Elsa Lo Monaco - Heaven on Earth

Chapter 4

The body

In this world of illusion, the body is the main argument of the ego to show us that we are separated. Our problems, illnesses and pains are proof that God does not exist because if He exists, He would not allow so much pain and suffering. This is a wonderful argumentation for atheists, for those who believe that they are the product of chance. It is also a wonderful argument for those who form the religions where guilt serves to explain the anger of God.

All this and much more is caused by the fatal interpretation of the crucifixion of Jesus, whose symbolism was not understood and what puts the minds of millions of people in debt.

The body can best be used to expand perception, and to achieve the true vision that the physical eye can not reach. Learning this is the only real benefit of the body.

The culture of the body keeps us bound to this world of illusion, seeking the greatest pleasure and fleeing pain is its maxim. We do everything we can to decorate, perfume, and make it a kind of bait, to catch and to chain other bodies to us, convinced that in this way we can achieve safety and happiness.

In its dementia, the ego can project itself into a physical God with all physical and emotional attributes. We interpret the quote backwards. “We are made in the image and likeness of our Creator.” We see our Creator as we see ourselves, and we see Him as a male or female body. Not only that, also we project our desire onto Him how He has to be, and we even attribute to Him an enormous ego, because He forces us to worship Him and dedicate Him offerings. We imagine God with a bad character, hard and inflexible. To be forgiven we have to do many things that are hard and complicated. This God is capricious, bargaining, a bit sadistic and masochistic,and we think that He likes when we suffer, always ready to test what we can offer Him for His ego to be satisfied. We build huge temples to compete and make it clear that our God is the best. We clothe Him for His greater glory in gold and tie Him to the values of this world to ensure that He is always happy and content so that He does not become angry for our sins and send us hard-hitting plagues to redeem us.

When disaster strikes, we go to the temples to pray and seek forgiveness because we are convinced that this cataclysm was sent by God.

It seems that we forgot that “God is love and not a cruel sadist who demands sacrifices.”

We have been told that we have to do good things to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, although in reality we have never left this Kingdom.

Today there is a new spirituality that continues to fall into the same flaw, though it is considered much more advanced. For example, there are certain conditions to achieve spirituality. One of them is that on the way to God, we can only eat certain things and others not. That there exists a kind of food that accelerates the way to enlightenment and that there exists food that blocks the way to God. These are all beliefs that we can accept or not, but they are only beliefs far away from truth. At this point we remember that Jesus said, ”Not that which goes through man‘s mouth makes him unclean, but that what comes out of the mouth of man makes him impure”,and it seems that humanity has not yet understood this sentence. The belief that there is food for enlightenment and special techniques to channel energies and that external elements can be used with special powers, keeps us bound to this world of illusion and the body.

The ego separates through the body, but if we acknowledge that bodies are only meant to unite the minds, we would then gain a higher perspective of the body.

The body in and of itself has no value. The body without the mind has no power. The body can not suffer, it can not get sick, it is the mind that has the power over the body.

“Your body has a time limit, but your mind has eternal life. Your body is your car in this life and your mind is the driver.”

Chapter 5

Spirituality & guilt and its effects

Inside us, we feel that there is something more, that we have or are spirit, and that perhaps we have an immortal soul. We feel trapped, and we continue to look outside for the solution to this loneliness and this emptiness that drowns our soul.

We project our divine essence on the outside. Furthermore, we are not yet able to find the answer inside of us. The ego controls our divided mind and, although it is possible for it to change, it convinces us that it is very difficult.

The ego enjoys when we feel incapable, small, unworthy and when we believe that we do not know enough, that we have to prepare ourselves for whatever, but we are always prepared, without being aware that the secret is found in the experience.

In our projection we deny our divinity, and we put God outside us. We see God as a God to give praise and to be prayed to, an Almighty God who can punish us with great pain if we misbehave.

Religion combines this thought and creates the duality of good and evil, heaven and hell, as things external to us. We feel needy, dispossessed, we think that we are alone and abandoned by this God who has left us to our fate.

Norms are established, commandments, rituals, lists of sins are made, and there is a whole series of requirements to be good in the eyes of God. We create sentences in which guilt manifests itself. We punish ourselves because, in this way, when our time comes, we will be punished already. Not only that, but we deprive ourselves in different ways because we think that if we have wealth we will not enter into Heaven. We deliver our goods to institutions to which we give power, thinking that in this way, they will intercede for us before God. They are the intermediaries of the ego, of fear, they speak of love and forgiveness, and they make us feel constantly guilty by telling us what is right and what is wrong. They establish laws and commandments, and – be careful, because if we do not follow them – then all the hardships await us in an eternity. All this apparently created by a God who is supposed to be loving!

Theologians believe in sin and study how to get forgiveness to get to God. To believe in sin is to make it real in the dream, and this binds us to it. Belief in sin makes it possible for the devil to exist, and we give him the power to oppose God. We call this Antichrist, that we ourselves feed with our divided mind, believing that our guilt is so big that it is almost impossible for God to forgive us. The more we are separated from God, the more sinful and guilty we feel, the more strength it acquires that what the collective mind calls devil.

The question is, to which extent are we fully aware that we do not see the world as it really is? It is not about not having beliefs but about knowing that our beliefs are not true. However, when we believe that they are true we project them into the world, and then everything that surrounds us is in resonance with our beliefs and these condition all the circumstances of our life, because what we believe we do see.

Guilt and its effect

We tend to think that what happens to us comes from outside, that external factors make us feel in a certain way and when we do not like what we feel, then we point to something or someone as responsible for our condition.

By blaming others we free ourselves from our responsibility. However, we forget that by renouncing our own responsibility we give power to others, and we become victims. Blaming has a cost! The loss of our freedom. Furthermore, the role of the victim brings with it a self-perception of weakness, vulnerability and defencelessness, which are the main components of apathy and depression.

Guilt in itself begets negative feelings and negative feelings in and of themselves also beget guilt.

There is no winner in the guilt game. The first step to stop blaming is to acknowledge that we “choose” to blame someone or something. Only when we let go of blaming, we can experience forgiveness, and as a consequence we feel the resurgence of the energy of life, well-being and physical health.