65. Expansion Of One’s Own Self

The only obstacle that is really hard for you to perceive is your own unwillingness to become better, more merciful, more loving, more serving the whole. And this obstacle must be overcome by each one of you personally. It is you, personally, and no one else but you, who can desire to become such, as to be better than you were yesterday.

Each of you desires to live better. However, this desire has a benchmark of your personal egoism. You desire that it would be better for you personally, that you would have a better material life, or a more peaceful life, and all the same you think about a more peaceful or healthier life of your own.

And you are not making even the slightest hint to yourself, to your own self, that it would be nice if others would have a better life, if others would have a healthier life. If others, not me, would be richer, if others, not me, would be healthier, if others, not me, would have a better life.

When I lived among you two thousand years ago I really did not think about myself at all. Not a single thought occurred to me to direct my life for the benefit of my own self rather than project it for the benefit of the whole of all people. I caused plenty of trouble due to my probing character and my endless interest in the environment, and by asking both my parents and teachers about the causes of the manifold thoughts being spun in my head. Why a thunder was thundering, a lightening was striking, why women among the Jews could not be equal with men, why other people who were considered to be the gentiles were offended even by the Jews who looked upon themselves as the believers in Jahve, why girls did not study at school, why the up-bringing of a child was split into the periods when up to the age of five the boy’s up-bringing was exclusively in the hands of the mother and from the age of five that responsibility was transferred onto the father while the girl’s care remained exclusively with the mother, why the gentiles ruled over the Jews, why the gentiles were more joyful and relaxed than the Jews, why the blind and beggars were cared for by Jahve more than the healthy ones, why the rituals were so intimidating, requiring the slaughter of a lamb or other animals to be sacrificed to Jahve for the cleansing of one’s soul, why Jahve could punish people if he loved them, why the Jews considered themselves to be “the chosen nation,” and a great many of other questions that did interest me so profoundly and aroused the inquisitiveness of my mind that nobody was able to satisfy. Therefore, I would ever more address the heavenly Father with these very same questions which were too difficult for me and to which my mind would not find answers. And my mind would get enlightened with marvelous thoughts which would come from the Father and explain to me, very precisely the causes of all those things. And this relationship with the Father would direct me ever more away from coddling my own ego, towards thinking about how to assist men in enlightening their minds so that they would feel a similar light and peace that I started to feel within me ever more.

My strong desire to help people originated as far back as in my early childhood when my mind had really no idea that it was communing with the Father. Even though I talked to Him while I was alone after my joyful playing with my friends throughout the day, even though I did not hear any answers from the Father yet, due to my permanent communication with the Father, I developed such a habit that I called it “My prayer and thoughts to the Father.” During these moments I would feel a pleasant tranquility within me. And I enjoyed them very much. Because of this pleasant sensation, I tried to stay alone ever more. And not only before going to bed at night but also in the daytime when I would go out of our house in Nazareth and walk up on a big hill and while viewing a panorama stretching far off to Mount Hermon and even with visible cities within the range of a score of miles, and on an especially clear bright day, with a fringe of the sea, I would sit down on the ground and embrace my bent knees and I would try to imagine what might be beyond that view visible to my eyes, what was in the sky where I would see so many stars at night? What was in these stars? What was in-between them? Why didn’t they fall to the earth? Why didn’t they get dispersed? How did God keep them all within His grasp without letting a single one go? And after these moments of deep and sincere pondering on the Nazareth hill, some bright thoughts would strike my mind providing answers to my questions. And I realized that within me there was some invisible link with God. I tried to talk about this with my father but my ideas were incomprehensible and unacceptable to him since he was an ordinary Jew. Even though he was an honest and sincere man, he was also in the captivity of the rituals imposed on all by the Jewish religion. And any thought of mine about God contradicting the then-rigid religious dogma and any critical approach to the ritual performed, would immediately arouse his irritation and he would right away scold me that I would get this nonsense out of my head for it would lead me to no good but rather attract misfortune. My mother was even more rigid, as she did not want to hear anything of this kind from me. Such conversations scared her very much. She was such a patriotic Jewish woman that she did not entertain any idea in her mind that in the Jewish religion anything might be not the way God desired it to be.

