Even More Stuff About Me
An actual email:
"I
just finished the Revealing Science of God
and it is hard for me to visualize HOW you were brilliant enough to put this
all together. This truly blows my mind because it is so perfect!!!
The “Why” really got me
because I have always questioned “Why” but quickly moved away from the
question because some of the potential answers were less than honorable to
YHWH. Was
all this revealed to you by YHWH through meditation on His Name? How did
you figure this out? Did you read it somewhere? Where else can I
read about this?"
A very nice letter. An I am honored that I have been able to play a
part in touching someone else's life.
Of all the questions & topics people ask me in emails (I answer on
average 800 a year), oddly enough the #1 topic is still me. That has
surprised me, friends. (And you critics too, come on in! There's
plenty of room.)
I have posted my mini-autobiography, and a much more
extensive version, describing the key spiritual events of my life and how they
happened, called Transcendent Experiences.
The how's and why's of my scandalous name change,
too.
Yet, clearly, there is more to be said, because there's more that people want
to know. I'll do my best to address the key issues I'm most regularly
asked about.
The Abuse of the Personality Cult - "How do you
know this is right?"
Let's deal with this out in the open:
Ultimately, I DO NOT KNOW.
Everything written here MIGHT BE WRONG.
The questions about "me" stem, it seems, from our own need to turn
to authority figures for guidance & help. This, in many ways, is
entirely natural and necessary. None of us are an island, able to live
utterly isolated and self-contained lives. So we must trust others to tell
us the truth and deal honestly. When I trust the water company not to
poison my water, I am looking to their authority for guidance and help.
When I put gas in my car I am trusting the honesty & authority of the gas
station to present honest materials.
But clearly there are limits. People accept unthinkingly that whatever
they get from the radio/TV/print media is absolutely true, often to their own
peril. If this was a book then I would insert several hundred pages of
examples of cases where the media either was misguided, or intentionally mislead
its audience. But you'll have to do that part yourselves.
So too with government. We have perhaps come to expect lies from the
politicians, but it was not always this way.
And so forth it goes...From school teachers to parents to friends to
so-called "experts", we have all discovered that people who we respect
and trust did not actually tell us the truth, either from their own ignorance or
as an attempt to deliberately misguide.
Now, here's a principle I have found to be true:
The more we rely upon someone else's knowledge or
authority is the extent to which we do not have our own.
Please think about that for a minute. It's just like the pocket
calculator: the more we rely on the calculator to "think" for us, the
weaker we become, ultimately losing our own ability to add and subtract.
Sit in a wheelchair long enough, and you WILL lose the ability to walk.
In other words, the more we rely on external
agents the more we lose the internal ability.
Mozart and Bach heard their music in their heads. Internal
music. "All" they had to do was write down what they heard in
their heads. Many composers today have this ability. Most do not -
they need to turn on some electric rhythm-maker, play around a bit, and record
what happens. Those folks, not hearing the internal music, can only
manipulate the external music.
Now I am not making judgment evaluations here. As I said, none of us
live in isolation, and must rely upon others (aka "external agents")
in one capacity or another for our lives.
But for me, at least, the line is drawn when it comes to acts of opinion,
morality, faith and religion, and everything else that constitutes my
"Inner world." Since it is absolutely and utterly my Inner
world, I am unwilling (or at least extremely reluctant) to give any part of it
over to an external agent. This is just one of the many profound aspects
of "I will be what <<I>>
will be" by which I live my life.
When we are young our parents must, at a certain point, simply respond
"Because I said so." No more information that the child can
relate to is available. But as we grow to maturity we learn more and more
of these reasons, the underlying "Why" of a situation. In other
words, our actions mature from being controlled by the external agent into being
internally self-motivated.
It is the same with religion. At the beginning we hear things from
different people. They want us to accept what they say as true.
Hindus give birth to Hindus, Jews give birth to Jews, and so on through the
entire human race. The overwhelming majority of people all have the same
religion: Whatever Mommy & Daddy tell me is true. Seldom do people
advance past this stage and begin to make their religion their own.
Ultimately, The Church of Yahweh can be boiled down to 2 statements:
- God's Name YHWH matters, and
- You must get involved with, and take responsibility for, your own
religious life.
That's it. Nearly everything written here falls into one of those 2
categories.
