Salvation BEFORE Death
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I begin with a poem from Kabir. This version of the poem is from Robert Bly’s The Soul is Here for Its Own Joy
The Time Before Death
Friend? hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think… and think… while you are alive.
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death.
If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten -
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will
have the face of satisfied desire.
So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, Believe in
the Great Sound!
Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is the
intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
________________________________________________
This poem might be a wake up call for many people and if it is one for you, congratulations. Perhaps you are ready to take responsibility for your own salvation. More and more people these days are not willing to have their salvation governed for them. This is good news for these people and bad news for those who would use their supposed religious power to control the masses. In 1945 a scroll was discovered in Nag Hamadi, “The Secret Sayings of the Living Jesus,” i.e., The Gospel of Thomas. The movie Stigmata
“The Kingdom of God is inside you and all around you,
Not in a mansion of wood and stone.
Split a piece of wood and God is there,
Lift a stone and you will find God.”
The more precise translation found on the Gnostic Society Library site is “If those who lead you say unto you: Behold, the Kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of the heaven will be before you. If they say unto you: It is in the sea, then the fish will be before you. But the Kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then shall you be known, and you shall know that you are the sons of the living Father. But if ye do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty, and you are poverty.”
Too bad people didn’t have access to these teachings over the past 1,900 years but luckily WE do. You do not need a middleman to commune with God because you are a part of God. You are swimming in God, God is within you and all around you. To know yourself is to know god. To find yourself here and now is to find yourself in the greatest cathedral ever built. Become a slave of the intensity to know yourself in this way and you will meet the guest while you are still alive, then you will have the look of satisfied desire.
If you are celebrating Jesus’ birthday this year don’t forget to celebrate yours as well. Your birth was no less significant. Your true nature is worthy of just as much praise and worship and it is worth every effort you can make to know it more deeply NOW.
Happy Holidays to All!
Discussion Area - Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.