Month: September 2022

For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE

JJ’s Amazon page HERE

Gathering 2004, Part 36

September 13, 2022 Joseph Dewey

Gathering 2004, Part 36
Overcoming Death

Susan: Wow. Have you had a good time?

Audience: Yeah!

Susan: We’re all cheering you on earlier this morning, Peggy, saying how much fun we had last night?

Audience: Wasn’t that fun?

Susan: Yea! We had a good time. I want to just turn a couple of minutes over to Barbara (last name removed), from North Carolina.

Barbara: JJ and Artie? Everybody here in the room would like to share their appreciation for all that both of you do and have done and will do in the future. We have these flowers for you and we have a lovely card that everybody signed.

JJ: How sweet.

Barbara: The flowers are baby breaths for a new beginning for your gathering. We have the beautiful golden flowers for the golden light that you project. We have the white rose for your purity. And we have the trinity of the triad.

Artie: That’s beautiful! Thank you.

Barbara: Thank you so much.

Artie: Thank you everybody.

JJ: Thank you.

Audience: Applause.

JJ: Let’s take a look at this.

Artie: Oh, everybody signed it. How sweet.

JJ: Yeah. Now I’ll be able to analyze all of your handwritings.

Audience: Laughter. I could not find my own name.

JJ: This guy probably is a bank robber right here.

Audience: Laughter.

JJ: We won’t tell anybody.

JJ: I just want to finish up just a bit here. I’m going to read one more thing that I didn’t get time to in our communication about overcoming death. One of the most profound writings I’ve ever read was by Djwahl Khul through Alice A. Bailey where he actually gives the steps to overcoming death. But he doesn’t even tell us that’s what they are. He just throws it out there as a quote from the Old Commentary, as he calls it. They’re really heavy-duty words and would probably take a whole day of classes to examine them all. But we’ll just cover them very briefly and then get on to the meditation.

JJ quoting DK: “When communion is established, words are forthwith used, and mantric law assumes its rightful place, provided that the One communicates the words and the three remain in silence.”

“When response is recognized as emanating from the three, the One, in silence, listens. The roles are changed. A threefold word issues from out the triple form. A turning round is caused. The eyes no longer look upon the world of form; they turn within, focus the light, and see, revealed, an inner world of being. With this the Manas stills itself, for eyes and mind are one.”

“The heart no longer beats in tune with low desire, nor wastes its love upon the things that group and hide the Real. It beats with rhythm new; it pours its love upon the Real, and Maya fades away. Kama and heart are close allied; love and desire form one whole – one seen at night, the other in the light of day…”

“When fire and love and mind submit themselves, sounding the threefold word, there comes response.”

“The One enunciates a word which drowns the triple sound. God speaks. A quivering and a shaking in the form responds. The new stands forth, a man remade; the form rebuilt; the house prepared. The fires unite, and great the light that shines: the three merge with the One and through the blaze a fourfold fire is seen.” (From: A Treatise on White Magic – Rule Two.)

JJ: And there in a compact few words it gives the steps from leaving behind maya to the point where death is actually overcome. A lot of it is written in symbology. For instance he says, “When communion is established, words are forthwith used…”

Well, weren’t words used before? “And mantric law assumes its rightful place.”

In other words, he’s saying the words are used the way they’re supposed to be used so that people understand the principles behind them.

Quoting DK: “…provided that the One communicates the words and the three remain in silence.”

What’s the one that communicates the words and the three remain in silence?

Audience: I would guess the “one” would be the soul and the “three” would be the lower three bodies.

JJ: Right. In other words, provided the one soul communicates the words and the physical, emotional, and mental listen and remain in silence.

JJ quoting DK: “When response is recognized as emanating from the three…” What does that mean?

Audience: Inaudible.

JJ: Yes. The three remain in silence, and then you can feel the soul on the plane of the mind, through your heart and feelings, and clear down to your physical brain. You receive the communication from the soul. When the soul recognizes that you’re being communicated to on all these levels. Remember even the Doctrine and Covenants says the spirit will speak to your mind and your heart.

JJ quoting DK: “When response is recognized as emanating from the three, the One, in silence, listens”

So now it’s responding. The physical, emotional, and mental have all received something from the soul. Now the soul stands back and says, “What are they going to do with it? What is the man going to do with the communication that I have sent him?”

JJ quoting DK: “The roles are changed. A threefold word issues from out the triple form.”

JJ: What does this mean?

Audience: Creation? (inaudible)

JJ: Right. The roles have changed. First of all the soul communicates to you. Now you are the one that is supposed to do something with what has been communicated. You play the role of the soul. You play the role of God himself-the light of God. You are an agent of the light of God. You take what you received and you do something with it.

Here’s what you do with it. (Quoting DK): “The eyes no longer look upon the world of form; they turn within, focus the light, and see, revealed, an inner world of being. With this the [mind] stills itself, for eyes and mind are one.”

So you see this inner world of being. You begin to take what has been given you from on high. You digest it and you see all the repercussions of it. You go through it, analyze it, you see where it leads you, and use it as a director to direct your life. In other words the soul isn’t there every minute telling you what to do. But it communicates with you periodically, and then you take that communication-you digest it-and now the roles are changed and you act as the soul yourself.

After all isn’t that what a God is – someone that acts for himself?

JJ quoting DK: “[Desire] and heart are close allied; love and desire form one whole – one seen at night, the other in the light of day…”

“When fire and love and mind submit themselves, sounding the threefold word, there comes response.”

“Fire and love and mind…” In other words the fire on the physical level, emotional level, mental level-you sound the threefold word. Does anyone have any idea what that means?

Audience: (Inaudible).

JJ: And what is the true word as we were talking about? What’s the true word?

Audience: Principles?

JJ: Principles. The language of soul is the language of principles. When you understand principles on the physical level, how they apply on the emotional level, and how they apply on the mental level you are sounding the threefold word. When you are able to do that – apply principles on all three levels of your being and communicate in principles, understand principles – then there comes a response.

JJ quoting DK: “The One enunciates a word which drowns the triple sound.”

In other words, you’ve got the understanding of principles on the physical, emotional, and mental levels. Then there comes a day that you receive a sound that is so profound it just drowns them out so that all the principles you understand are insignificant compared to some great revelation you just received.

JJ quoting DK: And then “a quivering and a shaking in the form responds.”

This is a description of when the person becomes a master and his physical body is actually renewed.

JJ quoting DK: “A quivering and a shaking in the form responds. The new stands forth, a man remade; the form rebuilt; the house prepared. The fires unite, and great the light that shines: the three merge with the One and through the blaze a fourfold fire is seen.”

Audience: And the fourfold fire is….?

