seven salient subjects
by Freedom barry
1996 FREEDOM BARRY Published by J & L Publications P.O. Box 23, Lewiston, CA 96052 ISBN: 0-9634250-1-3 All of Freedom Barry's books and lectures are available for purchase at: www.lifeslight.org or order by phone at: 831-440-9256 Other books also available by Freedom Barry: I DO PASSKEY THE GATE OF THE YEAR
TO NEVILLE who sent me to do this work "He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings." Psalm 40:2
CONTENTS Page The Taproot
1
Where There's Smoke
4
Inside Looking In
9
The Keepers Are Shaking
13
Between Gestas and Dimas
19
Mind Over Chatter
22
The Twelfth--An Amethyst
25
(All capitalized words constitute eternal, non-polar, perfect attributes of Divine Consciousness where I say I Am--Being Seven Salient Subject: I Am Mind, Principle, Spirit, Soul, Life Truth and Love, experienced here and now, when I Know It.)
THE TAPROOT Be thou my strong habitation whereunto I may continually resort.... Psalm 71:3 Have you ever felt yourself adrift in a sea of bewilderment, buffeted from all sides by the nagging pressures of decisions that require your immediate action? Take heart, for there is a way out of that dilemma. Ask yourself where your sense of Self is focused. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Psalm 90:1 What is "Lord" to you? Your Consciousness of Being is fundamental to your existence and is the one immovable, immutable taproot on which you can and inevitably do depend. Webster defines taproot as the "primary root which grows vertically downward, giving off small lateral roots." There is nothing so basic to you, so free from any external information, as your conviction of actually being. Regardless of how you may define this being, it remains to you the one unshakable fact of life: you know that you are! This conviction deepens, "grows vertically downward," supporting all the definitions, "small lateral roots," that you make of your Self. Definitions are changeable; the Definer remains constant. I am the vine; ye are the branches.... John 15:5 The speaker here, the "I," is Jesus, the central figure of the Gospels, from Iesous, the Greek equivalent of Je-hosh-ua (Jehovah saves); the "ye" is anyone or anything that appears, or is identified as objective, to the Viewer. Once you accept the premise that the scriptural Jesus is the Taproot -- your own I AM -- the practical import of the Gospel narrative is immediate, for it is not the past history of persons, but it is the Divine (actual) pattern of how to deal with the knotty problems of daily experience.
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Even though you may regard problems as material conditions, you surely must acknowledge that they are not external to your perception of them; if they were, you would not and could not know about them. This admission brings them within your purview and makes them subject to your mentation. How do you regard them? What states do they dramatize? All of mortal existence is made up of the dramatized states of thought, drawn from the alphabet of conceivabilities, appearing to the Interpreter in the universal language of persons-in-places-doing-things. The more realistic the performance, the more likely we are to accept it at face value, as actual situations or conditions; and consequently, the less likely we are to see through that "performance" and, in our own thought, reduce it to the conceivable state or states it dramatizes. If a man [one's sense of Self] abide not in me [as I, Consciousness], he is cast forth as a branch [as ye] and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. John 15:6 Consider the consequences of identifying yourself as one of the "ye" being addressed by a personal leader; if there were the slightest possibility that what you are could be destroyed in a fire, what would be your chances of immortality, or even survival? On the other hand, the "ye," the definitions we make, are constantly being burned up in the fires of experience and exchanged for more acceptable ones. Always identify your Self as the I and not a ye or we. The name of Being Is I AM, not we are. Hear, O Israel [mind of man]: The Lord our God is one Lord [one Essence]. Deuteronomy 6:4 The whole purpose of human experience is to deepen one's sense of Self until the Source is found, always "growing vertically downward" or ever deeper, through the identification and perpetual re-identification or definition of Self, which definitions spin off laterally as threedimensional experiences. These experiences may be good, bad or indifferent, all having no more reality than the Definer's acceptance of them as conditions, rather than as dramatized states of thought. Your recognition that you are never dealing with anything outside of thought should bring you a momentous sigh of relief akin to Jacob's elation upon awakening from the vision of a ladder (the vertical root) on which he saw the "angels of God [features of Consciousness] ascending and descending...and the Lord [Consciousness ItSelf] stood above it, and said, I AM the Lord God...." Genesis 28:12, 13, 16 2
Infinitely greater than a personal historical character, Jacob represents the capacity to supplant. When you relocate your sense of Self from the scriptural "ye" to the "I," your capacity to supplant is activated, and the only limits are self-imposed by going back to sleep and following old habitual thought patterns. This Divine Self-recognition, Self-identification and consequent salvation from "the terror that flieth by night" is openly stated, and at the same time cleverly concealed by the wording, in the first verse of the familiar ninety-first Psalm: He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. If this "place" is truly secret to the most High, only the most High can dwell there! Consciousness is the most High, the substance that underlies the shadow It casts (the reflected presence of Its Self -- the Almighty). This Divine (actual) Self-acceptance is the taproot of all Being and of whatever appears to ItSelf as Its becoming, Its "small lateral roots."
