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Spirituality & Religion
149 Plays6 years ago
Eric and Ami chat about the difference and benefits of spirituality and religion.
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Transcript
Introduction to Bigger Talks
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Bigger Talks.
00:00:06
Speaker
I'm your host, Eric Bigger, motivator, fitness trainer, and life speaker.
00:00:10
Speaker
I'm here to inspire the world by having real conversations about the power of life, love, and vulnerability.
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Speaker
Join me as I uplift you, challenge your thinking, and improve your understanding on living your best life.
00:00:22
Speaker
Let the Bigger Talks begin.
00:00:27
Speaker
Bigger talks, bigger
Spirituality and Religion
00:00:29
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talks.
00:00:29
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We're back.
00:00:30
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Another episode, life talks, life topics.
00:00:34
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Amina and I, we're back again for a great talk.
00:00:38
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Amina, how you doing?
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How you feeling?
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I'm good.
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Just good, not great?
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I'm great.
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Okay.
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Great like today or great like tomorrow?
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You make me laugh so hard.
00:00:48
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Well, you know laughter is medicine.
00:00:51
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I mean, you are a spiritual gangster.
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What?
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You know?
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I am, I am.
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So what are we talking about today?
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Let them know.
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A lot of things.
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Spirituality, gratitude, health and wellness and all things.
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But we want to start with the spiritual side of life and maybe dive into some religion.
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Restrictions, rules.
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Is that what it means?
00:01:15
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I don't know.
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I think you did the research and you might have more information than I do.
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So, Kieran, let's give them a little spill on the...
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Hi guys!
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I hope you guys are doing great today.
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Welcome.
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grew up Muslim.
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My whole entire family, dad and mom's side, are Muslim.
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All of us are Muslim raised.
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But it was interesting growing up, I was actually very religious.
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When my cousins were playing, I was in the house praying with the grandma.
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Grandma won't play and she's like, you're gonna pray five times a day, which I did.
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And I actually loved it.
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I excelled in learning Arabic,
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Did you believe in a prayer you was praying?
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Or it just was like normal, see like, this is what I have to do, so?
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Well, I started when I was 10 years old, so I had no idea.
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Okay.
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But I just knew that I wanted to know God.
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Amen.
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You know what I'm saying?
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And there are no rules to get to who?
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To God.
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Amen.
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There are no rules.
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So as I got older, you know, my search became deeper and
Discovering Sufism
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deeper.
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And then I found Sufism.
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Wow.
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What is that?
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Sufism.
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I don't know if you've ever heard of the Sufi poet Rumi.
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Rumi.
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I love Rumi.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I found Sufism and I found Rumi and I was like, this is me.
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Because I still do identify with Islam, but I also don't believe in rules to get to God.
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And a lot of the Sufis were poets and I like to write and I love poetry.
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And what they say is metaphoric.
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What's your favorite poem?
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I would say my favorite quote from Rumi is what you see.
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Ugliness or beauty is your own reflection.
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Did I hit a winning?
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Serve the purpose.
Perception and Self-Image
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Woo!
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Yes!
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I like that.
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No, that one, for me, it does a lot because it talks about perception.
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Okay.
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Like everything that we are, spirituality teaches me personally, I can't speak on anybody else, that you're always looking in a mirror.
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I'm looking at you physically, yes, scientifically, but I'm really looking at myself.
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The way I talk to you is how I talk to myself.
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I cannot be extremely nice to you and then
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be mean to myself.
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It's just weird.
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So you can't fake it when you know these things you can see beyond people.
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Or I'm going to throw a little wrench in that story because I had a tendency of being very nice to people but I didn't know how to be nice to myself.
Balancing Self and Others
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So sometimes what you want for yourself you know how to give it but you don't know how to receive it from yourself.
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That make sense?
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Yes.
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Like I can give the world to any and everybody but I can't receive it.
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Why is that?
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It's because you're neglecting a side of yourself you don't understand.
