What Is Childhood to a Reincarnating Soul?

         What is childhood? Sounds like kind of a dumb question, doesn’t it? After all, it’s pretty obvious what childhood is – it’s the beginning of your life, and what happens before you grow up. That’s simple enough, isn’t it? But we all know childhood isn’t that simple, and that so much happens in our childhood to pre-condition the course we take that maybe it’s really the most critical part of life.

But what if we put childhood in a different context, in a larger context – in the context of our lives reincarnating, life upon life upon life? Then childhood isn’t just a stage we pass through in this life (since this entire human life is a stage we are passing through), but part of a continuum of human life-stages along with puberty, young adulthood, midlife, and old age (and even death and re-birth) – but notice none of those other stages seems to carry as much weight as “what happened to me when I was a kid”. 

In this larger “reincarnative” sense, the childhood we experience in our present life is something we’ve prepared for ourselves – something we’ve preconditioned, a foundational stage arising in the middle of our eternal soul adventure, over and over; similar to a re-booting, so to speak.

Most of us who can relate to this ‘lives of our souls’ intuitively understand that we carry the causes and effects of our life actions – our karma – along with us in every moment of whatever life we’re living; and that our karma is an indicator (and result) of the choices we’ve made, or paths we may take. So perhaps we can think of childhood as a 're-booted' starting point; a pre-conditioned ‘empty’ space, where our potential will begin to realize and manifest. So what kind of "re-start" is it?

Childhood is a time of innocence, of playfulness, of discovery, of awakening. It’s a time when, ideally, we are intuitively carefree, and unconsciously surrendered to the care of our providers. This is so for one simple reason: These are the forms and characteristics of our authentic selves. These are the characteristics of our souls:

 

Our soul is innocent – part and parcel of a pure, loving, creative force. Our soul is playful – it’s not weighed down by the gravity of self-importance. Our soul is in a constant state of willingness, and curiosity. Our soul is always open to awareness and expansion. Our soul is secure in its connection to, and complete dependence upon a loving, creative source – a divine matrix of loving intelligence.

So karma delivers our soul into our place – into our family, into our physical being; but the forms our life lessons will take have yet to be determined. This is the crucial period of forming our interface with the world – our ego interface. This is the time when our soul’s true nature is either suppressed or energized, dependent upon how the potential of Love’s energy is demonstrated to, and realized by our child. The actual conditions of life may be bad around us, but Love in the right places can lead us to a transcendent path. 

When we look back at the hardest parts of our own beginnings, it’s clear that it was the absence of Love that created them. This results in children feeling abandoned by those they naturally want to trust in most –  a serious, in a way imaginary condition many of us may carry for the rest of our lives that underlies so many of our personal struggles. Our soul always knows better: We are never abandoned. That is only the great illusion of human life, that we so easily feel separate and unloved. 

So here’s what childhood can mean to our karmic practice in this life (or How to Get a Great Childhood – next time): 

• Intuitively, we all know how precious childhood and children are, and how important it is for children to be shown as much Love as possible, so we need to honor that responsibility absolutely – without fail.

• It is simply the lack of Love that has created the difficulties we carry with us through life from our childhoods, so we can only overcome these difficulties in this life by becoming channels – givers and receivers – of Love. (You’ll notice 'karmically awakened' children do this from the very get-go!)

• Realize that when life seems hard it’s because you’ve lost touch with your soul’s true nature – with your authentic self. Stop taking yourself so seriously. Do your best to open your heart, and return to a state of willingness. Try to be aware of the wonder and promise alive in every moment. Surrender to the natural design of your life, by releasing your willful urge to control things. Know that you are cared for.

• And then...just be more playful! Have fun, be creative, and enjoy all the lovely little moments of life!

Here’s something one of our greatest “reincarnated” spiritual engineers said about it all, a long time ago… 

Yeshua himself called them and he said to them, “Let the children come to me and do not refuse them, because the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these.”

