Kalpana Chawla - The Kingdom of God without and within

[Guest guest]

shriadishakti , " jagbir singh

<adishakti_org> " <adishakti_org> wrote:

>

> Kalpana Chawla herself recently said that although she was proud

of

> her roots, she did not feel Indian in space. " When you look at the

> stars and the galaxy, you feel that you are not just from any

> particular piece of land, but from the solar system, " she said.

> Kalpana Chawla was moved by her experience a few hundred miles

away

> from Earth. What would she or any other human have realized a few

> million light years further?

>

 

" TOWARDS THE MILLENNIUM

 

The year 2000 marks not only the beginning of a new century, but,

according to those whose words are recorded in the following pages

(of Revelation: Wisdom of the Ages by Paul Roland), it heralds the

dawning of a New Age, an age which will witness an evolutionary leap

in consciousness, culminating in a spiritual Renaissance for

humanity.Such a change will not come for the asking. We may be

forced to re-evaluate our attitude to organized religion, our

obligation to humanity and certainly our perception of the Universe

and our purpose in it, a revolution which has apparently already

begun. . . . that the most significant changes will come about

within the lifetime of most of us, but there are conflicting views

as to how the changes will transpire.

 

Some say it will be forced upon us through the catharsis of crisis

and conflict in the manner of a biblical apocalypse. Others prophesy

a gradual awakening of consciousness resulting from a crisis of

conscience, with the conflict being waged between our self-interest

and the " divine discontent " felt by our Higher Selves.

At the end of a century in which we set our sights on outer space,

we may find that our future depends on our success in exploring the

infinity of inner space. "

 

Paul Roland, Revelation: Wisdom of the Ages,

Ulysses Press, 1995, p. 133.

 

 

" The two most powerful forces shaping our civilization today are

science and religion. Through science, man strives to learn more of

the mysteries of creation. Through religion, he seeks to know the

Creator. Neither operates independently. It is as difficult for me

to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a

superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is

to comprehend a theologian who would deny the existence of

science. . . .Today, thousands of scientists all over the world are

engaged in the greatest intellectual adventure ever undertaken by

man: Attempting to understand the origin and functioning of a

physical universe that is vast in space and time, complicated in

detail, and awesome in its orderliness. . . .

 

You cannot build a wall between science and religion. As science

explains more of the intriguing mysteries of life and the universe,

its realms expand into those areas which previously were either

unknown or accepted solely by faith. Every experience we have —

physical or spiritual — must fit together into a pattern that is

credible and meaningful. Man is the observer of the universe, the

experimenter, the searcher for truth, but he is not a spectator

alone. He is a participant in the continuing process of creation. "

 

Dr. Wernher von Braun, (Director) NASA Marshall Space Flight Centre

(Tampa Tribune, July 30, 1966.)

 

 

" The universe has been compared, by a Persian poet, to a manuscript

of which the first and last pages are missing. The quest of these

pages has been the function of Gurus, philosophers and scientist.

The scientists perform experiments in the physical world and draw

their conclusions; the philosophers resort to speculations based on

reason and thinking. The Gurus see the universe through eyes other

than physical eyes, — the eyes of Light. With these they can see

through millions of years forward and backward and into eternity.3 "

(3 Ancient Hindu literature enumerates five kinds of eyes in

addition to physical eyes: eyes of Instinct, Celestial eyes, Truth

eyes, Divine eyes and eyes of Light.)

 

Pritam Singh Gill, The Trinity of Sikhism,

New Academic Publishing Co., Jullundur, India, 1990, p. 26.

 

 

" In his 1992 book, The Mind of God, the physicist Paul Davies

pondered whether we humans could attain absolute knowledge — The

Answer — through science. Such an outcome was unlikely, Davies

concluded, given the limits imposed on rational knowledge by quantum

indeterminacy, Godel's theorem, chaos, and the like. Mystical

experience might provide the only avenue to absolute truth, Davies

speculated. He added that he could not vouch for this possibility,

since he had never had a mystical experience himself. "

 

John Horgan, The End of Science,

Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1996, p. 261.

 

 

" Mysticism, a quest for a hidden truth or wisdom ( " the treasure

hidden in the centres of our souls " ), in the 20th century is

undergoing a renewal of interest and understanding and even a mood

of expectancy similar to that which had marked its role in previous

eras. Such a mood stems in part from the feeling of alienation that

many persons experience in the modern world. Put down as a religion

of the elite, mysticism (or the mystical faculty of perceiving

transcendental reality) is said by many to belong to all men, though

few use it. The British author Aldous Huxley has stated that " a

totally unmystical world would be a world totally blind and insane, "

and the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore has noted that " Man has a

feeling that he is truly represented in something which exceeds

himself. " "

 

Britannica Online

(1994-1998 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.)

