Interview with JJ
I have recently completed an interview with a magazine called MusticMag. They asked me a series of questions I answered. Here is the link:
Month: May 2024
Finding the Middle Way
Finding the Middle Way
2021 Gathering, Part Fourteen
Okay, any other questions on the Lost Key of the Buddha? True judgment is in the middle somewhere, and I think that goes way up the scale. Maybe even some of the Higher Lives, maybe even amongst the Masters and the Gods. Afterall, we have the story about the fall of Lucifer , he was very high up there and he disagreed.
And so I think we have a lot of revelations out there that are not in harmony with each other. But soul is in harmony with soul. You have a contact with God Himself through your own soul, and that’s the most reliable thing. Rely on what you get and what reverberates within.
And even if one of the ones that you’re contacting . . . if the highest you can contact is your higher emotions, then maybe they’re mostly wrong. Still, if you follow the highest you know, eventually higher will come. So just keep following the highest that you can receive and sooner or later, you will be on the path of truth, and you will be able to recognize the Middle Way that is between the two extremes.
Susan: So my question is, the key word is judgment, but what is the key?
JJ: The key is how to make the judgment. The key is understanding where the true judgment is. The true judgment is not exactly on the far right, on the far left, or the exact middle. But it is somewhere between the far left and the far right. And this has to be found by using the power of your own judgment in connection with your soul.
Your soul will guide you where that judgment is. And that’s the key. The key is to use your soul, examine everything on the right, on the left, and look in the middle, and find that place in between the two extremes that vibrates with your soul. And that’s the key to judgment.
Curtis: So the key is to trust your intuition.
JJ: Yes, that’s large part of it. Intuition comes from the soul.
Tyler: You were saying how, the judgment goes up a lot higher than we think, than we recognize. So in Book II, as I was reviewing it, there’s a portion where you’re in Shamballa or the New Jerusalem, and you were talking about the instance of the death penalty and how when you’re in that place [Shamballa], there really is no disagreement, because they see things differently. They see things differently than we do. They see everything in the right way because they’re able to see all of the consequences of anything that will come because of the things that will come because of any particular decision.
How is that different? You’re saying that there’s a difference in the worlds up above. But in the Book, you talk that there is agreement there.
JJ: Okay, the higher up you get, the more vision you have. Even though you have more vision, you’re still limited. Even Sanat Kumara, the Lord of the World, is limited in his vision. Even Christ is limited in his vision. All of us in the Universe, who are participating with any connection to this physical Universe, have limitations.
But we have certain things that we agree on for instance. Almost all humanity now agrees that slavery is not a good thing. We shouldn’t enslave one race over another. So, we see that within our vision, and we didn’t see that earlier. But we now see it because we have evolved as a human species. We can see what is true better than we did a thousand years ago.
And same goes for the Masters. They see what is true better than we can see what is true. But they still have their limitations in time and space, and when those limitations are reached, then they will have their own disagreements. When you reach that point of limitation, then judgment comes in again. They have to look at everything and make judgments as to where the point of truth is.
And when they look higher, than their own consciousness can take them, then they have to make judgments and different entities will make different judgments of what is beyond their consciousness.
Okay. Anything else?
Phillip: I had a thought just thinking this through. If we make the assumption that both extremes are incorrect for some reason, and then we look at the extreme and can understand the principle by which it is incorrect, and then look at the other extreme and figure out the principle by which it’s incorrect, and then follow and say between these two points the truth is in there. I want to find the point where that principle of non-truth is negated and move this way until the principle is resolved. And then I’m going to move this way until this principle has been resolved. And I’m going to come out somewhere in the middle where both extremes have been resolved, where the problem is no longer valid that made those two extremes.
JJ: Let’s talk about how both Republicans and Democrats disagree about how much money to borrow. Democrats want to borrow trillions and trillions of dollars. And Republicans only want to borrow a couple of trillion dollars. (laughter)
In this case, the Middle Way is no place here. (laughter) In other words, we shouldn’t be borrowing trillions of dollars of our grandkids’ money for anything. So, we’re in an interesting situation where both sides are on the extreme wrong side. There are just a handful of people that think maybe shouldn’t take out a credit card and live on it. Maybe that’s not a good idea.
Both Republicans and the Democrats agree that living on borrowed money is a good idea. We need to live on this credit card and borrow money that only our grandkids can pay off. Boy, that’s a great idea, isn’t it?
This is kind of an oddball time we’re living in when both extremes move away from the Middle Way in the same direction. The Middle Way is way beyond either extreme right now as far as spending goes. Other things like how to treat gays and minorities, there’s correct ways in between two extremes. A lot of things are in between two extremes. But like I said, we are in a real oddball situation where both sides want to spend a credit card, want us to live on borrowed money.
How much sense does it make for the average family to say we’ve got this big credit card, let’s live on it for a couple years and just see what happens? This is going to be great. The liberal says let’s spend the credit card really fast and the conservative says let’s spend it a little bit slower. Neither side represents the Middle Way in this scenario. We should be living on the money we actually have. So we live in really strange times.
But normally, there should be an extreme on the right, an extreme on the left, and the Middle Way will be somewhere in between those two extremes.
