Posted by Roberta Grimes • December 20, 2015 • 18 Comments
Book News, Human Nature, Jesus, The Teachings of Jesus
The Fun of Dying was first published in 2010. It includes an appendix that demonstrates the many ways that the dead affirm in detail the Gospel teachings of Jesus. Eventually someone asked me whether the teachings of Jesus actually work. Wow, what a great question! I thought I ought to find out.
So as an experiment, early in 2012 I set out to live the Gospel teachings as strictly as Jesus intends that we live them. What astonishes me almost four years later is that the teachings are so easy to follow. And they effect a rapid transformation! Strictly following the Gospel teachings soon begins to transform your mind into a haven of peace and light and swelling, deep-seated joy. It makes you happy! And from what I can now determine, these changes in our minds are permanent.
The Master’s core teaching is this:
“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (MT 22:37-40).
Seems simple enough! I soon came to understand, though, that there were 
many people and situations that I could not love until I first had forgiven them. This seems to be why our need to learn to forgive is so central to the Gospel teachings: no matter how many times someone does us wrong, we are meant to forgive without a thought. Every time. When someone asked Jesus, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven” (MT 18:21-23). So by the summer of 2012 I was beginning to practice a variant of what is called “radical forgiveness.” Silly me: I thought I had invented it!
Radical forgiveness is so simple and effective that it ought to be taught in kindergarten. Each time something irritates you, you physically gather up the whole situation, people and events all mixed together, and you wad it into a nice, tight ball with your hands. If there are people in that ball, you say aloud (and really mean) “I love you and I bless you!” Then you push it away with both hands as you say (and mean) “I forgive and I release!” When I first began to do this, often the darned thing would come right back so I had to do it a second time. I cannot recall now whether there was anything so vile that I had to do this more than twice.
I don’t know why radical forgiveness works, but it works beautifully! It seems to have been no more than a month before I was noticing a difference in my attitude toward everything. Our minds are efficient. If we are willing to court resentments, our minds will be delighted to dish them up; but if we refuse to give resentments mind-space, very soon our minds won’t bother to notice whatever used to bug us before. Perhaps the reason radical forgiveness works is nothing more complex than that.
Soon I was living with an astonishing lack of interest in things that used to wreck my day. It was as if there had been levers on my mind that would be flipped and result in extreme irritation that would be very hard to get past; but now those levers had been disconnected. Things still happened, and I noticed them, but now they had no effect on my mind. It has been a good two years since I have had to package up and forgive and release anything! In place of what used to be resentments that were easily triggered and slow to heal, there now is a vast internal peace. It’s as if you have forgiven, now and forever, all the negative things that might ever happen to you in all the rest of your life.
Once you have mastered radical forgiveness, it begins to be possible to learn how to love. Loving God comes first. To do that, you’ve got to stop fearing God, since fear is the opposite of love; so that was when, reluctantly, I had to stop being a practicing Christian. It is difficult for me to admit, even now, that Christianity is based in fear of God, but I found that once I was no longer subjected to crosses laden with their Sacrifice whenever I dared to enter a church, I was able largely to heal that fear and begin to develop with my Source the gentle and trusting relationship to which every one of us is called.
Dear friends, learning to love God truly is the secret to loving everyone else! Until you are loving and trusting God “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” as Jesus suggests, I don’t believe that you even can see your fellow human beings clearly enough to be able to love them as we must learn to love them.
There are many tricks that I have found to be helpful as we expand our ability to love, but they will have to await a later post or my 2017 book, The Fun of Growing Forever. 
The bottom line is that once you have mastered forgiveness and learned to love God without fear, you will begin to see God in everyone. As you better strengthen your ability to love each person without reservation, you will find that love becomes the air you breathe and every beautiful thing you see. Soon your mind knows no other emotion.
It was only as I saw the fourth anniversary of my experiment approaching that I thought to wonder WHY following the Gospel teachings seems to be so easy. How was it possible for someone almost seventy years old who had been more or less a self-absorbed crank to transform within months into someone whose only emotion is the joy of ever more perfect love?
