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The Star of Bethlehem

12 Nov

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Radiant, warm light envelops me.
I feel calm and content.
I feel I am in good hands.
I hear things around me, almost I imagine,
Like angels singing.
And in the music I lose all sense of time.
I feel transported to another world.
And I see colours, rich and varied,
So many I have never seen before.
I am lost in wonder.
Am I dreaming?

But this cannot be since I am very much cognizant of my beating heart.
I am aware of every particle of myself.
And I know that, should I wish to leave, I can.
Who are you that I sense around me?
Who holds me close and warm in their arms?
Who sings so sweetly this ethereal refrain?

Important events need to be marked.
A stamp of approval needs to be set upon them
In accordance with the worth and significance of the circumstance.
It is not too often that a celestial body is used as a seal on a propitious occasion.
And it is not often that the hand of the Mover of All Things
Is inspired to mark – so visibly and so dramatically –
An event seemingly only of import to the human race,
And then, seemingly, only in a context
Applicable to a small segment of that population.

There are times in our lives which can never be forgotten:
Times which, by virtue of their magnitude either in shock value or ecstasy value,
Are indelibly imprinted on our hearts and minds,
Never to be erased or lost.

Here, we have an inexplicable natural phenomenon,
Lighting up the night skies,
More brightly visible to those people from so long ago
Than could ever now appear in our electrically generated age,
Foretold by the seers of that time,
And linked, it would seem, to the humble birth of a baby
With no entitlement to an official title or inheritance.

It is as if a cross has been placed
On a treasure map of the whole complex creation,
Giving, to all who can see it,
The coordinates to a trove of precious jewels
And treasure beyond measure.
Follow the steps and you will find it.
How could any clue be more obvious?
How could any signal be demarcated more clearly?
How blind would one have to be to not realize that this is seriously important?

Surely, if it is there for all to see then it must mean something.
And surely, whoever placed the star in the sky
Believed it was that significant a happening
That everyone should know about it,
Down to the least educated and least valued of people.

It must have been like a thunderous shout from the skies,
An in-your-face declaration of “Look here, whoever you are!”
An impossible-to-miss notification of an event declared before all,
By a mighty Being with the power to move the heavens to Its command.

Perhaps we should revisit our thoughts
On the significance of this momentous occasion.
Perhaps, although we know the story and the importance
Of the soul whose birth was marked by it,
We should question why the births of other figures,
Teaching very similar scriptures,
Were not marked in such a manner.
It seems as if there is more to this than meets the eye.
It is as if, even now, we are being told
“The treasure you seek lies here,
At this time, in this place, in this humble heart.”

Perhaps we should try to open our minds,
And explore the knowledge we can find there,
To unlock the answers to this riddle.

I am taken up to the top of a rainbow of light.
I am bathed in incandescent colours.
I become transparent,
And like a prism I refract the rainbow colours
Into a spectacular kaleidoscope
Of translucent crystal light.

I feel perhaps like a star might feel,
Pulsing with vibrant, splendid energy.
And as I look down beneath me
I see an azure blue ball
Radiating its ethereal beauty,
Mystical and magical,
In a calm, patient, velvet sea.

I feel a connection,
I feel a deep communication
Which transcends my capacity to describe its essence.
The best I can do is say that the interconnectedness of all things
Seems to be anchored at this point in the universe;
Where an incomparable star
Was placed on the brow
Of a special baby human being –
A mark impossible to ignore,
Ever to be remembered,
And indelibly engraving in the mind of humanity
The existence of God.

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Judas Iscariot

22 Sep


I follow the thread of the tale.
I see it has wound its way,
Ever present in the history of the soul,
Through the passage of time
Connecting each word,
Each paragraph,
Each chapter,
Into the fabric of a life.

In its meandering it has taken on a glow.
A gentle, quiet glow of effervescent silver sparks.
And if you look closely you can see them pulsating,
Like tiny explosions, one after the other,
In an electric display of miniature fireworks.
Yet there is no heat. It is cool and calming.

