The "Kingdom of Heaven" and the "Kingdom of God"

[Bob Michael]

Richard Bucke on entering into the "Kingdom of Heaven", the "Kingdom of God", or 'COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS':

In order that a man may enter into Cosmic Consciousness he must belong, so to speak, to the top layer of the world of Self Consciousness. Not that he need have an extraordinary intellect (this faculty is rated, usually far above its real value and does not seem nearly so important, from this point of view, as do some others) though he must not be deficient in this respect either.

He must have a good physique, good health, but above all he must have an exalted moral nature, strong sympathies, a warm heart, courage, strong and earnest religious feeling.

All these being granted, and the man having reached the age necessary to bring him to the top of the self conscious mental stratum, someday he enters Cosmic Consciousness.

Of 34 cases, in which illumination was instantaneous and the period at which it occurred was with some degree of certainy known, the age at which the person passed into Cosmic Consciousness was in 1 instance 24 years; in 3 - 30 years; in 2 - 31 years; in 2 - 31-1/2 years; in 3 - 32 years; in 1 - 33 years; in 2 - 34 years; in 8 - 35 years; in 2 - 36 years; in 2 - 37 years; in 2 - 38 years; in 3 - 39 years; in 1 - 40 years; in 1 - 49 years, and in 1 - 54 years.

It must not be supposed that because a man has Cosmic Consciousness he is therefore omniscient or infallable. The greatest of these men are in a sense in the position, though on a higher plane, of children who have just become self-conscious. These men have just reached a new phase of consciousness - have not yet had time or opportunity to exploit or master this. True, they have reached a higher mental level; but on that level there can and will be comparative wisdom and comparative foolishness, just as there is on the level of simple or self consciousness. As a man with self consciousness may sink in morals and intelligence below the higher animal with simple intelligence merely, so we may suppose a man with Cosmic Consciousness may (in certain circumstances) be little if at all above another who spends his life on the plane of self consciousness.

Only a personal experience of it, or a prolonged study of men who have passed into the new life, will enable us to realize what this actually is.

[Richard Bucke - 'Cosmic Consciousness']

[Luke Breuer]

Harris' criticism was of those who make those interpretations and who come to certain conclusions, not of scripture itself.

My point still stands: Harris does not well-understand what he is critiquing. If he did, his critique could have been at least ten times as poignant. Unfortunately, the “New Atheists” of our age think that one no longer needs to know his/her enemy very well. Therefore, these New Atheists will not only die out quickly, but they are in danger of causing the objects of their criticisms to contort so that the criticisms no longer apply, instead of causing them to right their ways.

What I mean by childhood in this context is that it's hardly an encouragment of thought, of reasoned inquiry into what becoming 'like a little child' could mean, especially when it's followed by thoughts about "the necessary grand human self-destruction" and "grand nuclear conflagration".

I suggest you ask for Bible verses in the future. :-) This whole “you must become like a child” idea—from Jesus—has been occupying my peripheral thoughts for about a year now. You would probably benefit from a reminder of Matthew 10:16, which ends with Jesus advising his disciples to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” There are definitely bad attributes, which an exit from childhood tends to eliminate. However, at least in this day and age, many bad attributes are gained in that journey as well. If you can accept both of these, I think you can start building a model of what it means to “become like a child”, a model with which you could heartily agree.

Well, if Bob can explain to us in a reasoned and rational manner what becoming 'like a little child' means without it ending up being some mess of vague appeals to emotional states of non thought, or if he can make the determination between love and unconditional love, then I'll gladly take back my accusation of insanity. How's that?

That is much, much better; thank you! Note, however, that sometimes someone else can best explain a point, something I have tried to do above. Bob Michael, would you care to comment on it?

[jufa]

[quote="Bob Michael"]I began this thread in order to attempt to enlighten others, with another's words, as to the nature of the kingdom of heaven or God. I'm not necessarily using any 'structure', Alex. I often refer to the "kingdom of heaven/God" (a state of being that's understood or experienced by virtually no one) as the "kingdom of Love." quote]

Words such as "a state of being" when used to define ones vision is short circuited when the statement is not declared for enlightened meaning. So let us examine this term from a relative position.