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You're more intimate self, you're more loving self, you're more real self.
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Because maybe growing up or as a child, you didn't get that attention in those areas.
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So you don't even know that person.
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You don't even know that side.
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Because it's like, it's not, you know?
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That's why I talk to you.
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You know what I'm saying?
00:04:45
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No, but seriously, like, I got epiphany in a moment.
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I was thinking like, I believe that, but I remember me neglecting myself.
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And I'm so good at giving to others, but I couldn't give to me.
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What am I missing?
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What am I lacking?
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How I feel about if I made it about me.
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Because I thought it was never about me at one point in my life.
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So I was like, okay, I'll make it about everybody else.
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And so there was a struggle in that for years where I was the people pleaser and I was giving and learning.
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Not giving myself anything in return.
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Or allowing myself to receive from the people I'm giving to.
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Because I'm neglecting that side.
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Even though I want to be nice, how do I?
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So you get around people who
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can teach you or show you or give you examples, someone like yourself, and talk about being Muslim and there's no rules to get to God and poems and all those great things.
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You see how a conversation forces you to think about different things?
00:05:32
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No, like... Because that came up in a moment.
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I didn't always have that information.
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At least I didn't know I had it.
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Okay.
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So, thank you for saying that.
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Yeah.
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No, I mean, that's why we're here.
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It's Life Talks.
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Life Talks, baby.
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Self-help.
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You know what I'm saying?
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So, in...
Transformation through Meditation
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learning these things it led me to meditation and the first time I meditated I cried for three days I've never spoken to myself in that sense in my life the prayers that we did in Islam they say it is meditative but I didn't necessarily
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feel like that.
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You know, I just felt like it wasn't my lane.
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So when I found meditation with Deepak Chopra and Oprah, I just cried and I was like, oh my God, you don't have love in your heart.
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You need to love yourself more.
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So that grew and it led me into this big world of spirituality, which I love oh so much.
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What's your take on religion?
Religion: Discipline vs. Freedom
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I think religion is great for the simple fact everybody doesn't have willpower or know they have willpower, have a strong mind to get through difficult situations, or even have the guidance or the awareness to know how to feel things that's outside of themselves that can help them in life.
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So I believe religion is rules.
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It does restrict you of things, but ultimately I think it teaches you discipline.
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You know, like, teaching you, like, you know, prayer consistently.
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It's not what you're going to get from religion.
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It's what you're going to become as a person.
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You're going to instill discipline.
00:07:15
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You got to pray.
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You got to fast.
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You got to give back.
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You got to pay your tithes.
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You shouldn't fornicate.
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And it goes back to balance, you know.
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But I also believe religion restricts people from being who they really are.
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and not who they think they are.
00:07:31
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Because then you don't really get to see a person's cannabis.
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But inside, you might want to be Pocasco.
00:07:37
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You probably want to create a painting that's just like different and complex and you might want to scream loud like, ah!
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And it's like, but to you it feels great, to someone else it feels weird.
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So when you're not accepted in that religion or that genre, it makes you not be yourself.
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So then you go back down and you suppress your real self.
00:07:53
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Because religion or the world or your society or whatever is programming you
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to believe this paradigm, which could be true for many people, may not for some, but it doesn't allow you, I believe sometimes, to be your full self.
00:08:09
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Because sometimes you gotta break a leg, sometimes you gotta make a mistake, sometimes you gotta fall in your face, and have to figure out who you are.
00:08:17
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But if you try to live this perfect life, you can't really grow.
00:08:22
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If you're afraid to make mistakes, if you're afraid of the unknown, then you'll never get real results.
00:08:27
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So, and I think with time and maturity, people grow out of it and they realize like, hold on, who is God?
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What is God?
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Am I God?
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Is God in the sky?
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Is it a man?
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Is it a woman?
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Is it a she?
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And people have these thoughts, but they're afraid to say it because it doesn't make sense to the community or the people around.
