LOVELIGHT

Magazine

May 2007***Vol. 4, no. 5

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Managing editors: Richard Shining Thunder Francis and Adamaria Francis

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Contributors to this issue: Ramona Abella, Chris Finer, Maureen Dwyer, Jim Dwyer Jr., Pat Fields, Mick Gallagher, Carol Lawson, Bill and Kathy Mormon, Victoria

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LOVELIGHT MAGAZINE: WHAT WE'RE ALL ABOUT

Lovelight magazine is free, coming directly to your inboxscreen once a month, to bring a little sunshine, and at least a few laughs. So, if you discover any jokes that make you roar with laughter, please send them in.

But life is not all laughs. So, we hope also to share with you some pleasant and sweet thoughts, and life-lessons.

Lovelight wants to promote peace and harmony, and to aid you personally to overcome any problems. If you are working on any religious, psychological, or spiritual problems, we encourage you to write to us at rmfrancis@juno.com

We also want to present "miniparables" to help you grow. So, if you come across any wise or touching pieces, not copyrighted, fairly short, please share them with the efamily. Please send them to the magazine, at the same address. Also welcome are practical tips that can make life easier or safer. We also welcome short pieces on personal philosophies, interesting facts, wordplays, and spirituality, especially those that emphasize the value of compassion and other forms of Love. We reserve the right to make whatever changes that we deem necessary or desirable before inclusion in Lovelight magazine.

As a subscriber, your email name/address will not be shared. Please share, send, or copy, this magazine, or any parts of it. Share it with all your friends, and all others. Please use it on your websites. Also, if your friends are inclined, please have them send us their emailaddress and request a personal subscription. All subscriptions are always free.

This is published as a "light" introduction to spirituality. It is designed especially for those who have little or no interest in the "heavier" aspects. And it is also great, fun reading. A collection of magazines is produced once a year, and would make a sweet gift for a loved one. Happy reading!:)

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GOD FINDS US IN PAIN, sent in by Bill and Kathy mormon

        A priest writes about a student named Tommy: My eyes and my mind both
blinked.  He was combing his hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders. I know in my mind that it isn't what's on your head but what's in it that counts.  I immediately filed Tommy under "S" for "strange."

Tommy was the "atheist in residence" in my course.  He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about, the possibility of an unconditionally loving God.  We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester.

He asked in a cynical tone, "Do you think I'll ever find God?"

"No!" I said very emphatically.

"Why not," he responded, "I thought that was the product you were
pushing."

"I am absolutely certain that He will find you."

Later, a sad report came-- Tommy had terminal cancer. He came to see me.  His body was very badly wasted and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy.  But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm. "I have cancer in both lungs.  It's a matter of weeks."

"What's it like to be only twenty-four and dying?"

"Well, it could be worse. Like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being
fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real biggies in life. After I was diagnosed, it didn't take long until I got serious about locating God.  And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody
fists against the bronze doors of heaven.  But God did not come out.  In fact, nothing happened.  Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success?  You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying.  And then you quit.

"Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who might or might not be there, I just quit.  I decided that I didn't really care about God, about an afterlife, or anything like that.  I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. The saddest thing is to go
through life without loving.  But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them.

"So, I began with the hardest one, my Dad.  'Dad,' I began.

"'Yes, what?' he asked without lowering the newspaper.

"'Dad, I would like to talk with you."

"The newspaper came down three inches. 'What is it?'

"'Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that.'" 

Tom smiled. He said it with obvious satisfaction.  "The newspaper fluttered to the floor.  Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before.  He
cried and he hugged me.  We talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning.  It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me.

"It was easier with my mother and little brother.  They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other.  We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years.

"I was only sorry about one thing --- that I had waited so long. Here I was, just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to.

"Then, one day I turned around and God was there.  He didn't come to me when I pleaded with Him.  I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, 'C'mon, jump through.  C'mon, I'll give you three days, three weeks.'

"Apparently God does things in His own way and at His own hour.  But the important thing is that He was there.  He found me! He found me even after I stopped looking for Him."

The surest way to find God is not to make Him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to Love. The Apostle John said: 'God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living in God and God is living in him."

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SNORTING AND SMIRKING: MORE HUMORTHERAPY, GOOD FOR WHAT AILS YOU!

INVESTMENTIPS, sent in by Ramona Abella

  Maybe I shouldn't give you some of these, but here goes:

Investment tips for twenty-oh-seven, For all of you with any money left:

Be aware of the next expected mergers so that you can get in on the ground floor and make some BIG bucks! Watch for these consolidations in twenty-oh-seven: 1) Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W. R. Grace Co. Will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.***2) Polygram Records, Warner Bros., and Zesta Crackers join forces and become: Poly, Warner Cracker.***3) 3M will merge with Goodyear and become: MMMGood.***4) Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge and become: ZipAudiDoDa.***5. FedEx is expected to join its competitor, UPS, and become: FedUP.***6. Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become: Fairwell Honeychild.

