Gospel of Thomas offers the reader Jesus' 'secret teachings' about the Kingdom of God
"The Gnostic Gospels is a landmark study of the long-buried roots of Christianity, a work of luminous scholarship and wide popular appeal. First published in 1979 to critical acclaim, winning the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Gnostic Gospels has continued to grow in reputation and influence over the past two decades. It is now widely recognized as one of the most brilliant and accessible histories of early Christian spirituality published in our time.
In 1945 an Egyptian peasant unearthed what proved to be the Gnostic Gospels, thirteen papyrus volumes that expounded a radically different view of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ from that of the New Testament. In this spellbinding book, renowned religious scholar Elaine Pagels elucidates the mysteries and meanings of these sacred texts both in the world of the first Christians and in the context of Christianity today.
With insight and passion, Pagels explores a remarkable range of recently discovered gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, to show how a variety of "Christianities" emerged at a time of extraordinary spiritual upheaval. Some Christians questioned the need for clergy and church doctrine, and taught that the divine could be discovered through spiritual search. Many others, like Buddhists and Hindus, sought enlightenment — and access to God — within. Such explorations raised questions: Was the resurrection to be understood symbolically and not literally? Was God to be envisioned only in masculine form, or feminine as well? Was martyrdom a necessary — or worthy — expression of faith? These early Christians dared to ask questions that orthodox Christians later suppressed — and their explorations led to profoundly different visions of Jesus and his message.
Brilliant, provocative, and stunning in its implications, The Gnostic Gospels is a radical, eloquent reconsideration of the origins of the Christian faith.”
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/110763.The_Gnostic_Gospels
Web (Retrieved May 11, 2015) Elaine Pagels is a preeminent figure in the theological community whose scholarship has earned her international respect. The Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University, she was awarded the Rockefeller, Guggenheim & MacArthur Fellowships in three consecutive years. As a young researcher at Barnard College, she changed forever the historical landscape of the Christian religion by exploding the myth of the early Christian Church as a unified movement. Her findings were published in the bestselling book, The Gnostic Gospels, an analysis of 52 early Christian manuscripts that were unearthed in Egypt. Known collectively as the Nag Hammadi Library, the manuscripts show the pluralistic nature of the early church & the role of women in the developing movement. As the early church moved toward becoming an orthodox body with a canon, rites & clergy, the Nag Hammadi manuscripts were suppressed & deemed heretical. The Gnostic Gospels won both the Nat'l Book Critic's Circle Award & the Nat'l Book Award & was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best books of the 20th Century.
Here, as in Luke 17:20, the Kingdom of God is said to be an interior state; "it's within you," Luke says.
According to the renowned historian Elaine H. Pagels the Gospel of Thomas "does not tell the story about the life and death of Jesus, but offers the reader his 'secret teachings' about the kingdom of God.”
"This book opens with the lines, 'These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and the twin, Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them down.' Then there follows a list of the sayings of Jesus. ... Some of these sayings are familiar. We know them from Matthew and Luke — Jesus said, 'I have come to cast fire on the earth.' Or 'Behold, a sower went out to sow,' and so forth.... Others are as strange and compelling as Zen koans. My favorite of these is saying number 70, which says, 'If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.' The gospel opens as Jesus invites people to see....
The Gospel of Thomas also suggests that Jesus is aware of, and criticizing the views of the Kingdom of God as a time or a place that appear in the other gospels. Here Jesus says," If those who lead you say to you, 'look, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds will get there first. If they say 'it's in the ocean,' then the fish will get there first. But the Kingdom of God is within you and outside of you. Once you come to know yourselves, you will become known. And you will know that it is you who are the children of the living father.”
In this gospel, and this is also the case in the Gospel of Luke, the Kingdom of God is not an event that's going to be catastrophically shattering the world as we know it and ushering in a new millennium. Here, as in Luke 17:20, the Kingdom of God is said to be an interior state; 'it's within you,' Luke says. And here it says, 'it's inside you but it's also outside of you.' it's like a state of consciousness. it's hard to describe. But the Kingdom of God here is something that you can enter when you attain gnosis, which means knowledge. But it doesn't mean intellectual knowledge. The Greeks had two words for knowledge. One is intellectual knowledge, like the knowledge of physics or something like that. But this gnosis is personal, like 'I know that person, or do you know so and so.' So this gnosis is self- knowledge; you could call it insight. it's a question of knowing who you really are, not at the ordinary level of your name and your social class or your position. But knowing yourself at a deep level. The secret of gnosis is that when you know yourself at that level you will also come to know God, because you will discover that the divine is within you.
The Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas does appear rather different from the Jesus we encounter in the others. Because the Gospel of Mark, for example, depicts Jesus as an utterly unique being. This is the good news of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. The Gospel of John says that Jesus isn't even a human being at all, but he's a divine presence who comes down to heaven in human shape.... The Gospel of John says, 'God sent his son into the world to save the world.' If you believe in him, you're saved, if you don't believe in him you're already damned, because you haven't believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Now, [in the Gospel of Thomas], this Jesus comes to reveal that you and he are, if you like, twins.... And what you discover as you read the Gospel of Thomas, which you're meant to discover, is that you and Jesus at a deep level are identical twins. And that you discover that you are the child of God just as he is. And so that at the end of the gospel Jesus speaks to Thomas and says, 'Whoever drinks from my mouth will become as I am, and I will become that person, and the mysteries will be revealed to him.' Here, Jesus does not take the role of authority and teacher. In the Gospel of Thomas, the disciples say to Jesus, 'Tell us, what do you want us to do? How shall we pray? What shall we eat? How shall we fast?' Now if you look at Matthew and Luke, Jesus answers the questions. He says, 'When you pray, say, 'Our Father who are in Heaven, hallowed be...' When you fast, wash your face, don't make a show of it. When you give alms do it privately and without being showy.' In this gospel, this Jesus does not answer. He says, 'Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for everything is known before heaven.' Now this answer throws you and me upon ourselves.... Here Jesus, in effect, turns one toward oneself, and that is really one of the themes of the Gospel of Thomas, that you must go in a sort of a spiritual quest of your own to discover who you are, and to discover really that you are the child of God just like Jesus.”
Elaine H. Pagels, FRONTINE: From Jesus to Christ
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/thomas.html
Web (Retrieved September 16, 2013)
JESUS' PROCLAMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
“Central to the synoptic gospels is Jesus' proclamation of the
Kingdom of God. Jesus' primary mission to his people was to offer
them the possibility of eschatological salvation, which, for the most
part, he expressed by the term 'Kingdom of God.' (A synonym for the
Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Heaven, found in the Gospel of
Matthew.)...
Kingdom of God in the midst of You (Luke 17:20-21)
"Central to the synoptic gospels is Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Jesus' primary mission to the Jewish people was to offer them the possibility of participation in final, or eschatological, salvation, which, for the most part, he expressed by the term"Kingdom of God.” (A synonym for the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Heaven, found in the Gospel of Matthew.) Jesus interpreted his exorcisms and healings as manifestations of the Kingdom of God...
20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God was coming,
he answered them, 'The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be
observed; 21 nor will they say, 'Lo, here it is!' or 'There!' for
behold, the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you.'
Luke contains a saying in which Jesus describes the nature of the
appearance of the Kingdom of God; in it he connects the Kingdom with
himself. The Pharisees ask Jesus when the Kingdom of God will come in
17:20a. Jesus' response in 17:20b-21 is constructed in antithetical
parallelism. The negative member of Jesus' response consists of two
coordinating clauses joined by 'nor,' which describe how the Kingdom
of God does not come: 'The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to
be observed, nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it
is!' The first way in which the Kingdom does not come is 'with signs
to be observed' (meta paratêrêseôs). In the context, the meaning
of 'signs to be observed' probably describes empirically observable
phenomena associated with the inception of eschatological
fulfillment. Jesus' questioners hold the view that the coming of the
Kingdom of God will be universally recognizable by its accompanying
manifestations, and they want to know when Jesus believes these
premonitory manifestations will begin to occur, thereby heralding the
Kingdom. (On this interpretation 'come' has a future meaning since it
is referring to the future Kingdom of God.) The second way in which
the Kingdom of God does not come is in such a way that someone could
say 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is!' The meaning seems to be
the same as 'with signs to be observed.' In other words, Jesus is
saying that, contrary to their expectation, the Kingdom of God will
not come in such a way as to be universally recognized as such. He
rejects the presupposition behind the question, namely that the
Kingdom of God will all at once come as a publicly observable event.
In other words, the Kingdom will not come all at once, as full-blown,
so that no one could deny that it has come. Rather, Jesus' conception
of the Kingdom of God is that it begins inconspicuously, so that it
is possible to deny that it has come at the earliest stages of its
historical development.
The positive member of Jesus' response is the remarkable statement
that the Kingdom of God has already come: 'For behold, the kingdom of
God is in your midst (entos humôn).' Jesus' point is that the Kingdom
of God is in the midst of his questioners insofar as he is in their
midst, so inseparable is he from the Kingdom. Of course, the Kingdom
is in its initial phases and so is still only partially and even
ambiguously present. For this reason, the possibility exists to deny
that it is present at all, in which case Jesus would be seen as
having no salvation-historical significance at all. When it comes to
completion, the Kingdom of God will be undeniable, but until then a
person will be able to accept or reject Jesus' claim that the Kingdom
of God is already present insofar as he is present...
Entering the Kingdom Maimed (Mark 9:43-48 = Matt 18:8-9)
Mark 9:43-48
43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for
you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the
unquenchable fire. 44 [omitted] 45 And if your foot causes you to
sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with
two feet to be thrown into hell. 46 [omitted] 47 And if your eye
causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the
Kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into
hell, 48 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
Matt 18:8-9
8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and
throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than
with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And
if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is
better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be
thrown into the hell of fire.
Jesus teaches that a person must remove all impediments in order to
to enter the Kingdom of God (eiselthein eis tên basileian tou theou)
(Mark 9:47), which is synonymous with to enter into life (eiselthein
eis tên zoên) (Mark 9:43, 45), since it is better to do without any
so-called advantage than to miss entering the Kingdom of God or into
life. (The term "Kingdom of God" is synonymous with "life.”) This is
expressed metaphorically as being willing to cut off one's hands and
one's feet and being willing to remove one's eye, if necessary. The
analogy between sin and a part of one's body is that, like the
latter, the former may be a cherished part of one's livelihood and
identity, which one may be understandably reluctant to thrust aside
since the loss of it would be keenly felt. One's bodily parts
represent what is closest and most valuable to a person, which must
be given up if it impedes entrance into the Kingdom of God or life.