  Luke, 18:16

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

Experience Your Own (Rebellious) Resurrection – Quarantine-Style

These are strange times we live in, the global pandemic, forcing us into a 'quarantined' life and a major economic re-calculation; the unexpected onslaught of authoritarianism – the bizarre betrayal of our standards of fairness and civility by our 'leaders' in what we thought was our solid democracy...and all of it concurrent to the synchronicitous celebration of Spring. Cooped-up like this, it's easy to be overtaken by a rebellious urge, an urge that arises from the underlying sensation that things just aren't the way they're supposed to be. Life is absurd and crazy. Life is harsh and unjust. And this enforced isolation can make us feel that we're living in a personal exile of sorts, separated by the unfair complications of material life from a source of contentment and wholeness that we're naturally heir to – a source from within that we're currently forced to seek (and that we may occasionally be succeeding in finding). 

For me it seems that seeking and finding almost requires my being troubled – experiencing this profound discomfort to force me down the hard path that may eventually lead to inner peace. Then in those liberating moments when I manage to get there – however brief they are – I find a familiar, comfortable knowledge, an understanding when I seem to I know why I'm here. 

That, in a nutshell, is my experience of Gnosis – that rebellious urge to root out and live within Life's greatest solution.

"Get outta that state – outta that state you're in!

             The B 52s, Private Idaho

Simply put, Gnosis (coming from the Greek, for knowledge) is that knowledge – that understanding of transcendent being and belonging-to – that naturally arises from within our hearts. Inspired by the inner longing to reunite with a serene, unifying power that we inherently know to be our benevolent source, Gnosis isn't a product of any science, or even philosophy or religion, really. Instead, Gnosis is a personal discovery based in self-exploration and inner experience, and as such, it's experienced both as a process, and as a state-of-being.

It's natural that Gnosis is the product of that rebelliousness – after all, it is a search that requires rocking the boat a bit (or in this case, being stuck in this shaky little boat), since you have to abandon the definitions and conventions of who you are supposed to be, and what society says is important in order to open to a state of inner completion that really isn't available through any outer norms, religions, or institutions. In all its incarnations throughout human history, Gnosis has been the product of that personal alchemy, likened not only to the Hindu process of samadhi sought through forms of yoga, but also to the spiritual rebellion that led The Buddha to nirvana.

That's also why the search for Gnosis was originally associated with the early growing Christian insurrection. These pre-Christian rebels developed a process, a mythology, and a language of metaphor (including the idea of 'resurrection') that would lead an individual to enlightenment through personal inner experience, completely at odds with all of the prevailing religious institutions of the time – even Christianity itself. 

"Yeshua said: Whoever searches must continue to search until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed; and being disturbed, they will marvel and will reign over All."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 2

"The Gnostics," as referred to by academics were specifically those pre-Christian Hebrews and early messianic Christians whose "Messiah" primarily took the form of an inward self-realization of God. Everybody was [and is] a "Christ" in a personal way, or is capable of realizing their very own "Christhood" through an initiation, in which an initiate could dis-identify with the difficulties of their material being by way of an alternative practice of personal ritual, absolute honesty and nonviolence, and unselfish service – which sounds a lot like the things many of us have been forced to realize in our "stay-at-home" surrender, doesn't it?

Of course, in the harsh light of the religious, political, and economic institutions of the day, these alternatives – the social and economic re-alignments, and the realization of a personal divinity – was absolute heresy. The most stubborn sacred cows aren't really sacred at all, they're political and economic. At that time, the Gnostics 'radical' suggestions led to the genocide of these rebellious, peace-loving "heretics."  

The nicest, and probably the most influential of these heretics were called "Essenes" (essence, essential), a "fringe" sect of Hebraism that were happy to let the Establishment Pharisees and Sadducees run the show around the second Temple in old Jerusalem, just before the Christian Era. I suspect that like the segment of citizens we today call "Progressives," Essenes also made up a much greater share of the population than reported, but because they rejected destructive commerciality (including slavery), ritual sacrifice, and phony spiritual authority, it was the guys with the hats and swords who miswrote their history, as usual. Theirs was – and is to this day – the essential rebellion of those seeking Gnosis. 

