Again we live in the time of Advent, during which we are in expectation of the birth of Christ. What does this mean to us? Are we remembering the birth of Jesus Christ who was born 2000 years ago, or are we expecting the birth of the Christ, the awakening of the Christ Consciousness in ourselves? Traditional Christians are totally committed to the first, and many people who left their church and turned to spirituality are convinced of the second. But do we really have to choose?
For me, both are true, albeit that my interpretation of Jesus as Messiah has changed. I see him as one of probably many avatars (meaning, in this context, people who already have consummated the whole process I am writing about below, and who incarnate purely in order to help others), all of whom incarnated on earth in a period of time when mankind had lost its way, and had totally forgotten who they were. Every one of them addressed the problems of his or her time, and within the culture of the place and time in which they lived.
In the Gospels there is a lot of emphasis on the term, the “Son of Man,” and the question, “Who is the Son of Man?” The church has interpreted that question to mean that Jesus came to show us that he is the Son of Man who has come to save us from the consequences of our sins. However, in Hebrew, Son of Man is ben adam and that means man(kind), human being. So I interpret this to mean that Jesus came to remind us, to show us, that we ourselves are the Son of Man, the Son of God, who temporarily descended into the world of matter in order to have experiences there, and then totally forgot who we are. He showed us how to regain [conscious awareness of] our divine identity by teaching the way, and by going this way himself as an example.
As to the question of whether the story of his birth should be taken absolutely literally or not, I believe that the Bible itself shows us that that is not the intention in this case. Although we probably all grew up with a moving, beautiful, all-encompassing story around the birth of Jesus, this story was deducted from two stories in the Bible that are not at all the same, and even contain contradictions. Luke has a moving story about how Joseph and a heavily pregnant Mary, who lived in Nazareth, had to travel to Bethlehem, where on arrival they could not find a place to stay except in a stable, and that is where Jesus is born. Matthew mentions none of this, and in his story it looks like Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth.
However, Matthew mentions King Herod, who proves to be afraid of the birth of a possible messiah and wants to kill the child, which is not even mentioned by Luke, although the consequence of this intention is that Joseph and Mary have to flee to Egypt, where they have to stay until the death of Herod. This also is not mentioned by Luke.
There are many more differences between the two stories, which do not necessarily contradict each other, but do make you wonder why they each write a completely different story that leaves out some 90% of what the other writer mentions. Besides that, they each give a list of generations, leading from Abraham (Matthew) or Adam (Luke) to the birth of Jesus, or the Christ. These lists are also different in several places.
In my view all this leads to the conclusion that, yes, Jesus was born some 2000 years ago, but that the stories about this birth are not to be taken literally. They are meant symbolically, and in this way, also teach what Jesus came to teach mankind and both writers emphasized different points.
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This message is very important to us as well, as we are living in times that are very similar to those of 2000 years ago. Again we live in a time in which one astrological cycle is ending and a new one is beginning. These transition times are known to be times of upheaval, disasters, wars and terror, but with the promise of a new and happier earth to come when we go through these times in the right way. At that time, Jesus taught us unconditional love, which was not completely understood and followed up on later, but the same choice and challenge lies before us now. And we had better take it and see through the horror and terror of our society today, where almost everybody seems to be afraid, which leads to attitudes and actions that cause even more fear. For in those days the situation was no different, and when we look at the symbolic meaning of the Bible stories, then we can find meaning in the suffering that so many people are also going through these days.
When Jesus was born, Herod was king in Judea. The name “Herod” is derived from the Hebrew verb charad, which means ‘to tremble, to fear’. Herod was the personification of fear, and fear ruled in Judea. Judea, Yehuda, contains the meaning of thanks and praise, of majesty. When fear rules, all those are gone. Herod is also called tetrarch, which is Greek and means Ruler of the four. In this context that means Ruler of the Fourth World, which is the world we are still living in today. And it is obvious that today Herod rules again.