 

 

When a man knows God, he is free: his sorrows have an end, and birth

and death are no more.

When in inner union he is beyond the world of the body,

Then the third world, the world of the Spirit, is found, where the

power of the All is, and man has all;

For he is one with the One.

 

Krishna Yajur Veda, Svetasvatara Upanishads 1.11.

The Upanishads, Juan Mascaro, 86

 

 

" Unlike the apocalyptic syndrome abundantly set forth in the

literature of the period, the Kingdom arrives without cataclysms,

even without external signs. " The coming of the Kingdom of God does

not admit of observation and there will be no one to say 'Look here!

Look there!' For you must know, the Kingdom of God is among you "

(Luke 17:20-21.) In the parables, the Kingdom is compared to the

gradual maturing of the seed that is sprouting and growing (Mark

4:26-29), to the mustard seed (30-32), to the yeast that makes the

dough rise (Matt. 13:33.) "

 

Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas Volume 1,

The University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 339.

 

 

" You have to take a stand in your family, in your surroundings, with

your friends, and you have to tell them, " You better all get

realized. " The reason for that is that the Christ who crucified

Himself is going to come back with his Eleven Forces of Destruction.

And when He starts He is not going to ask you to take any

Realization. No one is going to be bothered whether you are going to

hell. He will just sort out. But those who have got Realization will

enter into the Kingdom of God. You have to enter into the Kingdom of

God here, as I say, in the Seventh Chakra. "

 

Shri Sahasraksi Shri Nirmala Devi

The New Age Has Started, Houston, USA — October 6, 1981

[Guest guest]

" The Gospel of Thomas

 

It does not tell the story about the life and death of Jesus, but

offers the reader his `secret teachings' about the Kingdom of

God

 

This book opens with the lines, " These are the secret words which

the living Jesus spoke, and the twin, Didymos Judas Thomas wrote

them down. " Then there follows a list of the sayings of Jesus. Now

this raises all kinds of questions. Did Jesus have a twin brother?

Actually the name Thomas Didymos — well, Thomas is Hebrew for

twin.

 

Didymos is Greek for twin.... The implication here is that he is

Jesus' twin. But this character, of course, also appears in the

Gospel of John, he's one of the disciples, the twin. Here he appears

as if he's Jesus' twin, and he is one who knows secret teaching,

which Jesus hasn't given to all other people. Some of these sayings

are familiar. We know them from Matthew and Luke — Jesus said, " I

have come to cast fire on the earth. " Or " Behold, a sower went out

to sow, " and so forth.... Others are as strange and compelling as

Zen koans. My favorite of these is saying number 70, which says, " If

you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save

you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not

bring forth will destroy you. " The gospel opens as Jesus invites

people to see....

 

The Gospel of Thomas also suggests that Jesus is aware of, and

criticizing the views of the Kingdom of God as a time or a place

that appear in the other gospels. Here Jesus says, " If those who

lead you say to you, " look, the Kingdom is in the sky, " then the

birds will get there first. If they say " it's in the ocean, " then

the fish will get there first. But the Kingdom of God is within you

and outside of you. Once you come to know yourselves, you will

become known. And you will know that it is you who are the children

of the living father. "

 

In this gospel, and this is also the case in the Gospel of Luke, the

Kingdom of God is not an event that's going to be catastrophically

shattering the world as we know it and ushering in a new millennium.

Here, as in Luke 17:20, the Kingdom of God is said to be an interior

state; " It's within you, " Luke says. And here it says, " It's inside

you but it's also outside of you. " It's like a state of

consciousness. It's hard to describe. But the Kingdom of God here is

something that you can enter when you attain gnosis, which means

knowledge. But itdoesn't mean intellectual knowledge. The Greeks had

two words for knowledge. One is intellectual knowledge, like the

knowledge of physics or something like that. But this gnosis is

personal, like " I know that person, or do you know so and so. " So

this gnosis is self-knowledge; you could call it insight. It's a

question of knowing who you really are, not at the ordinary level of

your name and your social class or your position. But knowing

yourself at a deep level. The secret of gnosis is that when you know

yourself at that level you will also come to know God, because you

will discover that the divine is within you.

