Tag Archives: Jesus

SUPERMAN

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If there is no God
There are no longer any boundaries either –
Which is why, recently, the world’s been filling up with supermen
Who flourish best in anti-reality.

The problem with being strong in this way, however,
Is that supermen are able to withstand enormous amounts of self-destruction
Without having to admit there’s a problem.

Eventually, of course, even supermen
Come to a “tragic end” –
Fading like a comic strip left out in the sun.

But this won’t stop newer, more contemporary supermen from still going strong –
Making up reality as they go.

Jesus warned against this kind of behavior –
Always stressing humility.

That’s why they’ve had to remake the Christian religion
From top to bottom –
So that the red capes can continue streaming –

Superman, superman, despite all your superpowers,
You aren’t really real –
Are you?

FRIENDS AT LAST

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Here’s how God “works” –

Just when everything’s looking good
And our humility’s decided to take a hike –
God will place a few unexpected obstacles in our path
To trip us up.

Isn’t it obvious that the more humility we’re able to retain –
The more our capacity for love can grow –
Which is why God wants us to experience a few failures.

God encourages greater humility to accompany increasing success
So we can continue experiencing our vulnerability.

It’s like riding a bike – the faster we go –
The less thought we need to give to what we’re doing.

This is what God wants
And what Jesus gave his life demonstrating:

“One eye on ourselves
And the other on God” –

If we can live this way
We’ll find God and ourselves
Becoming friends, at last.

BORN AGAIN

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“I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” John 3:3

Christianity teaches that Jesus was referring to salvation based upon a belief in him.

But Jesus was actually talking about being born “into the Spirit” – not about a commitment to himself.

So, what does it mean for one to be born “into the Spirit”?

I think, first, this requires a determination of the meaning of one’s “self.”

Each of us is born as a “true self” – but, at this moment in history, a “true self” probably wouldn’t be able to survive past his or her childhood. That’s why a person, while still young, accepts the substitution of an “ego” or false self in place of their true self – so that they can successfully integrate their “self” into the world – i.e., with their parents, community, and surrounding culture, including their nation and religion. This successor “self,” in most cases, takes the form of the strong and healthy ego that Freud described.

But what are the costs of living through an “ego” self, no matter how successful it may be in the world?

Think about consciousness as an open circle. Then picture the part accessible to the ego as a very thin slice – maybe 10% – 20%. From early childhood on, that’s the part of ourselves we choose to live within – with all our experiences needing to fit within that narrow slice or be excluded. Excluded how? The ego self requires, as the price of an effective existence, that each and every experience outside the scope of its chosen roles be methodically and ruthlessly pushed back into the unconscious – sealing those experiences off from our consciousness.

So, what happens when we’re “born again”? Upon being born again, we gain access to all our consciousness – all 360 degrees of it – and are able to experience full reality. We become completely “free” and totally open to all our experiences – just like when we first came into the world as a newborn baby – but we also retain all the experience and knowledge of the person we had become by the time we were “reborn.” This rebirth, however, doesn’t happen to an ego – it only happens when we’re able to break free of the ego we had earlier accepted – and start living outside it. That’s what Zen training, for example, prepares us for – to get “outside yourself” in order to become “free of your ego.” This is essentially the same path which Jesus taught – that we need to be “born again” in order to become our “true self” – the self God originally provided us with.

Once you become your true self, you’ll enter “Heaven” – and no longer be creating karmic problems in this world. That’s because you’ll be experiencing everything clearly – by being able to see yourself at the same time as you’re participating in the world – by an ability to stand “outside” yourself. This makes it possible for you to see what God wants you to do in any given situation – just like Jesus was able to – allowing you to act the same as God would act if God were a human being like yourself.

Let me say this as simply as possible – once you find your “true self,” you won’t be Jesus, but you’ll have become someone like Jesus – because you’ll have done what he recommended – spiritually, you’ll be “born again.”

All the “Angels in Heaven” start singing when this happens –

or perhaps,

You’ll simply be able to hear the angels who’re always singing – once you’ve gained the “ears to hear” that everyone receives upon being “born again.”

CAMOUFLAGE PEOPLE

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Jesus, in the way he lived his life, demonstrated
Something truly amazing –
So, it’s surprising that, even after all these years, we still haven’t “gotten” it.

