The Prodigal God. The Feast

 Hi everyone, Happy Thursday's Child on Sunday. I didn't intentionally decide to write this today but it seemed appropriate since this coming Thursday is Thanksgiving in the United States, and after I was freshening up on The Feast in the Prodigal Son story and the Prodigal God book, I didn't completely agree with how it was described in the book. I had listened to a couple of videos on the teachings of Edgar Casey, The Sleeping Prophet. He has very similar teachings to Paramahansa Yogananda, so my brain wasn't exactly ready write since I still needed to put my thoughts in order. The Christian community focuses on the feast as something to we can look forward to after we die. I'm sure there are some mainstream Protestant churches that will talk about experiencing God in a joyous, bliss-like, feast state of mind, but having been in a few denominations the norm is, with that story, to see us as wandering away from God, having hardship, saying to ourselves "yikes this sucks" and coming back to God asking forgiveness. I've also been in more Pentecostal type churches that are more comfortable with experiencing God than just superficially teaching about God in a history format. 

Yoganada and Edgar Casey teach experiencing God now. Have a meditation time. Be still and know that I am God. The feast is now. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Within. We never seem to make time to sit and meditate. I've also heard not everybody is suited to sit cross legged for 10 minutes or longer. Some of us will start to focus on our legs hurting. A chair is ok, as long as the back is straight. I like to sit on the steps in our pool. Whatever allows you to let your mind drift off and dismiss the thoughts that arise is the way that works best for you. 

My partner in life Andrea started reading a book by Richard Rohr called Preparing For Christmas Daily Meditations For Advent. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan Priest in New Mexico. He also has similar teachings to Yogananda and Edgar Casey. He's a good example of a modern Christian who teaches outside the mainstream Christian cookie cutter dogma. When I read the first one the heading is "Come Lord Jesus." It talks about how people, even Christians, are living in emptiness waiting for Jesus. In Advent we're focusing on the baby Jesus when we should be looking at why Jesus came in the first place. For us to experience the The Kingdom within. We're taught to live through drudgery and suffering and in the end we'll experience The Feast. 

One of the videos of Edgar Casey that I listened to this week talked about starting your day reading Psalm 23, Psalm 19, Psalm 32 and a couple of others. Not to just read them, but read them slowly. Let the words sink in. Think about how God takes care of us like a shepherd takes care of his sheep. Though we walk all day in a world that has a lot of ungodliness in it, He because God gives us strength when we focus on Him.

My hope is that you'll start today recognizing God in the good things that happen as you go about your day to day activities, and also the struggles that help you to see the lessons you're learning that turn your thoughts to God to give you strength through those struggles. 

Enjoy the feast of the blessings of God. If you're in the United States and you recognize Thanksgiving, have a thankful Thursday. No matter where you are lets all try to remember to be thankful daily for all God gives us, even the struggles that teach us and lead us back to His Feast.

I think we'll talk more about Richard Rohr's book as well as the act of salvation that I mentioned last week. Salvation will probably be the next Thursday's Child on the first week of December, unless I get distracted with something else God shows me has a higher priority. 😊😊

Have a great week and Keep Searching,

Paul  

Prodigal Brothers: A True Older Brother

 Hi Everyone, I hope everyone has had a good week and a warm one if you're in the United States. I saw that most of our country was getting some cold weather. In central Florida it has been colder than a normal November. For us it lasted 2 days and we're already back up to 70 degree days

Lets get into this weeks Thursday's Child. 

This week we'll talk a little more about the culture of that era. First lets get into the 2 parables that Jesus told before the Prodigal Son parable. Beginning in Luke 15 Jesus tells the story of a shepherd who has 100 sheep, and one gets lost. He asks the crowd of tax collectors, sinners and remember, the Pharisees are there as well, would they go and look for the lost sheep leaving the other 99? When that shepherd finds it he calls his friends and neighbors to come celebrate with him because what was lost now has been found. In the 2nd parable a woman has ten silver coins and has lost one. He asks again, wouldn't she light a lamp, sweep the floor and search carefully until she finds it? When she does, she calls her friends and neighbors to come celebrate, because what was lost has now been found. 

