In this insightful episode of What's On Your Mind from God: An Autobiography, Scott and Jerry share a letter from the previous Life Wisdom Project guest, Ajit Dass. Listeners are treated to a captivating discussion about the diverse aspects of God's story, touching on philosophy, spirituality, and the evolution of human understanding.
Ajit reviews the profound revelations of the book God: An Autobiography and reflects on his spiritual journey while exploring the unique insights from the book.
Ajit eloquently extracts five fundamental life lessons derived from God's narrative. The episode concludes with a thoughtful examination of the intersection between various religions, emphasizing the interconnectedness of different philosophies in the broader narrative of humanity's collective spiritual journey.
By offering a nuanced exploration of spirituality, life wisdom, and the harmonious coexistence of diverse religious perspectives, this episode promises to broaden your understanding and leave you with fresh perspectives on the intersection of philosophy, religion, and the profound essence of human existence.
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Resources:
Hashtags: #whatsonyourmind #godanautobiography #experiencegod
Would you like to be featured on the show or have questions about spirituality or divine communication? Share your story or experience with God! We'd love to hear from you! 🎙️
Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube |
In this insightful episode of What's On Your Mind from God: An Autobiography, Scott and Jerry share a letter from the previous Life Wisdom Project guest, Ajit Dass. Listeners are treated to a captivating discussion about the diverse aspects of God's story, touching on philosophy, spirituality, and the evolution of human understanding.
Ajit reviews the profound revelations of the book God: An Autobiography and reflects on his spiritual journey while exploring the unique insights from the book.
Ajit eloquently extracts five fundamental life lessons derived from God's narrative. The episode concludes with a thoughtful examination of the intersection between various religions, emphasizing the interconnectedness of different philosophies in the broader narrative of humanity's collective spiritual journey.
By offering a nuanced exploration of spirituality, life wisdom, and the harmonious coexistence of diverse religious perspectives, this episode promises to broaden your understanding and leave you with fresh perspectives on the intersection of philosophy, religion, and the profound essence of human existence.
Relevant Episodes:
Other Series:
Resources:
Hashtags: #whatsonyourmind #godanautobiography #experiencegod
Would you like to be featured on the show or have questions about spirituality or divine communication? Share your story or experience with God! We'd love to hear from you! 🎙️
Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube |
Scott Langdon [00:00:17] This is God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. A dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin. He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him. Episode 161.
Scott Langdon [00:01:03] Welcome to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I'm Scott Langdon. On this week's episode, Jerry and I once again ask what's on your mind and go to an early email from someone with whom you might already be familiar, Ajit Dass, a great friend of the podcast and an early reader of Jerry's book, was recently a guest of Jerry's for our series, The Life Wisdom Project. Jerry first became friends with Ajit after he wrote in offering a review of the book. What he took from it were things even Jerry hadn't quite been aware of. Jerry and I go through his email today and share with you Ajit's remarkably helpful insights. If you'd like to ask a question or share your story of God, please drop us an email at questions@godanautobiography.com. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Scott Langdon [00:02:00] Welcome back, everybody, to another edition of What's on Your Mind? I'm here with Jerry again, and this week we have a really special email. It's one of the earlier ones, and this gentleman who's written in to us has come to really be a big supporter not only of Jerry's book and of Jerry's work, but also of this podcast. And so we had him back for a very special episode. And Jerry, it's great to see you again and talk with you again. Talk a little bit about Ajit and this week's email.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:02:30] Well, I share your enthusiasm, Scott. You know, I got to looking at some of the earlier communications and it was a surprise to me things I'd forgotten. With several of them, the first time I ever encountered Ajit Dass and some of the other people who've done Life Wisdom, and I won't try to talk about them now, but here was the very first time I heard from them. And who knew then that it would lead to a back and forth, often private emails and sharing this and that, you know. And Ajit-- some of them are just long distance friends the way we have now in our global internet. But Ajit visited the U.S. he lives in Lucknow, India, visited the US once, so I've met him. His daughter is studying college in Canada, and she was there as well, and a friend from India. But Ajit is this interesting combination. He's in trainings scientific and technical. He is a graduate of India's version of MIT. At the same time, he's had a life long spiritual quest and interest- and probing it more and more deeply. So it was a wonderful guy from to find- oh, here's the first time I ever heard from Ajit.
