Most religious texts are replete with prophesy. Many tell of impending doom, calamity, and "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Most also give words of hope and a suggestion that one may avoid all this pain and torture.
The Tiamatian believer is not immune to this kind of thinking, but keeps it in proper perspective. It is not important what will happen in a million years, a thousand years, or even next week. It is not important what happens after you die, or where your soul will go. What is important is what you are willing to do about it today.
The condition of your soul is important now. Your entry into "Heaven" is available now, as is also available your entry into "Hell." You decide. Now. Today. This isn't to say that you will be able to enter Heaven in one day - it may take a while to get there if you are very far. But it is to say that you can begin in that direction. Or you can always stay exactly where you are and find that life lacks something. You can turn around and go the other way. But if you want to be happy, you will walk towards Heaven.
In these days, many worry about an apocalypse. They worry about a "great satan" and place a great deal of emphasis on it. Here's the truth: The energy you spend on this fear is energy you take from more worthy pursuits. If you fear evil, then you do not have faith in God. If you preach "Hellfire and Brimstone," then you are speaking about evil. Your attention is on evil.
What you worship is your God. What you obsess about is your God. What you think about often is your God. So, as much as possible, try not to think of these dark thoughts. Remember, if you live your life as is described in this text, you do not need to worry about being overtaken by evil. You will be walking towards Heaven.
How sad it is to see a Christian preacher with his zeal about "end times." He is teaching others to be fearful. Rather than giving them the proper vision of an omnipotent God, he enjoys a vision of Hell. The proper lesson is to show the strength and love of Jesus, the Christ. Jesus feared no one and nothing.
That is the vision you are to see. Christ is perfectly able to overcome anything. Nothing really matters, His soul is one with God and he can show us his wisdom. But we are free to make any decision - to listen or not, to love or kill - and he is still at one with God. So it must be with us also. Walk towards God and do not worry about anything. Can anything really hurt your soul? Or are you the only one who can affect the condition of your soul? The answer is that it is all up to you. So do not worry; Instead, simply always strive to grow closer to God.
And this is an important point: Your choices: Your actions, words and thoughts determine your spiritual growth. Do not think that "Simply believing in Jesus as Christ, that you will be saved and go to Heaven." This misconception has left many unhappy souls to fail to enrich their spiritual lives. This idea leaves a person to live and die in Hell. Walk together with Christ. Don't add to his weight on the nails.
One must live in a manner of the actions described by this text, which were also described by Jesus, Zoroaster and others, in order to enter Heaven and to live happily. To "place your treasures in Heaven" is to place emphasis on spiritual growth. As important as the lesson that monetary and social growth are less rewarding than spiritual growth, is the lesson that spiritual growth must be made in order to enter Heaven at all.
Our omnipotent God cannot be influenced. God simply is. He doesn't mind any details, and He "knows" how everything is and will be. God started the process, knowing how things will "grow," and the details of its individual movements are unimportant to Him. Life will evolve, and the living will grow more enlightened. Tiamat is free to choose, and we as individuals are free to choose also.
This "collective soul" will either evolve towards Heaven or towards Hell. If it grows more dysfunctional, then it will reach a point of "non-viability," where it cannot survive. Like a cancer destroys living tissue to the point that it cannot function, a damaged soul can grow more and more dysfunctional until it reaches a point that it no longer exists. It is then of no use - not good and not bad - simply non-existent.
While this soul degradation is occurring, the "outside world" of the entity will undergo tremendous "evil." It will do things that seem very evil and horrible, but that are really just big mistakes. These "big mistakes" can destroy whole populations or even whole civilizations. But God doesn't even notice. Somewhere else, His souls are still evolving. His plan still unfolds. No battle; Nothing changes.
For the souls that evolve towards Heaven, they become less and less vulnerable to evil, or spiritual failures. They learn to live more happily at first, and then grow stronger in the face of adversity. The final evolution brings happiness in spite of adversity. Evolved souls know how to survive in unhealthy environments, and they know how to free themselves from them. They know how to find peace. An evolved soul knows how to survive calamity, avoid bad environments, and they know how little it matters if they find themselves confronted with seemingly impossible odds.
So for those of you still looking for an "evil beast," please consider that the only "beast" you should worry about is the one within yourself. This anger, this fear, that is your "beast." If you are looking outside yourself, that's all right for now because at least you're looking. But what you will eventually find is that the only "devils" that can cause an "end of the world" for you are those that live inside of you.
The thing that can bring about an end to your world is your own failure to enhance your spiritual growth. Do the math: If you're concerned with your physical well being and with your intellectual strength, but not with your spiritual growth, then you've concerned yourself with only two-thirds of the things important for your own health. You haven't allowed yourself to become whole, opting only to grow into two-thirds of a person. That's .666 of a whole. There's your beast mark.
For those of you that have grown to the point that God is stronger within you than any "beast," Welcome. Thanks for being here. The world is a better place because of you.
