To all who would like, using the Socratic approach ("of or pertaining to Gk. philosopher Socrates" (469-399 B.C.E.), especially in reference to his method of eliciting truth by question and answer.), get in on this dialogue: As we work to deal with the problem of evil with its suffering and pain, what do you feel are the burning issues and questions of primary and deepest concern to human kind? What makes us truly humane beings?
In Question and answer one must have answers to questions.
God is not democratic, only the ego idealizes God thru democratic opinion and belief.
(From the Yoga of Jesus)
The "Second Birth": Awakening of Soul-IntuitionHidden Truth in Jesus' parables
And the disciples came, and said unto him, "Why speakest thou unto them in parables?" He answered and said unto them,"Because it is give unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given...Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand" (Matthew 13: 10, 11,13)
When Jesus was asked by his disciples why he taught in parables, he answered, "Because it is ordained that you who are my real disciples, living in spiritualized life and disciplining your actions according to my teachings, deserve by virtue of your inner awakening in your meditations to understand the truth of the arcane mysteries of heaven and how to attain the kindom of God, Cosmic Consciousness hidden behind the vibratory creation of cosmic delusion.
"But ordinary people, unprepared in their receptivity, are not able to either comprehend or to practice the deeper wisdom-truths. From parables, they glean according to their understanding simpler truths from the wisdom I send out to them. By practical application of what they are able to receive, they make some progress toward redemption."...
How do the receptive perceive truth, whereas the unreceptive "Seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand"? The ultimate truths of heaven and the kindom of God, the reality that lies behind sensory perception and beyond the cogitations of the rationalizing mind, can only be grasped by intuition__awakening the intuitive knowing, the pure comprehension of the soul.
There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him,
"Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles thou doest, except God be with him."
Jesus answered and said unto him, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Nicodemus saith unto him, " How can a man be born when his old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?"
Jesus answered, "Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh; and that which is born of Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, 'Ye must be born again.'The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:1-8)
Nicodemus visited Jesus secretly in the night, for he feared social criticism. It was an act of courage for one of his position to approach the controversial teacher and to declare his faith in Jesus' divine stature. He reverently affirmed his conviction that only a master who had actual God-Communion could work the superlaws that govern the inner life of beings and all things.
In reply, Christ forthrightly directed Nicodemus' attention to the heavenly Source of all phenomena in creation -- Mundane as well as "miraculous"--pointing out succinctly that anyone can contact that Source and know the wonders that proceed therefrom, even as Jesus himself did, by undergoing the spiritual "second birth" of intuitional soul-awakening.
The superficially curious crowds attracted by displays of phenomenal powers received only scantily from the wisdom trove of Jesus, but the manifest sincerity of Nicodemus elicited from the Master determinate guidance that emphasized the Supreme Power and Goal on which man should concentrate. Miracles of wisdom to enlighten the mind are superior to miracles of physical healing and the subjugation of nature; and the even greater miracle is the healing of the root-cause of every form of suffering: delusive ignorance that obscures the unity of man's soul and God. That primordial forgetfulness is vanquished only by Self-Realization, through the intuitive power by which the soul directly apprehends its own nature as individualized Spirit and perceives Spirit as the essence of everything.
All bona fide revealed religions of the world are based on intuitive knowledge. Each has an exoteric or outer particularity, and an esoteric or inner core. The exoteric aspect is the public image, and includes moral precepts and a body of doctrines, dogmas, dissertations, rules, and customs to guide the general populace of its followers. The esoteric aspect includes methods that focus on actual communion of the soul with God. The exoteric aspect is for the many; the esoteric is for the ardent few. It is the esoteric aspect of religion that leads to intuition, the firsthand knowledge of Reality.
The lofty
Sanatana Dharma of the Vedic philosophy of ancient India--summarized in the Unpanishads and in the six classical systems of metaphysical knowledge, and peerlessly encapsulated in the Bhagavad Gita--is based on intuitional perception of the Transcendental Reality. Buddhism, with its various methods of controlling the mind and gaining depth in meditation, advocates intuitive knowledge to realize the transcendence of
nirvana. Sufism in Islam anchors the intuitive mystical experience of the soul. Within the Jewish religion are esoteric teachings based on the inner experience of the Divine, evidenced abundantly in the legacy of the God-illumined Biblical prophets. Christ's teachings are fully expressive of that realization. The apostle John's Revelation is a remarkable disclosure of the soul's intuitional perception of deepest truths garbed in metaphor.
The "second birth," the necessity of which Jesus speaks, admits us the land of intutional perception of truth. The New Testament may not have been scribed with the word "intuition" but it is replete with references to intuitive knowledge. Indeed, the twenty-one verses describing Nicodemus' visit present in condensed epigrammatic sayings so typical of Oriental scripture, Jesus' comprehensive esoteric teachings relating to the practical attainment of the infinite kingdom of blissful divine consciousness.
These verses have been largely interpreted in support of such doctrines as baptism of the body by water as prerequisite of entering God's kingdom after death (John 3:5); that Jesus is the only "son of God" (John 3:16}; that mere "belief" in Jesus is sufficient for salvation, and that all are condemned who do not so believe (John 3:17-18).
Such exoteric reading of scripture engulfs in dogma the universality of religion. A panorama of unity unfolds in an understanding of esoteric truth.
