by Joel L, Australia
I had an uncomfortable realisation that I had signed up for many mainstream and ‘out there’ things over the years, and did so without question. Why did I do this, and do others do the same?
Why did I excitedly and with minimum resistance choose to sit in a boiling hot ‘sweat lodge’ chanting in the dark with other naked sweating people? The leader told American Indian parables (even though he was a born and bred Australian). I left feeling invigorated, but at no time did anyone ask me – if you feel invigorated now, what was going on beforehand? No-one said, ‘why did you need chanting and super hot temperatures to stimulate the blood flow to FEEL invigorated?’
Is it possible that I mistook indulgence for true exploration of my life? And because it didn’t ask me to admit this, I didn’t need to challenge it?
Why did I follow the religion of my birth without question? Sure, its general tenets were like many others: be good to your fellow man (do unto others and all that), don’t challenge other religious views (tolerance), stay part of ‘our community’, it will all be okay once ‘the messiah’ gets here. Why didn’t anyone point out to me how kindergarten says something very similar, ‘play nicely with the other children, don’t wander, and wait until mum/dad picks you up’? Where is the empowerment in that? Why did I not question the concept that God sees us all equal, but each religion sees us as different?
Is it possible I preferred to feel included than to really explore my relationship with God? And because they didn’t ask me to admit this, I didn’t need to challenge it?
Why did I eagerly train in modalities like Reiki, and then happily trained other people in these modalities, without someone (including myself) asking whether the energy of anger might be different to the energy of love? Or what effect does the practitioner have on the quality of the energy (eg: if we do drugs or alcohol the night before, what happens the next day?).
Is it possible that the ‘titles and training’ gave me recognition? And because they didn’t ask me to admit this, I didn’t need to challenge it?
And so the list could go on – years (maybe lifetimes) of going along with things that never truly challenged me. Years (maybe lifetimes) of choosing to be challenged by things that told me I was not enough… and needed to do, and be, something more.
Only once has my growth occurred through someone (a group of people in fact) reflecting back to me just how much I truly was already. And in the deep stillness of this reflection I was given a choice: to keep going as I was, or feel the joy that sat patiently waiting for me to return.
Why did I challenge, question, resist and fight that reflection for so many years, and yet so easily followed everything else?
Could it be that something inside us prefers comfort to truth? Could it be easier to withhold what we feel so we don’t upset the apple cart? Could it be easier to defend our right to harm ourselves and others, than it is to start asking some real questions?…
- Why are religions at the centre of so much war and abuse? And why don’t other religions say anything?
- How do health professionals become unhealthy?
- Why does the education system care more about a student’s spelling than their health?
- Why do people in ‘love’ (under the current definition) – kill, hate, cheat, abuse?
- And of course, the ultimate question… what am I feeling right now – and what have I done to feel that way?
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
What a great approach to life Joel as we must also ask the question what is God and therefor what is our relationship with God? When we come to the answer to these questions we understand the lies we have been force feed to keep us from being connected to the inner wisdom we all come from.
Waiting until ‘the Messiah gets here’, like children at a kindergarten is really powerful to consider. I can remember this feeling of expectancy for God to step in – how often have I heard there can’t be a God because He wouldn’t let this level of suffering and abuse be present in the world?
Waiting left a mixture of hope – it’ll be ok in the end, just got to wait it out; anger – how bad does it have to get before He steps in?!; and despair – am I stuck here and the suffering will never end, I can’t cope.
What’s changing is realising God is always there and has never left. The brawl in the kindergarten is all of us deciding to play like that. It’s our responsibility to turn this around! So rather than wait I am taking care of how I am in the world, being loving and understanding, knowing how I am living could potentially inspire someone else.
Also, because God never left – I know this everytime I reconnect and He is there, it’s my job to reconnect.
Love reading this. To question, to really ponder and reflect. So much goes on in the world that makes no sense when even a bit of questioning takes place. So often we are asked to go along with government policy for example that discriminates but where we can ignore it because we can use other areas where discrimination is frowned upon as exemplars and say, ‘oh, it’s not that bad’. How is it ok to tolerate any discrimination, just as an example?
People, often including myself, don’t want to notice where there is inequality because to notice calls for a response: to be responsible. So I may say I didn’t realise when actually the truth is, I stayed conveniently ignorant.
Waking up feels very sobering but it’s required so the abuses committed under the darkness of feigned ignorance, aka going along with lies, are no longer permitted. I know a lot of love and understanding supports me to really see what’s going on.
If everything is energy then what is the energy that is running humanity and would it make sense that the energy doesn’t want to be exposed? Which is why we do not question anything because there is no us to question, only the the astral energy running us and it is not going to expose itself.
