World of Vanity

Long ago, in the days of the prophet Jeremiah, there lived a group known as the Rechabites, a name derived from their leader, Jonadab son of Rechab. They lived as nomads, pitching their tents from place to place, never touching wine and not even cultivating their fields. The prophet Jeremiah praises them for the purity of their ways and declares that they will be spared from the calamity soon to befall Jerusalem. The descendants of Jonadab certainly kept the commandment give to them by their ancestor: yet his people have not listened to G-d, and did not when He called, and doing what He called them to do … there will always be a member of a family of Jonadab the son of Rechab before His presence. (Jer. 35:13-19)
Another communal group who flourished in the days of Y’Shua and John the Baptist, lived in splendid isolation along the western shore of the Dead Sea, they were known as the Essenes. They were the one ancient sect that accurately copied all the sacred scrolls.
The Hebrew have a community living called a kibbutz. Kibbutz means group in Hebrew. It is a modest name for something unique: a voluntary community where people live and work together on a non-competitive basis. Their living expenses and studies are financed by work. It is required that a serious and responsible attitude toward all work be maintained. No work is more or less important than any other; you are respected according to how you work as opposed to what you work at. All for one and one for all.
It takes a child – or a lost tribe from the days of Jeremiah – to know the difference. We live in a world of vanity. But Paradise cannot be found in the clothes we wear or do not wear, or the food we eat, or the fine wines we drink.
Desiring nothing, they had no cares, no worries, no anxieties. They understood implicitly that that the real problem in life is desire; whenever we want something, we are a little bit less than whole. Unexpectedly, it is in the learning to empty ourselves of desire that we really become full. As the biblical psalmist wrote in Ps. 23:1 ‘The L-rd is my shepherd; I shall not want.” How did we become a ‘I want, I want world’ the more the better? He has and will provide for us always.
US. society urges us to put on airs, to leak splendor and circumstance, pride and prestige. Possessions are often just status symbols, designed to distract people’s eyes from our native shallowness. Such things really amount to invisible, defiled clothing, worn to mask our nakedness.
We live in a world of vanity, the more we have the more stuff we have, the more time and energy we are likely to expend taking care of it. The most important and enduring values in life we often barter away simply to acquire more stuff. We have no need to display our wealth or position by the acquisition of one status symbol or another. There should not a struggle to build a bigger house, drive a sleeker car, or put together a bigger stock portfolio.  
Bankrupt is spreading rapidly, even Christians partaking in it. Part of being grown up is to learn to pay your bills. Living in ones means, not wants.   The Good Book says in Prov. 22:7 The rich ruled over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. Be neither a loaner or a borrower, saves friendship, even among family members. Better if people learn to save for a rainy day, and manage their money wisely.

Message of the two choices

A major advantage of age is learning to accept people without passing judgment.  People’s days are numbered and the days of your earthly life are drawing to a close, and your death is at hand. It is time to set your affairs in order, were do you want to spend eternity? G-d has created the world, and does not wish to destroy anyone. After all, everyone has a chance to change their ways and live, until their number is up. G-d needs us to be merciful. If we want divine compassion to have an impact on the planet, we had better show compassion ourselves.
There are two gates we can take; the broad gate or the narrow gate, Matt. 7:13-14 says ‘Come in by the narrow gate, because the gate that leads to destruction is wide. That way is easy, and many enter through it. But the gate that leads to life is narrow. That way is hard, and few people find it.’
Life is fundamentally about choices. There are no scripts, but there are gates – toward the good or toward the bad. People are not forced to do evil. They make choices, and what we think of as rewards or punishments are the natural consequences of those choices. We can choose the marriage of heaven or the pit of hell. Consequently, we should not really think of G-d sending people to hell; people send themselves. We also realize that unjust actions bring their own consequences, naturally.
With respect to judging others, spiritually, I became aware of an unbelievable phenomenon in life that causes people to forget who they were meant to be by adopting strange spiritual experiences that links with self-righteousness and judgmental attitudes.
People make choices and experience their consequences. We act without thinking of the consequences. However, by sitting back and simply being -through stillness and meditative practice – we can see how our actions today affect the larger whole, and how our mercy is the channel of divine mercy. By mentally getting out of the world for a while, we gain a larger perspective. We become more open, because we have cultivated a G-d’s eye view of things. Each of us is born, not evil, but morally neutral, carrying within us the staggering power of the divine image. It is pure creative power, which can be used however we wish to use it.
We are invested with the ability to accomplish deeds of goodness, but also to harm and even to destroy. Each of us is a messiah in our own right, anointed with an innate ability to create the universe we inhabit, day by day. We are not simply adapted to our environment, as are all others species. We are masters of it. We have learned to harness the very forces of nature, even splitting the atom. We live longer, healthier lives than our ancestors ever thought possible. We have a rambunctious aspect to our personalities, a certain mischievousness that perpetually gets us into trouble. We have an evil inclination. This rambunctious side of our personality is nothing more than an assortment of our base drives and instincts; our lust, sextual and otherwise; our desire for power, prominence, and prestige. Truth be told, we need these drives, for without them we would be incapable of leading, commanding, or taking charge in any situation. We would be incapable of building a home, creating a family, and bringing forth children and raising them. Our evil inclination is essential to our functioning in society.
Y’Shua was born a real human being, flesh and blood, who had to wrestle with His evil inclination like everyone else, remember His blood carried also His human mother traits, and we know nothing of His childhood lessons, until He was twelve years old, astounding the Rabbis in the Temple.
You are more than what you know, you are stronger than you know, you can mature in life’s lessons. Maturing into Messianic, redemptive roles, in short, do not worry if you are not perfect. All of life is a learning curve.