Bob Michael this is what a "state of being" represents to me, which means you yourself are included within when you say "(a state of being that's understood or experienced by virtually no one)."

"Out of a reality which has no logic or reasoning, the belief matter and flesh are real thrives because men cannot comprehend their journey into the maze of their thoughts is an illusion which is not permanent. In this illusionary state of belief, there is a beginning, birth, growth, maturity, reverse evolution, and death. Men do not enter into this state of being, because this state of being could not exist if man's thoughts were not the foundation, forming, and building of it.

Human thoughts are ideas of ancient interpretations compiled to form this contemporary illusory state of being. Man's beliefs are also the states of being which are the fabric and structure of man's physical thought existence. The physical man is what he thinks, believes, and his interpretation of those beliefs appearing to him as his outer objective visions, or inner subjective feelings, which are the forms of his states of being being stated by him.

A state of being is totally dependent upon the trend of thought being thought. Death does not void the thinkers dependence upon the thought. This state of being neither adds anything to the thought, nor takes anything away from the thought. It gives the reality of what is thought to the thinker, whole, perfect, complete, and pure until that state of thought has been eliminated from the thinker's soul. The plane of Consciousness is visible and invisible. The human consciousness, locked within the ceiling and walls of the collective universal mind, is in a state of imprisonment within the human state of thought. This imprisoned human state of thought keeps the spirit of man earthbound in the non-material principle of "everything after its kind." -jufa

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

[Luke Breuer]

The keenly sensitive and awakened soul who has fully removed his rose-colored glasses finds to his horror, and of course acceptance - if he can stomach the scene, that everywhere on earth, just beneath all the false smiles, mutual exploitation, and fine-sounding words, people are essentially cold, callous, violent, and self-centered human beings.

My upbringing brought both a curse and a blessing: coldness from almost every other mind, and at best lukewarmness (lol) from the rest. The Christian doctrine of Original Sin (or really, Inherent Sinfulness) was never a hard one for me to accept. These days, I am doing my best to understand exactly what is wrong with the world—not the caricatured useless explanations that most people concoct. For example, few will identify unwillingness to sacrifice as being a major problem in the US, but it is. There is no Godly love without sacrifice—voluntary sacrifice.

And those few who are in fact built to rise above it all and then go on to live a life of love, truth, and understanding are hopelessly stuck in the wall-to-wall human chaos and insanity with virtually little or no hope of climbing out of it by themselves.

I don’t think there is anyone who is not “built to rise above it all”. Or perhaps, there is nobody who does not have the raw materials. Your use of “hopelessly stuck” sounds very suspicious; if you don’t understand how you were able to use the raw materials to grow into what you are now, I question how well you know what you are now. Moreover, your use of “virtually little or no hope” makes me doubt your knowledge/acceptance of 1 Corinthians 13:7 “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

However, I differ here with Schopenhauer in that I find that "everything better" never makes it through at all. Certainly not fully and completely, as was the case with Schopenhauer himself, good a soul as he may have been.

Your terms “fully and completely” require a level of knowledge of scripture and of obedience to that knowledge that I am not sure I see in anyone, myself included. Fortunately, I know several strong Christians who seem to have mastered different aspects of it. The key then, is for the kind of fellowship that allows for covering of one’s weakness with another’s strength. Have you read 1 Thessalonians 4, recently?

I feel this idea of "Neuroplasticity" is little more that high-minded and wishful thinking.

Are you criticizing that which you do not understand?

My view is that if love and warm human tenderness and gentleness are not firmly wired into an organism in the early development years, that organism will never be or become genuinely and fully human under any circumstances.

Is this based on any scripture whatsoever?

[Dennis Mahar]

I am doing my best to understand exactly what is wrong with the world

The answer to that is : Religion.

[Luke Breuer]

The answer to that is : Religion.

How widely are you applying the term, “Religion”? For example, some would call many forms of atheism, “Religion”; do you?

[Dennis Mahar]

The ordinary, everyday application of the term religion.

