Regarding How to Pray: THEOLOGY IS TECHNIQUE: SOME POINTS ABOUT PRAYER AND CAUSATIVE IMAGINING

With manifesting, people want practical. Pragmatic. A cookie-cutter recipe: "Just follow these steps, and it will turn out right every time." We find something doable and it's like, "Oh, wow, here's the key to the magic power. With this I can cause the things I want." But Abdullah was talking the Law and Neville the Promise. These are elements of God. Theology. Philosophy. These are much less easy to peg down than "sit crossed-legged with your back straight, breath through this nostril, then that nostril, and say 'OM.'"

Pursuing causation is like baking a cake, but it is the theology that is the technique. It is philosophy based; what you know about God and how you apply it in your life. I recently had a labored exchange with an anonymous commenter who simply wanted to get what she wanted by imagining (just like anybody else). Her problem was that she could not imagine like Neville said to: "What I was hoping for (from The Becoming God blog) was to find the key to removing the block that prevents me from selective causative imagining."

She might have been in the right place, but she left in a huff when I said something John Calvinish. I wanted to tell her that the answer to her problem was, in a way, right in her letter. She had said, "I don't care about helping the Ineffable manifest itself. I don't care about intangible concepts. I'm not trying to be 'like him.' I just want to feel better. I did not choose to be alive. In fact, I'd rather not be if I had that choice. But here I am. And so, if I have to be here, I'd like to feel better. To feel happy. To experience what everyone else gets to. If that makes me petty, fine. If it makes me someone looking for a magic wand, I don't care . . . I'm not interested in becoming God or saving the world."

Not interested in God. Not interested in his interests. Do these present obstacles to prayer? I think they do. And I think they affect a great many who pursue Neville's causative imagining mechanistically, as a set technique. Causative imagining is attitudinal; it is of our inner nature--God in us. Ever hear of Jacob? It is the inner feeling that is the secret. The fuel for God's machine is mind-set, our love of God, and if we haven't that either intentionally or incidentally, the mechanism is not likely to run. All good gifts come from the Father of Lights, our Father in Heaven--the mind. (By the way, we do not become God; the point of the Bible, Moses' Success Manual, is that we ARE God: ignoranced bits of His consciousness, his organism . . . without division from him. When you are God, this is what you do.)

Neville studied the Bible seven days a week not to refine his technique of imagining, but to refine his knowledge of God.

God's good gifts are "Jethro." They were Moses' "father-in-law." God's jutting-over-the-brim super-abundance of blessings, the good stuff in life, are what evidences that God is our own, wonderful, human imagination ("When it works, you have found him"). Moses wondered what we wonder, "How do I get a good life, a successful, blessed life?" God answered him in Exodus 3:14, "My nature is Ahiyeh Ashur hiyeh," (my take on Alexander). If I may paraphrase: "It is my nature to become from imagining" (that's a lot closer to the literal meaning than "I SIMPLY AM THAT I AM"). God becomes what we want by our imagining (which is also his) when we want Him, which is what he wants. He wants himself in form, the Ineffable Manifest. He is the source AND the fulfillment. This is important, and it is why we have to follow the Golden Rule.

While we want simple, straightforward, and practical instructions, God's nature and value system is intrinsically involved in any "technique." We implement the Law which IS his nature. We do the doing as the operant power, but he is Power itself. So if the Bible can be likened to a Success Manual, the key to success is good theology, the accurate knowledge of God, IMPLEMENTED. By "accurate" I do not mean defined doctrine, I mean the application of that knowledge which is the love of God. Our love for him. Our appreciation, gratitude, adoration, praise, and thanksgiving himward. Even if we realize that there is no God outside ourselves, we must be head-over-heels in love with and appreciating him who is imagining us: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength." And have no other gods before him. Do not say anything bad about him. Honor him as your Father, your Lord. Because all we have, all we are, is him.

The main technique, the secret of imagining, is genuine love of God in our hearts. In our whole beings. For him, right here, as our imagination. He says, "Come unto Me. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn of me" (Matthew 11:28). That's the Big Guy, the Father as Jesus, who is the Holy Spirit within us. There is no distinction between the Ineffable Source, Its intelligence, Its wisdom, Its imagination, the Sender and the Sent, the Creator, Creation, and Manifestation. We all are one (and really, really big, though no-thing). There is so much to appreciate here! We HAVE everything! We ARE everything! We just don't know it. But we will. THAT is the fulfillment of the Scriptures we are destined to.

HE gives us rest. Rest is creation. Neville talked about the necessity of entering a sleepy, drowsy state bordering on sleep (but still in complete control of the thought faculties) for revising the day. As we fall asleep we break free from the facts of this world and are lifted above them by the flood of approaching sleep. We "float" above the illusion of facts, and they die to us as though we were on the ark of Noah. Floated above our conditioned states, we are free to mentally create new and different worlds, worlds we desire.

To get to the rest that is Noah, we need to go through the ANTEDILUVIAN PATRIARCHS (http://imagicworldview.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-antediluvian-patriarchs-as.html). There is no such rest as Noah until the PROCESS of the Antediluvian Patriarchs has been gone through. We are Adam, the individualized consciousness of God, dumbed-down by the ignorance of amnesia. We are sleeping, and we have a flesh side which has been corrupted in dream and a spiritual side which has been forgotten. The Antediluvian Patriarchs are a COURSE OF ATTITUDES AND PERCEPTIONS which leads from the weakness of sustitutionary religion (Enosh in the Bible) to a powerful, creative rest (Noah). This course is not secret; it has been in every Book of Genesis ever printed! But we have been too ignorant to translate their "names" as our natures and have robbed ourselves of the Bible's wisdom. The natures that are the patriarchs have to do with the recognition of God, humility, repentance, wildly praising him, submission, initiation, selflessness, and surrender/abdication. These sound a lot like Christian conversion, don't they? It is through this course of attitudes and perspectives that the creative rest is achieved in the inner man and the ride to the new, desired world is taken.