Becoming Human Beings

It dawned on me that he real problem behind human conflict is not that we love ourselves too much, thereby being selfish and self-centered, but that we do not love ourselves enough. It is only when we can see G-d in ourselves that we can see G-d in everybody else.  If we could all grasp the magnificent truth of our being and tap into that expression of the divine source in each of us, we would not be so easily controlled by strong personalities and other powers of this world. We learn to release the fears that keep us focused on materiality, judgments, hatred, and prejudice. Our actions become more meaningful. We can evaluate knowledge more effectively, transcending the bombardment of information that is so much a part of modern life.
We may agonize over whether we believe in G-d, but G-d believes in us. If we can only clear away the cobwebs in our minds – glimpse that wide-open heaven – we will understand that our potential is unlimited, and our powers are multifold. We always have options. After all, look who we have as our Source. The first step toward reaching our potential is of course to change our focus from the physical to the metaphysical, to let the breath of the Eternal fuse with our own.
I had a special need to tap into that supernatural presence. The stresses I encountered daily were frequently beyond my poor constitution to handle. I needed to fine myself, once again, to be rejuvenated. Fortunately, I knew where to go, having my mind back into the Word. I tend to wonder in the outdoors were the stones, water, leaves – just everything in nature strangely alive with the divine breath, calms and speaks to me. I had discovered myself afresh, but I had also discovered how to leave myself behind, how to filter out the background noise that robbed me of my inner peace.
I decided each day to set some time aside, to set a place aside, to center-down into my deepest being through silence, meditation, and study. Learning how to approach life and never underestimate yourself. Trust yourself; believe in you own judgment. Look in the mirror daily, but do not look for blemishes or the latest wrinkle in your brow. Stare at yourself and say not only, “I am made in the divine image,” but also, “I AM with the Father and the Father is with me.”
Satan can be said to represent human denial. He could not recognize the divinity of humans, or of anything else for that matter. He is a metaphor for the countless mental factors that get in the way of our believing in ourselves and in others. The great Adversary short-circuits the world of being by denying our connectedness with G-d. The outermost regions of hell as being occupied not by those who committed the worse acts, but by those condemned for their callous indifference to the divine image in others.
We must cultivate stillness, practice meditative silence, and take every opportunity to observe the world of nature. We realize that we are all part of the whole, the divine Source. It is only when we forget that greater reality that we perpetrate negativity, doing things that are not
G-d like. The Eternal considers humans to be nothing less than divine. We can see the spark of Deity in ourselves and know that we are a piece of the divine fullness.
Bottom line is we are all a part of the Divine Presence in the earth, and so is everyone else. All people have inherent worth. Dominating is not the way, for we are hurting ourselves as well as others, for we do damage to the image of the divine in us, enable us to act with conscience and creativity rather than reacting to circumstance. Remember we are only accountable for ourselves.
True, good deeds often seem to go unrewarded, but acts of revenge spawn their own demons to perpetuate evil. Cycles of revenge are as common today as they were in the Scriptures producing the same lamentable results. Revenge is a dish best served up cold, and may work as short-term tactics, but they inevitably fail as a long-term strategy. Be G-d like and leave it to Him.