And as I follow this storyline,
Passing it gently through my hands,
I come to a place where I feel and see an anomaly.
It is as if the cord is broken, but it is not.
I can feel the gap and there is a definite break.
But no matter how I hold it or pull it on each side,
The apparent gap stays the same as if joined by an invisible link.

There are no sparks here, there is no glow,
Only a seemingly empty space
Representing a break –
But refusing to act as one.

I am intrigued.
I go through all the thoughts I can possibly find in my head
To explain this phenomenon.
Ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous,
The only one I can find that makes any sense
Is that there must be something there,
Its just I cannot feel it or touch it.
I have no sense that can detect it.
Therefore it must come from a world
Other than the physical one
I am inhabiting at this very instant.
Perhaps in that world,
Only the missing link can be perceived,
And the rest of the cord, which I have in my hands,
Is not visible there.

So now what?
My active imagination then begins to wonder
What lead am I following?
Whose strand of life is this?
If I could know that,
Maybe I would have a clue to that other world.

I feel a great sense of sadness welling up inside me.
As I hold this cool, feather-like strand,
I sense its loss and longing.
I sense its wishing that things could have been different.
I start to feel that it is trying to tell me
Of something that happened,
Which was unavoidable, destined and inevitable.

I sense and hear the anguish in its voice
Of how events were written into the history books
Long before they occurred.
And it sings to me the sad song of its fate,
Caught up in the rotating planets
And the coincidence of its being there,
Synchronizing with the juxtaposition
Of the earth, the sun and the moon.

And it whispers to me,
How in that unconscious moment,
When, hidden from the eyes of the seeing world,
The soul of a betrayer slipped into a next door world
To avoid the karmic debt of an allotted task.

One cannot move between worlds without a dire consequence.
Only he who has good reason is given the choice
To abandon all experience
And erase all memories of existence.
Only one who has the strength of Titans
Can accomplish this kind of task,
And only one who has earned the grace of God
Can expect to survive the challenge.

The strand becomes quiet in my hands.
I feel it is looking for past memories
Somewhere in its lost history.
Gently, I make a loop.
I bypass the gap allowing the two sides to touch.
I fashion a knot to keep them together.
It looks unprofessional and unwieldy, but no matter.
I feel a quickening in the cord
An electricity and a renewed vigour.

I get the impression
That an unexpected reprieve
Can come our way sometimes.
Not quite perfect,
But enough to allow us to move on
And pass the hands of destiny.

I get the feeling that we all once,
In some way or other,
Have had to swallow a bitter pill
And suffer the consequences
Through no fault of our own
Except the circumstances of our birth.

I begin to understand,
That for one such man,
An appointed task of such heinous proportions
Fell on his shoulders,
And that only the desperate measure of an eclipse
And a portal to another world,
Could save him
From the madness
Of bearing his destined guilt.

[Judas Iscariot, due to his lineage and destiny, was the only possible candidate available to be
selected to play the part of the betrayer. In the story, which needed to unfold, only the unique planetary alignments and his own mystic capacities could allow him to escape the epic karmic debt
he would have had to have incurred: by him being there but not being there, at the same time.]

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The Crucifixion of Christ

17 Aug

I hang my head in shame.
I am forever condemned.
As a prisoner of my own indiscretion
I have forfeited my life to an
Eternity of hell.

No one can take this burden from me,
No one can release me from the chaos of darkness,
No one can ever strip away the horror of my own iniquity.
I have been tricked by my own mind
Into committing this foul and heinous crime
On the pretext of justice
Oblivious of any wretched guilt consequent to my greed.

I cannot beg forgiveness
I cannot ask for mercy.
I cannot allow any leniency or
Relaxation of the laws of clemency.

I, of all people, have allowed
That which should never have been sanctioned,
To be actioned.
I have allowed,
Knowing the colour of innocence
And the colour of guilt,
A bloodbath of torture and cruelty.

