tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14163238628814296252024-02-20T01:14:53.787-05:00Closing The CircleThis is now my main blog on Closing the Circle, it was originally started on Xanga, but was moved here to improve accessibilityRogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.comBlogger221125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-2230454707077539452017-11-29T13:42:00.002-05:002017-11-30T11:41:17.575-05:00Forgiving Paul for what he did not doLike all of us, Paul did not do what I accuse him of, for Paul merely did the best he could, for which he could never be faulted. Paul played the role of dragging Jesus into the dream and making Jesus' nondualistic teaching (My Kingdom is NOT of this world) into a dualistic theology and moralism, which is very much about this world and people. Hence the marriage sacrament, which in Christian theology becomes about people instead of about the true Holy Matrimony of our rejoining with our Higher Self, in that moment when, as at the baptism in the River Jordan, we see the heavens part and we hear the Voice for God say: You are my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased. That is really the moment in our experience when we wake up and are ourselves again, we are then rejoined with the True Self we had previously separated from. What God has joined, let not man cast asunder... in truth the separation never happened. In other words, if God forgives us automatically, who are we not to forgive? Even more so when you realize that failure to forgive means self-condemnation. Time to give it up.<br />
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After a recent vacation, which offered its own forgiveness opportunities, like every situation in life, I ended up reading again in Ken Wapnick's<i> Journey through the Text of A Course in Miracles</i> on how strong is our tendency to drag Jesus into the dream... it always seems to be our first instinct. So we do not hear his invitation to join him above the battleground, but instead we try to drag him down into our problems that we set up, and fix our flat tires (and worse) for us. And we are making again the archetypical mistake which Paul of investing in Jesus coming back to this world, of which he taught us that it is NOT his Kingdom, his reality, that it is not real. So what on earth makes us think, again and again, that Jesus will come back to this earth and establish his Kingdom here when the invitation is always to flush this nightmare dream down the toilet by the simple act of joining with Jesus in the balcony seat and watch it all unfold from a viewpoint above the battle ground.<br />
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Hence, paraphrasing what Jesus says about Judas in the Course, which equally holds about Paul, or indeed about anybody: Paul was a brother, and I could never condemn him for he could not betray me lest I felt betrayed. Jesus is never unsure about his reality, and thus could not feel betrayed by a dream figure. The upshot is, gratitude is in order that my brother is my savior, for without seeing it in front of my face, I would not think even of seeing this behavior in myself. Forgiveness offers the only way out.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
... Nor could they [the Apostles] have described my reactions to Judas as they did, if they had really understood me. I could not have said, "Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" unless I believed in betrayal. The whole message of the crucifixion was simply that I did not. The "punishment" I was said to have called forth upon Judas was a similar mistake. <span style="background-color: yellow;">Judas was my brother and a Son of God, as such as much a part of the Sonship as myself.</span> Was it likely that I would condemn him when I was ready to demonstrate that condemnation is impossible?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As you read the teachings of the Apostles, remember that I told them that there was much they would understand later, because they were not wholly ready to follow me at the time. I do not want you to allow any fear to enter into the thought system towards which I am guiding you. I do not call for martyrs but for teachers. </blockquote>
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ACIM-T-6.I.15:4-16:2 </blockquote>
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RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-7725875949468828002017-01-21T13:08:00.000-05:002017-01-21T18:20:58.431-05:00Kuan Yin stops byLast year somehow Ti Kuan Yin Tea from Prince of Peace became my favorite tea, and then, in the fall, a Chinese student showed up for my Sunday afternoon Course group at St. Helena's church. She had just emigrated from China and was studying English at Columbia University. She had inquired from the university if they taught classes in <i>A Course In Miracles</i>, based on the ostensible logic that Helen and Bill had been professors at Columbia-Presbyterian, but evidently, much to her surprise, the Columbia did not. Eventually, she found my class in the Bronx, which suited her schedule.<br />
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About nine months before I met her, in the fall of 2016, she had started studying the Course in Chinese, and she came equipped with a Chinese and an English version of the Course. Early on, she stumbled across some difficulty with the translation, which all boiled down to a matter of content over form, of translating the meaning versus translating the words.<br />
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Fortunately, I was able to ask Chiao Lin Cabanne, the Chinese translator, and it turned out her response was exactly what I expected:<br />
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<div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Dear Rogier</div>
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Ha! ha! I can guarantee that my Chinese translation means exactly as you explained.</div>
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After years' experiments, the Foundation decided not to take "literal translation" approach. Many Chinese who doesn't have Chinese literary training expect the Chinese Course should be word-by-word exactly the same as the English sentence structure.</div>
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I usually don't respond to those questions. I know that their problem is not about the " words" but something else. l just encourage new students to follow whatever interpretation they feel comfortable with.</div>
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We have educational websites if she wants to know more.</div>
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<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.acimtaiwan.info/&source=gmail&ust=1485098759155000&usg=AFQjCNEGprvFNUmA9c2APOk4cRuUDZIO_w" href="http://www.acimtaiwan.info/" style="color: #1155cc;">http://www.acimtaiwan.info/</a></div>
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Chiao Lin</div>
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The student proved to be a quick learner and here was her response:<br />
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Thank you for your email ! And thanks for asking Chiao Lin !</div>
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When I read the text book again . </div>
<span class="im" style="color: #500050;"><span class="m_-1090845471905692104gmail-im" style="font-size: 13px;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="im" style="color: #500050;"><span class="m_-1090845471905692104gmail-im" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span class="im" style="color: #500050;"><span class="m_-1090845471905692104gmail-im" style="font-size: 13px;">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> 2 Nothing real can be threatened.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">3 Nothing unreal exists.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">4 Herein lies the peace of God.</span></span></div>
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</span></span><span style="font-size: 13px;">And it's Chinese translation:</span><br />
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凡是真实的,不受任何威胁 ;</div>
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凡是不真实的,根本不存在。</div>
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上主的平安即在其中。</div>
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I love the Chinese translation. I am also have a strong feeling to regard the word "herein" as the Chinese word "当下"</div>
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Thanks</div>
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So, for a few months, we ended up doing ACIM classes combined with ESL for Chinese. The student always asked lots of questions, and we joked about it a lot because her one question would end up being ten. Somehow we stumbled upon Kuan Yin along the way, and I basically said that Kuan Yin in Western terms should probably be understood as either Jesus or Mary, the symbol of Compassion, and Love.<br />
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Before Christmas time we ended up reading the introduction to the Workbook. We had been talking about the idea that there is only one Mind, and one Holy Spirit, and one ego, but that we could each hear the Holy Spirit according to the conditioning of our hearing, be it in English or Chinese. Next, we stumbled upon these lines:<br />
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The only general rules to be observed throughout, then, are: First, that the exercises be practiced with great specificity, as will be indicated. 2 This will help you to generalize the ideas involved to every situation in which you find yourself, and to everyone and everything in it. <span style="background-color: yellow;">3 Second, be sure that you do not decide for yourself that there are some people, situations or things to which the ideas are inapplicable. </span>4 This will interfere with transfer of training. 5 The very nature of true perception is that it has no limits. 6 It is the opposite of the way you see now. (ACIM:W-in:6)</blockquote>
And I saw her stumble over line three. She said, I have a question, and I found myself silently praying to have a simple answer so we would not stumble over translation problems, and what occurred to me was simply this: that the whole is 100% and that 99% is not 100%. Next, she said: maybe my question is not a question, but a statement: "It's like 99% is not 100%, only 100% is 100%." I shared with her that I had been thinking of it in the exact same terms, which was almost a live demonstration of what we had been discussing earlier, that the Holy Spirit speaks to each of us in our own language.<br />
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She recently came to visit for my birthday, and that's when she told me that at that time, she had had a strong experience of Kuan Yin being in the room with us during that exchange. This brought back to me that Kuan Yin was an important figure for me for a long time, because one of my early teachers (from ca age 15 to age 40), always had a little Kuan Yin statue on a chest of drawers in the living room of his apartment in Amsterdam. Finally, today, I suddenly realised that most of the last year I had been drinking Ti Kuan Yin, and it had become my favorite tea.<br />
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I've been reading a lot on Kuan Yin again, lately. I found <a href="http://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/kuan-yin.htm">this site</a>, which offers some wonderful and concise information about Kuan Yin (She who hears the cries<span style="background-color: #fdfdea; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , "sans serif";"> of the w</span>orld), and it is very worth reading. It is fascinating to see how the Buddha Avalokiteshvara morphed into Kuan Yin in China and became an enduring symbol of compassion the world over. Clearly, for many, a female figure is often easier to relate to than a male so often times Kuan Yin is to Buddha or Avalokiteshvara as Mary or Mary Magdalen were to Jesus, symbols all of the Love of God, simply in whatever form is easiest to relate to, reflecting that basic teaching of the Course that the Holy Spirit will speak to us in whatever form is most readily acceptable to us.<br />
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<br />RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-65704101233747999842015-09-11T18:29:00.000-04:002015-09-11T18:29:15.500-04:00The Chasm between Jesus and PaulOne of the key issues in my book <i>Closing the Circle</i> is the chasm between Jesus and Paul, which has been recognized by many in the course of history, in different ways. I do feel that understanding the timeline of the Thomas gospel, and how it relates to the rest of the New Testament absolutely conclusively demonstrates the chasm between Paul and Jesus in the clearest possible terms. However a reader just sent me a summary of some of the more prominent recent authors who have commented on this issue, and it is worth considering. Thomas Jefferson in his day was definitely "on" to this issue, and there were a lot of thinkers in the time of the enlightenment who were, but there have been an impressive list of more recent commentators as well. Here follows the summary: <br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">In Christ or Paul?, by Rev. V.A. Holmes-Gore: "Let the reader contrast the true Christian standard with that of Paul and he will see the terrible betrayal of all that the Master taught. . . . For the surest way to betray a great Teacher is to misrepresent his message. . . . That is what Paul and his followers did, and because the Church has followed Paul in his error it has failed lamentably to redeem the world. . . . The teachings given by the blessed Master Christ, which the disciples John and Peter and James, the brother of the Master, tried in vain to defend and preserve intact were as utterly opposed to the Pauline Gospel as the light is opposed to the darkness." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">The great theologian Soren Kierkegaard, in The Journals: "In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense: Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the death of Christ The Atoner. What Martin Luther, in his reformation, failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity had become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ. Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down, making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ" </span></div>
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The brilliant theologian Ernest Renan, in his book Saint Paul: "True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock, the causes of the principal defects of Christian theology." </div>
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Will Durant, in his Caesar and Christ: "Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ. . . . Through these interpretations Paul could neglect the actual life and sayings of Jesus, which he had not directly known. . . . Paul replaced conduct with creed as the test of virtue. It was a tragic change." </div>
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Robert Frost, winner of the Pulitzer prize for poetry in 1924,1931,1937 and 1943, in his "A Masque of Mercy": "Paul he's in the Bible too. He is the fellow who theologized Christ almost out of Christianity. Look out for him." </div>
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James Baldwin, the most noted black American author of this century, in his book The Fire Next Time: "The real architect of the Christian church was not the disreputable, sun baked Hebrew (Jesus Christ) who gave it its name but rather the mercilessly fanatical and self-righteous Paul." </div>
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Martin Buber, the most respected Jewish philosopher of this century, in Two Types of Faith: "The Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount is completely opposed to Paul." </div>
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The famous mystic, poet and author, Kahlil Gibran, in Jesus the Son of Man: "This Paul is indeed a strange man. His soul is not the soul of a free man. He speaks not of Jesus nor does he repeat His Words. He would strike with his own hammer upon the anvil in the Name of One whom he does not know." </div>
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The famous theologian, Helmut Koester, in his The Theological Aspects of Primitive Christian Heresy: "Paul himself stands in the twilight zone of heresy. In reading Paul, one immediately encounters a major difficulty. Whatever Jesus had preached did not become the content of the missionary proclamation of Paul. . . . Sayings of Jesus do not play a role in Paul 's understanding of the event of salvation. . . . Paul did not care at all what Jesus had said. . . . Had Paul been completely successful very little of the sayings of Jesus would have survived." </div>
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Renowned English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, in his Not Paul But Jesus: "It rests with every professor of the religion of Jesus to settle within himself to which of the two religions, that of Jesus or that of Paul, he will adhere." </div>
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The eminent theologian Ferdinand Christian Baur, in his Church History of the First Three Centuries: "What kind of authority can there be for an 'apostle' who, unlike the other apostles, had never been prepared for the apostolic office in Jesus' own school but had only later dared to claim the apostolic office on the basis on his own authority? The only question comes to be how the apostle Paul appears in his Epistles to be so indifferent to the historical facts of the life of Jesus. . . . He bears himself but little like a disciple who has received the doctrines and the principles which he preaches from the Master whose name he bears." </div>
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The great Mahatma Gandhi, the prophet of nonviolence who won freedom from England for India in an essay titled "Discussion on Fellowship": "I draw a great distinction between the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus and the Letters of Paul. Paul's Letters are a graft on Christ's teachings, Paul's own gloss apart from Christ's own experience." </div>
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Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist, in his essay "A Psychological Approach to Dogma": "Saul's [Paul's name before his conversion] fanatical resistance to Christianity. . . . was never entirely overcome. It is frankly disappointing to see how Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in." </div>
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George Bernard Shaw, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925; in his Androcles and the Lion: "There is not one word of Pauline Christianity in the characteristic utterances of Jesus. . . . There has really never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the imposition of Paul's soul upon the soul of Jesus. . . . It is now easy to understand how the Christianity of Jesus. . . . was suppressed by the police and the Church, while Paulinism overran the whole western civilized world, which was at that time the Roman Empire, and was adopted by it as its official faith." </div>
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Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, called "one of the greatest Christians of his time," philosopher, physician, musician, clergyman, missionary, and theologian in his The Quest for the Historical Jesus and his Mysticism of Paul: "Paul. . . . did not desire to know Christ. . . . Paul shows us with what complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was regarded. . . . What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?. . . . The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its authority. . . . The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus, but displaces it." </div>