JJ: …the fires of the four higher worlds that are above the plane of the mind. Anyway, this is really profound. A Treatise on White Magic, on page 75 or something like that. It’s pretty near the beginning. Ok, are there any more questions? I just want to cover those before we go into our last meditation before we end.

“God is a kid with an ant farm.” Keanu Reeves From the Movie Constantine

First posted Sept 30, 2005

For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE

JJ’s Amazon page HERE

Gathering 2004, Part 35

September 12, 2022 Joseph Dewey

Gathering 2004, Part 35
The Highest You Know

Audience: So what advice would you give us for this lifetime?

JJ: The advice I always give is the same thing. Follow the highest you know. Don’t follow the highest someone else knows, but follow the highest you know. If somebody else of great authority or respect tells you to do otherwise, don’t do it. If I tell you to do other than the highest you know, don’t do it. It doesn’t matter how much you respect anyone out there, follow the highest that you can see. If you’re true to yourself, you will eventually arrive at the gate. If you’re not true to yourself, you’ll take a detour and waste a lot of time.

Even following the highest you know, you’re going to make mistakes and find things you did wrong, but because you’re following the highest that you know, when you find something you did wrong you correct it. If you’re true to yourself and follow the highest you know, you’ll fix mistakes as you find them. When you correct mistakes as you find them, you’re moving along.

Sometimes we think, “I made this mistake. I’m condemned forever.” No, just keep on moving. The word ‘sin’ in the Greek means to miss the mark. When the ancient Greeks shot an arrow at a target and missed the target, they said, “Oh I sinned.”

Audience: The word is the same in Hebrew.

JJ: Let’s suppose we have the same attitude about archery as the normal person does toward sin. We shoot an arrow at the target and miss. Then one would say: “Oh I’m such a horrible person for doing this. I don’t deserve to shoot another arrow.” The archer doesn’t feel that way. He shoots an arrow at a target and says, “Darn I missed. Give me another arrow.” He doesn’t sit around for a year condemning himself. Through the process of guilt, we condemn ourselves so we take another year or two before we grab another arrow. We spend a long time condemning ourselves and this just wastes our time.

Someone asked me about atonement. The true purpose of atonement was to remove this guilt so we can then take another arrow and shoot again. The true atonement of Christ removes us from the power of guilt. Guilt is the most destructive energy there is. Ancient Hebrews used to put all of their guilt on a goat then send it into the wilderness.

Audience: A fifth degree initiate is a master? And is guilt a glamour?

JJ: Yes, fifth degree initiates are masters. It’s not a glamour. It’s an illusion that needs to be overcome. The person has to transcend some illusion to get rid of guilt entirely. Maybe not all illusion, but he has to transcend quite a bit of illusion because guilt is caused by an illusion. Part of the illusion is that guilt is really important, that it is your conscience, that’s God speaking to you when you feel guilt. No, it’s not God speaking to you when you feel guilt. It’s what’s in your lower self that’s speaking to you. I don’t feel guilt over anything anymore but that doesn’t mean I go run people down because I don’t like them. Use your mind and say this is right and this is wrong. Now when I make a mistake, I feel like an archer shooting at a target. “Darn, I made a mistake. What can I do to correct it?” I make the corrections and try not to repeat the mistake. It makes you move along faster. The guy with no guilt and good intentions will move along much faster than the guy with guilt.

Audience: Are we programmed from the time we’re little from our parents or our religions to feel guilty? I know we sometime beat ourselves up so bad it may even take ten years to get past. Then you realize you’re wasting part of your life but where does guilt come from?

JJ: Let’s suppose you had a baby die and it meant everything to you. Maybe you didn’t give it enough attention or give it the right medicine or something like that. People will spend their whole lifetime condemning themselves over something like that, but you just have to realize you did your best and let the guilt go. It’s an illusion. You’re right though. What you’re taught when you are young feeds you with lots of guilt. I had lots of guilt when I was young because I was in the church and felt guilt over quite a few things. Martin Luther who established Lutheranism felt so guilty that he was confessing things a dozen times a day.

Audience: question on prayer

JJ: Even prayer doesn’t do it. When I was under the illusion of guilt I prayed like crazy and it didn’t help at all. What makes the correction is the understanding of the illusion. When you see the illusion, the guilt unravels instantly.

Audience: What about an affair?

JJ: A person who is beyond guilt probably wouldn’t have an extramarital affair toward a faithful spouse because of his spirituality. That would be a backward move for him. On the other hand, many who suppress guilt will do this. Transcending guilt and suppressing it are two different things. Suppressed guilt will eventually come back to bite the person with interest as well as darken his spiritual vision.

Many difficulties which nature throws in our way, may be smoothed away by the exercise of intelligence. Titus Livius (59 BC – 17 AD)

First Posted Sept 29, 2005

For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE

JJ’s Amazon page HERE

Gathering 2004, Part 34

September 10, 2022 Joseph Dewey

Gathering 2004, Part 34
Mastering Your Dweller

JJ: If you meet your dweller, you’ll know it. In each lifetime you’ll undergo in miniature the progression you’ve undergone before. From birth until approximately age 21, if you’ve overcome maya, glamour and illusion in previous lives, you’ll overcome them again. It won’t be as difficult this time.

Where you meet the real difficulty is when you reach where you left off. Then taking the next step is really difficult. When a person encounters his dweller again it will be very difficult for a period of time because the dweller is a life form whose body is composed of every negative thought you’ve ever had in maybe a thousand lifetimes. Your dweller is an entity of low vibration whose body is your negative thoughts and fears in all your lifetimes put together. When you reach a point where you can overcome illusion with logic and reason and touching the intuition, then the dweller will die.

He wants to live so he attacks you one last time and tries to give you one tremendous illusion that will pull you back. A popular one used is, “Who do you think you are?” That’s a mantra used by the dark brotherhood to try to stop disciples from using their logic and reason and intuition to go to the next step.

Audience: What if you think you don’t qualify?

JJ: Most of us aren’t trusted by the masters, but that doesn’t mean we don’t serve. We have to do a lot of service before we’re accepted into their auras.

The key is to serve. This would be a good time to read a quote I have. Larry posted this. It’s called “The Servant.”

“If you follow the highest you know there will come a time when you will be visited by a Presence, either visible or invisible. It will come at a time that you least expect it and a time when perhaps you feel the least prepared spiritually, but it will come.

To dream and wish for the experience will only delay the happening. But if you take the highest you know and go forward in the vineyard of the Master and serve with no end in sight, in season and out of season, in good times and bad. If you serve with love in the dark of night with the same strength as in the light of day, if you continue with loving service through the fiery darts of hate, malice and betrayal and above all if it appears that even your Master and your God seem to completely ignore you as if you do not exist… Through all this you will continue to serve with the highest you know. You continue even if God himself seems to be your enemy putting every obstacle possible in your path and laughing at you as you stumble and fall. You rise up and continue.