I hope you will read the Bible, read it mystically using discernment, hold onto the good, and follow the Golden Rule with patience and forbearance.
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Some other notes:

We are initially ignorant of the infinite power we inherently have, and even when we are aware of it, most of its exercise is beyond our senses.

God gives us desires which accord with his nature. These desires are his EXPANSION.

The ignorance that becomes ours with our being born into and living in this world is the Adversary.

What we NEED to do is to love God.

"First if all, you must know what you want." What good desire has God given you?

God judges us in that we, who are God, judge ourselves. Judge wisely.

Consciousness is the only reality. Consciousness is imagination. Belief is imagination. What is believed becomes manifest.

What we believe we are becomes manifest as our world.

We choose what we believe.

DO NOT IMAGINE WHAT YOU DO NOT WANT.

Imagine and believe what you do want.

In revising, forgive EVERYTHING of the day. Let it die. Consider it ELIMINATED--dead--consumed.

Believe that you are in the state of having what you wanted.

Imagine what will happen or how it will be after you have received what you want. Choose some small action consequential to the state of its HAVING BEEN RECEIVED earlier; something you might remember fondly and replay in your thoughts as you go to sleep tonight.

What would you remember fondly and relive in your mind as you fall asleep?

For example: If you now HAVE the job you desired because you RECEIVED a promotion to that job, you might fall asleep recounting fondly and with proud satisfaction the congratulations your friends and family gave you, how they shook your hand and hugged you and expressed joy and pride with you. Go to sleep fondly replaying that SUBSEQUENT scene in your mind as though it were your present and existing reality. That is, imagine it all happening over and over again until it takes on all the tones of reality and FEELS REAL.

"But it hasn't happened yet!" you protest. Yes it has. You are there. If God has given you the desire in your heart, he has imagined it, and now you have imagined it, and you are real. If you experience it in your inner person, where your inner person has gone, the outer person will certainly go. If you can revise the day you had into the day you wanted and fall asleep in it, you will have it.

http://imagicworldview.blogspot.com/2016/04/text-of-neville-goddards-how-to-really.html

On the Original Greek Book of Mark: The Messiah Spoke Aramaic

I do not doubt that Marqus, the author of the GREEK version of the Book of Mark, was a native Sanskrit-speaking Indian Buddhist Theraputta/Therapeut, or that he translated and applied Buddhist Gospels directly into Greek for the benefit of the Jews. That still does not make Greek the original language of the New Testament Book of Mark.

The Messiah spoke Aramaic. Gautama was born adjunct to the anointing coming upon Israel in the Season of Grace. The Jews had so corrupted their Gospel of Moses they could not understand it anymore. The Buddhist perspective was necessary to recover the Jews' original Mosaic core. Theirs recovered--in their own language and thought--was the bona fide original. The Greek Mark was a major contribution, because the anonymous Jewish author of the Aramaic Book of Mark did not recover the Mosaic perspective until he (or she!) had the input from the Buddhists, but the Buddhist input was only on the way to the inspired text in the "original" language, that of the Messiah, the spiritual Aramaic speaking Jews of the Season of Grace, the people who were the Messiah.

The Greek Book of Mark was not the inspired Word of God until the Messiah said it, and he said it in Aramaic. The New Testament's original language was Aramaic. The Greek was only going to it, and a great contribution it was. Thank you, Buddhists, for helping the Jews out. Marqus did a good job, but it is the anonymously written Aramaic translation of Mark which is the inspired text.

Siddhartha's Catalytic Crisis

If the CLT is correct, Mark and the other Gospels are Buddhist texts translated directly into Greek with Old Testament passages.

See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha

I was saying earlier that crisis is a catalyst for critical action. Crises are where we make major changes and take major turns in our lives. The bigger the crisis, the bigger the adjustment. This is telling us something. Then I noticed Nebuchadnasser's relationship to the Season of Grace. He so emphatically believed that he deserved the world that God actually gave it--the whole world--to him. Do you see the connection? Nebuchadnasser believed without a crisis the way we believe with a crisis. If we can achieve the confidence and assurance Nebby had (that God has?), then the any part of the world may be given to us.

Below is a short story from Buddha's life where he fell into a crisis and made a major discovery and took a major turn in his life. THE turn. From here within days he became THE Buddha. By the way, have you ever wondered how he and his associates had the desire to become buddhas before he ever became a buddha? What was their model? Noah. The mental state of Noah is buddha. That mental state is what all of this is about. The way to Noah, of course, is through the Antediluvian Patriarchs, who were not people but preparatory states which lead up to the state of Noah, as I have written.

"Siddhartha and a group of five companions led by Kaundinya are then said to have set out to take their austerities even further. They tried to find enlightenment through deprivation of worldly goods, including food, practising self-mortification. After nearly starving himself to death by restricting his food intake to around a leaf or nut per day, he collapsed in a river while bathing and almost drowned. A village girl named Sujata gave him some madhupayasa (a rice pudding now also known as kheer) after which Siddhartha got back some energy. Siddhartha began to reconsider his path. Then, he remembered a moment in childhood in which he had been watching his father start the season's ploughing. He attained a concentrated and focused state that was blissful and refreshing, the jhāna."

