Cracking the concrete of old religion

Sometimes we need a little extra clarification from the divine, something that actually makes sense to our 21st Century rational thinking, not some more old stuff that smacks of a kind of Indiana Jones' Temple-of-Doom-god.  And, I think these Christs' Letters is that extra clarification.

One of the reasons I began writing Tiger Lilies was to bridge the old thought of our ancient religions with the fresh late-breaking new age quantum spirituality that's being revealed almost everywhere, now.  

I found so much of the new buried in the old and wanted to build bridges connecting the ancient with what really isn't new at all, only new to us on this side of the ice age.  My goal was to offer those of us who grew up in the old religions a way to embrace the new, and authenticate and make relevant some of the old that too many intellectual scientific-minded people have discarded contemptuously.  As we are evolving our consciousness and spirituality, so is our understanding of what the great ones before us tried to teach us.  Then, we simply did not have ears to hear. Now, many of us, do.  We have synergized the orthodoxy of mainline and Catholic Christianity with the newfound Gnostics, Yoga, Sufi, and Jewish Kabbalah, Hindu and Buddhism.  As we mix and stir, we find a radiant something new - a bit of the old and yet something that speaks to all us, ringing deep through all the layers of our collective humanity. 

There is no question that these days are that long promised second coming.  There is no doubt to me that since we are ready, our teacher has come, returned.  There is no doubt that Christ is speaking to whomever will listen and he is calling us all into a deeper and more honest relationship with the divinity that is within each and all of us, which stems from our Creator, the Source of Creation.  Over the last couple of years, I've found these Christ Letters powerfully inspiring.  This one, I thought I'd share with you, since it shows Christ's penchant for breaking open the coffins of thought in which we've buried ourselves.  His oft reported radical nature still shines, even through these two millenia.   

Thank you for being a part of the Tiger Lilies community and joining me, and all of us, on this journey of discovery. Feel free to share your thoughts. 


Dear Readers of Christ's Letters,

In this excerpt taken from Letter 6 page 277 of 'Christ Returns Reveals Startling Truth', Christ discusses the origins of a belief in a 'Super Individual Godhead'.

Therefore, we will begin with a description of the origins of a belief in ‘God’, a name which has meant many different things to mankind. This belief began when the ancient Hebrews walked the desert plains and questioned the origins of creation. It was imagined that in some way the SOURCE of CREATION must surely be a ‘superhuman man-god’ invisible and far transcendent to earth and human kind. Some of the ancient prophets were mystically aware that theSource of Creation was diffuse and present – in some way – throughout creation and was also sited in the eternal dimension but this mysticism was not available to the average human mind.

You must also understand that, despite the present ‘seeming reality’ (in your minds) of such a ‘God’ from your readings in the Bible, no one has ever glimpsed such a ‘superhuman man-god’ in any form whatsoever, except, perhaps, Moses who claimed he saw Him in a ‘burning bush’ and described Himself as ‘I am that I am’.

All that people have known of such a super-human ‘god’ has been derived from reading the colourful descriptions of ‘God’ given by prophets during their sojourn on earth. It is a hallmark of how illusory are religious beliefs that religionists return only to the ancients for their ‘truth’ since they cannot believe that ‘God’ is truly real, eternal and equally able to speak to people in your day and age.

Your ministers are terrified of any beliefs which do not meld into the old ones. They never consider – or are afraid to consider – that perhaps spiritual knowledge within the earthly dimension – is evolutionary!

I want you to ‘see’ that a ‘fabric of belief’, a mixture of rationalisations and beliefs has been concocted to make a web of mental/emotional security with which to enmesh and trap the minds and hearts of people. All that people are taught in the Christian faith is emotionally-based and emanates from ‘hearsay’, derived from early reports of my life and death on earth. Yet these are believed fanatically.

Christians are taught that: ‘God is Love – and God is aware of your sin and punishes, disciplines, rewards the doers of good and sends misfortunes to the evil-doers’. This is an exact description of human activity and consciousness!

- Christ Returns, Letter 6

Comments from the Recorder:

There are several passages in different Letters, stating that no spiritual progress is achieved by retaining old beliefs along with the new truth contained in the Letters. Whilst sympathetically acknowledging that old beliefs are like concrete in the mind, Christ also urges people to do their best to get rid of old concepts and mental images depicting their image of God.

In these passages above, Christ tries to help people to dissolve such images by pointing out the illogicality of such beliefs.

However, Christ has also said that he knows how people have been conditioned by Churches to fear damnation if they entertain any doubts concerning Biblical pronouncements. This fear acts as a strong barrier against a practicing Christian's conversion to Christ's Letters.

But Christ's arguments are seen to be so logical and persuasive if one studies them sincerely, that it is only the most obtuse of thinkers who can remain true to Christian dogma. Such people will probably have to remain in their ignorance until they reincarnate into an enlightened thinking family.

With all love and joy in Christ,

Recorder

Circle of Life

In all the great religious sacred scripture, there is an emphasis, a call to focus on that which is only found within our own center, at the core of our being, the nucleus of our Self.  

