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Dedication I dedicate this book and anything good that comes of my work and my life to my dear wife Beverly who has taught me the true secret of a blessed life.

Happiness does not depend on some future event. Happiness is appreciating and enjoying the people and

things around you right now. Beverly is always happy, but she is happiest when she makes others happy. No achievements in my life could ever mean more to me than those times when I have given her a reason to smile, or feel loved, or feel appreciated. I believe in reincarnation, and so I look forward to my soul mate and I dancing this wonderful dance many, many more times. - Alan Gordon


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Table of Contents Introduction

1: Collection of Quotes

2: What is a Mystic?

3: Development of the Inner Man

4: Ontology The Framework of Your Beliefs

5: The Material Universe Powered by Infinite Life Force

6: The Soul Seated in the Body

7: Mind

8: Seven Mystical Principles

9: Four More Key Principles

10: Shma Yisrael (Hear O Israel)

11: Spiritual Alchemy Turning Base Metal into Gold

12: Inter-Connectedness

13: The Life Force is Never Ending

14: Preparation Elevating Your Awareness

15: Purification Before Entering the Temple

16: The Triple Vantage Point

17: Symbols of the Triple Vantage Point

18: You are Infinite

19: What Would God Say to Us?

20: Concluding Thoughts


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Introduction

Please join me on a journey into the mystery and meaning of life. We will explore the incredible wisdom of ancient teachings blended with the knowledge of modern science. Many of these teachings have been passed down for thousands of years. I am convinced that we will not advance by looking backwards, debating and defending religious doctrine. To become great we must each be great by fully understanding and utilizing our awesome God-given power. The Triple Vantage Point is an experience of deep unity, a focused state of mind which allows us to experience life in absolute reality, or as close to absolute reality as we can get. But before we can appreciate the experience of the Triple Vantage Point we need to learn more about ourselves. Bring together ancient wisdom and history into a modern view of the world, then put that wisdom into practice with The Triple Vantage Point. An experience you will never forget and will want to repeat many times over. And you can. The Triple Vantage Point is not a religion. It is a technique to build your inner self to the point where you can, for a few deep moments, realize the truth about your being and experience the full and awesome power of your being. The truth is that only a very small number of people are even interested in following a path of inner development, and even for those who are drawn to this path, they find no clear curriculum to follow. Each student is on his own to explore and read different books and try different ideas throughout his life. So at least for this part of your journey, Im really so very glad you have found this book which present a clear sequence of ideas that will guide you down a safe and wonderful path of inner discovery.

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it - even if I myself have said it - unless it agrees with your own reason

and your own common sense. ~The Buddha

Think for yourself. And in that spirit I encourage you to read, experience and explore, with an open mind. We may disagree on points of doctrine, thats fine. But when you experience the complete unity of The Triple Vantage Point, the Unification of Mind, Body and Soul, that experience transcends religious beliefs and doctrinal differences. I urge you to experience it for yourself.


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1: Collection of Quotes

In these first pages I quote some of the greatest thoughts from the greatest spiritual thinkers in history. I come back to these quotes often, and I realize that many of them hold mystical keys to opening deeper insights into the truth behind the physical world. Many of these thoughts were written 2,000 and 3,000 years ago, and yet our modern society completely ignores this wisdom. We are silent on these subjects. Our modern society is focused exclusively on the material world. As a society we have lost the notion of responsibility for understanding our spiritual nature and bringing it to bear in our everyday lives. It is our duty to regain that spiritual understanding, to follow the way that so many have pointed out to us in times past.

Truth alone will endure. All the rest will be swept away before the tide of time. I must, therefore, continue to bear testimony to truth, even if I am forsaken by all. Mine may today be a voice in the wilderness, but it will be heard when all other

voices are silenced. It is the voice of truth. ~Mahatma Gandhi

The best of all gifts is the gift of truth. ~The Buddha

The beauty of Wisdom is lost, except to the ears of Understanding. ~The Kybalion

There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All

these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite. ~Abraham Lincoln

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. ~Genesis 1:27

And God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. ~Genesis 2:7

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

~Deuteronomy 6:4


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The All is in all, and all is in the All ~The Kybalion

All is Brahman The Self is Brahman

Thou Art That I AM Brahman

~ The Four Mahavakyas Great Statements in the Upanishads

He who sees all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings, he never turns away from this truth

~ The Isha Upanishad

He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.

~ The Buddha

It is more blessed to give than to receive. ~ Acts 20:35

Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two

commandments hang all the law. ~Matthew 22:36-39

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others.

~ Robert F. Kennedy

Give and it shall be given to you. For whatever measure you deal out to others, it will be dealt to you in return. ~Luke 6:38

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be

judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. ~Matthew 7:1-2


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Do unto others as you would have them do unto you ~Luke 6:31

That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole of the Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn. ~ Talmud, Shabbat 31a

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. ~Matthew 5:5

A man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses. ~Luke 12:15

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break

through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. ~Matthew 6:19-21

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

~Romans 11:33

Behind all the secrets of nature there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable.

~Albert Einstein

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.

~ Albert Einstein

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall

harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

We are what we think. All that we are arises from our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world.

~ The Buddha


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Mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer

garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain, they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.

~ James Allen

How ignorant is he who knows all but not himself? ~Ralph M. Lewis

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not a single act, but a habit. ~ Aristotle

Our duty as men and women, is to proceed with our lives as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

~Mark 11:24

Be not deceived. God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he

that soweth to the Spirit shall reap life everlasting. ~Galatians 6:7

For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, but lose his soul? ~Luke 9:25

The seven sins of a society are politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without renunciation of ego.

~Mahatma Ghandi


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2: What is a Mystic?

Behind all the secrets of nature there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable.

~ Albert Einstein (scientist and mystic)

Behind the visible lies the invisible. Behind the physical lies the spiritual. Behind the known lies the unknown. We are surrounded by mystery. Our very existence is a mystery. We have a physical body, but we clearly have a soul, an animating spirit which is not physical. Behind the visible (our body) lies the invisible (our soul). Our mind is one of the great mysteries of the universe. All we have to show for our infinite conscious and subconscious capacity is the physical brain which offers no real explanation as to how our mind actually works. And yet all of us are equipped with a mind of infinite capacity, and each of us uses it every minute of every day even though not one of us can understand how this happens. What is a Mystic? A mystic is someone who is drawn to know the truths which lay beyond the physical world, and desires to experience a unity with Gods infinite being. If you are reading these words then you are part of a long line of men and women, who since the dawn of time, have sought out truth and wisdom, and who have honored God by valuing life and His creation. Mysticism is the pursuit of truth, the honoring of Gods infinite mysteries, and a humble desire to experience unity with God and His purpose. Can you be Spiritual but not Religious? The most common misconception about Mysticism is that it is Atheism. It is not Atheism, but it is also not a religion. Mysticism is a personal path. A mystic is drawn to the development of his inner being, and takes personal responsibility for his own development. This is the difference between spirituality and religion. For many mystics, their religion is a central element of this path, but many others find that a religion does not fulfill this need and they seek their path outside of any organized religion. The true purpose of your life is to elevate your level of awareness and enlightenment by connecting with the truth, and ultimately incorporating wisdom into your daily being.


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A mystic walks the path at the point of mystery between the visible and the invisible, between physical reality and spiritual reality, between the known and the unknown. A mystic has a foot in both worlds. He understands that he is not entirely of the physical world, there are unseen elements. He has not abandoned the physical world, rather he lives at the intersection between these two worlds and understands that the visible and the invisible, the known and the unknown, are connected, and constantly flowing back and forth, one into the other.

A mystic can recognize the mystery, accept the mystery, and enjoy the mystery. Reality includes the known and the unknown.

To the mystic, reality is unified and all-inclusive.