Scott Langdon [00:03:53] And he wrote in as a-- he wrote in a review of the book. And it was really interesting. I had never seen it before. And so to read it and prepare for today's episode, to dig into it was really interesting. So I thought we would read the first part of it here now, and then talk a little bit about that and kind of break it down a little bit. So here's what Ajit Das wrote in to Jerry.
A Letter From Ajit [00:04:17] God: An Autobiography review. During my over 25 year spiritual journey, I have read a large number of channeled books on life and spirituality. God: An Autobiography is the latest among them, and it has given me the widest and deepest knowledge about God and what God is up to with humans on planet Earth. Among many things, it importantly tells us about the role of humans vis-a-vis God, and also how God is evolving as humans evolve. Though the book is an autobiography of God earnestly channeled by Jerry Martin, a former professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder in U.S.A., through whom God chooses to narrate the amazing experience during the Big Bang, and also the revelation of the relationship with God beyond God, the soul of God. To me, this is illuminating, and this illuminating book has also served as a self-help guide.
Scott Langdon [00:05:18] So, Jerry, I thought your response to this entire email and we'll come back to the second couple of parts in a minute, but I wanted to pause here and read your response to the whole thing. After you read his email, you took something from that?
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:05:32] Yeah, I was, you know, very struck by it, and so I just write a brief comment. I don't try to go into it all, but I say to Ajit, thank you for these penetrating comments, and maybe we'll talk in a moment about what I found penetrating about them. And it is wonderful how you're able to draw five implications for how we live our lives in the book. These insights will be helpful to other readers. Bless you. And what struck me- I never thought of this as a book of life wisdom, and that was before of course the podcast, I think the book hadn't yet been published. We were putting chapters on the internet in advance to stir interest. And I'm so intellectually-- you know, here I am, a philosopher and a theoretician, you might say, and my questions to God are mainly intellectual, to my mind, intellectual questions, though of course, a lot about how to live comes out of that, because we're talking about these fundamental issues of the relation of God to human beings. And so how could it-- I guess had I thought about it through a little more, I would have thought, how could it not have implications for how we live? But I kept thinking, well, what's the big story? And that was my probing. And so it was interesting to see this very perceptive reader, Ajit Dass read it and said, wow, full of life lessons. And he just gives us five. He probably could have gone on, you know, but he gives us five fundamental lessons that are present in the book. So I thought this was a wonderful thing. And the penetrating comments. He understood the book. People have trouble with this. And he does say, you know, it's the story of the human relation to God, but it's also what God is up to. That's what it's fundamentally, what is God up to? And when he talks about the amazing experience, he's talking about God's amazing experience during the Big Bang. And of course, that is in the book- chapter called Creation or something like that. I think maybe only someone from India might, with their Hindu background and multiple religions in India, including these days, Christianity and everything else, but the relationship with God beyond God, the soul of God, and sometimes called the atman of God. And of course, the famous Hindu saying that he would have grown up with, Atman is Brahman, the soul is God, you might say. And there is the soul. God too has a soul of God that appears in the book. And to my Western training it was- huh? You know, this made no sense at all, but I just kept- really? And just kept praying. What is that about? And we find out what it's about. And, he just saw all these things. So those are the kind of wonderful synopsis he's given us. What God is up to is really with human beings, mainly with the world, with other life too- that's alluded to. But of course, my interest is what are you doing with human beings? And that's what the book is about, what God has been up to. What He's up to today, and you might say tomorrow, insofar as we can kind of look ahead at the directionality of things. What is He up to tomorrow?
Scott Langdon [00:09:14] When we look at these What's on Your Mind emails, often, and people relate to us, relate to us their stories, their encounters with God, we often see them in a place of questioning, a place of, uncertain-- I'm not sure if God's there. I had an experience with God one time, but now I haven't in a long time. And where is God? Questions like that. And also stories about discovering God and continuing to be with God, and how that is working on a daily basis with some of the folks who write in to us. Ajit starts out by saying, I have this 25 year spiritual journey that I've been on so far, and I've read a lot of books like this. So it's interesting to me that he was al-- he was on this quest, this journey, this, you know, you just don't... I don't know, I feel like that kind of journey you don't feel like you're ever going to get to the end of it, but you just want to get as much as you can. There's this sort of this yearning for, let me get this angle. Let me get that angle, let me get this angle. And I've come to a place in my life relatively recently that I can really say, I believe if there's a teaching, I want it. Do you know what I mean? I know what I feel now, what that kind of feeling is like, I think. I can relate to Ajit there. What does that say to you about the openness of Ajit's heart and what is moving him?