At that center of who we are, we find a doorway - a portal, a narrow gate, the stargate - and when we enter it, we enter into the absolute - the Being who is in everything and is everything - and that Being is whom, the ancients called the "I AM."  It's interesting and mind boggling at the same time.  When we finally cut through all the layers and layers of "masks" our ego lays on us, and we experience that ultimate peace of Being one with Ultimate Being, we find a most awesome thing.  We are all there.  

No one is not there. You might see a million candles there - each one representing the soul of another - but when we're all lit, the heavens are lit by us.  We are all one when we are our truest selves.  

That is peace.  Nothing the world gives us, could ever bring us peace and the road to this awesome awareness is usually cluttered with obstacles and challenges that could trip us up, and yet the Great Being, the Great Father, is calling and that little light within us is responding - all beyond our own will to respond.  We are responding, whether or not we realize this.  We are singing in the heavenly shower of light and love.  Some of us are very aware of this path we're on, facing the challenges and yet each slap in the face, turning the other cheek or getting back up on the horse after every tumble.

There is a point on this path when you look around and realize that if we are really all one, then "we" are one being.  Then, if we are one, then the entire human race, all of creation, is on this horse to heaven together and all the countries are like arms and legs of this one body.  And, since the path to enlightenment is marked by all kind of challenges, outward reflections of that inner journey, then we can see that all the wars in the Middle East and the churning struggles of almost every country in the African continent, and the obvious decline of the excessive materialism of the United States are all part of OUR journey toward ultimate being as One Being.

We have a long way to go, yet, obviously.  But, we're not forgotten or abandoned.  Our Great Father/Mother is well aware of our progress and can see the outcome in a way that we can't.  The end is guarateed.  We will prevail and we will grow up as a single Human Being, comprised of all of us.  We are all on the way together and for that I'm very grateful this morning.  

And, if there is one thing to remember on a very simplistic level it is that we are all part of this great One and so everything we think or do or react to will affect the Big Body of Us. Love of ourselves will be reflected somewhere in this global Self.  Love is the only medicine and yet that love is not passive, nor is it enabling , It is strong, determined, passionate and willing to go beyond anything we've ever known before.  But, our future begs us to do this, today.

Beware the snare

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler 

and from the deadly pestilence. 

-Psalm 91:3

As these days thicken with fear, like old, heavy curtains closing at the end of a theatre production, a kind of spiritual cacophony remains.  The audience, once held in silence or applause as one, now breaks into the discordant sound of a hundred different conversations, sporadic laughter, coughing.  Then, the exodus, up the aisles, into the lobby, until, pouring like a sudden rainstorm into the parking lot, their noisy presence follows them, until finally the last car leaves the parking lot.  Silence. 

There is nothing from the former age that will sustain us in this newly emerging one.  All the world's religions contain, at their core, in their essence, the stargate that will safely carry our human soul into the new age, but with all the heavy gridwork of those religion's legalism, we may not be able to make out the core through the barbed wire of the old.  Jesus said you couldn't put new wine in old wine skins.  Even Christianity today, seems to feel like an old wine skin, even if the wine within it remains fresh.  The wine skin itself taints that ever pure wine of the spirit.

We, as it is often written, are spiritual beings having a human experience.  We are eaglets, learning to fly under the wings of the great Eagle.  We must now take flight.  The essence of our spiritual lives is a beckoning to leave the nest, lift off from the tired old limb of the tree of those religions which only now harbor us and yet, like an over protective mother, stunt our growth, keep us in the nest too long and delay our overdue flight.

It is time to fly.  I don't know if we've ever really learned to fly before.  Anthropologists and archaeologists have uncovered evidence and remnants of a civilization that existed on earth, long before our present one, which extends back about - approximately - 50,000 years - more or less. At the risk of polarizing our time here, it seems, the human experience has moved from a predominantly female-dominated, goddess-centered, nature-based, peaceful civilization to the control-centered, male god dominated warrior-based, structured, and legalistic civilization that is today poised to start another act of it's conflict, violence-ridden, egoic, fear-based production that threatens life itself on our beautiful earth.  

Truly, it seems to me, that these are extremely perilous times.  They are not the "end times," but hopefully they are the end of that production and the opening of something more balanced than either that has gone before.  These days are challenging for those who hope for a better life, a more prosperous experience, richer - not with material consumption - but more alive, more vibrant spiritually.  In this new age, we will seek a direct and authentic experience of God, of the divine as we enter into higher dimensions of reality.  

On some level, we know this.  It was hinted at in our ancient scriptures in both dark warnings and in light-infused deep mystical wisdom.  It was always there but as we became intoxicated with our pursuit of power and what little satisfaction we received from it, just enough to keep us seeking more and more, in our primitive human lust, we fell further and further away from our beautiful origins.  There have always been wise men and women who have called us back from the brink. We honored them, we listened and yet then we were sucked back into the old ways, century after century.

Today, we're all set to start the cycle all over again.  Religious fundamentalism is only feeding that great "spoiler," the "fowler," that which would lure us into opposing camps, as we seek an external identity which is only another mask for our split mindedness.  We need to have the courage to leave behind us all the world's religions and step out onto the mountain top, as the old Hebrew midrash goes.