The person with soul contact will feel that vibration. They just know it’s right. This point of truth. This is right. I can just sense it’s correct.
The person who is getting the wrong answer, that is tuning into his emotional body . . . the answer he will get will be the answer that he wants to get. Every time it will be the answer that he wants.
It’s funny, when I was on my mission, quite a number of Elders fell in love with English gals. And when they prayed about it, they always got an answer that they were supposed to marry these ladies. I got a bang out of our mission president. He got up and addressed all of the Elders one time. And he said, “I don’t give a damn about your answer.” (laughter) He said, “It is not right. If you get an answer to marry some English gal, it’s not the true answer.”
Curtis: Then you ended up marrying an English gal.
JJ: Yeah, then I married an English gal, and I had a big problem. (laughter) It was sometime after my mission that I went back there and saw her.
Michael: Some of you are familiar with the term “harmony through conflict.” The thyroid and the parathyroid gland have different functions. And in some ways, it appears they’re working against each other. So there is this energy that is going in two directions, but what it does is it achieves a point of balance. And so maybe we all have a different individual dharma. This is my mission. This is what I came to do. And so my job is to do that to the best of my ability.
And there might be times when there is some conflict, that might push up against you. But I think if we’re aspiring to follow that path . . . again soul contact. It’s not about me. We’re trying to live to the highest. And we’re following that first commandment of bringing as much love as we can into everything we do, even when there’s apparent conflict, the idea is these two opposing forces jump to a higher level and they resolve it here.
So it’s not finding the middle ground here. It’s jumping to a higher level and evolving everything upward.
JJ: Okay. That can sometimes happen that we argue on a very material level and then the spirit comes in and we see from a higher level. And when we see from the higher level, then we will wind up making great judgments.
I told you the story about when Artie and I sometimes had arguments in the past. If the argument got heated we had a deal to always say, “I love you,” three times to each other. And by the third time that we say, “I love you,” we almost forgot what we were arguing about. We couldn’t even remember what we were disagreeing about. It’s kind of funny how that works.
Love is definitely a key factor in turning conflict into harmony and in reaching correct judgments.
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Preparing for the Worst
Preparing for the Worst
2021 Gathering, Part Thirteen
One of the things that I’ve noticed is the difference between somebody that’s out for their own good, versus somebody who’s truly trying to help, is that somebody who’s out for their own good will attempt to make you dependent on them.
JJ: That’s a good point.
Phillip: They will help you get so far, but they will never make you independent. Whereas somebody who is truly out to serve you, will give you all the keys that you need and cut the strings and give you the independence to move forward without them. So that they’re no longer needed.
JJ: Yeah. That’s a really great point, Phil. The true servants of humanity will try to duplicate themselves, anything, any ability they have . . . like Jesus said to his disciples, “greater things than I have done, shall you do.”
Now, what kind of person says that? We don’t hear that from our leaders, “yeah, you’re going to be greater than me.” (laughter) You don’t hear that anywhere. But Jesus said it. And it turned out that the disciples did some pretty amazing things. They raised the dead. Phillip, of that ancient time, apparently teleported himself. And they did some pretty amazing things that even Jesus didn’t do, that we know about.
Susan: There’s an interesting phenomenon going on in the LDS Church right now. It used to be that you would always hear, “follow the prophet, follow the prophet.” President Nelson is teaching the people right now to get their own revelation.
JJ: Really?
Susan: And he’s teaching them that if you don’t get your own revelation, you will not make it through the next few years. You must have your own revelation. And that is not something that has been taught in eons in the LDS faith. It’s a huge thing.
Various people commenting.
JJ: Now my brother-in-law tells me the LDS are also preparing places in camps if there’s an emergency, that people can escape to?
Susan: They’ve tripled a lot of the girls’ camps and boys’ camps, and their drilling wells, and they’ve put white tents, huge white tents all over the United States.
JJ: To prepare?
Susan: To prepare.
JJ: Well maybe if they listened to Curtis and me when we went there and visited with McConkie and Petersen. They said, “We understand you got some kind of message. What’s your message?” And we told them, “You’re completely unprepared if the economy falls apart”
They read my treatise, or my novelette about “The Journey’s End.” It begins with the excommunication of Curtis, which was true. And then it goes into fiction, where the LDS people are hunted down because they have a year’s supply, and when the economy collapsed. The LDS turned out to be the ones that are hunted down by mobs. They had no place to go. And Petersen looked at that and he said, “This is written by the devil himself.”
Curtis: “This is hell spawned,” he said.
JJ: “Hell spawned.” He said, “this is worse than Playboy!” (laughter) Playboy was the worst thing he could think of. To compare it to.
Susan: But it’s different now. That’s what I’m telling you.
JJ: Maybe they listened to Curtis and me.
Susan: Maybe they did.
JJ: Maybe somebody thought, “well, maybe they have a point. We need to prepare. We’re not prepared.”
Curtis: Can they get their own revelation then on the vaccination?
Susan: What President Nelson said two months ago was to counsel with your medical people and get the guidance of the holy ghost. So he definitely told people.
JJ: But they pretty much gave a command to get the vaccination.
