“When truth, embodied in a tale,
Shall enter in at lowly doors.”
We start out by reading the Bible as a children’s story, but at one point hope, believe and wishful thinking do not pacify us anymore. Either suffering or our curiosity make us look closer, to find and embrace the Truth in our own Beingness and affairs.
For many, the years of exercising hope, believe and imagination are needed to penetrate the cold walls of reasoning that keep us trapped in the dark, in the way we currently experience and explain life.
everything that is illuminated becomes a light itself. 14So it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” 15Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk, not as unwise but as wise…
Ephesians 5:14
As person, we look at God’s creation through the filter of our own conditioned mind, and we see only “this world”.
From the “this world” perspective we are as good as dead, even if our physical heart is still beating and the TV is blasting.
How can we pierce through the veil of our own (involuntary) ignorance, that prevents us from seeing and applying the deeper message of the Bible — or any Truth-Teaching?
He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with him.” 3Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” 4“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”
Where to start in all of this seeming mess, resistance and confusion? How to overcome the stubbornness of our own mind?
“There was but one way in which man could learn God, and that was by God becoming man. ‘The Word became flesh.'”
It starts with meditation, with dedicated times to allow our attention to settle down at the center of our Being…
Just 20 seconds every hour is already great! Your sincerity is more important than time and space.
Repentance requires love and playfulness, to be willing to have your world turned upside down.
Love is real, but it is not what we think.
“This world”, filtered through our own old mind, is a form of madness, if we judge by appearances.
When does it click, when do we feel and experience our true nature:
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
1 Corinthians 6:19
Not as a puffed up spiritual ego, driven by despair and mental effort, but in quietness and confidence:
Then justice will inhabit the wilderness, and righteousness will dwell in the fertile field. 17The work of righteousness will be peace; the service of righteousness will be quiet confidence forever. 18Then my people will dwell in a peaceful place, in safe and secure places of rest.
Isaiah 32:17
The Good News is really a good news, if we can discern experience from assumption.
Truth is real, but not as a cluster of fuzzy feelings.
We need to take it to heart and not just rush over it…
Let’s not rush through scripture, but pause and listen to create an inner space for the words to resonate in the depth of our being:
for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
1 John 5:4
Even our faith, as a mental activity, is just a preparatory stepping stone, for our attention to wake up from the sleep as a separate-self.