Posted by Roberta Grimes • January 25, 2020 • 56 Comments
Jesus, The Source, The Teachings of Jesus
We have by now well established the fact that the religion that bears the name of Jesus does not follow the teachings of Jesus. Everything Christians are taught to believe was introduced in the process of religion-building that began two centuries after the Lord’s death. And all those dogmas are fear-based! The overall Christian message is that we are unworthy of anything good, not even because of something we did but because our first ancestor disappointed God. Add to Adam’s sin the fact that we have made a lot of our own mistakes, and our cause is hopeless! A righteous God never could forgive the utter wretches that we are, so the perfect Son of a perfect Godhead – not descended from Adam, and Himself sinless – had to be born of a sinless human as the perfect sacrifice so a judgmental God could forgive us for our human failings. We should note that two thousand years ago they were sacrificing animals to the Jewish God, and the animals they sacrificed had to be perfect. So the whole Christian dogma of substitutionary atonement made literal, absolute sense back then! But we can see now that it has nothing to do with what Jesus spent three years teaching us. More to the point, we can see that the notion that a loving God could want to see His Own Son murdered is ridiculous on its face.
Jesus told us He came to free us from fear so we could better learn how to love, and to grow past fear we were going to need to learn to relate to God directly. Since the notion that God might hold anything we do against us is purely human-made, Jesus had to remove from our minds the very notion that an act can be sinful! Once we are free from religious dogmas and free from the thought that anything we might do could be against some God-made rule, we are left with the Lord’s gentle exhortation that we leave fear behind and concentrate on love. As He said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (JN 8:31-32).
In the bad old days when religions told us that God had given us holy laws that we could burn in hell for disobeying, we had an easy way to distinguish Right from Wrong! But in this new world there is no divine law at all beyond the Lord’s encouragement that we learn to feel more perfect love for the Godhead, and that we learn to feel for everyone around us the same love and care that we feel for ourselves.
How can we begin to get our minds around better understanding Right and Wrong in this brand-new and much gentler-seeming world? Morality has moved from applying laws that we are made to believe come directly from God toward trying to ever better understand and then apply the following steps in each daily instance of moral choice:
Are there outside-the-box things that I might do that could create a more peaceful and love-based outcome? Religious laws are mostly in the negative: don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill. But if there are no religious laws, and if our great aspiration now is to make the world and everyone in it much more loving and more deeply loved, then we are encouraged to explore a new and more love-based set of positive actions. What might we do that can help all the people involved feel better about themselves and those around them? How might we perhaps help to nudge all of society a bit closer to a more love-based future?Let’s look now at the difference this kind of thinking can make in three core moral areas. As a practical matter, in these three areas the thou-shalt-not laws that were long ago decreed by a dogmatic human-like God never have fit very well. We can see how killing to save others might be necessary, and there are so many different ways to categorize property crimes in daily life that it is hard to know where to begin! As for the emotion-laden and highly complex area of sexual behavior, there are so many ways that what we do in private can profoundly affect the lives of others. I should point out, too, that I am one observer! In all three areas, my own life-experiences will deeply affect how I see Right and Wrong, so I hope that others who have had different experiences will weigh in below with their own points of view.
SEXUAL BEHAVIOR
an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house” (Deut: 20-21). And “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death” (Lev 20:13). When you read the Old Testament, you get the sense that the Jews of three thousand years ago were probably not very different in their sexual behavior from the people of today, but the God they worshiped made sins often punished by death out of almost anything they did sexually that happened outside a legally sanctioned marriage between a man and a woman. Er… except for polygamy and concubinage. God still loved and blessed King Solomon, even though he had 700 wives and 300 concubines.KILLING SOMEONE
20:13), and “If a man takes the life of any human being, he shall surely be put to death” (Lev 24:17). Modern secular law generally agrees that the killing of another human being without cause is reason enough to put the killer to death, so in both cases just the act is a capital crime.STEALING
How does a love-based morality coincide with the Lord’s command that we forgive? 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” (LK 6:37). On the other hand, the Old Testament God told Moses that He was, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (Ex 34:6-8). Wow. Is it any wonder that the genuine Godhead felt the need to be re-introduced to us when eventually the time was right?
Next week we will look at how love-based thinking complicates the sin-based
morality that still prevails in our civic life. In fact, our religion-based tendency to think in terms of sin and not of love has created some of our worst and most intractable modern social problems….
“so the perfect Son of a perfect Godhead – not descended from Adam, and Himself sinless – had to be born of a sinless human as the perfect sacrifice”
This idea seems to me to be contradictory to other teachings that state we are all born with original sin therefore how could Mary have been sinless?
