Neville Goddard's Sneak

I was greatly amused with Neville Goddard's instructions in the ladder exercise as related in this video at about 4:45. After teaching how to visualize climbing a ladder (from about 3:20), Neville instructed his class to write out everywhere and to repeat emphatically all the time, "I will NOT climb a ladder!" The joke, if you do not already know, is that the unconscious HAS NO NEGATIVE. Once you think a thing, it exists, and you are asking for it. You can only avert its happening with alternative positive assumptions. For you cannot think a thing in the negative without thinking it FIIRST. I recently posted about dao, the way to becoming like God. No matter how dire your situation, no matter how negative it is, your present situation is your first step in the dao. This is what Merlin R. Carothers was preaching in Prison to Praise and all his books: Your loved one is in prison, strung out on drugs, broken hearted in a divorce, diseased all to hell -- PRAISE GOD FOR IT. There is not a point you, he, or she can get to that is not the beginning of the way back to God. Insisting "I will NOT climb a ladder" means to God, "From the point of climbing a ladder I ascend to You." And Neville had them load it with emotion, feeling, "Really mean it!" Watch God rearrange the world to get you onto a ladder!

Neville often quoted Job 3:25, "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me" (KJV). Job was thinking of things he wanted NOT to happen, events he wanted NOT to arise. We create our own world, and the thing is to create only what we want. Do not think of what you do not want, but of what you do want, UNLESS YOU ACTUALLY DO WANT WHAT YOU ARE SAYING YOU DO NOT WANT. Like climbing a ladder, for instance. The class was de facto thinking, visualizing climbing a ladder all day long. And when it works, you, he, and/or she have found Him.

Dao ("Tao"): The Way Back To Godhood

I am a big fan of Lu Hsiang-shan (Lu Chiu-yuan, 1139-1192), Yang Chien (1140-1226), and Wang Yang-Ming (Wang Shou-jen, 1472-1629). I have read Lu and Yang numerous times in The History of Chinese Philosophy by Fung, and Lu and Wang in Sources of Chinese Tradition vol. 1 (Introduction to Oriental Civilizations, Wm. Theodore Bary, Ed. 1960. New York and London: Columbia University Press). If I copied out what they said and put Neville's name on it, you'd think, "This guy was so perceptive." They were neo-Confucianists. "The principle of the universe is mind. Mind IS the principle." God's principle/mind is what we are getting back to, and dao is the path there. Everyone's path. The path starts wherever you are. Regarding his teaching Lu said, "Recently someone has commented of me that aside from Mencius' one saying, 'First build up the nobler part of your nature,' I had nothing clever. When I heard this, I said, 'Very true, indeed'" (emphasis mine). He just kept hitting the same truth day after day.

Mencius said, "First build up the nobler part of your nature, and then the inferior part cannot overcome it." That is not just a little bit like John 1:4 and 5, it is John 1:4 and 5. It is the common truth for all the universe. Wherever you are, whatever your situation, it is the first step of dao.

The Reward

"After John was betrayed, Jesus came to Galilee, and preached the Hope of the Kingdom of God. And he said, 'The Season is finished, and the Kingdom of God has arrived. Repent and believe in the Hope [of the Kingdom]'" (Mark 1:14-15 Alexander).

The Kingdom of God is the reward to be believed. We have been hoping for it. We do not see it, BUT IT IS HERE, NOW. Scene: we are forgiven, redeemed, emancipated. The Kingdom is the way it was for the Beginning before Its fall at the beginning. We are back to before the crucifixion onto flesh. We stand in the Presence guiltless in worship, no charge EVER against us. Can I hear a "Thank You, Jesus"?

God: Principle and Person

The tendency of God's nature toward good and increase is principle. It is the nature of nature. Any idol would have the same affect, for the tendency is standing principle. But the PERSON the consciousness IS requires love, honor, and obedience. I.e., recognition of It. For this is right: we are OF It. All the rest can go out the window in grand fashion if respect goes to another. This is one of the ways God is devoted (jealous). When you have a nice day - I hope you have many -  and the Principle is shining brightly, remember the Person it is coming from.

Is It That We Have, Or That We Do?

Thinking about the ladder exercise. Left hand on left side of ladder, right hand on right side of ladder. CLIMB. Isn't the idea that we DO what we imagine we "have." Shaking hands, hearing congratulations, receiving the phone call, revisioning, remembering when, etc., etc. We "have" what we DO. The scenes are usually actions.

Reminds me of Bullinger's note on the name Israel (Genesis 32:28). In the compound name, God is the DOER of the verb part, of the ACTION. Is it a command, or an invitation?

The God Puzzle: Exodus 3:14 Refers to Whom?

I could not resist the title: Exodus 1-6: The Burning Bush. An interesting discussion runs from 8:21 to 11:40. It is said that 'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh (Exodus 3:14) was a pun. That God told a funny: "I Who Causes To Be." Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had known God as Eil Shaddai, the all-bountiful breasts: the Provider. A nice picture, but it insinuates separation, otherness: I need here; the provider is over there. Faithful, but on call. The name (nature, character) YHWH, "He Who Causes To Be" was known, but not understood.

"What is Your Name?" Moses asks. "I Who Causes To Be." It is a play on He Who Causes To Be. "He" is I. I who causes what to be? YOU AND EVERYTHING IN YOUR EXPERIENCE. Put a comma after the 'I.' "I, Who Causes To Be." We - our 'I's - cause our experience to be.

