Is
tomorrow’s God better than yesterday’s God?
NOTE:
This teaching was given on September 16, 2006, after the NEW
DIRECTION was implemented.
Kim: Jesus, I would like to ask for your comments on the image
of God that is being presented by a number of liberal Christians and
New Age teachers. And as a starting point, I would like to base the
discussion on the image of God being presented in the Conversations
with God material. The reason for my asking is that I sense many
liberal Christians and New Age people have adopted an image of God
that is much like the image in the CWG material. In our latest discussion
on the material, you explained that it presents a gray view of
God. I would like to make that a little more concrete for people,
and as a starting point I would like to use one of the later books,
named Tomorrow’s God. I am using that book because
when I first read about it, I thought it was based on a great premise,
and I was hoping it would contain some good insights. The basic idea
is that we need a new God, or at least a new image of God, because
yesterday’s God is no longer working. Obviously, this is very
much in alignment with the teachings on this website.
So I have read the book, and it does contain a lot of very good insights.
Yet scattered among the good ideas are some ideas that I consider
problematic, and I sense they are expressions of gray thinking. I
would like to start out with the following statement:
“There is nothing life creates that is not life itself.
All that you see everywhere around you is life expressing. Life IS
everything. It runs in, as and through everything.”
It is also said that you can substitute the word “life”
with the word “God” and the statement is still valid.
It is further stated that God wants nothing from us and that we are
free to do whatever we want and that anything we do is simply a result.
If we don’t like the result, we simply change the actions that
produced it, but God has no judgment or opinion on the matter. What
is your comment on this concept?
Jesus: Let me first give a brief summary so people
who have not read the ego discourses understand the difference between
black-and-white
and gray
thinking. When people are in black-and-white thinking, they believe
truth can be defined by and confined to a particular doctrine expressed
in words. They think their doctrine is the ultimate truth about God
and thus any belief system that is different must be false. When people
are in gray thinking, they realize the fallacy of this approach and
they are willing to question infallible doctrines, which is a potentially
healthy step. The problem is that some people take this to the extreme,
which gives rise to two beliefs:
Now let me refer to the fact
that in medieval Europe most people believed the Earth was flat. I suspect
most modern people will agree that the Earth was as round then as it
is today. In other words, people’s beliefs did not change the
shape of the Earth. So in this case we have two viewpoints, one saying
the Earth is flat and the other that it is round. I think everyone would
agree that it does not make sense to say they are both opinions and
that one is as valid as the other. Nor do I think most people would
say we should not judge whether one is true or the other false. If people
had not been willing to acknowledge that the concept of a flat Earth
is false, humankind might still be believing that the Earth is flat,
which would have limited people in many ways.
We now see that it does not make sense to say that any viewpoint is
as valid as any other or that we should not judge between true and false.
We need to add a consideration here, namely that there is such a thing
as reality and that it is above and beyond human opinions, beliefs and
viewpoints. My point being that there is a reality about God, and it
is not changed by what human beings believe or want to believe. As God
said to Moses, “I will be who I will be” [commonly translated
I am that I am].
If you truly want to know God’s reality, you must go beyond ANY
description of God expressed in words or images in the material world.
God simply cannot be confined to any doctrine or belief system. That
is why the first two commandments are to not have any other gods before
the One God and to not take unto yourself any graven image. That is
why I said that God is a Spirit and that you must worship – meaning
experience – him in Spirit and in truth.
My point is that it is not possible to fully describe God and God’s
reality through any teaching given in words. I do not claim that the
teachings on this website are infallible or are the only way to describe
God or particular concepts. It is perfectly possible that two different
religions can give different descriptions of God and the path to God
and they can both be valid—meaning that they can take people beyond
the description to a direct experience of the Spirit of Truth.