Jesus intentionally put these 2 scenarios before the Lost Son Parable. The shepherd went to look for his sheep. The woman went to look for her coin. Who went to look for the rebellious, disrespectful son? No one. Should someone have looked for him? Should someone have swept the countryside searching? Jesus knew the old testament. He was teaching the elders in the temple when He was 12. He absolutely knew the Torah. The books of Moses. After Cain killed Able God came and asked, Hey, where's your brother? Cain said "I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?" God said "His blood is calling out to you from the ground." God was telling Cain that he absolutely was his brother's keeper. Now he will pay the price for killing him. No matter what he does the ground will not produce food for him any longer.

Without coming right out and saying it Jesus was letting the crowd figure out for themselves that the older brother should have gone to search for the younger brother. Maybe if he had he could have convinced him to come home without blowing all of his inheritance. Maybe he could have caught him before he was starving. Since he didn't, the younger brother came home on his own, the father forgave him and restored him back into the family. 

Why was the older brother so angry? Yes, now he inherits even less. This shows us that forgiveness comes with a price. In the United States on the day we honor soldiers that have died in war, it is frequently said "freedom isn't free." The younger son came home, was forgiven, and reinstated back into the family. He was now free. Free from poverty. Free from hunger. Free from suffering. But at what price? There has to be a price for forgiveness. The older brother was his keeper. He had to pay the price. He was angry because he was arrogant, self-righteous like a Pharisee and didn't think he should have to pay. In all scenarios when something is broken we think whoever broke it should pay for it. Either that or we forgive them and buy ourselves a new one. No matter what, somebody pays.

In the Lord's Prayer Jesus tells us to ask forgiveness as we forgive others. Jesus says on the cross "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." They didn't know what they were doing. Jesus taught a select few how to be in touch with their God self. Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness. Jesus was so in touch with His God Self that he truly was able to conquer death. Jesus forgave and he instructs us to forgive. It is common to hear in churches that Jesus paid the price for our salvation. We'll talk about salvation at some point, but I think it is better said that Jesus paid the price to give us a lesson in forgiveness, to show us how to forgive at all costs. If somebody does us wrong we are to forgive. We are still human so forgetting is next to impossible. We also don't have to put ourselves in situations that continuously allow people to hurt us. 

To NOT forgive can affect us physically. There are stories of people having serious physical ailments because they held on to bitterness. Once they forgave, they instantly or gradually became healed. Forgiving gives us a release we can actually feel in our bodies. Literally like a weight being taken away. If there is something you're holding onto today, or someone you are having a hard time getting over something they've done to you, take some time in a quiet space, talk to God. It doesn't have to be some formal Thees, and Thous type of monologue. King David, who wrote Psalms used to yell at God. Just talk. Tell God what's on your mind. As Children of God we have inherited the right as family members to tell God what's on our mind. That inheritance comes with benefits like feasting at His table.

Next week we'll get into the feast the Father had for the younger son, and what that means for us.

Have a great week,

Keep Searching,

Paul

 

The Prodigal Brothers: Older Brother

 Hello everyone. I hope everyone has had a good week.

Welcome again to Thursday's Child

Continuing on with the book The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller, today we're going to look into the personality of the Older Brother and the issues that he had. First though lets understand who Jesus was talking to. The first 2 verses of Luke 15 says "the tax collectors and sinners drew near to Him (Jesus) to hear Him." The Pharisee and Scribes complained saying "This man receives them and eats with them." This means the Pharisees were there as well. The Pharisees were almost always always where Jesus was to try to catch Him doing something wrong. Since Jesus knew His audience He intentionally told this story.

To review, the younger brother came home after blowing all of his inheritance that he received after his father had to sell 1/3 of his land to give him. His father sees him down the road and runs to welcome him home and threw him a lavish party. The older brother gets to the house hears the music, sees the dancing, the feast in the dining room, blows a gasket and won't go inside. I get the image of when a cartoon character gets angry, their face turns red and smoke comes out of their ears. That's how angry you can imagine the older brother is. The father comes out to talk to him to persuade him to come inside but he refuses. He says, still my imagination, I work my butt off around here, do everything I'm suppose to do, barely so much as have a glass of wine or look at a girl, and HE pointing through the window at the party, makes you sell some land so he can get his inheritance early, disowns this family, goes and blows his money doing God knows what, and you welcome him back. NOW, I'll have even less inheritance because he'll get a third of what he left me with.

