The Teachings that were brought to the Earth from God-the-Father by Jesus Christ came to us in the form of Jesus’ conversations with His disciples and other people, His appeals to the Heavenly Father, descriptions of His deeds and miracles He performed, recorded in the Gospels. There are also writings of His disciples, which contain information they learned from Jesus, prophecies received from the Holy Spirit and God-the-Father, as well as personal opinions of the authors. Such writings are many, but not all of them were included in the New Testament.
However, there has been no complete and structured description of Jesus’ Teachings that would in an orderly manner discuss all the most important ideological issues. This was one of the reasons for numerous disagreements between the followers of Jesus Christ and for an abundance of the striking perversions of His Teachings.
It is obvious that the work of making an integral compilation of Jesus’ Teachings could have been successfully done only by a person who had fulfilled everything taught by Jesus, who had encompassed His Love and cognized God-the-Father. Only this can be testimony to the compiler’s competence.
The author of this book succeeded in reaching the end of the Path to God-the-Father, having studied the methodology of advancing along this Path and having built with the help and guidance of God a “stairway” of methods-steps leading to the Summit. In Russia, he started his work of saving people from the darkness of atheism at the time of Communist Party’s governing, suffered persecutions and slandering, went through “Calvary”, has been to the other world
twice and cognized the Embrace of the Holy Spirit and God-the-Father without
hindrance from the corporeal envelope; after that he was returned to his
physical body to continue self-development and service
This book was written with the blessing of God and under His guidance.
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God-the-Father
“… He alone exists… He has existed since all eternity, and His existence will have no end.
“He has no equal either in Heaven or on the Earth.
“The Great Creator has not shared His power with any living being…, He alone possesses omnipotence.” (The Life of Saint Issa, 5:16-17).
“The Eternal Lawgiver is one; there is no other god, but He. He has not shared the world with anyone, neither has He informed anyone of His intentions.” (The Life of Saint Issa, 6:10)
“… The Lord our God… is all-mighty, omniscient, and omnipresent. It is He who possesses all wisdom and all light. It is to Him you must address yourselves to be consoled in your sorrows, helped in your works, and cured in your sickness. Whosoever shall have recourse to Him shall not be denied.
“The secrets of nature are in the hands of God. For the world, before it appeared, existed in the depth of the divine thought; it became material and visible by the will of the Supreme.
“When you address yourselves to Him, become again as children; for you know neither the past, the present, nor the future, and God is the Master of all time.” (The Life of Saint Issa, 11:12-15).
“(He) is a Monocracy with nothing above It. … He is God and Father of everything, the invisible One Who is above everything…, Who is in pure light, Whom no eye
can see.
“He is the invisible Spirit. It is not right to think of Him like you think of gods, or something similar. … Everything exists in Him. … He is illimitable, since there is nothing prior to Him to limit Him. … He is immeasurable, since there was no one prior to Him to measure Him. … He is eternal. … He exists eternally. … There is no way to tell His quantity… He is not contained in time…
“He is life-giving Life. He is blessedness-giving blessed One. He is wisdom-giving Wisdom. He is salvation-giving and love-giving Love.
“He is motionless; He resides in calm and silence. … He directs His desires into His flow of Light. He is the Source of this flow of Light…” (The Apocryphon of John, 2:25-4:25)
“He is the Original Spirit” (The Apocryphon of John, 4:35, 5:10,15).
“This then is the message which we have heard from… (Jesus), and declare unto you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
“… The blessed… King, Who alone has immortality, dwelling in the Light…” (1 Tim 6:15-16).
“Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Tim 1:17).
The majority of these words of Jesus were not included in the New Testament by church leaders at the end of 4-th century after Jesus’ visit on the Earth. And this predestined the deflection of the majority of Christians from monotheism. They have almost forgotten God-the-Father, though He and the Path to Him were the essence of Jesus’ preachings. Thus, their ontological, epistemological, and methodological views became baseless.
Moreover, Russian Orthodoxy developed an anthropomorphic
concept of God-the-Father, which is a typical feature of paganism. It is illustrated on the icon Trinity, where God-the-Father is depicted as an old man sitting on a cloud. And to the right of Him — sits Jesus. This notion was even accepted as the Orthodox Creed: “I believe… (in) the Lord Jesus Christ…, … sitting to the right of the Father…”
But God-the-Father is not a flying old man. He is the Primordial Consciousness immeasurable in Its vastness, filling the whole universal space in His Abode, and not anthropomorphic at all. He is really infinite. How can one sit to the right of the Infinite?
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His Evolution and Us
We, inhabitants of the Earth, are used to measure time by days (the periods of Earth’s rotation around its axis) subdivided in hours, minutes, and seconds, and also by years (the periods of Earth’s rotation around the Sun) subdivided in months and weeks.
He — universal — has a different type of chronology. It is measured by Manvantaras, which cover billions of years.
What part of the universe does a Manvantara embrace? — who knows it, except Him? And for us it is of no significance.
A Manvantara is a cycle of development that consists of two phases — manifest and non-manifest. The first phase begins with a creation of the world and ends with an end of the world. During the second phase, there is no Creation; there are only Him and “building material” for new Creations.
At the beginning of each cycle, He gradually creates (materializes) a dense substrate — the matter of planets. Then miniscule particles of energy are “sowed” on some of them. They begin to evolve on the crystalline lattices of minerals, then continue developing by incarnating into material bodies of plants, animals, humans. In the end, they must achieve such a level of perfection that they become worthy to merge into the Creator and thus to enrich Him by this. He directs the process of their growth, grants them a certain degree of free will — i.e. the possibility to make a choice in educational situations created by Him, the possibility to choose their path. We even have the possibility to choose whether we walk the path of Evolution or the path of involution.
He loves us like His children. And He constantly offers us new possibilities for making right choices; we either accept or reject them.
In particular, He gave us Holy books containing instructions on how we should live. If we follow them, we become more and more perfect and get closer to Him. If we do not comply with them, it may result even in becoming more distant from the Creator. Pain and suffering are the means that He uses to point to our errors. But an intensifying feeling of happiness, as we approach Him, serves as an indicator of our success.
We have to try to become “perfect as (our) Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48) and merge into Him as soon as possible: He calls us into His Embrace, to the supreme bliss of being in Him, in Mergence with Him.
“Blessed are you who have known temptations and flee from them! Blessed are you who are reviled and not esteemed on account of the love your Lord has for you! Blessed are you who weep and are oppressed by those without hope (for salvation), for you will be released from every bondage! Watch and pray that you not come to be in the flesh (again), but rather that you come forth from the bondage of bitterness of this (earthly) life. … (And) when you come forth from the sufferings and passions of the body, you will receive rest…, and you will reign with the King, you joined with Him and He with you, from now on, for ever and ever! Amen.” (The Book of Thomas the Contender, 145).
To progress faster in our self-development in the direction to God, we can try to fall in love with Him. “… Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength…” (Mark 12:30). For it is the emotion of love that attracts and unites a human consciousness with a human consciousness, and a human consciousness — with the Consciousness of God.
* * *
In the year 553, the leaders of the Christians communities
established by that time, gathered for a “council” and decided “by a majority”
to exclude from the Teachings of Jesus the part where the meaning of existence
of humans and other living beings on the Earth was explained from the
evolutionary standpoint.
Thus the Teachings were deprived of their integrity and
completeness. After that, people unable to find answers on many naturally
arising questions began to fantasize. For example, they decided that the cause
of our suffering on the Earth is the sins inherited from Adam and Eve, and
therefore we are absolutely hopeless sinners; no efforts on self-perfection can
help or are necessary, for it can only seduce us into the sin of pride… All we
can do is to keep praying to the “patron saints” and to Virgin Mary, begging
them to solicit Jesus Christ for us so that He has mercy on us and send us to
paradise instead of hell…
But such beliefs cannot save one from hell, since they are directly opposite to the Teachings of Jesus Christ. He taught that people should make efforts on perfecting themselves. In particular, He said: “… The Kingdom of God is being preached (by Me), and everyone is forcing their way into it” (Luke 16:16). He also never called us back to paganism.
We will continue discussing this subject in the following chapters, and now let us consider a few examples of what Jesus said regarding the soul’s development in the course of its consecutive incarnations.
Watching a performance of talented singers, He told to His disciples: “Where do their talent and skills come from? They could not possibly acquire such a perfection of voice and knowledge of the laws of harmony in the course of just one short life. Is this a miracle? No. Everything arises from natural laws. Many thousands of years ago, these people mastered their harmony and (these) qualities. And they come again to learn more…” (Tibetan Gospel).
And when the disciples asked Him about John the Baptist, Jesus replied: “And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. He who has ears, let him hear.” (Matt 11:14-15). At another occasion He said: “… Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him… Then the disciples understood that He was talking to them about John the Baptist.” (Matt 17:11-13).
In between incarnations, said Jesus, righteous human souls resurrect in the non-material world and “… neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in Heaven.” (Matt 22:30).
In a series of many incarnations, a human being develops in three main directions: intellectual, ethic, and psychoenergetic ones. The first line of development is the most difficult one taking the longest period of time.
Differences between people in the level of intellectual development are well known not only in psychiatry, which classifies people into a number of categories: idiots, imbeciles, morons, physiologically feebleminded people, people with serious mental defects (partial dementia, schizophrenia, paranoia, etc) — and the rest. The intellectual differences can also be clearly seen in the religious field.
