Saul, Paul, and how Jesus survived Christianity

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)

In Closing the Circle: Pursah's Gospel of Thomas and A Course in Miracles, 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.
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.

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 A Course in Miracles got under way.
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 The Life and Morals of Jezus of Nazareth -- however is a powerful turning point and came very close to anticipating the re-discovery of the Thomas Gospel almost 125 years later.

The interesting thing about A Course in Miracles 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.

e-books are here

Oh 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.

The reader is the Literati Reader 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.
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:
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.



Then there was the recent announcement that A Course in Miracles 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.

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:

• EPUB/Adobe DRM:
  http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Closing-The-Circle-Pursahs-Gospel/book-fSmQ4BxPdEWNLxA9f9twhw/page1.html
• B&N Nook:
  http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Closing-the-Circle/Rogier-Fentener-van-Vlissingen/e/9781846946271/?itm=2&USRI=closing+the+circle
• Kindle:
  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.

And, now that I'm used to it, I'm realizing this technology is a real convenience. 

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.

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.

Lastly, for all of you who have struggled with e-book formats, there is help in a crossplatform tool for managing e-books, Calibre e-Book Manager 

• 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.

• The second major realization was that some books, such as Edward Gibbons' The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, are must-reads which you never read, even if you own them, because they are so bulky.

In short, I'm sold, and I'm convinced that e-readers have arrived, even The New York Times has noticed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/books/05ebooks.html
... and that's the home of "all the news that's fit to print." 

Resurrection before or after Crucifixion?

Since Christianity, the well known religion that was founded in the years following the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth in his name, answers this question one way, namely "after," and since they became the dominant tradition, and at least for a while suppressed all other traditions about Jesus' teachings, and ultimately emerged as the Christian orthodoxy, few people are aware anymore of the vivid dialogue that took place in the first two centuries, or the many "Christianities" then in existence. There were any number of hot topics, but the question if the resurrection came before or after the crucifixion, was a big one, and it was bound up completely with the parallel question, if the resurrection was an event of the mind or of the body. Bart D.Ehrman's book, listed above is one of the best sources on the period, and I've discussed it elsewhere on this blog, because it was one of the sources I used in my book. The apostle Paul spent a fair amount of time musing the question, and came down in favor of the notion that this was about a resurrection of the body.

I think Jesus would beg to differ, if the Thomas gospel is any guide, and a lot of it of course did find its way into the synoptic gospels, but managed to largely be ignored over time. Evidently, the Logia speak entirely from the standpoint of an enlightened teacher, an Ascended Master, or what ACIM would call a Teacher of Teachers. This expectation is set right away in the first Logion, which was really meant to be the introduction and not an actual Logion, but is counted as the first one in the texts. Logion 1 says: "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death." That is the central focus of the notion of the Resurrection, the choice for life (of the spirit), and not death (of the ego, or of the world), or as the Course puts it:

There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusion stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. Illusions are but forms. Their content is never true. (ACIM:T-23.II.19)

And elsewhere he explains the meaning of the resurrection:

The journey to the cross should be the last "useless journey." Do not dwell upon it, but dismiss it as accomplished. If you can accept it as your own last useless journey, you are also free to join my resurrection. Until you do so your life is indeed wasted. It merely re-enacts the separation, the loss of power, the futile attempts of the ego at reparation, and finally the crucifixion of the body, or death. Such repetitions are endless until they are voluntarily given up. Do not make the pathetic error of "clinging to the old rugged cross." The only message of the crucifixion is that you can overcome the cross. Until then you are free to crucify yourself as often as you choose. This is not the gospel I intended to offer you. We have another journey to undertake, and if you will read these lessons carefully they will help prepare you to undertake it. (ACIM:T-4.in.3)

And in the section on the message of the crucifixion he puts it as follows:

The crucifixion is nothing more than an extreme example. Its value, like the value of any teaching device, lies solely in the kind of learning it facilitates. It can be, and has been, misunderstood. This is only because the fearful are apt to perceive fearfully. I have already told you that you can always call on me to share my decision, and thus make it stronger. I have also told you that the crucifixion was the last useless journey the Sonship need take, and that it represents release from fear to anyone who understands it. While I emphasized only the resurrection before, the purpose of the crucifixion and how it actually led to the resurrection was not clarified then. Nevertheless, it has a definite contribution to make to your own life, and if you will consider it without fear, it will help you understand your own role as a teacher. (ACIM:T-6.I.2)

None of this can be understood if you think we're a body, like Paul did, but it makes perfect sense if you think that what we are is spirit, and the son of God, like Jesus does as he speaks to us from the pages of the Thomas Gospel and the Course. At the same time this also makes it clear why this Jesus is the inner Jesus - the one who is present with us whenever we ask him to - and not some historical figure who died on a cross two thousand years ago. In other words having once awakened to the complete inner realization, true knowing, as in gnosis, that our identity is spirit, and that we are thus still and forever as God created us, we are then no longer dependent on any kind of form, including the body. The crucifixion then, Jesus's ability to experience his body dying on the cross without feeling any pain, and in the full knowledge that it was meaningless, was merely the most dramatic confirmation of that realization that it is possible to have. In our ego identity we always identify with form, which is by definition limitation, and that is the essence of the ego thought, never the whole, always just a part of the whole. Spirit works the other way around, always the whole, and there is only the whole, the all, the Oneness of Heaven. There is nothing else. But as long as we cling to the ego we spend a lot of our life in mourning, because all forms do pass away, whereas spirit is unconcerned with form, because forms will adapt to suit the purpose. Spirit is cause, the form is effect, and knowing that changes our attitude about life forever. That is the change of mind Jesus was talking about. (Metanoia in New Testament Greek is a word that means "change of mind," but under the influence of later Christian theology it has too often been translated as "repentance," and thus reduced to a moral concept, that applies to living in the world, whereas Jesus was indicating with his notion of "change of mind," how we could change our entire frame of reference and follow him to a Kingdom not of this world.

In this context, what's been called the Resurrection, namely Jesus's appearance in the body to the apostles was just that, his appearance in the body. He was awakened already at the outset of his ministry, and in that context the crucifixion was merely the "last useless journey" the physical confirmation of his complete awakening, in a demonstration that he could be peaceful regardless of what happened, and that subsequently, being spirit, he could appear to anyone in whatever form was appropriate.

From The Visionaries - Introduction to ACIM

Since this blog revolves around my book Closing the Circle, which brings together the teachings of the book of Thomas, and  A Course in Miracles, it may be helpful to post something about the Course here. With more and more material available on-line it is becoming easier to pull this together, but there's also a lot of 2nd rate stuff on-line that does not add any clarity, so as per usual, you have to know where to look... In the links section of this blog you can find a lot, but below I'm providing two links to outtakes from the 2001 PBS series "The Visionaries" which provided a remarkably good introduction to the Course, which I discovered only recently.

The Visionaries about ACIM I - Part One of a 2001 video produced for the PBS series, The Visionaries, and narrated by Sam Waterston. Filmed at the Foundation for "A Course in Miracles" former location in Roscoe, NY, and at the Foundation for Inner Peace in Tiburon, CA, this segment contains accounts of the origin of the Course by Judith Skutch Whitson, and Gloria and Kenneth Wapnick. They speak about the scribe Helen Schucman and her associate William Thetford.

The Visionaries about ACIM II - Part Two of a 2001 video produced for the PBS series, Visionaries, and narrated by Sam Waterston. Filmed at the Foundation for "A Course in Miracles" former location in Roscoe, NY, and at the Foundation for Inner Peace in Tiburon, CA, this segment contains excerpts from a class held in Roscoe, NY. Additionally, Kenneth and Gloria discuss key concepts that characterize A Course in Miracles as a unique spirituality in the world today. The comments and reflections of some students are included as well.


N.B. As is mentioned at the end of the second episode, these videos were still shot at the old facilities of the Foundation for A Course in Miracles at Roscoe, NY, but they've moved from there in 2000, so that when this was broadcast in 2001, the Foundation was already located in Temecula, Ca.