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:10:54] Well, it says everything about Ajit's heart. And it's not only Ajit's heart. I, at bottom, human life should be a quest for wisdom, for insight, for living in the most meaningful life you can. And, you know, from my point of view, and I think Ajit would share this because one of the metaphors he's about to use that we'll be reading fits with it- that the soul is oriented to the divine. That's the-- that's its fundamental nature. And of course, in one respect is the divine. But in living our life, it's living in orientation to the divine, and that is the natural state of human beings. But the task and maybe not everyone has to do this task, some people are just taking care of their families or something, that's fine, but to some, it falls to try to think this through more and explore it more. And Ajit is in that group of people. And so I think Ajit's doing what, what you might say he's called to do in life. And that's what we each need to find what we're called to do in life and it's not the same for all of us. So Ajit is a wonderful role model, you might say, but that doesn't mean we all have to be Ajit, or that we all have to be Jerry and have conversations with God- God's talking to us and tells us to write a book. No, we don't all have to do that. We just have to figure out, you know, what's our role? Where has gone located us, you might say, in this world, in what set of relationships and what set of talents and deficits of talent and virtues and vices and so forth, and just figure out, okay, God, let me know as best you can, and it it can be in prayer and meditation. It can be-- I was thinking of somebody petting their cat, someone was telling me about that. You walk your dog, Scott. And that's probably one of your most profound spiritual moments is walking your dog. One guy, a Canadian professor, told me his most spiritual moments are riding his dirt bike through the local hills. And so, okay. What does that do? It does something like what meditation does. It takes you out of your daily business and frees your mind and soul and heart to explore and to think a little more deeply than, oh, what's on my schedule today?
Scott Langdon [00:14:04] Ajit goes on with his email, and in the email he talks a little bit more about what he meant by this book, serving him as a self-help guide. He lays out five points, basically, that he felt were really important and takeaways, I guess if we could call them, from reading the book. And so here's what his email continues to say.
A Letter From Ajit [00:14:27] From the book, I learned what God would have us do to take forward the goal of the universe referred to as Telos. I also learned and applied to my life a cardinal rule that we must be obedient to God. I inferred that this can be done in various ways.
Scott Langdon [00:14:45] And here come the five ways that he talks about this.
A Letter From Ajit [00:14:48] Number one, thinking before every action what God would prefer. And the book is made clear that what God prefers is whatever would make you your best self. Number two, not getting attached to material pleasures, because this may turn you away from being obedient to God. Number three allowing yourself to be guided by God by letting go of your mind as often as you can, and following the divine light of God like sunflowers following the path of the sun. Number four, taking guidance and acting upon it like two singers in harmony. That is how God would like us to relate. Number five, not going over the deep end of spirituality, thereby serving the purpose of life and action on earth. My understandings of the book certainly led to greater harmony within and outside of myself, he says.
Scott Langdon [00:15:40] So let's stop here and kind of talk about that a little bit. He drew some really interesting and quite specific implications.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:15:48] Yeah. These are five fundamental lessons, and I have a feeling Ajit could add five more if we gave him time and space. But these are– each one is a fundamental lesson. We could talk for an hour or more than an hour about each. They could be the subject of a seminar. I was pleased with the final comment that he makes that his understanding of the book led to greater harmony within himself and outside himself. Presumably within himself, his own thoughts and feelings and presumably in his dealings with others, greater harmony. Well, that's a great upshot for reading such a book. But he stresses, and I didn't pick up this in my previous reading, the cardinal rule, he says, the cardinal rule (and I had never quite formulated this way in my own mind) is that we must be obedient to God. Now, I find a lot of the readers and listeners do not like that concept of being obedient to God. Part of it is we value our own selfhood and autonomy and self-creation and so forth, so much we don't want to feel, oh God, you know, there's somebody going to step in and slap us around. No, no, you've got to be this way or that way. And the concept of obedience to their mind sounds as if God is some kind of tyrant, you know, making demands and ordering you around at court or whatever. And that's not what is meant in the context of this book. It's more to recognize this natural relationship between yourself and God. And, you know, you need to be in tune with each other, you might say, and Ajit uses this in his third point. The part that shows that it's right in human nature. It's like sunflowers following the path of the sun. Well, you might say they're being obedient to the sun, aren't they? On the other hand, this is not because the sun is a tyrant. It's because of their natural orientation, of their own flourishing is to be oriented to the sun. So it's a very good metaphor. And one of the things that he picks out as a lesson that I think is a good counterbalance for people who think obedience sounds oppressive or something, is no, it's not like taking order so much as it is his point four like two singers in harmony. That's how God would like us to relate, he says. And that's exactly right. Two singers doing a harmony- it's not that one's bossing the others around, even if it's a group thing. And one person is sort of setting the beat or something, it's still not that person bossing people around. They're all chiming in to work together to make music. And it may be somewhat an open ended thing rather than a set score. But they're playing off one another, and that's how it is with God, we're sort of playing off one another, except He's the one setting the beat and so forth for our lives.
