Do you consider yourself religious, or do you consider yourself spiritual? Is there a difference? I think there is a big difference.
I was talking to a repairman at our home and the subject of the end of the world came up. As our discussion proceeded, he asked me if I was religious and spiritual. Now that's quite a question.
I had been talking to him about how I believed that Christ will return. I told that when he does return, those who are born again will be gathered together to meet him in the air. That's what the Bible says.
Now some when they hear statements like that might immediately think, "Oh, he's a pretty religious person." Others might think, "Well, someone who believes that sort of thing must be a spiritual person." Well, which is it?
I couldn't give the repairman a simple, "yes," or "no" answer. The biggest problem in answering a question like that is simply terminology. Being religious means different things to different people, just as being spiritual means different things to different people.
Personally, I do not believe that Christianity is a religion, although I think there is a lot of religion in what people refer to as "Christianity." Religion is man made and it is usually full of rules and regulations on how to be right in God's eyes.
Contrary to that, I believe that true Christianity is the way of the Father with His children. I believe true Christianity involves a real, personal relationship between a person and God Almighty. I believe true Christianity is what the Bible teaches, not what some people think that the Bible teaches.
Anyone who has read the Gospels knows that the greatest opposition that Jesus Christ faced while here on earth was from the "religious" leaders of that time. They were so caught up in all of their rules, regulations, and traditions that they failed to even recognize that the Messiah had finally arrived.
They saw Jesus as interfering with their system. They were jealous of the numbers of people that were following him. They were absolutely afraid of losing their power and control.
They were afraid that if his popularity continued to escalate then they might soon be out of a job. So they opposed him at every turn. It was the religious leaders who instigated his arrest and his execution.
After the death of Jesus, it was again religious leaders who persecuted the early Church. The followers of Jesus were labeled a cult by the same religious leaders. These religious people endeavored to silence those who preached about Christ, especially those who preached his resurrection from the dead.
Throughout history, time and time again, terrible things have been done by religious people. People convinced that they were right, believing that they were doing God a favor, have done many cruel things. Who will ever know how many people have lost their lives at the hands of religious people?
Meanwhile, true Christianity is not about rules and regulations or sacrifices and penance required for heaven. True Christianity is all about what God made available to people through the accomplished work of His Son, Jesus Christ. True Christianity is all about the Father and His family.
When it comes to being spiritual, that term has different meanings to a lot of different people too. There is indeed a natural realm and there is a spiritual realm. But being a "spiritual" personal does not necessarily mean that someone is involved with the one true God.
The Scriptures declare that when someone is born again, they receive God's gift of holy spirit. Looking at it that way, you could say that such a person is indeed a spiritual person. That would be accurate because the person has God's spirit residing in them.
The Bible states that God is Spirit, and that holy men of God wrote the Bible, being directed by the Holy Spirit. It would then seem to be very profitable to gain information and understanding about spiritual matters from the Scriptures. And, in a manner of speaking, someone who regards the Scriptures as God's communication to mankind could indeed be called a spiritual person.
Regardless of your definition of what constitutes religious, or what makes someone spiritual, The Bible cannot take a back seat in these matters. And, after reading this article, perhaps it will be easier for you to answer the question: Are you religious, or, are you spiritual?
Michael A. Verdicchio offers a FREE eBook, "9 Keys to Answered Prayer!" for signing up for his FREE weekly news letter, "The Pep Letter," at http://www.ConfidenceAndJoy.com Michael is a husband, father, minister, author, broadcaster and the voice on numerous projects and productions, Get a FREE Lifetime Membership to EnrichingYourLifeNow.com when you subscribe for FREE to his inspiring blog.
Is it truly possible for someone to learn the skill of being a clairvoyant? Yes, it is possible to a certain extent. However, in order to truly define what we mean by this we need to clarify the term 'learn clairvoyance'.
Clairvoyance actually means several different things, depending upon whom you are talking with. The ability to view things as they are occurring in a distant location, without the use of the five senses or some type of technology is remote viewing. Being able to view future events is precognition. Clairvoyance at its most basic level simply means the ability to know particular information concerning a distant location, an object, an even or an individual, without the use of the five senses. Clairvoyance is a sort of sixth sense.