Stevan Davies on Thomas Sayings in Mark, ctd. 0

Some time ago I discussed an article of Prof. Stevan Davies here, which provided some unique insight into the editorial process which turned Jesus into a Christian. Presently, I want to discuss Stevan Davies' second article in some detail. I note that, while I tend to favor using the name Jesus at the moment, I do understand and appreciate why Gary Renard was guided by his teachers to speak of J, because so many people have problematic associations with the name Jesus, and thus might pass up the teachings of A Course in Miracles for that reason. I myself referred to what I now call "Jesus" as "God's Help" which would be the etymological meaning of his name in Hebrew. For me the most helpful operating definition of Jesus is given by Kenneth Wapnick, who is the premier teacher of A Course in Miracles: "Jesus is a what, who looks like a who, because you think you're a who," in other words, in truth we are spirit, but as long as we identify with the dreamroles of who we are, as characters in this stage play (All the world's a stage), spirit may demonstrate its presence to us in the figure which we in the West call Jesus. That definition gives very practical expression to the most abstract understanding we seem capable of and still use words--and the essence of Jesus's teaching of course is that it's all in the experience, since evidently his kingdom is of spirit (that is the "what"), and not of this world, and therefore clearly beyond words, as the words and concepts are very much of this world, or, as the Course puts it, "symbols of symbols, and therefore twice removed from reality," i.e. the word is the symbol for the concept, which itself is a symbol for the reality which it refers to. I'll quote the relevant passage here in full:

Strictly speaking, words play no part at all in healing. The motivating factor is prayer, or asking. What you ask for you receive. But this refers to the prayer of the heart, not to the words you use in praying. Sometimes the words and the prayer are contradictory; sometimes they agree. It does not matter. God does not understand words, for they were made by separated minds to keep them in the illusion of separation. Words can be helpful, particularly for the beginner, in helping concentration and facilitating the exclusion, or at least the control, of extraneous thoughts. Let us not forget, however, that words are but symbols of symbols. They are thus twice removed from reality. (ACIM:M21.1)

In short, the process we witness with Jesus is that he speaks to us of a non-dualistic reality, where all is one, but because of our perception of a world in which we live, which is very much a world of duality (light/dark, black/white, war/peace, male/female, etc.), he can ONLY speak to us in parables, though we constantly persist in our bad habit of taking him literally, and thus we see from time to time in the literature how Jesus clarifies this point over and over again, as in Mark, here:

Mark 8:15-18 (New International Version)

¹⁵"Be careful," Jesus warned them. "Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod."
 ¹⁶They discussed this with one another and said, "It is because we have no bread."
 ¹⁷Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? ¹⁸Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember?

In short, we constantly do not get it that everything, but everything he says or does, comes to us in parables, and that he is leading us beyond our mortal intellect which continues to frame what he says in the context of our dualistic world, where we think we live, and we won't share in his (non-dualistic) experience of the Kingdom, unless we let go of our judgment, which otherwise prevents our ability to follow him, in terms of living what he demonstrates. The ego always wants to talk about what it sees and hears, which is a stalling technique. For that reason it becomes soon very clear in the context of learning A Course in Miracles, that all questions are of the ego, and in fact always express only one thing, namely the ego's secret mission to trip Jesus up, and to prove that he is wrong and we are right.
In terms of the historical Gospel tradition then, the process is that first we have a record of some of his sayings in no particular order, as in the Q and the Thomas traditions, and then we get the narrative Gospels, in which a process begins of the writers framing the stories according to their own best understanding, which may or may not have anything to do with what Jesus actually taught. Most importantly, by thirty years after his death, the figure of Paul comes on the scene who begins to reframe Jesus, and becomes really the originator of one particular tradition which just happens to become dominant, and evolve into what we today think is Christianity, which takes final form through such things as the Nicean Creed which dates to 325 CE, and the definition of the Canonical books of the New Testament by bishop Athanasius in 367CE, which was the first time they were defined in the order we now know. The tendency then which we all have with Jesus, and which is the basis of all distortions of his writing, is that we constantly try to frame his teachings in terms of this world, instead of listening to him, and let him teach us to understand it in the way he intended them. The end result is then a tradition about him, and explanation of him (theology), which end up taking the place of his very direct and simple teachings. The very same process we are watching currently unfold around A Course in Miracles which has given rise to an entire industry of would-be teachers and writers about the Course, who all too often add their own stuff to it, and distort what the Course clearly says.
The issues Prof. Stevan Davies discuss are so interesting, because they document such a process as it once took place with Jesus, and in the formative process from which Christianity resulted. Thus once again, his teachings are about healing our relationship with God and therefore with our Self, and they are geared to experience, not theology, or, as he puts it in the Course (and I'm quoting the whole paragraph, as it is relevant to this article):

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)

Accordingly also, the way Jesus' teaching comes across in the Course, it comes down in the end to a willingness ("the little willingness") to let ourselves be guided by spirit instead of our ego, and thus to let "Jesus" show us the way home. That is certainly a nice thought to contemplate in this Easter time.

All the Dumb Questions

Once when Krishnamurti was asked by a reporter what he would think of when the same question was asked for the umpteenth time, he said "tennis." This was late in his life, he might have been ninety at the time. By this time also he felt at times at least, that for all his sixty years of teaching, and God only knows how many books, no one or nearly no one had ever truly understood him. Dr. Helen Schucman, who was the scribe of A Course in Miracles had similar feelings at the end of her life. The Thomas Gospel talks about "hidden sayings" (Logion 1). None of that is elitism, though it has often been misinterpreted in that kind of light. The simple truth is that very few people really want to be bothered with the wisdom of the ages. Too much hassle. As the Romans knew, the people want bread and games (panem et circenses). Don't bother me with the Truth. No need today.

In the Gospels the scene at the end of Mark, when Mary Magdalene tells the other apostles of the resurrection, is priceless. The arguments that followed are equally telling, including the endless disputes of whether the resurrection was of the mind or of the body. What became Christianity adopted the latter position, though some other schools toyed around fairly seriously with the notion that the resurrection was of the mind. Certainly with the advent of A Course in Miracles it could not be clearer that this is the only way that the story makes any sense at all. But again these are concepts which we don't know right away what to do with, since on the face of it we seem to be a body that has a mind, whereas in the Context of such teachings as A Course in Miracles, it is clear that we are a mind projecting a body, and watching the experience of "My life," which is one of many thousands we could have ordered from Netflix, or picked up at Blockbusters. The main thing is we get so engrossed while watching, and we identify with the hero of the story, we end up completely believing we are him or her, oblivious to any other way of looking at the story. The Course however does tell us to learn to look at things from Above the Battleground:

     Those with the strength of God in their awareness could never think of battle. What could they gain but loss of their perfection? For everything fought for on the battleground is of the body; something it seems to offer or to own. No one who knows that he has everything could seek for limitation, nor could he value the body's offerings. The senselessness of conquest is quite apparent from the quiet sphere above the battleground. What can conflict with everything? And what is there that offers less, yet could be wanted more? Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make? (ACIM:T-23.IV.9)

In short, whenever you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you may remember this kind of advice. In Logion 42 of the Thomas Gospel Jesus expresses the same idea with fewer words: "Be passersby." Learn to watch what you're doing, observe it, don't identify with it and lose yourself, for that leads you to the way out.

It is only when we don't really like the story any more (our own damn fault for taking out a tragedy, when we could also have picked a comedy for the same price), that we begin to look at things a different way. And then when we find a teacher, like Jesus, Krishnamurti, or the Buddha, who hangs out not where the crouds are, but "in the wilderness," or "the desert" etc. this means we're now turning away for a moment of our ego's bread and games, and we immediately start having questions. This is what I read, when I look at the stories of the apostles, when I read the transcripts from Krishnamurti workshops/lectures, when I listen to tapes of workshops of the foundation for A Course in Miracles. These people are all asking all the questions that we all want to ask. Sometimes we haven't realized it yet, but if we haven't yet, we will realize at a later point that we're asking a question we heard somebody ask at a workshop, etc. Ultimately what will answer the questions however, is if we do so through our own experience, as long as we stay stuck in answering questions, we are really throwing up roadblocks against the experience that part of us wants, and part of us is deadly afraid of. Ultimately this is the type of reasoning which Jesus offers in ACIM: if you're in doubt if this is for you or not, try it for a while, and see if you like it. The great big risk is that you might feel more peaceful. Another important clue is in Logion 108 from Thomas, "Whosoever drinks form my mouth shall become like me. I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to that person." As usual this should not be read literally but figuratively. It is about sharing his experience, and becoming one with him on an experiential level, for only the experience will tell us where words fall short. It is not about the words, it is about a willingness to have the experience, and that means giving up on the ego's next ride (because we already know to expect the same old result from the same old actions), and following him in deed, not in word, and the means for that, as they appear in the Course are the practice of his forgiveness practice, which are a way of switching from the way our ego sees the world to the way Jesus sees it. A way to get out of our bad old habits which are making us miserable. And while we are at it we can listen to all the dumb questions, or ask our own dumb questions, which will only fade away when the experience catches up to us and we finally realize what he was talking about. As I pointed out in an earlier post, in Gary Renard's books he is really asking all the dumb questions for us, AND his teachers help him to experience the answers as much as answering him in words, so vicariously through him, we get the point that it is about opening ourselves up to the experience, instead of closing our minds, thinking we have all the answers.

