Posted by Roberta Grimes • June 08, 2019 • 33 Comments
Book News, Human Nature, The Teachings of Jesus, Understanding Reality
Ours is the first generation to understand why human beings even come to earth at all. Jesus told us two thousand years ago that we are here to grow spiritually to the point where we can achieve while on earth the consciousness vibration of the sixth level of the greater reality. He called it “bringing the kingdom of God on earth,” but His teachings soon were buried deep in Christian dogmas and largely ignored. It is only very recently that information gleaned from nearly two hundred years of abundant and consistent communications from people that we used to think were dead has been compared with what Jesus tells us in the Gospels. So it is only now that researchers have come to realize that Jesus is precisely right!
We enter these lifetimes very much as we might come to a spiritual gym. There is so little negativity in what we still call the afterlife that until we are very well developed spiritually it really is only here that we can stress ourselves with negativity and learn to surmount it with love, and thereby we can grow spiritually. Together with our spirit guides, 
and with the people who will be important in this lifetime and their guides, we plan earth-lives full of negativity against which we are eager to match ourselves, lives crammed with the very kinds of events that seem to prove there can be no God who loves us. We might plan a bout with cancer and the death of a child plus a major mental handicap; or perhaps we might just plan repeated financial setbacks and a faithless spouse. We gleefully plan the sorts of awful lives that can help us grow by spiritual leaps and bounds! Of course, until early in this new century so few people understood why we come here that too often very challenging lives would defeat people rather than helping them grow. But fortunately, of late a great many more of us have a sense of why we come to earth; and now, only very recently, some of the over-achievers among us have begun to want to find a way that they can make this incarnation their final earth-lifetime.
A few weeks ago I shared with commenters here the fact that someone had asked me by email a fairly simple question. He had said, “So, if I want to make the most spiritual progress, does this mean I have to neglect all other goals in life and focus exclusively on spiritual growth? … Do you think this would be enough for me to achieve the upper sixth level?”
To be frank, we simply don’t know enough to speak knowledgeably about the upper sixth level. The only being of whom I am aware who has achieved that lofty perch and speaks to us from there is Mikey Morgan, whose book is Flying High in Spirit.
If you haven’t read it, put it on your list! My primary guide, Thomas, tells me that the being who incarnated as Mikey Morgan had already attained the lower sixth level some four hundred earth-years after he had ceased to incarnate in the 1600s; but like many at his level, he was fretting about us. So he took a brief additional lifetime on earth that ended just over a decade ago in order to better make sense of us, and so he would be able to teach us from there in terms that we would understand. And apparently his undertaking that journey for us was such a spiritually powerful act that Thomas now assures us that upon his return Mikey Morgan in fact achieved the upper sixth level. Today he answers questions through his earth-mother, Carol, on afterlifeforums.com. I don’t believe that anyone has directly asked him how he managed to attain the sixth level, but here are two recent relevant answers:
How does time fit with spiritual growth?
Carol always types out Mikey’s answers. To address this question she wrote, “Believe me, I don’t get this either! I have asked Mikey to explain this in the easiest way he can think of, so here goes: First of all, we are in the human state that only understands things under the laws of time. Our brains cannot grasp being without it. Mikey tells me to think of a balloon that represents an individual that is eternal. We always are and always will be. We simply exist! Now think of all our life journeys and experiences. Our reactions (which are based on vibration) are added to this balloon. As we add to this balloon, it 
rises with vibrations that are high (more loving), or sinks with vibrations that are low (non-loving). But, the balloon is a constant and eternal being. Time itself, or no time, has nothing to do with what is added to it. Only our actions have bearing on what is added to the balloon. Mikey tells me time here gives ‘structure’, but in the afterlife dimensions, it is vibration that gives ‘structure’. The balloon rises with love, and sinks without! But it is eternal, and always is. Doesn’t age. Is always present. Hope this helps some!”
Does meditation help us grow spiritually?