Saying YHWH is banned. Good. "He" invites idolatry. God is not an outside provider. Eventually, we must discover that He Who Causes To Be...is "I" (it is just that our "I" is He).

I Am Seeing Too Many Broads

If you search the Internet, you might be able to find information about the so-called Law of Attraction. On how to find success, how to create it, how to manifest it by imagining. On how to get rich, set up a kazillion dollar business over night, and live a life of worry-free luxury by repeating an affirmative, magic mantra for twenty minutes over seven nights. And the universe HAS TO give it to you (just send me the money to download my miracle course). Someone once said, "Broad is the way that leads to riches," or something like that. Matthew 7:13, I think. There are a lot of broads on the Internet. What are the statistics of broad-way ads on YouTube? Nine out of ten?

I wonder why anyone would go into the spirit to attain the material? It seems to me that if we go into the spirit, it is to proceed in that direction. Is there Someone that way Who might meet us halfway? He has an expression for the material wealth people on the broad path want: skubalon (Strong's Greek #4657). It quite literally means, "what is thrown to the dogs." I.e., refuse, garbage. It is translated as "dung." Poop. Your expensive cars, mansions, yachts, all your life of luxury and affluence -- your egotistical impression upon others, God calls "garbage thrown to the dogs." It isn't that you can't get it, but garbage has its cost. Ask Nebby. Woof?

Redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb

We are all redeemed and forgiven in Jesus. Do we all know it? We are all emancipated. Do we realize it? The "Blood" of the Lamb is the ACTUALITY of the Son of God's fall into material existence. We are here because He moved here. You might say we were dragged here. Anyway, He caused it. So who is guilty of the sin we were placed in? The Son was a lamb. This is Daddy's trip. He knew what He was doing. The Son will live again as we move into our emancipated state. He does not leave, yet He returns.

Jesus said, "Come unto Me," in My Imagination/ Brain as a Second Person.

Even if the "Me" is me (myself), it is Him in me and AS me. and can be dealt with as a second person. That is His choice in the matter, and thus the Scriptures.

Oh, Oh! What I Imagine to be True BECOMES? Clarity Rules? Appreciation Helps? How About Falling Asleep Uncomfortably IN THE PRESENCE OF JESUS? I Have My Priorities.

I started off forty-six years ago to find out what God has spoken to man. Because He spoke to me, a small nothing on an island in the middle of the Pacific. I like to think I have kind of figured out what He has spoken to us. Part of that is you have to know exactly what it is that you do want. Honestly, that has had me stymied for a long time. I do not want money, fame, prestege, power, houses, boats, fancy watches or affluence. Since I started off forty-six years ago, God has taken care of me quite well, thank you. The one thing I DO want more of is a closer walk with Jesus. He said, "Come unto Me." I want to be there. With Him. To HAVE that. Yes, I will still be here, but He is here, too. I'd just like it to be unfiltered.

Our World is a Mirror of What We Feel is True

I recommend this guy's videos. He is teaching Neville's assumption. Invest in piecing together what Neville said, and what he meant by what he said. The universe MIRRORS what we feel is true. "Believe you receive, and you will have." So STOP WANTING. For the universe will mirror whatever you feel is true. Let it not mirror your wanting, but your having.

The universe, which only exists for facilitating experience (why we are in these bodies), will mirror whatever we feel is true. So first, we must know exactly what we want. That defined, we then HAVE it. Appreciating demonstrates that we HAVE it. Negatives do not work. You do not want a thing to happen? First you have to think of the thing you do not want. This locks in its becoming! The "not" is your part. Now you have to create an alterative "having" to change what you have given life. (Ironically, the way to keep something from happening is to WANT it. Your emotional wanting is what will be mirrored by the universe, as directed by the Consciousness of which we are. You will just forever WANT it, and it will never actually happen.) If you want the negative, it HAS GOT TO happen for you to negate it!!

I have heard and read Neville explain the ladder experiment in many of his lectures. The older gentleman explains it well. Nevillution perhaps better. I'd never noticed Neville saying to go to sleep uncomfortably. The trick is to so go to sleep IN the state you desire. As if you HAVE it. Nevillution and her husband just moved to Japan despite its being behind a Covid-19 bamboo curtain. You can bet she SLEPT in Japan before she moved. "Oh, for you? Okay, you can come. No one else!" Sleep where, when, and how you want to. For the Ineffable's dreams become, and You are It.

Jethro - Assumption Becomes: The Consequence of Being Consciousness is the Power to Create Life

 What we think, believing it IS, becomes alive, for this is the "mother of all living."

This thing we call God, of which we are, is the consciousness of the Ineffable, the No-thing beyond all we can imagine. What It thinks, believing It is, It becomes. We are THAT. We are to think, believing we are, what It is to become. We are not alone in this. We are It, with It, and are to be cooperating WITH It. Like strength is with our flesh. There is no division: the flesh is strong. We think, being, and It becomes. It has been doing this from eternity past. We are part of what It imagined It was. We have become. "I AM THAT I AM."

Establishing Spiritual Habit

Meditation gets you prepared, makes you practiced at dealing on the spiritual plane. Without my knowing it, Jesus sent me into the occult to become prepared for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. He had a demon, who also did not know that he was on a mission, influence me into Eastern philosophies and practices to prepare me to get saved. As Joe Biden would say, just think of it! Because the church offered nothing to prepare me to get practiced and attuned to dealing with spiritual exercises, He sent me into the occult. Having no spiritual leaders versed in such preparation could not stop Jesus. He'll use the Devil if He has to.

