Posted by Roberta Grimes • October 10, 2020 • 51 Comments
Jesus, The Source, The Teachings of Jesus
“[Creeds] have been the bane and ruin of the Christian church,
its own fatal invention, which, through so many ages,
made of Christendom a slaughterhouse,
and at this day divides it into castes of inextinguishable hatred to one another.”
– Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), from his letter to Thomas Whittemore, June 5, 1822
The most important thing Jesus did for us was to introduce to us the perfect eternal love and forgiveness of the genuine God. For thousands of years human beings had been worshiping imaginary human-like gods; but then Jesus was born, and He gave us wonderful truths about God that we can now confirm. The Lord’s truths entirely transform what had been our terror-based relationship with the divine!
Please note, however, that the God of Christianity is sadly different from the perfect God that Jesus introduced to us. The Christian God is an iteration of the human-made Old Testament God, and that feels like a horrifying thought! If you doubt it, though, please point to the historical moment when the long chain of imperfect human-made gods at last gave way to the genuine Godhead. You never will find such a moment.
I know how hard it is to accept the idea that even though there is a genuine God, and even though Jesus proclaimed God to us, that eternal Godhead never has been sought and found by any religious denomination. Instead, religious folks continue to fret about human-made details of their human-made religion that bears very little relationship to what Jesus came to earth to teach. Here are two confounding facts:
There is indeed a genuine God.
No religion has ever sought and found that God.
It is past time now for all of us to come to know and love the true Godhead! Here are some important reasons why:
fear is the fear of extinction, which we often confront as lesser fears that are marginally more bearable. Until we can eradicate our superstitious fears of human-made gods and their imagined powers, we can do little to elevate the consciousness vibrations of humankind that have sunk so deep into negativity that now the survival of the earth is at stake.
For nearly our entire history, terror has been our core condition. We were afraid of everything, from human enemies and animal predators to excessive heat, cold, disease, thirst, starvation, and the dark of night.
Whether we created our earliest gods in response to some innate spiritual awareness, or whether we invented the idea of gods in a desperate effort to lessen our fears, really doesn’t matter now. Either way, it is without question that the earliest gods that we invented were not the real Godhead. Not even close! And as we follow along in time from our most ancient and primitive human-made gods, we notice that eventually humankind established a generally consistent god-pattern. Our gods were beings in human form, often with animal-mimic heads, who lived in the sky or beneath the ground and had too much control over human lives. We had to placate them, which we did with prayers and with human or animal sacrifices, with chants and dancing and promises to obey the various gods’ arbitrary rules. The details of each of these gods were different, as were the religions that worshiped them; and the Christian religion in its many forms is not materially different from the religions that have existed since the first one began. Christianity has its own human-made and human-like God to be feared and placated, its own rituals and its rules to be obeyed, its myths and its tales. This has been the blueprint for all religions. And as should by now be clear to us, no religion ever has been God’s idea. In fact, the genuine God that Jesus reveals to us in the Gospels seems to want nothing to do with religions!
What do we know about the genuine Godhead? So far, we know at least three things:
who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth” (JN 4:24). Indeed, those that we used to think were dead tell us God never takes any form at all. We know now from a tremendous amount of evidence that what we experience as consciousness is the Source energy and all that exists, and a lot of evidence now suggests that God is Consciousness at its highest vibration.But the genuine God is not a fan of religions! Proof of that fact is throughout the Bible, and since the Bible is a religious text these statements are what lawyers call “admissions against interest.” It is likely that many more such admissions were removed by First Nicaea in 325 and by other early church councils. The Prophet Isaiah suggested almost a thousand years before the birth of Jesus that God was disgusted with religious practice, even way back then! The Prophet said, “Bring your worthless offerings no longer. Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies—I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly” (Isaiah 1:13). And then of course Jesus also told us repeatedly that God was disgusted with religions. For example He said, “Why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? … You hypocrites! Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men’” (MT 15:3-9).
So we know there is indeed a genuine God still awaiting our discovery. And that true God wants a relationship with us that is closer than any religion can give us! As Micah of Moresheth said three millennia ago, “He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). Jesus told us the same thing centuries later, and those that we used to think were dead now abundantly confirm its truth. God‘s desire for us never has changed, that in the fullness of time we will put aside our childish beliefs and want to know the true Godhead. As Jesus said, “seek, and you will find”….
