QUEST - Keith R (Bob) Perry (the speed reading book .txt) 📗

QUEST

By Keith R (Bob) Perry


QUEST

By Bob Perry


With gratitude to Gwen Limon
Without whose encouragement
This work would not have been possible


COPYRIGHT © 1997
Keith Robert (Bob) PERRY
2/31 Wansfell St
Picnic Bay
Magnetic Island
Queensland 4819
AUSTRALIA
Phone 07 47581948


(i)
Foreword
When I was thirteen my late Uncle George Tafe introduced me to Science Fiction and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam This left an indelible mark on my impressionable mind. The Science Fiction aspect of my early education broadened my outlook to the stars and planets and possible life in the Galaxy. Arthur C Clark’s book ‘A Childhood’s End” greatly influenced my youthful contemplation on such matters. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam introduced me to a more philosophical approach to religion and I consequently learned that there was more to religion that the religious doctrines of the day. From then onwards I questioned the various religions prevalent. With each claiming to be the only truth to follow, I inclined towards agnosticism. My Grandparents religious influence intertwined with this during this period. The various religions of mankind over the centuries have caused much bloodshed and anguish, and has/is often used as a control mechanism by politicians and priests. If you believe that your God, fate or luck influences your life, then you will question this work. This is the fundamental reason why Quest was written.
I personally believe that The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, in all its brilliance, has a defeatist attitude. However it is a stepping stone to realising a broader aspect of Mankind’s spiritual life other than that which the religions of today offer.
During my fourteen years in Europe, North America, the Middle East and South-east Asia I earned that there was more to life than ‘bread alone’. I would hope that you too will agree after reading Quest; if not already - then welcome kindred spirit.
Bob Perry (ii)


cpPreface
Verse 17
Are there beings in the Galaxy
That once breathed a Soul
Into an ape-like creature
On the planet Earth, a long time ago.
I consider Mankind was no longer an animal when he received a soul. Of cause the burning question remains, “How did Man receive his soul”? God, space beings or Mother Nature, take your pick.


Verse 19
A day s as a thousand years,
A thousand years is as a day,
Has Jesus been away a couple of days,
Or a couple of thousand years?

Somewhere in the Christian Bible it is written that to God a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day. According to Einstein, travel faster than the speed of light is impossible; this contradicts the above Bible statement. For a thousand years to be as a day etc. One would have to travel faster than the speed of light.

Perhaps Mankind with his great advances in science may one day travel faster than the speed of light just as God or the Space Beings must have done. If
(iii)
Space Beings were to visit Earth they would have to travel faster than light travels or it would take many generations to arrive and return back to their home planet and solar system. Without travel faster than the speed of light to occur inter-stellar space travel would be impossible.

Verst 21
I ask how many religions exist in the Galaxy.
Are we so pompous as to say, “Only one”?
How many religions does Mankind believe in?
And that is only on the planet Earth.
AND
Verse 22
The vast majority of these religions
Believe in the concept of there being a ‘God’ or ‘Gods’
Will beings on other planets of the Galaxy believe in our ‘God’ or ‘Gods’?
I can-not be more certain than you.
‘God the space man’ would have obviously visited our planet and exerted His will. Planets similar to Earth would have religions similar to ours.
What of the ‘chlorine breathers’? What of life that lives in a ’pea soup’ of 100°C.; or on the surface of -50°C? The conditions for and the type of life on other planets of the Galaxy can only be guessed at, let alone to understand their religion; if indeed they were to have any?


(iv)
Verse 30
Why would we leave Paradise
For our Earthly existence
On the event of death
And risk going to hell?
Reincarnation, which is the belief of many religions, teaches us that we came from ‘that place beyond the grave’ as a new life form. It is obvious that, ‘that other place’ (Heaven) be a place of ‘rest & Recreation’ (R & R). What puzzles me is why, after being in Paradise, would a ‘soul’ or ‘Spirit’ want to return to Earth as a dung beetle or a Mighty Monarch and risk going to some form of hell. I think I would want to stay in Paradise.
This paradox is beyond us at present. Perhaps during an idle moment one could consider this and be at one with the great thinkers of the Human Race.

Verse 31
Is Heaven and Hell a figment of our imagination,
Nurtured by Priests for their ‘bowl of rice’,
Or do they know something we don’t or
Simply a figment of their imagination & now our belief?
Religion throughout the centuries has been a means of revenue and/or control of the susceptible members of the population by churches of the day. Did not the Catholic church of yesteryear sell ‘pardons from sin’ for money? Is it not said “Do as we tell you and you could go to Heaven for eternity when you die, and if you don’t be obedient to the church you will burn in the fires of Hell for eternity - pretty strong stuff, hey?