3
WHERE THERE'S SMOKE The numerous ways of saying that a hidden cause underlies visible effects have become commonplace with overuse. I am employing "where there's smoke, there's fire" not as just another shopworn cliché; here, we shall be following the chain of logical thought beyond the trite and discovering where the fire is. Furthermore, we shall learn not only the nature of it, but also how to tend the blaze in a more controlled burning than the one that is sending up such a dense smoke throughout the contemporary scene. Even the most cursory look at current and recent events classified as news will testify to the smoldering unrest of enormous segments of the world's population. Apologists for disruptive and all-to-often destructive activity explain the chaos as a by-product of "youth's search for relevance," which is well on its way to becoming another threadbare platitude. Rebellion against established values because they are considered irrelevant is a symptom of the rash immaturity that concludes, from a vast lack of experience, that there is no usable past. If relevance were to be found in the flavor of a particular time, true greatness would be reduced from the smoking to the smothered. Masterpieces of music, art and literature have endured, not because they epitomized the era that witnessed their creation, but for the very opposite reason: inspiration lifted them free from the restriction of time, revealing the spark and flame of their ultimate Source. Relevance, if there is to be any, must relate to reality rather than to so transitional and ephemeral a thing as an epoch of passing time, however much appreciated. Rooted in the fundamental freedom of infinitude, thought flowers with intense creativity and elevates all who partake of its product. Instead of the attempt to overthrow, obliterate or manipulate the evidence of the senses, one should discern his or her responses to the contemporary scene. When these responses are transcended, there is an automatic adjustment in visible circumstances, brought about by a new level of comprehension and consequent behavior of the individual. And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud of fire out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? Luke 12:54-57 4
It is always right to look within, to your spiritual Source (I AM-ness) to find the elements of rightness, and these are invariably relevant. You must acknowledge and consciously use these Spiritual Resources. Does that sound like too paltry an effort to ignite a fire equal to the gargantuan need for a change in the current world scale picture? ...Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! James 3:5 What you are is not as insignificant as your personal sense of yourself might seem. Your Spiritual Identity or Essence, is the Source and Substance of all appearances; your acceptance of this Truth is the Fire that burns away the ignorance of your Divinity (Actuality), and this transformation of experience puts a better face on humanity as it appears to you. ...ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. Amos 4:11, 12 The word translated into English as firebrand in this reference is from a Hebrew root meaning to rake together, a poker for gather embers. Your acceptance of I AM-ness as your Self, your actual Essence, serves as this poker; it will consolidate the elements of Consciousness and show them to be the diverse functions of one indivisible Being. This is preparation for meeting thy God, your first-hand introduction to IS-ness. God and man are not different entities but opposite poles of identifying: Consciousness and Its conception of Self. The rise and fall in degree of perception determines what the Interpreter feels Self to be and can be equated with the fluctuating temperatures in the fires of experience. Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver [knowledge]; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction [experience]. For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another... I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. Isaiah 48:10-12
5
There is no being apart from indivisible Consciousness to experience Selfhood, so whatever the scene, you can be certain that the Experiencer will survive. A change of conviction will alter behavior, and this may break out in mighty flames to consume outgrown conceptions. You can prevent suffocation from the smoke by maintaining your Identity as That-Which-Is, rather than as merely one of the interpretations of IS-ness. And mount Sinai [the battleground of experience] was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire... ...and the Lord called Moses [leadership, the capacity to marshal thoughts] up to the top of the mount. Exodus 19:18, 20 Here, the rising and falling in degree of keenness is depicted as God descending and Moses ascending, the opposite poles of Self-interpretation meeting as one indivisible unity in the realm of experience. This Sinai is still smoking. The entire world is a burning offering, the conversion of God-to-man-to-God. The whole intent is to arouse the sense of Being from the helplessness of a created effect and set it ablaze with its own divinity, finding individual relevance to eternal IS-ness, and as a consequence, rectifying the outward images of injustice that surround the ignorance of Divine/human ONE-ness. But habit is a tyrant, and the human sense of memory is incredibly short. When the first recognition is upon us that "I" and "the Father" are one and the same Essence, we suppose its luster can never dim; we feel a grand mission is ours, and we impose a personal responsibility upon ourselves to lead "others" along the path. Disenchantment builds high and yet higher as those "others" dawdle, bicker and stray, and we find ourselves caught again in the trap of dual interpreting. There is nothing new in this, for it is endemic to awakening Spiritual Identity. It is dramatized with telling effect in six verses from the first Book of Kings. Elijah (the capacity to perceive Spiritually) has followed his intuitive direction right up to the mount of God (indestructible Selfhood): And he came thither unto a cave [narrowed perspective] and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, and he said unto him [Consciousness reasoning with Its Self] What doest thou here, Elijah: And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel [the illustrations in person/place/thing language, of my attitudes and convictions] have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword [disclaimed Spiritual values with rashness]; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. 6
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount [elevated perception] before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by [Divinity is perceived in levels of interpretation], and a great and strong wind rent the mountains [literal upheaval], and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind [no, only interpreted in physical terms as the wind]: and after the wind, an earthquake [mental adjustment]: but the Lord was not in the earthquake [merely interpreted in psychological terms as the earthquake]; And after the earthquake, a fire [moral re-dedication]; but the Lord was not in the fire [of course not--simply interpreted in behavioral terms as the fire of experience]; and after the fire, a still small voice [this IS "the Lord"). And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face [sense of Self] in his mantle [personal responsibility] and went out and stood in the entering in of the cave. And behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain.... I Kings 19:9-14 Does this last verse have the familiar ring of "this is where I came in?" It should! Word for word, Elijah offer the same excuse as before. Even after the recognition of the "still small voice," if you wrap your face in the mantle of personal responsibility, as distinguished from individual Spiritual responsibility, you reduce your perspective once again to the mouth of that cave. The sure way of escape from this treadmill is outlined in the next verse: And the Lord said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness [untravelled reaches] of Damascus [become tamed]: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael [God has seen] to be king over Syria [elevated citadel, the highland]. I Kings 19:15 Once the still small voice is accepted as your own Spiritual Identity, God has seen. "His" seeing becomes your seeing. This is the correction of the signs of these times against which we see such violent rebellion. What a futile waste of effort it is to attempt to rearrange appearances, when far more desirable events evolve automatically as the Interpreter readjusts perspective! 7
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power.... Revelation 20:6 In order to avoid the destructions inherent in a literal sense of existence, one is obliged to resurrect his or her sense of Being. The "first death" occurs when limitless Consciousness identifies Its Self as a limited person-among-persons. When perspective is restored, and death and hell [are] cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Revelation 20:14 It is the Self-comprehension as One indivisible Being that consumes the ignorance of Life and Its eternal unfolding. If this individual Spiritual awakening appears to send up smoke, you will not be unduly concerned, because you will know where and what the fire is.
