There are many references to "the kingdom" as something that a person must find and manifest in their life. Throughout the New Testament it is asserted that if a person is to find the Kingdom, they must free themselves from the things and thinking of this world. Thus, Yeshua taught: "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it" (Matt 13:44-46 NKJ). The Kingdom of God being within us, is indeed the treasure that is hidden in the field of our body/mind. And the Kingdom can only be found by those who are "...seeking beautiful pearls" and are prepared to sell all that they have in this world in order to acquire it.
Further, Yeshua did not teach that man is saved by proclaiming belief without a total change of mind in conjunction with the manner that the disciple lives their life. One of the truly prime examples of this fact is seen where the English translation of the scripture says: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand†(Matt 3:2 NAS). The meaning of the original Greek, which literally means to “change the mindâ€, conveys a message of great depth that is not apparent in our English translations today. To phrase the thought that is being expressed, the true meaning is to “Open and unloose the mind, for the kingdom of heaven is at handâ€. This is truly important for the person of faith to come to terms with -- fore it is the beginning of The Way.
When we begin to put these words into their proper context with respect to the Kingdom within (Luke 17:20-21), then we can see that the Gate of Eden which in the New Testament is portrayed as the "narrow gate", can only be entered by unloosing the mind from the anchor of the doctrines and thinking of men -- opening the mind to the inner reality of the Kingdom -- and this can only be accomplished by living one's life in strict accord with the Commandments and Teachings of Yeshua and The Way.
What we therefore fail to recognize is the reality that the authors of our scriptures were ultimately concerned with the process of overcoming division -- first the division that separates our physical, soul and spiritual natures -- and then the division that separates the conjoined physical/soul/spiritual being from their Creator God -- which process is portrayed as the return of the prodigal son to the father.
The first obstacle to overcoming our state of division is the separation of polarities of mind that exist within us. The holy men and women who composed our scriptures comprehended that when the Bible conveys to us the great reality that "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Gen 1:27 KJV), that God Himself possesses these same Male and Female polarities that are manifest throughout all of Creation. From the perception of the spiritual language that is employed in the scriptures, in the same way that a fetus dwells in the womb of its mother until it has reached the necessary stage of maturity where it can be born into this world, the ancients understood that the three-dimensional world in which we presently dwell is very much as the womb of Mother-Earth.
The implications of this spiritual reality -- though absent from our comprehension today -- are profound with respect to our understanding of life as we know it. In the same way that the body of a fetus is formed from an embryonic state, we are ourselves in the process of being born into the next level of Creation, and our psyche must then be perceived in a similar seed-state of mind.
What this means is that we are only capable of utilizing less than ten percent of our potential of mind, because our physical-consciousness is embryonic -- and in the same way that the physical body of a fetus must develop to be born into the kingdom of man, our minds and conscious awareness must develop in order to be born into the kingdom of our soul and spiritual natures. The implications of this long ignored reality is that in many respects, the Atheists are more correct than those who believe in life after death, because those who fail to be born into the Kingdom while still alive in the physical body, cannot accomplish what is required in an after-death state.
Because we exist in an embryonic and incomplete state, the purpose of the teachings of The Way is to first awaken a person to their soul and spiritual natures, and then develop their true essence and maturity so as to enable the person to be born into the Kingdom. Throughout the scriptures it is continually suggested that carnal man dwells in a kind of stupor -- hypnotized by the forms and sensual realities of this world. Some places in the Bible represent this condition as sleeping, others as death -- i.e., "Another disciple said to him, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. But Jesus told him, Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead" (Matt 8:21-22 NIV).
Armageddon, then, indicates the disciples personal tribulation described as the "pangs of birth", as he endeavors to overcome his own lower carnal nature through the crucifixion of what is symbolized by the flesh, in order that he can possess the Knowledge of the fruit of the Tree of Life, transcend the natural barriers of this world, and "enter through the gates into the city".
ABOUT MY GENERAL INTERESTS: Writing - currently working on a memoir, Where the Crossbeams Meet - and various spiritual essays; Poetry -the reading and writing of it; Figure Skating - yes, really; Crafting and Printmaking; Prayer and Meditation; Gardening; Vocal Performance
GOD...
For the Unknown Friend,
Lux lucet in tenebris donec optata veniant.
Heart, lungs, life, we beat.
Breath, blood, tears, we heat.
Through-in-with-each-every-all...
We give to live, wing to sing -
Wake to make the Everlasting.
ABOUT MUSIC: Since all of life itself is vibration, I enjoy E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G: from Bach to Tool, from Trance to Blues, from Tribal to Sinatra, from movie scores to arias, with the exception of very "how-down" country/western - it just all depends upon my mood.
ABOUT MOVIES: The Matrix Trilogy; Animatrix; What the Bleep Do We Know?; Bladerunner; Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, original); The Lord of the Rings Trilogy; Stars Wars Trilogy (original three); The Spiderman movies; The X-Men movies; The Secret; Fargo; It's A Beautiful Life; Serendipity; Being John Malkovich; Gross Point Blank; American Beauty; Saved!; Joshua; Bruce Almighty; Something About Mary; Memento; The Sixth Sense - I literally could go on and on and on...
The Pursuit of God, A. W. Tozer; The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle; The Collected Poems of Syliva Plath (especially her final volume, Ariel); The Little Prince, Antione de Saint Exupery; Gooberz, Linda Goodman; The Collected Poems of both Rainer Maria Rilke and Rumi; anything and everything written by contemporary philosopher Ken Wilbur; The Tao Te Ching (translation by Stephen Mitchell); the writings of Carl Jung; Dante's epic poem, The Divine Comedy - especially Paradiso; Prout's Remembrance of Things Past; mystic writings of Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross and the ravishings of Teresa of Liseaux, and of course, The Bible - NIV, The Message and The Story.
Yeshua the Nazarene, Buddha, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ghandi, Helen Keller, The Dalai Lama, Mary Magdalene, Paul the Apostle, Joan of Arc, Rosa Parks, and Albert Einstein.