Spiritual Bootcamp

We humans have a fear of death. We forget that the point of any honest spirituality is to teach us how to love ourselves. As we learn, whether we see it or not, our lives gradually develop and mature. All too often we spend our lives consumed with our self-imposed fear of going to hell. This is totally unwarranted nonsense. Somewhere along the line humans picked up the false notion that they have done or are doing something in their lives so horrible that they deserve eternal damnation.

If that’s what you want to believe, you probably won’t let anybody talk sense into you. Humans haven’t listened to many forms of spiritual wisdom for millennia. Not matter how false the evidence you mistake for being real.

Try being contrary with yourself. Even if it’s only for a moment. Try telling yourself that you are not going to hell. Appreciate the goodness within you. Perceive your ability to become an ever better person on a moment to moment basis.

Unless you wish to accept the falsehood that you are a bad person. Unless you feel that there is nothing for you but to choose to live a life of irredeemable evil.

A very long time ago a Russian woman whose family had been aristocrats before the October Revolution of 1917 told me of the ancient peasant belief that no matter how terrible a person is during their life, at the precise moment of their death they can convert and go to heaven. Even the worst people like Hitler and Stalin. If they do not repent, they go to the hell they have chosen. However, there is an…