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CREATIVE ENGLISH, sent in by Mick Gallagher

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.***Police were called to a daycare where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.***Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.***The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.***To write with a broken pencil is pointless.***When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.***The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.***A thief fell and broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal.***Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking.***We'll never run out of math teachers because they always multiply.***When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U C L A.***The dead batteries were given out free of charge.***A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth-and-nail.***A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France, resulted in Linoleum Blownapart. ***A plateau is a high form of flattery.***Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

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FUNNY QUESTIONS, sent in by Maureen

Question: How many members of the Bush Administration does it take to
change a light bulb?

Answer: TEN.
1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;

2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;

3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;

4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness;

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for a new light bulb;

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor and standing on a step ladder, under the banner 'Bulb Accomplished';

7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally 'in the dark' the whole time;

8. Another one to viciously smear # 7;

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light bulb-changing policy all along;

10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing in a light bulb and screwing the country.

And after all is said and done, no one will notice that they never actually managed to change the light bulb.

Pass this on. Help cure Mad Cowboy Disease.

AS I WALK THROUGH LIFE, sent in by Maureen Dwyer

I've learned that: you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.*** it's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.*** you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It might be the last time you see them.***that you can keep going long after you think that you "can't."*** we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.*** either you control your
attitude or it controls you.*** heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences. Heroes do not act without fear, but in spite of it.*** money is a lousy way of keeping score, or of measuring a person.*** my best friend and I can do or say anything or nothing; and we have the best time.*** sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're down will be the ones to help you get back up.*** sometimes when I'm angry, I have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.***a person's imperfections and errors give me a chance to be loving, and can make a friendship stronger.***it is healthy to forgive, especially in friendship.***if a friendship ends because of a mistake, it was never a real friendship.***true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. The same goes for true Love.*** just because someone doesn't love you the way that you want her to doesn't mean that she doesn't love you with all that she has.***maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned
from them; it is not about how many birthdays that you've celebrated.***your biofamily won't always be there for you. It might seem funny, but people you aren't related to can take care of you, love you, and teach you to trust people again.***true "families" aren't biological.***that no matter how good a friend is, she's going to hurt you every once

in a while, and you will be challenged to forgive her.***it isn't always enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes, you have to learn to forgive yourself.***our background and circumstances might have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.***just because two people argue, it doesn't mean that they don't love each other. And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean that they do love each other.***we don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.***you shouldn't be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.***two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.***your life can be changed in a matter of minutes, by people who don't even know you.***even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help.***credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.

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SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

The horrors of 9-11 were the most ghastly and nightmarish event in the memories of many people. This ghoulish event occurred to teach us many things. But, unless we were paying close attention, this lesson apparently flew right over our heads, and those of a lot of other people. That vital lesson is this:

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Religion without spirituality is a dangerous monstrosity.

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One of the greatest problems in this world is that there is far too much religion. It divides people, as it always has in the past, into separate and warring camps, wanting to slit each others' throats. We have plenty of religion, thank you, and we do not need any more! What we need is more, and deeper, spirituality.

But what is this mysterious "spirituality" that can transform religion from a dragon into an "angel of peace"?

Spirituality is the core of all transformative faith. It is, in a word, Love. It is compassion, reflected by truly spiritual people, throughout the ages, as kindness, peace-making, gentleness, forgiveness, goodness, decency, friendliness, and other positive and healing forces of the mind, and of society.

Our world is overdosed on religion. And far too much of it appears in "cultic" (mind-controlling, anti-freedom) forms. In the United States alone, for example, some sociologists have estimated that there are one thousand cults. Some are as small as one or two families, but many are larger. A cult is defined as a minority or microminority religion that seeks to take away a person's freedom of thought, religion, speech, and expression. All cults strip a person of these basic freedoms.

Some cults are tiny, but have big "mouths." They have great publicity-campaigns, and are really mice that roar. Among these mini-communities are such groups as the Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists, Hare Krishna, the Unification Church, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Just for comparison: The major world-religions, such as Buddhism and Catholicism, are estimated to contain one thousand million members each.

Cults are microscopic by comparison. They even appear harmless. Their members are often very careful to appear mainstream and as "normal" as possible. But they are often caught up in money-making schemes; for example, we have all seen the Hare Krishna cultists, with orange robes, selling on public streets and in airports. And Jehovah's Witnesses wake us on Saturday and Sunday mornings to sell religious ragsheets.

Some cults are even less obvious. They want to appear non-threatening, and come disguised as your "good neighbors." Yet, secretly and quietly, they devastate families and lives. This is the case with Jehovah's Witnesses. They run a multi-million-dollar publishing and sales empire. It is all built on the backs of laborers who are never paid for their services. (Many who work for the org are the poorest of the poor, in Africa, Central America, etc. Yet it is their free labor that supports the "empire" built up by the Witnesses. Witnesses, btw, have no programs for giving to the poor, even those in their own org.) While there are not many of them, when many people cooperate, and work for free, they can accomplish a lot.

But one complaint of critics is that the work of the Witnesses does nothing to help the world, or to aid society. What, then, is the main goal of this cult? Its major aim is to convert you to become what they call a "publisher," or a sales-person for the org. At this very minute, they are all making plans, all over the world, to convert their neighbors and get them into the sales-work, so that they can sell even more magazines and books.

They want to convert both you and your children. Like other dangerous extremists, they believe that "god" has commanded them to do this work. In fact, it is their official position that their god is going to murder anyone who does not join their religion!