Siddhartha was in a crisis, but safe with his rice pudding, and perceived through it all effortlessly the blissful state he desired. A kind of odd package deal. Then he waited until it--the understanding--came to him.

Christianity is refined Buddhism and refined Judaism. Mark saw their core connection and synthesized them per the Theraputtic and therapeutic point of view, returning Judaism to its Buddhist heart. Christianity has nothing to do with believing in some man who walked in Israel two thousand years ago. It has to do with BEING the anointed, a Christ, THE Christ. Being called a Christian was not a purgative but an acclamation. These were people who were healing, casting out demons, raising the dead. They turned the worldviews of the people upside down: this is not a physical based world, but a consciousness, and God's Consciousness is the only reality.

"Christians" were awakened ones, buddhas. Buddhahood is not that unreachable, but it takes more than believing that a God separate from us was born as a man and died in our stead, and that we can be joined to him by faith and his forgiveness. Not that that is not a good start. It goes on into eliminating the separations and divisions between Him and us, to achieving the realization that He is become us and that we are Him. And learning to think as he thinks and do as he does and believe as he believes--to be awake and aware of BEING Him doing as we are doing. For all the Godhood is one . . . in Buddhahood.
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I wonder if "Noah" was the Elder and the source of both the Theraputta and the Therapeutae.

Regarding Mark's Being One of the Theraputta AND One of the Therapeutae: Etymologies

The first article below gives the basic idea I have been laboring under for some time, that Marqus, the author of the Book of Mark, was of the Indian Therapeutae. The second article offers some correction to the view, that the Theraputta and the Therapeutae were two similar but separate groups that became philosophically associated in Alexandria, Egypt.


From https://dharmafolk.wordpress.com/2008/07/26/therapeutic-etymology/

Therapeutic etymology
July 26, 2008 by Oz
*Disclaimer* I am not a linguist by any means. My lack of understanding of Pali, Greek, and possibly English validates any grain of salt thrown at this post. Put your Skeptics hat on, my friends.

Around 250 BCE, the Third Buddhist Council convened under the patronage of Asoka, emperor of the pan-Indian Mauryan empire. The council’s purpose was to expunge the heretical and false, including both the views of dhamma and monastics. The council compiled the teachings and rules that would be considered the “teachings of the Elders”, Theravada.¹

After the council had concluded, Asoka sent out missionaries on the behalf of the Theravadins to all parts of the known world, including the Hellenic world.

These missionairies would have been called the Sons of the Elders, Theraputta. Although there is little record, Asoka claims to have reached Egypt and Greece with the dhamma.

Some time later, an account is given by Philo of a monastic order existing in Egypt. His account, recorded around 10 CE, was of the Therapeutae, who were to also influence the formation of the Christian monastic order. While it is conjectured of their Jewish origins, some have also pointed to their Buddhist origins. The origin of the name of the monastic order is uncertain, whether it means “physician” in their case of the soul, or “servants” of God. However, one linguist points to the Therapeutae and notes that it is simply a hellenization of the Theraputta.²

And of course, the English word “Therapeutic” comes from this same Greek root. I just find it novel that the roots are so closely tied. Of course I am missing something and this could just be one strange, self-serving theory or a coincidence. Any linguists out there?

1. History of Buddhism in India. http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/india.html
2. Thundy, Zacharis P. “Religions in Dialogue: East and West meet.” and “Buddha and Christ: nativity stories and Indian traditions.”
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From https://www.christophertitmussblog.org/theravada-and-the-therapeutic

I engaged in some wishful thinking in a 10,000 word article I wrote for the last Dharma e-News titled “Is Psychotherapy a distant cousin of the Dharma.” I wrote: “The concept of ‘Therapy’ derives from ‘Theravada.” I should have written “The concept of ‘Therapy’ does not derive from ‘Theravada.'" See the background to my wishful thinking in the chapter "Theravadins and Therapeutae: Egyptian Buddhists," found in the book The Original Jesus: The Buddhist Sources of Christianity, Elmar R: Gruber and Holger Kerste. Published in 1995 by Element Books Limited Shaftesbury, Dorset SP7 8BP, UK.

Stefan Karpik in Totnes, Devon, England, and Hans Gruber, both highly knowledgeable in Pali, kindly engaged in some research into the origins of word therapy. They came to very similar conclusions.

Stefan e-mailed me: “The Oxford English dictionary gives the derivation of 'therapy' as from the Greek therapeia. Liddel and Scott’s Greek English Lexicon (1882 edition) gives therapeia being used as 'medical treatment' by Thucydides and Plato, who both died long before Asoka.

“Philo’s therapeutes is used by Plato (died 347BC) much earlier as meaning 'one who attends to the sick' or "worshipper'; Philo uses it in the latter sense. Even earlier still in around 700BC, Homer uses therapeuo as meaning 'to wait on, serve'.

“Wonderful though it would be for therapy to be derived from theravada, this does look like wishful thinking to me. Even earlier still in around 700BC, Homer uses therapeuo as meaning 'to wait on, serve'."

If Buddhist monks existed in Alexandria prior to Philo, they would have been, I’m sure, delighted to be called therapeutae like all other sects, as they would indeed resolve it into the Pali word theraputta, son of the Elders.