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William Wrede, in his excellent book, Paul: "The oblivious contradictions in the three accounts given by Paul in regard to his conversion are enough to arouse distrust. . . . The moral majesty of Jesus, his purity and piety, his ministry among his people, his manner as a prophet, the whole concrete ethical-religious content of his earthly life, signifies for Paul's Christology nothing whatever. . . . The name 'disciple of Jesus' has little applicability to Paul. . . . Jesus or Paul: this alternative characterizes, at least in part, the religious and theological warfare of the present day" </div>
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Rudolf Bultman, one of the most respected theologians of this century, in his Significance of the Historical Jesus for the Theology of Paul: "It is most obvious that Paul does not appeal to the words of the Lord in support of his. . . . views. when the essentially Pauline conceptions are considered, it is clear that Paul is not dependent on Jesus. Jesus' teaching is -- to all intents and purposes -- irrelevant for Paul." </div>
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Walter Bauer, another eminent theologian, in his Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity: "If one may be allowed to speak rather pointedly the Apostle Paul was the only Arch-Heretic known to the apostolic age." </div>
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H.L. Mencken, called one of the most influential American writers of the first half of the 20th century, in his Notes on Democracy: "Is it argued by any rational man that the debased Christianity cherished by the mob in all the Christian countries of today, has any colourable likeness to the body of ideas preached by Christ? "The plain fact is that this bogus Christianity has no more relation to the system of Christ than it has to Aristotle. It is the invention of Paul and his attendant rabble-rousers--a body of men exactly comparable to the corps of evangelical pastors of today, which is to say, a body devoid of sense and lamentably indifferent to common honesty. The mob, having heard Christ, turned against Him. His theological ideas were too logical and plausible for it, and His ethical ideas were enormously too austere. What it yearned for was the old comfortable balderdash under a new and gaudy name, and that is precisely what Paul offered it. He borrowed from all the wandering dervishes and body-snatchers of Asia Minor, and flavored the stew with remnants of Greek demonology. The result was a code of doctrines so discordant and so nonsensical that no two men since, examining it at length, have ever agreed upon its precise meaning. Paul remains the arch theologian of the mob. His turgid and witless metaphysics make Christianity bearable to men who would otherwise be repelled by Christ's simple and magnificent reduction of the duties of man to the duties of a gentle-man."</div>
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RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-24505528633368977122015-08-23T10:16:00.001-04:002015-08-23T10:16:06.481-04:00Gary Renard - Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ClSr-0Gl4KQ" width="480"></iframe>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-54878162108204855222014-08-19T13:45:00.001-04:002014-08-19T13:45:31.887-04:00Docetism revisited after the CourseThe other day my reading of <i>The Book of Andrew</i> caused a sort of a flash of recognition of the meaning of docetism post ACIM, simply because the details of the story are a bit at odds with the Gary Renard material, but internally the teaching is very consistent with <i>A Course in Miracles</i>. The form of our experience of Jesus is a function of our mind, the content is the Holy Spirit's... and for that docetism is merely a somewhat dated, overly theological explanation.<br />
<br />
In parallel, I was working on the translation of Margot Krikhaar's <i>The Great Liberation</i>, specifically the final part of Chapter 6, where she talks about the meaning of Jesus in the Course in the context of the two levels. Margot discusses the issue very much in line with what Ken Wapnick has said about Helen Schucman's experience in this regard, in <i>Absence from Felicity,</i>his biography of Helen. Ken's favorite expression for this phenomenon is: "Jesus is a What that looks like a who, as long as you think you're a who," or in the words of the Course, Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. In terms of our individual experience what this means is that Jesus always seems very familiar, sometimes in surprising ways, but his presence comes with a deep awareness of authenticity and authority, that is beyond question because at some deeper level we recognize our own. Here is what Margot says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 0; text-indent: 0.5in; widows: 0;">
The ‘paradox’ of the person of Jesus who is so important in the
context of a non-dualistic teaching, can newly be explained on the
basis of the two levels on which the Course is written. You could say
that ‘Jesus’ belongs on level two of the Course—the practical
level where the Course meets us in our present experience of
ourselves as a person in relationship with other persons. As a result
the in and of itself completely abstract love can appear to us as a
person. As one who for many in the Western world has become the
personification of complete and boundless love: Jesus.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 0; text-indent: 0.5in; widows: 0;">
Metaphysically (on level one of the Course) this Jesus is only
symbolic. As a ‘person’ he is part of the dream. But as we saw
earlier (see paragraph 3.3) in fact everything in the dream is a
symbol, and what matters is what the symbol points to, to fear (ego)
or love (God). Jesus is a powerful symbol that points directly
towards the Love of God. In other words: the form ‘Jesus’ is
purely a symbol and not real in and of itself, but the ‘content’
is altogether real. And exactly because of that content is the symbol
so powerful and effective.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 0; text-indent: 0.5in; widows: 0;">
From a metaphysical point of view, hearing Jesus’ voice means that
someone’s mind (like that of Helen Schucman) is able to reach so
high that it reaches the very highest levels of consciousness that is
possible within the realm of perception. That is the level that lies
<i>just</i> below the truth. This level of consciousness therefore is
also the highest level of perception, right before it is transformed
into knowledge. Knowledge, or Heaven, is not consciousness, but a
pure and completely loving ‘being’ or oneness. (Margot Krikhaar, The Great Liberation, Chapter 6.7)</div>
</blockquote>
It all boils down to understanding the relationship of content and form, of a non-dualistic reality versus a very dualistic world of perception that we think we live in. The ancient theological struggles over the divinity of Jesus, which rested on such passages as the discussions of the apostles in the Acts of John, about how different their respective experiences of Jesus were (post the resurrection), gave rise to the construct of docetism. Predictably, it was roundly rejected by the church, because it was closer to the truth than the mythology they created about Jesus, as the person who died on the cross, and then experienced a bodily resurrection, in which case he would only have one body and look the same to all. Having said that, the modern explanation based on the metaphysics of the Course contains a way of reconciling both, to a degree which was never before possible. The key insight is the notion that duality is metaphor--everything in this world of appearances is only... an appearance, a perception, and never the truth. Thus the appearance is colored by the mind of the perceiver, as it does not have objective reality of any kind, but the abstract truth that is expressed is the same everywhere regardless of the appearance.<br />
<br />
This is how at one point Helen had a dream of Jesus, in which she found that he looked like Bill Thetford. When she expressed her surprise, Jesus responded: "Who else would I look like?" I.e. of course he would appear "somehow familiar" to us. This is the same in the discussion in the Acts of John, he looks different to all of them, but completely familiar and authentic at the same time.<br />
Helen Schucman's Jesus was an ace in advanced statistics, knew his King James Version, was a student of Shakespeare, and for the sake of Bill he also knew the Bhagavadgita very well. He spoke English. After all if Jesus really is who he is, why wouldn't he speak your language? Learning to recognize his voice in whatever form is part of our learning process in the Course in developing our relationship with our own inner teacher.<br />
<br />
Through these experiences, and by accepting these differences in form, we learn to tune into content more than form, which is essential to learning to follow the guidance of our own inner teacher, and learning to distinguish his voice from the voice of the ego.<br />
<br />RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-12912593601695689322014-08-14T22:39:00.001-04:002014-08-14T22:39:19.628-04:00The Book of Andrew and docetism 21st century style.An interesting new addition to the modern Jesus literature, connected to <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, has arrived on the scene. The full title is <i>The Book of Andrew: A Past-Life Memoir</i>, by Charles Cale Lehman, edited for print by Bruce Gregory. The interesting details include that Charles Lehman was at one time the partner of Bill Thetford, who with Helen Schucman was responsible for the recording of the Course. Later Bill Thetford and he remained life-long friends. As a child Charles sometimes said his name was Andrew, and when Ken Wapnick met him in the seventies, he had a visionary experience--uncommon for him--of seeing the name "Andrew" on his forehead. Bruce Gregory is a regression therapist, who was recommended to Lehman by Bill Thetford, and who was instrumental in guiding the regressions that ultimately led to the material for this book.<br />
<br />
The book is a joy to read, and it is very consistent in content with <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, and in as much as it pertains to Lehman's past life memories of his lifetime as Andrew, a disciple of Jesus, at the same time it reminds me of the docetic paradox in writings such as the Acts of John, which have traditionally befuddled the Christian Church because it thought Jesus was the character in Palestine whose story was reported by Peter and Paul, to the notable exclusion of many of the other apostles. There are interesting discrepancies in the form of the story, which make it clear once again that individual people experience Jesus differently.<br />
<br />
<b>Jesus is a what that looks like a who, as long as you think you're a who</b><br />
That is one of my favorite sayings of Ken Wapnick. It makes the point that we experience Jesus as a person, and we tend to think of him as someone we would recognize. Helen had a dream at one point in which Jesus figured, and she later asked Jesus how come he looked like Bill, and Jesus answered her: "Who else would I look like?" Clearly, Helen's mind was learning to see the face of Christ in all her brothers. Another similar experience was her subway experience. In the acts of John we have the accounts of different apostles all comparing notes and realizing they experience Jesus (post resurrection) in totally different ways. And now, in the form of the Book of Andrew, we have a modern memoir, a past-life recollection of Jesus, and some of the other apostles, which clearly differs from another account that still stands within the Course tradition, namely Gary Renard's Disappearance of the Universe trilogy. Gary's Judas is a drunk, and a very different character from what is described in the Book of Andrew, although Jesus reaffirms in both that Judas is a brother and a Son of God, and thus Jesus stays remarkably true to his Course, as Gary might quip. Mary Magdalen is not in evidence in the account in the Book of Andrew, and the apostle John shows up in a more traditional role as the favorite disciple. In other areas the two books confirm each other. In short, Charles Lehman and Gary Renard differ on the details, though both accounts are consistent in content with the teachings of Jesus as we learn them in the Course.<br />
<br />
An interesting twist in the Book of Andrew is that Jesus tells Andrew he would have to write things down later, because Peter and Paul would distort his teachings, which is of course exactly what happened. It is called Christianity. Much like the Buddha was a Hindu, Jesus was a Jew, and neither one ever intended to instigate yet another religion, because they very much recognized that the truth is one. But for the ego, that's too simple, and it always wants to see truth as exclusive not inclusive. Yet Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna were all evidently teachers of a non-dualistic reality that transcends all worldly specifics, for the simple reason that only truth is true and everything else is of necessity a lie, so that any teachings that would proceed from separation and differences would necessarily be untrue. The problem always is that we have to grow up to embrace truth, we have to climb the mountain to get to the level of Jesus, Buddha or Krishna, instead of dragging them into this world to fix our self-created problems for us. If they were to do so, they would merely attest to the reality of problems designed to prove the ego right and them wrong. But Jesus taught his disciples to leave their familiar patterns behind and follow him where he was going.<br />
<br />
<b>Familiarity and remembrance</b><br />
Reading a book like <i>The Book of Andrew</i>, or Gary Renard's Disappearance of the Universe trilogy is not about them learning to hear the voice of Jesus, but about us doing so. The only reason we recognize the voice of Jesus, when we do, without any hesitation is because it is totally authentic, namely because it is the voice of who and what we really are in truth. The more we recognize that, the easier we will let go of our ego, because that scratchy voice is completely false, fake, and not at all who we are. As long as we are identified with our ego, we will feel like we are here, and yet at the same time we will feel shut out, alone and like a stranger, the authenticity of the voice of our inner teacher draws us towards the truth and the love which is what we really are in truth, and in realizing that the world will lose all grip on us and fade away, even while we may still appear to be here for a while.RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-37472676867274871732013-11-14T10:24:00.002-05:002013-11-14T10:30:23.194-05:00Pursah's Gospel of Thomas released under CC BY 3.0 License by Gary RenardJust ahead of his upcoming workshops in New York (Manhattan and Bronx), best-selling author <i>Gary Renard</i> has released the full text of <b>Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas</b> under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License:<br />
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="nofollow"><img alt="Creative Commons License" data-recalc-dims="1" src="http://i2.wp.com/i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/88x31.png?w=625" style="border-width: 0;" title="Gary Renard" /></a><br />
<u>Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas</u> by <a href="http://www.garyrenard.com/" rel="nofollow">Gary R. Renard</a> is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="nofollow">Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License</a>.<br />
<br />
You can download the text here: <a href="http://files.meetup.com/272503/PGoThBooklet_CC%20BY.pdf">http://files.meetup.com/272503/PGoThBooklet_CC%20BY.pdf</a> - and soon it will be available also on Gary's site. It is also available in the files section of the DU Group on Yahoo.<br />
<br />
<strong>Gary Renard’s upcoming workshops in NY, are: </strong><br />
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Course-in-the-City/events/110472802/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Lofe Has Forgotten No One, Manhattan 11/23/13">Love Has Forgotten No One, Manhattan 11/23/2013</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Parkchester-Course-Group/events/107415662/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Love Has Forgotten No One, Bronx 11/24/13">Love Has Forgotten No One, Bronx 11/24/2013</a></strong></li>
</ol>
The text was originally published in <u>Gary Renard</u>‘s 2nd book, <em>Your Immortal Reality</em>,
and by releasing it under a creative commons license, Gary has enabled
the wider use of the text, which for many students of his work has
become the “go-to” version of the Thomas Gospel.<br />
This text of the Thomas Gospel reflects the notion that there must
have been a “kernel” from ca 50 AD, when the Thomas Gospel would have
been recorded. There has always been speculation that the initial
version would have been shorter. Pursah, who appeared to Gary as an
ascended master, and a reincarnation of the apostle Thomas, provided
this text, which is remarkable because it removes many inner
contradictions, and the end result also appears very consistent with the
modern teaching we know as <em>A Course In Miracles</em>. Gary’s books
explore that connection in-depth, and I myself wrote another book on the
same topic, in which I delve a little deeper into the historical
context (<em>Closing the Circle: Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas and A Course in MIracles</em>.)<br />
<strong>Gary Renard’s upcoming workshops in NY, are:</strong><br />
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Course-in-the-City/events/110472802/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Lofe Has Forgotten No One, Manhattan 11/23/13">Love Has Forgotten No One, Manhattan 11/23/2013</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Parkchester-Course-Group/events/107415662/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Love Has Forgotten No One, Bronx 11/24/13">Love Has Forgotten No One, Bronx 11/24/2013</a></strong></li>
</ol>
<h2>
<em>Your Immortal Reality</em> and Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas (PGoTh)</h2>
In Gary’s first book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401905668/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1401905668&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="The Disappearance of the Universe">The Disappearance of the Universe</a>: Straight Talk about Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness,</em> the connection between the Gospel of Thomas and <b>A Course in Miracles</b> was introduced, but then in his second book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401906982/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1401906982&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Your Immortal Reality"><em>Your Immortal Reality</em></a>,
the full text of Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas was provided for the first
time. His third book in what has clearly become a trilogy, <a href="hhttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401917232/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1401917232&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20ttp://" target="_blank" title="Love Has Forgotten No One"><em>Love Has Forgotten No One</em></a>,
completes the picture, including fleshing out more of the early times
with Jesus, when Thomas and Thaddeus were apostles and friends, as well
as the context of how all this past life experience integrates into his
own life, which includes studying <em>A Course in Miracles</em> in this present life time.<br />
The fundamental argument is that the version of the Thomas Gospel
which was found at Nag Hammadi, is of a rather late date, and that some
of the sayings were added later, and others had been corrupted in the
tradition, which is similar to what many scholars already thought. The
difference in Gary’s book is that Pursah has past life recollection of
being Thomas, and in that capacity renders the kernel of the Thomas
Gospel, and that is the text provided in chapter 7 of <em>Your Immortal Reality</em>.<br />
Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas provides a historical linkage to who Jesus
was before he was bombarded into a Christian by posterity. In the
context of <em>A Course in Miracles</em> this is also relevant, because
in the Course there are numerous comments by Jesus that he was
historically misunderstood, based on what was included in the Bible.