Susan: Well, isn’t there always a paradox given, just like in the Garden of Eden? You’re told to do one thing, then you’re told to do another thing. And there’s a complete paradox. And the Church is being rent in two because of it.
JJ: I know I read that a lot of Mormons aren’t going along with the vaccination thing.
Phillip: If you look at the history of Nelson . . . Nelson had a pretty intense revelation as a doctor. He learned a new technique while he was on the operating table working on a guy. It was entirely the guy’s faith that pushed Nelson into it . . . if you hear the story. The guy said, “you need to do an operation.” Nelson said, “I don’t know what to do. There’s no solution for this.” And the guy said, “I have faith, I know the Lord will tell you. Just move forward.”
So Nelson opens him up. He’s doing open heart surgery. And as Nelson is doing the operation, he had a revelation of how to fix this guy’s heart using special stitches. And so he could see how it was going to work. He performed it. He tested it. Everything worked out great. He closed the guy up. And he had this amazing experience powered by this guy’s faith, but also his faith because he actually did the work.
But having that experience really impacted his life. One of his major revelations that he refers to. And so he knows that revelation is real and he’s encouraging other people to have similar type experiences. So it was majorly impacting on his life.
Now right on his heels is Oaks. Oaks is next in line to be the prophet and he’s very much, “follow the leaders. If your revelation contradicts, you’re wrong, the leaders are right.” And so, there’s kind of two thought forms that are being pushed at the same time.
JJ: Yeah, interesting.
Phillip: It is interesting, and I hope Nelson outlasts Oaks. (laughter)
JJ: It’s kind of funny with Curtis and me. We went to the Church headquarters, warned them that they were ill-prepared, and they needed to do something to prepare for an economic collapse.
But what would be frustrating to Curtis and me, is if there was a collapse and all the sudden the Church followed our advice and they’re prepared, and we aren’t, and they wouldn’t let us survive. (laughter) They won’t let us participate because we’re excommunicated. (laughter) That would be kind of ironic.
Curtis: We know where their food is stored. (laughter)
JJ: I was hoping by this time, from when I first started teaching The Gathering, we would have a whole city built and we would be completely self-sustaining. But that did not happen.
Asaph: Yet.
JJ: Not yet. So hopefully it will happen in time when it is needed.
Okay, any other comments or questions on the Middle Way?
Curtis: I was going to say on the Middle Way, it wasn’t that Joe and I wanted to be excommunicated. We wanted to appeal our excommunication. So we went see Bruce R. McConkie and Mark E. Petersen because we wanted to get back into the Church, because we felt like we could do more good in the Church than out of the Church. Plus we didn’t feel like we had done anything to merit excommunication.
So we went to find out if we could have a retrial. And they said, “we don’t do retrials anymore.” We don’t have that quorum of twelve. See in the Doctrine and Covenants there are two groups of twelve. A traveling high council and standing high council. The standing high council stood to judge difficult cases. And we presented a difficult case.
And so they said, “we’re not doing that anymore.” And we took the scriptures and we said, “well, it says right here if you don’t follow the scriptures, the way they’re written, you will be damned.” It says that in Section 29. And it says in Section 132 that we had the right to a retrial “as though no such decision had been made.”
So we said, “we have a right to a retrial and you’re denying us that privilege. And if you don’t give us a retrial, and you’re not you’re not following the scriptures, then you will be damned if you so continue.”
Well that really upset them. We said that and because we said that the interview pretty much ended. But we weren’t anti-Mormon or anything. We were pro truth. And what we wanted was to be heard and have a retrial “as though no such decision had been made.”
JJ: Yeah, actually I didn’t want back in it myself. I just wanted the Church to face the reality of what they were trying to do to us. We wanted them to defend the fact that they were trying to excommunicate us unjustly. And so we did our best to make that happen.
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Discerning Truth from Error
Discerning Truth from Error
2021 Gathering, Part Twelve
Rebecca: Okay, so this is a big thing in our lives. We’ve experienced it with each other, with other people, with groups we’ve tried to work in . . . where two people or three people will feel that they have soul contact, or whatever, and they get a different answer. So one person feels like, “my answer is we need to do this.” And the other person says, “my answer is we need to do this.”
And they’re literally like polar opposites. You can’t do both.
JJ: It is indeed a big problem that people think they’re contacting the soul when they’re not.
We have layers between us and pure soul energy. And these layers are in the astral body. In the astral body, in the astral world, there are all kinds of thought forms that are produced. There’s a thoughtform of Jesus going around that he’s revealing himself to people. It isn’t the real Jesus, but when he reveals himself, he pretty much gives stuff that is already in the Bible. But he doesn’t give out new revelations.
There are thought forms of um . . . I’ve had people say they’ve had me appear to them. (laughing) I don’t know if it’s a thought form or my higher self that did it. Just depends.
There are thought forms on the astral level. So when people pray . . . I know a lot of people pray, like in the Mormon Church. They pray for revelation, but they get different answers. And this is because they access different levels. You can only access the level that your mind is at. If your mind is not centered on the soul, you will not be able to access the soul.