Hans Gruber in Hamburg, Germany, agreed with Stafan. He wrote: First, according to the German “Duden Etymological dictionary” therapeia (serving, caring), therapon (servant) and more specifically therapeutes (medical servant, nurse) are original Greek words. The term “therapeuta” cannot be “itself of Buddhist origin” or a “Hellenization of the Sanskit/Pali term Theravada”, as it is said in the book-excerpt (quote Z. P. Thundy).

But those Buddhist missionaries probably called themselves not only by the Pali term Theravadins, but also by the Pali term Thera-Putta (Sons of the Old Ones), as it is said in the book-excerpt. Therefore it is well possible that the ancient Greek term “therapeutes” for “professional healers” was also applied to them, simply because of that similarity of names and of course because of their high reputation as spiritual (self- and other-)healers.

Then it could well be the case that “only through the name given to this group did the word gain its well-known meaning in Greek”, as it is said in the book-excerpt, too. But this doesn´t mean that the word “therapist” stems from Theravada oder Theraputta. It stems from old Greek “therapeutes” which just sounds like “Theraputta”; and that Greek word only got more known in its meaning of “healers” through its application to the renowned “Theraputtas“.

Thank you Hans and Stefan. Three bow to your wise attention to the matter.
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See more on this puzzle at: http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/therapeutae_of_asclepius.htm

God's Building of an Imagic Structure

Having an imagic worldview does not mean I have a lot of answers, just a lot of questions with some place to go. I spend a lot of time in ponderment. Things need to fit properly together, and while I might not not know the categories, but I do know they are images of Him. So I am thinking, if Jesus Christ, the Messiah, was the spiritually anointed PEOPLE at the end of the Season of Grace, the seventy weeks of years between the commandment to rebuild the city and the Temple and its "moat" and the destruction of the second Temple, what is this large, historical epoch imagically?

I find two edifices or structures at the end of the Season: the Messiah who has been formed from the instruction of the teachers of right in anticipation of the coming Messiah; and the priests, scribes, Pharisees and political jerks who caused the Temple's destruction. Well, that is not all I find: I have the "unanswerable" rise of the Pagan, Babylonian king Nebuchadnasser by God Himself. Seriously, why would God promote this murderous egomaniac to be the head of gold and give him the whole world? I also have the birth of Gautama and the rise of Buddhism at the beginning of the Season of Grace; the missionary enterprise of Emperor Ashoka and the Thera putta throughout the Season; the Therapeutae of Egypt at the end, and the translation of the Buddhist Gospel by Mark.

Now, why would God give the whole world to Nebuchadnasser and require all nations to go along with him? His armies marched straight forward and destroyed everything in their path. Oh, gee, that is a lot like a prayer imagined in faith, isn't it? Maybe it starts with OUR egomaniacal desires, but God makes Himself known and receives honor. Jeremiah warned the Jews the way to success and life was to go along with the imagining of Nebuchadnasser that God brings to manifestation. This is causative imagining on a global scale.  The anointed Cyrus saw the writing on the wall, so to speak, and sent the Jews back to Jerusalem and the Temple to rebuild them, to manifest the Messiah.

Well, the Jews would need some help, because they so misunderstood their scriptures they would not be able to achieve the spirituality of Messiah. Enter Gautama and the Thera putta, the Sons of the Elder (Monk). These Buddhist missionaries brought spiritual understanding and healing ministries throughout the fertile crescent. Before the end of the Season of Grace, they met up with the Jewish (and Greek, Egyptian?) Therapeutae in Alexandria, Egypt, and learned from them the Gospel of Moses the way MOSES meant it. "Oh! Jesus, your Jewish guys don't even understand their own scriptures! There isn't a dualistic, separate-from-us God out there somewhere. He has become us, Man."

So in the milieu of Jewish culture at the end of 490 years getting the Temple--man--ready for Messiah, Mark wrote his Gospel about the Messiah the people WERE. He translated almost verbatim his BUDDHIST texts into Greek (see CLT), along with pertinent Old Testament passages he had learned: "The Beginning reveals the Life-giving, Living Branch, Son of Godhood" (my take on Vic Alexander's Mark 1 notes, which harken back to Genesis 1:1). Just as in Genesis 1, that Life-giving, Living Branch is God, the Son of God--US!! Imagining.

In Nebuchadnasser's golden head--imagination--God made a global application of his biblical, spiritual truth, a global structure of his imagic revelation. Imagination takes over and changes things. Go with the flow. And in it's fulfillment His manifestation, the anointing, is spread. Yet this revelation is missed by many and is misunderstood, leading to destruction AGAIN.

The imagined becomes manifest, and then in our ignorance it disappears. Learn from Mark and Gautama the four noble truths and the eight BASIC FACTS ABOUT IMAGINING, the keys to success.

Second Private Offline To Anonymous

At least part of your problem, Anonymous, is that you are not reading. Not really. I know you can read the words all right, but you are not getting their intended meaning--how the author intends the words to be understood. Yes, you read what we say, but you are not listening. Maybe this is an artifact of having been alone so much and not getting the requisite social interaction to develop the sense of meanings behind words.

You seem to think I am speaking to you personally in my blog. I am addressing my whole audience, limited as it may be. 'You' is general you, the Philly "yous guys." I referred to you specifically only as an example of the kind of problem I get all the time in comments and e-mails. How could I call you out publicly when you are entirely anonymous? I did not say YOUR character stinks, I said OUR character generally stinks when compared to God's. Read what is actually said. The character of the person(s) who traumatized you certainly stank.

