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Ferre
Cannabis Sacrament Minister.
Joined: 14 Apr 2003
Posts: 7295
Location: Amsterdam
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 Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 1:43 pm Post subject: Bibles Do Not Equal Wisdom |
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Bibles do not equal wisdom. In other words, all forms of spiritual text no matter how eloquently stated, cannot actually grant wisdom to the reader, merely through the act of reading. Words are only the representations of things, but not the things themselves. All of the most widely followed religious texts from the Vedas, the Koran, the Bible, the sayings of Buddha and the practices of Lao Tse, are but written attempts to convey various authors’ conceptions. Each attempts to convey the same essence, speaking of the underlying Truth through differing means. Each is a path, and all paths lead ultimately to God/Truth. Yet regardless of how well each system or person may or may not describe Truth, their essential value to the reader is only as great as ones’ personal investment in Spiritual Fact. It is our personal experience, application and intention toward greater wisdom, that allows us to progress, regardless of what we have read. Therefore it is not the reading about God nor even the most advanced theological studies, which provide insight into the Divine.
As history demonstrates, religion and scriptural study are more often used as places of refuge from responsibility, than the actual embodiment of spiritual wisdom. Dogmas and the artificial divisions they contain, are the very source of wars, ethnic conflicts, misery and destruction throughout history. The blind insistence upon religious intolerance, has resulted in most of the horrors of human civilization, [such as the warfare in the Middle East, the Dark Ages, and the “conversion”, (destruction) of the Native peoples of the world throughout history]. Religious orthodoxy continues to be, as it is said, “the opiate of the masses” as a convenient distraction from the Truth. Such distraction is convenient because it always places the ultimate responsibility for ones’ actions outside of the self. Such doctrines are the very center for darkness and dis-empowerment in our world, and they have no place for an enlightened humanity.
MORE:
http://www.eoni.com/~visionquest/library/biblesnot.html
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Must read for anyone who has the ambition to become a minister, in my opinion.
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Mystic Power
admin THC-Ministry YahooGroup
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 3605
Location: Key West
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| Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 5:23 pm Post subject: |
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What follows is my opinion. Your mileage may vary.
That's a good article, and will find it's way into my THC Minister's Training Package as additional recommended reading.
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| Religious orthodoxy continues to be, as it is said, the opiate of the masses” as a convenient distraction from the Truth. Such distraction is convenient because it always places the ultimate responsibility for ones’ actions outside of the self. Such doctrines are the very center for darkness and dis-empowerment in our world, and they have no place for an enlightened humanity. |
To place responsibility for one's actions outside the self ("The Devil made me do it...") and to place the source of goodness and power outside oneself is the very meaning of dis-empowerment.
Adherence to a singular, strong orthodoxy may have been essential to us at one time, aiding in the survival of our species.
That was then. This is now.
Strict adherence to any form of dis-empowerment is the last thing we need to meet today's world. Strict, unyielding adherence to orthodoxies can be seen at the center of most, if not all of our current world....challenges....politically, economically and, to a large degree, personally.
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| since enlightenment is a verb, not a noun. Instead of wasting time in redundant scriptural quotation year after year, our energy would be better spent in a focus upon becoming as a Christ and/or as a Buddha. |
I have a strongly held opinion that we are at a stage in our spiritual evolution where it's time that we each become our own "christ" or "buddha"... our own "master".
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| There is a principle of the mind which states; That which is focused upon is that which is done. When we focus upon the religious concepts of sin, (of the supposedly flawed nature of humanity, which is in itself a flawed doctrine) without consideration of practical remedy, then the results we obtain will simply be, THE PROMOTION OF MORE SIN. That which is called sin propagates itself, simply through the sheer intensity of focus we pour upon assumed flaw, if nothing else... |
Where attention goes, energy flows. What we focus upon, expands in our individual, subjective realities. This means that, at the very least, each of us contributes to the creation of our individual, subjective reality based upon our core beliefs, our focus and our intention.
If, for example, I were to place a strong emotional attachment to a scripture that describes life as being "a veil of tears, full of woes and troubles" ... then, thought-being-energy...I will find myself living a life that is a veil of tears, full of woes and troubles...
No thanks. I think I'll pass.
If we focus on that which is good...if we listen to our inner-being and follow our bliss...if we focus and allow the concepts of freedom...especially freedom from ontological bondage... then, by the law-of-attraction...we'll begin to experience that in our subjective reality.
I think I'll have some of that.
Cannabis is a universal teacher. It gives us the ability to focus our attention and our power in the eternal NOW.
From this point-of-power, our creativity flows forth from our inner-self and becomes manifest in the 3-D world where we experience our shared mass reality.
It seems to me that The Great Mystery...that undefineable source of conscious energy from which we spring...has made sure that we have the entheogenic tools we need to understand IT'S "MIND"... regardless of what is written in any book or preached from any pulpit...or taught in any schools of science, for that matter.