Herod did not only make other people fear him. He himself was also afraid, and that showed in his command to have all male children under the age of two killed, just in order to be sure that this messiah, called the “King of the Jews,” would not grow up and live to become just that. And what does that remind us of? Did not the same thing happen long before that, in Egypt, when the Hebrews, as they were called then, were slaves in Egypt and the Pharaoh, the par’oh – symbol of the ego that had grown out of proportions and in total control – had commanded to kill all new-born male babies? They were a symbol of the spirit of man that had to be silenced. Neither Herod nor the Pharaoh succeeded in what they intended, as both Jesus and Moses survived and took their appointed tasks upon them.
So Herod, under whatever name, did not succeed then, and will not succeed now, if only we follow the teachings of Jesus, which is to love our neighbors, all seven to eight billion of them, regardless of where they come from, or what religion they profess, unconditionally.
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Both Gospel writers agree on the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is Beth lechem, the House of Bread. Bread is made from wheat or rye etc. and making bread involves a whole process. And is one of the symbols for our process of raising our conscious awareness. There actually is a whole system of those symbols all through the Bible.
Wheat is the first fruit of the Kabbalistic system of seven fruits, which all in their own way stand for the above process, which has several phases. First of all the wheat is grinded, a painful process. Then yeast is added (the whole process of the ego and the emotions that has to be played out), and after that, the purification of the fire during the baking of the bread. The whole process is difficult and painful at times, but when we finally eat the finished product, the bread, then the Christ can be born in us.
Eating is achal in Hebrew, 1-kol, which means reconnecting kol, everything, with the oneness of the beginning. It means absorbing and digesting everything, and after that enjoying the nutrients that came out of all this. It means letting go of all bitterness, and acknowledging that all is Good without an opposite evil, because of all the positive things that may have come out of this experience, for ourselves and for others, because of the growth of our conscious awareness.
I do not know all the fruits of this Kabbalistic system, but I am pretty sure grapes belong to it too. They are crushed and fermented, among other things, in order to become wine. Wine is an essential element in the Bible stories, meaning the wine of the spirit as opposed to the water of ego and emotions. There, of course, the meaning can be found of the story in which Jesus turns water into wine during a wedding.
The fourth fruit is the fig, and that is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, also called ets-2 (tree of duality) or etsev, which means pain. We know how much pain and suffering the eating of that fruit has cost us, but in the end the eating and digesting of all the fruits of that tree prove to lead to the gaining of the higher awareness of the 50 through the word itsavon, ets-2 + 50, which also means pain, sorrow. Fifty is a symbol of higher awareness, and it provides the sought-after Knowledge, Da’at, which is shown in the picture of the Tree of Life in my article Hidden Symbols and Patterns Inside the Bible: Part 2 in which the tree of the knowledge and the tree of life prove to be one tree with two faces.
The sixth fruit is the olive, the fruit of the sixth day. The process of the olive proves to be Gethsemane, gat shemen, the oil press. Shemen, oil, is related to the number eight, shmona. This process involves again crushing and pressing, this time of the olives, in order to prepare the shemen, the oil, which is necessary for the anointment of the Messiah who will lead us into the eighth day, during which we will start to ascend out of this material world of the seventh day again (the Messiah being a force inside ourselves in this context). And by going from the descending sixth day to the ascending eighth day through this process of crushing and pressing the olives in order to prepare the oil, it becomes clear that Gethsemane itself stands for this material world of the seventh day, and that all the pain and sorrow we encounter in this world through that process are only meant to help us grow in conscious awareness and love.
This is confirmed again by the seventh fruit, the fruit of the seventh day itself, which is called tamar, 400-mar, or the bitterness of the 400. Four hundred is a symbol of slavery and addiction (the 400 years in Egypt) and the cross (the number 400 used to be written as a cross on its side in ancient days). This tamar that symbolizes the bitterest period of this seventh day proves to be a date that is sweet and nutritious. But again, we will only discover that when we eat it. When we absorb it and digest and process it.
Even the Hebrew word for cross itself shows it. It is tselav, or tsel-2, shadow of duality. It symbolizes our life in this world of duality, and by calling it a “cross,” it indicates that this life is not always easy, to say the least. Again it indicates suffering, but suffering with a purpose. After all is said and done, the word tselav also can be read as 90-lev, or the birth – after this whole process – of the heart, and of the Christ in us, that is, if we go through this process that is being symbolized by so many different symbols, and that brings us such a growth of conscious awareness, which I believe is the purpose of our descent into this world to begin with.