It was just days ago that the answer hit me with the kind of thud that makes you slap your head. The afterlife evidence abundantly reveals that each of our minds is inextricably part of the infinitely powerful and perfectly loving Spirit which is all that exists.
So in truth, I hadn’t been learning anything! Following the Gospel teachings of ![Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00067]](http://robertagrimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Liberating-Jesus-Metallic-Front-Cover.jpg)
Jesus is a process of joyously REMEMBERING who and what we really are. It is a simple unlearning of the falsehoods that our matter-based culture inflicts on us. Following the Gospel teachings is coming home to truths so central to our nature that as we do it, we find a joy of wholeness and centeredness unlike any other.
As you make perfectly following the Gospel teachings of Jesus the center of your life, you will with joy and gratitude begin to remember who you truly are.
Hi Roberta,
Hi Roberta,
You and I are on the same page with most everything. I bought your book, “The Fun of Dying” and couldn’t agree more. I really started my spiritual journey with Arthur Findlay’s books, “The Curse of Ignorance” and “The Psychic Stream”. I must admit since we both agree that Jesus didn’t die for anyone’s sins, I am a little perplexed at why you have included a picture of Jesus nailed to the cross which is the symbol for his dying to atone for our sins. Can you explain? Namaste, Sharon
Hello dear Sharon! I’m so glad that we agree on so much, dear, and I certainly agree with you about that picture! I hate it. I cringe to see it, but in this instance I thought I needed to use it to make a point. If you will look at the post, you’ll see that the picture of Jesus on the cross illustrates my explanation of why I had to leave Christianity. I have had a bit of trouble, I must confess, from Christians who believe their particular denomination indeed is following Jesus spiritually, and they can’t understand why I say that you can be a Christian or you can follow the Gospel teachings but I found it impossible to do both. The very notion that God could want the sacrifice of Jesus makes for a deeply scary God! And that picture makes the scariness point. That’s all.
If you liked The Fun of Dying, you will really love Liberating Jesus!
Hi Roberta,
Thank you so much for your reply. I definitely understand why you posted the picture. It’s strange how most parents want to shield their children from violent images, yet when they bring their children to any Christian church in this country they are exposed to seeing a man nailed to a cross, bleeding, with a look of utter pain, sorrow and misery on his face. The Passion story itself rivals any violence that’s on TV. I was ignorant of the real history of Christianity until I read “The Psychic Stream” and used to belong to a Christian church but after doing my own research I, like you, decided it no longer rang true
and certainly doesn’t make sense. Thank you for all that you do. I look forward to your next post. Namaste, Sharon
Dear Sharon, I’ll share something with you. The sunrise on the cover of Liberating Jesus was a last-minute change (it had been a painting of Jesus) that came by way of two very psychic friends, and apparently the change was a decision made by those close to the Master. They were so right! I think it’s perfect ;-).
Now, here is the part that I haven’t told anyone. Immediately after the cover was approved, I was driving one morning and I heard a voice in my mind. It wasn’t Thomas, and it certainly wasn’t Jesus, but it sounded annoyed. And it was loud!
Whoever it was said, “A cross is a first-century electric chair! Who ever thought that should be the Master’s symbol? He wants it to be a sunrise!”
I said aloud, “Sure! Of course! A sunrise! We’ll do it!” What else could I say?
The voice blurted, “Not yet! The last thing we want is to divide Christians even more!”
“Okay. Sure. Not yet.” I kind of felt as if whoever it was was holding me personally responsible for that awful cross symbol, and perhaps he realized he was intimidating me. Whoever it was said more gently, “Not yet. But know that one day the Master’s symbol will be a sunrise.” With that, he showed me a simple white line-drawn half-circle with a few rays coming from it, kind of on the back of a vehicle.
So… the day of the cross will be ending, dear Sharon. And for you and me and so many others, that day cannot come soon enough!