Some individuals have extraordinary clairvoyant abilities. They may be able to hear, see, smell, feel or even taste something that is not close by. They may have the ability to know about things from the future or past that, they could not know by any other means. No one is sure as to how it works. Science offers no explanation or documentation of these abilities. There are many metaphysical explanations of these psychic abilities. However, there is no dominant belief and many of the explanations are actually contradictory. There is one common element. However, it seems to cross through all these various theories. Individuals who experience such psychic abilities are born that very naturally.
What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that you cannot train yourself to see the future, but you can develop your ability to hone your sixth sense.
It is true that all people have a certain degree of a sixth sense. This can sometimes be described as a hunch or feeling that no one can logically explain. People making statements about having bad feelings about something or lacking trust in a person could be considered a form of sixth sense. However, most people will ignore this feeling and defer to logic or emotion instead.
To a certain degree, science acknowledges the validity and existence of instincts and gut feelings. However, they do claim that there is nothing paranormal, psychic or supernatural about the ability. Psychologists, contend that this type of phenomenon is the ability of your subconscious mind to notice small hints, signals or details that your conscious mind may simply overlook. Your subconscious mind translates this type of information to your emotions that then guides you with the proverbial 'feeling' mentioned above. What this means is that you must learn to use and trust your subconscious mind in order to develop your sixth sense.
Your sixth sense may be based on a paranormal psychic ability or brain neurochemistry, or even both. However, this really is unimportant. Clairvoyance exists; everyone has it to a certain degree. Anyone can cultivate and develop his or her clairvoyance ability it they desire to do so. There are three ways you can do this.
Method 1: Perception Improvement
Many individuals get so busy with life tasks that they become oblivious to everything around them. However, there are many small details that we may not notice yet our subconscious mind notices them and then forms hunches or instincts. When you increase your perception, becoming aware of the world around you, you provide you subconscious mind the power it requires to increase your clairvoyant sixth sense.
Yes, all of this involves a great deal of practice. Thankfully, there are a number of things you can do to improve your abilities of perception. Slowing down and sinking in your environment is one such thing. Staying relaxed and calm is another. Be more leisurely in your daily activities is another. Try to avoid allowing things to occupy your senses and thoughts and this will increase awareness. The end result of this could prove to be quite positive.
A mini meditation session might be precisely what you need when you are thinking about clearing your head. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and make yourself relax. When your eyes open, you will be able to see a lot more with regards to the world around you. This can make a lot of difference .
2. Meditate
Meditate for at least thirty minutes daily. Meditation is occupying and clearing your conscious mind while allowing your subconscious mind to work and communicate with your conscious mind. Many individuals who meditate report feelings of being refreshed and relaxed.
It is fair to say meditation can be a little difficult to perform at times. When you try and empty out your mind, it becomes difficult to truly clear the mind and cease and endless cycle of thought. To reverse such a scenario is difficult because it is tough to occupy the conscious mind and be able to distract it. A focus and a mantra may be the best ways to do this.
A focus is simply something that you can use to keep your sense working for you instead of against you. If you are sitting in silence, you might find that every sound or movement out of the corner of your eye makes you startle. Instead, put a candle in front of you and watch the light dance. The flickering will keep your eyes engaged while your brain can float away and think of other things.
Remember that your brain never shuts down, and this is something that can work for you rather than against you. A mantra is a series of words, whether it is a phrase,a poem or a prayer, that you can repeat over and over again. It will let your brain occupy itself while you are meditating and it can trigger a meditative state for you if you practice it firmly enough. Some people will use the prayers that they learned as children while other people will simply use the song lyrics that they love.
3. Trust Your Instincts
At the end of the day, you are not getting very far if you do not trust yourself. Don't doubt what you see or feel and make sure that you don't dismiss your feelings as being the product of an overactive imagination. Remember that you get hunches and feelings for a reason and that your subconscious mind is definitely trying to tell you something. What does your subconscious mind want to let you know?