At the metaphysical bookstore in Honolulu, John paraded large colored sheets of paper in front of us spouting whatever spiritual value or meaning they represented. Mildly hypnotic. Then he led us though the relaxation of the whole body, one part at a time through the entire body. Head, crown, forehead, nose, cheeks, tongue, jaw, neck, etc. After the toes and the whole body was relaxed, He would introduce an imaginary scene, say a beach or a room. An atoll island paradise. Bright sun, warm sand, gentle breeze, blue lagoon, fragrant scents, quietly lapping waves at the water line. We'd enter the water and down we would swim to the large blue oyster with its beautiful pearl. Mentally, we were practicing being disciplined and focused. So to Bill and John I say, Thank you!!

We had many adventures like that, and eventually we were led to open our minds to an outside "ascended master" who would come in to teach us even more. I had opened my mind, and the ascended master was coming to join me. It was Jesus. I was quite excited at first, but still uneasy. Why would Jesus need my permission to join me? As "Jesus" approached, suddenly I could see into it, beyond the veil of light which was supposedly emanating from it, but was a façade. The spirit was all darkness within. Apparently the real Jesus had said, "No thank you. That is enough. I'll take over from here," and I was harvested. One sadly disillusioned demon left behind.

My mother's best friend had just had a spontaneous in-the-parking-lot physical healing, and she took me to the House of Praise where she had been saved. I intellectually accepted Jesus Christ as the Son of God "per the Bible." When it came time to receive the gift of tongues/the Holy Spirit, NOTHING HAPPENED. I was rejected, and, devestated, I sought to find out why. Here my built up habit of discipline and focus came into play. I was prepared to see and act on God's ground, in His world. Finding my sin and rebellion defined as self-lordship, I was able to cast the self-control I had exercised over my life -- GOD'S LIFE!! -- out of my mind. I found full submission. I could never in a million years have done that without the spiritual preparation I had received in the occult. It had equiped me to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Nothing stymies Jesus from doing the will of God.

What does the church do to prepare candidates for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, to prepare them enter this state and to function in it? Catechism? Theological studies? Intellectual explanations? Knowing about it will never prepare you to DO it. I hope you are going to a SPIRITUAL church that teaches and practices disciplined and focused prayer, and that you meet Whom you are praying to on His ground.

Meditation Discipline, Purpose and Focus

Knowing that meditation is controlled thought and requires discipline does not mean that I have that discipline. I am trying to develop it. My successes in meditating have been unintentional; I just happened to enter the natural state being focused and mentally absorbed in my then-present situation. Being one-on-one with God - "on His ground" - tends to catch your attention. I had not gone into meditation with any intent or expectation along the lines of what wound up happening.

I often watch and listen to YouTube videos while waiting to go to bed. I am not very disciplined yet. People exercise discipline and focus their lives for many different purposes. Many want to attract success, wealth and prosperity; i.e., to impress the heck out of people with all they've got and their fabulous, comfortable, enviable lifestyles. Some want to attain to mystical states, and some want to find, to know, and to please God.

The question comes to mind about the first and third of these. Neville often noted that God has no problem with big desires (He does, after all, want Himself). You want another million dollars? A big house? Fame? There is no increase God is against, no hunger He will not satisfy, except accepting aid one does not need. You fain poverty at your own risk. But God apparently has no problem with disciplining yourself and focusing on success, wealth, and prosperity as long as your mind is toward God. He gave the world to Nebuchadnezzar, who was not a particularly nice guy, yet to God he was the "Golden King." God had the Golden King eat grass with the cattle in seven years of insanity for NOT honoring God for all he had.

The YouTube teachers of the Law of Attraction constantly tell me I am not rich because of my own mental blockages. That I am sabotaging my receiving of money because of my negative atttudes towards money. Believe me, I am not against the having or receiving or spending of money. I am just in the third party. About money I just don't care much. When Jesus went into the wilderness after being baptized by John and the Holy Spirit, True, he hungered, but he believed it worked. AND IT WORKED. God sent angels to minister to him. The success Jesus disciplined himself to and focused on was the finding, the knowing, and the pleasing of God. No, I am not in his class, BUT I KNOW THE CLASS EXISTS. If I can discipline myself to get there, that's where I want to be. In my lack of focus, I am the kid in the fire. Lord, I believe. Bolster my faith.

Re Meditation, Disciple, and Focus

Meditation, Aryeh Kaplan informs us, is thinking in a controlled manner. It is controlled thought, controlled imagination -- thought directed by will. By meditation one learns to use the conscious mind to control the mental processes that are usually under the control of the unconscious, and by this how to turn off interferring thoughts and concentrate, enhance awareness, focus perception. One stops thinking as a child, and begins to think like an adult (pg. 3-10). And, I might add, to become natural in thought.

Natural. The way it's supposed to be. I once practiced occult meditation, and in that state I encountered a spirit. Not a good one. But I was on its ground. When I have been mentally concentrated, my awareness enhanced and my perception focused, God has spoken to me. As He apparently speaks to many people. Because I was on His ground. I did not meditate to get there; it was just the natural course of being a Christian, and in being a Christian at those moments I happened to become disciplined and focused. I was in our natural state, disciplined and focused, and there it was: His Voice. I was on His ground.

