Jesus said something about …. well at least it was translated as: Be ye, therefore perfect.
What? You want me to be perfect? Clearly this Jesus cat was delusional if he knew me.
Then there is the ever famous:
Rev 21:8 But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death.
Wait a second… I get a nice big flashing neon sign that says “ACCESS GRANTED” to the lake of fire that burneth with fire and brimstone…. if I …lie… fornicate…. or am fearful? Come on…. surely idolators and sorcereres, but fearful? And fornicating is so much fun! Gee whiz - and how come he doesn’t mention anything about obeying one’s parents specifically or hint hint hint adulterizing by remarrying - don’t even think about dating my soon to be ex-wife or you’ll BURN IN HELL. Righto - that might win her heart back. I wonder if I should put that in singing telegram and send it to her…. Imagine a guy dressed in a pink tutu with a little funky hat singing…. WIFE come back home cause the BIBLE says you will burn in HELL if you don’t. Yes, I’m saying this tongue in cheek, but don’t we do this to others or have seen others do this?
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. If you don’t confess Jesus, you will BURN in HELL - phrase sometimes overheard at a taiwanese barber ship with visiting religious chick whose got it all together.
I imagine Jesus saying something like, I’m not sure if I appreciate your rather creative restatement of what I actually said, but okay.
I just lost the audience. Hold on. I take it back…. it’s okay… just say you’re sorry… after all you’re forgiven, come back to church.
Feel free to rape the horses and pillage the women, and then beg for forgiveness when you’re done.
Really, that whole lake of fire thing… well it’s a metaphor for something and I suspect it isn’t quite what we’ve been seeing on the discovery channel lately. So… I looked it up of course. Your mileage may vary. Do your own homework, as I’m not responsible if you do… lie, fornicate, or commit adultery by remarrying and consequently wind up in a nice lake of fire that burns with sulpher. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Anway, I looked up sulphur… it was a purifying agent in ancient times. Now why on earth, would there be fire and sulphur for purification? Is it to eradicate the soul or the sin or both or send them to BURN IN HELL FOREVER AND EVER making what we call a loving God into a terrorist infinitely worse than Osama Bin Laden. What does your heart tell you?
You tell me. I mean, how is it that the lake of fire isn’t considered a metaphor, yet the dragon and beast is in Revelation? This is literal, that is metaliteral, and that is metaphysical and not meant to be taken literal… what? If I may….. let’s quote from the Monty Python’s Life of Bryan… a satirical overview of our own stupidity sometimes about scripture and in this case.. Jesus’ sermon on the mount.
Jesus talking in the distance…..blessed are the meek.. blessed are the….
Crowd Member A: What did he say? Blessed are the cheesemakers?
Crowd Member B: He said blessed are the cheesemakers…
Crowd Member C: Well, that doesn’t mean literally makers of cheese, but rather refers figuratively to all processors of dairy products.
How is this relevant?
Well, I almost got sucked into something last night. I guess it was my time of testing in the wilderness, though it certainly wasn’t 40 days.
What I can say is this… you can believe what I say or you can chalk it up to nonsense, but I’ve got a story that for you that may help to work out a lot of your theological challenges. While I’ve been bored, I’ve started to meet new folks in my town and what not. Anyway, last night I got tempted into some carnal delights. Ruler of this world always trying to bring me down. Danger Wil Robison! Anyway, right on time as the desires of the this contraption I call a body were starting to weigh in… guess what…. butterfly synchronicity motif emerged like crazy. I had written about this awhile back, but I’m talking about it was everywhere….. in a span of an hour - over and over and over. It freaked me out a little.
I thought I would share an alternate viewpoint from another journeyman that I found that seems to help me reconcile many of the events in my life such as what I described in the last paragraph.
There lived in a beautiful garden large numbers of a particular creature who crawled about, eating the vegetation, perceiving themselves on the one hand as being superior to all the other creatures in the garden and yet on the other hand perceiving themselves as lowly, wretched and unworthy of being loved. They had many mythologies and squabbled endlessly about whose mythology was the only right one and this caused many rifts, divisions and schisms between them.