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I have only explained very few symbols of the birth stories themselves because I wanted to concentrate on what the purpose and meaning of this birth actually is, and what leads to it. I also hope that it can be somewhat of a comfort for people who are going through a lot of suffering right now, to know that they are not alone in this, and that there is a purpose to all of it.
In the end, I want to return to the period we are living in right now, the darkest time of the year, just before the turning point, after which the days will slowly lengthen again. Also the seasons teach us the same lesson. And it is not just chance that we celebrate the birth of Christ right now. From the above we can learn that indeed the Christ is born in the darkest of circumstances, and that after that the light will grow stronger again. But we should also learn from this that after this tentative beginning, spring will not be upon us immediately. After this birth we will not be a totally changed being at once. First winter will be there, during which things may seem to get even worse. However, under the ground and inside the trees all sorts of growth is taking place, unbeknownst to us, and then suddenly, maybe when we least expect it, spring will be there in a riot of colours.
That is also what is happening right now – in ourselves when we are attending to this process -and in the world. It may seem that everyone is afraid and desperate and there does not seem to be hope of any change, but underneath it all a lot of change is underway, and many, many people are already involved in creating a more loving world. Let us all join them by striving to live a life of unconditional love as much as we possibly can.
I wish you all Happy Holidays with all your loved ones.
Anny,
Thank you for contributing this article. The question you open us up with is an important one: where should our focus be when thinking of the birth of Christ? As you state, at some point we were taught through religion to focus on the literal birth of Jesus. For many, this is what truly matters because they believe it is Jesus himself who has saved us from sin. That line of thinking became less attractive to me when I began contemplating the bigger picture. If we are saved that way, it is still our responsibility to change how we live and who we are. The emphasis returns to us no matter what view we take. The disagreements come when we are told how to live and think according to Christian belief. And everyone, besides sharing a few commonalities, disagrees on exactly what that is. But we still can never get around the fact that birthing the Christ within us as Paul talks about is an inner process for the “now” moment. And it comes down only to a “conscious awareness,” for how else could there be any change in us except through a greater conscious awareness? Does a belief in a literal Christ give us this new conscious awareness, or is it something we gain through experience? We have to agree it is something gained through experience, because what is it we are all doing here? We are experiencing. And suffering in some shape or form is part of that experience. We can all look back over the tough experiences of our life and see some sort of growth, even if it has left us with physical and emotional scars. But with a greater conscious awareness we have the opportunity to understand “why” we had to go through those painful experiences, and hopefully, the end result is that we grow more compassionate and loving, and less fearful and judgmental. Sometimes that process is severely painful, but we have to realize that as Sons and Daughters of God ourselves (however one interprets God), it works out good for us in the end when we come to understand what part the ego played in our suffering, in the cause and result. If we have gained enough conscious awareness at that point, then we can transcend some part of the ego that we were not aware of before. And in my opinion, this is what takes us one step closer to what we have come to term “higher consciousness” many times on this blog. What exactly is higher consciousness? It is simply an awareness of the imprisonment that the ego often brings to us. Like an onion, there are many layers of this imprisonment, and our experiences began to peel them away. Sometimes suffering brings more imprisonment, because instead of learning a life lesson we harden and exhibit greater negative emotion. But suffering has a way of breaking us to end that cycle. Just like our pain tolerance. At a certain point, physical pain becomes so great it overwhelms us and we pass out. Psychologically, sometimes the pain becomes so intense we realize its not worth creating it anymore and we simply say, “God take it away, I am not going to worry about it anymore.” In this way part of the ego can be transcended as well, because we have decided to let go and let God. At this point the ego has lost it’s power. And the focus isn’t on “me” anymore. However, without the suffering, we would never arrive there. That is why I believe the peace that passes all understanding is not about extreme pleasure, but simple contentment. Suffering and joy will always be a cycle of coming and going, but contentment through the midst of it all is the key. And in that contentment, as you say, we can simply be more compassionate and loving.
Thanks again for the great article.