The one where the religious types collectively trash the heathens then when that job is done,
they turn on each other and fight about their differing concepts of scripture.

[Luke Breuer]

The one where the religious types collectively trash the heathens then when that job is done,
they turn on each other and fight about their differing concepts of scripture.

Do you really think this pattern is unique, and that the words {religious, heathens, scripture} cannot be replaced by others, while maintaining the validity of the statement? You appear to be committing the fallacy of over-specifying. That is, the actual form of your criticism applies to more than just “traditional religion”.

[Dennis Mahar]

You can make it as hard as you like.
A rational step would be to go back to Bible Camp, sort out the differences, get the story straight,
then come at us with a sense of unity.
It's too complicated watching you at each others throats.
Too much fuss.
What's needed is a project manager.

[Luke Breuer]

You can make it as hard as you like.
A rational step would be to go back to Bible Camp, sort out the differences, get the story straight,
then come at us with a sense of unity.
It's too complicated watching you at each others throats.
Too much fuss.
What's needed is a project manager.

Statements like this are nigh useless. You oversimplify, ask for things scripture does not guarantee, and aren't willing to make the requisite sacrifices. I shall continue to seek wisdom and mettle-testing in order to find problem statements that can lead to realistic action.

[Robert]

I suggest you ask for Bible verses in the future. :-) This whole “you must become like a child” idea—from Jesus—has been occupying my peripheral thoughts for about a year now. You would probably benefit from a reminder of Matthew 10:16, which ends with Jesus advising his disciples to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” There are definitely bad attributes, which an exit from childhood tends to eliminate. However, at least in this day and age, many bad attributes are gained in that journey as well. If you can accept both of these, I think you can start building a model of what it means to “become like a child”, a model with which you could heartily agree.

Matthew 10:16 has a clearer more direct meaning for me, which has little to do with any notions of childhood. Being sent "forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" speaks more to the individual will, a reminder to remain concious of the causal nature of our own selves and all things, that the only true power we possess to change anything is from within our own mind. An exit from childhood indicates an exit from religious thought, that there's been an understanding by the child that religion is herd management, and not lasting individual spiritual growth.

[Tomas]

The ordinary, everyday application of the term religion.

The one where the religious types collectively trash the heathens then when that job is done,
they turn on each other and fight about their differing concepts of scripture.

I am a card-carrying member of the Norwegian Heathen Society.

At VisWiki the Purpose >> http://viswiki.com/en/Norwegian_Heathen_Society

For those of you who speak, write, read Norwegian (like me) it's Norwegian Heathen Society >> http://www.hedning.no

[Dennis Mahar]

“you must become like a child”

What that means is the gullibility of child can be exploited which has led to the wholesale indocrination of children which has led to religion persisting.

A free thinking Adult is unlikely to 'fall' into religion.

Another of its actions was its successful demand for the right to call "God does not exist" from the rooftops after Oslo City Council granted a mosque the right to broadcast Adhan (prayer calls).[3]

Good one Tomas.

[Bob Michael]

Bob Michael, this is what a "state of being" represents to me, which means you yourself are included within when you say "(a state of being that's understood or experienced by virtually no one)."

Perhaps I should have said here a state of being that's experienced by virtually no one, save for some young children. Those few who still have pure and not yet violated and corrupted minds, hearts, and human spirits. And who have no need nor understanding of such wordy, analytical, and high-minded dicussions like us adults so often get caught up in and sooner or later eventually help destroy these children with. Just as it was done unto us.

[Luke Breuer]

Matthew 10:16 has a clearer more direct meaning for me, which has little to do with any notions of childhood. Being sent "forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" speaks more to the individual will, a reminder to remain concious of the causal nature of our own selves and all things, that the only true power we possess to change anything is from within our own mind. An exit from childhood indicates an exit from religious thought, that there's been an understanding by the child that religion is herd management, not individual spiritual growth.