One day, a beautiful butterfly came into their presence, soaring in the sunlight, reflecting magnificent rainbow-colours from his wings; so much so that he was seen as the Light of the World. Wherever he went he attracted followers, who marvelled at his magnificence and the wonders he performed in their midst. He spoke in a way they had never heard before. He told them that not only was he the light but that they also were the light; that the wonders he performed, they also would perform – and even greater things - if only they could believe; that he was their brother and that they also were, in reality, beautiful butterflies, capable of soaring in the light and creating magnificent rainbow effects; that they need not concern themselves with all their mythologies and divisions and they would find all that would entirely suffice them was to love the Creator and to love each other as much as they loved themselves.
Many believed what he said but many others scoffed at his words. The scoffers said among themselves, ‘He says he is our brother but it is evident there is nothing remotely similar between him and us; he has only 6 legs and two wings and lives on ambrosia whereas we have many legs, no wings and eat the vegetation. Clearly he is off his head and has no idea what he is talking about.’
Even those who believed him didn’t fully understand him and instead perceived him and worshipped him as a God, saying they were still lowly, wretched and unworthy of being loved and he was high and exalted and eternally beyond anything they could ever be; after all, he had wings of glory on which he soared in the sunlight and only 6 legs and lived on ambrosia, whereas they had many legs and could only crawl about and eat the vegetation in the beautiful garden.
Nevertheless, he told them that if they could imagine the things he told them were like bread and the love that he outpoured upon them was like wine, they could imbibe this as sustenance at a higher level of vibration than the vegetation they believed was their source of life and nourishment. This would then enable them to perceive themselves as they saw him and the higher vibration would transform them, from their own within, into magnificent, soaring butterflies also. He also shared with them another analogy to help them grasp this enlightened perception: that he was as a vine, tended in the garden by the good husbandman and that if they could imagine themselves as being branches in the vine, they could draw their uplifting life energy through him and that this would enable them to find fulfilment of their glorious, radiant potential.
Many did as he said but because the light of their inner discernment was dim, they were only able to follow his guiding as an outward ritual. Only very few were able to perceive the spiritual reality hidden within his stories. Those who did went by themselves, or perhaps with one or two of their closest, most trustworthy friends, into a secret place, away from the clamour of the world around them, wherein they contemplated his words deeply within their hearts and minds - just as he had counselled them - and gave thanks for all the wondrous gifts he had brought into their lives. In the silence of their own within they received the enlightenment he had promised that was sustenance for their souls and this helped them to perceive themselves just he had said they would.
Those who were only able to perceive his words at an outer, ritualistic level began to quarrel amongst themselves as to who was the greatest among them, or whose interpretation of his words was the most accurate and to create ever greater numbers of rules and doctrines about these interpretations, even though the butterfly had plainly said there were only two ‘rules.’ This caused further divisions between them. Some broke away from the group structure that had been established in his name because they said that group no longer truly represented him and his teaching and was full of corruption and self-serving. In time there arose squabbling even within the breakaway groups, causing even further divisions. All these groups and the breakaway groups called themselves the ‘This’ denomination or the ‘That’ denomination and even though their holy writings told them that their Creator had called them by their names, all these breakaway groups had chosen to de-nominate themselves.
All the squabbling over who was right and who was wrong in their understanding of the butterfly’s wisdom caused many of the creatures - who had at first enthusiastically joined the groups set-up in his name because the stories about him seemed so resonant with their hearts and souls – to become disillusioned with the groups and they stopped attending the group meetings.
Some of those who stopped attending decided that the whole story could not be true and went back to eating the vegetation and even any old, decaying matter they found in the garden, embracing any elaborate theories placed before them by those who told them that they had a better idea than the butterfly (or those who claimed to be representing him). This led to more and more confusion in the garden and more and more division among the creatures.
Those who had never believed the butterfly (or the groups who claimed to be representing him) said to those who had left the representative groups, or who moved from one group to another, vainly seeking a more perfect representation of the butterfly, ‘We told you so; it was all too far fetched to be plausible in the first place.’
But those few who were able to see past the imagery of the butterfly’s stories, to the truth they contained, and followed his advice to enter alone, or in groups of only 2 or 3, into a secret place and there to attune with him and he would be there in the midst with them, found that his words took on a level of meaning that brought his wisdom into a new dimension of reality for them. This enabled them, in their own inner perception, individually, to enter into a place of being just as he had described. There, they found an inward peace, joy, love and tranquillity and spiritual illumination of the eternal realities, about which the butterfly had spoken, that was far, far beyond anything to be found in the groups who had de-nominated themselves.