In response, Carol wrote for Mikey, “Meditation in and of itself does not give spiritual progression. It is our actions, choices, and how we love and treat others that ultimately makes the difference, according to Mikey. Positive ways progress us spiritually. Increase our vibration. (Remember, everything is energy.) Meditation is good for us to gain guidance and to reconnect with our inner self. It is whatever works for any one individual. Being open and connecting to our guidance is definitely helpful for us. No one type of meditation is better than another if the individual gains the benefit of guidance that has love as the basis, according to Mikey.”
Thomas tells me that sixth-level spiritual development approaches the level of the Godhead. Accordingly, achieving it is going to require some added learning and perfecting after we have ceased incarnating, so we cannot make it there directly from here. Thomas has reluctantly answered my questions about where his own development is now by telling me that he didn’t cease incarnating until he had achieved what we call the upper fifth level. Since we cannot get to level six in one leap, he has refined our question to one that he feels that he can realistically answer. That question is this: “How can we grow enough spiritually in this incarnation to make this our last necessary lifetime, after which we can achieve further spiritual growth exclusively in the afterlife levels?”
Thomas is amazingly versed in modern culture for someone who died a 
century ago! He refers to this process as “leveling up,” which is a term I had to check with Mr. Google. Apparently “leveling up” is a videogaming term that refers to achieving the next level of difficulty, so indeed it makes perfect sense in this case. Thomas tells me that his last earth-incarnation ended only a half-century before he undertook guiding me through this lifetime, so he well understands both the wish to put returning to earth behind you, and the urgency to move ever higher that prompted him to undertake one additional earth-lifetime following his having been Thomas Jefferson. He felt that the power he had used in his Jefferson lifetime had so unbalanced him spiritually that he needed an extra very humble lifetime to bring him back into sufficient balance to make his subsequent growth in the afterlife levels easier.
Our post last week is the first part of Thomas’s answer to his proposed question about how you can make this your last necessary lifetime. He says that until you have learned to reject all the negativity that is rampant in our society, it is going to be impossible for you to rise above the need to reincarnate. Then once the living room of your mind has been cleansed of all negativity, you can use the Gospel teachings of Jesus – and especially His teachings on forgiveness – to proof your mind against all sources of negativity forevermore! And then, as Mikey tells us above, once you are living in love alone, your mind will be able to rise like a spiritual balloon. Our book, The Fun of Growing Forever, is Thomas’s effort to help modern people to better understand and apply the Lord’s Gospel teachings.
So, how does it feel to be sufficiently developed spiritually that you may be able to make this earth-incarnation your last? Thomas tells me now that I have been his test subject for the past two decades. Twenty years ago he guided me to stop TV, movies, newspapers, and all other negative inputs; then eight years ago he taught me the necessity of living in prevenient forgiveness. From that point on, I actually have been 
able to feel my vibration rising! Of course, I am an experiment of one, but the primary thing that I noticed first was that nothing seemed to bother me anymore. And my family and friends were a whole lot nicer, without their having had to change at all! If anyone was negative to me, I felt so singed that all I could do was withdraw. Spiritual growth is remarkably self-reinforcing, since the first thing it does is to make you allergic to the very negativity you came to earth to resist.
Here is a story I heard long ago that was meant to illustrate an advanced stage of spiritual development. For most of my life I didn’t get this at all! A holy hermit in India counseled people at the mouth of his mountain cave, and one day a group of outraged villagers brought him a newborn whose young mother had claimed this hermit had raped her. The villagers insisted he must rear the child. He said just, “Oh?” with a smile, and he took the baby into his arms. As the boy grew, the hermit came to love him as if he really were his own son, and as he counseled the villagers at the mouth of his cave his precious little charge would be there beside him. Then when the child was six, a group came up from the village to confront him again. They apologized and told him the mother was about to be married, she had confessed that the hermit was not the boy’s father, and now she was reclaiming her child. To this, the hermit who loved the boy said only, “Oh?” with that same enigmatic smile, and he blessed the child and sent him off, never to see him again. All I can say is that for decades I could not fathom this story! I mean, yes, I understood the man’s acceptance of a baby that no one else wanted. I even got that he wasn’t going to blame the mother for her lie. But how could her taking away this child that he loved so much not matter to him? It was only as I was growing spiritually that I came to fathom the extraordinary peace that becomes who you really are at your core when you are sufficiently spiritually advanced. Nothing negative can touch you now! Love is all that is, and all that ever will be. I see now that he never lost that child at all.