(Present day media academics pigeonhole the Essenes as heretics hidden away in the caves of Qumran, near the Dead Sea, where a particularly devoted community of ritual Gnostics made their last stand. In fact, Essenes were less a part of Hebraism and more a spiritual nation of their own, spread out across civilization, and bridging the east to west, and the many disciplines oriented towards enlightenment through inward experience)

Essenes established inns called hospitals, where anyone was welcomed, healed, and fed. They practiced hygiene, strict vegetarianism, and holistic medicine way before any of that was cool. Everyone – man, woman and child – was spiritually equal, possessing the same spark of divinity and spiritual potential for unification with The Divine as anyone else. All that was required was initiation into "the secret teachings" of inward exploration, and the willingness to live a life of compassion and integrity. They were absolutely non-violent, and only participated in commercial and agricultural efforts that benefitted everyone. In short, they lived the ideals of Christianity, before Christianity.

In other online articles I've told a version of the wonderful Gnostic myth of Sophia, the princess of Wisdom, and her descent to earth to elevate humanity through the example of her struggle back up to the light, and her gift of consciousness to mankind through the power of feminine energy. It is the classic myth of metaphor, describing Gnosis in a way that resonates in the heart and mind. Summing up the essential myth of the Gnostic inner journey goes something like this:

Humanity is an expression of a Divine Light imprisoned in a clunky, imperfect plane of existence, surrounded by the beauty of human life and the earthly realm, but victimized by the suffering that is such a big part of it all. Each human contains a spark of the Divine Light within, and enduring Life's painful challenges (pandemic, for example) inspires the desire to reunite that inner spark with the great field of Divine Light, our Source, called the pleroma. It sounds quite a bit like Buddhism, doesn't it? That's because it is, in a way – there are ways, in ritual, action, and practice, that the suffering can be avoided.

The self-realization of the light within requires a more austere approach, a set of principles designed to merge the earthly ego with the eternal self; and a community of shared consciousness – individuals who are cooperatively seeking the same state of happiness, wholeness, and purpose. 

I find the elemental directness of Gnostic myth and scripture very helpful and instructive in these times of quarantine:

"Yeshua said: When you bring forth that within you, then that will save you. If you do not, then that will kill you.

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 70

This is what attracted people like Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung to Gnosis and Gnosticism, the fact that it pre-dated every form of modern depth psychology with its remarkable synthesis of human experience into an applicable framework, and an alternative process of rebirth, recovery, and "resurrection" – like that which is forced on us at times like these. It's the timeless story of every authentic spirit's journey from a fearful, semi-conscious "death,” to the wholeness of a compassionately conscious “re-birth.” It symbolizes every individuals shared journey to wholeness and happiness, and the hard path we have to discover to lead us out of this darkness. 

"[Mythology inspires] the natural metaphysical impulse to transcend the illusion of separation."

Joseph Campbell

The Gnostics' understanding of Life was finally symbolized not as the iconic early Christian fish logo (submerged in the depths of the divine mystery), but as The Crucifixion Cross, symbolizing the horizontal experience of Life on earth – and the ego-death that's necessary to transcend it by way of the vertical inner knowledge and realization of our true ascendant nature and potential. That's what the cross really means (the Romans actually crucified people on short, X-shaped crosses, to save wood).

So Gnosis begins with an uncomfortability about Life (easy to imagine in the "stay-at-home" mode), and a rebellious dis-ease that moves us to reunite our selves with a wholeness and comfortable being that we're all entitled to. In this way, Gnosis is both a subtractive process – intentionally eliminating the unsupportable expectations and constraints of this style of human life; and it’s an expansive process – bringing us into the consciousness of our limitless potential by merging our damaged, earthly egos with a pure, eternal Love, accessible through our hearts.

But unfortunately, you may have to get a little pent-up first...

"When you make the two into one, when you make the inner like the outer, and the high like the low; when you make the male and the female into a single One…when you have eyes in your eyes, a hand in your hand…and an icon in your icon, then you will enter into the Kingdom."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 22

Discover the true Gnosis of the Gnostics, with all its ancient metaphoric mythology, and applications to contemporary spiritual psychology in Gnostic scriptures such as: The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Phillip, The Pistis Sophia, The Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of Mary, and in many fine resources, like: Elaine Pagel's The Gnostic Gospels, Stefan Hoeller’s The Gnostic Jung, and Jung and the Lost Gospels, or in Carl Jung’s Seven Sermons to the Dead, and Answer to Job.