“I am anxious to see the doctrine of one god commenced in our state.
But the population of my neighborhood is too slender,
and is too much divided into other sects to maintain any one preacher well.
I must therefore be contented to be an Unitarian by myself,
although I know there are many around me who would become so,
if once they could hear the questions fairly stated.”
– Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), from his letter to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Jan. 8, 1825
‘LORD, LORD, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7; 22)
Two problems in contemporary church worship
1. Churchspeak (bit like Orwell’s newspeak) is meaningless to non church goers who we are supposed to link with and ‘convert’ to God’s Kingdom
2. Lord worship can be worship of the Nephilim / fallen angles, especially if we ask for personal material favours (which they are happy to tempt you with). Bit like teaser mortgage rates.
Roberta and others, what do you think?
Kind regards
Shola
Dear Shola, I agree wih you! But I get lots of complaints from people who are turned off by going to church, and most are much less sophisticated than these, sad to say. I think the biggest complaint I hear is how insular the people are; it’s like trying to join an in-group, where everyone is nice on the surface but essentially they live in a close circle that views a newcomer with suspicion. When you go every week and they are more used to you, then they are policing your language, and – as you say – if you say anything about God or about Jesus that sounds “off” to them, even if you just have said what they would say but just in not in their in-words, you get the fish-eye. I’m not sure I understand your second point entirely, but some churches are always trying to hit people up for money. Years ago I went through a period of trying protestant churches, and there was one I liked because the people were more welcoming and the sermons were good; and then the pastor started trying to hit me up to give considerable money because he wanted to build a better church.
It feels tragic to say this, but it really is no wonder that religion is dying! We do know them by their fruits, don’t we?
Jesus HATES Churchspeak and COVIDspeak
Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstrate that is the setting of dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), by George Orwell. To meet the ideological requirements of English Socialism in Oceania, the ruling English Socialist Party (Ingsoc) created Newspeak, a controlled language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary designed to limit the individual’s ability to think and articulate “subversive” concepts such as personal identity, self-expression and free will. Such concepts are criminalized as thoughtcrime since they contradict the prevailing Ingsoc orthodoxy.
Hi Prasanna. Hate is fear based. I believe our objective is to become
Love.
Dear Ray, you are entirely right! And not just on Sundays, not just among people we like. Our object is to become love at all moments, in all things. I think that is why so much of modern Christian practice is so off-putting. The Gospels tell us plainly what Jesus asks of us, but yet so many Christians – and even in their churches! – seems so judgmental, so condemnatory of anyone they think falls morally short, and so quick to hate and to turn away. They reject the very people that Jesus shows us by His example we should most be trying to love and serve!
Dear Shola, I think most people over fifty have read the novel with horror, although of course we know it can’t happen in a modern Western country. … Or can it? When you look at the way some are trying to police our language now, anyone who has read “1984” has got to feel entirely creeped out!
Hi Roberta, hi everybody! Happy Sunday. It is important to remember that just as much as we need to be on guard against the things added to the gospels, and words put into Jesus’ mouth hundreds of years later, we also need to be careful not to cherry pick only what we like. Still, one of the biggest giveaways is anything that is preluded with reference to the “church,” as no such thing existed when He was teaching. There were synagogues, which usually were held in people’s houses, and there was the Temple in Jerusalem, which Jesus did teach at, but no one would have referred to or understood the word “church.”
The words toward the end of Matthew 18 are powerful, as long as we take the prelude about “the church” with a grain of salt. Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Here we get a glimpse to the nature of the genuine God. These words of His are often read as church-building, but the meaning is so much more powerful than saying that when people gather, the building is also “occupied” by God. The spirit that He teaches us is the genuine God is the base Creative Force that is like the air we breathe and the water we drink, surrounding us and immanent in our relationships to each other and to all Creation.
This notion suggests that the genuine God is in fact that which makes us all One, and as Jesus says, whenever we practice The Way, and adhere to His teachings, we will discover that genuine God — and therefore, what the genuine God wants of and for each of us.