This is such a wonderful point, Sam! Jesus had to be perfect, but He had a human mother, so early Catholic theologians came up with the notion of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the dogma that Mary herself had been conceived in the normal way but miraculously free from the fear-based taint of original sin (the problem of her having been descended from Adam) so she could be a pure vessel who then would conceive Jesus by the Holy Spirit and He would be entirely free from the original sin that condemns all the rest of us. Why Jesus could be so easily spared the taint of original sin while all the rest of us are stuck with it is hard to fathom when God is infinitely loving, but we’ll leave that aside. Mary then would go on to have younger children with Joseph, but as the cult of Mary developed among all these celibate men over centuries, Mary became eternally virgin. All the Lord’s “brothers” in the Gospels were really His “cousins.” To this day, most devout Catholics believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary (which is nonsense, of course) just as they believe in the divinity of Jesus (which, wonderfully, turns out to be true).
It is best not to ask for logic, consistency, or common sense in any religion, Sam, and that is especially true of Christianity 😉
Do the Jesuits have it about right? Is “… the law of love requires a balancing of the needs of all the other people affected, so the love-based process of deciding whether to kill is more rigorous than a law-based decision ever could be.” an example of Casuistry, which is an invention of the Jesuits. It also goes by the name Situational Ethics, which is the way I was taught it.
My concern is that Casuistry might be close, but no cigar and the same would be true of Situational Ethics. Would we be better off forgetting about these ethical schemes?
Yours, Cookie
Dear David, when I was in college, the book Situation Ethics – The New Morality was first published. I took a course in it. I thought at the time that it was “neither fish, flesh, nor fowl,” since it didn’t do away with the sin-based laws (as I recall). It was an effort to deal with the fact that moral decisions are inevitably nuanced, but I was barely twenty and ardently Christian so I still saw the world in black and white. So, come on: does God give us moral laws that must be obeyed, or doesn’t He?
And now, of course, we know the answer. Jesus Himself clearly tells us that God doesn’t give us religious laws, but instead God asks only that we learn to love ever more perfectly. Thank you for giving me this chance to look back at what was a very confusing time of my life!
It seems that anything sexual was considered “unclean” or “unholy” Even today, priests are expected to be celibate so they can devote their lives to God unhampered by “unclean” thoughts. I’m surprised this went on so long, Roberta, as nothing about it makes any sense. As you mentioned, common sense and logic were completely missing. The only way a virgin birth could happen is by artificial insemination. Though that didn’t exist back then, could an advanced race from elsewhere have performed this on Mary? She surely would think she was visited by angels if it occurred. This would explain why Jesus was so different and more evolved than the average person. He certainly wasn’t your everyday common type of guy
Read the revelations from Jesus to Glenda green for a viable answer.
Heh – dear Lola, the primary reason for the decision to enforce priestly celibacy in the Catholic church was the bishops’ need to concentrate money and power at the top. The worry was that if priests could marry, their families might inherit some of the swag.
Even today, the monstrously rich institution that is the Catholic Church still craves ever more and more wealth. A gentleman in Providence, RI is now suing over the annual collection in churches worldwide of millions upon millions of dollars for the Pope’s great charity for the poor called Peter’s Pence. The scandal is that Peter’s Pence gives TEN PERCENT of what the congregations give it to the poor. The rest is invested to add to the church’s wealth.
And my dear, I don’t think it matters whether Jesus was conceived naturally. Personally, I believe He was. I think the notion of Mary’s virginity comes – as you say – from the old notion that natural sexuality is somehow dirty. I think it likely that Joseph and Mary conceived their first Son in the usual way… and that the being who was born in that body was from the highest aspect of the Godhead. Was literally God. All of that makes sense, and it is perfectly consistent with what we know about how reality works. No need to make it hard, when it’s easy!
That makes sense, as if priests were allowed to have families, they would have to spend money on them. Maybe it wouldn’t matter if there were only a few here and there, but collectively, thousands of priests, if they were allowed to have families, would cut significantly into their “stash.”
Peter’s Pence sounds more like it should be called “Peter’s Ripoff.” That’s a disgrace. To me, there is no difference between that and being robbed on the street. If there are millions of dollars involved here, giving a lousy 10% to the poor is a mere drop in the bucket.
I don’t care how Jesus was born either, but I just wanted to know how many lies were told us, and it seems there are far more than we could even imagine.
“It’s easy to see that love is the universal law.” That came to me at the moment between sleeping and waking up today. I’m not sure where it came from, but I have a pretty good idea. The hard part is putting that law into practice in such a messy and violent world. I guess that’s why our souls want to come here. Lots of opportunity for soul growth, even when you understand the concept. This reminds me of the earlier discussions around Bonhoeffer. Thanks for your insightful analysis Roberta.
