A Conversation with God

A CONVERSATION WITH GOD

“Are you there, God? It’s me, no it really is me and this time I’m not messing around, this time I really am dying.” “What do you mean God that I don’t believe in anything? of course I do, let me explain”. My belief system is simple, wherever I am in the world, be it Christian, Jewish, Islamic or, when I used to go to Russia many years ago when it was a communist country and the belief system was Karl Marx then I would totally respect their system. In whichever country I ended up in I would attend the applicable place of belief or rather worship, maybe a mosque or a synagogue, simply as a visitor, not as a participant and never did I attempt to put forward my own views and never would I try to belittle or denigrate the belief of the person to whom I was talking.

This has always been a cardinal rule of mine ever since I can remember. You know that God. You can destroy a person very easily by some ill considered remark. Everyone has a belief system or none at all as some people say. Whatever it is, I will always respect it. When once addressing a group in Russia, when they had nothing, I was asked what my faith was and why I came to Russia to do what I did; in other words why did I go to a country that I did not know, a people with different customs, different beliefs and where there was really no prospect of material reward but simply to help someone less fortunate than yourself.

Difficult question – why did I? - but for that matter why do highly paid doctors give their services for free to Medicines sans Frontieres, why do we have so many young people going abroad to help in countries such as Sierra Leone with the overseas volunteer service, I believe that it is a spiritual matter, better to give than to receive. If you do someone a bad turn it comes back tenfold but if you do someone a good turn it comes back a hundredfold.

Again my belief is that this is a good principle but, God, I always say to anyone who asks me “does it really work” I simply reply “if you are in doubt and want proof then just give it a try”. I also believe that if you have certain talents then you should share them, in the long run the returns are huge though not necessarily in material terms. Ask Bill and Mellissa Gates why they do what they do. Ask any volunteer with our most numerous charities, Lifeboats, for those in distress upon the seas, Samaritans for those who are suicidal or mentally troubled, Shelter for those who are homeless.

I replied to the Russians who had been living under a feudal system for around 900 years before they hit on the idea of all being equal, which was a total nonsense as absolute power always does corrupt absolutely, that my belief system was to simply respect the other persons belief, nothing more and that as I was in their country, then I had total respect for communism but that I did not personally practice it.

Then another question, was I a good person. I’d had a few sessions like this when you begin to wonder if the people you are addressing are all KGB not simply the ones lurking in the back. No, I said, I was not a good person. Watch me in a business deal when I am after the best possible deal for my employees, my shareholders, my family, especially watch me if my family are threatened then I am not a very nice person at all – and certainly not good. This they actually seemed to like, perhaps I had touched on the Russian soul itself.

It was shortly after that that Gorbachev allowed a few rubles to be used for paint for one of the few remaining Churches in Moscow. I attended the first service and was utterly amazed at the number of people present as the Church was jam packed but the spirituality of the participants was beyond belief especially as the practice of Christianity had been forbidden in Russia for over 70 years. Incidentally services in the Russian Orthodox Church seem never ending, are you able to fix that sort of thing God?

God, you know that my own belief is simple and was probably shaped by my Aunts as a child. They were all most religious Church of England Anglo Catholics and they always reminded me that it was ‘high church’. I was taught that I should always pray and if I did so then my prayers would be answered; all my relations had a simple mantra “knock on any door and it shall be opened unto to you”. I think that I misunderstood the purpose of this because each time that I was forbidden by my mother to do something then I always went away, aged four or five, prayed fervently and when I went back to my mother and asked again then she would always said ‘yes, you can do that now”. So I assumed, at that young age, that that was all that was ever needed to get your own way!!!

I was also given a St Christopher medallion by my Aunt B, she was actually Bessie but shortened to B and told that I would always be protected as St Christopher was the patron saint of travelers. At that age everything is very black and white and I most firmly believed and adhered to whatever I was told. Also that I had a Guardian Angel who would always protect me. This I firmly believed but if that was so then I have indeed most sorely tried their patience over the last ninety years years.

What approach do I use in practice today you ask? Well, simply 360 degree vision. Treat everything, no matter how odd it seems, with total acceptance and without astonishment. If I kick the bucket tomorrow and end up in Hell then they will probably have a sports club, which will no doubt have a tread mill which never stops and a swimming pool where, once you start swimming lengths, then they go on forever. If it’s Heaven then I will simply get a huge rocket for the way in which I have lived my life. If there’s nothing then it wont matter anyway because I will not know about it !!