One of the factors that makes Jehovah's Witnesses potentially dangerous is that people tend to become like the god that they worship. The god called "Jehovah" is a creator of bigotry (aiding only "His chosen" people) and genocide (often, mass-murdering the "enemies" of the Israelis). Jehovah, in the Old Testament, is a god of war, and regularly kills his enemies. Jehovah's Witnesses define as god's "enemies" anyone who does not belong to their cult. So, all Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans, Buddhists, Hindus, and all other forms of Christian and non-Christian religious people are defined as "god's enemies." They believe that their god Jehovah was fully justified and moral when he killed even the women and children of "his enemies" in the distant past.

The core teaching of the cult is equally anti-human: They teach that, any day now, their god is going to murder the entire population of the human race (except the cult) in the greatest and most bloody genocide in the history of the world-- a nightmarish horror called "Armageddon." This god will use "nature gone mad" to "slaughter his enemies" (this means you!)

Have you ever wondered why Jehovah's Witnesses, when they come to your door, to sell magazines or books, are so very serious and earnest? This is why: They really believe that their god will kill them, and their families and children, if they do not sell for the cult.

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LOVELETTERS FROM OUR BUDS, PALS, AND FRIENDS

From Carol Lawson:

Richard, I will tell you my story about how the TRM worked for me: While at work on a particularly stressful day, I had a few minutes to be alone… and thought I would try my TRM [thought-replacement mechanism]. So I just stopped… and recited the mantra for a little less than two minutes. Surprisingly, I felt my heart rate and respirations slow down and… I became more relaxed. Now I know what I need to do in order to put the day's stresses into perspective.

Love,

Carol

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From our new sister Victoria:

Richard, Wow! And thank you for sharing your most intriguing perspectives. I would welcome any and all information you feel inclined to share. I will hear, receive and accept at my own pace and discretion. And how sweet to know, without qualifying this, that this is, of course, A-OK with you.

I love how you think. I love how you feel. And I'll add, I have been a fan of the early  American Indians as a people to emulate for many moons. So, you have a shoe-in with me by nature. Talk about the laws of the universe at work, never ceasing. Anyhow, let the sun shine in….Yes, please put my story out there [publishing an announcement in the uld ("Universal Love Digest"), the "infosheet sister" of Lovelight magazine] for others. I would appreciate the support…. 

The elders [leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses] handed me copied pages of a Watchtower article [the official magazine of the cult]. [This photocopied article was] entitled, "When we have doubts."… I would like nothing more than to take their  strongest and their brightest and show them the fallacies of all this conditioning…. As a compassionate human being, of course, I care…. I've heard of entire congregations falling [because of] this type of thing…. I'm in decision mode now, but I know whatever happens, we will be fine. Just the nerves of a break up, similar to the heartbreak of caring for someone but knowing you have to end a cycle, in an abusive relationship….Sometimes life isn't fair and people do get hurt, and that's one important way we learn how to be our strongest and best….We are in search of the truth, and all we know for sure right now is, God is Love….We read your email aloud together in his bedroom at the computer. Parts of it were over his head, but I helped him understand. The main thing gained was the added support at just the right time. I thank you for being there for us, and your pointed accurate advice….I will do my part and they will do theirs.  I will not judge myself for my past mistakes, knowing I did my best. When we know better, we do better….Instead we will draw close in love and reach out for our best life of peace together.

I thank you for caring and reaching out when we needed you most….

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From Keri (Jim Dwyer, Jr.):

Hi brother Shi. Could I perhaps use the [article] "Caring for Your Donkey" [found in the "Universal Love"] Digest" number 835 for my "my space" page? I would love to spread the wisdom….Here is the quote that you requested for Lovelight Magazine "Education is that which remains when one has forgotten everything he learned in school." by Albert Einstein.  Also, here is a quote from me: " Just because things aren't going my way, does not mean good things aren't coming my way," by Kerinunos.  Hope you are having a beautiful day bro.  Love, Keri

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 Danny Haszard has left a new comment on your post "Jehovah, Jehovah's Witnesses, Faith and Works: Good read. I applaud your blog. A heads up on the Jehovah's Witnesses: The core dogma of the Watchtower organization is that Jesus had his second coming 'invisibly' in the year 1914. Their entire doctrinal superstructure is built on this falsehood.

There are good and valid reasons why there is such an outrage against the Watchtower for misleading millions of followers. Many have invested everything in the 'imminent' apocalyptic promises of the Jehovah's Witnesses and have died broken and beaten.

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SOCIAL SECURITY CHANGES, sent in by Chris Finer

Suggestion for voters: I here firmly state that I will not vote for any politician, regardless of other issues, if (s)he does not sponsor and support the following (this includes every election in 2008):
Let us show our leaders in Washington "people power" and the power of the Internet. Let me know whether you are with me by forwarding this to everyone in your addressbook.

It does not matter whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. Please help keep this message circulating.
2008 Election Issue:

Get a bill started to place all politicians on Social Security. This must be an issue in 2008. Please! Keep it going! Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years. Our Senators and Congress people do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it. Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt that they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan. In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.