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

Jesus, The Easter Bunny, and the Real Renewal of Spring

At the time of the earliest stirrings of the philosophy that was to become Christianity there were numerous centers of nascent world religion, from the Gandhara region of India thru Asia Minor, Persia, and Greece, to Alexandria and Jerusalem – and other spots within and beyond the Roman Empire and the rest of the known, civilized world. To literate religious academics of the early Christian era, all of this knowledge was available. Christianity, like all religions, was not born in a vacuum.

You'll notice in the retellings of the Passion Play that Christians celebrate each spring, as well as throughout the New Testament, there are plenty of references to the Pharisee sect of Hebraism, the proletariat and middle-class Jews of the time. The Sadducees, the bourgeois, aristocratic sect get very little airtime comparatively – despite making up most of the temple priesthood. Edited out of the story completely are the Essenes, which were not actually a single sect but instead a collection of differing gnostic beliefs grouped together generically.

Beyond their numbers, which were significant throughout the middle east at the time, the Essenes were the original Christians, eschewing sacrifice and materiality, living simple lives based in practices of healing and service. They were dedicated to cleanliness, to communal, all-inclusive dining, to the practices of foot washing, vegetarianism, and holistic herbal healing. Their "inns" and white robes were the inspiration for our present-day hostels and hospitals, and doctors' white coats. It's likely that the Jesus of mainstream Christianity was drawn from this model. 

Most sects labeled "Essene" fully embraced a more personal, inward, mystical path to the realization of a divine simplicity, and so were the foundation of the esoteric forms of Gnosticism and Kabbalistic practice. In some groups, Buddhism was very influential, and in fact "Theraputae" Essenism was likely one in the same as the Buddhist community located near Lake Mareotis, outside of Alexandria (from Theraputta, sanskrit meaning "from the old ones"). Buddhism was alive throughout the region for hundreds of years prior to Christian mythology, and it's very important to note that the Buddha sat in the wilderness alone and was tempted by the devil, walked on water, fed the multitudes from a single basket, and drank at the well of an outsider (and more) 500 years before the Christ story came about.

It's very likely that the teacher Yeshua, whose philosophy – resurrected in the  discovery of very early pre-canonical scripture like The Gospel of Thomas – serves as the basis for the teachings of the Jesus of the canonical, Roman gospels.

The selectivity of Christian myth runs roughshod over much of what is actually known, as is the case with most inventions of organized religion. This is not limited only to religion, the same is true for organized historical dogma, organized cultural dogma, and organized social dogma. In a contemporary American context, for example, we have the assertion that Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union, or that John Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin; both nascent myths that aren't based in fact, but still canonized as historical truth by many. 

Likewise, American frontier identity was actually rooted in the genocide of the indigenous Americans, whose culture was, so to speak, crucified by "Rome." The positivity and popularity of much of contemporary American culture is based on the transcendent adaptations of African people held in slavery for hundreds of years. The implications of these truths are truly biblical, but not in the self-enhancing way traditional white male American historians would have us remember it.

So the suggestion that the Christian Passion Play is mythic, and was created in the centuries following the decline of Rome to serve political purposes by commandeering an authentically mystical path actually makes much more sense than the assumption of the canonical gospels as historical fact. The first big tip-off is the fact that the eventual authors of those gospels weren't actually named Mark, Matthew, Luke, or John – those were pseudonyms of journeymen writers of their day. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, chances are you might want to duck.

More recently there are the examples of Mormonism, whose co-creator Joseph Smith is not hard to prove as a plagiarist, philanderer, arsonist, and possibly worse, but not at all proven to be a prophetic witness to an early ancient American Judaic civilization; Scientology, whose inventor was unquestionably a hard-drinking, womanizing, egomaniacal science fiction writer – but highly questionable as an enlightened channel of godlike alien entities; and, going back a little further, Islam, the transcendent, mystical heart of which is regularly betrayed (like the other Abrahamic religions) by random acts of violence. 

Sadly for true believers, the historical references to the actual existence of the Jesus of the canons is still limited to the scant testimonies of Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Flavius Josephus, whose less-than-second-hand accounts came well after the fact, and were subject to powerful political and cultural influence, and countless subsequent rewritings. The most compelling testimony of Josephus has been known to be a forgery for a long time now, while Judeo-Roman historians contemporary to the times, like Philo, never mention the man or events, despite having every reason to. Josephus, in all his authenticated accounts in fact, mentions at least twenty different people named Jesus.