It takes someone who is not run by astral energy but aligned to that of God and the universe to show humanity by reflection that we are mere puppets to an energy that has had its way with us since this all began.
This is such a great question to ask ourselves
“Why did I not question the concept that God sees us all equal, but each religion sees us as different?”
Religion seems to me to be the total opposite of what God is and as you say Joel we have just accepted this without question.
Joel, your whole blog is GOLD and holds so many pearls…and once again this one is a winner: “Could it be that something inside us prefers comfort to truth? Could it be easier to withhold what we feel so we don’t upset the apple cart? Could it be easier to defend our right to harm ourselves and others, than it is to start asking some real questions?…”
“Is it possible that the ‘titles and training’ gave me recognition?” – Recognition is a huge carrot that is dangled in front of us. Compared to love it has no worth, but without love recognition stands as the next best thing and so it is natural that we fall for it, seek it, depend on it and make it our medicine to soothe ourselves from the fact that we are not giving ourselves the real deal which is Love.
Joel, this question is total GOLD and is the reason why so many of us do not question things: “Is it possible I preferred to feel included than to really explore my relationship with God?” We seek to belong but we do not question what we seek to belong to, this is interesting and the lack of discernment is to me easily explained by the fact that we are actually delaying or denying the deepening of our relationship with God.
Life is easier when we go with the majority, the questions asked just make it more difficult to remain blinded. Many of us are happy to remain blinded and go with the flow, keep going around in circle in our struggles, our miseries or our success in work, with family and at home – until something big happens and we get a wake up call.
Joel asks some great questions for us to reflect on in this blog, ‘Could it be that something inside us prefers comfort to truth? Could it be easier to withhold what we feel so we don’t upset the apple cart? Could it be easier to defend our right to harm ourselves and others, than it is to start asking some real questions?…’
I can relate to this Richard, the good thing is we had enough honesty to say “this is still not it” and continued our search for something true. Little did we realise it was right there within us, however the support was very needed in my case with Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to assist me to reconnect to the truth within myself. I remember coming out of decades of exploring the New Age, philosophy, spirituality, religion, etc, and feeling so empty still, yet a part of me called out for the truth and was ready… and it came in the form of Universal Medicine.
We really do need to ask questions, including with ourselves, an honest enquiry. The harm of comfort is that it encourages us to accept the status quo, to accept the way life is, to solidify it as a norm… keep your head down, and don’t ask questions. Comfort also means we allow the status quo because we are ok in our pocket and we don’t have to look up and around and see what’s truly going on for everyone, and what needs to be done and how we have all contributed to it.
Wow, Melinda, I absolutely love what you have said here. An honest enquiry is certainly called for and we need to be willing to see our comforts and our acceptance of those things that really are not acceptable. And hence it is about being OK with rocking the boat and ditching what we know to be untrue so that we make space for that which is true.
It is crazy to consider what we do and have signed up for in our search for love or to feel a sense of belonging. How have we have willingly disregarded ourselves, our truth. Your questions are brilliant and offer great points for us to consider. Are we actually seeking the truth, to honour and confirm who we are and inspire us to live our power, or are we seeking distraction, to stay in the comfort of the illusion that we have no responsibility.
Truth or no Truth, that is the question.
Over the years the questioning has been there but certainly not voiced. Could it be that the level of comfort we sink into has us living at a lesser vibration and the questioning is numbed to the point of a fleeting thought and then dismissed as quickly as it came?
We cannot judge our past actions with the eyes of the present. We can only walk what we now see. Of course, we can pose all kinds of questions to inspire others to pose their own questions regarding what they see and do not see.
And another question is if everything is energy, which has been proven why is not universally understood that therefore everything is because of energy, which is in part answering many of your questions Joel!!? And thus what energy are we using when we heal is it actually healing longer term or harming longer term?
My sense is that the moment we question this way we re-empower ourselves and re-connect to our innate wisdom. We may not know the answers but starting to see the illogical nature of what we have taken as normal and asking why it is not offering us a life where we are connected with great care and love to each other stops us being hooked and following blindly.
That is a great question – I willingly and without a second thought have done some incredibly stupid things! And on the flip side I have been presented with wisdom and love like no other and resisted it with every fibre of my being. What is going on!
Brilliant Joel. Comfort is a huge thing for us all, we accept so much because it both fits our pictures and allows us to feel comfortable and we fit in … for to truly question is to stand out and to ask if there is another way and that is challenging for us and those we meet … and then it comes to what is more important truth or comfort and at some stage every single one of us will choose truth over comfort.
