Creed Training – Top Three Beliefs
1) No matter the name you use to call upon the Divine, nor the number of Divine Forms you believe in, from one to one million, it all is answered by the Great One Divine Force, an entity that is so great that he/she/it encompasses all of the things within Creation. Additionally, the entity is all things at once and is nothing, the very essence of the Infinite. Since the human brain cannot comprehend something so vast, we associate various names to it, be they male, female, animal, plant, or whatever else, and in many religions, the associations are made with multiple deities rather than just one. The Great Divine is like a diamond, with numberless facets, many of which you cannot see, and as such, there are many mysteries that encompass the powers and ways of the Divine. The reason that I came to understand this, aside from a great deal of psychic work I have done over the years, is seeing the people who pray to their particular deity, and the answers that they receive, the strength of faith, and the way that they, despite all the other faiths out there, believe so much that nothing can make them waver. Seeing that, it made me realize that there is a power up there greater than any one religion can explain.
2) I believe that the fate of the soul after death is controlled not by the one ‘right’ religion, but rather by the beliefs of the person who died. This would mean that a Catholic or Christian would be going to Heaven or Hell, depending on their judgment at the Gates, but someone who believes in reincarnation would go through whatever paths before being reincarnated into their next life. I, for example, believe in the Egyptian concept of divinity, including all of the varied gods and goddesses, so when I die, I will have to survive the trials on the path to the room where my heart will be weighed against the feather of Ma’at. Though I will not be mummified, I do still need my body preserved for my heart to go with me into the underworld. Once the judgment has been made, however, what happens is where I differ. I remember bits and pieces of various previous lives, so I know that my soul has been reincarnated before. Here, my heart on the scales opposite Ma’at’s feather, the weighing will determine what kind of life I will live in next – should the feather be heavier, it will be a life closer to joining the Divine permanently, but should my heart weigh more, I will live through a life where I must make up for what happened in this life that made me guilty in the eyes of Ma’at and Her council. This links back to the idea of the multiplicity in understanding the Divine, as well as our own feelings on the matter. One thing that I feel very strongly about is this – while the Divine controls enough of the afterlife that certain things, such as the god or divines you must account your life to, are immutable, the path that one’s soul takes after death depends on the conviction that they held onto the tightest.
3) I believe that, despite the fears of world peace, the world would be a greater place for everyone if we all learned to understand that differences of gender, race, creed, religion, sexual orientation, etc. are all part of the human condition. We are all different, and that is what makes us so wonderful as a society and a worldwide family. I spent six years in Whitney Young High School (two of them for seventh and eighth grade advanced academics, just FYI), and there was a vast collection of people from nearly every walk of life there. I got to know so many great people, and it just worked. I mean, yeah, we had our cliques and our group meetings, but there were people in the African American Culture Club who were not African American, straight people in the Pride Club, non-Christians in the after-school Christian Club. The people there wanted to learn about everyone around them, and got into groups for the sake of being able to experience life around others that they normally only get to see in class or in passing. If the rest of the world was like that, I believe that intolerance and all the issues we have to deal with would be lessened, if not gotten rid of totally.
Until next time,
May the Force be with you,
Padawan Tiphereth Amarandir