Role Play, Empathy

I talked about role play in my last post, but there are many ways that we can engage in this, and you don't always have to act it out. One of the simple ways is empathy, truly allowing yourself to be in someone else's shoes, which I assure you will change your outlook on other people, and make you a lot less judgmental. And simply, we also enrich our experience. For one thing I had this strong feeling with Plato, in the times when I was actively reading him, it was as if I was at times transported to Athens to his academy, and of course many themes that are discussed in the dialogues are truly perennial questions of human life.

One of the fascinating exercises in this regard for me has always been to empathize in this fashion with the twelve apostles, being around Jesus. Once you break the mold of the dominant Christian interpretation of the New Testament, and bypass the judgment of many of the apocryphal materials as somehow irrelevant, and you just begin to read for yourself, I think the one issue that stands out the most is how the apostles were attracted to Jesus and his teachings, but in truth none of them understood him completely. This makes complete sense also with the comments that Gary Renard's teachers make in his books, namely the apostles mostly experienced another twenty or so lifetimes prior to enlightenment. And look at the stories, these guys are stumbling around, mostly not getting what Jesus is saying, yet listen again and again and again, and somehow in  their own way after he dies, they seem to know that their time with him was their greatest time ever, and it changed their lives.

These stories are no different from e.g. the relationship of Krishnamurti with the people around him. Nobody got him either. And of course it is always like that, which is why it's true as so many people have said that if Jesus just showed up one day, he would not be recognized, and possibly locked up in an asylum. And mentally we lock him up all the time. As long as we make the crucifixion the main event, in lieu of the resurrection, we in effect confine him to the historical role of the body that played him two thousand years ago in Palestine. If however the resurrection is the main event, then he is still with us now, (and we're still not getting what he says). We want most of all for this world to be good and real, and we don't really have ears for his Kingdom not of this world, that is, not until we are sick and tired of being sick and tired. And maybe just maybe, then we tune in to him, and like the apostles, we may not know what to make of him, but we know something sounds damned good and convincing.

A Course in Miracles makes it clear why we eventually listen. The point it makes is that even at the worst of times we are never quite one hundred percent crazy, for the mind that was in him is also in us, and one day we'll start paying attention to that little spark. Jesus' teaching of forgiveness is the method to allow that little spark to grow, until it can shine away the dark. When first we recognize it, a little child is born in us, and the more we can refrain from telling it who it is, but listen to it as it is teaching us, the better off we will be. And so we will humbly empathize with the apostles, who were only dimly getting who Jesus was, but they hung in there, for they did not doubt he spoke the truth. Now it is also no longer a problem that there are so many versions and stories about him, which contradict each other on many points. Not one of them has the whole story, they all merely reported it as best they could. Logion 13 in the Thomas gospel is very cute on this point, for it raises the issue loud and clear that the world is not ready to hear what Jesus really has to say. That is as true now as it was then. The only one who maybe got what Jesus was saying, Mary Magdalene, his wife, seems to disappear from the scene after playing her role as "the apostle to the apostles." The boys ignore her, and start founding religions, and schools, while she, the only one who maybe did get it, seems to wander off and not leave much of a trail. And as always the religions accomplish only one thing, namely we stop listening to the teacher, since we end up thinking we already know, so now we're telling him what he told us, instead of listening to him. Buddhist tradition has a wise saying about this: "What's known as the teachings of the Buddha are not the teachings of the Buddha." Realizing this, you leave yourself a chance to actually listen when you finally do meet the Buddha. By the same token, if we identify with the apostles in their failure to understand Jesus fully, perhaps we would keep our ears open as well. It might inspire some humility to actually listen. To me, that's the value of those stories. In short, this was not "50 way to leave your lover," but "12 ways to misunderstand Jesus," and, if we empathize with the characters, we may understand our own resistance to understanding what Jesus is talking about, and that is surely the beginning of wisdom.

Ascended Whatteh Whatteh?

In The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard describes how his teachers, Arten and Pursah appeared in his life, when one day, when he woke up from deep meditation in his living room in Maine, they were just sitting there on his couch and started a conversation.

They describe themselves as Ascended Masters, who just materialized on his couch at that point, purely to be helpful to him. They also explained that in prior lives they had been the apostles Thaddeus and Thomas respectively, but that they appeared with altered names but in the form they would have in Gary's next life. But wait a minute, it gets worse than that, for by the end of the book, they also explain that Gary will know Arten in this life, though in this life she will be a woman, but he does not know her yet at the time when they tell him this. Furthermore Pursah explains that Gary will be her in his next life, at the end of which she will marry Arten, who again is a man in that life, which is supposed to be Gary's last. Along the same lines they also explain that Gary himself thus was the apostle Thomas earlier.

There is a point to all this. This whole Gordian knot of intertwined lives and personalities, who are having their meetings in Gary's living room, taken together demonstrate the holographic nature of our time-space experience, which boils down to this: we do not incarnate in bodies, but rather "bodies"/"lives" are just like movies, projections in the mind, and the universe of time and space is just a virtual multiplex cinema, where you can potentially wander in and out of lives at will. It takes a while to digest all this, but once you do, it is a whole lot more sensible as an explanation for a wide range of phenomena, out-of-body experiences, re-incarnation included. So it is as Einstein surmised, all of time is simultaneous, and past and present are but a figment of our imagination.

In that context the concept of Ascended Masters also starts to make sense. In his book Gary adduces material from A Course in Miracles, which explains the concept, though the terminology is slightly different--here Ascended Masters are referred to as Teachers of Teachers, but the idea is clear: 

There are those who have reached God directly, retaining no trace of worldly limits and remembering their own Identity perfectly. These might be called the Teachers of teachers because, although they are no longer visible, their image can yet be called upon. And they will appear when and where it is helpful for them to do so. To those to whom such appearances would be frightening, they give their ideas. No one can call on them in vain. Nor is there anyone of whom they are unaware. All needs are known to them, and all mistakes are recognized and overlooked by them. The time will come when this is understood. And meanwhile, they give all their gifts to the teachers of God who look to them for help, asking all things in their name and in no other. (ACIM:M-26.2)

These notions have turned up in many traditions, a.o. the Hindu/Buddhist/Theosophical notions of the Mahatmas, or the Rosicruscian notions of the Order of the Holy Cross, (Fama Fraternitatis), the Theosophical notions of the White Brotherhood, and the Chassidic notions of the unknown 36 Zaddikim who "hold up the world," and so on. Typically Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Quan Yin, etc. are thought included in this group. The notion is actually very simple and straigthforward, if this time space experience is a dream, or in modern psychological terms, a projection, then it is possible to wake up from the dream, courtesy of the process that is traditionally referred to as Enlightenment. It is as simple as realizing that the emperor has no clothes on, and not only is there not there there, but there is no here here either. There is only here and now. Or, as A Course in Miracles puts it, "It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed." (ACIM:T-8.VI.9:7) Fundamentally then, the logic is that we only experience this world because we believe in it, and as long as we believe in it, and that with the process of awakening, there comes a time when it serves no more purpose to be here. At that time however it becomes possible to be present in this dream merely to help others, and that presence can take many forms, it can be totally ethereal or it can take physical form as in the appearances of Arten and Pursah for Gary. In the Christian tradition of course the appearances of the resurrected Jesus to the apostles reflects the same notion.

If you recall the story of the doubting Thomas, who wanted to touch the risen Jesus, in order to believe in him, it is kind of funny that Gary (who, as Pursah explained to him was himself Thomas in a prior life), in his book describes how he wanted to touch Pursah, to make sure she was "real." In the literature this mistake is repeated by the famous encounter of Dr. Samuel Johnson, with Bishop Berkeley, in which Johnson wants to refute the Bishop's point of view that the material is appearance not reality. Johnson kicks a stone and his toe hurts, and he famously exclaims "Thus I refute thee." It is however an example of circular reasoning, for the body is part of that same physical reality, and it is designed to operate in that reality, and the example is merely a case of the physical vouching for the would-be reality of the physical, and therefore it is circular and tautological, and proves nothing. The secret lies in the mind that devises the experiment: what is it looking to prove? If it wants to prove that it's projected reality is in fact "real" then Dr. Samuel Johnson was the perfect manservant to provide that demonstration, but the mind that orchestrates the experiment is not itself part of that reality, it is merely something it perceives, by reason of its vested interest in the reality of that reality, since the mind itself projected it.