Self Discovery

Being is all about self-discovery and self-actualization. It is where true life begins, this sense of being is what makes us true to ourselves. In the case of a woman – me – the voice that beckoned was from the Scriptures, which had gotten into my blood. I lived, and studied as 2 Tim. 2:15 says, peace comes over me, over time I had my own Mount Sinai experience. I realized that the answer for my life was in the personal empowerment that comes from self-actualization, an I decided to simply sit for a while out of denomination teachings and influence. Once again filling my life with a sense of wonder and to understand the complex tapestry of civilization which has given birth to us all.
How many of us are plagued by inner voices whispering: “You will never amount to anything? You will never get ahead in life. You will never accomplish much. We had grown accustomed by measuring our self-worth based on what we do, having never discovered the world of being. Like many other members of the Baby Boom generation, I used to think that I was never good enough, after all I am just a woman in a man’s world. It was a phenomenon I overcame only when I learned to quit judging myself by other people’s expectations. I have learned that happiness comes not through what you do, but by who you are. You need not prove yourself or your worth to anyone. You simply need to discover yourself. Shakespeare said it simply and directly: “This above all, to thine own self be true.”
Long ago on a mountaintop, somewhere in the vast desert of the Sinai Peninsula, a voice from the world beyond spoke from a bush that burned with fire but was not consumed, declaring to a fugitive shepherd named Moses, with all simplicity and directness. This voice commissioned Moses, an encounter between a frail human being and the world beyond. The secret of Moses’ strength was his meekness, the great Israelite sages called him a ‘hollow reed’ – personally empty, but filled with the divine breath. The power with which he acted was not his and the staff he used represented divine fullness and his own emptiness. Why was Moses chosen to be the recipient of such secrets? The answer lies in Moses’ deep humility, his hollowness, it emanates from the infinite domain of heaven and finds expression in the limited. Moses, learned to leave himself behind and simply rest in the Divine Presence. When we know that all of history – and our own life – is under control, we discover the secret of rest. We quickly realize that history is going somewhere. It is not an endless circle with no progression, but a dynamic process, charged with meaning. Nothing is lost in G-d’s economy.
The burning bush moments for me when I discovered a human being can alter their life by altering one’s attitude of mind. I choose to alter both my attitudes and my mind. The most important lesson to be gleaned from all this is simple: before doing anything, you must first learn the secret of being a part of G-d’s great plan. Believe in destiny. You were born for a specific purpose, and there are no accidents. The universe makes sense, and you make sense within the greater cosmic pattern. As the jubilees of your own life unfold, look for the larger patterns. Let go, and get out of the way. Each of us resides a mind-boggling, G-d given power so don’t just sitting there, be all you were meant to be! Each one of us resides a mind-boggling power, through which we can transform ourselves and the entire world. Many people in the ancient world loved the Scriptures which tells us a great deal about the spiritual nature of human beings and the torture and judgment of evildoers. G-d is eternal and beyond space and time.