The safety net, the sense of security, of home, of all that was once so familiar and comfortable, no longer can protect us, can sustain us.  It is time to fly.  If we look deeply into the common spiritual essence of all the world religions, we will find the stargate which allowed the earliest prophets and messengers to travel back and forth between worlds, from what is real to our current - then and now - theater production, the stage, as Shakespeare once called our world.


We can trust ourselves this time.  We can, as a world, despite our religions, cultures, nationalities, realize that he who is within me, is also within you, and that "he" is the "great being" whose selfhood fills the universe with his substance, intelligence, power, will and love.  We may not understand this because this is written in the heart of humankind, rather than the intellect.  I think the major stumbling block of all the religions is the mark of rationalism.  The intellect cannot find God, cannot find love, rather only the heart has the stargate.  Theology is only a cacophanous intellectual pursuit that is spiritually dead-ended because it lacks the authentic experience of the divine, of ultimate reality,  Even this writing, now, is that very thing, but it  is a signpost, pointing to where we need to go.  


We all know this on varying levels of awareness.  For some it is still vague and for others it is as clear as the morning sunlight.  For me, it comes and goes.  I see this so clearly one day and the next I admittedly get caught up in the major production unfolding on the daily news.  It's liquid substance abuse.  That's all i can say about it.  The news has an incidious way of luring us in and capturing our attention and even convincing us of its importance, its relevance to the big picture.


It is a kind of religion on its own.  Intellectuals worship the news, posing behind the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, or if you're self defining as a liberal progressive, try the LA Times.  The fowler is that which will hold you back, catch the hem of your skirt as you fly past, holding you down, stopping you.  It is the very definition of "religio" the corral into which the substance of spirituality was poured, but once the spirituality was all drained out, all that remained was the vessel, the empty chalice, and we found we were sipping nothing but the taste of the vessel.  Some have come to worship the container, rather than the spirit.  The great warning at the end of the Book of Revelation is just that.  Beware of false idols, empty vessels, of which many of the world's religions have become.


There is still One God, or rather, more accurately, the singularity or total only-ness of God.  Clearly, we, in our small separated state cannot fathom this, nor will we ever, I suspect, but by letting go of all that we seek to define ourselves by, and entering through faith and mostly through love, into deeper relationships with each other, we will find the great encounter.  We have to find the courage to love those who most frighten us and yet not be tempted by anyone's fear-based attempt to control or limit our flight.  That is the snare and fear is the fowler.

Restoring the ancient stargate

There are two worlds, two realities.  One is real and the other is a mirror, a collective projection.  When spiritual people talk about our world, our current daily, late-breaking news world, as unreal, as only an illusion, most of us scratch our heads and wonder what they are saying.  Clearly, what we see is real, what we hear, feel, touch is all real.  Is it not?


It is and it isn't.  There is the real world and then there's our collective egoic creation, based on all things human - competition, control - from self control to exploitation and the fine art of manipulating out of people stuff that we want through our own wiles and cunning.  There is no country that is immune from the ego's game. It is a trickster, a wolf in sheep's clothing, your local friendly fake fiend.


So, how do we restore that ancient stargate to get to what is real.  I don't know too many people who have actually entered that stargate. There were other ancient stargate travelers and we have so sadly muddied their words to suit the great compromise between heaven and earth that when we read them without the key to the stargate they sound almost like a sentimental Hallmark greeting message.  But, they knew the way to God through their own interior stargate, where the real gate - the narrow gate - is located.  It's not so much a place as it is a consciousness, but don't dismiss the reality of that consciousness.  If we all entered it, the world would be a very different place.


The way begins with the intention to enter the way. With that honest intention, everything we see, think, do comes under scrutiny.  It's like looking for a lost treasure, that pearl of great price that's in some oyster under the great sea. We will leave no stone unturned.  So, that's the beginning. First, the desire to see things differently.  Since God's grace is the great energy in everything and is a power and authentic creative force, it seems to be invited into our minds, spirits, hearts and lives the minute we invite it and we invite it when we set that intention to find the way. The stargate is the portal within our integrated inner Self, our soul, that opens to God, to the cosmic array of authentic reality. It is, simply, inside your mind, behind all the chatter of the busy egoic mind.  It is in the silence, and interestingly, there really is a star shining in the night sky within your mind.


(It's large and luminescent and I have been convinced for a long time that it is the authentic Star of Bethlehem in the Gospels which led the wise men to the birth of the Christ child. (Can you see the Gospel writers knew truth on a much deeper level than modern literalists?) However, as in many things in the scriptures, it may have also really happened. That's what makes it all so interesting.  God's inner world, as it was for Moses and the great Exodus, really happened on the material plane. For now, though, look for the star within your quiet mind. It is truly a stargate that has been left in the ancient writings as a guide to authentic reality and God.


There are several ways to restoring it. We were all born with an inner mechanism. The ancient Hebrews called the plsce where Moses - and later temple priests - met God, was in the Holy of the Holies, the innermost center of the temple. I suspect the external altar they erected in their traveling temple was understood as an external reflection of the authentic Holy of Holies within them.


