In Spirit and Truth

Prefatory Note: This was written in response to a question: what I want others to know about where I am coming from. It is also a sermon of sorts, every word being pondered over in the Spirit.

I am a NOT, a neither this nor that. I am NOT a Christian, yet believe Jesu (as Christe) – by whatever name: Barbelo; Son of the Great Father, Babelu; Gate of G-d, Al Maisan; The Shinning One, etc. – has always walked among us; as Emanuel, G-d with us, even as when with Adam in the Garden (as the Torah reveals a teaching). And on any given day He may be disguised as one near to you sharing a message both personal and transcending our religions, disturbing and amazing us. And whether as a man or woman, an Angel or a cloud of light, or a voice as like a whisper from an unknown source, He wants to be introduced to you. And from that day forward you need never feel alone nor sweat the appearances of things. Cleave only to love, let go of all else, and you shall know and be known by G-d.

In Spirit and Truth

“… in Exodus 34 verse 6 when Moses has his most intimate view of God we see only goodness. Merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth.” ~Andrew Moore

Notice that these “seeings” of the Divine are rasa’s, or ” felt-meanings” rather than bounded forms of recognizable dimension or extension (material objects or energy manifestations). Spirit belongs to the invisible “non local” realm and it’s relationship to manifest existence is revealed in the rasa’s of relationship. These felt-meanings are the life-breath of spiritual Presence. Notice too that all the above rasa’s are “good” qualities and foster unifying relationships in a boundary-less intimacy, whereas the common, less “positive” rasa’s would suggest a lack of unity in relationship and require physical/spacial separation to reflect our spiritual-emotional estrangement with the divine Unity – Alaha in Aramaic.

The premise I am working toward here is that to worship “in Spirit and Truth” we must contemplate the noble rasa’s of love-light and joy-without-reason, until we literally dissolve or are enfolded within their unifying power. Being thus assimilated, G-d, the essence of Life, is our pure food, our manna, and our true Life is eternal, unbounded by space or time. We must simultaneously dismiss all negativity, especially of fear, anger and doubt, by turning it over to G-d and letting go completely, again and again if necessary.

All that appears not as love and its kindred spirits is simply excrement of sorts, to be released and recycled in the “bottomless pit” (of the “implicate order”). In Hebrew, “hell” is Gehena, which means garbage dump. It is as a mulching pit where all that is no longer useful for life’s sustenance decays and is turned to fertilizer for new growth. We need not concern ourselves with fighting the garbage of our lives, simply surrender it and move on to purer ground. There lies faith.

It can’t get much simpler, yet it is a moment to moment, not a one-time act or confession I am recommending as there is a certain momentum that is desirable if we truly seek freedom and knowledge and wish to pass beyond the emptiness, the no man’s land, which lacking discernable and familiar structure can feel like an abandonment to the lover, which the mystics have called a dark night, of indeterminate duration, and some (like Eckhart) with a more intellectual detachment have accepted this as the truth of our being – an annihilation. Beyond the passing away of the small self however, there is a Person waiting to receive you as in a mirror of exquisite delight. (Then the journey truly begins I am told.)

Wrath, Law, Jealousy etc have been cut out of the equation through the work of Christ.
God's plan for creation is for it to resonate with the beauty of heaven. ~Andrew Moore

When I do have occasion to speak to people about living loving and joyous lives - living from the Spirit, rather than the senses - it becomes quite apparent that they do not want to give up, self righteousness, anger, judgment, condemnation, etc. Christians by and large are no exception. Neither theology nor debate can save us from this grayish-dark side of our humanity. Perhaps we must first hit bottom.

This is not a conversation people want to have and one I do not force. I do recognize the addictive and habitual nature of these reactive responses and the seductive allure of rationalizing them or avoiding them. What I do not appreciate is that people set their sights no higher than to fit themselves in an accommodation with the attributes of their lower nature and taking what solaces they can in sharing their predicament with others who “identify with” them. Jesu also challenged us… even to “be perfect even as the Father is perfect”. What can seem more impossible than that? Yet we need not lose hope; G-d lets us “chunk it down.”

