What Is God?

 Hi everyone, yes I know it's been awhile. Saturday will be 4 weeks since my Search For God post. Andrea and I got home from Christmas Vacation. Thankfully it was a whole lot better than the movie. Northwest Arkansas had record high temperatures in the 70's. That was nice. The day we left to head to Oklahoma it got cold and was cold in Oklahoma. The next day we went down to Dallas then the next day  a town near Austin where we spent New years Eve and day, then headed home. After getting home I caught up on some work, now I'm ready to become more focused on sharing all the things I'm learning. 

In Eureka Springs Arkansas there's a Play called the Passion Play. It recreates the Jesus' trial, crucifixion and resurrection. There are others but this one is the largest in the country. There isn't a play in the winter because it takes place at an outdoor amphitheater. At the same place there is a huge statue of Jesus called The Christ Of The Ozarks, (tap the link, It's pretty cool) some gift shops and a Bible Museum. I've been interested in The Ethiopian Bible. In case you aren't familiar with it, the Ethiopian Bible has books in it that weren't allowed in the western Bible that we call The Holy Bible. During the council of Nicea and Constatinople the determined that 15 books didn't make the cut to be included in the Bible, even though The Book Of Enoch is mentioned a couple of time in the Bible. There is a Book of Thomas and some that the Catholic faith do include called The Apocrypha. I asked the lady working at the Bible Museum gift shop if they had the Ethiopian Bible. Her feathers got all ruffled and asked if I have ever read The Holy Bible. I explained my background, told her I had heard the Ethiopian Bible included other teachings that weren't allowed during those councils where we were told what we were allowed to learn, and I want to find out what was in those other books that made those religious leaders back then so worried that called the heretical and banned them from being in the Bible.

The Ethiopian Bible includes those books because they didn't fall under the authority of the Roman rulers. They protected ALL the scriptures. We'll get into the Ethiopian tradition and why they felt the need to preserve the scriptures, and why they felt it was actually their duty to do so, but today, part of what's been filling my brain is, I've been reading the Book Of Enoch. It talks about 200 fallen angels coming to earth to mate with humans. Other Archangels are designated to watch over the earth and they reported back to God all the devastation that was creating, and God handed out punishment for the angels that rebelled. What I was struggling with was, I can understand the angels being in their angelic form and even changing their form, like when they appeared to Mary to tell her she was going to get pregnant with Jesus. What I couldn't grasp was, when they reported to God who did they go to? What did "HE" look like? What form did "HE" take? I've mentioned before that I don't believe God looks like our images of God, a man with white hair and white beard sitting on a golden throne in the clouds. So naturally in today's technology I, as Andrea says, I asked the robot. While coffee was doing whatever you call what it does in the French Press I asked Google Gemini

"According to Edgar Cayce's readings what is the source of creation made of, energy, vibration, angelic or matter?                 Here is the response. 

"According to Edgar Cayce's readings The source of creation is fundamentally vibration. Cayce often stated that life in it's essence is Vibration. While he did use terms like energy, spirit, and mind to describe the creative process, he viewed vibration as the underlying mechanism or language of existence. Cayce taught that everything in the universe, from the most solid matter to the highest spiritual realms are made of the same "One Force". The only difference between a rock, a human soul and a star is the rate of vibration. Low vibration results in what we perceive as dense physical matter, high vibration results in spirit, light, and God Consciousness." In some of Cayce's readings he mentioned that angels are a higher vibrational expression of the same "One Force." 

That helped me to put into perspective the heavenly realms, and with our limited human understanding, and other video teachings from Cayce and Yogananda that I've listened to, astral plane and the angelic realms don't communicate like humans do. Communication is telepathic or just "A Knowing." If we think about the heavenly realms in that context, and if God/The Divine is the highest vibration possible, then maybe the Angels answer to that highest vibration. 

Last night when I woke up at 2:45 and didn't get back to sleep til after 3:30 I was pondering this and asking/meditating on receiving the answer to this and how to explain it. Hopefully this is the message The Divine has given for me to give to you. This will help me, and hopefully you guys as well, as we get into the Book Of Enoch and we talk about the angels. Since there are 3 Books Of Enoch, I'll refer to the one we'll be discussing as 1 Enoch. It is actually the one that describes Enoch as Noah's great grandfather and the knowledge he had. The other 2 expand on the flood and other stories in the Bible.

Sunday or Monday we'll talk about the Ethiopian Bible and their role as protectors of the scriptures because of their connection with Solomon, then next week we'll get into the 1 Enoch.

If you live in the US north of Florida, stay safe warm this weekend there's suppose to be a serious winter storm. If you're somewhere else, it is winter everyone be safe and warm and as always,

Keep Searching,

Paul       

Our Soul's Christmas Desire

 Hi everyone. Happy Saturday after Christmas. 

We'll get back to A Search For God in a couple of days. I listened to a video today that I didn't want to wait to tell you about. It's a video from Edgar Cayce's visions called "Your Soul's True Christmas." on YouTube, on the Soul In Reflection channel, posted 3 weeks ago as of the time I'm writing this. 