Directions into that inner holy chamber is left in their symbol of who they are: the tetrahedron or "Star of David," which is synonomous with God's name, the tetragrammaton*, which means "I am." So that inner chamber, symbolized by the Star, is that "I am." When we enter the star, which is seen, found, within our fully integrated Self, we enter the great I am, God, universal consciousness, authentic reality.  

The Star of David on Israel's flag, is a symbol, a reminder and a key to that ancient stargate. I think it may actually be the stargate or the Holy of Holies. It is a tetrahedron.*

                       

Christians, Kabbalists, Sufis, Yogis and all mystics rightly claim that the authentic Holy of Holies is within us. The ancient name for God, in Hebrew means "I am," and the ancient symbol of the soul is the male/female integrated tetrahedron. God is One, asserted in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  So, we understand this tetrahedron is a symbol of God's oneness or singularity.  This means, without delving any deeper into all the esoteric, mathematical stuff, is that all we see and are is one single breath.  We are all one and we are all enfolded into God's oneness. When that oneness is split, due to some kind of victimization, the stargate is broken, cutting us off from God, and the experience of God.  God remains One and our authentic being, which is a part of that Oneness, as a cell in a body is a part of the body and is actually even holographic of that body, remains in its pure, radiant, powerful state, unharmed and untouched by the break, BUT, is also inaccessible to us because we have shifted away from it and think the ego is us.  

Our authentic "inner child" or "Self," to use Jungian language, is perfect, pure God power, pure love, creative beyond anything most of us ordinary people can grasp.  We are One with God and God is oneness, totality, absolute, the universal all. It doesn't matter if you call God "Allah" - which simply means God in Arabic, or Jehovah, which is an attempt to pronounce that original name, which is the tetragrammaton and which, you will remember, was never to be said as a name.  God is nameless because God is being, ultimate, authentic, all-beingness. 

If we agree (Jew, Christian and Muslim) that God is one, then we - as authentic human beings seeking reunification (communion, union) with God, would understand that we cannot have any divisions among us.  Sadly, we do and I would say that divisiveness is caused by the ego - the overarching, collective unconscious.  Muslims think they've got the corner on God, as did the Jews and the Christians.  Our history is too bloody to dispute this.  So, we have all "sinned" to use the definition I offered yesterday.  

To restore the ancient stargate is to merge myself with thyself in genuine love - skip the romantic part and enter into the idea of love being that merging soul to soul with another human being.  Jesus, who was fully transformed by God's power because as a sinless (immaculate) human being his soul was never splintered, broken apart by abuse, was consequently alive with a fully intact stargate.  So, he entered through it - through his authentic self (that inner closet, he mentions in the Gospel) and encounters the great Father, the great Being that we are all part of.  Your authentic "am-ness," being, is really part of the Great I am, the Great Being, the "body" of the all and is the only One out there.  

Through his integrated, perfect Self, Jesus reflected the Christ light of that universal Self.  He traveled frequently through that stargate and attempted to teach us how to do it also. Instead we treated him like a pagan god and worshipped him and missed the whole point.  But, now, with the discovery of some of the ancient Gnostic texts, the writing of the medieval mystics (Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of Avila, etc. combined with Karl Jung - whose work is a complete reflection on the Jungian Codex which was found also in the Nag Hammadi) we are able to piece a lot of the separated parts of that ancient stargate together.  

Now, it's Ramadan - the time of fasting and prayer for the Muslims.  Since it's Islam's holy month, I felt it was right to enter into their fasting and prayer in respect of the authenticity of their religion, but with an eye on the unity, rather than the exclusivity.  It has been already an amazing five days of on-going illumination and enlightenment.  Because.... we are body people - all of us are.  We are so connected to our bodies that we are completely controlled and governed by them.  By obstaining from their control - hunger, thirst - because we say we love God and want to encounter God, we are forceably intensifying that initial intention which clearly invites and invokes a kind of opening of the Stargate.  

The words of Jesus in the Our Father, "lead me not into temptation"  seem to be on my hungry lips most of the time.  I am hungry for God, who is the true bread of true life, and I thirst for God who is the substance that flows spiritually, the wine, of my authentic body, which is my spirit.  With that meditation, I find myself connecting the separated pieces of the stargate and slowly it is opening.  

When we look for unity, we will find unity.  But, the ego will not look for unity.  It will trick us - in a million seemingly rational ways- to create separateness,  In the Gospel, St. Paul says, "In God there is no Greek nor Jew, no male, no female:  So, you see this.  In God's Oneness, there is no Muslim or Christian, no Jew or Palestinian.  Until we can open our hardened, fear-based, stoney hearts to one another, we will not find God.  But, once we do, there is no going back.  Once the river of love flows among all people, all humanity, all nations and religions, we will rise up with a power unlike anything the human race has ever experienced, ever in our long history.  