Dear Mike, these are excellent points. There was no religious practice at all related to the teachings of Jesus for at least two hundred years after His death! In fact, He made a point of insisting on that: He told the clergymen of His day to keep His teachings separate from their religion and to teach them separately.
And I think you are praising MT 18:19–20, which is a little pearl between two big pieces of coal! MT 18:15-18 is entirely a much later addition, since it deals with church governance when Jesus never saw or wanted a church. And “what you bind on earth is bound in heaven” is what the church rulers would have wanted Him to say, but it is anathema to the Lord and it would negate His teachings. Then MT 18:23-35 is a horrific story that again is church-based, claiming that there is terrible punishment (even torture?!) coming from God if you don’t do the loving thing. All of this is human-religious teachings. In general, most of what Nicaea added is toward the back of Matthew, and all those chapters should be viewed as suspect.
Yes, it is simply gathering in His name and sharing His teachings that is all that He asked us to do. And when we do it, He does make us one with God. Thank you, dear Mike!
Yes, Roberta, MT 19-20. You can imagine someone coming upon or hearing this “quote” from Him and then building a narrative around it to give it their own context.
The light of His meaning still comes forth.
Dear Mike, I think that is generally what happened. They would find some hook that they thought they would use, and hang a mess of churchy nonsense on it!
Anyone watch the show on Netflix “The Good Place?” It ( I think ) is a twist on the traditional after life scenario or narrative. But, for some reason I feel an apprehension for it because I fall short in so many areas in this life. I personally hope that you can evolve and grow in the next life rather than being stuck in one realm or the other because of what you did or didn’t do during our finite physical existance…
Dear Tony, this is one of the reasons why I haven’t watched television in more than a decade, and for the decade before that I watched it very little. Whatever this show told you seemed real to you and has stuck in your mind in a fear-based way, when in fact just from the bit that you have said here it is clear that it was utter nonsense, with no basis at all in anything real. Dear Tony, you are perfectly loved! You will never be stuck anywhere if you will only open your mind and heart to love, even a little bit. The show was garbage. Please put it out of your mind!
Hi Roberta,
Who is the Father that Jesus refers to many times? Does he have a physical form as Jesus does? Jesus does only what the Father tells Him to do. He and the Father are one…etc
You mention that God does not take on a physical form, But is not God in all things? So to me that says He does take on form, thru His creations. All an extension of that consciousness. ???
I’m new around your blog.
Thanks.
Welcome, Sue! We understand that you won’t have some of the historical facts, but it is essential when you hope to understand the Lord’s teachings that you know at least one fact: He could not speak plainly. When He lived on earth, and where He lived, to speak against the prevailing religion – Judaism – was a capital crime, and He was considered a potential subversive so there were always Temple guards listening when He taught.
It would be great if He could have come right out and said, “God is a Collective of Perfected Beings, entirely spiritual and never appearing as a recognizable god-being; God is what you experience in a dim way as Consciousness; God is all that exists, and your mind is part of the Consciousness that is God. Everything else that you think is real is just basically a thought in the Mind of God.” Or something like that. We are still learning, and I’m sure there is a lot more that He would have told us if He could have spoken plainly.
Everything Jesus had come to teach was in fact against the prevailing religion, so in order for Him to stay alive for long enough to teach us what He wanted to teach us, He had to be very clever about it! (I almost said “sneaky,” which also is true.) For example:
1) He would speak in little stories – parables – and end them with “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” so His devoted followers would know to look for deeper meanings but the Temple guards would remain clueless.
2) He would tell us big subversive truths over days of time, in pieces, so none of what He said was quite bad enough to get Him arrested and tried, but if He had said the pieces together He would have been arrested on the spot. There are a number of these incidents, but for example, (a) He told us that God doesn’t judge us because God has left all judgment to the Son; then (b) on a different occasion He said, “Guess what? I don’t judge you either!” And finally, (c) He told us what is actually true: that each of us is our own afterlife judge.