Why do I believe in belief systems God? Because they do you good - how? As a tremendous back up for your own immune system. What do I do if I am ill? I go to bed, pull the curtains and sleep. I leave the curing part to that deep sleep, to my immune system and to all those others who are usually dependent on me, the microbes, the bacteria, the mitochondria, the telemores, the cells, the protons, the neurons and all the others to which my body is host. I do try to give them the respect that I would give to anyone else.

Why do I take so many multi vitamin pills and so many herbal products? That is, of course, until the price is too great and then I immediately stop taking them. It is because I believe that they do me good. What clinical trials can I quote to back this up – none at all. Take probiotics; I understand that at best they do you no harm but I am constantly being told that it is pretty useless sticking 5 billion or 10 billion ‘good’ bacteria into your gut when your own gut has hundreds of billions of other strains of ‘good’ bacteria and what I am doing is just a drop in the ocean anyway.

But I believe that they do me good and so I benefit from the belief that they are doing me good, not from the pills but from the belief itself. However I do think that they should be used if you are taking antibiotics as these drugs are used to kill the ‘bad’ bacteria but also have a catastrophic effect on the ‘good’ bacteria. They are a little indiscriminate. Another reason why I think that we depend far too much on drugs to cure. They cost a fortune. Far better to spend the money on prevention. Yes, I’ll get off that soap box!

No God, it is not just me who believes this, just ask Lisa Rankin why she specifically highlights the power of belief systems in her book called ‘Mind Over Medicine’. She is a doctor who also gives super TED talks. She says that basically the brain responds to positive beliefs by releasing chemicals that put the body in a state of of physiological rest. Under this condition the body is primarily controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system but negative beliefs trigger the stress response and the cellular system gets poisoned with stress hormones.

So are all belief systems inherently good? Sorry but I’m afraid not; in the wrong hands they can be used to manipulate the unwary, the spiritual seeker, the spiritual butterfly, that is those who continually flit from one sect or religious belief to another, the mentally troubled and the genuine seeker. History is littered with those who have abused their powers and that does not exclude the main stream religions. How about the Spanish Inquisition, the burning of witches but look what happens in the end. Before the recent abuse scandals in Ireland the Catholic Church used to exert influence over some 80% of the population. This has now dropped to around 40% a decade later. Regrettably the abused are still suffering and still continually beat themselves up.

Aleister Crowley, who was notorious as ‘The Beast’ or ‘666’, started off as a sincere practitioner of Yoga, the maharishi in the USA who ended up with a string of Rolls Royce and even more mistresses and the really bad ones such as Manson who caused multiple deaths. I do not think that any of us are strong enough to totally resist persistent manipulation or brainwashing especially if you are deprived of sleep. What about those people, such as Richard Dawkins who put forward the most logical thesis for the fact that you do not exist God. You ask what is that, I thought that you were ‘all knowing’ God, well, it’s the ‘no God’ argument. Those who are utterly sincere in their belief of their own conclusions. Well that is exactly the point, it is their belief, their BELIEF system. So how about this then God, a no belief, belief system – what on earth is that you ask God, no I’m not on my soap box again, I’m being really serious.

Have no attachment to any belief system, does it matter if you are right or wrong, do you have to be right or wrong anyway? Many think of Buddhism as one of the worlds most rapidly growing religions but it isn't actually a religion, there is no God, you don’t exist to them God. It is really a philosophy, a physiological or psychological system, a method of training the mind.....The mind eventually comes to have no attachment to anything, to any belief, to any object, to any person and finally, to life itself. This does not mean that you cannot love someone, quite the opposite but it is with unconditional love rather than selfish love – no attachment. As for life itself, does it really matter, it is all about how you have lived your life, your consideration for others, not for how well you have done or how long you have lived.

The one thing that I have never done in my life is to have died so that is why I am really looking forward to it as it must be classed as a one off!! My Buddhist and Hindu friends tell me that I must have lived many lives but advancing years and memory probably take their toll because I have no recollection of such matters at all. “What did you say God, I’m boring you to death, that can’t be right because you go on forever, don’t you God, Oh, so you are going to explain everything to me, am I that muddled up in my thinking,? you are going to make everything clear to me, brilliant, now that IS something, - OK - OK - I’m coming right now, I said that I really was dying this time…………………………...I’m coming………………..I’m coming…………………..I’m coming………………………...