Real meaning of the crucifixion

The material world, made of time, space and matter, is just an illusion.
A Course in Miracles, like many religions of the past, teaches that there is no separation from God. The world of form is a temporary dream that seems real to the dreamers.

We learn from students of meditation and from Near-Death Experiences that there is another (actually the only) reality of spirit.

Christ allowed himself to be crucified to show that the body means nothing, and the spiritual realms are our only salvation, and the only experience that is eternal. It’s a big leap to accept the notion that you are not a body. You are spirit. Spirit is eternal. You are an idea in the mind of God: Perfect, everlasting, innocent, and powerful.

There is no world!

There is no world!

Vince Migliore

 

There is no world. This is the thought that will return your mind to God. With this idea you awaken to the Atonement, the realization of unity with your Creator. Here we examine some of the points of origin for the idea that there is no world.

 

Plato

The story of the cave was one of the first recorded references to the idea that we are not seeing reality. Plato’s allegory compared our perceptions to people chained in position inside a cave with just a dim light casting shadows on the far wall. The chained prisoners are so used to seeing only dim shadows that they believe this to be the real world. In the allegory, one of the prisoners is led to the mouth of the cave, into the sun, which at first is painful and dazzling. The narrative continues with the enlightened man going back into the darkened prison and trying to explain to his former comrades the existence of a brighter experience outside of the illusion. He is met with scorn and ridicule.

In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato described symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation. The Allegory presents, in brief form, most of Plato’s major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually.

–          http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html.

 

Try to tell people today that the world they are seeing is an illusion. As Plato suggested, you too will be met with scorn and ridicule.

 

Maya

In the Indian Vedic literature, Krishna calls the physical universe an illusion. Maya, the “Grand Illusion,” forms the basis for many world religions, most notably Hinduism and Buddhism. It states that the mind is powerful, and constructs temporary material forms, including the physical universe, which we mistake for our reality. This realm of matter, physical form, is created by our ego and establishes a duality, a dichotomy where we are separate from God and each other. The goal then is enlightenment, where we once again experience the real Self, which is united with our Creator.

Of course, few of us like to have the validity of what we are doing in life challenged or the reality of the world as we see it called into question. But how real is the world that we experience through our senses? Do we see reality through our senses, or are we merely receiving a surface glimpse of something far greater or even different than what it seems? Even if we add the tools of science and the media – with their instruments of greater communication and perception – to the data gained from the senses we may still be getting an incomplete or distorted view of the world, not the world as it is but rather only one side of it, like the proverbial blind men and the elephant.

–          http://www.vedanet.com/2012/06/the-meaning-of-maya-the-illusion-of-the-world/.

In Buddhism all physical forms are seen as temporary and therefore have no real identity. Reality is seen as a form of projection of the thoughts of the person experiencing the physical world. The Australian Aborigines call this life “The Dreamtime.”

 

Quantum Physics

Modern physics has come to the same conclusion: the material world is an illusion. It states that human consciousness affects the material world. Some variations to this theory hold that every time someone makes a decision then a whole new universe is formed where each side of that choice becomes a separate reality. In a nutshell, quantum mechanics has rocked the world of physics.

Niels Bohr, a Danish Physicist who made significant contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory once said: “if quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.”Quantum physics has left scientists all over the world baffled, especially with the discovery that our physical material reality isn’t really physical at all. “Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.” It seems philosophers of our ancient past were right, our senses really do deceive us.

–          http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/12/05/the-illusion-of-matter-our-physical-material-world-isnt-really-physical-at-all/.

 

A variety of physical experiments and mathematical formulations indicate, among other strange things, that:

• Physical objects can be at more than one location simultaneously
• The thoughts of the observer can determine an object’s properties
• An action in one location has instant effects on other object millions of miles away.