So, go for it! Once you are on a stable path toward avoiding negativity forevermore, use the Gospel teachings of Jesus to raise your spiritual vibration toward ever more perfect love. This fall Thomas plans to publish The Fun of Loving Jesus – Embracing the 
Christianity That Jesus Taught so we can help you as you continue this process. He assures me that twenty years ago I was no better developed spiritually than anyone reading these words would be now, but thanks to his having experimented with my life he now says this will be my last necessary earth-lifetime. He tells me he expects that I will come back for one additional lifetime in order to teach, and of course I tell him not to bet on that! But if I can make this my last earth-lifetime, then very easily so can you.
There is important spiritual knowledge that we need to be aware of as we do this work. We are each of us here to learn something different, unique to this experience that we perceive as incarnation. As you point out, we have agreed to many things. Some of us may be here in order that someone ELSE rises to the next level, maybe even to the level you mention, in a way they could not do without our aid and support. We have agreed to this sacrifice in order to help another — your parents, your siblings, a spouse … that dopey coworker — often someone on our “team” we don’t even know we are working with; while paradoxically it is this kind of service that raises our vibrations, it is not the point of our life plan, in this particular experience. Which means aiming to go for it may be taking our eyes off of our true purpose. It’s important to remember that the transformation, the Leveling Up, is not ours; it belongs to God.
There is a prayer that I like that goes like this:
“And now as long as space endures,
And as long as there are beings to be found,
May I continue, likewise, to remain
To drive away the sorrows of the world.”
This is lovely, dear Mike! I know it came from Arrow, your beloved primary guide, and as usual what she has to say is wonderful. Of course, we may have planned our lives around helping certain other people to grow, at least in part, and I’m glad she has made that point here! I love it, too, that she has reminded us that our spiritual growth really belongs to God. It does seem, though, that in the end we can be far more useful to God and to those around us if we never stop striving for our own further spiritual growth. Mikey Morgan, who is now learning at a level that approaches the Godhead, still is sweetly and patiently answering questions on a little forum website. Helping even one person is his joy! What I have learned from Mikey most of all is the truth of Jesus’s telling us that the least among us really is the greatest.
Dear Mike J-R,
This hit me, as my dad died when I was about to turn 18. I was just about to be an adult when he died.
I think he sacrificed his life so I, and others, may have to really fight through our way…to level up. Of course, I’m sure his soul had other reasons to be done with this incarnation. But I can really appreciate how you said this.
Again, what wonderful essay! I enjoyed this and Mike’s contribution and prayer. I would like to add that to be in the physical body could be so challenging in itself and could potentially hold one back into repeated reincarnation. We benefit from constant alertness as in watch and pray! Jesus once said “spirit is willing but flesh is weak” Also what I seem to hear Mike saying is that we are sustained by Gods grace alone and not of ourselves, that no man shall boast! Ultimately, we have free will. I believe our task is to use this free will for love and seek to follow it through. Roberta, thank you for this wonderful job you’re embarked. Bless you indeed.
Dear Janet, thank you so much for your kindly thoughts! And yes, being in a body can be very distracting for many of us, but that distraction is part of the difficult task that we set for ourselves when we come into these earth-lives! What seems to be the case is that once we have begun to elevate our personal vibrations, we become more and more resistant to negativity and to all the many negative bodily temptations, so then growing spiritually becomes much easier. Fortunately!
I just learned about your work, Roberta, and am thrilled that you are writing and interacting with those on the journey. I wonder how you resolve the fact that in the gospels Jesus gives a parable of Lazarus and the rich man and the rich man ends up in torment? Is this not a “hell” of some kind? In Matthew 7 Jesus says, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Again, a reference to a sort of exclusive club of those who attain “life” and to “many” who receive “destruction.” The sayings of Jesus are not all about love as far as I can see but contain some heavy statements about judgment. Your thoughts?