The time comes that it will not seem to matter to you any more if friends, God or the Masters approve of you or not. It matters not if you are some great chosen one or are looked upon by the Master as the least and most needy of the brethren. You will now serve for the sake of selfless love alone because the need is out there and you sense the need. When this stage is reached in your being one of the Great Ones will take notice and speak: “Behold, the servant! He has become as one of us. Let us invite him into the circle of higher friendship, brotherhood and service.”

JJ: It’s hard for me to read this because it puts me in the frame of mind that I had when I received it. The key is to go and serve even if you feel like God Himself is your enemy. Continue to have that feeling that you will serve no matter what. Sometimes you’ll feel that way on the path. Sometimes you’ll feel like God and a bunch of pranksters created everything to pull a joke on you. Even that has to be ignored. You have to get back and look at your fellow man who is in need. It doesn’t matter what God or your master, your father, your mother, or your loved ones think. There are people out there who are in need of service. When we have this attitude, we can overcome maya, glamour and illusion and follow the path until we obtain mastery over all things.

Audience: What are your recommendations when we meet the dweller?

JJ: Read Book III for that. It tells you to use the principle of attrition because if you try to fight your dweller, you will lose.

You want to know about the blood and the bread. To eat the true spiritual bread, we must overcome the maya. We must negate the control of the physical over us. To eat of the spirit or the blood, the blood represents the spirit, we must negate the power of the ego over us. Then we can partake of the true spirit.

Those who have overcome glamour can have many wonderful spiritual experiences and eat of this spirit, the bread and the manna and the blood of Christ so to speak. Then the final hurdle is overcoming illusion, not the final but the main hurdle. After that is the fourth initiation which is called the great sacrifice. The story of Abraham is representative of someone who has taken the great sacrifice as is Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. For great sacrifice, we must reach a point as Christ did where He said, “Not my will but thine be done.” He wanted the cup to be removed. He wanted the cup to be removed but He still went along with something that was very difficult for Him to fulfill, the Purpose of God. This is a major step to overcoming death.

There are several stages to overcoming death. When a person reaches the fifth initiation, he becomes a master and he has power to regenerate himself so that he can extend his life as long as it is needed. Some of the masters are 500 years old or so. Djwahl Khul, who we study quite a bit, is about 300 years old.

They will not live forever. They will shed their bodies at appropriate times. Maybe they’ll be reborn to serve among us or go to higher spheres where they will not need their bodies. Then there is the sixth initiation and the seventh. The Christ Himself is becoming a seventh-degree initiate. The seventh-degree initiate has power to let his body be destroyed then rebuild it again. That’s something that even most of the masters can’t do. They can regenerate the body.

That’s even given in story of Abraham. In the Hebrew it indicates that Abraham’s body was regenerated. That’s why he was able to father children at an advanced age. Remember when the angel came and told him he would have a child. Sarah laughed because it was so ridiculous because they were beyond their years. Abraham and Sarah were regenerated so that they could have a child. The Bible actually calls Abraham a God. It doesn’t say that in the English translation but in the Hebrew, it calls him an Elohim at one point. The reason he was called a God was because he was actually a master and a master can go through regeneration or extend his life or his body for as long of time as is useful.

The seventh-degree initiate has power to have his body destroyed or to re-create any body he’s had in a past life. The memories of all our past lives are in us. The memories of the construction of all our past bodies are within us. Once you reach a certain degree of advancement, you can reconstruct them at any time you want.

Audience: How do you retain memory of one lifetime to the next? Do you have to do that?

JJ: It’s called continuity of consciousness. The first step in that is being able to intuit. When you intuit your past, an important thing, instead of remembering in detail who you were, you intuit various lessons from your past though not necessarily all the details. If individual identity is required, it will be given to you. If it’s not needed, you can have the power to intuit it. If it’s necessary, you can be given all your past lives. When Buddha reached enlightenment, he was said to see all his past lives.

The key to continuity of consciousness is to not lose any intelligence that you had in past lives. That’s the important thing. It’s more important than remembering the details. You need to have continuity of consciousness of your intelligence so your intelligence will rise with you in the resurrection, so to speak, so the resurrection or what rises will be born again.

There are two resurrections. One is the resurrection of life and the other is the resurrection called “judgment” in the Bible or krisis. Krisis means decision or correction. A decision that brings correction is the definition I give it. You have the resurrection of eternal life, which is what Christ attained and the resurrection of correction and decision where we go back and make further decisions and correct ourselves and work out the corners of reincarnation.

All of us have undergone the resurrection of krisis but we haven’t achieved the resurrection of life yet. The true resurrection of life is where you overcome your limitations. The last enemy to be overcome is death then you’re removed from limitations, as we understand them. Of course, you discover new ones later on. You discover limitations you didn’t even know you had.

It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself. Betty Friedan

Posted Sept 27, 2005

For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE

JJ’s Amazon page HERE

Gathering 2004 Part 33

September 9, 2022 Joseph Dewey

Gathering 2004 Part 33
The Mystery of Illusion

Audience: I think the biggest illusion that has the most damning effect on people in the category you’re talking about, that is the idea of the infallibility of their scriptures and the leaders who are in place. In your church leadership you want to ascribe that these guys know what they’re talking about and that we can turn our salvation over to them and it’s in good hands.

JJ: That’s a good point. In order to overcome illusion, which is the next thing we’re going to cover, the person has to unravel everything that has been incorrectly taught to him. To unravel it, first of all he has to overcome this infallibility thing. He has to realize that nothing is infallible except the spirit of God within him. That’s the only thing that’s infallible. Everything out there is fallible, the priest, prophet, scripture and any writing out there will have faults in it that have to be discerned.

Once he reaches the point where he realizes there is no such thing as infallibility from without, the next thing he has to do is to examine himself and use logic and reason. Reason is something a lot of people just want to escape and not deal with because it takes effort.

So let’s take one teaching that Joseph Smith gave out. If there is a beginning there will be an end. If there is no beginning there will be no end. There is no such thing as a beginning with no end.

Using this logic a person can unravel illusions. I’ve taught this to many Mormons and haven’t had one who was really into the church agree with me. I’ll say to them this, “According to Joseph Smith’s teaching that if there is a beginning there is an end, if there was a beginning to you holding the priesthood that means there will be an end to it.”

He replies, “Oh no, no, no. You’ve got that all wrong.” I say, “Well, that’s what Joseph Smith taught. He said if there is a beginning there will be an end. The only way you can have the priesthood forever is if you already had it forever. That’s the only way according to Joseph Smith’s teachings.

He says, “Oh no. I was given the priesthood.”