Big Religion, on the other hand, has acted like an enormous stuffed pillow
With extraordinary capacity to smother spirit –
And, even though it hasn’t been able to muffle Jesus’ radiant words entirely,
It has been effective at “re-interpreting” what he said –
For over 2000 years.

Quite a feat!

In spite of that, the Church never achieved complete ownership of Jesus –
Even though it’s been publicly displaying him,
Like a jeweled pendant for two millennia.

In contrast to these theological contortions, however –
Jesus has always been just another human being –
Teaching us how to love God –
Which, of course – is both very easy and very difficult.

Jesus told us not to try to live like him but, instead, to be like him –
To embrace, whenever possible, truth, justice, and beauty –
And always be vulnerable
To love.

Without his extraordinary example, how will we ever escape all the crazy ideas
We are so constantly fashioning about ourselves –
Faster than eye can follow –
Instantly creating and re-creating a “self” in order to meet worldly expectations.

Camouflage people –
We assiduously avoid any reality
That might turn out to be our actual lives.

WHAT ARE MEN SO AFRAID OF?

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“Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” 12 Mathew 32

The religious traditions that exclude women from a central role vis-à-vis God flagrantly sin against the Holy Spirit. By imposing strictures against women’s relationship with God, especially in preaching and teaching, men, in direct opposition to Jesus’ admonition, are forcefully diminishing the Holy Spirit by restricting it to one half of the human race – since the Holy Spirit is, of course, freely available to all human beings, not just to a single sex, and, certainly – not just to males.

So, what is it that men have been so afraid of? Is it that women’s natural love of nature implies they might also have the potential to be more intimate with God as well? And is that why men, so very long ago, felt an urgent need to manufacture a male “exemplar” God to prima facie exclude all images of women from the godhead? Or might it have been an even deeper fear – that God might actually possess strong feminine aspects?

There’s also been a lack of “inwardness” in our postmodern lives. It’s far easier to project human intelligence “outward” into science and technology, finance and politics, than “inward” where thinking inevitably has to confront emotions and feelings. Ironically, the outward “male” path is easier to follow than the inward “female” one because it’s so difficult for one’s rational thinking to sort out one’s emotions and feelings – especially when we become so “attached” to the latter. However, that’s where most of the “juice” in human life resides – along with an ability to get “real things done.”

Here’s the problem: in men’s traditional approach to religion, “spirit” has not been taken very seriously, while materialism has been avidly worshipped. As a result, the spiritual visions of Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed have, over time, become transformed by the religious institutions established in their name into a kind of ersatz spirituality – shading into frequently violence-tinged “spiritual materialism.” This has created the kind of spiritual imbalance that, one day, might flip humanity into a final tragic cycle of self-destruction.

The “hard” male-dominant social structures that have created this spiritual imbalance – i.e., the world’s vast, almost child-like, yet extraordinarily expensive military organizations, the constantly morphing multinational corporations, and the West’s “sacred” capitalist economic structures – by common consensus have now gone too far and are currently threatening humanity’s very existence.

In light of all of this, isn’t it time – even past time – to think about spiritually starting all over again – and modestly and respectfully requesting women’s help?

CHURCH LIKE A MUSEUM

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Jesus had this idea
That, one day, we might become complete human beings
Instead of remaining, in some part, human animals –

That we might set aside our materialistic desires and fantasies
And live in “reality,” that is, in spirit.

To Jesus – spirit was God,
And the reason we’re prevented from seeing God, face-to-face,
Without dying,
Is the very real danger of seeing ourselves.

In light of this, Jesus preached death to artificial selves
And the rebirth of our true self –

The “pearl” –

After he died, Church officials rushed to designate him as “God” –
But, of course, by then, he was no longer able to stop that from happening.

His finest gift to us was the validation of an active, open, loving human spirit –
While his successors spent their time constructing a spiritual/materialistic empire.

Everything they did, at least in part, led away from God –

So, today, we attend church, reverentially, like entering a museum.

REINTERPRETING GENESIS

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The snake was both friend and foe –
Friend because it enticed us into opening up to self-awareness
Foe because it gave no hint about the consequences.

Once, long ago, we lived as happy human animals,
Doing what we wanted or needed –
Without reflection.

But, one day, just before biting into a ripe pomegranate,
We stepped back, looked at what we could see, and
Made a conscious choice.