In the end, this is why the Course asks: "Do you prefer that you be right or happy?" (ACIM:T-29.VII.1:9) So, if the ego is right then its puppet, Dr. Samuel Johnson has a point, but if Jesus is right, that his Kingdom is NOT of this world, or as he teaches in Logion 42 "Be passersby" then this is all a joke, and it hurts more if you take it seriously. Comedy is really the best relief.

The Original or a Copy?

The central theme that always attracted me to the notion of the Thomas Gospel was the idea that it was closer to the original, than the later descriptions of Jesus which we know from the New Testament. I always like to make clear that there's nothing wrong with liking Paul's version, but I do wonder did he HAVE to call it Christianity? Why not be honest and call it Paulinity? Oh well, it would be a little late to change that now, so let's just leave that as a joke, which is how I intended it: seriously tongue in cheek. But you get my point.

In the last thirty years or so a small but growing group of people are finding a connection to the voice which the recognize as Jesus' through A Course In Miracles, which saw the light in 1975. And it did not take for too long or the book gave rise to whole shelves full of literature. The vast majority of that literature quotes the book for the author's own purposes, and simply uses Course material out of context. No doubt all of this happens with the best intentions, but that does not guarantee anything. The standout among the crowd of Course literature undoubtedly is Ken Wapnick, who originally helped Helen Schucman to prepare the book for print, and who always had an affinity for teaching this material. His books are the standard, and their forte is that they do not EVER add anything to the Course, but essentially always explains the Course with the Course, Ken just knows it so well, he is always able to pull together related materials and help you deepen your understanding. When he does speak about other things, it is in a manner of re-integrating those from a Course perspective, never mixing up the Course. He is also thoroughly modest, because he fully understands that the very point of his teaching work is NOT to add anything to the Course, but simply help people understand it. This is why he's been heard to say when people ask him to write his biography, that it's irrelevant, and he frequently jokes about his workshops, and why people keep coming back, as he says the same thing all the time.

And then there's Gary Renard, to whose work I owe so much. The series title for his books could have been "A Course in Miracles for Dummies," in the understanding that we're all dummies when we start the Course. Gary's claim to fame is that he explains the Course in the vernacular, and that's fair. But it's also the context of the books that makes the Course more approachable, we the readers are simply identifying with the hero of these adventures, and learning the Course along with him. To make it easy and eliminate all sorts of undesirable associations, he calls Jesus simply "J". His books are very much "real life," really the adventure stories of by now about 20 years of Gary's life, as he is learning the Course. They are irreverent, fun, occasionally almost slapstick comedy, and they offer us all plenty of chances to identify with the hero of the story and learn from his experiences.

The rest of the books about the Course tend to run from outright attempts to argue that the Course says things it does not say, even though the book is of amazing consistency, to books which use ideas and concepts from the Course in the context of their author's own presentation, which is OK, though it can be problematic if there seems to be a suggestion that such books represent the Course, when they clearly do not. Like so many people my initial coming to the Course went via another author, Jerry Jampolsky, whose books I devoured within a month in '91, and by that time I was wondering why I wasn't reading the Course itself instead of the numerous quotes in those books, and then, when I did start reading the Course, I found out that it was saying something very different than the way I had found it quoted in those books. In much the same way, Marianne Williamson brought more people to the Course than anybody else, but she uses it in her own way. I'm personally not too interested in most of that "almost" Course literature, and I get much more about say reading Alan Kershaw's biography of Hitler, as a way of realizing just how the ego mind works, and again, looking at it in a very different light.

But, this current experience is also higly illustrative of what happened in the gap between Jesus and Paul. And it should be emphasized that the thing we know as Christianity was only one of thousands of flavors who all considered themselves Christians. If you actually took the trouble to read Paul's letters, you would find there his gradual development of his interpretation of Jesus. And while Christianity may work for many people, if it's Jesus you're interested in, again, as long as you can get the original, why get the copy? The Germans had a beautiful expression for cheap plastic knockoffs arriving from Hong Kong and Japan in the postwar years, "Ganz wie echt aber viel schöner." (Just like the real thing, but much nicer). That says it all. This ties in with e.g. Logion 113 of Thomas, where Jesus says, as the disciples ask him when the Kingdom will come, "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." And so the best way for the ego to defend against the Kingdom is to ratchet up the production of knockoffs, so that we should continue not to see it, and be distracted by cheap substitutes of our own making, so much so that the substitutes are wildly more popular. The only difference now is that the Course is widely available, and has already sold millions of copies, not to mention is currently available in 18 languages, although there are knockoffs available too. So if you want to read it, get yourself the 3rd edition from the Foundation for Inner Peace, who are the original publishers authorized by Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, and fully endorsed by them. Stick to the original.

To come back to Paul one moment, once you start getting it why Jesus is talking about something else altogether, it would also seem understandable why his teaching would get distorted. The gap between Jesus (33CE) and the Pauline letters in itself was only 30 years, and if the Thomas gospel is from 50CE and the letters from Paul starting in 60-65CE, that was 10-15 years out of that total span. The notion of Pursah in Gary's books is by implication that the sayings collection grew from the ca 70/71 she regards as authentic, to the 114 that were found at Nag Hammadi, by picking up extra material that was not originally part of it.
♦

Back to Basics

The other day I posted about the exact issues of how to mentally disentangle the Christian construct of Jesus from the Jesus of the Thomas gospel. This theme is very much in line with my recent discussion of the materials of Stevan Davies, who is a Biblical scholar who has done an incredible job in identifying how the story changed between the Thomas gospel, which dates from the year 50CE, and the later Canonical Gospels, which are dated from ca. 65CE (Mark) onwards. The most significant difference is that in the period 60-65CE, Paul's writings appear on the scene and the influence of his thinking very much sets the tone for the whole New Testament, and so, if you were to put the NT in proper chronological order, the letters of Paul should come first, then Mark, then Matthew and Luke, and then John and Revelation.

If you reordered the books that way, you'd instantly understand why it's such a big difference that the Thomas Gospel was 15 years or so earlier than that: Paul is in between. A simple way of looking at it is that the New Testament reflects the way that Paul said we should look at Jesus. That is a very different thing than the teachings of Jesus proper. The Thomas Gospel has only statements directly attributed to Jesus, and NONE of the interpretations which Paul developed, and which became the basis of Christian theology. Another way of putting it is that Christianity--leaving aside for a moment that there are some 25,000 flavors of it--is merely one interpretation of Jesus, so perhaps more correctly we should speak of one set of interpretations, of him. One way or another Paul looms large in the inception of it, and I think the fair way of interpreting those events is to say that Jesus was a spiritual teacher, and Paul posthumously made a religion out of him. No doubt he had the best intentions, but that does not mean he said the same thing, he interpreted, explained, elaborated, and added on his own concepts.

In order to expand a bit more on some of this basic information, I'm going to do several posts here to discuss some very fundamental stuff that provides the foundation for my book, Closing the Circle--the topic of this blog.

Here is how it all fits together. As I like to point out to people by way of a joke, the first thing to know is, it's not my fault, and the second thing to know is, it's all Gary Renard's fault. So blame him. Complaints in triplicate, press hard, three copies. Without Gary, I would not be in this mess, and I would not have had to write this book. Jokes aside, this is the right sequence of events, but today I want to explain some more details of the chronology.

Whether we are Christians or not, if we grew up in the West, we grew up in a culture dominated by Christianity, and we're all more or less familiar with the chronology, although some of the fine distinctions I'm making about the first 75 years are not generally known, they reflect an insight that has been evolving particularly since the rediscovery of the now famous book collection at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945, which dated back to the time (ca. 365 CE) when the young Church was just making decisions as to what books would make up the New Testament, and some monk had the foresight to bury a collection of books the Church did not like. What we found we owe to the foresight of this monk, and the Thomas gospel was probably the most important part of that find.