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3: Development of the Inner Man

How ignorant is he who knows all but not himself? ~Ralph M. Lewis

To know all about the world, but to have no knowledge of your own inner being is the saddest state of a man. Let us not depart this world spiritually empty handed. The exploration and understanding of your self is incomparably more valuable than your understanding of the physical world. Knowledge of the world is transitory, the world itself is transitory, but you - as a spiritual being - transcend this world. You are eternal, and knowledge of your eternal self is your ultimate goal. Within each of us, at the deepest level, is an inner consciousness or intelligence. Most people are so overwhelmingly wrapped up in the physical world and absorbed in their various activities and roles in this world that it is very common for people to go their entire lives without contemplating or taking the time to develop an awareness of this inner consciousness, this inner intelligence, this inner man. This inner consciousness is mysterious. It is invisible as opposed to your visible self. It is unknown as opposed to the known self. It is spiritual as opposed to the physical self. But this is a wonderful opportunity disguised as a mystery. If you consider this inner self, this spiritual world and come to understand this inner self you will gain something that only a very small number of people on this earth will ever know. You will gain in spiritual understanding and enlightenment, free yourself from ignorance, and bring this wisdom to your daily being. There isnt a single person, not even the worst among us, who hasnt at least once or twice thought about the meaning of life and our purpose. But for most people those are very brief moments in a long lifetime of superficial activity. The physical world is an important part in our lives we live, we go to school, we work, we marry, we raise children life is important. But it is critical that you put aside the superficial from time to time, and develop an awareness of your inner being. Most people are 100% superficial and 0% aware. Life pulls us into the world, so try to go 90% in the physical and 10% in the spiritual if you can commit more time and attention, great. Any focus on inner awareness even a small investment of your time is important and will have lasting value. Stay balanced in your approach to your spiritual life.


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How do we develop the inner man? From this point forward, slow down. Its easy to slow down while Im saying slow down but during the day slow down. Make a commitment to develop your inner awareness and to expand your knowledge of mystical principles. Look at the bigger picture, the Cosmic picture of whats really going on in the world. Look at the world behind the world. Look at the man behind the man the spiritual man, the divine soul that you are. The calm mind allows one to connect with the inner self, the Soul, the very source of our

being. Thats where music lives. Thats where my music comes from. ~ Clarence Clemons

(mystic and saxophonist in Bruce Springsteens E Street Band) Develop positive habits and active practices to incorporate your wisdom into your daily being. Become a calming influence to yourself and to others around you. Draw your attention to the spiritual side of life. Even just think about the spiritual side of life from time to time. Recognize that your close family, your co-workers, friends and neighbors are all souls to be respected and loved. They are probably not contemplating deeper truths, and they may do things which upset you, but thats ok. It is not your job to change other people. It is your job to develop your inner being, reflect on the true nature of reality, and reflect on your true nature. Earlier we said that a mystic is someone who is drawn to know deeper truths, but much more important than simply reading and learning these truths is to change your approach to the world, change your approach to the situations you find yourself in, and to be aware of the impact you are having on the people around you and on yourself. Are you the focal point of all the drama? Are you the comedian? Are you the wise sage? Are you the criticizer? Are you always putting yourself down? Are you arrogant and demeaning? Are you shy and fearful to express yourself? Be mindful of how you come across to others, and how you flow in this world. Calm down. Relax. Dont play a character in a movie. You dont have to say something or do something just because you have always said it or done it before. You can make a choice. As we explore and learn more, be mindful that there is a deeper part of yourself and make a more conscious effort to connect to your inner being.


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When you can be more relaxed in the outer world, you immediately gain the ability to be more aware of your inner being and take ongoing steps to connect to your inner self your true self your eternal self. The external world is transitory and has no lasting value. Your inner self is eternal and is well worth knowing.

Commune with thyself, O man! and consider wherefore thou wert made. ~ Attributed to Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt from 1360 to 1350 BC

Unto Thee I Grant


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4: Ontology The Framework of Your Beliefs

An ontology is a framework of beliefs which explain who we are, why we exist, and how the physical world relates to the spiritual world. It is a human attempt to describe the indescribable and give meaning, perspective, and purpose to our lives. It is a set of core beliefs which guide our viewpoint and actions throughout life. The ontology you choose to accept serves as a reference point as you consider any question or issue in life. In very simple summaries: Ancient tribal ontology revolves around ancient ancestors who have lived before, and who now oversee the people of the tribe and act as intermediaries between the various gods and the people. Gods were created in ancient cultures to emphasize abstract concepts in their belief systems. A God represented the abstract concept, for example the Goddess of Love Aphrodite, Ishtar, Isis, Venus. The God of Truth Maat, Apollo, Veritas, etc. The Goddess of Fertility Mother Earth, etc. Ancient Egyptian ontology recognizes many gods and the Pharaoh as a god on earth and the head of the Temple. Through the Temple and the Priests, each man may approach the gods and ask their blessings in their various activities in life. Greek and Roman ontology describe a pantheon of gods who rule over the people and their daily activities. The Greek and Roman cultures created a rich series of stories about each of the gods and their activities. The Greeks and Romans built great temples and developed rituals and sacrifices to honor the gods. A small number of people were initiated into the mysteries, and these mystics understood these stories and Gods to be symbolic of spiritual truths. Hindu ontology (900 million followers) tells us that we live in one of a billion, billion universes, and that this life is one in a succession of an infinite number of lives that we must lead. There is an all-encompassing God Brahma. Many other Gods exist as manifestations of Brahma, and these Gods exist to guide and protect us, and to destroy those who are against us.


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Buddhist ontology (376 million followers) tells us that there are billions of worlds and levels of universes. The world you are born into and the nature of your life is determined by the balance of accumulated sin and merit. The physical world is one of suffering, and our suffering is caused by our desires and our attachment to the world. Through virtue (moral conduct) and concentration and mental development (meditation) you can eliminate your desires and become pure and experience wisdom and enlightenment. When ultimate enlightenment occurs you end the cycle of rebirth and experience nirvana which literally means death without rebirth. Jewish ontology (14 million followers) tells us that there is One God who dwells on high, actively blesses and protects His people, and brings His wrath to all who would disobey His Law as spelled out in the Five Books of Moses. They await a Messiah who shall one day come to earth and rule the united tribes of Israel as King and usher in a Golden Age of peace. Christian ontology (2.1 billion followers) continues the proposition that there is One God, and tells us that He dwells in Heaven, and that He oversees our lives on earth. Christians believe that the Messiah has come and that this was Gods Son Jesus. The life of His Son Jesus is an example to us how to live our lives, but more importantly His death by crucifixion served to take on the sins of the world, and particularly our personal sins. Each person has the opportunity in this life to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, and in doing so he may be released from his sins and cross the chasm which separates him from God and dwell with God in Heaven for eternity. If any person chooses not to accept Christ he shall spend the remainder of eternity bearing the burden of his sins in Hell, eternally apart from God. Islamic ontology (1.5 billion followers and the fastest growing religion) claims that the religion of Moses is the pure religion and that the Jews had corrupted it over time. Gods prophet Mohammed believed that Jesus was a prophet of God, but was not the son of God. Mohammed proposed a simpler statement of monotheism the one God Allah and that he, Mohammed, was Gods final prophet and on this authority he laid out a lengthy series of social laws which united all the Arab tribes of the time. The most important laws were that each man shall travel to Mecca, the home of an ancient black stone housed in the temple of Kabah, at least one time in his life, and that each man shall pray to Allah (facing the direction of the black stone) five times a day. Each man who devotes his life to Allah shall experience eternal paradise after death.


