Religions - How to benefit and what to avoid
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Okay, welcome everybody. And thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Paul Fletcher, and this is The Healing Source.
It's been a few weeks since I did a podcast. I was out of town on a special event with my teacher and spiritual father, Master Shah. As you know, almost all of the teachings that I offer are related to the wisdom that Master Shah has brought to us and has brought to humanity.
And as in the last couple of sessions when I moved into series 10, I decided to offer some sharing from my own perspectives. And it's important that I offer that caveat because my teacher, Dr. Master Shah, he shares from a very unique perspective. He is trained in his childhood with Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism.
And so that is the slant or the angle with which his wisdom is grounded in. And then he has direct communication with Source, which can clearly and easily be validated by the literally millions of healing examples and his healing capabilities and the sharing of the wisdom that brought about those healings. I, however, grew up in the West and grew up under a Christian structure.
And so to hear his perspective and his take on those different systems was unique for me as it probably would be for most people from the West. And so in today's live stream, I'm going to be embarking on sharing perspectives that I have gathered over the many, many years on what might inhibit us from having a happier and healthier life and specifically the various belief systems that are out there. So this podcast will not be putting up any belief system, nor will it be putting down any belief system because to be perfectly frank, they're all fine.
They work for that person, for where they're at on their soul journey. What I intend to accomplish with this podcast today is to open our hearts and minds to other people's belief systems and to offer a wider net as to the evolution of them and the overall bigger picture having to do with religion, including the benefits of them and what might be some things that are red flags so that you might choose to avoid some of those. So that's the hope of what we'll be accomplishing today.
And this almost in its entirety is my own perspective. It has nothing to do with my teacher's perspective on things. One of the things that I'm happy for in my own life is the ability to distill a large amount of information and apply it to my life.
This also allows me to assist others when I'm in the private consultations. And so as a side note, if you find the wisdom and information that I share is a value and you find yourself stuck in any part of your life, then make sure you book a private consultation with me. My website is wellspringoflight.com and you can learn more when you go there, book a 30 or 60 minute consultation, okay? So onto the subject matter.
Now, what I'm gonna discuss today is five different categories. When I was looking at this, I'm like, well, what? You know, I want to box this in and make sure I discuss things that are relevant. So I'm gonna discuss briefly the list of religions, the purpose of religions, the origin of religions, the truth of religions, of course the benefits and values associated with them and what to avoid with religions.
So that's what I'll be covering today. It's relatively large subject. So I'll do the best I can with my very limited knowledge.
And again, this is a perspective. So let's start out with the list of religions. When I went to the web and looked it up, I was shocked.
You know how when you scroll your mouse, it covers a full page and a full page can be quite a bit. So in Wikipedia, it showed a main one like Christianity and then it showed a bunch of subdivisions of that. And there was literally, you know, a hundred subdivisions.
And then it went to Islam and a hundred subdivisions. Then it went to Hinduism and another a hundred subdivisions. And I'm not kidding, I had to scroll the mouse, probably seven or eight times to go through seven or eight pages of various sects and various religions and various subdivisions.
Oh my goodness, I had no idea. I tried quickly to take that information and go into an AI program that I have to count how many religions there were. I didn't get it accomplished in a fast enough basis.
If I were to check spiritual guidance, I hear what is documented is right around 430, 430 religions. Now, is any one of them right? Is any one of them wrong? So herein is where we start. So we have the Orthodox Christianity, has many variations, beliefs, practices and rituals.
You have Islam, which is the second largest religion in the world. It includes Sunni, Shia, Sufism, and of course, a few others. There is Hinduism, which is relatively complex and diverse religion, various traditions, and those includes Vaishyavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Smartism, each with its own variation.
There is Buddhism, which has Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, and they have their variations of them, Zen Buddhism in Japan. There is, of course, Sikhism, which is a monotheistic religion, originated in Punjabi India, and it has Orthodox divisions within it, local customs. There is Judaism, which has different branches into Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, and each branch has its own variations, beliefs and practices and interpretations of the Jewish laws.
There is Taoism, which is, of course, associated with Chinese philosophies and religions on that side, and that includes Qiancun Taoism and Zongyai Taoism. There is Confucianism, which is more of a philosophy and ethical-based system. Then there's indigenous religions, which actually makes up the bulk of the religions, believe it or not, of that 430 possible ones that I'm giving you out of my spiritual channels is what I hear, quite a few.