The consequence of not being willing to sacrifice anything to enter
the Kingdom of God or life is punishment in Gehenna (or eternal
fire). The entrance of which Jesus speaks is a future entrance,
coincidental with final judgment; in fact, one must pass through
final judgment in order to enter the Kingdom of God as future or
life.”
Crandall University
Religious Studies 2033
The New Testament nd Its Context, Professor Barry Smith
http://www.mycrandall.ca/courses/NTIntro/IndexNTIntr.htm
Web (Retrieved September 16, 2013)
Jesus' Twofold Teaching about the Kingdom of God (New Testament Monographs) Barry D. Smith
Recent research on Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God has in common the assumption that it remains the same throughout the time of his proclamation of it. The data that cannot be harmonized are usually judged to be inauthentic, originating from Christian prophets in the early church.
Smith shows in closely argued detail how essential it is to differentiate two historical contexts for Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God. The nature of the Kingdom of God is conditional upon its acceptance and the acceptance of its messenger-which is to say, Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God is hypothetical. This is the non-rejection context of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God. But some of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God presupposes a context of the rejection of his message by the majority of Jews and especially the Jewish authorities. In this new context, Jesus teaches that the Kingdom will still come but not in the way first delineated, in the non-rejection context. This can be called the rejection context of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God.
No attempt should be made to assimilate all the data into one historical context. Distinguishing two contexts for Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God allows us to appreciate how Jesus modifies his teaching in the light of the rejection of the Kingdom. Without this differentiation of two historical contexts, it is impossible to make sense of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God.
http://www.amazon.com/Twofold-Teaching-Kingdom-Testament-Monographs/dp/1906055688
Web (Retrieved September 16, 2013)
Nothing less than the Gospel message of salvation is at stake
"In the Book of Acts the Kingdom of God was still the general formula for the substance of Christian teaching...” (Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II, p. 855).
On the lips of Jesus the term Kingdom of God unquestionably summarized the very heart of His Message.”The Kingdom of God is the central theme of the teaching of Jesus, and it involves His whole understanding of His own person and work" (Theological Word Book of the Bible, Alan Richardson, p. 119).
"Yet the voluminous discussions of the meaning of the Kingdom of the God, the heart of the Gospel preached by Jesus, and therefore the Christian Gospel, continue to leave the impression that the subject is complex in the extreme, indeed that the truth of the matter is virtually beyond recovery. An enormous amount of scholarly energy has gone into analyzing the biblical and non-biblical evidence in an effort to explain what Jesus taught as His central theme. Can it really be that our New Testament records provide no clear idea of what Christ and the Apostles meant us to understand by the Kingdom of God? Nothing less than the Gospel message of salvation is at stake.”
Anthony Buzzard, The Kingdom of God: Present or Future?
Web (May 13, 2013)
This forum really, without question, means a lot to me: Happy Thanksgiving to all
October 9, 1017
Yahoo forum post # 18769
Dear Violet (and all),
i have started going through George Johnston's The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John and found it so dense and difficult. Like you, I also tried my best but just could not extract meaningful paragraphs.
After spending only twenty minutes I got really 'tired' and just could not continue anymore. The contents not only sap your positive energy but also leaves you confused and disoriented.
Then I remembered this post of yours saying something about "three days" i.e., you went down for three days. I now wonder what I would have felt if I had spent three hours like you did.
This is a book that I judged by the cover, literally .......................... and the proverb makes so much sense. I did ask for the book based on the cover "The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John", the well-known author "George Johnston", and "list of topics" that I thought would help us in The Work.
i should have read the contents first.
Violet, I am sorry that I put you through a difficult task that, after my own experience today, I will NOT continue.
So what have I learned, again? In other words, if not for the Paraclete Shri Mataji what can we gain from reading George Johnston's The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John and similar books concerning the Spirit-Paraclete?
i have learned that if not for the Paraclete Shri Mataji no one can grasp the true, deep and central message of Jesus - the Kingdom of God, Resurrection Last Judgment, being born of the Spirit, life eternal. Not even the best of Christian theologians can offer any meaningful insight into the Savior's message ........................... and there is a reason for that:
"As the spirit is in the Gospel proper, so the Spirit-Paraclete is a benefit that Jesus will broker to believers. But as with the other benefits that Jesus provides, the source of the Paraclete is with God. The Father sends the Paraclete via Jesus. Ultimately, the Paraclete is sent to perpetuate the availability of access to God's patronage...