I posted Matthew 10:16 as a contrast to the following:

1. We are all children of God, and thus we should not pretend that we “grow out of” that.
2. Matthew 18:4 “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
3. Mark 10:15 “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Hmmmm, I was under the impression that there were more passages that talked about good parts of childhood. Onto the verses about growing up to adulthood:

1. 1 Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”
2. Galatians 4:1 “I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything,”
3. Hebrews 5:13 “for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.”
4. 1 Peter 2:2-3 “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

Well, the good news is that I kind of just did that study on childhood I have been meaning to do. :-) To sum up the points being made by scripture in my own words:

1. The humility of childhood must be recovered.
2. Re-birth requires a “reset”, or erasure of what was learned to become a worldly adult.
3. A return to childish, but spiritual thinking and acting, must ultimately give way to mature spiritual thinking and acting.

How does the above sound?

[Dennis Mahar]

Perhaps I should have said here a state of being that's experienced by virtually no one, save for some young children. Those few who still have pure and not yet violated and corrupted minds, hearts, and human spirits. And who have no need nor understanding of such wordy, analytical, and high-minded dicussions like us adults so often get caught up in and sooner or later eventually help destroy these children with. Just as it was done unto us.

Now you're talking Bob.
True nature is not in wordsmithing.
I've got to know a few working priests/ministers who naturally shed the concepts like a snake sheds it's skin, after many years.
who realised the concepts were just selling soap,
like filth gushing out of a sewer mind,

and they then proceeded under firm,gentle wings as one put it.

[Robert]

Well, the good news is that I kind of just did that study on childhood I have been meaning to do. :-) To sum up the points being made by scripture in my own words:

1. The humility of childhood must be recovered.
2. Re-birth requires a “reset”, or erasure of what was learned to become a worldly adult.
3. A return to childish, but spiritual thinking and acting, must ultimately give way to mature spiritual thinking and acting.

How does the above sound?

Sounds like you should give up this attachment to scripture, grow out of it in fact. "Two errors: 1. Take everything literally. 2. Take everything spiritually." Pascal.

These 'kingdoms' of heaven and God are just synonyms for truth. On these boards, other synonyms often used are the Infinite, the Absolute, Ultimate Reality, Nature, the All, whatever else, they're just words. The labels only point to truth. Understanding this is the closest you'll get to defining what it means to be 'like a little child'.

[Luke Breuer]

Sounds like you should give up this attachment to scripture, grow out of it in fact. "Two errors: 1. Take everything literally. 2. Take everything spiritually." Pascal.

What am I taking literally that should not be taken literally? I’m pretty sure I can map I-III pretty well to a lot of the talk that goes on around here. Remember that at their very basic level, sentences are merely equations which one tries to balance by filling the words with definitions that satisfy the equality/inequality.

These 'kingdoms' of heaven and God are just synonyms for truth.

Do I hear Pilate asking, “What is truth?”

On these boards, other synonyms often used are the Infinite, the Absolute, Ultimate Reality, Nature, the All, whatever else, they're just words. The labels only point to truth. Understanding this is the closest you'll get to defining what it means to be 'like a little child'.

Perhaps it’s the closest you will get, but I prefer to not have my wings clipped. :-p

[Bob Michael]

My upbringing brought both a curse and a blessing: coldness from almost every other mind, and at best lukewarmness (lol) from the rest. The Christian doctrine of Original Sin (or really, Inherent Sinfulness) was never a hard one for me to accept. These days, I am doing my best to understand exactly what is wrong with the world—not the caricatured useless explanations that most people concoct. For example, few will identify unwillingness to sacrifice as being a major problem in the US, but it is. There is no Godly love without sacrifice—voluntary sacrifice.

I find that first I must clearly find out exactly what's wrong with myself. As only then will I clearly see and understand the nature of the world's ills and be able to effectively detach myself from them. Though until I came to suffer deeply (which only a finely-formed organism is capable of doing) there was no true inward looking or real and radical change. Just idle talk of change. I also found that sacrifice is necessary. However, upon undergoing a genuine rebirth experience I found that sacrifice was no longer really sacrifice, but rather an unburdening of attachments to worldy stuff and associations and entanglements with mundane and mediocre people. A totally new and authentic freeedom if you will. Though not without a real sense of aloneness, which is bearable and certainly preferable to the old way, or the way of the blind, obedient, and sheeplike (but nevertheless violent) multitude.