However – and here comes the essential point that many people
who are trapped in gray thinking either cannot or will not see –
saying that no description of God can be complete or infallible does
NOT mean that any description of God is as valid as any other. Nor does
it mean that a spiritual seeker should not discern between ideas that
are in harmony with God’s reality and ideas which are out of harmony
with reality. It is quite possible that a description of God can be
out of touch with reality or be misleading to varying degrees. On the
back cover of the book Tomorrow’s God, you find the statement,
“All great truths begin as blasphemy.” And while this is
true, a more complete statement is, “All great truths begin as
blasphemy, but not every idea that is called blasphemous turns out to
be a great truth.”
Thus, the question faced by any spiritual seeker is simply this, “Do
you want to know the reality of God or do you want to settle for a man-made
description that is convenient
to your ego?” Only those who seek reality will make real progress
on the spiritual path, whereas those who settle for ANY description
and do not reach for the Spirit of Truth will inevitably get stuck in
a blind alley.
Again, gray thinking is simply a stage on the spiritual path. There
is nothing wrong with being in gray thinking, but if one stays in it
too long, one WILL get stuck and it is possible to become so trapped
that it is highly difficult to move one. The ONLY way to move out of
gray thinking is to recognize that beyond the level of human opinions
and teachings expressed in words is the reality of God. And the only
way to know that reality is through the Christ consciousness, which
is above and beyond the consciousness of duality in which all ideas
are relative.
So after this long introduction, let us look at the statement, “There
is nothing life/God creates that is not life/God itself.” On the
face of it, this statement is true. The Creator creates everything out
of its own being and thus everything God creates is an expression of
God. However, if this statement stands alone, it can easily give the
impression that everything you see on Earth is created by God, is God
and is in alignment with God’s plan and design. This is reinforced
by the next statement, “All that you see everywhere around you
is life/God expressing.” There are several other statements in
the CWG material that reinforce this impression.
In realty, everything God creates is God, but God has not created everything.
God created co-creators and they started out with a limited sense of
self-awareness. They were not aware that they were individualizations
of God and they were not aware of God’s purpose for creation or
the laws that are set up to ensure a purposeful growth of the world
of form. Therefore, these co-creators could create something out of
ignorance that is not in harmony with God’s laws and purpose.
Likewise, co-creators have been given free will and have been given
dominion over the Earth. Thus, they can rebel against God’s purpose
and laws, whereby they can create something that is contrary to God’s
purpose.
We could also say that everything is truly created out of God’s
substance – what Mother Mary calls the Ma-ter light – but
not everything is in harmony with God’s reality. Thus, it is simply
a temporary manifestation that is destined to either be brought into
harmony with God’s laws or self-destruct. My point being that
when you look at the Earth today, there are many manifestations that
are not created by God and are not in harmony with God’s purpose
for the Earth or his laws. They will inevitably break down and people
who are attached to such imperfect manifestations cannot grow spiritually
but could potentially self-destruct along with their creations.
In short, not everything is created by God and not everything is in
harmony with God’s purpose and laws. Thus, it is misleading to
imply that God approves of everything that is currently seen on Earth.
In fact, if you take the statement that God has no judgment about what
people do on Earth, you would have to question why this God bothers
to bring forth the CWG books. Again, look at the statement, “All
that you see everywhere around you is life expressing.” If this
is God’s attitude, why not simply let life express itself, why
bother to bring out these books which are obviously seeking to change
people’s view of God? In other words, on one hand the God in the
CWG books seems to be saying he has no agenda, but on the other hand
he obviously has some purpose for bringing out the books.
Take a closer look at the statement, “All that you see everywhere
around you is life expressing.” The logical consequence is that
cancer is simply life expressing itself and so is war. Yet both expressions
lead to death, so how can life expressing itself produce death?
In reality, most of the conditions you currently see on Earth are NOT
expressions of life nor of God. Everything in the material universe
is an expression of a certain state of consciousness. All of the suffering,
injustice and inequality on Earth is NOT an expression of the consciousness
of life but of the consciousness of death. This is the duality consciousness
that I describe in my ego discourses.
If you do not distinguish between the consciousness of life and the
consciousness of death, you have no way to escape illusion and connect
to God’s reality. The real God would never fail to make this distinction.
