This worst of times needs the clearest and most unflinchingly exigent of visions to counteract and transform it
"This worst of times needs the clearest and most unflinchingly exigent of visions to counteract and transform it"
"There may be very little time left to take the adventure into total being that the Gospel of Thomas advocates with such astringent brilliance and precision. In such a terrible age as ours, it is easy to believe that the dark powers, the powers of that corpse of the world that the Jesus of Thomas so fiercely denounces, have won already, and there is nothing even the most passionate of us can do to turn around a humanity addicted to violence and destruction.
Despair, however, is the last illusion. The Gospel of Thomas and the Jesus who gave it to us continue to challenge us to dare to become one with the Divine and start living the revolutionary life that streams from union and that can transform all things. This worst of times needs the clearest and most unflinchingly exigent of visions to counteract and transform it; in Jesus' words in the Gospel of Thomas and in his living out of their reality through and beyond death itself into the eternal empowering glory of the Resurrection, we have the permanent sign of the Way, the Truth, and the all-transforming life that, even now, can build here on earth the reality of God's Kingdom.”
S. L. Davies, The Gospel of Thomas
Shambhala Library, Dec 2004, p. 26
A New Version, God 2.0
"Every age creates a God that serves only for a while (although that while can be centuries). Our age makes the most minimal demand on spirit: We want a deity that we can freely ignore.
How, then, should we re-create God? I'm speaking of God in the West. Other varieties of God are not ready for renewal. Fundamentalist Islam is a rearguard action that is desperately trying to preserve God 1.0, insisting on the most primitive version, a God who protects the faithful from annihilation; such a God cannot help but be a matter of life and death. Nor am I speaking of God in the East, which has a long tradition of seeing God as One. That's God 1.0 in the seventh stage, a presence that imbibes all of creation. Such a deity has no location except at the source of our consciousness, which can only be found after an inner journey. God as the ultimate self is the ultimate revelation. Countless people in Asia are brought up to believe in the higher self—in India it is called Atman—but they don't actually undertake the inner journey. As in the West, most people in the East live as if God were optional, a fixture of their cultural heritage that makes little or no difference in how their practical life turns out.
In order to have a future, God must fulfill the promise made in his name throughout history. Instead of being a projection, God 2.0 is the reverse. He is a reality from which existence springs. As you journey inward, everyday life become suffused with divine qualities like love, forgiveness, and compassion. These are experienced in yourself as a reality. God 2.0 does much more—he is the interface between you and infinite consciousness. As things are now, a God experience is rare, barely hinted at, because our focus is on the outer world and material goals. When you begin the process of finding God, the inner world reveals itself. God experience will start to become the norm, not in a spectacular way like a wished-for miracle but in the far deeper way of transformation.”
The Future of God: A Practical Approach to Spirituality for Our Times
Deepak Chopra, Harmony 2014, pp. 117-18
.jpg "The Great Adi Shakti Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi")
The Paraclete Shri Mataji “Christ is very much there, no doubt, but Christianity I don't know. it's like all other religions; it has diverted. There was a book recently which I read, Gnostic, which was—you might have also heard about it—when Saint Thomas on his way to India wrote this thing and put it in a jar in Egypt. It was found out about 48 years back. Gna in Sanskrit means 'to know'. And in that whatever he has written challenges all our Christian ideas. First is that we must suffer, that God wants us to suffer for Him, and all these ideas of Christianity—we should confess our sins and all that—is being challenged.
So about Christianity — I was myself born in the Christian religion. And I was quite surprised the way we are following Christ. Because if we had followed Him properly the first thing He has said is that, 'You have to be born again.' And when He said that, again we branded ourselves 'we are born again'. Just like so many people brand themselves as Brahmins or anything.
But you are not born again, because a born again person has powers, has powers of raising the Kundalini. So, like that, Christ has said that, 'You are to be born again', meaning you have to have your Kundalini awakened.”
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
TV Interview ORF (Vienna, Austria 1988)
"With respect to the world, the Paraclete serves as an accuser, putting the world on trial, pronouncing it guilty of sin and worthy of condemnation (16:8-11; cf. 14:17; 15:18-26). But the Paraclete's functions with respect to the disciples are described positively. Above all, the Paraclete assumes the role of teacher (16:13), guiding the disciples into all truth by reminding them of what Jesus had said, where reminding seems to have the force not only of recollecting, but of interpreting as well.” (Green, McKnight, Marshall 1997, 382)
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