3) If a truth was gigantically subversive and there was no way to soften it, He tried to at least begin the process of educating us. That He taught His followers to refer to God as “Father” is a good example of that. The historical Jehovah was cranky and often angry; he was a GOD in the awful ancient sense, if not quiet as bad as the Canaanite Moloch, who ate little babies (he’s the dude pictured at the start of this post). Jesus wanted us to learn to love and not fear the true Godhead, so He taught us (a) to love Him, our beloved Teacher, and that He and God are one; and also (b) to call God not God, but “Daddy.” You don’t fear your Daddy, right?
We are glad that you are with us, Sue – this is such a wonderfully happy journey!
Roberta, can you clear up some confusion for me. In the forth to last sentence in your latest response you say “(a) to love him ,our beloved teacher, and that he and GOD are one.” I thought that Jesus is on the 6th level of the afterlife and GOD is on the 7th or highest plane so how can he and GOD be one. ( unless you mean that GOD is consciousness in which Jesus , GOD and all of us, are all part of one. Is that what you mean?
Dear David, reportedly Jesus is at the top of the seventh level, which is the Godhead. He came to us quite literally as God on earth. When I first met Thomas, I asked him plainly whether Jesus was a regular (but very good) guy, or whether He really was a part of God, and Jesus told me that the Lord had come from the highest aspect of the Godhead (his phrasing), and even on earth He had been so elevated that God could “look through His eyes” and try to better understand human beings, and then could speak through Jesus in order to teach us how to elevate ourselves. Thomas absolutely reveres Him, and there isn’t much that impresses my precious spirit guide!
For what it’s worth, I have seen a few accounts from various spiritual sources and mystics that refer to Jesus as “the Master.” He is indeed revered. My own beloved guide, who never experienced an earthly incarnation during a Christian era, is quite emphatic about the Master’s teachings—and His Love. She is very much about His Love as Divine nature.
Thomas is in awe of the Master, too. And Thomas is not impressed by much!
“try to better understand human beings”
I thought God knew us intimately
Dear Ali, we and the Godhead are all part of the same Consciousness, but we vibrate quite differently! The Godhead is a Collective of Perfected Beings long past incarnating on earth, and human beings are much less developed spiritually and are trying to grow away from fear and toward love in an environment that is utterly foreign to Beings who haven’t recently been in bodies. God loves us perfectly! But even my guide, who was in a body mere decades ago and who tries hard to understand our culture today, feels unsure about how to move in this culture. Perfect love in spirit and practical knowledge of the physical environment are apparently two quite different things.
Thomas tells me that Jesus, a long-since-perfected Being, “came from the highest aspect of the Godhead” to enter a physical body, and was vibrating high enough so God could “look through His eyes” and come to understand the feelings and needs of human beings of that day well enough to (i) know why they were finding it so hard to grow spiritually, and (2) give them some practical advice on how to make that easier. Jesus Himself told us that it was God within Him who was speaking!
the BIG thing Jesus did want is collectively remember him through communion (the Lord’s Supper’). This is the most useful thing a church meeting should do, after worship songs and joint prayer. (My opinion only, but that is why I go to church, to take part in the Lords Supper)
Dear Prasanna, if you find that taking Communion is important to you, then it is a lovely ritual! I once felt this way as well, and when I could no longer attend church with my husband because of the life-size, full-color plaster Jesus on a cross that eternally bled above the altar, no longer partaking of “the sacrifice of the Mass” was the hardest part of going to church for me to give up.
I think it is important, though, for everyone to know that there is no evidence that Jesus instituted Communion in any of its many forms. There is no evidence that it matters to anyone after death, and the evidence pretty strongly suggests that the early church took a story from the Gospels that was built around Judas’s betrayal and the Lord’s suggesting that He be remembered whenever His disciples gathered and the church-builders turned that story into a commanded religious ritual. Jesus was pretty negative about all religious rituals, as we know! He tried to separate us from every tradition that might conceivably begin to seem more important to us than His absolute command that we learn to ever more perfectly love.
Prasanna, may I suggest that you give Roberta ‘s book “Liberating Jesus” a read, a book that her guide Thomas and Jesus channeled through her. I have changed my views on the Lord’s Supper since I have read it. Dave
Thank you, dear David! Liberating Jesus had a strong effect on me as well! It was what finally separated me from going to church, and from putting anything at all ahead of the ever more perfect love of God.