That is why Proverbs contains the koan, “There is a way which
seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death
(Proverbs 14:12). The way of death is either the way defined by black-and-white
thinking or the way defined by gray thinking.
Kim: I know many New Age people will say that they can’t deal
with the whole concept of God’s laws because they seem to impose
a restriction on our freedom and they are so reminiscent of the old
black-and-white religions. According to the CWG material, God has
no needs or desires. God does not say that something is wrong or a
sin. We can do whatever we want, and if something doesn’t work
for us, we simply make a different choice.
Jesus: Yet the material also talks about preserving
life and making it sustainable. In fact, the book about tomorrow’s
God claims that it will present a new God – or concept of God
– that can save the world from self-destruction. So if life is
to be preserved, what can make it sustainable? Well, only one thing,
namely that there are certain laws – or call them principles,
if you will – that give consistency. There can be no sustainability
without consistency. If everything is random or if gravity works one
minute and is suspended the next, how can there be continuity of life?
It is an inescapable fact that the Creator did not gamble with the universe.
The Creator did not simply design a universe with inconsistent laws
and say, “Let’s just see what happens.” God is not
indifferent concerning whether humankind destroys itself and the Earth.
The Creator has a clear purpose for the world of form and a clear vision
of how to fulfill that purpose. Thus, God designed the world of form
by setting up certain laws that will ensure the sustainable growth of
everything. If you understand these laws correctly, you see that they
are not a restriction of your freedom—they are the foundation
for your freedom. Among other things, these laws are set up to ensure
that what you create will not suddenly disappear through a random act
or an inconsistency in the workings of your world.
There are also laws that are set up to minimize the risk that the most
aggressive people can enslave the rest of the population. In other words,
without laws, you would have the law of the jungle, and the most aggressive
people would permanently enslave the population. I know there have been
periods in history where this was the case, but God’s laws have
always caused such civilizations to crumble.
Kim: This ties in with another statement I was going to bring
up later, but it seems fitting to look at it now. This idea states
that the word “God” and the word “freedom”
are interchangeable. God is all powerful, all creative, all knowing,
unlimited and everywhere present. Thus, God is totally free because
the meaning of freedom is that you can do whatever you want, when
you want, where you want and have complete freedom to do it how or
why you want.
Jesus: This is a very typical result of gray thinking,
which wants to have a universe where you can do whatever you want without
suffering any limiting consequences. It is true that God has the power
to do whatever he wants, but freedom is not determined by what you can
do but what you are willing to do. Thus, the reality is that
– from a certain perspective – the Creator is the least
free being in the entire world of form.
Everything is created out of the Creator’s Being, so we could
say that the unlimited, all powerful Creator has allowed itself to be
clothed in – perhaps even imprisoned in – a variety of forms.
The Creator has also vowed to maintain this world of form for a very
long time, so the Creator cannot simply wake up tomorrow and wipe out
the universe. The reason the Creator has made this vow is that the world
is not created for the Creator’s glory or pleasure. The world
is created in order to give a large number of co-creators the opportunity
to grow from a very limited sense of self-awareness to the full God
consciousness. This is a process that will take a while, so the Creator
has vowed to allow its being to remain clothed in form for a very long
time.
Furthermore, the Creator has given all co-creators free will, meaning
that they can rebel against the process of growth, thereby slowing down
the growth of a part of the universe. They can also create forms that
are out of harmony with the Creator’s vision and design. Thus,
the Creator has given co-creators full freedom to imprison its being
in forms that are far below the abundant life envisioned by the Creator.
And the Creator has vowed to let this go on for a long time –
although not forever – in order to give co-creators the maximum
opportunity to voluntarily bring themselves back into harmony with the
purpose of life itself.
In other words, there are innumerable manifestations on Earth that are
out of harmony with the Creator’s vision of the abundant life,
but the Creator will not wake up tomorrow and decide to wipe out the
entire planet. It will allow itself to remain imprisoned in imperfect
forms as long as there is hope that some people on Earth will grow from
their experience.
