In essence they are all correct.  However, they are missing the complete picture because they are limited by their own experience.  Each of us experiences life in a different way and are thus equally responsible for sharing our experiences and our knowledge with others.  Granted, not everyone is always willing and eager to share, but the only way to overcome our own ignorance is to leap beyond our side of the elephant and slowly stitch together bits and pieces of understanding to weave a new blanket of awakening.

It is easy to forget that we are just now beginning to answer a few of the questions we’ve been asking for millennia.  With technology increasing as such a fast pace, our growth in understanding rises in months or years with what used to take centuries.  Despite this, we haven’t answered all of the questions yet and we are now capable of asking new ones.

Up until the early 1900’s, science believed that our entire universe was made up of about a billion stars.  It wasn’t until 1923 that Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies existed outside of our Milky Way galaxy.  Prior to that, it seemed that our galaxy WAS our universe.  During that one moment of revelation, our reality of the physical changed from being one part in 1,000,000,000 to one part in roughly 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10^20!  In other words, we had a WHOLE lot more learning to do!

My point in all of this is simply that before that discovery in 1923, we believed we had it all figured out and the world made sense.  In a fraction of an instant, everything changed.

My theory is that the questions themselves often lead us to the answers we find.  Just like the blind men, if you limit yourself to only asking a few questions, then the answers you receive will only reflect the questions you asked.

Part of the difficulty with spirituality or even psychic phenomena is that we try to approach the subject by asking questions dealing with our five senses.  Many people want to seek proof by using tests that use methods that we use for other experiments.  Part of the problem is that we don’t really know what we are dealing with.  What if the spiritual or psychic realm doesn’t exist in a state that can be observed with our five senses?  If that is the case, then you’ll never get favorable answers for any question you ask.  Another possibility is that our questions have not pushed our scientific instruments to the point of being able to observe anything.

Ever since the Big Bang, radiation has been speeding through the universe at light speed.  It wasn’t until the last couple of centuries have we been able to observe radiation or radio frequencies.  It wasn’t that they didn’t exist, it was only that we didn’t have the technology capable of observing it.

It is possible that certain fringe phenomena such as psychic abilities may be observable and measurable by using our scientific method and instruments.  Perhaps we just need to ask the right questions to direct our approach in the right way.

What if there really is a whole other reality outside of our physical reality?  What if this universe is only one out of an infinite number of them?  What if this current existence of mine is really only one of a million different “me’s” currently existing somewhere?  What if we truly do create our own reality and change everything around us simply by our thoughts?  What if what I believe is real is nothing more than my higher mind simply projecting a reality for me to experience?  What if time travel is possible and you are doing it right now?

I urge anyone who reads this to truly think and ask your questions.  Everyone has a perspective to share and we are all blind men and women trying to help each other to see the big picture.

Thanks and remember to embrace the elephant!

In case you are wondering, you’ll soon find that almost everyone in the Group has a nickname.  Mine is the Catalyst, my wife’s is the Bridge, and Bridget’s is the Messenger.  I’ll give you the reason behind the nicknames at another time, but I figured if I didn’t acknowledge that I am using nicknames then I know someone would ask about it later.

Bridget’s assignment was for us to answer three questions completely off the top of our head as an experiment because of a new approach she is trying to take in helping people.  Bridget recently went to watch Gary Renard speak.  If you are not familiar with this speaker, he is the bestselling author of the book The Disappearance of the Universe that I highly recommend.

In watching Mr. Renard speak, Bridget had a “EUREKA!!” moment (in her words) and realized that in order to be the Messenger and help people with spirituality, she needed to understand what people believe in the first place.

Bridget’s three questions are:
1)    What is your idea about God?
2)    How do you feel about God?
3)    What do you really know about God?

I thought I’d complete my homework here because I’d also love to hear your own thoughts on these questions.  In the meantime, here are my answers off the top of my head.

What is My Idea about God?
After many, many years thinking about this question, reading other material, and trying to come up with something that makes sense to me, I currently have the belief that we are all part of God.  That is, I view God as a non-physical mind.  Because of this, the universe and everything in it is all a part of this mind and is somewhat like a physical representation of a brainstorm.

Each of us is a part of the one mind experiencing this brainstorm from different perspectives.  We “feel” as though we are all individual and separate, but this is simply an illusion created to allow us to experience different perspectives and idea of individuality.

This conclusion may strike some people as hard to accept (I too completely rejected this idea when a friend proposed this several years ago) but the more I think about this, the more I realize that both science and spirituality point to this possibility.

For example, even though you feel whole, the atoms in your body are not static.  Your atoms change all of time constantly going in and out of this shape you call You.  Even from a cellular level, every cell in your body is completely replaced every seven years.  If you are 21 years old today, congratulations!  You are now using the third version of your physical body.

If the atoms are constantly flowing in and out of your shape, then you can’t really claim any of the atoms as your own.  If anything, the atomic particles that make up your body are really just borrowed from the mass of particles floating out in space.  Because of this, you truly are a part of the one whole mass of “stuff” floating in the universe.

From a spiritual perspective, many religions say they are children of God or a part of God.  If God is everything and all powerful, then you must be a part of God.  There is no way for God to create something that is beyond him or her.  Think about that for a moment.  If you assume that God can create something beyond God, then this must mean there is something more than God out there.  Perhaps God is part of another universe and our universe is right beside God?  This becomes a never ending path because you then must ask what who or what controls the God universe?

