Hi John. Here is an extract from a recent article by Chris Hedges.
" The war industry, a state within a state, disembowels the nation, stumbles from one military fiasco to the next, strips us of civil liberties and pushes us towards suicidal wars with Russia and China "
War gives America meaning, just like it did to European colonial empires, just like it did to Russia, Japan and many prior terminal empires. America too must fall, and with it will also be ruined many nations tied to the global military industrial complex. This form of civilization has indeed reached it's tethering limits, american or chinese or what rotten form of governance have you!
There is too much in it to exchange opinions. First Jesus was not a Christian, he has never been he was a Jew. He belonged to the sect of the Essenes. Next in the Death Sea scrolls “The Naq Hammadi” he was not the only son but he was 1 out of 5 children, he had a twin brother (!) and after his crucifixion Maria Magdalena escaped to France carrying his son (!) all fiction and nonsense of course but written in these scrolls.......
Christianity was founded 400 years after his death and what we got in the New Testament is a polished and in essence a censored version of the 12 apostles, only 4 were withheld and corrected. For instance Celibacy was introduced and not allowed in priesthood.....
Concerning the Crusades on Jerusalem, many preachers recruited volunteers in little villages, their sermons where heated in so far that the whole village, kids, elderly, pregnant women and men directed toward Jerusalem, leaving everything behind. Their conviction or coercion as we saw with the vaccines, was enough to leave and sacrifice their lives. Nobody ever arrived, the young were sold as slaves, elderly killed or starved, women raped and the only strong men recruited as pirates.
Fourth the police of the Pope better known as Jesuits had their own death squats namely Opus Dei, killing in the name of Jesus merely in South America and being a watchdog for colonel regimes, of course funded and infiltrated by the CIA. Being poor was equal of being a socialist or a communist, and before their execution they got blessed by the fundamentalist Opus Dei militia. How things can go Jesus dying on the cross to redeem all our sins, and we just continuing being a good Christian. 🤫
Thank You, Guido. I don't think we disagree in essence, and all of this is a series of quotes from Michael Hudson, who has his own (valuable) views as an economic historian.
Here is a more detailed version of his view of Jesus teaching the "Gospel/Good-news":
It is clear that the New Testament was composed in the great library of Alexandria, hundreds of years after the death of Jesus, from older texts that were then available to the composers.
It is interesting that some of those in France, who did not accept the authority of the Roman Pope, the Cathars, "Bon-homes", "good people", considered that there was a biological bloodline carried down from Jesus (as do some powerful ancient families).
I have no way of knowing, nor would it make a difference, as I understand his teachings (which is limited by their subsequent destruction).
I like Hudson's view, but it does not address the nature of Jesus, or his spiritual teachings. Hudson does not look at that. He avoids it studiously.
I did study some of the Nag Hamadi texts in the 1990s, several of the Elaine Pagels translated books.
I did not feel like I got what I needed to guide me adequately, and later a door opened for me to learn Buddhism from a Tibetan Lama who came to Austin in spring 2001.
This is now my path, but the teachings of Jesus that I did have earlier in life, and his help, brought me to it.
Each human's path to truth is unique, though I believe that spiritual truth is the same destination that spiritual seekers ultimately find.
Studied and practiced Buddhism 10 years in the 80-ies, then turned to zen after making a detour in Samkhya and Advaita. My upbringing was Christian so was my family, got interested in depth during my tour in India. Jesus is known there as Joshua and some believe during his secret Years from 12 to 30 he studied in universities Laksmilah and Nalandra, his message is not Jewish but more eastern, not the law as in Jewish tradition but forgiveness and compassion more like Jainism and Buddhism. He stayed also in Kashmir.
There’s a Flemish psychologist who dedicated years in searching for deeper answers and the figure of Jesus, both the historian Jesus figure but also the mythological and they are not alike.
He wrote his vision in 2 books, Jesus the Messiah or Jesus the Paraphrenic, meaning the founder of a Kingdom beyond life as utterly fictitious. Interpretation he leaves for everyone as controversial or asking more questions than there are answers.
His second book leaves no interpretation, Christianity a mistake Jesus is not the founder of this strange world religion coming out of a select club of a few Essenes.
For France considering the many “Le Roy (Louis…)” Jesus offspring took the name Leroy there must be millions with that name, so every Roy is related to him, lol.
The Apostle Thomas went to Kerala and established a living Christian tradition there, apparently the oldest. The Catholic Church (through Portugal) took their texts to Rome, destroyed the rest, and keep them hidden from any view, as I understand it.
My belief is that Jesus wanted all people to "know God" through love, through transcending the false boundaries of "self", and understanding the oneness of all experiencing life together. "God is Love."
He is bound to have known that his actions would lead him to be arrested and crucified. Attacking the money-changers with a whip in the temple was a provocative act against the financial-regime.
