Tag Archives: Jesus

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The False Prophet

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The name of Christ will be restored, it belongs only to Christ. Much has been said about Jesus Christ by those who never knew him. They tell a grand story, making great claims on his behalf. It begins with his mother, a woman, so pure that even God could not resist her and she gave birth to God’s son, Jesus. This man, Jesus, was in turn, no ordinary man, he was God. Being human we each can be certain of one thing, no man is God. All men are ordinary and Jesus was a man. We know this because a woman gave him birth. He taught us what ordinary men are capable of. He is not the only one and Christ will return. If you would know the true story of Jesus then know Christ, not the stories others tell about Christ.

It is an insult to the legacy of Jesus to suggest he was other than human.

I suspect many have known Christ in their lifetimes but not all are called to do what Jesus did. It is sad that we have taken the life and actions, of this man, Jesus, and reduced them to a fanciful tale we know is not true. A story we can not believe except by faith. We do not need faith to know God, to know Christ, we only need to ‘be’ and choose their acquaintance. This secret is known by each of us. It is an understanding we can not escape although we are free to ignore it. Mostly that is what we do, creating a fiction we call reality.

The fictional life of Jesus Christ is false and those who repeat it are false prophets. Have confidence and find your strength. Walk the path that Jesus did and you will know Christ.

It is this action of knowing Christ that tells the truth that Jesus knew. It seems there are different degrees, or appointments, in our acquaintance with Christ, ranging from ignorance/denial to full-blown companionship. A state where Christ makes an appearance as a person, a human being that anyone might know. It seems that Jesus was that Christ. Clearly few are called to do this but I believe this is what he did and I am confidant someone else will do the same. That was his message, the lesson, the example of his life.

What of the of the power of faith, of faith in Jesus? The good works done through faith and faiths ability to affect us. Faith is a mask for confidence  It pretends to be confidence but confidence has no need of it. For a healthier mind, and relationship with God, skip the faith and let all of your confidence rest with God. Make no claim on God’s behalf. Allow for naught and then God can present God’s self, as God is, or as God is naught. It is alright. What threat could you be to God and any God worth knowing is no threat to you.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

The Ordinary Life of Jesus Christ

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Ordinariness. I have written of this before. I believe in what is ordinary, that only the ordinary exists. Anything we consider extraordinary, most notably for the purpose of this blog, human endeavour, is the work of ordinary people. Conversely, I might consider everything to be extraordinary but I do not, I believe in ordinariness. That is not to say that we are all the same or that each of us has the same thing to do. We are just ordinary people, each of us, no matter what we do.

As a mystic this has always been my guiding principle. As a Catholic, a Christian, it is what drove me from the church. To my mind Jesus was as ordinary a human being as are you or I. That is the whole point of the story. Dogma and doctrine paint him as something much more than that, God incarnate. It is not true. A woman gave him birth, the same as you or I. The story of his deity is the story of power and undue influence wrought by those who tell such stories. It is not hard to believe that in the fourth century, around 326 A.D., when the Constantine ordered the Council of Nicaea, for the purpose of organizing the christian church, that these were the men who founded Christianity as we know it. They assembled the books that would become the New Testament. A small sampling of a larger collection, doctrine and dogma was set in place. Jesus did not do that. Others who claim to be his church did. Or course the books of the New Testament support their position and their claims. They were selected to do just that.

Churches, in particularly large churches, are political institutions. Designed to control people, often the result is violence and oppression. When a person or a group claims to be right, because of their ‘sacred text’, written words, they have undue influence. No words are sacred unless all words are. I do not believe any church. No truth can be written down. We write about it but the truth represents itself. It is its own evidence. Any who seek it can find it. It is important to first let go of what is not true and make no claim of ownership of what is true. Written words for example.

“I am the way the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me”. I can not arrive at a beautiful vista and share it with someone who is not there. To share the view of anyone who has found anything, regardless of its relative value, you have to be there. You are also that way, that truth, and that light.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

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The Salvation of Jesus

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Writing as the Mystic Tourist I have altered my presence in the collective mind. Of the people who have known me and been my community, none knew the Mystic Tourist, until I created him and gave him a blog. Of course I am the Tourist and I am as I was before. The difference is that I have let anyone who can find my work, know. Additionally I have done what I can to make myself available so any who know me personally might also know, The Mystic Tourist. It creates a different consideration of my self.

My concerns are spiritual. I know of no other way to consider anything, even as I am distracted. I am happy to share my view of current social-political concerns. The way I think we ought to behave as a society. I enjoy letting people know where I think we have fallen down and how I think we might best stand ourselves up. These are distractions. It is what I do as filler. Something, anything to do with my mind and the small measure of time apportioned to it for it to spend. There is always something that I might otherwise do. A different way to spend myself. I think we can do a lot to improve the condition of life here on earth and to create a future more to our liking. I also think that we do all of that as spiritual persons. That it is the spiritual part of our being that is power and authority. The bridge that is creation.

My concerns are spiritual and I while my time to bring spiritual living into animal form. I did this first by creating a spiritual place for myself. A place to discover something true about my experience as a spiritual person. That was very powerful. Step two has been to shine a light on that, to let people know of the rich spiritual experience I have known. Step three is a shared experience. To end the mystery of spiritual life by living it in the open, not as an act of  ’faith’ but as a fact of life. To demonstrate our spiritual form, not as a philosophy, not as an interpretation of theology or scripture, but as my life. The purpose of my life can not be to die and go to heaven. To imagine that as the answer to life, as its purpose, is to be dishonest. If I can only know after I am dead and gone, why I am here, I have told myself a lie. This is the place, this is the form, this is the person to know the answer and now is the time or I am lying to myself.