I don’t think there is anyone who is not “built to rise above it all”. Or perhaps, there is nobody who does not have the raw materials. Your use of “hopelessly stuck” sounds very suspicious; if you don’t understand how you were able to use the raw materials to grow into what you are now, I question how well you know what you are now. Moreover, your use of “virtually little or no hope” makes me doubt your knowledge/acceptance of 1 Corinthians 13:7 “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Let me say here that we all have the raw materials but they're not properly organized. That basically feelings have not been hard-wired into most of us. Hence we live in our heads and not in our hearts, and as a result we automatically and blindly do all sorts of wicked and selfish deeds. And that we're so thoroughly desensitized, dehumanized, and machinelike that's there's absolutely no awareness of it whatsoever. Living with hope, belief, and endurance has its place, though in most cases to live with these things is not to live fully and still-mindedly in the now, the present. Which is all there ever is.

Your terms “fully and completely” require a level of knowledge of scripture and of obedience to that knowledge that I am not sure I see in anyone, myself included. Fortunately, I know several strong Christians who seem to have mastered different aspects of it. The key then, is for the kind of fellowship that allows for covering of one’s weakness with another’s strength. Have you read 1 Thessalonians 4, recently?

Personally, I gained entry into the 'Kingdom' long before I had any true knowledge or understanding of the scriptures. They came later as a means of better understanding myself and my fellows and just what this fellow Jesus Christ was all about. And I've known a lot of Christians in my day, but none who I couldn't easily see weaknesses and shortcomings in. I'm also very leary of a man of one book. And of someone who atttempts to cover his weaknesses with another's strength. One must pick up and carry his own cross if he is to ever be a man pleasing to God. I too would direct you here to 2 Corinth. 6:14, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?"

Are you criticizing that which you do not understand (Neuroplasticity)?

No, I find it to be little more than junk-science. Along with continuing to see virtually no one in the 'Kingdom', in spite of all these many flash-in-the-pan ideas, concepts, and theories.

Bob: "My view is that if love and warm human tenderness and gentleness are not firmly wired into an organism in the early development years, that organism will never be or become genuinely and fully human under any circumstances."

Luke: Is this based on any scripture whatsoever?

I relate it with Christ's rather vague and non-understood view that he expressed in Matt. 12:31. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (spirit), the unpardonable sin. And with Paul's (most likely unresolved) ponderment over Jacob and Esau, the unrighteousness of God, and the potter's power over the clay. (Romans 9)

[jufa]

Bob Michael, this is what a "state of being" represents to me, which means you yourself are included within when you say "(a state of being that's understood or experienced by virtually no one)."

Perhaps I should have said here a state of being that's experienced by virtually no one, save for some young children. Those few who still have pure and not yet violated and corrupted minds, hearts, and human spirits. And who have no need nor understanding of such wordy, analytical, and high-minded dicussions like us adults so often get caught up in and sooner or later eventually help destroy these children with. Just as it was done unto us.

Every man/woman/child who lives, have lived, and shall live in this dimension is a carry over of their self. John Dunne wrote: "No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."

Man's imprisonment is not of the flesh, it is of consciousness. Innocence therefore is not of the flesh because it is a truth, and a present truth, that flesh will return to the elements from which it was formed, and Spirits which has, and does not support flesh in the continuum of unmoving, unchanging, non-contaminated life of God will continue on about the business of Pure consciousness. All who enter this parenthesis of living are bound by the conscious awareness of thoses vehicles which yielded to the principles and patterns of being born to die, because it is man's consciousness of two [objective man-subjective woman] within the DNA code of flesh which retains the knowledge of good and evil in whatever state of being man is alive within.

This truth of procreation defy innocence of being born uncorrupted in conscious and mind. It does not challenge ones unawareness of such being a subtle belief in the vanity of human innocence. Man must come to realize, in consciousness, that birth is an illusion which, when believed to be truth, gives birth to imaginative formations and forms which have no bearing on his becoming the unity of all within his consciousness, and give death the power to take on the face of reality, and become influential to the stoppage of the expansion of truth in his individual life.