And that means your native tribes of Africa, your native tribes in Australia, and all the different native versions in all the different countries. There's, of course, new religious movements, Wicca and Rastafari, as just some of them, Scientology. So with all of these religions, my goodness, where does a person go? What does a person do to actually understand what can serve them? Ultimately, it's whatever is guided by your soul.
Because from my perspective, my understanding is we all have a soul, and the soul is forever, and that's something that not everyone believes in, but a good chunky pan of humanity will accept that. Certainly, there's question marks about is there reincarnation or not? I personally buy into it. I think there is.
And if that is true, then it's highly probable that the soul will experience all kinds of different ones. It'll come back into an African tribe and try that. It'll do Christianity to try that.
It'll do Judaism. It'll try all kinds of different ones because that gives flavor to the life of the soul. And so if there is such a thing as reincarnation, then clearly there is no right or wrong belief system.
There is just a bunch of them. So this is also one of the root causes of a great deal of problems for humanity because religion is sometimes manipulated and controlled by man, which we're gonna get into in just a little bit. And in that controlling and manipulation, there is segregation.
And segregation is basically going the opposite way of source love. Segregation is I am good, you are not. I am better, you are lesser, and so forth.
And so there's quite a bit of that in some of the larger doctrines, in some of the larger systems. Whereas if you went into the smaller ones, the ones that are more tribal in nature, they could care less if you believe in theirs or not. They're not gonna try to invoke theirs upon you.
So when there's a push that you must think this way, you must believe this way, you must believe that way, almost always that is associated with the larger ones that unfortunately, in my observation, in my personal opinion, have a bit of an agenda. To create more separation and segregation, even though on the surface, it appears they're trying to help. Now, in that same breath, I will tell you that that is happening at a very high level and a very subtle level.
Whereas the vast, vast, vast majority of the people that belong to any particular belief system, I would say probably 98% of the people that belong to Judaism or Christianity or Daoism or whatever as their religion of choice, my guess would be that they're very devout, they're very heart-centered, and they have a great intention to serve their local group, their humanity, their township, and the people around them. So they have good intentions in essence. But the larger they get, the more money-oriented they get.
And in terms of, again, my perspective, in terms of the planet and the wealth that runs the planet, there is a need to control people if you're gonna run the planet. And I personally believe that most of the larger religions in the world are used nefariously at the higher levels to accomplish some of those unpleasant goals. All right, let's move on to the purpose of religions.
So religion can briefly be defined as specific belief systems, generally speaking, about one god or multiple gods, or any variation of the word god. One source, multiple sources. One deity, multiple deities.
Okay, any variation of that. And then within a belief system, within a religion, there is an expression of a code, like conducts, codes of conducts, which is ethics, forms of worship, how they're done, rituals, lots of rituals in religions. The range can be from lighting incense to lighting candles to blood.
So there's this wide range of ritual that occurs in religions. Obviously, there's quite a few religions that are quite dark and unpleasant, and there are quite a few that are light-based. And again, it depends on what is the agenda, what is the overall intention, right? Religions can include social, ethical, and ceremonial elements, combined with belief of the unseen world.
So they have these ceremonial elements, and it's all connected to this unseen world to possibly receive the appeasement of something dark or something light, whatever the case may be. So for the most part, in this physical world that we live in, the majority of religions, and the purpose of them is to assist people with guidance, structure, culture, ethics, forms of worship. And then if they have agenda, then it goes into specificity of what is okay and not okay in that belief system.
And when it comes to what is okay and not okay, some of that's nefarious, some of it's good in terms of the end result. And again, this comes into the latter part of this discussion today, having to do with what are some of the benefits and what are some of the things you want to avoid, okay? So in general, the purpose is to align to an original source, a one or many deities. So I didn't know this, I looked this up, I'm gonna read this from what I looked up, and it said, the English word religion originates from the Latin term religio, which has a variety of definitions, including to bind and awe or fear of God or spirit.
Most but not all religions include beliefs in and worship of God or gods or more than one gods or spirits or deities, et cetera, a supernatural realm, et cetera, okay? So it's truly interesting when you open your heart and you open your mind to, is the belief system that I choose to work with in this life, you know, is it serving me? And for almost everybody in the planet, for the moment that they're in it, the answer is yes. If you're in a negative, you know, dark one, it's serving you. If you're in a light one, it's serving you.