Your mind accesses the highest level you can go to. And for the average person, it is the astral body, or the higher emotions. The higher emotions feel good, kind of loving and nice and pleasant. And so when you access them you feel good, and you think you’re getting a revelation from God. But you’re just getting revelation from your own desire nature. You’re getting what you want to receive.
One of the best criteria to measure if you received a true revelation . . . and my greatest revelations have been things that I didn’t want to receive (laughter) . . . I would’ve never dreamed them up on my own. But on the other hand, most people, when they get a revelation, it is entirely in accord with what they wanted to receive.
And even the Book of Mormon says this. The Book of Mormon says that “God granteth unto men according to their desires.” (The quoted scripture is Alma 29: 4)
And so, if you’re praying for an answer, and you want a certain answer, and you have your mind locked on receiving a certain answer, God will grant unto you according to your desires. This is why people get all kinds of different answers. And they seem to be sincere; they seem to be praying or meditating and contacting something out there. Yet they’re getting different answers.
And we’re getting different answers everywhere. You have different channels. . . one channel will say one thing and another channel will say a completely opposite thing. Another writing that claims to be inspired will say one thing and then another will disagree and say something entirely the opposite. And this is very confusing.
And even some of the writings that I consider inspiring, disagree with each other. I’m wondering . . . I have concluded, myself, that this disagreement goes into very high levels of spiritual sources. Because Paul even said, we do not fight with enemies of flesh and blood, but enemies, he said, in celestial places.
We have enemies in celestial places trying to deceive us. I don’t know how far this goes up, but I find it fascinating that even the highest writings I have been able to find that vibrate very strongly with my soul . . . they don’t aggree 100 percent. What’s going on here? Why is that?
And I have concluded that there are very high entities up there that send revelation down to earth, that do not agree 100% with each other about what life is all about, and what should be done about life, and the meaning of life, and different things like this. So it’s very interesting. Yeah, Joshua?
Joshua: In addition to what JJ said, there’s also the possibility that the people involved have different directions that their souls are trying to go in. So, it may be that you’re not even supposed to work together. You know, they’re supposed to be doing this and you’re supposed to be doing that. And I think the only way you get clear on that is your soul tells you, and it’s a clear receiving that you are supposed to work with this person. And then there’s some miscommunication if it’s not working out.
JJ: Now that’s a good point, except there’s also Universal things that they disagree on. Like for instance, A Course in Miracles tells us that the whole creation of our Universe was a big mistake. And other teachings tell us, no. It wasn’t a big mistake at all. It was part of a design so that we can come down here and grow.
So that’s one of the big dichotomies of the various teachers who are fairly inspired on both sides for they teach us of ideas that are opposed to each other. And so it takes a lot of judgment on the part of the disciple to sort out the truth from error.
If one group of initiates, or higher lives, are teaching that the creation of our whole Universe is a big mistake, and another one is saying, no, it wasn’t a big mistake, it was a good thing so we could come down here and experience, that’s a big, tremendous dichotomy between some of the teachings that are revealed with intelligence beyond regular humanity. Yeah?
Michael: So DK talks about ideas that originate on maybe higher mental planes, and very few people are capable enough to tap into them and interpret those clearly. And it really takes something to bring that idea down to where it’s perceptible with most of our minds. And by the time it gets to that level, it gets distorted. So most of us aren’t clear enough to be able to receive that. It’s just not coming through. It doesn’t mean anything’s bad. It’s just like that’s where we are.
And I think what you said . . . on the astral level, it’s going to get very distorted. You know, DK talks about the idea . . . it condenses. The Mental plane, the astral plane, become the ideal, and then after people think about it, it becomes the idol. And how many belief systems turn into idols?
JJ: Yes.nSo the best thing for each of us to do is to go with what our soul says. Our soul sees from a much higher angle of vision than we do. When we reach a point where our judgment is required, we want to go beyond our ability to make judgments on our own.
We try to turn that over to our soul. And we ask God, or ask our soul, or our Solar Angel, or meditate, however you want to communicate to the higher realms. “What do I do? What is the judgment to be made?” And then go with it. No matter what anybody says. You may say that, and you may be in a group, maybe two-thirds of the group disagree with you. Ignore them. Go with what your soul tells you because your soul is capable of judging the middle way much more than you are yourself.
Susan: I think one of the big questions a lot of us have wrestled with over the last twenty years is ‘how do you know you’re having soul contact?’ And so I think this is where journaling comes in, or where paying attention to the results of what you think soul contact is, comes into play.
And one of the things that I’ve noticed with a lot of people that thought they were having soul contact is what they were getting tickled their ego in some way. It made them more special or something beyond what the people around them were. And it went to their head, so to speak. So to me, that says it’s on the astral plane. It’s not on the soul plane. So you just have to kind of keep track of what you think soul contact is, and kind of see what the result of that is. And see if you can discern if it’s coming from your astral, or your mental, or your soul.
And one of the things that I noticed, interestingly enough, is soul contact has a sense of humor – that if things come through with a bit of sense of humor sometimes, that is kind of an indication to me that is soul contact.
JJ: Yeah, Curtis once told me that “only the truth is funny.” And I think there’s a lot of truth to that.