Then what should we really be resurrecting today? If the religious establishment now neatly sequesters the whole of the ancient Essene world into the austere walls of the community at Qumran, and the timeless teachings of philosophers like Gautama and Yeshua are respectively redefined as platitudes and tragic morality plays, rather than as the radically effective calls to action they truly are, then clearly what requires resurrecting is the spirit of divinely shared consciousness that Aldous Huxley called the "Perennial Philosophy." 

"The All came forth from me and the All came into me. Split the wood, and I am there. Turn over the stone, and there you will find me."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 77  

It's forgivable human nature to transmute certain realities into conveniently avoidable practices, or for people suffering from the fearful manifestations of low self worth, greed, and delusional self-centeredness to act out in our shrinking world, but what we really need is to rebirth the elemental compassionate unity, the eternal springtime of human spiritual evolution alive in each Easter every day, if possible. That is the message continuously carried by the spirit of Yeshua (not to mention the Buddha, Krishna, Gandhi, et al).

We can all "sit in the wilderness" – take the inward path to realization of our shared being; "walk on water" – rise above and make foundational our psychic afflictions;  "feed the multitudes" – know that we have plenty with what we always have;  and "share water from the well" – understand the eternal that unifies us, regardless of our outward labels. The Jesus of the Christian Easter is purely a symbol for the real power for transformation each of us carries within – all the time...not just every Spring.

"Whoever seeks will find; whoever knocks from inside, it will open to them."

"When you bring forth that within you, then that will save you."

"What you are waiting for has already come, but you do not see it."

"Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me and I will become them and what was hidden from them will be revealed."

The Gospel of Thomas, 94, 70, 51, 108

Since I believe that we all only die to this world, and so resurrection is a simple, personal realization that we will all get to experience, is it possible that the spirit of the Easter Bunny could actually be a better shepherd? The brand we want to revive each Spring? Could that be a better metaphor than the image of a good man suffering – the gentle lapine, the playful, prolific, vegan creature of the woods and meadows? Could a bunny be smart and wise enough to easily share that level of consciousness? For the answer to these, and possibly other questions, I invite you to watch this video:

 http://www.dogwork.com/buhr9

Happy Easter! 

[re-edited and reposted from an earlier time]

The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide can be ordered direct or online; and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for them it at your local bookstore!

Beatitude Adjustment – Our “Sermon on the Mount” Top Hits, Unplugged

“Materiality is a metaphoric manifestation of our ‘invisible’ spiritual nature.”

      Perhaps the biggest challenge that faces any theology is the tendency for its most fervent proponents to insist on literal interpretations of their basic scriptures, when really all ancient spiritual texts are intended as metaphors for spiritual conditions and approaches, meant to help you align yourself to the energy of Love in the Universe (to put it simply). 

      Translating those texts can be very important too, as certain translations may only be appropriate for very particular agendas; take for example the common Biblical translations for the terms “sin,” which comes from the Greek word amartia, and really means: to miss the mark; and “repentance,” from the Greek word metanoia, which actually transliterates as: beyond thought (transformational). You can see what a different spin those choices give to the pure meaning.

      The Beatitudes – everyone’s favorite list of righteous suggestions from “The Sermon on the Mount,” Matthew 5–7 (firmly based on the Old Testament Psalms) are no exception. Plugged into their institutional translations, they can be a little confusing, or subject to rote interpretations that overlook the underlying spiritual technology they describe. In fact, overlooking in a different way is the real meaning of “The Mount;” whether anyone ever spoke from on top of a hill or not isn’t the point – “The Mount” really only means to assume a spiritual point-of-view, where you can get a clear view of the hardships of being human. With all that in mind, allow me to try to Unplug the Beatitudes for you, and hopefully reveal their natural spiritual suggestions.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

      The idea of Heaven is always easy – it means being in alignment with the energy of Love in the Universe, it’s just “the poor in spirit” part that gets a little confusing. It seems to suggest that we’re talking about poor people, or that we’re talking about people who come up short in “the spiritual” department – yes to both. It is easier for people who don’t have lots of money, and all the demands and obsessions it brings, to be serenely connected to our Divine Source; and back in those days, the powerful leaders of organized religions were considered “rich in spirit” (the same could be said about today's Evangelical mega-preachers). Theirs was not “the kingdom.”      