That last property, known as entanglement in physics, means that if a man China hits a ping-pong ball it might alter a grain of sand on Mars. This instantaneous connectedness concept resonates with the metaphysical picture of “unity” – the idea that everything is really all one thing. On a spiritual level, this is equivalent to mankind being united with God. In other words, this ends duality: God and his children are united.

 

Near-Death Experiences

The idea that the world is illusion is also found in some Near-Death Experience accounts. They indicate the earth life is more like a dream. Sometimes the person experiencing an NDE is not sure which reference is reality:

During the first three months after my experience, I had to make up my mind which reality was the real place.  The temptation to return was nearly overwhelming at first.

– Arielera’s NDEHttp://www.nderf.org/arielera%27s_nde.htm.

 

In this case, the respondent feels that the spiritual realm is our real home:

I don’t know how long I was floating above my body, or how I was actually transferred to another dimension. I did know that I was now Home, my (our) Real home.  The nature of this Reality is so completely different; there is no language adequate to express the emotions and surroundings.  Time and language, as we know them, don’t exist there. Love and compassion are the only words I can think of, and they barely scratch the surface of what I felt and perceived around me. The vibration feelings are so strong and yet totally incomprehensible at our physical (or perceptual) level.  It was a perfectly normal feeling not to be in a physical body.

– Filiesha L. NDE Http://www.nderf.org/filiesha_l_probable_nde.htm

 

If life on earth is an illusion, does that mean then that what we call death is an escape from illusion? Or is death itself an illusion?

Death in that instance is a glorious moment; a wonderful experience. Now the soul can return to its natural form; its normal state. There is an incredible lightness; a sense of total freedom; a limitlessness. And an awareness of Oneness that is at once blissful and sublime.

– Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 3, Chapter 8, Hampton Roads, Charlottesville, VA, 1998

 

A Course in Miracles

The theme of the material world being unreal is found in the popular book, A Course in Miracles. Several passages refer to the illusion of our perceptions. All such references and all the topics touched on so far are summarized in one place in A Course in Miracles: Lesson 132; “I loose the world from all I thought it was.”

Some excerpts illustrate this point:

• Healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world.
• What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? And what can save the world except your Self? Belief is powerful indeed. The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth.
• Yet is salvation easily achieved, for anyone is free to change his mind, and all his thoughts change with it. Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change your mind means you have changed the source of all ideas you think or ever thought or yet will think
• The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real.
• There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source.
• There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source.

– A Course in Miracles, Lesson 132.

 

Conclusion

All of the ideas discussed here argue that there is no physical reality. One of the best sources for this discussion comes from author Gary R. Renard. He wrote a book designed to help us all to overcome this illusion. He ties this escape to complete forgiveness. Forgive yourself and forgive those who you think have sinned against you and you can return your mind to your true Self.

Now it’s time to forgive yourself for dreaming this whole mess in the first place. If nothing’s happened – and if the Course teaches anything, it’s that nothing’s happened – then you’re innocent. Thus as you forgive your brothers and sisters, your mind realizes simultaneously that you are forgiven.

–          The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Chapter 7, The Laws of Forgiveness, Hay House, 2004.

 

The final word, in my humble opinion, also comes from A Course in Miracles:

“And the last to be overcome is death.” Of course! Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation’s final goal; the end of all illusions.

– A Course in Miracles, Manual for Teachers; 27, What is Death? (7).

Obama care and the Flag Wavers

What are the right-wing GOP and evangelist flag wavers so afraid of when it comes to ObamaCare? Is it possible that this program might actually HELP people?

I can see money-worshipers being opposed to the program, but when flag-waving Christians oppose health care it makes me wonder where they get their motivation.

MY bible includes a lesson called the Good Samaritan.

MY bible advises “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
MY bible has a quote from Jesus: “As you treat the least of these, my brothers, you are treating me.”

Funny – they want to spend $$ trillions on war, but nothing on programs that would actually benefit our citizens. Go figure. Maybe they are chicken.

