And what do you find there? Certainly not God
Who's to say what you find there . There certainly is a run between the psychological spectrum of schizophrenia and deep withdrawal to what we call normal and super states of consciousness and willed renunciation, Yogic discipline
and deep revelation . You are what you meditate on .
One finds all matter of things, and that depends on you and one's state of mind, personal past experiences, cultural mythic images, training and beliefs . But certainly if you believe in God and the teachings of Jesus ...you are quite familiar then where Jesus is to have his first encounter with experience of the Oceanic... that deeper seat of consciousness within himself ?
Was it not 40 days and 40 nights he fasted and meditated in the desert ? From which he emerges with his own unique apocalyptic message for his brothers ?
So it is written and we are told in the Bible .
Perhaps you find that there is something there down below the masks that we all wear that attempt to cover the fear we all have of our own mortality.
Like all the Pharoahs and Kings before , that worried and fretted that they couldn't take all with with them when their time was up ? Little fishes are dying by the millions all the time on the reefs throughout the world . Death is everywhere , and even comes to the 70 ton whales , everything must die eventually . But man is the only one
that has the vanity to think it shall not come to him.
I'm sure of one thing , if I saw the way people were dying 2000 yrs ago , they way they were being crucified , stoned to death and thrown from the cliffs of Calvary by the thousands , etc ... I might have also moved to the desert with Jesus too. <G> But I've played with both Dolphins and Whales , something I feel Jesus might have enjoyed , and
I've seen God when watching them too !! ;-)
I think one of the Jewish Kings 80 yrs before the birth of Jesus , Alexander Jannaeus had 800 people crucified in one night of bloodshed alone ...while he sipped wine and played with his women , while the wives and children of the uprisers were slaughtered before their eyes . Judaea of the time of Jesus was a madhouse and ready for almost sure massive upheaval and destruction, and those Kings were also the high priests as well...but of what God , I really have no clue . Certainly not my idea of God now .
As for the teachings of Jesus , I do believe he was trying to offer a way out of the madhouse of hatred , jealousy, fear & violence and constant paranoia that people were trapped in....but if you analyze(meditate on ) the teachings from their face value , don't flinch ...and don't avert your eyes, you see the ideal of a teaching that is of an absolute ascetic leaving off of all the concerns of secular life , family ties , community and all that are the living dead , to bury the dead.
This earliest of Christian teachings are really seen to be of the order of the early Buddhist and Jain of non-violence and asceticism , and freedom from greed , practicing wisdom love and peace. This is very clear in the way Jesus taught and believed , differing from the other groups of Dead Sea Covenanters who were right up the Jordan River from where John the Baptist was baptizing . But it was to John that Jesus went , was baptized and thereafter went to fast and pray(meditate) in the desert for 40 days and then to return with his own apocalyptic message .
The difference between the view of Jesus from the Covenanters of Qumran , is they saw themselves as the Sons of Light preparing to engage in battle with the Sons of Darkness ..that is they were preparing for war making themselves pure before the final end came . For Jews of many persuasions believed at that time that the end was near , nations would be annihilated and only a small part of Israel would survive . In that climate of immediate urgency was Christianity born . For Jesus , the message seemed to be one of the battle already being resolved in a radical new way , that is to say a new
" gospel of Peace" rather than that of war .
You have heard that it was said , 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you love your enemies, and pray for those that persecute you so that you may be the sons of your father (too) who is in heaven; for he who makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good also sends rain on the just and the unjust ."(Matt 5:43-45)
Here is a teaching that reaches far back to the early non-violence and forest teachings of the Buddhist and Jains of India ..it is a Gospel of peace . But also of one that is of an extreme asceticism and being awakened...or being "baptized in the Holy Spirit".
Yet just further on , there's these startling words in Matthew 10 , that Christianity has taken countless centuries to digest :
Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come peace but to bring but a sword . For I have come to set man against his father , and daughter against her mother , and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes will be those of his own household . He that loves his father or mother more than me ( Awakened) is not worthy of me ; he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me . "
You also encounter another echo of this in Luke 14 , more of the same :
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters , yes, and even his own life , he cannot be my disciple "
So what is the key to the meaning of all this JK for the countless eons to come and heaven above that Jesus would convey and teach this most austere of all ascetic regimens and boldest of all new renunciations already known and taught for over 1500-5000yrs over in India by the greatest of sages and saints ?
I think you'll find the clue if you read the last lines following those last two very intriguing passages above if you choose to look .... in Matthew it finishes with:
" He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life , will lose it , and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it "
and in Luke it concludes with :
" Whosoever does not bear his own cross and come after me , cannot be my disciple .
and further on in Matt(19:21)
" Go sell what you possess and give to the poor...; and
come follow me " ..... and again---> " follow me and let the dead bury the dead "
It couldn't be more clear what Jesus is telling you here ? Of an ideal teaching that centers and focusses on an ascetic absolute and abandonment of all normal concerns of secular life, desires etc ? What could be closer to the teachings of Buddha or Mahavira than this ? This is exactly the same kind of teaching in spirit and direction inwards towards renunciation of desire , and the difference between this and the Persian eschatology in Zoroastrianism of an ultimate battle between good and evil which the Jews and Christians had borrowed there is no doubt , and that Apocalyptic theme is transformed in it's reference radically by Jesus from a historical "future" into a psychological --->present !
That is to say that the end of the world and the coming of God & his kingdom is not to be awaited for in some future time but to be achieved right now in solitude in the chamber of your heart . Is that so difficult to understand JK ? Unless you wish to subscribe to the idea of a Judgement Day that was borrowed by the Jews and Christians
from the Egyptians . Jesus was talking in more immediate terms than this .
Important , and back to that allusion of Jesus reference to the sword which he brought , it can be seen later in the last scenes in the Gardens of Gethsemane , that this was no weapon of warfare clearly , when he forgives Judas and upbraids Peter for using his sword ,
( the same stout Peter who just didn't get the message after all that traveling along with Jesus )
" Judas came , and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people . And the betrayer had given them a sign saying
"The one I shall kiss is the man "....and "Hail Rabbai ! " and he kissed him , where Jesus said to him "Friend , do that which you have come to do !" Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him . And behold one who was with Jesus drew out his sword , and struck the slave of the high Priest and cut off his ear . Then Jesus said to him (Peter) " Put up your sword ; for all who take the sword shall perish by the sword " Matt 26:47-52
Pretty clear instructions , wouldn't you say ? But no sooner had Jesus scetic message been passed to the ears of his closest of followers , does that most important message get lost for centuries among the promises of eternal life and being chosen to go to heaven etc. From that period of the victories of Constantine 4th century AD the Church was founded on that same good Peter's name , and Christianity was advanced largely thru swordsmanship and holy Jhiad. In one very real sense , Peter betrays Jesus as truely as does Judas and he was
not the last to do so.
Yet to this day , an ascetic renunciation of the world and it's life , and a strong sense of detachment of desire in combination with compassion for all things could be named as yet the best discipline of peace that has been proposed .
Not Jhiad , whether Christian or Moslem.
Jesus fasting and meditating 40 days in the desert ?
It would be well if every Christian just tried 5 days own their own ... the whole entire face of the religion would change overnight and so would their perception of the idea of eternity ! hehe
regards
;-)
Mars |
