Many of us torture ourselves with ‘if onlys’ when the world comes crashing down around us. When we begin to accept that what’s done is done, we may turn to religion for solace or rage at God for ‘allowing’ the unthinkable to happen. Either way, for many of us God is the one we call on in our darkest hours and religion is a word that seems to accompany him.
When the proverbial excrement hits the fan, we are given a moment to stop and consider what it is that we truly believe – what rings true for us and what we subscribe to in the way of religion.
It is flat out nightmarish to be stuck in a loop replaying the lead-up to disaster over and over again in your mind. Many torture themselves in this way until they believe that the accident, break up, fire, loss or death may not have occurred if only they had woken up 5 minutes later, caught another bus, said different words, stopped to smell a rose or stayed an hour later.
When life brings us to our knees, we are offered a choice: jump down the spiralling rabbit hole of ‘if onlys’ or connect to who we truly are and what we know is a Truth about a situation or feeling, without any doubt.
For what if true religion is actually the lived understanding of your own divine essence? What if every breath you take has the ability to remind you who you truly are? What if each and every moment of your life is divinely constellated to remind you who you truly are?
“If you understand what religion truly is, then everything is religion.”
Serge Benhayon, Esoteric Teachings & Revelations, p 46
True religion is living the truth that you know with every last cell of your being. It is knowing that each and every moment you experience is a gift, no matter how horrifying or unfair it may seem at first glance. When you know true religion, there are no more ‘if onlys’.
Leonne Sharkey
Related Reading:
From Religious Confusion to Religious Truth
What is true religion?
My Relationship with Religion
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
True connection sets us up for the only fan needed in our life and that is the Fan-tastic relationship we have with our Magnificence of being connected to our Soul.
We don’t have to wait till it all hits the fan and we have to clean up the mess afterwards to connect to our truth. In fact when we do this, connect to our truth out of times of crisis, we aren’t anywhere near the fan and get out the way before the mess happens.
We are so supported in every moment, ‘What if each and every moment of your life is divinely constellated to remind you who you truly are?’
So much has to be relinquished to understand the Truth in religion and the simple fact that the word True has to be placed infant of a word shares how far away from the actual Truest way of living we are.
The “What ifs” and “if only” can be so powerful a reminder of who and what we truly are. And as you say Leonne, they are an opportunity to bring us back to our true selves. To reflect where have we come from and who are we truly within our whole being. How great is God’s love that he continually leads up back to self and our true religion within.
Thank you Leonne, the blog is short but it’s very powerful to read. I liked your words that religion is just knowing our essence, and “What if each and every moment of your life is divinely constellated to remind you who you truly are?”. By returning to our soul, we not only know God and ourselves as part of God, but how to live that divinity throughout our day. I feel your blog has inspired me to cherish myself in my essence more deeply. Over my life there has been a message from religion to ‘watch my step because God is watching’ and that seriousness was part of being religious. Instead I feel to walk with my Soul and be at one with God, which is immensely joyful!
Lovely to hear you are cherishing yourself more deeply Melinda; as we deepen cherishing and adoring ourselves so we naturally adore others in our life, and beyond.
Everything is religion, then everything we do and everywhere we go has to have a religious purpose! Then would not our lives be one of simple order and majesty towards ourselves first and then everyone else as we all start to live harmoniously together.
We always have the opportunity to learn and grow from every experience or challenge we have – and the bonus is this approach is also very effective in removing the ‘if only’s’ from the equation
Absolutely Suse, living the life that allows us to be understanding of everything being a teaching eliminates the equation, as we are no longer looking for an outside solution but the True settlement from the Inner-Self.
Life, and what occurs continually presents situations for us to observe, read, and learn from, we are indeed forever students.
There is a world of difference between a reaction to what has happened wishing to erase the ugly reflection in front of us, and instead a choice to embrace the learning that is so graciously offered by the experience.
Beautiful. The amount of experience is depended on how much we allow ourselves to feel in great depth what religion is and how much we are part of that in our every day movement.
Yes these ‘if’ onlys’ play havoc to our minds, body and life, they are the gremlins and the best thing for them is accepting that they are placed there to set us off course and keep us there.
True religion is exactly everything, “the good, the bad and the ugly”.
‘If only’ has this sense of there being just one pivotal isolated moment when things could have, should have, been different – but that doesn’t quite feel so true. It is a bit like we continue to seek the right answer when the question itself was not even right.
The mind will try and concur and ‘work out’ any of life’s situations if the body has not first been given the authority to feel. In other words, if we have a body that is dulled and senseless due to the way we live eg. food etc, then the mind will override what the body instinctively knows – and it knows a lot!
I love this Leonne – a deeper awareness of the breath being far more than just a physical necessity to the body. Pausing to feel the breath as a reflection of connection to God brings a clear sense of expansion, spaciousness and warmth throughout.
“What if every breath you take has the ability to remind you who you truly are?”
How important is it then to be connected with our bodies, and aware of our every breath.
What I can really appreciate, through the love, teachings and livingness of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, is if I do have a moment where it feels like the world comes crashing down or something not great has happened, I instead ask myself ‘how have I lived up to that point? and what do I need to change?’ As this, as well as my relationship with God is where it is at. Our Livingness.
If everything is religion, then even when life is super difficult, we are still being held in the arms of religion. When there seems like no end to the darkness, we are still in religion’s loving embrace. When it seems impossible that a certain kind of living hell will never end, religion is beholding.
I can remember distinctly as a child and teenager/young adult I would indeed torture myself with ‘could have’, ‘should have’ and ‘would haves’ in relation to events that I felt went bad, opportunities missed, or things I felt guilty about. But after finding Universal Medicine, and realising that we are being supported by every single reflection, angle, act, expression around us to evolve back fully to our souls, life is so much more fluid and when something happens that was not planned or seemingly a disaster, I can no look at it as merely an opportunity to grow, heal, and evolve instead of driving myself crazy by replaying the event in my head with an alternative ending and not accepting what happened and my responsibility in it.
It was great to read this ‘Serge Benhayon, Esoteric Teachings & Revelations, p 46 True religion is living the truth that you know with every last cell of your being. It is knowing that each and every moment you experience is a gift, no matter how horrifying or unfair it may seem at first glance. When you know true religion, there are no more ‘if onlys’.’ As always just a few lines from Serge Benhayon and the Ageless Wisdom delivers so much for the reader to ponder. Also reading this, what I felt was (from experience) the stronger our foundation and self love we have for ourselves, the easier it is to deal with moments such as a ‘break up, fire, loss or death’. Years ago I would have been in complete pieces and mess with any of these, but now I have more understanding, awareness and consistency with a lived way in regards to true truth, I know it will be completely different.
*Light bulb moment* – in our irresponsibility to avoid seeing the mess we have created we actually think that if we stopped to tie our shoe lace we wouldn’t have been hit by a car, not that we needed to see the momentum we were living in, not that this “accident” is actually there to teach us a lesson.
I had another experience of ‘if onlys’. Whilst at work one of our staff member received news from overseas that her mother had passed away.
This member understandably was distraught and whilst a few of her colleagues were supporting her, I constantly heard her say ‘if only’ I had flown out yesterday, ‘if only’ I had done this or done that. And I observed this woman being consumed with such guilt that it took her away from her grief. And when she was in the ‘if only’ it was challenging for her to be present in that her mother was unwell, she had recently visited her not so long ago and unable to see the beauty in all of what she had with her mother.
We can lose ourselves in the ‘if onlys’ if we allow it, instead of being in what is and appreciating this.