 

The Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas does appear rather different from

the Jesus we encounter in the others. Because the Gospel of Mark,

for example, depicts Jesus as an utterly unique being. This is the

good news of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. The Gospel of John

says that Jesus isn't even a human being at all, but he's a divine

presence who comes down to heaven in human shape.... The Gospel of

John says, " God sent his son into the world to save the world. " If

you believe in him, you're saved, if you don't believe in him you're

already damned, because you haven't believed in the name of the only

begotten Son of God.

 

Now, [in the Gospel of Thomas], this Jesus comes to reveal that you

and he are, if you like, twins.... And what you discover as you read

the Gospel of Thomas, which you're meant to discover, is that you

and Jesus at a deep level are identical twins. And that you discover

that you are the child of God just as he is. And so that at the end

of the gospel Jesus speaks to Thomas and says, " Whoever drinks from

my mouth will become as I am, and I will become that person, and the

mysteries will be revealed to him. "

 

Here, Jesus does not take the role of authority and teacher. In the

Gospel of Thomas, the disciples say to Jesus, " Tell us, what do you

want us to do? How shall we pray? What shall we eat? How shall we

fast? " Now if you look at Matthew and Luke, Jesus answers the

questions. He says, " When you pray, say, 'Our Father who are in

Heaven, hallowed be...' When you fast, wash your face, don't make a

show of it. When you give alms do it privately and without being

showy. " In this gospel, this Jesus does not answer. He says, " Do not

tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for everything is known

before heaven. "

 

Now this answer throws you and me upon ourselves.... Here Jesus, in

effect, turns one toward oneself, and that is really one of the

themes of the Gospel of Thomas, that you must go in a sort of a

spiritual quest of your own to discover who you are, and to discover

really that you are the child of God just like Jesus. "

 

Elaine H. Pagels,PBS and WGBH/FRONTLINE, 1998

(Elaine H. Pagels: The Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor

of Religion Princeton University)

 

 

" So, according to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus ridiculed those who

taught of the " Kingdom of God " in literal terms, as if it were a

specific place:

 

" If those who lead you say to you, `Look, the Kingdom is in the

sky,' then the birds will arrive there before you.

If they say to you, `It is in the sea,' " then, he says, the

fish will arrive before you.

 

Instead, it is a state of self-discovery:

 

" . . . Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of

you. When you come to know yourself, then you will be known, and you

will realize that you are the sons of the living Father. But if you

will not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and it is you

who are that poverty. " 40 

 

But the disciples, mistaking that " Kingdom " for a future event,

persisted in their questioning:

 

His disciples said to him, " When will . . . the new world come? " He

said to them, " What you look forward to has already come, but you do

not recognize it. " . . . His disciples said to him, " When will the

Kingdom come? "

 

(Jesus said,) " It will not come by waiting for it. It

will not be a matter of saying `Here it is' or `There it

is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the

earth and men do not see it. " 41

 

That " Kingdom, " then, symbolizes a state of transformed

consciousness.

 

Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, " These

infants being suckled, are like those who enter the Kingdom. " They

said to him, " Shall we, then, as children, enter the Kingdom? " Jesus

said to them, " When you make the two one, and when you make the

inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the

above like the below, And when you make the male and the female one

and the same . . . then you will enter [the Kingdom]. " 42

 

Yet what the " living Jesus " of Thomas rejects as naive — the idea

that the Kingdom of Heaven is an actual event expected in history

— is the notion of the Kingdom that the synoptic gospels of the

New Testament most often attribute to Jesus as his teaching.

According to Matthew, Luke, and Mark, Jesus proclaimed the coming

Kingdom of God, when captives shall gain their freedom, when the

diseased shall recover, the oppressed shall be released, and harmony

shall prevail over the whole world. Mark says that the disciples

expected the Kingdom to come as a cataclysmic event in their own

lifetime, since Jesus had said that some of them would live to

see " the Kingdom of God come with power. " . . . All three gospels

insist that the Kingdom will come in the near future (although they

also contain many passages indicating that it is here already.) Luke

makes Jesus say explicitly " the Kingdom of God is within you. " Some

gnostic Christians, extending that type of interpretation, expected

human liberation to occur not through actual events in history, but

through internal transformation. "

 

Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels,

Random House, New York, 1989, p. 128-29.

(40. Gospel of Thomas 32.19-33.5, in NHL 118; 41.

Ibid.,42.7-51.18, in NHL 123-130; 42. Ibid., 37.20-35, NHL 121.)