Roberta you are so right. I’ve had several periods of spiritual emergency in my life. Back in 2013 I was going through one and had a profound experience. At one point I was panicked because I finally realized I had not Loved enough and that the only thing that matters is Love. That’s the only success needed in this life. I had always been fairly laid back but somewhat disconnected and not as empathetic as I should have been.
Actually I find that life is easier when all you have to do is Love. Don’t worry about anything else, rich, poor, it doesn’t matter, just Love.
You are so wise, dear! And you were there before I was. For a long time I thought the greatest discovery of my life was the amazing truth that the afterlife evidence abundantly confirms the Gospel words of Jesus. And in detail! Pretty big deal, right?
But that really is nothing when it’s compared to my new understanding that the Gospel teachings are simple to follow and they are amazingly effective! And I realize only now that they work so beautifully because what they do is to unwind our errors and help us return to who we truly are…
… so maybe that new revelation really is my life’s greatest discovery? What could be more important, or more beautiful?
Neale Donald Walsch says this in probably the first book in the Conversations with God series. actually it’s the aspect of God that he was conversing with who said that we are here not so much to learn but rather, to remember. boy! did that ever set me free when I read it!
Oh yes! But of course, I’ve never read his books because I have spent my life immersed in a facts-based study of the greater reality. I didn’t even want to do A Course in Miracles, since I wasn’t reading anything channeled after 1950, but my guides made the book appear on an empty shelf in a store which didn’t even carry the book. I was stubborn, but they were more stubborn!
So I haven’t read a great many things, dear; I’m stumbling along and learning it all for myself and bit by bit. I guess that’s what I am supposed to be doing…?
Thank you for your lovely and insightful comment, Lori!
You always have insightful blogs, Roberta, and thanks for this one. All the comments by Sharon, Tom and Lori were quite helpful to read also.
The forgiveness topic is an important one and you covered it with excellence. It’s not always easy to do with some people in our lives, while with others it comes more naturally. As you say, just keep working at it.
Another aspect is self forgiveness. Forgiving ourselves for the mistakes we’ve made and the harm we done to others, intentionally or unintentionally. That can be even more difficult at times. Any thoughts on self forgiveness?
Thanks and many more blessings with your writings and work!
Hello dear Michael! Actually, this blog post is too long, even after I cut it by quite a bit, so I had to leave self-forgiveness for another day. My third FUN book – The Fun of Growing Forever – will cover it pretty exhaustively, because you’re right: self-forgiveness is extremely important!
I’ll give you a little insight now, though. I am coming to believe that loving God “with all your heart, soul, and mind” is the key to everything! I didn’t realize until after I had left Christianity and spent some time actively working with God to build a new relationship based only in the Gospel teachings how much my religion had taught me to fear where I must only love. But Jesus really can cure that fear. And once I was able to love God without reservation, I felt in turn so very much loved that I had a much more loving view of myself than I ever in my life had had before. It is that new God-view of ourselves as perfectly loving inextricable parts of an infinitely loving God that is the basis for a new and better relationship with ourselves that makes self-forgiveness much easier!
Dear Michael, I feel now as if my Gospel study over the past year has brought me to a whole new spiritual threshold, as if my life has only just begun!
12222015 TUE
Dear Roberta:
If you recall, I am a lawyer in Atlanta, Ga who is enamored with your work. I find more people (maybe I just come in contact with them) who believe and continue to believe in the life to come (which actually is the life happening now – if there is time). You know more than I do, but I guess it is just that that life a higher dimension (don’t want to go to a lower dimension 🙂 is happening concurrently and is not the “after-life,” per se.
I digress.
Zammit writes that you and Haeglin are not doing Scottsdale again and I just wondered why. From the outside looking in, my guess it is a pure money call. Too expensive for attendees and too costly to put on without a proper number of attendees.]
But then again it might be that you were overrun by atheists or the “Randies” of the world. (G-d knows where Randie will go when he croaks. )
Anyway, keep up the good work.