Hello Josh,
Thanks for publishing the article and for your thoughtful comment.
You write: “If we are saved that way, [Jesus saves us from sin] it is still our responsibility to change how we live and who we are.” I totally agree with you there but I do not think we should separate people who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible from those who believe in a symbolic approach. Because in both traditions there are people who make unconditional love their focus in life and there are also people in both who do not live that way. A lot has gone wrong within Christianity throughout the ages but a lot has also gone right. I myself have been fortunate enough to grow up in a more love oriented church and to get the example of Christians and non-Christians during World War II imprinted on me during my youth just after that war. There are stories of people who broke through all limits of fear and turned into extraordinary loving beings in the most extreme circumstances, without hatred for their enemies, and also of many others who turned the other way out of fear. In the end it proves to be up to us to determine what we will turn into when faced with such extreme circumstances and it seems to make no difference if we belong to a certain religion or church or not, and if so to what religion. That is why it is my intention not to judge anymore. Not that I always succeed though.
I agree that it is not right to tell anybody how to live and what to believe, whether it is a church or any other institution, apart from setting some rules that should keep us from harming each other or our environment in any way at all for as long as that is necessary. And of course it is okay to leave a church if what they teach does not resonate with us anymore but I believe that we should refrain from judging as long as other people do seem to feel at home there. The only thing we can do is offer our view as our view to those who are interested in hearing it, I think. After all, we are not in the possession of the Absolute Truth either yet.
I completely agree with what you write about the birthing of the Christ in us but, again, do not want to denigrate the believe in a literal Christ. Today I believe in him in a different way, as I wrote again in the article, but there was a time when I also believed in the dogma of the church but in the loving variant. I saw the enormous love in what he did and taught and, as I mentioned before, because of that also the enormous love in the actions of the people who put their life on the line because of that and who often were tortured and killed just like him during WWII. It was this love that made me go to Israel in times of war and terrorist attacks as well to help soften the impact of almost 2000 years of antisemitism. Which definitely belonged to the dark side of Christianity.
I most definitely agree with all you write about suffering in the last part of your comment. Thank you for all you share because it is not exactly easy, is it? Still, when you get personal experience of it, it is so much easier to get a glimpse of what it is all about.
Anny
I’m just disappointed you havent answered the two emails I sent you months ago. I had a very valid question that had to go unanswered for a while. Fortunately Farheem Judah-El has helped me.
Tracy, I am very sorry. That was not intentional. I probably just got so busy I meant to reply and didn’t. I have a ton of comments to still answer and approve as well. Please forgive me. I’ll look back and see if I can find and answer them.
Thank you this wonderful piece. Indeed, let us not just hope but commit ourselves fully to manifesting the unconditional love taught by the Master. As you point out, that love has no limits to creed, culture, race or nationality. We are in a troubled period in which the way to that love seems so very hard to see. The world is in major upheaval and hatred and fear have gripped the collective views in our society and elsewhere. Yet it is before us, within us. Peace of Christ be born in all of us and from the darkness we see around us emerge an age of true enlightenment. Love and LVX to all.
Hello Paul,
Thanks for your comment and for your appreciation of my article. Thanks also for sharing your feelings in this respect. I am glad that more people experience this the way I do. In the darkest of times the Christ is born, in us also and as you say an an age of true enlightenment will emerge.
Anny,
Thank you for this Christmas gift to all of us. Your reminder resonates deeply within me, to become more free from fear and disappointment and to feel hope and contentment in the enfolding now experience going forward. This is the peace promised in the biblical birth narrative, and it took a lot of various experiences, good and bad, to get there, but it sure feels good.
You know me, that I am inclined to pick out something I choose to disagree with to spark interest, even if it is a needle in a hay stack. Here is one I can bring up and get it over with. You state:
“As to the question of whether the story of his birth should be taken absolutely literally or not, I believe that the Bible itself shows us that that is not the intention in this case. Although we probably all grew up with a moving, beautiful, all-encompassing story around the birth of Jesus, this story was deducted from two stories in the Bible that are not at all the same, and even contain contradictions.”
