Selected Pathways to God:

From a recent review of the literature, it is clear that seeking an education, then employment, raising a family if desired and pur-suing rest and relaxation are all secondary to working with the Creator as a co-worker in an increasingly responsible manner. For many persons, life begins in the cradle and ends at the grave. However, evidence is mounting that one survives death not in the physical form but in the spiritual. We are Soul, a spark of God. Soul is immortal. Furthermore, for us, the human body is the temporary residence of Soul while on earth, and from which it departs and returns during sleep, or leaves permanently at death. Soul’s quest is to be a co-worker with God and eventually, to return to its kingdoms, its true home. God lives on floor twelve of a spiritual mansion, literally; by comparison the earth is floor one. Therefore, Soul seeks a two-, or three-pronged education on earth, and elsewhere, to find a job, pay a rent, raise a family if desired, and find ways to return to its true home. In so doing, it must convert its immaturity to maturity, and spiritual infancy to mastership. Two well-known training pathways exist for taking Soul into God’s kingdoms while still living. These are the Intellectual, fa-vored by science and others, that uses the five physical, or objective, senses and the Psychic (such as old-age and modern religions, yoga, Mysticism, and others), that employs the five spiritual, or subjective senses. Since 1965, however, a third major pathway that existed since time immemorial but which was either hidden, or cryptic, emerged. This is Advanced religion (Eckankar) or Spirituality, that also employs the subjective senses. These three pathways can be rank-ordered and relate to how far into God’s kingdoms one can reach. It may be a surprise to learn that each of us has three edu-cational paths to pursue, if not already pursued. As said earlier, these are the Intellectual, or objective, that can take one one-sixth of the way into God’s kingdoms: the Psychic, or subjective, that prepares one for almost half of the journey; and the Spiritual, also subjective, that has the potential to reach all the way into God’s kingdoms. Training in intellectualism, psychic matters, as well as spirit-uality, in that order, takes one to increasingly higher levels of understanding and experiences, from fringe to full, that an indi-vidual not receiving this training may not believe or even consider possible until this person has received a similar level of instruct-tion. The Intellectual pathway largely prepares one for life on earth; whereas, the Psychic and Spiritual pathways largely prepare one for life after death of the physical body, although these can be pursued while one is still alive. Furthermore, each of these pathways has three different sub-levels, namely, the elementary, the intermediate, and the ad-vanced. This meant that before 1965, those persons choosing a pathway to God, or had one chosen for them, involved them-selves lacking all of the information on pathways that is available today. Although it is one’s right to choose a pathway to God that fulfils one’s needs, this should be done after all possible infor-mation on pathways is examined, not before. The text introduces the pathways mentioned, use of two very distinct mechanisms (the mind and Soul) for gleaning information about God, karma and reincarnation that allow one to visit past mistakes for corrective action, as well as the vital need to convert faith and belief into knowledge by means of experimentation. In old-age and modern religions for the congregation, for example, there is very little, if any, experimentation beyond singing, dancing, prayer, feasting, and fasting, and even these are not structured for the collection and analysis of data. In trance-like experiments, the experimentee is not conscious of what tran-spires. Other psychic pathways and the Spiritual pathway, on the other hand, feature profound experimentation for new and ad-vanced students. Experimentation increases one’s awareness (consciousness) considerably while awake as well as when asleep. Experimen-tation can enhance the development of subjective techniques such as chakra awakening, intuition, exteriorization of conscious-ness, dream travel, Soul travel, and so on. Additional discussion examines the mind passions that can preclude spiritual development. These are represented by the acronym, vagal – vanity, anger, greed, attachment to material possessions, and lust. This story of life itself features a Living Saviour and the devil as teachers and educators. But a major problem persists. How can one say something spiritual to another without upsetting that individual’s innermost sensitivities especially when that person is not ready to receive this information and the latter infringes on their comfort zone? Some persons adamantly refuse to even listen to this information. In seeking God, one has to realize that one must transition from a child of God, to an adult of God as soon as possible. When working for God as a co-worker, His expectations are not what most persons believe them to be. Respect replaces worship; bravery as an eagle substitutes for timidity as a dove, and ea-gerness to assist in His creations becomes extremely important. One should also expect to shoulder greater responsibilities, and to convert liabilities into assets, and weaknesses into strengths. In addition, interesting questions for the reader to answer can be, “What percentage of God’s kingdoms is examined by the pathways or sub-pathways that follow:- a. The Intellectual path-way? b. The Psychic pathway - Old age and modern religions? c. The Psychic pathway – Mysticism? and, d. The Spiritual pathway – Eckankar or Advanced Religion?” The focus of this book is an elementary understanding of God and His kingdoms that is not detail-oriented. The reader will have to consult with the various appropriate organizations and pro-grams that can provide this information, whether they be the intellectual, the psychic, or the spiritual. Finally, information about God has been presented at three different levels. It is now up to the reader to decide whether or not to explore this information further, and if so, at what level.