Susan: Yeah. I do too. And so, you know, that’s what I think you have to do is keep track of things that are close to soul contact.
JJ: Right. The trouble is that none of us like to think that we’re below somebody else. And so if somebody else talks about soul contact or contacting God, they think, “well, if he can do it, I can do it.” And so, what they will do is . . . maybe their highest contact, is their higher emotional body.
Now, like we talked about earlier, the emotional body is like a mirror that reverses vision, and it distorts everything. So what you see through the emotional body is not accurate. It’s never accurate. You will not find the middle way through the emotional body.
Yet, if you haven’t made soul contact yet, the highest you will receive is the higher emotional energies. And they feel good. And people will think that is God or the Spirit. And so they will go by that. One of the ways to tell is like Sue said, “does this enhance the ego.” Does this make the person feel like he’s special because he’s got this special information and he’s the appointed servant of God or whatever. That’s a clue right there that the guy is receiving from the emotional energies.
The person that receives the true spiritual soul contact is not interested in the praise of men or women, so to speak. He’s interested in serving humanity. And this is the difference. This is one of the ways you can tell. If you’re not sure yourself, look and see if a person seems to be for his own glory, or is he for the glory of God and not for his own self?
Now, everything like this is difficult to discern because the people that are out for their own glory will do everything they can to convince you, “yeah, I’m a servant of humanity, I’m not out for my own glory.”
So there’s always deception to see through. There’s not a black and white formula that we can reduce down to find the middle way where the truth is. This is what makes it awkward. This is why we always have to go back to what vibrates to the truth in your own soul.
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Understanding the Middle Way
Understanding the Middle Way
2021 Gathering, Part Eleven
We have a tremendous influence on each other. This is why the gathering together of a good group, like we have here, is a very positive thing.
Because everybody reinforces each other with positive judgment. I haven’t seen anybody criticize anybody else with any negative judgments since we’ve been here. It’s all been positive. We all think positive thoughts of each other, and all generating good karma, good feeling. And this is the way it should be.
And this is the way it should be in families. This is the way it should be in nations. Unfortunately, this nation is really falling off the cliff. We have conservatives and liberals judging each other as being servants of Satan. (laughter)
Both of them see the other side as being the devil himself. This is a very dangerous situation we’re in, where both sides see the other side as being evil. It’s kind of unfortunate.
But, on the other hand, it also presents an opportunity for a turning point. This point of tension can only go on so long. And there will be lot of people thinking, “this can’t go on. This has to change. We have to have goodwill. We have to promote good feeling toward each other. We can’t hate each other forever.
Because somebody else thinks differently than me, doesn’t mean he’s evil. He may be misled. But being misled is not evil, and maybe I’m the one who’s misled. That’s what people need to ask themselves. Unfortunately, nobody asks themselves that. Maybe one out of a thousand people ask themselves, “Am I the one who’s misled?”
No, everybody is sure that they understand which is the right path. It’s the other guy who’s screwed up. They especially do this politically. Do you see anybody in politics who is asking, “Well, maybe I’m the one that’s wrong?” When have you ever seen a politician do that? Anybody? Anybody? Nobody raising their hand or heard any stories about that? I certainly haven’t.
But these politicians, they never ask that question. They never ask, “Well, what if I’m wrong?” They don’t think that at all. They never consider the possibility that they could be wrong. They think they are always right. Both sides are that way. They both think they’re right. Neither one of them asks if they could be wrong, and so they judge the other side to be in league with the devil himself.
This is a dangerous situation for a country, but it can only go so far, and once it goes so far, then the people in the middle start to wake up, and say, “This is crazy, you know. Let’s do something about it.” And this is what hopefully will happen. The people in the middle will wake up and say, “Hey, we can’t judge each other to be evil, maybe misled, but not evil.”
If two people disagree, one is misled and one is right, or they’re both wrong. It has to be one or the other. They both cannot be right if they diametrically disagree. Either one is right, one is wrong, or they’re both wrong.
This is what people have to come to realize. And then they have to analyze the people. And this has to be done by the people in the middle who are dispassionate. They have to look at these things and say, “What’s right and what’s wrong? And let’s make a judgment. Let’s make a judgment as to where the truth is.”
And this is the idea behind the middle way. It goes back to the story of the Buddha that we left off at. The Buddha was a person that was prophesied. His father was a king, and he ruled a great kingdom. And, if I remember right, there was a prophecy that a baby was going to be born. It was either going to be a great buddha or a great king.
So when the baby was born, the king decided he didn’t want him to be a Buddha. He wanted him to be a great king. To ensure that he didn’t take the path of the Buddha, the king commanded everybody that was in association with this kid, to make sure he didn’t see anything negative.
Everything he saw was positive. Every person he met was healthy. Everybody he met was happy. It was like he was living in paradise. The king gave orders to make sure the Buddha had the best, most luxurious, easy, pain-free life that was possible to have.
So, the Buddha grew up thinking that was normal – that everyone was healthy, happy, and everything was just peachy. Then one day, he decided he wanted to go outside the gates of the kingdom just to see what was there, so, he talked a servant into letting him out.
