Angels - Do they exist? Who are they?
(The following is an excerpt from my book, which is still a work in progress, as it still needs an agent to believe in it enough to try to excite a publisher about it.)
When I grew up, our religious education books still had a lot of pictures of angels, the devil, and god. Angels were usually depicted as blond women in white long dresses, with big white wings, floating down from clouds. Obviously, these pictures were just visualizations of a spiritual concept, which can't be painted. Even to explain the idea is difficult, as it is a spiritual topic.
Our language has terms for anything we can see, touch, hear, explain, and proof. There are no clearly defined terms for spiritual concepts and ideas. The term “God”, for example, has so many meanings – even though half of the world's population believes that there is only one god, among those believers are a million interpretations and definitions as to what “God” is and what not.
Another such term of a spiritual concept is “Angel”. Many religions, not just Christianity, include this idea, which we call Angels. And again, every religion describes this idea differently.
The way this concept was presented to me in my youth was not fulfilling to me and I discarded it. I didn't replace the explanation – I didn't know any better explanation; instead I discarded the concept as a whole.
Then, one morning – right at the time between still being asleep and really being awake – I received a glorious idea, while pondering these thoughts:
Whenever I was in misery and needed help, or when I had a burning question and couldn't find the answer myself, what came to my rescue was not a super-natural spiritual being. It always was another human!
Sometimes, that person didn't even realize how much they were an Angel to me at that time. Like one day, when I was a young boy, I was followed by a group of boys who wanted to beat me up, and a neighbor happened to come around the corner. I was able to approach her and start a little conversation while walking with her right by my tormentors into safety. She didn't know that she had rescued me. But she did.
Some other times, the person was intent to help, and so became an Angel for me. A good example for this is probably my Math teacher in high school. He recognized my talent and fostered it. He showed me, in his actions and words, that he believed in me. Through his mentorship I was able to choose the path that took me to where I am today. He was a real Angel to me, when I was a teenager.
At that moment, around 4:00 am that morning, it dawned on me that we humans are the Angles in this world. We all have the potential to be Angels!
First, I thought, it is quite arrogant of me to think I might be an Angel too. But, it just made so much sense. I didn't find a kink in the logic, that would have falsified that idea.
After a while, I became more and more convinced, that we really are the Angels, who implement the actions of love.
Today, I have accepted this role. It makes me very happy to think of myself as a potential Angel. And it makes me even more happy to become aware of how I am an Angel in various situations.
Since I like to be happy, and don't want to miss any opportunity, I am now trying to keep that idea in the forefront of my mind. That way I am more alert to situations where I can be an Angel. Consequently, I am finding myself much more frequently in the position where I can be one. Which, as further consequence, allows me to have happy experiences more often.
Of course, we have the free will, and we can choose. We can choose to be an Angel, or we can choose to be a Devil. I try to have a positive impact on people around me, and come to their rescue, and be of assistance or help. As mentioned above, it makes me feel good, and allows me to sleep well at night.
However, there is a second implication that is resulting from my belief of us humans being the Angels.
If it is really the case that we humans are the Angels, it also means, there are no super-natural spiritual beings who would come and help us clean up the mess that we are creating in this world! It is really up to us to deal with that, to fix all the wrongs we have created.
That is a bit scary! All the turmoil and misery in this world, the wars, the ecological situation, global warming, pollution, the extreme range of poverty and wealth, both on individual level, as well as from country to country, the HIV crisis, crime, drugs...
We can't wait for “outside” help, it's all up to us!
Hm. So this part of my spiritual frame-work makes me feel good, but also scares me. Well, I hope, the Universe is helping us along enough to right our wrongs in time, before it is all to late... I guess, me being able to write all these emails to you is a good indication that the “spiritual revolution”, that is needed to save us from self-destruction, is already fully under way...
In that sense, let me express my hope, that our children's generation will be able to grow spiritually, as much as the generations up to now where able to grow intellectually...
When I grew up, our religious education books still had a lot of pictures of angels, the devil, and god. Angels were usually depicted as blond women in white long dresses, with big white wings, floating down from clouds. Obviously, these pictures were just visualizations of a spiritual concept, which can't be painted. Even to explain the idea is difficult, as it is a spiritual topic.
Our language has terms for anything we can see, touch, hear, explain, and proof. There are no clearly defined terms for spiritual concepts and ideas. The term “God”, for example, has so many meanings – even though half of the world's population believes that there is only one god, among those believers are a million interpretations and definitions as to what “God” is and what not.
Another such term of a spiritual concept is “Angel”. Many religions, not just Christianity, include this idea, which we call Angels. And again, every religion describes this idea differently.
The way this concept was presented to me in my youth was not fulfilling to me and I discarded it. I didn't replace the explanation – I didn't know any better explanation; instead I discarded the concept as a whole.
Then, one morning – right at the time between still being asleep and really being awake – I received a glorious idea, while pondering these thoughts:
Whenever I was in misery and needed help, or when I had a burning question and couldn't find the answer myself, what came to my rescue was not a super-natural spiritual being. It always was another human!
Sometimes, that person didn't even realize how much they were an Angel to me at that time. Like one day, when I was a young boy, I was followed by a group of boys who wanted to beat me up, and a neighbor happened to come around the corner. I was able to approach her and start a little conversation while walking with her right by my tormentors into safety. She didn't know that she had rescued me. But she did.
Some other times, the person was intent to help, and so became an Angel for me. A good example for this is probably my Math teacher in high school. He recognized my talent and fostered it. He showed me, in his actions and words, that he believed in me. Through his mentorship I was able to choose the path that took me to where I am today. He was a real Angel to me, when I was a teenager.
At that moment, around 4:00 am that morning, it dawned on me that we humans are the Angles in this world. We all have the potential to be Angels!
First, I thought, it is quite arrogant of me to think I might be an Angel too. But, it just made so much sense. I didn't find a kink in the logic, that would have falsified that idea.
After a while, I became more and more convinced, that we really are the Angels, who implement the actions of love.
Today, I have accepted this role. It makes me very happy to think of myself as a potential Angel. And it makes me even more happy to become aware of how I am an Angel in various situations.
Since I like to be happy, and don't want to miss any opportunity, I am now trying to keep that idea in the forefront of my mind. That way I am more alert to situations where I can be an Angel. Consequently, I am finding myself much more frequently in the position where I can be one. Which, as further consequence, allows me to have happy experiences more often.
Of course, we have the free will, and we can choose. We can choose to be an Angel, or we can choose to be a Devil. I try to have a positive impact on people around me, and come to their rescue, and be of assistance or help. As mentioned above, it makes me feel good, and allows me to sleep well at night.
However, there is a second implication that is resulting from my belief of us humans being the Angels.
If it is really the case that we humans are the Angels, it also means, there are no super-natural spiritual beings who would come and help us clean up the mess that we are creating in this world! It is really up to us to deal with that, to fix all the wrongs we have created.
That is a bit scary! All the turmoil and misery in this world, the wars, the ecological situation, global warming, pollution, the extreme range of poverty and wealth, both on individual level, as well as from country to country, the HIV crisis, crime, drugs...
We can't wait for “outside” help, it's all up to us!
Hm. So this part of my spiritual frame-work makes me feel good, but also scares me. Well, I hope, the Universe is helping us along enough to right our wrongs in time, before it is all to late... I guess, me being able to write all these emails to you is a good indication that the “spiritual revolution”, that is needed to save us from self-destruction, is already fully under way...
In that sense, let me express my hope, that our children's generation will be able to grow spiritually, as much as the generations up to now where able to grow intellectually...
posted by Thomas | 9:35 AM
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