Gloria Patri

Robert Oppenheimer points out that “there are very weak forces which appear in radioactivity; we do not understand why some of these weak forces change properties that strong forces…do not change. To one such slow change…we owe most of the heat and light (from the sun) reaching the earth.” Loren Eisley considers another weak force that gave rise to a weak explosion: “In a sense it was the most terrible explosion in the world, because it forecast and contained all the rest. The coruscating heat of atomic fission, the red depths of the Hydrogen bomb – all were potentially contained in a little packet of gray matter that…quite suddenly appears to have begun to multiply itself in the thick-walled cranium of a ground-dwelling ape…Even the solar system has now felt the impact of that tiny, soundless explosion.”

Preston Harold says in time this explosion produced a bundle of gray matter through which was expressed two thousand years ago the strength of mildness, of weak forces:

Jesus’ cosmogony, expressed in the beginning verses of the Gospel of St. John, presents as the creative impetus a force as “weak” as a word or one measure of light. Other words He spoke, and the opening words of Genesis, point to a beginning of the universe in one act that brought forth light, and to a “becoming” of the universe as it operates under the Law He described in terms of the working of the kingdom of God. In Jesus’ description of the working of the kingdom, the idea of the “expansion” and “shuffling” of energy up to a given time is encompassed. But because Jesus speaks of the “unquenchable fire” (in which matter is involved), His cosmogony does not project “heat-death” for the universe. Can these words that once struck terror to the heart be words of comfort now to men in a universe scientists say faces “heat-death” when entropy’s role is played? According to Jesus, the “flame” cannot be quenched and the warmth of life will ever be.

Jesus says as much in his most famous teaching session, fortifying us with the certainty that entropy does not have the last word.

In the Sermon on the Mount, pointing to the lilies of the field, Jesus gave His answer to the future; in this passage there occurs the word arrayed (its synonym arrangement is the word so intimately involved with entropy). He concludes:

Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient to the day is the evil therof.

If evil is pure matter, as this study postulates, then sufficient to the day is matter, the source of heat. This is true today and will be true every day, or always. Thus, Jesus says, in effect, take no thought for the morrow’s supply of fuel.

Life’s fuel is never-ending.

World without end. Amen, amen.

Until the next installment, peace.

Jesus’ Robe of Light

To finish up Chapter 8, Preston Harold discusses one of the often overlooked but strangely appealing aspects of the Gospel: Jesus’ robe. He takes us on a journey to understanding the deep meaning of this single-pieced garment, for which four Roman soldiers cast lots at His feet during the crucifixion.

Jesus appears to have seen that…within (the cross) is held the quintessence of being, light, one-point defined; thus through cross-action one is triumphant. It should come as no surprise, but it does, to see that Jesus created the symbol to indicate that as men began to “handle” light and to try to elucidate its secret, they would come upon an indivisible whole, one, which would so elude them as they labored within the confines of a “four-dimensional” concept that they would resort to a “game of chance” to try to possess its secret. This symbol of wholeness and this drama may be observed at the foot of the cross, where soldiers cast lots for his robe.

…Scientists play their game of chance because when numbers are large, “chance is the best warrant for certainty.” It is when number is small, specifically when they confront one, h, that the number, four, is seen to be inadequate to deal with the quantum, a unity that appears to be “outside the oyster of Space and Time.” This indivisible piece bespeaks another dimension that somehow transcends the four-dimensional concept – bespeaks another dimension which, like TAO:

…”covers the ten thousand things like a garment” but does not claim to be master over them…

This, the “fifth-dimension,” may be likened to the all-encompassing, seamless unity of a single reality covering life like a garment woven in one piece, as was Jesus’ robe, the robe of Light.

Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. –John 19:23-24

And how did the soldiers decide who would keep the robe, the fifth garment? Like our modern-day scientists they played a game of chance; they cast lots. Which soldier received the robe is not important, the point is that the robe could not be divided. When dealing with the undividable fifth dimension, wholeness and chance are inevitable.

Observant readers of the Gospels will also recognize the higher, fifth-dimension significance of Jesus’ robe in the story of the healing of the woman with the issue of blood who need only touch Jesus’ robe for the cure, and when Jesus’ robe became as white as the light at his transfiguration on Mt. Tabor.

We’ll begin Chapter 9 in the next post. Until then, peace.