Now to explain my own relationship to all of this for a moment, let me say first that I was never a Christian, but for some reason I was interested in the teachings of Jesus. Thanks to a Dutch author, Johan Willem Kaiser, who among other things produced an incredibly insightful translation and commentary of the Gospel of Mark, I had an understanding early on that Jesus and Christianity were two different things, and since thankfully I learned to read Greek, I could at least study some of the original material, and filter out some of the theological coloration which has characterized later translations of the Bible, and via that route I tried to come back to an understanding of the original teaching of Jesus. For me the central issue always seemed to be that he was about spiritual experience, not about theology or morality. In short, Jesus was not a Christian.

The Thomas gospel began to appear in translation in the 1950's and slowly the biblical research came in motion which ultimately led to the almost inevitable conclusion I presented above. It predated the other gospels. Personally I saw Jesus as a spiritual teacher, not too different from Buddha, Krishna, Socrates, Lao Tsu, Sri Ramakrishna and Krishnamurti. Their focus was always on learning truth through personal spiritual experience, including the notion that the truth is within and knowable, if we just learn the mental hygiene not to confuse ourselves all the time with other values and thoughts that have nothing to do with the price of beans. For me the Thomas gospel was never an easy read, much of the research and interpretation I found cumbersome and less than helpful, so for a long time I regarded it as merely an interesting curiosity.

For me something changed when I discovered A Course in Miracles in 1991. First of all this book (usually abbreviated ACIM), which was channeled in the late 60's by a Dr. Helen Schucman, who was a Professor of Medical Psychology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in NY, and published in 1975, is attributed to Jesus. And the way he comes across in its pages is exactly that, as a spiritual teacher, with a focus on the experience of truth, not on theology. The book is very profound, highly integrated, and incorporates really a unique amalgam of Western and Eastern thought, including everything from Plato, the Bible, Shakespeare, and some of the premises of Freudian psychoanalysis not to mention some of the therapeutic orientation of Carl Rogers. That list could easily be expanded further. The bottom line is, for me it was intuitively clear that the intelligence speaking to me through the pages of ACIM was Jesus as I sensed he taught originally and for all time. The teacher of Truth. Not a teacher of Christian theology. Just Truth with a capital T. I had studied the Course for 12 years before Gary Renard appeared on the scene, but then the magic started...

In 2003, three books appeared, with the same publication date, Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, Elaine Pagels' Beyond Belief, and Gary Renard's The Disappearance of the Universe. In short, indirectly the Thomas Gospel was in the air, for all three touch on it. The first two were more in the main stream, and they awakened an interest in the Thomas gospel and related materials, Gary's book however was a surprise hit in its own right. He had never been published before, and he was with a very small publisher, and yet before you knew it, he sold 100,000 copies, and the book was acquired by Hay House. It was in Gary's book that the connection was made between the original teachings of Jesus in the Thomas Gospel, and ACIM, and it was in his second book, Your Immortal Reality, (2006), that one of his teachers, Pursah presented her kernel of the Thomas Gospel of just 70 sayings of Jesus (compared to the 114 of the Nag Hammadi text), which she says really sounded like Jesus. Her selection makes a lot of sense, so for me at the moment, I'm totally focused on that collection of 70 sayings from Thomas as being the least suspect kernel of his original teachings, but they are still fragmentary. Thus the greater context for me is provided by A Course in Miracles.

In my next few posts I will talk a bit more about the characters involved, to make the foundation of my work on the Thomas Gospel even clearer.

Who is Gary Renard Anyway?

Without a doubt, my book Closing the Circle, would not have been written without Gary Renard, and while I've done reviews of his books here, both The Disappearance of the Universe, and Your Immortal Reality, it may just be time for me to talk about the phenomenon Gary Renard. While we're at it, I might as well mention the fact that Gary does have a website, www.garyrenard.com and he is very proud of it; he thought of the name himself, as he will tell you at the drop of a hat.

Well, by now Gary is a bestselling author, whatever that means, and his books have been translated by now into some eighteen languages, which is impressive also. I myself am translating his work into Dutch, which is my native language. Gary was a low energy kid with scoliosis, which was recognized much too late, who liked to study the guitar. At one point in the seventies he took enough time off from drinking beer, to take Werner Erhart's EST training, which for him proved instrumental in getting his music career on track. He did achieve a modicum of success in the Boston area, being that he is from Massachussetts originally. After retiring from his musical career he moved with his then wife, Karen, to Maine, and attempted to survive by speculating on the stock market with too little capital, something which wasn't always as successful as he might have wished apparently. He had also practiced meditation for a long time, and felt that it was helpful to him.

One day in the early nineties he experienced a powerful spiritual awakening, which started when he came out of his morning meditation, and found two people sitting on his living room couch, who seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. A conversation ensued, in which they revealed themselves as ascended masters, named Arten and Pursah in the story. Gary's books really are his account of his meetings with Arten and Pursah. Disappearance (usually abbreviated as DU) covers about a decade, and Your Immortal Reality (YIR) covers September 2003 through December 2005, and a third book, covering his further meetings with his teachers since then, is now due to appear later this year. By the end of the first book, Arten and Pursah reveal to Gary that they have in previous lives been the apostles Thaddeus and Thomas respectively, and further that in fact Gary himself once was incarnated as Thomas, and that in effect Pursah as she appears to him is who he himself will be in his next life, while Arten is who he will marry in his next life, but will also know in this life, where Arten is a woman, who he hasn't met yet at the time of this conversation in DU. Before we get to this point however, Arten and Pursah introduce Gary in their second meeting to A Course in Miracles, a book which Gary had heard of, but did not know, and which they assure him is the teachings of Jesus in modern form, except they refer to him as J, because too many people have negative associations with the name Jesus.

In a way then, the rest of the meetings really revolve around Gary's own learning of A Course in Miracles, but Arten and Pursah also teach him that the meaning of the Course only comes from experiencing for ourselves how our lives change when we practice what it says, as Gary indeed does, on top of which they impart certain experiences to him which further demonstrate the principles of the Course. One important aspect of all this is in fact the holographic nature of our experiential reality of the universe of time and space, without which the very meetings with Arten and Pursah make no sense in the first place. In other words the books themselves, or rather the stories in them, are the demonstration of the very thing they describe, and thus also are they a demonstration of the metaphysics of A Course in Miracles. A central aspect thereof is the notion that "incarnation" is an upside down perception of the actual nature of the experience, which is that the characters in the dream reality which we think is our life, are actually projections of our mind through which we seem to experience our reality, and we all have the capability of remembering various other roles which we played, and in the book Arten and Pursah help Gary to an experience in which he briefly sees thousands of former and future lives of himself. This also demonstrates a second point, namely that within the holographic model of our experiential world, past and future are the same, and equally illusory, no different from choosing right or left when you walk out the front door, or, you choose one movie or another in a multiplex cinema. In short, again, the story of Gary's experiences is itself the demonstration of a very abstract teaching, which thus comes to life, and through empathy as readers with the main character, who is just a bumbling fool like most of us, who has no idea what to do with his life, we come to a whole new level of understanding of ourselves.

Meanwhile, in all simplicity, most people get attracted to reading The Disappearance of the Universe--the title is fascinating in and of itself-- because of the subtitle, which is: Straight talk about Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness. I mean, what more do you want? Meanwhile the connection is made between the original teachings of Jesus in the Thomas Gospel and A Course in Miracles. In the first book 22 Logia of the Thomas gospel are discussed, the ones Pursah suggests are most easily accessible to a modern reader, and in the second book Pursah presents a "kernel" of 70 sayings which she feels are authentic and original teachings of Jesus, and the point is made throughout that there is a consistency of meaning between those teachings and A Course in Miracles. This last idea is the central notion that led me to choose the title for my own book, for through that bridge between the Jesus of the Thomas gospel and the Course, the circle is closed between 2000 years ago and today.

Here is one clear example of how things come full circle, and therefore it underscores the reasons why the title of my book is Closing the Circle.

As Stevan Davies shows in his article Mark's Use of the Gospel of Thomas, Part I here is another case of total transformation. He takes as the main sources for the idea Logia 13 and 108, and then shows how the idea is developed into something altogether different, and unsurprisingly most definitely Christian, in the treatment in Mark.

Imitatio Christi is one of those theological concepts, which besides the later book by Thomas à Kempis, De imitatione Christi, gained some de facto early recognition in the development of Christianity, particularly in the early ages when it became fashionable to pursue martyrdom, as if that were the meaning of following Jesus, to die on the cross, or something closely similar, and to die for one's beliefs, as if Jesus was a mere religious fanatic. These concepts are always popular for it is the core of the ego's belief system.