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A Mystical Ontology

Here is an ontology which forms the core of Mysticism. God is Infinite God is Omniscient God is Creative God is Harmonious God is Three Fold: Infinite Body, Infinite Mind, Infinite Soul Man, Created in His Image, is Also Three Fold: Finite Body, Finite Mind, Finite

Soul All Matter, All Life, All Thoughts, All Mind, All Souls, All Forms of Energy are

Connected and part of God God is the Totality, and Everything, Including Ourselves, is a Connected Part of

that Totality Lets look briefly at each element of this ontology. God is Infinite. Our ontology begins with the philosophical first premise of God. We are not atheists, we are not agnostic. We recognize that God IS, but we go further by saying that God is ALL there is. We need to think of the word Infinite in its literal and absolute sense. God is infinite in time, space and in any dimension or plane that may exist. Our mortal minds cannot even begin to conceive of the meaning or ramifications of Infinite existence. The ancient Hermetic Principle states: The All is in all, and all is in the All. In our ontology there is nothing apart from God. God is Omniscient. God knows everything i.e. omniscient. This is a very important point because it means that God is witness to everything. This must encompass the circumstances of every person, every animal, every tree and blade of grass, every molecule,every atom not only events but actions, words, thoughts and emotions. In every place, at any time, on any plane of existence God knows (is aware of) everything. God is Creative. We can see all around us that God is Creative. He not only has created our Universe, but He continually provides the energy to sustain His creation He is constantly and continually creating. Life begets life, life creates, we create, God continually creates, renews and regenerates. God is Harmonious. This principle tells us that God and His creation are harmonious. But the world is clearly not harmonious as we see every day war, genocide, terrorism, pollution, crime, murder, abuse and a host of other evils presented to us on the news each day. In addition to these public tragedies, there are countless small and private tragedies that people experience every day. How do we reconcile the disharmony which we see in the world with our belief that God is Harmonious? One possible explanation is that there is an evil counterpart or an evil


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force opposed to God which spreads hurt and evil throughout the world. This is the theory of Duality, but it implies that God is not infinite that there is an evil existence apart from God. We can reject the notion of Duality because in our ontology God is infinite, and there can be nothing existing apart from God. Another possible explanation for the disharmony we experience is that God has two moods - a kind mood and a wrathful mood. In His wrathful mood God creates disorder and disharmony; He destroys our enemies or punishes us for our wrongdoings. Our ontology rejects this notion because God is harmonious, and we cannot accept that God is the cause of any disharmony. To understand the disharmony which exists in the world we must acknowledge the fact that negative circumstances are indeed real, but are caused not by God, but by human free will. Each one of us, at some point in our lives, has done something mean or hurtful or maybe even violent. Each of us has done things we are not proud of, but this does not imply that God caused this to happen. We created the negative event. While all of us have done something hurtful, none of us would call ourselves evil. For example, your anger toward another person didnt happen because God was angry at that person you acted in your anger. And because you are angry does not imply that you are evil. God is harmonious, and in this circumstance it was your anger that crossed the line of harmony. In our ontology, each of us is responsible for our own behavior, and each of us must compensate for our behavior until all is eventually reconciled to a state of harmony. More on this later. God is Three Fold: Infinite Body, Infinite Mind, Infinite Soul Man, Created in His Image, is Also Three Fold: Finite Body, Finite Mind, Finite Soul These two elements of our ontology are based directly from the biblical explanation in Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, and hence our bodies are a finite part of Gods infinite Body, our minds are a small part of Gods infinite Mind, and our souls are a small part of Gods infinite Soul. This concept is also a main tenet of Hermetic teaching, specifically the Law of Correspondence which tells us As above, so below ~The Kybalion All Matter, All Life, All Thoughts, All Mind, All Souls, All Forms of Energy are Connected and Part of God. God is the Totality, and Everything, Including Ourselves, is a Connected Part of that Totality Our ontology ends with these final statements of Unity. We are connected to all existence in body, mind and soul. All existence is connected to each of us. This represents the highest of all mystical understanding.


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5: The Material Universe Powered by Infinite Life Force

If God is infinite, and the Universe is infinite, then the Universe is the infinite body of God Gods material form. There are some who believe that our Universe is just one of a billion, billion universes. If this is true, then our universe is no more than a tiny atom in an unimaginably bigger Universe. So the body of God is either infinite (our Universe) or a billion, billion times that infinity. Since we cant fathom infinity we need not concern ourselves with this question. Gods body, Gods material form, is infinite. The Universe is not God, it is Gods material form. God is the universe, and is also the essential energy, the Life Force and Mind behind the Universe. If we believe in God as Creative, then God is the Creator of the Universe, and is constantly providing an infinite amount of energy into the Universe sustaining His creation and endlessly continuing the act of creation. So how does an invisible unseen God provide energy to sustain the visible Universe? At every point in creation where two things come together we will find a transition point. The transition point from God the essential energy behind the Universe to the actual physical Universe is the Sun, or more correctly, the stars. Stars represent transition points or universal power transformers transforming the invisible power of God to the unimaginable, infinite energy of the visible Universe. Through the Sun, all life on earth is sustained. Through the infinite number of stars in the Universe, the infinite physical Universe is sustained. The amount of energy vibrating and pulsing through our Universe is unfathomable. Just one star our sun radiates an unfathomable amount of energy. Of course, the sun radiates in all directions, and only one one-billionth of the suns total energy output strikes the surface of the earth. But even with this tiny fraction, there is enough energy reaching the surface of the earth in one hour on a sunny day to power all the earths current electricity needs for two years.

Vital Life Force The energy emanating from the Sun can be measured through a broad spectrum of energy frequencies. Of course the Sun releases heat, visible light, ultra-violet light, but it also releases energy on many octaves or frequencies above and below the frequencies of visible light. One of the forms of energy emanating from the Sun is the Vital Life Force and we shall return to this in a moment.


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In this Egyptian papyrus created during the reign of Akhenaten we can clearly see the symbolic Sun providing vital life force to creation. In fact, it is believed this is intended as an actual drawing of Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti. In two of the rays the Sun is holding an Ankh the symbol of Life in Ancient Egypt.

The Human Body In the same way that God has a body (the Universe) we also have a body. But we are not our bodies. Our bodies are the physical manifestation of our selves. Our bodies are literally made from the elements of the earth. Our bodies are able to convert substances into new substances, but the raw materials come from the food we eat and the air we breathe. And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth Genesis 2:7. Man is the inter-weaving of three distinct types of energy: Body (matter), Soul (Life Force), and Mind. Each form of energy is completely distinct from the other. We are not all body, we are not all mind, we are not all soul. We are not defined by any one of these alone, we are a woven combination of all three. Life exists at the intersection of these three energies. Each form of energy connects and interacts with the other. We are the balance of these three energies. It seems like a mystery, How can we be energy? Yet each one of us is walking, thinking and existing in the balance and combination of these three energies. Every person we see is also an inter-woven blend of these three energies. From human beings down through all forms of life, each is a blend of three distinct types of energy physical matter, life force, and mind.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.

~ Genesis 1:27 God, the ALL, the Cosmic, the Source whatever name you apply is also an inter-woven blend of these three energies, but on an infinite scale. Infinite Body (the Universe), Infinite Soul (Life Force), and Infinite Mind.


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6: The Soul - Seated in the Body During our lifetime our soul is seated in our body, it is connected, integrated in our being. At some point it enters our body, and at some point it leaves our body. The Book of Genesis offers the best mystical explanation for how the soul enters the body.

and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,

and man became a living soul. ~Genesis 2:7

Our soul enters our body with our first breath the breath of life - and in perfect symmetry the soul leaves our body after our last breath. Our soul dwells in our body continually from the time of our first breath to the time of our last breath. This leads us to wonder if there is something about the breath which allows the soul to inhabit our bodies, and indeed there is. Recall the Vital Life Force, a very special energy emanating from the sun. But how does this Vital Life Force reach and sustain the soul?