A Gathered Radiance

Sir Arthur Eddington said that the conflict between the quantum and classical theories of physics becomes sensitive in the problem of the propagation of light. It comes down to a conflict between the corpuscular theory of light and the wave theory. In defining how large a quantum of light is, he said it must be large enough to cover a 100 inch mirror, but small enough to enter an atom. Paradox and contradiction abound! He also goes on to say…

“We must not think about space and time in connection with an individual quantum; and the extension of a quantum in space has no real meaning. To apply these conceptions to a single quantum is like reading the Riot Act to one man. A single quantum has not travelled 50 billion miles from Sirius; it has not been 8 years on the way. But when enough quanta are gathered to form a quorum there will be found among them statistical properties which are the genesis of the 50 billion miles’ distance of Sirius and the 8 years’ journey of the light.”

Reflecting on Eddington’s statement above, Preston Harold meditates on how it parallels a particular teaching of Jesus:

An ancient symbolizing h in terms of “I” might convey that when the “statistical requirements are met” – that when a “quorum of quanta are gathered” – light will be there, by saying: “…where two or three have gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Jesus’ summary statement is not a riot act, unmeaningful to an individual thinking of himself in connection with light, space, and time. He simply says that God is Father, is love, that with God all things are possible – as He, Himself, symbolized that of each man which is like h, one totally committed to action, an indivisible unity that overleaps time and space, an “unbroken glory” as Jesus was upon the cross, a “gathered radiance,” as He was in life and death.

It is notable here that Harold mentions Jesus on the cross as an “unbroken glory.” According to Rudolf Steiner in his lectures on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus’ words while on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani), can also be translated from the Aramaic as “My God, my God, how you have glorified me!” The word “sabachthani” is very similar to the Aramaic word “shevachthani,” which means “elevated,” or “glorified.” In his “The Return of the Mother,” Andrew Harvey tells of a German scholar of Aramaic who was researching the possibility that Jesus “may have been punning on the cross.” An ancient speaker of Aramaic could have heard these words from Jesus in both ways, therefore understanding that there was something special happening while Jesus was dying a terrible death. It does make sense to interpret the “light of the world” being glorified in death. After all, after Judas had left to hand Jesus over, Jesus said,

“Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify the Son in himself – and will glorify him immediately.” -John:13:31,32

On the cross, the “I” of humanity was glorified in Jesus, He Himself leading the way for the rest of us to follow. “If one is to be my disciple, he must pick up his cross and follow me.” Until next time, peace.

Time Maps: Part II

Preston Harold now describes his time diagrams from the standpoint of Jesus’ words. He gives us a brief introduction:

The diagrams are not to be taken as more than a token – a token idea is all that can be given. Therefore, if an ancient’s pure thought grasped the truth of time in all it’s complexity, his revelation of it must bespeak such as is beyond man’s comprehension in its entirety; and since time is so involved with space and with a body traveling through space, the ancient’s statement could not at first glance appear to be related directly to the mystery of time.

Once again, Harold reminds us that the ancients didn’t have modern scientific concepts on to which to build their revelations. Poetry was their means of transmission. Now, onto the main event…

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God…With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.” –Mark 10:25

 

Look now at Figure 2. It shows, poetically speaking, that “I, myself” am being drawn through the “eye of a needle” – and when the drawings are understood, it would appear that it is more difficult for “me” to enter “Absolute Elsewhere” which the “eye of the needle” involves (see Figure 4) than it is for a camel to go through a tiny hole.

 

Consider that if a man possesses the kingdom of God within him, he is rich – and as Jesus depicts true wealth, He, Himself, is rich indeed. Thus, His words must pertain to “how I locate events in my frame” as He presents in words a form that looks like a “circle,” the eye of a needle, which it is possible for “a rich man” to be drawn through, if God draws him, and by a force which is “heaven knows what” – time.

Please also note in Harold’s diagrams that the symbol in the middle of the circle for the “Here-Now” experience is a cross.

Harold continues…

“Absolute Elsewhere” provides “room” for the concept of the unconscious, for an eternal abode of the Father who alone knows the secret of time, and who in relation to the possibility of man’s seeing Him must be absolutely elsewhere – thus, all one can see of Him is to be seen in God-consciousness in man’s here-now being.