For all practical purposes, their plan works like this: When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die. Except it might increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments. For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275, 000.00 during the last years of their lives. This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries. Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age will receive much more during the rest of their lives. Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA..! ZILCH! This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan . The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds. This is "our tax-dollars at work"!

From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into, every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer). We can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement. Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator! Bill Bradley's benefits! Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made: That change would be to: Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us. Then sit back, and see how fast they would fix it!

If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted; and maybe good changes will evolve.

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SEX AND THE ILLUSION OF AN ALL-MALE GOD

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Jewish god was presented as all-male. In this presentation, he mirrored the other gods of the Near and Middle East. The most popular god among the "nations" (Gentiles) was, in very ancient times, called "baal" (pronounced "bah-ahl'"). This is a generic title, and means simply "Lord."

One thing that the baals had in common with Marduk, Nisroch, Dagon, Chemosh, Molech, and other ancient gods was that they were all male. So was Yahweh-Jehovah of the Israelis, the god of the Hebrew Scriptures.

To understand this god, we must know how the ancients used the word "god." For them, a "god" was not the Source of Love, the Fountain of peace and forgiveness, grace and wisdom. This conceptualization came only much later, to a more sophisticated and refined sociocultural mind. Although mystics, including some Kabbalists, held that God was unmixed Love, this was not even close to the very earliest views of the "protojehovic" god. (This was the earliest, and first, "Jehovah" of many too appear in history.)

In those ancient, precivilized, very warlike, bellicose, violent cultures, every major god was a wargod. The function of any wargod was to win wars for the tribe or nation to which it belonged. In order to intimidate the enemy, each god had to be presented in as fierce and ferocious, bloody, merciless a presentation as the human imagination allowed. So, the "ideal" god was a male, and a being who was the essence of cruelty, atrocity, barbarity, and severity. The most powerful god had the biggest sword, and had killed tens of thousands. That this was the ideal of Israel (that it was no exception) is proved by the contents of a celebrational song recorded in their scriptures: They danced as they sang, in horrible joy, "Saul has killed his thousands, and David, his tens of thousands." (First Samual 29:5) So, the ideal soldier was not only a murderer, but a mass-murderer. He was a man of exceptional and striking bloody violence. And the gods followed the patterns of the best warriors.

So, the most ancient god was a violent, cruel, vindictive, tortuous male of massacre, slaughter, and murder. This was the common view of a god circa 1900 BCE (during the Patriarchal Period). It survived for centuries unchanged.

Mystics disagreed. And there had always been mystics among the Jewish people, before Kabbalah. True mystics abandoned the anthropocentric view of the deity, and thus, sex was dropped as a consideration, as was the related idea of the literal, measurable "body" of God. Mystics, including the Kabbalists, had the good sense to abandon altogether the historical and Scriptural presentation of God as Yahweh-Jehovah. They knew God to be "ineffable," to use their favorite word.

Kabbalists represented God with the simple syllable ayn (sometimes spelled eyn or ein). This single syllable was meant to represent That about Which nothing could be said. It was the unknown, indescribable, incomprehensible God that could not be captured by mere human words and symbols. This God was at once unreachably high and yet immediately present. For, as Mind, sheer Mind, It was galactic, incomprehensibly large and vast, immense. But It also revealed Itself to the open heartmind, and its face was seen in flowers, birds, rainbows, crystals, animals, and, most of all, in human Love.

Since ayn had no body, it was never granted a sexual identity. Nevertheless, many Kabbalists followed traditions, from the Talmud and from the Hebrew Scriptures, rather blindly. They assumed, in other words, that God was male. For centuries, all Kabbalists were themselves males. And, since there was no place in spiritual society for a female, there was also no room in their limited God for femininity. Mystics were iconoclasts in virtually every other part of their understanding and worship; but these Kabbalists, some of whom were mystics, remained petrified and paralyzed by the traditional all-male image of God as Yahweh-Jehovah.

Happily, Judaism as a whole, in more modern times, is following the Way of the truer mystics in granting a social and spiritual equality to women. Women reflect many of the most mystical aspects of God, including His/Her tenderness, nurturing, mercy, gentleness, and Love-- for both Her/His human children, and for all of nature.

Kabbalism, as a form of mysticism, was drained of much of its poetic beauty, and other attractive features, by the absence of women in its ranks. Viewing God as all masculine, it was a real challenge for Kabbalists to insist on God's tenderness, empathy, gentleness, nourishing, and loving nature. For these are all qualities associated more with the feminine than with the masculine. All that was left for God was "His" logic, laws, justice, intellect, dominance, and, at times, fierceness. God's salvific forgiveness and resulting undeserved grace were radically de-emphasized among the Kabbalists. This left only "righteousness" (abiding by law) in place of the deeper and more authentic goodness.

The Torah insisted on living by the letter of the Law, rather than on genuine, profound transformation of personality, resulting in goodness. For it, too, arose from a purely masculine God-image. Because of a similar insistence by Kabbalism, a kind of legalism came into being. People felt free to identify themselves as "Kabbalists" when they had only an intellectual, rather than experiential, familiarity with the "Tree of Life" and its various paths to enlightenment. Some Kabbalists came more to resemble religious encyclopedias than saintmystics. For, in leaving out the feminine component, much of Kabbalism lost its transformative power. It degenerated to a learning-challenge only.

