Richard Dawkins, in his 2006 book, The God Delusion, proposes that all religion, particularly those with a creator of some form, is a kind of collective delusion, “that a belief in God is both irrational and profoundly harmful to society.” This theory is often applied to Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but increasingly I’m finding it coming up in the worlds that I inhabit.  I have always been, I suppose, a spiritual person in the sense that I appreciate nature with a huge sense of gratitude; I am in awe of this planet from the microcosmic to the macrocosm of all that science has discovered. But I have never been religious in the traditional sense.

When I was about 10, I discovered that I was the only one of my primary school friends who wasn’t Christened, and I was mortified. What was I missing out on? I attended Sunday School briefly and after my parents discussed it with the minister, who astutely advised to wait until I was old enough to make my own decision, I didn’t get Christened.  I vividly remember writing a poem about Jesus and was quickly put in my place by a girl who asserted her literary and religious dominance.

I needed to convert to Islam when I was about to be married, as my ex-husband is a Muslim. However, Muslims believe that all people are born Muslim and nobody converts, they revert back to what they always were. Needless to say, I didn’t take this reversion seriously and said all the right things to become Muslim so I could marry. But I didn’t revert from anything because I have never had a label attached to my belief, so in my mind, nothing changed.

Religion has skirted the edges of my life and I have met some wonderful people of all faiths but I wonder if Richard Dawkins was right all along and we are all under a delusion? If I transfer that thought process to my recent growth and development, I am very influenced by Buddhist and Hindu teachings, particularly around my yoga teacher training. Interestingly, I think all religions originated in India and the big five; Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are just a different interpretation on the same thing. Somehow the message gets warped and it turns into its own version of events and wisdom. The culture that is developing in the new age or spiritual community is an interesting one and I’m asking myself now if we too aren’t under a delusion of belief; if the things that we all started out believing are being warped into this ego-version of what it originally was. Our shared stories are turning into something else.

So if all oral and written stories aren’t true and there is no great God or Goddess, what are these stories? Are they just a way to explain our existence? Are they a way for our tiny minds to find some meaning in why we are here? And why are we here? What is the point of life? And why haven’t the beliefs of Indigenous populations become more mainstream? The reason for our existence is truly a question that has no answer and not one of us will ever find the answer. So many people turn to religion because it is familiar, it is comfortable, it creates community and there is historical evidence of sorts that the people in the stories were real or that they provide lessons in the best way to be human.

I’m finding that I’m questioning all of my beliefs at the moment and I think that is a healthy way to be, I get to be conscious about what I believe in.  I love the human story, our collective history, and while growing up in Australia has been a fairly Western, Christian version of events, I’m constantly asking more questions about the human story in other parts of the world. We are all influenced by so many things and in this age of the internet, while we have limited censorship (at this stage), ideas can spread and, in technological terms, go viral. That, to me, is so exciting. We can start to hear the voices of other humans and not just from Western, English-speaking countries.  

And the future? How can I be sure of the future and do I really want to know what will happen? If I spend too long worrying or thinking about the future, I miss the dragonfly that lands on my chair or my children asking for my attention, or being thoughtful as I vacuum the floor and being grateful for electricity and a home to live in.

​What I’m finding that the only thing I know for sure is where I am now. I cannot make any promises for the future or plan too much because ultimately I will die, and the path that I take there will be dependent upon my decisions and reactions in the now. There is no delusion in the present. The messages that go to our brains from our senses; what we see, hear, feel, smell, taste and intuit that is true, it’s how we interpret and react to them that then defines us and our human experience.

In love,

​Alyssa

©Alyssa Curtayne, 2016
 
 

If you are finding that the world is getting you down, you need to check out these top ten tips that I use to maintain my homeostasis when the news of the state of world gets me down.

This blog was published in LifeGrid, please follow the link to see the full article.
http://www.lifegrid.com.au/how-to-cope-when-the-world-gets-you-down/

​I have noticed that I am increasingly disillusioned by the so-called “leaders” of our amazing blue planet and at times the world feels in chaos. But like being in the eye of a cyclone, the moment we get caught up in all of the drama, we get swept away, we lose control. The ongoing nonsense of the US presidential elections is like some warped reality television show that we’ve all been sucked into. The more we engage with it, the more pumped and narcissistic the candidates appear to be.

When I used to teach swimming I often used the phrase: “If you panic you drown,” and so it is with life, on a small scale and on a global collective scale.  More than once I have used this for my children – in tests, driving lessons, life. When we relax in the water, we float and we can breathe with our eyes facing the sky above, giving us time to think, but when we panic, we lose all of our centred-ness and the sea swallows us up and we have no time or breath to gather our thoughts.