Never give power to anything a person believes is there source of strength - jufa

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Well, the good news is that I kind of just did that study on childhood I have been meaning to do. :-) To sum up the points being made by scripture in my own words:

1. The humility of childhood must be recovered.
2. Re-birth requires a “reset”, or erasure of what was learned to become a worldly adult.
3. A return to childish, but spiritual thinking and acting, must ultimately give way to mature spiritual thinking and acting.

How does the above sound?

Very well.

Lets consider first that the image of becoming "like a child" is a pretty universal idea in almost every teaching method. In Zen-Buddhism it goes by "the beginner's mind" and in Socrates/Plato it goes like "not believing that I know anything". The idea being that new fundamental ideas will not take hold unless one first becomes open, flexible and empty, like the always wondering young children.

Perhaps we should strip the idea from too many "spiritual" or religious notions. If one desires a fundamental change in skill or mode of thought, one has to start with a "clean sheet". For example, I was watching this video of famous progressive drummer Neil Peart, who after 30 years of rather high level drumming hooked up with jazz drummer Freddie Gruber who made him do literally everything differently. If someone would be too much attached to his "skill" or "habitual" yet successful ways, there won't be any re-invention. Here is where the humility is an important factor: the ability to conceive of a superior alternative, even when it flies in the face of what one holds so dear.

The principle however does extend to a deeper level. Not only it tells something about the basic process of learning, it can also teach something about a possibility for the mind to be. To somehow detach or split, so there's one "side" of us, some call it the heart, completely open to whatever comes, allows any thought or direction without dismissal, unfettered by the emotional. Yet there is still the need for the adult, the "father" to supply direction, structure and selection to this process. One cannot after all become a total baby, or some womanly creature always moldable and flowing with the forces, unhindered by any deep thought. That would not be rebirth but regression. People have this mixed up a lot, since regression is always the easier way and rebirth is rare, because all that's difficult is necessarily rare.

[jufa]

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
Luke Breuer wrote:
Well, the good news is that I kind of just did that study on childhood I have been meaning to do. :-) To sum up the points being made by scripture in my own words:

The humility of childhood must be recovered.
Re-birth requires a “reset”, or erasure of what was learned to become a worldly adult.
A return to childish, but spiritual thinking and acting, must ultimately give way to mature spiritual thinking and acting.
How does the above sound?

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
Very well.

Lets consider first that the image of becoming "like a child" is a pretty universal idea in almost every teaching method. In Zen-Buddhism it goes by "the beginner's mind" and in Socrates/Plato it goes like "not believing that I know anything". The idea being that new fundamental ideas will not take hold unless one first becomes open, flexible and empty, like the always wondering young children.

Perhaps we should strip the idea from too many "spiritual" or religious notions. If one desires a fundamental change in skill or mode of thought, one has to start with a "clean sheet". For example, I was watching this video of famous progressive drummer Neil Peart, who after 30 years of rather high level drumming hooked up with jazz drummer Freddie Gruber who made him do literally everything differently. If someone would be too much attached to his "skill" or "habitual" yet successful ways, there won't be any re-invention. Here is where the humility is an important factor: the ability to conceive of a superior alternative, even when it flies in the face of what one holds so dear.

The principle however does extend to a deeper level. Not only it tells something about the basic process of learning, it can also teach something about a possibility for the mind to be. To somehow detach or split, so there's one "side" of us, some call it the heart, completely open to whatever comes, allows any thought or direction without dismissal, unfettered by the emotional. Yet there is still the need for the adult, the "father" to supply direction, structure and selection to this process. One cannot after all become a total baby, or some womanly creature always moldable and flowing with the forces, unhindered by any deep thought. That would not be rebirth but regression. People have this mixed up a lot, since regression is always the easier way and rebirth is rare, because all that's difficult is necessarily rare.

What is presented in the two statements above are purely literal and intellectual. What has not been considered is the following.