Scott Langdon [00:19:09] You know, it's interesting when you-- if we look at that analogy a little bit more, two singers in a harmony, each one of them can be singing and they, in effect, are singing a melody of their own. When they come together, they're in harmony. But here's the thing about it. You have to know what key you're in, and you have to be in the same key. So if I'm singing in the key of C and the other person's singing the key of, you know, D flat, we're not-- I'm thinking my melody is this and you're that. So we're both singing. We're both really trying hard. We're both maybe even using great technique. But if we're not in that same key and you talk about God is all of it. Well, God, the key of God, whatever the key of God is, He's singing it. He's already singing this melody. And you're the harmony is already there. So it's finding that, like when you use a tuning fork and you hit that tuning fork and you kind of put it down, you hear those vibrations, and when they sync up, it's just this easy vibration that syncs up. Otherwise it's trying to both vibrating, but when it syncs up, you're in that same key.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:20:25] Yeah. And there may be a divine key, as you suggest, Scott. Or it may be that one reason for praying, meditating, etc. is what's the key now? Or what's the key for my medley with God?
Scott Langdon [00:20:42] Right. What's our key together? Are we tuned up? Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:20:45] Yeah. And just as it is with you know husbands and wives and parents and children and friends and neighbors and coworkers, you deal with very complex work situation, having Covid out, stirring up production and so forth this past week or so, but you what? You have to make sure you're in the right key for each of these activities, for dealing with each of these people. And the right key isn't just the key you feel like and may even not be what they feel like, but it's the key that works for what you're trying to do together. For the melody, you might say you're trying to produce together in a given activity. So, it's a nice metaphor, I think. And it shows that improvisational side, shows what the-- I often speak of the drama of life with God, but I guess there's probably a kind of drama to improvisation. What is going to come up next? Where will it go? And it will be maybe a surprise. Oh, wow, whoa. I didn't know that was going to come out or it was going to take that turn. I assume that does also happen. This is beyond anything I know. You're a singer and a musician and I'm not, but I've watched these people. I've been to Nashville and watched people do this kind of thing, you know, in the cafes and so forth. They get together, play off one another. Maybe somebody has just written a song and kind of tries it out. The other people start chiming in. One guy brings a fiddle, you know, and so forth. And it's amazing for me, not being musical, it's an amazing thing for me to see this spontaneous, ongoing interaction where they are fitting each other. Well, it's they know how to do that. If we knew how to live our lives as well as they know how to make music, then we'd all be better off.
Scott Langdon [00:22:40] Yeah, well, it's a great it is a great metaphor, and it's an actual example of what we're talking about here, because your role in this scenario of seeing other, of witnessing other people, you say, you know, you're not musical yourself, and yet you get into the presence of these other folks who are and they do the things that you just described. Well, you know that it's good. Like you feel that this is the right key. They're all working in harmony. If they just got up there and started screeching their instruments like some two three year old kids just grabbing instruments, you wouldn't go, oh, that's beautiful. These folks with their talents and they're doing their thing. But you as the quote unquote outsider, the observer, you still know when it's good and when there's not. So there's a divine vibration if we're going to talk about it that way, and I think we can, that's in the midst of all of that. We're pointed toward the harmonic, this is the harmony. This over here is not harmony, or you know what I mean? And we're aware of that. We talk about being in tune with God, but that's what that means. So you were going down the road and we want to do this thing. And it's my desire to do this thing. But if it's not, if you're not in tune with God, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't sound right. It's just not right. You know? It doesn't. Does that make sense? That's sort of other-worldly.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:24:05] That's a wonderful point, Scott, because I mean you're right. Here I am in the audience being distinctively- I like to listen to music but I can't produce any kind of music, but I can recognize harmony. I don't need to know. I don't need music theory, you know, to recognize harmony, or even sometimes to know the genre of music. I'm not a jazz listener, but I occasionally listen to records of the Oscar Peterson Trio, if you can remember them.