8
INSIDE LOOKING IN About the time I entered high school, our family lived in the second story of a building that originally had housed a sizeable grain store on the ground floor. With the installation upstairs of a different heating system, the furnace down below had been removed, together with the several long arms of air ducts that had supplied heat to the upper level through floor registers, leaving in full view to the spying curiosity of a twelve year old boy whatever happened to be transpiring down below. It was during this period that a small band of Holy Rollers rented the vacant space for their evangelical meetings. One hymn must have been their special favorite because scarcely a session ended without the hearty singing of a chorus which went: "O, I'd rather be on the inside looking OUT Than to be upon the outside looking IN...." All the while, the leader of the group accompanied, twanging a guitar with a heavy rhythmic stomping of her right foot. The triumphant spirit of the rendition left no doubt of their having attained full approval from the all-seeing Divine Eye invisible to them in the measureless heavens above. The likewise invisible but narrowly squinting human eye, barely sixteen feet above them, was not all that approving. But the arrogant intolerance of youth eventually gives way in most of us to what is eventually called "soul-searching," where perspective is drawn away from the periphery of experience towards the core. Of course, much depends on what one is looking for. What went ye out into the wilderness [uncharted region of the mind] for to see? A reed shaken with the wind [physical security]?... A man clothed in soft raiment [intellectual superiority]?.... A prophet [ecclesiastical morality]?.... Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. This is he, of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger [your aroused Spiritual curiosity] before thy face [present sense of Self], which shall prepare thy way before thee [lead you to discover Consciousness as the Source and Substance of what you call your human experience]. Luke 7:24-27
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Once this discovery is made, the impulse is to take up a theoretical occupancy on the inside of experience and start looking out from mere mentalism into a world of them and what they are doing. But "out there" thinking takes Life-As-One and splits it into a disjointed dualism: God and man, personality and body, eternity and history; then, enthroning that limited perspective as sovereign, one attempts to manipulate these divisions. This tendency and its antidote are told in the vivid symbolism of Scripture in the last chapter of John's Gospel. Bear in mind that names of persons, locations and events are used in Bible narratives to denote capacities and uses of Consciousness. When read in this light, the stories apply to every one who claims to be. The incident recorded here takes place after the resurrection of Jesus (the discovery of I AM-ness as one's own Spiritual Identity): Simon Peter [stability] saith unto them, I go fishing [exploring my being]. They say unto him, We also go with thee [all capacities are one with their Source]. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately [current understanding of existence]; and that night [ignorance of Divine Selfhood] they caught nothing. But when the morning [illumination] was now come, Jesus stood on the shore [Spiritual identity dawns]: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus [capacities are the known, not the Know er]... And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side [not outside but IN-side looking further IN] and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes [infinitude cannot be contained within human measurements]. John 21:3-6 Having discovered Consciousness to be This-Which-Is, and comprehending all experience as Conscious Being and Its interpretation, the persons and places and things that constitute this interpreting become transfigured in conformity to the characteristics of Consciousness which are being experienced. Then there is never a question whether cause or effect came first; each is understood as the opposite pole of the other, and therefore, simultaneous as far as what it IS is concerned. If the egg were seen to be a fallen chicken, and the chicken to be a resurrected egg, the age old question of which came first would be answered: each is the other's antipodal experience. 10
Now apply the same principle to God and man, Conceiver and conception of Self: opposite poles of the same indivisible Presence! This is One-ness understood. Then what appears as the untied threads of Old Testament God and New Testament Christ become to us Life and Its own living. Spiritual insight is always far more immediate and useful than a defense of theological doctrine, although religious observances are fully legitimate at some stages of experience. The pitfall lies in solidifying spiritual interest into a deadly rigid form and not freeing it to explore in-ward. It is the burning responsibility in this direction that drove William Blake to write: "I rest not from my great task! To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought, into Eternity Ever expanding in the Bosom as God...." Pursuing his dedication to that "great task" Blake mapped the road "inwards" through four ways of thinking which he characterized as single, twofold, threefold, and fourfold vision. Single vision refers to the almost universal supposition that the reality of things can be found by dissecting and measuring them according to literal standards. Twofold vision represents the discovery that "the outside world" is comprised of symbolic images of one's own conviction of what and how things are. Threefold vision illustrates that pivotal point in individual living when one is so permeated with his discovery that his behavior bears its imprint. Fourfold vision is the happy faculty of expanding your perspective in the same direction, more and yet more deeply in, and experience "the Life Divine" as your own life! Elsewhere in his writings, Blake calls these four ways of seeing "the four quarters of the human soul." I equate them with the physical, mental, moral, and Spiritual levels of interpreting. Many hesitate to intensify their inward exploration for fear they may lose touch with their present world and identity as they head into the unfamiliar territory of what previously has been to them "other-worldly." This reluctance stems from the failure to comprehend Life-AS-One. You never lose the words when you have understood the idea that is made appreciable by means of those words. In the same way Spiritual Identity is made appreciable in the language of moral, mental and physical interpreting. These are the available means of translating abstraction into palpability, and these means remain available. 11
And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city... and the city lieth foursquare... the length and the breath and the height of it are equal. Revelation 21:15, 16 Earlier, I paraphrased the Scriptural use of reed as literalism and later equated this level of interpretation with Blake's single vision. The "city of God" is your Spiritual Selfhood. When you re-identify as purely Spiritual, you do not lose the language of your comprehension and expression, but you do understand the "outer layers" as measurements or interpretations of Being, and not as other kinds of the life either to be outgrown, amalgamated with Spirit in a future life, or sloughed off in a sort of piecemeal annihilation. No, "the city lieth [remains] foursquare," but the attempt to measure it yields figures for only the three measurable dimensions; its essence, what it IS, defies measurement and can be known only from the INSIDE LOOKING IN!