Yes and not a coincidence that the living faith was brought back to Kerala, India it’s a lovely place I can tell. Christian politics had to be established in Rome, the living experience had to flee Europe, from there started the Christian colonisation to the Americas and Africa, Asia, the real thing became perverted and used as a powerplay for a selective group of priests.
What joy or objective benefit it might bring to certain folks, to discuss Jesus, and what all he may have been. Messianic visions are deeply problematic. Be they from 2023 years ago or just a few decades ago (Milton Friedman) or a few hundred (Rousseau). At least the last two people were real, we know that much.
That is a straw-man argument, deflecting spiritual search onto mere "discussion".
The "reality" is tested by experimentation with the outcomes of embodiying the teachings, not by intellectual exploration, though intellectual study/analysis is not a "bad" thing.
As you say "reality" is tested by experimentation with the outcomes of embodying the teachings - I ask, What reality?! Mine is not like yours. The person who has no home nor destination (a refugee's) reality is different from the King of England. The average housewives reality is different from Elon Musk's reality. What objective reality do you speak of? and how may we benefit from such teachings together?
That agreement on how-things-work and "what is reality" is the difficulty in communcation about a thing that we all experience, but usually a bit differently from each other, like "red" or "green".
Walking one's spiritual path is the empiricism of determining what "is real" and "how things really work".
People can tell when another person has a very similar perception of "reality" to themselves sometimes. "It takes one to know one" applies.
People are also hopeful, and looking for a savior, and may project an archetype onto a savior-figure.
It takes courage in a times like this to bring up subjects like who is real and Messianic visions. All my respects. For more than 40 years Buddha has been messaging his vision, Messias or not, to people who had ears to hear it, he was not successful and as a matter of fact he had to flee to outside of his country to find a proper hearing, and a language that was more appropriate to express his vision. The same goes for Jesus, both never recorded their gospels, it were simple people in their direct environment who took notes.
In the case of Buddha it was his cousin Ananda who accompanied him the whole 40 years. About his vision he said the following, in time my sayings are bound to be corrupted and perverted even starting as I am speaking…a censorship and conspiracy theory avant la lettre 2500 years ago, Google, fb, Twitter, Linkedin many incarnations ago! Because: 1. The vast experiencing of his vision, only a beginning but no end 2. To select a proper vocabulary closest to express his vision in transmitting it to others 3. speaking his vision that represents in the closest possible way his experience 4. To direct it to an audience that can understand and ready to experience for themselves 5. What if there’s not such an audience, does he has to create one so that they can mature to accept his vision 6. Every individual in this audience will interpret it to his level of understanding 7. Every individual will speak according to his understanding of the truth 8. it will corrupt the original message, the soul is lost! 9. Truth cannot survive…if all this is lost in the masses, in misinformation than there can only a distant scent, a flavour remains, the grace, the gratitude, the all compassionate love and that’s why generations of people will feel a pull in their heart and soul to feel connected.
Why we bring up these Messiahs? We want them to be real even if we have killed all of them, they were a threat too big to our egos, the ego that cannot survive in so much ❤️ love.
Thanks Guido. My strategy is to maintian the intention to help, to maintain compassion, and whenever I have a decision to take, to take it on the side of compassion and helping. If I feel reluctance, I should do the thing I am shying away from (as long as it is good, not evil).
I'm seeing where this goes. Sometimes I get views, insights, experiences, but they are , as you said, beginnings, not final destinations.
People want messiahs, but there are no messiahs. There are teachers who can share, and there are journeys. Messiahs sell well. The Roman church sold a lot of that, but had no intention of delivering.
"God will get you that when you die, Money Back Guaranteed!"
As you said "Buddha" - Since I am Indian, and coming from a nation deeply invested in all sorts of spirituality, practice, business etc. Buddha lived more than 2500years ago. (565 BC). His teachings or ideas traveled far and wide, transformed, mutated, split, restructured for centuries that followed his death (Samadhi). Point being, today Buddhism is institutionalized - it is divided into sects, cults and types (Tibetian, Zen, Hinayana etc etc). The original teachings (or essence of) has mutated vastly, way beyond what Buddha could have envisioned back then. The same can said about a given Jesus or Mohamed or which visionary / messiah-from-back-then-have-you. Hence how can they be "real" ? Now? In this age, especially when we are living in Poly-Crisis world (surely you are aware of global warming, climate change, loss of habitat, pandemics, fire, mass extinction, overpopulation etc etc). Thanks for reading. Love n Respect
Hi John. Here is an extract from a recent article by Chris Hedges.
" The war industry, a state within a state, disembowels the nation, stumbles from one military fiasco to the next, strips us of civil liberties and pushes us towards suicidal wars with Russia and China "
War gives America meaning, just like it did to European colonial empires, just like it did to Russia, Japan and many prior terminal empires. America too must fall, and with it will also be ruined many nations tied to the global military industrial complex. This form of civilization has indeed reached it's tethering limits, american or chinese or what rotten form of governance have you!