He went out into the world and saw that there were people suffering. There were poor and wretched people; there were sick people, and it startled him. He just couldn’t understand it. It just blew his mind. He didn’t realize this existed. “This is weird. I’ve got to find the answer to why is this happening. Why are these people suffering like this? I must go on a quest.”
He was married at the time and had a child, but he left his wife and child and went off on a quest to find the answer. Why is there pain and suffering, and what is the liberation from this? This can’t be right, he thought, it can’t be right that there’s all this pain and suffering. There’s got to be a way out.
And so he went and joined with a bunch of monks. They told him the way of liberation is to deny yourself of all luxuries and of everything associated with the physical body; and to negate anything in connection with it, including food as much as possible. And so, he deprived himself of everything to the point that they said if you touch his stomach, you could touch his backbone.
He was sitting under the bodhi tree meditating. And at that time, it was said he was living on two grains of rice a day. Can you imagine that, living on two grains of rice a day? He was near death.
A musical group came by, and they were singing this song. And the song was about tuning a musical instrument. The song stated that if you tune the strings too tight, then the sound would not be right. If they were too loose, then they would not be right either. To tune the strings correctly, would be the place in between the looseness and the tightness, where you would find a sound that would be just right.
Does anyone here play the guitar? Okay, Asaph, when you tune a guitar, how do you do it? You twist the instrument back and forth until what? Is there a black and white way to tell it’s tuned just right?
Asaph: No.
JJ: How do you tell when it’s tuned just right?
Asaph: I listen to the overtones. You put your finger at the place where you can hear the overtones of the string and compare it with the string you tuned earlier.
JJ: And would you say, when you finally get it right that it’s a judgment call?
Asaph: Sure. Yes.
JJ: Yeah, that’s a judgment call, isn’t it? You tune it looser then tighter then looser then tighter until it sounds just right. There’s really no black and white way to find that point of being just right. You listen, and it’s a judgment call. Something inside of you can tell when that tuning is just right. Same thing with a piano tuner. He tunes it, and he listens, and he can tell when it’s just right.
Same thing happens with any musical instrument. It’s not a computer program where you punch a button and get it tuned just right. They may come up with that someday. But right now, you have to listen when you tune a guitar string. And when you pluck it, and it’s just right, it just feels right.
Now if you start when the string is really loose, then you have to tighten it a lot. If you start, when the string is way too tight, then you have to loosen it a lot. But the important point to understand the lost key of the Buddha, is the point where it’s tuned just right is not exactly in the middle.
If the string is very loose, then the correct place may be octaves away. If it’s very tight then it may be octaves in the opposite direction. The point is that the right place, right tuning, is not exactly in the middle. It may be up here or down here or right here, depending on how loose or tight the musical string is when you begin tuning. You just never know when you start to tune it. And so you have to make a judgment call.
And the mistake the followers of Buddism make, is they believe the Middle Way is pretty much right in the middle. So they miss the second key, which is the Key of Judgment. They miss that completely. There is no judgment in the Middle Way in the Buddhist religion. They leave that out. And that’s why my book is called the Lost Key of the Buddha. They missed that key of judgment. They think the middle way is just not being too far on the left or right.
Now they also have other explanations for the middle way. They think, “the teachings of the Buddha are just the Middle Way.” And that’s not what the Buddha said the Middle Way is. Some of the teachings of the Buddha point to the Middle Way. But it’s just not “all the teachings of the Buddha are the Middle Way.” That’s not what the Middle Way is.
The Middle Way is to look at everything on the right and everything on the left, and then make a judgment somewhere in the middle. And you cannot make that judgment using any scientific formula. It has to be done by looking at the data, the information on the right and the information on the left, and then making that judgment of where the point of truth is in the middle.
This is why we have so many problems in politics. They don’t understand the principle of the Middle Way. They’re black and white. They think, “Well, here’s what the left says and here’s what the right says, and it’s right in the middle, or it’s right where we are, or it’s right here.” They leave out the Key of Judgment. Both the liberals and conservatives leave out this Key, where we look at both sides and we make a judgment, which is somewhere between both sides.
Now let’s suppose we have a bunch of policies on the right and a numerous ones on the left, and they oppose each other. Where is the truth? The truth isn’t necessarily right in the middle. Sometimes it will be. But sometimes it will be close to the far right and sometimes it will be close to the far left. It will be somewhere in between. Not necessarily right in between, but somewhere in between.
Where is that? And how do you find it? What do you think one of the missing ingredients is to finding the truth in the middle? Any ideas on this and how to go about it?
Rebecca: I have a thought. I always thought it was sort of the thing that will give you the best outcome in the situation at hand. The best thing at the right place at the right time.
JJ: Yeah, for politics that would be true. The best occurrence. What would produce the highest good? That would be the answer.
But on the other hand, we look at the arguments of the Democrats and the Republicans . . . they both think that their position will be the highest good. The Republicans think the highest good will be to completely eliminate Obamacare. And the Democrats think it would be to make Obamacare completely workable. And so which one? Maybe neither one.
Asaph: You must use principles.
JJ: Yeah, so it’s very difficult for people to see to see that highest good. How do we see that highest good? Yeah, Asaph?
Asaph: Principles. You must use principles.