Obviously, the Creator does not see itself as being imprisoned because
it knows it is more than creation itself. It is only human beings –
who cannot see beyond the world of form and their own creations –
who feel trapped. Nevertheless, the CWG material – and I am talking
about all of the books – portray God as the ultimate ego-maniac
who is encouraging people to become ego-maniacs. In reality, the Creator
is the ultimate servant of life and it is encouraging people to become
servants of life.
The Creator doesn’t want the false freedom of doing whatever it
wants. The Creator has the true freedom of having no self-centered desires
and thus pursuing the growth of all of life instead of itself only.
I am well aware, that people in gray thinking simply cannot fathom this
concept of freedom or God. They want a God who will let them do whatever
they want and at the same time approve of whatever they do—which
is precisely what the God in the CWG material says it will do.
Yet consider what would happen if all human beings on Earth suddenly
started doing whatever they wanted whenever they wanted without considering
the consequences it would have for other people or themselves. You would
have a society with complete anarchy and chaos. After a short while
the most domineering people would begin to restrict the freedom of the
masses, supposedly because a restricted freedom would be better than
complete chaos—which is actually true although it is simply the
lesser of two evils.
When you see the reality of life, you see that God’s laws do not
restrict your freedom. They are the foundation for your freedom, and
if all people adhere to them, they will preserve the maximum freedom
for everyone while allowing people to live together in harmony with
each other, with nature and with God. There literally is no freedom
without laws—however I am talking about God’s laws, not
man-made laws based on the duality consciousness. Human laws too often
give privileges to an elite while taking freedom from the population.
The simple fact is that every action you take has consequences. Science
says that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.
Some religions call it karma, a concept the CWG material does not treat
with sufficient clarity. Again, karma is not a restriction of freedom
but a foundation for it. It might restrict the freedom of an individual
on a temporary basis, but it preserves maximum long-term freedom for
both the individual and society.
If you do not consider the karma of a particular action – either
because you do not know or willfully ignore it – how can you make
a free choice? If you go into a store and buy an item without knowing
the price, how can you be said to be making a free buying decision?
Yet the CWG material can very easily be interpreted as encouraging people
to do whatever they want – at least in certain areas of life –
without considering the consequences of their actions. So you might
consider whether the real God would tell people to ignore the laws he
has designed to ensure their growth.
Kim: The material also says that God has no needs and because
of that he makes no demands on us. He allows us to do whatever we
want. He does not want us to do or not do anything. In other words,
there is nothing we have to do.
Jesus: And once again, the main thing that makes it
so difficult for people to escape gray thinking is that a statement
can be technically true, but if it is not seen in its proper context,
it becomes highly misleading. It is technically true that God has no
needs, in the sense that the Creator is a completely self-sufficient
and self-contained being. The idea that God needs to be worshiped by
human beings or needs sacrifices – even needs his only son to
be crucified as a payment for sin – is not correct. However, the
idea of worship was given to humankind because it can have a beneficial
psychological effect at a certain level of consciousness. People in
black-and-white thinking have a psychological need to worship God, whereas
people in gray thinking have gone beyond that need.
My main point is that while it is correct to say God has no needs, this
does not mean that the Creator has no vision, purpose or desires for
its creation. The word “desire” means “deity sires.”
To sire something means to father or author it. Thus, the deity has
sired you because the Creator has a vision and a purpose for your life.
The Creator did not create you as an experiment where the outcome doesn't
matter. The Creator has a clear vision for your highest potential and
desires you to fulfill that potential.
Consider what an all powerful and all good God would want for its offspring?
Would it not want the best and wouldn’t that mean it wants each
of its co-creators to have all that it has? Thus, you were created with
a limited sense of self-awareness but you are designed to grow in awareness
until you reach the Christ consciousness in which you see yourself as
one with your Creator and one with all life. You can then continue on
until you reach the full God consciousness and become a God in your
own right.