Dear Roberta. Making anything more than small incremental gains in any one lifetime, with such fear based religious, political, and economic systems in place must have been very hard for most of human history. Thanks to the work of people like you, better knowledge of the afterlife and of spiritual teachers like Jesus can hopefully speed that process for many in our time. For the sake of the world, I hope that will be the case. What happens in the next 20 or so years along those lines could determine which of the possible outcomes you see 200 years down the line will come to pass. I hope it doesn’t seem too goofy, but I’ve been given a metaphor that I like. Marion said “Go to the angels,” (I think as an idea of the kind of perfection to strive for) and then I saw the image of growing a dense, luxuriant coat of pure white feathers that can protect one from the “dirt” of the world, like a shield. They will still need to be preened and maintained though, or they’ll become ruffled and ragged, starting to let that negativity back in.
Dear Scott, you give me way too much credit! Most of the credit for this glorious movement toward the truth that is now underway belongs to the elevated beings not in bodies who engineered it, began it, and now are working to call in all the people who will be those beings’ “boots on the ground” in bringing the kingdom of God on earth! To God be the glory, to Jesus be the gratitude, and to God’s minions of elevated beings goes every bit of the credit. You and I and all the others here, dear Scott, just have the joy of playing our own tiny parts in it!
Heh – your image of having to keep our spiritual feathers clean is amusing, Scott! Fortunately, what I have found is that the pleasure of feeling your vibration rising and all the emotional support that comes with it makes those feathers pretty much self-cleaning. This is such a glorious process!
Dear Sam, welcome to this wonderful journey beyond all the false fears that religions instill! All of us must make this journey if we ever are to know real love and joy, and for Christians this process is made so much easier by the fact that Jesus is waiting to take us by the hand, to lead us and to teach us. I have written elsewhere about the manifold problems of relying on the Gospels preserved in a Bible that was long ago assembled by repeated committees all intent upon building a fear-based religion. The Council of Nicaea in 325 was the first to edit the Gospels, both removing some of what Jesus said and adding anachronistic bits that can pretty easily be spotted and plucked out. My book, Liberating Jesus, includes an Appendix that explains how you can find and discard the most obvious additions. All of this correcting could have been done – and certainly should have been done! – very many generations ago; but it was only early in the twentieth century that we began to get good communications in volume from those that we used to think were dead, and even somewhat later that we were putting together what the dead were telling us with what we were gleaning from Christian history and realizing the extent to which the Gospels had been edited!
You ought to understand, too, that the Gospels underwent at least two translations – from Aramaic to Greek, and then from Greek to English, with a nod to some early Latin translations as well. And all these languages are so different from one another that meanings of words and phrases can be changed, sometimes stunningly; so even the most accurate translations – I currently prefer the New American Standard Bible (NASB) – can carry linguistic corruptions. We have talked about a few of the worst of those on this blog, but there is not time or space enough to cite them all!
And now, to the passages you question.
“Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony” (LK 16:19-25).
It seems obvious that this is an old Jewish story that probably was added by Nicaea, since it rings oddly here in a number of ways:
First, of course, it is Abraham who speaks for God, and not God Himself. I don’t recall that Jesus ever evoked Abraham this way, except perhaps in telling old Jewish stories.
Second, whenever Jesus referred to a post-death place of torment He was talking about what He called “the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” And there is indeed just such a place! It is the lowest-vibration aspect of the afterlife, a place of punishment indeed, but (a) we put ourselves there, since no religious figure ever judges us; and (b) it is not a permanent condition, but we can be rescued and rehabilitated.
The outer darkness is cold and dark, not fiery; it is not presided over by a devil; and it is a punishment level only to the extent that when we refuse to grow spiritually we end up punishing ourselves there. Jesus tells us repeatedly that this is true! See e.g. MT 8:11-12; MT 22:11-13; and MT 25:29-30 (note here that MT 25:31 begins one of the most egregious later additions in all four Gospels).