For example, some people are only capable of performing “prayerful” bodily movements and panhandling “for God’s sake”. In Russian Orthodoxy the following verbal construction is widely used: “to pray at something”. This means making standard bodily movements when facing some object of ritual value.
People of a higher intellectual level are capable of studying the Will of God for us and doing the necessary work on perfecting themselves, primarily from the ethic standpoint.
But there are people who are able to encompass the entire profundity of the knowledge about God; through self-sacrificial work such adepts achieve Godlikeness and merge with God, finishing in this way the personal evolution.
The reason for these differences between people lies not only in peculiarities of intrauterine development and childhood diseases, and not even in the upbringing or education, but primarily in the evolutionary age of the soul and the efforts on self-perfection which this soul has already made.
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The Process of Creation. Multidimensionality of Space
During the non-manifest phase of a Manvantara, there are only the Primordial Consciousness of the Creator and “building material” for creation of matter and souls — protoprakriti and protopurusha (see [3-5] for more details). The process of creation begins with local densifications of protoprakriti, which forms dense substrate for organic life to exist on. “… She came forth, … she… appeared before Him in the shine of His light…, she became the womb of everything…” (The Apocryphon of John 4:25-5:5).
The duration of the process of a world creation is not measured in days, but in epochs; six “days” of the world creation is an example of an incorrect translation of the Bible. (If we admit that these were the days in the usual sense, then it follows that the creation of the world took place about 7.5 thousand years ago. But archeological data indicate that people have existed on the Earth for about a million years).
In the Gospel of Phillip, spatial dimensions are called in Greek — eons.
To explain fully with words the nature of multidimensional structure of the Earth, for example, is impossible. One can only say that in the depth beneath each material object there are layers of increasingly subtle, pure, tender, and lucid light. These layers can be cognized only with the help of special methods of the development of consciousness. This is the path of gradual refinement of consciousness, strengthening and crystallization of consciousness at each of the levels achieved. This is the Path to cognition of the Creator.
The end of the world is the inverse process of decomposition of the Creation.
* * *
“He willed it and the world (of the Creation) appeared. In a Divine thought, He gathered together the waters, separating from them the dry portion of the globe. He is the principle of the mysterious existence of man (i.e. human corporeal form), into whom He has breathed a part of His Being.” (The Life of Saint Issa, 5:18)
“… He is life-giving Life…” (The Apocryphon of John, 4:1).
“… (He) has existed since all time and will still be after the end of all things” (The Life of Saint Issa, 8:6).
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The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the Creator manifesting Himself in the Creation through spiritual Adepts Who have achieved full Self-realization (=God-realization) and merged into Him, and also through Those, Who have not entered into the Abode of the Creator yet, but have achieved Mergence with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit supervises the activity of other spirits of earlier stages of the evolutionary development. He also directs successfully developing seekers, for example by giving them prophetic information. Jesus said the following about this: “But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears (from the Father and Jesus)…” (John 16:13).
Long before Jesus said these words, the Holy Spirit participated in the preparation of Jesus’ coming (Matt 1:20) by giving people miraculous signs about His special mission (Luke 2:25-35; 3:21; Matt 3:16); later the Holy Spirit took part in organizing Jesus’ work on the Earth (Luke 4:1).
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Sky — versus Heaven
Where does God live, where can one find Him? The overwhelming majority of people involved in primitive forms of religion would answer this question by pointing up to the sky. Just like they raise eyes and hands when praying.
Where does the belief that God is above originate from? Maybe the reason is that on the Earth’s surface one sees suffering and temptations while in the sky — tranquil clouds, endless expanse, caress of the Sun, mystery of the Moon and distant stars?
But Jesus laughed at such speculations: “If your leaders say to you: ‘Look, the (Father’s) Kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds of the sky will precede you.
“… Rather, the Kingdom is within you and outside you” (The Gospel of Thomas, 3).
“(And) those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed…, they will marvel, and (having settled in the Kingdom) will reign over everything” (The Gospel of Thomas, 2).
So, what does it mean — “within you and outside you”? And why the one who has found the Kingdom “will be disturbed” and “will marvel”?
We have discussed already the multidimensional nature of the Creation. All spatial dimensions exist right here — in the multidimensional depth beneath any material object, be it a stone or a tree or our planet or a human body. This is true also for any volume of space where there are no dense objects but only air. This is what is meant by “within and outside us”.
Thus, in order to find the Abode of the Creator, one has to direct the search not upward, but depthward. First, inside one’s own body — by transforming the emotional sphere: renouncing coarse emotional states (first of all — various forms of enmity: not only anger, but also condemnation, envy, jealousy, etc) and cultivating subtle ones (first of all — all kinds of emotional love: tenderness, caress, ability to admire the beautiful and to attune to it, etc). Usually, success in this work can be achieved with the help of cleansing and development of the chakras and meridians.
Further refinement of the consciousness is performed in the spiritual heart. The initial container of the spiritual heart — the anahata chakra — is a volume existing on the subtle planes within the chest of the body. The spiritual heart is a bioenergetic organ that produces the emotions of love. The ability to move the concentration of the consciousness into the spiritual heart enables one, in particular, to live in the world of light and love.
Jesus said about this: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matt 5:8). “Enter into your temple, into your heart. Illumine it with good thoughts and the patience and immovable confidence which you should have in your Father” (The Life of Saint Issa 9:12).
After the cleansing of the chakra anahata with the help of special methods, one can easily cleanse the whole organism: the organism has to be made so pure that it looks transparent for spiritual eyesight.
Having purified themselves in this way, spiritual adepts acquire the ability to see the Divine Consciousness, to see not with physical eyes but with the eyes of the consciousness. It can be realized inside the expanded spiritual heart.
Now let us get back to the subject outlined in the title of this chapter: sky and Heaven.
It is not by chance that the word Heaven is different from the word sky. Assigning the same meaning to both of them is misunderstanding caused by religious ignorance.
Heavens are the subtlest eons.
Though these eons are present everywhere — above us as well — there is no sense to search them by looking up or even by flying up. God in the aspect of the Creator and of the Holy Spirit is present in the subtlest spatial dimensions, which cannot be perceived with the physical eyes. One can see Him only after refining oneself (as a consciousness) to His level of subtlety; one can see Him not with the eyes of the body but with the eyesight of the consciousness.
* * *
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matt 7:21).
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that lead to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that lead to (True) Life, and only a few find it” (Matt 7:13-14).
“… One who seeks will find, and for one who knocks it will be opened” (The Gospel of Thomas, 94).
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Hell and Paradise
Apart from the material plane and the eons of Heaven mentioned above, there are other spatial dimensions that exist on the opposite (with respect to the Creator) end of the scale of coarseness-subtlety. These are the layers of hell.
One can perceive them on some negative places of power.
The specific feature of places of power
are characterized by presence of some kind of dominant energy
from non-material worlds, which affects the state of embodied beings, including
people.
Places of power can be classified into positive and negative ones, according to their positive or negative effect. There are positive places of power that are extremely favorable for spiritual work of a particular kind or for healing. Negative places of power allow one to know what life in various eons of hell looks like.
The sizes of places of power vary from one meter to several kilometers.
It is important for us to understand what determines the state and the spatial dimension (hell or paradise) where people find themselves upon death of their physical bodies. The answer is quite simple: in the other world man remains in the same state to which he accustomed himself while living in the physical body. He continues to exist in this state until his next incarnation, which usually happens after hundreds of years. This is why it is extremely important to master the control of one’s own emotions and not to live like an animal reacting reflexively to pleasant and unpleasant outer factors and to impulses of the body.
Various emotional states can be classified according to the scale of coarseness-subtlety.
Among the most coarse ones are hatred, fury, spite, horror, fear, despair, anxiety, jealousy, depression, resentment, feeling of being suppressed by someone, grief of separation, etc.
To the middle range one can assign such states as haste, impatience, sport or work excitement, sexual passion (passionate desire), etc.
The higher states of consciousness are tenderness (including sexually colored one), states that arise when one attunes to harmonious phenomena of nature (morning, spring, coziness, calm, songs of the best bird singers, playing animals, etc) or to appropriate works of various kinds of art.
There are higher states of consciousness. They are not present among the “earthly” emotions, and there is no “earthly” thing that can induce them. They can be cognized only in the higher meditations of Mergence with the Holy Spirit and with God-the-Father in His Abode.
Out of the three groups of states listed above, the first is called tamas, the second (intermediate) — rajas and third — sattva. Tamas, rajas, and sattva, as “earthly” attributes, are called gunas. The higher categories are transcendent to the gunas.
Man has a possibility to ascend from one guna to another and to higher levels by making spiritual efforts. But he can also descend.
It should be stressed that the point here is not only about the ability to feel certain emotions, but about states of the consciousness habitual for a person. And the states habitual at the moment of the death of the body determine one’s destiny for hundreds of years.
Let each of us think: “Do I want to stay for so long in the states of the first category among other beings like me?” This is what hell is.
If we blame for our emotions “them” — other people or certain circumstances — we are wrong. We ourselves attune to these bad people or circumstances, whereas we should attune to God, to the Divine that can save us from hell. Apostle Paul said about this, “… Shrink from evil, cleave to good” (Rom 12:9).
For the same reason one should keep to the following principles:
“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who insult you and persecute you…” (Matt 5:44).
“Settle matters quickly with your adversary…” (Matt 5:25).
“Blessed are the peacemakers…” (Matt 5:9).
“… Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles”. (Matt 5:38-41).
“Do not judge…” (Matt 7:1).