JJ: Right. We must use principles. That’s important.
There’s an important key to look at here, to find the highest good. Who knows the highest good?
Susan: I think you have to follow the highest that you know. See what the fruits are and adjust.
JJ: Okay. Susan says follow the highest that you know. But that doesn’t always work.
Asaph: She said see the fruits and adjust.
JJ: Right. That’s an important point that takes us toward that middle way. There’s one way to get their instantly. What’s the way to get to that Middle Way instantly?
RuLeena: Soul contact.
JJ: Wow. Smart little lady we have here. Does the Soul know the point of truth between the two extremes?
Audience: Yeah.
JJ: Yes, the Soul does, doesn’t It.
If we don’t have sure soul contact then we need to use the highest intelligence we know. On the other hand, sometimes we reach a dead end. We go as far as we can on our own. Then if we’re willing to turn everything over to our own souls we say, “I’ve gone as far as I can. What is the highest good? What is the highest judgment I can make? Where is the truth between the two extremes?”
And your soul knows what that is. The god within you knows where that point of truth is.
And this is what 99 percent of the people out there do not understand, and do not realize, and they will reject.
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Positive and Negative Judgment
Judgement, The Second Key of Knowledge
Positive and Negative Judgment
2021 Gathering, Part Ten
JJ: Okay, next we’re going to discuss is the second key, and if you read the book you’ll know that the keyword for this is judgment. And we’re going to read what caused the Buddha to come up with this second key? Who’s a good reader? Start at the top and read the whole thing. This tells a synopsis of how the Buddha achieved enlightenment.
Rebecca reading from The Lost Key of the Buddha:
As Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha, sat under the Bodhi tree near starvation, seeking enlightenment, he heard some singing; the words he heard are said to be something like this:
If you tune the strings of a harp too tight, the sound will not be right. If the strings are too slack as they play, a beautiful sound will not be made. Neither too tight nor too limp shall be the strings, If the player is to be worthy of kings. The tension must be tuned by the ear to fill the soul of all who hear.
When he heard these words, a light turned on in his mind. He realized that the first part of his life, where he dwelt in luxury, was likened unto a string too loose. The second part of his life, where he sought nirvana through starvation and austerity, was as a string too tight. He now saw a Middle Way that was just right.
Unfortunately, that vision was lost and replaced in history by a watered-down idea that was already common knowledge and turns on no light. In this age it is assumed that the Middle Way is moderation. This assumption is not correct. In this volume, the true Middle Way is again revealed. The Middle Way will turn on the light, and the principle of enlightenment will again have meaning.
JJ: So the Buddha was raised in great luxury. And then he left that luxury in search of why there is suffering in the world, and he starved himself to near death. He was under the Bodhi tree eating just two grains of rice a day, so it is said, and starving to death. And these people came by singing a song that the strings must be tuned just right – not too tight, not too loose to be able to play the right melodies.
That turned on a light in the Buddha’s head about the middle way. But many people in the Buddhist religion teach that the middle way is like we have this extreme and that extreme, and the middle way is right in the middle, or some teaching to that effect. That’s not where the middle way is.
We’re going to explore the second key. We took quite a bit of time on the first one. And we’ll have to make an abridgment on all of them to get through them here. But we’ll see what we can do. We’ll make sure we get to number twelve by Sunday night for sure.
The second one. What is the key word to the second one?
Various members: Judgment.
JJ: Judgment. Well isn’t that a bad thing, to judge, to judge people?
Adam: No.
Asaph: It can be bad if you’re not putting yourself in their shoes.
JJ: Yeah, right. It can be bad. But you know the problem with the general public as a whole is they’re very black and white. They like things in black and white. Right or wrong. Good or bad.
So when some people say that judgment is bad, they think well, all judgment is bad then. That judgment is really a bad thing. And that’s what a lot of people have in their minds. They get that from the scripture that Jesus gave. Can anyone quote us approximately what Jesus gave in the scripture?
Audience: “Judge not, lest you be judged.”
JJ: “Judge not, lest you be judged.” What else?
Phil: “With what judgment you judge, you shall be judged.”
JJ: Right. Phil’s got it right. “With what judgment you judge, you shall be judged.”
Now is that saying all judgment is evil, or is that saying what happens when you do judge? What is the answer to that question? What did you say?
Asaph: He said, “judge righteously.”
JJ: Right. So in other words, He’s not saying that judgment is evil. They picked out two words. “Judge not.” It starts out “Judge not.”
And so, a lot of people take just those two words out of context, and they think, “well, judgment is bad. We shouldn’t judge anything.” And it’s a negative thing to judge people, or judge anything, just because of those two words. They don’t read the rest of the words. The rest of the words are the key. “Judge not, lest ye be judged. For with that judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.”
So what’s Jesus saying there? Who wants to tell me?
Susan: Be wise.
Adam: Karma.
JJ: Karma. Yeah, He’s talking about karma. How’s he explaining how karma works out?
Ed: Balance.
JJ: Yes, balance.
RuLeena: If you want other people to be compassionate towards you, you need to be compassionate towards them.
JJ: Yeah. Any other comments? What’s He really saying about judgment? Joshua?
