I was created pure, clean, and devoid of any sin, contrary to the religious belief imparted on me.
I know this is controversial, but I will tell my truth.
I grew up in a family of strong Christian Catholic faith.
That shaped my life by informing a biblical belief system. Right from the start, I was taught that God created me with an original sin inherited from a garden full of apple trees. I came to learn that this orchard could have been somewhere around the ancient Near East.
This land is likely to have been somewhere around the confluence of Euphrates and Tigris, which is genuinely fertile. A place not known to be the cradle of humankind by all history and archaeology recorded to date. But let me not go into the details of why this no longer resonates with my senses. I do not want to lose a lot of readers.
I was instilled that everyone is also born a sinner. So was I.
That I have to cleanse myself every day because I am short of the glory of God. I have grown up believing that the world is just the way it is, plain evil—the effects of the original sin. Because human beings are born of the flesh, which is of no avail because of the consequences of original sin. God predetermined it all after that serpentry incident in Mesopotamia.
I have always been a weak believer.
Since my early childhood, I struggled with finding my spiritual ground. And for sure, my way of life has been a clear demonstration of this battle. I strove to go to church from the early years and looked forward to the day I would be out of the home to free myself from the ritual. I always questioned what I read and heard on Sundays after comparing it from what I saw the society practice every other day.
As a child, my family was the society. I could not connect our faith and the practice at home most of the time. Some things would always conflict my mind and made me detest going to church and identifying with that system. Besides, some other people from the village were very ‘holy’ on Sundays, but equally despicable on every other day of the week. In all ways, I started to associate Christian faith with hypocrisy as a child.
Going to secondary school won my freedom and a ticket to join revolters from other families. Chilling on Sundays was a bliss (as it is now, how some things remain the same!), and I enjoyed it all the way. University was half rebellion and half complacence, but either way, I survived showing up on Sundays many times. Until I started working, and at some point, I worked for the church. And my childhood confusion came back with a bang! I want to put this to a rest and leave you guessing how this nostalgic conflict got me here.
Two years ago, I began a journey of discovering the source of this ‘spiritual weakness.’
It just didn’t dawn on me while eating a hamburger or downing my then beloved drink – a chilled Heineken. Moments that have always been around in my life, but I never got to notice the call from above. It was a period of real internal turmoil—a period of pain and hard reality.
I later came to realize that I was slowly sinking into a mild depression. All this was ignited by an incident with two of my close family members. I came to discover that the frustration burrowed the core of my childhood trauma, that I always thought was long dead and deeply buried. Once again, I had to wrestle with it, but for the last time.
I became a beginner once again.
I was feeling disconnected from everything. My soul was empty, a strange feeling of loss in my life. I had to do something to save myself or go bonkers. I decided to reset my spiritual path, by searching and opening up to any teachings that would come my way. I was ready to deconstruct my beliefs and discover my truth.
One bright morning, I randomly landed on a spiritual mystic podcast while driving to work. At first, my mind told me that I was doing something very wrong by listening to a Hindu. I have always known that the God of the Holy Bible does not entertain any other perspective because he is a jealous one. On a second thought, I considered my self promise not to go by what I have always known, but with whatever teachings would open my heart to a new experience.
I was born full of glory, innocence, and purity.
And so is everyone. Everything else that people become has been made right here on earth by their upbringing environment and the influence of fellow human beings.
Soon after birth, programming begins and depending on who is raising you. In other words, if both of us were born the same day and our parents made a swap, you would most likely be behaving and thinking like me. And I would most likely act like you.
Take the analogy of a mobile phone. If you and I go to the shop and buy the same brand and model of a new mobile phone, they would both be the same in all aspects. But if we met a month later, they would be strikingly different. All because of the programs and other stuff that would be therein. That is how grown human beings are. Full of earthly mental programs that define attitudes and behaviours.
But today, I am entirely different from what God created.
What you see in me is inherited, not inherent. I have been programmed by my parents, my teachers, my mates, my pastor, yourself, and God knows who else. Who I have always believed to be me is not me. My perceptions, my emotions, my judgments, my beliefs are all a result of my environment and considered influence ever since birth.
I am a result of a conspiracy of mind programming by actors and my environment. That my easy-to-ignite anger, addictive predispositions, and self-limiting beliefs are inherited, that my system of judgment for what is right and wrong is not universal, but a subject of my rational or irrational interpretations.
I am now the co-creator of my own life.
Every day I determine the status of my health and wealth, my weight and height, my joy and misery. I and not God, create my everyday experience. I no longer doubt that God created the universe and determined my existence. He then left the rest of the work upon me.
I now work hard to unlearn and reprogram myself by choosing to break down the walls built in my mind. This knowledge has been a secret unbeknown to me and most of us. Only known to a select few in this world. Those that we call high achievers.
I chose to follow this path of thought and see where it will lead me.
It has led me very far and opened my heart to a greater understanding of who I truly am. I have discovered and corrected many self-limiting beliefs and behaviours that were always masking the real me. I no longer have a fear of doing this due to the judgements that other people will project on me.
I now follow the wisdom of my favourite quote for many years by Frantz Fanon. “In the World through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself.”
I will always recreate myself for as long as I live on this earth.
