This is profound. Thanks for confessing up to that. Then all religions are breaking the Law of One, and that is a law that cannot be broken without, er...results.
How is your question being framed? Have we both made sufficient and equivalent studies. Have we both used sufficient intellect in the matter. Is there a spirtual component in the quest for true understanding. From these standpoints I do not claim to have the superior position. I do not posses that kind of arrogance in any fiber of my body. I have little knowledge of your experience, your depth of knowledge or your power of reasoning. So I do not conclude my position is better than yours. In fact I respect any person who puts in a solid attempt and comes to their own conclusions. Is it a matter of the absolute correctness of the position? If it is a matter of truth only one of us can be correct. But that really is not for me to determine. I hope my position is better but I know as a human being I could be wrong. For example. If I am wrong about the Trinity and the New Convenant established by Jesus, then JohnnyKs response about Jesus saying be the love that you are would be a very good read on what Jesus was saying. Do not worry about your I Ds just be love. However, as a believer of the bible I would say Jesus said the point is to love your God with all your heart and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. One view wishes to raise man up to be God because there is no God and the the other says there is a God and I wish to do his will.
Shoeshineboy, Let me tell you about the cross that you don't know. First the problem, then the solution. Man's original sin was judgment. That is the only sin a pure and innocent soul can commit. The immediate, inevitable, and unavoidable consequences of judgment is separation from the object of your judgment, and from God to the degree that the Creator is also part of that which you have judged. Judgements have a way of expanding and multiplying until separation from god becomes a real and monumental problem. A being in separation is unconscious of his Source, and therefore he will endlessly persue the task of creating himself. Uniformly without exception, the separations of man have occured because man drifted away from God, the Source of love and reality, through his devotion to private fiction and ego projections. Man's headlong persuit of personal agendas and invented realities caused him to forget the love that he really is. Without the long forgetfulness of separation, and the many densities of useless identity which result from it, a soul could never be led astray and would never concieve of misdeeds. What the world calls sin is the long term, tragic derivation of the real sin -- which is judgment and its resulting separation from God, reality, and brotherhood. All misdeeds are sad events. However, to consider them to be the real sin only furthers the problem. If man is to live together in brotherhood, immorality cannot be condoned. Yet, to condemn immorality only feeds into the vicious cycle of judgment. This has been man's dilemma! If all judgment had ceased and the spirit of forgiveness had prevailed, man would have returned to his innocence by grace, and Jesus intercession would not have been necessary. When Jesus came to earth 2000 years ago, he was not essentially different from us in potential, except that he had never know separation from his Creator...whom he lovingly called Father. And he had never known himself as anything but the love that he was, nor had he ever created fictions about himself. You see, the point of his sacrifice on the cross does not lie so much in the fact that he died for us as that he separated for us. Death meant nothing to Jesus, because he was utterly assured of his immortality and the pain of death could have been cancelled in a moment by his love. His gift to mankind was the separation that he chose to experience. Jesus separated as an act of love, so that love could then be united even with the state of separation. The long estrangement from God could then be ended. You see, many have died for us. Many have given their lives for a brother, for freedom, or for mankind in honor of cherished principles. Countless people have suffered for us. But no one else separated for us! Jesus separated in the spirit of love, that love might be joined even with separation, and thereby the fact of separation would be reduced to mere illusion. Yet while we walk around all day thinking we are separated and feeling fine about that, it was different for Jesus. He had never been separated. The event of his separation was the most extreme grief he had ever known in his entire existence. While on the cross, he momentarily experienced full release from his Father as he recieved to himself all the separations of the world. Now, by the law of grace, all you have to do is accept the fact that you are love and return to the Father. You see, Shoeshineboy, separation -- though essentially an illusion -- was once a very real problem. Now it is only an illusion that anyone may end by picking up the sword of truth and ripping the veil. Here again is the alchemy of the cross: The miracle evoked by Jesus death was the cancellation of separation by equating it with love instead of with judgment. The miracle of his resurrection was not so much that his body was made whole again as that man was made whole with God, and separation was transmuted to an illusion. This transfiguration is now available to anyone who will accepts the love that he is. Let me rephrase that: This transfiguration is now available to you, Shoeshineboy, when you accept the love that you ARE. You may perpetuate the illusion if you choose, or you may accept the gift. This was The Gift, given freely to anyone who wishes to regard the change of potential which now exists for mankind. Jesus does not care if anyone knows who gave the gift. He would rather the gift be promoted than he, the giver. It is sad that the gift has been shunned because it was poorly understood, or because the giver was thrust upon them. Once again, here is the gift: The illusion that you are separated from