Monday 26 January 2015

The Avatar Syndrome


There are only two conditions for becoming a saint. First, you must be dead. Second, two miracles must be assigned to your intercession. To my knowledge, at no time did Vatican nor any other ecclesiastic body explain what makes anyone a saint. In fact, what sainthood is remains a mystery to this day.
And yet we have pointers.
Saint means or is accepted to mean:  holy, as in “Holy Mary”, and holy comes from proto-Germanic “hailaga”, middle English ‘halig’, akin to Old English ‘hal’ meaning whole.
All of them imply Wholeness. Completeness.  
So, what makes us whole?

Ancient scribes insists that man is made up of four aspects—of physical, emotional, mental AND spiritual bodies. This is defined in Noah and his three sons (Genesis 6:20), in four men walking around a fiery pit of Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3:25), and in the four horsemen of the Apocalypse (Revelation of John 6:1-8).
All four aspects of man define our nature and are expressions of our consciousness. When most people say “I am”, they refer to their physical entity, to which they usually add a name in order to differentiate themselves from other physical entities. Many scientists believe that this biological robot is the source that generates emotions, and, with luck, on occasion, some mental peregrinations. They are partially right, but only at the lowest evolutionary level, which they evidently espouse. (Scientists call their gods by different names).
The mystics say otherwise. They claim that all three aspects of man, the physical, emotional and mental are the consequence of the spiritual component, which finds its expression through our three lower natures. Furthermore, they claim that only when we accept this fact, and subjugate our lower natures to our spiritual component, only then we become complete.
Ergo: whole or holy. Or… saints.

It is apparent, that the Holy Mother the Church, and the many fragments of it ensuing from the Protestant movements, is not aware of this. The most amusing of all is the case of John the Baptist, whom the Roman Church recognizes as a great saint, in spite of the fact that the man in whose name they speak, the man they erroneously call Jesus (his real name is Yehoshûa or Yeshûa) saying that the “least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11), meaning John. To me this suggests that poor John was still outside the Pearly Gates. Perhaps he was still incomplete?
Before we dismiss all this as religious mumbo-jumbo, allow me to point out that a committed atheist, Sigmund Freud, attempted to define our nature by adding to our physical body “id, ego and super-ego”. Well, he tried…


And this brings us to the concept of Avatar. It originates in Hinduism, promulgating the concept that an aspect of Vishnu, a supreme deity, becomes embodied in a human form.
News flash!
We are all aspects of deity embodied in human body. The only question is, to what degree are we aware of this magnificent fact. Read below. 




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Wednesday 21 January 2015

Dukkha and other Misfortunes.


Buddha is said to have promulgated the thesis that life is suffering. He didn’t. “Dukkha” is usually translated as “suffering, anxiety, or stress”. Admittedly, those could cause pain. Mental or emotional pain. However, we know from other sources that “truth will set us free”.
Buddha said it a little differently.
 He implied that until we wake up, we’ll be unable to perceive the truth. And hence, we’ll suffer. But we don’t have to. All we need do is wake up. And there is an easy way to check if you’re awake: if you suffer, then you are still immersed in an illusory reality in which duality holds sway. On the other hand, once you wake up to the immutable truth that you are an immortal entity, you are catapulting yourself to freedom.
Yes, there is an infinite number of heavens.
So why do we have to spend time in this valley of tears? That, too, is simple. Heaven is for the brave. It is for those who dare swim against the current. For those who do not follow others but cut their own way through the jungle of material illusion. We are assaulted from both sides: the material side by science, and the intangible, by countless religions. Yet neither had been created unto the “image an likeness”. You were. You and I. Individually.

So, to repeat, why are we here?
Needless to say, there is a good reason for our embodiment. Although we, even as the rest of the dualistic reality (the visible universe) consist almost exclusively of empty space, our illusory body (mostly water and 100 trillion bacteria also suspended in empty space) enables us to experience the consequences of “missing the bull’s eye”, or, what the religionists call a ‘sin’. There is no ‘punishment’ in heaven, (nor for that matter anywhere else either), but at least here, on Earth, we can witness the consequences of our erroneous interpretation of the Universal Laws.
Here, and only here, we can accelerate our learning by observing the results of our labours. We can tell “good from bad”, or as some call it from ‘evil’. Of course, there is no such thing as evil. After all, there is a Single Source, which scientists call the Void before the Big Bang, and the religionists refer to as God. Hence there can be no evil. Only we, as individuals, can perceive what is good or bad in relation to its conformity to the Universal Laws. And those reside only in our hearts—in our unconscious. No wonder Socrates implored us to “know thyself”. There is no other source of truth for us than the truth that resides within us. Each one of us must reach the stage at which we affirm with total conviction that:

“I AM THE TRUTH”.

Until we do, dukkha will hold sway over us. Buddha discovered this fact some 2500 years ago. If we hadn’t learned yet how to wake up, couldn’t we at least learn to listen? 