Pre-kabbalist Jewish mystics did recognize the feminine side of God, and called it the Shekinah. This was the holy miraculous "Light of God" that filled the heart. But it filled the emotional being with heightened and intensified emotion, as pure Love. Just as a man cannot love another man psychologically in the same way that he can love a woman, many Kabbalists were limited in their ability to love God in a way analogous to human Love. For the religion was sadly barren of a Goddess. For some, Shekinah served in the position of "Goddess," or God in feminine (thus, lovable) form. Heart to heart, a man could deeply love a feminine image in a more profound and meaningful way than another male. For this is a natural and normal Way of human Love.

The complete absence of a practical Goddess, in Kabbalism as in traditional Judaism, left males to conclude, a bit disingenuously, that women were the "source of sin," or "of evil." Thus did literalists blame the primary mother of all human beings, Eve, for "original sin."

For this reason, religious people, unlike their truly spiritual counterparts, were excessively uncomfortable with their own sexuality. This made many rabidly, insanely misogynistic (woman-hating). They regarded sex with a woman as a combination disease and anti-spiritual abandonment of the "purity" of God. Mystics did not buy into this distorted and unbalanced perspective. But it was precisely because some were so violently and dogmatically anti-sexual that all women everywhere became the universal scape-goats for the very presence of sexual impulses in males. They hated sexuality, and were consumed alive in the continuous hell of unremitting sexual guilt. Some men did not take any responsibility for their own quite natural sexual feelings. They considered these to be somehow abnormal, when not abominable. So, they did not "own" them, in terms of psychology. Instead, they "blamed" these "horrible feelings" on demons and devils--or else, on women. It was the attractiveness of women that stirred the sexual responses of males. So, the worshipers of the all-male Yahweh-Jehovah saw it as the responsibility or fault of women that men even experienced these feelings. Instead of doing as many other cultures, embracing sexuality as normal and worthy of even celebration, the ancient Israelis and other extremists continued to bemoan sexuality, complaining that it was "demonic" and dangerous. And if it was dangerous, so were all women.

Originally, casual sex was prohibited because, in an all-warrior community, men would be raping women non-stop. The prohibition against production of children-- who had to be fed and cared for by the nation-- was at first an economic and practical necessity. So, sexual intercourse was limited strictly to marriage, and wisely so.

There then arose a paradox: The production of too many children could be catastrophic for the nation. But the army continually needed fresh blood, new young people to fill the ranks. So, child-production became the worst tragedy and the greatest blessing. Married women who could not bear children were abandoned by husbands, who often divorced them and married another, or who simply took other wives in polygamy, with religious blessing. (Moses, David, Abraham, and other heroes of Judaism were polygamists.) Those who worshiped an all-male god were very harsh with, and even cruel toward, women. Divorce, for example, was ridiculously easy for men, but only they, not women, could obtain one. (There was little to no punishment for wife-abuse, including beatings, and even murders.) For any ancient woman, marriage was a nightmare of slavery and painful abuse. Men were expected to be sexually active with, but not necessarily to love, their wives.

In time, the original prohibitions against producing children became irrationally generalized to all sexual activity. Although all "fornication" was prohibited by the all-male god, so was ordinary masturbation, for it was "wasting of seed." This god showed no understanding of human sexuality, and no tolerance. So, the Jews were particularly scandalized when Jesus took an almost-opposite view, readily forgiving sexual errors on the spot, forgiving people caught in the very act of adultery, forgiving prostitutes, and even predicting that these despised women would "enter the kingdom" of God sooner than the religious and respectable "righteous" people.

If the worship of an all-male god is so distorting, it stands to reason that the reasonable and compassionate person, like the mystics, would seek to rebalance matters by including Goddess as a living and active part of God.

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KABBALISM PUSHES US TO GROW SPIRITUALLY

The personal introduction to the Mystery called "God" was pathetic. It was a poor, but vintage, brand of Christian fundamentalism. Its god was a "monstergod," whose will it was to "destroy" (polite euphemism for murder, slaughter, massacre) almost all his children at a bloody and horrific war against humanity called "Armageddon." The leaders of the cult which swallowed our family insisted that God was the Yahweh-Jehovah of the Hebrew Scriptures. He was a very unstable, violent, atrocious, barbarous, unfeeling god without Love, guilty of documented genocides in the Bible itself.

For about the first sixteen years of life, it was believed that this hideous god sat just above the clouds, taking notes on everyone's behavior, lusting for their blood.

At about age twenty-two, a profound mystical experience occurred. At the time, the word "mysticism" was totally unknown, but fanatical xenophobes would have dismissed it as some form of "demonism," so biased and so ignorant were they.

Shortly after, mysticism was encountered in literature. Shortly after that, the Jewish form called "Kabbalah" was discovered. Kabbalistic literature was rife with conundrums, inscrutable sayings, and tangled paradoxes. It said things that were never heard before, such as, "God is within everything," and, "God is within your heart."

These mysteries needed solution. They swept up mystics in a race for understanding. So, reading increased. And meditation began.

It was not long before the rather complex mystical diagram called the "Tree of Life" was discovered. In it, the passage from Malkuth (this world) through Yesod (imagination and dreams) through Chesed (Love) to Ayn (God) could all be traced clearly.