Meditation, no matter how you do it, is a FOCUSED DISCIPLINE you practice to become "on His ground." Keep your mind open toward God. In your church service, in your shower, tending your children, or in the Silence, keep your mind toward God and be ready to hear. Do not be surprised if what you "hear" is something that comes to you in your mind's eye).

God Did Not Attract The Universe

I just do not get it. How on earth did anyone ever come up with the idea of the Law of Attraction? I understand that we come into this world ignoranced by amnesia, are misled by religion and are influenced by demons, but really, vibrational attraction of thought? Magical words and an obligated universe? Who comes up with this stuff? The whole idea is two points below stupid. I hear otherwise intelligent people expounding on the Law of Attraction and explaining how to do it by creating according to the Law of Assumption. We are called to CREATE. The Law of Attraction only works in the field of Consciousness, Who is God. THAT is a real thing, but the field does not attract things, it creates them. Conjurs up their perturbations or something. They do not come, they BECOME. The Hebrew word hayah (Strong's 1961), is am are was be become have been, etc., has to do with TRANSITION: "I AM (BECOME) THAT 'I AM.'" God does not stir up what you want, He stirs it into existence. And that, I believe, is what we are called to do by controlled imagination. God's imagination is controlled; ours being controlled is how we get attracted up to Him in the field. Do the right thing in the right place!

Reading, Practicing, Growing on the Shoulders of Giants: Siti Writes Today’s Post

Yes...VERY encouraging what you have posted on the 19th.

I read about 3/4 of “Jewish Meditation: Practical Guide” and find it very helpful in understanding the message God has been trying to get over to people in understanding Him.

I like where Kaplan explains yod heh vav heh, that unless this connection is made, we cannot receive anything from God (p. 75).

As I was reading this material, my mind FLOODED with Scriptures I know well, also things that Neville talks about, what I’ve read from your blog, what I’m reading from Alexander...experiences God has led me the last forty-five years...all give me depth of understanding. This has been happening within me now on such a daily basis and I love it!

I have been meditating since listening to Neville. I realize too, that he was mentored by a Kabbalist, so when reading Kaplan’s book it gave more understanding and at the same time eliminated the taboos that western thinking...especially religious, has derailed much of God’s truth.

I am very grateful to have all this knowledge/information come across my path to continue in faith.

Siti

Aryeh Kaplan on Meditating the Nature of YHWH and Our Relationship with Him

From Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide, pg. 73-75:

For this type of contemplation to be most meaningful, one must have some idea of the meaning of the four letters of God's name (edit - I take the Hebrew word for name, shem, to mean the nature of the thing named). As I have said, the Tetragrammaton is spelled YHVH (יהוה). It therefore consists of the four Hebrew letters yod (י), heh (ה), vav (ו), and heh (ה) (read right to left). These four letters have a very special significance.

This name can be understood on the basis of an ancient Kabbalistic teaching. The teaching states that the four letters contain the mystery of charity.

According to this teaching, the first letter, yod, denotes the coin. The letter yod (י) is small and simple like a coin.

The second letter, heh (ה), denotes the hand that gives the coin. Every letter in the Hebrew alphabet also represents a number. Since heh is the fifth letter of the alphabet, it has a numerical value of five. The "five" of heh alludes to the five fingers of the hand.

The third letter, vav (ו), denotes the arm reaching out to give. This letter has the form of an arm. Furthermore, in Hebrew the word vav denotes a hook, and thus vav has the connotation of connection. Indeed, in Hebrew, the word for the conjunction "and" is represented by the letter vav prefixed to a word.

Finally, the fourth letter, the final heh (ה), is the hand of the beggar who accepts the coin.

This is the essence of charity on a mundane level. However, "charity" can also be understood on a divine scale. The greatest possible act of charity is that act through which God gives to us. The greatest charity that God gives is existence itself. We have no claim to existence and cannot demand that God give it to us as our right. Therefore, when He gives us existence, it is an act of charity. Since this "charity" is denoted by the Tetragrammaton, the four letters represent the mystery of the creative link between God and man.

Here again, the yod represents the "coin." But this time, the coin is not a piece of copper or silver, but existence itself. As the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, yod has a numerical value of ten. Hence, according to the Kabbalists, it alludes to the Ten Sayings of Creation. The concept of the Ten Sayings is found even in the Talmud and is not necessarily a mystical teaching. In the account of creation in Genesis, the expression "And God said" occurs ten times; these are the Ten Sayings. These sayings represent the entire act of creation, and therefore represent the "coin" of existence that God gives us.

The heh of the name is then God's hand, which holds the existence He wishes to give us. The vav is His arm reaching out to us, to give us existence. Finally, the last heh of the name is our hand, which accepts this existence. Of course, God must give us even this hand. Thus, in a sense, God gives us the "hand" through which we receive existence from Him.

As one gazes at the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, one can actually see this.

One begins by contemplating the yod (י), which is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet, almost like a dot. One contemplates the yod and sees it as the initial point of creation, the Ten Sayings that brought creation into existence out of nothingness.

One then contemplates the first heh (ה) of the name. This is the level of the Divine at which a vessel comes into existence to hold the abstract power of creation. One sees God holding the power of creation, so as to give it to us. The opening at the top of the heh is the channel from God, while the opening at the bottom is the channel to us below. The heh is thus seen both as a five-fingered hand (based on its numerical value) and as a channel for the forces of creation.