How is it serving you? It's assisting you to get to the next space of growth. It might be you get to a point with that belief system and that's enough and you move on or you move out. It might be that it fulfills you and the people within that group become friends and people that you can trust.
And so either way, people are getting out of it something that is a benefit and something that is a value in most cases. Now, if you look at some of the not so pleasant sides of religions and belief systems, they can be somewhat manipulative and those are more specific to segregation and separation. If we look, for example, to Afghanistan and their systems over there, women are considered inferior and that's tied into their belief systems.
It's not just a code of conduct, it's actually tied into their beliefs. And so this then creates segregation and segregation. It moves away from love.
It has associations of power for one, but not for the others. And so this is something that you want to pay attention to with any belief system that you're in. Is there a hierarchy of power? And if that hierarchy of power shows abusiveness within it, then you want to take a look at avoiding that.
It's very important. Sometimes the hierarchies of power are subtle and sometimes they're quite obvious. And so in my personal opinion, you should never usurp your power to another.
You want to be able to ask yourself, is the information being shared uplifting me? Is the information being shared of value to me? Is it assisting me in making better choices? Is it assisting me in my health and my wellness? Or am I having fear, doubt, concern, worry? Does it invoke fear? A good example is Catholicism and some forms of Christianity. There's a great deal of fear that has been injected by man, by nefarious men, again, my personal opinion, at some of the higher levels. Fear God, fear going to hell, et cetera, et cetera.
And in my observation, again, no one has to buy into this or believe it. I personally believe that there is one source and that that source is love. And there is no negative agenda from that source.
And so when we take a look at the bigger umbrella, the biggest umbrella being the source creator of all things, we have to ask ourselves, did that original source have an agenda to segregate and separate? Does that original source say, I love my right arm and all the religions that sit on my right arm, but I hate my left arm and all the belief systems that sit on my left arm. And so all of these over here, you are wonderful and you're going to be the special ones. And all these over here, you go to the depths of hell.
It's highly unlikely that the belief system that starts with that kind of an ideology, or that kind of a consciousness is truly of value to anyone. So we have to truly start asking better questions instead of just adopting some of that. Fortunately, a great deal of humanity is waking up.
Fortunately, a great deal of those types of belief systems are being questioned and people are moving away from them of their own accord, thank goodness. They will still survive because there are still people that are asleep, but those people that are asleep, they will go through their process of waking up also through these kinds of wisdoms. They might come across this live stream.
So what is the origin of religion and belief systems? Ultimately, man received information, they either made it up, they received it from another man, man, woman, okay? And one of those possibly received it from an unseen source. So here we go into a whole different realm of possibility. So in the understanding of some of the teachings I've taught earlier about dimensions and whatnot, you have third dimension, which is the physical dimension, you have fourth dimension, which is the non-physical dimension, but some people have spiritual eyes and channels that have been developed to the level where they can communicate with some level of proficiency and accuracy.
And they might see, for example, an apparition, it could be a deity, it could be one that might be known as a Jesus or a Buddha or a Mother Mary, and it's very possible that that is what they are seeing. It could be that that being has advanced to a level of frequency and vibration where they're serving humanity, and they could be an advanced Sikh, they could be an advanced Daoist, they could be an advanced Jew, they could be an advanced African shaman. There's all different layers of advancement within this thing we call life.
And those advancements means a higher level of frequency and vibration that normally cannot be sensed by our five senses. So when it comes to the origin of religion, some of them could have originated from communication with upper layer sources and frequencies and vibrations. There is history of great beings prior to us, Jesus and Buddha and many others, Muhammad and Krishna and more throughout history that have had great connection to source and have brought great wisdom that has then been put into written documents that then get passed down over many, many thousands of years.
So some of that wisdom when it first came through, highly evolved beings that are here on earth could have been at that moment in time, extremely pure. But with time, the documentation, the transference of the information from one man to the next man, to the next man to the next man gets changed. The Bible itself, I don't know how many versions of it it is, but it's gotta be at least 100 versions.
And it's the most printed book on the planet. So which version is correct? Which version is not correct? How many times has it been manipulated? Same thing with many of the other doctrines that are out there. So again, it boils down to our personal consciousness, our level of awareness around connection to source.
So when we get to this aspect, the origin of religions, where did it come from? Did it come from a very pure being that received higher wisdom from the higher dimensions where source is? Probably yes, probably yes. My teacher speaks with source, the wisdom that he shares. A lot of it, I resonate with it.
Some of it, I don't understand. So I kind of set it aside. And I grew up in a Christian society.