Most people are familiar with the human circulatory system. Blood cells from every part of our body return through our veins and gather into larger and larger veins as the depleted blood cells return to the heart. Here they enter the right atrium (through the Vena Cava), transition to the right ventricle and are pumped a short way through the Pulmonary Artery to the lungs.


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As the blood travels from the heart to the lungs, the Pulmonary Artery quickly divides into thousands of smaller and smaller vessels eventually forming millions of capillaries. The capillaries are so narrow that the blood cells have to line up in single file to pass through. As you inhale each breath, the air enters the lungs and the air passageways of the lungs divide and divide and divide until they end in microscopic little sacs of air called aveoli. The capillaries surround the aveoli (as you can see in the picture below), and when these depleted blood cells make their way into contact with the lungs something magical happens. Flat, depleted, colorless, lifeless blood cells reach the lungs and pause for a fraction of a second in the capillary. Through the walls of the lungs oxygen and the Vital Life Force are transferred into the lifeless blood cells. These cells are instantly transformed - full, vibrant (literally vibrating with joy), bursting with life.

(Please join me right now in taking a very deep, slow breath and appreciate the amazingly perfect life-giving, life-sustaining design of your lungs and heart!) These buzzing, joyful cells make their way back to the Pulmonary Vein where they collect and are transported back to the heart into the left ventricle, and with one very powerful pump of the heart, these vibrant, pulsating blood cells push through the Aorta, and are pumped into the body carrying oxygen and the Vital Life Force to every cell in the body muscles, bones, organs, nerves. After the bodys cells absorb the oxygen and the Vital Life Force, the blood cells are once again depleted, and begin their weary return through the veins to the heart. Recall the concept of a transition point? The transition point between the invisible life energy traveling through the Universe the Vital Life Force emanating from the sun and our body is in the walls of our lungs. Like a filling station, our blood cells line up in the lungs to receive and absorb the life force and carry this life force to every other cell in the body.


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How Does the Soul Stay in the Body? We just learned that the soul enters the body with our first breath, anchors in the body while we are alive, and leaves the body after our final breath when we die. Ancient mystical teachings have long held that the soul is anchored in the human body in the blood which constantly circulates, continually absorbs the vital life force from the lungs, and travels to reach every cell in our body. Some people will not only doubt that the soul resides in the blood, but will think this is a crazy, New Age concept. But there is clear biblical support for this statement. In the Old Testament there are teachings that you may cook and eat flesh, but in order for meat to be considered fit for consumption (kosher) under Jewish Law, it may only be cooked after it has been drained of its blood. Genesis 9:4 Yea, flesh with its soul, its blood, you shall not eat. This teaching is again emphasized in Leviticus 17:11 and 17:14: for the soul of all flesh, it is in the blood. When the body no longer functions and is no longer pulling in Vital Life Force when we stop breathing the soul simply vacates the body. This modest and brief explanation seems sufficient to answer the question of how our soul enters our body, what sustains it, and what causes it to leave. But there is a more important question. We understand the how, but now we would like to know why the soul exists. Herein lies the most exciting of all mysteries.

What is the Purpose of Our Soul? Our ontology tells us to start with the concept that God is infinite. God is infinite mind, infinite body, infinite soul. In the same way that our body is a tiny, tiny piece of Gods infinite body our soul is a tiny, tiny piece of Gods infinite soul. Our soul is an individual instantiation of the infinite soul. We dont go through our daily lives identifying ourselves with God, but the fact that we have a soul, that we are a soul, is a joyful confirmation that we are indeed a part of God Himself. We are more than just a body of flesh. The fact that we have a soul confirms that we are meant to be here, we are important, we are a part of something much bigger than our own self-conception, all together we are each a part of the universal soul. We are a center of consciousness of God, forever one with God, an Incarnation of the Universal, a single point in an infinitely large mosaic. If you can transition your self-conception away from your body, your name, your occupation, your house, your education, your economic status, and move it to your eternal soul who you truly are you can obtain unimaginable insights. You will realize that your wealth or lack of wealth is of no consequence. You will realize that the size of your home or the meagerness of your apartment is of no consequence. You will realize that your race and religion are of no consequence, and that your nationality and


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the language you speak is of no consequence. The body wears out and dissolves back into the elements after physical death.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to

dust you will return. ~Genesis 3:19 But the soul is eternal. It is not of the material world. It cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed. It cannot be understood or explained in any sense that we could understand or explain it. Some call it spirit or a soul personality or the inner man but what name you give it is of no importance. It is the essence of life within you and it is maintained in your body with every breath you take. The soul clearly resides in our body, but it is not a part of our body. It is our eternal component. Our body is constantly changing, and eventually stops functioning and returns to the earth. But our soul lasts beyond time. Because of the way we have been trained to think we identify ourselves with our body, our physical circumstances, and our status. But the more correct viewpoint is that we are our soul. Admittedly, it is difficult for us to relate to something that we cant see, hear or feel. Our soul does not take an active part in our lives. Our soul does not make its presence known to us. It doesnt guide us through life. It doesnt tell us what to do. It doesnt tell us what not to do. It doesnt stop us from making mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes. Our soul does not make itself known to us but it is us. It is who we are. So if the soul is not active in our life, what is its purpose? We find the answer to this question by going back to our ontology. God is Omniscient. The purpose of our soul is to observe and record each minute detail of our lives. The soul is a silent observing presence. Through us, God knows His Creation. Nothing is beyond His knowing. God is witness to everything. This must encompass the circumstances of every atom, every plant, every animal, every person not only events but actions, words, thoughts, intentions and emotions. In every place, at any time, on any plane of existence God knows everything. Just as our soul is seated in our blood and thus in contact with every cell in our body, Gods soul is in contact with every atom of His creation observing and knowing. Our soul observes our experiences, but Gods soul is infinite, encompassing our soul and the collective souls of all creation. When your physical body expires, your soul merges back with the infinite soul. You continue on. I continue on. We continue on.


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Back to Contents

7: Mind

In a second work, The Mind Bank (click here for more information), I present more detail about the Mind and how it can be used to shape physical circumstances. While there is some overlapping of material, The Mind Bank contains practical methods. This work will emphasize the structure of the Mind and how it works from a mystical perspective.

While the brain is a complicated mechanism and could be studied for many years, for the purposes of our work there are two basic parts of the brain the limbic brain and the cortex. The Limbic Brain The first and most ancient part of the human brain is the limbic brain which controls bodily function and emotion. These are the parts of the brain along the stem. The limbic brain is operating continuously, but it operates unconsciously just below the surface of your conscious awareness. Limbic activity is sometimes referred to as unconscious activity. We each possess an enormous amount of intelligence which is controlled by the limbic system beneath our conscious awareness. The limbic brain controls the autonomic nervous system and is intimately associated with the pituitary gland which communicates and controls all the other glands in our body. The limbic system is responsible for our fight or flight mechanism which acts without conscious control. All emotions originate in this section of the brain, and under the influence of powerful emotions (rage, fear, sexual desire, etc.) people can, and often do act without thinking. The limbic system is where long term memories of emotional experiences, both pleasant and traumatic, are stored. The limbic system is where musical memory is stored. So if you hear a song that you havent heard or thought about since you were a child, the notes and the words are perfectly stored and you remember the song like it was yesterday, even though you may not have heard it for 20, 30, or even 50 years. When you have a song stuck in your head, its coming from the limbic part of your brain. The Cortex The other part of the brain is the cortex which consists of the folded sections of the brain. The Conscious mind is associated with the cortex. The cortex is associated with sensory perception, thought, language and consciousness. This is the part of the brain that is aware of whats going on around us, and where we form thoughts and express our ideas through words. When awake, the Conscious mind talks, or more accurately, chatters non-stop until you fall asleep at which point it shuts off, only to become aware and active again the moment you wake up.