Matthew 7 is in its entirety both a beautiful set of Gospel teachings and consistent with the Lord’s teachings on love and forgiveness, and also with what the dead tell us is true. Here is the bit that concerns you: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (MT 7:13-14). When it is read in context – and I urge you to read this whole amazing sermon – it is clear that Jesus is calling everyone, and asking them to follow His teachings and not just take the fast and easy path through life. I have no idea what word was garbled into the English word “destruction,” or whether it was Nicaea or one of the other early councils that instilled that fear-based nonsense, but both Jesus and the dead tell us that we will have to keep coming back until we get it right… and eventually all of us will choose to take the narrow but beautiful path laid out by the Lord’s Gospel teachings and embrace the greater life of the greater reality at the end of THIS lifetime!
And as for judgment, don’t forget that Jesus says, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” (LK 6:36-38). Yet again, He is precisely right!
Dear Sam, Christianity is fear-based and it ignores the Gospel teachings of Jesus to the point of making them just aspirational. In that, Christianity continues to punish the world with ignorance and with fear. But thanks to the Lord’s insistence now that we start to take Him seriously, at last the Lord’s Way is opening before us all!
I think the story about the poor man “eating crumbs dropped from the rich man’s table” indicates that the rich man, who could have easily fed and helped this individual, chose to ignore him. This seemed to result in an afterlife situation that wasn’t very pleasant to say the least. I noticed that people who have plenty of money and material possessions are never truly happy while they are here, so it makes sense that they won’t be happy in the afterlife either. If we are here to grow spiritually, a selfish way of living and ignoring those who need our help, would not be a very smart path to travel, as it would certainly preclude any kind of spiritual progression.
Dear Lola, I think you’re right about the way Jesus Himself would view that story: He would see the rich man as spiritually lacking not for his wealth, but for his lack of love and care for the poor man at his gate. You are right, too, in pointing out that wealth does not buy happiness! Indeed, it seems that too often the opposite is true, and the more people have, the more greedy and dissatisfied they become. In trying to better understand how the Lord saw some of these tales – assuming of course that He actually told them – I often wonder whether the church-builders cut out the Lord’s much wiser and more insightful interpretations so they could impose their own.
Roberta,
Having been raised in the traditional Christianity realm, I have noticed that many of my elders, like my grandmother, grew spiritually in Jesus, especially in the last 20 years of her life. There seems to be a spiritual awakening that supersedes their religion, though they still follow the church because that is all they have known. I see this in others as well, the arguments of what is sin seems to play hard in the traditional religious dogmas, but I made the distinction many years ago that anything you do or think that separates you from God is a sin. And it varies from person to person. But now I see it not as a sin, because that caused me angst as well, but as a “block” to spiritual growth. So instead of fretting about the time lost in the past to wasteful thoughts and actions (formerly described as sin), one should focus on only future and only positive thoughts. Right now, I am trying to clean out my living room, literally and spiritually. I’ve always been a collector and unfortunately, I attach emotionally to things whether because of where they come from or a special memory. That causes me a certain stress, as I recognize anything physical is just that, physical and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. So, my next major step in spiritual growth is stopping my collecting habit, and finding a better use of my resources to help others.
Love your blog, always a joy to read.
Dear Timothy, some older people and people with terminal illnesses do begin to grow spiritually as they approach death. I suspect they are getting wonderful internal guidance, and I further strongly suspect they are the sorts of Christians who are deeply love-based and not fear-based, as witness the fact that your grandmother could still “follow the church,” as you say.
But tragically, I have been told by hospice workers that the fears that seize even very good Christians in their last days can be painful to watch. They fret about all the fire-and-brimstone nonsense they have been taught to believe for their entire lives, now certain that they haven’t been good enough, that hell yawns before them, and some of them suffer deeply and die in terror. I swear, the first hospice worker who told me some of her stories upset me so much that I wanted to march right into some of those Bible-based churches and knock those clueless preachers’ heads together! For the first time I got how a love-filled Jesus could attack the money-changers. Go get ’em, Lord! And so much more quickly, perhaps, would He attack those monstrous preachers who were instilling such terrors in His name.
