A Reason for Faith in Jesus Christ

originally posted by: corblimeyguvnor
a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Did you know him? the OP reads like you did

Or are you just basing your high praise and BS on text you have read? text as in a novel / book / fairy tale / fantasy / choose your own genre and insert it.

You know it's interesting, I find no evidence that Jesus was an actual historical personage, but everything exists.
So if Jesus did not exist as 'history', how does he exist?
Jesus exists in the thoughts/imagination of the 'believers', in literature, in art...
One can certainly have a 'relationship', or a 'conversation' with imaginary Jesus, Here! Now!
So, logically, I find no inconsistency in a declaration of a 'living' relationship.
I am accepting that, in a way, the OP did not 'did' know Jesus, but 'does'!
He's even in my mind as we speak, for the moment (and yours).
The 'inner guru' will always lead the sincere into the 'Christ/Light/unconditional Love/Enlightenment!

originally posted by: AnkhMorpork
A Reason for Faith in Jesus Christ

'Faith' needs no 'reasons'.
'Faith' is an unconditional Virtue of unconditional Love!
There are never enough 'reasons/validation' for the conditional vanity of 'beliefs'.

a reply to: namelesss

“God cannot be explained. He cannot be argued about. He cannot be theorized, nor can He be discussed and understood. God can only be lived.

To understand the infinite, eternal Reality is not the GOAL of individualized beings in the illusion of Creation, because the Reality can never be understood; it is to be realized by conscious experience.

Therefore, the GOAL is to realize the Reality and attain the “I am (of) God” state in human form.”

~ Meher Baba – from the book “God Speaks”

"Life is a Mighty Joke.

He who knows this can hardly be understood by others. He who does not know it finds himself in a state of delusion. He may ponder over this problem day and night, but will find himself incapable of knowing it. Why? People take life seriously, and God lightly; whereas we must take God seriously, and take life lightly. Then, we know that we always were the same and will ever remain the same.......the Originator of this joke. This knowledge is not achieved by reasoning.
But it is the knowledge of experience."
~ Mehe Baba

In Christ, we can be brought into this mighty joke.

This is also the humor of true understanding and it forms the basis of all creative action and the basis of true life, authentic life.

It's very funny looking back on it in hindsight from the perspective of the new POV that, being once in our blind spot resided in the domain of an unknown unknown or what we didn't even know we didn't know about ourselves, until we did.

Best,

Ankh

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Poor Meher Baba

sit down and stand up at the same time

The wind, like the spirit, is radically free, and so it is of everyone who's reborn in and of the spirit of truth and life that is also Jesus and the spirit of the living God.

It's hard to fathom, and it can't be fully grasped, but it's been communicated nevertheless.

originally posted by: kibric
a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Poor Meher Baba

sit down and stand up at the same time

What do you mean? Can you elaborate and clarify a little further? Sounds interesting.

I felt sorry for him that he felt he had to act out certain things and that, in the end, during an excruciating and torturous death of some ailment, he commented "why is it so bad this time, the last time it was all over in no time".

Like Adi Da, he appears to have made a final error born of some sort of egotism.

"The student can never be as great as the teacher."

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

What do you mean? Can you elaborate and clarify a little further? Sounds interesting.

he used to say the trick is
sitting down and standing up at the same time

Like Adi Da, he appears to have made a final error born of some sort of egotism.

"Do not forget that I am God."

- Meher Baba

?????

a reply to: kibric

Their own "inner guru" got the better of them. Adi Da lost his sense of humor in old age and came to take himself very very seriously and Meher Baba claimed to be one and the same person as Jesus, and appeared to pay a heavy price for it.

Very interesting that these so-called Godmen, these "avatars of our age", made such glaring errors and oversights in their identification.

I do like many of Adi Da's arguments though about the fallacies of traditional spiritual pursuits of both the Western and Eastern traditions. It's a good argument.

Whereas with Jesus, he served as a perfect model of authentic leadership with the utmost Grace, and what I'm interested in is just what he was inviting us into and what he wished for us to consider and contend with.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Well, most parents who believe in God will tell you that children are proof of that sense of humor! More than once, with my oldest, I'd be lamenting some behavior or other of hers to God, and asking why she did that, just to be reminded of something I did of the same sort. He's funny, and He will use things in our lives to teach us, too!!

