How noble in Reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving
how express and admirable,
In action how like an Angel!
in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the
world, the paragon of animals. and yet to me, what is
this quintessence of dust?
(Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act II, Scene 2)
For many of us, the only person we allow others to see is the mask we wear to fool ourselves into thinking we are something other than who we truly are. At least, that is what I have believed for years.
However, without the use of marijuana or LSD, my mind is expanding to be able wrap itself around the idea that maybe not all is as false as it appears. Maybe we are being as true to ourselves as we know how.
But, the problem is--what do we know?
Do we know the truth? Or, are we believing the lie?
The lie is simple, but tremendously deceptive.
It is this: I need to be like God.
No.
You do not need to be like God.
You need to be like who you were intended to be.
That is what the Bible is about: helping us to understand who we are meant to be. (That is also what the Tao te Ching and the Dhammapada is about.)
Somewhere along the way, however, Christian believers came to think that the Bible is about telling others how they should be. Now, as a result, we have the morass of muddled mentality making mountains out of molehills and monkeys out of many.
- We are born in the image of God.
- We buy the lie that we can become like God.
- We begin to learn about good and evil.
- We desire good, and legislate ourselves to be good.
- We find that our rules don't help us to be good.
- We go live in the world apart from God.
- We get tired of that and want to get back with God.
- We add more rules to help us be like God.
- We find that doesn't work, so we seek wisdom.
- We find the search for wisdom to be chaotic, so we quit, and find ourselves.