Message From Jesus

[Passer-by]

And it’s not as if Jesus let the cat out of the bag outright, he played the same games zen masters played:

@Jesus

Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.

See what I did there? I just made sure that Jesus isn’t left out of the conversation!..wonderful zen master as he was…or IS… mind you…wherever his current adventures have taken him.

Hopefully he causes as much trouble where he is now, as he did on planet Earth…I expect nothing less of him.

[anon23924087]

@Passer-by

Only in the mind of an American, would America be categorised as “Western Countries”. When I use the word “West” in conversations of this nature, I refer to a distinctive type of “mentality / way of thinking” which traces its roots back to mainland Europe (Anglo-Saxon), and then spreading through colonialism, with the Abrahamic religions at its core (for better or for worse).

Exactly. And many people are discussing now that for example Japan, Israel or South Korea are of “Western” mind but are situated in the East (not saying that Israel is on the same longitude as Ukraine is ).

@Passer-by

We have pedestalised the intellect

Exactly also. I was checking Alaskan Malamute yesterday and paid attention to the standard FCI N 243/09.06.1999/GB describing “top-quality dogs”. It describes it with so much captious attention to parameters as ¨Male animals should have two apparently normal testicles fully descended into the scrotum¨ so it reminds me nazis measuring everything in live creature. The desire to count and digitize everything is manic. And now China is copypasting it.

[Passer-by]

@anon23924087

¨Male animals should have two apparently normal testicles fully descended into the scrotum¨

And on that lofty note I’ll just share another zen story!

While Seisetsu was the master of Engaku in Kamakura he required larger quarters, since those in which he was teaching were overcrowded. Umezu Seibei, a merchant of Edo, decided to donate five hundred pieces of gold called ryo toward the construction of a more commodious school. This money he brought to the teacher.

Seisetsu said: “All right. I will take it.”

Umezu gave Seisetsu the sack of gold, but he was dissatisfied with the attitude of the teacher. One might live a whole year on three ryo, and the merchant had not even been thanked for five hundred.

“In that sack are five hundred ryo,” hinted Umezu.

“You told me that before,” replied Seisetsu.

“Even if I am a wealthy merchant, five hundred ryo is a lot of money,” said Umezu.

“Do you want me to thank you for it?” asked Seisetsu.

“You ought to,” replied Uzemu.

Why should I?" inquired Seisetsu. “The giver should be thankful.”

[Quid]

@Passer-by

When I use the word “West” in conversations of this nature, I refer to a distinctive type of “mentality / way of thinking” which traces its roots back to mainland Europe (Anglo-Saxon), and then spreading through colonialism, with the Abrahamic religions at its core (for better or for worse).

“Abrahamic Religion” or as I labelled it “Influenced by Judaism”, that’s where I see the common pattern. Thus it also includes some region outside of “West” or “Western Europe”, such as today’s Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ukraine, Russia.

Because I found the “mentality/way of thinking” of those who were labeled by the church as “Pagan” such as “The Druids in British Island” are much similar to their “Easterner” counterpart. (Buddhism, Hinduism, Chinese/Japanese/Korean Folk Religion)

Maybe it’s due to this verse: (Exodus 20)

I am YHVH thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I YHVH thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me;

And it all came down to:
God is within everything (Pagan) vs God is outside of us and high up there in sky (the so called “west”)

When Chinese heard about “Story of Jesus” they will generally think that it’s the “Westerner version” of Guanyin, their figure of “Compassion and Mercy”. In principal they will not mind much of having “Jesus statue” inside their temple, along with Guanyin, Guanyu and Buddha. But only if the Christian doesn’t mind.
The opposite reaction is expected if Christian found a church with statue of Guanyin, Guanyu, Buddha along with Jesus inside. Oh I should be more specific, Catholics and Orthodox church, as many other church forbid “any graven image” such as statue in the first place due to the passage above.

@Passer-by

And its this “handicap” that we seem to have, that makes us “struggle” with Zen, Daoism, Buddhism and Hinduism. We have pedestalised the intellect, and these teachings transcend (or circumvent) the intellect / conditioned mind.