Thank you, dear Scott! Actually, the thing about love is that it can’t be commanded. It really can’t be a law, since it is a personal emotion and nothing that we can insist on even in ourselves. We can try to love, of course, and we can suggest that other people try to love. And it is so easy for most of us to get cranky and angry, at which point love goes out the window! This is why I think it is so important that people work to raise their spiritual vibrations. Once you are vibrating high enough, you simply are unable to be angry any more 😉
Hi Roberta. Semantics is a funny thing isn’t it? I interpreted it more like the Law of Thermodynamics or Gravity, or some other scientific principle, and I definitely agree we’re talking about something other than conditional human love, but rather spiritual vibration, as you say. Maybe spiritual goal would be better wording than law? It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it though. 😁
Dear Scott, Jesus called what we have been referring to as “God’s law of love” a “Commandment” only because as we have it in the Gospels, He revealed it in response to someone’s asking Him what was the greatest Commandment. It really was only in doing this series on His abolition of the concept of sin that I realized that – Duh! – you cannot command love! Not even God can command love. No one can. We cannot even require of ourselves that we love God and love our fellow man!
I find that to be an important insight. As we raise our personal spiritual vibrations, we begin to find that loving God and loving others is more and more our natural state. It becomes who we are! So perhaps what the Lord was saying was that we are being exhorted to raise our spiritual vibrations farther and farther away from fear, since the more we can do that, the more purely loving God and loving others will become our natural state?
There are cults in Korea and maybe elsewhere that believe that the so-called Fall of Man was caused by a teenage Eve having an illicit sexual relationship with Lucifer, who then turned into Satan. She then supposedly realized that Adam was supposed to be her true husband and went to him and repeated the Fall. Yet, all the fear and ‘fallen natures’ were then passed on through the consequent blood lineages. With St. Augustine, they believe that we were thus born into a state of inherited ‘original’ sin. So, several of these cults see the salvation of mankind by a new Messiah, who is again sinless (or had cleansing sex with God through a woman who had sex with God) to have sexual cleansing “pikaruen” ceremonies with many women to cleanse their wombs and restore them to sinlessness, and then they pass it on their husbands. The goal was 144,000 through a relay system. They see a failure in Jesus of not having married and established a new sinless race.
All this is somewhat similar to the belief that during Communion in some churches, they believe they actually partake in the literal blood and flesh of Jesus; that is, again emphasizing a physical act for the sake of salvation. Yet, Jesus said that the Kingdom is within you; not a physical thing whatsoever.
Now it is true that human sexuality is quite messed up.
As are religious beliefs.
Looking forward to your gratefully read next post.
My dear Adri, thank you for this! It is quite literally the funniest thing I have read in quite a while. You have a huge talent as a comic writer! I read down through all these ever more ridiculous religious beliefs, Eve having teenage sex with Lucifer, sanctity through having sex with someone who had sex with God, the Lord’s failure to have established a sinless race, then how this all ties to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, religious nuttiness piled on nuttiness, all of it building, and came to your terrific summary – “Now it is true that human sexuality is quite messed up. As are religious beliefs.” And I burst into such unexpected, uncontrollable laughter that this dear man I have lived with for 47 years was alarmed. This is brilliant, Adri. I wish I had written it!
Many people do not know what love is, due to what was modeled by their peers. I for one was one of them, I came from a dysfunctional family and married into one, and it goes on and on. I heard a story that went: A little child grew up, with parents that were regular church goers, but at home they were abusive to each other. The child said ” I am not going to be like my parents when I grow up” Yet the child ended up just like the parents and just could not understand why? The problem is the child did not know how to love, and only knew what was modeled by the parents. Which was the child’s core beliefs.
Hosea 4:6 New Living Translation (NLT)
6 My people are being destroyed
because they don’t know me.
Since you priests refuse to know me,
I refuse to recognize you as my priests.
Since you have forgotten the laws of your God,
I will forget to bless your children.
The biggest problem I see is the people in my families and community, love only what pleases them, they objectify their so called loved ones as property and not as human beings.
When I left that dysfunctional community, I came to realize just what it meant to be that way, treating people like trash, and always running away from problems.
Proverbs 11:9 New International Version (NIV)
9 With their mouths the godless destroy their neighbors,
but through knowledge the righteous escape.
Some say that a persons core beliefs can not be changed, but I am here to say that they can. Human beings make mistakes and I have made some big ones. The fact is God is Love, and Humans are made in His image, and we are not to objectify and treat people like trash, we are to work on our problems, forgiving what ever grievances we have. This is the real deal, love that Jesus teaches us to give always forgives, while objective love cannot or won’t.