God will be transmuted when you accept the love that you are. This was freely and unconditionally given to all mankind without reservations. The giver is not even mentioned in this equation. It is all about YOU, accepting the fact that YOU ARE LOVE! Personal salvation, in the way it is often regarded today, was not claimed by Jesus, nor taught by his disciples. A man is saved by his own return, not by the fact that Jesus made it possible! It was a man's choice to judge, to separate, and to miscreate himself with fictions. Now, it is for each one to seek his own return. Jesus knows that in savoring the blessing of the gift, the reciever will eventually seek out the giver. The problem with the human condition which provoked the necessity of his gift is that free will had been virtually destroyed by the dysfunctional cycle of judgment into which man had fallen. In every generation, a few would return to their home, as the love that they were...but for most of mankind this was not possible. Free will is always a critical point of redemption or peril. What Jesus did for mankind was to make it possible for him to go HOME, to return to a knowledge of the love that he is, and to restore a personal relationship with one's Creator. Separation is now an illusion that can be penetrated by anyone who seeks to know the truth. Here is an interesting fact: No one can evolve to perfection! That's not what reincarnation is about. Perfection is the original state to which we must return! There is no greater gift that you can give to another than that of self realization. Even when we realize who we are, we can and do continue to remanifest/reincarnate infinitely...but it is according to our own purpose, our own love, and our own place of service and learning. It's one life, just a very long one with many chapters. "HOME" is found inside you at the center of a magnetic vortex near your heart. Inside there, you will find yourself as the love that you are, pure, and totally innocent. And it is on the door of this home that Jesus said: "Knock, and it will be opened to you". Johnnyk
johnny your response to shoeshineboy was so interesting and your framework so elegant that I may have to rethink my statement just above yours about love. Perhaps I would rather see it framed as just have love as opposed to just be love. And now with just have love your framework fits in perfectly with my belief in the Eucharist. I literally can have love by being in communion at Communion.
I notice jem, that yourself and others are basically attempting to deconstruct johnnyk's cabbage. The reason for this, is your constructs are based on the bible's(yes, plurals), convoluted, apostelic , and EXTREMELY judgemental theorum as to what is gods will, in this, that, or the other circumstance. The basic premise, that god is love, three words out of millions, has been lost in entirety. I dont know how this applies to your description of evangelical/protestant solidarity, you certainly didnt describe it in those terms-it is my assessment that religion is both an extension of , and very much a defense to a tribal mindset overall. Putting down "new agers" given the crux of the christian (or any other) BIG religion, is really missing the point imo. vhehn has some good cabbage there, i think. I feel people have been left with saurkraut, not good cabbage at all, not that saurkraut, if prepared properly, shouldnt be as soul nourishing as any other cabbage. Green is as green does.
It seems like we have some here who think like this fellow. A home-schooled southern "scientist". He makes for a good laugh. It is interesting to watch how he contorts science and dismisses most of established scientific principles to explain away areas that conflict with his fundamentalist beliefs. The illiterate finally asserts that dinosaurs lived among humans 6000 years ago. I threw up watching his inbreed audience clapping at every false assertion he made. What a fucking joke. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8141887480656996234&q=Kent+Hovind
Good jem, However allow me to caution you about this approach, and outline the benefits of the former. Once man's sense of self has been separated from his true nature, then love can only be understood as an action or a feeling. In that state, everyone will surely fall short. On Earth, this is the current belief about love. As long as you consider love to be an external force, it will always be subject to the conditions of life. When you truly understand love, you will be unable to view it as an external factor. You see it's not possible to possess love. Neither can it be leveraged, bartered or exchanged as currency. It isn't an action, or a commodity that we can give or trade....or have! A good reason to just BE the love that you are is because it is the first principle of success. You see, when you are being the love that you are, you are also being the child of God that you are. You are being the likeness of God, present here upon the earth to forward the creations of your Father in whatever situations you find yourself. This causes immediate changes in your outlook and performance. The first thing that happens is that you rise above the problems facing you. This is critical to success, because no problem is solved at the level on which it was created. The solution to every problem is to be found on a level that is slightly, or even greatly, above the conflicting perceptions. As long as you are eye to eye with the difficulty, you will fight the problem rather than resolve it. When you are being the love that you are, you realize that the secret of success already exists in the nature of your beingness. Solutions to problems, answers to prayers, and revelations of purpose already exist. It is our duty and our challenge to make ourselves available to receive them. You see, love commands the universe. Man resorts to control only when love is missing. Control is a very shabby substitute for command, and it is an enormously exhausting pursuit. One of the most refreshing realizations that you may have in being the love that you are is the greater feeling of restfulness. In a world obsessed