Dearest Roberta,
Having looked at sacred texts from different religions and religious philosophies, I would have to agree that there has never been a time or place when the true God of Love has been revealed. I find this not a little sad. All that effort and association with faith (put in by human beings over millennia) and still people do not know the actual Divinity cleanly; stripped of the barnacles and hulking encrustations of fear, hate and self loathing.
I too, have found it hard to really let go and accept that God loves me perfectly. Maybe there has scarcely been a person on earth who has not been hindered or bruised by the prevailing idea of a judgmental God; or who has not turned away from God because of such harsh judgment found in religion.
We can discuss what we know and spread ‘The Way’ that Our Jesus meant to be taught and lived. We can expound what we know about the actual afterlife and the eternal soul. I wonder though, if something big needs to happen worldwide, even through technology, to really make people sit up and take notice.
Perhaps it may take more than incremental awareness growth to awaken humanity, which seems to be a species sleeping furiously deep within a material dream.
🙂🌅🙏🏼
Dear Roberta, Hi everyone. Fun Of Growing Forever states it very well. Gratitude, Forgiveness and Love. Time is not linear. These principles are not incremental, but exponential.
Oh my dear Ray, thank you for this! And I love “These principles are not incremental, but exponential.” How deeply true that is!!
Dear Efrem, I am being told that all that needs to be done to soften the old ideas and make way for the new is in fact being done far above our pay-grade. Our job is just to sow the seeds of truth in ground that is already being tilled. Which is a relief! In particular, I am emphatically being told not to confront any religion directly. My first reaction to discovering how altogether wrong and fear-building Christianity actually is, in utter contravention of the teachings of Jesus, was rage, to be frank. I felt like Jesus turning over the money-changers’ tables: how dare anyone use the Lord’s name to sow terror? But Thomas hit me upside the head about that. We must never say anything against any religion, but rather our task is only to gently share the truth. And that we can do!
Hi Roberta. Why do we humans have to take something as simple as the primacy of Love, and the golden rule, and turn it into such a morass of complexity? It seems like we need to make things more complex than they need to be. We have a desire to search for all sorts of hidden esoteric truths, like some sort of treasure hunt, but as the old saying goes, the proverbial “devil” (or the downward spiralling path to confusion and negativity) is in the details, artificial unneeded details. I really admire how Thomas Jefferson wanted to reverse that trend back towards true spirituality, and now, finally, mankind is at a point where that could potentially be accomplished, to reduce that divisiveness we see growing in all areas, not just the spiritual, and without much time to spare. That, it seems to me, is what God wants, and what we all, as part of God, should want and strive for. Humanity wandered far and wide, learning a lot about what NOT to do. I suppose that’s part is what earth school is for, but it is time to get back on our “Way” before we destroy this world.
Dear Scott, this is so powerful! Thank you for sharing it – I couldn’t have said it as well as you have.
Dearest Roberta,
I guess that the effect of your salient, clear, succinct blog post is quite evocative. Seeing the big picture in such stark terms makes me feel the injustice of conditioning people from cradle to grave, into the belief in a punitive, harsh God who picks and chooses whom he saves. Then after tasting the bitter gall of it, I feel sadness for human beings who labor their whole lives under the resulting yoke of wanhope, guilt and fear. So much bright, spiritual potential never flourishes to ripeness.
Of course my dear, I am nudged to ‘let go and let God.’ I listen and accept this wisdom in the end. And I know Ray (above) is right; the growth of the principles of truth are indeed exponential. In tilled soil the seeds of truth that are planted grow fast and strong! 😉
Yet I’ve seen what happens to people who have such a low sense of self worth that it leaves them purposeless; frozen between a pervading sense of a hard God and the prospect of nothingness, of oblivion at death. Heck do people need to know how things really work!
Personally, I am grateful for being spared that sense of profound isolation in a cold world. I know I am truly loved and not alone. I am grateful to be privy to the reality of things and I too can ‘gently share the truth.’
So emotions move and swirl, yet as they still the light reflects and sparkles on them.
Incidentally, you once quoted what has become my favorite description of God:
‘God is the union of love and everything that exists.’ (Paraphrased here.) How different would people’s outlook on life be if they knew God like this?