In the Christian tradition we are all waiting for Jesus to return and when he does he will bring a harsh judgement, except of course, for the few. The chosen few. Mind you this is the Jesus who reportedly, in his last agonizing moment, sought the forgiveness of those who humiliated him, tortured him and brutally murdered him. Such a man could have no part of a judgement so harsh that it landed almost all of us in hell. Not just any hell mind you, but a hell so unbearable that it never ends.

The story of  Jesus is meaningless if Jesus is God. Its only possible value is if it is our story. The story of our human nature and of how and who we are. That is the message and it is not a message of how to be after we are dead. It is how we must be now. If you would know Jesus then know yourself. He is the same as you are. The story of his return is your story, it is my story. If Jesus or anyone else could live the life that he did, then surely, someone else will do it as well.

There is no reason to believe that Jesus founded a church. Others did that in his name. They assembled a book and then claimed that the words therein were God’s words. It is not true. You must have faith to believe that. I have no faith, but I do have confidence, all of it rests with God. Fear of God? I have no fear, certainly not of God. I fear those who claim to speak for God, who claim they own God by some book, written words. I fear those who claim to speak for God and threaten me with hell. Forgiveness, that is what it is about. It is the narrow gate. To deal with those who make false claims of God, for and about God, forgive them, by acting out the truth concerning God. Let God be God and make no claim on Gods behalf.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

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Consequence

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Life and death. Is there any difference? My life is but a fleeting moment against known time. How could there be any difference? There is not and so I think I must be alive.

I spoke with Jesus one day and he told of surrender. That if I were to surrender to Jesus I only need surrender to myself. That like me, a woman had given him birth. He was a being so brilliant that a robe covered all but his head and feet, otherwise I could not approach.

Satan cares nothing about you or me. It is our caring for Satan that harms us. If we just let Satan go, Satan is gone and we walk in the light where we belong. Because we are not dead, and life is so brief, death could be of little consequence. We are alive. There can be no mistake. It ends where it came from. Choose your path carefully because that is where you are going. It does not end.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

Walking With Christ

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Years ago, somewhere in the area of 1982 or 83 I met Christ. It was the most frightening experience of my life. I was in the midst of rehabilitating my life. Unable to work I was teaching myself to stand up. I was bent. I took up bartering with a man who was working on his PhD in Transpersonal Psychology. He used Acupressure in his work and I performed Acupressure and acted as his counselor in exchange for the same. We did this for at least three years, maybe more. Intense psychotherapy. I had made the commitment to change my life and this was the path I found. My life had been filled with rage. I realized I am a mystic in 1969 and I did not like that. I got very angry and stayed that way until 1981, realizing then that the anger had made me what I was what I was angry about. I decided that I would embrace mysticism and if it had legs it would become my walk and if it did not I could finally be done with it and get on with my life.

I woke up one night, terrified, I was lying on my stomach pillow over my head, arms on top of that and desperately working to forget something. There was an enormous racket in my room above my bed. The noise kept up until I was fully awake and then a little longer. Long enough to assure that I was fully awake and asking myself, what the hell is going on? I realized I was terrified and in a full sweat, but not because of this racket, the sound, apparently, of large wings beating. Oddly, that did not bother me at all. I sat up and began to piece things together.

I had traveled, in a dream, for the deliberate purpose to meet someone. This person was made, as near as I could tell, of light. So bright that in order for me to approach a garment of some sort covered all but the head, hands and feet. I asked this one if he was who I thought he was, Christ, and the response was yes. I had traveled to meet this person and ask this question and yet was terrified. I immediately returned to my sleep place and furiously worked to forget it. I already told you how well that plan worked.

During that time of my life I did a lot walking, part of my bid to rehabilitate myself. Get rid of my constant pain, stand up straight and get back to work. It took two years to finish that work and be strong enough to even consider work again. One of my favorite walks was on the saltwater marshes of the San Francisco Bay. It was on one of these hikes that I realized, this was the place I had come to and walked with Christ. The whole business has such a profound and deep meaning for me personally there are no words to convey it.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

The Identity of Christ

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Reveal, using mystic calculus, the identity, capability and person of Christ. OK. In my usual way I pulled that sentence, word by word… from where? It is actually a topic I like to avoid, at least publicly. If I keep the rage calm perhaps I can breach even this topic. It is my rage, concerning this, that muddies the water rising a cloud to obscure what would otherwise be obvious. I know the identity of Christ. It is the nature of Christ that we all know this, Christ, is simply known by all. We just find our own way to muddy things up and avoid the issue. Anyone who brings divine living to fruition is Christ. It is not a matter saintly action, it is just matter of fact. Bring to the temporal reality, the temple of flesh, blood and bone, he who is. The human soul. Make the temple a place where the soul is who and how you are and Christ walks and talks. Secrets are no more. All mysteries fall away.

There, that was easier than I thought it would be.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

Whose God is it Anyway

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I tried to talk with God but he was too busy writing books. Books that were full of contradictions. He thought that was real funny. When he was not doing that he was busy laughing his ass off watching the countless people who could not make sense of his books and wound up in hell. He got a particular kick out the folks who were sure their faith had saved them, that they had found the one true religion. It was then that I realized he was not God. An Oger such as that is fiction created in our own hellish nightmare. God would save us from that if we would just let it go and let God represent God’s self. If we found the narrow gate of forgiveness and let compassion rule. Kind of like what Jesus said when he sought forgiveness. Not for himself but for the people who humiliated him, tortured him and brutally murdered him. You do not need a book to know how to do that. You just have to do it. It is a way to be that does not recognize the boundary or constraint of any religion.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012