After some time, it became known (through revelation from the deep Unconscious) what the Kabbalists meant when they said that God is in everything. For God is Mind, and Mind dreams up everything in the "material" and "external" world. Just as when you dream at night of a red wagon and a blue ball, you are "in" that wagon and that ball, so God, in dreaming up the "physical" universe, "indwells" everyone and everything within it.

God is also in the heart, for She is the deepest part of the human mind, and thus, of the emotional nature (heart). For God, said the Kabbalists, was never a "person," like the Yahweh-Jehovah, the scriptural and historical god of the Jews. "Person" means "mask," and so all of us, as "masks" of God, are "persons." The mystic tries to erase her "personhood," and strive to become its opposite-- an "individual." This word means "un-divided," or one with, the whole of creation. She becomes "one with all" by becoming one with the infinite Mind that dreams all into being.

This vision of the world as "play," "movie," "virtual reality," or "dream" implies that a person should never be controlled by the world, for a healthy mind is not controlled by a mere dream. Instead, when all is in order, the mind controls the dream, not vice-versa.

On the surface, the idea that the world around us is not "real" is mind-boggling. But if a person meditates, and introspectively studies herself and her world, the idea that the world is only a relative reality begins, gradually, to make sense. After all, says the Kabbalist, you can go with, "I think, therefore I am," but it does not logically follow that therefore you can prove to yourself that an independent "real" world exists outside of your mind. In fact, it can be inferred, as Kabbalists do, that, in order to exist at all, a thing or object must have a mind to perceive or sense it.

If this is the case, and neophysicists are beginning to insist that it is, then no matter can exist without mind. Kabbalists say, indeed, that all matter does exist only because a supreme Mind also exists. Because this Mind dreams up the whole universe, in this capacity, it is called the "Creator." (Some mystics also use, synonymously, the noun "Dreamer.")

If the cosmos is indeed a dream, it comes from within the mind. Your cosmos comes (arises) from your unconscious. If the cosmos is a dream, or virtual Mind-reality, then perfect justice-- the outworking of perfect karma-- is possible. For each of us dreams up exactly, precisely the events and environments needed (and stored in memory) for our best spiritual, intellectual, and emotional growth. You are not dreaming up your world personally, but the One is dreaming up the cosmos through all of us. All our minds are part of one vast, immense Mind, to which we are connected through the unconscious.

Psychologically, say Kabbalists, the unconscious can be divided into two parts: 1) the subconscious, familiar to all psychologists, and 2) the superconscious, about which only Kabbalists and other mystics write and speak. This Superconscious is purest beauty, wisdom, and other superlative positivities. It is purest, stainless Love. The mystic wants her personal mind to disappear into this Superconscious Mind, leaving not a trace.

How does the Kabbalist approach this erasure of her merely human identity, to replace it with a spiritual identity? She starts, say Kabbalists, with the gradual erasure of all personal desires. This does not mean that the Kabbalist has no desires at all; that is a very serious misunderstanding. The Kabbalist wants hundreds of good things. The key is not the eradication of all desires, but only personal desires. This is so that the personal will can be replaced by the "will of God." The "will of God" includes all the "desires of Love," for "will" means "desire," and God is Love. So, the mystic wants nothing personally. But still, she wants many things-- all the events, situations, and changes wanted by Love. She vows to her Self to want only what Love wants.

Since she has no personal will, she cannot be trapped by the many subtle snares of greed, selfishness, rivalry, unkindness, fighting, war, and many other corruptions based on ego and ego-desires. When she gets desire under control, and wants nothing personally, she overcomes a plethora of weaknesses that would otherwise paralyze her spiritually, and ruin her psychologically.

She wants, to repeat, to disappear into an interior Mind. It is within her. It is the Mind of God. It is perfect Mind. It is a Mind of giganticity, immensity, and enormous vastness. It is the Infinite. This explains the meaning of the ancient Proverb ascribed to the mystic Solomon, "He has put eternity into the heart of man." It is the Mind of galactic Love, beauty, harmony, wisdom, and goodness. And, although in ignorance, the ancients projected it into the sky, it does not live there. (The sky is just part of the dream.) It lives within your heartmind, and mine.

"God," say Kabbalists, is the one Mind within all smaller minds. It is also the sum total of all the Love in all the minds in all the life-forms on all the planets in all the galaxies! No wonder that the Kabbalists say that It is ineffable, immeasurable, incomprehensible, and indescribable.

This amazing, astonishing Lord of endless Love and bottomless beauty makes Yahweh-Jehovah look like the pitiable human-fabricated myth that he is. For he is puny and terribly tiny, filled with human imperfections, by comparison. He is petty and obsessed with trivialities. The pathetic Jehovah admits that he gets jealous, and, in the Hebrew Scriptures, he pursues a small band of nomads, begging them to worship only him. (The Christian gnostics identified Jehovah as a limited, pathetic, harmful, pitiable, and negative spirit.)

By describing the true God as the "unknown" Ayn, and by dismissing and rejecting the historical, scriptural Jehovah as a misunderstanding and a fraud, the Kabbalists reached for a higher Reality. (A favorite mystical name for "God" is "Reality," for they say that only Mind is real.) They tried to worship a God that was far beyond the comprehension of three pounds of gray matter, the human brain. If we could grasp or understand God, said the Kabbalists, he would not be God; or, at least, it would not be much of a "god" if it could be known by a three-pound brain.