Dear Rockey, what you neatly describe here is precisely what each of us comes into an earth-body to learn: it’s how the raising of your own personal consciousness vibration has felt from the inside. I am so glad for you, dear, and I hope a lot of people read it!
A whole new paradigm, beautifully presented. Sincere thanks as always, Roberta!
My dear Deanna, bless you for this. Your encouragement always makes me smile!
Roberta,
Thanks for Part 3 !
I try not to use the word Sin anymore for anything. For me it is an unnecessary word as it directly drives separation from the divine Godhead that we are obviously part of. That said, it was driven into my psyche as a child so I have to consistently banish it from my thoughts.
It is freeing to think of oneself as a child of God (if you like that relationship correlation), fully loved, fully perfect in your current state, and your responsibility on earth is to love more fully and learn to do so more completely. Not because your doing so come with a huge bonus of some fantasy here thereafter, but because it is in your best interest to do so to improve yourself in every way.
In teh USA today, there is a huge discrepancy between beliefs on abortion. Some think there is a divine law against it, some believe it is the individual’s right. When you take the notion of it being an automatic sin out of the equation, and you consider it with the notion of love and forgiveness, then for me it truly is the individual’s right. (It would get very complicated if a fetus had complete human rights.) That said, you may be making the biggest mistake of your life opting for an abortion. Or I think probably in rare instances, it is the best choice for all. The trick is you cannot know for sure in advance, and noone should be allowed to judge you or have an opinion,and in the end, neither does God.
It’s odd that I myself am not a female, yet I think about this particular issue more than most issues in our current society, Maybe because the outcome of this decision plays directly into the ability for another soul coming to the earth.
But, my loving response is I have no judgement of anyone who chooses it.
Best,
Tim
Dear Tim, thank you for this thoughtful post. The idea that there are rigid, fear-based, God-made laws that are clumsy enough that they lack situational nuances so they are almost impossible to strictly obey – the notion of “sin,” in other words – has tremendously debased the spiritual vibration of this planet. So clearly, nothing about “sin,” can have come from a loving and omnipotent God. All of it is human-made! And you address the harm of it in your own life here very well.
One of the things I most love about doing this work is watching so many people growing spiritually now, both contributors here and people who email me. Each of us who makes a habit of always choosing love over fear is doing our part to raise the consciousness vibration of all of humankind, and knowing that is thrilling!
To Scott F: I have always been amazed at insights received between my sleeping and waking stages. I am not sure exactly how this works but am hopeful we advance our spiritual progress by taking such messages seriously. Maybe Roberta can enlighten us at some point regarding this subject.
Hi Tom. To me, it seems closely similar to the state one can reach in deep meditation. When the conscious mind is sufficiently out of the way, or you hit a certain brain wave, spirit can slip a little message in, but it is so fleeting and effervescent, it is easy to miss. 🙂
Dear Scott, I think it likely is similar. But there are many – like me – who are meditation washouts, so it’s handy that our guides also meet and consult with us at night!
Dear Tom, I think what you are referring to is the very early morning moments when we are waking up and often recalling our meetings with our guides during the night. There is a general amnesia about what we are up to when we are out of our sleeping bodies, but we spend some time with our guides most nights and often we and they decide that it will help if certain insights are retained in our minds. This is why “sleeping on it” can often bring clarity! We can help this process by perhaps asking a question before we fall asleep, and saying to our guides, “thank you for letting me remember in the morning whatever insights about this you think might be helpful.” Something like that. But you’re right: that place when we first are waking up and we find some new insight in our minds really does feel like a gift!
It is important to be aware of what is meant by this Love. Every language in the universe has many words and nuances for various relationships and attractions. We “love” many people, things and activities. The Love we are talking about is felt throughout our physical body but is not the emotional love we have; it is perceived by our minds but is not the thoughts we think. This Love is Conscious Creativity, more of what science would call field than force, but the effects of it we perceive as a force that encourages us, seeks out ahead of us, identifies and advocates for us. Our experience with it is as if we are in its flowing current, and it urges us with power we feel but don’t possess toward our growth and the growth of others. No wonder we perceive it as love.
Thank you for this, dear Mike! I have come to think of the Lord’s use of the word “love” as directly connected with what we now know as the highest consciousness vibration. Nearly all the sorts of love that we talk about are specific – loving someone or some few, but not others – which is what A Course in Miracles calls “special loves.” And it decries them! ACIM calls “special loves” the equivalent of “special hates.” But as we raise our personal consciousness vibrations, we begin naturally to love everyone, and more and more indiscriminately. I recall that when this first started to happen for me, I thought I was loving my family less… but as I settled into this new feeling of loving and valuing everyone, I came to see that it wasn’t my feelings for my family that had changed. What had changed was that I was beginning to see every stranger on the street as part of my family. There is no joy like it!
