We Are All Asleep

 Though what follows is far from a perfect summary it transmits the most important concept I learned from Gurdjieff by recently reading "In Search of the Miraculous," pretty well. It is of course best to read the book for yourself but be warned its a challenging read.

 People don't do evil things for the sake of evil. At best when they do evil things they do them for what they perceive to be a good reason which is lunacy and worse more often they do evil things without thinking at all.

  This is a law and it extends well beyond what is perceived as evil actions. Most of the time we do everything without thinking. That is we do things without intention and without
a definitive aim.

  Our moving center which for the sake of explanation we shall call our learned instincts (They are not strictly speaking instincts because they were not born in us but they are learned and we perform them unconsciously like instincts) controls our movements,our actions,even our speech and all the time we are lost in our mind thinking about this and that or more often dreaming about something pleasant or agonizing over an imagined nightmare. We do not DO anything really things just HAPPEN and we REACT unconsciously.

  This is a SLEEP and its epidemic,it effects all of us. It makes us machines.

  To be AWAKE,to be truly HUMAN we must learn to know ourselves always. To remember what we are doing,what we are saying, what we are thinking,what is actually going on inside and all around us in this moment. If we can learn to do that we can truly change ourselves and conquer the world!

  "He who knows others is wise; He who knows himself is enlightened!"
-Lao Tzu

Material Reality is Illusionary

"This material world is a reflection of the spiritual world. The material world is but a shadow of reality. In the shadow there is no reality or substantiality,but from the shadow we can understand that there is substance and reality. In the desert there is no water,but the mirage suggests that there is such a thing as water In the material world there is no water,there is no happiness,but the real water of actual happiness is there in the spiritual world."

-Bhagavad-gita As It Is

What is a REAL Christian Anyway?

What is a real christian and who gets to decide? Do you? Do I?

Understand the implications of such a thought. If you say, "That women isn't a real christian because she is divorced!" or "That man isn't a real christian because he uses tarot cards!" or "That old man isn't a real christian because he drinks!" etc what are you really doing?

You are not judging others so much as you are

condemning yourself to such judgements and the circle of negativity never ends.

Jesus said,

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

-Matthew 7:1-2

 I think that the evil we see in others is the evil we fail to see in ourselves.

I know we have the capacity to be Christ not simply Christians but that comes from a higher state of consciousness that reflects out an inner love and inclusion not a lower state that is full of exclusion and arrogance. I try my best but I am not anywhere near that level and almost no one else is either so lets all open our hearts and try our best to be brothers and sisters IN Christ.

With hard work hopefully one day we won't have to TRY anymore and will instead just BE!

How Many Angels can Dance on the Head of a Pin?

My father relayed a recent incident at his church to me which is interesting.

He is a pentecostal and it is quite common for pentecostals to randomly come up to you,lay their hands on your shoulders,and pray for you.

Now one of the deacons got it into his head that laying your hands on the pastor to pray was wrong and the pastor tended to agree.

So last Sunday a churchless pentecostal was invited to my fathers church and when it was time for all those to come up and pray for the pastor who wished too this man did and put his hands on the pastors shoulders. Then the deacon in question stormed up and forcefully removed his hands from the pastor.

Needless to say this caused the visitor to feel unwelcome and a bit angry. I doubt he will come back.

Now the main interest to me in this is why do churches do such things?

Shall we alienate everyone who doesn't act in a certain way at a certain time because we deem it to be inappropriate based on our own limited understanding?

As I hear it the deacon didn't like this because a member of the church use to lay  her hands on people to pray all the time and later she was exorcised.

Really? Regardless of whether demon possession exists or not is putting on the hands and praying a sign of possession? I personally think if someone were truly demon possessed we'd know it,it would be impossible not to see and they would certainly never pray for anyone.

This all sounds like superstition in the worst possible way to me and I am reminded of a heated medieval theological debate,

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"

I am certainly not perfect but I try my utmost never to squabble over such meaningless little things anymore. I have no right to judge but this little story is just so ridiculous to me.

Could this kind of conduct perhaps have something to do with the fact that most mainstream Christians look everywhere for the second coming of Christ except within themselves?