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Thousands of people are now graduating from learning facilities in the Western Hemisphere, exchanging their classroom groups of study for independent ways of life. One grows in stages with formal education, starting with kindergarten and graduating in levels through advanced college courses.

Everyone looks forward to graduation from school. It is an exciting time, full of opportunities which before were unreachable. One's learned educational skills are tested and tried throughout life. One would not think about ever going back to high school for "reminder" courses. He already has the necessary understanding within himself to achieve that which he seeks.

Many years ago, I started my formal religious training with Sunday School. As an adult, I faithfully attended and contributed to evolving church activities. The ritual was always the same. Although I found comfort in familiarity, I discovered later that I limited myself to the same old dogma.

Church attendance gave me a sense of satisfaction that I was being a good person. And sending my own children to Sunday School was merely saying to them, "It will do you good. You will learn about God". But God is always being taught as something outside of oneself - one's protector, guide, judge. For years, I memorized Bible quotes, believing that just "knowing" them would bring about miracles. It was only in the understanding of them did seeming miracles occur - and they did.

Jesus taught his disciples that God is not found in temples and synagogues, but is found within as "I". Likewise, God is not found in holy mountains, idols, pictures, statues, books, or anything else. Someone else's concept of God is accepted by the majority of humanhood. As I realized my inner being, my "self" is God being me, that I have no life of my own, that "I of mine own self can do nothing", that God is omnipotent, many concerns of the human world dissolved.

The church, as started by Paul of Tarsus, was an instrument to which a group of people came together to hear about Christianity. I suspect that when Paul was expected in a certain area of the land, people would congregate in one central location for convenience to be fed spiritual truth. Today's church is far different. Rather than the minister supporting those under him with spiritual food, the church depends on its members for sustenance of its earthly food.

People go to church today, not for spiritual growth, but as a duty, as a habit from childhood, as a means to get a feeling of personal satisfaction for being a good human, or as a means to motivate them to have "faith" in an unknown, this motivation often lost within 24 hours. Some go simply for social involvement with those of similar beliefs.

The levels of independent learning are vast. Just as some people grasp concepts early and hold dearly to them, while believing someone else's enlightenment is just that, others continue to worship a messenger, blinded to the message itself. Only when one is ready to leave the old concepts behind and to venture out independently can one discover infinity. To finally realize nothing one learns is true, only what one realizes as Truth is worthy of keeping.

So many persons write to us from Beyond Prayer and Meditation saying the same story. "I left the church because there was nothing there for me to grow to".

The roll of church should be to awaken its people to a higher understanding, that they may be lifted up and leave, knowing who they are is God Being individually and collectively All. A spiritual understanding of the Truth taught by Jesus, "I and my Father are One", sets the precedence for life. The duty of a minister should be to enlighten and to release his flock to "go and do likewise . . . and more than this shalt thou do".

God does not do, God is. Jesus did not want followers, he wanted disciples to understand, so the world would awaken to their true identity. Graduation is here.

All is well.