12
THE KEEPERS ARE SHAKING And behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. Matthew 28:2, 4 Periodically, an avant garde theologian announces that God is dead. Complacent religionists wave off this thesis as the harmless nonsense of a few young upstarts whos only interest is the shock value of what they call new, and ask Christendom to bear in mind its survival of Friedrich Nietzsche's identical pronouncement which was considered so devastating a century ago. Ecclesiastical zealots, those keepers of the sepulcher, take quite a different position. Their response is one of alarm. The old order must be preserved. Preservation calls for a fight, and so the battle is on. Heresy, they scream to the proclamation that God is dead. It was all very well for Nietzsche to say it; what else might you expect from a fanatic? But this tidal wave swells from the seminaries, seeps into the pulpits, spills over into the congregations; if not quenched quickly and finally it could ultimately inundate institutionalized religion. Throughout history, the ecclesiastically entrenched have resisted any public airing of the imponderables. From their point of view, there are some things you just do not question; you simply accept. These preservationists feel it is no small wonder the church shows increasing signs of dry rot, what with its own mouthpieces undermining its foundation by picking the Bible apart. Whatever else such religious controversy may accomplish, it surely clears the track for a catalysis in spiritual thinking. Quite apart from the answers offered by either the protagonists of the "new theology" or the repudiators of it, independent thinkers will acknowledge the validity of the basic question it raises: Has the concept of God any meaningful application to present day living? The concept of God. Here is the fulcrum on which the contenders have set their see-saw. Concepts fade out of feasibility every day, but the essence of concepts--the Conceiver of them--continues to BE. 13
If the concept of God, any concept of God, has been mistaken for the Essence, the IS-ness that is God, then the new theologians are quite justified in their conclusions that God is dead. Concepts have no independent life, but function only as the activity of the conceiver. Apart from the conceiver of them, concepts remain merely conceivable, inactive, one might even say dead. On the other hand, the preservers of doctrinal theology are quite as justified in their state of shocked alarm, and for the same reason. If their concept of God has been passing for God, in their devoted practices of piety, no wonder they feel their security to be in imminent danger; aroused spiritual curiosity is pulling the very rug out from under them. During the past fifty years, I have been ferreting out an unbroken thread of consistency which runs through the Bible from the first verse of Genesis to the last Amen of Revelation. Admittedly, the Bible is many things to many persons, depending on the purpose to be served or the axe to be ground. Archaeologists have found it instructive in their researches; doctors are constantly discovering its psychological value; missionaries cite certain sections of it as exemplary moral behavior to fortify their particular conceptions of salvation. Literally read, the Bible becomes a labyrinth of contradictions. Taken psychologically, these contradictions can serve as useful pointers in what to do and what not to do. As moral platforms, these same contradictions proffer rather too shaky a foundation to support, without ever a question, an iron-clad doctrine. However, from the position of Being, this conviction of having Identity, I AM (the primal and final Essence of the individual) is the catalyst itself, and capably withstands the shattering of notions which necessarily attends every advanced discovery. See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. Matthew 24:2 It is my staunch conviction that the Bible is the most phenomenal collection of eternally true Spiritual visions in extant literature, and that its plot is designed to reveal God as the Essence of the individual. By dramatizing familiar states of Consciousness as persons in places doing things, the seers who prepared these documents make a direct (even if symbolic) appeal to the reader to identify as the experiencer of the same or similar states.