I agree with you that there is tremendous value in focusing beyond the literal in the biblical narratives. But I think finding some discrepancies in accounts of the same group of events by different biblical authors is a weak argument by itself for proving that the group of events did not happen literally. It is natural that the authors saw the events from different perspectives. They were actually not present at Jesus’s birth, so their information was obtained from others, or through the Holy Spirit filtering down to them in their individual capacities of understanding and personal preferences, and possibly Mary told them. We don’t know. and so we cannot eliminate the possibility that the general gist of the narratives were both literal and metaphorical, and that they were intended to be regarded as truth at both levels.
But I notice that it is harder for me and I suppose some others to always grasp at a given moment the deeper metaphorical massage when thoughts are occupied with the literal interpretation. It is as if we might be satisfied with the literal message about Christmas we are used to, joy to the world, etc, and less likely to reach for the more important message of the spirit of Christ born and forming within us, the higher consciousness that is free of fear and disappointment related to the ego self.
Now that I got that over with, I would like to say that I love the way you can bring Hebrew gematria and some understanding from Kabbalah to support your view. You have developed such a unique intuitive method that works for you and enables you to discover and verify what might otherwise be hidden to us, and that makes you very special. When I say that passages in your massage resonate deeply with me, I mean also physically, like vibrations going up and down my body, more intense than listening to Handel’s Messiah with the volume on high. Thanks for the experience.
Blessings to you for sharing this revelation knowledge. The ifinite truth is unconditional love because God is love and the kingdom of God is within us. The true expression of the son of man or humanity is to love your neighbour as you love yourself. Love is the master key to experiencing real and true freedom that only flows from the well spring from within us. Blessings always.
Thank you for your comment. I am glad that the article has meaning for you. Love indeed is the master key to everything good.
Blessings to you too.
to Anny Vos
1. questions, questions: The Mary in your illustration, from her expensive-looking dressage, what would be her social class? This painting is (?) renaissance Italy, probably commissioned by a member of the 16th century aristocracy? …perhaps a Renaissance equivalent of Herod / Pontius Pilate?
2. In that culture, the trade & agricultural working class were policed & employed & taxed by & in the interests of the militarist aristocracy & the Levite temple class. Ben Adam, “son of man”, would have been that subjected class’s conscious name-word for themselves, “person”.
Hi John. Anny wrote the article, but I posted the picture. You are correct, it is 16th century. You have to be very careful with copyrighted work, so I only use images from the google advanced image page that are free to use and share. So I didn’t put a lot of thought into the picture, just something meant to be festive for the season I guess and it popped up on Google so I grabbed it to use.
Hi Josh,
Maybe a not so lovely comment but I would reply: the truth is in the eye of the beholder.
John is really fighting on the outside.
But lovely how you protect Anny (and you should and you do).
Leo,
I am reacting here since you mention my name but I have not the foggiest idea what you are getting at. What is to protect? What Joshua wrote is nothing but the truth. He answered the comment because he selected the picture.
That is how we always do itI I write an article and mail it to Joshua. Joshua edits it if necessary, adds a picture and posts it.
I never post my articles myself. it is Joshua’s blog and he decides what gets to be posted on it. Besides, I would not even know how to do it. Even adding a smiley to a comment is too much for me, as you might have noticed in more than one of my comments.
And why would I need protection anyway? What is wrong with the picture? As Josh wrote, it was just added as a festive touch to celebrate the season, not as something to be studied for its own merit.
Hello Robert,
Thanks for your comment. I am glad you resonate with the article and that you are in such a good place right now.
I knew of course that you could not agree with my view on the literal interpretation of the story of the birth of Jesus. It is fully okay to disagree. I did not mean to prove anything, just to show what made me come to the conclusion I did. I know your view on this and I respect that. There is no need at all to prove who is right and who is wrong as that is something of duality. I believe in unity in diversity and respecting other people’s view on whatever subject is part of that. Although our views on this subject are not the same, of course you know that I too believe in the possibility of both a literal and symbolic interpretation of Bible texts side by side.