Men begin their journey into the world of flesh as an expanding structure of the sperm and egg of two different individuals, and rapidly evolve into water creatures when they merge and become one unit. At the exact moment of their union, the individual unit becomes engulfed by "the law of the Spirit of life," and inherits the collective mentality of humanism which has beset the two parent individuals. This is when the thought body of the universal human mind claims another victim in ignorance, by becoming the inner subjective reasoning for the objective outer vision of the form covering the flesh. Instantly the conceiving of the individual makes it a victim of possessive selfish. Automatically the indoctrination of the human mentality begins. Finding compounding factors of hearing and feeling, from its carrier, and instituting the two headed monster of aloneness and fear into every fiber of the conceived individual, assuring the existence of the universal human mind within the flesh. The human experience of dual awareness has begun.

All human thoughts are based in man's awareness stemming from physical birth. Men are enslaved to this physical birth, which house the two headed monster, which hides the truth that in the midst of all men there is a TEACHER who will endlessly direct their ways; express their purpose, and manifest through them "things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (I Cor.2:13). And because men are enslaved by their thinking process to themselves, they will remain within the bubble within the bubble until their lives come full circle, and the grim reaper appears and reclaim the earth body and evict man from the intellectual material world of time, space, distance, and matter men thought and believed to be real.

Every physical level, sphere, dimension, and realm which abound in man's life. Every thought, sensation, desire, dream, vision of hope and achievement in man's worlds and universes are all conditional. So it comes down to the individual to start the chain reaction of elimination of the conditions, within himself, before he can catch the vision of truth, and come to grips with the truth that "they who are the children of flesh are not the children of God, but the children of promise are counted as the seed" of righteousness. (Rom.9, 8).

The children of God find the glory of God by kneeling before the altar of Christ "which, no man gave attendance." In presenting themselves before the altar of Christ, the children present themselves unto THE TEACHER , "God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." This is the child men are told will lead them; who is the way maker; who takes "no thought for his life, what he shall eat, or what he shall drink; nor yet for his body, what he shall put on." This is the born again child who has come to understand "is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"

There must be a willing submission, by men, to the Spirit of God if their earnest desire to sit in the presence of THE TEACHER as a reborn child. For only the child of promise is able to grasp no bounds, limits, conditions, levels, stages, degrees, or realms of hindrance exist anywhere in the worlds and universe of the human mind. These elements are illusions for the human mind does not exist as an entity of creation for there is only one Mind within all worlds and universes. Yet, the human mind is "the beast that was, and is not, and yet is."


Excert from "The Illusion of God"
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/t ... d/11046056

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

[Beingof1]

When the understanding arrives that the center of consciousness is everywhere and its circumference is nowhere you are very, very close.

You devalue the words "center" and "circumference", among other terms. That, or you probably could have chosen a better analogy.

You devalue the words "everywhere" and "nowhere".
That, or perhaps you could try understanding.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

What is presented in the two statements above are purely literal and intellectual.

Yeah, you should try it some time. Your brain seems deteriorating rapidly. Anyway, it was not that intellectual, actually I hardly write intellectual stuff at this forum. I was actually talking about something very relevant for you, that is, the warning about regression instead of rebirth. I think something like that happened or is happening to you. Snap out of it man!

For only the child of promise is able to grasp no bounds, limits, conditions, levels, stages, degrees, or realms of hindrance exist anywhere in the worlds and universe of the human mind.

God the Father exists in all the bounds, laws, limits, condition, causes and degrees. Through all of this he has been known, worshiped and given shapes, forms and names over the ages. What you are doing is killing him. Little god-murderer!

[Kelly Jones]

Well, if Bob can explain to us in a reasoned and rational manner what becoming 'like a little child' means without it ending up being some mess of vague appeals to emotional states of non thought, or if he can make the determination between love and unconditional love, then I'll gladly take back my accusation of insanity. How's that?

I think it's more important Bob tells us his definition of God. The conversations will go on futilely otherwise, because his argument is that love flows from being in right relationship with God. So, what does he mean by God? There are two options:

1. The Infinite
2. Something finite, with particular characteristics.


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