The Highest Quest

The best endeavor man can engage in is to seek within to find God, and in discovering that inner power begin to see the divine in your fellow man.
Seeking for the devil in your brother is at the opposite end of the spiritual spectrum.

Look for the divine in your neighbor.

On Spiritual Bankruptcy and the Faith in Guns

Those who rely on guns and bullets to “save” them are filled with fear. They believe their brothers are out to get them, and that there is no loving Creator to protect them.

 

Starting at the very highest vibration, pure energy, we can barely grasp the magnitude of creation. Yet, this is our source. Physicists might call it the Big Bang, and theologians might call it God, but all agree; this is what we are made of.

If you slow that energy down it becomes matter. That’s what Einstein’s formula summarizes, E = MC². The “C” in that equation is the speed of light. Energy equals matter speeded up. Conversely, matter is energy slowed down.

The key to appreciating pure energy is to recognize that it is the same as love. This love is not the fleeting, lust-driven passion which passes for romance, but rather the bond between a mother and child; the faith of a father towards his family, or the creative birthright of an artist for his masterpiece. The great psychic, Edgar Cayce, declared one definition of God as electromagnetism; the force that bonds and unifies all of creation.

Human beings, as they grow in faith and evolve spiritually, will literally and figuratively raise their vibrations to once again reach those levels of love and understanding where they recognize their connectedness to their Creator and all of creation. Enlightenment becomes a re-membering  of our family: the fatherhood of God and the subsequent brotherhood of mankind.

Energy, like love, when slowed down, cooled off, and separated out, becomes dense and lifeless. There is a loss of connection, a weakening of the bonds.

Metals are very heavy materials. This is what guns are made of. They are at the low end of the spectrum of energy. Their density and their function are no accident. Their purpose is to kill things, to make them the opposite of life.

Lead is most dense. Bullets, aside from target practice, are designed to cause such massive biological damage that life becomes impossible. Those who put their faith in guns tend to favor hollow-point bullets that kill more effectively, the very basest of functions.

Those who rely on guns and bullets to “save” them are filled with fear. They believe their brothers are out to get them, and that there is no loving Creator to protect them. Love is scarce here. Instead of trusting in a benevolent and caring universe they put all their hopes in hardware and the illusion that killing is somehow a form of salvation. The only question left to answer is “Who do we kill first?”

Contrast these lost and hate filled souls with the enlightened Children of God. In the spirit-awakened mind we are all brothers and all are eager to serve the will of the Father in heaven. Their mission is to bring more life and abundance. They have taken to heart the words from the Bible: “God is Love, and he who dwells in Love dwells in God, and God in him.”

 

The Urantia Book as the New Bible

The Urantia Book as the New Bible

For the seeker curious about our role in the universe, The Urantia Book is literally a godsend. It has four parts. Part I covers the Central and Superuniverses; Part II describes our Local Universe; Part III gives the History of Urantia (Earth); and Part IV details the Life and Teachings of Jesus.

That last section features 775 pages detailing the life and teachings of Jesus. Those familiar with biblical stories will be pleased with the exquisite detail and spiritual amplifications of his teachings and travels. At the same time, these chapters fill in much of the missing episodes in the life of Christ. There are descriptions of his childhood and the awakening to his identity as the Son of God and his role in the salvation of mankind. Moreover, The Urantia Book completes missing periods and events not covered in the Christian Bible. The expanded revelation includes his time with an Indian merchant and his son as they travel to Rome, and his tour of the Mediterranean which started in his 28th year. It reveals many travels and lectures during the years prior to his preaching career. Most significantly, this book expands upon the many levels of spiritual and moral teachings that distinguish the Bible as the Word of God.

The Urantia Book, sometimes called the Urantia Papers or The Fifth Epochal Revelation, is a spiritual and philosophical book that discusses God, Jesus, science, cosmology, religion, history, and destiny. It originated in Chicago, Illinois, sometime between 1924 and 1955.