"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" This choice of words by Jesus is an allusion to his familiarity with the Eastern spiritual doctrine of reincarnation. One meaning to be drawn from this precept is that the soul has to be born repeatedly in various bodies until it reawakens to realization of its native perfection.
It is a false hope to believe that at bodily death the soul automatically enters into an everlasting angelic existence in heaven. Unless and until one attains perfection by removing the debris of Karma (effects of one's egoic beliefs and actions} from the individualized God-image of his soul, he cannot enter God's kingdom. (Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect" [Matt: 5:48])
The ordinary person, constantly creating new karmic bondage by his wrong actions and material desires, adding to the accumulate effects of numerous previous incarnations, cannot free his soul on one lifetime. It takes many lifetimes of physical, mental and spiritual evolution to work out the Karmic entanglements that block soul intuition, the pure knowing without which one cannot see the "kingdom of God."
The principle import of Jesus' words to Nicodemus goes beyond an implied reference to reincarnation, This is clear from Nicodemus'request for further explanation of how and
adult could reach God's kingdom: Must he reenter his mother's womb and be reborn? Jesus elaborates int eh succeeding verses as to how a person can be "Born again" in his present incarnation--how a soul identified with the flesh and sense limitations can acquire by meditation a new birth in Cosmic Consciousness.
"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."To be "born of water" is usually interpreted as a mandate for the outer ritual of baptism by water - a symbolic rebirth - in order to be eligible for God's kingdom after death. But Jesus did not mention a rebirth involving water. "Water" here means protoplasm; the body is made up mostly of water and begins its earthly existence in the amniotic fluid of the mother's womb.
Though the soul has to go through the natural process of birth that God has establishes through His biological laws, physical birth is not enough for man to be fit to see or enter into the kingdom of God.
The ordinary consciousness is tied to the flesh, and through the two physical eyes man can see only into the diminutive playhouse of this earth and its encircling starry sky. Through the small outer windows of the five senses, body-bound souls perceive nothing of the wonders beyond limited matter.
When a person is high aloft in an airplane he sees no boundaries, only limitlessness of space and free skies. But if he is caged in a room, surrounded by windowless walls, he loses the vision of vastness.
Similarly, when man's soul is sent out in the infinity of Spirit into a sensory-circumscribed mortal body, his outer experiences are confined to the limitations of matter. So Jesus alluded to the fact, as expressed by modern scientists, that we can see and know only as much as the limited instrumentality of the senses and reason allow.
Just as by a two inch telescope the details of the distant stars cannot be seen, so Jesus was saying that man cannot see or know anything about the heavenly kingdom of God through the unaugmented power of his mind and senses. However, a 200-inch telescope enables man to peer into the vast reaches of star-peopled space; and similarly, by developing the intuitional sense through meditation he can behold and enter the causal and astral kingdom of God--birthplace of thoughts, stars, and souls.
Jesus points out that after man's soul becomes incarnate--born of water, or protoplasm--he should transcend the mortal impositions of the body by self-development. Through awakening the "sixth sense," intuition, and opening the spiritual eye, his illuminated consciousness can enter into the kingdom of God. In this second birth the body remains the same; but the souls consciousness, instead of being tied to the material plane, is free to roam in the boundless, eternally joyous empire of Spirit.
God intended His human children to live on earth with an awakened perception of the Spirit informing all creation, and thus to enjoy His dream-drama as a cosmic entertainment. Alone among living creatures, the human body was equipped, as a special creation of God, with the instruments and capacities necessary to express fully the soul's divine potentials. But through the delusion of Satan(EGO), man ignores his higher endowments and remains attached to the limited fleshly form and its mortality.
As individualized souls, spirit progressively unfolds Its power of knowing through the successive stages of evolution: as unconscious response in minerals, as feeling in plant life as instinctive sentient knowledge in animals, as intellect, reason, and undeveloped introspective intuition in man, and as pure intuition in the superman.
It is said that after eight million lives traveling the successive steps of upward evolution like a prodigal son through the cycles of incarnations, at last the soul arrives in human birth. Originally, human beings were pure sons of God. Nobody knows the divine consciousness enjoyed by Adam and Eve except the saints. Ever since the Fall, man's misuse of his independence, he has lost that consciousness by associative equivalence of himself with the fleshly ego and its mortal desires. Not altogether uncommon are persons more like instinct-motivated animals than intellectually responsive human beings. They are so materially minded that when you talk about food or sex or money they understand and reflexively respond, like Pavlov's famous salivating dog. But try to engage them in a meaningful philosophical exchange about God or the mystery of life, and their uncomprehending reaction is as though their conversationalist were crazy.
The spiritual man is trying to free himself from the materiality that is the cause of his prodigal wandering in the maze of incarnations, but the ordinary man does not want more than a betterment of his earthly existence. As instinct confines the animal within prescribed limits, so also does reason, belief and opinion of ego circumscribe the human being who does not try to be superman by developing intuition and expanded awareness of reality.
The person who worships reason only and is not conscious of the availability of his power of intuition in expanded states of consciousness--by which alone he can know himself as soul--remains little more than a rational animal, out of touch with the spiritual heritage that is his birthright....