With either metaphor the outcome is the same, our thoughts create our reality. Our reactions to events define our lives. The more energy we put into issues, the more we engage with the nonsense, the more we lose our centred-ness, our balance, our stillness, our ability to think and make good decisions.

Interestingly, over the past few months, I have increasingly become a conscious observer of the events of the world. If we view the events of the world as separate from us, we lose our connection with the world and we become apathetic, but if we throw ourselves into them, we feel the pain and suffering of all of those children in Syria, the Orangutans in Asia, the myriad of problems in this world. But if you become a conscious observer, where you both connect and disconnect from the events and send loving thoughts to it, make small changes in your life, rather than letting it swallow you up, it is both empowering and changing the world, one person at a time.

Be the Change, is the much-quoted interpretation of Gandhi’s words is never so true as now. We have the power to change the world, but changing the world doesn’t come about by being a cyber troll, baiting and arguing with people on social media. Changing the world looks like looking within, taking ownership of all of the things that you are and all the things that you do – like the food you eat, how you consume and who you buy from. Changing the world will not come by some massive Revolution, but by a silent revolution, of people creating change in their own minds, their homes, their communities and how they interact with the world. People acting in love, not as a reaction to a fear.

At the moment, there is a collective anger, which is paired with a collective apathy, which is both connecting and disconnecting from the world; but when we step away from it by owning, or taking responsibility for our own anger, hatred, racism, sadness, ignorance, selfishness and closed hearts. The world triggers the stories within ourselves. What we need to do is love ourselves so deeply that triggers no longer cause a reaction. Love the story for what it is. Love the situation for what it is. Love them for what they are and create change within your mind, body and community first.

The energy about at the moment is about coming fully into ourselves, our life’s purpose and your divinity. It’s about shedding the ego, embracing our individual and collective darkness and becoming light. Living what is and loving what is. There is very little any of us can do individually on a global level except to look within and to deeply love ourselves, because when we love ourselves we do no harm to ourselves, our immediate environment and ultimately our own little world that we exist in.

All of the people we see on television and YouTube are external mirrors of who we are, they are showing us the way to love and compassion, they are showing us the way to the world we want by being the exact opposite. Ironically, the chaos is a reaction to the deep hidden universal love we all carry within us.

On a personal level you may have noticed stagnation, repeating things that you thought that you had dealt with and blocks in your abundance, but it’s all perfect. We are shifting energy at the moment and finally coming fully into ourselves. When blocks come up they show you where you are off track and not listening to your intuitive nudges, the place where you know everything is perfect, as you are.

Stepping into our light is where we are now, energetically speaking.

Shine bright.

Feel the loneliness/rejection/sadness/anger.

Allow it to rise within you and love it for what it is.

It has kept you safe. It has been a companion.

If you don’t want it anymore, notice when it arises, thank it for being there and let it go.

You are divine, whole and complete. You have everything you need within you to change the world, by changing your reactions and thoughts.

Step into you really are. Things like Instagram have made it so easy to be unashamedly who you are, but we don’t need to announce to the world who we are to BE who we are.

It doesn’t mean you can’t have opinions about our global chaos, just stop pouring energy into them. Maintain your own homeostasis, look within for the solutions to the world’s problems, be within you…and you are light.

In love,

Alyssa

©Alyssa Curtayne 2016

Last week with the “Blue Moon” it got me thinking about what we value and why. A blue moon is a second full moon that occurs in a calendar month. My newsfeed was awash with advice and recommendations about the blue moon and what we can manifest in this once-in-a-blue-moon sort of event. I have no doubt of the power of the full moon for manifesting and of the new moon for letting go. This is not about the moon’s powers. This is about the value we attach to things without asking the questions.

As in the previous blog, I’ve been questioning everything. And I mean EVERYTHING! If we look at the blue moon, it is based on the concept of months as in a calendar. Just as days of the week are human-made, so are the months. If we were to be true to the cycles of this planet, we would divide it by the moon’s cycles not calendar months, that is January, February and so on. There are thirteen moon cycles in a year based on the movement of the moon around the earth and there-in lies another human made concept: Linear Time. There are no “rare” moon events just because the calendar says so.

The fact that it is the number 2015 is a human construct designed to keep us feeling some sort of control in a linear time-space continuum. But as physicists know, time is not linear, yet, here on this planet we as a society create it so. Through the simple act of the blue moon, I have dismissed the names of days, calendar months and numerical years in my worldview. And don’t get me started on European season names that were imported to Australia when half of the country exists in a wet-dry climate cycle and things like autumn make absolutely no sense. Aboriginal seasons with their intricacies of plant growth, types of wind and rain, and when animals breed make so much more sense in such a diverse country.