And, just for what it's worth, this name of God, this tetrahedron may have deeper, more incredible mathematical, technological, scientific meanings and applications that my little brain doesn't understand.  For now, the Oneness of God and surrendering into that oneness through Ramadan is a requirement of Christians, and Jews as well as Muslims.  I would love it if we all joined hands in a great circle of love and praise of our One God.  Amen 


P.S.  Pyramids are everywhere on the planet - all from an ancient time.  Egypt, South America, even under the water off the coast of Japan.  What did the ancient humanity know that has been lost through our many dark centuries?  Yogis talk about the yugas, or time cycles around the galaxy.  There once was a "golden age" and I suspect these pyramids stem from that time.  Now, that we've moved out of the Kali Yuga, the darkest of dark ages, we are beginning to rediscover some of the messages left by the ancients in these pyramids, in ancient sanskrit writings, on ancient stones and buried in our (until now) long separated holy scriptures.
___________

*In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra) is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, three of which meet at each vertex. It has sixedges and four vertices. The tetrahedron is the only convex polyhedron that has four faces.[1]is the three-dimensional case of the more general concept of a Euclidean simplex.

The tetrahedron is one kind of pyramid, which is a polyhedron with a flat polygon base and triangular faces connecting the base to a common point. In the case of a tetrahedron the base is a triangle (any of the four faces can be considered the base), so a tetrahedron is also known as a "triangular pyramid". (Wikipedia)

**The ancient Hebrew tetragrammaton (from Greek τετραγράμματον, meaning "four letters") refers to the Hebrew theonym YHWH (Hebrew: יהוה‎), which is derived from a verb that means "to be", and is considered in Judaism the name of the God of Israel (who, if indeed is the Only God, would be the God of all people, anywhere, everywhere - on or off the planet). The symbol of the people of God, or nation of God's chosen people is the "Star of David," which is also the flag of Israel.

Vain pursuit of justice

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." 

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) 

Gandhi, an Indian (under English law) lawyer and well acquainted with the rational application of legalistic justice, fell in love with the Gospel, especially Christ's call for unconditional love, of both enemy and neighbor, and unconditional and unsolicited forgiveness of each other. Sadly, and unfortunately for the world, the Christian prejudice of South Africa against dark-skinned folks blocked his path to the Church, then.

Gandhi was as spiritual as he was knowledgeable about the law, plumbed the depths of all the great religions and surfaced with his remarkable and well known comment in reference to Exodus 21:23, 24, the Hebrew law, given to Moses c 1440 - 1400 BC. He knew well that all laws trace back to Exodus and the even older Code of Hammurabi. Basically, according to the Hebrew law, which is extremely nuanced, anyone who breaks one of the Ten Commandments is put to death. Period. No jury; no trial.

But, there's more to this. Nothing in life is born in a vacuum. What was the already established precedent for this kind of Exodus' cruel, dispassionate, merciless, punitive legislation? Well, the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient Babylonian (some say Sumerian) law code, dating back to about 1772 BC is even less forgiving. One of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world, the code - or law - was enacted by the sixth Babylonian (Sumerian) king, Hammurabi. It was scripted onto large extant clay tablets and consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" with justice graded on social status, of slave versus free man.

That was the state of things when Jesus began his ministry. The very idea of forgiveness was an idea completely new and unusual for the primitive, more primal, sense of justice, which demanded revenge, blood for blood, in the world, then.


"If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." John 8:7

When we consider the enormity of the crime against humanity that is Syria, and the heinous criminality that occurred in Aurora, Colorado, Friday, it is next to impossible and even inconceivable that we could even consider talking about forgiveness.  But, we must. 

Something is so very wrong in our world, today.  You would be blind not to see it.  This is systemic, part of a larger matrix.  We are all woven into this global fabric and nothing happens in one place that doesn't effect the overall tone, color and dynamic of the whole.  

Bashar al-Assad's oppressive dictatorial regime in Syria is affecting the entire world, infecting the virtual water of the world, spiritually.  We are all affected and yet there has always been so much oppression everywhere in a million different manifestations, everywhere also.  Where do we begin to unpack this enormous elephant in the living room of the world?

We start with ourselves.  The universe, the world, the country, the community, the family is comprised of individuals.  When we can be totally honest with ourselves, maybe we can start to put down our accusatory stones.  Who hasn't sinned?  Sin is the offensive deed which twists us, poisons us until it disconnects us from our true self which is always in communion with God, whether or not we know it.  

When - for whatever reason, but often through some form of abuse - one is distanced from one's own center, one's own soul, which was wedged away and out of our consciousness, we begin to create, unintentionally, a kind of pseudo self - a mask - ego - that we pretend to ourselves is our self.  But, it isn't.  It's a mask.  Sadly, we don't know this.  And, even sadder, the whole world is an accomplice to this.  The television, media, films, videos, everything is heavily invested in our conforming to an externalized, idealized "image."  (how's that for graven image?) 

We wear it for all the world to see hoping that somehow it matches the picture which "out there" has been defined as acceptable, attractive and correct.  I think we convince ourselves it is our real self, we even may think we have found our self, but we haven't.  We've only created more distance from ourselves and so we begin to do whatever we can - and we do amazingly awful, inauthentic things - to convince the world "out there" that we are good, real, giving, caring, loving, ingenious, creative, wealthy, whatever. 

What we have done is created a pseudo self, or, in other words, an ego.  This ego is THE joker of mankind. The ego runs the global greed, oppression and control machine that has completely got us all in its cruel, death grip.  Whether or not we want to think that there is an even larger, potent, power of evil than that Jungian collective unconscious, I don't know.  That's beyond my point here.