14
William Blake wrote in "Jerusalem:" "I give you the end of a golden string; Only wind it into a ball, It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, Built in Jerusalem's wall." Having discovered this "golden string" of the seers' intent, the reader redefines Self as Conscious individuality. This conviction of having Identity is the Essence of all his conceptions of himself as a physical-mental-moral personality. While this is a rather startling switch of position, the one who accomplishes it finds no inconsistency in identifying Selfhood as the central I AM which, in the Old Testament, is Divine origin, and in the Gospels is "the way, the truth and the life." In this approach to Scripture, we have, not a middle ground on which two irreconcilable viewpoints must come to eventual dissolution through watered down concessions, but the missing link, showing why these two opposite poles of interpretation inevitably appear. Here, there is a satisfaction of logic which is denied by either viewpoint so long as it must be defended one against the other. The fierce disillusionment which stalks the trail of any conscientious search for an historical emulation of Jesus in human behavior is assuaged when you come to see the central figure of the Gospels as the Spiritual Essence of every one who ever has claimed and who ever will claim identity. Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here. Matthew 28:5, 6 This acknowledgment of the "light of the world" where it is, in the conviction of actually being, is a far more intimate experience of the universal Savior than can be had vicariously by groping back or ahead through time and space for the appearance or the reappearance of an historical "man for others" as the "new theology" denominates Jesus. Proportionately to their repudiation of God as an entity, the "new theologians" intensify their emphasis on the historicity of Jesus, notwithstanding the presentation of Jesus as God Himself in the Gospel of John: ...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? John 14:9 15
Orthodox theologians look for a second coming of Jesus Christ on earth. The "new theologians" urge humanity to draw courage and hope from the example of his first, and perhaps only, appearance. In either case, whether humanity looks fore or aft, the Essence it seeks is the same. If, as this most spiritually-conceived of the four Gospel accounts indicates, God actually became Jesus Christ on earth, then it follows that it was God who died on the cross. Did you ever think of the earliest cross known to man as his own human form with outstretched arms? Or that in Golgotha, or in Calvary (according to the Greek dictionary, they both mean skull, the figurative location of the mind), the Consciousness of Being is crucified (set upright, affixed, from the Greek stauros) and lives as its conception of its Self? If the Bible has revealed anything at all to us, surely the most fundamental disclosures are: (1) God, Causation, is I AM, the conviction of having Identity; (2) Christ is the Conscious functioning of this Causation in the affairs of men; hence the term Christian, intended to characterize one who Consciously lives as the embodiment of Spiritual creativity; (3) the word Jesus is the anglicized Iesous, the Greek equivalent of Jehoshua, which is the Hebrew term for "Jehovah saves;" (4) and Jehovah is the Old Testament name for I AM; so we arrive again at the point where we began--the conviction of actually having Identity. A wealth of insight rewards the seeker who applies efforts, not to contrive a more plausibly historical record of a physical Jesus, but to discern the Spiritual meaning of Scripture as it stands. The basis for disagreement with the Christian's claim that God became Jesus Christ on earth is whether, in advancing the claim, one believes Jesus Christ was or is God on earth. A tiny kernel of enormous portent hides in a much quoted but little apprehended verse of Scripture, indicating the universal applicability of the eternal Spiritual visions. The prophet records his discovery of the archetypal birth, not as the forecast of an incredible physical phenomenon, but as the inevitable Spiritual illumination of every individual: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 Bear in mind, the Book of Isaiah is "The vision...which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem;" (Isaiah 1:1) that Judah refers to God's activity and that Jerusalem refers to God's dwelling. Inasmuch as God dwells as your conviction of actually Being, and acts as your Conscious direction of this indwelling Presence, Isaiah's vision of the eternal Spiritual sign relates to all individuals of all times--to you and to me. 16
We are given a sign, not an historical event. This sign is the virgin, your own Consciousness uninstructed by any external evidence, conceiving your Spiritual Identity to be your savior, bearing the results of this discovery and calling them proof of Immanuel, or God with us. Why does the Jew insist this vision of the Hebrew prophet has not been fulfilled yet? Why does the Christian insist this vision was fulfilled once? The answer to both questions is the same: Because the New Testament narrative has been taught as an historical, physical event that occurred solely in one person, rather than as the eternal Spiritual sign which appears to every individual at a certain elevation of perception. Is it not clear why the diligent efforts at conference tables by leagues of nations and mass media have been historically incapable of legislating "peace on earth, good will towards men?" It is because this individual Spiritual awakening must precede the universal physical evidence of it. The writer of the Gospel according to Mark knew well the built-in human tendency to single out someone else to bear responsibility for salvation, and warned: And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not. Mark 13:21 Christ is the active expression of Spiritual Causation, and is experienced by living Consciously as it; this is the process that makes Jesus (I AM-ness) the Christ. Therefore, he can never be pointed to as there or here, but must always be acknowledged as the Spiritual Essence of the perceiver--in a word, Self. Has the concept of God any relevance to present day living? Disturbing as the world situation may be, the greater uneasiness, which continues to foment the conflicts, lies in ambivalent attempts to conciliate irreconcilable concepts, rather than individually to arouse the Conceiver of concepts to a higher mode of identification. It would seem even more vitally relevant now than ever for the individual to confess to himself that his redeemer lives as his own capacity to identify. Then, diligently maintaining a radical change of identification, he will have proof, perhaps for the first time, that "these signs shall follow them that believe." It really matters little which the "new theologians" call their concept of This-Which-Is, whether by the name of God or by the name of Jesus. Others have called the same Essence Allah or Buddha. But it does not matter much that we begin to understand that the Being they define is the identical Essence they use to form their definitions, and that this IS-ness weathers unscathed every change of outline when the most recent is renounced for a new, more fashionable term. 17
God is dead: Long live God!