I have been blessed with a career and environment which allowed me to read much and listen much. I did not ask for or imagine it to get it; I received it as a gift from God because of what He is doing, for believing what He says, for holding onto what He is doing. In all my reading I found the answer I believe you (all y'all) are looking for in Neville's writings and lectures, so I refer to him often in my blog ABOUT THE BECOMING GOD. Neville tells you, Anonymous, and I tell you, but you refuse to listen: We, all of us together, are of the one God who is becoming. Like it or not, none of us gets the magic without the Magician: "When it works, you have found Him." No Him, no works.

In His becoming, everything good and evil is Him, and the totality of everything is, all at once, him. For there to be change, THERE HAS TO BE DESTRUCTION OF THE PRESENT. This looks a lot like Time. The present, whatever it is--good or evil--has to END. THAT means forgiveness has to take place; real forgiveness, even for the most evil and cruel and heinous afflictions. We do not say the victims of crimes imagine them, but that the crimes were imagined. The victims' part is ignorance in imagining, in being inactive and unspecific, letting the oar sit idle in the water. If you are carrying sin around with you, even someone else's sin, you(s guys) are a slave to the sin. To imagine the future you desire as your actual present, you have to consume to utter annihilation the up-til-now-contrary present, which means forgiving to the utmost the past SO THAT IT DOES NOT EXIST ANYMORE. This is the meaning of the name 'Jesus,' "God Saving (us by forgiving the impeding present)". You cannot be of a double mind and expect to get anywhere.

I do not know how else to say it: the key to your desires is forgiveness. Holding onto the past, however significant it WAS, does not do you any good NOW. Let it die and move on to what SHOULD BE. Pick up the oar and row.

God bless.

A Private Offline With Anonymous

In my e-mail I get the notice, "Anonymous has left a new comment on your post, 'Are You Expecting Magic or a Magician?'" Because it comes from Blogger.com's comment section, there is no e-mail return address, and I have no way to reply except through the comments section also. My blog is not a place for extended conversations, airing personal grievances, or counseling. If you really want to discuss your problems (I can offer you no professional help), I have an e-mail address (imagicworldview@aol.com) in my profile.

Are You Expecting Magic or a Magician?

I keep trying to find a way to reach people like Anonymous who cannot figure out how to do what they do naturally. She and many others say they try to do what Neville Goddard says to do--all the details of the prayer technique Abdullah gave him--and either find it laborious, or they cannot visualize, or they cannot imagine what they have not experienced . . . or whatever.

So many seem to expect that if they "do the process," they will receive the magic. I am not sure it works that way. The out-picturing of the inner person is natural (I do not call it out-picturing, myself; I consider it a person's out-flow). Our lives are already that, which is our problem. Our character generally stinks because we are so unlike God, and thus the flow. The remedy is to be like God in our own character. We do not become like Him by adopting a moral code, but by being moral. Sure, it can be codified, but code can be done without the character. The deal is, have the character and the code will take care of itself.

Hence reading the Bible to determine the character of God--OUR INNATE, NATURAL, AND PROPER CHARACTER. Inside, we war against the character of Amelek--not an outward tribe, but an inner darkness of character. Inside, we reject the character of pigs. We war inwardly against stinginess, unfairness and iniquity; and inwardly we hold to the love of God and the love of His Manifestation, Man.

So it is not magic we are too receive, but the magician. From Him all the goodness will flow.
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So as not to deceive you or mislead you, we must consider too that following such goodness Daniel wound up in a lions' den, Jeremiah in a pit, and Isaiah was sawn in two. These indicate to me that we take this goodness from here to a higher level, that it is truly "not of this world." God's character and nature are our door to that higher experience. Behold, the magician is knocking on the door.

A Pair of Shoes and a Broken Leg

Two anecdotes I heard long ago:

A father took his son to get new shoes. The father had been to a healing meeting, and people were being healed. On the way to the next meeting with his son, who had one leg shorter than the other, the father stopped to buy him shoes to wear home. And the boy wore them home.


At a church retreat, a child broke his leg in a baseball game. The counselor told the boy, "Son, we can call for an ambulance and get you patched up all right, or you can have your healing." The boy said, "I will have my healing."

They prayed for the boy and the counselor told him to get up, but when the boy put any pressure on the leg, it would not hold. They prayed repeatedly, and the boy got up on his good leg repeatedly, but the broken leg would not hold him. The counselor paused and listened to God for awhile. What are we doing wrong, he wondered. Oh. "When you start to get up next time, son, USE YOUR BAD LEG." He did, and it held.

If Crisis is Catalytic, How Do We Get the Catalyst's EFFECT Without the Crisis?

Aye, there's the rub: to get the catalytic effect of a crisis, you need the crisis. Well, no, we do not. We need to expand our imagination. There is first of all the Law of Reversibility. While we expect cause to bring about effect, we can also expect effect (properly imagined) to being about its cause.

In crisis, it is necessary to imagine the desired effect, the RESULT we want, rather than what is not wanted. Can we put another layer on this, and imagine what result we would want IF there was a crisis? "IF there were such and such crisis, I would want and think and desire like what? Were I NOT to think of what I do not want, what would I imagine?"

This is not to dwell upon the imagining of a crisis, to plan it out in all its detail. God forbid. But we can use crisis, real or imagined, to stimulate the imagining of what effect IS desired. This is the plot of every story -- some problem has to be overcome.