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The Conscious mind concerns itself with everything we know from our five senses, and everything we can figure out through our own awareness and knowledge. It is constantly analyzing the current situation, analyzing the past, and predicting the future. The Conscious mind is obsessed with knowing and figuring things out, past, present, and future. Unlike our limbic system which operates under the surface, we are very aware of our Conscious mind because it fills every moment of our waking lives with an internal dialog. As you think, you form words around your thoughts and talk to yourself all the time.

All Thoughts are Deposited in the Subconscious The Conscious mind creates thoughts, the limbic brain creates impressions, emotions and feelings. Anticipation, fear, worry, stress, hate, anger, love, happiness, doubt, and confidence are all created in the limbic brain below our conscious awareness. From time to time we become aware of these feelings stress, for example, but by the time we become aware of the feeling, it has already been going on for a long time. Every thought and idea from the Conscious mind, and every emotion, impression and unconscious experience from the limbic brain is transmitted to and stored in the Subconscious mind. Your Subconscious mind can be pictured as a deep dark lake. All your conscious thoughts and all your unconscious experiences are transmitted to the Subconscious mind and stored there. What is contained in this giant storehouse of thoughts and experiences under the surface is unknown and unknowable it is subconscious, below our awareness. Thoughts exist as an energy pattern or a vibrational pattern. They are very real, not as physical things in the physical world, but they are energy. Over time, your thoughts, experiences, and beliefs tend to form together and solidify in the Subconscious mind. Repeated thoughts and beliefs gather together and form large thought forms, like giant boulders, resting at the bottom of the subconscious lake. These large boulders represent, in a very real sense, your understanding of the way the world is and the way you are. These large, dense thought forms are based on the sum total of all your conscious thoughts and unconscious experiences, and are therefore true and undeniable. These large boulders form your beliefs and beliefs about yourself. Everything you now experience, all the new thoughts and experiences entering your Subconscious, are measured against these accumulated beliefs, and everything new tends to gravitate toward and confirm your self-beliefs. These heavy subconscious boulders define who you are. You literally are who you think you are. In order to achieve a goal the Subconscious mind must accept it. If the Subconscious rejects the idea, its not going to happen. Your Subconscious mind is an incredibly powerful force, and if the subconscious belief is strong enough, it will always achieve its goal. It will always be consistent with what you subconsciously believe to be true.


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Heres an example that we use in The Mind Bank.

You are shy and deathly afraid of socializing. You have been invited to a big party on Saturday night. Through a lifetime of thoughts and experiences, your self-image says that you dont go to parties bad, avoid, terrible. Well as the day

draws closer your Subconscious works harder and harder to get you to not attend that party. Im just not going to go. Im going to tell them I have something else

to do that night. Ill just tell them I had to pick up a friend at the airport. The impulses come stronger and stronger as the day and the hour draws closer. If you cant find a way to bail out, your Subconscious mind has the ability to work with the

limbic brain to actually make you sick so you really have a legitimate excuse.

You can affirm to yourself a thousand times that you love parties, youre going to have a great time at this party, people love socializing with you, this will be fun. If

the Subconscious does not accept these statements, they will have no impact.

Your Subconscious mind is an incredibly powerful force, and if the belief is strong enough, it will always achieve its goal. It will always be consistent with what you

subconsciously believe to be true. This is a negative example, but it works in a positive way as well. If you have a positive self-belief there is nothing anyone can say to stop you. Their words have no effect. The Subconscious doesnt know positive or negative. It knows what you have put into it, and thats all it knows, and thats what it makes happen.

The Subconscious has a Back and Forth Connection with Your Limbic Brain For a lifetime, the Subconscious has been receiving inputs from the Conscious mind and the limbic brain, and it continues to receive inputs constantly. But the Subconscious mind operates in the other direction as well. The Subconscious mind also returns to the limbic brain a constant stream of subconscious thoughts. In the example above, as the party draws closer the Subconscious is pushing back more and more intense thoughts to the limbic brain we are not even consciously aware that this is happening. The Subconscious mind insists, demands, ensures that whatever is programmed into it (whatever it believes to be true) will happen. The Subconscious mind is a Goal Achieving Mechanism. Without you even knowing, your Subconscious mind is constantly influencing everything you do, say, think and feel. Whatever youre doing during your waking conscious day, your Subconscious is constantly pumping thoughts and images under the surface. You are reminded of something, you get a great idea, you feel anxious, you feel comfortable or uncomfortable, you feel confident or confused subconscious thoughts are constantly presenting themselves to you and guiding you to action.


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When you fall asleep, and your Conscious mind shuts off, these constant thoughts and images from the Subconscious mind become your dreams. And when you wake up, the vaporize and disappear and you struggle to retain conscious memory of those dreams.

The Subconscious Mind is the Ultimate Transition Point The Subconscious mind is the connecting point between body and mind. It is constantly accepting input from your words, thoughts, emotions and experiences, and is constantly providing thoughts and impulses back to your limbic brain and to your glandular system which transforms your emotions to physical sensations. Back and forth, back and forth between body and mind, between mind and body.

On the opposite side of the Subconscious is the Superconscious, the Mind of God, the Cosmic Mind, the Infinite Mind. The Superconscious is a fabric of infinite potential. Within the Superconscious (the Mind of God) exists any and all potential possibilities. Remember our Ontology God is Infinite anything and everything is possible. Specific possibilities are formed and activated by conscious thought. Conscious thought organizes and draws specific possibilities from a field of infinite possibilities. Thought activates a specific reality from a field of all possible realities. If it can be consciously conceived, regardless of the size or scope of the thought, then at that very moment it exists as a probability. If that possibility is held consistently and backed by supporting action, it has a probability of manifesting regardless of what it might be. Whatever is conceptualized in consciousness instantly exists in the Superconscious mind as an already existing fact and has the possibility of becoming physical reality. But there is one big problem. The Conscious mind can form a thought I love going to parties, but if the Subconscious mind rejects the thought if the thought is not aligned with the Subconscious the thought never makes it through to the Superconscious mind. Just as the Subconscious is constantly pulsing thought, thought, thought to the limbic brain, it is also pulsing thought, thought, thought to the Superconscious. The Subconscious imprints its thoughts onto the Superconscious. The Subconscious transfers thoughts from your Conscious mind to the Superconscious, but unfortunately the Subconscious also filters and blocks your thoughts. The beliefs held in the Subconscious are constantly being transferred to the Superconscious where they are becoming reality. How does the Superconscious take thoughts from the Subconscious and turn them into probabilities and then into reality?


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The explanation lies in the realm of energy and vibration. Since everything is energy of one frequency or another, our thoughts are a form of energy. The thoughts and beliefs held in the Subconscious are energy, and that energy is transmitted from the Subconscious to Superconscious. The Superconscious, through the Law of Attraction, takes thought or energy patterns from the Subconscious and transforms (or transmits) them into an identical resonant energy pattern or vibrational form in the physical world. It is very subtle at first, but if the thought form has strength and consistency over time the physical pattern becomes stronger, and when strong enough begins to gather more strength until it makes itself known to your awareness. Lets use an example. Suppose you believe that people are selfish and are constantly trying to take and steal from you. That belief is burnt into your Subconscious, and has become a large and dense energy that is constantly transmitting to the Superconscious. The Superconscious is constantly working on creating that thought pattern (at one frequency of energy) into a physical pattern (at another frequency of energy). That belief, by constant repetition and reinforcement, is created in your reality. You constantly experience what you believe people are greedy and are constantly trying to take and steal from you. Your thoughts not only come back to you as impulses to the limbic brain, they are also transmitted and transformed into reality. In the next book in the series, The Mind Bank, I show you a method to take advantage of this fact and replace any negative experience with a positive experience.