You ask some very good questions in this blog and I particularly like the one about what is the difference between exploration and indulgence? I would say that genuine exploration involves trying things out with honesty of what is working and what doesn’t for me and everyone else based on how things feel in my body, where as indulgence is an escape and an excuse from this honesty and the responsibility that comes with it.
I know I accept much to much of life without questioning it. I find often days can pass without me really observing and reflecting and questioning life – so my question is – could this be time wasted?
Maybe we know that if we begin to question the innumerable ideals and beliefs that we have and doggedly hang onto to, we would begin to see life differently, thereby exposing all of our ideals and beliefs as false. We have vested interests in hold onto these, for we personally identify with them and it keeps us and everything the same. Comfortable in other words.
And are we addicted to all the ways of living that bring us our lot seemingly and never ask those questions that might up-turn the apple-cart, so our comfort-ability-ness is an addition we dare not question!!!
A life based on comfort, security and self does not lend itself to questions that probe more deeply and might even rattle the status quo – be quiet and don’t disturb the neighbours is the motto. And as long as we all keep doing what we are doing, it’s normal and please, let sleeping dogs lie.
Great questioning Joel. The only plausible reason behind the mad craziness of humanities ignorance to asking questions like this is that there must be something else running human life. There has to be given that if we truly were free to think we would have asked the questions you have here long long ago.
Yes, there has to be something that has a vested interest in us not questioning. Now I also feel that we still have free choice to be sucked in to that because how else can we explain that moment where you extract yourself from the illusion and start to question? So we really need reflections in our lives that encourage us to question so we can see the marketing and the hooks of comfort for what they are.
Exactly Joshua,
“The only plausible reason behind the mad craziness of humanities ignorance to asking questions like this is that there must be something else running human life. There has to be given that if we truly were free to think we would have asked the questions you have here long long ago.”
We don’t think, we are fed the thoughts we have, and until we accept this as a truth humanity will stay in the mad craziness because that is what is feeding the energy that gives us our thoughts. It feeds off our craziness!
“Could it be that something inside us prefers comfort to truth?” Truth often makes us feel uncomfortable because deep down we know the truth, and choosing comfort over truth only lasts for so long before we start feeling uncomfortable because we feel the truth beginning to bubble through, and then there is a choice to be made.
We choose our challenges. We choose how we want to be challenged. We choose what are we confirming of ourselves with the choice of the challenges. We also choose what we want to develop in ourselves. Challenges give us a sense of life and of ourselves based on our own choices. As such, there is nothing that may guarantee that the challenges we choose will help us to develop or to confirm what is true.
Could it be that we learnt as a child that if we kept asking ‘Why’ it was not welcomed by adults (and in most cases we knew what they were saying did not feel true or honest), so we learnt to not ask awkward questions because it made others uncomfortable and that was uncomfortable?
I often wonder whether it is possible that we do not question what we are presented with simply because we don’t want to hear the truth. Therefore, we make the choice to blindly accept what is presented so we can stay in our old familiar comfort. But I have found, often the hard way, that the truth has a way of eventually revealing itself giving us pause to ponder as to why we didn’t choose to ask the questions in the first place.
‘Could it be that something inside us prefers comfort to truth?’ Definitely Joel and our patterns of behaviours that we continue to indulge in even though in our hearts we know they are not loving or healthy for us are evidence of this fact.
Astonishing questions revealing the unrevealed yet so on the surface laying questions. Again.. do we take those questions to a higher place by asking them and revealing the possible answers? Or do we hide and seek other remedies to not look at the root cause? Profound, without criticism, we can look at these things. For ourselves privately and together.
Killer questions Joel. I absolutely love how poignantly you put the spotlight on what we call normal. You are brilliant and getting us to question what’s really going on.
“Could it be that something inside us prefers comfort to truth?” This question lays bare our undeniable choice as a human being, that security and comfort have held us in situations that we have long known are detrimental to all of humanity. But the truth, well this begins to tip such comforts on their head, yes it can be scary and uncomfortable to go with truth. But it can also be the most amazing experience in our lives.
There is much in life that we need to question, otherwise we just assume that what we participate in or how we are is simply normal because it is a common experience. Questioning is really healthy as it asks us to stop and look at something and consider more deeply is there more going on here than meets the eye.
Great questions. There are so many things on offer that promise to make us feel a certain way and we indulge in that momentary uplift but hardly ever question what then was happening before for us to need and enjoy that effect so much. Busy hopping from one such option to another, we manage so-called life, and we know questioning would bring an inevitable stop to it all and all the dusts start to settle for us to see what is going on, and that, we avoid.