“… Do not condemn…” (Luke 6:37).
“… Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul” (Matt 10:28).
“… Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back” (Luke 6:30).
“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from Heaven, but is ‘earthly’, unspiritual, of the devil…” (James 3:13-15).
“Anyone who claims to be in the light, but hates his brother is still in the darkness” (1 John 2:9).
“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody…
“Never avenge yourselves…
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink…
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:14-21).
“Why do you judge your brother? … For each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.” (Rom 14:10-13).
“… If someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” (Gal 6:1).
“Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers” (Eph 4:29).
“… You must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips…” (Col 3:8).
“… Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult” (1 Peter 3:9).
“… Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him” (1 John 2:11).
“For such actions would not help to your salvation, and you would fall into that state of moral degradation where theft, lying, and murder pass for generous deeds.
“Nevertheless, there is one miracle which it is possible for man to accomplish. It is when, full of a sincere belief, he decides to root out… all evil thoughts, and when to attain this goal he forsakes the paths of iniquity.” (The Life of Saint Issa, 9:17; 11:8).
Perhaps, some readers may object: “But staying away from evil and caring only about one’s own salvation is egotism! And what about evil people? — should we allow them do all kinds of bad things?!”
You are wrong: we are speaking about states of consciousness, first of all. Even fighting against criminals, against the most abominable human behavior — if this is our duty, it can be done without hatred, fury, aversion, but in the state of emotional calm and attunement to Divinity. And by hellish emotions we can only do harm — both to ourselves and to friends…
It is also important to understand that strong emotions storm not only inside the body. They create energy fields around it, which affect other people and can even make them ill.
If we stick to the principles of Christ, we will not be accustoming ourselves and other people to hell even when participating in “earthly” battles.
Let me repeat it once again: I am not advising everyone to stay away from social life, from the needs of other people and not only of people. “No one has greater love than this, that man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), said Jesus. Yet, when doing this, one should not feel hatred, anger, or contempt, but feel calm and love and keep the attention on the Highest Purpose — the Heavenly Father. It is in this way that Jesus went to His death.
… While being in physical bodies, we can volitionally change our habits of living in particular emotional states with the help of methods of psychical self-regulation and various meditative techniques. We can also receive help from other people — in order to become as good as possible. But once the body has died, it is impossible to change one’s status. And no one will be able to help. Jesus Christ did not take sinners out of hell; prayers of saints or of anyone else cannot do it either. One can change one’s own destiny only by oneself when living in physical body.
* * *
Our destinies in the contemporary or future incarnations are affected by our vices. For example, if we ignore pain of other living beings (not only of people) and make them suffer, then God will weave us away from this habit. How? By placing us in situations where we will suffer pain ourselves so that we could — by experiencing pain — learn to be compassionate to the pain of others. In this way we program our destinies to become “hell on the Earth”, but in such conditions it will be much harder to refine emotions.
What should we do now in order to get rid of vices that destroy us? — Repent!
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Repentance
John the Baptist started his homilies with preaching the necessity of purifying oneself through repentance (Matt 3:2,6). It was rather new for his audience: at that time, Jews had a very peculiar form of “liberation from sins”. Once a year at the Easter time, they symbolically would shift their sins into lambs, then kill these lambs-“sinners” — as an “offering to God” and eat their dead bodies. Obviously, this kind of absurdity only increased their sinfulness in the eyes of God.
No, one’s sins cannot be shifted to anyone. One can wash them away only with one’s own sincere repentance.
It is repentance which follows an intellectual self-analysis that is the main purifier of a soul.
God constantly “shepherds” us as His “flock of sheep” (Jesus often used this allegory) on “pastures” on the Earth. He wants to make us perfect, so that we become worthy of enriching Him. This constitutes His Life; this is the purpose of creating material worlds. And He will never leave us, no matter whether we want to know about Him or not, whether we love Him or not, whether we strive to become perfect and merge into Him or not.
Getting closer to Him through efforts on self-perfection brings true bliss to the seeker. Particularly “pungent” are the first contacts with the Divine Consciousness. Then, longer and longer periods of Mergence with It bring the Highest Bliss. These are the greatest rewards for our achievements on the spiritual Path!
But if we do not obey His Will, if we go in the opposite direction, we doom ourselves to suffering. This suffering is the “reward” for disobedience.
And the first thing we can do to save ourselves from suffering is to repent.
Neophytes in religion (for whom God is not Living Reality, but some abstract entity) quite naturally may ask: how should we to repent?
For example, the Catholic and the Russian Orthodox Churches insist that one can repent only to a priest. And it is only through a priest that one can get “remission of sins”.
But the truth is that in reality there is no “remission of sins” whatsoever. It is a wrong approach to the problem. The problem of repentance must be considered more seriously — not how to beg forgiveness, but how to get rid of vices. Consequently, the mechanism of repentance has to be different. The religious ritual mentioned above is suitable only for children, beginners, and weak-minded adults.
In some Protestant churches, the penitential work is organized much better. After the necessary preparation, believers repent in the face of Living God, without intermediaries. The solemnity of the situation and support of the congregation contribute to the intensity of the emotion of repentance.
But not all people have access to such communities or to truly wise spiritual counselors, who can explain what one must repent of and how to repent. Therefore, let us discuss the basic scheme of the penitential work.
First, one has to gain an understanding of the fundamental matters of the religious philosophy: what is God, what is the Evolution, what is the purpose of life. Then it becomes clear why we must work on ourselves, what ideal we must aspire to, what qualities we must cultivate in ourselves and what qualities to get rid of, what is really a vice and what is only considered as vice by people but not by God. For this purpose, it is good to begin with studying the words of Jesus and learning to distinguish Jesus‘ Teachings from what people have fantasized on the subject of Christianity. “… Learn from Me…” (Matt 11:29), said Jesus.
Sometimes one may hear the statement that “10 commandments” given by God to people through Moses are the “commandments of Jesus Christ”. If you come across such preachers, stay away from them: they understood absolutely nothing, but try to teach others. In reality Jesus Christ gave Teachings about God and about the Path to Him, which are much more profound than the whole Old Testament. They consist of tens of precepts-commandments.
And one more thing: if we think that we are good as we are and there is no reason to change ourselves, then we are so far from the spiritual work that do not have even a slightest idea about its purpose. Because everyone — from beginners up to highly advanced adepts — can find possibilities for self-improvement in the Teachings of Jesus Christ.
Now let us discuss self-analysis. What people call sins is not the main point. Sins are nothing but manifestations of our vices — features of the character, qualities of the soul. Sins help recognizing vices, but it is vices that one has to struggle against, not sins. And this is not one-day work… To remodel oneself — i.e. to remodel the soul by cleansing it of bad qualities and instilling good ones into it requires years of making arduous efforts.
In order to discern better a particular vice in oneself, it would be useful to trace all manifestations of this vice that occurred in the past — all sins of this line starting from the childhood. And when this work is done, God may give one a chance to look into one’s past lives in order to see the vice’s roots originating there.
The process of revealing vices and remembering specific sins has to be accompanied by sincere emotional repentance.
But if in this process you suffer emotionally from self-pity because of the future retribution, then you are on a wrong way.
We have to feel compassion not for ourselves, but for our victims — all those whom we made suffer physically or emotionally. And then we have to re-live with the consciousness through each situation anew, but this time correctly.
If it is possible to redress the wrong in some way — even partly — we must certainly do it. If we ask forgiveness from God while ignoring an existing possibility to redress the wrong that we did, we cannot expect a positive result: such repentance does not look sincere.
There can be no substitute for penitential work. Hoping that one can get rid of vices through practicing meditation and various “cathartic” methods is an error. Even if a person was provided with a possibility to enter into the eons of the Holy Spirit or even to experience the Embrace of the Creator, this does not burn vices away. They remain and keep on manifesting themselves. This statement is not a hypothesis but reality.
Therefore, I advise you to stay away from such “novations” as the method of “shouting out” vices (it implies that all one needs to do is just to yell loudly, coarsely, and for a long time, in a company of associates, best of all); and from such “dubious” tricks of “getting rid of vices” as the following invention of a Russian “pastor” (before the Perestroika he was an instructor in a regional communist party committee); he preached: “Kill spiders! You will have 40 sins remitted for each spider you kill!” It is best to stay away from such fools, in order not to become the blind led by the blind (Matt 15:14).
… As a conclusion of this and previous chapters, let me repeat the main points:
People go to hell not as a result of some misdeeds, but because they accustomed themselves to living in hellish states of consciousness during their earthly lives. And misdeeds violating the principle of non-causing unnecessary harm to other living beings predetermine the earthly hell.
The first and indispensable method of saving oneself from the future hell is repentance — tracing in oneself all vices that cause ethical mistakes (sins) followed by the feeling of remorse; the basis of repentance is empathy with the victims of one’s own sinful behavior.
The true purpose of repentance is not to beg forgiveness for oneself but to get rid of vices.
The second direction of the initial spiritual work is refinement of the consciousness. It starts with correction of the emotional sphere: refraining from coarse negative emotions and fostering subtle positive ones, as well as accustoming oneself to paradisiacal states of consciousness instead of hellish ones.
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Jesus Christ
Many people (at least in Russia) considering themselves Christians believe that Christ is something like Jesus’ last name. Thus, these two words (Jesus and Christ) become closely related in their minds.
But the fact is that Christ is not a last name but rather a title or a post. Christos is a Greek word; its Hebrew equivalent is Moshiach, or Messiah in modern spelling. By these words they call the One who comes to the Earth from God-the-Father — as a Part of Him — to give help of the highest Divine level to incarnate people.