I've learned that information. I work with a lot of the wisdom and teachings that is in the Bible. I don't poo-poo on it.
But there's some of it that is also doctrine-oriented. And it says you can do that, and you can't do that. And this is good, and this is bad.
And it kind of boxes you in. So again, as an individual, each and all of us have to make choices. What resonates with us for this moment in time that can best serve us? And when it comes to the origin of religions, we must keep in mind that the origin may have been very, very pure.
But if it's been out there a long time, and they regurgitated many, many times, whether it's by mouth or by written, the probability of it being accurate to the original origin is at the very least questionable. Now we have the truth of religions. That's pretty much, I just covered it.
The truth of religions can only be measured by your heart. And I don't mean your physical heart. I mean your spiritual heart, your center of your soul.
You can only measure the accuracy of what is being told you by somebody else, whether it's in written form or in verbal form, by your own heart center. You have to trust your own guidance. And a great deal of us, we may have worked on opening our spiritual channels.
We may have worked on opening our heart. We may have cleared and forgiven many, many on our path that have brought great trauma into our lives. But there are also many of us who have experienced great trauma.
We have difficulty with forgiving. We have difficulty with letting go. And this creates basically what I call colored sunglasses over our pure heart center.
A pure heart center can purely tell if what we're receiving is accurate or not. Whereas a colored sunglasses over our heart center that have been skewed because of traumas in our life, then the pure information could come in and go through our skewed sunglasses. And then by the time it gets to our consciousness, we could say, ooh, this is wonderful for us.
And that person could be an unpleasant person that has an agenda to take advantage of you. And so this is one of the reasons why I do enjoy the wisdom and teachings of Dr. Mastershaw because at least in my observation, I have not seen an agenda. I have not seen ego.
I have not seen any intention other than to teach as many people as possible how to forgive, how to open their heart, how to align to their source. And I've never once heard out of his mouth for anybody to change their belief systems, but to maintain them and to continue opening their heart more and more, to be of service at a greater and greater level. That's what I've witnessed with the teacher that I've chosen to align with at this time.
Now, I've said multiple times in public that if at any point in time with this person that doesn't teach religion, but teaches ideology and perspective and consciousness, that if at any point in time, I come to believe that there's an agenda there that is not helpful and beneficial, I'll leave. And I will gravitate towards what is beneficial and helpful. So this is a suggestion for what you might want to do.
So what are some of the benefits and values of religions? Well, they serve several purposes in society, including maintaining social structure, right? I moved to the state of Oklahoma. Some of you may know that. I was over in the East Coast.
I was in Hawaii for a while. Not East Coast, excuse me, West Coast. Grew up on the West Coast.
And Hawaii has their kahuna structures and belief systems. And they're more oriented to the mana, the land, you know, the spirits of the area. I grew up in the West.
Everything is a bit more Christian out there. And then I come over here, but in the West, excuse me, there's quite a bit more me, me, me, quite a bit more selfishness and business. And people are inside their heads a lot.
They're not very friendly. If you get out to the outer towns, of course, but the more condensed the town, the more millions of people, the more selfishness and me, me, me and protectionism. There's a lot of fear in these cities because, you know, the more people there are, the more possibility for crime and et cetera.
So I moved over to Oklahoma. And literally one of the first things I noticed was the people were authentic and nice, authentically nice. Even the teenagers, which can tend to have quite a bit of attitude in the larger cities, here were friendly and they would talk to their parents and they were respectful and so forth.
And so what do I attribute that to? I attribute that to the large Christian base here. That's what I attribute it to. So there is actually very good social structure associated with many belief systems.
And that can be a very positive benefit depending on how that belief system is structured. There is moral virtues. There is moral actions.
There can be answers to existential questions about life and God and relationships. And so those that do have a pure heart and somebody comes to them in the church and they sit down with the pastor and they say, I have this and this and that problem, the pastor can say, well, let's pray together. Let's ask for guidance.
Let's see if we can resolve it. There are people that receive profound healing because 20, 30 people get together and they pray for the healing for that person. So this does really occur.
These are very good societal benefits. And I'm just sharing you with what I know from the culture that I'm involved in. I'm pretty sure that occurs in almost all of those 430 plus ones that are out there in varying degrees, not to mention that the negative ones, purposely negative ones that they worship something that is not positive love and light.