For the first time, we could see ourselves, in context –
And were shocked –
Because, suddenly, we realized we were responsible
For our actions
And that we were no longer going to just do “what comes natural”.

After that, we had choices:
To be anything –
To do anything –
And we would be able to see it all.

After that pivotal moment, we no longer could stop seeing ourselves –
Because once you know – you know –
And in that archaic instant, we lost all naturalness –
We lost “Eden”.

The gap between a human animal
And a human being is virtually infinite,
(not qualitatively different from the gap between the spark or “touch” that created the universe and God),
Now, however, we’re compelled to continue crossing that gap,
Because, once started, there’s really no turning back.

The snake knew this, of course –
That’s why its gift was a curse,
And its curse a gift –

Humans had to lose themselves
In order to become themselves.

This is the cross shared by every human being –
And it’s never a matter of sin
But of consciousness of the responsibility for our own suffering.

All of us, also, need to suffer for future generations
Who’ll need to cross that gap as well
To become full human beings.

So, each of us is presented with the same choice as Jesus –
That is, whether or not to act as God
Would act
If God were human.

For us, it’ll always be a matter of direction –
Individually, as well as for the entire human race.

MOMENT BY MOMENT

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When Jesus counseled us
To be “born again”
He didn’t mean just once –

Because it doesn’t take long
For a new self to freeze
Into a mask.

What he was saying –
Since God is absolutely free,
We, also, need to be.

Each moment should be experienced as a new birth,
So that our prior selves do not have the power
To bind us back into the past.

Love won’t arrive through habit or rote –
It always needs to be free!

That’s why, as we grow older and gain greater experience,
Jesus wants us, simultaneously, to spiritually regress –
Not just back to when we were a child –
But all the way back to when we were newborn
Where the subjective world begins again –

All our lifelong experience
Joined to the bud of birth –

A life occurring afresh –

Moment by moment.

THE PUREST GIRL IN THE WORLD ON THE WAY TO BECOMING THE VERY FIRST SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE AVATAR (ORIGINALLY POSTED NOVEMBER 22, 2014) (FIRST ADDENDUM)

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1. Why the Southern Hemisphere?

Because the Northern Hemisphere finds its primary meaning in technological materialism. It’s difficult to gain much spiritual perspective living inside an essentially nonspiritual world that’s largely unexamined. Yes, the South has been influenced by all of this, but has managed to retain most of its “humanness” – especially with respect to God, nature, and purely human qualities.

2. Why female?

Because I believe men have taken human spirituality about as far as possible for them. As a result, the world’s current spiritual state appears to be fairly exhausted. I believe it’s time for an amazing new vision of God and humanity, including what the men have already achieved, but going much farther, wider, and deeper – that will result in a fading out of the extreme violence of men, along with their rigid hierarchical systems and harsh competitiveness – to make room for more enduring spiritual qualities – like truth, love, justice, and, given the natural spiritual openness of women – beauty.

3. The prophet.

A female prophet of our time has already appeared – Arundhati Roy – who has been speaking out fearlessly on behalf of God in a sharp critical analysis of the current state of our world. She needs our attention and support.

4. Why will “the purest girl in the world” need to be an avatar?

Even though she’ll be a part of an emerging deeply human spiritual movement, some person has to embody (as if straight from God) the best humanity is capable of achieving at a given point in time. She’ll be that person, and more – she’ll be able to explain everything we need to reconcile humanity with God, nature, and one another. She’ll also embody a greater intelligent-love (if you can imagine that) than Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed – because she’ll be starting at the point at which they left off.

Again, I’m calling for you little one – we need you to arrive as soon as possible!

LIKE THE WIND

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Jesus taught that the spirit is like the wind. Time is also like the wind, pouring like a waterfall out of the future, rushing through the present, and flowing swiftly out into the past. Space, too, is like the wind, since whatever space we are occupying is always changing – either it’s moving away from us or we’re moving away from it.

So, space and time – our world – turns out to be very much like the spirit, i.e., like the “wind”. One day we’re born at a specific place and time and the next day we’re dying at another place and time. In our lives, we’re blown like wind through these two points when, after carefully consulting our minds and hearts, we’ll discover we retain only our spiritual experiences –the love, truth, justice and beauty we’ve created in our lives – while nothing else remains.

From “Diner Mystic”