The ALL is MIND; The Universe is Mental

~The Kybalion


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Back to Contents

8: Seven Mystical Principles

The Seven Hermetic Principles

Historians debate the existence of a Great Teacher who lived in old Egypt many thousands of years ago when the race of man was still in its infancy. Many believe that the man we call Hermes was actually a composite of several men in an even earlier time. Many believe this Great Teacher did exist, that his name was Hermes, and that he taught and wrote down the great teachings which he had received from others of an even more ancient time. (Beyond this we encounter the postulation of the existence of a great Atlantean Age where men had higher knowledge and powers, the Shining Ones who survived the Atlantean flood migrating to Egypt - then known as Khem - transmitting their knowledge to Hermes, and the stories of these men and their powers forming the basis for the stories of the Greek gods. However, this historical speculation is aside from the point we are discussing here: the written wisdom of Hermes). Hermes Trismigestus (or Hermes Thrice Great) is acknowledged as the Great Founder of mystical thought. Thrice Great meaning he was the King of Egypt, a great and powerful land in that time, he was the Master or Great Teacher of his age, and he was the Scribe of the Gods the man who wrote for all time the great ancient teachings. Some theorize that Hermes either studied with or taught these principles to Abraham, the patriarch of the Hebrew tribe. He is said to have taught his doctrines only to the sincere student. From the profane or disrespectful man he kept his teachings secret. And so the tradition has been kept for thousands of years. These Seven Mystical Principles written and discussed thousands and thousands of years before our modern science discovered the atom have guided mystical thinking throughout history. Many books have been written expanding on these principles, but here are the Seven Hermetic Principles in their very briefest and barest form.

1. The Principle of Mentalism says that The ALL is MIND; The Universe is Mental

2. The Principle of Correspondence says that As above, so below; as below, so above, and so all is in unity

3. The Principle of Vibration says that Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates

4. The Principle of Polarity says that Everything is Dual; everything has its pair of opposites; opposites are identical in


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nature, but different in degree

5. The Principle of Rhythm says that Everything flows out and in; all things rise and fall; the measure of the pendulum swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left

6. The Principle of Cause and Effect says that Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law;

7. The Principle of Gender says that Everything has its Masculine and Feminine aspects; gender manifests on all planes

The ALL is defined as that which is under and behind the Universe, Time, and Change. It is the infinite and final reality the Fundamental Truth - GOD.

The ALL is in all, and all is in the ALL ~The Kybalion


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Back to Contents

9: Four More Key Principles

Free Will We have discussed the fact that our soul is simply a patient observer. Our soul is equally content whether we make progress in our lives, or whether we waste our lives. Whether we are loving and generous with people, or whether we are driven and greedy, or even angry and violent, our soul simply observes. It gives us no warning or guidance or alternative suggestions. We are essentially free to use our time on this earth in whatever way we choose. We can be good, bad or neutral. We may learn and improve, or we may remain ignorant. While the soul is neutral, our circumstances obviously are not neutral. Some people have great wealth and advantage, some people are born into oppressive poverty, and cruelty or abuse. Some people receive a superior education, some people never learn to read and write. Some people live to 90 and 100 years old, some people are deformed or critically ill at birth and live but a few years, months, weeks, days, or even hours. Is the life of a wealthy person inherently worth more than the life of a poor person? Is the soul of a well educated person more important than the soul of a dirt farmer who has never traveled more than five miles from his home? Each one of us has been given circumstances, and in these circumstances we are to find our opportunity to learn, grow and develop. Life is not measured by material gain and power. Life is measured by the intangibles such as love, respect, helping and guiding others, caring for those who need care, and many other activities and attributes which lead toward harmony. In fact, if we return to our ontology, God is Harmonious. Therefore, to the extent that our lives encourage harmony we are advancing with God, and to the extent that our lives create disharmony we are working against God. Acts of heroism and charity are performed by rich and poor, by the sick and the healthy. Mean spirited actions, evil intentions are equally perpetrated by the wealthy and the poor, by the well educated and the illiterate. We have free will. We hear no voices in our heads that tell us what we should do, or what we should avoid. We set our own agenda and we do what we feel compelled to do. Our minds are free to take us on any path.


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The Akashic Record and Karma Ancient Hindu philosophy tells us that each of our thoughts, actions, feelings and intentions are recorded on what the Hindus call the Akashic Record. The Akashic Record is said to contain all human experience through all time. This, in fact is what we have said the soul is doing observing and recording each minute detail of our life. The Hindus also present a related principle called Karma. This term is used quite a bit in modern society sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly. The principle of Karma tells us that not only are each of our thoughts, actions, feelings and intentions recorded in the Akashic Record, but that these thoughts, actions, feelings and intentions play a role in creating our future circumstances. So people who are in harmony tend to have harmonious future experiences, and people who are in disharmony will tend to have difficult future experiences.

There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause.

The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future.

All these are links in the endless chain, stretching from the finite to the infinite.

~Abraham Lincoln According to the principle of Karma, many of the difficult situations and difficult people that we face each day are in fact of our own causing. Rather than try to force our way through these situations, or complain about them, or run away from them, the principle of Karma tells us that these situations present us with the opportunity to work through these issues and to move past them forever. If you have a long piece of string which is hopelessly tangled with a thousand knots, and knots on top of knots, the more you pull and fight with the string the tighter the knots become. The only thing you can do is patiently work on untying one knot at a time. Our lives are very much like this tangled piece of string. Most people just create more and more knots by using force and trying to control people and force situations adding to their own tangled situations. But if we patiently, very patiently deal with the people and situations in our lives we can feel confident that not only are we solving problems, we are not creating new and even more complicated problems for ourselves down the road. Whatever we do the soul is observing and recording. There is no absolute right or wrong except for the principles of Harmony and Love. In our society it is our habit to measure success by money and power. But once we die, all of us agree that what will have mattered most were the intangibles in our life - love, respect, helping and guiding others, caring for those who need care, and other harmonious activities. And at the end of our lives, the things we will regret most are the times we created disharmony, or just never told certain people how much they meant to us. In Christianity we are told that no matter what sins we have perpetrated in our lives or


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what disharmony we have brought to the world we are forgiven our sins and will live forever in Heaven in the presence of God if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. In some ways our ontology is harmonious with Christian beliefs, but in this important respect it is very different. Your harmonious and disharmonious activities are not left behind in this lifetime. Through an eternal process, Gods creation is eventually brought to harmony. Through the principle of Karma, each disharmonious thought, action and intention is eventually compensated back to harmony.

Be not decieved. God is not mocked: for whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirti shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

~Galatian 6:7-8 There is one point of Christian teaching with which we can wholeheartedly agree. While our soul does not give us guidance each day, the life of Jesus has been set down to us as an exemplary life, and from His life we can get guidance. His commitment to God, His caring for the poor, His love of the children, the weakest among us should serve as guideposts in our own lives and values. The Christian question What Would Jesus Do? is very relevant as we consider our own actions each day.

Reincarnation Reincarnation is a very important concept and world view, and it fits well into our ontology. The doctrine of reincarnation is explained fully in the Hindu religion and is an essential part of the Hindu ontology. However, modern American society in general does not fully understand or accept the doctrine of reincarnation. Most people do not realize that certain early Christian leaders supported and wrote about reincarnation. The idea of reincarnation was nothing new. Certainly Hindus had believed in reincarnation for thousands of years.

Let the body be burned to ashes that the Soul may attain its freedom; for death is nothing more than the castingoff of a worn out garment.

~ Isha Upanishad XVII

The quote below makes it clear that even the Jews and Gentiles in the time of Jesus spoke about and believed in reincarnation. This passage in the New Testament is the only time, in thousands of pages, that the Bible mentions reincarnation, but because Jesus made no further comments on the subject it is only a point of speculation as to what his thoughts and teachings were on reincarnation.


