What is the Meaning of Religion?
This post is a response to Oxana’s questions about:
- The meaning of religion
- Why she has never been able to embrace religion, particularly Christianity, which she considers her religion
- Feeling like an outsider because of difficulties becoming part of a group
The Council’s Perspective on Religion
During our session on Oxana’s questions and comments, The Council made several points about religion, including these:
- Religion is about people’s desire to: experience God, experience a connection with God, experience a connection with the source of all that is.
- The desire for a religious experience of unity and oneness with God is a powerful attractive force that draws people of similar religious beliefs together into communities of worship and faith.
- There are many religions because there are many lights along many paths home to God, home to the unity and oneness of all.
- Religion means different things to different people.
- In our desire to experience oneness with God, people who don’t share our religious beliefs, or skin color, or ethnic background, can seem like a threatening obstacle to our experience of oneness. If we feel threatened enough, we justify killing these people – usually in the name of God – in the mistaken belief this will enable us to experience the oneness we desire. When we feel threatened by beliefs that are different from ours, we often convince ourselves – and try to convince others – that our beliefs are the only true beliefs.
“When we understand who we truly are, and that we are all one, and all connected…when that is truly understood…this need for violence…this belief in separateness…will not be necessary.”
–The Council
- Many of our religious beliefs are part of childhood training, and as we get older we may let go of these beliefs and choose other religious beliefs, or choose not to have religious beliefs at all.
- Many people need religion and many people do not.
- As understanding of humanity’s true spiritual nature evolves, people will experience a more continuous and direct connection with God and we won’t need to affiliate with a traditional religion to have this experience.
- When we understand that each of us is pure spirit in a physical body, we also understand that each of us is part of God, part of the source of all that is. We understand part of us always remains with God and that we never left home.
Why can’t Oxana embrace her religion?
The Council suggests that perhaps Oxana’s difficulty embracing Christianity or any other religion…
“…is her soul’s longing to find it’s connection to God…to its source…without all this other belief around it…without the rules. How wonderful that she is starting to open up to this.”
–The Council
The Council adds that throughout history it’s been common for people to believe they can only experience a connection to God with the help of a priest, holy man, or some authority figure.
“Now, for many, this third person, this middleman (and woman, so we offend no one) is not needed. The connection is being made. We happily see that more and more. And so there is no shame or nothing wrong in not believing in her [Oxana’s] religion or any religion. We suggest she meditate daily and ask for the feeling to know the essence of who she really is. And when that is felt, when that is known, this question of religion will not be so important.”
–The Council
On Feeling Like an Outsider
The Council suggests that when Oxana, or any of us, feels like an outsider it’s because we’re focusing our attention on something outside our connection with who we are as pure spirit in our physical body. The Council advises Oxana that any of the meditations they’ve suggested in other posts on this site (Crown/Heart chakra meditation and Heart/First chakra meditation) will help relieve feelings of separation and not belonging in many areas of life, not just religion.
Fitting In
The more we are able to experience our connection to spirit, the less we feel a need to pretend to be like others in order to fit in. (This is also the subject of a recent post subtitled The Challenge of Being Our True Selves.) The Council sees Oxana, and each of us, as the perfect pure spirit we are, and the more we are able to connect with this aspect of ourselves, the more well-being we’ll experience. Rather than making fitting in about being different from who we really are in order to feel more accepted by others, think of fitting in as the process of allowing our pure spirit to fit comfortably into our physical body and express itself through our personality.
Appreciate Our Life
The Council advises all of us to focus on things we can appreciate in our lives: to feel love for ourselves and what we have gone through; for our wishes and dreams; for changes we’ve made and are about to make.
In Oxana’s case, she can appreciate her courage in moving from the country of her birth, and more recently making another big move with the intention of expanding her career. She can also appreciate her ability to recognize unhealthy patterns in her relationships and her ability choose more satisfying relationships.
The Council wants Oxana to know she has courage beyond what she believes and she has learned though much experience – some of it difficult – that she is a survivor, not a victim. They encourage her to appreciate how far she has come – how much she’s been able to change her life.
“With appreciation for what you have already accomplished in your life, you will do much more.”
–The Council
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Welcome
Bob & Cynthia
Welcome to Ask The Council, a blog where you can ask a group of loving and wise spirit guides a question and get an answer, for free. You can also contact us for a paid private phone session with The Council, and you can read the questions other readers have asked and the answers they’ve received. Other posts contain quotations from The Council that we hope you find inspiring, uplifting, and educational.
Ask The Council a Question
If there’s a question you’ve been thinking about and you’re curious how The Council might answer it, we encourage you to either use the blog’s Comments feature to ask your question, or contact us for a private phone session. You can click here to go to the ‘Let us know what you think about this post, or ask The Council a question’ section of this Welcome post and type your question there or you can type your question in the same section at the bottom of any post that inspires you to ask a question or leave a comment.
Since the blog is currently a project we do in our spare time it can take a while for us to do a session with The Council on a question and then publish a post on the session. Depending on the question and the session it can sometimes take weeks after a question is asked to publish a post with The Council’s answer. Please be patient.