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BETWEEN GESTAS AND DIMAS Behold, now is the accepted time. II Corinthians 6:2 How many times have you recalled St. Paul's admonition, fully intending, with all the zeal of one who makes a New Year's resolution, to part company with the insidious habit of procrastination? And how many times has that habit proved to be more persistent than the resolve? Perhaps, you have looked back over the years from the perspective of 20/20 hindsight and regretted some lost opportunities; or you may have feared or dreaded what could lie ahead in an unpredictable future. Such inclinations are not unheard of, as a general rule, in the experience of living. When you come to understand Jesus as not merely an extraordinary person of historical accounts but as the Spiritual actuality of every individual who ever has lived, who now lives, and who ever will live, then the usefulness of a thorough knowledge of Scripture is immediately apparent. In chapter VII of the Gospel of Nicodemus, from the Apocryphal New Testament*, we find the names of the two thieves crucified one on either side of Jesus on Mt. Calvary: "Dimas on his right hand and Gestas on his left." On the one side of present reality lies the regret over an unfulfilled past (Dimas), while on the other hangs the uneasy fear of an as yet undisclosed future (Gestas). Can you imagine worse thieves stealing present productive activity than the indulgence in either of those habits of thought? By comparison, procrastination is a relatively petty robber, not to be encouraged or excused, however, but reduced to the helplessness of a conceivable state. Space is a conceptual facility to accommodate experience, as time is a conceptual facility for altering experience. Neither time nor space can exist apart from the perception of them, and this brings their content within the animus, or actuating spirit, of your mentation. Wholly unlike the manipulation of the personal affairs and circumstances of one human being by another, this corrective activity proceeds from the originating spirit of infinite Consciousness being Conscious of Its own elements, features, and functions, and deals exclusively with the acknowledgment and expression of ideas. Granted, these ideas appear in the universally comprehensible language of persons-in-places-doing-things, but manipulating person/place/thing events is not our purpose. *Apocryphal New Testament 1890 Gerbie & Co., 1901 David McKay, Philadelphia, PA 19
We are not in the business of putting props under shadows in order to make them more stable or more real than they are; rather, are we dedicated to the individual discovery of the nature of the Substance (Consciousness) that is casting the shadows of Its activities, and being more selective of the attitudes we maintain. Strictly speaking, there is no temporal now. The instant a future moment reaches recognizable presence, it begins ticking away into the past, eluding our capture for utilization. There is, however, the eternal now in which all Spiritual activity takes place. The acknowledgment of Consciousness as This-Which-Is (not that-which-was or that-whichwill-be), with Its limitless Self-contained features and functions, establishes for the individual who accepts this acknowledgment as his or her own Being, the focus of thought which projects onto the screen of space/time the shadows of reality that make up this drama called "Life-In-The-Flesh." The word Jesus is the anglicized Iesous which is the Greek equivalent of Jehoshua, the Hebrew term for Jehovah saves, and Jehovah's revealed name is I AM. Hence, Jesus the Savior is not an historical person to save other historical persons, but the eternal Presence of I AM. Conscious Being, saving Itself from the misconceptions of Self, accepts as conditions while It sleeps to Its Divinity (actual Being) and dreams the drama of Life-InThe-Flesh. All Gospel accounts relate the crucifixion of Jesus, "his" resurrection and ascension, but it is left to the Individual to discover these are not brutal or miraculous events in the life of the best human person in historical time, but points revealed to every one in Individual Spiritual Awakening to this ONE's real Being. The true cross is not constructed of wooden slabs, but is a concept: the human form with arms outstretched and head held high. Consciousness affixes ItSelf to this conception of Self and looks out from that standpoint saying, "I Am this," reading the projections of thought on the space/time screen as passing events of varying degrees of horror and bliss in the dreamt drama of mortality. Is there any cure for these "events" from within the dream? Only the awakening from that misconception of Self as a person among billions of persons living and dying in the Life-In-The-Flesh drama can break the mortal illusion and restore Spiritual perspective. The Gospels tell this same story in the Transfiguration. Let us now read it in present tense and distill the Spiritual significance and exercise the method it reveals of salvation from false identification: 20
And after six days [successive stages of illumination], Jesus [one's own I Am-ness] taketh Peter [stability], James [wisdom], and John his brother [compassion], and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart [exalted altitude of thought], And was [is] transfigured [transformed in appearances] before them: and his face did [does] shine as the sun, and his raiment was [is] white as the light. And, behold, there appeared [appear] unto them Moses [the great law-giver of the past] and Elias [the great prophesier of the future] talking with him [in the present]. Then answered [answers)] Peter, and said [says] unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles [crosses; fixed personal sense]; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake [speaks], behold, a bright cloud overshadowed [overshadows] them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said [says], This IS my beloved Son [Presence], in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. And when the disciples [disciplined attributes of thought] heard [hear] it, they fell [fall] on their face[s], and were [are] sore afraid [this revelation disturbs the false sense of security of identifying as a person]. And Jesus [your true spiritual identity] came [comes] and touched [touches] them, and said [says], Arise [elevate your sense of Self], and be not afraid. And when they had [have] lifted up their eyes [have raised their perceptions], they saw [see] no man, save Jesus only. Matthew 17:1-8 Don't worry! That last verse does not indicate any wholesale obliteration of persons; it simply means that from your newly elevated perspective, you can see through the literal parade of persons-in-places-doing-things and recognize the actual Substance which presents ItSelf in that universally comprehensible language. So, if you cease regretting an unfulfilled past and cease fearing an undisclosed future, you are abandoning Gestas and Dimas and dwelling between them, productively affixed in the eternal now of Spiritual (accurate) Self-realization, as I AM, the definer of whatever definitions you make of your Self.