What problems do you have to overcome? WHAT IS THE END RESULT THAT WOULD BE DESIRABLE? Do not worry about the problem. Do not worry about what you are going to do about it. IMAGINE THE END RESULT, AND IMAGINE IT AS THOUGH IT WERE YOUR PRESENT REALITY. Revision your day, at night as you go to sleep, as ending in the state you desire. You have received and now HAVE that situation, whatever it may be. Learn of God, and let it be good.

Neville Goddard and God's Catalytic Crisis

Not a doctrine here, but an interesting observation, I think. Anonymous mentioned in my April 23 post that Neville did not always use the Law because he was generally satisfied with things the way they were. Said she:

"I keep churning out more of the same, and I can't seem to get control of it. Neville said he didn't use the Law all the time BECAUSE he was generally happy with his life as it was. He used it in moments of "crisis" as he put it--when he wanted to shift something. Well, that's great for him, but I'm not generally happy. How do I get me to a place of contentment so I can ride the wave of out-picturing to more of it?"

My observation is that crisis is catalytic to the operation of the Law. I do not know if this is intentional or incidental. The last ship before the holidays was coming up, and Neville had to get more intense. The last ship that would make his May meetings made him focus clearly. Jacob's mad brother was coming, so Jacob wrestled with the Man. Crisis makes for imperative, solidifies cause--an abstract need becomes a fact, a stone that can rock your world UNLESS you shift it.

The Ineffable desired form and entered a concentration to create that form, to real-ize it. Maybe our focus in crisis is more akin to that concentration. For us, desperation drives intensity, clarity, focus, and singleness of mind. The Day of YHWH is time of terror, despair, and VISITATION.

Think of the way you focus in a state of desperation, when chips are down in a crisis. When it is do or die. I know students who let themselves get right up to the deadline before they get busy on their assignments. But when they HAVE TO get it done, they are focused like razors are sharp and do their finest. They don't sleep, but the papers are on time. Urgency is tonic. Learn of God and be desperate in your love of Him. Be desperate in your work for Him. Be desperately happy. Idle effort does not pay much; heartfelt, urgent desire does. It is desire and clarity of focus that work, not effort. The Big Guy said, "You shall find Me when you search for Me with your whole heart." Well, I guess maybe it is a doctrine.

The Holy Trinity and the Becoming One of Exodus 3:14

I hope you have as much fun as I do thinking about Exodus 3:14, the most important verse in the Bible. I have translated the three word "name" (nature) of God in it a dozen different ways over time, yet always the same. The nature in verse 14 is so deep and complex that Vic Alexander DOES NOT translate it:
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14. And God said to Moses, "Ahiyeh-Ashur-hiyeh,"* and He said, "this is what you will say to the Children of Israel, 'Ahiyeh has sent me over to you.'"

3:14 Lit. Aramaic: (1) "Ahiyeh": "the One Who Comes in His Coming," the absolute sense of "the One Who Comes." (2) "Ashur": "the Beginning Spark that kindles the Fire" or "the Light." (3) "Hiyeh": "His Coming." (4) "Ahiyeh" and "hiyeh" are related forms of the same word. They mean more than "the Coming." They signify also the "Eternal Presence," "the Ever-Present," and the "Never Ceasing Intent of the Comer to Come." (5) In the same way, "Ashur" signifies "the Uncreated Creator who Creates Everything from Nothing." (6) Also, "Ashur" signifies: "Above-the-Flames."
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Victor gives us instead explanations of the words used, for how could any translation do them justice? I do not know Hebrew or Aramaic grammar or syntax, but I can pick apart some of the elements and construct some of the meaning. I find every little bit inspiring! Stirring. Moving. Illuminating! And a bit frightening. Frightening because of the high expectancy. These three words are the Gospel of the Bible, of all scripture. The rest is commentary.

The three words, Ahiyeh, Ashur, and hiyeh, express ONE FACT. All exist for this one fact, which is that It--whatever It is--is becoming. And It--whatever It is--is a lot of people; or if you would, a lot of Gods. Whoa, whoa, whoa; put down those sticks and torches. These are the Trinity: Ahiyeh is (probably) first person singular, Ashur is the Aramaic name of the second person, and hiyeh is third person singular--the One God. Chill.

It is more interesting how these three all go together. The back-story is that Moses contemplated thoughts of his king priest's "jutting over" (Jethro), and in deep meditation (the mountain of God at Khooriv) the message of YHWH, "the Lord," appeared to him as Ashur, the chief God of the Assyrians, the Creator. The Jews come from Abraham, an Assyrian. It appears to be Ashur who calls to Moses from the sun disc in Moses' vision.

The pictograph of Ashur is a warrior king standing in the disc of the sun with symbols of his power and/or authority with wings of flames of glory surrounding him. It looks like a bird with guy in a circle for its body. If you know ancient religions, it is Bel--Nimrod--in the sun, the symbol of his father Cush. Yeah, it makes me wonder, too. I write them off as symbolic values of something Moses was familiar with, illustrations representative of deeper and greater spiritual truths and relationships.

Anyway, Ahiyeh, I believe, means "I come in my coming in the absolute sense." It is His nature, the Ever-Present's nature, to do this. He has a never ceasing intent to come, or if you would, to BECOME. To BE. Ashur, the warrior king Life-giving Living Branch, means "the Beginning Spark--the Light above the Flames--that kindles the Fire: the Uncreated Creator Who Creates Everything from No-Thing" He is in the sun because all life comes from the sun. No sun; no life. Substitute the Ineffable for the sun and Ashur for its power of life: the Ineffable's IMAGINATION.