Being liberated forever from the angry, vengeful, violent, unforgiving, anthropomorphic god of the Hebrew Scriptures was the greatest relief! It was also a great personal result of Kabbalism. Nothing in the universe feels better than the worship of Love Itself. Mystics worship Love. For mysticism, including Kabbalism, identifies God as Love. God does not have Love, but God is Love.

There is no "puppet-master" in the sky, no "big daddy out there." There is no one out there. That is why, when people pray to the skies, there appears to be no one there. God is not, has never been, out there. God is not a "papa" with favorites, eager to "save" his children from learning through suffering. On these points, mystics say, atheists are absolutely right. But they are wrong when they say that there is no God. They are right when they say only that there is no White Knight, no Santa Claus, no genie, in the sky.

God as Love does not prevent challenging trials. But it is Love that aids us to go through these trials, these tests and exams, and to pass. Why does not God prevent trials and tribulations? Love can prevent all of these, by preventing the harmful karma that are the seeds of negative events. But God (Love) does not want to prevent many events, situations, and circumstances which we might find disturbing or frightening, because these are the very ones that we need in order to grow spiritually, mentally, or emotionally.

Without any challenges, a human child becomes an uncontrollable and "spoiled brat," unhappy, ignorant, and unlearned. Grown-up human beings are the same: She who has never suffered can know no compassion; and she who knows no compassion has no Love.

Earth, say Kabbalists, is a "school" to teach Love. It is not our home, the home of the Soul. For because the Soul exists in another dimension, that of Mind, the Soul's home must also exist in that other dimension, that other plane or universe. This is that place or condition of deep, bottomless peace that we discover after death. Medical specialists have proved that consciousness continues after death. In fact, it is considerably improved by being outside of an "animal" body, and is exposed to rapturous excitations of ecstasy, bliss beyond words.

So, Kabbalists say, the end of this life is not the end of mind. When we die, we do not end. We continue beyond death, in higher, more elevated, more blissful, conditions. Thus does Kabbalism give hope, not only for life, but for life after life.

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WORDS TO LOVE BY, sent in by Pat Fields

"No more important duty can be urged upon those who are entering the great theater of life than simple loyalty to their best convictions."-- Edwin H. Chapin (1814-1880)***"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on."-- Havelock Ellis (1859-1939)***"Man should not consider his material possessions his own, but common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need."-- Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274)***"There is only one journey-- going inside yourself."-- Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)***"The best that the great teachers can do for us is to help us to discover what is already present in ourselves."-- Irving Babbitt (1865-1933)***"There is no old age. There is, as there always was, just you."-- Carol Matthau (1925-2003)***"There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up."-- John Andrew Holmes***"Live simply that others may simply live."-- Elizabeth Seton (1774-1821)

The Lovelight of Gnosticism

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The first time that I read Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels was shortly after its publication in 1979. After that, I reread it three times. Each time, it taught me something new, and changed my life yet a little more. It was nothing less than an explosion of mind, turning my spiritual world topsy-turvy, redefining everything that I thought I had known about early Christianity. Even stranger, I felt an immediate resonance-- a very powerful one-- with the antitraditional "gnostic Christians." (Pagels calls them this, respecting the fact that they were Christians, even though unorthodox and anti-orthodox.)

Before the year 200, the Church was violently ripped in half, between the "orthodox" and the "gnostics." The former forced the Church to evolve into a political and economic institution, similar to an ancient "corporation." This meant that, after that time (c. 200 CE), it had to be concerned with money, real estate, and general wealth. According to many, this corrupted the church's original "purity."

The orthodox taught that God could be accessed through only the formal and institutional Church. The gnostics believed, by contrast, that God could and did deal with individuals on a personal basis and level. The orthodox taught that the only way that God ever communicated with the person was through the officers of the Church, the priests and bishops.

While the formal Church recycled and reiterated, in endless reruns and replays, the public teachings of Jesus, the gnostics claimed that Jesus also taught an "esoteric" set of ideas hidden from the public. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, claims to be the "secret" teachings of Jesus. These concepts concerned the interiority of God as Love, the universalism of salvation, the inner "Kingdom of God," and many other ideas, all mystical. God, said the Jesus of Thomas, could and should be contacted by the individual independent of the Church. This scared the orthodox, for it made the official Church unnecessary, or at least, optional.

Some of the teachings of this Jesus are so obscure that they are likened by Pagels to Zen "koans" (pronounced "ko'-ans). These are riddles that do not have "logical " solutions, but are created to free the student entirely from servitude to the logic of intellect.

Another mystical Gospel, that of Phillip, criticized two orthodox teachings-- that of the virgin birth and that of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. It was common for gnostics negatively to analyze traditional beliefs as "unprogressive," or stuck in unmoving stasis. The wars and battles between the orthodox and gnostics were fast and furious, and flowed in both directions.