Scott Langdon [00:24:37] Sure do.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:24:38] I can get into that, and they're doing something well that I don't necessarily understand, but I can recognize it and get into it you might say. And I assume that for the musician, for you as an actor, I know comedians certainly talk this way, you need the audience. I mean, these guys no doubt can get along together, and they do that on weekends, all just with each other. But I assume they're coming to a cafe, not only collect a little money, but because you have audience response. And that's so, you know, in responding, I'm contributing. And that's part of God: An Autobiography. That in God's life, when we do our part in this harmony, we're helping God too. That's one of the things Ajit picks up on. That we're part of God's story in this fundamental way. We're part of God's music, making God's creativity, God's creation of the next step that God's leading the world forward. And so these metaphors are very apt. I was going to mention another thing that he picks up on. Maybe on another occasion where you can go into some of his other points, but his point number five is an important one that differs from a lot of people's kind of spirituality that God: An Autobiography is you might say, a bit of a balance to or caution about. Number five, Ajit says, not going over the deep end of spirituality. Thereby, by not going over the deep and serving the purpose of life and action on earth. The action is here, and it's not in the afterlife. It's not-- the goal of this life is not to get to heaven, even though I believe in an afterlife, that's not the goal of this life. The goal of this life is to enact the harmony or the drama or whatever metaphors you use, but to be in sync with God and doing your work in the world. You have a place. You have relationships. These are factual and concrete. So it's not to levitate out of this world, this level of activity. It's to do it in harmony with God, with a sense of the divine infusion into those activities. And that's why in certain cultures religious people, I'm thinking, I think this is a Hindu example- you go to work, you pray before you open your business each day. You're an accountant, you're going to do the books, you pray before you do the books. And that's because every activity has an element of the sacred, of divine presence in it. And that's exactly what God: An Autobiography tells us. Everything presents-- God is in one respect is everything, or in everything, however you want to put that. Then everything should be prayed about or meditated about. You should always be trying to say, "May this activity be attuned with divine purposes," and the divine purposes means your purposes vis-a-vis your wife, parents, neighbors, coworkers, and so on in your place in the world.
Scott Langdon [00:28:36] Ajit's email concludes with some talk about what has really changed me by working on this project, and I'll talk about what that means in just a second. The last bit of his email goes like this.
A Letter From Ajit [00:28:51] Another great part of the book is that you get a synopsis of many different philosophies of the world at one place from none other than the author of these philosophies, God. The Chinese philosophies of Confucius, Dao and Te Ching, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity, to name a few are all condensed here brilliantly. This has been done for us to realize that all these philosophies are chapters in one big, continuing story of mankind. If you have even the slightest interest in spirituality, this is a book that you may end up reading more than once, and there will be newness to it every time you read it.
Scott Langdon [00:29:31] What I loved about this last part is that this is sort of the essence of what really helped me see things in a different way. And we can go back to God as the tyrant model, that was largely what my growing up experience was like. And part of that, and I know that's my interpretation of it. Not everybody in my tradition would say that. And of course, it's my perspective. At the same time, the kind of language that was used- God as king, God as ruler, God in these kinds of things that sort of propped that way of thinking up in my mind, alongside of that was also that this way of thinking was the only way, and other religions that offered something that seemed to be in contradiction to Christianity should be weeded out and thrown away. That you could be sharper in your Christianity- hone that better. It's a view I don't espouse anymore, and I didn't espouse for a long time and didn't think I could use my Christian language really anymore. I had to throw it all out. But I realized through working on this project, through your book, and through what Ajit has been saying here, that looking at other religions didn't at all hinder mine or make mine less than. In fact, it increased my understanding about things that Jesus was saying that I don't think I understood correctly, or that Paul, Saint Paul was dealing with that I didn't understand about, and ways of looking at things that I didn't see in that way. So, for example, Ajit's points here are very much based on some of these Eastern religious ways of seeing things. So, taking guidance and acting upon it like two singers in harmony, that's a thing we can talk about in Christianity. God is my copilot, that kind of language. But things like allowing yourself to be guided by God, by letting go of your mind as often as you can, and following the divine light of God like sunflowers, following the path like you talked about, that's very sort of Tao language. That's very, you know, as the flow happens, go through. The kind of prayer that I often felt like I was being taught was, you know, God, what do you want me to do? But, pray harder. Pray with more sincerity. Pray. Make sure you say in Jesus' name at the end. It wasn't about opening the mind. It was about getting the mind focused on the right things. And being able to study these Eastern religions has just opened my mind to what my religious tradition really had to offer, that I wasn't able to fully grasp at the time.