"The rise of Assyria brings into prominence the national god Ashur, who had been the city god of Assure, the ancient capital. When first met with, he is found to be a complex and mystical deity, and the problem of his origin is consequently rendered exceedingly difficult. . . . (O)thers prefer the renderings "Holy", "the Beneficent One", or "the Merciful One"; while not a few regard Ashur as simply a dialectic form of the name of Anshar, the god who, in the Assyrian version, or copy, of the Babylonian Creation myth, is chief of the "host of heaven", and the father of Anu, Ea, and Enlil." Huh.

The last factor is hiyeh, "his coming (or becoming)." His who? "I, Ashur, the Ineffable's Imagination, am his becoming." It could be the Ineffable's coming, or it could be Jethro's. Or it could be that Jethro IS the Ineffable's (be)coming. It was to Jethro that Moses was hauling up sheep to the altar. Is this prayer? Success in prayer? Perhaps it is to teach us the content of the universe, that consciousness is the only reality. Said Neville Goddard, "When it works, you have found HIM, Eil Shaddai, the Almighty, the Imagination of the Infinite and Eternal Ineffable Most High--your own wonderful, human imagination" (emphasis and exaggeration mine).

So in Ahiyeh we have the Ineffable's ever intending to (be)come; Its agency Ashur, the Imagination; and hiyeh, Its Manifestation, Jethro. The Trinity is only in the ancient Aramaic. Interesting.

What I hope most is that you will come to understand that 'Egypt' is theb darkness in your own mind and 'Israel' are your thoughts. The exodus is for your head to get free of what enslaves it. Your reading the story is Moses and the truth in it is God speaking to you. There are millions and millions and millions of testimonies throughout the ages that the story is true. We are called to be free in the Ineffable's becoming. If you find that too confining, you just don't have much imagination.

The Commandments are to Children

I was reading Victor Alexander's version of the Ten Commandments (www.v-a.com/bible/) and was struck by his translation of verse 14: "Do not fornicate." Every one else has it, "You shall not commit adultery." I realized that it, the Ten Commandments, is not a moral code but directives to children. "You shall love the Lord . . . " your Father. Do not say anything bad about your dad, learn about him, honor the parents he gave you, don't lie, don't covet, don't fornicate. These are the words of a loving father to a son or daughter to bring them up to be like him.

"Jesus Christ" is About God Becoming Manifest as People . . .

. . . And people becoming God's manifestation--THE Manifestation. When I hear a "prophet" speaking of Jesus as a singular, unique, historical individual, "When Jesus was born," or "In Jesus' day," or "When Jesus comes again," I know that he or she hasn't a freaking clue as to who or what Jesus Christ is. In the day they suppose Jesus was a man, he was a PEOPLE, the spiritually-anointed people at the end of the Season of Grace who were prepared by the teachers of righteousness to welcome their King . . . who was inside them. They were scattered at the destruction of Jerusalem, but the preparation and the anointing are the way to go.

'Jesus' is "God (in the action of) Saving," the Life-giving, Living Branch. The 'Branch' is the Spirit or Consciousness of the Ineffable, Its Imagination.

'Christ' is that Living Branch's action in Man, which action, by the way, is THE Manifestation.

Do what you can to prepare yourself and others.

Adam Sleepeth Still

Neville Goddard pointed out that the Bible said that a deep sleep was caused upon Adam, and it never says that he woke up. Yes, the woman was brought to him . . . in the deep sleep. They were placed in the Garden . . . in the deep sleep. Cast out . . . in the deep sleep. Christ is God trying to get us to wake up . . . from the deep sleep.

Magnetic Compass of Experience

I believe there is a "magnetic" quality to experience that acts as a compass theologically. I have many times heard that we should not base our theology on experience, but if our experience does not align with theology, why even have the theology? For example, I have encountered demons, have even cast them out of myself, and like many other Christians have studied much about them; but my experience with them has indicated that they are not what they purport to be. They are real, but not like our fantasy. They appear to be active facets of consciousness, and their monstrous qualities illustrative communication (God's way of expressing disfavor, along with allowing ruin).

It was my real-life experience with a demon that led me to Christ, because if it was real, then he must be also. It was utterly convincing, and indicative of which way I was going. (Thanks, God, for the note.) I accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior in a small, Pentecostal fellowship because I then believed the Bible was true, but the guy next to be went cosmic in tongues, pointing me toward more. THEN I was attacked with temptations in my ignorance--bad direction--THEN, repenting, baptized in the Holy Spirit--good direction.

I had the EXPERIENCE of seeing Jesus crucified and hearing him speak to me AUDIBLY. In my imagination, but real nevertheless. I WATCHED my shorter arm grow out a scant half-inch or so, but I WATCHED it--physically right there in front of my face. And, of course, I have had the unpleasant fruits of failure--experiences brought about by being unlike God in character and doing what I was not supposed to do (or not doing what I was supposed to do). All these point directions, toward or away, like a compass.

This tells me there is a real world there, wherein real forces push for and against the one purpose of a Creator, and the whole is CONSCIOUSNESS. IMAGINATION. Even the physical is subject to spirit--consciousness. That is why we pray for healing--wholeness is conceptual, based on BELIEF--and checking my compass gives me belief.

Demonic Spirits of Influence

I have previously mentioned a "demon" I encountered in an occult meditation. It was this spirit's reality that clued me in to the fact that the world the Bible talks about is the real one . . . and that I was going the wrong way in it! So it was a demon, ironically, that got me saved. Inasmuch as I do not now believe in demons (even the ones I am now dealing with), I need to explain to you why I don't and what is going on with them.