I admire the ease with which you put the notion of sin in its proper, trivial place, and I’ll even suggest that Jesus might go you one better: as I have written here in an earlier post, I think the Lord abolished the very notion of sin and made love our only standard of thought and of behavior. There is no right or wrong except by love’s standards, so go ahead and collect away, dear Tim! Just perhaps begin to winnow down (as I also must) what you have been collecting, and give away more and more. Someone said that we spend the first half of our lives accumulating stuff and the second half getting rid of it, and that seems about right to me!
… Oh, and you should know that if you have attained a reasonable level of spiritual development and you still miss any of your stuff once you get home, you will be able to have it there just by thinking of it. So you really can take it with you! The catch, though, is that you won’t want it there for long because our attachment to objects tends to fade pretty quickly….
Roberta: I agree that Jesus’ actual words were nearly always cut out or greatly modified in order to instill fear. Otherwise, Jesus’ messages would be confusing and contradictory, so someone (probably the Council of Nicea) made sure they were twisted around in such a way as to promote a more scary interpretation. Could this be because a feeling of fear makes people rely on those in authority to help them avoid terrible consequences? (In this case, those in authority would be the Catholic church). Maybe this represents nothing more than an insane need for power/control.
Dear Lola, I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head! The ever more perfect love the Lord taught doesn’t fill those pews the way fear and guilt can fill them.
I spoke here a few years ago about the whole Get-Out-of-Hell-Free-Card syndrome: Christian preachers instill in people a terrible fear of God’s judgment, and then say that the only way they can protect themselves is to faithfully buy every week the GOOHF Card that particular church offers. It’s a racket being run at the expense of God’s truth! And it is all the more despicable a racket when Jesus tells us flat-out what a racket it is, and still the churches cling to their fear-based nonsense! Here are three key quotations from what they still insist on calling “God’s inerrant word”:
“For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father” (JN 5:22-23).
“If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world” (JN 12:47).
“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you” (MT 7:1-2).
… That seems pretty clear, does it not? And what did you come to save the world from, dear Jesus? Clearly not from God’s judgment, since You have just told us that God does not judge us. No, it is pretty clear from the Lord’s own words that He came to save us from the fear which lies at the base of the whole Law and the Prophets; then sadly, of course, the religion that was to free us simply doubled down on that fear. Perhaps now at last it is time for those who really know the Lord to take His truth and use it at last to free all the poor souls still held by fear in the false religion that bears His name!
Talk about contradictions! The first quote sounds as though someone is “passing the buck” to Jesus to judge us, but your subsequent quote clearly says that Jesus doesn’t judge us and just wants to “save the world” and no one picked up on this in all these years? I find that to be more mysterious than anything else ever mentioned here. Perhaps they did pick up on it, but were afraid to say anything, as you could be put to death back then for the slightest infraction, or dispute.
Dear Lola, Jesus did this deliberately! And of course His followers would not have betrayed Him. As you point out, when He was teaching, for Him to speak against the prevailing religion was a capital crime, and He always had Temple guards watching and listening, so one of the tricks He used was to give His listeners bits of a great truth over days of time and to expect His followers to put it all together while the ever-changing guards would remain clueless. Here that technique is easy to see:
1) He tells people God has deputized Him to be their judge. He likely squeaked this past the guards currently listening because He doesn’t say that we won’t be judged; and perhaps it sounded to them like a preacher’s harmless bragging.
2) Different day, different guards, He announces that He doesn’t judge us. Harmless now, since His different set of Temple guards won’t put it together with the earlier statement.
3) At last He can tell His followers that for them the key is to establish a habit of never judging, since they will be judged just as they judge others. This third statement is huge, since in fact it is what actually happens soon after we die: we judge ourselves!!
Religionists likely notice some of this, but ignore it since they accept what Nicaea added about end-times and church-building. But they generally don’t urge people to sit down and read the whole four Gospels, and it is problematic statements like these that likely are the reason why.