If your thoughts are still more on the literal interpretation of – in this case – Christmas, then that is just the way your process takes you. You are definitely aware of the metaphoric aspect as well as your comment shows. No one’s way is exactly the same as someone else’s and there is no judgment of anyone’s process. No praise for going faster or blame for lagging behind (not that you are). Your way is your way and that is perfect in itself.
I am glad that you had such a good experience when you resonated with the message of the article. I feel blessed to be able to grasp such meanings sometimes in the way I do. I set out to write a totally different kind of article, with explaining the meanings of the different aspects of the birth story, but suddenly I was guided to write this instead. It felt like a gift to me as well.
Thank you Anny and Joshua for your beautiful article. I wish both of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
Thanks for your comment, Christine, I am glad that the article resonates with people (or is it the other way around?) as this message is so important.
I wish you and your children a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays too.
Hi Joshua,
I may have the wrong person, but at one time, didn’t you hold the view that Jesus was a mythical character and not an actual person? Again, I may have the wrong person (I’ve read various articles in which people hold the “mythical character” view). If this was your view at one time, what revelation caused you to shift your stance from “mythical character” to “historical person/avatar?” Thanks for expounding!
Hi Derrick,
A simple answer. It was not Joshua who wrote the article, as you can see above the title of the article. I did and I always believed that Jesus was a historical person. That did not change when I no longer was able to believe in the doctrine of the church but my view on what his mission was did change. And now I still believe that there is history in the Bible but that the biblical stories are not literal accounts of this history but symbols with probably several layers of meanings.
Anny
Thanks, Anny. Which parts do you think are history?
Hello Derrick,
Thanks for your question. I never thought about it in that way.
I grew up in a church where I was taught that everything in the Bible is history and as a child you accept that without questioning. Later I lived in Israel for more than ten years and over there you see all sorts of archaeological remains that confirm that belief. Later I started to doubt the literal interpretation of passages that seemed to call for hatred rather than love and started to search for other possibilities of interpreting them, which then slowly led to the possibility of a symbolical interpretation. And this proved to be very helpful for me.
However, this was not a reason to discard all literary interpretation as there is a history of the Jewish people in Israel as well and there are texts that probably can be interpreted both literally and symbolically.
I do not pretend to know exactly where a literary interpretation would be impossible or what the symbolical interpretation of each and every text is. My standpoint right now is that most of the biblical figures were indeed actual persons but that the intention of the stories about them is to bring us a certain message and not to tell exactly what happened in their lives. Some of the things may have happened exactly as they are told but I have no way of knowing which ones nor do I feel the need to know.
For me the symbolical message is the most important, however, without denying a possible literal background to some of the texts.
Thanks, Anny.
Hi Anny.
So sorry it has taken me a minute to get around to commenting on your article on this blog. Lots and lots of distractions these days and I’m trying to navigate through it all.
Nevertheless, as you know already, I think this is a tremendous article, especially as it relates to the birth of Christ within, which I believe is the whole purpose of the biblical birth story. Christ is the power and wisdom of Unconditional Love (God) within us, and when that birth happens, it completely transforms us. Christ, therefore, represents the God power in us in potentiality. This transformation involves “being,” moreso than “believing.” Beliefs are always going to vary from individual to individual, but when we are transformed (the result of the maturation of unconditional love within us), who we have become will ultimately be our Savior (when man and Christ become one flesh — not two, but one). “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
It is all about unconditional love, as you so eloquently state throughout your article.
Once again, thank you so much for this article. Well written, and well thought out.
I hope everyone had a very happy and prosperous holiday season.
Hello Paul,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I completely agree with you and I appreciate the way you describe all this in a totally different manner than I do.
Especially where you write that our transformation involves being more than believing. It has to be since this transformation can take place within all loving belief systems, with widely different beliefs. Such a transformation will change the way we believe however, regardless of which religion we belong to (or not). There will be no more dogmas or judgment only uncondition love and compassion towards everyone and an inner understanding of whatever motivates people to do what they do.
Hi Anny:
Your article was really well done and means a lot to me. It helps me accept God’s words in a way that allows me to understand and take to heart. Love is all encompassing and I work on it daily. Your ideas are very similar with what I read in “A Course in Miracles”, which I trust and believe in. Thank-you for running this blog.