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Saturday 17 January 2015

Heaven — The Eternal Playground


Requiescat in pace!” After some 40 years of 9 to 5? Give me a break. We already rested the last 10 years. Sitting on either side of God’s throne, or at the feet of Virgin Mary, or enjoying 72 other virgins (and then what?) for all eternity is not my idea of fun. I find it strange that people who attest to the immortality of ‘soul’, lose sight of the fact that if soul — or the indestructible individualization of the Omnipresent Consciousness — is immortal, then it must retain its free will forever. And I refuse to sit around and do nothing.
Exeunt religions.
Admittedly here, in this illusory reality of Earth, many exercise their will almost exclusively to delay their ascent to the Fields of Dreams. Yet, once freed from the confines of our physical bodies we can let loose, without the danger imposed by the immutable Law of Karma.
Finally we reached the Eternal Playground! Although the first heaven is more like a playpen…

In our dreams there is no Karma. We do not suffer any consequences of our ‘misdeeds’. We can no longer ‘go’ to hell! In fact, there is no hell in Hinduism, Buddhism, Hebraism, Sufism, nor any other religion that do not use the carrot and the stick as a means of subjugating their ‘faithful’—to make them obedient sheep. To quote Einstein: 

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep
one must above all be a sheep oneself”.

Sheep can only react to their environment. They have no free will to say ‘no’. We, the people, aspire to gain greater awareness of being immortal individualizations of consciousness. We only spend a short time in the illusory physical form for the purpose of enriching our subconscious.
Once we leave our carcasses behind, we can enjoy the acquired knowledge of positive resolutions of the problems we have set before us, in the reality of space and time. In heaven, once we learn the Universal Laws governing inner realities, “we can get away with murder”. In heaven, of course, murder is a misnomer. The immortal is also indestructible.
On the other hand if, while on Earth, someone wronged us, and we chose not to “forgive and forget”, we are stuck with our biased attitudes until our next reincarnation, wherein we can remedy the relationship or the situation.
We must never forget that we alone decide on the circumstances of our next embodiment. We have no one to blame if things do not come out quite right. In each reincarnation we are taking, again, the first steps on the rest of our immortal journey. Thus loving everyone, in spite of his or her often-abysmal traits (ha, ha!), sounds like a good idea. It is an act of self-preservation—of enhancing our private, personal heaven.

That’s it.
There are great many delusions propagated by both, our scientists and our religious organizations. We do not have to submit to them. We have free will.






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Monday 12 January 2015

Battle of the Opposites


Give or take. Build or destroy. Create or kill. Love or hate. To impose by power is to negate free will. Hence, power is the also the opposite of love, not just hate.
From time immemorial people deferred to gods as all-powerful. Not good or bad, but powerful. Look at Book of Job. Gods are said to have created the world. Well, Earth anyway. In Hebrew, gods, are called Elohim. That’s plural. Many gods. And since Earth is reputed to be about 4.5 billion years old, and the Universe around 13.7 billion, it stands to reason that Elohim visited us from afar. Assuming evolution, they must have been a few billion years smarter than we are, ‘even’ today.
Elohim must have controlled the opposites—the centripetal and the centrifugal forces. In other words, they had the ability to maintain equilibrium in our solar system—the centrifugal and centripetal forces—in perfect balance. Earth neither flies off into space, nor collapses into the sun. Quite a feat! That’s what gods do. Maintain balance in all aspects of our becoming. The rest is up to us.
The rest is history.

We, “gods in waiting”, need some guidelines to lead us towards godhood. Look around you. Power always sets us apart, while love draws us together. There is no good and evil. There is only the distance we stray from the straight and narrow. It’s a struggle between extremes— between the opposites. Hence duality of our reality. 

Lao Tsu pointed out that Tao is always neutral…  always on the side of the just man. Hence, a just man must also be neutral. We are told not to judge yet we must constantly make decisions to survive.
A philosophical conundrum?
In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas we are advised to become “passers-by” (Key to Immortality, logion 42). It’s easier if we accept that the reality in which we find our becoming is NOT real. That is it transient, illusory—Maya, as our eastern friends call it.
At long last scientists came to our help. They declared that all atoms are 99.9999999999999% empty space. And since the visible world consists of atoms, whatever we see or detect with our senses cannot be real. When we realize this fact, passing judgment on other people is ludicrous. If we continue to pass judgment we shall continue to tread the Wheel of Awagawan. We are judging illusions.
Our judgment wouldn’t make any sense.
Look around you… We have created a mess and will continue to squander our gifts until… until the truth will set us free! Until we become Elohim.
“Ye are gods”, remember?


Our future is unimaginably magnificent! We can wield a force that will continue to draw us together. This force is called love. It manifests when we lose the ability to differentiate between “us and them”. Between you and me. Winston discovered this truth. You can read about him in my Winston Trilogy. He defines the future that awaits you. Enjoy!