“Attributes can be understood as spirits or Angels, and can be placed within the context of a cosmology of multiple heavens.” ~Andrew Moore

It is noticeable that the “spirits” which govern our lives are not the Holy Spirit. Though we may invoke the Sprit of G-d in church to heal us of our conditions, it is also too often evident that we are not surrendered to the fire of its purification. We love our drama, our special ness and positionality, above holy relationship and G-d holds our free will to be inviolate.

And within the majesty of G-d, the so-called wrath of G-d is not a Divine doing; it is a thing we bring upon ourselves in our abandonment of Truth. And the fear of G-d is discarded in love. That G-d should be other than goodness, Jesu in so many ways rejected, without denying the evil that men do… even if it were in the name of the LORD as some scriptures suggest.
Yet the Law called LORD, * the true and incomparable Law of wondrous workings as the heart-mind of G-d – YHVH – does allow us to dig our own grave, or rise to heights as the gods (elohim) we are - being in the image of God; Elohim (Genesis 3:5). It is all within the power of the un-conflicted heart to reason (by way of beauty) and speak (by way of love-desire) into being. This is called “the will of the heart”. We all have this saba ana, this unchallenged “desire power” as Jesu once said when He was asked to heal. Though we may wish to take no responsibility, our own divine inheritance, our lineage, will not deny the power of its own word (logos). Only the “obscuring emotions”, the baser rasa’s, triggered by constructed and inherited memory programs of “sin” (our mistakes) keep us from our regal home in the heavens (too ouranou), and making the very space around us now a dwelling for the reign of the Holy Spirit, our Queen (malkuta shemaya).

And Jesu in modeling our nature for us, parenting us, did not abuse the power of G-d to fight human battles as when throwing out the moneychangers from the Temple or even to prevent his own crucifixion. He summoned forth no knighthood of Angelic hosts to fight his own fight. Toward such events he approached as a man and struggled as a man alone. He invoked the power of G-d only to glorify G-d in direct service to others, affirming G-d’s Oneness as being a plurality in Unity with Himself (YHVH Elohim). Thus we are given the Golden Rule; for we are all within one another, within Christ, within G-d.

Such is the example He set forth for us and bid us to do even greater things than He, for Christ is now multiplied through us. His story continues through us, for we are given power to bind and lose, within the Spirit of Wisdom our mother, who reveals the Father in the Son, and ourselves as second generation Adam, children of adoption in Christ’s eternity, a thing hidden in the folds of time since the foundation of the world.

“God 'is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity.” Habbukuk 1:13

If we wish to draw closer to G-d’s stately grace and maternal mercy we must come to see with G-d’s vision; see only love, speak only love and find our joy in the love itself. This does not mean to be busy with things religious or “drip” on people with a “bleeding heart”, or presume a posture of martyrdom. It means to “walk the talk”. And if maintaining this love-light, within a hero’s heart, were our only discipline, in time, we would come to know a great storehouse of the blessedness of G-d, be justified in the faith of G-d, and be no more in bondage to the limitations of the world.

Note * see the blog “The Reign of Heaven.

© Arjay 2009, All rights reserved.

Contemplation and Intercession

I have started a prayer group within the intentional community I am associated with. Still a monk at heart I am aware of my obligation to pray for others. It is natural for me to want to combine the contemplative and intercessory aspects of prayer, and have experimented with how to accomplish this over the years. The journey has helped me live a miraculous life. The following, some may find helpful in this regard.

The Physical body can be likened to a sheath or covering for the soul. The physical body of course dissolves at death. Please consider that there are other sheaths or “bodies” we can become aware of with little effort. There is the energy sheath revealed under Kirilian photography – which when fully rehabilitated, is possibly the resurrection body. There is the emotional sheath, which reflects our life essence – ideally as love. There is the mental sheath where we come to full understanding and a spiritual sheath, which is timeless eternal Joy in the awareness of our unity with the Divine.

Each body has a preferred state of functioning in Life-Joy. This “life joy under all conditions” is the meaning of “Blessed” in the Beatitudes.

My personal formal meditation practice continues to evolve and now revolves around these five sheaths and their combined joys which together I call the Five Body Bliss of Inner Lovers, having
10 steps (and a secret 11th) to master. I have yet to teach this meditative process to anyone. Below however is an abbreviated adaptation of my practice to the art of intercessory prayer. I offer it for your consideration.

