Dear Friends,
Among the many healings recorded in the Gospels, there is the story of Jesus healing the blind beggar by spitting on some clay, putting the clay on the eyes of the blind man and telling him to wash at the pool of Siloam, which John mentions means “sent.”
There are many interesting aspects to each healing that our Lord performs. In many descriptions, he requires the person to actively do something to affirm their healing; in this case it was to wash his eyes in the pool, whose water was used by the priests as part of the feast of Sukkot or Tabernacles, in the Fall of the year.
Water from the pool was drawn and placed in a vessel in the Temple, then returned ceremonially back to the pool.
When the man washed in the pool, he could see, although he was born blind.
In yet another reference to reincarnation, his disciples asked whether he had sinned or his parents to cause this condition. Jesus replied that it was neither but to show the glory of God.
The remainder of the story shows yet again how grievously the religious officials missed the mark in their questioning the healing and the healer. They were fixated upon what the person did to cause his blindness, rather than be glad for the glory of God, in blessing the man and his family.
Sometimes it’s hard not to wish that Jesus was here in the flesh, performing these wonderful healings in our modern day. And yet, he brought us Easter, and the Resurrection. He is continually sent and has become the pool of Siloam, the lamb of God, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, closer than hands and feet.
No matter what karmic condition exists in us or in our brother, we are shown by our Master that the law of Grace and Love supersedes all.
May the healing power of our Creator, through Lord Jesus Christ, stir the waters and pour blessings upon the Earth and all its peoples, and upon you.
-Rev. Mary Anderson
Jesus
-taken from classes by Father Paul
… If you have any question in your mind as to whether the New Testament is the handbook of man on this orb or not, then you’ve got a problem. Because Jesus Christ came here, and he has returned, as he said he would, already; and his power and his mantle overshadows this earth and permeates it. We have a problem right today with certain spiritual teachings. Why? Not that the teachings are wrong, but the fact that they won’t admit and they won’t acknowledge the Lord of earth. This you can’t back away from. This has to be maintained, because it’s through this that you are functioning.
I have said, “Look and concentrate and meditate on your atmosphere. And as your atmosphere is set up, this will declare what shall come through it.” So you can think, for the time until you get a true vision and true sight, of Jesus as having an atmosphere which surrounds the earth, and you wouldn’t be too far wrong. But I’m not going any further with this to confuse you.
As Jesus came to us and experienced the great Initiations that we might be brought into his Light, so also did he experience them for the fulfillment of the pattern of the Host and so those things which had been prophesied would also be fulfilled. For in this he gave unto the world those things which were necessary, as time moved on.
He reenacted the grand play of iniitiation in this earth, in order to bring about to the conscious mind of the masses the forgiveness and the ladder, Jacob’s ladder, the ladder to heaven.
Question from class: And this was the initiation for the illunination for the whole earth?
This was a demonstration of the initiation. It is the same as – I have a man here who is a past Master, and he’s having his consciousness of this brought back to him. He’s very rapidly accelerating, and has gone through these experiences again so that he can teach. Except that Jesus did it in a greater way.
Take into consideration the whole human race. If you went into some orders you would go through ceremonies and act parts in plays, so to speak, in the temple, that would demonstrate some of these things. You wouldn’t have any spiritual experience, necessarily, but you would see the enactment of the plays. Back in the time of ancient Greece, these same things were enacted. All of the teachings, pretty nearly, were given in the form of plays. Here’s where our opera and stage plays come from, you see.
When Jesus went into the Garden of Gethsemane, or into the desert to pray for forty days and forty nights, he experienced the great aloneness, the great crucifixion in reality. Of course, the actual crucifixion was held on Golgotha, but in the desert he became crucified of the Spirit and was tempted, and then he found himself alone in the world: this is the next step. Then the crucifixion came, then the ascension. Now these are all parts of the initiations, the solar initiations. He experienced them all and went through them all, but he went through them consciously, and didn’t have to, having had his own personal experience long ages before. Therefore when he went through these things voluntarily, he did it for the people of earth. Just as a master Teacher might take on somebody’s karma, if they were important enough, so he took on the world karma and transmuted it. THE EARTH.