It’s then came down to:
“Intelligence within the brain/mind only” vs “Intelligence within everything”.
I also struggled when I first heard the mentioning of “intelligent infinity” / “infinite intelligence” in Ra material.

[anon23924087]

@Quid

When Chinese heard about “Story of Jesus” they will generally think that it’s the “Westerner version” of Guanyin, their figure of “Compassion and Mercy”. In principal they will not mind much of having “Jesus statue” inside their temple, along with Guanyin, Guanyu and Buddha.

(Japan)

[Passer-by]

@Quid

Maybe it’s due to this verse: (Exodus 20)

Well yes, that and the rest of that unfortunate piece of literature we call the “Old Testament”.

That is by the way how Alan Watts starts his Out of Your Mind lecture series. How it came to be that Westerners have a monarchical view of the universe. Look at the language…“king of kings”…“lord of lords”…“sitting upon a throne”.

You should really give it a listen, he does this topic more justice than I can ever hope to do.

[Passer-by]

Here’s a short little snippet from that lecture:

@Alan Watts

This ceramic model of the universe, originated in cultures where the form of government was monarchical, and where, therefore, the maker of the universe was conceived also at the same time in the image of the king of the universe. ’
King of kings, lords of lords, the only ruler of princes, who thus from thy throne behold all dwellers upon Earth.’ I’m quoting the Book of Common Prayer.

And so, all those people who are oriented to the universe in that way feel related to basic reality as a subject to a king.

And so they are on very, very humble terms in relation to whatever it is that works all this thing.
I find it odd, in the United States, that people who are citizens of a republic have a monarchical theory of the universe.

That you can talk about the president of the United States as LBJ, or Ike, or Harry, but you can’t talk about the lord of the universe in such familiar terms.

Because we are carrying over from very ancient near-Eastern cultures, the notion that the lord of the universe must be respected in a certain way.
People kneel, people bow, people prostrate themselves, and you know what the reason for all that is: that nobody is more frightened of anybody else than a tyrant.

He sits with his back to the wall, and his guards on either side of him, and he has you face downwards on the ground because you can’t use weapons that way.

When you come into his presence, you don’t stand up and face him, because you might attack, and he has reason to fear that you might because he’s ruling you all.

And the man who rules you all is the biggest crook in the bunch.

Because he’s the one who succeeded in crime.
The other people are pushed aside because they–the criminals, the people we lock up in jail–are simply the people who didn’t make it.
So naturally, the real boss sits with his back to the wall and his henchmen on either side of him.
And so when you design a church, what does it look like?

Catholic church, with the altar where it used to be–it’s changing now, because the Catholic religion is changing.

But the Catholic church has the altar with its back to the wall at the east end of the church.
And the altar is the throne and the priest is the chief vizier of the court, and he is making obeisance to the throne, but there is the throne of God, the altar.

And all the people are facing it, and kneeling down.
And a great Catholic cathedral is called a basilica, from the Greek ‘basilikos,’ which means ‘king.’ So a basilica is the house of a king, and the ritual of the Catholic church is based on the court rituals of Byzantium.

A Protestant church is a little different, but basically the same.

The furniture of a Protestant church is based on a judicial courthouse.

The pulpit, the judge in an American court wears a black robe, he wears exactly the same dress as a Protestant minister.

And everybody sits in these boxes, there’s the jury box, there’s a box for the judge, there’s a box for this, there’s a box for that, and those are the pews in an ordinary colonial-type Protestant church.

So both these kinds of churches which have an autocratic view of the nature of the universe decorate themselves, are architecturally constructed in accordance with political images of the universe.

One is the king, and the other is the judge.
Your honor.
There’s sense in this.
When in court, you have to refer to the judge as ‘your honor.’ It stops the people engaged in litigation from losing their tempers and getting rude.
There’s a certain sense to that.

But when you want to apply that image to the universe itself, to the very nature of life, it has limitations.