Oh I think I get it now. I think the whole goal was about church building as it leads to control and power. I’m so glad you mentioned a while back that he was monitored by these guards, as we are so used to freedom of speech, it is easy to forget that this didn’t exist until fairly recently. This certainly could be the reason for many of the inconsistencies. People who are in great fear (especially if uneducated) almost always turn to whoever is in authority at the time to save them from a bad outcome. Like you said, this fills the church seats a lot faster than if you preach about unconditional love. I know this to be true on a personal level, as I attended a Catholic school for half of my elementary school years, and it was considered a mortal sin to miss mass on Sunday unless you were genuinely ill. When you think about it, Jesus never seemed to mention churches and masses, let alone that there would be hell to pay for missing mass
Dear Lola, Jesus never mentioned “churches” or “masses” because neither existed in any form during His lifetime, nor for some time thereafter! And as I have said here in earlier posts, there is pretty strong evidence in what remains in the Gospels that He intended actually to replace religions as they then existed with His new law of love. He certainly was fed up with clergymen! So, yes, we know that Jesus would have been appalled by the way over the past millennium Christianity has so deeply trafficked in fear. Soon, dear Lola, He will have again the movement that He actually came to earth to begin!
Hello my dear! You know sometimes I reply to ask, sometimes to discuss and also to share. This time it’s to share.
You’ve always made me so welcome that I risk a different form of expression today.
I’m just leaving this thing here; not that I expect you to say anything at all, if you choose not to.
(This thing is only half pared back, to make it a little less obscure or subjective. And it may look a little weird in blog format).
When young I cried
‘Teach me the ways of man,
of woman.’
And so saw whys, wants
and bewiderings
Sweeping desire slithers
and sidewinds.
Ambition is a hulking metal beast
veined in circuitry
hunting on all fours.
Older I grew sick
Visionless patterns pierced –
“They’re all millennial teens now”
Taking selfies in Auschwitz ovens.
Eyes pinned wide
Humanity is a gorging
muscular serpent
Swallowing it’s tail forever.
Is this remnant life
so much blanched tripe,
sliding down
butcher shop window in
weltering afternoon sun ?
Scampering, gasping I pleaded
‘Show me the ways of Heaven’.
To return now, time numb
folly wise and climacteric
to my long home.
Oh, to climb molten, coiled stair
brightly winding up and up.
Then voiceless I wished
Answers flashed and struck –
Startled into stillness.
Standing silent
watching a world
dreaming furiously,
at once reticulated and chaotic.
At last! waves
waves and waves
of bestowal and love.
❣️🙏🏼🌅
Dear Efrem, thank you for sharing your thoughts here as you continue to grow spiritually. For many, it is indeed a deep and complex journey!
Roberta: Maybe that is the real meaning of the “second coming” – not a physical second coming, but a new and different look at his teachings and their true meaning.
Yes, dear Lola. Of course, in truth Jesus never left, but His second coming is underway now! Now is dawning the long-prophesied time when at last humankind accepts and loves and lives by His teachings, and you and I have the joy of helping to spread the Lord’s Word to all the world.
Thank you Efrem for sharing this beautiful poem. I can relate to much of it. I always appreciate the heart and soul you put into your posts. If only I were that eloquent… 🙏
Hi Roberta,
My first posted comment was delivered to me via my guide, but I won’t drag her into this one. I believe this is entirely me: There has been discussion above about how the nature of our own bodies can get in the way of our spiritual buoyancy. In particular, we are prone to discouragement, disillusionment and despair — so much so that traditional religions treated these emotions as sinful because of the way they cut us off from hope. But in these times, when at least in Western industrialized countries, the materialistic culture has so taken hold of and influences the choices those of us around us make from morning to night and even in between, it is difficult to assume the frame of mind we need to rise in spirit. In short, the gym works against us every minute by busting our spirit (there’s a pun I didn’t intend but will leave). This becomes even more true when we have daily responsibilities to people in our lives who never once question the materialistic goals of this cultural treadmill (to mix metaphors).