The native language of the Dane-Zaa people — a band of the Athabascan first nations in Northern Canada with whom I apparently share a spiritual heritage — identifies ALL other people with words that convey immediate family, next of kin and wider kinship; even “outsiders” are identified using terms that refer to kinship — animals and mountains too! In short, to these indigenous people, whose leaders are not chiefs but shamans (called “dreamers” for their power to travel to heaven and back) there is no one or thing not related.
Dear Mike, sometimes I think that the fact that there are different human languages is the biggest stumbling-block there is to our at last learning the truth! See also Rita’s comment and my response below.
Roberta, thank you for your perspective and for I look forward to even more of my questions answered with each of your blogs.
Just want to share an epiphany from a reading in church yesterday. The literal translation of ‘repent’ which Jesus said in Mt. cheaper 4 is to ‘change perspective.’ Found that quite interesting and in line with enlightened teaching!
We lost a lot when we started thinking of Jesus as a pragmatist rather than a radical. It would be enlightening to be able to read all His words in the original vernacular.
There are a few Aramaic native-speakers left in the world, and there are now some direct-to-English-from-Aramaic translations in existence. But curiously, they sound foreign to us, and to those that we used to think were dead. The overall most accurate English translations of the Lord’s words, according to those that we used to think were dead, are those found in modern English translations from Greek (which includes some Latin distortions, like this one). Believe it or not!
My linguistics colleagues tell me Aramaic does not translate well, for a long list of technical and cultural reasons, so I am not surprised.
Hello Rita! This is such a terrific point, and to my mind if it were more widely known it would altogether transform Christianity. To quote from my Kingdom of God on Earth (Part III) post of 2/23/19, “Jesus is frequently quoted as saying versions of ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’ (MK 1:15). But that is not what Jesus said! The Greek word for what He actually said was metanoeite, which means ‘transform your mind.’ But the prelates who first translated that word from Greek into Latin were so steeped in Nicaea’s fear-based dogmas that they chose instead to use the word paenitentia, which means ‘repent’ or ‘do penance.’ Jesus came intending to free us from even the concept of sin, but instead as a result of this distortion the Catholic Church doubled down on sin!
No one should ever dream of putting words into the Lord’s mouth, and especially horrific words like “repent” when instead His intention was to altogether liberate our minds and hearts from fear!
I have never heard repent described like that, I was told that it came from the root word pent, such as a pent house, and to repent was to simply come back to God who is at the highest point. Now I see that is not right, and wonder just what else I have been taught that is not correct. Kind of feel brain washed here. Thanks for pointing this out. I heard a saying that some look and others see, where the ones who look just don’t get it, and the ones who see have insight and understand. I like to think I am one who sees and has insight and gain understanding when presented with the correct way of following the way. Which is love.
Dear Rocky, “Now I see that is not right, and wonder just what else I have been taught that is not correct” is a dangerous statement indeed! It is where my discontent with Christianity began, a very long time ago.
There is always something, although it differs from person to person. For me, it was the whole notion that “Jesus died for our sins.” That never made sense to me, even in childhood, and the cheap and humiliating things it said about God and about Jesus that such a “fact” was so prominent in this religion to which I had given my whole heart, and all the ministers and priests accepted it and even loved it, was a nagging “But…?” that kept jabbing at me. Then one Sunday perhaps three decades ago I sat holding my husband’s hand while we participated in “the sacrifice of the Mass,” and I looked up at the life-size, full-color plaster Jesus bleeding on a cross above God’s holy alter, and the discordance of still worshiping a God Who was apparently fully as bloodthirsty and barbaric as the Ba’al who was rejected by the Israelites three millennia ago settled on my heart so hard that I had the epiphany that this religion really had nothing to do with my so deeply beloved Lord Whose Gospel words were always singing in my heart. That, my dear Rockey, was the moment when I left Christianity.
There are so many things about this religion that are weak and frankly unworthy of God, and that ultimately don’t make sense, and when you tug on one of them and it falls apart so easily, you have pulled one brick out of the wall. After that first brick crumbles, it’s not long before you are tugging at another one, and then at another one. And as more and more of the religion crumbles, you get to where you are seeing through all those gaps in the wall, and you are glimpsing behind that wall the genuine God, more beautiful than you ever had imagined, and His Son, your Brother, there smiling at you – at YOU! – and extending His hand.
Welcome to apostasy, dear Rockey! It’s uncomfortable at first, but then it starts to feel so much better than Christianity ever did!
Thanks for that. I too left the church, because I just could not understand how they could preach on forgiveness and love, and yet look for reasons to disassociate. A wife or husband will divorcee for marital unfaithfulness with the help of the church. people will also look for reasons like someone who is living in sin or not going to church.