In order to understand this phenomenon correctly, one has to comprehend well all that was said in the previous chapters: that God-the-Father is One Consciousness and, at the same time, He is a totality of former human Consciousnesses merged into Him. These Consciousnesses were individualized in the past, but after attaining full spiritual self-realization and merging into the Father, They dwell now in His Abode in the state of mutual mergence, forming a single Whole. This idea is expressed in the Gospel of John (1:4): “In Him (in the Father) was life; and the life was the light of men”. There is a statement about the same in the Gospel of Philip (87): “The Children of the Bridal Chamber (the Abode of the Creator, where one merges with Him in Love) have one name (i.e. all They are God-the-Father now)”. But They — former human beings who have become coessential with the Father — are capable of individualizing Themselves again for a time in the form of the Holy Spirit if it is necessary for the purpose of fulfilling a certain task of the Father.
Therefore, it is correct to think that Jesus Christ is a Part of God-the-Father and that it was not always like this — He also has a human past. When it was? — in this or one of the previous Manvantaras? — it does not matter. It is only important that upon attaining the complete Perfection and merging with God-the-Father, He came to people from the Abode of the Father as a part of Him with a Mission of helping them.
There were several Christs on the Earth during the history of mankind. They came to the Earth at different times and to different nations, creating every time a hearth of spiritual culture, giving knowledge about God, the meaning of people’s lives on the Earth and the Path to the ultimate Goal. Jesus Christ was One of Them.
From the description of Jesus’ childhood we know that even at the age of 12 He astonished teachers of Jerusalem with His wisdom in a religious conversation (Luke 2:42-52).
The further period of Jesus’ life is described in two sources: The Life of Saint Issa,
Best of the Sons of Men and in Tibetan Gospel. This is what is written in the former:
“When Issa had attained the age of thirteen years, the epoch when an Israelite should take a wife, the house where His parents earned their living by carrying on a modest trade began to be a place of meeting for rich and noble people, desirous of having for a son-in-law young Issa, already famous for His edifying discourses in the name of the Almighty. Then it was that Issa left the parental house in secret, departed from Jerusalem, and with the merchants set out toward Sind…” (4:10-12).
In every land that Jesus visited during these years — India, Tibet, Persia — He healed the sick, raised people from the dead, opposed paganism, and preached One Universal God-the-Father and the Path to Him. His favorite audience was people of lower social ranks; later it was the same in Judaea.
In the homilies in India, in particular, He taught:
“Worship not the idols, for they hear you not. Listen not to the (four) Vedas, for their truth is counterfeit. Never put yourself in the first place and never humiliate your neighbor.
“Help the poor, support the weak, do ill to no one, and covet not that which you have not and which you see belonged to another.” (5:26-27).
In Persia when answering questions of the highest priest of the Zoroastrian faith, He said the following:
“… Even as a babe discovers in the darkness its mother’s breast, so even your people, who have been led into error by your erroneous doctrine and your religious ceremonies, have recognized … their father in the Father of Whom I am the prophet.
“The Eternal Being has said to your people through the medium of My mouth: ‘You shall not worship the Sun (as God), for it is but a part of the world which I have created for man.
‘The sun rises in order to warm you during your work; it sets to allow you the repose which I Myself have appointed.
‘It is to Me, and to Me alone, that you owe all that you possess, all that is to be found about you, above you, and below you.’”
“But,” said the priests, “how could people live according to the rules of justice if it had no preceptors?”
Then Jesus answered, “So long as the people had no priests, the natural law governed them, and they preserved the candor of their souls.
“Their souls were with God, and to commune with the Father they had recourse to the medium of no idol or animal, nor to the fire, as is practiced here.
“… The Sun is acting not spontaneously, but according to the will of the invisible Creator, Who gave it birth.
“… The Eternal Spirit is the Soul of all that is animate. You commit a great sin by dividing It into a ‘Spirit of Evil’ and a ‘Spirit of Good’, for He is is only God of Good, Who, like the father of a family, does but good to His children, forgiving all their faults if they repent them.
“The ‘Spirit of Evil’ dwells on the Earth in the hearts of those men who turn aside the children of God from the right Path.
“Therefore I say unto you, beware of the day of judgment, for God will inflict a terrible chastisement upon all those who shall have led His children astray from the right Path and have filled them with superstitions and prejudices…” (8:8-20).
Also there is an account of some words that Jesus said to Tibetans:
“I came to demonstrate the human potential. What I do (let) everyone will be doing. What I am (let) everyone will be. These boons are for every nation, (they are) water and bread of life.” (Tibetan Gospel).
Jesus “returned to the land of Israel” only at the age of 29 (The Life of Saint Issa, 9:1). It is that which He did and said there that became well known for the future generations.
Upon returning to the native land, Jesus with several disciples-assistants began to travel visiting many cities and villages. He worked wonders such as healing numerous sick people and raising people from the dead, preached in synagogues, in houses, in the open air about what the Heavenly Father wants people to be.
Thousands of people listened to Jesus, witnessed miracles and got healed of their diseases. Some of them gave up their worldly occupations and joined Jesus in order to travel with Him and to learn from Him.
He taught them by explaining the Path to the Perfection and by demonstrating the methods of spiritual healing and meditative techniques.
No doubt, He wanted to find them as people to whom He could give all the highest knowledge about the Father. He wanted them to enter the Abode of the Father together with Him. “Father! I want those you have given Me to be with Me where I am!…” (John 17:24).
But when He said something that exceeded their ability to comprehend, they surprised Him with their lack of understanding; many left Him doubting the adequacy of His words and even His sanity… (John 10:19-20; 13:36-38; 14:5-7; 16:17-18; Luke 9:54-56, etc).
Even His mother and brothers once came to the place where He was preaching to take Him home, for they decided that He went insane if He is saying things like that… (Mark 3:21,31-35).
At the end — after three years of teaching, giving discourses, working wonders — He was with only 12 male disciples (one of them was Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him later) and Mary Magdalene.
And where were the crowds of thousands of excited commoners who listened to His sermons, ate the food that He materialized for them, and got healed from various diseases?…
It turned out that these crowds did not need the Teachings about the efforts that one has to make in order to enter the Kingdom of God. They wanted Him only to heal, to pay attention to them… (Luke 9:11).
Jesus saw this and began to avoid the crowds. “… Crowds of people came to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places…” (Luke 5:15-16).
Yes, He healed some of them, but it could not continue like this forever. He wanted people to learn the true faith, to make personal efforts on becoming better. Then the diseases would go away by the will of the Father… “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you, bear with you?!” He cried once because of hopelessness of this situation (Luke 9:41).
And the crowd, being stirred up against Him by priests, got angry… “… You look for an opportunity to kill Me, (only) because there is no place in you for My word!…” He said once trying to bring them to reason… (John 8:37).
But it was too late: a crowd of resentful wanting primitive people got more and more irritated because they could receive more, but were given too little…
Soon, the same people yelled to Pilate: “Crucify, crucify Him!”… (Luke 23:21).
“And they having taken the Lord pushed Him as they ran, and said: ‘Let us hale the Son of God, now that we have gotten authority over Him!’ And they put on Him a purple robe and made Him sit upon the seat of judgement, saying: ‘Give righteous judgement, you King of Israel!’ And one of them brought a crown of thorns and set it upon the Lord’s head; and others stood and did spit in His eyes, and others buffeted His cheeks; and others did prick Him with a reed, and some of them scourged Him, saying: ‘With this honor let us honor the Son of God!’” (The Gospel of Peter, 3.6-3.9).
… Why the clergy did not accept Him? There were no formal differences between them and Jesus as to the faith’s basis: they spoke about the same God-the-Father, they referred to the same Jewish Bible…
But in reality there were very important differences between them: Jesus preached Living God, Whom He knew very well personally; while the priests only believed in God without knowing Him. With the help of religion, they secured a good social rank and material well-being for themselves and thus wanted to protect the foundations of their confession.
What did these foundations consist of? They consisted of a number of detailed religious ceremonials, rules of everyday life and repressive measures against their transgressors.
If there is such a confessional structure with temples, impressive shows in the form of worship services, ideology pervading the whole society, and fear of God’s retribution inculcated in the minds of people, then the priests of this confession become very exasperated if someone disturbs this way of life: if this person says that the things are wrong and the priests are hypocrites who do not know God but deceive people…
This is always the case with “mass” confessions, which put the emphasis on ritualism and rules of conduct and inevitably forget Living God…
In Judaea at that time the one who opposed religious hypocrisy was a Messenger of God-the-Father — Jesus Christ.
… Jesus knew from the Father that the end of His earthly life was coming. He knew also what kind of death He was going to die.
Could He avoid it? — Of course, He could! He could simply leave Judaea with His disciples, and all would have been satisfied; people would have settled down and forgotten about Him.
But He did not leave. Why?
Because if He had done it, no one would have remembered about Him after a few years, there would have been no Christian churches, no the New Testament…
This is why the plan was different.
The plan was, first, to fulfill all prophecies about the earthly life of the Christ-Savior to come. To the extent that “not one of His bones will be broken” and “they will look on the One they have pierced”. That is, when the soldiers broke the legs of the two criminals crucified with Jesus to make them die before night, Jesus had left the body already, so the soldiers just pierced His side with a spear… (John 19:31-37).