One then contemplates the vav (ו). Here one sees God's power reaching out to us, wanting to give.

The most important letter is the final heh (ה). This is our hand, into which we receive what God is ready to give us. This represents our ability to receive from God. The connection between the vav and the heh is extremely important. This is the connection between the Giver and the receiver. Unless this connection is made, we cannot receive anything from God (emphasis mine).

_____________End of Quote________________

Kaplan insists that it is forbidden to speak the name of God, YHWH, "in any form whatsoever" (p. 73). Well, it is forbidden by the synagogue, not by God. He says, "USE IT!!" If you are looking for a suitable mantra to attain singleness of mind, ask for the coin. And hold out your hand.

From Victor Alexander's translation of Matthew, chapter 7:

7. "Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you will find. Knock and it shall be opened to you.
8. "For whoever asks, receives (is set), and [whoever] seeks, finds. And whoever knocks, it is opened to them.
9. "Or which man among you, when his son asks him for bread, why, does he hand him a rock?
10. "Or asks him for a fish, why, does he hand him a snake?
11. "And if so, you who are wicked, know the performance of good deeds toward (to give to) your children, how much more your father in heaven shall bless (proffer goodness) those who ask him?
12. "Whatever you wish that human beings do for you, likewise you also do for them, for this is 'the Law and the Prophets.'
13. "Enter through the narrow door, for (that wide) wide is the door, and broad is the path that leads to oblivion, and numerous are those who go that way (that go by it).
14. But it is the constricting door and the narrow path that lead to life everlasting, and few are those that find it.

'Elohim' Means "Over the Flames" -- For God is the One Concealed OVER the Stars of the Universe

(Edit 9/20/21. Note: I do not ask the universe for anything. I believe God is the consciousness of the Ineffable above, beyond, and over the universe, is the Master of it, and is the Source of all beneficence.)

In Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide, Aryeh Kaplan repeatedly refers to the Chasidic leader Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1811). Nachman's mantra was Ribbono shel Olam (pronounced Ribboinoi shel Oylawm), Hebrew for "Master of the Universe." It was a mantra, and also a petition to open a conversation with God (see Kaplan p. 57). Ignorance may be master of this world, but we call upon the Master of the Universe.

Olam, universe, comes from the root alam, to conceal. "The universe is seen as that which conceals the Divine" (Kaplan p. 67). The Zohar suggests a meditation involving contemplation of the stars. "Lift your eyes on high, and see Who created These, the One Who brings out their host by number, He calls them all by name" (Isaiah 40:26). The two Hebrew words for Who and These happen to combine into Elohim, the name of God, and this in the context of the stars.

This reminded me of Victor Alexander's translation of this compound word, Elohim: "Over the Flames." What was meant by Over the Flames (of Glory)? The pictograph of this was Ashur, the Creator God of the Assyrians (remember, please, that Abraham was an Assyrian): the Son working from the sun disc surrounded by flames proceeding from Him "in ordered series of waves" (Alexander). This is Al-lo-hiem: "(The One) Over the flames."

What clicked all of a sudden was that all these words started with the Hebrew letter alef. This, and the proximity of the pronunciations of shel Oylawm and Al-lo-hiem -- the Universe, the Stars, and the Flames. God is He Who is Over the Flames, Over the Stars, Over the Universe. THAT One, the Master of the Universe, is also Eil Shaddai Who is conscious of me, Who blesses me, and Who enters into conversation with me. And you. In mantra meditation petition Him, contemplate Him, speak to Him, and listen to Him.

Meditation: There is Hope for the Stupidest Person Alive

The Blessed Hope is that stupid can be fixed. In God's economy it already is fixed - I've just got a lot of catching up to His economy to do. I have been prodding myself to stop trying to correct my and everyone else's doctrine and concentrate on doing. It is the doing which will save the world: "They then went out, and preached every place, and the Lord helped them and began filling them with signs that they performed" (Mark 16:20 Alexander). They preached the reward, and His confirmation of their words made the doctrinal corrections: "When it works, you have found Him." It really is that simple.

I remembered a line in a number of Jewish books and articles, the argument that the world was not ready for the depths of Jewish wisdom. There was a longstanding ban on publishing and translating manuscripts related to Jewish mysticism. Jesus was ready to receive it. He did, and ran with it. His disciples became so, and also ran. And we?

Looking for the ban and its surmountation in Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Meditation: a Practical Guide (1985. New York: Schocken Books), I wound up rereading the book for the third or fourth time. I highly recommend it. I have learned ten, no, a hundred times more in this reading. Okay, maybe twenty, but I am just half way through the book. Everything Kaplan says seems so much more significant now. I was spooked from meditation because I encountered a real demon in a meditation, the one in which Jesus harvested me from the occult. Later, in a trance, God said to me, "Remember this, and it is all right." Then in a vision, Jesus said quite audibly to me, "Come unto Me." I somehow knew he was not speaking about prayer. Well, I was IN a meditation. That is how I had gotten to him the first time. Each time. I can actually GO to him in meditation.

So I have now a mission to learn meditation. I suppose I will later have a commission to teach meditation, too. Why, again, is it not taught in church? Oh yes, spooked, it was abandoned to the occult. Wish me well. Thanks. I know there have been experiments and projects related to cooperative intention and "concerts of prayer." It seems to me we should have much the same of cooperative meditation. Trained groups. So glad to have already found a curriculum.