So they have different agendas, but even those different agendas, their societal structure benefits their agenda. So the benefits can include societal structure, moral structure, moral code, right and wrong, et cetera. So there are quite a few benefits that can come from it.
Now, what do we wanna avoid with religions? What we want to avoid is things that tell us what to do, when to do it and how to do it with great specificity. Okay, I'm not sure I can give you any specific examples, but one of them comes up for like Mormons, for example. May or may not be accurate, but I have heard that they say don't drink coffee.
Okay, now that is an exact specific thing. I don't necessarily agree with that. Not saying it's right or wrong, but I don't agree with that.
And so if my heart and my center says, hmm, then this is something that you want to pay attention to. If you enjoy coffee and you get in front of a belief system that says don't drink coffee, and a part of you internally says, hmm, but another part of you says, but I really wanna be liked and I really wanna be have a group of people and I wanna be with that group of people because I'm alone and I hate to be alone, then you're giving up something to get something. And this is where your radar should be turned on.
You want to pay attention if it's telling you very strong do's and don'ts, and a part of you recognizes that there may be something behind it that just doesn't make sense. It doesn't resonate with you. And it's important to honor that it doesn't resonate with you, okay? There are things like that where systems, belief systems that go towards the end of cultism will ask you to give something up at a very high level. Give up your income. Give up their job. Give up this. Come do this or that. Really check into that. Make sure it serves your highest and best interest if you're going to go down that road. I'm not saying it's wrong. It might serve your highest and best interest.
Just trust your intuition and trust your heart because your soul lives forever. You do not. And the shortest path back to the source is a path that is aligned with love and light. And if a part of you does not feel what's being asked of you is of the highest love and light alignment, then that could lengthen your soul journey. It could be something where your soul wasn't so happy that you went that direction. You may go that direction, but it could create a four- or five-year learning experience that you jerk yourself out of it and say, wow, I wish I hadn't gone there. I wished I'd have listened to my intuition at the very beginning. You don't want to be that person that says that. So honor your insights. Your soul is wise. It knows what is best. All right.
So to wrap all this up and in conclusion, in my observation, and this is, I'm going to go very wide. I'm going to go ultra-wide umbrella right now. One source for all creation. What is all creation? It is not just Mother Earth folks. It is not just Mother Earth. As Master Shah says, if you talk to an ant about computer science, he'll just move on because they're just not there. And if you talk to a human about life outside of Earth, a good chunk of them will just move on because they're just not there. But there is multiple stars, planets, galaxies, and universes. And in some of those stars, planets, galaxies, and other universes, they don't look like us, they don't sound like us, they don't talk like us, they don't act like us. And I guarantee you, absolutely guarantee you, they have their 432 belief systems also. Looks nothing like ours.
So what am I trying to tell you here, this ultra big picture? The biggest picture is that there is so much going on in the big universe and we're so much in our little universe that we get so stuck in the day-to-day routines and the pains and the sufferings. And so we use different social structures to make life easier. So religions that have positive social structures, good, keep them. Utilize them for your highest and best benefit. Avoid the ones that don't. and crack open your mind really, really wide to honor and allow wherever that person's at with their belief system to be where they're at. Don't try to talk them out of it. Don't try to talk them into yours, okay? Just be loving, kind, compassionate, and considerate.
Be the ten da qualities. Be love, be light, be forgiving. Be the light for other people to experience. Be humble. Have humility. Create harmony in your thoughts, words, and actions. When you have flourishing, share with others. By sharing with others, you create your flourishing. Have great gratitude for everything in your life. Be of service to all souls. And the end result will be enlightenment. This is the ten dah qualities and the reason why I'm working with my teacher who is not teaching religions. He is teaching qualities and characteristics that assist us as individual souls to be happy and healthy at some very high levels and to avoid being distracted by things that can be not supportive of our highest and best path. in terms of the quickest way back to your heart of your source. The highest and best path is not my path, it's not your path, it's not anybody's individual path, but the highest and best way back to the source tends to have things that resonate with our soul.
And in my observation, those 10 qualities do. So if this conversation resonates with you, I encourage you to learn a little bit more. You can learn more at my website, Wellspring of Light. I do offer personal consultations, personal healing. And if the wisdom that has been shared with you resonates, then I can share that with you as well. Of course, if you're new, make sure you sign up for my podcast, Like Share. and let others know. This wisdom can benefit a lot of people. So I want to thank you for coming. Until I see you next time, have an awesome day, everybody. Bye-bye.