Life has chooses

Yet, we all feel somehow inadequate. There is a huge disconnect between what we are and what we wish it be. The flesh and the spirit may seem incontrovertibly opposed, but true knowledge will make them one. When we know ourselves and the world around us, we can replace conflict with harmony, to fine unity in all things and among all people.
We must be beware, for appearances are perennially deceiving. We must look beyond outward appearances – good or bad – to behold the true light in others. It is the snare of materiality (the smoke-and-mirrors act of everyday life) that robs us of true vision.
We only truly arrive at our destination when we realize something universal – that none of us needs to seek beyond ourselves for courage, fortitude, intelligence, or anything else we desperately wish we had. What we seek is already inside of us; we need only recognize it. We need not look any further than our own backyard, and if we cannot find it there, it must be that we never lost it at all.  The holy Spirit fire is the power residing within each of us, guarded by the Master until we understand and know enough about ourselves for it to burn brightly. May that day come, sooner than we dare to believe. People’s lives consist of multiple choices they make. Life has no scripts, but it does have paths, and we are free to choose among them. The hell we occasionally experience is a part of life, and we could never appreciate heaven otherwise. These visions come from human experience, and it is in our (sometimes fearful) experience that we appropriate redemption. We can choose to see goodness and mercy, rather than wrath and punishment. Every action has its consequences. But wouldn’t our lives be infinitely sweeter if we studied to know and understand the two ways – of good and evil, of life and death – chose the way that leads to life? Know yourself, believe in yourself. Get out of the role of victim; give yourself the power to choose.
One might feel a victim of religious persecution becomes a story of a hero of religious perseverance, liken onto Daniel. Symbolically it tells us how to find calm during a storm. Discover the source of true nourishment, which, even in deprivation, will never fail you. Why was Daniel fearless in the face of persecution? Because he had cultivated knowledge and wisdom, which are really intertwined. Science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life, Daniel it seems, was a master of both science and life. I knew that it is not about setting dates or plugging current events into some prophetic scheme, but about finding meaning on a personal level. Indeed, there is something very comforting in knowing that history is going somewhere, that events are not random, and that life itself consists of something more than time and chance in an impersonal void. There is a lesson here, summed up in a single word: progress. It is a word we take for granted. It is all part of a great cycle, endlessly repeating itself, constantly seeking equilibrium and balance, but never finding resolution.
It is said that hope springs eternal in the human breast. We all want to nourish hope – for a better, brighter day, for a renewed and restored world. Hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of things, though it is sometimes a rare commodity in the modern skeptical world.
Enoch, the grandson of Adam declares that a time of terrible persecution will come someday; in which the righteous will suffer greatly at the hands of the wicked (the great flood). Enoch’s very name in Hebrew; Khanokh, is another word for education or knowledge. The second judgment will not be by water but by fire. Fire destroys, but it also purifies. Let your heart be purified, Enoch would surely advise us today. Let every motive be judged. Open yourself to divine scrutiny, and let the hand of G-d be upon you. Images of fire notwithstanding, judgment is not for evil, but ultimately for the good. You must understand fundamentally that you cannot know mercy without judgment. You must understand fundamentally that you cannot know mercy without knowing judgment. When we understand that everything is temporary, we can relax in the only day that really matters – today.