The psychologically very profound presentation of A Course in Miracles really clarifies, how and why the Christian theological framework is really an embodiment of the ego's thoughtsystem, and diametrically opposite to what Jesus taught originally. Fundamentally this boils down to the idea that the ego-identity thinks it is really something, when Jesus in the Course dismisses it as a "tiny, mad, idea" (ACIM:T-27.VIII.6:2), in other words the ego IS the thought of separation, the thought that says it would be possible for part of God to exist separately and independently of him, and the manifestation of that thought is our body identity in the world. We thus think in our infinite stupidity, that what the Course calls "accepting the atonement," i.e. realizing inside that the separation is not only impossible, but never really happened, is absolutely a dangerous and deadly thought, which must be prevented at all cost. The atonement in the ego's eyes means that we must give up our ego's kingdom, which we call our "life" to accept his Kingdom, not of this (i.e. the ego's) world, and since our ego's would rather be right than happy (c.f. ACIM:T-29.VII.1:9). The ego portrays this as if we are giving up something for nothing, whereas Jesus is firmly of the opinion that we are giving up nothing (our illusory separate existence, which is making us miserable) for everything (his Kingdom, Heaven, Love, Happiness, returning Home, etc.). Thus it is indeed an ego thing to invest Jesus with suffering, as if that were the essence of his ministry, and then make it seem that the essence of our following him is to suffer like him. Well with that kind of advertising, few people would want to. So getting yourself crucified became briefly popular in early Christianity, but unsurprisingly the majority of people thought it was not such a hot idea. So this part of the story ends up with Jesus and a few saints getting themselves crucified, and the rest of the world placing their hope in this vicarious salvation.

What Jesus teaches and taught instead is that we simply need to realize that the ego idea simply is a joke, and not at all a reality, but an illusion we've bought into, and which resulted in the terrible nightmare which we call our life, but which is not our ultimate reality. His program of forgiveness shows us the way out of the insanity, and back towards Heaven. And that program begins with taking a step back from identifying with our bodily identity first, and learning again that what we really are is spirit.

Therefore the first step is actually in Logion 42, which Pursah calls her favorite: "Be passersby." It is an admonition to not identify with our role(s) in the world, not take them seriously, but to step back from that identification, and become more contemplative. It is in effect the first step of his forgiveness process. Another aspect of it is indeed contained in Logion 13, in the realization and understanding that the world is not ready to hear what Jesus teaches, and the question is not if the world will hear, but rather if we will hear, because then we won't need the world anymore. Finally Logion 108 is indeed a beautiful description of  the meaning of following Jesus:

J said, "Whoever drinks from my mouth shall become like me. I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed that person." (PGoth, Logion 108)

The same thing is implied in the forgiveness process of the Course, and the idea that we should need to forgive Jesus, because as long as we think he is different from us, we have not forgiven ourselves either, but if we finally do accept the atonement for ourselves, and thus know we are forgiven, we will also be coming from the exact same point of reference as he does, and therefore be exactly like him in fully knowing that our reality is spirit and not the body. And that is also the logic behind the Course's explanation of the crucifixion, as being simply a demonstration of the truth that since we are not our body, even the total destruction of that body makes no difference to what we are:

The crucifixion is nothing more than an extreme example. Its value, like the value of any teaching device, lies solely in the kind of learning it facilitates. It can be, and has been, misunderstood. This is only because the fearful are apt to perceive fearfully. I have already told you that you can always call on me to share my decision, and thus make it stronger. I have also told you that the crucifixion was the last useless journey the Sonship need take, and that it represents release from fear to anyone who understands it. While I emphasized only the resurrection before, the purpose of the crucifixion and how it actually led to the resurrection was not clarified then. Nevertheless, it has a definite contribution to make to your own life, and if you will consider it without fear, it will help you understand your own role as a teacher.
    You have probably reacted for years as if you were being crucified. This is a marked tendency of the separated, who always refuse to consider what they have done to themselves. Projection means anger, anger fosters assault, and assault promotes fear. The real meaning of the crucifixion lies in the apparent intensity of the assault of some of the Sons of God upon another. This, of course, is impossible, and must be fully understood as impossible. Otherwise, I cannot serve as a model for learning.
(ACIM:T-6.I.2,3)

So, clearly, here Jesus tells us that it is not necessary to follow him in form, and get ourselves crucified, but only to learn from his extreme example, that indeed even that would make no difference to what we are. His point is here that if we fully know that spirit is the essence of what we are, we will also fully know that we are totally invulnerable forever. Our only problem arises from identifying with the perishable, our bodies, which then puts us in a fearful position, for everything in the world is a potential threat to that body. Here is finally the point Jesus makes in the Course, about our need to forgive him, i.e. to accept the atonement for ourselves, and thus finally accept that we are the same has he is, not to mention once again that this is framed within our relationships in the world, which are thus transformed into the Holy Relationship:

    I have great need for lilies, for the Son of God has not forgiven me. And can I offer him forgiveness when he offers thorns to me? For he who offers thorns to anyone is against me still, and who is whole without him? Be you his friend for me, that I may be forgiven and you may look upon the Son of God as whole. But look you first upon the altar in your chosen home, and see what you have laid upon it to offer me. If it be thorns whose points gleam sharply in a blood-red light, the body is your chosen home and it is separation that you offer me. And yet the thorns are gone. Look you still closer at them now, and you will see your altar is no longer what it was. (ACIM:T-20.II.4)

And so again we come full circle with the Thomas Gospel. In ACIM Jesus corrects the numerous ways his message was distorted, in the Thomas Gospel we find his teaching before all the distortions began, and Pursah's version even eliminates from the Thomas Gospel some distortions which have seemingly crept into the tradition.

Logion 22 - the Intros and the Outros

As students of the Pursah version of the Thomas Gospel we noticed that she is skeptical of the authenticity of what I'm calling loosely the intros and the outros, the latter of which is really an insertion of some material in the actual logion itself.

In my earlier comment on this Logion, I therefore focused on the kernel of it, as Pursah presents it in Gary Renard's Your Immortal Reality. I want to add some comments here on the sections she leaves out. In terms of the introductory section which Stevan Davies calls 22a in his article on Mark's use of the Gospel of Thomas, Part I it is extraordinarily interesting to observe how the older version (even if Pursah does not consider it authentic in the first place) of it speaks of being like a baby, but by the time we get to Mark it speaks of actual babies. The transition is thus from a purely abstract point that is being illustrated with a parable, towards the point where the story line seems to be in the specific, not the abstract point being made. In terms of the mode of expression in A Course in Miracles, this evolution is thus from Level 1 to Level 2, where we start mistaking the specifics for the point of the story, and begin to forget that abstract point that was being made. This is very plain in the Markan version, which sounds sweet enough, but risks losing the point, and represents the sort of evolution which is completely par for the course of the deterioration in the tradition:

People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. (Mark 10:13-16 NIV)

The other add on, at the end of the kernel statement itself is the insertion of "when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image" at the end of the clause, which kind of does not fit with the statement about the healing of duality, which talks in terms of making male and female one.

When you read the whole of Logion 22 a few times, and you consider Pursah's edits, it will be blatantly obvious that her edits make complete intuitive sense, for the sections she takes out are evidently out of place, and have no relationship to the central point being made. This is one of the many reasons why my comfort with Pursah's version grew as I worked with the material. It really became a case of the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The other part which seemed really convincing to me, is that again it is always the ego's strategy to substitute specifics for the truth, which is always abstract, and which is our natural mode of being and thinking. The Course discusses this as follows:

Complete abstraction is the natural condition of the mind. But part of it is now unnatural. It does not look on everything as one. It sees instead but fragments of the whole, for only thus could it invent the partial world you see. The purpose of all seeing is to show you what you wish to see. All hearing but brings to your mind the sounds it wants to hear.
Thus were specifics made. (ACIM:W-161.2-3:1)

The point being made here is that the purpose of perception with our senses is exactly the substitution of the abstract with specific. The ego wants us to see the trees, not the forest, for once we see the forest, the ego is out of business. Again, this demonstrates precisely why we resist Jesus' teaching, and therefore why these texts became so corrupted so quickly.

PS: Title chosen in the fond memory of Frank Zappa.