The five embodied blisses & intercession:

· First, offer a short prayer of your choice, or as I say; “Bismillah” - In the name of G-d.
· Get the idea of touching them to start. This can be a simple resting of the hand on their shoulder, or on the place where it hurts, or a hug or cradling them in your arms. Follow your intuition as to what is appropriate and sense this as comforting even pleasant.
· Whatever the condition or situation, get the idea “it’s only energy” and energy can change form, and move from stuckness to flow. If you can, stay with this until the situation seems less “solid” and/or you feel a sense of “release” within yourself. Your own “felt sense” is a feedback mechanism.
· Extend love and/or light dissolving everything, even the very form of the person, the condition and your self into a radiance at/in the heart. Stay with this as long as you like. You may find it delightful. Though I am not much for words, I may say “I love you” at this point.
· Dream a short “waking dream” of some beautiful resolution to the problem. The details of the resolution are less important than the sensing of its Beauty as Harmony, Order, Elegance, the wonderful, etc.. Beauty taps the highest intuitive function of mind.
· Get the idea of smiling inside and let all thoughts dissolve in a smile of pure joy. Get the idea of increasing this joy to the highest level you are able in the moment. In time this smile may open up into a spontaneous bliss of G-d’s Blessing/Blesedness.
· Let go completely and faithfully let G-d do what is needful. Become a blank slate upon which the inspiration of the Holy Spirit may write.
· Retrace quickly the steps from Joy back to Beauty, back to Light/Love and allow this light to condense into new energy patterns as you come back to the felt sense of touching the person again.
· Remove the hands of your imagination as you give thanks & amen to G-d.
· Move on to the next prayer request and repeat the process.

This is my current approach to what I call contemplative intercessory prayer.

PS If doing this for oneself it is probably best to “imagine” your condition in the second or third person.

© Arjay 2009

The Reign of Heaven

“The reign of heaven is within and between us”. Heaven in Greek is too ouranou and in Aramaic shemaya (from the Semitic root ShM). Together we get the idea of endless (aya) vibration in space . Together we get the idea of vibration in space – rather than being a specific place.

As we all know, in spite of our solid appearance, we are mostly space. Perhaps this too goes deeper than appearance. Physics once postulated a universal ether and zero-point energy is the newest term to indicate that space is not “empty”. I posit G-d as the dweller therein, or at least the mind of G-d. Our bodies even our thoughts, do not belong to us; they are temporary dwellers with us in this space, products of generations of genes and memes; unconscious coverings which clothe us in our poverty. We have yet to honor the sky clad image of G-d – which even space-like, is more than sufficient to guide us into Wisdom.

There is a fundamental Unity to space, which mirrors the Unity of G-d. Space is essentially indivisible. ”Its center everywhere, its circumference nowhere.” Any apparent reference to separate spaces is a convention relative to the positioning of objects in space. Subjectively, space “feels” no boundaries and is itself a feeling of spaciousness, of freedom, of possibility, like a blank canvas waiting for the brush.

As to the objects of space, they have incredibly short lives at the sub atomic level. They appear and disappear into what I assert to be intelligent waves of space itself only to reappear in ever-fresh patterns. These patterns are dependent on the imaginal intelligence, which is the conscious and willful vibration of space called mind.

Because of this relationship of space to its objects, the physicist notes that the act of observing "changes” the object. In fact, without an observer it appears that objects could not exist at all. The Observer then is no mere passive witness but co creator in all manifestation, all of experience. It may be said that subject and object arise together and I like to add; in the mind of G-d.

Mind IS space-like. Inventors speak of ideas being in the air, much like the prophets report visions and voices from the space surrounding them or even from within the objects that are present, like Moses before the burning bush. The history of simultaneous invention shows that ideas who’s time has come are not limited by distance or person. present. A small child knows that his imagination is not limited to the space inside his head. He can point to his imaginal creations with full certainty that they exist in the space outside him. It too is this imaginal realm where converse with G-d takes place. A kind of Jungian active imagination assists this dialogue. Prayer as imaginative feeling finds its proper offering in this space. Meditation on the aliveness of this space brings G-d to life for us.