The World of Knowing

My personal quest for knowledge, my path through the World of Knowing began in 1997. Studying was to be my therapy, knowledge my deliverance. It was freedom and power, for I understood implicitly that no group of domineering shepherds could control me if I studied the Word myself as it said in 2 Tim. 15. I see the Scriptures as a story book and I came to identify with the ancient writers and placing myself in the story line to see and feel what was happening.
The first thing I needed to do in my own life’s odyssey was discover my worldview, my own value system, which no one else could do for me. One of the counterproductive things modern people do is to throw out he time-honored traditions of their ancestors, claiming that organized religion doesn’t do it for them.  My personal advice to the perplexed is to find your spiritual heritage all over again, don’t lose your first love. Seek out the ancient wisdom, when we dedicate ourselves to that search, we enter the World of Knowing.
When we get out of the role of victim, when we quit being passive and dare to ask questions, when we challenge somebody else’s interpretation, we are on the path to discovering the true knowledge is all about. Life in the final analysis is not only about what we feel it is about what we know. When we enter the World of Knowing, we can make valid judgments about right and wrong, about the path we need to follow, without being led astray into a mess of relativity.
In the life of Adam and Eve, they were told not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge - - there are always consequences if we disobey, but it got me to thinking that from the lessons we learn in life good can also come out of it if we look hard enough at it. G-d has always turn when was meant for evil into a blessing. I also discovered where you biggest hurt is, is where He will use you – for you been there done that and can help another in a similar situation, telling them how G-d has helped you through it all.
So there has to be a blessing out of eating from the forbidden fruit – I am now in my ‘golden years’ and encouraged to take the time to search it out as I tip toe though the Scriptures and find what I have missed.
G-d made Adam and said it was not good for man to be alone, and made him a help ‘Meet’ – which taken back to the Stongs means ‘equal partner’. After the fall brings about many plagues that afflict us, also makes us fully human in the most positive sense, for without pain, we could not possibly know compassion, the most G-dlike quality of all. The language of compassion is the language of sacrifice and of love. Their sin is described as covetousness, or simply desire. Desire focuses us on ourselves, desire leads to ‘I’ trouble. The irony is that desire brought forth knowledge which in turn has made each of us aware, not just of our own pain, but the pain of others. It gets us out of ourselves. We may have fallen, not down, but up, looking always for
G-d’s help. In a marriage it is taking deliberate action on behalf of someone else and teaches us to accept the pain attendant with living in a fallen world knowing that pain leads to compassion.
Knowledge is power is a valuable one in our victim’s culture. Through the consequence of disobedience was the Fall, eating from the Tree of Knowledge has also brought redemption. They knew that they were made in the divine image, and they could have used that power to rebuke the serpent and command him to leave. We will be wounded, but our wounds need not debilitate us. When we truly know who, we are – miraculous divine creations – we unleash a secret power that puts us in charge of circumstances, rather than circumstances overseeing us.
The pains of life invariably yield to death, but because we have knowledge, we need not surrender to fear. The love and compassion we express become sweet-smelling incense, to make fragrant the passage into eternity. Without the Tree of Knowledge there would be no pain. Neither would there be weakness. But without the capacity to be weak, would we truly have the capacity to care?
The bible tells us that the serpent once walked on all fours, and that he even had ears and wings, prior to being cursed from on high. Notice the serpent could talk to mankind, from that day forward animals could not verbally communicate with man. I believe in heaven they will be able to once again. We now can see from our pets they can understand and feel.
Adam is to toil working the ground, and Eve is to experience pain in childbirth. Through all the pain that is predicted, Eve will learn a touching vulnerability, as she cries out to the Almighty. Pain has a positive, redemptive value, for it acts as G-d’s loudspeaker, nudging us out of complacency and awakening us to the Divine Presence.
Historically, women have guarded the home and built nests, while their husbands have gone out into the world. The homemaker is a higher role, not lower; she is the Director of Homeland Security.
 
Allegorically, the serpent is like all the people who try to mess with our heads. We need to remind ourselves who we are – made in the divine image – and operating in that kind of knowledge, no serpent can fool us. The concept of a personal devil made me do it – the fact remains that evil exists, and the Bible is trying to teach us that we created it by our own desire, be it lust, the desire for power, wealth, prestige, or whatever. We must take accountability for our own actions, if we open the door of our own garden to evil. We open the door to desire and desire produces its own fruit.
We know not to bemoan our fallen condition, but to embrace it, to celebrate our weakness, and even our mortality. From the Tree of Knowledge, we find our way through the wilderness of life.
When we are in the Work of Knowing, we unleash the power of wholeness. Whenever we think we want something or need something, we need only remind ourselves that we are complete already, because we are made in the divine image. Every time we look in the mirror and affirm who we are – the very stuff of G-d - we are embracing wholeness and conquering desire. We need not fear shrinking from death, for dying brings forth life. When dreams, and hope die, knowing that the very next phase is mercy, compassion, and resurrection.
We are all on a journey of self-discovery. We are destined to have many adventures, make new friends along our way, and ultimately learn that what we thought we lacked was inside us all along. We are strangers in a strange land, we are not at home, and we are looking for answers.
But all too often we fabricate brittle doctrines of religion, that is the true nature of our fallenness, we are blind to the divine spark within, which ought to be a blazing fire, the soul is far from being corrupt, it pure, eternal, and birthed in Paradise. Knowing that you are pure and holy and birthed in Paradise doesn’t get you back there. Each of us must set out on a road of discovery. How to find this knowledge is a deeply personal – a self-revealing path, unique for each person. The kingdom is not some far-off hope for the future, in the sweet by-and-by, but a present-tense reality for those who know themselves, those who have discovered their divine nature. We should expect to be troubled, but we should also persevere, through massive, consistent action. We should keep seeking the answers, because knowing them is what causes us to reign over our adversity. Getting the right requires both knowledge and discernment. We must know ourselves but also know the world around us, evaluating each grain field and every sojourner on the road to the kingdom.  It takes a heart of discernment to separate the wheat from the chaff, to cultivate a set of personal values that somehow reflect eternal values. It takes a childlike heart to believe that true virtue still exists.