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When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah; and

others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. ~ Matthew 16:13

Reincarnation is Aggressively Purged from Christian Doctrine The fact that modern Christianity does not support the doctrine of reincarnation can be traced back to the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine. In many ways Constantine, and his conversion to Christianity, were both the best thing that ever happened to Christianity and the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity. It was the best thing because he declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire (313 AD) and afforded the religion protection and gave it much power and authority. But it was also the worst thing because with power and authority came the need to unify Christian doctrine and leadership, and the desire to stamp out all contradicting philosophies.

In 325 AD, under the guidance and support of the Roman Emperor Constantine, The Council of Nicea was convened to unify Christian doctrine and Christian authority. In the 300 year period between the time of Christs death in 33 AD and The Council of Nicea in 325 AD, Christianity had been a loosely organized group with many different leaders, each with different and often independent schools of thought on Christs life and message, and what it meant to be a follower of Christ. From the time of the Emperor Constantines recognition of Christianity, until the Council of Nicea in 325, and for another 200 beyond, there was an intense battle of doctrines many of them seeming trivial, but trials were held, men banished and executed. Constantine and many subsequent emperors authorized the task of censoring and editing the entire body of historical texts, Christian as well as Pagan. In addition, the Emperors along with the bishops oversaw the destruction of many valuable Eastern texts that the early Church fathers had access to. Thousands of documents were destroyed, and many others censored and perverted beyond recognition. But prior to the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, much had been written in early Christian philosophy regarding reincarnation most notably Origen of Alexandria who lived from 185 254 AD. A prominent early Christian leader and theologian, Origen taught that the soul passes through successive stages of incarnation before eventually reaching God. At the Council of Nicea more than 300 bishops met to review all Christian writings, and to develop a unified Christian doctrine. In this Council and in subsequent meetings, each book claiming Christian origin was examined, and those that were contradictory to the agreed upon doctrine were not included in the final set of Gospel books as we know them today. Unfortunately, in the Council of Nicea and subsequent meetings, the ancient and early Christian doctrines of the souls pre-existence, reincarnation, and eventual union with God were removed from the Christian tradition. In addition,


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Constantine instituted policies of systematic government persecution of heretics (and these policies persisted for more than a thousand years), and dissension was quickly quelled. Books were destroyed, and the simple act of keeping or hiding a forbidden text was punishable by death. Most Christian leaders and followers simply adopted the orthodox view rather than risk their lives on small points of doctrine. Under the direction of the Emperor Justinian, the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD sealed the final fate of reincarnation in the Christian Church. Definition: Anathema A person accursed, assigned to damnation or destruction

Anathema 11 If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius,

Eutyches and Origen, together with their impious, godless writings, and all the other heretics already condemned and anathematized by the holy catholic and apostolic

Church, and by the aforementioned four Holy Synods and all those who have held and hold or who in their godlessness persist in holding to the end the same opinion as those

heretics just mentioned; let him be anathema. While there are a very small number of modern Christian denominations sympathetic to the concept of reincarnation, the vast majority of Christian denominations today reject the notion of reincarnation and consider it a challenge to their core beliefs of salvation and redemption in this lifetime. Regardless of the actions of the early Christian Church, reincarnation is an accepted doctrine in every ancient mystical teaching, and an understanding and acceptance of reincarnation leads to a wonderfully mind opening perspective. We begin to realize that life is not a mad sprint to obtain money and power and pleasure and then redemption. We begin to realize that life is a marathon, and that matters of the soul are long lasting and much more important than matters of the material world. The Universe is not in a hurry Man is in a hurry. The argument against reincarnation is logical. If nobody has returned from death, how can we know what happens after death? But for the reincarnationist, every one of us has returned from death many times. We dont remember our birth, does that mean we were not born? We dont remember our past lives, does that mean we never lived before? Mystics have long used the term transition when referring to death. Where our conscious minds see death as the end, the reality when viewed from the standpoint of the soul is that our true eternal self is simply releasing from the physical body and returning to a state of unity with God. Our soul has never left God. It is the conscious mind which truly dies. Being an attribute of the physical body, our conscious mind simply vanishes or closes shut. It is no more. But our soul continues in very much the same state it is now. It carries the experiences


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of this life and many lives before. Now again unified with the Infinite Soul from which it came, the soul gains additional experience, and at the appropriate time selects the appropriate body to enter and continues its path of gaining experience toward harmony. We know that we are eternal, that we have lived before, that this life offers us the perfect opportunity to grow, and that we shall live again. We know that each thought, action, feeling and intention is carried with us, and that we must make every effort to be harmonious and to bring even more harmony to the world. Simply stated, this is our continuing purpose, and God has given us free will to choose this path. We can best serve ourselves and God by using this incarnation as an opportunity for constructive self development.

Those who have failed to work toward the truth have missed the purpose of living ~ The Buddha


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Back to Contents

10: Shma Yisrael (Hear O Israel)

A Brief History of Monotheism

As Moses led the Hebrew nation away from Egypt and toward the land across the Jordan River which God had promised them, he knew that he would not live to step foot in that land.

These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear

the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life

~Deuteronomy 6:1-2 In essence, Moses was telling the Hebrew nation their ontology. Moses then said the following to the Hebrew nation.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. (in phonetic Hebrew)

Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai eh-chad ~Deuteronomy 6:4

Monotheism. One God. This simple statement, short and concise, is one of the most important statements in the history of religion. In Egypt, where the Hebrew people had been held in slavery, the Egyptian religion recognized many gods, and recognized the Pharoah as a god on earth. In fact, every ancient religion recognized many gods, and the people would build shrines and offer gifts and sacrifices to the gods to gain their favor. A thousand years later in Rome and in Greece, the two greatest civilizations of ancient times, their religious beliefs included many gods. But the Jewish religion recognizes that God is ONE. There is one God. Not one god above all other gods but one God. There is one God behind creation, and that same God is a part of all creation. Recall the Hermetic teaching The ALL is in all, and all is in the ALL.


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The Story of Akhenaten Many people believe that Moses was the first to make this radical monotheistic statement that there is but one God. But go back 70 years before Moses was born, and there was another young prince named Amenhotep (meaning Servant of Amen the Bull). When this young prince became Pharaoh he changed his name to Akhenaten (meaning Spirit of Aten the Sun). In the ninth year of his reign he declared that Aten was not only the supreme god, but the only God. He had all inscriptions of the plural gods removed. From Wikipedia.com

Aten's name is also written differently after Year 9 (of his reign), to emphasise the radicalism of the new regime, which included a ban on

images, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays (commonly depicted ending in hands) appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten, who by then was evidently considered not merely a sun god, but

rather a universal deity. It is important to note, however, that representations of the Aten were always accompanied with a sort of "hieroglyphic footnote", stating that the representation of the sun as All-encompassing Creator was

to be taken as just that: a representation of something that, by its very nature as something transcending creation, cannot be fully or adequately

represented by any one part of that creation. Akhenaten was clear in saying that the Sun was not a God, but a symbol of God. God is behind the sun, and through the sun provides life to all creation. In 1899 an Englishman, Flinders Petrie, studying ancient Egypt said this of Akhenaten:

If this were a new religion, invented to satisfy our modern scientific conceptions, we could not find a flaw in the correctness of this view of the energy of the solar system. How much Akhenaten understood, we cannot

say, but he certainly bounded forward in his views and symbolism to a position which we cannot logically improve upon at the present day. Not a rag of superstition or of falsity can be found clinging to this new worship evolved out of the old Aten of Heliopolis, the sole Lord of the universe.