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Tuesday 6 January 2015

Destiny - The Way Back.


Kismet is what dreams are made of… Most of us think that we are advancing—conquering new grounds, opening new horizons. No doubt, some of us are. Some of us. Very, very few. Most of us are regressing.
We all began in ‘Paradise’ as free spirits. Disembodied units of individualized Consciousness. Then we had been given ‘skins’ (developed physical awareness). Finally we ‘ate’ of the tree of knowledge, i.e.: our physical complexity ‘evolved’ sufficiently to generate thoughts. This alone produced ‘ego’, or the ability to say no. To this day we think that we know better than the dictates of the Universal Laws that organized, sustained, and continue to take corrective measures to assure that the Universe in its near-infinite diversity survives.
Yet, at times, we all experience an ephemeral feeling of hunger—a longing to recapture that elusive sense of belonging. We are trying to find our way back. To Paradise? To the time when we were all One?
It seems to be a one-way trip. Only the trick is not to return to Paradise with empty hands.

Somewhere along the journey of life, we lost the awareness of being an integral part of the Whole—whether we call it God, the Universe, or Omnipresent Consciousness—is of no consequence. Religions come and go, the Universe remains. As do the Universal Laws.
Some people still feel this sense of belonging. We call them mystics. They are people who no longer suffer from the sense of alienation. They are people who realize that the intellect, which can produce atom bombs, cannot understand all the intricacies of Universal Laws. They, the mystics, resort to reaching into their unconscious, which, it seems, is the only connection we have with the Whole. It is beyond the limitations of conscious mind.
Richard Feynman insisted that the universe is more wonderful than we can imagine. He was awarded Nobel Prize for physics, and was never declared a saint. Yet, surely, he was among the greatest of mystics. He reached beyond the mind, beyond imagination. At one time he said:

“Tell your son to stop trying to fill your head with science — 
—for to fill your heart with love is enough!”

Those, my friends, are words of a mystic. They are words of a man who is cognizant of the Whole—of Universal Oneness. For, surely, that is what love is. It is the awareness of you and I being one. Indivisible. In Universal, indivisible union. This alone is the mystery of love.


I wrote a book, actually a trilogy, and the last part deals with a boy, later a man, who senses acute discomfort in the feeling of being ‘apart’. He is longing for an intangible union. What sets him apart is that he remains faithful to his kismet. He refuses to accept the alienation that people exhibit towards each other. Was he a saint? Or was he merely what we are all intended to be. Let me know what you think.




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Thursday 1 January 2015

An Eye for an Eye even in 2015?


Such dictum would restore the balance. That’s all. Yet, Moses proclaimed an eye for an eye. Mohammad, in his Koran, repeated the words from the “book”, advocating the same remedy for restoring equilibrium—yet, realizing the overt lack of progress resulting from such an equation, both he and Moses had more to say on the subject. They stated that while an eye for an eye will restore the previous condition it would not advance the practitioner of such policy on the road to “salvation”. On his/her evolutionary journey. For that to happen, a different course must be taken.
In Al-Shura Chapter 42: Verse 40, the Koran states that: "And the recompense of an injury is an injury the like thereof; but whoso forgives and his act brings about reformation, his reward is with Allah.
Yeshûa stated it more simply, Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” No legal system in the world ever followed this admonition, nor taken his advise.  
But most of all, Yeshûa said that we ought to love our enemies. It stands to reason that if we love someone, they NO LONGER ARE our enemies. Imagine… a world without enemies!
What would Pentagon do? Become obsolete?
Moses did not offer the “eye for an eye” affirmation to force you to blind somebody, but to LIMIT your retribution. An eye for an eye and not a shred more. Nor a penny. Nor a farthing. Of course if you were to judge unjustly, exceeding a “just” or karmic recompense, you’d condemn yourself to suffer the punishment yourself. With interest, no doubt. And if you think you’ve gotten away with it, let me assure you that we are immortal.  All of us.
And if you find none of this convincing, you might take heed of Mohandas Gandhi’s pragmatic observation:

“An eye for an eye only ends up making
the whole world blind.”

An atom bomb for an atom bomb…?
Yet this is the world we all live in today. We not only expect to impose revenge on our perceived enemy, but we tend to do so vastly exceeding Mosaic limitation. Yet we call ourselves Christians; or Muslim, or Jews, for that matter.
It seem that none are so blind as those who still have eyes yet cannot see.


Such observations led me to try and visualize a different reality; to attempt to create a different world, a different environment for my becoming. I read hundreds of books, spent a few years in contemplation, and came up with a few ideas. I put them together in a book I called Visualization. I hope it might help most of us create our own world. After all, we are encouraged to be in this world but not of this world, so why not make our own?
I did. Perhaps you can, too. 




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