Since the Thomas gospel is older than the New Testament gospels, the
connection makes it very clear that historically, Jesus did speak and
teach very differently, before he began being filtered through the
Christian theology of St. Paul, who heavily influenced the later gospel
writings.<br />
<strong>Gary Renard’s upcoming workshops in NY, are:</strong><br />
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Course-in-the-City/events/110472802/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Lofe Has Forgotten No One, Manhattan 11/23/13">Love Has Forgotten No One, Manhattan 11/23/2013</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Parkchester-Course-Group/events/107415662/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Love Has Forgotten No One, Bronx 11/24/13">Love Has Forgotten No One, Bronx 11/24/2013</a></strong></li>
</ol>
<h1>
Gary Renard and <em>A Course in Miracles</em></h1>
If the backdrop of this trilogy is both Gary’s current lifetime, and
his growing recollection of his past lifetime as the apostle Thomas, the
real content of these books is Gary Renard’s own learning of <em>A Course in Miracles</em>, as a student of that book in this current lifetime. This personal story is what is so helpful to the reader, for it makes <em>A Course in Miracles</em> accessible “in the vernacular,” of the day-to-day challenges of one student, who is easy to identify with.<br />
<strong>Gary Renard’s upcoming workshops in NY, are:</strong><br />
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Course-in-the-City/events/110472802/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Lofe Has Forgotten No One, Manhattan 11/23/13">Love Has Forgotten No One, Manhattan 11/23/2013</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Parkchester-Course-Group/events/107415662/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Love Has Forgotten No One, Bronx 11/24/13">Love Has Forgotten No One, Bronx 11/24/2013</a></strong></li>
</ol>
<h3>
Closing the Circle – Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas and ACIM revisited</h3>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/184694113X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=184694113X&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Closing the Circle: Pursah's Gospel of Thomas and A Course in Miracles"><em>Closing the Circle, Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas and A Course in Miracles</em></a>, published shortly after Gary Renard’s <em>Your Immortal Reality</em>,
was my contribution to the renewed interest in the Thomas Gospel which
followed Gary’s second book. In this book, I provided both running
commentaries to the sayings of Thomas in Pursah’s rendering, as well as
introductions to the material so that it is more accessible both for
students from a Christian background, who know nothing about <em>A Course in Miracles</em>, as well as for students of <em>A Course in Miracles</em>,
who may not always know much about early Christian history. Besides
providing this historical framework, the book also includes a sidelight
on the connection between the Jefferson Bible, and the gospel of Thomas.<br />
<strong>Gary Renard’s upcoming workshops in NY, are:</strong><br />
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Course-in-the-City/events/110472802/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Lofe Has Forgotten No One, Manhattan 11/23/13">Love Has Forgotten No One, Manhattan 11/23/2013</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Parkchester-Course-Group/events/107415662/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Love Has Forgotten No One, Bronx 11/24/13">Love Has Forgotten No One, Bronx 11/24/2013</a></strong></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-size: 1.285714286rem; line-height: 1.6;">Conclusion</span><br />
<br />
Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas, by Gary Renard, was just released for
general distribution under a CC BY 3.0 License, making it available for
widespread use; this version of the Thomas Gospel is the most consistent
collection of sayings, leaving out some inconsistent texts, and in the
process revealing the connection to <em>A Course in Miracles</em>.RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-70624312807637414102013-11-03T15:21:00.001-05:002013-11-17T15:06:26.137-05:00Bill Hicks - It's Just A Ride<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/iMUiwTubYu0?version=3&autohide=1&autohide=1&feature=share&showinfo=1&autoplay=1&attribution_tag=fBEuNvdNovgKAY8RFqehhg">http://www.youtube.com/v/iMUiwTubYu0?version=3&autohide=1&autohide=1&feature=share&showinfo=1&autoplay=1&attribution_tag=fBEuNvdNovgKAY8RFqehhg</a>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-6623545478081793432013-10-12T11:51:00.002-04:002013-10-12T11:51:27.685-04:00How Caesar Domesticated JesusTo anyone who really studies the early history of Christianity, and takes care to sort out the facts from the versions that are generally promoted by the Christian churches, it should be clear that there was a process of domestication that went on. This notion began to be formulated (again) around the time of the enlightenment, and in fact Thomas Jefferson was a proponent. He recognized that there was some heavy editing in what became the New Testament, courtesy of the influence of St. Paul, whom he regarded as an impostor and a fraud.<br />
<br />
There have been countless alternative theories of who Jesus was and some are more outrageous than others, but several reflect the idea that somehow or other there was an active effort by the Roman Empire to coopt him. One fun book was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0853037027/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0853037027&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank">Thijs Voskuilen's Operation Messiah</a> which makes Paul out to be a Roman Spy. Now we have a new angle, Jesus was made up by the Romans altogether. This is the thesis of the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1461096405/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1461096405&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank">Caesar's Messiah</a>, by Joseph Atwill. This seems to go even a step further. All of these speculations are possible only because so little of the New Testament is "historical" in the modern sense, and there is a dearth of verifiable information. A good place to find out more might be this <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/10/bible-scholar-christianity-invented-as-part-of-ancient-roman-psy-ops-campaign/" target="_blank">review on The Raw Story</a>.<br />
<br />
What makes all these attempts so interesting is that they pick up on something that is immediately obvious if we study the extant material, particularly since we have the Thomas Gospel. Christianity was invented after Jesus, and for those of us who know <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, and in particular also the connection with the Thomas gospel as it is explored in Gary's books - it is incredibly evident that the church version of Jesus was the creation of late comers on the scene, and that his teachings were completely altered in the process. The signature comment in that process was perhaps the one by Paul, when he comes to the conclusion that the resurrection was an event of the body, not of the spirit, when all Jesus taught was that we were to first seek the Kingdom (i.e. Spirit), and all the rest would be given to us - so the primacy of the body is nowhere in evidence in Jesus' teachings, but since it is threatening to the ego, it speaks for itself that there would be an attempt to domesticate him by declaring that his resurrection was a bodily event, so that an idol could be made out of his body, and the crucifixion.<br />
<br />
In Gary Renard's third book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401917232/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1401917232&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank">Love Has Forgotten No One</a>, we find yet more discussion of all the forms in which the same things go on with <i>A Course in Miracles</i> today. Or, as Gary recently pointed out humorously in a podcast, it might be refreshing if self-proclaimed Course teachers and events stuck to teaching <i>A Course in Miracles</i>. But, humor aside, it should not surprise us that the truth is so threatening to the ego, for the idea of separation is simply null and void if there is no separation, which is what the atonement teaches. If truth is one, there are no separate truths, and no individuality. This is incredibly threatening to the ego. Like everything else, when we become aware of that perceived threat, we can do two things with it. We can either project it outside and act on it, including changing the teaching that poses this threat, or, we can go inside and ask Jesus or the Holy Spirit to look at our upset (I'm never upset for the reason I think!), and change our mind about it.<br />
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It does not matter what version of historical events makes more sense to you, but the content is very clear. Jesus taught one thing, and Christianity taught something else, and in fact incorporated the whole ego teaching of sin, guilt and fear into the words of Jesus, changing them beyond recognition. On the rebound this leads to the phenomenon of the church not knowing what to make of the Thomas Gospel, for the Jesus of the Thomas gospel sounds more like a Buddhist (as Gary likes to express it) than like a Christian. The reason again is obvious: he never was a Christian, he was bombarded into one posthumously. This very point also makes it clear why we need a relationship with Jesus or the Holy Spirit to complete our journey, for the ego never ever would permit us to do the steps that would set us free, and keeps threatening us with death and destruction, when all we would find on the other side of that little gap would be peace and happiness. Only through the development of trust can we finally take the last steps, after which the last step is taken by God.RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-79612408101914744632013-10-11T14:03:00.001-04:002013-10-11T14:03:33.143-04:00DLINV Webinar met Gary Renard<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/3t2CoOC2OJc" width="480"></iframe>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-91734254332528505432013-09-27T17:13:00.002-04:002013-09-29T15:37:31.531-04:00Gary Renard's Love Has Forgotten No One in HollandOn October 8th we will see the simultaneous publication of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401917232/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1401917232&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank">Love Has Forgotten No One</a></i>, and the Dutch version <i>De Liefde is niemand vergeten</i>. And what an adventure it was. Now it is time to begin looking at the total effect of the trilogy of <i>The Disappearance of the Universe</i>. Only in retrospect is it clear that this is a trilogy, and the combined effect was quite powerful. At this point I want to explore the meaning of the Thomas connection, especially from a Dutch perspective.<br />
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For me, the Thomas gospel entered into my awareness ca 1960 or so, when my parents were involved with a group of spiritual conferences called first Het Oude Loo, and later Het Open Veld. They were mostly international in nature, and hosted at the palace Het Oude Loo, and Queen Juliana was a participant. That world was abuzz with the expectation of the Thomas Gospel, and originally Queen Juliana had given her personal financial support for the acquisition of the Nag Hammadi manuscript through the Jung Foundation, by the Dutch Professor Gilles Quispel. In 1959 the first translation appeared in Dutch, and in the late fifties my parents attended lectures by him.<br />
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The expectation that surrounded all of this was of finally having a fresh, new impression of Jesus as he was originally, but some of that expectation was dampened by Quispel's focus on the Gnostic tradition, driven primarily by the fact that the Nag Hammadi library was largely a gnostic collection, and that seemed to make the Thomas gospel part of the second century gnostic religions, many of which were more or less Christian. It was only later that it began to be understood that the Thomas gospel, or at least a kernel of it, must have indeed predated the canonical gospels of the New Testament, since those books all quote the Thomas gospel.<br />
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<h2>
Thomas enters popular culture</h2>
My earliest memories about anything to do with the Thomas Gospel was of my parents going to lectures by Prof. Gilles Quispel, and the buzz that surrounded them. Later, when I lived in the USA, this "buzz" was renewed for me in a way, with the publications (on the same day in 2003) of three books that related to the Thomas gospel in different ways, Elaine Pagels' <i>Beyond Belief</i>, and Dan Brown's <i>The DaVinci Code</i>, and last not least, Gary Renard's <i>The Disappearance of the Universe</i>. In short, what began in a little side show in Holland in the late 50's and early 60's, now was entering the world stage with three new and very different popularizations. Translations of the Thomas Gospel had been around for a long time, but it was these three books which really made Thomas part of popular culture, to such an extent that the Jesus Seminar even published a book called <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006063040X/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=006063040X&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank">The Five Gospels</a></i>, in which they included the Thomas gospel.<br />
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That approach of including the Thomas Gospel in the now "five" gospels, was interesting, but controversial on several levels. To church-Christians it was often confusing because the Thomas gospel seemed so different in character, yet it was undeniable that the other gospel writers had copied extensively from Thomas. Conversely it did the Thomas gospel a disservice, because it now began to make that book part of the Christian tradition about Jesus, when the whole point was that ALL specific theological constructs that make Christianity what it is, are absent. Given also that the Thomas Gospel clearly predated Paul, and the others were written after him, it becomes clear that the theological framing of Christianity as such rests with Paul, not with Jesus.<br />
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Therefore, the Thomas gospel sort of stood on its own two feet, and considering it separately, and in its proper historical context made more sense than including it with the books of the New Testament. The character of the three books mentioned above is also very interesting in terms of the way the Thomas material entered popular culture - and I am adding some other relevant notes:<br />
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<li>Elaine Pagels' <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375703160/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0375703160&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20%22" target="_blank">Beyond Belief</a> - </i>This is a book by a religion scholar, who is also a Christian, and she struggles with the differences of the Thomas tradition with her traditional beliefs, just at a time when her own personal life crises make all this that much more relevant to her. It is a very personal exploration, but it has scholarly overtones, and the overall framework is clearly from a scholarly point of view.</li>
<li>Dan Brown's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307474275/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307474275&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank">The DaVinci Code</a></i> - This is a fun book, an adventure story, and the way the Thomas gospel enters the conversation here is as part of material suppressed by the church, and the tone of the narrative very much takes its energy from a certain distrust of and rebellion against the church as an institution that has been withholding information, in order to protect its authority.</li>
<li>Gary Renard's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401905668/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1401905668&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank">The Disappearance of the Universe</a> - </i>This book strikes a very different tone. First of all we are introduced to the Thomas material here through the lense of Gary's learning of <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, but coupled with his own inner experience, which includes recollections of a past life as Thomas. Here the teachings of Jesus are fleshed out on an inner, experiential level, based on Gary's work with the Course, and the material from the Thomas gospel is woven into the story in a way that ties in with Gary's past life recollections, but also by showing how consistent the gist of the Thomas sayings is with <i>A Course in Miracles</i>. Hence the connection was made here between the "historical" Jesus from BEFORE Christianity, as he appears in the Thomas Gospel, and the very modern teaching of the Course, which makes it very clear that Jesus is its source. </li>
<li>My own book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/184694113X/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=184694113X&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank">Closing the Circle</a></i>, explores Pursah's version of the Thomas gospel, and its title reflects the notion that Gary's work "closes the circle" from the pre-Christian Jesus of Thomas, to the modern teaching ascribed to him, <i>A Course in Miracles</i>. Once you can see that connection, Christianity is simply the religion Paul founded, and named after Jesus, but it is his interpretation of the meaning of Jesus and his teaching.</li>
<li>As a side note, in recent years we have also seen the publication of a facsimile edition of Thomas Jefferson's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158834312X/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=158834312X&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank">The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth</a></i>, which was alluded to in Gary's books, with a prediction that it would be entering the main stream in the near future. This "Jefferson Bible," as it is popularly referred to, is interesting, because Jefferson made his selection of Jesus quotes from the canonical gospels, by trying to eliminate any editorializing and focusing exclusively on the quotations, and dropping those that he did not like. One way or another Jefferson's selection shows a remarkable overlap with the Thomas gospel, even while it was produced 125 years before the discovery of the major manuscript at Nag Hammadi. </li>
