To Question or Not to Question

2000-8-5 10:16:00

Let me welcome the new people on the list. I'm glad to see us growing again. A big welcome to Kay, Scott, Lars and lurkers such as Shawn, who lives in Boise and is making a large paradigm shift, and several others. I'm making the same mistake as John W here by naming names and will probably leave some out.

Keith writes:
"Four days after my experience with the light, information came to me which shattered me and my wife. I am not going to go into the details because they are of a very personal nature."

Your spiritual exposure must have been intense, Keith, for the negative experience usually happens in three days, but not always. Sometimes it is two days, sometimes one, and other times four. Rarely will a related attack come later than four days.

Here is what I wrote you on the matter right after you related you spiritual experience through the soul:

"Let me give you and others who receive a spiritual contact a word of warning. The power to hold this contact must be earned and not taken for granted. Approximately three days after a higher contact, the seeker usually undergoes a mini dark night. The void can be so great that he will be tempted to forget, discount or disbelieve his contact. The disciple must make a mental commitment to hold steady in the light and hold the memory of the Presence. This focus will take you through the dark night and eventually toward higher more permanent contact."

So my current advice to you is return frequently in your memory to your experience and do everything in your power to follow the light you have been given. If you do this successfully you will be able to hold the experience and will receive more at the appointed time.

Also keep in mind that one of the purposes of the Song is to minimize the effect of these negative experiences that seem to distract attention away from the Light.

I asked the question:
Which of the following is the most significant characteristic of one who is approaching discipleship and why?

(1) He loves everyone
(2) He has studied under a great teacher
(3) He has read all the best books and is well educated.
(4) He lives a good life.
(5) He asks questions
(6) He seeks to escape dualities.
(7) He believes the scriptures.
(8) He wants to be a teacher
(9) He reads the National Enquirer.

I can't remember who said it but my favorite answer has to be the comment of secret messages being related in code through the Enquirer.

Actually, most of you settled on the answer I was looking for, number five.

We have received some great comments on this and unfortunately I cannot mention them all. Those of you who do post your wisdom, I want you to remember that many of the best teachings on the list do not come from me, but from you. There may be times that you do not receive much comment on your posts, yet you may have had an influence much greater than you realize.

If I were to go through the archives and pick what I believe to be my ten best posts I would venture that these ten also received very little comment.

Dehara made a good short and sweet comment:

"To live engaged in life, to grow, is to ask questions which lead us to learn to think critically.

"The quality of a question is not in its answer but in the depth and number of questions that are evoked from its asking."

During my last days as a member of a church, I was teaching a Sunday school class about the coming of Christ and asked what I thought was a good question. I asked them to suppose that Jesus had made his Second Coming and was standing right here in front of us. What would you ask him?

There were about 50 people in the class and not a hand went up. I was amazed at this. No one had any question, in other words, there was nothing any one wanted to learn from the Master. No wonder he had not showed up yet!

I tried to shame them into an answer by saying something like:

"Surely someone here has at least one question you'd like to ask Jesus."

Not a hand went up.

At this point I picked on a lady who I considered more spiritual than most and asked her specifically: "What would you ask the Messiah if he was standing right here in front of you?"

She thought a moment and said: "I'd ask him how to give better lessons when I teach."

I was flabbergasted. According to their belief system Jesus could reveal any mystery they wanted to know and I had to force a question out of them. Worse still is that the question that did finally surface could be answered by thousands of people.

Is it any wonder that I (as well as many of you) have graduated out of mainstream religion and into a higher classroom? The key to this graduation is to seek, ask, and receive.

When I was young and naive, I assumed that most people were curious and wanted to know the many mysteries that lie before us, but was amazed at how few really do want to know and seek answers.

Many believe that just being a good loving person and living a good life is the key to being noticed by the Great Ones, but such is not the case. Becoming a well-rounded and decent person in society is only a first step. The real quantum leap forward comes when you start asking the why of things.

Today's Question:
If Christ or an all knowing Master were to appear to you and be willing to answer any question - what would you ask? What is the one question you would ask above all others?

"When poets talk of the "shoreless ocean of immutability" we must regard the term but as a jocular paradox, since we maintain that there is no such thing as immutability ? not in our Solar system at least. Immutability say the theists and Christians "is an attribute of God" and forthwith they endow that God with every mutable and variable quality and attribute, knowable as unknowable, and believe that they have solved the unsolvable and squared the circle." KH Mahatma Letters #11