It makes a compelling case for the link between heavenly hosts and the spiritual evolution of man. It fits nicely into the mold of our great world religions, taking the principles passed down through the ages and setting the stage for the next great leap in the understanding of our place in the universe.
The Urantia Book, first published by Urantia Foundation in 1955, claims to have been presented by celestial beings as a revelation to our planet, Urantia.

The writings in The Urantia Book instruct us on the genesis, history, and destiny of humanity and on our relationship with God the Father. They present a unique and compelling portrayal of the life and teachings of Jesus. They open new vistas of time and eternity to the human spirit, and offer new details of our ascending adventure in a friendly and carefully administered universe.

The Urantia Book offers a clear and concise integration of science, philosophy, and religion. Those who read and study it believe that The Urantia Book has the capacity to make a significant contribution to the religious and philosophical thinking of people worldwide.

The Urantia Book is not a “religion” per se. It builds upon the religious heritages of the past and present, encouraging a personal, living religious faith.

Readers around the world have told us that reading The Urantia Book has profoundly affected them and often changed their lives. It has inspired them to reach new levels of spiritual growth and enhanced their sense of the value of human life.

– Urantia Foundation.

One of the most surprising revelations in The Urantia Book is the role of celestial beings in the spiritual guidance and material uplifting of the human race. These angels, guides, and ministering helpers are being used to uplift the human, both ethically and physically. These helpers are often mistaken for extraterrestrial visitations. These entities, in fact identify themselves as authors to papers which comprise The Urantia Book.

The book and its publishers do not name a human author. Instead, it is written as if directly presented by numerous celestial beings appointed to the task of providing an “epochal” religious revelation. For each paper, either a named celestial being, an order of being, or a group of beings is credited as its author.
– Wikipedia.

The Christian Bible is revered as the Word of God. Much of that well-deserved reverence comes from the fact that anyone reading it can sense a certain resonance, at the soul level, that this is something important, powerful, and uplifting. There is an immediate appreciation that these words are something inspired, revealed from the spirit world. Anyone reading The Urantia Book is immediately struck with that same sense of awe, reverence, and respect. This is truly a revelation for our new age.

Many religious leaders express resistance to the idea that a new book could eclipse the 2000-year old Bible. A real truth-seeker however must be open to the concept that God would speak to us in modern times as clearly and forcefully as He did thousands of years ago. Despite the resistance, the time is approaching when the whole world recognizes The Urantia Book as the “New Bible.”

Budget Plan

Romney-Ryan budget plan for America

New book on aliens and hybrids; the spiritual dimension.

Taken from the cover of the book, “Alien Hybrid Agenda:”

“Alien Hybrid Agenda explores the spiritual dimension of contact with extraterrestrials. A major crisis is about to hit the earth. We will soon witness the collapse of physical structures, institutions, and governments. Although there will be massive destruction and emotional disruption, the catastrophe will lay the groundwork for rebuilding at the soul level. Just when you think only a miracle will save you, indeed, a miracle will. This salvation will be in the form of a vast army of humanoid creatures who will guide us to the next higher spiritual level. You will recognize the creatures as a hybrid of human and extraterrestrial interbreeding. They will create schools of instruction for our advancement. They will also prepare us with guidance and revelation. This book is one of those guides.”

Available on Amazon:

Hunger Games 2012

Hunger Games 2012

If Right-Wing Women Ruled the World

What would happen if right-wing women ruled the world? Imagine if Sarah Palin or religious fanatics took over. Imagine if they took a strict interpretation of the biblical law against the “spilling of seed,” and men were not allowed to touch themselves. Oh, then you’d hear a howl from men and a great upwelling of angst!

Well then, maybe you will have an inkling of the feeling women have when a bunch of angry old white men (i.e., the GOP) try to dictate to women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. To wit: Senate challenger Todd Akin and his remarks on “legitimate rape.”