I don't want to assume everyone knows the story of why we celebrate Christmas. Some people celebrate only because it's a holiday to exchange gifts, get together with friends and/or family, and just have a chance to rest and have time off from work. Not everyone is a Christian who acknowledges the birth of Jesus. It is widely accepted now that Jesus wasn't born on December 25th or even in December for that matter. Whoever decided just decided to combine it with the winter solstice celebration, and that decision has lasted. People either celebrate Christmas with Santa only, or going to church and acknowledge Jesus, or both like I used to do with my kids.

Today we'll talk about Jesus' birth. Not how it relates to Christmas, and shepherds and wisemen, but what it means to us and our spirituality. From this point on a lot of what I'll write will be from the video, in case I don't happen to mention it. 

Cayce says the true meaning of Christmas isn't just a beautiful story from history, it's a blueprint for your soul's awakening. It's an eternal spiritual process that must happen inside of us now in this lifetime. The "Christ" child wasn't just in Bethlehem. {The Christ came to earth in a child to teach us how to connect with out Christ Consciousness when He grew up.} My paraphrase of the transcript of the video. He's waiting for us to receive the birth of that child and the Christ Consciousness that the child was born with. Cayce says the Nativity Scene, although a literal historic event, is actually a cosmic diagram of what must occur within every human soul. Mary, a human girl, also represents your higher consciousness, pure, receptive, and willing to say yes to the divine when it makes no logical sense. Joseph represents your earthly mind, protective, practical, sometimes doubting, but ultimately faithful. The manger itself is our heart. The question is, is it empty, and if so are we willing to let the Christ that was in that baby be born there? I LOVE THAT!! 

Cayce taught that the birth of Jesus was a demonstration of the universe's intention for EVERY soul. The Christ Consciousness is the perfect union of human and divine. The complete surrender of love as or main reason for existing isn't just exclusive to Jesus. It is our destiny. It is what we were created to achieve. The question is, will we accept that destiny? Until Christmas becomes personal and it's about transformation, it's just a warm and fuzzy historical event that we're destined to repeat in future lifetimes. 

As you can tell by previous posts, I have an issue with things some Christians say to make other people feel inferior. "Being Born Again" is one of them. It seems it is usually said in an arrogant manner. I know Jesus said it. He told that to the Pharisee Nicodemus, but like a lot of things over the years Christians like to use that phrase to try to show that they're somehow superior to others. 

When I heard this video this morning, one of my first thoughts were, we don't need to be born again, we just need to be born with Jesus the baby. Born with the Christ Consciousness. See the baby laying in that manger and decide whether we are going to let the Christ Consciousness be born in our hearts.

I've covered about the 5 minutes of the 23 minute video. Check out the rest if you're interested. It talks about God appearing to the shepherds and others throughout history that were humble, but these first 5 minutes is what was so meaningful to me. 

We'll get into more of Cayce's book in a few days. But be on the lookout for more spur of the moment posts in case I hear something else exciting.

Here's a picture of Jesus as Christ Consciousness watching over himself as a baby and his family

Keep Searching,

Paul     

A Search For God

 Hi everyone,

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a had a great day and if you have kids, I hope their's was everything they hoped for. If you don't celebrate Christmas I hope you had a wonderful day as well. Maybe you had the day off from work to take advantage of the holiday. Maybe you celebrate Hanukkah. I love that tradition also, I never took part in the Hanukkah tradition, but it always seemed more meaningful than a jolly old man somehow sneaking into your house. When my kids were little Santa brought presents, but we never were super serios about making sure they sat on his lap and all that other stuff. They wrote a letter and left cookies and milk out for him so he could get fatter, but we never really made too much fuss about it. We did make them go to bed early so we could have a reason to have some quiet time 😊😊 

Since last week I bought the Nag Hammadi. It's a compilation of books discovered in an area in a town by the same name in Upper Egypt. A local farmer discovered scrolls in pottery as he was digging on his land. The Gospel of Thomas and a bunch of other books that we'll get into. I also bought a couple of Edgar Cayce's books. A Search for God Books 1 and 2, and The Story Of Jesus. I started reading all of them but A Search For God is the one that has sparked my interest first. In some recent posts I mentioned meditation and that maybe not everyone can sit crossed legged, for an long period of time. If you're focusing on the pain in your legs or back then you wouldn't be getting the benefit of your meditation.

The first chapter in the book is called meditation. You may have heard the saying "Praying in talking to God. Meditating is listening to God." Cayce mentions that in this book as well. In the very first line he says, "In the material world we are conscious of the phenomenon of growth. We should be equally aware of spiritual progression that includes both a broadening of understanding of the relation between the Creator and ourselves." He also says, and I'll paraphrase, some people are just content to go through our day to day lives hoping that things will work out for the best, but other people seek a better way, searching for a light that renews hope. "Prayer is the concerted effort of our physical consciousness to become attuned to the Consciousness of the Creator." 

