“Is my salvation up to me?” – The Writings of Tom Grasso

Q: (Paraphrasing) Do I need to understand that desire, hunger, passion, or lust is a “dream” I need to wake up from? If my salvation is up to me, I am screwed because I simply wish to eat when hungry regardless of how many times I tell my body “it’s a dream, you are not hungry”. I need not feel guilty from the listening to my body.

I would say don’t replace one identity with another. You will only learn what you are ready to learn. You are experiencing all that you must in the way that you must. You can choose (yes, you have the choice) to be completely aware or to be completely unconscious. Neither is wrong!

If you are hungry, you may choose to eat or be free of the desire. If you want to enjoy Christmas, so be it. If you wish to be free of considering Christmas as any different from any other day, so be it. Don’t, for one minute, submit to the idiocy of others who deem to tell you what is proper, what is right, as if they somehow know better. They are free to tell you whatever they wish, but you are free to listen to whatever you wish. And I use the word “idiocy” to describe the notion that anyone on this forum or elsewhere can somehow instruct you on the “right” way to live or be.

I rarely read this forum or engage in discussions here. I find the “commune” sense contrary to my purpose of the moment. Something drew me to read this passage at this time, and to respond. I don’t question it, it just is. As you will be, or as any of us will be. Once the “Being” becomes united in community it fails to be anything other than the collective identity. I simply cannot see the act of replacing the Bible with another guide any better than living a lie.

God will tell you what you need when you are ready, and it might not be in this lifetime. The fact that you are questioning this is a sign that perhaps you are ready to seek the source. If so, follow your path. If not, follow your path. Or not.

One last thing. Believing that “none of this is real” because you read it in a New Age book means nothing. You must find this out for yourself in order to make your choice. Until then, it may ALL be real…or it may not. A book will not get it done for you, you must discover the path, walk the path, and then emerge from the destination as you were meant to. The inane meanderings of others who protest that “none of this is real” are part of the dream, or not, depending on your perspective. They may know it not to be “real” or know it to be a “dream”, but few have actually experienced the dream, or peeled away the layers to find the illusion. The book itself may be a guide to such enlightenment, or it may be nothing more than a way to distinguish those who know from those who are.