I JUST RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING e-mail from a very articulate and obviously intelligent 15-year-old girl who confessed to being confused about what to believe because of conflicting things she has been reading.

?I recently stumbled on your articles in the Inquirer web site. After reading them, I realized I?m in a really confused stage in my life. I am 15 years old and I?m having serious doubts about God. I really do not want my faith to go downhill. I wish I had great faith but I don?t know how. I tried reading the bible, researching online, but certain things cannot help but scare me.?

?Your article ?Will the World End in 2012?? really scared me. I want to live my life, get married and have kids. In the process, have a stronger faith in God.?

?I get scared when I read your article because it seems like everything I?ve been taught about my religion was wrong. I am a Roman Catholic. You mentioned in one of your articles that a psychic told you that you were an Egyptian monk in your past life. So, there?s reincarnation, and other dimensions. It?s hard for me to tell what?s real and what isn?t about my beliefs. I just don?t know what to believe anymore.?

I guess it?s only natural that at 15 years of age, you get confused about life. You are undergoing normal physiological, psychological and emotional changes. But your confusion is much deeper than these. You are being confused about your faith, what to believe and what not to believe about God and religion.

It is not my intention to change anyone?s religious belief. Each individual must decide this for himself or herself. I can only share with you my own experience and also my research.

I, too, was born and raised in the Catholic faith, studied in a Catholic school from elementary to college, taught Catechism in high school and Christian Ethics in college. I?ve read five versions of the Christian Bible. But I?ve also read parts of the Bhagavad Gifa and Upanishads of the Hindus and the Koran of the Muslims. I?ve read the lives of Prince Siddhartha, who founded Buddhism, and of the Tibetan saint Milarepa. Therefore, I should be more confused than you. And I was for a time. I didn?t know what to believe anymore.

Then, after much thorough research and reflection, I realized it didn?t matter at all what religion one follows and what one believes in. I soon realized that each religion puts your mind in a box. Changing your religion is just like jumping from one box to another box. You are still in a box.

Get out of the box

So what?s the solution? Get out of the box. Go beyond the limitations of each religion. Make your own synthesis of your own beliefs, which is true for you and which you can accept and defend to yourself, not to others, because others may not agree with you. That doesn?t matter. What is more important is that your new belief must agree with you and that you are comfortable with it.

At this stage I am comfortable with the teachings of Jesus Christ as he originally taught them, not necessarily as interpreted by Church officials, but I?m also comfortable with Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Confucianism, Shintoism and even Shamanism. I see no essential difference among these religious beliefs. The seeming differences are mere illusion, as far as I am concerned, although I don?t expect the followers of these faiths to agree with me, and it does not matter. I am not interested in convincing them, anyway.

This new belief, that all religions are good, has freed me from religious fanaticism and dogmatism, the belief that only our religion is true and correct and all the rest are false and wrong.

I have come to believe as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Confucius, Zoroaster, etc., did, that God is in everyone, whatever religion he or she professes. There is only one truth, and truth cannot contradict itself.

At the end of your life, God will not ask you what religion you belonged to on earth, because he himself has no religion, but how you have lived your life.

Note: For inquiries on books, paranormal services, personal consultancy and seminars on Inner Mind Development; ESP and Intuition Development; and Soulmates, Karma and Reincarnation conducted by this writer, call 8107245; telefax 8159890; e-mail jaimetlicauco@yahoo.com.