By the way, people often ask how to visualize. Kaplan explains how to build up to it, how to learn to control and direct the subconscious through different meditation processes to master visualization. You might also be interested in Kaplan's Meditation and Kabbalah (https://media.oiipdf.com/pdf/8593e1cb-0c60-4eb8-b865-9a2865046d4a.pdf).

A Comment By grlpeterson About Bill Donahue

Received September 17, 2021 from grlpeterson  (minimal editing mine):

I used to say to anyone who cared that "all religion, practiced rightly, leads any of us to the same heart of God." I learned during my NDE (near-death experience) that the difference is what we do with what we're taught. You can't only be a worshiper. I don't think any God or Lord of any shape or size or ilk would want worship as much as they would want us to do all we are able to do to practice the ways that lead to the best for the world.

Another thing I learned when that happened is that the Bible is mainly allegorical. I'd never really read it before then, just picked out passages I appreciated. I always thought it weird that I learned that when I'd never really looked at the Bible. I have in the last few years picked it up more and more though, and I feel I get alot more out of it by reading it as an allegory than otherwise. If I want to believe the stories are true as well within it, that's fine, but there's so much more truth in its pages than our simple beliefs of the tales within.

I suppose having found Bill Donahue's videos within the last week and watching several of them felt like some sort of verification, although I don't see everything he says as the flat out truth. I think that no matter what we see, do, or study, there are so many angles from which we can approach any of these things. We should certainly use as many angles to complete our knowledge as much as possible. I may look at God and Jesus a bit differently now, but I have more of an appreciation of my Father and Savior than I did, as well as a greater understanding of the workings of God's Universe.

Are You Ready?

In the first century before Christ and throughout his youth, there were many Jewish groups who knew the expectations of the Season of Grace and set themselves to prepare for the coming messiah. Most wanted to get their doctrine right and to participate in the coming kingdom. Few readied themselves to be the messiah. Whether human or allegory, Jesus Christ moved from the study of scripture to the creation of scripture. He engoddened himself.

When Jesus was ready, he went to be baptized by John the Baptist. In true humility and submission, he was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Driven into the wilderness to be tested of God, he tested God. That was his test. The question on the test was, "Does it work?" As Neville often said, "When it works, you have found Him." Not when I work, but when it works. Because he was ready, Jesus waited until it worked: his hunger was fed.

Do we, have we, can we wait until it works? We have to engodden ourselves. In the wilderness of the silence, we have to take on the assumption that what good thing we desire IS that which exists. We must learn how to pray, how to surround ourselves with our answer, and how to be enveloped in it. And how to wait. If in this we find Him, we must teach it instead of just doctrine.

Again, the two necessary attitudes I see: faith in God, humility and submission unto Him; and the presence of the future assumed to be the surrounding, enveloping reality.

May I suggest the book Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide by Aryeh Kaplan (1982, New York: Schocken Books)? It is what I am reading again right now. There may be more recent and better books explaining meditation, but I am unaware of them.

John's 16:23-24 How to Ask God Per Ancient Aramaic Per Gregg Bradden

I had a wonderful visit from my brother who understands this ignoranced life is the death and this moment of our development is the judgment (see Hebrews 9:27). I wanted to share again with him Gregg Bradden's video of the unedited version of John 16:23-24 found in the ancient Aramaic, but he had to hit the road before I got to it. Maybe he will read this. John 16:23-24 in the King James reads:

"In that day (v. 22 - when you see Me again) ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."

Jesus encourages us to ask the Father whatsoever in His name, and promises that the Father gives it. In the Greek. In the Aramaic, Jesus also told us HOW TO ASK THE FATHER FOR THE WHATSOEVER SO THAT HE GIVES IT (a good thing to know):

"All things that you ask straightly, directly, from inside my name you will be given. So far you have not done this. Ask without hidden motive, and be surrounded by your answer, be enveloped by what you desire that your gladness be full."

"From inside my name" I take to mean his nature, which is the Ineffable's love-filled imagination. We ask with an expectation of the answer we desire. We are to be surrounded, enveloped in our imagination by that answer. We are to feel as if our answer has already been given and is manifest in our reality. If the state is going to be manifest, it is. Experience in your mind all the sensations of the future as though already established, and let your joy be full. For in this the Father HEARS us, and IF He hears us, we HAVE what we ask. It isn't "will be given," but "are given."

Do you see the two attitudes? One of faith in God with humility and submission; the other of the presence of the future, the assumed reality-state of the manifestation. The two become one, and Eve happens. What did you think Moses was talking about?

The Death And The Judgment Are NOW: A Historical Look At Hebrews 9:27

I think we get a cockeyed view of the world from the King James Version's Hebrews 9:27: "It is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment." Our mistake is in projecting these into the future. Following Robert Young's Introduction to his Literal Translation of the Bible, the ancient Hebrew language did not have a future tense. Things were either past or present. They saw that if a state is going to happen, it is. I believe they also saw that the original fall and crucifixion of Christ was when the Consciousness of the Ineffable (as the "Beginning," the Son of the Ineffable in Genesis 1:1) entered into the ignorance of amnesia in entering and becoming man. Man existed, and the developing of man into God (Himself, not "a" god) was God's project.