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<h3>
The Connection of the Thomas gospel and <i>A Course In Miracles</i></h3>
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If the foreground of Gary's books, the story line, is Gary's life story and especially his adventures in learning the Course with mentoring by Arten and Pursah--his ascended master-teachers--the content of the story is simply universal, about how we learn the Course. The background is provided by the historical perspective of Jesus then and now, with the important distinction that Jesus was already stripped from his Christian appearance by the things he says in the Course about how his teachings were misconstrued, and Gary's books go one step further, by referring to him as J, in an attempt to defeat the stereotypes that inevitably are associated with his name.</div>
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On a deeper level, this "then and now" perspective makes the point of the meaning of the resurrection, namely that Jesus is present to us all in the mind, in the present, and that it is his teachings which matter, not the history around him, and certainly not the theologies that were created in his name, in all flavors and variations. His teaching was and is simple, never easy to practice, because of the resistance of our ego, but always simple.</div>
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Now that the triptych of <i>Disappearance of the Universe</i> is complete, we have a very plausible way of understanding the context of the Thomas gospel and how it points us to the unadulterated teachings of Jesus, free of the sediment of later theology, as we learn to appreciate the inner consistency of those teachings with the Course. Most importantly, we learn how to apply them in our lives, for the Course is all about practice, practice, and more practice. </div>
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<br />RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-51776784594829140842013-04-12T13:35:00.002-04:002013-04-12T23:44:54.483-04:00Pursah's Idea of the Kernel of ThomasPursah is one of the Ascended Masters, who are the teachers to Gary Renard, with whom he has a dialogue in his books, first <i>The Disappearance of the Universe</i>, and <i>Your Immortal Reality</i>, soon to be joined by a third, <i>Love Has Forgoten No One</i>. In these conversations, she reveals herself as a reincarnation of the apostle Thomas, with vivid--first hand--recollection of the eponymous Gospel.<br />
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In the first book a few of the more prominent sayings in the Thomas Gospel are discussed, because they are more or less easy on the modern eye and ear. Then, in the second book, Pursah provides what amounts to a kernel of the Thomas Gospel. She essentially eliminates 44 sayings from the collection of 114 sayings that was found at Nag Hammadi, and leaves 70 as her "kernel" of the Gospel, that she considers authentic. The rest she dismisses as either hopelessly corrupted or simply added later. The ones that survive her scrutiny stay pretty much in tact, aside from some minor editorial tweaks. One of the most fascinating steps in Pursah's editorial process is the contraction of sayings 6&14, which, if you let it sink in for a while is so obvious at an intuitive level, that you'd almost have to conclude that it makes sense regardless. By implication, that editorial decision alone is testimony to Pursah's authority with the material, which is only natural if she were the author of it originally.<br />
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You could say that the seventy sayings of Pursah's Gospel of Thomas, are her account of the orginial kernel of that book as it must have existed ca 50 AD, and which made it the first of the Gospel accounts, given that Mark dated from 65 AD, Luke and Matthew from ca 75 AD, and John from 90-110 AD. There is also the internal evidence that Mark, Matthew and Luke all quote from Thomas, just as much as Matthew and Luke also quote Mark. Ergo, Thomas must have been first, even if for a long time we did not have a physical manuscript.<br />
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<h3>
<b>The inadvertent risk of anachronisms</b></h3>
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One thing to be clear about, is that what was found in Nag Hammadi in 1945 was not a paperback saying "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas" target="_blank">The Thomas Gospel</a>." That is the same mistake as thinking that the King James Version is actually the Bible, or... that there even is such a thing as "The Bible," because the more you study it and understand where it came from, and how it was different books by different authors that were collected into this sort of orthodox anthology, well, then the monolithic notion of 'Bible' may be less useful. </div>
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We suspected there might have been a Thomas Gospel before that manuscript was discovered in Nag Hammadi in 1945. Ancient writers had referred to one. What was found was just one handwritten manuscript, that thankfully was preserved, but ever since the 1890s we suspected there may be a Thomas Gospel, because of the Greek fragments that had been found in the manuscript at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_Papyri" target="_blank">Oxyrrhynchus</a>. Those fragments included Logia 1-7, 24, 26-33, 36-39 and some sentences from 77, besides a lot of other materials. The generally accepted date range of that material is from 130-250 AD. But since we had only bits and pieces, there might have been a few who surmised this might be another Gospel, but we did not know for sure until the discovery at Nag Hammadi. So then we had a Coptic translation, of what originally must have been a Greek manuscript that may have been more or less together ca 150 AD. </div>
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Jesus would have spoken Aramaic. But the common written language of the day was Greek, so the Thomas Gospel in an early form may have been together ca 50 AD. That is certainly the version of events Pursah subscribes to.</div>
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A few scholars had attempted to reconstruct a notional Kernel of the Thomas Gospel, so the idea was around in scholarly circles before Gary Renard had the experiences he relates in his books. Pursah's version of 70 'core' sayings that she is willing to vouch for is essentially her representation of that kernel, based on past life recall, etc. The reason it is convincing to a careful student, is because of its inner consistency, which harmonizes well also with the teachings of A Course in Miracles, and that is the connection that Gary's books explore. It also harmonizes with Pursah's authority as being a reincarnation of the author (Thomas), with apparently perfect past-life recall. Again, if you look at her editing skills in combining Logia 6 and 14 as a matter of course, it gives me shivers up and down my spine, for it seems so natural, and the fit so perfect, yet how would you have thought of it, unless you knew something?</div>
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In short, the Thomas Gospel must have existed in some form, certainly oral, but most likely written, ca 40-50AD, and because of the Greek manuscripts we knew fairly well it existed ca. 140-150 AD in a form that was later validated by the find in Nag Hammadi. We then have a complete document from Nag Hammadi, which may go back to the Greek, or perhaps via an interim Syriac tradition. What we don't really know is when exactly and how the corruptions and additions to the 'kernel' took place, except somewhere in that time span between 40-50AD and 140-150AD, and possibly after that as well, particularly if it was translated first from Greek to Syriac and then to Coptic. But there's much we don't know in details. The only thing we can say for sure by experience, is after we live with Pursah's collection for awhile, is that the coherence of them is quite convincing, compared to the inner contradictions that are so bothersome in the collection of 114 from Nag Hammadi. And this inner experience eventually becomes our surest guide, if we practice the Course:</div>
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The ego will demand many answers that this course does not give. It does not recognize as questions the mere form of a question to which an answer is impossible. The ego may ask, "How did the impossible occur?", "To what did the impossible happen?", and may ask this in many forms. Yet there is no answer; only an experience. Seek only this, and do not let theology delay you. (ACIM:C-in.4) </blockquote>
RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-22690684283987548852012-08-23T23:12:00.001-04:002012-08-24T11:42:59.210-04:00Gnosis Pure and SimpleOne of the more confusing things about the Book of Thomas is that it has been associated with the gnostic religions of the 2nd century, simply because the book was found in a collection of fairly gnostic texts, and maybe because of certain themes that seemed "gnostic" to some. I have written about this issue in <i>Closing the Circle</i>, noting that even the word itself was at first a plain old word, indicating "knowing" versus "unknowing," with knowing signifying the kind of deep intuitive knowledge that provides total certainty, whereas the knowledge of things can only make one somewhat better informed, but provides no wisdom and no true knowledge, because theirs is inherently a partial, piecemeal view.<br />
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With <i>A Course in Miracles</i> as a guide, this element of Jesus' teaching, and of perennial wisdom, really, becomes much clearer. And by going back to basics, we can untangle the Book of Thomas, and much else that Jesus said, from the colorful gnostic theologies of the second and third centuries CE, which often times go well beyond the intentions of the original teachings, and accordingly we can read it in its original sense.<br />
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What becomes clear is that to quote a Biblical tradition, "to those outside the Kingdom" it all comes in parables--we who are identified with duality, who think we are separated individuals, and outside Heaven, the Kingdom, or the Oneness of the Mind, of necessity perceive the world in those terms, and perceive individual identities around us. That is the state of unknowing, where we see others as we see ourselves, because we project the separation thought, and the realm of perception is merely designed to confirm that projection and make it real. It is when our false self sees naught but false selves, and deems that reality.<br />
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The state of knowing (knowledge in the Course) means to know ourselves to be as indeed God created us, as spirit and one with Him, which goes hand in hand with seeing the face of Christ in all our brothers, for now we recognize our true Self in everyone we meet and we operate in Love and from Love. This is the state of knowing, knowledge, gnosis.<br />
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In short, all the theological explanations of the word gnosis in the end go back to a very simple and basic concept that Jesus taught from the beginning. It is the core of a non-dualistic thought system for only in complete oneness does the concept of total certainty exist, that certainty is gnosis. The knowledge of the world deals in degrees of "certainty," but never in total certainty, and therein lies the rub. More information can reduce uncertainty, but this is a limiting function, and "certainty" can never be reached, because it is not in the perceptual domain by definition. It is not of this this time/space continuum. That is why Jesus said: My Kingdom is not of this world. Some of the Thomas Logia may now be clearer:<br />
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J said, "If your teachers say to you, 'Look, God's Divine Rule is in the sky,' then the birds will precede you, 'It's in the sea,'then the fish will precede you. Rather, God's Divine Rule is within you and you are everywhere. When you know yourself, you will be known, and you will understand that we are one. But if you don't know yourself, you live in poverty, and you are the poverty." (Logion 3)</blockquote>
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I stood in the world and found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. They came into the world empty, and they seek to leave the world empty. But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, they will open their eyes. (Logion 28)</blockquote>
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J said, "Let one who has found the world, and has become wealthy, renounce the world." (Logion 110) </blockquote>
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The disciples said to him, "When will the Kingdom come?" He said, "It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Behold here,' or 'Behold there.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it." (Logion 113) </blockquote>
Each one of these expresses the contrast between the world of ten thousand things, and the oneness of the Kingdom, the contrast between knowing many things, or pure knowing, gnosis. To be drunk on the knowledge of a great many things would prevent you from knowing yourself, and thus having gnosis.<br />
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RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-57698862359644286802012-07-17T15:44:00.000-04:002012-07-17T17:38:34.295-04:00ACIMExplained Interview by Ken BokThis was a very nice interviewing experience, it flowed naturally like a dialog, and hopefully this gives people another way of looking at the book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/184694113X/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=rogsblo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=184694113X">Closing the Circle: Pursah's Gospel of Thomas and A Course in Miracles</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=rogsblo-20&l=as2&o=1&a=184694113X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i>
and helps clarify the position of the book of Thomas in the overall scheme of things a bit further.<br />
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If there was anything I would have liked to have added, that might be the consideration that whereas Thomas Jefferson (and many others) certainly had a point historically in fingering Paul as having distorted the teachings of Jesus, Jesus does not take any issue with Paul, just as much as he does not take issue with Judas, because his teaching is forgiveness, not judgment. In the Course, Jesus corrects many Christian theological terms and notions and clarify what the original meaning of his teachings was, and at times he even quotes from Paul's work where he does offer more right-minded statements.<br />
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Meanwhile you can order the book here:<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=rogsblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=184694113X&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>
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Meanwhile, you can find more of Ken Bok's wonderful stuff here: <a href="http://www.acimexplained.com/">www.acimexplained.com</a> and/or you can find his various video interviews on YouTube here <a href="http://www.youtube.com/acimexplained">http://www.youtube.com/acimexplained</a> he is building up quite an awesome collection of materials on <i>A Course in Miracles</i>.<br />
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<br />RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-20146254441806627322012-06-02T10:25:00.001-04:002012-07-17T15:50:07.481-04:00Saul, Paul, and how Jesus survived Christianity<blockquote class="tr_bq">
How can you who are so holy suffer? All your past except its beauty is gone, and nothing is left but a blessing. I have saved all your kindnesses and every loving thought you ever had. I have purified them of the errors that hid their light, and kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within you, and we know what God creates is eternal. You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I loved myself. You go with my blessing and for my blessing. Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. The heart is pure to hold it, and the hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgment is as strong as the wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. His quiet children are His blessed Sons. The Thoughts of God are with you. (ACIM:T-5.IV.8)</blockquote>
In <i>Closing the Circle: Pursah's Gospel of Thomas and A Course in Miracles, </i>I paid quite a bit of attention to the issue of the transition that takes place in the traditions about Jesus, between the teachings of Jesus, of which the Thomas gospel seems to be the most authentic record, and Chrisitianity, named after him, but never 'founded' by him in any meaningful sense of the word, but merely ascribed to him by others and given his name, after his death. Because of the profound intertwining of the Jesus tradition with the orthodoxy of Chrisitianity as it solidified in the next 300 years, for a long time it was the "canonical" books of the New Testament that appeared authoritative.<br />
Only with the re-discovery of the Thomas Gospel, once one understands the timeline of how and why it emerged before the gospels of the New Testament collection, does it become insightful where the break occurs - with the introduction of the theological foundations of Christianity, including the exceptionalism about Jesus as God's only son, to the exclusion of the rest of the sonship as 'adopted sons,' the interpretation of the crucifixion, resurrection (bodily, as Paul assures us), the second coming (the puzzling idea of his returning to the world he claimed to have overcome), the Eucharist etc. All of these concepts were features of Pauline Christianity, and there were many other schools of would-be Christian thought which did not have them, or had entirely different notions. Among other things there were many vocal debates about the idea that the moment of the resurrection was really the moment of the Heavens opening up in the story of the baptism in the River Jordan, under John the Baptist. That particular story would be closer to what is reflected in the Course today. The fact is Pauline Christianity won, because it rendered itself palatable to Caesar, and as a result eventually what we now regard as Roman Catholicism. The fact that it was most successful in stamping out other views, and gained the upper hand politically is no recommendation.<br />