Yes, this all may prove difficult at first, but skill can be developed over time. Just listen to and trust your instincts. You will discover more confidence over time and your clairvoyant sixth strength will grow. This will allow you to trust it.
The paranormal word 'clairvoyance' is one that originated in the French language. In the French language the term 'clair' is translated as 'clear' and the word 'voyance' translates to 'vision' and 'voyant' means 'visionary. Therefore, the word 'clairvoyance' translates to 'clear vision' and a 'clairvoyant' is a person that is a 'clear visionary.' It is unfortunate, but this ery literal translation is neither accurate nor helpful.
One thing that further complicates the definition is the fact that the term 'clairvoyant' has been used over the years to refer to different things. 'Clairvoyant' has gradually been used as a term that applies to an individual that displays various ranges of psychic or paranormal abilities. The definition that accurately sums up what a clairvoyant is a person that is able to know specific thins about a person, location, event, or object with a means other than the five physical sense. In summary, clairvoyance refers to the use of ESP or extra-sensory perception.
A clairvoyant�s abilities are generally confined to knowledge about something occurring at the present which they could not perceive with the usual five senses. There have been cases of a clairvoyant receiving knowledge of events or the conditions of places, people or objects in the future or the past � however, these events are more properly termed pre- or past-cognition.
The means a clairvoyant individual learns this ability varies and can generally be broken down to one of six categories. The first form or category is 'remote viewing' and perhaps is the most associated with clairvoyance. A clairvoyant views a location, event, person or object hidden from them through remote viewing. And occasionally takes the form of visual hallucination and at other times the clairvoyant views things with their 'minds eye.'
Clairaudience is another means by which the clairvoyant may receive information. As the name suggests, in this case this is in the form of sound which they and no one else can hear. Some clairvoyants may even hear the voices of people who are dead; these cases are more properly termed mediumship.
The third form or type is called clairsentience. With clairsentience an individual gains their knowledge with feeling and touch. This may include the feeling an object that are not present. This is more of a feeling or 'vibe' that a clairvoyant gets from events, locations or people that are out of the clairvoyants visual view.
Clairalience refers to knowledge coming to the clairvoyant in olfactory form. The clairvoyant may smell grass and flowers from a meadow (or anything else) which clues them into the source of the smell. Only the clairvoyant can smell these scents, which come from no obvious source.
Clairgustance is the fifth form or type of clairvoyance. In this form an individual can taste the different flavors, despite the fact there is no apparent sauce and since they have not eaten anything. They are able to describe the flavor that they are tasting even though they are a distance from any source.
Claircognizance refers to a clairvoyant 'just knowing' something without any explanation for their having received this knowledge. There is no sensory analogue to claircognizance, making it a difficult phenomenon to explain.
Many documentations of occurrences of people considered clairvoyants exist throughout history. From different cultures worldwide and has been incorporated into some religions of the world.
For example, in Buddhism, clairvoyance is considered to give humans the capability to reach advanced levels of meditation. And the ability to feel vibrations sent out by other people.
Clairvoyance also makes appearances in Christian and Islamic literature, with the visions being considered to be divinely inspired miracles. St. Clare described a vision of St. Francis� death, though she was many miles distant. The Catholic Church later named St. Clare as the patron saint of TV (which happens to literally mean 'seeing at a distance'). As with other psychic phenomena, there are many skeptics about clairvoyance. Skepticism is natural; it�s hard to believe in something without seeing it in action. After all, even magnetism was once thought to be non-existent.
There are skeptics of clairvoyance. It is a part of human nature to doubt and deny the existence of something that they do not understand. The existence of electricity and magnetism had been denied by scientist not so long ago in our history.
No matter what the skeptics are saying, nobody has ever been able to completely disprove that clairvoyance is possible. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that shows that there are many genuine clairvoyants among us. In general, parapsychologists, scientists, and the public is starting to become more open minded and seem more ready to accept the fact that clairvoyance is very real.
Even though we don't know how this all works, there is absolutely no reason to ignore that the phenomenon exists. There are some people that think all humans had the ability to be clairvoyant in the distant past, but somehow lost their abilities. These same people think that is possible for people regain these talents if they were to make some effort to develop the powers.