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

      Sadness opens our hearts, and causes our energies to resonate with deeper structures of the Universe. It’s a call for connection, and that call is always answered by the Divine, which is absolutely indivisible. What we mourn is always alive—and we know it in our hearts.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

      A Zen sage once said, “Water finds its greatest power by seeking its lowest point,” and it’s true of the life of this planet. Humility grounds us in our most profoundly connected way, and the more dogmatic, the more egocentric, the more intellectually self-assured – the more willful – we are, the less chance we have of survival. The greatest chance for humans lies in our sincerest humility, because Earth will always default to the energy of the authentic, the most cooperatively adaptable.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

      The willingness to take part in the inner exploration – the deep need to discover that energy, that light within (our spiritual sustenance); and to reunite ourselves – to restore ourselves to that Divine energy, is absolutely essential. It’s only by opening up and digging-down (for sustenance and refreshment) that we can be repaired and re-filled by the energy of Love.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

      “Do no harm,” is the first precept of Buddhism, and it’s that absolute Golden Rule that informs not just the way we live life in each moment – with (and as a part of) the grace that compassionate consciousness grants us – but also aligns us with the energies of Love in the Universe. It creates our positive karma – as we respect the Divine in all living things, the Divine Love Energy of the Universe reflects that grace into our lives.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

      “The Kingdom of Heaven is spread across the Earth, but men don’t have eyes to see it,” said Yeshua, the Gnostic “Teacher of Righteousness,” meaning that it’s the misperceptions created in our minds that prevent us from aligning ourselves with the Field of Love. When we practice kindness, honesty, humility, forgiveness, compassion, and service, our cognitive hearts are cleared, and open to the intuitive intelligence available – the way to live with perspective, presence, and purpose. Then we can witness the Divine in every direction we look.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the Children of God.

      Really little kids are so innocent and gracious (when they’re not crying…), the ambitions and expectations of life haven’t painted them into any corners they need ‘to fight their way out of’ yet. Those judgements create the aggressive instincts to “get ahead” materially – what we want, what we think we need, what we must hold on to – that cause us to lash out, or try to forcibly control; that’s the painfulness our narrow, short-lived human desires create, not the eternal playfulness our authentic selves deserve.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

      People look at you funny when you purposefully and unashamedly pursue your spiritual path; they think you’re crazy (because they’re thinking with their heads, not their hearts). I survived three traumatic incidents, and three “Near Death Experiences” – so I had no choice in the matter, my spiritual beliefs are literally immaterial. Most folks try to navigate in a material world, grasping little pieces of serenity, wonder, and joy here and there; and if you turn that approach around 180º and live as a spirit in a world of arising matter, naturally you’ll be misunderstood a lot...

      ...but you’ll live in a world alive in the Field of Love, connected by a powerful, “unseen” spiritual technology that transforms you “beyond thought,” and lets you “hit the mark” – almost every time. It’ll give you a real experience of grace, serenity, joy, and wholeness like you’ve never known. In truth, it’ll put gratitude in your beatitude!

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

"The Play of Life, Through a Glass Darkly" at Soul Life Times

"…There is light within people of light, and they shine it upon the whole world. If they don't shine it, how dark it gets!"   Yeshua, Logion 24, The Gospel of Thomas

 Head over to Soul Life Times Magazine, for my latest article about the nature of "reality," shining a light on being a being of light, the thin veil of nature, and how to look in a different way.

A Gnostic Treat: How the Second Coming May Have Already Come!

For fans of all the gospels, and the real roots of Christianity (and gnosis), I'd like to suggest that the good news may be that it's possible a certain kind of "Second Coming" has already taken place.

In 1945, an Egyptian shepherd discovered a collection of ancient manuscripts in a place called Nag Hammadi. There were all kinds of texts hidden away there. They are texts that had been considered "heresy" by the early Christian church fathers, but many of which really carry equal validity as the canonical gospels do – and may even be considered, in a sense, purer, having avoided centuries of being manipulated for all the inevitable reasons. 

One of the texts, The Gospel of Thomas, describes a different kind of Jesus, named (the original Aramaic) Yeshua here – one who had been concealed for nearly two thousand years. This teacher's lessons being returned into our consideration leads me to suggest a kind of Second Coming that has already been fulfilled.