Second, His death and the days that followed were accompanied by many miracles: darkness fell too soon, the curtain of the Jerusalem temple get torn in two ‘by itself’ (Luke 23:44-45), Jesus’ body disappeared from where it was placed, Jesus several times appeared to His disciples materializing a body, He had conversation with them, edified them.
But people were astonished most of all by evident “Resurrection of Jesus from the dead”. Though these people were religious, they did not understand that after parting with body every man arises in the other world with self-awareness in the non-corporeal form (Matt 22:30). Jesus proved this, and actually He did much more: with His Divine Power He dematerialized His body taken down from the cross and then several times materialized it for a time.
His disciples, Paul, and then many others devoted their lives to preaching about the Son of God Who came to the Earth, was crucified, and then arose, Who taught about the Heavenly Father — Living God and about how to enter His Abode.
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Jesus — about Himself
“… I came from God…” (John 8:42).
“… He sent Me” (John 8:42).
“… I have come down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the Will of Him Who sent Me” (John 6:38).
“… Just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father” (John 10:15).
“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
“The Father is in Me, and I am in the Father” (John 10:38).
“… I declare to the world what I have heard from Him” (John 8:26).
“I declare what I have seen in the Father’s presence…” (John 8:38).
“The One who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to Him” (John 8:29).
“I can do nothing on My own” (John 5:30).
“… I love the Father…” (John 14:31).
“Righteous Father!… I have known You!…” (John 17:25).
“I came to bring fire to the Earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49).
“I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me should not remain in the darkness” (John 12:46).
“I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness…” (John 8:12).
“I am the gate; whoever enters by Me will be saved…” (John 10:9).
“I came that (you) may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
“I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
“… I lay down My life for the sheep” (John 10:16).
“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27).
“… Learn from Me… and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt 11:29).
“I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life… If you have known Me, you would have known My Father also…” (John 14:6-7).
“… I know from where I came and where I go…” (John 8:14).
“Where I go, you cannot come (now)” (John 8:21).
“For this reason the Father loves Me because I lay down My life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from My Father.” (John 10:17-18).
“… Abide in My love. If you keep My commands, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and abide in His love!” (John 15:9-10).
“Whoever is near Me is near the Fire, and whoever is far from Me is far from the Kingdom (of God)!” (The Gospel of Thomas, 82).
“Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me…” (Matt 10:37).
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).
“I go to the Father, because the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
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Spreading of Christianity
As we discussed already, to the regret of Jesus, He did not manage to find people who could quickly become similar to Him. The apostles probably were the best people in Judaea, but their psychogenetic age was not high enough to allow them to comprehend entirely and immediately the Divine knowledge.
One of the examples is a rebuke that Levi gave to Peter in the time after Jesus left the earthly life: “Peter, you are always hot-tempered!” (The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, 18:5).
It is known also that Peter was prejudged against Mary Magdalene because she — a woman — was one of the favorite disciples of Jesus and was especially liked by Him (The Gospel of Thomas, 114).
That is, Peter in the course of apprenticeship with Jesus had not learned to control his emotions, to live in cordial love, had not got rid of arrogance…
After the crucifixion of Jesus, His disciples shook up by His
death and the miracles that followed tried to continue His work as much as they
could. All they preached, and many of them started to work with their own
disciples. For this purpose, most of them stayed among Jews. But apostle Thomas
went through Syria to the East, and where he could — from India to China —
established Christian communities. Syrian and Indian Malabar churches founded by
him exist in our days.
The former persecutor and murderer of Christians Paul also joined them after being converted into the new faith personally by non-incarnate Jesus (Acts 9).
Some of Jesus’ disciples wrote their scriptures that have survived to present day. They were Matthew, John, Thomas, Peter, James, Philip, Judas (not Iscariot), Mary Magdalene, Nicodemus, also Paul and indirect disciples of Jesus evangelists Mark and Luke.
According to the Gospels, John and Mary Magdalene were the favorite disciples of Jesus. The Gospel written by John is one of the best of quality and volume. He is also the author of three Epistles to disciples. The first Epistle contains many valuable precepts and pieces of advice.
But John also wrote two texts, which are very different from the scriptures mentioned above. The first of them is called The Apocryphon of John, the second one is The Revelation John the Divine (Apocalypse), which is included in the end of the New Testament.
The Apocryphon was written by John soon after the crucifixion of Jesus, i.e. before he wrote the Epistles. One can see from it that though John was carefully writing down all precepts of the Teacher, though he encompassed the most important aspect of Jesus’ Teachings — the cordial love, he did not manage to comprehend with his mind during the time of communication with the incarnate Messiah the essence of His appearance on the Earth, and also the essence of the Father Who sent Jesus. He asks God the questions like these: “Why the Savoir was appointed? And why He was sent into the world by His Father? And who is His Father Who sent Him?…” (The Apocryphon of John, 1:20).
And he receives answers about the nature of the Father, the Holy Spirit, Christ, about the creation of the world…
But then he is put to the test on intellectuality, which is typical for prophetic contacts: after about the one third of the text, the narration changes its character, there are phases without any meaning or value… The God‘s intention in such a case is to see whether the listener understands this joke-test? John did not understand, did not stand the test on intellectuality: he took everything seriously, shared it with the fellow apostles, scrupulously wrote down everything.
A similar case happened when John wrote his Apocalypse that resembles a nightmare (at best). Its theme is not preaching the Way to the Perfection through faith, love, work on transfiguration of oneself, but menaces, prophecies of disasters and catastrophes. The text is void not only of Divine Love, but also of any positive value for readers. It only distracts readers provoking them to fruitless reflections about the future, while God teaches us to live and work here and now.
The Apocalypse of John included in the New Testament became a test on intellectuality and spirituality, a test-temptation for millions of people studying Christianity. And many got tempted. The Apocalypse, in the end of the New Testament, “crosses out” and rejects the Teachings of Jesus about aspiration to God-the-Father and self-development through love. Thus, some chose in the New Testament holy preachings
of love, purity, aspiration to God-the-Father, and others “resonate” with
disgusting scenes of horror, pests, blood, rot. They pick with the mind at this
dirt instead of attuning to good, beauty, instead of learning to love people,
the Creation and the Creator.
A similar case happened to Nicodemus: he wrote a good Gospel about the last days of the earthly life of Jesus, but finished the narration with description of his dream about Jesus’ leading sinners out of hell.
Another part of the New Testament, which is of ambiguous value and needs special discussion, is the Epistles of apostle Paul.
They are full of contradictions: from very valuable Revelations, preachings of tender love — to angry cursing of intolerant “moralist”.
What is the reason for this? To understand it, one has to know the history of formation of Paul as a Christian.
At first he was an energetic and aggressive slaughter, torturer, and killer of Christians.
But once walking a road, he heard a voice of an invisible Interlocutor: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” (Acts 9:4). Though Paul was a slaughter and a sadist, he also believed in God. And he understood promptly what the matter is.
And the matter was that the Lord decided not only to stop this bloody tyrant, but also to use his remarkable fanatic energy for the good of Divine Providence.
And having obeyed to God, Paul turns from a violent persecutor of Christians into a restless propagandist of the Teachings of Jesus.
Paul wrote about this the following: “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, Who strengthened me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry — the one who before was a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent. But I obtained mercy, because being ignorant, I did it in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Faithful is the word and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. But for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, as a pattern to those being about to believe on Him to Life Everlasting.” (1 Tim 1:12-16).
But all this happened after crucifixion of Jesus. Paul never met incarnate Jesus and only some time later had personal contacts with His disciples. But after accepting Christianity Paul yielded himself entirely to God’s guidance and with all his remarkable energy began to work on transfiguration of himself using, among other things, meditative methods granted to Him by God.
In addition to this, God assigned Paul with a special mission — to bring the new faith to the pagans of the Roman empire outside Judaea.
Paul preached ardently, created new Christian communities, argued with religious leaders of pagans. Many times he was beaten to death, but each time God returned him into the body, and Paul again strove to fight.
Paul wrote many Epistles addressed to various Christian communities. In these Epistles, there are so contradictory intermixed themes that some historians even proposed a hypothesis that “moral teachings” were added to the Epistles by some other person: so different are in style and intellectual level their various parts. But explanation of these contradictions logically follows from the contradictions of Paul himself.
He simply could not manage to change himself completely. To transfigure into a whole Divine person he would need 10 years of serene apprenticeship. But Paul had no such possibility, and he was struggling ardently with his former character — at the time between giving homilies, being beaten, wandering hungry and frozen, or being imprisoned…
So let us forgive him that the highest Revelations from God he alternated with hatred against “homosexuals” and “adulterers”… It was also him who, for the first time in the history of Christianity, declared an anathema — a damnation on behalf of the Christian church (1 Cor 16:22) — contrary to the Teachings of Jesus.