As the true Spirit, the Paraclete stands apart from the false spirits of the world. Consequently, to call the Spirit-Paraclete the truth is to make a competitive claim against those opponents. While the Spirit-Paraclete is the true broker, the brokers they rely on are impostors.” Tricia Gates Brown
"The final Spirit-Paraclete saying of John's Gospel appears at 16.12-15. Jesus has still many things to say to the disciples that they can presently not bear. But when the Spirit of Truth comes ... Everything that the Spirit-Paraclete will proffer to believers will have its source in Jesus. And as v. 15 suggests, all that Jesus has comes from the father: 'All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that ...[the Spirit of Truth] will take what is mine and declare it to you.' ... The Spirit-Paraclete brokers truth by providing access to Jesus, the truth. That the Paraclete provides access to Jesus has been a theme all through the Farewell Discourses. Yet the contrast emphasized in 16.12-15 is that between the truth that Jesus' faithful clients will receive and the falsehoods of the world. In 16.8-11 it was implied that those who remain loyal to the world will not receive the truth. They are led in the way of falsehood. Those who remain loyal to Jesus, on the other hand, will be guided in the way of truth by the Spirit of Truth.
The verb employed in 16.13a, (to guide), bears an affinity to the word used by Jesus in his 'I am' statements at 14.6, 'I am [the way].' As 'the way' Jesus provides believers with access to the Father; and as one who 'guides' believers into all truth, the Paraclete provides access to Jesus, who is 'the truth', as well as to the words ... from the glorified Jesus. The future tense verbs in these verses reveal that the Paraclete will disclose to the disciples 'new' revelations from the glorified Jesus and will not merely recapitulate and explain to them the teachings from Jesus' earthly ministry. These new revelations will include information about 'things that are to come.'...
The deep concern of the community centered on whether Jesus could continue to broker access to God when he was no longer on the Earth. This concern seems to be behind the emphatic reassurance of Jesus' role as the exclusive 'way' to the Father (14.6). It is dealt with through the introduction of the Paraclete, who continues Jesus' work and presence among the disciples. The Spirit-Paraclete and Jesus share a functional unity in that many of the tasks that the Paraclete is said to fulfill are earlier ascribed to Jesus. It becomes clear in the Discourses that the Paraclete does not act independently of Jesus, nor is identical with Jesus in some way. Essentially, the Paraclete perpetuates the presence of Jesus by brokering access to Jesus after he has departed. The Paraclete teaches the disciples by speaking to them what [the Paraclete] hears from Jesus (14.26; 16.12-15), ... reminds the disciples of what Jesus said to them (14.26), ... witnesses on behalf of Jesus in Jesus' trial before the world (15.26), ... continues Jesus' work of proving to the disciples the wrongheadedness of the world (16.8-11), ... guides the disciples into all truth by taking 'what belongs to Jesus' and declaring it to the disciples (16.12-15), and ... glorifies Jesus by providing the means for Jesus to continue his role as their patron/ broker to the disciples. The Paraclete provides the disciples with access to the glorified Jesus, allowing Jesus to continue his work of revealing God to the disciples, of witnessing alongside them, of exposing the darkness of this world. In other words, the Paraclete makes it possible for Jesus to continue to be 'the way' to the father, even when he is out of sight of the believers. [The Paraclete] provides a way for Jesus to continue to be a paraclete...
The 'oneness' of Jesus and the Paraclete is not to be understood as identity. The Paraclete is not the spirit of Jesus or the presence of Jesus, for the Paraclete is clearly subordinated to and dependent on him (16.13-15). Burge's interpretation, which melts pneumatology into Christology, is not necessary. Just as the oneness of Jesus and the Father in John can be explained by the fact that Jesus provides access to God, so that from the perspective of believers it is as if they are hearing God's words and seeing the Father himself when they see Jesus (10.37-38; 14.8-11), so when they experience the Paraclete it is as if they are experiencing Jesus. For it is only through Jesus that believers can know/see/hear God, and it is only through the Paraclete that they can continue to know/see/hear the glorified Jesus. The Paraclete continues Jesus presence and the work not as Jesus' alter ego, but as a broker.
As the spirit is in the Gospel proper, so the Spirit-Paraclete is a benefit that Jesus will broker to believers. But as with the other benefits that Jesus provides, the source of the Paraclete is with God. The Father sends the Paraclete via Jesus. Ultimately, the Paraclete is sent to perpetuate the availability of access to God's patronage...
As the true Spirit, the Paraclete stands apart from the false spirits of the world. Consequently, to call the Spirit-Paraclete the truth is to make a competitive claim against those opponents. While the Spirit-Paraclete is the true broker, the brokers they rely on are impostors.”
Tricia Gates Brown, Spirit in the writings of John
Continuum International, 2004, pages 231-3
And after posting the above extract I wanted to wish everyone "Happy Thanksgiving". I just found out that it falls on Monday, October 9, 2017 i.e, today!
i am thankful ..................... to Jesus and the Paraclete Shri Mataji "for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Yes, I am.
Happy Thanksgiving to all,
jagbir
October 10, 2017
Yahoo forum post # 18771
Dear Jagbir and all,
So many of us are not of the level of a doctorate from the university. But what happened to all the doctors in Sahaja Yoga? Where are they today? Have they kept the will and determination to promote the Paraclete Shri Mataji's Message of the Last Judgment and Resurrection? (Shri Mataji's life itself and what She was capable of was their own personal evidence and Shri Mataji gave plenty of that personal evidence to those around Her.) We know they have not. So, what has all their collective doctorates done for the evidence given for the Paraclete Shri Mataji's Incarnation, which Paraclete (think of it) Jesus said He would send!