Wow those are extraordinairy questions, simply because we are not used to be questioned like that or ask those questions ourselves. That of prefering comfort over truth has resonated with me for a long time, and can equally recognize this in others.. Hence, if something horrific occurs, we seem to shock for a moment but then move on in the same rhythm of that created in the first place, a lot of the time (with exceptions ofcourse). So, questioning is indeed in its place.. Or to stand still by the fact that we have prefered not being questioned in the first place – hence the way it is the way it currently is.. Even though we can see a change of the extremes that are occuring and now we start to feel the need to look further – as it goes out of hands..
Much to ponder and feel the truth of, where are we now in our evolution as humanity? Thank you Joel.
We know how things feel no question. However, when the herd are all moving in one direction (no matter if we don’t know what that direction is, or even if it is heading off a cliff), its easier to feel included rather than to stand out and choose to move in your own way. The interesting thing is if we do move in our own way, it offers others an alternative so perhaps they can break free of the herd mentality and start to feel what is going on for them.
Yes, and how silly do we feel when we realise that staying part of the herd was what was harming us!! The energy that plants the fear of standing out has so much responsibility for the world we now have. But we must remember, we can each choose to not subscribe to that model by changing the way we move and, as you say, perhaps offer others an alternative.
Your blog is very thought provoking Joel and I’m feeling on reading it how I’ve made my interaction with others more important than my relationship with God so often I’ve preferred the comfort of the group to the challenge of exploring and building my own relationship with God; this is shining another light on my comfort and this I will explore, thank you
Too many questions expose our wayward ways, and so it suits the spirit to stay in ignorance. Great blog Joel.
Nailed it!! Absolutely brilliant writing once again Joel. Simple questions – too simple to even be true – that’s how far off the mark we have gotten.
Such a good call Joel .. that we prefer to feel included rather than to question things! I reckon every single person can relate with this blog in that we have done something in life without stopping and truly feeling into it or questioning it.
We have lived and done so many things in so many ways and as the article is saying we have done them pretty much without question. It’s funny in a way when you see them written down like this, you actually laugh as I did. There are many things I have done and some I knew weren’t that great and yet I didn’t want to go against what many were doing, I thought there must be something wrong with me and so I followed everyone in anyway. I have watched the ‘norm’ move so many places over the years and looking back I would also follow and still do in some aspects follow the norm. For me it’s not about deliberately going against something either but about trusting what I truly feel and not being sucked into following like a sheep. It also shows a great way to expose things is to commit them to paper as I wouldn’t have been aware of this without seeing it all in one place like this.
Is so interesting the point you are making here Joel, as I have pondered on the same thing many times. How was it that I would, without question involved myself in many crazy New Age trips searching for the Truth . . . and yet when the real deal came my way, Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine presenting a true way back to finding myself . . I struggled not wanting to give my power away yet again . . . only this time there was nobody interested in taking my power away from me, try as I did to give it away!
A brilliant exposure of how we are so readily willing forfeit questioning our lifestyle choices, regardless of how they are making us feel, so that that we avoid the responsibility of living truth, what we know is true. Could it be that even in our desire to fit in we are creating an excuse so that we can justify the lack of discernment we live with? Yet all the while we question, doubt and disregard the truth within us, that is a reflection of who really are and what in the end will guide us to know all that is needed to live the wisdom of our full divine potential.
A 5 year old child constantly asks the question why? And is the reason we cease our seeking of answers as we get older that we don’t want to hear the truth?
It is far easier to withhold what we feel than risk upsetting the apple cart, and accept the comfort in that, but soon it starts to be uncomfortable comfort. It feels limiting, and even though we know we might be at risk of facing an outburst, that becomes preferable to all that is not being said and is being stored up in our bodies. When we don’t say what needs to be said, it festers and often magnifies, quickly getting out of hand. When we speak up, we clear whatever is there, and it leaves no residue of unsaid feelings lingering.
“Could it be easier to defend our right to harm ourselves and others, than it is to start asking some real questions?”
But is it? I now ask. I know I have been in this defence but when I take a moment to stop and feel it is easy but very taxing on my health. I feel we avoid the questions because we already know the answers. Our bodies are telling us the truth constantly and it becomes more a case of – how responsible am I willing to be in every moment?
When we don’t question we hold back which hurts us enormously…. especially going from a very inquisitive child, asking all kinds of questions, to often a shutdown thinking we are going with the flow teenager and adult. But we are in truth just wanting to stay under the radar and go with the flow of disregard and dishonouring. Asking questions offers ourselves and others an opportunity to stop and consider what is really going on.