with control, it is difficult to find even a moment's rest. In many ways, control is a competition for dominance of time and timing. As you command with love, you will notice that the timeing of your life will be much more consonant with your own purposes and true nature. When you command, you can rest. Let's look at this from a macro perspective... At this point science is still focusing on scarcities, forces and leftovers -- scarcity being that which is subject to control, force being that which is used to control it, and leftover existence being that which is not understood. Love is the ultimate power. There will be a transition away from these scarcities and forces that will begin with a reverent respect for the ultimate power. When that understanding is attained and activated by a sufficient number of people, the entire paradigm of humanity will be lifted above its belief in energy as force. In the face of enough love, force loses its power to dominate consciousness. From that point on, consciousness will wake up at quantum speed. The change will be so powerful as to bring answers by the second. Now just consider how much more power you have when you know you ARE love, than if you think you have love! Allow me to get technical about this...right down to the nitty gritty little particles that make up what we call MASS. Maybe this is Higgs boson, maybe not. Let's call it the 'God Particle'...the fundamental building blocks of physical existence -- particularized energy potentials which activate, unify, and give form to infinity. As points, they are irreducible, indivisible and generic; and their very existence establishes dimension. Between one point and another, there is dimension. Between a series of points there is a pattern of dimension. Thus there is space. The dynamic of energy exists through rhythmic activation and repetition of these patterns. Matter is formulated as these patterns and rhythms become more complex and specialized. God Particles are the only particles that actually create mass. Simply put, they are the primary emanation points where energy and mass are the same. The matrix from which they spring is the continuous filament of undefined potential, which is the eminent and undivided presence of the one spirit. So from another perspective, these particles may be described as the ultimate points which manifest and delineate infinity, thus activating it's potential and making possible all manifest form. Whew! Ok now that we got that straight, here is what you can do when you realize that you are love. God Particles respond to magnetic attraction. With regard to human potential, the heart is your magnetic center. It is through your heart that you are attracting God Particles, and by your love that you command them. For many reasons, it could be said that magnetism is the alpha and the omega of existence. The alpha is the formative, primal magnetism. The omega is derivative magnetism. Formative, primal magnetism is like an attractor field in which synchronous and holographic integrations are made without electrical polarity or resistance. Derivative magnetism is complementary to electrical energy, as it hold in place the basic formations of existence. Now, as this applies to the love that you are, let me give you this example: Do you remember the magnetic drawing boards for kids? Beneath a clear plastic cover are iron filaments which respond to a magnetic pencil. The magnetic pencil attracts the iron filaments and causes them to group together in lines and patterns to form a drawing on the board. Gliding the magnet over the iron filaments can create any kind of pattern. Now just imagine that your heart is the magnet, and your love is the pencil. This is your power of influence, and you are literally impacting every aspect of your life by just being, being the love that you are. You are a magnet that writes upon the drawing board of your life. As you enter any situation, the God Particles inherent to it will adjust to the influence you bring. You don't have to dream up a grand plan and put it on the drawing board. You are the grand plan! All you have to be is the love that you are. Everything will line up to that. The greater the love, the greater the influence. So there is nothing to DO, and everything to BE! Your love brings forth the patterns and manifestations that result. Herein lies the true meaning of the parable of the new wine in the old wineskins. Do you remember that one? The old wineskins represent structure. All solidity is structure, and structure accounts for all solidity. If we would penetrate barriers that stand between us and the infinite supply of life energy, we must realize the illusion and look beyond structure. Now, all physical existence is comprised of God Particles and space -- mostly vast amounts of space. These particles cohere magnetically to form the basis of all complex patterns of matter and form. Conglomerations build structure, which are then held together by energetic tension, which creates the illusion of solidity. As for the wineskins, beware, and be alert for the possibility of a defensive reaction, which can happen when a structured arrangement is infused with new properties of love. There can be an initial resistance, or even rejection! This is because structure often serves force and frequently masks chaos. Structure is a recording and conservation system, which contains, distributes and utilizes particles, but it has no capacity to generate living dynamic order. Therefore, when love enters the picture, generating a true harmony and synchronicity among the particles, a new and living flow of life is begun. This can have a shattering effect upon the brittle and inadequate structures that are providing the illusion of solidity. It can actually be 'life-threatening' to any structure which might be restricting the flow of life. Often, the introduction of love will cause pre-existing factions to fly apart. When this happens you must remember that only the brittle inadequate structures were lost in their effort to imitate love and counterfeit order. Recovery, however, brings new and real order. (continued...)