If you ask a minister somewhere what Jesus did, he might say, “Oh, he brought salvation to the people. He is our saviour; he caused people’s sins to be forgiven.” They leave out the earth entirely. Well, people couldn’nt have had any experience if the earth had gone kaplop. It’s absolute inconsistency. You have to get used to thinking just as it is, taking both the unseen and the seen together. “And for those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned.” (Matt. 4:16) The Path has been illumined, you see. Now, this doesn’t say anything about understanding, or all the other alibis that people can think of. This spells it out, and there could be no mistake.
Question: What is the meaning of the crucifixion?
At the crucifixion the Master gave his blood and allowed the Christ, the personality of Christ which he had taken on at the baptism, the whole power and personality he took on was then emptied into the earth through his blood.
What does that mean?
Well, in the blood of man is his experience, deposited in the soul – the experience, the vibrational patterns.
What was wrong with the physical condition of the earth?
The vibration of the earth’s atmosphere and the vibrations here in the earth were in such condition that it needed just that. He brought the atonement. He wiped away the past from man and gave him a new break, a new start. He paid the supreme sacrifice, in other words. Don’t forget, a thing doesn’t become a reality on earth until it is both a pattern made in heaven and then manifested on earth. I use the word “heaven” as meaning “the upper level of vibration”, higher frequency.
We approach getting acquainted with Jesus as a very difficult thing, because we feel we’re reaching about five miles into the atmosphere someplace, trying to grasp into something. Well, that isn’t where it is; it’s right here. And if we can simply say to ourselves, now I’m going to talk to Jesus, and just talk to him. Say, “Jesus, Master, I’d like to ask some questions. What about this problem of mine? How do I get rid of it? How do I do this?” You know, you’d be surprised. If you expected an answer, you’d probably get one. You might even see him.
MARY
The Lenten meditation, “O Glorious Father, reveal within me the mystery of our holy Mother Mary”, leads to the thought that Mary is not just “our” mother. She is the mother of Christianity, through her bearing of him who brought Christ into the world. Jesus couldn’t appear in a physical vehicle until one such as Mary came first, worthy to provide the pure medium needed to nurture the holy Child.
But Mary represents more than the vehicle for a divine incarnation two thousand years ago. The spirit of the divine Mother is also that which nurtures the Christ child born within each person when the soul has attained to a certain level of realization.
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“O Glorious Father, reveal within me the mystery of our holy Mother Mary.” Is this the Spirit which receives and nurtures the seed of the coming Christ?
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“O thou great Master Jesus, channel of Light.”
Mary provided the physical vehicle for that channel of Light. She was the means of bridging the gap between God and humanity through bringing us the Master Jesus, and he became the bridge between heaven and earth, as our direct means of contact with the heavenly Father.
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Mary’s fiat was her acceptance of the mission to act as a channel for the Light to come into the world. She must have agreed to this in the heaven world before coming to earth, and to have accepted there the role for which she had been well-prepared.
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Her response at the Annunciation seems to reveal that such an attitude must be achieved before the Christ can be born in any individual. The trusting acceptance and humility that says simply, “Here I am Lord, ready to do Thy Will.”
We must first attain a state of consciousness similar to that of the Virgin Mary before we can enter into the spirit of the Christ. Thus is the Son born of the mother.
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Sri Ramakrishna said: ”Everyone is under the authority of the Divine Mother, Mahamaya, the Primal Energy. Even the Incarnations of God accept [her help] to fulfill their mission on earth.”
-Excerpts from Pondering by Rev. Mother Ruth Blighton
Science and Religion
Science is about the process of asking questions. The attempt to answer our questions about how things work leads to a deeper understanding of the world around us, but it always raises more questions. Science is a human response to the unknown — so as long as there are humans to ask questions, there will never be an end to science. By the same token, we shouldn’t be afraid to embrace the unknown — the gaps in our knowledge of the divine — as a way toward understanding God. In faith as well as in science, asking questions when faced with mystery is human nature. It’s naive to think that we have the capacity to diminish God’s power, love, or scope of action simply by asking questions. In fact, I submit that a questioning spirit ought to play an important role in the faith life of a Christian. Far from discouraging inquiry, the Bible urges it: “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened,” says Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. [Matt. 7:7-8]Our questions take different forms. We may use our faculty of reasoning to probe the physical universe God has created; we may challenge God for answers in times of pain and grief; we may read Scripture and ask what it means for our lives. Of course, nowhere are we guaranteed concrete answers. There is an Orthodox Christian saying (whose origin I’ve not been able to track down) that says, “God is unknowable, but you have to know him to know that.” More often than not, God does not give complete answers, but instead responds with more questions. The Book of Job is a deep exploration of this questioning dynamic. When Job challenges God, demanding an explanation for his afflictions, his friends each offer different reasoning. When God replies, he sweeps aside their answers as simplistic, and responds instead by interrogating Job, “I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” [Job 38:3-4].