And He did send Her, who is the Paraclete Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi. Children have given specific evidence to confirm the Incarnation of the Holy Spirit that no doctorate from all the doctorates in the world can give as prima facie evidence of. But we have it. It was too much for the Doctors of Sahaja Yoga who tried to shut that evidence down. That proves how important it is, I would say.
The disciples of Jesus were very important to the Paraclete Jesus as witnesses of His Incarnation and testimony-bringers. They gave as each could give of their testimony, some better able than others, others not very able at all, evidenced by Jesus' words in the Gospel of James where He basically said that his disciples didn't understand. But they tried.
By our very lives and what we do or write also in our own way gives evidence of the veracity of the Paraclete Shri Mataji, the Holy Spirit that has awakened and giving us evidence within us. No doctorate alone can do that, unless it also includes personal evidence from within. The doctors/doctorates in Sahaja Yoga became lead astray to the point of working against Her. One has to ask, were they genuine to begin with or was there a seed of betrayal within them that was perhaps dormant and then sprouted and grew into the Sahaja Yoga Subtle System Religion because like Jesus' disciples, they did not understand?
So, I think like you have stated, it will take the special doctorate of Lalita, who herself gave evidence and will have a doctorate, to carry on that work. The others of us just have to work the best that we can, in the best way we each individually can do it. Not everyone has abilities in every facet, let alone the skills of doctorate-level that for most of us takes a university education and professors meticulously looking over one's shoulders to achieve.
Happy Thanksgiving to the Paraclete Shri Mataji and those who Uphold Her Significance within themselves!!
regards,
violet
October 10, 2017
Yahoo forum post # 18770
Dear Pamela,
With reference to my last post--the dense and difficult theological explanations/interpretations of Jesus' message/parables in the Bible--i also cannot make sense of the OT 'god' in particular and the NT in general. That is why this quote of Shri Mataji makes so much sense and compels you to disregard anything not spoken by Jesus:
"So Christ who is the present crowned, today, who is born in you, is to be looked after. He's not the Christ of the Bible but the Christ of your heart--which is born within you--is to be looked after.” The Paraclete, Christmas Puja, Dec 25/81 London
But even if you only adhere to the red-letter editions of the Bible there are still huge gaps-- the promise of the Paraclete, the Kingdom of God within, second birth, Resurrection--that no mountain of theological books can explain. These are core messages of Jesus that Christians cannot and should not [rely on] their church brokers. They cannot till the arrival of the Paraclete:
"While the Spirit-Paraclete is the true broker, the brokers they rely on are imposters.”
But they have all the time over the centuries .................... ever since Jesus departed.
And the core messages of Jesus are as misunderstood and misinterpreted today as they were twenty centuries ago.
Perhaps the worst if the collective belief of all Jews, Christians, and Muslims that graves are going to spring open on the Day of Judgment, bones get fleshed to the exact dimensions of years/decades/centuries/millennia past, and they (Jews-not Christians or Muslims, Christians-not Jews or Muslims, Muslims-not Jews or Christians) will live happily ever after for all eternity on Earth.
Jews, Christians, and Muslims all hide from the ultimate test of the validity and truth of their interpretation and understanding of their Torah, Bible, and Koran.
"Jesus puts it in saying 108, those who drink from his mouth ... will understand what is hidden.” The promise and message of Jesus, especially about the Signs signaling the commencement of the Resurrection--the heart and soul of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--is hidden in the Torah, Bible, and Koran. The only way to drink from his mouth and understand what is hidden is through the Paraclete Shri Mataji.
The rest of the brokers who talk on his behalf--priests, pastors, reverends, bishops, popes, rabbis, clerics, imams, mullahs, shaiks--are all imposters. Period!
regards,
jagbir
"And, above all, all three persevere in making a claim which cannot possibly be valid and true: that they are, each single one, the true religion.
Each one of them, however, hides from the ultimate test of its validity and truth behind a wall of unknowing and expectation. All three chorus that only on the 'Last Day,' when the 'End' comes, when 'God' decides, will it be clear that the 'other two' and all others besides were false, and it (the claimant) was all along the true community of the one 'God.' "- Malachi Martin
“For almost two thousand years, three major religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, have enjoyed a popularity and exercised a profound influence on millions of human beings. Each, from the very beginning of its existence, claimed to have the ultimate answers to the supreme questions that confront man in every age. Each claimed, on the basis of absolute exclusivity, to be a chosen people. Each claimed to be able to provide its adherents with the truth about man, his origin and his destiny, and further to provide him with a world outlook according to which he could explain everything in human life.
As Dr. Martin shows in The Encounter, each of the three religions at one early moment in its history made a choice according to which all its later history was determined. Christianity restricted itself essentially to the West; it attempted, with minimal success, to convert the peoples of Africa and Asia; it set up from its beginnings an official opposition and hate for Judaism; at one time it dreamed of supervising and controlling the secular and political life of man. Judaism set itself in opposition to Christianity; it became, for almost 1,800 years, the professional underdog of the West; in modern times, it has been polarized beyond repair. Islam tied its fortunes to certain geographical areas, to one concept of civil government, to a way of life totally incompatible with that of mankind generally today, and to an irredentism unacceptable to modern man.