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After those original debates died down, Christianity went through a consolidation phase, and then a splintering again. With Vatican II the most obvious attempts at mind control were starting to be relinquished, allowing such an oxymoron as Catholic Bible Scholars, or in general Catholic Bible Studies to exist, just when the first serious translations of the Thomas Gospel began to gain currency, while at another place on the planet the dictation of <i>A Course in Miracles</i> got under way.<br />
Since the time of the enlightenment, thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson in the US had become suspicious of the Pauline material, and smelled a rat. Jefferson likened his efforts to cull Jesus' teachings out of the Biblical materials to salvaging 'pearls' from a pile of 'manure.' Paul he called a 'dupe' and a 'fraud.' This was all very perceptive, but name calling does not solve anything. Jefferson's positive contribution, which was only published posthumously as the 'Jefferson Bible' -- he had called it <i>The Life and Morals of Jezus of Nazareth</i> -- however is a powerful turning point and came very close to anticipating the re-discovery of the Thomas Gospel almost 125 years later.<br />
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The interesting thing about <i>A Course in Miracles</i> no doubt is that in it Jesus quotes some of Paul's inspired writing on numerous occasions, while at the same time forcefully correcting the fundamental constructs of the Christian theology of which Paul was the principal architect. In other words, the Course shows also in that regard, what forgiveness means -- the mistakes and the messes are cleaned up and corrected, and only the inspired, 'loving' thoughts are remembered. To that extent then it is never useful to pursue this type of critical scholarship of the tradition, unless it also helps us to see how we all make the mistakes Paul made, and forgive him and ourselves in the same breath. Here, the text of the Course is our guide, as the opening quote shows.<br />
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<br>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-88556089549782151652012-04-15T09:53:00.000-04:002012-04-15T15:02:39.177-04:00TJ and Thomas, and Jesus: Deja vu all over againWith the publication this year of the facsimile of the so-called Jefferson Bible, there has been new attention to his very personal awareness of his relationship with Jesus, which is evidenced in his personal legacy by his lifelong attempts to rescue the pearls of Jesus' real teachings from among the 'manure' that surrounded it. Now the story has gone mainstream, with coverage in Newsweek: <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/01/andrew-sullivan-christianity-in-crisis.html">http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/01/andrew-sullivan-christianity-in-crisis.html</a><br />
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Meanwhile, Gary Renard has acknowledged on the DU list that he agreed that this event, the new publication of the facsimile edition of the Jefferson Bible, is in fact the fulfillment of the words of Arten on page 218 of <i>The Disappearance of the Universe</i>, where he reports that it was not published by Jefferson during his lifetime, but that "it will be made available soon for those who want to see it." At the time when DU was published in 2003, this particular statement seemed confusing since of course the text of the Jefferson Bible had been available in book form for quite a long time already. In retrospect, this particular statement referred to the original that was about to be restored, and become available for public viewing again. It had been too fragile to be able to be viewed. Thankfully, the Smithsonian published a facsimile edition at the same time, so that now anyone can have access to this material in its original form.<br />
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The conclusions of Andrew Sullivan in his article are interesting also, that Jefferson's point was simply to leave Christianity aside, and to go back to the teachings of Jesus as best as he could cull them out from among the rubble. The rediscovery of the Thomas gospel in and of itself represents the same opportunity, in as much as it gives us back some of the original teachings, not the embellished literary versions of the later synoptics, which all suffer from editorial influences that trace back to Paul. No wonder then that Jefferson's selections should have close correspondence to the Thomas material, because the later evangelists were likely quoting from Thomas at least in part. He saw Paul's influence as a major distortion, and based on what we know today that was a very accurate way of viewing things.<br />
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Given the title I chose for my book, <i>Closing the Circle</i>, I have a certain sympathy for this closing of yet another circle. In terms of the national dialogue it seems to certainly put paid to the repeated attempts by the Christian right to hijack the US constitution and the country on behalf of later forms of evangelical Christianity, which evidently would be completely antithetical to everything Jefferson stood for, even if he wisely kept it to himself at the time. Now it is out in the open.<br />
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I myself had been contemplating for a long time to start rewriting my book at first in Dutch, and somehow these developments give me a good basis for a revised and updated new edition. Later, in a few years time, it will then hopefully also see a new edition in English, that will be based on the upcoming rewrite in Dutch. Certainly the 'event' of the publication of the facsimile of the Jefferson Bible, and the sort of public attention it seems to be getting is a development that I am going to incorporate in an updated version. At the same time I feel that both my personal work with ACIM, as well as my work on the translation of the work of Margot Krikhaar, whose first book is soon to appear in English as <i>Awakening in Love,</i> would lead to a substantially new and improved version of the book eventually.<br />
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Meanwhile Annelies Ekeler in Holland, who runs Inner Peace Publications, and wants to publish the book in Dutch, and has suggested a new title, which I will adopt at least in Dutch: <i>How Jesus Survived Christianity</i>. That is a remarkable story indeed, given the massive effort that is known as Christianity, which clearly did everything in its power to make sure these original sayings would be lost, including book burning on a fairly significant scale. That story is only par for the course of how the ego deals with challenges, including 'if you can't beat them, join them,' which is in the end how it dealt with the teachings of Jesus: co-opting him, all the while making sure that it would be its version of events that would survive, and that its theology would supplant the original taching. That story is now increasingly coming in the open. Our thanks should go to the monks at Nag Hammadi who buried a collection from their library and helped it escape the destruction.<br />
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Our job remains to forgive all the images our ego made of Jesus, for they all get in the way of our real relationship with him. In other words, to accept that living relationship in our lives simply requires the abandonment of all of our own misconceptions about how it is supposed to work and what it is supposed to look like.<br />
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Is he the Christ? O yes, along with you. His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of you. He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God. And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision, for the eyes of Christ are shared. Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a brother whom you knew since you were born, for such indeed he is. Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only brother to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God. (ACIM:C-5.5)</blockquote>
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<br /></blockquote>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-68441438047590272372011-10-22T13:15:00.000-04:002011-11-23T09:38:46.090-05:00The Jefferson Bible - Facsimile EditionI've blogged here before about the Jefferson Bible, and of course I dealt with it extensively in my book, Closing the Circle. <a href="http://acimnthomas.blogspot.com/2008/11/jefferson-bible-revisited.html">My earlier blog on the Jefferson Bible</a> referred to a specific edition of it, that edited by Forrest Church which I think is more or less the standard at this moment.<br />
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Now, however, the Smithsonian is publishing a <a href="http://www.smithsonianstore.com/new-arrivals/books-media/the-jefferson-bible-10511.html?src=S5370H&utm_source=none&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=thomas_jefferson_bible&utm_content=none&utm_campaign=none&gclid=CN3p_eC2_KsCFY515QodxEMCnw">facsimile edition</a> of Jefferson's original, which will be quite interesting to see.<br />
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At the same time, it makes me wonder if it was this re-publication of the original which actually might have been alluded to in Gary Renard's narrative in The Disappearance of the Universe, on pages 218-219. That was written and published at a time when the Jefferson Bible one one edition or another had been continuously available, and yet it refers to its not being available with the following somewhat befuddling statement: "Of course he [Jefferson] couldn't make it available to the public at that time without being accused of terrible things, but it will be made available soon for those who want to see it."<br />
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It is particularly the phrase "want to see it" which intrigues me - because again the text has been continuously available, but seeing a facsimile of Jefferson's actual, manual product is something else altogether. The reason I have any inkling is because in the Forrest Church edition of the "Jefferson Bible" there are three facsimile pages from the original, and you can't help but visualize Jefferson at his desk, communing with Jesus as best he understood him, and with scissors and glue pasting together, guided by intuition and common sense, that which he considered to be authentic and lopping off all the circumstantial stuff which he considered ballast. It is a completely fascinating image.<br />
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The image is all the more intriguing because it is a prototype of the process we all go through at some point in time if we turn inside and try to understand what it is Jesus teaches, and make at least a start with developing our own relationship with him. In the process we have to liberate him out of the dustbin of history, and forgive him, as he alludes to in several places in the Course, for not being the idol that we have made of him. To the ego, Jesus is terribly offensive, which is an entirely reasonable position, because Jesus pulls the rug out from under the ego thought system. Hence it is necessary, if we want to turn to him with an open mind, to first forgive him for not being any of the things we are prejudiced to think he is.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am made welcome in the state of grace, which means you have at last forgiven me. For I became the symbol of your sin, and so I had to die instead of you. To the ego sin means death, and so atonement is achieved through murder. Salvation is looked upon as a way by which the Son of God was killed instead of you. Yet would I offer you my body, you whom I love, <i>knowing</i> its littleness? Or would I teach that bodies cannot keep us apart? Mine was of no greater value than yours; no better means for communication of salvation, but not its Source. No one can die for anyone, and death does not atone for sin. But you can live to show it is not real. The body does appear to be the symbol of sin while you believe that it can get you what you want. While you believe that it can give you pleasure, you will also believe that it can bring you pain. To think you could be satisfied and happy with so little is to hurt yourself, and to limit the happiness that you would have calls upon pain to fill your meager store and make your life complete. This is completion as the ego sees it. For guilt creeps in where happiness has been removed, and substitutes for it. Communion is another kind of completion, which goes beyond guilt, because it goes beyond the body. (ACIM:T-19.IV.A.17)</blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Is he the Christ? O yes, along with you. His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of you. He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God. And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision, for the eyes of Christ are shared. Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a brother whom you knew since you were born, for such indeed he is. Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only brother to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God. (ACIM:T-5.5)</blockquote>
In Jefferson's day of course this whole issue was somewhat more acute than it is even today and Jefferson for that reason avoided publishing his effort. That only happened posthumously, but in his private correspondence he minced no words. Now, almost 200 years after Jefferson produced this gem, we are in a much better position. We now have the Thomas Gospel, which re-established the primacy of original Jesus sayings over the embellishments of Christianity, and not only that, we now have <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, and the DU tradition to close the circle, if the reader will pardon my pun.RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-47399020870131460712011-04-12T10:14:00.000-04:002011-04-12T21:50:30.916-04:00Stop it!There is a funny Bob Newhart skit on YouTube called <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQGzeiYS_Q">Stop it!</a><br />
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Jesus is a little more gentle in the Course, when he says:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How long, O Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin? 2 Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? 3 How soon will you be ready to come home? 4 Perhaps today? 5 There is no sin. 6 Creation is unchanged. 7 Would you still hold return to Heaven back? 8 How long, O holy Son of God, how long? (ACIM:W-pII.4.5)</blockquote>Or, to put it differently, the problem is always the same, it is our belief in the tiny mad idea of separation, which keeps us in the self-destructive pattern of choosing the crucifixion (being buried alive in a box?!) over the resurrection, of choosing the body over the spirit, of choosing form over content. The wheel of Samsara, the ego's hamster mill is to keep making the same dumb choice over and over again, and expecting a different result. Jesus in the Course is perhaps the better choice for a therapist, because he does not just tell us to stop it, but he teaches us forgiveness, which brings us back to the mind, so that we can change our mind, and step off of that wheel of repetitious justification of our one bad decision. He also says: "Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world." (ACIM:T-21.in.1:7) He had the same focal concern in his original teachings, teaching us to change our mind, "metanoia" in Greek, meaning a change of mind, not just repentance in the moral sense as it was misunderstood later.<br />
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Much like every good lawyer knows that the best way to thwart a law is to satisfy the letter of it, and do what you want anyway. This is the ego's strategy - to kill the spirit by choosing the form. Jesus constantly reminds us not to, most famously in the New Testament in Mt 16:11 where he tells the apostles (again): "Don't you still get it that I was not speaking to you of breads?" I.e. he was speaking of the content, not the form, while they keep asking for the form, not the content. This IS the tiny, mad idea at work, this is to say I prefer the specific "something," over the everything of the Kingdom. Thus the ego asserts it is right, and ensures we will not be happy.<br />
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In passages like Mark 4:2, Jesus tells us that to those outside the Kingdom, it all comes in parables. In other words, as long as we're joining with him, looking at things from "above the battleground," from the mind level, or the Buddhic plane, we look with him at content not form, and thereby we can change our mind, which changes everything. Again in Mark, in 4:34 he makes it clear that when we join with him, he explains everything. This is the essence of the forgiveness process in the Course. Particularly if you read Mark in the original with Thomas beside it, you could start to hear these original teachings quite clearly.<br />
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There is more as you go along. There are numerous references to eyes that do not see, and ears that do not hear, as well as interactions where Jesus restores sight and hearing. Or, in Mark 5:36 Where Jesus "overheard" the meaning of the words, and clearly is not confused by the form. Evidently he "overhears," as much as he wants us to "overlooks" the ego, because he hears and sees through the form to the content, as would we if we join with him, which is the essence of the miracle as <i>A Course in Miracles</i> presents it: taking back the projection and thereby empowering ourselves to change our mind by now choosing Jesus or the Holy Spirit, our Right Mind. As long as we see the problem in form, in the world, changing our mind is impossible, which is the very purpose of the world. Only once we realize that our mind is projecting the problem (as long as we are choosing the ego), can we take the projection back, and do something about the cause of the problem, in our minds, by turning to a different teacher.<br />
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The point is, Jesus always was, and always is teaching from a non-dualistic perspective, about his Kingdom, not of this world (the world being dualistic), the Kingdom that our unseeing eyes don't see, and our un-hearing ears don't hear, because "the world is too much with us." (Wordsworth) And he was clearly always teaching about projection, as the teaching of the splinter and the beam should make clear. However, as the world inevitably distorted his teachings, particularly in Matthew, Luke and Acts, the teachings are increasingly diverted to justify the formation of religious communities, to bring people together in religious gatherings, and evolve into the church in the literal sense, instead of the promised joining with Jesus which is the message of the Eucharist, and so the church eventually becomes a worldly influence. What we do with his teachings is to pull them into the world more and more, to bring the solution to the problem instead of the problem to the solution, as the Course would say. So, if we bring him down into the world, to fix the problem where it can never be fixed, we are recruiting Jesus in the service of Caesar, which is exactly what happened. <br />