"Whereas He consecrated for human beings to die one season, and after their death, one judgment..." (Alexander). It was consecrated for us to die, i.e., for we conscii to enter and become ignoranced in man, AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS "LIFE." This life we are living - and all others before and after it - is the one season of death we were appointed to die. And cumulative effect of this life in us RIGHT NOW is the one judgment. Every thought, every idle word has contributed to what we are NOW. God is like a field of the power of the Ineffable's Consciousness. The Most High is the highest and purest of the frequencies of the field. We are judged RIGHT NOW as to how close we ARE to that clarity. NOW is the god of this world judged as our PRESENT state.

Thank God we have a future in which to refine our PRESENT expression of God's Life. Our present end-state is a running end! The reward of faith is being GIVEN the end-state of Jesus Christ as our PRESENT AND RUNNING end-state. Thus we ARE seated in the heavenlies in Him.

Siti Endorses Victor Alexander's Translations from the Ancient Aramaic

Siti asked me which of Victor Alexander's translations she should get first, the Old Testament Scriptures or the New Testament. I recommended she get the New Testament, Genesis, and Exodus, as they are to me essential. They also are smaller, lighter, and easier to handle than Vic's Old Testament Scriptures, which is pretty big and stiff (but alas the only way to get Qohlet, his translation of Ecclesiastes). Also, the individual Book of Genesis has valuable commentaries in the back that are not in the Old Testament Scriptures.

Siti followed my recommendation and also got the Book of Isaiah. Being a good reader of my blog and the Scriptures, she sent me this:

Dan

I had God's Love, Light and Life on my mind throughout the day yesterday. Perhaps it was because I came across your article What is God? Love, Light and Life-force. I thought about those three aspects on my 30 minute drive to lunch. Then I had a wonderful 1 1/2 hour conversation with people where I strongly felt His presence with His Love, Light, and Life permeating through conversation so much that it was obvious that the two people at table did not want to end the conversations...their faces were alive and lit!!

The Alexander Books of Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah and N.T. really bring change in perception and perspectives on how and what people worship and who their god is. These books have become best friends!

Siti

_________________________________

I personally endorse Victor Alexander's translations from the Ancient Aramaic because I am certain they are the closest thing we can get to an idiomatic English version of what the first century Church from Jesus Christ was reading and thinking without actually learning the Aramaic language as native speakers ourselves. Why make it hard for the Holy Spirit to teach us? The other English versions screw up our heads so badly it is almost impossible for God to straighten us out. Not that He can't, but it is OUR choice. Yes, Alexander's translations are more expensive, but just what do you truly value? I think Siti has chosen well.

A Letter to David and Barbara

I am sorry you had an unfortunate experience with Pentecostals. You have to expect that is where Satan would attack (in my book, "Satan" is our ignorance). I do not have a literal book, but I do have this blog where I publish my point of view, which is that the Ineffable God is becoming manifest. That is what our experience here is. The Church would consider me a heretic, but I say they are misreading the scriptures and are calling God a liar. God says that It is one in the sense of Its being EVERYTHING. We are included in Its one. In Psalm 82:6 It says, "I have said, 'You are God.'" The Church mistranslates this as gods, because the Truth does not fit its theology. Here and in many other places. Once you understand that we are Him you have an entirely different Bible. "Unless you believe that I am He, you die in your sins" (John 8:24). Not he was Him, but we are Him.

My view of God is layered. The ineffable, incomprehensible Most High is unknowable, but Its consciousness is like a field: constant, everywhere, and powerful to do whatever It desires. The Ineffable imagines, and Its consciousness/intelligence is powerful to actually become whatever It imagines It is. It assumes and becomes. We are parts of that Consciousness/Imagination getting the hang of it. That is my "Trinity."

Where did I get such outlandish ideas? In seminary I learned how to read. I found that the Bible was very poorly and very biasedly translated. And that the ancients viewed things very differently than we do. So I got into bible correction as a hobby. That is why I use Bullinger's Companion Bible and Victor Alexander's translations from the ancient Aramaic. Bullinger corrects a lot of the King James Version, and Alexander uses the language and perspective of the First-century Church.

Properly read, the scriptures present a very different world and reality than the Church is dealing with. So many things are the opposite of what our pastors teach! E.g., Genesis' "In the beginning (of time) God created," is really "As the Beginning" (Consciousness, the Son of the Ineffable) created God." The Church is wrong from the get-go! And Moses' burning bush (the Ineffable's Consciousness in him) said, "I become whatever I become." That is a world of difference!! The world is as the Bible (properly read) says it is. We just have to find our proper relationship in it.

Oddly, our proper relationship in the godhead is in being lowly, humble, and contrite. Full-on submission, giving love, honor, and gratitude to It. In descending in humility we are exalted - the way up is down! We are just little bits of the one, but every bit IS the one; for there is no division in the Ineffable. The words T'lah Qnu-meh are only in the Aramaic version of the Bible. They mean, "the Tri-Unities." The Trinity is one thing. 

Contrary to this is the position the Church takes, that creation is completely separate, divided from, and wholly other than the Godhead. Ironically, this creates two independent gods, the Consciousness and the Creation - two completely separate entities! What a can of worms this is! It makes the Ineffable a god of remote control, creating what it does not touch, exerting power where It is not. The Church’s version of contrition and humility is actually self-exaltation — “I of my own wisdom and strength have made myself a servant of God, my peer!” When you properly read the scriptures you will wonder, "Have I ever smoked enough to believe that?”