One here is reminded of last verse of the Prologue to the Gospel of John – “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart who has made Him known.” John 1:18

Jesus’ strange word-picture suggests a large mass being drawn through a tiny opening – by means of this contradiction, He indicates poetically that the actual mass of matter is no more than a speck in comparison to what it appears to be. Scientists now confirm this.

And who knew that Jesus taught at light speed?!

Eddington says, “As the speed of matter approaches the speed of light its mass increases to infinity, and therefore it is impossible to make matter travel faster than light.” Jesus made Himself a symbol of light, He poetically “sets the pace” at which a material body may travel: He was called “teacher” and “Lord” – thus, when He says that the scholar is not above his teacher nor the servant above his lord, enough that they fare alike, He restricts the pace to His own, light’s speed.

Move over Millenium Falcon, Jesus is in the passing lane! We’ll finish up our “time maps” installments in the next post. Until then, peace.

Which Life?

So what did Jesus mean when he said, “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth this life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal?” Preston Harold says:

In largest sense, Jesus spoke as symbol of Authority-Ego, and when He speaks as symbol He is speaking from a different level of being than that of the ego-group… Symbol of “I” in man cannot accept the insufficiency of Homo sapiens’ consciousness and all that ignorance and error cause to be manifest in life. If man’s growth into a larger structure of consciousness is to be insured, Authority-Ego must lead the ego-group to hate the mixture of love and lust its limited certitude expresses. An adjustment to, a reconciliation with, an acceptance of such insufficiency as is now exhibited in this world would hinder the growth of consciousness, evolution’s goal.

Different levels of life are automatically implied if we bypass the English translation and go right to the original Greek in which the gospel was written. There are 3 different words in Greek that mean “life.” The first is pneuma, which can also be translated as “spirit” and refers to the mental disposition or rational soul. The second word is psyche, which means the animal sentient principal. The third is zoe, which connotes vitality. In Jesus’ statement, both psyche and zoe are used. Here is the statement with “life” being used as it is in the Greek:

“He that loveth his psyche shall lose it; and he that hateth his psyche in this world shall keep it unto zoe eternal.”

It is important to note that in Biblical terms it is the psyche that is subject to death, and to the extent that we identify with it we identify with mere temporality which closes off our consciousness to further development. We must not identify with our lower self, for if we do we will not inherit eternal life.

But notice the paradox here. The goal is to keep the psyche unto eternal life; to make it endure in a highly vital, developed state. In consciously denying the psyche in this life, in not following it’s every whim and desire, we are intentionally subjecting it to the process of death and resurrection which it must undergo to enjoy abundant life in growth of consciousness. If we can hold this tension within ourselves, we are promised to reap an abundant harvest.  Delayed gratification, anyone?

Until next time, peace…

An End to Sin?

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son… -John 3:16

Through his death on the cross, Jesus saves mankind from their sin. How is this to be understood? If empathy is putting ourselves in another’s place, what might be the ultimate act of empathy? Could it be experiencing the death of the other? Every human being has to die, and in Jesus God enters into this inevitable human fate, experiencing death Himself. Preston Harold says that with total empathy comes an end to sin:

When through experience all mankind has evolved complete empathy, sin will no longer be possible, for man’s empathy will cause him to instinctively withdraw his mind and hand from abuse of another – his understanding will not permit him to err, for he will pay sin’s wage in his own being before he commits it.

Just as Jesus payed sin’s wage in his own being, we are called to do the same. We must experience the sorrow we would bring to another in our own being before we offend against them.

Empathy in man brings its joy or sorrow – enriches or takes its toll of him now, as now flowers into the present and plants the field of the future in reaping the harvest of past planting. Love’s eternal reward and punishment is given before it is grasped – now. Upon that infinitely small point between the past and the future that cannot be captured or measured eternity rests, for both now and eternity are beyond the grasp of consciousness. Eternal punishment of sin rests with empathy, which makes a man recoil with horror at the evil he has done when he comes to an understand it in his being, and thereafter he forever recoils with the pain at the prospect of repeating this evil, recoils now as it arises in the mind to do this evil again.

And here we grasp the meaning of “eternal punishment,” the “now” moment we truly realize and experience through empathy the hell of the horror of realizing the evil that we do to one another. Yet empathy has another face:

Empathy is saving grace to man – it frees his past, frees his future. It is acting now in his midst. Homo sapiens is an empathetic “animal.” He is no mistake on the part of evolution. Jesus’ words say to the belabored man of the twentieth century who has come to doubt nature’s wisdom in evolving his species: there is the living voice of truth, life and love within you, and as you begin to express its power, glory, and empathy, it will say unto you, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Until next time, peace.

