SonOfWinds5198

I have come across many paths in my life and most of them have taught me important lessons. My main path remains (shamanism) but I have fused it with many other parts. I use to claim that I'm not religious but that's not true, I am... in my own way. But how did I get there?

As a Swede your born into Protestantism (more or less) but we Swedes are not that religious, and that was the story with me. Didn't believe and didn't care. Until I was about 20 years, then I started to search... and I found... Taoism. It appealed to me from the very beginning and one of it's most famous symbols, Yin & Yang, are brilliant. Everything has it's opposite inside itself, and none of them can be extracted in order to create just "white" / light / goodness or whatever. It's a never ending motion or struggle between these powers and over time it is balanced. This beliefs are quite common in older religions. Nothing is "pure" evil or only "good", ancient Gods where complex beings with different features and characters. But then something happened. Three big religions was "created" almost simultaneously and now there were "good" and "evil" on different sides, pure, extracted. I happen to believe that this (good vs evil) is a result of our lazy minds. It is more easy to divide things in two categories and by that, two ways of living. But is life that simple?

For almost two millennium this beliefs have ruled the world and they have tried hard to conquer everybody's mind. But then "new age" came... something new... or was it?
Fancy beliefs for fancy people, expensive beliefs for rich... the spiritual world was more or less flooded by new ways of "finding your way / beliefs / religion". And some of them went a bit further than the three big ones. One of those are Reiki. They teach you that there is a "force" that only can be used for good purposes. But first, what is a "good" purpose? Is that what I believe is needed or is it what people ask me for? Here is an important crossroad. A good intent doesn't have to be good. It can in fact be considered as "black magic". If I think that he/she needs some help and I try to help that one without anchor it with them... it's not good! It's nothing "white / good" about doing things to others if they haven't asked for it. Never!
Secondly, is there anything that's just "good"? No, of course not. But mass hysteria (yeah, that's the case with Reiki, if you ask me) makes it "good". One reiki master (they call them self masters) told me that my path (shamanism) was "too dark"...

Later I helped another Reiki master. Unfortunately she got a crush on me and when I didn't answered that she became mad. It happened that all her beliefs about "good" just disappeared and she gathered some people she knew and then she threatened to kill me, repeatedly. According to her they were "magicians", "skilled" in dark magic and I guess they should kill me from a distance.
Sometimes attack is the best defense so I struck her first, I took her sleep. Yes, I did. Not happy about it but what could I do? After two weeks without sleeping she begged me to have it back... and I gave her it.

Was I "good" or "evil" back then? Black or white? Or was I just a scared human being that did my best to survive? And are we allowed to do whatever we can? I have never done such thing after that, it was far too easy and I could have got used to it.
Young minds tends to be hasty, but when we grow older that change... I don't think I ever been hasty, not even when I took the sleep because it was a result of a long process. But I have changed never the less. I have formed my own religion and I try to follow it each and every day.
It can be expressed in one sentence and here it is: The Earth is my Church, Life is my God, and humility is my path. Nothing more, nothing less. Every place is holy ground, no matter where I am, in the forest or in a friends house. And every living being is my God... you, a dog, flowers, you name it. And by walking the path of humility I have less conflicts...

I don't claim this to be the best "religion" but I think that it describes the essence of many other religions... but I'm just a ordinary man in the countryside... what could I possible know? :-)

Let's be careful out there!