When people are not responsible for their own lives, this vacuum creates a
space for others to come in & control you. This is the source of the
Personality Cult, in all of its particular manifestations:
- Millions of kids, all "doing their own thing," looking and
talking and acting and dressing exactly alike
- Millions of "free-thinking" adults who accept unquestioningly
whatever the evening news tells them
- Millions of consumers who exercise their "freedom of choice" by
responding to subliminal advertising that inspires them to use money
they do not have to purchase things they do not really want, and will never
use, for reasons they cannot explain
- And, most important in this context, millions upon millions upon billions
(do you actually know that a "billion" is 1000 million? Most
people do not.) of people who go to their graves utterly convinced they are
heading to an eternal paradise on no other basis than blindly trusting their
religious authorities.
We gratefully abdicate any and all responsibility for our lives, over and
over, in countless ways. The government will tell us what to do, the
schools will tell us how to act & think, and religion will tell us what to
believe...And this is how the majority of the human beings on this planet live.
I'm not being scandalous here. This is even written into the very core
of the Bible. Jesus calls people sheep, dumb animals that will go wherever
they are lead. Which is why He reserves His harshest words for the
religious leaders and authorities of the time. Because if you are going to
lead dumb, blind sheep, who will not and cannot think for themselves, then you
had best be absolutely certain you are leading them the right way. They
have put their blind trust in you, and you have accepted the role.
Beware!!
And Then There's Me
Look, folks, I know there are many challenging and even scandalous things
written in these pages. But in context, this is really the most shocking:
"On this Website you will find many documents. They cover all
essential aspects of religion. Do not accept or believe any of
it, without carefully testing and examining its truth. Believing what someone
else tells you, simply because you think they have some authority, is one of
the silliest things you can do."
This is exactly the opposite of nearly every priest / pastor / prophet /
rabbi I have ever known. The overwhelming majority of people "in
authority" in religious circles, at least as far as the hundreds I have
encountered, all approach their people with a "Thus Says The Lord"
attitude.
I have written & repeated that statement for 2 main reasons:
- I do not want anyone to blindly follow me. I am not a shepherd, and
don't want to be. To paraphrase a popular song, "I can barely run
my own life, and I'll be damned if I'll run yours!" I don't want
any of Jesus' statements about it "being better if I'd never been
born" to ever apply to me.
- Even though I probably do not know you, and may never meet you, I care
about you. And I want you to benefit from the greatest blessing that
has ever happened in my life, which is the development of my personal
relationship with My God and My Religion. But YOU cannot find YOUR
religion until you set aside religious authority figures and begin to answer
things for YOURSELF.
It's all about the Internal world. See how that connects? If you
are really going to have a very healthy, strong internal spiritual life, you
cannot and must not rely on others to do it for you.
I want your religion to be real for you.
My "Authority"
Where do people get their authority?
- From their position. We expect Presidents, Senators, Pastors &
Rabbis to have great knowledge simply by virtue of the position (job) they
hold.
- A credential or degree. Bachelors degree from this University,
Doctorate from that. I remember the silliness in college, when I'd go
to an hour-long lecture, and the first 15 minutes would be the Traditional
Reading of the Holy Credentials of the Anointed Speaker. Right.
Most of them really were puffed-up idiots.
- Experience. "I've been in this industry for 26
years." As though simple longevity in and of itself confers some
type of wisdom.
- Association with other significant folks. "Studied guitar with
the Beatles..." That doesn't mean, of course, that he can play a
note(!)
Well, yada yada yada...You can add more, but the point has been made.
In a wide variety of ways we find signs and symbols that ascribe significance to
people.
And my authority? I DON'T HAVE ANY!
Even if I do, I DON'T WANT YOU TO GIVE IT ANY VALUE!
OK, sure...I have a college degree...I studied under one of the world's
foremost Jewish Mystics...I have been working with this material for over a
quarter century...I am a published author...Thousands of people around the world
have read my materials...Some call me Rabbi, some call me Pastor, others call be
a reprobate, heretic, and asshole.
SO WHAT??!?
What could any of that have to do with you?
Look, let me express this in the extreme. What if (and this is just a
what if) I had come back from heaven, had a direct pipeline to Jesus, God and
all the Saints, and knew absolutely, positively that Yhwh Himself had dictated
each and every single word in this website? What if I knew I was actually
the 2nd coming of Jesus?
How could I prove it? You could ask for some miracle. What if I
say "No," then what? Do you look for a vision or an "inner
testimony" that what I've said is true?
