7 Spiritual Beliefs Debunked

People come here with what I think of as binky beliefs. Binky beliefs. A binky is a pacifier. It’s what you give a baby to make it feel secure, safe and secure, stops crying. “I’m okay now, I’m okay now.”

Well, there’s a number of spiritual beliefs and assumptions that fall into this category of being binky beliefs. And some of you may be beyond this, but I never really know for sure. So I have to go through this. And those who certainly will hear this in the future will definitely be bumping into these.

So the first binky belief is: Everything happens for a purpose. Has anyone ever heard this before? “But it’s your purpose…it happens for a purpose… everything happens for a purpose because it’s an orderly universe, right? Nothing just happens; it’s for a purpose. It’s Divine. It’s the divine guidance,” you know.

So if your four-year-old gets cancer, it’s for a purpose, but…Or if people are massacred in another country, “Well, it’s for a purpose.” Do you see how amoral this makes you? Do you see how unconscious this makes you? And it’s all because of an illusion of control. “Oh, I have control of my life. I’m in control.” No you’re not. You’re out of control.

So everything does not happen for a purpose. Everything happens. The New Message teaches us you can use almost everything for a good purpose, but everything doesn’t happen for a purpose. It just happens. There are some exceptions to this where things do happen that have a lot to do with you and your development, and something triggers a change in your trajectory or strikes you; those are exceptional events. They’re not everyday events. Your chance of getting a good parking space is about one in 500. So when you get one, do not think it’s Divine revelation. That’s binky belief number one.

Binky belief number two: Everyone is right where they need to be. Really? For learning? I once heard a Western spiritual teacher respond to a report about one of these adolescent prisons in Russia, where the boys are beaten and even sexually abused, saying, “Well, you know, they chose this. This is for their learning because everything has to be that way.” It’s cruel. Or “Everyone dies when they’re ready.” No.

So actually the opposite is true. Most people aren’t where they need to be, which is why their life needs to move, which is why their purpose and destiny is to take them into new territory, why they can’t settle for where they are and call it good when it isn’t good, when it isn’t real. The problem is people are spread all over the place and most of them really need to move, to some degree, at least out of their family sphere, to be able to begin to navigate their own life or to be inner-directed.

Binky number three: There’s a greater plan guiding my life. Kind of, but you will have to do a mountain of work to allow that to happen, and go through long periods of discomfort and confusion and give up many things you think you should have or do have. And then, yes, at the level of Knowledge, Heaven will guide your life. But it will break you down first…somewhat. Depending how much you built yourself up, it will have to break you down, somewhat.

I only live for the moment. You ever said this to yourself? It’s a very groovy terms, very in vogue these days. Why? Because people have absolutely no strength to deal with what is happening in the world or where it’s going. So it’s an escape into the present, which doesn’t work because it’s not in keeping with Knowledge within you. It’s not in keeping with who you are. It’s not in keeping with being sent here for a purpose and having a destiny and having a role out in the world.

In addition, if you only live for the moment, you can’t take a journey because journeys require planning and staging and changes in your life orchestrated by you, determined by you—can’t go anywhere. You want to be as smart as a bird? Well, okay, if that gives you reprieve. But you’re never going to be fulfilled and you’ll never fulfill your destiny here. So that’s a dangerous binky. In fact, they’re all dangerous.

All I have to do is just be open to guidance. I’ve heard this from some of you. It’s not a terrible binky, it’s just off the mark. No, you’re going to have to do lots of stuff and your life has to be moving, then Knowledge can speak with you. You really have to be moving for Knowledge to start helping you navigate. If you’re not moving, you’re not navigating. The ship is in the harbor, it’s not going anywhere. Your car is in the garage, it’s not going anywhere. You’re stranded, you’re stuck. You’re not going anywhere.

So Knowledge’s first impulse is to get you moving. And you can be moving doing what you want, at least at the beginning because at least you’re moving.

God is in the driver’s seat of my life. No. God wants you to be in the driver’s seat of your life. God will sit in the back seat whispering in your ear, sometimes, which means you have to learn how to deal with the vehicle and all of its needs—traffic, congestion, a discomfort, getting pulled over, everything. You’re in the driver’s seat.

And you’re not just a driver. You’re the one who has to actually get the vehicle where it needs to go, which may be far away from where you are now, and you’ve never been there before.

This is how much responsibility is being conferred upon us to participate in an engagement with the Divine. Your relationship with God is a relationship, and it’s based on what you can do together. If it’s only based on adulation, worship or pleading for dispensations, then it’s not a relationship.

You have a relationship with Knowledge, but it’s based on what you can do together. You have a relationship with people, of course, but they’re all based on what you can do together. That one idea can save you years of your life.

So you assess a relationship thinking, “What can I really do with this person?” Hmm…The illusion of beauty and charm disappears quickly in the light of that question.

Finally: The universe supports me. Not really. Knowledge supports you. Those who sent you into the world support you. The universe doesn’t care about you at all. You’re just a feature on the landscape.

And if you didn’t have an inner life, that would be pretty terrible, what I just said, and part of you would say, “No, no!” But I’m telling you this because then you understand how to function in this world with its beauty and its hazards and its disappointments and everything. It’s that you’re an immortal being in a temporary environment that is very difficult to live in, actually, honestly. Most of your life will be filled with problem-solving.

So the adaptation to this new reality is going to require many things of us, even things we don’t even know how to do. But I want to emphasize that this new world reality is a context for us and not a constant focus. I do not recommend you focus on it a lot. It will darken your mind. You’ll be living in a state of fear and apprehension. Your mind will go bad places with it. It’s a context. Context is the environment in which things happen and can happen and might happen, and in which your life needs to happen.

The New Message says even from the beginning that we are entering a future unlike the past. Well, that kind of changes many things. And it needs to change, certainly.