To enter into the space-presence (too ouranou) of G-d is to reverberate with the spiritual traits (names/resonant vibrations – shemaya) of G-d. One tuning fork can entrain another into its vibration, which is a good analogy for the process, yet it is not the gross vibration of the electromagnetic spectrum we deal with, but the vibration of consciousness in its felt meaning of relationship to its object. Space without objects – therefore without time, as the motion of objects – is a workable image of the non local realm from which all local phenomenon arise.

The idea of divine names can easily become overly intellectual and lead to erroneous concepts. The needful thing to know is that there is a felt meaning behind them all, the contemplation of which liberates the divine essence within us. Immerse yourself in this feeling and radiate it into limitless space – dissolving all objects of the senses and seeding the spacial “ground” from which they may re-emerge as a more perfect reflection of imagination.

The first cause of creation is desire, which evokes from within itself the first creation - the idea – which operatively through space-time manifests in material form. The perception of time however is due to our sensory limitation. In accordance with the Theory of Relativity, to one traveling at the speed of light, past and future are occurring simultaneously. Within this disparity of perception is also the key to the miraculous; of instantaneous manifestation.

How does this relate to the tetragramaton YHVH? It is said G-d used the letter Yud to create the world to come – Yud is desire, G-d’s out-trusting ardor. The first Hei is the form, which models desire and the final Hei is the manifestation." Thus it is said G-d used Hei to create the world that is. Vav is time and the bridge between the two Hei’s; it means “and”, being the many possibilities of desire realized. One can liken Vav’s expression to the “Multiple Histories Interpretation of quantum mechanics, and as multiple histories, it is wise not to be overly specific in defining the result as it may limit the manifest options and become counter productive of the intent.

The YH and VH further relate to physicist David Bohm’s implicate and explicate orders respectively as defined by physicist David Bohm. To add the letter Shin between these letter groupings we have the interpersonal factor, the “boundary condition” of science or the Holy Spirit of religion, which makes the Law (of YHVH) personal with respect to the individual. The five letters of course spell Yeshua – Jesus in Hebrew – G-d made imminent. Many are the mysteries of Shin, a “mother letter,” the form of which suggests the fire of the Holy Spirit (Wisdom) clarifying what Jesu meant that he had come “to cast fire on the earth.”

One may liken space to a womb and desire to a seed while the idea is the embryo. The creative process of the individual should mirror the procreative process; the seed sown in bliss of union. Lest one be inclined to perpetuate the myth of male superiority in the divine realm, be reminded that it is woman who evokes desire. Get the idea that form wants you as much as you want form; that it evokes as well as responds to your ardor.

We are given free will and the Law operates according to will. To do our own will in opposition to the Divine will is suffering. To align ourselves with the Divine will through Love and Beauty is to foster fulfillment within the Unity of creation.

Therapy and healing have to do with time; letting go of the cause effect judgments of sensation based logic and reactive emotions. After healing spirituality begins, bringing creativity instead of reactivity. The highest form of creativity is bringing our thought into alliance with the good of the entire unity of being and beings, which multiplies our power as well as our wisdom. This good of course is love, and rather than say unconditional love, I say unconditioned love, for such a love comes only to one who who knows the intimacy of this Unity.

And we find confirmation of the above in the meaning of “name” in Aramaic, which includes the ideas of light, sound, vibration and atmosphere. To pray in the name of Jesu is not a simple appeal; it is to relate to or resonate with the intelligence of Christ.This idea of relationship must never be lost to us, as it has been by many who teach a mechanical “law of attraction” or a law of Dharma or science. Never forget that there is personhood hidden within every-thing and every-one. That personhood is like the drop in the ocean or the spark in the fire, inseparable, as we all are from G-d.

What may be invisible to the two eyed one’s will one day be seen by the eye of the heart and all shall appear as light more beautiful and fluid than the astronomers gaseous nebula. I like to say, greet everything with a chivalrous attitude; with respect, honor and a generous heart. This includes the ground you walk on and the chair you sit in, for to me it seems true that as Jesu says in the Gospel of Thomas;” cleave wood and I am there.”

© Arjay 2009