For this process to be ultimately successful, you cannot simply be created
in the full God consciousness because that would make you a clone or
a robot. The Creator wants you to be a unique individual, and thus you
must start out with a limited awareness. You grow by exercising your
free will as you literally build your own individuality and identity.
This is the only way you can become a fully self-sufficient and self-contained
being. Also, because you know what it is like to have a limited awareness,
you can appreciate the God consciousness fully.
Your Creator desires to see you go through the process of growth until
you reach the full God consciousness. The Creator does not desire to
see you get stuck in a limited sense of identity on a small planet called
Earth, whereby you imprison yourself in many lifetimes of suffering.
The Creator will allow you to do this for a time, but its laws will
not allow you to do this forever. Why would an all good God allow you
to suffer forever, even if the suffering is the result of your own –
but unenlightened – choices?
As an ascended being I constantly experience the reality of God. I am
above the level of duality in which people build images of God. Thus,
I experience God’s reality constantly, and I can assure you that
the Creator has an unconditional and infinite love for each and every
one of its co-creators. Thus, the Creator desires all people on Earth
to rise above the veil of illusions created by the consciousness of
duality. God desires all people to rise above suffering and experience
the abundant life, which as I said 2,000 years ago it is God’s
good pleasure to give you.
In today’s age, many people are ready for the higher understanding
that you have to co-create the abundant life. Nevertheless, God desires
to see you do so and you can only do so by rising above the human ego.
In other words, the real God that I experience constantly is an unconditionally
loving God who cares for each human being. The God that is portrayed
in the CWG material is a very distant and aloof God who seemingly does
not care whether you destroy yourself, each other or your planet. At
least he claims to be making no judgments about it.
I am aware that many people will not be able to fully accept, let alone
experience, the Creator’s love. It requires a high state of consciousness
to experience God’s love directly. Yet all people have the potential
to experience God’s love in a personalized form through the Ascended
Host. Everything was created out of the Creator’s being and there
are many levels of the spiritual realm. The Earth was created by beings
in the lowest level of the spiritual realm, and all people can establish
a direct inner contact with us. In fact, doing so is the only way to
connect with the Creator. This is another obvious omission in the CWG
material, and you might ask yourself whether the real God would fail
to mention the hierarchy that he has created specifically to make sure
that no being in the world of form could be permanently lost in the
illusion of separation.
When you understand what I said in the following ego
discourse, you see that people fell into the duality consciousness
because their conscious selves decided that they would no longer take
responsibility for making decisions. The conscious self decided to hide
from God, and thus there are people on Earth who desire a God who will
leave them alone to do whatever they want. Yet the ego also wants to
feel that it is guaranteed to be saved, so it wants a God who will give
people approval for anything they do and make them feel good about their
present illusions. Some people even want to feel that because they can
recognize the sophisticated image of God presented in the CWG material
– or other material – they are very spiritual and superior
to other people.
Kim: If I understand it correctly, the God in the CWG material
is actually saying that we are already Gods or already masters and
we have nothing to learn. We simply need to remember what we already
know. Thus, no one can teach us anything, a teacher can only help
us remember what we already know.
Jesus: And that idea has been around for a long time
in spiritual circles. It has some truth to it but it is not the full
truth. As we explain in the description of your
true identity, an individual lifestream has several components,
the center of which is the conscious self. This self is an extension
of, an individualization of, the Creator’s Being. Yet this does
not mean that the conscious self is God, is a God or is the fullness
of God’s consciousness. Thus, it is not correct to say that the
conscious self was created with the full knowledge of what the Creator
knows and simply needs to remember this knowledge.
The conscious self is a spirit spark out of the infinite flame of the
Creator. It has the potential to grow to full God consciousness, but
this does not mean it becomes the same as or blends back into the Creator.
It means that the conscious self attains the status of an individual
God. Obviously, words are inadequate to describe this, but I would prefer
to say that you are not a God in the fullness of that word but a God
in the making. Thus, you start out with a very limited sense of identity
and through your experiences of working your way up through the many
levels of the world of form, you can attain full God consciousness.