If you had it forever you couldn’t have been given it. You can only have it awakened within you. The priesthood is the authority of God. If you are a god like the scriptures taught and like Joseph Smith taught and Jesus taught, if ye are god then you already had the power of God. In the scripture itself it says that the priesthood is the key to the knowledge of God so when you have the key to the knowledge of God, wouldn’t you have the priesthood? Doesn’t it say that you’re merely ordained and given something so you can actually discover what the true priesthood is? Didn’t Joseph Smith say that most people didn’t have the fullness of the priesthood?

You can use this logic and reason on anyone who is caught in a glamour to the extent they can’t get to the illusion. I’ve told this to several hundred Mormons and all of my family who are Mormons. I’ve run this by them and they will not follow the reasoning. If you follow the reasoning you have to come to the conclusion I mentioned. If there is a beginning to your priesthood there will be an end to your priesthood.

Either you already have the priesthood and have always had it or you have it now and it will end.

Audience: Either that or Joseph Smith’s statement that’ if there is no beginning there is no end’ is incorrect. It’s a very simple argument to put those two pieces together.

JJ: Right. So, to overcome illusion you have to allow yourself to follow wherever the reasoning takes you. This is difficult for us because when the reasoning takes us to something we don’t want to hear we think, “No, this can’t be right. I don’t want to hear this.” They usually say, “I don’t want to hear anymore. Don’t tell me anymore about your ideas.”

Audience: In my own experience I’ve found that when I begin to do that there was a fear that I might be reasoning incorrectly or that I might come to the wrong conclusion. Things that I realized that helped me to get over that fear is realizing that when I learn a thing is wrong, I’ll change.

JJ: Right. Sometimes you will come to the wrong conclusion but you can’t let that stop you because you have to have faith in yourself that sooner or later, you’ll find out what’s right. When you take a path and there are seven different paths but only one of them takes you where you want to go; but don’t know which one, you try one and if it’s wrong you try another until you finally get the right path. You have to have faith in yourself that you will do this.

Audience: It’s okay to be wrong and being wrong is part of the process of learning. A lot of times we’re told, “You don’t want to be wrong. You don’t want to make mistakes because that causes pain.” But without that experience you won’t ever achieve things.

JJ: People are wrong all the time. Someone predicts a hurricane will be gentle but a lot of people die. People say, “It’s God’s will if they die.” That wasn’t really the way that it worked. It just happened to be the combination of events went together. Someone who is really in tune with the spirit may have escaped it. If you look at plants and crystals, there are lots of imperfect crystals out there. Was God wrong in making that imperfect crystal? Some will say, “Oh no. God wanted that crystal just the way it is.” Not necessarily. The life of God is trying to make a perfect crystal and they don’t always turn out perfect. But eventually at the end of creation, everything does reach relative perfection. In between the beginning and the end, the life of God, which is the same as us, makes many mistakes until eventually we get the final version.

So, we have to go back and look at where our beliefs come from. What do we believe and why do we believe it? Each of us must go back and examine all of these things then look at them with logic and reason. The logic and reason will lead us to a certain point. Where illusion is overcome is a combination of logic and reason plus connection with the intuition, which is the next level to reach. By using this, logic and reason, and not backing down, you come to a point where logic and reason lead you where you don’t want to go. You have to go there anyway if you’re going to escape illusion.

We eventually overcome illusion, as represented by the transfiguration of Christ on the Mount. It was also represented by Paul when he had his encounter with Christ and Paul was blinded. That blinding, or merging into the light of Christ, is a symbol of the time that you are overcoming illusion.

Audience: Could you say as a principle then that if you really wanted to overcome illusion don’t just look at your beliefs from the top but really try to discover what your true foundation beliefs are and examine them first.

JJ: That’s the first step. Examine your foundation beliefs. The Christ and His hierarchy will not trust anyone to be an accepted disciple until they’ve overcome illusion. Until you’ve overcome, not only maya where you’re able to be a faithful spouse because you have control over your appetites, and not only glamour where you’ve overcome the ego. If you’re caught in illusion you can still be a very destructive person like Hitler. They will not trust a disciple or take him into their auras until he has overcome illusion. Even though this is technically the third initiation, it’s called the first major initiation because overcoming illusion is so important. Even if our intentions were pure, someone could present us a philosophy that could sound really good and we could get caught into it and not examine it correctly.

Audience: When does one know if one has overcome?

JJ: You’ll know you’ve overcome illusion when you meet your dweller on the threshold. Not until that point. Once you’ve overcome illusions, you can hear some philosophy that may sound good and maybe even consider it for awhile but eventually you’ll work your way through it so you won’t get caught in the illusionary aspects of it. You won’t have a dangerous pull.

Be life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for. David Starr Jordan (1851 – 1931)

First Posted Sept 21, 2005

For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE

JJ’s Amazon page HERE

Gathering 2004 Part 32

September 8, 2022 Joseph Dewey

Gathering 2004 Part 32
The Death of the Ego

We must transcend all these glamours. The key to transcend them is to overcome the ego. We need to be willing to let the ego go. “He that is willing to lose his life for my sake, shall save it,” said the master. To let the ego go, you have to actually lose your life. It feels like losing your life because the ego has a life of its own. When you let it go it begins to fight for its own existence. If someone were strangling you wouldn’t you fight to live? When you strangle the ego it’s going to fight and kick and do everything it can to make you feel important because to make you feel important feeds it so it has a reason to live. “If you don’t strangle me I’ve got some stuff that will really make you shine,” says the ego.

You have to ignore all these things and ignore the ego and let it die because what’s important to you isn’t your lower self, but it’s the spiritual life. The spiritual life transcends all that so the spiritual life and service to humanity is more important than self. When you reach this point, where it’s more important than self, then the ego actually dies. It might take lifetimes for it to die and it doesn’t go out without a fight. It fights tooth and nail for its survival.

Audience: I think that for both of these principles there is an opposite for everything. For example, with ego, ego says, “I’m so great” but the opposite can also be damning and that’s “I’m not good enough.” So those two extremes have to meet the middle way where you know who you are, you’re not puffed up about it and you’re not diminishing yourself when you should be living up to something you can do. That law of opposition comes into the maya. One extreme is giving into your appetites. The opposite would be not allowing yourself to experience certain things in life. There may be certain enjoyments in life that you don’t partake of because you think you’re going to indulge too much. Take the Amish for example. If we don’t want to sin let’s live this boring mundane life. Well, yea that works but they’re erring on the other side because they aren’t experiencing things that could help them progress. There is an opposite for each one of these.

JJ: I agree 100%. To master maya you don’t just deny yourself something but you have to know how much you can take in of something. You can drink a little wine and still be a master of maya. You can have wild sex with your wife and still be the master of it. (laughter) If you’re going to ride the wave, you don’t master it by being afraid of the wave. You ride the wave by tackling the wave and mastering the energy of the wave. You must find out how to use the energy of the maya so that you are the master of it.