Not sure how it pays, except by book sales. And, I did read 2 of yours shortly after Zammit ran that article on you. [I think, other than Nancie Danicen and the Psychic Lawyer – Anthony someone, you are the only lawyer out there]
Sincerely,
Hugh Wood
Hello Hugh! Actually, our reasons for discontinuing the Scottsdale conferences (a decision that saddened me – I have loved doing conferences!) were none of the above. Craig Hogan had a health issue arise in Sept that prompted him to need to cancel his involvement in 2016 on doctor’s orders; and then a month later we were told by our guides that they had decided against our doing further conferences. None of your guesses was even an issue: we had plenty of attendees (400 in 2015, which was double our 2014 attendance), made money, and have had no trouble from naysayers at all. But we have lately found that our work is being very closely managed by our guides, and apparently they think that educating 400 people per year is not enough in a world of seven billion people!
I have begun to think that my new book, Liberating Jesus, also may have been a factor, since suddenly I have a lot more going on with it. But nevertheless, they tell us that this work of enlightening the world has entered a new and more intense stage, and they want us to be free to spend what would have been the time and effort needed for next year’s conference in ways that they consider to be more effective. Thank you for your question, dear, and I hope you will have a wonderful Christmas and a great year in 2016!
I love your work. Have you been in contact with Suzanne Giesemann? Jesus spoke through her Dec 13 and also as a part of Sanaya. Check out her LoveAtTheCenter.com website. Together your words are awesome!
Hello Betty! I do know Suzanne Giesemann, although I see her infrequently. There are many people now channeling Jesus, or purporting to channel Jesus! I have heard from a few of them. It’s clear that the Master is very active now, which is one of the things that makes me begin to believe that in fact this is the Second Coming of the Lord. While He was writing Liberating Jesus, He kept calling it His “second revelation,” or “new revelation” (He didn’t write that until the fifth appendix; I just tended to hear random thoughts as He was working). Since the book was published, I have been told that the Master decided in the seventies to write His definitive book. I was nominated by my primary guide, Thomas, in the eighties, and apparently chosen after our writing of My Thomas together proved that I was able to channel. Thomas says now that they’ve been preparing me to write with Jesus for twenty years. I had no clue whatsoever! But if indeed this is His second revelation (which turns out to be the same as His first revelation), then I imagine He will be working through many willing people to get His message across. Suzanne is lovely; I’m glad that she resonates with you!
What you said about remembering who we truly are is so key to me. Lyrics from songs speak to me often as much as the Bible. There is a song by Earth Wind and Fire called That’s The Way of the World that speaks of how we are born with a heart of gold that becomes corrupted by this world. And another by Enigma called Return to Innocence. I recommend looking up the video on YouTube. It’s so powerful. Those two songs say it all to me. It’s like a cycle. We’re born good, become corrupted and return to innocence.
Oh, so beautifully true, dear Brian! And that’s why it turns out to be so easy to follow the Gospel teachings strictly. Everyone thinks it would be hard! I did, too, at first. But as you get into it, really it does feel very much like waking up. It gets easier and easier. And now it’s going to be up to us to help all the whole world wake up!
I wish you and your family a very happy Christmas and every possible good thing in 2016!
I have just finished reading The Fun of Dying. What a wonderfully uplifting book – and in LARGE PRINT! I see everybody in a new light now, and have such confidence in the future, plus happiness, that I can hardly express my feelings. Thank you so much.
Much appreciated, too, are the resources at the end, especially the “freebies”: Life in the World Unseen and More About Life in the World Unseen. I have printed these out because it is too hard for me to read books on a computer screen.
Liberating Jesus is next on the list. I have so much reading material that these days the TV is hardly ever turned on.
Oh my dear Penny, I’m so glad that you enjoyed The Fun of Dying! Please let me know how you feel about Liberating Jesus; I have already heard from so many people who loved it and felt transformed by it. As Jesus Himself said, “The truth will set you free.” That it certainly does! Big hug, dear!