But, that "joker" is hell bent on killing us off.  Period.  That's its point.  It does it insidiously by separating us from each other, as it is separated from its authentic self, but it doesn't even know it.  It is a liar, a thief, a killer, a trickster.  And, it's a loner.  Looks like a perfect profile of a Narcissistic psycho-sociopath.  Hello Hitler!

So, we might look at this hideous evil and our natural instinct is to push it out of our midst.  And, we should on one level, but we should also not on another.  If we are a society that says it supports life and goodness, then to kill is not who we are and so anything that would cause us to be less than who we authentically are has changed us and controlled us, and in a sense wins if we do what it does, which is kill.

This joker's mask was first created when he somehow was split off from his authentic self.  We don't know when that happened or how it happened, but it happened. It was caused by some kind of real or perceived condemnation, criticism, cruelty of some kind, that caused the person to hide from his real self, which he perceived was the cause of the cruel treatment.  The split began then, perhaps it was only a tiny crack, but it began, and along with the possibility of some inherited chemical imbalances or whatever, continued to deepen and widen until this person was in full pursuit of an adequate mask to be himself.  

He couldn't find his way back to his real self. He must have been deeply hurting, deeply wounded, very alone, angry, frustrated and by the time he pounded rounds of gunfire all over a movie theater killing 12 people, he had become a monster beyond anything recognizable as a human being. 

So, now what?  Do we put him to death for his crime?  Justice would say yes and it might even give some of the family members of those who died last Friday a tiny piece of comfort. But he is only today's current scapegoat for the human race's outrageous and enormous dysfunction.  No one acts independently from their culture, time and personal history.  There is so much more to this that we may or may not ever understand. 

I think we should put this person under an intense psychological, spiritual and physical examination and look at his family of origin, even several generations back, his education, his life-long peer groups, friends, work mates and see what happened. 

If we simply throw him in jail, or kill him by lethal injection, we have simply thrown a big stone at him.  If we acknowledge that all of us, every single one of us has at least a tiny bit of evil in us because we are all drinking the same egoic, image-infused socially conditioned water as he drank.  We are all part of this big soup that is pretty toxic, spiritually and psychologically. We have to spiritually detox and collectively clean up our world, rid it of the kind of evil and oppression that is on the nightly news, every night.


If we were to simply try, judge, convict and sentence this joker, would it really bring justice?  Could anything bring back the lives of a little six-year-old, or a mother, or the other precious, innocent, souls that were in that theatre last Friday?  Nothing our justice system can do will bring them back.  So, there is no such thing as justice.  It's a mute point.  It is a little lie we tell ourselves.  It is an illusion.  It is not real and we need to stop pretending that it is.

Gandhi saw this.  He knew this.  He also knew the law - all the way back to the Code of Hammurabi.  He saw the wrongness of such an oppressive system.  Maybe it was necessary 4,000 years ago, but it's ridiculous now. We are ready as a world to take the next step, the step into the fullness of God who loves us unconditionally, who understands even the deepest, darkest, most recessed parts of our starving, broken, splintered souls and understands what happened over the course of our lives, what led to this heinous evil.  God is not like us.  God does not take an eye for an eye. Certainly, and thank God that God is so much bigger than that, so far beyond that.  Is there anything we can do to separate ourselves from God?  No.  St. Paul says NO!!**

We need to learn from this tragedy. We need to see where we too might be splintered away from our own inner authentic Self, the one that is eternally in communion with God, creation, the universe, or by whatever name you call our great creator. Whatever causes the first splinter is sin and we all are somewhat splintered, all in varying stages of distance from our core, where God is directly experienced in connection with ourselves.  Our true self is there, completely whole, and holy, unharmed and undiminished as vibrantly alive and radiant as ever, eternally in the arms of God, in communion with God and the entire cosmos.

Whatever caused us to separate from that authentic self was some kind of abuse, cruelty, evil and that was sin.  The subsequent sins are those selfish, inauthentic actions we took (or were inflicted on us) that led us further and further away from our original true self and which aided and abetted others' greater distancing and separations also.


This thing called sin has a lot of different names, so it's a good idea to look at what it really is. Among many things, it's victimizing, selfish, fearful, small, insecure, cut off from it's true self which will keep it cut off from others, starving spiritually. Also, because it's not in connection with it's true self, it becomes like a vampire, stealing the spiritual life of others through manipulation and control, even to the extent to use fear, domination, violence, fear and death.

The late M. Scott Peck, MD, psychotherapist and Christian, defined "evil" as narcissistic. (People of the Lie) So, when the media brings out the shrinks, scholars and religious people to discuss this joker, we have to remember, we are all one - whether or not we feel it or see it or like it - and so if one of us is infected with this pernicious evil, we all have it or at least are touched by it in varying degrees. This is something we all have to look at.

"How and in what way am I an enabler of evil?"  might be a good question for us to each ask ourselves.  And, be honest.  It's hard and it's not pretty, but the more authentic you are about it, the closer to God you get.  Do you really think we can take the risk of this happening again? Where and how will it happen again?  Because, it will.