The only logical conclusion in my mind is assuming that God is all encompassing.  That means that we are simply a part of God and that you cannot speak of God without including ourselves in the discussion.

How do I Feel about God?
Instinctually I can’t help but anthropomorphize God by saying God must be curious, creative, and many other adjectives.  This is a biased notion because my feeling is that this whole “universe” is God simply asking “what if?”  I believe the universe was created by God asking the question resulting in what we view as the universe and everything in it.

By viewing God this way, I will have to change the question and ask “how to we feel about ourselves?”  From my perspective, Earth is only a tiny part of this thought experiment existing among billions of stars and planets which are part of billions of galaxies which are then part of billions of universes.  As such, we as a species on this planet probably have a limited view on this answer, so all we can do is approach this from a human perspective.

God on our planet is expressed by the physical forms, thoughts, ideas, and emotions we experience.  The trees, the water, the cars, the computers, the people, the animals…everything here on this planet is an expression of God experiencing the perspective of the What If question from the viewpoint of Earth.

So how do I feel about God?  Well, I’ve only experienced God from Earth, but I have to say, I really enjoy all Earth has to offer and I like the ability to self reflect about me/us/God.  My hope is to constantly gain a better understanding for who we are.

What do I Really Know about God?
I know that God has to have existed forever.  Forever is a tough concept to understand because we are so used to dealing with the world in terms of time.  What is funny is that time itself doesn’t even exist at all levels of what we refer to as reality.  At the atomic level, time does not exist.  In fact, matter itself doesn’t always exist.  Particles constantly flicker in and out of existence.

I believe God must have existed forever because if you put a start time on God, then this again implies that there is something beyond God.  My personal belief is that time is only a concept within our universe but time only exists as a way to experience this thought experiment.

So, I feel that I know God is eternal.  I also feel that I know God is all encompassing.  By taking these two ideas together, it doesn’t really make sense to say God is compassionate, upset, angry, or any of those emotions because this again implies that there is something beyond God to experience those emotions with.  I mean, how can God be compassionate if everything that exists is a part of God?  How can God be angry if everything that exists is a part of God?

One assumption I must make is that God is an entity that wants to experience itself and we are that entity.

Please add comments below as I would love to hear how you respond to these questions.

Thanks and look forward to hearing from you!

Since I don’t wish to get into the technical details of the technology and since we still don’t yet know what the standard frequency or protocol will be, I’ll simply use the term “WiMAX” to refer to whatever the technology will be that will span multiple miles providing a broad area of Internet access.

WiMAX is the capability of providing Internet access across tens of miles.  While your wireless router may only provide Internet access for up to 100 meters or so, WiMAX could extend this range to potentially 25 miles.

While range of the coverage may not impress some, let’s take a look at what this could mean for the world.

With WiMAX available across major highways, your car now can be connected to the Internet while you are driving.  Car companies will begin adapting to this new medium and will start adding digital displays in the middle of cars as a standard feature.  While GPS’s are becoming more popular today, cars in the WiMAX era and beyond will be able to use Google Earth or an equivalent software application to provide you with driving directions by triangulating your position using the WiMAX providers in addition to or in place of GPS.

By using the display and with the software knowing your location, you will be able to search and find stores, restaurants, areas of interest, etc. by typing in whatever you are looking for and trusting Google with the results.

Drivers and passengers can enjoy they favorite music in their car by downloading music, visiting their favorite online radio station, or playing back music they previously recorded.  Likewise, parents no longer need portable DVD players because they can play videos straight from the Internet.

Kids can now be more productive on school bus rides since they can submit their homework online while riding to school.

Modern day cell phones will slowly start phasing out as Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) phones begin to take over.  With VOIP phones now dominating the market, cellular phone companies that didn’t adapt to the change will start to struggle and the successfully converted ones will now be forced to change their service models to account for WiMAX service charges instead of cellular service charges.   That is, VOIP allows anyone on the Internet to talk to anyone else on the Internet for free.  Since WiMAX allows people to connect to the Internet from anywhere, no one will really need the old cell phones any more because VOIP provides “free” long distance calling.  The call itself will be free, but the WiMAX of course will require monthly service charges.

With more cars now connected to the Internet, better traffic information can be obtained resulting in improved traffic modeling and better traffic warning.  Since your car delivers you with directions, it will also re-route you to the most optimal path to avoid heavy traffic or accidents.

Firmware within the car can now receive instant updates allowing for more complex system functionality.  You’ll quickly start to notice that the interior of cars will become more and more digital with fancier displays now that cars are able to download updates directly.

More laws will be formed to crack down on car hacking and car viruses.

Routine maintenance will now be tracked hourly as opposed to now where the dealer waits until you come in.  Also, as certain components in your car become worn out or break, advertisements for the old items will start appearing in the middle display trying to obtain your business.  A whole new money making opportunity begins to unfold as car display advertising takes full force.

Kids are now entertained for hours on long road trips since they are now able to play their online video games at all times.

Documenting trips takes on a whole new level as digital cameras now upload pictures instantly from the time they are taken to your personal website with the date, time, and location automatically entered.

Camping becomes a bit more techie since you can now research hiking paths as you walk on them.  The triangulation feature again helps to geolocate your location keeping you on the open paths and away from the more dangerous ones that were flooded by last week’s rain.

Billboards along highways now dynamically change whenever someone purchases new ad space.

I feel as though the more I type, the more possibilities pop into my head.  WiMAX will not only increase the range for wireless Internet access, but it will completely change how the world operates!

Whew!  I can’t wait for it to get here!
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