Without directly saying so, Jesus was letting the pharisees know they were like the older brother. The Pharisees complained about Jesus spending time and even eating with "sinners." The older brother acted all righteous complaining about the sinner younger brother, seeing his moral lifestyle as superior. By rejecting the father's request to come into the party he's portraying himself no better than the younger brother. Both brothers showed their lack of love for the father. The younger for flat out rejecting his family, and the older by rejecting the father thinking he was morally superior. 

As we look at this earthly father being in the role of our Heavenly Father, we can see how we sin against God by doing things that would obviously be wrong in the Father's eyes. What isn't as obvious is the holier than thou people thinking they're superior because they're in church every Sunday or every time the doors are open, teaching classes, raising their hands worshipping, yet they're looking down their noses at the girl who has a couple of little kids and no husband, or a full parking lot at a bar on Saturday night. But let them notice a guy walk out of that bar and the same guy come into church Sunday, or the girl with the kids, and see how they treat them, or the whispers they start about them.

Jesus is letting us know that the righteous that don't show love and compassion are no different than the blatant sinner that the righteous love to look down on. There were two other parables that Jesus told before this one that tie into this. We'll talk about these next week. 

Have a great week,

Keep Searching,

Paul 

AI Image generated from Art Space AI   

Prodigal "Brothers"

 Hello Everyone, I hope you've all had a good week.

Welcome to Thursdays Child,

As I said Sunday, this week we'll start going to through a book I started reading called The Prodigal God written by Timothy Keller. As we start let's review the story, parable, in Luke 15:11-32 that Jesus told. Instead of writing out 21 verses word for word, to summarize it...

      There was once a very wealthy man that had 2 sons. The younger son went to his father and said give me the share of the estate that falls to me. He divided the wealth between them. This younger son took his inheritance, left home, went to another town and started living the partying lifestyle. Booze (whatever they had in that day), hookers and an all around wild lifestyle. Eventually his money ran out. To make matters worse it happened at the same time there was a famine in the land. He did get a job tending to some pigs but he still wasn't able to get food and satisfy his hunger. One day he was so hungry he started eating the pig slop and decided he better swallow his pride and go home. He'll at least be able to eat there. His father's servants were living better than he was. He figured he used up his inheritance so he still didn't have any money but maybe his father would let him be a servant.

        His father happened to be outside the day he was coming home and saw him walking on the road toward the house. He ran to meet him and, hugged him and all the way back to the house they talked. The son asked the father if he would hire him as an apprentice to one of the handymen. If he did he could earn money and pay back his inheritance. The father didn't agree to that. He gave him back his status as the son, told the servants to throw a party inviting all the community and to even kill the fattened calf. When the older brother come back to the house the party had started. He heard a lot of people talking and music playing. The father saw him at the door, went and talked to him to come to the party because "his brother was lost but now he has been found." The older brother was so angry he refused. That's where the story leaves us. It doesn't elaborate on what happens with the family in the future.

      What the Bible doesn't tell us and what we need to understand, according to The Prodigal God book is, in that day, the inheritance wasn't divided in half. The older brother would have gotten a double portion of what the younger brother would have gotten. So he would have gotten two thirds and the younger brother one third. And for the younger brother to ask for his share now was essentially telling the father, "you are dead to me." Also in that culture the father would have just kicked him out. Instead, to give them his inheritance he had to sell off some of his land to give the son his share. This would have infuriated everyone. The older son and the whole community. so you can imagine the whispers and even the uproar when the younger son came home. Everybody would have been in disbelief that the father would have welcomed, and reinstated him back with full family benefits

      When we're taught this story this is usually where we're left off. It teaches the forgiveness of God and no matter what we do, we will always be Children Of God. Never kicked out of the family of God. An important thing I always like to stress is that we all have the same benefits that Jesus had. All the abilities that Jesus had. The ability to heal, and to be directed by the wisdom of God. God will never disown us no matter what we do.

       This is also where I'm going to leave it today, but WAIT there's more. Next week we'll get into the righteous, holier than thou attitude of the older brother. Check it out between now and next Thursday

      Have a great week

      Keep searching,

            Paul 

Happy Sunday Everyone,

      My Thursday's Child plans didn't exactly go as planned the past couple of weeks and that's ok because I started reading a book called "The Prodigal God" by Timothy Keller. It's not a new take on The Prodigal Son, but more of an deeper look into the parable. Instead of stopping with the father forgiving the son that left and squandered his inheritance, he explains that in the culture of that day that was a devastating thing to do. He then goes on to explain the attitude of the older brother and what exactly his actions meant. 