Now my hands are stained
Permanently with the slaughter of
The innocent
The kind
The just
The compassionate
The gentle
The loving
The champion of mankind.
And from this I can never hide.

There are many reasons for murder.
And every one has, at its core,
Some semblance of justification
Some sense of reasonableness
Some grotesque payment of debt.
And as an administrator of peace and political will,
I have demanded and ordered
Brutal acts of violence
To quell the discontent of the masses
In order to rule according to the sentiments of the era
And the demands of the title of kingship.

But this,
This conundrum placed before me,
This impossible, unpalatable circumstance,
This dilemma set at my feet
Which threatens the very core of my fragile control,
This distasteful, despicable obnoxious affair
Looms in front of me
Like a grotesque monster breathing into my face
Its fetid breath of noxious vapour
Demanding retribution for a crime
That does not exist.

I am comfortable here
Curled up in the armchair of my
Remorse and guilt.
Though I am thrown into the darkest abyss
Of torture chambers and horrors
No pain can be too great,
No night nor day too long,
No event can be so cataclysmic
That the Universe of evil is smashed upon my head,
For me to wish myself dislodged from this unspeakable suffering.

And with open eyes and outstretched arms
I beseech the heavens
To ensure I am immortal.
For death, even at the end of eternity
Will be too light a sentence
For the poisoned arrow of my sin.

I look into the eyes of my plaintiff.
I see the depth of his compassion.
I see the lineage of his soul
And I see the grace of God
Enveloping him in a translucent, effulgent light.

I am a man of the world.
I have lived amongst the richest and poorest of souls.
I have been graced with an intelligence and perception
Way beyond my just deserts.
I have been given the sharp cunning of the fox
And the guile of the snake.
I have been given the strength of the bear
And the perception of the eagle.
I have risen among the ranks of the generals and the nobility.
And I have paid my dues to each and every one
With favours promised behind closed doors.
I have played the game of power
With the skill and genius of the professional,
And I have relished my advancement
Unashamedly at the expense of others.
And I have always known the price to be paid for this –
Long term pain for short term gain.
And for me it has always been the victory of the moment
Which fuels the blood in my veins
And the triumphal drumbeat of my heart.

Yes, I am a man of the world
And the world of man has lain in my palm of my hand,
Mine, all mine,
Like taking candy from a baby,
As natural as the playground bully,
As effortless as the tattle-tale words of the teacher’s pet.

And each move of mine
Has been as calculated and as strategic
As the greatest army generals that ever lived,
For the purpose of immediate personal gain
Regardless of the cost to any
Unfortunate who may cross my path.

Most people would see me as cruel, heartless and uncompromising.
And in dealing with the world, I am,
For that is the game of the era in which I find myself.
And I respect the rules of this engagement.
Its a dog-eat-dog time,
Kill or be killed,
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
No quarter given nor taken.
Mercy is weakness exposed
As fodder for the adversary.
To the victor goes all the spoils,
And the vanquished lie as
Rotting carcasses in the barren
Plains of contempt.

And into the midst of this
Shark-infested ocean of corruption,
Here, amidst our battered sensibilities
And greed for self,
Into this pit of filth and betrayal,
Comes this quiet, gentle man,
Who only seeks to heal the wounded,
Broken heart of humanity,
Restore the memory of our own heritage
And remind us of the meaning of life.

I remember him.
In my dreams I have seen him.
In the recessed vaults of my memory
I have stored his image.
I had hoped to let sleeping dogs lie.
I had quelled the nagging reprimands
Prompted by his image.
I had managed to sidestep the possibility of this encounter
By being absent from my duties.
I had begun to believe in my own power.
I had managed to conveniently forget this day might ever come.

Hell bent on my own mission of destruction
I had forgotten that even the best laid plans can go awry………

And in one split second,
I am confronted by the baying masses of wolves outside my enclave,
And the pure gracious spirit before me
Of a man of God.