(v)


Verse 33
Does God need us as much as we need Him?
The thought of God needing us is alien to religious belief
As we have been taught to praise and worship Him.
I often wonder if God has an ego problem.
And
Verse 44
Is faith sufficient? Is the written word enough?
Should we seek further enlightenment?
Or should we not blaspheme
And accept it as the Priests tell us?
Most religions deem that we must have faith. All we have is the written word and the religious experiences of others. Psychiatric hospitals have more than their share of people who have seen God or Jesus, some believe they are God or Jesus. Today we put these people in a hospital and medicate or even pass electricity through their brains. To question the written word is to be sacrilegious. Mankind is the most inquisitive being on the planet. This is one of the many reasons why we are the dominant species. However religious leaders preach that we must not question the ‘word’ and that we must have ‘faith’. It could easily be argued that these people are hindering the intellectual advancement of Mankind and perhaps drag us back into the dark ages when the power of the church was supreme.
(vi)

Verse 50
Do we have a duty to humanity
To discover the truth that hides
Beyond a veil of uncertainty
That conceals the answer of the Ultimate Question.

When people stop questioning and learning they will stagnate and go the way of the dinosaurs. I ask, “Do you have a duty to learn the hard won knowledge earned by your ancestors and in turn pass it on to your children”. Should this not happen to the population, society as it is now would collapse.
Verse 50 delves into the ultimate mystery of human fate. “The veil of uncertainty” which leads to the “Ultimate question” asks, ‘Does mankind have a case to answer to before God? Some might ask, “Does God have a case to answer to”.
Sure, the bible teaches us that we owe it all to God. The Bible is not the ultimate authority to the world’s religions; in fact it is in a minority. To have a broad understanding of this concept one has to take into account of all the world’s religions, and not only the Christian Bible and consequently their viewpoint.

Verse 52
Should the 26 letters of the alphabet be used
To educate and guide us along life’s pathway,
Then will the hundreds of thousands of words
Guide humanity along the true path?
(vii)
Words are the tools of every language. All the words of the English language are devised from the 26 letters of the alphabet. All the great works of humanity use combinations of some of these 26 letters. I ask, “Is there another method of learning, without using those letters of the alphabet”?
There are those insights from experience that people gain throughout their life that solidly fortify their maturity. This learning does not come from books. The great archives of humanity have earned their ‘right of passage’ without use of the written word.
Life’s experiences, regardless of languages, have delivered humanity from the jungle to a civilized race. These ideas and concepts gained are then written, in the case of the English language from the 26 letters of its alphabet, for the benefit of fellow students of life who follow.


Verse 53
Do we ponder over these matters
In the evening of our life
Just in case it’s true?
Does it just make us feel secure?
A Jesuit Priest was quoted, “Give me a child til their seventh year and I’ll have them for life”. When religion is impressed upon us in our childhood, it becomes a foundation stone in an adult’s integrity. When we approach that time in life when our mortality becomes a pressing issue in old age or illness, it takes a brave man to deny God and the existence of the hereafter.


(viii)
Verse 63
Of the total Psyche of humanity
That is the ethos of civilization,
I wonder what will become of it.
Are Jesus, Muhammad and the Buddha closer to God than you or I.

The trends that humanity has established throughout the millennia have contributed to that which reflects in an ocean of humanities’ wept tears: an ocean of love and knowledge and the Spirit of Humanity.
The greatest spiritual leaders of humanity, of which Jesus, Muhammad and the Buddha are but a few have guided us a little way out of the darkness. Though each of these prophets would have us believe that their teaching is the only truth. Of cause the burning question of the moment is, “Which one, if indeed any one at all”?


Verse 65
How long ago was the Spirit of Humanity formed
Into the body of a Human Being?
Perhaps it will end when God has had enough of us;
Perhaps when we destroy ourselves.
It is accepted in most religions that there is a God, though there are some of an atheistic conviction. Sometimes I wonder why and how we, as a species, got a psyche in the first place.

(ix)
Verse 75
As you will never know the truth
You will spend your life in mystery unless you have the ‘faith’,
Even though you may be a seeker of knowledge
You will never know beyond that elusive ‘veil of darkness’.

People in the so-called ‘near death experience’ often claim to have spoken to and to have seen God or Jesus and that they say