Recently, during my trip back to England, I decided to attend a Spiritualist church with a friend of mine. He had originally piqued my curiosity by telling me that in one of their weekly services, they have a clairvoyant (medium) "connect" and give messages to people in the church.
I thought this would be a nice experience, and so my wife and I went. I will hold back on the description of what happened, as that is a whole other thread (no, things did not fly around the room), but I will say that at the end, I felt very comforted and happy because of the very specific message I received. As did another lady, who was crying all the way through the message she was given... she was so completely comforted by this message, she wept. I could feel her absolute happiness, and I also shed a tear or two for her.
I would never recommend a religion to anyone, as I believe we are all generally where we need to be, and there is a reason for that. But I do enjoy building my own belief system, block by block, and the spiritualist church has given me a few more blocks to build into my belief system.
The main things I took from that church (other than my overall feeling of blessedness), was that we are on this planet for two main reasons. Firstly, to learn... to experience everything we possibly can, so that we learn (as spiritual beings) what it feels like to have these incredible emotions. Secondly, to help and provide service to our neighbor. Through these things, we progress and become higher beings in the afterlife, closer to God (or whoever He may be).
These are two beautiful principles to have in life. Rather than be depressed and sad at the things that go wrong in our life, why not learn from it, and give it another good ol' try, and better ourselves through that. And as far as being in service to our neighbor (selflessly), again, why not? As well as actually helping the person, it also makes us feel a little better about ourselves. My theory on this is that we feel a bit better about ourselves because we are a little better each time we give, totally selflessly.
Now, so I can include everyone... You skeptics, I won't ask you to prove that this young man who gave the messages was a quack, but I will say this: if there is nothing more than this life, even if it is all just coincidence or very convincing guesswork... why not just allow believers to believe, as it ultimately helps them? It comforts them and makes them feel good, even loved and gives them a hope.
Finally, let me leave you all with this beautiful little piece of prose. Meditate on it, think about it, but most of all... do it.
Being Light & LovePeople are often unreasonable,illogical and self centered.Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people mayaccuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.Be kind anyway. If you are honest and frank,people may cheat you.Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building,someone could destroy overnight.Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness,they will be jealous.Be happy anyway. Give the world the best you have,and it will never be enough.Give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis,it is between you and God.It was never between you and them anyway. -Mother Teresa of Calcutta-(1910-1997)Live, love, learn, my friends. God bless you all.FMZ