War-based-states are debt-based financially.
Let's roll this all up and put it away!
There is too much in it to exchange opinions. First Jesus was not a Christian, he has never been he was a Jew. He belonged to the sect of the Essenes. Next in the Death Sea scrolls “The Naq Hammadi” he was not the only son but he was 1 out of 5 children, he had a twin brother (!) and after his crucifixion Maria Magdalena escaped to France carrying his son (!) all fiction and nonsense of course but written in these scrolls.......
Christianity was founded 400 years after his death and what we got in the New Testament is a polished and in essence a censored version of the 12 apostles, only 4 were withheld and corrected. For instance Celibacy was introduced and not allowed in priesthood.....
Concerning the Crusades on Jerusalem, many preachers recruited volunteers in little villages, their sermons where heated in so far that the whole village, kids, elderly, pregnant women and men directed toward Jerusalem, leaving everything behind. Their conviction or coercion as we saw with the vaccines, was enough to leave and sacrifice their lives. Nobody ever arrived, the young were sold as slaves, elderly killed or starved, women raped and the only strong men recruited as pirates.
Fourth the police of the Pope better known as Jesuits had their own death squats namely Opus Dei, killing in the name of Jesus merely in South America and being a watchdog for colonel regimes, of course funded and infiltrated by the CIA. Being poor was equal of being a socialist or a communist, and before their execution they got blessed by the fundamentalist Opus Dei militia. How things can go Jesus dying on the cross to redeem all our sins, and we just continuing being a good Christian. 🤫
Thank You, Guido. I don't think we disagree in essence, and all of this is a series of quotes from Michael Hudson, who has his own (valuable) views as an economic historian.
Here is a more detailed version of his view of Jesus teaching the "Gospel/Good-news":
https://michael-hudson.com/2017/12/he-died-for-our-debt-not-our-sins/
Jesus was thought by some to have been an Essene, but it remains controversial. His teachings were not identical. Certainly, he was not a Christian.
The Nag Hamadi texts are different from the Dead Sea Scrolls: http://gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html
It is clear that the New Testament was composed in the great library of Alexandria, hundreds of years after the death of Jesus, from older texts that were then available to the composers.
It is interesting that some of those in France, who did not accept the authority of the Roman Pope, the Cathars, "Bon-homes", "good people", considered that there was a biological bloodline carried down from Jesus (as do some powerful ancient families).
I have no way of knowing, nor would it make a difference, as I understand his teachings (which is limited by their subsequent destruction).
I like Hudson's view, but it does not address the nature of Jesus, or his spiritual teachings. Hudson does not look at that. He avoids it studiously.
I did study some of the Nag Hamadi texts in the 1990s, several of the Elaine Pagels translated books.
I did not feel like I got what I needed to guide me adequately, and later a door opened for me to learn Buddhism from a Tibetan Lama who came to Austin in spring 2001.
This is now my path, but the teachings of Jesus that I did have earlier in life, and his help, brought me to it.
Each human's path to truth is unique, though I believe that spiritual truth is the same destination that spiritual seekers ultimately find.
Studied and practiced Buddhism 10 years in the 80-ies, then turned to zen after making a detour in Samkhya and Advaita. My upbringing was Christian so was my family, got interested in depth during my tour in India. Jesus is known there as Joshua and some believe during his secret Years from 12 to 30 he studied in universities Laksmilah and Nalandra, his message is not Jewish but more eastern, not the law as in Jewish tradition but forgiveness and compassion more like Jainism and Buddhism. He stayed also in Kashmir.
There’s a Flemish psychologist who dedicated years in searching for deeper answers and the figure of Jesus, both the historian Jesus figure but also the mythological and they are not alike.
He wrote his vision in 2 books, Jesus the Messiah or Jesus the Paraphrenic, meaning the founder of a Kingdom beyond life as utterly fictitious. Interpretation he leaves for everyone as controversial or asking more questions than there are answers.
His second book leaves no interpretation, Christianity a mistake Jesus is not the founder of this strange world religion coming out of a select club of a few Essenes.
For France considering the many “Le Roy (Louis…)” Jesus offspring took the name Leroy there must be millions with that name, so every Roy is related to him, lol.
The Apostle Thomas went to Kerala and established a living Christian tradition there, apparently the oldest. The Catholic Church (through Portugal) took their texts to Rome, destroyed the rest, and keep them hidden from any view, as I understand it.
My belief is that Jesus wanted all people to "know God" through love, through transcending the false boundaries of "self", and understanding the oneness of all experiencing life together. "God is Love."