His Epistles did a lot of good to mankind, but they also became a powerful temptation for future generations of Christians — even more powerful than the Apocalypse of John. Because being included in the New Testament, they “legitimated” not only tenderness, kindness, harmony, forgiveness, but the opposite qualities as well: hatred, angry intolerance to those who are not “like me”, damnations…
They are Paul and John who developed an absurd theory that one can “wash out” own sins with other’s blood, with other’s suffering. (We discussed this in the beginning of the Repentance chapter). They stated in their Epistles that innocently killed Jesus was a Lamb of God allegedly sent by God-the-Father as a sacrifice… to Himself — as atonement for the sins of people… “Since the law was weak as it acted through the flesh, God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sacrifice for sin…” (Rom 8:3), “… The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7), “… He is the propitiation (for God-the-Father) concerning our sins, and not concerning ours only, but also concerning the sins of all the world” (1 John 2:2), “… He was revealed that He might take away our sins…” (1 John 3:5)… As a result, it turns out that it is enough just to come to believe that Jesus was indeed a Christ — and that is all we need to do: our sins are remitted and paradise is guaranteed for us…
* * *
Christianity was established in the Roman empire the hard way. There were persecutions, massacre of Christians. They were crucified on crosses along roads. But then other Christians voluntarily yielded themselves to the persecutors to die on crosses for the faith in order to become like Christ at least in this…
How much it is different from the contemporary “believers” who call themselves Christians, but are not capable of making efforts on improving themselves, for example “cannot” give up smoking…
By the Will of God and thanks to personal feats of the apostles
and other heroes, Christianity spread with time over a major part of Europe and
then over the both Americas, Australia; there are many Christians in Asia,
Africa. Nowadays about one third of the Earth’s population professes
Christianity.
… And now we have to come to important understanding: the word Christianity has two meanings, which are fundamentally different: Christianity as the Teachings of Jesus Christ and Christianity as what it was made by people in particular countries at particular historical epochs.
From the very beginning of Christianity and up to our days, there were true followers of Jesus among people considering themselves Christians, and there were people who just disguised as Christians for the sake of satisfying their vile passions: the desire to rule over others, to rob, to torture, to kill… There were and are people who understood nothing of the Teachings of Jesus, but consider themselves true believers; probably they are in a majority… But this book is not about the history of earthly Christianity, but about the Teachings of Jesus Christ.
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Freedom of Will
One may ask: how came that God allowed bad material to be included in the New Testament?
The answer is the following: one of the main principles of God’s work on upbringing us is to provide us with freedom of will, i.e. the right to choose one’s own life path. Do you want to go to Me? If yes — go! Take My hand, I will help you! If you want to go the opposite direction — you may go, of course, but try to find Me anyway. I will be constantly reminding you about Me…
Whereto man aspires with his mind and consciousness is an important indication for God about how to help this person. For the sake of applying this principle, God allows inclusion of tempting information even into Holy books, which describe the True Path.
We can consider this as lessons on psychology given by our Highest Teacher. These lessons include frequent tests on how much we have advanced spiritually, on the levels of our intellectual and ethical development.
In relation to the above said, it is appropriate to give a few excerpts from the New Testament. The first one is from the first Epistle of Paul to Corinthians (6:12): “All things are lawful to me, but not all things profit…”.
The same was said by Jesus: “Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin, (but) it is necessary that such things come…” (Matt 18:7).
The principle of freedom of will implies that the results of each stage of the educational process are reviewed periodically instead of punishing or rewarding for each decision taken by the person. To illustrate it, Jesus narrated a parable about a sower (Matt 13:24-30):
A man sowed good seed in his field. But while man slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel among the wheat. But when the blade had sprung up and had produced fruit, then the darnel also appeared. So the servants of the householder came and said to him, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Then where have the darnel come from?” He said to them, “An enemy did this”. The servants said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them up?” But he said, “No, lest while you gather up the darnel you also root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather together the darnel and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my granary.’” In this parable “seeds” are true or false information. Thanks to it, the field can give good “harvest” as well as “darnel”. so time is needed for everyone until the “harvest” to choose through personal quest, personal decisions what I want to become: “wheat” or “darnel”.
When something tempts you, Jesus advised to make harsh decisions for the sake of your own good: “And if your hand or your foot causes you to offend, cut them off and throw them from you. It is better for you to enter into the (True) Life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire (of hell). And if your eye offends you, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter into Life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire.” (Matt 18:8-9).
This kind of struggling with oneself is also a manifestation of the freedom of will.
And it is through use of the freedom of will that we form our destinies.
… But the freedom of will is not unlimited.
God interferes when we have to make a change in our lives, but inertness prevents us from doing it. Let us recall, for example, dramatic changes in the lives of people who were lucky to become personal disciples of Jesus, or the dramatic change of the Paul’s way of life, destinies of many people who were saved from the darkness of ignorance by the Teachings of Jesus Christ.
God interferes also when people intend to do something that has not to happen, something that would harm the spiritual progress of embodied souls. If we see it other way, then we misunderstand something, we are confused.
God possesses perfect Love, perfect Wisdom, perfect Power. He cannot overlook something, miss something. He has no enemies who are capable of struggling effectively against Him. Fairy tales about His battles with the devil are nothing but fairy tales; as for the people who take them seriously — … this characterizes their intellectual level… God can materialize or dematerialize anything, for example — dematerialize the body of a villain who intends to do something that must not happen (objectively!).
And if something like this happens, it means that it had to happen, and God knew about it. Our task then is to try to understand its reason.
We have to learn to trust Him. (Though we should not do foolish things for which He needs to cause us pain).
If the conscience is clear, one has nothing to fear! But if it is not clear, then one has to repent sincerely and redress the wrong.
And if we have clear conscience, but are afraid of some “earthly” things (except for causing harm to others unintentionally), then our faith is weak, our love for Him is weak. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear… He who fears has not been perfected in love.” (1 John 4:18). “Are not two sparrows sold for an assarion? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father’s will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Therefore do not fear, you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matt 10:29-31).
And when someone says that there is no God because there are earthquakes, hurricanes, wars, or that He is evil and therefore I don’t want to believe in Him, or that He cannot overpower the devil… — then let us understand that the God’s intention for people does not consist in creating for them a paradise on the Earth. If there were a paradise on the Earth, then we would have no powerful stimulus to advance somewhere else.
On the contrary, we should remember that we have to live on the Earth actively, not lazily, otherwise He will hurry us through pain — for our own good.
The life on the Earth is not the True Life. It is only a short educational course, a possibility for us to become better, to correct the destiny for the sake of life to come, to get closer to the Ultimate Goal.
And if there were no wars and other calamities, then it would be impossible to display self-sacrificial heroism for sake of others or, on the contrary, to betray as a result of being afraid of pain or death of the body…
Earthly cataclysms are but an accelerator of the evolution of people involved in them. It is a possibility to become better.
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Destiny
It was mentioned already that the evolution of each soul goes on for many thousand years, and intervals between consecutive incarnations are longer than periods of life in the embodied state. From this it follows that the main life of every one of us goes on in the non-corporeal form; from there we observe all wandering in the material illusions of many other incarnate people.
But when an incarnation begins, during the years of early childhood, we forget completely everything that was before the birth on the Earth: the life in the new incarnate state is too different from the previous life, because the perceptional capabilities of the consciousness after incarnation into a physical body get significantly reduced. It is capable to perceive only that part of information which it receives through the material organs of sense of its new body; the former freedom of movement at the speed of thought and the ability to perceive everything directly without the organs of sense gets forgotten.
Though we forget everything that was before the birth in a material body, the life does not start over, it just continues. And the destiny formed in the previous incarnation unfolds accordingly.
Having been born on the Earth, every one of us already has one’s own destiny, which is nothing but a plan of one’s future development devised by God. It is an innate destiny line; it was developed taking into account what one has to learn in the coming earthly life.
As soon as children reach the age when they become capable of making ethically important decisions, they get more possibilities to influence their destinies, to change them to better or to worse.
Correct or wrong upbringing of children can have a significant effect on their lives. But we have to remember that all conditions — the parents capable of giving particular education and the social environment where the birth took place — all these was also planned by God according to one’s destiny.
The abilities of an incarnated person are not unlimited. They are limited mainly by the level of the person’s intellectual maturity, which defines the ability to comprehend information of a certain degree of complexity.
For example, the abilities of an oligophrenic person are very limited. But who is this oligophrenic person? Is the only reason that the parents were alcoholics, or that the mother had a pathology of pregnancy? No: God knew these circumstances before He sent this soul into this body. And this soul has its own destiny. For the parents, this is a manifestation of their destiny as well. But they gave birth not to a poor person suffering oligophrenia, but to a soul that has not developed the intellect yet in the course of its personal evolution.
On the other hand, people who succeeded in intellectual self-perfection during past earthly lives and accepted correct direction of spiritual development in the present incarnation can do quite a lot, including attaining personal self-realization and helping others to advance to this Purpose.
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Intellectual Development
The New Testament provides us with possibility to see the religiosity of people of different intellectual levels.
The highest level is represented by Jesus Christ. No one even of His personal disciples could comprehend with mind all profundity of His Teachings.
The second level is represented by the closest disciples of Jesus who tried to understand the Teacher and partly succeeded in this.
The next level is people of a high social rank who knew and followed earthly religious traditions concerning rituals and rules of conduct. But they were not capable of apprehending the living words of God.
And the lowest level is people capable of thinking only according to the following scheme: “They give me — it’s good! They stop giving me — it’s bad!”
The developed intellect of a person does not imply that the level of ethical development of this person is also high. But ethical self-perfection is not possible without a developed intellect. Therefore, if we seek spiritual self-realization, we have to work on intellectual self-development as well.
What does contribute to this development? First of all, getting education, various kinds of labor (especially, creative ones), work with books, taking part in theoretical search. The modern society, highly developed in the scientific and technical aspects, is a very good possibility for applying the mind and developing it.
… The translation of the New Testament (into Russian, for example) is far from being perfect. Profound meaning of some statements of Jesus was “cut off” by translators, who were incapable to understand His ideas.