***
Of course we all know what happens to caterpillars. They eventually stop eating the vegetation, enter alone into a secret place, away from the clamour of the world around them and there, in the solitariness of their own within, recreate themselves in the image and likeness of the Butterfly. Then they emerge and soar magnificently in the sunshine, reflect glorious rainbow colours for all to see and ‘live off ambrosia,’ giving thanks, by their very beauty, to the Creator for the joy and wonder of Life.
***
This allegory of the Life of Humanity indicates that the spiritual evolution of mankind is not yet complete, other than for a precious few, who long ago entered into their secret place, just as the Master counselled. However, we are now in the most exciting moment in the history of humanity, when the critical mass is approaching of those who have entered in and are recreating themselves from the Within into the Without into glorious, fully spiritualised, soaring Beings of the Light.
Those who have faithfully followed Jesus of Nazareth through the many denominational church institutions see these realities from the perspective as presented to them by those institutions. These closely formatted and structured forms of words suit those institutions, who maintain a rigid and tightly controlled set of dogmas and doctrines based on Scriptures that have been altered many times, by people with their own agendas, over the millennia since Jesus walked the Earth (for example, reincarnation as a belief system was removed from Church Canon in 553 CE at the Second Council of Constantinople by the then Christian Church authorities. There have been numerous other additions, deletions and amendments before and since, which, in combination, have drastically altered much of the message of Jesus as presented by scripture and the religious denominations established in his name).
Yet Jesus wasn’t rigid in the way he spoke of the things of the Kingdom. He constantly spoke in parables – allegories – which he knew would be interpreted by each individual according to the place each individual was on the path of Eternal Spiritual Progress and that is just as he intended it because that is the nature of parables or allegories and it served his objectives well to teach in this manner. Any individual who is sincere in his commitment to spiritual truth will undergo an evolutionary process in his perception of the meaning of any of these parables during a lifetime. This clearly indicates that to have rigid dogmas and doctrines on any aspect of Truth or the teachings of the Master Jesus is of the intellect, not of the soul perception and is not serviceable to the spiritual evolution of the soul of the individual, from its own within, where it makes its connections with the Creator, in whose image and likeness each soul is created. As St. Paul puts it: ‘Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. 2Cor 3:5-6.
Jesus was unequivocal about entering alone into the ‘closet’ for communion with the ‘Father’ and that when 2 or 3 were gathered in his (Jesus’) name he would be there in the midst with them. It is in the interest of many religious institutions to promote the perception that congregations should be as large as possible, for pecuniary and doctrinal reasons; but when an individual within such a congregation becomes drawn by the Spirit within to enter alone into his closet and there ponder sincerely and earnestly the mystical dimensions of life, he will begin to receive illumination direct from the Source of All. Such a seeker will experience there a peace and joy not of this Earth and will awaken to eternal realities that will place him in the perception that the congregational churches are no longer able to be the source or channel of his spiritual sustenance because he will have outgrown them. He will also find that they will have no desire to hear of his inward, mystical experiences.
Jesus was also unequivocal that we are (all) the light of the world and that the things he did, we – if only we can believe – will do also, and greater things. He came to remind us of this eternal truth and to demonstrate it, so that we would have a living example of the magnificence of the human spirit to follow and emulate.
It is inevitable that this will happen eventually to us all because that is our fundamental, essential nature, having been created in the image and likeness of the Creator. While some state that we are all god, the truth is more perfectly stated when we say we are all a part of God; that within us is a spark of God’s Consciousness that was given to us at creation. It is only a matter of when, rather than if, that we move back into full awareness of that. We are all at free choice to begin to make that journey at any time, including right NOW.
In writing the story of one’s own experiences one is open to allegations of arrogance, vivid imagination and bias. There will be those amongst the readers of this story who will say this is an affront to Christianity. There are those (and I have already received hundreds of messages to this effect) who will say this has opened their eyes to a greater truth about Jesus of Nazareth, who have been searching for some more realistic, meaningful representation of who he really is than has been portrayed by orthodox religion for centuries. There will be others who cannot decide.
Into whichever category you fall, I ask of you 2 things: 1) Please listen to your heart and your feelings as you read. Your heart and your feelings are your soul speaking, communicating with you. If your heart and soul resonate with this story, you will feel good about it. Some may find that they feel good about some parts of the story and not so good about other parts. 2) Please read the whole story before casting judgment.
You can read the rest of his story under MSN groups - Mysticism 101 - Synchroncity. Good luck. I post it here, because it seems to line up with where I think I’m headed spiritually and many of the observable phenomenon in my own life.
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