He is bound to have known that his actions would lead him to be arrested and crucified. Attacking the money-changers with a whip in the temple was a provocative act against the financial-regime.
Yes and not a coincidence that the living faith was brought back to Kerala, India it’s a lovely place I can tell. Christian politics had to be established in Rome, the living experience had to flee Europe, from there started the Christian colonisation to the Americas and Africa, Asia, the real thing became perverted and used as a powerplay for a selective group of priests.
What joy or objective benefit it might bring to certain folks, to discuss Jesus, and what all he may have been. Messianic visions are deeply problematic. Be they from 2023 years ago or just a few decades ago (Milton Friedman) or a few hundred (Rousseau). At least the last two people were real, we know that much.
That is a straw-man argument, deflecting spiritual search onto mere "discussion".
The "reality" is tested by experimentation with the outcomes of embodiying the teachings, not by intellectual exploration, though intellectual study/analysis is not a "bad" thing.
As you say "reality" is tested by experimentation with the outcomes of embodying the teachings - I ask, What reality?! Mine is not like yours. The person who has no home nor destination (a refugee's) reality is different from the King of England. The average housewives reality is different from Elon Musk's reality. What objective reality do you speak of? and how may we benefit from such teachings together?
That agreement on how-things-work and "what is reality" is the difficulty in communcation about a thing that we all experience, but usually a bit differently from each other, like "red" or "green".
Walking one's spiritual path is the empiricism of determining what "is real" and "how things really work".
People can tell when another person has a very similar perception of "reality" to themselves sometimes. "It takes one to know one" applies.
People are also hopeful, and looking for a savior, and may project an archetype onto a savior-figure.
I seek to avoid doing that...
It takes courage in a times like this to bring up subjects like who is real and Messianic visions. All my respects. For more than 40 years Buddha has been messaging his vision, Messias or not, to people who had ears to hear it, he was not successful and as a matter of fact he had to flee to outside of his country to find a proper hearing, and a language that was more appropriate to express his vision. The same goes for Jesus, both never recorded their gospels, it were simple people in their direct environment who took notes.
In the case of Buddha it was his cousin Ananda who accompanied him the whole 40 years. About his vision he said the following, in time my sayings are bound to be corrupted and perverted even starting as I am speaking…a censorship and conspiracy theory avant la lettre 2500 years ago, Google, fb, Twitter, Linkedin many incarnations ago! Because: 1. The vast experiencing of his vision, only a beginning but no end 2. To select a proper vocabulary closest to express his vision in transmitting it to others 3. speaking his vision that represents in the closest possible way his experience 4. To direct it to an audience that can understand and ready to experience for themselves 5. What if there’s not such an audience, does he has to create one so that they can mature to accept his vision 6. Every individual in this audience will interpret it to his level of understanding 7. Every individual will speak according to his understanding of the truth 8. it will corrupt the original message, the soul is lost! 9. Truth cannot survive…if all this is lost in the masses, in misinformation than there can only a distant scent, a flavour remains, the grace, the gratitude, the all compassionate love and that’s why generations of people will feel a pull in their heart and soul to feel connected.
Why we bring up these Messiahs? We want them to be real even if we have killed all of them, they were a threat too big to our egos, the ego that cannot survive in so much ❤️ love.
Thanks Guido. My strategy is to maintian the intention to help, to maintain compassion, and whenever I have a decision to take, to take it on the side of compassion and helping. If I feel reluctance, I should do the thing I am shying away from (as long as it is good, not evil).
I'm seeing where this goes. Sometimes I get views, insights, experiences, but they are , as you said, beginnings, not final destinations.
People want messiahs, but there are no messiahs. There are teachers who can share, and there are journeys. Messiahs sell well. The Roman church sold a lot of that, but had no intention of delivering.
"God will get you that when you die, Money Back Guaranteed!"
@Guido VANDEVEN. Hello!
As you said "Buddha" - Since I am Indian, and coming from a nation deeply invested in all sorts of spirituality, practice, business etc. Buddha lived more than 2500years ago. (565 BC). His teachings or ideas traveled far and wide, transformed, mutated, split, restructured for centuries that followed his death (Samadhi). Point being, today Buddhism is institutionalized - it is divided into sects, cults and types (Tibetian, Zen, Hinayana etc etc). The original teachings (or essence of) has mutated vastly, way beyond what Buddha could have envisioned back then. The same can said about a given Jesus or Mohamed or which visionary / messiah-from-back-then-have-you. Hence how can they be "real" ? Now? In this age, especially when we are living in Poly-Crisis world (surely you are aware of global warming, climate change, loss of habitat, pandemics, fire, mass extinction, overpopulation etc etc). Thanks for reading. Love n Respect
Jesus was a rebel against hierarchy.
The only crime the Romans crucified people for was "troublemaker", a threat to the established order.
An effective method to stifle dissent.