Humility is indeed important, and that's one way that many fail; they can't understand that God could humble Himself, to help us. It's so against the "me first" mentality in our natures, many can't comprehend!

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Oh, good post! Thank you for such a wonderful contribution to the thread.

I suspect that there's a hidden giggle in us all that only God can properly elicit from deep within, but to receive it, we have to be truly willing and open-minded and yes humble while remembering that false humility is the peak of conceit in it's outward piety (which even Jesus hated and loathed), and that true humility involves the process by which we become true to our truest selves.

We must never allow ourselves to lose our own sense or humor, mirth and charm, playfulness and creativity and free and full self-expression, which is what it means to be like a child again, while knowing it as if for the first time in the field of adult awareness.

So I say good for you for allowing God permission to teach you, and to offer up a laugh at your own self.

We must take ourselves, and each other, both infinitely more seriously on the one hand, because of who and what we TRULY are, and not at all, on the other, because we do not have the first clue really what that might mean or signify ie: don't really know who and what we are.

I think it's a mystery that we can only explore together, by opening up to one another and to ourselves and to God, who really isn't out to get us and who went a very longgg longgggg way to make all of this possible in the first place in order so that a shared, mutual, participatory relationship might be experienced in the process. Koinonia.

It's changes the whole game and framework, to consider (from the rock) the uncharted territory and the whole field of awareness and the domain of limitless possibility that is our birthright and our destiny and that was upheld and preserved by Jesus in order so that we might get to enjoy it's fullness and richness in the fullness of time ie: we'd get it eventually.

It's like searching for buried treasure and, upon finding it, immediately reburying it, selling everything we own (everything that stood in the way) and buying up the whole field, or like a wealthy pearl merchant in search of fine pearls who when he finds one of great value, sells it all just to have that particular pearl (what does a pearl in formation represent, allegorically?).

It's HILARIOUS! Beyond belief and true good to be true, yet a rock that moveth not and that you just can't get around and why would you want to?

Yes, the joke's on us.

Good one God!

But that's OK! It HAD to be that way, to be of value, and if of any value at all, then by extension it's of infinite value.

And it's invisible, but it's not inaccessible in the domain of true knowledge and the humor and mirth of true understanding, that knows and can know with absolute certainty that God is a loving and a laughing God who wants nothing more than for us to join Him in that laughter and love but for all the right reasons. It's enough to wipe away the very tears from our eyes and give us consolation and a place of rest. It's enough to recover the giggle of a once lost inner child and restore our humor and our joy.

What's it all about if not that?

This is the only reasonable and rational position to take, imho, even in the face of tragedy and heartache and loss.


Best regards,

Ankh

originally posted by: AnkhMorpork
a reply to: namelesss
In Christ, we can be brought into this mighty joke.

If by 'Christ' you are referring to unconditional Love/Enlightenment... Heaven... Nirvana..., then I heartily concur with you! *__-

This is also the humor of true understanding and it forms the basis of all creative action and the basis of true life, authentic life.

It's very funny looking back on it in hindsight from the perspective of the new POV that, being once in our blind spot resided in the domain of an unknown unknown or what we didn't even know we didn't know about ourselves, until we did.

Best,

Ankh

Thank you for the links, but as I cannot discuss Meher Baba's words with him, I'm just going to thank you for reminding me of him.
All mystics say the same thing, some more or less poetically.
The mystical experience, although transcendental and unconditional, the 'conditional words' ("one must descend from the mountain to even speak!") start to all sound the same.
Unless there is lack of experience/Knowledge, which stands out like a sore thumb.

As far as life being a 'joke', that is no more than another duality to be swept away.
If life is a 'joke', then life is also 'deadly serious', remember the First Law of Soul Dynamics; "For every Perspective, there is an equal and opposite Perspective!"
'Life' is a product of 'thought/ego'.
With no 'thought', there is no 'life' and 'death'.
And any 'life is...' statement is always met with, yes, but 'life is also...'!
Such is duality, the 'conditional'.

a reply to: namelesss

When I said in Christ, I am referring to being within God as our true condition whereby God is also a Supreme Person, and in such a way that we are also beloved and accepted and loved unconditionally.