Lucifer Rising

“Lucifer Rising” by Elvinia DC

Why must evil be resurrected along with righteousness? What purpose does it serve?

…Lucifer, the devil, means “light-bringer,” and light is primordial energy – but Lucifer is not himself the light he brings. It must be that if “your father, the devil” is resurrected in man causing him to express evil, this expression brings in its wake a necessary enlightenment. If man’s evil is wed to his very being, his good, life must be recasting his evil into a measure of “something” indispensable to him, and this “something” must be flesh over which consciousness has full dominion: flesh man can in truth call his own and keep. To have it, man must have knowledge of evil, of matter itself, and he must have dominion over evil. That is, he must learn to live without corrupting his flesh and abusing life itself in evil doing; he must complete the task begun in Eden, which is to acquire knowledge of good and evil.

Ah, a necessary enlightenment! Many people, including great philosophers and theologians throughout the ages have looked into and considered the possibility of redemption not just for human beings, but for Old Scratch himself. Origen said that nothing is beyond being healed by its maker.  Rudolf Steiner postulates that through resisting and balancing the extreme forces of spirit (Lucifer) and matter (Satan) we redeem evil. In his early lectures on the Bible, Valentin Tomberg says that Lucifer experienced an inner metamorphosis through the Mystery of Golgotha, and that at the crucifixion he recognized the nature of the sacrifice of Christ. Gregory of Nyssa said that the originator of evil WILL be healed. At the heart of these interpretations seems to be a deep intuition that there is a reason for the existence of evil, that it is serving a greater purpose which could not be accomplished without it’s resistance. Preston Harold would say that reason is “flesh man can in truth call his own and keep.”

One here must also consider here the role that Judas played in Christ’s drama. In his “Cipher of Genesis,” Carlo Suares reminds us that the Gospel of John has Judas following Jesus’ instructions to the letter.

I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfulled. He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. Now I tell you before it comes that when it is come to pass ye may believe that I am he. Verily, verily I say unto you: He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me… Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall HAND ME OVER (OR, DELIVER ME)…He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.

So Satan enters Judas, Jesus then sends Judas. In essence, Jesus has sent Satan. So it must follow, according to Jesus’ own words, that he who receives Satan receives Jesus, therefore in the process receiving God. Once again we must ask ourselves, “Does this offend us?”

The lesson in all of this? Suares tells us:

In terms of gnosis it is the statement of a simple fact: there is only One energy, only One life, only One movement. All is one and one is in all. The One is the one game of life and existence, of energy as energy and of energy as its own physical support, which is its own resistance to itself, without which nothing would be.

Until next time, Peace.

Jesus the Biochemist, Pt. 2

Jesus lived a relatively short life. He only needed to be around as long as was necessary for his message to be “absorbed.”

In the world of the cytoplasm the life of the Son, messenger-RNA, is short. Once the ribosomal-RNA is “keyed in,” the messenger-RNA is quickly broken down into individual nucleotides, which are put to a variety of uses in the cell. Thus, as the Son, messenger-RNA, completes its work, its “flesh and blood,” or body, is given for the life of the world of cytoplasm.

Once the Son has done His job, the apostles are the ones left to disseminate His message:

In the cell, there is a “transfer” or “missionary” job to be done. This work is accomplished by small fragments of RNA, fragments so small as to be freely soluble in the cell. These are often referred to as transfer-RNA. There are a number of varieties of transfer-RNA, and each will attach itself to one particular activated amino acid and to no other… In parallel, one might say that each factor of the superego can transmit only a portion of the truth, and thus brings only its “understanding” to be “attached” to the Son, messenger-RNA, so that many prophets and apostles are necessarily involved in the whole story that the Son, sent into the world, must reveal unto it.

In the Gospel of John Jesus says: “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” “My teaching is not my own, but comes from the one who sent me.” “Yet even if I should judge, my judgment would be valid, because it is not I alone who judges, but I and the one who sent me. “ Harold tells us that…

The world of the cytoplasm can see the Father, DNA, only in the Son, in messenger-RNA, which is somehow sent from the nucleus to give itself to “key-in” the “truth-blanks” in order that the world of the cytoplasm may partake of the Father’s word and the Son’s body, and thereby live. The Father, DNA, does not leave the nucleus; the “doctrine” of the messenger-RNA is not its own; it is the doctrine of the DNA that sends it. Whatever the message it gives, its judgment is true, for it gives DNA’s judgment as to the particular imprint (of the particular substance) to be impressed upon the ribosomal-RNA.

