How faith in GOD of my own understanding helped me become an Optimist

Hi there,

It's been a while since my last article, and I'm glad I have an opportunity to write another one.

In the next piece I would like to describe the simple process by which a belief in GOD (of my own understanding), helped me and continuous to help me improve my life and of all those around me, I would like to describe the exact process by which I followed and the results I see in my life, I suggest each reader to first read the entire article without the natural urge of judging, and if possible just try it, like anything in life it requires simple daily practice, but the results start very quickly, in weeks, of course its individual, and by no reason I wish to make anybody do something against their conscious, its just my 2 cents, you can take it or leave it.

The first step to understand why faith in GOD of my own understanding, could benefit my life reached me, when I saw that when something "BAD" happened to me, I accused some higher power, maybe GOD maybe different, but when something "GOOD" happened it was always thanks to me or luck, or some other people or whatever, and this understanding made me realize that I am not a positive person, actually I turn to GOD only when "BAD" things happen, which made me confused, I mean why do I turn or believe in a GOD that hurts me or punishes me.

The first diversion I made from the traditional religious faith in GOD (any one of the traditional religions), is the confidence that the "BAD" things that happen to me aren't originated by GOD, in the last paragraph we will even challenge the concept of "BAD" and "GOOD", but for now its enough to understand that my GOD of understanding isn't responsible for punishing me, so probably some of you are asking now: "but who responsible for the BAD staff, if GOD isn't?!" and that is a good starting point to start thinking about the nature of GOD of your own understanding, for example I couldn't answer this question fully, but I realized that some of the "BAD" things that happen are happening because of ME, I started to take more responsibility and thought, before accusing the higher-power immediately.

BTW, I won't use any religious scriptures except the one that I liked and studied the most, I read it and other books explaining it, though parts of it are written in ancient Aramaic language (thanks google translate:) ), which was the BOOK of JOB, in which god allowed Satan inflict lots of "BAD" staff on Job, and eventually in the climax of the story, in the point after Job curses GOD, GOD actually answered Job, and there were two parts to the answer why GOD inflicted so much "BAD" staff on Job, the first was that GOD isn't responsible for all the "BAD" staff that happened to Job and in general isn't responsible for all the "BAD" staff in the world, and the second was that thought of Job that if he only does righteous things, such as living an honest life, he will never suffer, was wrong understanding of GOD.

Though I was left confused with the answers of GOD to Job, it actually made my transition to the belief I have today easier, my GOD isn't responsible for the "BAD" staff that happens to me or to anybody else, my GOD never punishes me, I hope we start to get a glimpse why this kind of faith is related to being a positive person, because I stop believing in an entity that goes around all day and punishes and inflicts pain on the world, also if GOD isn't responsible for the "BAD" things, so what does he do?

Well it's easy, GOD is responsible for all the "GOOD" things that happen to me or to anybody else, actually the best (from my own experience) attributes that I suggest to attach to your own belief of GOD, is that he/she/it is caring, trust-worthy, loving, non-judgmental, considerate and personal, other then these, you can actually try any other attribute that you want, as long as you are honest regarding this, for example, I would be very careful with the next attributes: "GOD puts me through tests" and "GOD tries to educate me through pain", its very easy to regress to the old punishing GOD theorem from there.

I think that there are people that won't feel as comfortable with these ideas as others, especially people who consider themselves as Atheists or Sinners, as I stated above if it makes these people's life better to belief that we are a bunch of electrons that move without any reason from one place to another in these life until the connections between these electrons disappears, be my guest to continue if it makes your life better, also by no means do I try to suggest it is easy to implement this philosophy I stated in the earlier paragraphs, but it's simple enough to live accordingly in my daily life.

To make this philosophy practical, I will introduce a preliminary step that is absolutely required prior to converting or adopting this kind of belief in GOD, and it is the conscious understanding that YOU ARE NOT GOD, and that no other Person, Asset, Money, Capital or Pleasure, is GOD by itself, a helpful metaphor I found was of a tree, the Tree is GOD, and all the leaves and the root and everything else, the leaf is a part of GOD, but it is not the tree, it is not GOD, imagine what would happen if a leaf would awake and suddenly decide that it is an individual and not part of the tree, that it is a tree by itself, then all of a sudden, it will realize that there are leaves that are higher on the tree on higher branches ,and that the view this particular leaf sees is worst then the leaves higher, so it will devote its life to move up the tree, or a leaf will see another leaf falling and will realize its mortality, and will stop functioning properly due to anxiety of death, think, will the TREE ever want to hurt the leaf deliberately?! of course not, can an external force like the wind hurt the leaf, yes.

I know that this metaphor is powerful in delivering this idea that you can be part of GOD, but you are not GOD, it is crucial, so we will explore it in another metaphor, lets take a car driver, the one who controls the steering wheel, as long as I was not open to the idea that the car doesn't necessarily drive best when I'm in charge of the steering wheel, I couldn't really trust the GOD of my own understanding, if I use one of life's most important TOOLS, which is called "Honesty", I can transcend to the notion, that my life is better when GOD is the one holding the steering wheel of this car called my life, as long as this GOD has the attributes we listed earlier.

A simple example can help, examples are extremely important to convey spiritual ideas, let's say you are going to a restaurant, and you are keen on a specific dish, and that evening that dish is absent, you can write a bad review of the restaurant later, you can get angry and stay hungry by not ordering anything, you can blame your partner or friend for dragging you there and always making bad decisions, that's not crazy, this is what happens when we or our EGO, is the driver behind the steering wheel, but instead if we believe that god is loving and caring and he will never put you in a situation in which you will be harmed, then we can start to believe, that maybe, just maybe that wasn't the dish for us, maybe it was poisoned :), maybe there is another dish that we would love more, maybe GOD wants to save us a workout later, maybe its a good start in your life to take risks, and this list is endless

The last part as I promised will consider the notion of "GOOD" staff, and "BAD" staff, I could actually write an entire article regarding this issue alone, but without context it would miss its point, now that we understand a little about my philosophy, lets consider the next short poem:

"For every ailment under the sun,

There is a cure or there is none,

If there is one, go and find it, 

If there is none, never mind it."

according to this if a "BAD" thing happens and it has a solution then you should be positive and strive for the solution, in case this "BAD" thing doesn't have a solution, just forget about it, another point to make, that Shakespeare said: "Nothing is good or bad, only thinking of it makes it so", this is very similar to "It takes two to tango", what I'm trying to say is that for something to be "BAD", it requires your cooperation, for example, a person who is hit by a car, can "theoretically" not call it a "BAD" thing if he gets a Million $$$, again this is an extreme example, and obviously nobody wants to be hurt, I think that anybody reading this document can think of a "BAD" thing that happened to him and now he realizes it was a "GOOD" thing, the point I was making, is that if we believe in a GOD that is caring, trust-worthy, loving, non-judgmental, considerate and personal, then we can try to challenge the very notion that things that happen to us are "BAD".