It is like Adi Da said, that there is no pointing in any particular direction whether to God or self, and yet, to distinguish from Adi Da's POV (of God-guru), in relationship with God as a Supreme Being because of the sonship of Jesus and his reasoning and great work of all ages aka the rock of all ages, which is not without it's own reason and logic.

"And as my father first sent me, even so send I, you."

I suppose my point in this, and it touches on folks like Adi Da and Meher Baba and the reason they might have fallen victim to a certain egotism in their self-identification as God, is that there's no need to try to evade or circumvent Christ as the light of life, or to try to be him or replace him or upstage him, since he is also the person of God and forms the basis of our personal relationship with God, even in spite of ourselves or our shortcomings or character disorders and misconceptions about the fundamental relationship we have, with ourselves, others, the world around us and with God who is a God of love, whereby love to be love, involves a relationship between beloved and beloved other. It is an I-thou relationship that doesn't exclude Jesus Christ son of God.

I'm aware that the talk of Jesus and allusions to Christianity may wipe the smile off many people's faces and provoke in them a reaction born of a negative bias towards what might be called "Churchianity", but what I'm asking or inviting people to consider, is the idea Jesus is like the very arm and hand of God that's capable of wiping away the tears from our eyes and restoring our joy and humor and putting a knowing smile back upon our face, or for the first time, within the domain of true self-knowledge and liberation from the bondage of self or what Adi Da described as a "contraction" and a clinging (think of a gasping fist trying to hold to something, or to nothing).

When Jesus said "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his own soul?", forgive me for saying this, but I believe that was a repudiation of Buddhism taken to it's logical conclusion.

I think that it (in Christ) represents a celebration of the true self accepted and reintegrated while forming the basis of a relationship with God, the corollary of which is expressed in terms of our relationship to others because we all share the same ground of all being and becoming or put another way because we are all in God and are children of a loving God who made everything by and for the son because of love. "you love them as you loved me from before the very foundation of the world."

It's not an ephemeral illusion or a negation of the self, which could run the risk of zeroing a person out and causing them to lose that special mirth and charm of the humor of the knowledge of true understanding including their own unique and personal character and passion.

And yes, life is as serious as it is a great joke, and it's another reason why we ought to take each other much more seriously on the one hand and much less so on the other.

Then the opportunity arises for play and fun and mutual enjoyment and creativity that never loses its charm.

originally posted by: namelesss

Thank you for the links, but as I cannot discuss Meher Baba's words with him, I'm just going to thank you for reminding me of him.

You're most welcome.

In honor and loving memory of Baba, who, in his dying days either paid a heavy price for declaring himself as one and the same avatar as Jesus or who, by some terrible irony, was given a share in and a large portion of the suffering of the cross.

Although I have to say, regarding a reported moment when climbing a mountain during his days of action and exploration when he was seen in the middle of a vicious rainstorm within in a beam of light through parting clouds and without so much as a drop of rain landing on him that God might have been messing around with both him and his devotees, just for fun..

originally posted by: namelesss

originally posted by: AnkhMorpork
A Reason for Faith in Jesus Christ

'Faith' needs no 'reasons'.
'Faith' is an unconditional Virtue of unconditional Love!
There are never enough 'reasons/validation' for the conditional vanity of 'beliefs'.

I call it ultra-reasonable and supra-rational which isn't divorced from felt experience as the domain of all knowledge which at some level involves innerspace more than outerspace and represents a type of involution (Meher Baba) more than evolution, and it's a quantum leap the leap of faith, but you certainly don't need to leave your reason and logic at the door to enter in and to allow others to enter in.