"The Kingdom is inside you, and it is outside you."

from Logion 3, The Gospel of Thomas

There's no narrative in this gospel, just these beautiful, pithy lessons from a much more "eastern," almost Buddhist teacher, who suggests that "The Kingdom," or heaven, or what in India may be called moksha, or in Tibet, nirvana, is within everyone – and accessible to all who seek it. He also suggests that the discovery, and transcendence of our troublesome "delusion of separateness" is something of a simple personal revolution – and revelation. 

"When they find, they will be disturbed; and being disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over All."

from Logion 2

"Stop lying. Do not do that which is against your love. You are naked before heaven. What you hide will be revealed, whatever is veiled will be unveiled."

from Logion 6

There are a lot of familiar things said here, but many of them said in a fresher, more direct way, unconstrained by the narrative interpretation and dogmatic context of the New Testament and its guardians. The result can be a whole new take on Yeshua's profound spiritual life advice, with an imme-diacy that foreshadows all contemporary psychological understanding:

"When you bring forth that within you, then that will save you. If you do not, then that will destroy you."

Logion 70

These statements avoid all of the imaginary colorings of personality, and deliver a sense of eternal wisdom that call to mind the past Hindu Upanishads, and carry straight through to the scientific magic of Quantum Physics:

"I am the All. The All came forth from me and the All came into me. split the wood, and I am there. Turn over the stone, and you will find me."

from Logion 77

Like a great swami, or Zen roshi, our teacher simply points us beyond our self-imposed obstacles, toward the reality of our multi-faceted existence, freeing us to discover the mystery for ourselves:

"The Kingdom of the Father is spread out over the whole earth, but people do not see it."

from Logion 13

And there are one hundred and fourteen of these wonderfully wise, educational, and eternally up-to-date little sayings! All spoken in a clear, direct voice that transcends an inconsistent mythology. A voice that wasn't heard for nearly two thousand years, but now has returned:

"Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me, and I will become them; and what was hidden from them will be revealed."

Logion 108

These are particularly meaningful and easy lessons to share, when we all become as one.

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

Digging Out the Well of Our Self

"He who drinks from my mouth will become like me, and I will become like him, and the hidden things will be revealed to him."

Yeshua, The Gospel of Thomas, 108

A group of people stand looking down into a dry well. They complain about their thirst, about their withering gardens. One man, driven by desperation, at last steps up and climbs down into the well. He begins to dig, at first resenting the work, but then finding an easy rhythm and satisfaction in the effort, until finally he removes that last obstructing bucket of dirt, and breaks through to the great aquifer that flows underneath and through everything. The source that infuses and enlivens everything. The well begins to fill again with cool water, and bending over, still digging to assure the steady flow of this renewed life, he sees his own reflection in the source. He is this. What he thought he was, who he thought he was is only a reflection of this source.

And when he climbs back out of the well and meets with the various responses of the others—the heartfelt thanks, the casual acknowledgements, the proud dismissals; he carries with him that source reflection, only vertically now, so that wherever he goes he's looking into that. He sees his own reflection in the the faces of everyone that speaks to him. Their eyes are his eyes. Their fears and foibles and joys and realizations are his own.

"Thou art That"

Chandogya Upanishad, 6.12-14

So our very own form can provide us with the entry to that new, relaxed, and naturally productive way of seeing the world. Infused and enlivened by that flow. We are all the same thing. We all think the same thoughts and feel the same feelings. And where we used to entertain those cruelties that defined us—the harsh comparisons, snap judgments and righteous justifications, there now lives an easy sense of compassion—the door to source. This sweet and sustaining flow of source that is available to everyone is absolutely free, and totally liberating. It just takes a bit of humility, of "digging"—the honest self-examination that allows us to truly see ourselves. To learn who we really are meant to be, as opposed to who we think we're supposed to be; how did those psychic obstructions to source and purpose get put in place, and how do we remove them?

The most critical facillitating aspect behind discovering this freedom, the metaphor of "going down into the well" (in the prophet Yeshua's story), is finding your inner place of silence where you can gain the calm perspective on who you really are. Your own personal well, where the deepest obstructions between you and your source are hidden.