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MIND OVER CHATTER One day, a student who had enrolled in one of my classes in Individual Spiritual Awakening came to my office in a state of euphoria. She had attended the fiftieth reunion of her graduating class from High School and, while there, had renewed her acquaintance with a friend with whom she had not had contact over the past twenty-five years. They began comparing notes on what had been happening to each of them since they had last communicated. She said, "It came as a thunderbolt from heaven that we were both Truth students; we talked all night!" I asked her what they had talked about, and with sublime ingenuousness, she answered, "About the wordlessness of Being!" Who wishes to rain on someone else's parade? I rejoiced with her in her newfound bond of friendship and encouraged her to deepen the experience of wordlessness, to revere it, and nurture its growth. The paradox, as it seemed to me, of talking all night about the wordlessness of Being brought to thought some familiar pertinent verses from Scripture: Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul [Spiritual sense, not on your wagging tongues], and bind them for a sign upon you hand [applied understanding], that they may be as frontlets [bands] between your eyes [distinguishing Spiritual sense from literal interpreting]. Deuteronomy 11:18 Discerning the Spiritual sense of what appears to be persons-in-places-doing-things, and understanding that this appearance is a literal interpretation about Spiritual sense--this is the recognition of the human and Divine coincidence which erases the duality of Spirit and matter as two different kinds of substance, one to be achieved and the other to be abolished. William Blake hit this nail squarely on the head when he wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, "If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite." 22
Webster's definition of coincide is: "To occupy the same place in space or the same period of time." We would not expect to see an apple tree and a bicycle occupy the same place in space because they are two distinctly different kinds of "thing." But just suppose you are looking at what you have believed all summer to be a pear tree and discover it is now bearing apples; you do not have two different "things" there, an apple tree and a pear tree The pear tree is not an object to be chopped down or in any way demolished; it is merely a mistaken view of an apple tree. The actual apple tree and mistaken sense of it occupied "the same place in space or the same period of time." The Absolute and the Explanatory are not two different kinds of substance, but the revelation of THIS-WHICH-IS and the manner in which this IS-ness is appearing. Here is the revelation of the Absolute: In the beginning was [is] the Word [the meaning], and the Word [meaning] was [is] with God [Consciousness], and the Word [meaning] was [is] God [Consciousness: I AM]. John 1:1 Here is the revelation of the Explanatory: And the Word [meaning] was [is] made flesh [apparent] and dwelt [dwells] among us [in the comprehensible language of persons-in-places-doing-things]. John 1:4 In light of the Spiritual import of these Scriptural citations, it has occurred to me that we might here productively consider a few of the old chestnuts that "Truth students" have collected from the various systems they have investigated and dispense with some of the claptrap that has worked its way into the stand lexicon of metaphysical lingo that passes for Proverbs and that sandbags the progress of so many. One of these platitudes has it as "wrong to spiritualize matter." Failing to understand that what is termed matter is the misinterpretation of Spirit, one is stuck with matter as a solid object in plain sight that needs to be dissolved; but, approaching the subject from the understanding that all is Consciousness, one has only to de-materialize his or her sense of the manner in which Spirit is appearing in order to become free from the limitations of literal interpreting. Too often, the timeworn cliché "let go and let God" encourages the neophyte to do nothing and leave the solution of a problem to the inexplicable magic workings of the as yet "unknown God." A far safer admonition would be to let go of a personal sense of your Self and permit your Divine (actual) nature to express Its features Consciously as what you are feeling and doing. 23
Another old bromide: "You are just looking for ease in matter: it is sinful to want more than you need." It is no more sinful to want a Rolls Royce than to want a square meal or a night's shelter from the storm. The word sin, as used in the New Testament, is translated from the Greek harmartano, which means "to miss the mark and so not share in the prize." The point of view that urges, "it is sinful to want more than you need" is the sinner; it has missed the mark that to want is the sin, for the attitude of wanting denies having! Consciousness, This-Which-Is, is all there is to all that appears in person-place-thing language. As such, It already has the real idea of whatever can appear to ItSelf in this language. The recognition of this Spiritual fact brings into the visible time/space continuum whatever had seemed, to a false sense of Self, to be lacking. A false sense of Self! This is responsible for perpetuating one of the most insidious banalities of all: "There is nothing wrong with me; I'm perfect just the way I am." When this statement is made, not from the Spiritual conviction of impersonal infinite Consciousness, but from the self-satisfied sense of personal existence, that utterance is dangerous, if not downright disastrous. It induces an offensive state of stagnation, encourages the continued occupancy of it, exaggerates arrogance, and delays the awakening from the stupor of such fallacious Self-definition. Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead [definitions you accept as your Self], and Christ [this Spiritually recognized Self] shall give thee light. Ephesians 5:14 This light comes to us as the wisdom to know when to share experiences and when to protect new Spiritual discoveries from the torrent of words that often renders them stillborn. And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. Revelation 8:1 So Be It!