The creation narrative that follows, in the form of questions directed to Job, is one of the most breathtaking passages in Scripture. When God has concluded, Job doesn’t really have an answer to the original question — Why am I afflicted? — but he has a new and deeper understanding of God.
“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” [Job 42:5]
We had seen the universe with the seeing of the eye, but now our ears hear it. Gravitational waves raise more questions than they answer, but their discovery gives us a profound way of understanding the cosmos that we didn’t have before. If we fear the gaps in our knowledge, we hold back from asking the questions that lead to discoveries like this, and we miss out on the opportunity to know God a little better through creation.
Jenna Freudenburg in Sojourners Magazine
New images returned by the Planck telescope (right) begin to rival the complexity and beauty of a great artists imagination – Starry Night. A visulization of the Planck data represents the interaction of interstellar dust with the galactic magnetic field. Color defines the intensity of dust emisions and the measurements of polarized light reveals the direction of the magnetic field lines. (Credits: Vincent Van Gogh, ESA)
The Pool of Siloam
(Hebrew: בריכת השילוח, Breikhat Hashiloah) is a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem, located outside the walls of the Old City to the southeast. The pool was fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by two aqueducts.
From The Story of Jesus
Hebrew regulations for sanitation and ritual cleanliness prevented many of the problems of disease which plagued the surrounding nations of Jesus’ time. Eye diseases were one of the most common in Palestine, caused by continual exposure to dust and glaring sunlight. The Hebrews like all early peoples used natural remedies, but only they used them in conjunction with certain complicated procedures which minimized the direct importance of the remedy and transferred the balance of power to the accessory rituals.
The disinfectant property of saliva has long been known, as can be seen from animals instinctively licking their wounds to heal themselves. Greek and Roman physicians wrote concerning the use of sputum, and ancient rabbis taught that diseases of the eye should be treated with sputum of the first-born of a father…
Again, on his last visit to Jerusalem, as Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. We must work the works of Him Who sent me while it is day; night comes, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
As he said this, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the man’s eyes with the clay, saying, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” So he went and washed and came back seeing. (There is also an ancient rite wherein the novitiate candidate had his eyes anointed with clay, then washed with holy water, to signify the opening of the spiritual sight.)
The neighbors and those who had seen this man before as a beggar said, “Is not this the man who used to sit and beg?”
Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He said, “I am the man.” Therefore, they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?“
He answered, “A man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash’; so I went and washed and received sight.”
They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I know not.”
Then they brought to the Pharisees this man who had been formerly blind. Now it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. The Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”
Spring Equinox
…At this time of year a new life, an augmented energy sweeps over the earth with its irresistible impulse of the spirit through the many arteries and veins of the earth and its living body.
Infused by its Lord and Master Jesus Christ.
Inspiring and instilling new hope and new ambition, washing away of the old errors and starting anew.
We are impelled to the activity of reaching toward God the Father, that we may learn the new lessons in the school of experience.
Consciously or unconsciously, we will reap the benefits of the out welling of the vigorous impulse of life in everything that lives; in the plant kingdom, in the animal kingdom, and in the kingdom of man.
Once again we seek through the multiplication of the many life forms of earth, to glorify a higher state of consciousness of the Father’s creation.
Once again, through the wonders of the transformation of the elements and minerals and forces of earth manifested; physically change the waste of forms past and dead, in the rebirth of new forms to come, into the wondrous bloom of the gardens, of the fields, and of the forests.
The breeze at dawn
Has secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep
You must ask
For what you really want
Don’t go back to sleep
People are going back and forth
Across the doorsill
Where the two worlds touch
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep
-Rumi