Each of these religions had a limited success over a certain period of human history. That period is now over. It is Dr. Martin's thesis that, as a result, all religions are in a state of crisis. They are not able to provide modern man with answers to his ethical problems. They cannot unite man today. Their very formulations of doctrine and solutions to human problems are unintelligible today. In short, they have failed modern man.” (summary on jacket cover)
"The Jews says:
I believe that there is but one God, YHWH, Eternal, Immutable, All-Perfect, who dwells in Paradise; that He created the skies, the earth, and all things visible and invisible; that He created the angels and spirits, among which is Satan, the Evil One, who was originally an angel, but who fell from favour by disobedience;
● that He created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, each with a body and immortal soul; that they sinned against Him, and were expelled from Paradise; that He later revealed the true religion to Abraham who thus is the father of all true believers;
● that after Abraham's death Moses was the chief of these and that he led the Israelites out of Egypt at the Exodus to the Land of Promise; that he founded the law by which the true Community of Believers might be saved and so be YHWH's Chosen People living according to His Spirit and awaiting His Messiah; that the Christians corrupted the original teachings of Moses by following the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth; that the Muslims corrupted the true belief of Abraham and Moses further by following the teachings of Mohammad;
● that Jerusalem is the holy center of the world; that YHWH's revelation is only contained in the Jewish Bible; that henceforth men are divided into the Chosen People and the Gentiles; that YHWH's salvation is only with the Jewish People;
● that there will be a Last Day in the history of the world; that all men of the past will rise from the dead for a Last Judgment by God; that only the Jews can receive the final reward of Paradise; that on that day YHWH will admit the Chosen People to eternals in Paradise, and severely judge the others; that the sinful and the unbelieving will be punished forever in Hell.
The Christians says:
I believe
● that there is but one God, Eternal, Immutable, All-Perfect, who dwells in Paradise; that He created the skies, the earth, and all things visible and invisible; that He created the angels and spirits, among which is Devil, the Evil One, who was originally an angel, but who fell from favour by disobedience;
● that He created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, each with a body and immortal soul; that they sinned against Him, and were expelled from Paradise; that He later revealed the true religion to Abraham who thus is the father of all true believers; that after Abraham's death, He sent a number of prophets to revive the true religion of Abraham;
● that Moses was the chief of these, and that he founded the law by which the true community of Believers might be saved; that the Jews corrupted the Law; that finally God sent Jesus of Nazareth, His Son, to be the Messiah; that Jesus taught men the true doctrine and founded the Church to perpetuate these beliefs so that all Christians could live according to His Spirit; that Jesus saved all men from sin by His death on the Cross and resurrection; that Mohammad and the Muslims corrupted both Jewish and the Faith of Jesus;
● that Jerusalem used to be the holy center of the world, then alter it was Rome, then still later various places in the world; that God's revelation is only contained in the Christian Bible; that henceforth men are divided into the Church of believers and the non-believers; that God's salvation is only to be found in the Church;
● that there will be a Last Day in the history of the world; that all men of the past will rise from the dead for a Last Judgment by God; that only the Christians can receive the final reward of Paradise; that on that day God will admit Christians to eternal in Paradise, and severely judge the others; that the sinful and the unbelieving will be punished forever in Hell.
The Muslims says:
I believe
● that there is but one God, Allah, Eternal, Immutable, All-Perfect, who dwells in Paradise; that He created the skies, the earth, and all things visible and invisible; that He created the angels and spirits, among which is Iblis, the Evil One, who was originally an angel, but who fell from favour by disobedience;
● that He created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, each with a body and immortal soul; that they sinned against Him, and were expelled from Paradise; that He later revealed the true religion to Abraham who thus is the father of all true believers;
● that after Abraham's death, He sent a number of prophets to revive the true religion of Abraham;
● that Moses was the chief of these and that he founded the law by which the true community of believers might be saved; that the Christians corrupted his Gospel; that Allah finally sent Mohammad who left all he possessed at the Hegira in order to establish successfully the true Community of Muslims who could live according to His Spirit;
● that Mecca is the holy center of the world; that Allah's revelation is contained only in the Koran; that henceforth men are divided into Muslims and unbelievers; that Allah's salvation is only with the Muslims;
● that there will be a Last Day in the history of the world; that all men of the past will rise from the dead for a Last Judgment by Allah; that only Muslims can receive the final reward of Paradise; that on that day Allah will admit the Muslims to eternal rewards in Paradise, and severely judge the others; that the sinful and the unbelieving will be punished forever in Gehenna.”
Malachi Martin, The Encounter,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970, p. 182-85.
"It is certain that exclusivity is an essential note of these religions. If tomorrow, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam conceded that any one of the others was as good as or better than itself, they would fall apart as we know them. Their entire history would be negated.”
"Is the dominance-trait an essential characteristic or basic element of these religions? If they lacked or got rid of it, would they be identically the same in their essence as they are now? Are they viable as religions without the dominance trait? Is the dominance-trait non-essential, a historical accretion due to mere historical development or, at least, is it an element due to human limitations and not issuing necessarily from the religions themselves? After all, these religions claim to be divine in origin, to be messages of salvation received by fallible men from a god who is deemed to be illimitable, eternal, faultless, perfection itself. Perhaps the message itself is free from the dominance-trait; only the recipients suffer from this limitation? Perhaps all three religions adopted physical modes at the priceless moments of their history, and these modes imply a purely human dominance-trait?