So, put down the stone in your frightened little hand and look at all those in your life and love them with all your heart, love them so tenderly and fully and wholly that if there is a crack - and there probably is - somewhere from all that is happening on the media, films, videos, games - your love can begin to help heal the crack.  Only love is the healer and only by loving can we begin to heal our families, communities, country and world. 

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**Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 -Romans 8:35-39

Summer surfing

Summertime and the livin' is easy.  The sun is out, the sand is warm, the wind is in your face and the surf is up. 


A beautiful cresting wall of water teases the serious surfer to ride her, to feel the motion of her vast intercontinental body of water beneath his small, seemingly solid, board on which the surfer clings with toes and heels using every muscle in his legs, stomach, shoulders, arms, neck, twisting, turning, leaning into every move she makes. 


Determined to ride her to the end, his concentration is focused with the strength of an Olympian, set to meet the great challenge as he races with her into the shallows where she suddenly breaks, laughing at him, "Ah, man, if you think you can really ride me, feel what I feel, go where I go, experience the ride of life, try again and again. Give me everything you've got, become one with me until one day you will experience what you were born to feel."


Life is a ride on the great wave of time/space.  It is the greatest experience of existence and yet the greatest challenge. It's interesting that in the Gospel of Mark Jesus is described as being asleep in the back of the boat as the disciples are tossed mercilessly about by a storm on the lake.  When, finally, he awakens, he rebukes the wind, calming the storm, and says to them, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:39)


Recently, I was speaking with someone who was very discouraged with his job search. While he manages a national retail store, he is challenged by a micromanaging power hierarchy and earns what he considers to be very low pay for all his efforts.  He sounded frustrated with his search for a more meaningful livelihood.  I completely understand how he feels.  I'm sure we all do.  We all have reached for something that we dearly wanted and found it illusive.  


In the past, we were able to reach for, work hard, use all the wiles in our command and attain what we sought.  He told me about times when he was successful at almost everything he ever pursued.  He had earned a lot of money, yet he lost it when the economy nosedived.  


"Why?" he asked, rhetorically, observing back then, he also was an atheist.  


"Why now," he said, "when I believe in God, is this happening?"


It seemed to him it should be the reverse.  I wanted to respond, but instead, remained soberly attentive, respectful of his angst.  Who hasn't been where he is right now?


"Don't you know that God chasens the ones he loves?  And, anyone who calls on Him and declares his open heart to Him, will be brought into the fold, but that means he may be chased by God, until he's caught," I wanted to say. 


It certainly seems God doesn't have a lot of interest in supporting and endorsing the collective illusion we call life on planet Earth.  In fact, God has other plans, those which we don't see, nor do we yet understand, which may call for the dissolving of our terrible illusion which is leading us further away from the necessary introspection where we would experience the great encounter. Those of us who have been challenged by God's ways, do see it, albeit dimly through a glass darkly, but we do know - at the very least - that something's up.  The divine surf is up and we have only one choice:  ride it or die.


Instead, I told him to give up and enjoy the summer.  Mother nature only takes a two-month vacation and if you miss it, you have to wait another year for her return.  In my heart, I wanted to go to the beach with a bottle of baby oil and a big lush towel and feel the heartbeat of the earth and listen to the waves as Lake Erie rhythmically washed ashore on the Hamburg beach.  I wanted to take our sailboat out into the lake until I couldn't see the Canadian or U.S. shores and watch the water breathing, rising and falling, heaving her heavy body as she moved in a slow dance with the motion of life beneath and above her.  


I wanted to feel the radiance of the sun on my face and even the burn on my shoulders.  I wanted to let the sails softly carry me on a long run on the lake. In a way, I was tired of sailing into the storms of life.  I dearly wanted a respite. 


Like the young man I spoke with, I'm in no mood to fight with the lake in an attempt to cross her. I've done that. I've sailed across to a Canadian town, using only a compass and a map, thrilled by the challenge of having faced Lake Erie's eight-foot waves, darkening skies, and our rain-slicked sails.  I loved the challenge.  It called up everything in me, all my strength.  I even broke a rib once trimming the main sail in a storm with my husband at the helm. I didn't even know I'd broken it until the next day when I couldn't move my arm.  But, it was worth it.  It was so well worth it.  Any sacrifice would have been worth the challenge of the ride in the wind and the rain.


I thought about this man's angst and I thought about my own angst over the economy, the future - my future and our human family's future.  I had been worrying.  Who isn't?


But, I've come to realize that life is like that Gospel storm on the lake, and Jesus - or the great divine parent who really, really is there - is in the back of the boat. We can trust that.  We have to trust that and if we're unwilling to enter into the great power of such a trust, we will continue to be thrown around, tossed.  Will the boat sink?  Will life throw us overboard? I don't want to find out.  


We have only two choices:  ride it or fight it.  If we fight life, we won't be able to master the ocean and we'll drown. Only fools would do that.  But, we all do it until we encounter the unbeatable, unmatchable power. Watch the news.  There are a lot of people drowning.  