❣️🌅🙏🏼
Dear Efrem, I really think this is our biggest task, just to wean people away from the old human-made and fear-based view of God, and to help them become comfortable with the genuine Godhead. I hear from people sometimes for whom even letting go of their fear of God is a fear-inspiring act! How tragic that feels to me. And I really have no words for them that can adequately expunge their fear.
Dear Roberta, I enjoyed the sound content of this posting. I was pleased to find that you did not describe God as the great blooming light of love that is reliably reported in what I regard as authentic Out of Body Experiences typically triggered by Near Death Experiences. I believe that God will manifest as a being of light to us when we also manifest as spirits made of light. However, my inference, shared with your comments, is that God is fundamentally consciousness (and we too are consciousness made by God from Gods being. There is one descriptor of consciousness that I am doubt is accurate, and that is for lack of a commonly shared experience that may be labeled with a commonly understood term.
I do not believe that we are capable of defining the consciousness that is God. As light beings functioning in a world of light entities (Heaven) it makes sense to refer to higher and lower vibrations. But to refer to God’s being of consciousness as having the mechanical quality of vibration is a broken metaphor. I do not think we are able to meaningfully define the consciousness that is God, or the consciousness with which God creates us. I would be pleased to see what you think about this topic.
Well, yes, dear Jack, defining God as Consciousness – and doing it precisely – requires more cleverness and a deeper understanding than what we possess! The definition of God that Thomas put into my mind at some point is this:
“God is an infinitely powerful and infinitely creative potentiality that encompasses all that exists, alive in the sense that your mind is alive, highly emotional and therefore probably self-aware.”
Seems to me to be as good a description as any!
I imagine that a universal problem with organized religions’ acknowledging the genuine divinity is that a real God is incomprehensible to the human mind. What would pastors preach about?Which is why prophets and other mystics came along in the first place and, finally, why Jesus tells us to know Him is to know God.
Dear Mike, more and more Thomas is making me see that the problem with organized religions is that they have so little to do with the genuine Godhead, being altogether man-made; but yet they tell us they are all about God. So as we seek to know the genuine God, all our religions very badly mislead us. That was why Jesus was so down on religions! Had He been teaching at a time when He could have spoken bluntly, He would have told us to ditch our religions altogether and just go into our inner room, fall on our knees, and open our hearts to the genuine God with absolute love and trust. Oh, wait, He did say that….
More than 2001 years later, we still don’t acknowledge that God is spirit. This is a huge jump for us. To His contemporary disciples, this was not just am extraordinary revelation, but very foreign to the culture and traditions. His declaration must have seemed truly puzzling. I am looking forward to Part 2 of this blog entry next week on what God wants.
Agree!
Trying to understand what God is from an earthly perspective is like telling a man blind from birth that the grass is green. We haven’t any words in our vocabulary to define God in any meaningful way. Therefore, our description of God for centuries is inadequate at best. We have perceived him to have human qualities, as we have lacked any other way to think of him. This makes every religion we have been exposed to wrong, and may be the reason Jesus tried so hard to dismiss all these religions as he correctly assumed they would hinder us more than help us.
Dear Lola, very true and well-said! Occasionally Thomas will shock me on Friday with new details to come in the blog post for the coming weekend, and that has just happened again. I always try to confirm over and over whether he really means it, whether I am hearing him clearly, before I will post his revelation that – for example – Jesus abolished sin, or the Godhead is a Collective of Perfected Beings. So then he hits me over the head with it. Oy. I really do only work here, and not even at a very high level!
The truth gets more astonishing and more truly “Godlike” the more we humans learn. If it only took 300,000 years of earthly history for us to “get it” what’s a few hundred aeons among friends?
What I find somewhat amazing and also reassuring is that even our friends in the astral realm don’t entirely comprehend the mystery. This makes God even more like God.
Hey Mike 👋
That’s an amazing thought, isn’t it ?
Even the elevated souls don’t completely comprehend the Divine !
The ‘Incomprehensible’ is one of the names of God in at least a few major religious traditions.
Yet somehow we sense the ‘essence’ of God and know it to be deeply resonant and yet it is so unlike human beings. Except that it is our own deepest Self.
