Finding the God Within
JJ: So let us go through this parable and examine it. What do you suppose the golden apples represented?
Audience: Truth?
JJ: Close
Audience: Wisdom?
JJ: Right the golden apples represented wisdom. In this life Hercules had to learn wisdom. For the third labor of Hercules he was sent and not given much instruction. Now how do you tell someone how to go and learn wisdom? How do you learn to be wise? How do you learn to make the right decisions? You learn it by going through it.
When in a quest in search of wisdom we get help along the way and others who have trodden the path come and give us good advice. This was the first thing that his teacher from the other side saw and so he sent him a Nereus to give him hints, and what did Hercules do? He ignored the hints saying, “well that does not sound like much help to me, I will find my own way.”
So Hercules ignored Nereus and this happens to us in our efforts to find wisdom. We get a lot of good advice but we often ignore it. Because if we have not gone through it, even though the advice is good, it is very difficult to see whether the advice is good or bad. How often have we been told something by our parents, by other teachers, by wise people – something that we ignore and then later on in life we think, boy you know that guy was right after all or my father and mother were smarter than I thought they were or something like this. The first step in learning wisdom is ignoring what we are told. This seems like a step backwards but it is a necessary step on the path to wisdom because wisdom has to be discovered pretty much on our own through our own experiences and somebody cannot just come and give it to us.
Even though the advice we are given is good we have to learn how to incorporate it into our lives so that we can really grasp it and hold on to it. The next thing Hercules did was wrestle a dragon and what do you suppose the dragon represented? The dragon represented illusion – and glamour, which also leads to illusion. We think we are really important and then we have wrong beliefs that we are tricked into believing that we have not unraveled yet and found the full truth behind and so on the path to wisdom we have to face these glamours. We have to face our ego; we have to face all the things that have been tricking us, the things we have been taught that may or may not be true. When Hercules attacked the dragon and tried to overcome it what happened?
Audience: The dragon got stronger.
JJ: The dragon got stronger. So if we just tackle our ego and illusions directly and wrestle with them they only get stronger. How did Hercules overcome the dragon?
Audience: He lifted it into the air.
JJ: He lifted it into the air, was does that symbolize?
Audience: Higher mind
JJ: Right, he lifted it into the light of day, the light of reasoning, the light of the mind, the light of the soul, and in the light the wrong beliefs, the illusions, the glamour and the ego – the feeling of self-importance that we have are all put into the right place. When they are in the right we slay the dragon that keeps us from the golden apples.
Then Hercules continued on his way and encountered perhaps his biggest problem of all and what was it? He was deceived by the false teacher. Have any of you ever encountered a guy like this before who just captivated you. You thought, wow this guy is great, he is almost like God and I can trust everything he says. So what did this do to Hercules in his search?
Audience: He stopped searching.
JJ: Yes, he stopped his search. Remember that Christian bumper sticker that says, “I found it?” When you find it then you stop your search for wisdom because you found it. I found Jesus or some guru or some politician and I have been searching for the right guy and now I have found him so now I can rest.
But wisdom is a growing thing and you can never get all the wisdom in the universe so you never stop looking for it. When you find the ultimate teacher, the ultimate philosophy, then you stop in your search for wisdom and it ends and not only does it end, but you start going backwards. And when does it go backwards? When the teacher turns on you and he binds you with chains.
First it looks as though he is going to free you. He is going to free you because you do not have to search for golden apples anymore. You can end your quest – it is over – you have found it and that is it. The disciple may say something like, “I am saved by the blood of Jesus, I have found my guru and my guru is god, and I do not have to think anymore because he knows all the answers and I just ask him and what he says is it, there is no questioning.”
So the teacher binds you with chains for a whole year. A year is a symbolic amount, meaning quite a long time. This is what happens to a seeker – they are often bound not only for a year but for a lifetime and often several lifetimes in a certain belief system that hold them in bondage and keeps them from looking within and discovering wisdom. This keeps them from being reliant on the true God within and they rely on the god without instead.
The Beast of the Book of Revelations is really the god without. When God is substituted by a human being, a thought system, a book or anything in physical form, when you look toward that something without as being in the place of the God within, you are worshiping the beast in the Book of Revelations.
The mark of the beast on the right hand symbolizes that you will not do any labor unless it is approved by your outward authority that has taken the place of God. The mark of the beast on the forehead symbolizes that you will not think any thought unless it is approved by this outward authority which has taken the place of God that sits in the temple of God and shows himself to be God. Ten we have the 144,000 who have escaped the mark of the beast. Instead of a mark in they have the name of God – and where is that name written?
Audience: Within
JJ: Within where? Within their foreheads. The 144,000 that are free from the mark of the beast have found the name of God written in their foreheads. What is the name of God? It is basically you – you are one with God, like Christ taught, “I and my Father are one and you are to be one with me as I and my Father are one.”
In other words, when you realize where God, the Father is you become free. Jesus said that the “Father is within me” and so when you recognize that the true authority, the true teacher and the true wisdom is within then you no longer have the mark of the beast on the right hand because your actions are determined from within. You no longer have the mark of the beast on the forehead because your thoughts and what you believe is determined by what is verified within.
Both within and without are important, we can’t say everything is within and we can’t say everything is without because the universe is a composite of everything within and everything without but the purpose of that which is without is to stimulate and the purpose of that which is within is to verify.
You notice all these things that happened to Hercules stimulated him. They happened in the world without and they stimulated him and when the lesson was over it was verified within himself. Deep within the very core of his being he registered the truth of what was taught him from without.
It took him a whole year of being chained by this teacher before he thought something is wrong with this picture. Now imagine the first six months he accepted him and he says well I guess the teacher has his reasons for chaining me here. After all, he is infallible.
Then eight months, nine months and finally after a year he begins to smell a rat. Each of us can only take suppression so long no matter how much you believe in a book a person or a thing. After so much time being chained the Son of God will rise up and break the chains and say I am not going to take it any longer. And this is what Hercules finally did.
He could not take his teacher any longer and the cute part of the story is that he took the teacher and he chained him to the chair and left him to fend for himself. Now his teacher could begin to understand the same lesson that he just learned because he had yet to trod the path that Hercules had taken.
This is interesting because often times the teacher is not as advanced as the student. One for the teachings of the ancient wisdom is that you should not allow yourself to be spiritually taught by somebody that is farther back on the path than you yourself are or you will wind up being chained and imprisoned by the person. You know how it is, even in your work career. If your boss thinks you are overshadowing him maybe he will pass you up for promotion and he will do everything he can to destroy you. It is kind of human nature to have that happen. Has anyone ever had that happen before? You show up your boss a little bit and he gets threatened? Show up your husband and beat him in tennis and he gets all bent out of shape.
Copyright by J J Dewey
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