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:32:27] Yeah. A good friend of mine who's a Catholic priest said we're all prisoners of our religious childhood. And, I thought about that. Well, yeah. Everybody grows up with a child's understanding, and may be a tradition that's perfectly nice- the child is taking it in some horrible way, or maybe there are aspects of that form of religiosity that are not entirely nice, and they have a huge adverse impact on the child. And so, as I've gotten to know atheists, I found many of them are rejecting a particular version of God. They're not really rejecting God, but they're equating, sometimes it's even-- I know in one case, the minister had an affair with a woman in the congregation and they ran off together, maybe took the church's budget with them. Well, therefore, I'm an atheist. Well, that doesn't even bear on the question of whether there's a God that's a problem. But you understand that because concretely, as we live, God is represented in our church or by the minister or the priest or, or somebody, some structure like that. And so when we step away from it or have adverse experiences, then we become atheists. Well, you need to move beyond that. Atheists also need to be on a spiritual quest, and for a deeper wisdom then simple atheism, secular atheism, gives you. It's not a deep wisdom about life. And there's wisdom everywhere. Well, what I was guided to in the earlier and I was told, "I want you to tell My story." And to me, this, as readers of the book know, in an early podcast I report this- What? That doesn't make sense! God can't have a story. You know, I grew up with the view God is eternal, unchanging, so forth, and at the divine level, nothing is happening. All the happening is down here, and we're sort of floundering around and failing and so forth, maybe sometimes hitting it right. But, "I want you to tell My story." And as Ajit understands, God's story is what God was up to around the world, with the different cultures, ancient and modern. And, so when I was guided to read the foundational scriptures of these traditions, and with each one, and to pray about them, with each one I prayed- what were You up to with these people? What were You up to with the ancient Chinese? And I was told about the oracle bones and helped read through Te Ching and getting divine instructions as I read them, how to understand them and take them in. And it ends up many things can be true. We understand this in most areas of life. You read a history of the American Civil War, and then well, here's another book on the history of the American Civil War, told rather differently. One emphasizing moral factors and other economic factors, and other the military, another the constitutional background of secession and so forth. Do we think, oh, which one is the right one? Or if you say no, I go with this historian who's talking about the economic thing, and the others are all false? We don't do that in any other area of life. But we do it in religion and they're deep reasons, that's true. Religion is comprehensive, transformative, ideally. So you live your life in terms of it, and you can't do everything any more than you can do more than one form of exercise. There's pilates- if you're going to do pilates, you do pilates. That doesn't mean you have to say the others are no good, but they're not what you're doing. You have got to give yourself devotedly to what you're doing, and each religion is a bit like that. And I'm told there can be a division of labor. And in fact, the religions don't all say the same thing because God didn't tell them the same thing. And that's because the whole story is complex. And He gave the different ones the amount, the truths that made sense to them that their culture was naturally ready for, that was of help in their lives, and that was not too much, because you can't just dump all the truths of all the world's religion on the ancient people of Israel or the Upanishadic seers or something. What would that even mean at that point in time? We're now in a different point in time. And therefore we need something different. And that's one of the things I'm writing about in my new book, still in process, Radically Personal, that it struck me it's God-- as I read through the implications of God having given different religions different things, and there being a kind of division of labor, that it made sense and it fit certain things I was told in prayer to take this down to the individual level. Jerry and Scott are given different missions in life. We don't all have to be super attuned to the same spiritual truth, the same way of relating to the divine, and so we can learn. We can each one of us learn from the different traditions, and we can learn from our own experience. So the spiritual wisdom is not all locked up in bank accounts owned by the official religions. We're all explorers, and we take in what seems right for us to take in, but that's a challenging task, and it's worth writing a book about.
Scott Langdon [00:39:02] Thank you for listening to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. Subscribe for free today wherever you listen to your podcasts and hear a new episode every week. You can hear the complete dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin by beginning with episode one of our podcast and listening through its conclusion with Episode 44. You can read the original true story in the book from which this podcast is adapted, God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher, available now at amazon.com, and always at godanautobiography.com. Pick up your own copy today. If you have any questions about this or any other episode, please email us at questions@godanautobiography.com, and experience the world from God's perspective as it was told to a philosopher. This is Scott Langdon. I'll see you next time.