It’s the same with glamours. We must unravel the glamours by letting our ego go. When we let our ego go, the glamours automatically dissolve. You don’t have to tackle them so much one by one. When you let go of the ego and put attention beyond the ego then the glamours just unravel.

Audience: inaudible.

JJ: Right. The Buddha experienced both of those extremes. He had extreme wealth and extreme poverty then he saw the middle way.

Overcoming these emotionally based glamours is the most time-consuming thing to master on our path. It’s in between the first and second initiation. It takes many lifetimes to be able to master our glamour and our egos. When a person begins seeking, it takes a long struggle to master all these glamours. It’s really tough to let the ego go. It’s kicking and screaming and often we let it come back to life for another lifetime or two. Eventually we get rid of it so we master our glamours so our attention is on something higher than our lower selves. Once this happens we have to undergo the next hurdle. Does anybody know what that is?

Audience: Mind?

JJ: What’s in connection with the mind that has to be mastered? Illusion. What is an illusion? What’s the difference between an illusion and a glamour?

Audience: inaudible chatter.

JJ: A person can overcome his glamours and overcome his ego completely and still be subject to illusion. He can be in illusion and have pure intentions, really want to do good and be a servant of God. An illusion is a wrong piece of information in your foundation belief. You need to go back and ask yourself, “What do I believe and why do I believe it?” Then you go back and find out what caused the beginning of your belief.

Audience: question inaudible

JJ: Yea, Hitler actually wanted to do what was right but he had an illusionary way of going about it. He thought the Jews were from Satan. He was a vegetarian; he was in charge of what he ate and he really didn’t have that much ego. Everybody thinks he was an egomaniac but he wasn’t that egotistical. He let other people share the glory with him. But he was caught in a trap of his own making. He had some very powerful wrong beliefs in his foundation system.

Audience: That just goes to show you the danger.

JJ: Right. Illusion is the most dangerous of all because if you’ve conquered maya and if you’ve conquered glamour and you’re in illusion then you think you are a true servant of God and what you say is right. You can’t find any flaw in what you’re doing. Hitler swallowed some teachings that said the Jews were spawned by Satan from the days of Adam and Eve. He really believed that and he thought they caused most of the problems in the world so the obvious solution was to just get rid of them all.

He taught his guys this saying, “I even have friends who are Jews and you can have sympathy for them and feel for them as a human being but you have to transcend that and let it go because these guys have to be extinguished in order to bring in the new age.”

So he had this illusion and it was so powerful that it led him to do very destructive things. Illusions can be a very powerful negative influence. Jesus said to His apostles, “They will kill you and when they kill you they will think they are doing God’s will.” That’s because of the illusion they were in which caused them to think they were doing righteous acts. Hitler thought the Jews were evil and the early persecutors of the Christians thought the same way. Just about every other religion had its persecutors who thought they were doing God’s will by killing somebody with a different belief system.

What’s a popular illusion?

Audience: God is perfect?

JJ: Yea, that’s an illusion because a person can overcome everything with pure intent and think that the gods or the masters are flawless. There is a lot of illusion in popular doctrines where God knows everything that’s ever going to happen and He’s up there paying attention to all details. He knows that I’m going to snap my fingers right at this moment. He knew that a million years ago. Why would He even bother with that? If you were God living a million years ago would you bother to look into the future to see me snapping my fingers now? Why would you even want to do that? (laughter)

Audience: My way of thinking is the right way, my religion, my political beliefs or whatever. I’m right and you’re wrong.

JJ: When people swallow their particular religion as ironclad truth, they can follow their religious principles, follow the commandments and do everything necessary and reach a certain level of advancement. They can be pure in heart but the flaws in their religion will follow them and these flaws will produce illusion.

For each thorn, there’s a rosebud…
for each twilight – a dawn…
for each trial – the strength to carry on, For each stormcloud – a rainbow…
for each shadow – the sun…
for each parting – sweet memories
when sorrow is done.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)

First posted Sept 18, 2005

For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE

JJ’s Amazon page HERE

Gathering 2004, Part 31

September 6, 2022 Joseph Dewey

Gathering 2004, Part 31
Subtle Glamours

Everybody thinks it’s great to remove limitations but then if you tell them about a limitation they need to remove, they deny it’s a limitation and think, “I don’t want to remove that.” People do not see obtaining power over the physical pull as removing a limitation, but it is. They don’t see it until the limitation is removed. Once that limitation is removed a new vista opens up then they can see that it was indeed a limitation.

A free-spirited person might think, “I’m with these swinging couples and we’re free!” He’ll think he has no limitations. So the guy who thinks he has no limitations is actually subject to a limitation that he cannot see. He is subject to the pull of maya and he’s going with the pull of matter. He’s not trying to control the pull. By controlling the pull of maya you free yourself from the limitations of maya because maya directs your attention on the physical. If your attention is on the physical then you cannot master the physical. You have to be able to control the physical and to do this we must switch attention to the spirit.

Audience: What we’re really looking for is like the middle way. We don’t want to become Mother Theresa and give up everything and all our creature comforts.

JJ: You can look at me for example of what I think it is. I live my life according to what I think is mastering maya. I still drink some wine and enjoy good food, but I do not let it master me. This is what we need to do. You master it like you ride the wave meaning you don’t negate the wave but you use the energy of the wave to your advantage. You ride the wave of physical matter so that you master the energy of matter so it is used for the best possible use.

Audience: Is that like having things without attachment to them?

JJ: That’s part of it but now we’re moving into the next sphere, which is more the area of attachment. The next thing to overcome is what is called glamour. Glamour is associated with the astral world, which is the same as the emotional world. In esoteric writings the emotional part of you is called the astral. If you’re reading the archives and I’m talking about astral, we’re talking about emotions and things related to the emotional field. Glamour is what must be mastered and understood in connection with the emotional world.

What is a glamour? Glamour is connected with the ego. The ego tells us, “you are a very important person. You are the center of the universe.” It’s true from one way of looking at it. The lower person though is not the important thing. It’s the higher part of yourself that’s important. The ego tries to convince you that the lower part of yourself is important.

It tells you that you need the correct recognition, the correct praise. You need to be seen by everybody as a very outstanding person. These are the sort of things the ego tells us. On the path through this emotional world, and as we evolve through it, we pick up a lot of glamours. For instance, a Messiah complex is a glamour. There are a lot of teachers out there with a Messiah complex. Hopefully I’m not one. (laughter) They think it’s their duty to save the world from itself. A lot of glamours are behind good intentions.