Countries – they are names again! I could go on forever with these human-made constructs that we don’t ever question. I think John Lennon said it best when he said in Imagine, “Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill or die for and no religion too.” But what’s been happening even more in recent years are images coming back from the International Space Station of Earth from space. In those pictures, there are no delineated lines marking what is mine or yours, or even theirs from space. From space, we share this blue planet that we call Earth. Even the boundaries of our homes, our lands, our fences separate us. Traditional societies shared spaces and lived in relative harmony. I’m not suggesting that there weren’t conflict over territory, but in general it was shared spaces and there was a mutual respect for another’s space. Until we delineated “mine” and “yours”, it was “ours”.

Even our names that we are assigned at birth, define our gender and expectations of behaviour even before we have become solid in our new bodies. We parent girls and boys differently and have different expectations on them; girls are “soft and need nurturing”, boys need to “stop crying and toughen up”. Where did these values come from and how do they define us from external pressure? Where are the parents who value the child’s soul and allow them to grow and be who they are?

In his book Seven Secrets of Time Travel: Mystic Voyages of the Energy Body, Von Braschler (Destiny Books, 2012) explores the concept of time as an illusion on the Earth plane with physical limitations. We restrict the possibilities of existence by restricting ourselves in linear time. We are caught in a cycle where time defines us, not us defining time. No longer do we follow the natural rhythms of the Earth and ourselves but we fill our lives with constant activity without ever stopping in the stillness.

Many of the great thinkers: Aristotle, Leibniz, Issac Newton, Immanuel Kant, Albert Einstein, H.P. Blavatsky and more recently Nicholas Tesla knew that this concept of time doesn’t really exist, except in our minds. We spend our lives rushing around after electronic clocks, when the concept of measured time; seconds, minutes, hours is an artificial construct and we are suffering with an enormous amount of stress-related health conditions, because we are unable to allow the natural rhythms of the Earth work with our own natural cycles and to allow the soul to unfold like a flower without pushing and pushing to do this course, or earn that money or have this skill or be more “spiritually advanced” than other people, it all seems very survival focused. Braschler says that our sensory perception; sight, sound, touch, taste, hearing, limit our Earth experience, instead we should be trusting our higher consciousness and exploring beyond the cultural and social structures. Yet, these experiences in the higher consciousness, “cannot always relate to normal frames of reference that are comfortable for our rational lower mind to process and resolve.”

This planet is ours. We all share it. When we start to separate ourselves by name, gender, days, months, countries and the ticking of a clock we do our souls a dis-service. We are creating this external construct of linear time and perceived identity, which does not exist. We all perceive what we want to see and what we have been socially conditioned to see. Immanuel Kant said that time is a tool we use to keep our thoughts orderly. So what is the key to overcome these social and cultural conditionings? I have some thoughts:

1.       Firstly, question where your values come from. Is the blue moon any more powerful than a regular full moon? The answer is in the energy you put into your desire. July is an artificial measure of time that we use to track the Earth’s annual cycle around the sun. The months compartmentalise the year into manageable chunks that we arrange our lives around. Even Wednesday is “hump day” the day half way to the weekend. What sort of world are we living in where we rush through the “week” in order to get to the weekend where we can do what we really want to do, where we can actually follow our soul’s callings? What a phenomenal waste of the present moment!

2.       Secondly, if you are a woman, track your menstrual cycle by the moon. Of course this will be harder if you are on synthetic contraceptives. If coming off these, you need to have all the necessary discussions. I’m not a doctor or your partner. Do your research, ask the questions. For me I know that my period comes around the new moon and I ovulate at the full moon. I always have. For other women, the cycle is reversed. Hospital staff and midwives repeatedly report that babies come in clusters around the full moon. I haven’t done the research, but I’m fairly certain men too have their own natural cycles.

3.       And the final thing that I would suggest is to ground yourself deep into your body and soul and live in the moment. It’s one thing to cognitively know to be in the moment and another to be driving the kids, while listening to the radio and have your mind reel off the thousands of things that need doing. Just drive. Be present. Really listen when someone is speaking and be mindful of thinking about your responses. Just listen. Just be. Time as we have created it truly is illusory. We need to unplug ourselves from thinking we don’t have enough time, that there is a hurry, that we allow the world to define ourselves from the outside.

We need to return within and trust in our souls to guide us to where we need to be. We can control time, we can be the masters of it and not be driven by it, we just have to change our perception of what we view as true and as always, Question Everything.

Blessings,

©Alyssa Curtayne 2015