      I'm finding the book very interesting, but I like understanding the culture of that era so we can understand the true nuances of what was meant when we read scripture. I'll go through the book in future Thursday's Child sessions. For today though, I wanted to share something I saw on Instagram. The page was iamjuangalan and mysticmisfitssociety. It's probably more pleasing to see the images of his post than for me to explain it. 

This is a verse I've had an issue with ever since I learned that Jesus wasn't actually talking about Himself. He, He was talking about His teachings. The christian church used it to support their narrative of salvation. Here are the images of that Instagram post.

    Have a great week. Look for more this week in another Thursday's Child.

      Keep Searching

             Paul

      

Jesus - The Yogi

 Happy Thursday everyone.

Welcome back to Thursdays Child.

       As I mentioned last week earlier this year, after quite a few years of soul and spiritual searching, the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda starting showing up on Youtube when I was looking for something to listen to while I worked. I was immediately hooked. They're in many countries so they have many channels. Even now, after months and months of listening a few days a week, I can always find something I haven't heard. This week I listened to Ananda Sangha India. Since I knew I'd be talking about Jesus in India I decided to go back and refresh my memory on that. This time it was from a different teacher than I listened to before.

       When we think about Jesus as a baby we're taught that He wasn't conceived in the typical human way. That the Holy Spirit placed the seed in Mary, He was born perfect, and lived a sinless life. We tend to read all that superficially though, like a history book. Like it's a nice marvelous story that doesn't affect us, and all that really doesn't affect us. But, if we think about that in a different perspective, let's think about that baby relying on his mother for milk, and food in general as he grew older, his parents for protection because there were death threats on his life. He had a brothers and at least 2 sisters that aren't mentioned in the Bible. What kind of things did they do? Were there sibling rivalries? Did He wonder why he was able to learn the Jewish laws and scripture so easily? We have to think, as a child, he didn't just realize at 5 years old "Hey I'm God!!" As a human with the Christ Consciousness, I would imagine that ego wouldn't have been an issue, so He probably wasn't a jerk to his family. 

       In the biblical account of His birth it wasn't the elite that got the word that he was born. It was the shepherds, the lower class of people. It was the Wise Men IN THE EAST that found out He was born. They said they followed the star in the east. That's important because according to Yogananda, when you think about it it makes sense, they were in the East. How did they go east when they were in the East? The fact that the wise men came to see him is important because it was a reminder that Jesus was born in the Orient and His teachings bore the influence of the Eastern Culture and customs. In fact the Wise Men were great sages. Like I mentioned in the post to lead up to this one, there are manuscripts that say Jesus went to India when He was 13 to stay with and learn from these sages til He was in His late 20's. This is where His own God-Realization reawakened and was reinforced in the company of these masters. During these years He traveled around India teaching what He was learning to ultimately fulfill His mission to return home and teach these things to the Jewish people. One of, if not the main focus of His teaching was "The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Within." When His people didn't see an earthly kingdom to deliver them from Roman rule most of them rejected Him, even to the point of accusing Him of blasphemy and handing Him over to be killed. 

      In the next few weeks we'll be discussing The Kingdom Of heaven Within, Reincarnation and the fact that Jesus actually taught Yoga.

       The underlined parts in this post are taken from the book The Second Coming Of Christ, The Resurrection Of Christ Within You by Paramahansa Yogananda. I've included images of the paragraphs from the book where I took those quotes.

        I hope you find this as interesting as I do and you continue to pursue it even more. You can count on finding more here and there are so many videos out there if you're also an audio learner.

Keep Searching,

Paul

        

The Not So Lost Years

 Happy Saturday Everyone,

I thought I'd reflect for a few minutes before I share with you what really intrigued and excited me about the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda. For me "Thursday's Child" was an important segment of Nite Reflections. A rhyme by A.E.Bray back in 1836 went like this

Monday's child is fair of face             

Tuesday's child is full of grace

Wednesday's child is full of woe         

Thursday's child has far to go

Friday's child is loving and giving

Saturday's child works hard for a living

But the child that was born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.