Needless to say, the Egyptian priests did not much care for this new religion. Their livelihood depended on the people paying them to perform rituals to the many gods. The priests earned their income by communicating with each of the individual gods for example, to bless a marriage, to bless a couple who could not have children, to bless the birth of a child, to bless the planting of a crop, to bless the harvest, to bless a crippled child, to prepare a body for burial, and so on. With only one God, their source of income immediately disappeared. After Akhenaten died, his youngest son Tutankhaten (meaning the image of Aten) became Pharaoh at a very young age probably only 8 or 9 years old. Encouraged by the priests, he changed his name to Tutankhamen (meaning the image of Amen the Bull) and is the famous King Tut whose tomb was discovered in 1922. It is easy to see how the priests


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pressured the very young child Pharaoh to revert to honoring the many gods, and effectively put themselves back into power. Future Pharaohs removed all reference to Akhenaten, and little was known of him until the discovery of his sons (King Tuts) tomb in 1922 gave archaeologists much new information which they began to piece together about the reign of his father Akhenaten. It is very easy to understand why future Pharaohs removed all mention of Akhenaten. He had said there is one God, which meant that he was saying that he the Pharaoh was not a God. It is easy to see why future Pharaohs would happily agree with the priests to revert back to the ways of many gods, with the Pharaoh being exalted as a god on earth. Mystics believe that Akhenaten, while certainly enlightened and articulate, did not invent his belief in a single God. That in fact, these teachings were handed down for thousands of years beginning with Hermes who is believed to have taught Abraham. It is believed that these teachings were the higher teachings taught only to the family of the Pharaoh and a small number of other elite members of Egyptian society. The masses were taught that there were many gods, and were taught that the Pharaoh was himself a god on earth. The children of the Pharoah were privately taught the higher teachings the Hermetic teachings. It was Akhenaten who attempted to enlighten the world and make these teachings available for the masses to learn, but he was stamped down by the priests, and future Pharaohs of Egypt ensured that these politically inconvenient ideas were kept hidden from the masses. After Akhenatens death, many believe the teachings of the great mysteries went back under ground, but members of the Pharaohs household, including Moses some 70 years later, were still taught these great mysteries. Moses, raised as a prince in the Pharaohs house, certainly knew the full details of Akhenatens life and teachings and the subsequent return of the priests to power immediately upon his death. In his proclamation that God is One, Moses was perpetuating the ancient teachings. Whereas Akhenaten had overthrown the religion of the Priests in Egypt, and then had his teachings overthrown after his death Moses took his teachings out of Egypt and leading the tribe of Israel, created a new tradition, following closely the tradition of Abraham many centuries before.

Was Jesus Exposed to Eastern Teachings? The Bible is silent on Jesus youth after the time of his birth. Many believe that the Essenes, the group his parents belonged to, were in close association with the Egyptian Mystery Schools where these same teachings had been preserved. Many have postulated that The Three Wise Men who attended Jesus birth were leaders of the different branches of this school, and ensured his education in the mysteries during his youth. The Bible picks up Jesus life again when he is 12 years old and his parents have lost


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sight of him on their way home from Jerusalem, and later find him in the Synagogue speaking with the Jewish elders who questioned him and were impressed by his extraordinary grasp of Jewish Law and philosophy. The Bible is again silent on Jesus whereabouts between the time he was 13 and the time he was approximately 30 years old when he returned to begin his ministry as recorded in the New Testament. It is certainly possible, and seemingly very likely that Jesus traveled considerably during that time, studying the ancient mysteries and developing his teaching style. A Russian author, Nicolas Notovitch, who traveled through Afghanistan, India and Tibet published a book The Unknown Life of Christ describing a western master who came to learn and teach. He was known as the master Issa who learned and taught the ancient Vedic mysteries. He upset the Brahmins who held that the lower castes, particularly the Vaishas could only hear the Vedas on holidays, and the lowest caste, the Shudrus could not even set their eyes on the Vedic texts. But the master Issa went to the poor people and taught them.

Issa said that man had filled the temples with his abominations. In order to pay homage to metals and stones, man sacrificed his

fellows in whom dwells a spark of the Supreme Spirit. Man demeans those who labor by the sweat of their brows, in order to

gain the good will of the sluggard who sits at the lavishly set board. But they who deprive their brothers of the common blessing shall

be themselves stripped of it.

Vaishas and Shudras were struck with astonishment and asked what they could perform. Issa bade them "Worship not the idols. Do not consider yourself first. Do not humiliate your neighbor. Help the poor. Sustain the feeble. Do evil to no one. Do not covet that which

you do not possess and which is possessed by others."

~ Nicolas Novatitch The Unknown Life of Christ

So we can see the possibility of a continuing thread from Hermes, the first to write down these ancient teachings, to Abraham, the patriarch of the Hebrews, to Akhenaten the first to bring the idea of One God to light in Egyptian society, to Moses, to Jesus.


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11: Spiritual Alchemy Turning Base Metal into Gold

There is a tendency in life to do the easier thing. Its easier to be lazy than it is to be energetic. Its easier to be pessimistic than it is to be optimistic. Its easier to be greedy than it is to be generous. Its easier to be fearful than it is to be courageous. Its easier to hate than it is to love. It is easier to be immersed in the physical world than it is to experience the spiritual world. It is easier to accept the known and visible world than it is to seek out the unknown and the invisible world. There is a phenomenon called The Mediocre Middle and with no disrespect to teachers I will use teachers as an example. A young new teacher fresh from college starts her first day on the job with the attitude that she is going to make a difference in her students lives. She is going to open their minds and not only teach them the school subjects, but she is going to teach them to become better people. She is extremely motivated and optimistic. But in the teachers lunch room she interacts with the more experienced teachers who all came in with that wonderful optimism, but have learned that you cant really change these kids lives and you just better stick with the program. You dont get paid for those extra hours, and you will soon find out that the students and their parents dont really care. Its the same at any job. You start out like a ball of fire and you are gradually affected by the majority who put in an average effort. Its called The Mediocre Middle and it is difficult to maintain a higher altitude in the face of social forces which are continually pulling you down. Each element of life has a negative pole and a positive pole. Hate is the negative, love is the positive. Lazy is the negative, energetic is the positive. Apathy is the negative, enthusiasm is the positive. Fear is the negative, courage is the positive. Pessimism is the negative, optimism is the positive. Worry is the negative, calm is the positive. Doubt is the negative, confidence and certainty is the positive. Greedy is the negative, generous is the positive. Misery is the negative, joy is the positive. The physical world is the negative, the spiritual world is the positive. The negative is a lower rate of vibration, the positive represents a higher rate of vibration. Spiritual or Mental Alchemy is the conscious decision to push your attitude to the positive pole. Like a sound mixing board in a recording studio you can move all the sliding buttons to the positive. You can polarize yourself to the positive attribute. This is a conscious decision you can make.


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The fundamental ideas of Alchemy arose in Egypt and then in Persia (present day Iraq and Iran). The word alchemy derives from the Arabic word al-kimia or the art of transformation. In short, Alchemists were spiritual seekers who sought to understand the ancient wisdoms and used them to elevate their own spiritual quality. The transmutation of base metal to gold is a symbolic representation of transforming your own character from negative qualities to enlightened, positive qualities. Not only can you make the choice to polarize your thinking and your behavior to the positive, you can also choose to remain there and to resist the efforts of the mediocre middle which is working to pull you back down.


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12: Inter-Connectedness

Our ontology leads us to the most important truth that we are all connected. God is one. Mankind is one. All life is one. This fact is neither obvious nor apparent to our conscious minds, but it is something we must raise our consciousness to embrace and act upon. We must base all of our actions on this principle of inter-connectedness.

He who sees all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings, he never turns away from this truth.

~ The Hindu Upanishads

Personally, I could read those quotes for a day, a week, a month and a year. When you see everyone and everything as part of your Self, and you see your Self as part of everyone and everything you can never turn away from that truth. We are connected to everyone and everything, and everyone and everything is connected to us.

He who experiences the unity of life s

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