This really bothered me to no end, for I thought we served a God of reconciliation and they do nothing to help achieve that. Plus if a person is having a hard time they don’t even try and see what is going on. If a person is not coming to them they just ignore that person even existed. If a person needs help in someway they have to go to them. in other wards don’t call us and we won’t call you. The way I see it we are to forgive and love, and it that isn’t happening, If God is not in it and neither am I… The church does more harm to relationships than good. Very sad..
I’ve heard it said the Catholic Religion never took Christ off the cross. However, Protestants never took the cross out of the church. They may have opened the door for direct communication with God, but they still held the sacrifice of Christ as the full meaning for his existence. So sad. Almost, like the when a person dies a traumatic and erroneous death, (like 9/11) and that moment transcends every other moment in their life and follows them forever.
Wow. That definitely makes sense. To repent is to imply you did something grievously wrong and you should feel guilty, but the translation “to change perspective” is a far more intelligent way to look at it. Seems like this is just one more problem of translating certain words into other languages.
Dear Roberta, This discussion about repenting VS transforming your mind or perspective reminds me of your wonderful interview this week with James Purpura and his ideas on perspective. If his techniques were more widespread, I bet we’d need a lot fewer prisons. This gets at something which has been on my mind a lot recently, which is how to clear our energetic fields so we can better raise our vibrations. We accumulate a lot of “gunk,” negative thought patterns or beliefs, past traumas, maybe even past life traumas. They are like a thousand little PTSD’s pulling us towards fear instead of “love.” Any practices that help clear that stuff out would be a godsend. Your practice of preemptive forgiveness is beatiful, but I wonder if you have any other suggestions.
Yes, dear Lola! And it isn’t just that each language has a different perspective, a different flavor, but when you read anything in translation you are allowing the translator’s mind to reinvent whatever is being translated. The translator here was a celibate monk who believed and lived the religion’s point of view, so he applied to that word the dogmas of his religion. If the translator had been secular, he would have thought about how to translate the precise meaning of that word into a precise Latin equivalent. But in the mind of that monk, which was full of notions of sin and Adam’s fall and human unworthiness, there was only one word that fit! He may even have done this entirely innocently. I like to assume that he did. But the horrific Christian message of humankind’s sinful unworthiness was cemented into the Gospels by his error just the same.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus came to us with a gloriously liberating message that made us feel that beneath it all, at our core, we are sufficiently worthy of God’s love that we really are God’s children and we can approach God without a priestly intermediary. That original Gospel message always has been true! And with these translation errors out of the way, we can at last come to see that truth.
Roberta: I’m so glad I read what you said before I posted, as I was about to say the same thing. I didn’t know that a celibate (probably brain washed) monk was the translator, but that makes things even worse. Many people don’t take into account the thoughts of the translator, as just a slight deviation from the correct translation could result in a whole different meaning of a phrase or sentence. I had heard years ago that the Aramaic language was difficult to translate (as Mike said), so problems with translation were unavoidable. I don’t like to accuse people who died many centuries ago of anything, but I honestly think he deliberately used his power as a translator to keep the fear going. After all, that was the foundation of religion back then. There were “too many cooks in the kitchen” and this can’t help but lead to misunderstandings and even downright lies. We don’t even know if some of these translators were not mentally sound
Dear Lola, the familiar Gospel passages translated directly to English from Aramaic remind me of the Sixties. Peace, man! Mellow and airy-fairy. And they lack the power of the Gospel passages we are used to. I find that I can’t even relate to them! The fact that those that we used to think were dead are on top of things, and they tell us now that the modern English translations are closest to what the Lord intended, really doesn’t make sense unless supernatural beings were literally supervising those modern English translations!
Dearest Roberta,
You know, usually (almost always) when I comment in your estimable blog, I am ‘nudged’ to do so with a particular point of view in mind or a clear perspective to take. Strangely, I’ve been given no concept that stands out this week. Yet I’m nudged to write anyway. This is strange for me but here it goes; comment without forethought.
Imagine living in a world where we ‘breathe’ love all the time and without even thinking about it. Crime would all but evaporate. Corporate philanthropy would burgeon. Peace would be contagious. Such a world wouldn’t have poverty, because love would move people to insist that the relevant economy has (EG) start up incentives; low or no interest loans to get people self employed, pioneering reliable business incentives, whether someone else actually gives a person a job or not. Each person would have a livable wage.
Everyone could generate their own clean power and sell the excess to the grid. Vital areas like medicine would see good but not extreme profits made, so as to provide medicine at reasonable prices. Who knows? a ‘Medicare’ safety net for all citizens could become the norm, as in my own nation Australia.