 

 

" In these Modern Times, in the evolutionary process, we have reached

the state of human awareness. This human awareness can work through

its thinking, rationality or conditioning. Many modern poets have

described them as the walls of freedom of the Self. But what if one

can rise to a higher dimension of awareness? Why not open our hearts

and minds to the unique discovery that has been revealed for this

vital ascent? The Kingdom of God that We promised is at hand. This

is not a phrase out of a sermon or a lecture, but it is the

actualisation of the experience of the highest Truth which is

Absolute, now manifesting itself in ordinary people at this present

moment. "

 

Shri Prakatakrtih Shri Nirmala Devi

[Guest guest]

hi joined forum lasted sunday,

have written some letters and i dont know how to

send them. i,m from london and i,ve got a letter in word which i

can,t get out. this i know is because i,m not to stable with english

ect. This is a test letter to see if i can get into the forum and a

plee for help to get my letter to adam. it also was,nt the first

letter i made for you adam if your there, the first one took me two

and a haif hour to write and i then deleted it not knowing that i

should have saved it. please can someone help me get started.

jake shriadishakti , " jagbir singh

<adishakti_org> " <adishakti_org> wrote:

>

> " The Gospel of Thomas

>

> It does not tell the story about the life and death of Jesus, but

> offers the reader his `secret teachings' about the Kingdom of

> God

>

> This book opens with the lines, " These are the secret words which

> the living Jesus spoke, and the twin, Didymos Judas Thomas wrote

> them down. " Then there follows a list of the sayings of Jesus. Now

> this raises all kinds of questions. Did Jesus have a twin brother?

> Actually the name Thomas Didymos — well, Thomas is Hebrew for

> twin.

>

> Didymos is Greek for twin.... The implication here is that he is

> Jesus' twin. But this character, of course, also appears in the

> Gospel of John, he's one of the disciples, the twin. Here he

appears

> as if he's Jesus' twin, and he is one who knows secret teaching,

> which Jesus hasn't given to all other people. Some of these sayings

> are familiar. We know them from Matthew and Luke — Jesus said,

" I

> have come to cast fire on the earth. " Or " Behold, a sower went out

> to sow, " and so forth.... Others are as strange and compelling as

> Zen koans. My favorite of these is saying number 70, which

says, " If

> you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save

> you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not

> bring forth will destroy you. " The gospel opens as Jesus invites

> people to see....

>

> The Gospel of Thomas also suggests that Jesus is aware of, and

> criticizing the views of the Kingdom of God as a time or a place

> that appear in the other gospels. Here Jesus says, " If those who

> lead you say to you, " look, the Kingdom is in the sky, " then the

> birds will get there first. If they say " it's in the ocean, " then

> the fish will get there first. But the Kingdom of God is within you

> and outside of you. Once you come to know yourselves, you will

> become known. And you will know that it is you who are the children

> of the living father. "

>

> In this gospel, and this is also the case in the Gospel of Luke,

the

> Kingdom of God is not an event that's going to be catastrophically

> shattering the world as we know it and ushering in a new

millennium.

> Here, as in Luke 17:20, the Kingdom of God is said to be an

interior

> state; " It's within you, " Luke says. And here it says, " It's inside

> you but it's also outside of you. " It's like a state of

> consciousness. It's hard to describe. But the Kingdom of God here

is

> something that you can enter when you attain gnosis, which means

> knowledge. But itdoesn't mean intellectual knowledge. The Greeks

had

> two words for knowledge. One is intellectual knowledge, like the

> knowledge of physics or something like that. But this gnosis is

> personal, like " I know that person, or do you know so and so. " So

> this gnosis is self-knowledge; you could call it insight. It's a

> question of knowing who you really are, not at the ordinary level

of

> your name and your social class or your position. But knowing

> yourself at a deep level. The secret of gnosis is that when you

know

> yourself at that level you will also come to know God, because you

> will discover that the divine is within you.

>

> The Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas does appear rather different from

> the Jesus we encounter in the others. Because the Gospel of Mark,

> for example, depicts Jesus as an utterly unique being. This is the

> good news of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. The Gospel of John

> says that Jesus isn't even a human being at all, but he's a divine

> presence who comes down to heaven in human shape.... The Gospel of

> John says, " God sent his son into the world to save the world. " If

> you believe in him, you're saved, if you don't believe in him

you're

> already damned, because you haven't believed in the name of the

only

> begotten Son of God.