I love what Einstein said. "I want to know the thoughts of God. The rest are just details."
BEFORE ENLIGHTENMENT
Whatcha got in the bowl there, buddy?
AFTER ENLIGHTENMENT
Al in a moment of self-realization, enjoying the "thoughts of god"
I love how THC Ministry empowers us to each discover/create our individual paths, while sharing our spiritual cannabis consciousness and "knowing the thoughts of god"
Follow Your Bliss,
Ben
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"We are the Ones we have been waiting for."
~Hopi Elder ~
"In Lak'ech"
~ Ancient Mayan: "I am another YOU." ~ |
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Romadon
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Posts: 870
Location: Indiana - USA
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| Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:59 pm Post subject: |
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| God spoke to me today. He said he thinks you dudes are really cool and he likes how ya think. |
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Mystic Power
admin THC-Ministry YahooGroup
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 3605
Location: Key West
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| Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Romadon wrote: |
| God spoke to me today. He said he thinks you dudes are really cool and he likes how ya think. |
God has good "judgment." 
Bliss on, Romie!
Ben
_________________
"We are the Ones we have been waiting for."
~Hopi Elder ~
"In Lak'ech"
~ Ancient Mayan: "I am another YOU." ~ |
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Rev. Rodger L. Poole
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 480
Location: Im not here! Im where things HAPPEN.
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| Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 8:39 pm Post subject: |
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Great posts, Ferre and Ben!
In regard to this subject, I have a new hero : Thomas Jefferson. I think he is possibly one of the finest minds who has ever lived...era be damned. He has a very unique and direct style of saying things, one which I study and attempt to emulate in my own writings. If you arent familiar with the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson on the subject of religion, I encourage you to look up some of his writings. Here are some of my favorite quotes from him on the subject of religion:
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If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814
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Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
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And on the Bible:
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The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
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It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825
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Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
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And my favorite.............
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What is it men cannot be made to believe!
-Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, April 22, 1786. |
Great topic, btw..... I think this is why THC Ministry is so much different than any other modern religion. It is a return to the old shamanic ways that doesnt make you choose between dogma and secularism. There is room for all.
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Stop being a slave to Cannabis, and do something with your life! How much is smoking weed going to cost you before you will WAKE UP?
Put down the  and pick up a book every once in a while for Pete's sake.
"Compassion to those that deserve it, and Justice for all others." |
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Fyrefly1
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 07 Sep 2004
Posts: 2209
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| Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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The thing I love about the ministry and its members is that, not only are we all like minded seekers of Truth, but we like to take Truth like an old bone and gnaw it and worry it into something we all understand.
It doesn't matter that we agree. What matters is the wonderful Experience of Discovery that you all give me!
I'm all over that.....
Joe
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Fyrefly1
"All truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th Century Philosopher |
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Fyrefly1
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 07 Sep 2004
Posts: 2209
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| Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 9:41 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Rodger for the Thomas Jeferson quotes...I'm gonna have to read him some day...
This is seriously the best article on the bible and beliefs I have read in quite a few years...
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| As we spiritually mature, we realize that it is not the unthinking adherence to special key phrases or figureheads which makes us Holy. True spirituality is the flexible, universal embrace, (and practice) of Truth. Truth is common to all people, in all places and times. Clarity, or the clear perception of Truth, cannot rise up in a person through the following of rules or blind faith. Clarity is primarily had through self awareness and experiential knowledge. |
Agreed. I would add that there is a negative and a positive quality to clarity. Negative clarity being defined as a hyper-focused and unyielding bond to a particular dogma and truth without regard or concern for the well being of others such that it causes doubt, pain and suffering in the community and then positive clarity which presupposes a reliance on the personal experience and practice of love to attain a unity of spirit and peace among all peoples.
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| Connection with God and Love is a direct and tangible FACT. It exists inside or outside of a church, and inside or outside the context of any Bible. This FACT makes the concept of faith in rule-following dogma, (and any organization or written document which advocates it) unworthy of humanity’s genuine spiritual focus. |
Something the 'church' doesn't want you to realize...if the masses did realize it, they would rise up and crush their masters....
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| and what nation slaughtered other nations, because they were not “Gods’ chosen people”. All beings are in and of God, and the Divine is not an ethnically exclusive Patron of wars and other social mischief. The only thing we need learn from such scriptural references, is what NOT TO DO, now, in this present day. |
Would we all could learn this fact!
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| The doctrine of sin renders real damage to those who believe in it. Fundamentalism stands in the way of human progress, by promoting the idea that no matter what we do we are sinners, wrong-doers, weak and fallible beings, who have no chance whatsoever to take responsibility for ourselves and our state of being. It may then be said that the greatest sin of all is the fundamentalist concept of sin and satan themselves. |
This highlited sentence is at the heart of what is essential in Bible teachings: that mankind can never be perfect and therefore can never 'take responsibility' for his own state of being thus needing a 'savior'.