The homeless could be assisted to build their own houses (with volunteer and professional help) on government released lands, so as to ensure no one sleeps rough. Schools could ensure laptops for each student and link them to every knowledge based resource; both inspiring and fun. Community, enhanced by technological opportunity, would be local, national and global simultaneously and would flourish. Depression born out of loneliness would become a thing of the past.
Volunteers (both retirees and those suffering some illness or disability) who desire to help in society, could be linked via ready technology to grass roots community. Individuals could be facilitated to mentor and assist effectively, where societal need requires. Inspired by love consciousness, even government bureaucracy could be streamlined, with power devolved to local community groups where possible. The natural world could be nourished by people centered regeneration and reforestation; environmental clean up programs would be rolled out on a grand scale, fueled by popular demand.
Anything is possible once Love takes hold as the base consciousness of humankind. (Not to mention how resources could be freed up and used to enrich the world once military spending is deemed redundant.) Then, the move to a love based ethics in everyday life, (reflected in law) would be grasped by people and practiced ubiquitously.
Until such a time, it is hard for humans who are so conditioned by a crime and punishment understanding, to really ‘get’ what love based ethics mean. I agree with what your good self and Thomas propose Roberta, but it will involve a great leap in understanding for people to really begin to apply this in daily life.
I guess my question is; what will it take for people to make the change to love based ethics? Could it be that when each one of us raises our core vibrations enough humanity will naturally ‘get it’? Then, is the leaven in the bread (those who get it) really enough to make the change or is it going to take something more?
Much love my dear, I’ve enjoyed this weeks (rather radical) blog immensely. There is much more in this subject than immediately meets the eye.
🙏🏼❣️🌅
Dear Efrem, I love your beautiful vision! I am late in replying, since my next post (just up now) was time-consuming to research and write and meanwhile I had some extra life-complications this week, but you will be pleased to see that my next post begins to answer your question about what it will take to begin to create the sort of love-based society that you imagine. To a considerable extent, our human-made cultures reinforce the very fears that perpetuate the evils in ourselves that thereupon reinforce our cultural evils. Oh, what a tangled web we weave! But the good news is that none of the negativity is innate to our human nature. We really can take hold and correct it all!
I guess I’m now inspired by the idea of the great age of this world that could yet come to pass: It doesn’t involve the reign of pharaohs or caesars, nor of pontiffs or politicians but only the reign of empathy. Where differences of color, creed, place, finances, culture, gender, occupation or sexuality no longer divide us.
Just imagine Roberta, what is possible when the vibe of humanity really does rise: I reckon we will each be able to talk to our (so called) deceased parents. The knowledge and inspiration of our spirit guides will become crystal clear and, who knows? even angels could appear to us. 😉
All true and wonderful! “Empathy” is generally defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, and in my experience it is the natural by-product of the elevation of one’s spiritual vibratory rate. The more we love, the more we are able to take the other’s perspective as our own. We can envision it, dear Efrem. Now we just have to help it to be!
That is, people will be allowed to take any action if they are in the name of love. Is it too dangerous? After all, a person does not possess omniscience. What if he makes a mistake in choosing when to steal and kill? And if many make such a mistake? Will this permissiveness destroy society?
Dear Dmitriy, genuine love is transformational. If we are operating from the higher consciousness vibration that greater genuine love produces, then our every impulse becomes not to act ourselves but to empower others; not to aggrandize ourselves but instead to serve; not to do, but to be. Stealing and killing inevitably will harm others, so the impulse – how ever selfless – is considerably complicated for us as our spiritual vibrations increase.
Quick story! As you know, I have for a decade made of myself a guinea pig for all of you, working to understand the process and raise my own vibratory rate in ways that didn’t involve meditation or anything but living my normal life in a more loving way. About five years ago, my guide, Thomas, was becoming concerned that as I became more prominent in America’s wild-west society my safety might be at risk, so he persuaded me to buy a gun and take lessons so I could concealed-carry. And I did that! But it never felt right, and the more I worked to raise my vibration the more I came to see that no matter how well I learned to use a gun, and no matter how much danger I was in, I could not kill another human being. So a year or two ago I faced that fact. I have always done whatever Thomas wanted me to do, but one day I said to him, “Look, you are going to have to find another way to keep me safe. If my life is threatened, I’ll be coming home early.” In retrospect, I can see that he then changed the trajectory that we are on so I am not traveling and coming into contact with strangers now. But he has respected my decision.
The kind of “love” that you are talking about here isn’t really love, Dmitriy – it’s ego. Thinking that your motives are pure so whatever you want to do is okay. For loving people to be free actors is the literal opposite of permissiveness! Instead, it is the empowerment of humanity’s genuine, love-based nature, finally free to act and make a better world.