This question has a burning importance today when a deep crisis appears to be shaking these religions at their very foundations: one of the aspects of all three religions that seems incompatible with the mind of modern man is this dominance-trait of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Certainly the prejudice, bigotry, cruelty, the massacres and progroms and persecutions, the suffering and the oppression to which this dominance-trait has given rise, have shaken modern man's belief in the authenticity of their absolutist claims.
It is certain that exclusivity is an essential note of these religions. If tomorrow, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam conceded that any one of the others was as good as or better than itself, they would fall apart as we know them. Their entire history would be negated. The Jews would cease to be the Chosen People. Jesus would cease to be God and Savior. Mohammad and his Koran could be pushed aside as historical accidents. Each of the three must singly and for itself claim to have exclusive possession of the one and absolute truth, to exclude the other two and all others besides. The most any one of them could concede is that the others have a fragment or a portion of the truth, that in virtue of good faith and good works, Yahweh (or God or Allah) will have mercy on them.
The pathos of their locked position is sharply focused by their professed belief in one god. There can only be one god, all three maintain obstinately. And this one god can have only one truth. Embedded in each religion, however, are mutually exclusive proportions about that one god: Jews and Muslims reject the divinity of Jesus; Christians and Jews reject the supremacy and final authority of the Koran as the last words of this one god to men; Christians and Muslims reject the Jewish Torah as the ultimate word of this one god; Christians and Muslims believe in the virginity of Mary which the Jews reject; Jews and Muslims reject the idea that the blood of Jesus wiped out all men's sins. The list is endless.” (pp. 217-8)
Christianity within its own borders has specialized in self-crucifixion, at first to quite a minor degree during the first 1500 years of its life, when heretics and dissidents and accused witches and sorcerers were put to death, as Jesus was. Then, with the breakup of its unity in the 16th century, Christians devised for each other one Hell more horrendous and tortuous than another, indulging in a 300-year round of mutual recrimination, accusation, denigration, and relegation by bell, book, and candle, to the filthiest categories of human life. No branch of Christianity can be excused from this, because all Christians have indulged in it.
No body of Christians ever answered the insults of other Christians with Christ's answer: 'Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do?' They all developed special vocabularies replete with violent words such as 'heresy,' 'heretic,' 'extirpation,' 'condemnation,' 'excommunication,' 'outcasts,' 'unclean believers,' 'vice-mongers.' Each one devised its special defenses against the other: social ostracism, civil war, discrimination, calumny, legal non-existence. Rome was the Red Lady of the South. Luther was the Pig of Germany. Protestants were the sons of vipers. Jews were the 'race of the devil.' Muslims were 'benighted and error-ridden barbarians.' No body of Christians ever tried to conquer the world with humility and patience and love, and no body of believers ever tried to fan the flames of faith, in the heart of man by being authentically believers.
The Jews, in retaliation for their pain and their sustained exile, contributed to the sea of hate, distrust and, in some cases, deformation of truth. They invented multiform expressions of contempt, condemnation, loathing, and utter rejection of Christians. They even modified some of their traditional beliefs because the Christians had borrowed them in their original form and, in their repugnance from all things Christian, they wanted no resemblance to subsist between their faith and that of the Christians. They returned hate with hate. They, also, cannot be excused and considered totally guiltless. They preached truth and justice, yet they violated both in order to maintain their religion and their Jewishness. Christians preached love but practised officially sanctioned hate, intermingling their loveliest psalms of compassion for their dying Savior with the expressions of extreme disgust for the Jews...
Muslims preached mercy and compassion, but they practised none or very little, assigning both Christians and Jews to the lowest rung in Allah's consideration, and historically meting out to both a treatment which rivals any cruelties of man in known history. Down through the ages, this procession of the crucified one has come: formed, maintained, and augmented by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Each one has prayed with its armies to its god that the armies of the opponents be destroyed. There is no palliating or explaining away the sin of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The three religions failed in another significant way. None of them attacked slavery or race prejudice or other flagrant inhumanities of man to man from the very beginning of their existence. The Arabs of today sanction slavery as spontaneously as the Popes of the 19th century sanctioned the creation of castrati choirs for Papal masses, as readily and blindly as the Protestant ethic of the white American sanctioned the serfdom and degradation of the Negro race until the second half of the 20th century. Each religion has practiced the art of climbing on the bandwagon: only when lay and secular reformers, sometimes lacking any formal religion whatever, raised such a hue and cry that men's consciences were stirred, did the religions begin to turn their huge resources toward reform. The Catholic Church in Germany and Italy acquiesced in Nazism and Fascism at least in the earlier stages of the ideologies. Russian Orthodoxy acquiesced in the despotism and sadism of Czarist times. Greek Orthodoxy sanctioned the corruption of the Byzantine court and is today bitterly nationalist in Greece's disputes with Turkey. No Protestant Church and no Jewish Synagogue ever officially condemned and attacked the Ku Klux Klan before 1945 in America, though individuals did. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have practiced the double standard in this matter...