The Council
Cynthia is able to communicate with a group of five non-physical spirit guides in a manner similar to the way Esther Hicks communicates with and speaks for the spirit guides, Abraham, and Jane Roberts communicated and spoke for the spirit guide, Seth. I (Bob) basically interview The Council as they speak through Cynthia during what we refer to as a session. Sessions generally last 5-15 minutes and are usually audio recorded. During the session Cynthia is aware of what The Council is saying and she also receives visual impressions and other types of telepathic communication from them.
The Council’s Basic Guidance
Since we began these sessions with The Council around 2009 they consistently emphasize a few basic ideas that we attempt to summarize here:
1) You are an eternal spiritual being in a physical body.
You are the energy and vibration of continuously expanding love, intelligence, and joy.
Your physical experience in your physical body and your psychological experience of your personality is a small part of the totality of who you truly are.
Let yourself imagine from time to time what it might feel like to experience more of the wondrous totality of who you really are, and don’t be surprised if you are able to experience this more often.
2) You are the creator of all that you experience.
As you open to the possibility your true nature is greater than you ordinarily perceive, it becomes easier to consider the possibility that this expanded you is truly the creator of everything that you experience.
If you’re used to thinking of yourself in a more limited sense, the idea that you are the creator of your experience may be difficult to understand. Our post, What About This Idea That We Create Whatever We Desire, offers insights into this idea.
3) You are here to expand the love you are into physical reality.
You chose, as a spiritual being, to come into this physical reality to experience the joy of expanding the love you are as a spiritual being, into this physical reality. This is your purpose for being here.
Finding Your Way Around the Blog
Home Page
The left-hand column on the Home page contain a long chronological series of posts with the most recent on top. Each post begins with a title. Clicking on a post title will take you to a blog page dedicated to that particular post. Following each post is a Like button where you can indicate to us and other readers if you like the post.
The footer section of each post identifies the date the post was published, the Categories the post has been assigned to, the keyword/keyphrase Tags assigned to the post, and a Comment link. If readers comments on a post, the Comments link will indicate the number of comments. If a post has no comments yet, the Comment link text appears as “Leave a Comment”.
Clicking on the Comments link takes you to a Comment text box on a post page dedicated to that post. Here you can type a comment in the text box and click the Post Comment button to have your comment displayed just below the text box. If you are replying to someone else’s comment, your comment will appear indented underneath the comment you are replying to.
At the bottom of the left column on the Home page is a ‘Previous Entries’ link that will take you to a page with a list of earlier posts.
Blog Features
The right-hand column of most blog pages contains this Welcome message. Below the Welcome message in the right-hand column are some useful features:
Email Subscription: Use this to subscribe to blog posts. You will receive an email notification with a link back to the blog each time a new post is published.
Search: Type a keyword or phrase and click the Search button to get a list of posts in the left column that contain the keyword or phrase.
Archives: The Archives list indicates the number of posts for each month listed. Clicking on the link for a month will display in the left column of the page a list of the posts published that month.
Categories: This is a list of keywords used to categorize posts. Posts can be included in more than one category, if applicable. Clicking on a category link will display in the left column a list of posts assigned to the category you selected.
Navigation Bar
The Navigation Bar at the top of each page contains a link to the blog Home page and links to the following additional pages:
Welcome: A link that displays this Welcome message in the left column (and the right column). At the bottom of the Welcome message is a Comment box where you can post a general comment about the blog or ask The Council a question.
Questions & Answers: Use this link to display a list of introductions to our longer posts, most of which are responses to reader questions. This is an easy way to check out these more in-depth posts. They are listed in chronological order with the most recent post on top. Clicking on the post title will take you to the page where you can read the complete post.
Contact Us: The Contact Us page contains a contact form similar to the Comment form mentioned above. The difference between the Contact Us form and the Comment forms is that the Contact Us form is a private message to us (Cynthia and Bob). It is not posted on the blog. Comments appear on the post page where the comment is posted. The Contact Us form can be used for communicating with us about private sessions or other private matters you think aren’t appropriate for posting in a public Comment.
Bob & Cynthia
Ask The Council 
Hi, Wendy. We are also fans of Abraham and we are acquainted with Bashar. And we’re happy you’re loving our website. Your question about the bible is a very interesting one. As soon as we get a chance we’ll ask The Council how reliable the different stories in the bible are and see what they say. And we’ll post their answer on our site. We hope you keep enjoying our many posts.
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Hello Council,
I am a fan of Abraham-Hicks and Bashar, (and now a fan of you!), and I also feel a deep connection to Jesus. Recently I have begun to read the bible with the goal of reading it in its entirety. As an avid reader of all things spiritual, I feel an understanding and knowledge of the bible is important and it was time to take on the “task”, as it is definitely not an easy read! But I can’t help but be curious, especially since I believe so deeply in the teachers mentioned above and the messages often greatly differ, just how true and real are the writings/stories of the bible? I recall in “An American Prophet” the source even suggested to Edgar Cayce (a huge fan of the bible) that it was not the best resource…an admittance that both shocked and disappointed him. I know this is a huge question. Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! (And I’m so loving your site and information! I have been helped and healed immensely by one of the subjects you often touch on.)
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