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But you're normal, you're a human being.
00:08:50
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Yeah.
00:08:51
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So to elaborate on that, sometimes religion does impose guilt.
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Yeah, I had a lot of guilt at one point.
Guilt and Fear in Religion
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A lot.
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And shame.
00:09:01
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Yes.
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I'm like, why?
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I'm not a bad person.
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I'm not hurting anybody.
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My whole thing is always believe, why would I fear God?
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Like why?
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Like why would I fear something that loves me?
00:09:12
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Well you should, only God can judge me.
00:09:14
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It's like, yeah but I believe God loves you unconditionally.
00:09:18
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Good, bad, happy, sad, you can make a mistake, there's still love there, there's agape love.
00:09:23
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But we're told with Lisa and Christianity that you know, you should fear God.
00:09:27
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I'm like, but why?
00:09:29
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No, you just do.
00:09:30
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And no one can really give me a real explanation of why.
00:09:34
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So I just was like, I don't know if I really believe that.
00:09:37
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And at one point I was guilty.
00:09:39
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I was like, I shouldn't believe this.
00:09:40
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It's not right.
00:09:40
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Then I was like, no, I'm all right.
00:09:43
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God, I love you.
00:09:44
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Amen.
00:09:44
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Hallelujah.
00:09:45
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Let's have a great day.
00:09:46
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Give me travel mercies.
00:09:47
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Bless my life.
00:09:49
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I think religions mean well.
00:09:52
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It is a beautiful concept, like you say.
00:09:54
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It does teach discipline.
00:09:56
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In Islam, there's Ramadan.
00:09:59
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That ain't no joke.
00:10:01
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No food, water, when the sun is out.
00:10:04
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That's like 16 hour days in the summer.
00:10:07
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I always think about this all the time.
00:10:08
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If every single religion were to just mix in one,
00:10:12
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it'd be this beautiful thing.
Personalized Spirituality
00:10:14
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But I think the world is evolving and a lot of people that are in our demographic, I would say from ages 30 and or 40 and under, we're gravitating towards
00:10:30
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doing our own thing, having our own rules when it comes to God.
00:10:34
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God loves you.
00:10:35
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I don't think God judge.
00:10:37
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Like, I don't think God judges.
00:10:40
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But, you know, hey, I'm not knocking anybody's beliefs.
00:10:44
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However you get to God, that's your decision.
00:10:48
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But can I say one thing?
00:10:49
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Go ahead.
00:10:50
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Believe what you want to believe.
00:10:52
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but make sure you're accountable and you're responsible for those beliefs.
00:10:57
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Because when things don't go the way you want in life or things come up, you have to be responsible for the information you have and the experiences that happen in your life.
00:11:07
Speaker
Because I see sometimes that people believe in a religion, but they don't understand it because they're afraid to question it because it's not right or you shouldn't do
Questioning Beliefs
00:11:19
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that.
00:11:19
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So it's okay to question something that you believe in that you don't understand.
00:11:24
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Because if you have a kid or you have a son, a niece, a nephew that's way younger, that's a taller, that's an infant, they're gonna believe in you because they look up to you.
00:11:32
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Same way people look up to their religion, but they don't really understand you.
00:11:36
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As they get older, oh, dad, uncle, auntie.
00:11:39
Speaker
Then they start, then what happens?
00:11:41
Speaker
They start asking you questions, mom, dad, why dad don't live here?
00:11:45
Speaker
Like, you know what I'm saying?
00:11:47
Speaker
Why we gotta brush our teeth at night?
00:11:50
Speaker
Do I gotta eat breakfast at night, mom?
00:11:52
Speaker
Because they're trying to understand what they believe in or what's going on in their world.
00:11:57
Speaker
So just be accountable and responsible for the things you believe in.
00:12:01
Speaker
And it's okay.
00:12:02
Speaker
Everybody's not going to believe the same thing.