I'm sure I must have mentioned it in the early days but I felt it was worth repeating to refresh our memories and for all new visitors. I feel we all have far to go in our spiritual walk. We can always learn more, so Thursdays are for diving deeper into spiritual studies.

        In my absence over the years I've been trying to find something that I connect with besides the standard teaching of evangelical Christianity. I've learned the stories and believe them but there seemed to be something in me saying "there's got to be more." Especially when I hear people claim "I'm saved, I can do what I want now."

       In these years I've searched Buddhism, Hinduism. I wasn't able to comprehend what I was reading when trying to read their scriptures and also couldn't find anywhere that explained them past the 4 noble truths and the 8 fold path. Because in my interest in martial arts, I identified a lot with Taoism. My life and love partner Andrea and I check into the Baha'i faith. That didn't resonate with us either. Then one day looking on YouTube for something to listen to I saw a video about the Lost Years Of Jesus explained.  I was intrigued.

      On the website ocoy.org and also on The Missing Years Of Jesus Ananda.org there are articles about a man named Nicholas Notovich who went to India in 1887 to study Hinduism. When he arrived in Ladakh an Abbot at a Buddhist monastery told him about a manuscript that talks about an the life of Jesus in Tibet. Over the years he couldn't convince any christian organizations to publish his findings, so eventually he published them himself with the title Unknown Life of Jesus Christ I was really excited about this because, as one who isn't usually satisfied with vague answers, I always felt why aren't there definite answers to explain where Jesus was between the years of 12 and 30? What we're usually told is, "Oh He probably helped Joseph in the carpenters shop." Oh, ok thanks. The story is told that, Jesus went to stay and learn from the wise men that followed the star in the Nativity Story. Not only did He tell Mary and Joseph in the temple at 12 years old, "Why are you so upset, didn't you know I'd be about my Father's business?" He also knew he could be made to become engaged in a pre-arranged marriage at 13. He knew that didn't fit into the plan of His ministry, so he told His parents to let Him go to India to study the ancient teachings with the wisemen that had visited him years earlier.

       As I listened to, and read more about this, I realized this is where my focus needs to be right now. Yoganada teaches how Jesus talks to His disciples about reincarnation. "The Kingdom Of Heaven" is about finding God meditation. We'll go through all these things as we continue. I'm excited about this, so I'm excited to being them to you.

     Til next time, Keep searching

      Paul

            

A Very Good Friday

 Hi everyone,

     After 13 years and thinking my blog had been eliminated for lack of use I have been getting notifications about Nite Reflections. I figured "SOMEBODY" has been trying to get my attention. In this hiatus there has been a lot of family stuff going on, a major move because of family dynamics, driving Uber while building a business, working built business, and decreasing workload in the business to cruise into semi-retirement, I have too much stuff going on in my head to neglect this blog anymore. 

      With everything going on in the world and what looks like a resurgence in faith and spirituality, I have some thoughts I want to share about some new things I've learned just in 2025. I was raised in the Southern Baptist denomination. I don't hold to that dogmatic way of thinking anymore, but I did raise my kids in Evangelical Christianity. They are all grown now and The Divine/God/The Universe or whatever term your comfortable with must have thought it was time to show me the truth about what I've spent my life learning and teaching. This new truth is from  the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda and the organization he created Self Realization Fellowship. The website is Ananda.org. 

      I've also been playing around with AI images, which definitely weren't around when I was posting regularly at a time that seems so long ago now. I'll be making some and adding them to future posts. I hope those of you who followed me back then are still around and get notified about my return. It is a celebration for me. Not only to keep a steady flow of info entering and exiting my head, but to also fill you in on the new, exciting things I've been learning. If you're familiar with Yogananda please comment and let's share his teachings. If you aren't, I'm excited to share them with you. 

       To begin with the teachings of Yogananda coincide with the teachings of Jesus and the yogic meaning behind His teachings. That will come tomorrow. I just wanted to let you know what his teachings are about, if you aren't familiar with him. We'll dive in tomorrow.

      As I've always said, Keep Questioning. That's what I've always done and I guess that's how Yoganada appeared to me and my algorithm.

     Til Tomorrow.

I'm glad to be back and celebrating this Very Good Friday ,

          Paul