Those who survive are those who trust God, the great divine, the "universe," whomever or whatever and by any name you call it ("A rose by any name would smell as sweet," Shakespeare said). They are those who have surrendered their will to "God's" will, which clearly means to ride with life, not against it, also a concept in the I Ching.  When we become wise enough to realize we are not in control of our lives, or nature, we will begin to surrender and in our surrendering, we will learn to ride because we will ride.  


It's then, when we surrender the helm to God, that we find our boat is able to navigate the storms.  While it will still challenge everything we've got in us, only then will we feel the power of the ocean below our feet, in our sails and then we will know we are alive and enter into a kind of joyousness we can't even imagine now. And, I suppose, when the wave breaks in the shallows then we'll be washed onto the shore to rest in the sun while the tide softly withdraws, giving us respite until she returns to carry us out again, into the vast mystery of her universal tidal ride.

Holy nights

Sunset tonight marks the beginning of Islam's holy month of Ramadan. Also known as the month of the Qur'an, Ramadan is the month during which Muhammad* (c. 570 – c. 8 June 632) had his first encounter with angel Gabriel in the cave, Hira. 


Islamic scholars assert that at age 40, Muhammad, who had often retreated into the desert caves to pray, received his first of many revelations from God through the angel. His messages were not well received at first. Finally, three years later, despite much public ridicule, he started preaching these revelations publicly. Today Islam is the second largest religion in the world with 1.62 billion followers, comprising about 23 percent of the world's population.


Muhammad's primary and overarching message is "God is One," and only complete "surrender" to God is acceptable to God, adding also that he himself was a prophet and messenger of God.


That first experience in the cave launched a six-month period of daily meetings with angel Gabriel during which he was given messages from the angel to mankind.  

Hira Cave in the Jabal al-Nur mountain, only 3 km. 

from Mecca -  3.5 m long and 1.6 m wide)

The initial rationale for these additional visionary messages was to right some of the Christian Church's errors, which had begun centuries earlier with the suppression of much of the early Christian teachings, the Gnostic gospels and other now lost teachings of the followers of James, rather than Paul, and the final cementing-in-stone of the Roman-sanctioned deviation from the early church at the Council of Nicea in AD 325.  Soon after the fall of the Roman Empire, c. AD 402, western Europe began its decent into the dark ages, a time of raw and bloody prejudice, fear, poverty and corruption on all levels of civilization, including the church.    


Perhaps it was into that dark dismal state of world spiritual poverty, a kind of proverbial Platonic cave, that the angel wanted to reignite the light of spiritual wisdom and restart the mission Jesus had begun and taught in His early teachings, much of which was in the Christian canon but was in greater clarity in the suppressed gospels which would later surface in an Arab desert at Nag Hammadi.

Fast forward 16 centuries and the world still sleeps in darkness, fear, prejudice, corruption and poverty even while the divine light is flickering among us like an Aurora Borealis. Students of Christianity and Islam may find some beautiful similarities as well as some obvious discrepancies between the Gospel and the Qur'an. Human visions or experiences of the divine are filtered through our cloudy and often limited spiritual perception, yet - despite our opaque vision - some of the presence and revelation of the divine in the living grace of God comes through. 


We have to sift and seek discernment and wisdom through all these pearls of wisdom.  The Qur'an, the Gospel, the Torah, the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita ( a 700–verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic Mahabharata) and other texts and legends of divine revelation all contain some of the truth. My hope is that we would look at what we share, rather than the differences, what separates and divides our common humanity. I think God is at the center of the wheel of humanity and it is there where I look for God.


Islam's contribution to the world's understanding of God's truth through Muhammad's visions offers an important message for the world today. God is One. We are all part of God. God is love, mercy, charity and power. In prayer - said at least five times a day - we enter into that submission to God, that awareness of the centrality of God in our lives - God and God alone is all that is real and everlasting.


As a friend to a large Muslim family, we often engage in conversations of sharing between our two faiths.  I come from Christianity, enfolding in many respects all various streams of that ancient beauty - despite her historical flaws - and in the spirit of Christ, the transformed Jesus, who called us to love our neighbors as we would love ourselves. Today I am entering into a time of sharing Ramadan with my friends.  How can I understand their passion for Allah unless I also walk with them through their holiest time, their time of remembering who they are in the universality of God's self revelation among us?  


As a Christian, I also say that God is One, that God is all merciful, all loving, all giving, all powerful and that only by complete submission to God, who is in everything and creator of everything,  can I know God. There is no other way. And, in these things I completely share with my Muslim friends their love and submission to God. We can leave all the other details in the wake of the love we share for God. I hope one day they will participate with open hearts and minds in Christian holy days.  I wish we could all learn from each other while retaining our own unique spiritual pathways to God.


But, until then, on this new moon, this beginning of the holy month, all of us who say we love God might join together to remember what we share with one another and put the plough to work loosening the drought-hardened soil of prejudice, and plant new seeds, seeds of life and love and mutuality where fear and greed had stifled what God has planted and always wanted for His people:  brotherhood.
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* Peace be upon him.
**^ "Executive Summary". The Future of the Global Muslim Population. Pew Research Center. Retrieved 22 December 2011.


Photo: Aurora Borealis