believe that the good, the beautiful and the true are real and that they alone are real. They are the yardstick against which everything in life should be measured. We know in our heart what is real, and what is not, and we should always listen to our heart.

Following on from that, I believe that truth is to be found in the heart not the head. That is not to deny the importance of mind but it should be a servant not a master.

I believe that there is a faculty in us that knows truth because it is one with truth. This is the intuition which, in this sense, has nothing to do with the more conventional meaning of that word. It is direct insight into the real nature of things. Traditionally it has been called the Intellect which again, in this instance, has nothing to do with the more conventional meaning of that word.

I believe that God sends messengers to call us back to Him and that, historically, the two most significant of these have been the Buddha and Jesus Christ. But Christ is pre-eminent because he brought the fullest revelation of God, both in his person and his teaching.

I believe in what Christians call the communion of saints. I believe that the Masters who spoke to me come from this brotherhood. They are souls who have gone beyond identification with their material selves, including mind and ego, and become one with the uncreated spirit aspect of their being. They are our teachers and guides.

I believe that evil exists and we can’t ignore it but also that, ultimately, it is unreal because there is nothing but God and God is good. Evil is not a positive thing but the absence or distortion of a positive thing and so it has no true reality. I don’t doubt that there are powers that seek to subvert spiritual unfoldment but they will not prevail because all is guided and sustained by divine Love and Wisdom.

I believe in free will and that whether we rise or fall is up to us. Despite my belief in divine providence, the possibility of a fall exists if we choose to follow the downward path, and it must do or the reality of a rise could not exist either. Otherwise put, if salvation were inevitable it would not be salvation and it would scarcely be worth gaining.

I believe that reincarnation is the means human souls progress but, at the same time, each incarnation is a new one and that we should live in the present not look back to the past. I also believe that everyone born into this world has a destiny in life. That is not fixed, and probably constantly adjusts as life proceeds, but we are born with a blueprint, based on our needs and capacities, and it is up to us to discover that and put it into practice.

I believe that the love of God is unconditional but that it cannot be seen apart from the law of God. The two go together in the same way that justice and mercy do. There is a spiritual law which is Truth, and if you transgress this you face consequences just as you do if you transgress a physical law. By this means we learn. I further believe that this law is imprinted on our heart and recorded in our conscience. The Law is not something that exists outside us but is part of the fabric of our being.

I believe that the male female division in human beings reflects the basic duality of spirit and matter or life and form and is therefore the key to creation. However I also believe that, although the sexes have different roles because their purpose is a complementary one, each is capable of developing, to the highest degree, qualities traditionally associated with the other. Nevertheless this should always be in the context of an essential masculinity or femininity.  I further believe that in the spiritual world differences between male and female still exist, and do determine the expression and function of each soul.

These beliefs determine my approach to life. They are not always easy to hold in the modern world nor are they always easy to live up to, and that brings me to the final item in this list.

I believe that there is a spiritual path which has the potential to lead us out of darkness into light. This path demands our full attention and total dedication but it alone can lead us back to the source. There are many false paths which make fewer demands but they don’t take bring us to the true God.