There may be a glamour behind being a mother. The mother may think that her job is so important that she ignores her husband and gives all of her attention to her kids. “I’m a good mother,” she thinks; therefore her feelings of importance and her attachment to herself is as a wonderful mother. She may ignore her friends, her spouse and her own development because of her kids. This is the result of a glamour.

Most glamours are behind something that seems good because that which is evil is usually just good which is misused, a good intention with some flaw in it. Even Hitler thought he was doing a good thing. He thought he knew what was right and he was going to make sure everyone else knew it too. Even that which is evil has some type of good intention that’s warped, misunderstood or has a flaw in it.

This distortion of good is behind glamours. A glamour is usually some type of good intention but it winds up astray. The reason we keep the glamour is because it feeds the ego. With the mother, she really wants to be a good mother and she realizes this but it feeds her ego to think, “I am really a great mother.” She’s feeding her ego with something of good intention.

Audience: The road is paved with good intentions, right?

JJ: Exactly. Good point.

Audience: I’m wondering if another way of stating this is this principle is about our self-awareness and where glamour comes in that self-awareness is trying to draw our energy to draw people’s attention to us where the focus should be striving to use our self-awareness and our gifts to bless other people’s lives without bothering with how they’re going to perceive us.

JJ: That’s a good point. What the ego tries to do and how the ego produces glamour is that it directs everything to the lower self so we get attention. Going back to the good mother, she goes out of her way to make sure everyone knows she’s a good mother. It feeds her ego. On the other hand, the true good mother without glamour will be a good mother even if no one knows it. She may be doing great things for her kids, but she doesn’t care if anyone knows or not. She’s concerned about her children and that everyone is taken care of. What else can be a glamour?

Audience: This very group could be a glamour for some of us.

JJ: That’s a really good point. We could think, ‘We’re a special group and since I’m a member of this group I’m more enlightened than these other groups.’ If we have this attitude this is a glamour. It produces a very judgmental attitude.

Audience: Inaudible comments.

Audience: Didn’t you say you could detect a glamour because a person becomes emotionally attached to that glamour and they get defensive.

JJ: If they’re really defensive about something it isn’t an ironclad thing but it’s an indication that it can be a glamour. For instance, Andy dresses really good but there are some people who dress really nice purely because of glamour and they really dress flashy. (laughter and various comments on how people are dressed.) I put this shirt (a bright shirt) on because my wife gave it to me.

Audience: If there are false glamours I think I suffer from those, like I’m not good enough. It’s probably a way for me to draw attention to myself.

JJ: There are a lot of glamours. There is even a glamour around humility. Do you ever meet people who say, “I’m not good enough to do that”? They do it in such a way that it’s to draw attention to them so you tell them they are good enough.

There’s the martyr syndrome, the martyr glamour, the false humility glamour but these people don’t really feel humble. They’ll say they’re humble or no good or whatever but that’s not the way they really feel. They really feel superior but they’re seeking a pat on the back. It’s a way to get other people to tell them that they are superior and that’s what they really believe about themselves. So, you can even have a glamour about humility and things that appear opposite of the ego. If you say, “Oh I could never be as good as you” but you really don’t believe that you’re just saying it so other people pat you on the back, that could be a glamour.

Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other. Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)

First Posted Sept 15, 2005

For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE

JJ’s Amazon page HERE

Gathering 2004, Part 30

September 5, 2022 Joseph Dewey

Gathering 2004, Part 30
The Distraction of Matter

Let’s refresh a little. Basically, what we talked about today concerns that Jesus taught that if a man hears His words he shall never die. The words that he has to hear are the words of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit speaks through the language of principles. We’ve been discussing what a principle is verses a fact.

The Master talked about those who have ears but did not hear. This means they only heard the data. They didn’t hear the principle behind the data. We must hear the principle behind the data if we are to have eternal life. That’s the only way to have it implanted within us. You can’t really have a piece of data planted within you. You can have it implanted in your memory banks but that doesn’t really do much for you.

One principle we related as taught by Joseph Smith was that if there is a beginning to something there will be an end. If there is no end there is no beginning. If there is a beginning to something there will be an end. That’s an enunciation of a principle. The Law of Economy is another principle. A mathematical equation is a principle. The data is a piece of data. So, Jesus gave spiritual equations. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” He gave these spiritual equations and all that people need is principles.

It says, “Believe on the Son of God and you shall have eternal life.” People hear the data in that but they do not see the principle. The principle behind the Son of God is the soul. The soul is the mediator between spirit and matter. Matter interplays with spirit and in between that interplay is soul energy. Soul energy is a mediating principle between God and man. When a person touches the soul, he begins to hear the words of eternal life. They begin to be planted in him until they grow up into mastery and eternal life.

The question to examine now is; what are the steps to take once we understand that we have to accept principles within us to have eternal life? What are the steps we have to take in order to overcome death as Jesus did?

Audience: A question before that is why would we want eternal life? Why would we want to overcome death? Why would we need that?

JJ: First off, let’s talk about what eternal life is. The Mormons have an interesting definition. They believe that everyone is deathless and no one will be extinguished but eternal life is life as God lives life. That’s a pretty good way to put it but is there a deeper aspect than that? What is life as God lives life?

Audience: To eternally embrace something includes forward as well as backward so if there is eternal life it would have to be both forward and backward.

JJ: What is life?

Audience: Consciousness?

JJ: When you’re sleeping and unconscious are you still alive?

Audience: I would think life is the organization of the body, for physical life anyway.

JJ: Has anyone here read the Molecular Relationship? In the beginning there was one thing. What was that one thing? Purpose. Life is the movement of purpose. The movement of purpose produces light and love. To have life, you need ability to move. So, eternal life means you have eternal freedom to move and do what you want to do. That is the core principle behind it.

Let’s suppose Assaf reaches the age of 96 and thinks, “Man, I have a bunch more stuff to do. It’s going to take me 20 more years to get everything done that I want to do.” If he has eternal life then he has the ability to move in the directions he wants to move and the direction he wants to move is to stay here another 20 years and live to be 116 years old. If he has that ability, he has eternal life because he has power to move in the direction he wants whenever he wants to do it. Even if he chooses to die at the age of 116, that’s part of eternal life. That’s movement if he moves from the physical body into another sphere. But because he’s doing it by choice it’s eternal life because eternal life is being able to always have the power to move in the direction you want to move.

God, we’re told, is all-powerful. So this is the key to His eternal life. For all-powerful beings the key to life is being able to do what they want to do when they want to do it. We all have limitations on the path to having all power given to us. We must, first of all, find what those limitations are.

There are three spheres of limitations we must overcome in obtaining eternal life. The first sphere is called in the east by the name of maya. Does anyone know what that is?

Audience: energy?