But one error in translation had a disastrous effect. It is the phrase “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt 5:3). Many readers concluded from it that Jesus preaches intellectual primitivism and parasitism.
But Jesus meant completely different thing! He said about future blessedness not of panhandling parasites, but of people who renounced possessing material wealth and who did it not due to laziness, drunkenness, or other reasons like this, but due to spiritual creed — “due to spirit” and not “in spirit”.
Those will be blessed in the Kingdom of Heaven who renounced possession of earthly things, renounced seeking earthly wealth because the Heavenly Father will be their Wealth if they dedicated themselves to aspiring for Him. “Do not lay up treasures on the Earth…, but lay up treasures in Heaven… for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt 6:19-21), — this is one of the most important postulates of His Teachings.
Regarding wisdom Jesus taught the following: “Ignorance is the mother of all evil for us. Ignorance will result in (spiritual) death. Those abiding in the Truth will be perfect when all the Truth is revealed (to them). … How much it is stronger than ignorance and error! It gives Freedom.
“Logos (Jesus) said, ‘If you know the Truth, the Truth will make you free. Ignorance is slavery. Knowledge is Freedom.’
“If we know the Truth, we shall find the fruits of the Truth within us.” (The Gospel of Philip, 123).
“… Be wise… and simple…” (The Gospel of Thomas, 39).
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About Alcoholism
“I took My stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty (for the Truth). My heart ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty. … They are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will change their ways.” (The Gospel of Thomas, 28).
“Be sensible and vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking someone he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
“And take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts are weighed down with … drinking…” (Luke 21:34).
“Let us walk becomingly, as in the day; not in carousing and drinking…” (Rom 13:13).
“It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything by which your brother stumbles, or is offended, or is made weak” (Rom 14:21).
“And do not be drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit…” (Eph 5:18).
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Work — or Parasitism?
A typical picture of Russian reality — lines of panhandling professionals standing near Orthodox temples. All they zealously crossing themselves: allegedly they are praying for us (though, of what worth are the prayers of these people-parasites?)… There are very few among them who are indeed in trouble and really need money. Others just chose parasitism as their profession.
And they are given because Jesus Christ said: “Give to everyone who asks of you…” (Luke 6:30).
But did He mean this kind of “giving”?
He Himself achieved everything. He was coessential to the Father. He Who is merged with the Father needs nothing worldly. He is ready to accept death of the body and to rise then in the Father. The body for Him is but an impediment and only the Will of the Father makes Him to mantain the existence of the body.
Jesus lived not for Himself, He lived for people. And gave them all that He had, all of Himself. He advised the same to His followers. Why do you need anything “earthly”? We are working, preaching the Truth, healing people, they are glad when we visit them, they will feed us, we have clothes, we are given a shelter for night. What else do we need on the Earth? Seek the Father then! And do not grudge giving others what you have. “… Be not anxious as to your life, what you shall eat; nor for the body, what you shall put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap, having neither storehouse nor barn, and God feeds them. How much more are you better than the birds?… Consider the lilies, how they grow; they do not toil, they do not spin. And yet I say to you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these… Thus, do not seek what you shall eat, nor what you shall drink, and stop being in anxiety (about this). For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you have need of these things. But rather seek the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. Do not fear, little flock! … Make for yourselves … an unfailing treasure in Heaven, where no thief comes…. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:22-34).
Moreover, one day, “… a certain ruler asked Him, saying, ‘Good Teacher! What shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus answered, ‘You lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor… and come, follow Me…’” (Luke 18:18-22).
Jesus knew that this man can make progress if he decides to become His disciple. But the man did not wish to become a disciple of Jesus…
Whom Jesus addressed when He proposed to renounce all “earthly”: the people worthy of becoming His disciples or all people? Of course, the first.
For example, once He came with His disciples into the house of Mary Magdalene and her sister Martha. Mary “… sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she came to Him and said, ‘Lord! Do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.’ And Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Martha! Martha! You are anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.’” (Luke 10:38-42).
But who would have fed the guests if Martha had done it not? Why Jesus said her these words then? He said it to justify for Martha the behavior of Her favorite disciple Mary. And Martha, on her side, performed the highest service she was capable of.
Who was worthy of becoming the closest disciples of Jesus? Idlers and parasites? No!
Jesus hoped to impart to His closest disciples the highest knowledge about cognition of the Heavenly Father. These are the final stages of personal evolution of human souls. And we have to prepare ourselves for them by developing in ourselves Love, Wisdom, and Power through worldly affairs — through sexual and parental love, through providing oneself and the family with living, through helping friends and anyone whom we can help, through defending them from criminals, through striving to improve material and spiritual life of all people… And only when we have developed ourselves in all these exoteric affairs, then the time comes to engage in serious esoteric work with the purpose of cognizing God-the-Father and merging with Him.
Only few people are capable of the latter. The rest have to perfect themselves through labor for the sake of other’s good first of all, through studying religion, strengthening themselves in faith and in religious ethics.
And only he who works “is worthy of his food” (Matt 10:10). It is “the laborer (who) is worthy of his hire…” (Luke 10:7).
It is the one who works that is worthy of material welfare: “Who serves as a soldier at his own wages at any time? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who feeds a flock and does not partake of the milk of the flock? Do I say these things according to man? Or does not the Law say the same also? For it is written in the Law of Moses, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox threshing grain.’ Does God take care for oxen? Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? It was written for us, so that he who plows should plow in hope, and so that he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.” (1 Cor 9:7-10).
Jesus and the apostles did not grow wheat, did not graze cattle, did not build houses. But they served people with the higher service — the service that these people could not fulfill themselves. They showed the way to God. And thus they deserved food.
“Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of power? Do all have gifts of healings?… But zealously strive after the better gifts. And yet I show to you a more excellent way.” (1 Cor 12:29-31).
“… We did not eat any man’s bread freely, but we worked with labor and travail night and day… not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example to you, to imitate us. For even when we were with you, we commanded you this, that if anyone does not choose to work, neither should he eat… And if anyone does not obey our word by this letter… have no company with him… yet do not count him as an enemy…” (2 Thes 3:8-15). “But we beseech you, brothers … to work with your own hands, as we commanded you…” (1 Thes 4:10-12).
All people have to work. Jesus worked. He who does not work to provide himself with living and to help others (if he can do it) is a parasite without chances to approach God.
So the question is: should we encourage parasitism of people by indulging them in this? Do we harm them or help them by this?
But let no one conclude from the above said that we should never give anything to other. We should give, and not only money. This is a manifestation of our love. But we should give to those deserving it. This will be a deed of wisdom.
Let us remember the words of Jesus: “Jesus said, ‘Blessed is man who has toiled: he has found (right) life’” (The Gospel of Thomas, 58).
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People
Jesus came to the Earth with the purpose of helping people to find the Heavenly Father. He tried to explain them about the Father, but only a few could understand His words and understood Him only partly.
Then Jesus undertook a great self-sacrifice: He voluntarily gave up Himself to a painful death through crucifixion in order that all what He had said would not be forgotten and would serve the future generations of people.
He sacrificed Himself to people (and not to God as some apostles fantasized). He loved them much and gave all of Himself to help them.
But He also subdivided them into the following groups:
The first group is “swines” and “dogs” who are not worthy of being given pearls of spiritual knowledge, for they will trample them under their feet and then turn and tear you (Matt 7:6).
The second group is hypocrites-“wolves” (Matt 10:16; 23:13-35).
The third group is those few who are capable of comprehending the highest spiritual knowledge.
He said this without hatred toward “dogs”, “swines”, and “wolves”. He knew that they are but unwise children, if one assess their age from the standpoint of the soul’s evolution; and “they do not know what they do” even when they were crucifying Him (Luke 23:34).
He advised others to take the same attitude: “… I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, so that you may become sons of your Father in Heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matt 5:44-45).
The above said is of value not only for historical analysis. This classification of people and of their behavior is typical of any society of any country. Any Messiah or spiritual leader who tries to give people the highest knowledge about God, about the Path to Him is confronted by the same phenomena. He or she finds in the end that whatever much the crowd of students is said about the Supreme, the majority of them cannot comprehend it, and at first occasion they manifest an inclination to reduce it to primitive religious games or even worse; some of the students are even disposed to betray and kill the teacher who self-sacrificingly helped them.
But this does not mean that it is useless to help people. One must help, but should not expect prompt results. The development of young souls goes on slower than their evolutionary mature leaders want. And the students have time before “harvest”.
The discussed psychological patterns of behavior of people of different evolutionary age explain also many social processes and phenomena — for example, manifestations of political or religious fanaticism, also the ability to understand what patriotism is.
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Patriotism
The word patriotism originates from Greco-Latin pater — father. This word denotes the feeling of membership in some social community — family, tribal, national, state, religious, or other.
The more primitive social environment is, the more petty features people use to divide themselves and to associate themselves. And this results in more conflicts in such an environment.
“Inflating” of patriotic ideas in large national or religious associations can lead to an increase of nazi (fascist) moods. They captivate a part of the society inclined to aggression, which is represented by the least evolutionary developed people. If the masses of primitive people exited with fascist ideas are leaded by powerful diabolic persons, then it may result in large-scale wars with the purpose of destroying or enslaving “lower” (or called by other similar epithets) nations and taking over their property and land.
In other cases, the ideas of patriotism can be used with the purpose of defending from aggression or liberating from occupation.