I did not have anyone with whom to discuss these issues that moved and interested me so very much. Therefore there remained only these conversations of mine with the Father in solitude. To my parents, these changes of mine, from a joyful son who had just run out of our house to the Nazareth Mount, and who would return too serious for his age, and start teaching them that it was necessary to believe in God in one’s heart, rather than to cling to the meaningless rituals that produced nothing in the heart, and therefore did not turn one into a better person, would always cause not only their anguish but also irritation, because by starting such incautious conversations among people I might be excommunicated from the synagogue and named as the one who was possessed by the devil.

Such considerations of theirs did not affect me at all, but I started pondering once that if even my closest people could entertain these thoughts about me, the others would certainly take me for an abnormal person. Therefore from an early age, I began to realize ever more that I could not share everything to the same extent with all. To those who were unable to understand it I would rather explain nothing, for having been scared, all the same neither would they listen nor understand it and their fear would only increase. This is why I could not explain to the people how they could find peace in their communion with the Father, by communicating with Him in their own words. That would have been an enormous challenge to the whole Jewish ritualistic and dogmatic belief system that was generating a lot of money for the priests.

However, at home, I kept explaining that the Father was a loving Father, and He loved even more than any earthly father. And He did not need any animal sacrifice or any other sort of sacrifice, money or vows. I would ask my father: “Would you, while loving me, require any sacrifice from me for your love?” Joseph would always consider my words. He never tried to reply to me at once. He was opposite of my mother who was steadfast but impatient. My father was not that enthusiastic, he was rather thinking tacitly within himself. And after a while, as if continuing the conversation, he would get back to some idea exposed by me earlier and would pronounce approvingly: “My dear son, you words are still ringing in my head, you know, you are right, maybe God does not need that sacrifice of ours. If He loves us, most likely He loves us not for our sacrifices. Well, all of us are doing it; and Moses did it. We do not have to break the laws left over to us by Moses. Or else we shall cease being the people of God, and we shall not be any different from the gentiles that do not need any Jahve at all. You would rather not speak out this aloud to anyone. At home you may do it but not anywhere else. You will bring trouble to our home. You will not manage to clarify it to others, all the same.” I would tell my father who was the only one within our large ten-member family that I could talk with frankly since my mother did not want to hear about my pondering about God, while all my other younger brothers and sisters were too young to comprehend my words: “By offering any sacrifice to Jahve we are no different from the gentiles who worship the idols. For you that sacrifice is also like an idol because you believe that the Father does not love you without a more valuable thing to Him than yourselves. You have to sacrifice something that is beyond your sincerity and your open heart to Jahve. It means that you value that very sacrifice higher than your own open heart. Just an open heart, according to your comprehension, is not yet a sufficient sacrifice to God since it is still necessary to add a material sacrifice as well. It is exactly what the gentiles do whom you despise so much and do not consider them to be worthy of you.” Joseph would lack arguments to respond to me, he would only say in short: “Well, well, I shall ponder this; you are telling me something that my mind cannot understand at once. I need time.” And subsequently, after a day or two he merely would continue: “Maybe you are right. But all the same do not speak out these things to others. They will not understand it.”

I have related to you this episode from my experience in the human flesh so that you – my brethren of the present age – would also be able to realize that the Father does not need any sacrifice from you, any restraint of your body such as fasting or refusal to partake of some food during the religious holidays, or on the contrary, partaking of some special food in particular, He does not need any sacrifice of your vows and the ritual performance, and the sacrifice of your believing in dogmas. He needs only that in your faith, after having felt His spirit already bestowed upon you and operating within you, and His love constantly being radiated by this spirit, you could lead a joyful daily life in bliss that can be experienced only by the soul opened up to Him; and nothing more.

It is upon opening up your soul that the Father’s spirit, indwelling you, shall fill it with the Father’s love as much as that soul shall be sincerely opened up for its replenishment. And it is then that your mind shall experience bliss and shall be able to start leading you in wisdom and with love for all, and that shall be the cause of all your good deeds to all; your good deeds to all rather than to yourself.

But the soul and your mind of higher frequency, the mind of your soul, will be telling you ever more what bliss it is to spread love and goodness to all. And this sort of man will really begin to feel that he has become exactly as I had been in the human flesh two thousand years ago.