[Passer-by]

So the way it worked for me back in the day, was Alan Watts cleared my windscreen, I could finally see clearly. That’s what he called zen…he called it “spiritual ophthalmology”.

All the religious baggage I was carrying from childhood was just gone after I lent him my ear.

[Quid]

Exodus 20 was among the ‘earliest trigger’ for me.
When “God”, which supposed to be the ‘only God’ said “thou shall have no other Gods” it implies that; actually there are other God(s), yet among those many Gods you should only consider one of it as “my God”.
It’s like “the only girl in the universe” said that “you shall have no other girl but me”, it implies that actually there are many other girls.
It then followed up with question “What is this word “God” refer to”?
Thus my journey started…

[Passer-by]

Ah yes, and it doesn’t get any better from Exodus onwards…the guy in the sky just gets angrier and angrier…

There’s this website a colleague showed me once -https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

It points out all the misogyny, rape, violence, incest, polygamy, contradictions, idiocy, etc.

Thinking of the bible, a funny article popped up in my feed recently, because apparently there are some book bannings happening in the US…

Utah primary schools ban Bible for ‘vulgarity and violence’

Now there’s a mom with a sense of humour!

[anon23924087]

@Passer-by

Thinking of the bible, a funny article popped up in my feed recently, because apparently there are some book bannings happening in the US…

When banning it did they do such things as putting hand on the Bible etc.?

[Passer-by]

Maybe they put their hand on the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I just thought it was such a stroke of genius when I read it, as a response to the idiocy of book bannings.

[Quid]

@Passer-by

Ah yes, and it doesn’t get any better from Exodus onwards…the guy in the sky just gets angrier and angrier…

There was a time when I was thinking of developing a game titled “Angry Gods” as a pun to the success of Angry Birds.
Anger, is an expression of frustration, mostly due to the situation out of control, and it’s correlated with insecurity and fear. But hey what does one expect from an entity that has explicitly labeled himself as “jealous God”.
It reminds me of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy”, the tune just instantly played out in my mind while I type this text.

[Passer-by]

Oooh I love John Lennon, his song “Imagine” has always been such a Law Of One song to me. And you know it’s probably only in the West that we have to write lyrics such as “and no religion, too”…I doubt they share our aversion to religion in the East.

As for zen, all the zen stories I shared here are from my little book The Gateless Gate, so I was wondering if Alan Watts ever explored the meaning of these stories, and he did!

Here you go: (if that will interest you)

Alan Watts ● The Gateless Gate ● [Podcast Audio Video]

[Quid]

@Passer-by

And you know it’s probably only in the West that we have to write lyrics such as “and no religion, too”…I doubt they share our aversion to religion in the East.

Lennon did explained the inspiration behind the song, in his words:

“The concept of positive prayer … If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without religion but without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing—then it can be true . the World Church called me once and asked, “Can we use the lyrics to ‘Imagine’ and just change it to ‘Imagine one religion’?” That showed [me] they didn’t understand it at all. It would defeat the whole purpose of the song, the whole idea.”

Thus the root cause is actually fanaticism, part of the lyrics was inspired by Yoko Ono’s poem. This line of thinking of “my religion/god is the only true religion/god” is only predominant in “Judaism influenced religion” (labeled as “West”), partly due to the Exodus verse that has been quoted above. While for Yoko, born and raised as Japanese, she must be baffled upon encountering such line of thinking.

[Passer-by]

Do you know what I think is among the most remarkable teachings of Jesus, these words “do not resist evil”.

I took me a long, long time to “see” his meaning. Just like Buddha inviting Mara to tea, or Carla saying “invite the snarling wolf into your bosom.”

Was it Carla who said that? I think so.

Think of how many things you automatically resist, daily, from the inconsequential (a headache or pain in the body…or bad weather)…to more consequential things… things that threaten your livelihood or existence…or safety…or reputation…or peace of mind…or a hostile person… or anything you’ll place in the “evil” bucket, like stuff in the news… When you start noticing it in yourself (how often you automatically resist in your mind), it’s quite an eye opener.