The Santa Claus Syndrome

When I was very little, I (which is to say through my parents) knew this woman who I now feel channeled Jesus. Her name was Ms. Hofmans. She did not usually refer to him as Jesus, but referred to him generally as the Help, or God's Help. She always emphasized this faculty was always present to anyone who needed and wanted it, but she also always pointed out that Jesus was not like Santa Claus, and that the deal was to accept the Help on his terms, not on your terms. Her focus was always on praying with you more than for you, though she would frequently also channel messages, but the focus was clear, asking for Help meant letting go of your definition of the problem. In other words, let go of your preconceived notions of what the problem is and what the solution might be. This runs entirely counter to what the world wants.

This is also the psychological foundation of why Christianity reconstrued Jesus' teaching completely, and its theology creates an escape hatch from his urging to follow him to a Kingdom not of this world, and replaces it with a theology in which we get to have our cake and eat it too. We get to have our lives the way we think we want it, and he'll come back to save us later. Pfui. It was a close call, but at least we got away with it, or so it seems. So we leave him safely hanging on the wall, on his little wooden cross, and we don't have to bother with him much, but just go on and do our thing. He'll catch up with it later. Of course this kind of thinking also sets up a certain level of fear of him, that runs totally contrary to what he is and teaches, which is par for the course for separation in any form. We end up hating that from which we separate, but then feel subliminally threatened by it.

The Jesus we do want, is the Santa Claus version, which Ry Cooder sings about Jesus On The Mainline - "You can call him up and tell him what you want," "The line ain't never busy, you can call him up and tell him what you want." (What a gifted musician, by the way, and it is one of my favorite songs of his, look at the versions that are there on youtube!!!) We see that reenacted daily in various "predicitions"  of the second coming, or the coming of the Maitreya, etc. etc. etc. This is the vicarious savior, who dies for our sins, instead of us (which is what the word vicarious means - standing in for), who gives HIS life for OUR "sins," that type of a savior is par for the course for the ego, which wants to keep us firmly asleep, and not feeling responsible for the predicament we find ourselves in, instead of taking responsibility for our spiritual well-being. Or as I said before, we get to have our cake and eat it too, and Jesus comes back afterwards to fix the booboo, at least as story would have it.

The teachings of Jesus as we find them in the Thomas gospel, and in a more current form in A Course in Miracles, are more direct, and about taking responsibility for the way in which we see the world, and once we do that, Jesus can indeed help us to change our way of looking at the world and our experiences. That change of mind is his process of forgiveness, which is the way out of the hell hole. So the vicarious savior fits with a picture where we don't have to take responsibility for anything, and the world happens to us. Jesus the Inner Teacher, as he is expressed through the Thomas sayings and in A Course in Miracles, show us how to change our own role in the miserable experience we're having, by letting go of our judgment, and choosing his forgiveness instead. That is the way out of hell, it is empowering. This prayer goes a bit like this: "I've got it all wrong, I seem to be caught up in all of this mess, please help me see this differently." Again, therein lies the way out. Like any good therapist knows, no healing is possible unless the patient at least begins to acknowledge their responsibility for the predicament they are in. "And please tell me, who was it again who found nineteen abusive husbands/boyfriends in a row?"  Nothing changes until we deal with our role in the fiasco, and decide to change our mind about it. In the end it turns out to be a lot less painful if we stop banging our head against that concrete wall. Turns out Jesus is a pretty savvy therapist, then.

My recent explorations on this blog on the transformation from the direct teachings of Jesus to the later versions of him which became Christianity, and were adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire, serve to put us in touch with how we all mangle his message, which turns out to be inconvenient, because we do prefer to be right, more so than happy.

Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing

Oh well, this is to continue discussion of books I put on the reading list in Closing the Circle, either because I read them or because I recommended them "for further study." This one is a gem, and one of the most fun books about spirituality you could ever read. In short, I recommend it.

While per se the path that this book describes diverges in form from A Course In Miracles, it manages to clean up an awful lot of garbage, misunderstandings and plain misinformation, which plagues the whole category of spiritual literature. Why is that so, you ask? In the end it's simple, besides making interesting conversation, e.g. "I'm spiritual, not religious," is in vogue just now, nobody really wants to have anything to do with spirituality in the first place. That's exactly what I said. Nobody really wants to have anything to do with spirituality in the first place. And the reason for that is oh so simple. It is the same reason as why Jesus said that the Kingdom he talked about was not of this world, so that if we're at all attached to this world, which we all are if we take our personalities at all seriously, then we would not be interested in Jesus and/or his Kingdom, and we would be deeply offended by the irreverence of Jed McKenna.

McKenna does not leave any comfortable pseudo-truths in tact, but barges straight into the uncomfortable fact that undertaking a serious spiritual path means to always challenge everything and never ever stop questioning everything, until you get to the bottom of it all. A Course in Miracles says:

To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your learning. No belief is neutral. Every one has the power to dictate each decision you make. For a decision is a conclusion based on everything that you believe. It is the outcome of belief, and follows it as surely as does suffering follow guilt and freedom sinlessness. There is no substitute for peace. What God creates has no alternative. The truth arises from what He knows. And your decisions come from your beliefs as certainly as all creation rose in His Mind because of what He knows. (ACIM:T-24.in.2)

McKenna's book, and in fact all his books, see www.wisefoolpress.com reflect this spirit, no holds barred inquiry, until there is no place left to hide. That is what it takes. The shelves full of supposedly spiritual literature, are full of prayers, affirmations, meditations, etc. as if these were so many more skills we have to learn. All of that is BS, and McKenna does not leave those illusions in tact, and demonstrates very tangibly that the truth is on the other side of all that hoopla, and therefore that 99% of all spiritual literature belongs in the garbage. What makes these books great, is that they are written in an absolutely enjoyable style. Once in a while I find people who are offended by his approach, which is irreverent to say the least, but far more people seem to realize that it is really helpful how they puncture all these little balloons of pseudo-spirituality. Putting out the garbage does help you move on to the next thing, and that's the huge service that is given by these books and their author. So if you're serious about spirituality and are fed up with pablum, run, do not walk to the store, and buy these, or order them.

That Was the Week that Was

I admit it, I borrowed that title from a song by Tom Lehrer. Just for contrast, we might remember his hilarious, sarcastic song, National Brotherhood Week. We've come a long way, baby.

In the last 10 days, I've been having flashbacks to how as a 12 year old I would devour the newspapers, and followed the Civil Rights movement blow by blow, while eating up whatever books of MLK that were available in Dutch. I'd lay sprawled on the floor in our living room, always the first to grab the papers (we had no TV when I grew up). So many years later, I just watched MLK's I had a dream speech for the umpteenth time, on the website of ACIM monk, who adds to it a wonderful quote from Ken Wapnick on the meaning of Jesus' teaching. And then I realize that back while I was sprawled on the floor reading about all this, somewhere in Rotterdam, Holland, Ken Wapnick, who was later to become my principal teacher of A Course in Miracles, was there, for he too recognized the greatness and truth which radiated from MLK, and he was able to join in. So somewhere in idea space, paths crossed even then, which later were to cross again in the physical world, long before I had any clue at all that I would be living in the USA at this time, when Barack Obama became the 44th president. And ACIM monk provided us with a brilliant reflection on the inaugural address too, to which I could hardly add anything, so I won't try.

As I've shared here before, MLK led me to Gandhi, and a deeper understanding of non-violence, so that ultimately I became a conscientious objector when the draft came calling. Subsequently my reading wandered on to Krishnamurti, who in retrospect seems to have been a perfect preparation of the Course, just as much as Johan Willem Kaiser pointed me the way towards understanding that Jesus' teaching was about living his truth, and learning by experience what it was he stood for. His look at Jesus was almost exactly the same thing as the quote from Ken Wapnick which ACIM monk put next to the I had a dream video.  Looking back at this now I see the threads running through that carpet of time, which I call my life, in a way that tells me you can't miss it. No wonder then that I should get involved with the Thomas gospel, for from its pages speaks the living Jesus, and if you take your time with it, it is as if he's speaking to you, the reader, directly, leading us to that inner understanding of the experience of truth which he represents, and wants to share with us. And our relationship with him becomes real when we realize it's in the present tense, and not about some figure in history. In that realization lies the resurrection.

