Is Spiritual Purification like Polishing the Tile of the Mind?
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Updated About Page
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Misreading Scripture as Literal History: Elephants in the Book of Mormon
Religious texts are most often not literal history. They are allegory, narrative, parable, metaphor, simile, symbol, poetry, story, visionary, and figurative. They are not relating precise word-for-word conversations of the past, nor are they detailing literal events that took place. Yes, the Bible talks about many people and places that may have really existed, and may even abstractly refer to events that really took place, but it is not a history book.
Joseph Smith’s “Sinking” Into the Darkest Abyss to Commune with God
"The highest form of meditation is not an activity that is undertaken by the mind. It is a relaxing, falling back or sinking of the mind into its source or essence of pure awareness, from which it has arisen."
The Non-Historical Book of Mormon is More Than A Mere Fairy Tale
Two readers posted comments recently on my article about Joseph Smith as tertön and the Book of Mormon as terma. They were both similar in questioning the idea that the Book of Mormon may not be a historical text.
2 Timothy 3:7 BHT, Knowledge doesn’t reveal the Truth
An addition to the BHT, about the limits of knowledge.
“A Thousand Sweet Breaths of Silence” by Rumi
Deep within me a thousand sweet breaths of Silence cover my lips and say— "Be Still."
The Book of Mormon as Terma, and Joseph Smith as Tertön
I suggest that the translation of the Book of Mormon was Joseph Smith's alchemical Magnum Opus, or "Great Work," a transmutation of his own base desires for materialistic gold and treasure into the highest spiritual realizations of human atonement in God consciousness, and a realization or awakening of eternal life in his Self, even theosis, which he continued to preach for the rest of his life.
A Divine “Celebration of Life” in The Greatest Showman’s Soundtrack!
My wife, Raven, and I went to see the film The Greatest Showman, starring Hugh Jackman, a week ago. Say what you will about the movie/story, but we thought that the soundtrack was phenomenal, and the songs have stayed with me over the last few days. They deeply move me! What is it that moves me? The Life, the Joy, the Light. I believe these are reflections of the Divine within us all.
Mystical Experience is Christianity’s Savior
Until we can get back to direct primary first-hand personal intimate contemplative mystical ecstatic experience of God in the lives of each and every human being, then God will increasingly become an abstract distant concept instead of a Living immanent reality.