So what? What would that do for you?
At "best" folks, what it would do for you is allow you to think
that you've found the person who has all the answers, so you can forget about
your own spiritual growth and get back to watching reruns on TV!
And that's just not what I'm all about.
I am, in short, writing this document about me to
try to convince you that I do not matter.
But perhaps, just perhaps, the ideas and information here do.
Got it?
My Approach
Now that we understand all of that quite clearly between us, I will share
with you the main techniques and tools I have found most beneficial to help my
religion become my own. Two notes of caution, though.
First, this has been my path; it may or may not be right for you.
Second, many consider this approach to be wrong and evil. Especially in
"Orthodoxy" (aka the "regular" church) thinking for yourself
and finding your own path to God is exactly what they are trying to
prevent. Whether or not that's true is, well, ultimately up to you.
Or maybe it's not. You decide. Or maybe you shouldn't.....
Take Religion Seriously
This really is first and foremost. Everything else comes from it.
"Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will
open." "Religion," "Finding God," whatever you
want to call it, MUST BE IMPORTANT TO YOU. More important than anything
else. If you approach God with the same level of concern you reserve for
canned vs. bottled beer, then you won't get very far. Period.
The Power of the Telescope
How does a telescope allow us to see far into the heavens with a depth and
clarity that boggles the imagination? It uses 4 main things:
- Gather Light. The telescope gathers more light than your eye.
Your eye has a diameter of maybe an inch. When we use telescopes that
are 6 inches, or 200 inches in diameter, then those devices are able
to gather much, much more light. So, in your Quest For The Light, you
must, must gather as much light as you can: Read the Bible, sing songs, read
commentaries by the saints....GATHER LIGHT! It constantly astounds me
the people who send me mail something to the effect of "The Lord is the
most important thing in my life. Please help me know God's
Will!" When those very same people have never even read the
Bible. I just don't get it. OK, so maybe you don't have the
inclination to hack through all 1,300 pages yourself, but there are
commentaries, "Reader's Digest Condensed Bibles", etc. The
more light you gather, the better chance you have of getting a clear image.
- Focus. The light gets "bent" into one central point.
ALL of this glorious, expanded-capacity light is gathered and then focused
into a tiny, singular point. Being a race of browsers and
channel-flippers, we don't focus much. Go here, do this, get that over
with, flip thru life just the same way we scan a newspaper. But folks,
that approach will NOT help you focus on the Light, or find God any
clearer. When I say "Gather Light" I really do not mean take
the Bible to the beach and look at it while the naked bodies walk around
you, with the radio playing and a cold beer by your side. Uh,
nope. You need to focus. That's directly related to taking
things seriously.
- Eliminate Noise. Telescopes filter out lots more than they take
in. They get aimed in a particular direction. They find places
where there is no surrounding light. They have long tubes to further
eliminate extraneous, surrounding light. They often have special
filters to eliminate other types of noise. The Hubble Telescope even
rides above the atmosphere, so the very air itself cannot distract the
Sacred Light from its journey. So spend quiet time. Turn off the
radio. Turn off the !@#$%$# TV. Turn off all thoughts and
distractions of the entire outside world. Most of us can't hear God,
even though He is SCREAMING at us, because of all the voices &
noises rattling around in our heads.
- Expand Time. When a telescope takes an image of a far away object,
it doesn't just take a brief snapshot like a camera. It can stay
focused on the same object, gathering noise-free light for hours.
In exactly the same way, your 5 minute Bible "devotion" every
other morning while sitting on the potty will not be as beneficial for you
as spending hours, days, even years in deepest meditation of the Mysteries
of The Godhead. I understand we live in a post-industrial world of
instant gratification; but that approach simply will not bear fruit in your
Holy Quest.
Teach, Give, Share
This is the next biggest mistake I find people making. In addition to
the instant gratification we've come to expect, we are raised from birth to be
selfish, feed-me-feed-me-more consumers. So you meet a lot of
people flirting from church to church, idea to idea, trying to find what will
"bless" them the most. But you are limiting yourself. You
must talk with others. You never learn as much as when you teach. Or
perhaps just share with others. Remember when people used to actually talk
with one another? Unless you are reaching out to others & sharing with
them what you have learned, you are severely limiting how effective your
spiritual development can be. Remember, it's supposed to be about loving
one another and caring for one another, right?