Joshua: To judge righteously.
JJ: Right. To judge righteously why?
Joshua: Because you would want to be judged righteously, ultimately.
JJ: Right. In other words, He’s saying, “with what judgment ye judge, ye will be judged.” In other words, He’s not saying, do not judge. He’s saying be careful how you judge. Because if you judge other people un-righteously, you will be judged un-righteously. If you judge other people correctly and righteously, you will be judged equivalently.
In other words, He’s giving the message of karma. He’s saying cause and effect is the rule here. If you create a cause, you will have a similar effect produced. So if you judge somebody as evil, but they’re not evil, then the time will come when people judge you to be evil, when you’re not evil.
If you judge people to be good, when they are truly good, then you will be judged good when you are truly good. So He’s telling you that when you judge other people, you are going to be judged as you judge. Does that not make sense? That’s makes a lot more sense than just the black and white “judge not.” So then people say we shouldn’t judge anything.
During a typical day we make all kinds of judgments. For instance, as soon as you get out of bed, or the alarm goes off, you have to make a judgment whether you’re going to sleep another five minutes or get up right then. And then after you do get up, you take a shower. You have to make a judgment as to how hot the water is, and how long you’re going to stay in the shower. Then you comb your hair, and you make a judgment about how your hair is going to look. Then when you drive to work, you have to make judgments about how you’re going to steer the car, and what speed you’re going to go.
We make all kinds of judgments during the day. So when people tell you to judge not, it’s got to be the stupidest understanding in the history of humanity – that you can’t judge anything. Because we make hundreds of judgments every day. You sit down to dinner, you make a judgment about which foods you’re going to eat, how much food you’re going to eat, how much liquid you’re going to drink, and which liquids you’re going to drink.
You make all kinds of judgments. Judgments about talking to your spouse at dinner, or your partner, or whoever you eat dinner with. About what you’re going to say. Judgments about, “will what I say, hurt their feelings. Well, maybe I better not say this. It might hurt their feelings so I will approach this subject very delicately.
So you make judgments about conversations with your spouse, your friends. You make judgments about everything. So what is this idea about “judge not?” What does it mean? What should we actually judge not? Because there are hundreds of things every day in our lives that require a judgment. And we can’t “judge not” or we can’t live.
So what is it that we’re supposed to “judge not?” Let’s get some feedback on this. What should we not judge?
Susan: The worth of other souls.
JJ: That’s a good criterion. We don’t judge things that determine the worth of other souls. Joshua?
Joshua: Things that we don’t have adequate information to make judgment on.
JJ: Okay. Joshua says things that we don’t have adequate information to make judgments on. That’s good.
Anything else?
Adam: Intentions of others.
JJ:
Right. Judgments about the intentions of others. We may not understand what others are thinking. And if we judge their thoughts, when we don’t really know their thoughts, that’s not a good thing to do. If we’re not sure what somebody is thinking, we should ask them.
Okay anything else?
Curtis: Choices that other people make. You might make a choice and I might judge it. But I don’t know why you made that choice.
JJ: Okay, when people make choices . . . judging their choices, we don’t know what their thinking at that time.
Anything else?
Michael: I think there’s a difference between judgments that are based on an emotional level, and those based on a mental level.
JJ: Yeah. There are judgments on different levels. There are emotional and mental and spiritual.
Anything else?
Rebecca: I was thinking that when they said ‘judgment’ like that, they were saying more don’t ‘condemn.’ You know, dumping negative energy on someone, is how I thought that was translated in the Greek.
JJ: I think Rebecca hit on a core thing that there are positive and negative judgments. There are positive judgments where you just assess the situation, and you make a judgment to the best of your ability with sincerity. Like, when you’re driving a car, you make the best judgments as to everything you can do to avoid an accident on the way to work, or whatever. Okay, those are positive types of judgments.
But let’s say your kid doesn’t perform the way you want, and let’s say you tell the kid, “You’re never going to amount to anything.” What kind of judgment is that?
Shawn: Very negative.
JJ: That’s very, very negative, especially with a young child. So, this is what Jesus was warning us about. He was warning us to not make judgments incorrectly and to be careful about our judgments. Because if we make a negative judgment like we were just talking about, then when you are reborn, and you’re a little kid, you’ll have a dad who will tell you that you won’t amount to anything. And you will be emotionally handicapped for the rest of your life.
In other words, beware of how you judge. You have to be careful. He didn’t say, “don’t judge” anything. But be careful how you judge, because, however you judge, it will come back, and you will be judged in a similar way.
Rebecca: So pass forward what you want to get back.
JJ: Right. So if you have a child and you judge him positively . . . let’s say he’s not performing well in a certain area. Instead of saying, “you’re never going to amount to anything,” let’s say you judge him this way: “Well, you did this, but you know there are people who are champions who started out worse than you. And they performed well, and they excelled. And you can do the same thing.”
Now if you present that type of judgment to the kid, do you think that would produce any negative karma for yourself?
No. You’d wind up in your next life having a parent that encourages you to succeed, even though you’re bungling everything and not doing very good, you have a parent that cheers you on. And because of the faith of the parent, you ultimately succeed.
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