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THE TWELFTH--AN AMETHYST In the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, St. John describes the New Jerusalem surrounded by its wall, garnished with twelve rows of precious stones. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible defines Jerusalem as the dwelling place of creativity. It comes as no surprise to students of Individual Spiritual Awakening that New Jerusalem is the individually discovered Home (Spiritual origin) of each of us, and that the wall which protects it is individually built by means of disciplined thought. The gemstones which embellish this wall represent varying degrees of transparency through which the IN-dweller (Consciousness) interprets Its Divine (actual) Nature. These twelve rows of stones symbolize the redeemed twelve sons of Jacob, or negative states of thought which, when taken at face value, certainly stand in need of redemption: instability, anger, self-will, intemperance, limitation, martyrdom, deceit, paranoia, self-indulgence, hypocrisy, adversity, greed. What do you think? Could these do with a little transforming? These negative states are transformed by a two-fold process: first, the individual sees through them and understands them as dramatized portrayals of merely conceivable states rather than accepting them as human beings containing such unlovely characteristics; and second, he mentally translates these unattractive traits back into their Spiritual counterfacts, the actual features of Consciousness. This process of being "...transformed by the renewing of your mind" is depicted in Matthew 10:1-4 as Jesus (your own individual Spiritual I AM-ness) calling his disciples (disciplining the attributes of thought). A colleague once told me that "discipline" was a forbidden word in his vocabulary as he had always equated it with punishment. His father always said he was going to discipline him whenever he spanked him for some wrongdoing! My sense of discipline is the process of good training whereby one systematically builds a method or technique which facilitates performance and sets the performer free to express his or her ideas without anxious thought or concern over production considerations, without having to face dreaded rough spots. This is true of musicians, actors, dancers, and all performers in any walk of life because if the technique is solidly built, the performer has a springboard of confidence which permits the free-flow of inspiration that lifts audience and performer to the sharing of aesthetic experience. 25
When students of Individual Spiritual Awakening approach discipline of thought with this understanding, they find it conducive to a beneficial outcome of any situation, supporting their best efforts reliably. Unlike states, which are merely conceivable, the features of Consciousness have validity, actual Presence, the revealed Nature of This-Which-Is. Dramatized in the New Testament as Jesus' twelve disciples, they are the personifications of these twelve features or characteristics: Stability, courage, wisdom, compassion, persistence, originality, logic, trust, discernment, generosity, security, detachment. It is one thing to name them or to recognize them; it is quite another thing to exercise them, to discipline them until they act automatically to stabilize your work. It is, of course, easier to detect a flaw in someone else's behavior than in one's own. When this redemptive work is properly done, without regard to whose shortcoming it is, it is a wholly impersonal activity. Whatever appears to you as "out there" in space is "right here" in your thought where, ultimately, every wrong sense about This-Which-Is must be resolved. One monumental advantage to working in this impersonal way is the elimination of the wear and tear on easily hurt feelings! Quite naturally, stability is the first to be called to discipleship; nothing remains standing long unless it is on a firm foundation. The only immovable fact to you is that you are. What is it that knows this? Consciousness. This is the basis on which to build, and you must remind yourself as often as needed in order that you automatically begin on this ground. You are dealing exclusively with ideas. The courage to stick with this conviction when everything around you argues otherwise is developed only by a mighty determination; any scene depicting fear is transformed solely by the habitual exercise of courage. Wisdom knows not only what to do but also when and how to do it. Anytime you find yourself "halting between two opinions," remind yourself that wisdom, like all other features of Consciousness, is present, needing only to be acknowledged and experienced. It is easy for most of us to be judgmental, but that sort of thinking regards the situation as personal; it takes the repeated practice of compassion to effect the forgiveness of oneself and what appears as "others." How many times must you crawl out of recurring portrayals of obstructive states? As many as it requires to promote unimpeded progress; persistence alone wins the prize. Introduce inspiration, originality, to relieve the boredom of repetition. "Try it; you'll like it!" 26
When you are beset by doubts, the acid test is logic. Does it make sense when reasoned from the one unshakable bastion--the essential Nature of Consciousness? If you find yourself frequently skeptical or suspicious, you should know that, simply put, you must learn to trust. Trust what? Others? Not necessarily. Trust the Divine (actual) Nature to BE ItSelf, and insist upon Its so Being, until it becomes second nature for you to feel that confidence. The ability to diagnose a situation in order to discover the conceivable state it portrays is useful, but in itself, it tends to make one judgmental; discernment of the Spiritual counterFact is the deliverer, and must be cultivated assiduously. Generosity is more than willingly sharing your assets; it involves a health of Soul, "...to do unwitnessed what we should be capable of doing before all the world." (La Rochefoucauld) Looking to a fat investment portfolio to find security is like peering into the wrong end of a telescope. Reverse that procedure and understand that all-ness is the Nature of ThisWhich-Is, your actual Being. The fear of lack cannot sustain itself in the presence of this understanding, and this secure conviction always evidences itself in appropriately corresponding terms. Now, we arrive at the twelfth disciple, Judas Iscariot, who according to Scripture "...also betrayed him." They all do, you know. Every disciplined attribute betrays, i.e., reveals, the hiding place of the Savior (your understanding and acceptance of your True Spiritual Identity). The Gospels tell us that Judas commits suicide, a perhaps melodramatic personification of detachment. What stunning symbolism we have here! The feature most reluctantly accepted is detachment, for it requires one to relinquish a personal sense of Self (and others) and deal exclusively with thought. All our old trademarks, our false security blankets, have to be surrendered. No wonder the last row of stones to cap the wall that protects our newly discovered Spiritual Home is "...the twelfth, an amethyst." The amethyst, considered by jewelers to be the least valuable of the semi-precious stones, symbolizes detachment, the last feature that human sense learns to value and to practice. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down [spread forth, display as a chart] his life for his friends [to emulate]. John 15:13 27