Thererfore, on behalf of all Christendom, let me be the first to apologize for the fundamental misrepresentation of the logic and the FUN of Jesus as presented by "Churchianity" which is almost right but many of them never enter in or allow others to enter in or have the audacity to give a hug and be hugged by Jesus, in embracing his rationale and logic or logos or word. They may believe, but they don't know the extent or the beginning point of the basis of his love, and therefore don't really know him and never really bothered to do anything other than to maintain the right set of "beliefs" or to pretend which is fundamentally dishonest and inauthentic. Then again, faith does require imagination and the willingness to fake it until you make it, make that subtle leap into faith.

Then, if we do another reading of the Gospels and in particular, the sayings of Jesus, they come to life because the Spirit also informs them, and you or whoever reads it will find the essential charm of Jesus, and his wit and humor, and tender loving-kindness and you will realize in that moment that He was with you all along, just waiting for you to catch up to Him who is also the very best part of yourself, once forgiven, and with the power to also forgive as we are forgiven. in kind, and in that movement towards compassion there it is.

It's like a first cause in the human order of things and it's also informed by Brahmavidya or the Sacred Science of the Indus River Valley Civilization with Jesus functioning as a type of human/historical crossroads in many ways between East and West.

It's a higher logic and reason, but it's not the least bit unreasonable, in the final analysis.


And thus the first inkling of a childlike giggle arises.. and then we know it's true.

originally posted by: AnkhMorpork

originally posted by: namelesss
'Faith' needs no 'reasons'.
'Faith' is an unconditional Virtue of unconditional Love!
There are never enough 'reasons/validation' for the conditional vanity of 'beliefs'.

Then again, faith does require imagination and the willingness to fake it until you make it, make that subtle leap into faith.

Oh that is not my experience at all!
I couldn't 'fake' something of which I was completely ignorant.
I had no clue that unconditional Love even existed for the first half century here.
'Faith' is an unconditional Virtue of unconditional Love.
'Unconditional' means no 'conditions' are necessary for it's 'being'.
Nor can it be affected by any conditions.
'Thought' is 'conditional' and so limited in it's dualist nature;
It was 'thought' that was the forbidden fruit.
To believe it is Pride.
"With 'thought'/sin comes 'life' and 'death'!"
Anyway, it was/is as I found/became Love that 'Faith' appeared on my 'radar.
There was/is no 'effort, it naturally shines in Love!
Not until.
I could NEVER have imagined (and there are no rusty bearings on 'this' imagination) Love, or Faith to have sought it.
But, you know the moment when you step on that tack, that lancing jarring jolt of pain that brings you RIGHT into the Here! Now!?
Trains of thought can no longer take us Here.

Faith is Knowledge!
You know when you know something?
You don't need 'reasons', you KNOW!
Direct experience/Knowledge!
There are no dualist words capable of translating.
("One must descend the mountain to even speak...")
All words can do is to point the way into the void from whence Our Light shines.
Our children will find their way home.
And some will not.

And thus the first inkling of a childlike giggle arises.. and then we know it's true.

Kids often giggle while peeing on you, like idiot baboons.
(My apologies if I offended any of my intellectually challenged baboon friends out there!)
I'm unimpressed that these lap monkeys giggle.
All monkeys do.

Truth is ALL inclusive! *__-

originally posted by: AnkhMorpork

originally posted by: namelesss

Thank you for the links, but as I cannot discuss Meher Baba's words with him, I'm just going to thank you for reminding me of him.

You're most welcome.

In honor and loving memory of Baba, who, in his dying days either paid a heavy price for declaring himself as one and the same avatar as Jesus or who, by some terrible irony, was given a share in and a large portion of the suffering of the cross.

Jesus said "As I Am, so can you be!"

"What a man loves, he is. If he loves a stone he is that stone, if he loves a person he is that person, if he loves God - nay, I durst not say more; were I to say, he is God, he might stone me. I do but teach you the scriptures." - Meister Eckhart

Always the villagers with their pitchforks and torches...
How tedious...

Although I have to say, regarding a reported moment when climbing a mountain during his days of action and exploration when he was seen in the middle of a vicious rainstorm within in a beam of light through parting clouds and without so much as a drop of rain landing on him that God might have been messing around with both him and his devotees, just for fun..