[anon23924087]

I believe “do not resist evil” is mostly wrongly understood concept. I will not comment it by myself but will put an example of Orion vs Confederation so everyone can make conclusion if there is resistance or not:

25.5 Questioner: You spoke of an Orion Confederation and a battle being fought between the Confederation and the Orion Confederation. Is it possible to convey any concept of how this battle is fought?

Ra: I am Ra. Picture, if you will, your mind. Picture it then in total unity with all other minds of your society. You are then single-minded and that which is a weak electrical charge in your physical illusion is now an enormously powerful machine whereby thoughts may be projected as things.

In this endeavor the Orion group charges or attacks the Confederation arms with light. The result, a stand-off, as you would call it, both energies being somewhat depleted by this and needing to regroup; the negative depleted through failure to manipulate, the positive depleted through failure to accept that which is given.

25.6 Questioner: Could you amplify the meaning of what you said by “failure to accept that which is given?”

Ra: I am Ra. At the level of time/space at which this takes place in the form of what you may call thought-war, the most accepting and loving energy would be to so love those who wished to manipulate that those entities were surrounded, engulfed, and transformed by positive energies.

This, however, being a battle of equals, the Confederation is aware that it cannot, on equal footing, allow itself to be manipulated in order to remain purely positive, for then though pure it would not be of any consequence, having been placed by the so-called powers of darkness under the heel, as you may say.

It is thus that those who deal with this thought-war must be defensive rather than accepting in order to preserve their usefulness in service to others. Thusly, they cannot accept fully what the Orion Confederation wishes to give, that being enslavement. Thusly, some polarity is lost due to this friction and both sides, if you will, must then regroup.

It has not been fruitful for either side. The only consequence which has been helpful is a balancing of the energies available to this planet so that these energies have less necessity to be balanced in this space/time, thus lessening the chances of planetary annihilation.

[Quid]

@Passer-by

Do you know what I think is among the most remarkable teachings of Jesus, these words “do not resist evil”.

I take it more as “do not fought evil”, because “fighting” by itself came from anger, fear and hatred, the characteristic of STS path. Basically do not fight fire with fire.

I remember watching a movie, I forgot the title, basically the storyline goes something like this.
An honest family man found his son murdered by a member of street gang as part of the gang’s initiation ritual, yet the murderer walked free due to lack of evidence.
He then decided to take revenge by his own hand, he chased and stabbed the perpetrator. Upon hearing one of their member was stabbed to death, the leader of the street gang decided to take his revenge, to make the long story short, the once family man decided that the only way to end this feud and keep the remaining member of his family safe is to take out and murder the entire gang inside their lair. Which he did…
Near the end of the movie, there’s a scene where the ‘protagonist’ with gun stick to the gang leader’s head asking him if there’s any last word before he pulled the trigger.
The gang leader’s last word was “Congratulations, look at you, you’re one of us now!”

[Passer-by]

@Oleksii

I believe “do not resist evil” is mostly wrongly understood concept.

So what, in your personal opinion, would be the correct way to understand this concept? (assuming the translation reached us intact)

I have some thoughts/ideas on this, but it has been a loooooong day and I just got to sit down finally for the first time…but I’m letting this percolate in my noggin for now…

I will just say for now, do you think we should look at a 4D scenario and apply it to 3D? As an anology, it would be like 1st graders being compared to PHD physicists. Isn’t 3D graduation requirement opening of the heart (lacking wisdom), and 4D are learning wisdom lessons (balancing love & wisdom), in order to graduate to 5D?

[Passer-by]

@Quid

came from anger, fear and hatred, the characteristic of STS path.

I wouldn’t attribute any emotion (positive or negative) as characteristic of either path. It’s the use of the emotion which then plays into polarisation.

@Ra

Are you not all things?

Jesus was highly positively polarised, and he was very angry when he turned over the tables in the temple.

He was also filled with fear in the garden of Gethsemane.