JJ: It’s energy connected with a physical matter in that fact that maya is called illusion but it’s illusion because the pull of physical matter pulls on us so strongly that it takes our attention away from the real. And because the pull of the physical matter takes our attention away from the real it causes us to be deceived. So, we have to overcome this pull of maya in order to overcome the first hurdle to eternal life. Now, what are some of the pulls of physical matter that direct our attention away from the spiritual?

What about food and drink? We can’t put all of our attention on enjoying food and drink and eat, drink and be merry, or any addiction that pulls us away or if we drink too much alcohol like we did last night. I drank just the right amount. How about you guys? (laughter)

Audience: Part of appreciating and being thankful is enjoying things like food.

JJ: Right but there is a difference between enjoying it or living to eat or eating to live. Those who live to eat are caught in maya, the pull of the food. What other things produce maya?

Audience: It sounds weird but too much of an attachment to our loved ones.

JJ: This is more in the area of glamours which is the next thing we’re going to talk about. A very powerful one is sex. When you’re very sexually attracted to somebody it’s very difficult to transmute that into the correct spiritual perceptions. It can pull us away from our spiritual connection.

If it’s used properly, it can enhance spirituality, just like food gives us sustenance so we can be spiritual servants. Sex can be fulfilling if it’s put in its right place. If you’re happily married but go have an affair, that’s a pull. You’re atttracted by the pull of matter itself away from the direction of spirit. The Seven Deadly Sins are rather exemplified of the pull of maya.

So, we have matter and the energy of matter. We’re attracted to matter. We’re attracted to nice cars and clothes and things like this. Where we put our attention in the attraction to matter, whether it be sex or food or nice things whatever they are. These are pulls that always tug on us. No matter who you are, if you see someone drive by in a nice Porsche or Mercedes you might think how nice it would be to have one of those. We have that pull toward the physical. This pull toward the physical must be put under your control. We don’t do away with the pull but we put it under our power. By putting it under our power, it removes one of our limitations.

If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts. Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955), (attributed)

First Posted Aug 31, 2005

For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE

JJ’s Amazon page HERE

Gathering 2004, Part 29

September 3, 2022 Joseph Dewey

Gathering 2004, Part 29
Hearing the Principle

Audience: I don’t understand how these masters can come and take physical form at will. Are they actually picking up a physical form or do they just appear to be physical?

JJ: They can recreate the actual physical form at will once they get high enough on the scale.

Audience: I think it’s interesting that Joseph Smith taught something that most LDS people don’t talk about. They talk about us having a pre-existing spirit but they don’t talk about what Joseph Smith taught about there being an intelligence before the spirit that was not created.

JJ: Right. The great mysteries in not only the Mormon Church but also in the Bible itself are rarely talked about by any of the religious people.

Audience: When you were giving examples, you said things that have a form had a beginning and end. Is there not an eternal aspect of these things that have form that do not have a beginning and an end?

JJ: The spirit that is behind the creation never had a beginning and never will have an end, but the spirit is formless. The spirit can call things into form and when it calls them into form they only exist for a period of time before going out of form again. The principle that governs form is eternal. The difference between principles and data is that principles are eternal. Any piece of data that’s true today may not be true tomorrow. If it’s ninety degrees outside today it might be a hundred tomorrow but the principle that governs heat and cold is eternal and will always exist. The principle that governs form and the creation of form is eternal.

When the scriptures speak of Jesus implanting the word in you, it’s not talking about implanting data. This is a big mistake that religions teach. I accept this piece of data that Jesus is the Son of God therefore I’m going to have eternal life. Accepting a piece of data is not accepting the Word of God. The Word of God is in principles. Jesus taught in principles. Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. That’s a principle. The parable of the prodigal son illustrates a principle. All of His teachings illustrated principles.

And when you hear, remember it talks about hearing? He that hears shall live. How do you hear? If you memorize data or all the scriptures – you can know every word in the scriptures and have them in your memory and not understand one principle. So you can have not one word of God in your mind by having the whole Bible memorized. You can only hear the Word of God when you hear the principle behind what is said, and that is life.

Audience: What makes a principle something of substance? What makes it applicable in every way?

JJ: A principle is an enunciation of what is. A principle isn’t made. A principle is eternal and it always is. Like Newton says, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. He discovered a principle. From that he was able to deduce all kinds of things.

Audience: Isn’t it just explaining what He created us by?

JJ: God works through principles. Creation is different from what people think. They think God was sitting up there on a throne and felt kind of lonely and decided to create everything. “I’ll just snap my fingers and make everything be created,” He is thought to have said. Instead, what God did was He multiplied Himself to infinite numbers, or close to infinite, and these points that He reflected Himself into then found themselves in a state of uncreated form. This is what Joseph Smith referred to when he said, ‘in the beginning was intelligence.’ Man was intelligence. The reflected Sons of God were just intelligence. They used their intelligence to begin creation from the very sub-atomic levels to creating the atoms, to creating molecules and so on until the whole universe was created.

It wasn’t created by somebody up there on a throne. He plunged Himself into the universe and made the universe out of His reflections. We are the substance of the universe. As substance of the universe and as His reflections we have assisted in creating the universe. Keep in mind that everything has to be done by trial and error. We create everything by trial and error but we think God is perfect and doesn’t need to use trial and error. He just creates a frog instantly. When He decided to create a frog it was just there, instantly. He knew all about it. No He didn’t.

We’re reflections of God and we create by trial and error so what does that tell us about God? He does the same thing. He has to create by trial and error. If we’re really in the image of God, then we’re creating the same way that God creates. We create over and over. Like I said with the computer program, you do version one, version two until eventually you get a version that is so good and so perfect that it does everything you want it to do. No one will want a higher version because this particular version fills everyone’s need.

That’s how it is with the sub-atomic world. The atom is so perfect that every atom in the universe is created the same way. They look the same. They have the same types of particles in them. You don’t have a hydrogen atom here that’s one way and one another way on Mars. They’re all created exactly the same because once perfection is reached, you go with it.

Audience: Is that why we have so many lives?

JJ: Yes, we have so many lives then when we finally work out all the rough corners so there isn’t anything left to work on we move onto something higher, a new challenge. I think if each us were to examine ourselves we’d find a few rough corners to work on.

Audience: When you talk about the principles, is it similar to universal laws?

JJ: Yes, a universal law is a principle. One of the universal laws we’ve been discussing in this group is the Law of Economy. It means that everything with intelligence eventually gravitates to do things in the most efficient way and this causes a kind of natural creation of things. So the Law of Economy is behind a lot of natural creation.

Audience: I would define a principle as a statement of reality in an innumerable number of instances.

Audience: Is the statement, “Know thyself” a principle or a fact?

JJ: It’s a fact. Is there any enlightenment that comes when you say, ‘Know thyself?’ It’s a directive that you might reflect on. How can I know myself? How to know yourself is a principle. How do you go about knowing yourself? Let’s find the principle behind that.