My point is that your identity is not something that is already created
so you just need to remember it. You build your identity, but you do
have a starting point, namely the identity that is anchored in your
I AM Presence. When you start out as a new co-creator, you do not have
the full awareness of that identity, but you are placed in a spiritual
schoolroom under the tutelage of a teacher who is committed to helping
you discover your spiritual identity and then build on to it. Thus,
I would not say that the spiritual schoolroom helps you remember
who you are or what you already know, because remembering implies that
you did know at one point but have forgotten. And a new co-creator does
not know the fullness of its spiritual identity—it must discover
and internalize it gradually.
However, there is something you can remember. As I explain
in the ego discourses, new co-creators grew gradually in the cosmic
schoolroom, and during that process they acquired varying degrees of
understanding of their own identity, God’s laws and how the universe
works. Then some of them decided to separate themselves from the their
teacher and the schoolroom, which means they fell or descended into
a lower state of consciousness. In that state of consciousness they
cannot perceive what they perceived before, and over many lifetimes
most people have forgotten what they knew before they fell. Yet that
knowledge is not lost but is stored in your causal body.
Thus, for a human being the first stage of the spiritual path is to
climb back up to the level of understanding that you had before you
fell into the maya of the duality consciousness and became blinded by
the ego. In other words, reclaiming this lost knowledge is a process
of remembering what you knew at some point in the past. However,
this does not mean that getting back to that point makes you enlightened.
It means you get back to the point where you were before you fell—and
if you had been enlightened then, you would not have fallen.
So you are simply turning the clock back and can then start climbing
beyond where you have gone before. Going beyond is a process of discovery,
not a process of remembering. As I said, your identity is not set in
stone, so not even the Creator knows what kind of identity you will
build. It is up to your free choices, and free choices are free precisely
because they are not predetermined and cannot be predicted.
Kim: I know this is already a long discussion, but there is
one more idea that I really want your comment on. In one chapter,
there is a lengthy discussion about sex, which seems to be one of
Neale’s favorite topics. In the end of the chapter, God asks
Neale if he has any more questions. Neale then says: “You
know, I really don’t have any more questions on sexuality. Now
that I am having this conversation with you, I am realizing that I’ve
answered most of my questions on this subject to my satisfaction.”
God then says:
Answering your own questions to your own satisfaction is the mark
of a student moving into mastery.
Jesus: And you have selected the one idea which more
than any other illustrates the dangers of gray thinking and why it can
become a blind alley in which students are virtually unreachable for
a true spiritual teacher. It would be possible to write an entire book
on this one remark and its implications, but let me try to be brief.
Let me restate the statement the way I would say it and let me ask people
to pay attention to their own reactions as they read my statement compared
to the one above:
Answering your own
questions by connecting to the Sprit of Truth within yourself is the
mark of a student moving into mastery.
I would like people to consider
whether they immediately saw a difference between the two statements?
If they did not, they might consider that the reason is that they are
influenced by gray thinking which makes any idea seem as valid as any
other idea. In reality, there is a fundamental difference, a monumental
difference, a night-and-day difference, a life-and-death difference
between the two statements. The first statement is a product of the
consciousness of death, whereas the second statement is a product of
the consciousness of life.
If I had to very briefly state the central problem on planet Earth,
I would say that the problem is that people’s minds have become
closed systems. Too many people think they have answered life’s
questions to their own satisfaction, and they have closed their minds
to a higher understanding. People are not open to insights and directions
from a source that is outside the ego and the dualistic thinking of
the ego. People in black-and-white thinking use an outer belief system
as the ultimate authority to justify this close-mindedness, whereas
people in gray thinking use their own mind as the ultimate authority.