MLK Day and Building A Monument

Tonight I had the chance to attend Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where there was an event for MLK day, including a fundraiser for the new MLK monument in Washington. And there was a beautiful concert by the choirs of this church and another church from Queens, as well as performers from yet two other churches. It all brought back deep and moving memories of the profound connection I always felt with MLK since I was 11 or 12 years old, and read all of his books that were available in Dutch. It was he who led me first to Ghandi, and ultimately to become a conscientious objector, when I reached draft age in my native Holland. The truly heartwarming spirit of this service really swept me off my feet, and the occasion made it even more meaningful.

For me it also brought up the image of Dr. Helen Schucman--the scribe of A Course in Miracles--who, as a little girl, maybe at the same age as when I was studying MLK, went to baptist services with her family's maid, who was from Harlem. She kept a life-long fascination with churches, though she was ultimately to understand that Jesus's "church" was not a building, or an organization, but the loving dedication in human relationships which is the extension of his Love. More and more one realizes that it really does not matter how people find their way, or what their theologies and beliefs are. Whatever works for you is fine, and we all learn in different ways. The warmth and intensity of this gathering certainly spoke volumes, and if for me A Course in Miracles just happens to be the way, and I am not about to join a church, I can still enjoy the beautiful music, the atmosphere and relish the friendship, for that's really the only thing that means anything. The lady who invited me was the cousin of a former work colleague, and by the time it was all over and we walked to the bus, it was as if we had known each other for a lifetime, and she's regaling me with memories: "Now, child, you should'a been there when..."

And, judging by the success of the collection, that monument is going to get there, and at a very symbolic time in the history of this country.

Take Me To Truth

This book by Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Vieira offers some interesting practical insights, and you can find out more about it pretty easily through their website, which simply has the same name as the book, Take Me To Truth. It is also one of the books I consulted in the writing of my book, and so a review of it on this blog is overdue by now. Specifically why I'm doing it right now is also because I'm rereading the book in preparation for translating it into Dutch.

This book is primarily based on the experiences Nouk and Tomas have had in growing through the various phases in their own personal relationship, everything from falling in love, to having children, divorce, and becoming friends and co-authors, and they have developed their own unique vocabulary in the process. For some magical reason it seems to be hitting a nerve with people, and offer just the right balance of generally accessible presentation in their own words. As I've argued elsewhere before, in a way you could view this book as a commentary to the section on the development of trust in A Course in Miracles, and it provides an interesting diagrammatic rendering of that process, including how it sometimes malfunctions. It also has a discussion of the a lot of relationship related issues, for which again they delve into their own experience, and offer a host of very practical ways of identifying issues, and recognizing the need for change. They develop their own language for things which at times seems to borrow from the Course and other sources, but it is uniquely theirs, and unintimidating, and for the most part very intuitive. All in all this makes it very accessible, and where it might not be they included a small list of terms to clarify their usage. Nouk and Tomas are able in this book to share their own growth process, and help us to some clarity, as well as share some practical insights and tools from their experience, and they do so in a language that certainly does not require the reader to have read any of the source materials before they enjoy this book, which is a remarkable accomplishment in and of itself. The reader at the end simply has the option to pursue any of the various source materials or not, but none of them are mandatory to appreciate this book.

What makes the book unique certainly seems to be the very accessible language, as the sales prove. For the rest, there is an emphasis on the practical and the pragmatic, on living it, rather than talking about it, which reflect how Nouk and Tomas grew through their own relationship which started as a special one like everyone else's, and which later involved a pretty extensive extended family group. And then there is an emphasis on tools and practicality which really is the hallmark of this book. The authors suggest using the Enneagram for help in personality typing, just as a broad way of characterizing ourselves, and as a tool that can help propel us to a view from above the battlefield. But like with everything else, it's an option, not mandatory.

In terms of their strong emphasis on the development of trust, which is an oft-misunderstood section of the Course, this book again is very practical, and among other things offers an excellent graphical way of understanding what happens when we try to "skip steps" and have to go back to "Go" without collecting $200. Their example is a bypass from steps 2 to step 4, from "a period of sorting out," to "a period of rest" by skipping the intervening stage 2, "a period of relinquishment." This phenomenon is akin to the ego's tendency of wanting to help out the Holy Spirit doing his job, which is really not in its job description. The result is that people focus on one aspect of the journey and mistake it for the final destination, and it truly explains the phenomena of formation of cults and religions, including Christianity as it derives from Paul's conversion experience. People build a concession stand halfway  up the mountain, and as a result they divert other travelers from going uphill, never mind stalling in their own growth. Being diverted like that results in nothing but painful delays, and in effect having to backtrack later on. The way Nouk and Tomas explain this phenomenon in illustrations is absolutely lucid, though I find that the text explanation is too crypto-Calvinistic in a New Age vein. The way the process is described there makes it all sound too mechanistic, like a precise progression, which is not at all the case in the experience of anyone I know, moreover is really contrary to the forgiveness process which A Course in Miracles advocates, which is by nature asymptotic in the way we experience it. So this is one clear area where the way this book describes the process completely diverges from the Course, which is not to say that some of the insights are not valuable.

Their workshops, of which I have hosted a few in New York City, are very lively, and have this same practical and experiential quality, and I can recommend the experience to anyone. In short this is an interesting book to read. It is a unique and very personal reflection of the experience of the authors, with their own insights, though it is not in the narrow sense e.g. a book about A Course in Miracles, except for liberally quoting from the Course. The Course remains one of the options for further study. Fortunately the authors use their own vocabulary, so that hopefully it will be clear to the reader that this is truly their own nomenclature, and not ACIM, although it does seem that way at times. To me the book is an on-ramp to a highway, which gives the reader options to proceed to any of the directions from which the authors took their inspiration, everything from A Course in Miracles, to Eckhart Tolle, to the Enneagram, and various other writers and traditions. The total framework of the book is more New Age than A Course in Miracles, in spite of the numerous quotes, but the treatment of evolution, energy, karma/reincarnation, and special and "unified" relationships have more to do with a variety of New Age teachings, which are also liberally quoted in the book. In particular the notion of the "unified relationship" in this book, while evidently inspired by the Course's notion of the holy relationship, is evidently not the same thing, since the book continues to frame this in the contexts of relationships between people, and therefore in a dualistic manner, such as there are multiple unified relationships, even though at some points the text seems to try to also embrace the notion of the holy relationship as being one, but it never reconciles these two concepts. In short, the book represents the authors' unique intersection of these various traditions, and quite evidently it is very accessible and speaks to a lot of people, and it's up to the reader where you want to go from there.

From the perspective of my own book I connected of course specifically with the development in this book of the bypass in the stages of the development of trust, the skipping of steps in our process, specifically as it relates to the development of Paul and Chritianity, for it would seem that Paul is a perfect example of what happens when we do skip steps in our process, and the point is that we all do. What matters is to learn to recognize it for what it is, and keep going. We arrest our own development in this process whenever we think we know and we take over from the only teacher there is. And then when we slide on the ice (again) we have the option to start over, and over, and over, until we learn NOT to run the show. As far as A Course in Miracles is concerned, the whole point is not that we should not make mistakes, but rather that we learn to be honest about them and forgive ourselves. Just like the problem is not that we once chose the tiny mad idea, but rather that we are still choosing it minute by minute, and Jesus' counter in the form of the Course is that equally we can choose the miracle instead of murder minute by minute, and if we forget, we can always start again, and by forgiving ourselves in the process, we lose the need to repeat the exercise.

In a more general sense the book stands on its own entirely, and in the context of the Course it seems to want to propose that this book/method is a shortcut to the Course, as is explained in Nouk's bio in the back. It professes the motivation of saving others the challenges they experienced in their years with the Course, which sounds honorable enough, but it does not work. As the standard joke goes, the Course is the shortcut, and therefore, when you're cutting it short, you are needlessly extending suffering. Shortcuts to the Course become like the skipping steps in the development of trust - detours. And in terms of saving others pain, the only effective way of doing that is by living the Course, which the Course also calls teaching it, and which has nothing to do with teaching workshops, or God forbid, being a "Course teacher." Here, just like with the proselytizing tendency in early Christianity, it seems that the temtation to teach is part of the natural ego urges which tend to surface in our Course process, but it is in fact a trap, and even more so when it professes to offer shortcuts, which really abort the process of the work. There is no suffering to be saved anybody, since the pain we experience is only the ego's resistance, which won't be overcome unless we learn that it is not real and cannot rob us of the Peace of God, not by avoiding it, for that IS the lesson, and therein lies the Peace of God. What prolongs the suffering are the ego's avoidance manoeuvers.