The story of my actions is well documented.
It would be pointless to revisit them here.
Each word, each question, each answer
Is indelibly marked in the history of mankind.
My journal of political suicide is forever exposed to the public
And in the passing of my damning judgement,
I damned myself.

This is no ordinary man.
This is not your run of the mill political pawn,
This is no murdering, plundering beast of wanton destruction.
This is no ordinary mortal reaping the reward of past indiscretions.
Here is a pure and gentle being,
Standing quiet and still in the will of his own god,
Not wishing for miracles
Which would only feed into the superstitious minds of his persecutors,
Wanting only to show his people
How to serve God, unquestioningly,
By example,
Under the most dangerous and trying of circumstances:
The sacrifice of the lover for the beloved
Encapsulated in this significant spotlight of time,
Here at my feet, in my domain.

And seeing all this, as clearly as I see the usual
Strategies of war demarcating the boundaries of my life,
I, for once, so used to betraying my conscience
For the principle of self gain,
Mistaking the wretched knot bound in the pit of my stomach
For illness instead of fear,
Wantonly throw in my lot
With the baying pack of ravenous wolves.

Cold and wretched is this space of self loathing,
Cruel is the torture of mistaking the truth for a game.
How bitter and damning is this hindsight
Of living with the knowledge that,
For all my astuteness and genius,
I missed the only chance I had in a million lifetimes
Of redemption in the sight of God.

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Creator/God/Source

14 Sep

Alpha and Omega
How can I tell who I am?
How can I know I exist?
How can I see what I look like?

I have often pondered this.
I have often speculated on my own consciousness.

If you were me, what would you do?
If you had thought so hard that your brain nearly burst and yet you failed to answer this fundamental question of “Who am I?”, what would you do?
Imagine you are cognizant of your own self, but there is no outside containing you and giving you form – you have no parameters, no end.
How could you define yourself?

Then I ask myself, why should I bother to know?
I come to the conclusion that since I am “All That Is”, I must know everything, and yet I do not know what I look like.
So clearly, I do not know everything!
Therefore I think I better as sure as hell find out, so that I do know. I must know what I look like!

If I am seen, if another consciousness can experience me and I then absorb that consciousness, then I will know who I am because I have seen myself.
So within myself, I set out a space from where I withdraw my consciousness.
And into this empty space I inject millions of tiny particles of my own consciousness-
And then I watch what happens.

I see all these small particles floating about, helpless and disconnected, blindly vibrating with no direction.
So I think I must set some rules and guidelines to stop them wandering aimlessly.
And also, I see the panic in their energy field, a hopelessness and despair of feeling abandoned and lost.
So I make sure there is a way for them to return to me when they know me, so they can report back.
And I send a few bright sparks who are still tethered to me who can show them how to find the way back when the time comes.

All in all, its the best idea I can come up with.
From some of the report backs I am now building a picture of myself by comparing the different perspectives.
It is interesting, I must say.
And I am quite enjoying the whole project.

The surprising thing is, though, that these millions of particles of consciousness are displaying remarkable powers of creativity within the confines of the laboratory.
Its quite amazing how the laws I set down can be bent and manipulated, depending on the desires of the individual entities.
And when groups join together with similar intent, great shifts occur.

Who would have thought?
And seeing their antics, so minuscule in the grand scheme of things, yet the fact deters them not;
I have to give them credit for their grit and determination to organize their surroundings to suit their own ends.
And considering these are all particles of me, I also have to say I admire them and therefore I admire myself.

It is also quite pleasing that in all the confusion and chaos, these particles are also asking the same questions
“Who am I” and “How do I know I exist?” as I ask myself.
Yes, I am really quite fond of them all.
Some of the rules I set out now, in hindsight, seem rather harsh and unnecessary.
But the plan is set and can’t be changed now.

So let us just see where it all goes, and as more and more reports come in, the reconnaissance troops will have done enough investigation for me to get my answers.
Then I will draw all the particles back to me,
And I shall be richer for the experiment!

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