But the highest patriotism means people’s associating by the idea of feeling God-the-Father as the Highest Hierarch, and the homeland for them is His Creation or even the universe. In this case, all people and other incarnate and non-incarnate beings are members of one family of brother and sister of various age — children of common God-the-Father, Who loves everyone.
And this is really the case; this is the real situation in the universe. But people poisoned with egoism and hatred, blinded with craving for “earthly” things cannot understand this. And quite often such people are the “overwhelming majority” of the society…
… In all nations that Jesus Christ visited, He preached the idea of Godcentredness, patriotism, where the Pater is God-the-Father. In The Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men one can find some information about His homilies in India and Persia.
For example, He said to Indians: “He alone has willed and created, He alone has existed since all eternity, and His existence will have no end. He has no equal either in the heavens or on the Earth. The Great Creator has not shared His power with any living being… He alone possesses omnipotence. He willed it and the world appeared. In a Divine thought, He gathered together the waters, separating from them the dry portion of the globe. He is the principle of the mysterious existence of man… The Eternal Lawgiver is one; there is no other god but He. He has not shared the world with anyone, neither has He informed anyone of His intentions.” (5:16-18, 6:10).
The same He preached to Zoroastrians in Persia: “It is not of a new god that I speak, but of our Heavenly Father, Who has existed since all time and Who will still be after the end of all things (of this Creation)…. He is God of the good, Who, like the father of a family, does but good to His children, forgiving all their faults if they repent them.
“… It is to Him you must address yourselves to be consoled in your sorrows, helped in your works, and cured in your sickness. Whosoever shall have recourse to Him shall not be denied. When you address yourselves to Him, become again as children.” (8:6,17-19,11:13,15).
The same was taught by Jesus in Judaea, where He advised people to love the Heavenly Father and feel themselves as His children.
Apostle Paul also said: “I bow my knees to the Father… of Whom the whole family in Heaven and Earth is named…” (Eph 3:14-15).
* * *
… If one looks at the Earth from the depth of multidimensional space, it resembles a chicken egg without the shell, immersed into tender light. The “white” around the “yolk” are the levels of the Holy Spirit. And in the deep beneath them is the substrate on which He landed us, so that we can grow and mature up to the level when we become able to see Him, to fall in love with Him, to aspire to Him, and to infuse into Him. Why should we be hostile with each other then, instead of directing all our attention to Him — to our Heavenly Father, the Purpose of every one of us?
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What Is Man
In the book Genesis of the Old Testament, there is a statement that God created man in His likeness and image. Some people who believe that man is a body concluded from it that God-the-Father has the appearance of a human body. And they began to picture Him in the form of an old man sitting on a cloud.
But man is not a body, man is a consciousness, a self-aware unit of conscious energy dwelling temporarily in a body or outside it. And God, too, is a Consciousness.
An ordinary man is a small consciousness. But God is an Infinite Ocean of Consciousness of the whole universe.
And the task of every one of us is to attain qualitative Godlikeness and sufficient growth on the amount of consciousness, and then to infuse into that Ocean and become one with It.
However, it is not enough just to become intelligent and large. Man sent for self-development into the world of matter gets accustomed to living in dense spatial dimensions even without a body. And these dimensions are so distant from God-the-Father that He even cannot be seen from there. Even when man lives as a spirit in the non-corporeal form, he cannot move into subtle spatial dimensions. So, people-spirits who are far from the Perfection can only know something about God, but they have never seen or experienced Him.
In order to cognize the Creator, one has to become:
a) intellectually developed to be able to comprehend where and how to go to God, given that the Path to the Abode of the Creator is much more difficult than any path on the Earth,
b) ethically perfect so that God allows approaching Him, otherwise He does not allow,
c) strong, because one needs tremendous power and stamina to move from one eon to another; the power in question is not the power of the body, but the power of the consciousness. Moreover, the consciousness has to learn to live in the state of the Creator’s subtlety. Development of the coarse power of the consciousness means movement to the direction opposite from the Creator.
The task of knowing subtle spatial dimensions is facilitated thanks to the multidimensional structure of the human organism (not of the body, but of the organism); a material body is only one of the layers of the organism. One can say that every human is represented potentially in all subtle realms. But it is not the same as what occultists describe in their books; there is no point in taking seriously the names they invented for several non-material “bodies” that every human allegedly has.
But the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19) as well as God-the-Father (1 Cor 3:16-17) indeed “dwell in us” — They abide in the multidimensional depth beneath our bodies; “the Kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:21), said Jesus. And it is enough just to “dive”… But to realize this, most of the people need years or even many incarnations.
We discussed the methods of the refinement of consciousness. It starts with correction of the emotional sphere: getting rid of the coarse emotions and cultivating the subtle ones. Then one has to cleanse and develop the spiritual heart and then — other structures of the organism. After this, one continues this work outside the material body, inside one’s expanded spiritual heart.
The most important part of the human organism is a root (Rom 11:16, 18). It is a “connection link” between the chakra anahata inside human body and the Abode of the Creator. By exploring gradually this structure of the organism and the multidimensional space around it, one may realize the fact that every incarnate person possesses a multidimensional “framework”, which one has to fill with the consciousness growing from the anahata chakra in the process of spiritual Self-realization (= God-realization). Having fulfilled this, one gets a possibility not only to enter the Abode of the Creator for a time but also to settle there in Mergence with Him.
Now, it is easy to understand what is meant by the statement in the Old Testament that man was created in the image and likeness of God: the human organism with its multidimensional nature represents a kind of small model of the universal multidimensional Absolute.
The human organism has one remarkable feature: the energies it receives from outside (from the material food, first of all) may be used not only for support of the vital functions of the body, but also for growth of the consciousness. Thanks to this, the consciousness can grow like muscles grow due to the material components of the food.
Let us note that it is the working muscles that grow. And on the contrary, non-working muscles atrophy. It is the same with the consciousness: it grows (if it really grows and not weakens due to dominating negative emotions or long exhausting diseases) in that spatial dimension where it works. Special work aimed at the refinement, deliverance from attachments to the matter, and at the growth of the consciousness is called meditation.
All processes of transfiguration and development of an individual consciousness are possible only in the incarnate state, for it is through the organs of the body that we obtain energy needed for these processes. In other words, the organism is a kind of factory that converts energy contained in the matter of food into the energy of the consciousness.
I want to stress, that the growth of the consciousness may be correct or wrong. The latter happens when the consciousness grows in the coarse spatial dimensions. And this process depends on our understanding of the principles and goals of our lives, on the level of cleanness from vices, on the manner of communication with other people, on the adequacy of the methods of spiritual work that we use, and even on what we eat.
As a result of the correct work on the development of the consciousness, one gets “born” in subtle spatial dimensions and “ripens” there. This is what Jesus tried to explain to Nicodemus (John 3:3,5-7), that the one who gets “born” in the Abode of the Father and even manages to “mature” there during incarnation becomes coessential to the Father. Jesus said the following: “Truly, I say to you, unless man is born in the Spirit’s element, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born in the Spirit is Spirit.” But translators did not understand this statement, translated it according to their comprehension, and it became almost impossible to understand what Jesus meant. As a result people decided that Jesus commanded just to accept the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” — and no problems. For example, in the Russian Orthodoxy a priest blows three times from his mouth to the face of the baptized and says that he/she receives “baptism of the Holy Spirit”. And that’s all…
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Getting Rid of Diseases
All our diseases are our own fault. These diseases may result from a number of reasons created by us.
Neglect of taking care of the body is one of them. “Why do you wash the inside of the cup? Don’t you understand that the One Who made the inside is also the One Who made the outside?” (The Gospel of Thomas, 89), said Jesus. Lack of basic medical knowledge, neglect of simple rules of bodily hygiene, smoking, drinking, nutrition that includes corpses of animals contrary to Jesus’ advice (see more details about this below) — all these are ethical reasons.
Just washing the body with soap every morning helps to make the state of the organism better, healthier.
And giving up eating bodies of killed animals allows one to get rid of many diseases of the digestive, vascular, and nervous systems — this stops contamination of the organism with the salts of uric acid, and with bad energies remaining in the corpses of animal since their death.
There are also congenital diseases, diseases caused by traumas and various accidents, infectious diseases, oncological diseases, and others, which look as if they are not caused by a fault of the diseased. But this is just an apparent impression: one may always find the objective advisability of these cases when investigating them. For example, God decided to stop a person in some of his/her activity, to make that person think, to direct at studying the reasons and mechanisms of diseases from the medical standpoint in order to become more broad-minded, to develop intellect. Or it was necessary to show to the one who maimed someone in past life what it is like — to be a cripple…
There are cases when a person gets ill in order to meet someone through this and receive spiritual awakening thanks to this acquaintance.
There are also diseases of purely energetical nature, for example, resulting from energetical incompatibility with sexual partner, or due to diabolic qualities of some family members or colleagues at work. Sometimes one should take this as signs from God for making a drastic change in life — to change domicile, work, etc.
Sometimes a disease may lead to useful contacts with healers. And many people certainly received spiritual awakening from them.
With the help of severe diseases, God made many people turn to Him — when addressing Him is the only hope for relief. Some of them got healed soon after that, others improved the destiny for the future incarnation by forming an initial aspiration to Him. In both cases it was good. Of course, it would have been better if they had done it voluntarily, without disease.
Jesus and His disciples performed miracles of healing with two purposes: a) to present people with the facts of miracles and thus awake them to making personal spiritual efforts, and b) to draw the attention of people to the healer and make them listen to him.
Jesus said addressing the Father: “… Your Son also may glorify You, even as You have g