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In that context now, the Bible emerged as a very political document, which is dressed up by theological opinion and given the authority of being God's word, and the world seems to quickly forget how much the inconvenient aspects of Jesus' teachings were edited out in the selection process of canonical versus "apocryphal" books. This "Bible" becomes the justification of the founding of the Church, and Christianity as a religion, and it is taken very literally, to justify the most convenient reading of it. Subtle distortions and interpretations creep in, all the way to the "Heavenly bread" of the Lord's Prayer, which gradually evolves into our "daily bread," and Jesus becomes the spokesman for the Wonderbread account. Only if we start hearing the freshness of the original documents again, and avail ourselves of some of the literature which was excluded from it, can we restore some of the freshness of the original impression of Jesus, and can we start to hear him differently. <i>A Course in Miracles</i> is another path which brings us back to these original teachings of Jesus, by focusing us on content, not form. Its message of the Simplicity of Salvation ultimately revolves around the very basic insight that once you really see the ego for what it is, would you want it? When that stark choice becomes clear to us, through our incremental practice of forgiveness, what else is left to do but accept the Atonement?<br />
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In a variety of ways the Course provides a clear and explicit contrast to "the Bible" as a tool of Christian theology and dogma, there are also numerous allusions to the notion that the same stories could be read very differently, if we read them with the Holy Spirit. However the increasing attention to some of the apocryphal literature is advance the cause further, to a more independent reading of the Jesus literature.<br />
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The Thomas Gospel in particular, because of the total absence of a story line to dress up the various Jesus quotes, very clearly uses imagery to make a point, and clearly not to try to tell a story in the historical sense. In it we find Jesus pretty much as the teacher of nondualism, of choosing his Kingdom over this world of time and space.<br />
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In the synoptic gospels the sayings are framed in stories, which to the modern reader creates an impression of literal story telling, but it is doubtful if the reader in Jesus' time would actually hear them that way, when they are seen in the context of the rich mythological traditions of the Hellenistic world in which these stories unfolded. Moreover, even in the synoptics - as noted above, Jesus frequently admonishes us that it all comes to us in parables.<br />
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But in process of the birth of Christianity as a religion, there was an increasingly strong tendency to take these stories literally, and not as parables, and eventually the whole framework is adapted to justify the founding of what would become the church, and Christianity, and causing them to be read more as history than anything else, and construed in a moral sense to form the basis of that faith.<br />
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The symbolic reading of the stories as parables has been traditionally shunned by the emergent church and a more psychological/mythological appreciation, such as could be found in Philo of Alexandria and others was shunned. But even such a heavily interpretive approach was hardly reflective of the way Jesus taught, if we listen to the Thomas Logia. Even the Gospel of Mark still has a very abstract quality, which is very different from the story tellers of Matthew and Luke who purposely try to weave the Jesus story into Jewish tradition in the first case, and justify the formation of the Church in the second, turning the stories more and more in to would-be histories, with moral points. The Gospel of John however reverts again to a heavily symbolic and mythological framing of the story, which could not possibly be confused with the more narrow story telling of Matthew, Luke and Acts.<br />
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The more inner directed, and experiential way to relate to all this which was prevalent in the mystery religions of the Hellenistic world was completely blotted out by the emergent church, but there is no doubt it was around in great volume, but it just fades into the background in the face of the overwhelming "success" of the Christian religion which comes to replace Jesus' teachings. Eventually thousands of " Christianities" are either rooted out or forgotten or both, as the one dominant Catholic religion emerges under the sponsorship of the later Roman Emperors. Thus we end up with a literal church, a real estate empire, and gathering individuals in religious meetings, as well as proselytizing and missionary work, which shift the focus of the teachings from changing our mind to converting others, from inner change, and following Jesus, to a confession to a formal faith in an external Jesus, and from inner change to a moral philosophy and regulation of worldly affairs.<br />
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As the Bible emerged as the monolithic Holy Book of Christianity, and supposedly the Word of God, this literalistic, fundamentalist reading became the norm, and Jesus' original teachings were fairly effectively edited out of the book. The world had successfully replaced his very threatening teachings with an idol of him, a "bitter idol," as the Course calls it, for in the world's version Jesus died on the cross, and we can be none to certain that we'll rejoin with him after death. Throughout <i>A Course in Miracles</i> we find entirely the same theme, and there is ample opportunity at times to distort the Course by taking it literally, which leaves nothing but the empty form of knowing, let alone interpreting the Course, in lieu of practicing what it says, and turning to Jesus or the Holy Spirit as our teacher.RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-70789110066935532262011-04-04T08:46:00.001-04:002011-04-04T11:33:08.052-04:00Above the BattlegroundIn the gospels Jesus is frequently quoted as asking the apostles to follow him, which is another thing which has been most often distorted by taking it literally, and in some absurd forms at times as in when early Christians thought that the<i> imitatio Christi </i>meant to get yourself crucified like him, when evidently the opposite was the case.<br />
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Jesus speaks clearly of a Kingdom not of this world. In the Course the first step in that direction is frequently expressed as the view from above the battleground, i.e. to join with Jesus in non-judgmental observation of the movie that is your life and forgive all the actors in it, including the character who plays you. In the previous post about Ken Wapnick's book on the Course and the Bible, I referred to the difference in the choices we face as they are presented in traditional Christianity - very much an egoic thought system - namely deliberate choices between good and evil, and between real alternatives in the world, seeking to make a difference.<br />
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In contrast to the above the Course exhorts us: "Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world." (ACIM:T-21.in.1) We should note also that even in the canonical literature of the NT Jesus constantly refers to a Kingdom not of this world, and again joining him in the view from above the battleground is the first step towards learning to see things his way.<br />
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Lionardo da Vinci, who must have known enlightenment also, just like Shakespeare, wrote:<br />
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" Noi tutti siamo esiliati entro le cornici di uno strano quadro. Chi sa questo, vive da grande. Gli altri sono insetti." (As quoted by J.W. Kaiser in Four Open Field Books, p. 81), alternatively the quote is given as:<br />
‘Noi tutti siamo asiliati, viventi entro la cornici di uno strano quadro. Chi sa questo, viva da grande. Gli altri sono insetti,’ in that form it apparently comes from a correspondence with one Gabriele Piccolomini and one wonders if that is a fictional character? After all Gabriel means " God's Strength" and "piccolomini" would mean something like "little littleness," (think: "a tiny mad idea.") It all sounds like Leonardo might have been writing to his decision maker: If you chooses who you really are, you are God's strenght, but as the ego you're but a little fart.<br />
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The english rendering would be approximately: "We are all banished between the corners of a square frame. Whoever knows, lives grandly. The others are insects." That conveys the point exactly, for when you contemplate all those heavy choices in the world, a, b, c, d and e, and God only knows what else, and you then go inside to look at it all above the battleground, suddenly you might realize as you're holding Jesus' hand in the balcony seats there, that you're looking at reruns from something called "Rogier's Life" (fill in whatever name you wish) which is this movie you were watching, and which a minute ago seemed so real if not terrifying at times.<br />
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As I was writing this, my dear friend Annelies Ekeler, occasional co-author on this blog, researched the provenance of this quote from Leonardo, and it may not be attributable to him at all... the only connection seems to be a Dutch author, Godfried Bomans, who quotes the presumed letter from Leonardo, as if it were fact in his book <i>Erik of het kleine insectenboek (Eric or the book of small insects). </i>Bomans would be perfectly capable of making up such a story, with names that seem real enough (apparently there was a real Piccolomini family in Siena, but nothing is known about their ties to Leonardo). In all the point is valid as is Leonardo's real life motto: "Oh, poor mortals, open your eyes." Evidently he wasn't kidding, and people promptly forgot the most important thing he ever said. Such is life.RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-23686439528136513602011-04-02T09:24:00.000-04:002013-08-19T23:40:44.320-04:00A Course in Miracles and Christianity: A DialogueThis little book is practically a classic already: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0933291183/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0933291183&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank">Course in Miracles and Christianity: A Dialogue</a><br />
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<i>A Course in Miracles</i> periodically gives rise to confusion if its use of language is mistaken for Christian. It is not, in the same way that Jesus was not a Christian in the narrow sense, because Christianity was not conceived by him or even during his lifetime, but is an interpretation of him by others who came after him.<br />
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A certain amount of confusion has occurred from time to time when statements from the Course get mixed in with Biblical quotes, without clarifying the different context. This books seeks to address this issue, and clear up the confusion by clarifying the profound differences between traditional Christianity and the teachings of the Course. What makes it so valuable, is that the format is one of a dialogue between friends, who obviously mutually respect each other, and undertook this conversation purely to be of service to others, since the evident potential for confusion helps nobody.<br />
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However, it would be a mistake to think this book is only for Christians trying to make up their mind about <i>A Course</i> <i>in</i> <i>Miracles</i>. The fact remains that throughout Western culture, we are imbued with the history of Christianity, and the image of Jesus and his death on the cross is ingrained, even if for some that very image, and the presence of suffering in the world, may be part of the reason they rejected the teachings, and became atheists, such as is the case in our day and age with Bart D. Ehrman. The concept of the creator force is the same if we call it God, or Nature, or Evolution. It is the concept where the cause of our life experiences is external to us, and life "happens" to us. Along with this world concept of individual existence and a separate reality, the belief in sacrifice is completely ingrained in the ego's belief system. It is the difference between regarding the universe and the world as an objective, tangible reality, or as "maya," or illusion, a dreamworld caused by the mind, in which we are hoist on our own petard as long as we take that first cause - what the Course calls the "tiny, mad idea" of separation - seriously, but which can also be undone, by learning not to take it seriously any longer, through forgiveness.<br />
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A perfect example of taking things seriously is Christianity in all its forms, starting with its redaction of the Bible, and bombarding it into a Holy Book, after selecting just those books that are supportive of the Christian dogma, and discarding, if not burning, the rest. For the purpose of the discussion in this book then, "the Bible" is seen as the instrument of that Christian dogma, and of mostly taking the stories of the Bible quite literally, and granting it a sometimes problematic coherence by regarding it as the Word of God. Outside of the Christian context the Bible could obviously be read in different ways, as is suggested numerous times in the Course itself, a possibility which is also cited in the introduction to this dialogue. Taken at its face value as Christianity does, the Bible is as solid as Newtonian physics, and unreservedly dualistic, granting the physical world reality by declaring that it was created by God. Everything more or less follows from that.<br />
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The dialogue in this book represents a very fair and balanced presentation of the differences between this traditional Christian view of the world, which so much permeates the Western world, and the very different view point of <i>A Course in Miracles</i>. The categories which are discussed are basic, and quite conclusive:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The origin of the world: God created it (Christianity), vs. it's an illusion, a dreamworld projected on the basis of the tiny mad idea of the separation (Course).</li>
<li>Jesus: Exclusive, and different from us as literally God's only son - the Christ (Christiantiy), or inclusive and same as us, but first to remember Who we really are in truth, and teaching us how we can learn the same thing, in awakening to the Christ Mind where the sonship remembers its oneness. (Course). </li>
<li>Crucifixion: Purposely suffered and died sacrificially in an act of vicarious salvation (Christianity), or did not perceive the attack because he knew he was not his body, and did not suffer, but taught only Love and forgiveness (Course);</li>
<li>Resurrection: Bodily resurrection after the crucifixion (Christiantiy), and the resurrection came before the crucifixion in the form of awakening from the dream and remembering who he was, and doing so before us, so he can now help us, as our older brother and teacher to lead us home (Course). </li>
<li>Eucharist: The believers share in Jesus' vicarious sacrifice of his death on the cross, by symbolically partaking of the wine and wafer transmuted into his flesh and blood (Christian), or his followers share in his spirit, celebrating his presence to them in the mind as a demonstration that he did not die, but is alive in them (Course)</li>
<li>Living in the world: This of course is where the rubber meets the road, and - (very) loosely paraphrasing the book here the alternatives look like:</li>
<ul>
<li>Christian style: Jesus, the Word become flesh, God's only son, who suffers and dies for our sins on the cross, and seven days later ascends and goes to Heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father. He leaves us, the adopted children, with the promise that if we lead good and moral lives in this earth, and present our book with green stamps (good deeds), much like the S&H Green Stamps of old, at the gates, we may join him in Heaven after death, when the tally is made up for a game in which salvation can be won or lost based on making meaningful moral choices of free will. Thus our "stamps" are credits towards a hoped for future redemption. Temptation in this model is the doing of evil deeds on this moral field of experience;</li>
<li>Course style: Jesus as the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, who went before us as our older brother, remembering the way home before we did, who awakened to his true Identity so that he did not suffer when the world crucified his body, but instead only forgave, demonstrating (teaching) only love, for that is what he is and what we are, and who constantly reminds us that in making the same choice with him, and joining with him in the atonement, we are making the choice of hell or heaven in real time. <br />
The HS Green Stamps (Holy Spirit Green Stamps) in this case are not meritorious deeds collected towards a future stay with Jesus in the balcony seats of Heaven, but rather miracles - a Holy Instant, a momentary view from the balcony seat with Jesus. While we are still too afraid to choose them permanently, the miracle is our experiential confirmation of what it feels like to choose Him as our teacher over the false authority usurped by our jailer, the ego. When at last we become clear that our only fight is with ourselves and not with an angry God who opposes us, and that we only put the jailer in business by continuing to vote him in office, then we are free to learn how every miracle lessens our allegiance until we finally change our vote and join with Jesus in the atonement. We learn to "teach only love" with him, as we accept his love for ourselves. On this path then, our deeds will become more and more loving as we progress in choosing only Jesus as our teacher and guide, but the choices between A, B, or C in the world are seen as only a distraction, and literally a temptation to solve on the physical level what can only be solved by changing our mind ("metanoia" was the N.T. Greek expression for that). Thus in this model the choices are between heaven and hell, freedom and imprisonment, and we experience it as the ability to shift our allegiance from the ego and its separation thoughts, to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in a joining with Who and What we really are in truth - spirit, and an integral part of the Sonship. <br />