Thus the three religions have not been witnesses to the truth. All, it is true, have developed an exalted vocabulary, and a very impressive manner of announcing their own grandiose claims. All three have excelled and excel in words, as distinct from actions. All three have an impressive ritual and have refined psychological approaches to man. Yet the witness of words, mere words, has never changed men's minds, nor has mere theological subtlety helped men to be better men. The witness of the three religions have been faulty, at times perniciously false and erroneous. The three of them have witnessed to the uses of hate for the love of a god. And all three have disposed of the lives and happiness of millions of human beings without any real feeling for human suffering or any genuine concern for the concrete realities of life.
It is clear, first of all, that today all three religions lack any authoritative note for man. They have, as yet, each one of them, sufficient number of adherents to give the impression of continuing strength, and this glosses over for them and for the outside world at times their terrible weakness. For each of them, when scrutinized closely, is blackened with sufficient failures to prevent any thinking man from believing in them. And, above all, all three persevere in making a claim which cannot possibly be valid and true: that they are, each single one, the true religion.
Each one of them, however, hides from the ultimate test of its validity and truth behind a wall of unknowing and expectation. All three chorus that only on the 'Last Day,' when the 'End' comes, when 'God' decides, will it be clear that the 'other two' and all others besides were false, and it (the claimant) was all along the true community of the one 'God.' "
Malachi Martin, The Encounter,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1970) pp. 329-32.
The Spirit-Paraclete “Today we are celebrating the opening of the Sahasrara (Kingdom of God). On this day I must say it was a great happening that took place on all the humanity. It was such an achievement, which I never realized before. Now I can see that without Self-Realization it would have been impossible to talk to people.
Then this happened! I thought that how I will talk to people about it because no one would understand Me and it would be a big mistake on My part to say something about Sahasrara because even about Sahasrara (Kingdom of God) nowhere in the scriptures something was described. It was absolutely an ambiguous description I would say where people could not even have thought there is a Realm beyond Sahasrara, and one has to enter that Realm where is the Reality. That time what I saw around Me was darkness and unless and until there are many Lights, people will never realize that how important it is to have Light.”
The Paraclete Shri Mataji Cabella, Italy—June 9, 1996
Shri Mataji opens the Primordial Sahasrara (May 5th 1970)
The Spirit-Paraclete "Without breaking the Sahasrara we could not have achieved the ascent en masse... To keep Sahasrara open should be very easy if the western brains could understand and be aware of your Mother. When your Mother is the Deity of Sahasrara the only way to be able to keep the Sahasrara open has to be complete surrendering....
The area of the Sahasrara is the realm of God. When the Brahmarandhra opens fully then the heavens open within yourself. The Kundalini, which has risen up and given you Realization, creates the opening by which the Divine starts pouring all its subtleties inside your brain...
All of us can achieve that state of Nirvikalpa... After Nirvikalpa you cannot come down.”
The Paraclete Shri MatajiVienna, Austria—May 4, 1985
The Spirit-Paraclete "So one has to understand that evolutionary process is absolutely free, without any effort and you can't pay for your evolution. It is spontaneous. Like you have this Mother Earth and you put the seed in it, then it sprouts by itself. What do you do? Nothing. It is spontaneous and that's what exactly happens to you, that spontaneously you achieve that state of the Spirit....
So science cannot answer many questions and one of them is that why are we on this Earth? What is the purpose of our life? What is the goal of our life? What is our identity? This question is not asked and, if asked, they cannot answer. They cannot answer this simple question," Why are we on this Earth?”But one has to know that we are on this Earth to become the Spirit, to enter into the Kingdom of God. This is our purpose. That's why we are here and then to be the instruments of that Divine Power, which is All-Pervading.”
The Paraclete Shri MatajiPhiladelphia, USA—October 15, 1993
The Spirit-Paraclete "The whole Christianity is doomed because they started running after shadows. This Mr. Saint Paul, I don't know how he came into Bible. Now, you are a theologist. You tell Me, John. How did he enter? I mean, anybody who says he saw Christ, is he supposed to enter into the Bible? How did he? I mean, his saying and his words and his letters are regarded as the letters from the Bible, after Christ. Before Christ is all right, but after Christ. What is the validity? I don't understand. What is the credibility of this person entering into that as an authority? How? When nobody challenged him. He was a man who was killing so many people before. Then, suddenly he becomes something and he starts saying, 'I'm doing Christ's work,' and this and that and writes letter to Corinthians and all these people and all that. And why these letters that he writes becomes a Bible? Can you imagine? What did he do in his own lifetime? Half of it he spent in killing and half of it is he was an imposter. I am happy that it has come to your notice. But one can ask, 'Why? Why is he there?'"
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
London, UK—June 7, 1993
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The Spirit-Paraclete "You cannot force on the organization of God anything. He is on His own, His organization is on His own. Only thing you can do is to enter into His Kingdom and become a part and parcel of that blissful domain.
You would never like to change it either. It is so wonderful. It is so protective, it's so loving, is so gentle, so kind, so compassionate, that you would hate to change that organization, but we do! We try to organize God.
For people who think that is the ultimate you have to seek, it's all arranged to enter into the Kingdom of God. The time has come. This is the Day of Resurrection. These are the days of Resurrection.”
The Paraclete Shri MatajiHamstead, UK—July 22, 1982
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