Sometimes I like to try a ‘beyond knowledge’ or ‘Divine mystery’ meditation. This is where I focus not on the little I may know of God – but on the vastness of what I don’t know of Him. I soon realized that this is an endless treasury of ‘beyondness’ that I have within myself and am part of simultaneously. It’s humbling mate, and yet so freeing !
….. Nowadays I feel as I felt when my fave Jewish scripture teacher put me in my place one day in college. (I will always remember and be grateful for Eddie Pilser. He was an erudite, passionate educator and a child survivor of Auschwitz Birkenau. Eddie was at once a profoundly spiritual and a completely wacky professor.)
One day in class, when I was being particularly uppity he said, “The older I get the more I realize that I know nothing. And if I know nothing – you know double nothing!” 😉
G’day, Efrem!👋🏽
I have further thoughts on this idea but my beloved guide is telling me to hold on it until part 2 of this blog entry over the weekend. ♐️🌈🌎🦋
The plot thickens!
Oh my dear Efrem, how fortunate you and he are that your teacher survived the Holocaust! He is a treasure now beyond price, as that generation ages. I hope as much of his wisdom can be preserved as possible!
Efrem: That’s hilarious about your Jewish teacher saying that he knows nothing and you know double nothing. However, I totally agree with him. The more you learn, the more mysterious things get and the more questions you have. He was certainly in contrast to the “know it all” preachers who claim to know the mind of God, and nothing anyone says will make them reevaluate their beliefs. Projecting human qualities onto what we call God has caused the loss of millions of lives and stunted our spiritual growth for centuries.
Dear Lola, apparently our projecting human characteristics onto our human-made gods is indeed every bit as serious a problem as you suggest here that it might be! I hadn’t thought about it, but Thomas is demanding that we look at it now. We really cannot make sense of the Godhead until we are able to distinguish and discard all the remnant ideas we have for so long had about our human-made gods.
Hey Lola 👋
I’m glad you laughed at Mr Pilser’s retort. As I clearly remember, so did the class..
Of course the irony of ‘double nothing’ being phrased as some kind of achievement, was not lost on me. Eddie (as I was allowed to call him) was making his own statement about life and the human concept of accumulated knowledge – while telling an annoying teen to stop sounding off.
As Roberta says, he was and remains a treasure, as do all survivors of such terrible persecution. They see the world in a profoundly unique way and they have much to tell us about what is really important and what is not.
You are right about the dangers of projecting human characteristics onto God. The results are seen through history. 🙏🏼
Yes, dear Mike. All true. And my guide keeps insisting that I say things now that I never in my wildest dreams have imagined!
Roberta: The idea that God is a collective of perfected beings makes so much sense to me. They seem to be outside of space and time and are likely uninterested in petty concerns. I also feel they deal with so much more than just us. The universe is huge and teaming with life, and that’s why we have to learn how to contact them. I don’t think it’s as hard as we imagine it to be since there is somewhat of a connection with all life forms, and maybe once we realize this, contact will be surprisingly easy
If our personal nocturnal dreams are the unstable, rapidly changing reflections of our individual, generally undisciplined minds, is this universe a more stable, slow moving creation of our joint minds, within predetermined limits? If so, then in a sense we are all a “collective,” maybe with a higher collective – the graduates – keeping an eye on us as they also move on to more advanced realities that are stable in their own ways, but also more rapidly responsive to their now-more-refined-and-perfected minds. And do they have a group of “graduates” helping them, etc? Imagine the chaos if we, the collective of baby souls, suddenly tried to jump up and drive one of those more advanced realities (thankfully not allowed!) It reminds me of those occasional stories of small children putting running cars into gear.
Dear Lola, apparently the thing is that the Collective Godhead really doesn’t need to be in direct contact with us in order to be intimately involved with our lives. We all are part of a single Mind, and the higher we vibrate the more closely we are united; so at a level approaching the Godhead, the connection is so tight that we who feel ourselves to be separate beings cannot even imagine it. There doesn’t need to be contact made, since already there is perfect unity. For a long time I tried to better understand, but now I realize it won’t make sense to us until after we have returned home and are once again in our greater minds.