The gnostics were big on "mysteries." While orthodoxy saw as its prime mission the explication of all mystery, solving them, to eradicate all mystery, gnostics were just the opposite. They celebrated the existence of mystery, and implied that it existed as a teaching-mechanism to draw people upward in spiritual evolution. In fact, the word "gnostic" arises from the Greek gnosis. This is usually translated as "knowledge," but its true meaning is much more mysterious. For it was actually the immediate, direct, powerful, personal, full and complete realization of the intimate Presence of God as Love within the individual. All ideas of "transcendence" (God's existing above and outside of creation) went up instantly in a flash of light. God was within, not outside of, creation. God lived within every mind. This was the ultimate "Mystery," giving rise to the synonym of "gnosticism," mysticism. For gnostics were mystics.

And, very contrary to orthodoxy, they shared many teachings, and a welcome brotherhood, with mystics of other traditions, including those of the mystery religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and various "pagan" faiths. Mysticism (gnosticism) was inclusive, the orthodox Church exclusive.

Many people, from many religious traditions, said the gnostics, had received a genuine and truthful revelation from God, at various times throughout history. By stark contrast, the orthodox held that their god had revealed "himself" (always male) to only the Hebrews. This was despite the fact that most of the "laws of Yahweh" had been fully abandoned by the Christians.

The gnostic texts contained alternative Gospels, about the life of Jesus Christ, but they also included a wider assortment of documents claimed to have originated with the early founders of the original church. Among these texts were the "Apocryphon of John" (contained "mysteries"), the "Gospel of Truth," the "Gospel of the Egyptians" (the "sacred book of the great invisible Spirit"), the "Secret Book of James," the "Apocalypse of Peter," the "Apocalypse of Paul," the "Letter of Peter to Phillip," and others. The original texts were written in Greek, as early as 122 CE-- only twenty years after the Gospel of John.

The orthodox hated the gnostics with a passion. Paradoxically, they claimed to be motivated by the "Love of God" to express damnation and personal repulsion in the most vivid, graphic, and horrifying terms. Among these seething orthodox critics we find that Irenaeus and Tertullian stand out as particularly vitriolic. Among the defenders of the
Way of gnosticism were Marcion, Marcus, and Valentinus-- all writing about 140.

The orthodox, in using such labels as "satanic" and "demonic," quickly lost all hope for objectivity, and fell into the paranoia of name-calling. A few gnostics returned like for like, but, as a whole, gnostics did not return evil for evil.

More often, they used the texts of the official Scriptures to defend their positions. In fact, this was so often true that the gnostics have been credited with actually originating Scripture-based argumentation. It was their self-defenses, based on Scripture, that created a reciprocal response in the orthodox. The very hateful and unbalanced orthodox, such as Irenaeus (about 180) actually imitated the despised gnostics in preparing his own Bible-based defenses.

At a very early time in Christianity, the gnostic works had wide circulation. (Thomas dates to before 140; it very likely contains sayings going back all the way to around 50.) They must have been familiar to Christians of the orthodox as well as the gnostic traditions.

This brings us to the second part of this report. The second book by Elaine Pagels is Beyond Belief: the Secret Gospel of Thomas. This ancient document, a real hornet's nest in the early orthodox Church, is as old as the canonical Gospels, and contains material that predates even Mark (c. 70 CE). But it did not pass the doctrinal tests and "screening" created by the early Church fathers. It was because of this rejection that Thomas is not part of our official Holy Bible today.

Its 119 verses contain some of the most mysterious texts in the history of Christianity. But the gnostics saw this as a plus; for they sought mystery as much as they sought answers.

In this text, for example, Jesus says, "Until you make the outside as the inside,… you shall not enter the Kingdom." To the mystic, this means that there is a symmetry between the Mind and the world. This reflectivity, as in a mirror, proves that the world is a product of Mind. The divine Mind is "dreaming up" the world through our smaller minds.

In terms of those seeking an "outer" kingdom, Jesus says, "What they have looked for is already here, … spread out over the earth." For the "kingdom of God" is an interior phenomenon. It is not a literal government, but a state of consciousness, i.e., enlightenment.

Jesus manifest the Spirit of the Christ. "Jesus" is the name of his human form, and "Christ" is the name of his state of spiritual enlightenment. The relationship between the Christ and the Christian is so intimate, deep, and profound, that the goal is a full identification between the two minds. They would literally fuse and become one, as the believer strove to become the "incarnation" of Love (God or Christ). In the Gospel of Phillip, it says that the convert became "not only a Christian, but a Christ."

So, in Thomas, Jesus Christ says of the enlightened, "He will become my very self,… I shall become he." This glorious state of utter transformation in full Union is the goal of all mystical traditions.

A study of the intriguing concepts of the gnostic literature would greatly enrich the life of any traditional Christian. The non-traditional Christian could be so greatly enriched by this introduction to mysticism. The non-Christian could also benefit by an introduction to a Way of meaning, for this can become a meaningless and empty world, if one has not cultivated her spiritual roots and grounding (centering) in Love. In sum, no matter with what preconceptions you approach the literature of gnosticism, it is bound to enrich you, your experience of the world, nature, friendship, service, Love, and compassion. A very direct, immediate, and explosively life-changing relationship with the Infinite-- however you define that term-- is promised by the writings of the Way. In our world, which is often nothing less than a spiritual desert, no promise could be more satisfying.

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