| The holy bible has for centuries been a book of varied interpretation and misunderstanding. It has been used as rationale for separation, segregation, violence, intolerance and so many of the ingredients that cause the major problems in our society today. I want to offer a different reading and interpretation of the bible that makes so much more sense than anything else that is commonly assumed to be properly interpreted.
The main essence of this interpretation is that the bible is a SPIRITUAL document first and less importantly a literal and historical document of worldly events. We as humans insist on placing the most importance on the literal and historic aspect of it since they fall within our capacity to understand more readily than things of spirit. The bible is designed to teach through allegorical concepts that are not available to those that are confined within the prison of sensory reason and evaluation or logic. There can only be one thing that can come from the source of all existence that we call GOD and that is GOOD. Only good can come from this source and the only things that are bad in our lives are proportionally experienced to the same degree that we turn away from the infinite well of divine energy and love. God is Good and the resemblance of these two words is not born of earthly coincidence. God is the source of all that is good. The words are the same thing.
Let us begin with what I consider a powerful example of literal interpretation and the fallacy that ensues from it. Here is a very well known passage in the bible about the wise men from the east that came to the baby Jesus.
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Matt 2:1-2
2:1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." NIV
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The commonly accepted story is that the Magi / Wise Men from the east saw a star in the east and followed it to find the baby Jesus. Well there is one problem with this. If the wise men are from the east of Jerusalem as stated in the passage, then they had to travel WEST to get to Jerusalem. If they are both from the east and presumably followed the star eastward as most interpret the passage, then they are heading EAST and are 180 degrees off course ! They would have had to travel a circle around the whole world over continents and vast oceans to get to Jerusalem. So as we can see the conventional interpretation of this story is wrong. It quite simply has to be. And if the fact that this simple little story can be so misinterpreted (180 degrees of misinterpretation) when being read as literal as a contract and within the prison of natural (earthy) sensory limitations then how wrong have we been in reading and in the interpretation of the rest of this SPIRITUAL document? To what extent is the current religious dogma completely off course due to these easy misinterpretations? If the Spirit of God created a whole entire universe, why is it that we seem to think that understanding spiritual concepts is going to be done within the limited faculties of our earthly bound senses and by merely reading passages and interpreting them as if we were reading a newspaper article about ordinary earthly endeavors? The secrets of heaven are beyond the realm of natural (earthbound) sensory boundaries and perceived external verification. This is what Jesus meant when he said the following in regards to his teaching and of the prophets:
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John 3:11-12
11 I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
NIV
John 3:11-12
11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. 12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things
KJV?
Luke 17:20-21
Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21 nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."
NIV
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So what is the answer?
The ancient Hindus and spiritualist of India have long referred to the spiritual singular eye just above and to the middle of the physical eyes as the “eye in the east” or “looking to the east”. Have you ever seen the dot painted on the forehead of a Hindu? It is one of the Chakras and is called the Ajna Center, Third Eye or Single Eye. It means to cut out all sensory information and to look inward and listen for the answers from the Holy Ghost manifestation of the Christ within. This is the single spiritual eye and the one that holds the key to divine love and knowledge of the universe. This is the essence of meditation or “standing still” Passages that support these are as follows:
On the singular meditative eye:
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Matt 6:22
22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
KJV
Luke 11:34
34 The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.
KJV
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The light of the body is not a light as we see with a bulb but a self initiated spiritual illumination / enlightenment of the soul, as had the Wise Men from the east. These were self realized masters probably from India that had very elevated souls from the practice of quiet and inward practice of being still / meditating. Meditation is the spiritual science of the soul. The next passages talk about it.
On being Still / Meditation
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Ps 46:10
10 Be still, and know that I am God:
KJV
1 Sam 12:16
16 "Now then, stand still and see this great thing the LORD is about to do before your eyes!
NIV
Ex 14:13
13 And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you today.
KJV
8 And Moses said unto them, Stand still, and I will hear what the LORD will command concerning you.
KJV
1 Sam 12:7
7 Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the LORD of all the righteous acts of the LORD, which he did to you and to your fathers.
KJV
Job 37:14
14 Hearken unto this, O Job: stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God.
KJV
Matt 20:32
32 And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I shall do unto you?
KJV
Ps 131:2
2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
NIV
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In the passages above you can see that bible states “standing still” is necessary to “see”, ”hear”, “reason”, and to “consider” the Lord our God. There is NO mention of wordy and worldly intellectual debate based on “intellect” or "logic" as a means of finding truth and the next set of scriptures exclude these as a means completely.
The answer of how to do these things is right there in the book. Not already spelled out as absolute answer but how as a methodology and that methodology is to look within yourself to know all there is to know. A true and just God would never leave your faith in having to have someone show you or having to be fortunate enough to find and be able to read a book. God’s divinity and grace and the ability to reference it is already inside of you and all you have to do it turn to this divine energy or light and grow from it.
SEEKING WITHIN AND NOT OF OURSELVES.
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2 Peter 1:20-21
20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
NIV
Rom 7:22
22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
KJV
Luke 17:20-21
Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21 nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."
NIV
John 7:37-39
37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
NIV
1 Cor 2:12
12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
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So even after reading the last paragraph are you still so readily seeing my point of view a foolish? The bible clearly states that the things that come from God are going to sound foolish unless they are found from within your God given spirit.
God did not waste time reinventing the pieces of the universe. It is all proportionately and fractally based. To know the atom is to know the universe and to know your true self is to know God. When I say “to know yourself” I do not mean “yourself” as the world sees you. Father, lawyer, philanthropist or whatever earthly titles you have accumulated. I mean the “yourself” that is left if you strip away all those titles, all the ego, the physical body, and the conscious mind. I mean the spirit that dwells in your body and that gives it life. This spirit is in fact a spark from the fire of God and it is an infinite source of eternal bliss and thing that we all search for and that most cannot readily find. The reason is that we seek it externally. In a book, at a church, in a bar or wherever. It does not occur to people that it is already inside of us and all we have to do is turn down the volume of life by being still and seek the grandeur of the seemingly silent spirit inside until it roars at you the power of God and the secrets of the universe. As a child I inherently always knew and said that the answers to the universe and the true access to God has to be within us. I just knew that. As we grow older and “smarter” in our earthly ways we lose that connection and become sensory addicts. Truth we think must be heard, seen, touched, smelled or tasted. This is the sensory prison that those without spirit are self condemned with. God does not condemn anyone. We do it by turning away form his infinite source of light and energy and grow cold in the shadow we cast with our backs turned to his light.
"Light is, in fact, the only constant, unvarying factor in all nature." Einstein
All of these things have come to me in quiet meditation and inward listening. Once I felt I understood these things I then and only then went back to the book to back up my “feelings” and sure enough the words were there. The bible talks of all this arguing and people following that we see here and all around.
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1 Cor 3:1-9
3:1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly-mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4 For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men? 5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe-as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
NIV
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The fact is that if I study theology and learn everything there is (highly unlikely) about the fundamentalist Christianity, then according to Jesus I will still be but a spiritual infant and have yet learned nothing about righteousness and spirituality. By fundamentalist Christianity I mean Repentance, faith in God, the laying off hands, Resurrection and eternal judgment. Yet this is just about all your going to hear about in modern day churches over and over. The solid food of truth is within and we touched on some of it in this essay.
Here is the scripture to support the previous paragraph.
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Heb 5:11-6:6
11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so. ---- Wow!!!!! Straight out of the bible!
1 Cor 2:8-16
8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him"-
10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
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Time to start talking about that which we share within us,
Oswald
- aka StockStalker |
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