PS: Here is a group of Pentecostals I think have their act together:

I'm A Pentecostal

Genesis 2:21-24: Assumption - Causation Is By ENGAGED Imagining (That Is God Saving Us)

Moses engaged God. He went up the mountain of God by lowering himself in humble meditation and submission (Horeb means dryness or desolation) and learned much. Moses put the most important things he learned in his exodus in the Book of Genesis, right up front where the reader cannot miss them, unless the reader cannot read.

Adam literally means "the Divine's Blood," i.e., the Consciousness of the Ineffable. Adam (we, both he and she) are bits of God's consciousness. Human imagination is an engageable mind. We are portraits of God's consciousness. God's life is in Its Blood, and we - our mechanics - are portraits of that life. Take a look.

Moses explained the mechanics of life: We are in a kind of sleep, and our heartfelt, assumed feelings (literally panels of imagination, translated as "rib") become manifest as our "wife." What we think/assume reality to be becomes our experience: "And the Lord God transformed the rib that He consecrated from Adam to be the wife and He brought it to Adam. And Adam said, 'As of now* (this season) this bone from my bone and this flesh from my flesh (i.e., this assumed experience) shall be called the wife, because she was consecrated from the man(-ifestation of God)'' (Genesis 2:22-23 Alexander, parenthesis mine). Our reality, i.e., our "wife," is our own assumption - from our own wonderful human imagination - made manifest. In Truth, the buck stops here (because in reality we are the One [that is what we are here to discover and are destined to fulfill in resurrection]).

Verse 24: "Because of that (i.e., in order to cause) the man(-ifestation of God we are) leaves his father and mother (the thought of this world) and catches himself a wife (an assumption). And they (God's manifest consciousness and our assumption) become both one flesh (in experience)" (using Alexander, my take on the matter).

What did you think Moses was talking about?

Not Much Happens Until There Is Engagement

God does not speak to me in a distinctly audible fashion very often. The two most significant "audible" acts were when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and while having a vision of Christ being crucified. In the former He said, "Remember this, and it is all right," and in the latter He said, "Come unto Me."

Perhaps the most important thing in the "this" He pointed out is engagement. As Neville so often said of causation by imagining, "It does not work unless you actually DO it." You can hear about it, read about it, study it, watch it, document it, preach it and teach it, but it does not and will not work for you until you get your rubber on the road and DO it, until you engage in it.

At the House of Praise in Kaimuki, Hawaii, I saw people being healed. I heard people speaking in tongues. I received the teaching. I read the books. But I remained ignorant of the act, the actual acceptance of Lordship of Jesus Christ and of full submission of myself unto God. I was dealing with all this God stuff as an observer, as God's peer - as if I were separate from Him. At Grace Bible Church in Honolulu, I watched and listened to the evening's performance, and while my friend Raphael sought the baptism in the Holy Spirit, I waited in the vestibule.

Get the picture: Ralph (as I knew him) was actively seeking, and I was about thirty feet away reading notices on a bulletin board. One of the church's young ministers came out and asked me if I spoke in tongues, and when I didn't, asked me if I would like to. Here is the thing: I got down on my knees and directly asked God for it. I engaged. The relationship became literal. When my rubber touched the road, as they say, God took over dramatically and I entered a trance which has affected my life ever sense. My life would still be that old life if I had not engaged in prayer as a literal engagement.

"This" is engagement, the DOing of prayer. It does not work unless you DO it. What IS working is what you ARE doing. The real DOing of real prayer has its reward, but the two must become one. Repent, and BELIEVE the reward. Engage.

Down Gets You Up

The way up is "down." (Less you, more Him.)

During a severe drought, Isaac dug a well at Gadar and increased a hundred fold (Genesis 26:12). I did not know why that event came to mind. Then the English translation of the Hebrew name of an antediluvian patriarch came to mind: Down. Literally, the meaning of the name Jared means "to go downwards." In our spiritual drought we are to go downward, like the digging of a well. This going downward is, as the minister's teaching linked to above says, the buiding of a relationship with God, not the following of a formula. The "technique" we need is recognition and honor of God, submission to Him, humility, praise, worship, contrition, and patience; "For nothing is the way to God but our heart" (William Law). You want to go up? Go DOWN!! Humble yourself. Per the Beginning and the Cross, the way UP is DOWN.

We build this relationship inside ourselves. We are mind inside matter until we slough off these bodies. Then we continue restored to a body or without them. Do what the (sanctified) mind says, not what the body says. For we have not much time in them. It seems like a lot of time, but it is a lot of not-very-much-time time.

Take Both

I live in a basically Chinese society. I am often reminded that our elbows turn inward. That is, we are to take care of our family first. I consider that too small. I reach from my shoulders; they offer a much bigger sweep, are much more inclusive.

I was raised in a literal-historical Biblical mindset world. That is the literal Word of God physically born of a virgin, his death our salvation deal. That has been corrected to the Ineffable Consciousness Manifestation - the Becoming God - mindset. These two mindsets are not mutually exclusive, elbow-level realities. I personally believe that the Season of Grace which concluded with our realized God-state demonstrated included the literal-historical reality of a man - yes, a real, regular human guy - doing the salvation deal for us and ALL mankind. Call me crazy, call me wild, call me a heretic from both sides of the aisle -- BOTH went down in the continuum we are now in. In my mind, the illustration was and is as real as that which it signified. I feel no contradiction in accepting them BOTH as real within my mental sweep.