You cannot really begin to "get ministered to" until you are ready
to minister. That's how it works.
Work On It!
I can't think of a catchier title for this. But the idea is one of
continuous, diligent, applied effort. I'll give you an example.
I wanted to really "get into" salvation, not just as a matter of
believing it, but actually how it works. "God gave Jesus what we
deserve so He could give us what Jesus deserved." Now, just how
exactly does that happen? What is the actual, operative element in
Christ's atonement? Since He "paid the price" for all our
sins, how, exactly, did that happen?
I don't accept "Objection #1," that we can never know. When
Orthodoxy calls something a "mystery" that is usually a code word for
"We don't know, can't explain or justify it, but need you to accept it
anyway." The Bible is clear that we have the Mind of Christ inside
us, who wants to lead us into all knowledge.
And I also don't accept "Objection #2," that we shouldn't ask, that
somehow the Lord of the Universe is bothered or upset by our questions. I
simply cannot accept that a tiny human can ask a question so offensive to the
Infinite Creator of Time, Space and Dimension, that the mere asking is
wrong.
I accept that we cannot always know the full answers. But I also accept
that honest questions are never wrong. And that we can and will eventually
be lead into all truth.
So, back to the example question here...What is the actual, operative element
in Christ's atonement?
I started to "Gather Light." I read. Orthodoxy's answer
is quite simple:
God is perfect, and cannot abide sin. So He sent His perfect Son to
the earth and punished Him with the punishment that the entire human race
deserved. But since Jesus was perfect, this punishment wasn't eternal,
and He rose from the dead.
And I started to focus on this "punishment" thing. So, God
was, like, pissed? It just made Him really, like, mad? And so
He watched Jesus being whipped & spit on & crucified & bleed &
die until...finally, God got it out of His system and figured, OK, that's
enough? Re-hee-heely!?! (I basically got kicked out of college #2
for that one.)
Nothing about this seemed right. Inconsistent. Arbitrary.
Frankly, stupid, the kind of thing a small mind would think up. So, I
continued to read, look, explore...
- What is sin?
- What is punishment?
- What really happened in Eden?
- When Jesus said His death & resurrection would reveal The Name, what
exactly did that mean?
- What, precisely, was meant by the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
- And just WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??!?!?!?!?
It took years. I went to college for religion so I could focus on this
exclusively. I would meditate, not even so much as eating for days, so as
to dedicate myself entirely to the pondering of this mystery. I taught
Bible studies weekly for years. Read what other commentaries had to
say. Talked to pastors, priests, teachers, friends.
In short, I worked it.
And, for right or wrong, I found answers that
were, and are, right for me. Deep, astounding, transforming
revelations and realizations would come crashing over me like waves of bliss.
And I wrote it down. The best I could. I called it In
The Garden, because I became aware of phenomenal relationships between Eden
and Gethsemane.
And I posted it for all the World to read, for free. It is here.
And I seek constant feedback from the World Forum.
And I get emails telling me it has changed people's lives...and I read
discussions in chatrooms saying it's a blasphemous evil...and I re-read
it....and it's been through more edits than I can really count...
And I attach to it my ever-present disclaimer, reprinted here so you don't
even have to scroll back to the top of this page:
"On this Website you will find many documents. They cover all
essential aspects of religion. Do not accept or believe any of
it, without carefully testing and examining its truth. Believing what someone
else tells you, simply because you think they have some authority, is one of
the silliest things you can do."
So, that's how I work it:
- I gather information (light).
- I focus on the issues.
- I pray for guidance, sometimes "demanding" answers.
- I eliminate noise from the surrounding world.
- I dedicate lots of time to it.
- I take it all very seriously.
- I share what I have found with all who will listen or read.
- I seek feedback.
Every word on every document here is, to greater and lesser degrees, the
result of this process.
The overall approach I have come to call The
Revealing Science of God. That text describes both the approach of
using the Scientific Method as it applies to Religion, and some results I have
gained while I contemplate why the universe exists.
And yes, (to answer the question the reader asked in the email at the
very top of this page), Yhwh's Name has been a constant guide. For me
The Name (and all that names mean, and why it's important for "God"
to have a Name, and all the places in the Bible that talk about "In the
Name of Yhwh", and all that...) has served as the lens that actually
focuses the light into crystal clarity.
That's how it's been for me.
But of course that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong.
Peace, Ahyh. Feb 26, 2002.
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