Audience: Contemplation. Experience in how I act in certain situations.

JJ: You’re speaking all around the principle. If you say, ‘Know yourself’ that’s a fact, or directive. You’re not quite speaking in principle yet. Socrates talked around a principle when a man came to him and said, ‘Oh great teacher, I want to know what you know. Tell me how to be as wise as you are.’ So Socrates takes him out on a lake and unexpectedly grabs him and plunges him under the water and holds him under for about a minute or two, then he pulled him up. The guy says, “What did you do that for?? I asked you how to be wise like you.” Socrates replied, “When you want knowledge and understanding the way you just wanted air, then you’ll be wise as me.”

Socrates took this guy out and taught him the principle. If he just said, “Seek with all your heart for knowledge and you’ll be wise as me” he wouldn’t have learned as much.

Audience: When they get a download they get it in physical form then we’re left to interpret it without communication. They think in principles equivalent to them wanting knowledge as much as this guy wanted air.

JJ: It creates an idea in that guy’s mind that he understood in a way he never understood before.

Audience: Are principles desires?

JJ: The principle was really an experience because he had this experience. To really understand a lesson, you have to understand how the principle of experience is the greatest teacher. You need to understand the idea. A principle is related to an idea. ‘Know thyself’ leads you to an idea but it’s not the idea itself. When they guy came up for air he understood the idea that Socrates was implanting in his mind. If he followed it, he would be a great philosopher in short order.

Audience: There’s a scripture that I believe is in the D&C. As things are created in heaven, blessings are predicated’. . .if you make that connection is that a principle? You know that it will happen.

JJ: The law talked about is a principle. There is a law irrevocably decried before the foundation of the world upon which all blessings are predicated and when a man receives a blessing from God it’s based upon the law upon which it is predicated. That’s a very good enunciation of a principle and that principle is basically a law of cause and effect. As ye sow so shall ye reap. That’s a foundation upon which all blessings are predicated. Joseph Smith put it into fancy language.

Audience: My suggestion is that a couple of us throw out some examples of principles and facts to see if we’re really got it.

Audience: I don’t think that would work well because I’ve received a couple of downloads that gave my information but I could not put it into words.

JJ: Let’s do this just for a minute or two. If you think you can tell us a principle, raise your hand.

Audience: inaudible comment

JJ: Yea, physics teaches principles. A person who is fairly scientific minded maybe will have an easier time understanding this. However, the female side can sense principles. The female may not be able to put them into words as well as the male but she will have a greater sense of when a principle is being enunciated. The male mind operating on the left side of the brain will try to put a principle into words when he senses a principle. A female is apt to try to translate it into her feeling nature.

Audience: Truth is true and nothing else is true. The fact that yesterday was 90 degrees was true and will always be true.

JJ: It could take us forty-five minutes to relate that. Basic facts on the point in time that they occur are true forever for that time, but a fact today will be a different fact tomorrow, like the temperature whereas a principle, overall, is unchanging. The principle that governs facts is unchanging and if we see through that we can understand all kinds of facts. We don’t need too much education if we can understand a principle. A person who understands principles can argue with someone who is an expert in a field the first person knows little about but he can listen a little bit then out-argue him.

Audience: It seems an easy way to comprehend principles is mathematically, like a good equation. For example, if I want to build a triangle or want to know the length of sides in geometric shapes, there are certain formulas that I can plug in and run it through and the formula will pop out the exact answer in the end. So a principle is almost like a process or an equation where I can plug in facts and get an accurate result.

JJ: This is a good example of a principle. We could call it a principle of equation where you have a piece of data and an answer from the equation. Like the area of a circle equals pi times the radius squared. There are all kinds of different circles and all sorts of different answers but you use the principle and get the answer. We use the same equation with different size circles and different data but the equation never changes.

To find spiritual knowledge is to use the same method. The principle is the equation which leads to the knowledge. If there is a beginning there will be an end; if there is no beginning there will be no end. There is no such thing as a beginning with no end. That’s an equation. From that equation you can analyze all kinds of doctrines in religions and find a lot of flaws. “You’re going to be resurrected and live forever.” Was there a beginning to the resurrection? That means there will be an end. Is there a beginning to you obtaining priesthood? That means there will be an end to your priesthood.

Audience: There is a physics fact. What in the universe is 99.9% empty space?

JJ: Everything.

Audience: And the only thing that gives us solidity is the electron. So in effect when we’re talking about anything, we’re talking about the electrons. Without the electron you have nothing to touch.

Audience: Is it a principle or a fact that there are seven layers of electrons?

JJ: It’s a fact, however the idea that seven is the number of planes is pretty close to a principle because it’s an equation we can relate. It’s a fact but the principle is the Law of Correspondences using the seven. The Law of Correspondences is a principle but that there are seven planes is data. The Law of Correspondences using the seven planes is where the principle lies.

Audience: You said principles are unchanging though.

JJ: In everything that has no form. A principle has no form. You can put it into form and represent it. You can write an equation on the blackboard but when you erase the equation, the principle remains. The equation still exists in formlessness.

Audience: inaudible

JJ: The original point is a principle. God is life and life operates on a principle. These two things interplay forever.

Audience: A principle is an energy that expresses.

JJ: Right and God Himself had to discover principles. He reflected Himself into this universe. He came here as an explorer, like Columbus discovering America, and had to figure out how everything works. Just as we discovered principles, the life of God is discovering principles. When we discover those principles, we put all the pieces back together so eventually God can withdraw from this universe. He comes into it but He doesn’t want to stay forever. He wants to come out with the fruit of experience that He gained.

Audience: Principles are very, very simple. Even the most ignorant person can be very wise with a principle. The ability to key into these eternal laws is governed by the way we live and that can be very simple.

JJ: Right. So to hear the Words of the spirit, to hear the Words of Christ, we hear the principles that He taught. We don’t just hear the story of the prodigal son; we hear the meaning of the story. The principle here is that the prodigal son squanders everything, and he realizes through the principle of experience that he needs to return to his father.

Audience: So when He says to hear, He means to know or understand.

JJ: Yes, but to know or understand you have to really hear. Quite often Jesus said, “There are those who have ears who do not hear.” In other words, they heard the data but not the internal principle in what He was saying.

Audience: One of the principles Christ taught is, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” So, if I understand that correctly, if you are not free you did not hear correctly. Joseph Smith said we have to overcome all our enemies and the last enemy is death. Therefore, because of the bondage of death we talked about, is there a principle that sets us free from the bondage of death or is there a multitude of principles?

JJ: Good question. We’ll continue the discussion after we take a break.

What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents. Robert Kennedy

First posted Aug 24, 2005