Confusion is the beginning of learning. First, there was darkness before there was light. All should come to the realization of the need to search for truth. Life is a perpetual search for perfection. Everyone should strive and continue to strive. No one should ever be content, because there is no end to learning. Everyday, each one is being provided with the lessons he needs. We should be more alert to the opportunities provided for each of us.
No one is without lessons to learn. For there is none perfect but God. There is always room for improvement, for advancement. The Master, the student, they are one. Those who are ahead have to go back to help those who are behind so that they, too, may proceed forward. All who have learned should share with others that which they have learned. Each person has something to give. What one lacks, another should provide. Each one can gain from every other. There is light in the greatest and in the least.
These are times calling for great changes. This should now be clear to all. New teachings are being made available. This is our beginning. It is for all of us to learn and impart all that we can learn. We should listen more in order to learn more. The Spirits of Truth are always guiding us. But we have to open up our hearts and minds before we can receive. We should strive more than before to overcome all the forces that prevent our further enlightenment. We should heed the messages given to each because they are also for the benefit of all.
There is a promise in the Holy Bible - those who seek shall find.
My thoughts on John Spong's (Bishop of Newark) 12 Theses. But what are your views on this subject?
1The concept of God is too far removed from material existence, such that we really have no way of comprehending His true nature. But we will know more when we get to where He is.
2We might as well stop studying if, as is proposed, these things cannot be known, anyway. But no, the more we study, the more we learn. Still, we will come to understand more only after we complete our studies, not before or even during.
3The Biblical story of creation is the Truth couched in parable. There is some truth in it, but not everything written there is true. One veiled truth is that for us to learn what is good and evil, we will need to be born here on earth to learn our lessons and at the end of a lifetime, we will die.
4Whether the virgin birth is true or not is irrelevant and has no bearing on Christ's divinity. This is a Pagan influenced belief. But Christ is divine because his Father is. And so are we, because God is our Father, too, and Christ is our brother, except that Jesus is far more evolved than we are.
5There are no miracles as the word implies. Everything is in accordance with some universal or natural law. It is just that the level of our scientific knowledge has not yet reached the degree where we can understand its workings. Jesus did so-called miracles. But he also said, "All that I have done, you, too, can do." It follows that we will eventually be able to understand, as well.
6The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed. Rightly so. Instead, as we mature in the Spirit, we will learn to take responsibility for our own thoughts and deeds. No one can save us except ourselves.
7After our earthly lessons are over, we are to return home to "Heaven" which is our true home. When we were born, we clothed ourselves in flesh bodies. When we die, we simply discard the physical body and having freed ourselves from its cloying influence, we can then ascend to the Higher Planes.
8Obviously, since the Nicene Creed and all the main supporting church teachings were formulated "when the world was flat" prior to the “Age of Science and Reason,” therefore, the old teachings need to be reformulated to keep abreast of the new developments. However, despite Vatican II and the New Catechism, much of the objections and false teachings have not been addressed or resolved.
This situation sets the stage for the introduction of the New Divine Teachings for the men of the New Millennium. New explanations and teachings combining science, philosophy and the religious teachings, more rational and logical, and couched in plain and simple language are now being made available for everyone to judge based on their merits.
9Like day follows day, we will know what tomorrow brings when tomorrow comes, not before. When we have completed prerequisite studies and are ready for even higher studies, then we will be introduced to those higher principles.
10We can always pray to God asking Him favors. However, God dispenses favors irregardless of our requests. He always provides, not so much our physical needs and desires but according to the needs of our Spirit self.
11There is no question that we already have been granted eternal life. How we spend the rest of it is our dilemma. Do we want to remain here on earth, and continue to suffer and die or do we want to be with God, forever, in happiness and peace and love? Only those who approach the perfect nature and righteousness of God, our Father, can earn the right to be with Him in Heaven.
12God is Spirit. And so are we spirits, of the same essence, but not the same quality. Considerations of race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation pertain only to the physical body and in no way reflect our true spiritual state of evolvement.
Just like people on earth, spirits also go to spirit school to study. Earth is just one classroom in the university that is the Cosmos. One lifetime is just as one day in class. We are all of us at different grades and levels. Those still here on earth are, in fact, at the elementary stages of learning.
The “Wisdom Teachings” of Theosophy propose that All Creation co-exist in the same space vibrating at different ranges of vibration. They divide into ascending planes and dimensions of being. These are the “many mansions” in the kingdom of God. Globes, Rounds and Root-Races correspond to the varying levels of educational attainment – from grade school on to preparatory, collegiate, masteral and doctoral. As we hurdle each level, we entitle ourselves entry into the higher planes of being – heavens and nirvanas.
In the Earth Chain, development is ongoing in the 4th Globe, 4th Round and 5th Root-Race. The Atlantean Civilization was the immediate past root-race. The Astral Plane is the next higher dimension. We are currently in the overlapping transition period where the 5th root-race will begin to die out and the 6th will begin to replace it. Hence, the confusion over the proliferation of psychic phenomena and the introduction of deeper explanations relating to the sixth sense, in addition to the previous five.
To afford everyone a truer perspective, one root-race is said to endure in our world for 8 to 11 million years. We have only just began in our spiritual development. Those among you who are interested in learning God’s Divine Plan of Evolution should take up the study of Theosophy under the guidance of the Masters belonging to the Great White Brotherhood, our elder brothers, the senior students in our school system.
But Jesus affirms, "We must be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect." And so we shall, all of us. Eventually in time, everyone will graduate from the lessons of earth.