"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness."

Mahatma Gandhi

By finding the silence within ourselves, we can individually defuse the demanding inner voice that provides life's running commentary, and then perhaps we can collectively turn off the delusional egoic "reality" that drives our species in ruinous directions. By becoming aware of it, we can strip away the obsessive "story of our life, our country, our people," etc., the delusional view of life that the Hindu call maya. Christians misinterpret it as sin (in the original greek of the canonical gospels: amartia, meaning "to miss the mark"). Buddhists call it selfish craving.

That silence resides in The Tao, The Brahman, The Kingdom of Heaven, in Emptiness, in Source Energy; and in us—within and without us. In that silence, in the absence of anything personal, that power lives. Then we find it's all personal. And we are all that person.

"The Kingdom is inside you, and it is outside you."

Logion 3, The Gospel of Thomas

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

What is Childhood if We Reincarnate Over and Over?

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The Paradox of Surrender–When "Losers" Are Winners

The concept of surrender, as we usually think of it, never sounds too agree-able. In fact, It sounds like something to be assiduously avoided. So the suggestion that surrender is really a strategy for gaining a very high order of success seems counterintuitive, to say the least. It sounds as though it may be a justification for under achievers and capitulators. A losers cop-out. But that isn't surrender in the same sense as I'm suggesting.  

To start, let's look at surrender in a different context than as a defeat and painful submission: When everything is going really well, when you're on top of everything, you're not fighting life. You're not having to work at it too hard, not trying to force life to go your way. Why would you? It's already going just fine just the way it is. You're riding on top of the flow of Life, so to speak. You are also completely and happily surrendered. 

We don't usually think of it in this way, because the human ego insistently attaches negative comparisons to what turn out to be positive experiences. For example we're more likely to think "he failed to be promoted at his job," than "he wasn't saddled with that high-pressure job, so he was available for something better when it came along." We may be jumping to a negative conclusion, when he was really lucky to have missed out on that promotion. But when things are going well, we're not attaching any negativity to our ride. We're lucky to be completely surrendered to Life, and much less likely to botch up a good thing. 

Surrender in this sense isn't a capitulation to a lesser outcome, or a submission to injustice. It's a positive action that you can take. By surrendering to the direction your intuitive intelligence is sending you in, by being true to yourself, you can do the right thing without fear. You can stand up to the bully, or the unconscious exploiter with the knowledge that the power of the Universe is supporting you. You're not giving into evil. Just the opposite, in fact. You are naturally elevated above it.

That amazing metaphoric adventure of Hindu mythology, The Bhagavad Gita, explains this distinction in its typically engaging way. The great warrior Arjuna doesn't want to go to war against the armies of his blind, ambitious uncle – against his own cousins, his own family. Capitulation seems almost to be a preferable option. But his chariot driver, who happens to be Krishna (God), tells him that he must surrender to his purpose in life. To be a great warrior, and to oppose injustice and oppression, especially if it comes from parts of himself. Arjuna only need do his best, the greater forces of the Universe will determine the outcome. Of course, good prevails. Surrender is a strategy for winning– for joining your self to the winning side.

This is the answer, the surrender to the metaphysical impulse to transcend the sense of fearful separation from the magical wonder of the world. The answer to finding your true path. Have no fear as to the outcome, just do what your heart tells you is true. Don't force anything, but release into the power and flow of Life. You have to give it up to get it.

The teacher Yeshua suggests over and over that we be like infants. And what form have we ever known that is  more in a state of surrender than our infancy was? Without the separation from the divine that an adult ego insists upon, we are carried through life securely and magically, through no effort on our own part other than simply being. You don't want to act like a baby, but you don't want to act like what's typically thought of as being "grown-up." Serious, controlled. The "master" of your own fate. Surrender to your playful, childlike side; to your curiosity, and humble willingness.

And while you're at it, surrender having to know it all. Surrender having to be right. Take the action and surrender to your hearts calling to oppose evil and injustice. Surrender to your natural birthright – to enjoy the beauty and abundance of this remarkable world, of this miraculous life.

Stay in the source. Surrender to the simple connection that carries you to your greatest potential. Exile your ego. Take that action––the direction of intuitive intelligence, and when it comes to figuring everything out, just give it up!

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!