As I explain in the ego discourses, the ego can only use dualistic,
relative thinking, and thus it can literally prove absolutely any idea
to ITS OWN satisfaction. The ego simply cannot see beyond dualistic
thinking and realize that there is a reality that is not affected by
its own logic. This is precisely the psychological mechanism that made
medieval people – from peasants to intellectuals to the pope –
feel absolutely convinced that the Earth was flat. At the same time
they were convinced that this belief was infallible and thus they saw
no reason to question it—they thought they had answered the question
to their own satisfaction.
There truly is only ONE solution to the problems on planet Earth. People
MUST rise above the dualistic thinking of the ego. People cannot use
dualistic thinking to solve the myriad of problems they have created
through dualistic thinking. IT SIMPLY CANNOT BE DONE. Yet for people
to even begin to rise above dualistic thinking, they must be willing
to recognize that there is a reality beyond and unaffected by their
dualistic beliefs and opinions. There is MORE to know than what they
currently know. People must recognize that even if they think they have
answered their own questions to their own satisfaction, there are more
questions to ask and better answers to be found. Until you do that,
you have not truly started the spiritual path—even if your spirituality
is to your own satisfaction.
The eternal problem is how you can question your dualistic beliefs as
long as you see everything through the filter of dualistic thinking?
The ego can prove any point to its own satisfaction precisely because
it cannot see beyond “relative” truth to the Spirit of Truth.
It cannot see that there is an ultimate reality, and thus it thinks
everything is a matter of opinion. The ego cannot see beyond its own
beliefs and it cannot see and will not admit that ALL of its beliefs
are illusions. The ego will forever attempt to prove its dualistic world
view instead of seeking to experience the world as it really is.
So to make this short, let me ask people to consider the possibility
that there could be a reality that is above and beyond ALL human beliefs
and opinions. Let me ask them to consider that God is above and beyond
ALL human opinions and doctrines about God. One illusion of the ego
is that everyone else sees the world – or should see the world
– the way the ego sees the world. And when people are no longer
willing to listen to a true spiritual teacher who is above the illusions
of the ego, they can only learn by engaging in warfare with other people.
When people see that their beliefs clash with the beliefs of other people
and that there is no possibility of reconciliation, the more alert students
will eventually realize that they need to reach beyond the dualistic
thinking and reach for a higher truth. And in so doing they will be
willing to reach for the Spirit of Truth inside themselves, seeking
to know reality instead of finding the ultimate dualistic argument.
Thus, they are no longer engaged in the endless quest to answer their
questions to the satisfaction of their egos. They seek reality rather
than a view of reality that is satisfactory to the ego. And that is
when you begin to move into mastery.
Thus, let me ask people to consider whether the real God would be unaware
of the ego and how it blinds people to reality? Thus, would the real
God dictate several long books without truly addressing the problem
of the ego and how it can blind people? Would the real God say that
answering your own questions to your own satisfaction is a sign of mastery,
when in reality answering your own questions to your own satisfaction
is the mark of a student moving into the false mastery of answering
his/her questions to the satisfaction of the ego.
Kim: Well, then I have to ask one more question. The book talks a
lot about what will happen in the world as the new spirituality takes
hold. One of the things that will supposedly happen is that all or
most people will begin to come into oneness. Yet it seems to me that
if all people answer their questions to THEIR OWN satisfaction, we
will be no closer to having oneness than we are now. People will inevitably
have different answers and how can that give rise to oneness unless
we recognize a reality beyond our own minds?
Jesus: It
is indeed high time for spiritual people to understand the Path of Oneness,
but it must be the true path and not the way that seems right unto the
human ego. The ONLY way people can come into oneness is that they rise
above the ego because it was the ego that separated them from their
source and each other in the first place. Thus, any discussion about
oneness without a penetrating discussion about the ego is simply a smokescreen
that can NEVER produce oneness.
Oneness does not mean that all people believe the same thing. It does
mean that all people can see beyond the dualistic illusions of the ego
and see that there is a reality behind all opinions—a reality
that can never be confined to words. They can see that there can be
several valid ways to describe reality and they can also see through
all false descriptions of reality. Thus, a true Buddhist can see that
Buddhism offers one valid description of the path to God and so does
every other true religion. The same with the true followers of all other
true religions.