Robyn
West coast of Canada
Hello Robyn,
Thanks for your comment. I am glad to hear that it was of use to you in your daily life also. That is what I feel as well.
You are not the first person who sees the similarity between my articles and A Course in Miracles. Quite a few people have already remarked on it, both here on the blog and in the Netherlands where I live. Personally I do not know this book although I have heard about it of course. It only shows that both these channellings and my articles are about things that are very important right now.
And indeed Love is the all encompassing thing right now and a guideline for our practical life.
I am not running this blog though but only a guest writer. The owner of the blog is Joshua Tighman.
Love,
Anny
Josh, Thanks for your faithfulness to write these revelations. And peace to your soul in the fire sufferings you go through to receive this gold. In deep meditation while eating the hidden manna within the mind, several things regarding the Christmas story have appeared. The star which drew men to the birth is the risen daystar which rises when the morning star Lucifer and the morning star Jesus are joined in the mystery of the birth of the Christ within. When fear of the serpent is faced fully and we pick up the tail of the serpent it transforms into the rod of Aaron. The shepherd’s rod reveals that there is only ONE and not a dualistic battle between good and evil. Father has created evil to reveal the good. In the end both are one. This is the mystery of the shepherd appearing at the birth with his flock. When the shepherds rod appears in meditation and reveals the mystery of the Lamb, joined with the mystery of the magi, here the Christ is born within us. The magic of the east is shown in the mysticism of those who have found the inner path through meditation. When we realize this within us and open to the fearless place within our brain/mind, joined with the reality of the shepherds rod, the ONE CHRIST is born within us. I will look forward to your blogs…thanks Josh…A whole new world is born.
Thank you Steven. The comment is much appreciated!
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your comment. Josh is not the author of this article though, as you may see above, below the title of this article.
I very much appreciate your view on this subject as it is different from mine but still brings the same message. Duality does not really exist, it is a dream, a world of make believe in which we learn to appreciate the value of everything, even the so-called bad things, in the end.
There are many different metaphors for this whole process and the east and the west may walk different paths but in the end they all lead to the same destination, the birth of the Christ in us.
Hi Annie, Sorry for the oversight …loved your article!
Hi Steven,
Thanks for your reaction. Do not worry, things like that happen to me and others too. I am glad you loved the article and appreciate the way you look at things.
Anny
Thanks for the resplendent esoteric explanation on the Son of God in your third paragraph. And another way to show mankind, or “ben adam” means all of us as the human race is Genesis 5,2 “… and called “their” name adam in the original KJV. Showing Adam is not one person, but the human race.
Hello Vern,
Thanks for your comment itself and for the fact that you are commenting again. I hope you have been well in the meantime.
I am glad that you and so many others agree with my view on this subject as time and again what I am writing about in my articles is often new territory for me as well as for most readers.
Where you interpret the fact that God … called ‘their’ name Adam … as meaning that Adam is not one person but symbolizes the human race, I agree but I do not think that that is the only way to see it.
In this text I believe that it means that Adam is not male but androgynous. Adam is both male and female until the time that God decides to separate the male and the female sides from each other and they become two beings instead of one in the story.
From then on Adam IS male = zachar in Hebrew. Zachar as a verb means ‘to remember’. Adam is spirit / mind.
Eve is female = nekeva in Hebrew. Nekev means uterus. Eve represents the emotional and physical sides of man, and also the creative, cherishing part. Inside her everything comes to fruition.
I thought this little tidbit might sweeten the explanation. The King James Version was actually a compilation of several different texts combined into one, which I believe could have been influenced, at least in part, by the personal revelations of Meister Eckhart. Many of our modern versions of the bible have been conscientiously drawn to this current-day interpretation, which is all for the better esoteric understanding.
Hi Vernon,
I only received a notification of this comment yesterday and also on the blog I did not see it before.
Thanks for your additional information. I had not heard or read any of that yet but it is certainly interesting.
Joshua you seem to be a nice well intentioned young man but what you’ve written here, as well as all your articles have no truth in them. They are heretical and false doctrine going all the way back to the 2-3rd centuries….Gnosticism rearing its ugly head. I hope one day , and soon you will find the truth.