We’ll finish up today’s post with this potent paragraph:

In the cell, the message is expressed in a “chemical language,” which may now be the only “language” left to the Father, for to the Son, man, is given the power of the word. The “chemical words” of DNA brought by messenger-RNA are life to the cells. Jesus indicates that the words of truth, sounding from the depths in man and voiced through his Authority-Ego, are life to consciousness. As it partakes of them it is partaking of that which gives it eternal being, for truth and love are the “us” of God, eternal. Thus, He says, “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” He insists that the spirit quickens the flesh, and thus that life itself is a nonmaterial force.

And where do we find life, spirit, within the body? That will be the focus of our next post. Until then, peace.

Does this Offend You?

I am that bread of life…This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world….Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat of the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you….As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eats of me, even he shall live by me… -John 6:48-57

 

Sounds like cannibalism, right? At this point is would be good to remember Harold’s earlier assertion that the earliest humans were probably cannibals, most likely feeding off the brains of their fellow humans. So Jesus here is tapping into something very primordial within mankind. Yet the idea of eating of a fellow human being offends us.

Jesus speaks these words, then asks, “Does this offend you? What and if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” Here, He makes plain that His strange words are not to be taken literally – that He is sacrament only in the sense that this word means token or symbol of the truth he tries to convey.

OK, so Jesus isn’t talking about literal cannibalism.  As Harold sees Jesus as the outward symbol of the inward I AM, it is best to read Jesus’ words as “The I AM is the bread of life…The I AM is the living bread which came down from heaven…He that eats of the I AM shall live by the I AM…”

Within the mystery of the I AM is the mystery of the sustenance of all of life:

The profound mystery of life, the mystery of sustaining it, is wrapped up in these words and in the sacramental, symbolic enactment of them a t the last supper: “Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

And although it may offend us, life feeds on life in order for existence to continue…

In the view of this study, Jesus spoke profound biological truth. To do so, He unlocked His unconscious and let the voice of life itself, “I,” speak freely through Him. His words did offend, still offend. But “does this offend you?” – life cannot exist without something that is extracted from living or once-living tissue.   That something is an enzyme.

Oh, this sounds like it’s going to be interesting! Can’t wait for the next post.

Until then, peace…

Eternal Gain

“So if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed!” – John 8:36

Jesus came to set humanity free. How is that possible? Harold elaborates for us:

Jesus saw that man is not chained to the sin of the past or present, prone or doomed to repeat his sins because he is bound to the wheel of rebirth; He saw that what a man has gained in knowing, in knowledge of good and evil, he has gained for eternity. In the words of the Psalmist, the Lord “will not suffer thy foot to be moved…” and he “shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.” (Psalm 121:8) This is to say, Jesus saw that man is committed to life everlasting and thus he cannot escape it. But He saw, too, that life is becoming an ever more conscious state of being and that in time the swinging of the pendulum between life and death will move as evenly as breathing, with no loss of consciousness or sense of dying attendant upon it, that death and rebirth will be accomplished with the ease of laying down and picking up one’s life again in sleep and waking.

This brings us back to our friend Valentin Tomberg, and his assessment of forgetting, sleep, and death and their antitheses, remembering, waking, and life. While Plato is the one who taught us remembrance and Guatama Buddha is the one who showed us how to permanently awaken, it is Jesus who unveils to us the way death is overcome. Thank you for sharing your insights with us, Mr. Tomberg! And what is this way of Jesus?

  

THANKS, GUYS!

Jesus says God is love. In the unconscious, the kingdom of God within, love enfolds both the tried and the true, the untried and the untrue, enfolds ALL that man is and ALL that life is. “Ye” of the conscious domain express the unattenuated lusts of prime evil which leads men to abuse themselves even as they abuse their brothers. In effect, Jesus says to the men confronting Him that only love can draw one man to another and give understanding, each of the other, and that love is not parent of the consciousness they are expressing. Evil fathers it. But His words – ‘your father, the devil” – indicate that man’s quota of evil is part of his very-being…

And when that quota has been spent, death shall be no more. Until next time, peace…