This life now is a growth path towards spiritual adulthood, by shifting from a teacher of scarcity, slavery and imprisonment, suffering and death (the ego), towards listening to the Voice for God, who is ever present to us within (the promise of the Eucharist), never mind how much we bury him under the worldly drama. He remains the ever present Alternative, the Other Choice. In this model the world simply loses its hold on us, as we choose for freedom. Thus Jesus' living presence to us in the now, is restored to us by our choices, until we fully realize we really are him, for the illusion of a separate free will was the cause of our suffering and pain, and giving that up is no sacrifice at all. Free will then is the freedom to choose the Love of God, in lieu of the incarceration of the ego.</li>
<li>N.B. This paraphrasing was very liberal indeed - I made up the whole thing about the green stamps, but hopefully it serves as an illustration. I could also add that in the Christian tradition "taking up our cross," has been understood as following in Jesus' footsteps as the suffering servant, in the mold of the passages in Isaiah which describe this. In the Course, "taking up our cross," would refer to taking responsibility for the fact that we chose the ego and crucifixion, simply because we cannot undo the choice until we first take responsibility for it, and recognize we made it in the first place. This willingness to see that we made the wrong choice and would now make another one is what the Course calls the " little willingness," which opens the gate for us to make another choice now.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div>
In short, it becomes very clear in this book why mixing the two models arbitrarily really does not help anybody, because it muddies up either thought system. This little book is extremely helpful in clarifying the issues in a very elegant way. On another level it is a lesson in tolerance, where it simply becomes worthwhile to learn to understand another thought system and understand it for what it is, for that kind of freedom is loving and natural when we have no investment in the world. Whenever we can do these things in such an even handed manner, we will find ourselves where we are able to agree to disagree, and can simply be honestly curious about understanding another, and can enjoy better relations as a result. We learn to live with differences, not in the ego's way of conveniently ignoring inconvenient facts, which trip us up later, but because we have no investment in differences. Norris Clarke certainly represents Christianity in a very appealing way, and amazingly sometimes wanders very close to the Course in his appreciation, but eventually the unbridgeable differences remain.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One thing you will not find here is the perspective of the pre-Christian Jesus tradition, such as the Thomas Gospel, which in recent years has shown us that the traditional Christian point of view is not compatible with the teachings of Jesus either. When properly seen, the study of Thomas and some of the other pre-Christian literature, which was excluded from the Bible - although Thomas was quoted throughout - puts us on an entirely different track, where the Bible falls apart into a collection of books, that we can then appreciate more selectively as literature, and no longer as the monolithic Word of God. Along those lines we would end up placing a lot of "apocryphal" literature on a level with some of the books of the biblical canon, if not sometimes even give them preference as being more likely unadulterated, or closer to the source. In that respect it is worth noting that none of the "Christian" positions and theology as are investigated in this book and represented by Norris Clarke, can trace their origins to the pre-Pauline Jesus literature such as Thomas and Q.<br />
<br />
Personally, I have essentially always been inclined to look at the Bible as simply a significant book, and with the respect that is due the holy book of any tradition, but with inconsistent qualities, and particularly have usually ignored Paul in my readings, but I hasten to add that I have also realized more profoundly as I work with the Course how that "Christian"/Newtonian - and would be "Biblical" - model of the world is ingrained in us as part of the ego thought system. So learning to tell the two apart in all their forms is helpful in learning to understand the Course, and learning what it teaches. I have thus come to regard Paul as the exemplar of the ego's strategy of bringing Jesus into the world, or, in the Course's language, bringing the solution to the problem, i.e. trying to fix the world, whereas the Course advocates bringing the problem to the solution, returning to the mind, where Jesus is present to us, and asking for his vision, in lieu of our own mistaken perceptions, as the only possible way out of problems that are of our own making - our own projections.<br />
<br />
Again, looking at this purely from a personal standpoint, it boggles my mind when I read Norris Clarke's accounts of what Christians believe, and it really gets kind of funny for me. For most of my life I would have said that I believed in Jesus, but I wasn't a Christian. My understanding of him would have been closer to the symbolic view in ACIM:T-19.IV.C.10, where the birth of Jesus is equated to the beginning of an inner spiritual awakening. As a kid, I was brought up with the notion that the birth of Jesus was just symbolic of the inner events of spiritual awakening. And his baptism in the River Jordan under John the Baptist symbolic of spiritual awakening. By the same token however, until the Course came along in my life, I was never clear on the underlying content of the ego thought system, even though I looked on Christians as a primitive tribe, doomed to die out as they became more and more irrelevant - for in my native Holland people were leaving the churches in droves when I grew up, going from 90% church attendance at the time of my birth to under 10% by the time I emigrated to the USA some 29 years later.<br />
<br />
Looking back today, I see how I had taken leave of Christianity, without much clarity about the thought system it stood for or my own subtle investment in it - although I never believed in his dying for our sins, and was taught early on to see that particular theological slight of hand as a sneaky attempt of the ego to have our cake and eat it too, or if you will, to get away with murder. But again, it was not until I met the Course that sorting out the ego thought system began in earnest, and this book is destined to be a classic which untangles the underlying concepts and prevents the confusion that results if people read no further than some superficial resemblances. From that standpoint it is equally helpful to a church pondering if it should include the Course in the liturgy - it should not - to a Course student who is befuddled by the sometimes Christian sounding language - no, this is not your grandfather's Jesus speaking. Regardless of what your faith may be, clarity can only be helpful, and attempts at being inclusive at the price of lost meaning help no one. You can only pour so much water in the wine and still call it wine. After all, " Jeder soll nach seiner fasson selig werden," as the Prussian King Frederick II put it (Everyone should become happy after their own fashion).</div>
RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-80670154265425329932011-02-05T13:20:00.000-05:002011-02-14T22:44:57.664-05:00e-books are hereOh well, I woke up to the fact that e-books are real when I was given an e-book reader at Xmas... and realized it was handier than I had assumed.<br />
<br />
The reader is the <a href="http://www.literatireader.com/">Literati Reader</a> and it has not been well received by reviewers, seemingly mostly because they reviewed early versions before Xmas, and presently the device has been upgraded significantly, and I have to say it is pretty nifty. I also found I liked it for ideological reasons because the main formats it supports are EPUB and ADOBE Digital Editions, aka ADOBE DRM, which are to all intents and purposes the main open formats that operate cross platforms. The proprietary formats such as Sony, Amazon Kindle, and Barnes and Noble's Nook are doing their level best to keep their users walled-in, an approach which I believe is doomed.<br />
And, if you're in doubt about e-readers, currently, Bed Bath and Beyond has a clearance sale on this device for just $39.99, so that will be a perfect chance to experiment, and you won't lose out because the EPUB/Adobe DRM formats are universal, so you'll still be able to read them if you get another e-reader later:<br />
http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/Product.asp?SKU=17494791&amp. Further once you register on the BBB website, they'll send you one of their fantabulous 20% off coupons, so now, for $32 you have your starter e-reader, and then later, when you decide you need a fancier one you can move up to something more advanced.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Then there was the recent announcement that <i><a href="http://acim.org/Digital_Editions/index.html">A Course in Miracles</a></i> is now starting to appear in e-book formats, although unfortunately they started out with support only for proprietary formats, Sony, Kindle, Amazon - when it would have been easier to use the above formats, which run across all readers.<br />
<br />
Then I found out that my publisher has taken the plunge, and came out of the gate with support for EPUB, Kindle, and Nook, with Google on the way. Here they are:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul><li>EPUB/Adobe DRM:<br />
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Closing-The-Circle-Pursahs-Gospel/book-fSmQ4BxPdEWNLxA9f9twhw/page1.html</li>
<li>B&N Nook:<br />
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Closing-the-Circle/Rogier-Fentener-van-Vlissingen/e/9781846946271/?itm=2&USRI=closing+the+circle</li>
<li>Kindle:<br />
<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=closthecirc-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B004GXAZXE&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>So, now it is for real, the rest is the format wars all over again, though this time it won't be as much of a cliff hanger as was the Betamax/VHS battle.</li>
</ul><div>And, now that I'm used to it, I'm realizing this technology is a real convenience. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I don't have to have all these bookshelves, though I like books, and see myself keeping some but I'll become much more selective.</div><div><br />
</div><div>With my publisher I've had an ongoing argument that their whole strategy was wrong, trying to produce low quality, low cost books for a niche markets. I've argued with him for years that the cheap reader is going to go for the e-book so that the remaining buyers of physical books will want a quality edition. I am hoping to accomplish that with the upcoming 2nd edition of the book. No questions, please, with the upcoming 2nd edition I mean to say that some time in the next twenty years I'll revise the book enough to warrant a 2nd edition, but don't ask me when that will be.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Lastly, for all of you who have struggled with e-book formats, there is help in a crossplatform tool for managing e-books, <a href="http://www.calibre-ebook.com/">Calibre e-Book Manager</a> </div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
<ul><li>One thing I realized once I had the e-reader is that there were a few e-books on my PC, but I never read them, because I spent enough time at the PC already. Therefore, once I was able to take them on the bus courtesy of my e-reader, everything changed, and I suddenly read them.</li>
</ul></div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
<ul><li>The second major realization was that some books, such as Edward Gibbons' <i>The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, </i>are must-reads which you never read, even if you own them, because they are so bulky.</li>
</ul></div><div><br />
</div><div>In short, I'm sold, and I'm convinced that e-readers have arrived, even The New York Times has noticed:<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/books/05ebooks.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/books/05ebooks.html</a><br />
... and that's the home of "all the news that's fit to print." </div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-72886557808313215762010-04-21T13:47:00.000-04:002010-05-02T21:59:00.008-04:00Gary in the News Again?<blockquote><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All terms are potentially controversial, and those who seek controversy will find it. 2 Yet those who seek clarification will find it as well. 3 They must, however, be willing to overlook controversy, recognizing that it is a defense against truth in the form of a delaying maneuver. 4 Theological considerations as such are necessarily controversial, since they depend on belief and can therefore be accepted or rejected. 5 A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary. 6 It is this experience toward which the course is directed. 7 Here alone consistency becomes possible because here alone uncertainty ends. (ACIM:C-in.2)</blockquote> Spring has sprung, and criticism of Gary's work is circulating again, and once more in connection with the <a href="http://www.circleofa.org/">Circle of Atonement</a>. Yet another author with new material on Thomas has come on the air, one Bruce F. MacDonald, Ph.D. His Thomas book can be found here: <a href="http://www.thomastwin.com/">The Thomas Book</a>, and his unfortunate criticism of Gary's work is here: <a href="http://www.thomastwin.com/thomastwin_006.htm">Bruce MacDonald's contentions on "GaryRenard's Stolen Gospel"</a>. Predictably, a number of people have come to me in recent days for comment on this material, because of my own book on the subject - to which this blog is dedicated. (I am slowly moving my material here, from my Xanga blog at http://rogierfvv.xanga.com.)<br />
<br />
Curiously, the author relies once again on the discredited journalistic drive-by shooting that appeared in the form of a series of articles in Miracles Magazine a few years ago, for which to my knowledge at least Jon Mundy, the publisher of said magazine, has publicly apologized at one point. I have perused the website on MacDonald's book a bit, and it seems to me that he comes from a very different frame of reference than Gary does, and it's not clear to me what purpose could possibly be served by his pretty pointless accusation of plagiarism. Simply put, it is very hard to be original in these types of translations, and I say that after following Thomas translations in 4 languages for the past 40 years. You either believe Gary's explanation of how he received the translated text which is published in his books, or you don't. That much is a personal decision. I will have no truck with any one who chooses not to believe Gary's story, but it does not overly bother me either. To each his own, I simply am not interested in the controversy. For me at least, this gratuitous attack on Gary hardly enhances the credibility of what the book might have to say. On the most practical level, it simply represents another viewpoint, and if disbelief in Gary's work is part of that viewpoint, so be it.<br />
<br />
Almost every word choice and turn of phrase in the Pursah version could be traced to one translation or another, and I have most of them here on my shelf, and have studied those differences in the process of writing my book. However it was my conclusion at the time of writing my book, that it was pointless to study a comparison of the Pursah material with the historical texts, except to become aware of when she makes deliberate changes, or offers unique and different word choices. In other words, the informational value is in the deliberate differences, not in the parts that are the same as, or similar to other translations. Prior to the appearance of Gary Renard's <i>Your Immortal Reality</i>, Gary once told me that Pursah's favorite translation was actually Meyer's own translation, and NOT the one he did with Patterson. Be that as it may, the controversy seems pretty petty to me. Either you believe Gary's story or you don't, and the need to pick an argument with him has little to do with the content of his books. By the same token, MacDonald's book may contain valuable information for some people, regardless of the controversy, it does however simply come from a totally different frame of reference than does the Course. I see no need to make a fuss over that.<br />
<br />
Looking at the Pursah material as Gary has published it, and the way she frames her historical argument on the state of the text, her point is that some of the Logia are more corrupted than others. It is in line with that observation that I would suggest to pay attention to the informational value of when Pursah chooses to make different choices than the standard text, and/or different choices in terms of the translation. The material contribution that the Pursah text makes in that regard consists of the dismissal of about one third of the collection which we have in the form of the Nag Hammadi text (which dated from the 4th century CE), which she declares to be corrupted beyond all recognition. For the rest of the material she simply thinks that some of it was transmitted to us relatively unscathed, and in that respect it makes complete sense that the only possible issue could be about a word choice here or there, but in some instances she makes some very interesting edits, which amount to a correction of the historical Thomas text tradition. Her criticism is entirely focused on the reliability of the Nag Hammadi text tradition, and not so much on the translations, although, again, she makes some interesting word choices here and there.<br />
<br />