Yet I know you do not describe this process lightly, as you have come a long way through your own, similar path and — I know from our sidebar conversations — without ignoring your responsibilities to loved ones who may not have “gotten it” as you shifted your path.
The temptation to declare defeat can be strong, especially when it involves potentially turning away family and friends, and I think we’ve seen that reflected in some of the comments. No wonder so many of Jesus’ followers back in the day declared, “This is too hard,” and wandered away from Him.
The rats do seem to be winning the rat race.
Dear Mike J-R,
I feel that in the last two years, coinciding with the last Presidential election, I have been turning away from family and friends. It feels almost like a shedding, a stripping of everything I cannot handle.
There is obviously more to the story, but as I don’t want to talk politics, I will leave it there.
But what I find interesting is that I am more than okay with this happening. It’s almost like I have to make the choice between them and my own mental & spiritual health, and I chose my own needs.
I don’t say this to their faces, however. But it’s in my heart and my intentions to not want to be around them more than I have to. I can’t handle confrontations, but I withdraw.
Dear Valerie, you posted this comment just as I was posting mine!
My experience has been similar to yours. It seems that as our vibrations rise we tend to find ourselves unable to be around negative people. It’s almost as if we feel singed by them: we pull back, even if that means giving up an argument in which we are sure we are in the right. It’s the negativity of those on the other side that we can’t handle! This used to bother me, this frank inability to deal with negative people, but now it feels natural and inevitable.
Dear Mike, you posted this comment soon after I had answered an email from someone who asked essentially the same question. And it’s such an important one! Now Thomas wants to talk about this next time, and we are on it. Stay tuned….
Roberta,
Leave to me to have a weak moment of heart to inspire the next blog entry. Maybe Arrow is working with Thomas after all, in her own mischievous ways!😉
Dear Roberta,
This may seem like a silly question–but what do you do for entertainment/relaxation?
Here is why I ask…
I’m pretty much a social hermit. I work two jobs, and while I am exactly where I am supposed to be in terms of working, those jobs can be exhausting. So when I am not working, I need to be alone as much as possible. I’m also an empath with social anxiety, so there’s that.
I am a librarian, so I have access to literally any film, TV show, book, and resource I could want. I do like to read, and I watch cartoons. I also enjoy watching crime shows.
But now you are talking about leveling up…I am re-thinking why I enjoy watching crime shows. I do enjoy the mystery-solving, but as I’m sure you know, some of those shows can be gruesome. And I find that entertaining?
Because I absorb energy around me, I know that I need to really focus on the positive, upbeat, and life-affirming resources.
In fact, I entered a contest last week, and I was the grand-prize winner of a 50-inch flat screen TV. And while the thrill of winning was a quick dopamine hit, I didn’t want it. I’m giving it away. My smaller TV is more than enough.
So I’m curious how you relax or find entertainment? I’m sure you are more social than I am…so I want to work on leveling-up, but I’m pretty certain there is no room for crime shows in that process.
Thank you!
Dear Valerie, the greatest thing about giving up TV and movies is that you free up so much time for fun! Whatever is your pleasure is possible for you now: you can paint, sculpt, learn to play the piano, take up a sport, see foreign lands, get active in local government, take a course, write a book… or maybe do it all!
Thank you for asking what I do for fun, but my answer may disappoint you. My work is my entertainment! I have done a radio show and podcast every week for the past six years, many of which require that I read (or at least skim) a book, and all of which require that I research the guest and prepare questions. I write books, and I used to do a lot of public speaking but I’m trying to do away with that. Also, of course, for the past year I’ve been doing a 2000-word blog post every week, and 2000×50 is a good-sized book all by itself! I get lots of emails from people needing help, and I answer every one; I do an occasional counseling call, and I keep in touch with friends (none of whom are local).
Mostly, though, I spend my leisure time with family. I am writing this on a veranda in Costa Rica overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where my husband, children, and grandchildren (14 in all this time) are spending a week enjoying one another. Family is a huge priority in my life!
Sounds wonderful!
I’m not exactly sure what gives me pleasure, as I’m usually too tired from working and being around people!
But I’m sure something may pique my interest!