>

> Now, [in the Gospel of Thomas], this Jesus comes to reveal that you

> and he are, if you like, twins.... And what you discover as you

read

> the Gospel of Thomas, which you're meant to discover, is that you

> and Jesus at a deep level are identical twins. And that you

discover

> that you are the child of God just as he is. And so that at the end

> of the gospel Jesus speaks to Thomas and says, " Whoever drinks from

> my mouth will become as I am, and I will become that person, and

the

> mysteries will be revealed to him. "

>

> Here, Jesus does not take the role of authority and teacher. In the

> Gospel of Thomas, the disciples say to Jesus, " Tell us, what do you

> want us to do? How shall we pray? What shall we eat? How shall we

> fast? " Now if you look at Matthew and Luke, Jesus answers the

> questions. He says, " When you pray, say, 'Our Father who are in

> Heaven, hallowed be...' When you fast, wash your face, don't make a

> show of it. When you give alms do it privately and without being

> showy. " In this gospel, this Jesus does not answer. He says, " Do

not

> tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for everything is known

> before heaven. "

>

> Now this answer throws you and me upon ourselves.... Here Jesus, in

> effect, turns one toward oneself, and that is really one of the

> themes of the Gospel of Thomas, that you must go in a sort of a

> spiritual quest of your own to discover who you are, and to

discover

> really that you are the child of God just like Jesus. "

>

> Elaine H. Pagels,PBS and WGBH/FRONTLINE, 1998

> (Elaine H. Pagels: The Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor

> of Religion Princeton University)

>

>

> " So, according to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus ridiculed those who

> taught of the " Kingdom of God " in literal terms, as if it were a

> specific place:

>

> " If those who lead you say to you, `Look, the Kingdom is in the

> sky,' then the birds will arrive there before you.

> If they say to you, `It is in the sea,' " then, he says, the

> fish will arrive before you.

>

> Instead, it is a state of self-discovery:

>

> " . . . Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of

> you. When you come to know yourself, then you will be known, and

you

> will realize that you are the sons of the living Father. But if you

> will not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and it is you

> who are that poverty. " 40 

>

> But the disciples, mistaking that " Kingdom " for a future event,

> persisted in their questioning:

>

> His disciples said to him, " When will . . . the new world come? " He

> said to them, " What you look forward to has already come, but you

do

> not recognize it. " . . . His disciples said to him, " When will the

> Kingdom come? "

>

> (Jesus said,) " It will not come by waiting for it. It

> will not be a matter of saying `Here it is' or `There it

> is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the

> earth and men do not see it. " 41

>

> That " Kingdom, " then, symbolizes a state of transformed

> consciousness.

>

> Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, " These

> infants being suckled, are like those who enter the Kingdom. " They

> said to him, " Shall we, then, as children, enter the Kingdom? "

Jesus

> said to them, " When you make the two one, and when you make the

> inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the

> above like the below, And when you make the male and the female one

> and the same . . . then you will enter [the Kingdom]. " 42

>

> Yet what the " living Jesus " of Thomas rejects as naive — the

idea

> that the Kingdom of Heaven is an actual event expected in history

> — is the notion of the Kingdom that the synoptic gospels of the

> New Testament most often attribute to Jesus as his teaching.

> According to Matthew, Luke, and Mark, Jesus proclaimed the coming

> Kingdom of God, when captives shall gain their freedom, when the

> diseased shall recover, the oppressed shall be released, and

harmony

> shall prevail over the whole world. Mark says that the disciples

> expected the Kingdom to come as a cataclysmic event in their own

> lifetime, since Jesus had said that some of them would live to

> see " the Kingdom of God come with power. " . . . All three gospels

> insist that the Kingdom will come in the near future (although they

> also contain many passages indicating that it is here already.)

Luke

> makes Jesus say explicitly " the Kingdom of God is within you. " Some

> gnostic Christians, extending that type of interpretation, expected

> human liberation to occur not through actual events in history, but

> through internal transformation. "

>

> Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels,

> Random House, New York, 1989, p. 128-29.

> (40. Gospel of Thomas 32.19-33.5, in NHL 118; 41.

> Ibid.,42.7-51.18, in NHL 123-130; 42. Ibid., 37.20-35, NHL 121.)

>

>

> " In these Modern Times, in the evolutionary process, we have

reached

> the state of human awareness. This human awareness can work through

> its thinking, rationality or conditioning. Many modern poets have

> described them as the walls of freedom of the Self. But what if one

> can rise to a higher dimension of awareness? Why not open our

hearts

> and minds to the unique discovery that has been revealed for this

> vital ascent? The Kingdom of God that We promised is at hand. This

> is not a phrase out of a sermon or a lecture, but it is the

> actualisation of the experience of the highest Truth which is

> Absolute, now manifesting itself in ordinary people at this present

> moment. "

>

> Shri Prakatakrtih Shri Nirmala Devi