We might say that the first stage of the Path to Oneness is the process
of people separating themselves from their egos and the dualistic illusions
created by the ego and the false teachers who are seeking to deceive
humankind. Until you have separated yourself from the consciousness
of separation, the consciousness of death, you cannot come into oneness
with others through the consciousness of oneness, the consciousness
of life.
This is precisely the problem with gray thinking. It cannot recognize
any absolute difference between life and death, truth and lies, reality
and unreality. It thinks everything is simply shades of gray. People
in this frame of mind are looking for a God who will let them eat their
cake and have it too. So the question is whether you want to have your
cake – your illusions – or whether you want the Living God?
Kim: Okay, this brings up one more question, because in the
book Neale says that there is no devil and that we have come to save
the world from its own mistaken notions of itself. (And by the way,
it seems to me these mistaken notions could possibly have arisen because
too many people have answered the questions of life to their own satisfaction
without connecting to reality.) I know many New Age people will not
recognize the existence of evil and often reject this website because
you talk about evil.
Jesus: And that is again a typical characteristic of
gray thinking. If you do not recognize that there is an absolute truth
that is above human beliefs, you cannot recognize that there is an absolute
lie that is completely out of touch with reality. Many New Age people
are correct in rejecting the traditional Christian view of the devil
because it is – as the view of God – based on black-and-white
thinking.
What such people need to consider is that black-and-white thinking is
incorrect because it uses a human, relative, dualistic definition of
good and evil, right and wrong, truth and error. Yet this does not mean
that there is no definition or that there is no absolute truth
and absolute error. Gray thinking also uses a relative definition to
say there is no non-relative truth and error, which is no better than
the relative definition of black-and-white thinking.
Evil is essentially a state of consciousness, namely the consciousness
of anti-christ which is on an impossible quest to prove that it is superior
to God, that it knows better than God, that
it is right and God is wrong. Yet saying this does not exclude the
possibility that certain beings – in embodiment and out of embodiment
– have chosen to embody this state of consciousness and have thus
“sold their souls” to the quest of proving God wrong. And
precisely because such beings are committed to proving God wrong, they
will aggressively seek to influence people by causing them to stay in
a state of spiritual blindness that separates them from the true Path
of Oneness.
The true God and a true spiritual teacher would not ignore or deny the
existence of such an aggressive force, for how can people defend themselves
against a threat they do not see? A spiritual teacher who does not talk
about the ego and a consciousness that opposes God is essentially like
a tobacco company that encourages people to smoke while suppressing
information about the health effects of smoking.
In summary, let me say that the book Tomorrow’s God does
contain some ideas that are true and valid. It is correct that humankind
will not move forward and will not solve its current problems until
people accept a higher view of God. Yet the image of God presented in
the CWG material will not achieve the goal of taking humankind to the
next level. You will not raise humankind above its current level of
conflict and self-destruction without talking about ultimate reality,
false ideas, forces that aggressively promote false ideas, the duality
consciousness and the human ego.
Thus, the CWG material and many New Age or even liberal Christian teachings
hold up a valid goal that is dear to the hearts of many true spiritual
seekers. This explains why such teachings have become popular with people
who see through black-and-white thinking. Yet these teachings do not
give people the tools to reach their goal. If you take the material
at face value, you will be like a donkey trying to reach the carrot
that is suspended in front of its nose. Yet the donkey is simply pushing
the carrot in front of itself as it attempts to reach it. And that is
precisely what spiritual seekers who are trapped in gray thinking are
doing to themselves.
It would give me great joy to see such people reach for the reality
of the Christ consciousness and thus contact the Spirit of Truth that
will make them free. I am eager to greet such people with open arms,
but I cannot reach them as long as they are not willing to see beyond
their gray beliefs. I am neither black-and-white nor gray for I wear
a coat of many colors.
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© 2006 by Kim Michaels |