This is possibly the crux of my own learning experience: that God doesn't want 'sheep' who aren't able to commune with him. He/she/it wants people, peers who have done the work and know what it's like to struggle to learn and to be.
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| if human beings spent even half the energy and focus upon embodying love and clarity, as they do promoting special interest doctrines, (such as religious fallacies) our lives would be transformed forever. Were we to focus instead upon what it actually means to live in accord with Universal and Divine Laws, then the knowledge and ability to do so would be ours. Each individual in this way, has the potential to become their own priest, healer, teacher, councilor and savior. Each individual may empower themselves to find their own absolution and salvation, through TRUTH and a life well lived. This is in fact what the individual MUST do to be genuinely spiritual. |
Were we to do this, there wouldn't be any room for bias, exclusivity and judgement. All people would then be free to be the 'priest, healer, teacher, councilor and savior' that they were born to be!
Prohibition of Cannabis plays right into the antithesis of this article. It fosters guilt, distrust of people and governments, cynicism towards authority and false and misguided reliance and trust on 'authority figures' for peoples' pictures of reality.
In the same way that we can simply accept the reality of our knowledge of truth, so also can we accept our reality of the freedom to practice Cannabis Ministry....
They are one and the same!
Joe
As Ben would say, these are my opinions, your mileage may vary....
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Fyrefly1
"All truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th Century Philosopher |
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Stokes
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 28 Nov 2004
Posts: 1426
Location: PA
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| Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:19 am Post subject: |
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Rev. Poole,
Thanks for sharing the Jefferson material. I also am a fan of his, and thought that you might appreciate this fine quote:
My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system what is really there. .... [1816 letter to mrs. samuel h. smith]
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Where love is, there God is also.
-Mahatma Gandhi |
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Fyrefly1
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 07 Sep 2004
Posts: 2209
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| Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 2:57 am Post subject: |
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That is a fine quote, brother!
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Fyrefly1
"All truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th Century Philosopher |
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Rev. Rodger L. Poole
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 480
Location: Im not here! Im where things HAPPEN.
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| Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 5:08 am Post subject: |
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| My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system what is really there. .... [1816 letter to mrs. samuel h. smith] |
Brother Stokes,
I have never read that quote.....But I really like it. You see what I mean about Jefferson? He is quite the wordsmith, is he not? His words seem to penetrate beyond pleasantries, and pie-in-the-sky platitudes, and hit right on the nerve center of hypocrisy and prejudice....He was old-school with it, Brother! Thanks for the post.
Brother Joe, you might be interested to know (if you ever plan to read any Thomas Jefferson) that Jefferson wrote his own bible....Its actually called the Jefferson Bible! He took some material out of the bible, added some of his own stuff...added other stuff he found, its fascinating. I confess Im yet to read it even halfway, but im enamored with the "revolutionary"  concept of writing ones own bible! He was truly a genius among geniuses.
_________________
Stop being a slave to Cannabis, and do something with your life! How much is smoking weed going to cost you before you will WAKE UP?
Put down the and pick up a book every once in a while for Pete's sake.
"Compassion to those that deserve it, and Justice for all others." |
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Stokes
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 28 Nov 2004
Posts: 1426
Location: PA
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| Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 6:42 am Post subject: |
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| Rev. Rodger L. Poole wrote: |
| His words seem to penetrate beyond pleasantries, and pie-in-the-sky platitudes, and hit right on the nerve center of hypocrisy and prejudice....He was old-school with it, Brother! Thanks for the post. |
You're quite welcome, Rodger. The quote that I posted was from a small book given to me by my mother called 'Thomas Jefferson - His Life and Words' ... it's loaded with the same kind of material.
Years back I had the great pleasure of visiting Monticello, what an amazingly well thought out compound it is - particularly from the perspective of a student of architecture and design. I'm tempted to go back just to renew my astonishment of the man's unrelenting vision.
I do my utmost daily to live by the great man's virtues. If ever there was a proper example of ingenuity and autonomy, Thomas Jefferson's legacy is by far the centerpiece ... if only we could see a modern day equivalent.
Stokes
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Where love is, there God is also.
-Mahatma Gandhi |
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Romadon
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Posts: 870
Location: Indiana - USA
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| Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 7:35 am Post subject: |
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| Love the little spoof on Einstein, Ben. I bet it's true too. |
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Fyrefly1
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 07 Sep 2004
Posts: 2209
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| Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 8:57 am Post subject: |
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I've always wondered why he looked like that...
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Fyrefly1
"All truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th Century Philosopher |
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sara
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 29 May 2003
Posts: 448
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| Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 9:00 am Post subject: |
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he looks to me as if he is saying " F*** the establishment".
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“When one is connected above,’’ he said
quietly, “he does not fall below.”
OINK OINK OINK OINK OINK... |
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Fyrefly1
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 07 Sep 2004
Posts: 2209
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| Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 9:36 am Post subject: |
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I think so...
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Fyrefly1
"All truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th Century Philosopher |
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