The Ineffable, the incomprehensible Most High from Whom everything comes, is becoming manifest. It wants Its Self to have form. That is a tall order even for a being who already is everything. Think of it--the Eternal, Almighty, incomprehensible and unimaginable Source wants appearance on par with Its invisible Self! You can see the disparity: we ARE its present manifestation, and we are NOWHERE NEAR Its present Glory.

We--"God"--were created and are destined to the end of being the Ineffable Most High's perfect manifestation, but we are not yet perfect. Its--the Eternal's--perfection has been generated and refined from eternity past. That ineffable character is our goal. Its nature has to be built in us, cultivated: our free-will has to find the right choice. Becoming the Eternal is a long process.

The Ineffable Most High has imagined Its final, manifest state, which is Christ risen, from the beginning. We--"God"--are that Christ on the way to becoming fully generated and the Father's perfect manifestation. ESSENTIAL to that generation is our present IGNORANCE. The amnesia is not a mistake, an oversight, or a glitch. Our not knowing is simulates the Divine's free-will.

The world is futile, and we are ignorant, by design. The Ineffable imagined this arrangement into existence for a purpose: nothing instigates mental growth like desperation. Like all divine thoughts, the arrangement is active in doing all His will. It is not going to return void to Him, you know? This does not make it horrible little demonic critters, but a principle. E.g., Mom wanted me to go to church with her on Sundays, but the PRINCIPLE of demonic influence said, "Stay home and read the comics." I'll bet you can find a few examples of bad choices you have made in your life, too. Also, we can see this demonic influence working in whole groups of people.

Fortunately, demonic influence is thought of as a means, not an end. It exists in the context of our becoming CONSCIOUS OF BEING GOD. Our ignorance and demonic influence are things to be overcome. It is our success that is desired by the Most High. Fortunately also, we know these things from the Bible and our own life experiences. While we are still stuck with free-will choice to exercise self-control and faith to achieve that success, bless God we have that self-control and measure of faith and the confidence that the Most High wills us to succeed.

Whether near or far, demonic influences are subject to consciousness, to our awareness of being Lord over them. Be aware of being the high side of the Mind that is YHWH. We are never subject to demons, but suffer in our ignorance and lack of faith. They are only manifestations of a principle, and it is ours to determine the acceptability of its manifestations. Life is compelled by our consciousness.

FOR THE CONGREGATION

An interesting video found on YouTube.com. I hope it is accessible to you:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3EiZVY1Cgsk

Having Mercy On God: The Bible Specifically Says, "No Dualism!" Mark 12:29-34 (=Deut. 6:4) There Is Absolutely No Room For Any Separation

What I am now seeing in scripture is that we are to help God become fully manifest by helping his manifestation become fully like him. This is our being merciful to God. We can do this because we are him. We have been ignorant of this fact, and pretty much everyone else is still ignorant of this fact. Our part is to inform everyone of the fact that they are God; that is, to convert them not to an ism, but to the fact.

One of the "merciful to God" scriptures I found, Mark 12:30, is in a passage that precludes dualism--the notion that God is separate and divided from us and that his nature is wholly other than ours. It concludes that there is ONLY God AND NO ONE ELSE. If there is ONLY God, then we are also God and everyone else is God, too. We are to convince everyone of the NON-dual nature of the universe and guide them to assume God's character, the expression of his being, as the expression of their being.

This is the portion of Mark 12 which contains that conclusion in verse 32 (Victor Alexander's translation from the ancient Aramaic):

28. And one of the scribes came near and heard them arguing, and he saw that he answered them beautifully, and he asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?"
29. Eashoa said to him, "The first of all the commandments, hear, O, Israel, the Maryah Allaha is the only Maryah.*
30. "And that you love* (that you mercy to) your Maryah Allaha with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first commandment.
31. "And the second one that is like it, that you love your best friend* (best man/the one who is close to you) like yourself. There is no greater commandment than these."
32. The scribe said to him, "Beautifully, my master*, you said truly, that He is one and there is no one but Him.*
33. "And that a person should love him with all one's heart and with all one's mind and with all one's soul and with all one's strength, and to be merciful to your best friend as yourself, this is greater than all the sacrifices* and offerings."
34. Eashoa then saw him repeat the answer wisely, and he replied and said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of Allaha." And no one* dared to question him again.

*12:29 Lit. Ar. idiomatic expression: "The Maryah Allaha, Maryah one he is."
*12:30 Lit. Ar. idiomatic figure of speech: "That you mercy to."
*12:31 Lit. Ar. idiomatic expression: "Best Man," or "the one that is close to you."
*12:32 Lit. Aramaic: "Rabbi."
*12:32 Lit. Ar. idiomatic expression: "No others after Him," ... the holy Spirit witnessing
that Eashoa the Messiah is Allaha.
*12:33 Lit. Ar. id.: "Holocausts."
*12:34 Lit. Ar. idiomatic figure of speech: "No human [being.]"
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Note that verse 32's wise answer parallels Deuteronomy 6:4's e'had (one made up of many): YHWH is--e'had--one. "He, the e'had YHWH, is one, and there is no one but Him." Therefore, because there is no one but Him, THERE IS NO ONE BUT HIM. Being merciful to Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength MUST include being merciful to our best friend--the one who (whoever) is close to us.

My reading is confirmed in verse 33: "This is greater . . ."--"This," not "These." The two are actually ONE commandment united in the being of God! He IS our neighbor. Getting the one close to us on board with becoming the Manifestation of God that God desires is our being merciful to God.