Roberta: I am kind of confused, as I would think that a direct translation from Aramaic to English would be a more correct one since it would eliminate the “middle man” so to speak. Is it because the words in the Aramaic language are so hard to translate because the English language has different concepts? Maybe what Jesus actually said does resonate with the sixties movement of love and peace If so, religious leaders back in the day would have to inject more fear based drama, thus changing words around from what JC actually meant to say (similar to the celibate monk and other translators discussed previously)..
Lola, my linguistics-expert colleagues tell me it’s an issue between an oral tradition whose language is conceptual and a written tradition whose languages are symbolic. Translation isn’t just a matter of substitution but whole re-interpretations that can result in nonsense. Ancient Greek straddles the divide fairly well, do it is an effective intermediary as translation goes. Latin was less so.
I see what you mean, Mike. Translation is so much more than substituting one word for another. The actual meaning can probably become so distorted that it can likely become unrecognizable, especially in the case where a language is symbolic. So the ancient Greek to English is probably the preferred one?
Dear Lola and Mike, by the time Christianity was being built, in the third century and later, the only versions of the Gospels available were in Greek. All those familiar Gospel words have been through a two-step translation, Aramaic to Greek to English.
I think it’s important for us never to forget that Jesus came to earth as an absolutely unique individual! He came from the highest aspect of the Godhead – He was quite literally God on earth – and unlike the rest of us, He likely hadn’t needed to incarnate on earth for eons. And life at the very highest aspect, eternally one with the Collective Godhead, is far different from life even on the fifth or sixth level of the astral, never mind life on earth! When you realize that He had to lower His vibration enormously even to enter a body, and He had to reconfigure the thoughts that are the only way that communication happens there and then drastically simplify them even to fit them to words, you realize what a remarkable feat His incarnation really was! Perhaps I’m more aware of the enormity of this feat because I channeled Liberating Jesus, and for two weeks I had Him in my mind. It was like being right next to an enormous engine idling. The power was incredible, and this was even after Thomas had said that He would be reducing His energy by a lot so as not to overwhelm me.
I’ll tell you something important. I believe we have witnessed a literal miracle. Those that we used to think were dead tell us that the Gospel words in a modern English translation of the Bible – the words that Jesus actually said, and not the stuff the Councils added later – are much closer to what the Lord meant to say than are those translations directly from Aramaic. Which means that when the modern translations from Greek to English were being done, there was divine intervention to ensure that the resulting words would be the words of the Lord restated in modern terms. A miracle.
I have been reading and re-reading ACIM for two years now and see in it Jesus’s re-statement of the central truth he tried to give the world when he lived among us, that loving one’s fellow man as one’s self, and doing unto him as you would have done unto you, is the guideline, if followed, that is guaranteed to transform the world. I agree so much with what you have all said about about the distorted nightmare that Christianity is – I was brought up a Catholic and can honestly say that it never ‘grabbed me’. It is all about power, politics and money and like most of the world we are living to see the dire results of twenty one hundred centuries of it.
I am immensely grateful that ACIM exists, and that ordinary people like all of us have opportunities now to understand and assimilate Christ’s true teachings, re-stated for our times. Roberta, the work you are doing is invaluable….
thank you for everything
Dear E.M, if you can do A Course in Miracles without a study group, then you’re a better man than I am! But I do agree: ACIM is brilliant, the Gospels taught at the graduate-school level and restated for today.
Thank you for your kind words! If I have helped you at all, then I am thrilled to know that. It has been made clear to me that my calling is to bring the Lord’s teachings to disaffected Christians, to help to begin at last the genuine Way that Jesus came to earth to begin, and I cannot begin to tell you what a gift that feels like to me. I am as old as the hills, yet I am ever more completely full of joy in doing this work!
dear roberta when we pass on into the afterlife do we have to reincarnate or can we stay together with our loved ones in the afterlife?
Dear Terence, there is no objective time there, which makes a huge difference! This what we now see as most likely true, based upon all the evidence:
1) It is up to us, but nearly everyone stays in the afterlife until everyone they each have loved in life has arrived there, and generally for awhile afterward. There is so much fun to be had for new arrivals that it takes us quite awhile to get bored!
2) The evidence is strong that reincarnation is optional! In all my research, I have found only one reported instance of someone thrown into a life by his guides, and this guy was a complete reprobate – they saw this as their last chance to get him headed in a better direction. (I don’t report it, but anecdotally some of the worst of the worst apparently are eventually extinguished if the guides lose hope for them. Not sure about that. But it seems to be true.)
So the most likely way to look at this is that you will be spending a lo-o-ong non-time with your loved ones after this lifetime, but eventually you all will start to crave more spiritual growth so you will begin to plan another lifetime… often with some of the same people. It really is all good!