I do Love when that happens.
Moments such as that happen often.
'WOW!!!' moments, jaw dropping, stunned into Humble silence...
And they ALWAYS happen at just the perfect moment for full effect! *__-

namelesss

You know it's interesting, I find no evidence that Jesus was an actual historical personage, but everything exists. a reply to:

The solution may be that you simply do have the right books. The world is full of evidence but then again if your are blind then what good are they to you?

a reply to: namelesss

Jesus said "As I Am, so can you be!"

Can't find that one. Please give me Ch and Verse =================

originally posted by: namelesss

Kids often giggle while peeing on you, like idiot baboons.
(My apologies if I offended any of my intellectually challenged baboon friends out there!)
I'm unimpressed that these lap monkeys giggle.
All monkeys do.

You missed the heart of what I was referring to, which was the idea of one's own lost inner child recovered in the light of awareness and understanding, combined with a certain humor and mirthfulness at the prospect of having been blind.

"You must become like little children to enter in. To such as these belongs the kingdom of God."

I wasn't referring to a baby and for the record the human being isn't a baboon or a monkey.

The love of children, in their playfulness and spontaneous, unapologetic free self-expression and unbridled enthusiasm, their innocence and the wonderment and awe with which they approach the world and people - or the lack thereof, is a telltale sign I think of one's true condition.

The story of the disciples trying to prevent them from disturbing Jesus and seeking to hold them back, once again is humorous and of course he used it as a teaching tool.

I'm 50 years old, myself, and when I look at them they light up and appear to see in my smiling face a larger and older version of themselves.

I wasn't always like this though. Used to be self-absorbed, narrow-minded, always right, judging etc, and I was as apt to appear scary to a child as I would a source of happiness and glee.

I think one of the qualities that Jesus was referring to that allows a person to enter in (to the domain of eternal life) is precisely the lack of intellectualism and spontaneity that people develop in adulthood.

I know what it means to become like a little child, and there's nothing wrong with housing a childlike giggle deep within.

a reply to: namelesss

But that said, the loving hand of God's friendship is always there, and the rock moveth not. lol

Don't shoot the messenger.

I got punk'd too, perhaps even better than most or I wouldn't be able to communicate it so effectively, the dilemma, and it's resolution, and since everything is and since everything is remembered, with everything of value preserved and everything without value, discarded, like a threshing floor that separates the wheat from the chaff and because a universal principal can only be upheld and never undone, what's done is done, for better or worse but it's decidedly for the better, and ever better evermoreso, at the most fundamental level and so it's a place of rest and of reprieve, where a person, no matter what their belief system or inclination, can breath a sight of relief, where even the ego itself has been forgiven and a life examined without which life isn't worth living and it's of a humorous nature at the irony of our own prior absurdity and ignorance where ignorance is not bliss.

So on the other side of the "ordeal" (and we all have a cross to bear), what we're left with is a joy that's capable of transcending the sorrow, and that's funny in a tearfully funny kind of way.

God did this, because it was the right thing to do and the right way to go about it, but for the life of us, what's so sad and tragic and pathetic is how it took us 2000 years to recognize as a rational basis for faith in Jesus Christ, which also carries with it, that essential goodness and joy and happiness and love, and rest and enjoyment. Once known this cannot be unknown.

There's no need to evade Jesus's own reason and logic and the underlying motivation and desire, and since nothing was ever forgotten, for those who are given to see it and recognize it for what it is and what it signifies and represents, it comes as a great joy, and even cause for much celebration!

Jesus won this, for me and for you and for everyone, unconditionally and all-inclusively, and even without any coercion, just a compelling example as a perfect model of authentic leadership. The point of distinction, if there is one, is that the gift can't function as the gift it was intended to be, until it is opened up and unpacked by each recipient one by one.

I have no need to be him, but I have a very strong need to reach out to touch his cloak and even to walk with him with him by/in me, which doesn't mean that I don't grieve the Spirit within/without, but he never leaves us or forsakes us, and the mind and heart once it changes shape cannot ever go back to it's original configuration, and that's where still more humor comes into play and still more knowledge in the humor of true understanding, praise be to God, amen.


Be blessed,

Ankh