00:12:04
Speaker
Everybody's not going to see it the way you see it.
00:12:06
Speaker
Just respect someone's opinion and have compassion for people.
00:12:11
Speaker
And my whole thing is I want to help people in life.
00:12:13
Speaker
So I don't have no resistance towards anyone.
00:12:16
Speaker
I just want to see if I can relate and understand what's going on.
00:12:21
Speaker
Because no one is their behavior.
00:12:23
Speaker
Just because a person is a certain age and you think they should know things doesn't mean they do.
00:12:28
Speaker
Because it goes back to religion, like I said, you can know something, but you might not understand it.
00:12:32
Speaker
Right.
00:12:32
Speaker
Ooh.
00:12:33
Speaker
Amen.
00:12:34
Speaker
Question these things, people.
00:12:36
Speaker
It's important.
00:12:37
Speaker
And it's all right.
00:12:38
Speaker
But that's it.
00:12:41
Speaker
You're amazing, Amina.
00:12:42
Speaker
You are too.
00:12:43
Speaker
Do we have more for this topic?
00:12:46
Speaker
I think we're... What you think?
00:12:49
Speaker
I mean, did y'all get it?
00:12:52
Speaker
Are y'all having gratitude out there?
00:12:53
Speaker
Are you praying?
00:12:54
Speaker
Are you meditating?
Sharing Gratitude and Conclusion
00:12:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:56
Speaker
Give me three things you're grateful for right now.
00:12:58
Speaker
Woo, put me on the spot.
00:13:00
Speaker
I normally do this to people.
00:13:04
Speaker
I'm grateful for life.
00:13:07
Speaker
I am alive.
00:13:08
Speaker
And that is enough.
00:13:10
Speaker
I'm grateful to be in a position where I can have friends like you in these conversations.
00:13:18
Speaker
This is fuel to my fire.
00:13:20
Speaker
This is gas.
00:13:22
Speaker
I love talking about things that matter.
00:13:26
Speaker
And I'm just grateful for existence, my family, good health, like the world.
00:13:32
Speaker
I'm grateful for all y'all.
00:13:34
Speaker
All y'all.
00:13:35
Speaker
All y'all.
00:13:36
Speaker
My Texas accent.
00:13:38
Speaker
Attitude of gratitude.
00:13:39
Speaker
What are you grateful for?
00:13:40
Speaker
Life, food, water, opportunity, this podcast, platform I have, and the people I get to impact on a daily basis.
00:13:49
Speaker
And information I get to receive and understand.
00:13:52
Speaker
Thank God for that.
00:13:54
Speaker
spiritual discernment, and just having a gift of just be, love, give, and learn.
00:14:00
Speaker
Because the learners will inherit the earth.
00:14:03
Speaker
Yeah, knowledge is power.
00:14:04
Speaker
Yeah, and we never age.
00:14:06
Speaker
We just gain wisdom.
00:14:07
Speaker
We never age.
00:14:09
Speaker
We just gain wisdom.
00:14:12
Speaker
So we're wrapped on that topic of religion and spirituality and all wonderful things.
00:14:18
Speaker
And we'll put some books down for you guys to be able to do a little more research.
00:14:23
Speaker
And, you know, if you have any questions, fire away.
00:14:26
Speaker
Fire away.
00:14:27
Speaker
Inboxes, DM us, follow us on Instagram.
00:14:30
Speaker
Yes.
00:14:31
Speaker
We'll have that in the show notes or it'll be somewhere on social media where you can see all of that.
00:14:36
Speaker
Yes.
00:14:37
Speaker
Stay positive, stay loved, stay great, be yourself, love yourself, challenge yourself, grow, and become more.
00:14:44
Speaker
Hey, guys, thank you so much for joining us today.
00:14:47
Speaker
For more, be sure to follow us on social media at BiggerTalksPodcast.
00:14:51
Speaker
And remember, it's miracle season, so don't forget to be great.