"Meditation is the emptying of ourselves of all that hinders the Creative Force from rising along the natural channels of our physical bodies." These natural channels are sensitive spiritual centers in our bodies. Some practices call them Chakras. Meditation is not daydreaming but connecting our mental and physical bodies to their spiritual sources. True meditation is arousing our mental and spiritual attributes with our creator. Will we always receive an immediate answer every time we pray and meditate? Probably not, but like Jesus says in Matthew 6:8, The Father knows what you need before you ask. Praying and meditating shows The Father we are anxious  for His guidance. I know sometimes we feel like we wait, and wait and feel like we never get an answer. 

Sometimes when we try to make things happen, it seems like we try over and over. Then finally when nothing seems to work, we say OK GOD, what am I suppose to do? The answer comes immediately. That is what Cayce means by attuning ourselves with God. If we can sit, in our most comfortable position. Maybe listen to some soothing music. I like to burn incense. There's no right or wrong way. Just put yourself in a position where you aren't distracted. There's a spot in our backyard that I call my spot. I can go back there under the trees and just have a peaceful feeling. Also in the pool. Whatever works for you is the way you should use to connect with God/Spirit/Creator/Universe or whichever term you like best. 

I've also been listening to videos about the Ethiopian Bible. They talk about getting back to the Old Testament names of God. YHWH, and all the names of Jehovah. Through the years we have gotten to where we just say God and that has lost it's personal touch, like when YHWH told Moses to tell Pharaoh I Am sent you to free the people. 

There's a lot I want to share, the Lord's Prayer video was way cool, but for I want to focus on Edgar Cayce's teaching on meditation so we can all start connecting to and feeling the presence of Christ Consciousness in our lives. 

The next section of Chapter 1 in A Search For God is preparing the body for meditation. We'll get into that next time.

Have a great week and Keep Searching,

Paul  

Immaculate Conception

Hi everyone, this week I was going to talk about prayer and connecting with God, but then I had thought about the birth of Jesus and what that means. What's a little weird about that is, it wouldn't bother me if we skipped from Halloween to New Years. I do like Thanksgiving though. I like Christmas Eve services, but it isn't something I make a point to go to. Except for the potential for family drama, Thanksgiving is nice because all that's expected is to get together and eat and spend time with family. At Christmas, if you have kids, gifts are a big part of the fun and possible disappointment. I heard one time that, what causes anger is that your expectations weren't met, or your goals were blocked. If your kid's goal was to get the latest digital device and you couldn't afford one at all, or could only afford a lesser version then Christmas day was spent in disappointment and "ruined" in their eyes. These days Andrea and I exchange gifts but a lot of times the gifts are something we need for the house or take a trip.

With that being said, after the thought came to me about Jesus' birth I also thought, It's the week before Christmas so why not talk about Immaculate Conception. What a lot of people don't know is there are other stories of women conceiving a child without being assisted by a male. 

A woman in China, named Jiang Yuan, as the story is told, miraculously conceived a child when she stepped in a giant footprint left by the supreme deity Shangdi, thus giving birth to a child she named QI, which means the abandoned one, because he survived every time she tried to get rid of him. 

There are other stories throughout history. The greek god Horus, an Aztec god Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, and another more famous name we recognize is Guatama Buddha. 

Lying on the royal couch she fell asleep and dreamed the 4 guardian angels lifted her and the couch to the Himalayan Mountains. They clothed her with divine garments and flowers and anointed her with perfumes. They placed the couch with it's head towards the east and laid her down. She saw the Future Buddha as a superb white elephant wandering on a Gold Hill. Descending Gold hill he ascended Silver Hill and approaching from the north he plucked a white lotus. Trumpeting loudly he went into the Golden Mansion. Walking three times around his mother's couch with his right side towards it, and striking her on her right side he seemed to enter her womb. 

She woke up and told the dream to the king. The king summoned 64 Brahmins and asked the dream to be interpreted. They said "Be not anxious, great king, a child has planted itself into the womb of your queen." (I've paraphrased this story from the book "The Second Coming Of Christ, The Resurrection of Christ Within You" by Paramahansa Yogananda). 

If you've spent your life around the stories of the Christian churches you, like me, may not be aware there are other similar stories, and there are people who believe these stories just as strongly as people in the Christian tradition believe the story of Mary, the Angel and Jesus. 

I was also thinking this week that at times I may seem to come across as bitter towards the Christian church, and in a sense I am, but to the teachings of the church and that in the 3rd and 4th centuries, in their quest to control the people, the church leaders rejected the true depth of Jesus' teachings and adopted the teaching that we need a savior to keep us from eternal damnation. 

I don't want to give the impression that I'm only here to condemn, I'm here to help others see there is more to Jesus' teachings than what the typical Christian churches are teaching, and it's not even the fault of the ministers of the churches. They're only being taught in their colleges these teachings and passing it along.

Next time we'll get into the birth of Jesus, and it's spiritual significance other than just a baby being born to save the world.

As always have a great week and

Keep searching,

Paul

I also decided to play with more AI images on my artspace ai program