Aside from the above, which makes sense if you choose to believe it, and no sense at all if you don't, there is really very little to say about this matter. From a standpoint of the Course, there is really nothing else to it, except that it may be another forgiveness opportunity for some, or simply random noise for others. I would doubt if it is worth anybody's while to really track down word for word where every word choice in Pursah's version occurs in the translated material based on the historical text. Of course, Meyer and Patterson might decide to sue Pursah for plagiarism, and call Bruce MacDonald as an expert witness, who knows.<br />
<br />
On yet another level, we might keep in mind that the entire Coptic language, which died out in ca. the 7th century CE, consists of a couple of hundred books, a few dictionaries, and a couple of hundred modern scholars arguing over the fine points. So how easy would it be to come up with yet another original new translation after forty years? Not very, and sameness and hairsplitting differences tend to prevail except for some fancy translations which are highly interpretive. Along those lines, I feel that the Meyer/Paterson translation is about the most neutral version that's out there, in other words, if you weren't consciously trying to be unique and different, you would end up with something along the lines of that translation. The point is to address the content, and that is what Pursah's version does, never mind if you agree with it or not. And again, she states clearly that some of the Logia were pretty much in tact, so a high degree of correspondence with existing translations is to be expected. The crux of her argument is about the whole that emerges <i>with</i> her edits, starting with paring back the collection from 114 to 70/71, and then doing some further edits, some of which are pretty drastic and thought provoking. She is not trying to fix what isn't broken, which is exactly the temptation that exists for translators who have to somehow prove their originality.<br />
<br />
Lastly, seen with the Course in mind, the accusation of plagiarism is a classic ego ploy. The ego is a second stringer by definition, for it is the thought: "What if I could play God by myself?" And since projection is the primary defense, it will therefore always accuse everyone else of plagiarism. Somehow magically believing that this way it will get away with it, that nobody will notice that it is the very ego thought itself which was not original at all. This is merely the archetypical pattern of blaming others for what we secretly accuse ourselves of, and as experience will show us, projection will not solve the problem, but it perversely reinforces the cycle of sin, guilt, and fear, and keeps us in the ego's hell. Once we recognize it for what it is and instead of defending it, we turn it over to the Holy Spirit, it becomes instead a step on the way Home to Heaven, a miracle, that brings us closer to accepting the atonement for ourselves. Conversely, it is a call for Love, and thus another failed attempt to hide the self-accusation of utter un-originality of the ego, and worse, that nothing really happened, that the thought did not even accomplish anything, which is the essence of Salvation, of accepting the atonement for ourselves.<br />
<br />
<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=closthecirc-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1401906982&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe><br />
<br />
Meanwhile, in other news, as seen this morning in my travels in the Fordham section of the Bronx, I saw on the safety helmet of a construction worker the following summary:<br />
<br />
1 cross<br />
3 nails +<br />
----------<br />
4 given<br />
<br />
Of course it's up to us if we want to spend our time with the cross and the nails or with the forgiveness.RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-1313905161793560312010-02-26T23:22:00.000-05:002010-02-28T22:18:06.202-05:00The Gnostic DiscoveriesIt seems that in this blog sofar, I have effectively discussed all the books I've referred to in <i>Closing the Circle</i> except this one. So it's time to correct this oversight. I think it is healthy to begin to realize the shift in perception that the discoveries at Nag Hammadi are bringing about, even though they are still very slow to become generally felt. Evidently the Christian construction of Jesus has staying power, because it has become so culturally dominant, but perhaps more importantly because the Christian concept of Jesus as the vicarious savior lets us off the hook - we can have our cake and eat it too - while the original teachings of Jesus ask us very pointedly to take responsibility for our lives (take up our cross), and follow him. Evidently the Christian model has much greater appeal.<br />
<br />
The trap presented by the whole thing is that from the Christian fantasies of Jesus, we are then liable to move into a "better informed" position on "the real historical Jesus." We will then have accomplished nothing, merely shifted from one picture of Jesus to another picture of Jesus, which equally serves as a substitute for the experience of him. A careful reading of the Thomas Gospel, and even the canonical gospels, and most certainly <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, makes it clear that Jesus is not about theology, but about practicing his teachings and applying them to our lives.<br />
Seen from that point of view, the value of the Nag Hammadi discoveries lies in the mere fact that they upset the applecart, and the symbolism of that is absolutely precious. The books were buried by some priest in an out of the way monastery right at the time that the Canon of the New Testament was decided on, which was a highly partisan selection process of what literature was considered "proper" for Christians, and much else was prosecuted, banned, and often destroyed. And then 1600 years later, after a major world conflagration, and about 20 years prior to Vatican II, where Catholics were set free in the area of Bible studies, voilà this treasure trove turns up again.<br />
<br />
Meyer gives a very readable and in depth account of the history of the discovery and the impact of the books. For anyone who wants to understand the context, this is a very helpful introduction, and Marvin Meyer is not too biased in the traditional Christian mold, though I would suggest he has a little too much of a gnostic bias to my taste. Jesus was not a gnostic, even though he did say numerous things which were later expanded upon in the gnostic tradition, and to that extent, he often sounds more gnostic than Christian, but that does not make him a gnostic per se, just as much as he was not a Christian.<br />
<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=closthecirc-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=006085832X&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-21447356616995915152010-02-16T15:51:00.000-05:002013-08-19T17:20:07.783-04:00New Year's Reunion with Lao Tzu<br />
This last Sunday was Valentine's Day, and it was also Chinese New Year.<br />
<br />
I found myself at a New Year's celebration in Flushing, Queens, the town I always joke is named after me (The English called it Flushing, but it was founded by the Dutch as Vlissingen), the birthplace of American ideals of religious freedom (see <a href="http://www.nyym.org/flushing/remons.html" target="_blank">Remonstrance of Flushing</a>). The event was held at a temple, the Happy Buddha Precious Temple, devoted to the cultivation of the Dao, our true nature, our true Self. This is an outpost of a global movement which was founded some sixty years ago, but claims roots in the oldest Chinese wisdom traditions of Daoism and Confucianism, while also integrating Buddhism and the understanding that Jesus was an enlightened teacher like Buddha. It is an interesting movement, which takes an a-religious posture, although it does incorporate some ritual, but in essence it sees the Dao as the most abstract vision of the Source of all Being, and hence their movement as the root of all religious traditions, so that their view is that their system of belief does not need to conflict with any particular religion you think you belong to. In other words, there is an interesting sort of tolerance here, and an expression of the one behind the many.<br />
<br />
I was fortunate to participate in their rite of the transmission of the Dao, which they equate to the opening of the wisdom eye. It was very simple and beautiful, and the old gentleman who performed the ritual was excited to learn that I had been a student of Lao Tzu's Tao Teh Ching ever since I was about ten or eleven years old. As it was my acquaintance with Chinese culture started with the discovery of Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee series, and then after that I got interested in playing Go, (Chinese Checkers, as van Gulik calls it in the books), and gradually also in Lao Tzu, and to a lesser degree in Confucius. Over the years it always seemed to me that Kung Fu Tze was to Lao Tzu as Aristotle was to Plato in the West. In any case the old gentleman immediately speculated that maybe this rite would be a reunion with my old teacher Lao Tzu for me, and that was surely what it felt like, and in a funny way it was yet another circle closing in my life, for Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Quan Yin, and Jesus are really all one. Much like the Thomas Gospel the Tao Teh Ching has this quality of being more an invitation to the contemplation and the pursuit of truth, much more than being prescriptive or concerned with form. Of course Lao Tzu, just like Jesus or the Buddha did not found a religion, that's just what the followers made of it.<br />
<br />
Along with the ceremony, which was optional, there was also a lovely New Year's meal, where all the members of the community prepared a dish.<br />
<br />
All in all, this was a beautiful way of celebrating the Chinese New Year, and a new year in general, reminding me to recommit myself daily to the Course's notion of: Make this year different by making it all the same.<br />
<br />
This is the time in which a new year will soon be born from the time of Christ. I have perfect faith in you to do all that you would accomplish. Nothing will be lacking, and you will make complete and not destroy. Say, then, to your brother:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.<br />
I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison myself.<br />
In the name of my freedom I choose your release, because I recognize that we will be released together.<br />
So will the year begin in joy and freedom. There is much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept the holy instant as this year is born, and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this year different by making it all the same. And let all your relationships be made holy for you. This is our will. Amen. (ACIM:T15-XI.10)</blockquote>
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See here for a video commentary to the above passage by Kenneth Wapnick:<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/KFNCHw_Hb5Q">http://youtu.be/KFNCHw_Hb5Q</a><br />
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<br />RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1416323862881429625.post-25228870789568090432010-02-01T17:03:00.000-05:002013-08-19T17:04:05.979-04:00Moving Money in HaitiThe following is is a press release from Fonkoze, dated January 25th, 2010, and it is an amazing story. <br /><br />Fonkoze
filled in the gaps, where the banking system was mostly useless, to get
money to the people. Even money transfers were useless if there was no
way to pick up money, and Fonkoze made it all work, in an unprecedented
collaboration with the US Army and UN. I am passing the story along word
for word, it bears repeating.<br /><br />Quote<br />In the predawn hours of
Saturday, January 23, an unprecedented joint NGO-military operation
delivered money by helicopter to ten locations throughout Haiti for
payouts of money sent from<br />abroad and to permit Haitians greater
access to their savings. The dramatic operation, which involved the U.S.
Military and United Nations to complete the delivery, used disguised
boxes of money airdropped across Haiti. In the wake of the earthquake on
January 12, Fonkoze was the only financial institution in Haiti able to
stay open for customers making withdrawals and receiving money
transfers, but within days Fonkoze grew short of cash. Unable to access
its commercial bank account in Haiti, Fonkoze reached out to its
partners to get money into the hands of desperate earthquake survivors.<br />In
less than 24 hours, Fonkoze was able to secure approval to send $2
million of cash from Fonkoze’s accounts in City National Bank of New
Jersey to its 34 branches that had not been<br />shut down by the
earthquake. The cash was packaged in Miami and transported aboard a
military C-17 to Haiti. Below is an abbreviated timeline of the mission
(the full timeline is<br />available upon request). <br /><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
Friday, January 22</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
4:52 p.m. – Operation is cleared by U.S. State Department, United Nations, and the U.S.Military</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
9:25 p.m. -- Boxes with cash separated into 34 packets successfully delivered to Homestead Air Force Base in Miami.<br />10:15 p.m. – A military C-17 is diverted from Langley, Virginia en route to Port-au-Prince to pick up the cash.<br /><br />Saturday, January 23<br />3:30 a.m. – Military C-17 plane arrives in Port-au-Prince with boxes of cash.<br />1:30 p.m. – Military helicopters complete dropping off boxes at designated points across Haiti and return to Port-au-Prince.<br /></div>
“This
was an absolutely tremendous experience for all of us – military and
civilian, government and non-profit alike,” said Anne Hastings, CEO of
Fonkoze Financial Services. “Our branches<br />have been working since the
earthquake to pay the money transfers our clients so desperately needed
to begin to put their lives back together.” <br /><br />“As people continue
to migrate from PAP, Fonkoze's branch network will become even more
essential. Probably most important, unlike the commercial banks, Fonkoze
has re-opened many of its branches and has continued to pay out
remittances using its cash on hand,” said Jennifer Harris from the U.S.
State Department.<br />The earthquake on January 12 left many, especially
the poorest Haitians, unprepared to cope with disaster. Along with the
immediate effects of the quake, many had no money in their<br />pockets,
had had their assets and resources destroyed, and lost key family
members. After the earthquake, all Haitian commercial banks closed
cutting Haitians off from money sent by their<br />family and friends in
other countries. Despite suffering severe damage to its headquarters,
Fonkoze quickly re-opened 34 of its 42 branches, including its
Port-au-Prince branch.<br />Within the first week of re-opening the
branches, Fonkoze delivered more than $1 million in remittances and
savings to Haitians. It then worked quickly to bring in an additional $2
million<br />from its account at the City National Bank of New Jersey,
working through a unique collaboration of the United Nations, USAID, the
U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of<br />Defense, Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank and City National Bank.<br /><br />The
migration of people out of Port-au-Prince to other areas will mean that
Haitians will need infrastructure and financial services in some of the
most rural, remote areas of the country,<br />which Fonkoze has been
serving for over 15 years. “After the earthquake it became evident that
with large numbers of Haitians migrating from Port-au-Prince to the
provinces, Fonkoze, as the<br />only MFI that pays remittances, would have
to play a major role in providing Haitians with access to cash in order
to be able to buy food, water and shelter,” said Julie Katzman of the<br />Multilateral Investment Fund.<br /><br />Fonkoze,
Haiti’s alternative bank for the poor, is helping the most vulnerable
Haitians stabilize their lives by opening its doors so that they can
access their savings and their remittances from<br />friends and family
abroad. Fonkoze has the deepest reach into Haiti’s rural areas and
already has built a remittance network that would take years to create
from scratch.<br /><br />Quick Facts About Fonkoze<br />Fondasyon Kole Zépol
(Fonkoze) is Haiti’s largest, most innovative microfinance institution
with over 200,000 clients. It operates 42 branches across Haiti and in
every province of the country,<br />including many towns and villages
where no commercial banks operate. It is the institution on which
Haiti’s poor relies, especially during crisis. Microfinance helps unlock
the entrepreneurial potential of the poor with small loans and other
assistance they need to lift themselves out of poverty. Fonkoze provides
micro-loans and micro-insurance services and other social programs to
poor Haitians and also offers remittances and savings accounts for more
than 200,000 people. Overall, Fonkoze directly touches the lives of more
than one million Haitians.<br />Fonkoze targets the poorest of the poor
in Haiti. As of 2007, 79 percent of Haitians were living on less than $2
per day and 55 percent were living on less than $1 per day. More than
99<br />percent of the people receiving Fonkoze loans are women and the average size of Fonkoze’s basic loan is just $172.<br />Fonkoze
pioneered micro-life insurance in Haiti with its Haitian partner
Alternative Insurance Company. Families who make claims receive relief
from their loved one’s debt and $125 to help<br />the family cope with the
financial shock. Fonkoze has its own remittance service and is also a
vendor for MoneyGram, CAM and Unitransfer.<br /><br />Among others, Fonkoze
partners with the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American
Development Bank, Partners in Health, USAID, World Vision, Whole Planet
Foundation (Whole Foods Market), Grameen Foundation (Alex Counts,
Grameen Foundation President, serves as chair of Fonkoze USA),
Oikocredit, MEDA, CGAP and other major development agencies and<br />organizations.<br />With
over 95 percent Haitian senior staff and a highly-skilled,
Haitian-majority management team, Fonkoze is building the foundations
for democracy and sustainable development.<br />Fonkoze and Anne Hastings,
CEO, Fonkoze Financial Services, have been recognized worldwide for
their innovative approach in helping the most vulnerable build better
lives in the<br />Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. <br />You can find the latest information and updates following the earthquake at www.fonkoze.org<br /><br /><a href="http://www.fonkoze.org/" rel="nofollow">www.fonkoze.org</a><br /><br />Anne Hastings<br />Fonkoze<br />+1 305-420-6192 (Tele)<br />+509 3701-3910 (Haiti tele)<br />director@fonkoze.org<br /><br />Leigh Carter<br />Fonkoze USA<br />+1 202-628-9033 (Tele)<br />+1 202-746-7053 (cell)<br />lcarter@fonkoze.org<br /><br />UnquoteRogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0