Mastering Duality
Reader Question: But the attitude of Inviting Grace is very important, JJ, is it not? It correlates to surrender (of self), consecration (to God), faithfulness and invocation. All these are required in order to attract Grace, no?
JJ: I’m not sure what definition you are applying to grace, I assume the Biblical one. “Grace” as used in the New Testament comes from the Greek CHARIS which is derived from CHAIRO. CHAIRO means “to be cheerful, happy or joyous.” CHARIS which is sometimes translated as “joy,” but usually “grace,” implies a favor with joyous results. Thus the grace of God implies a favor from God that will bring joyous results. The grace of God was seen as a gift available to all. One did not have to wait for it or go after it, but merely had to accept it as a free gift and then make use of it.
This favor as implied by Biblical writers was the favor God did in sending Jesus Christ as well as his Holy Spirit.
I like the word “joy” in connection with this word. I like the translation “By joy you are saved” better than “by grace you are saved.”
By my grace I place my writings on this forum. They are correspondingly a free gift. All can accept them or reject them according to their will.
I do not see the grace of God as an exclusive favor to those who have the right belief, but as an inclusive favor to all those who are open as a little child.
Question: Do principles need to be taught in order to convey conceptual truths or to transmit awakening energies?
JJ: Teaching them plants the seed of understanding. When the seed sprouts and grows, comprehension will come in connection with the soul.
Question: So, you feel that the return of Christ in these times will ensue through the incarnation of a personality, one single man, like Jesus?
JJ: He who was the Christ in Jerusalem was not many entities, but one entity and thus cannot return as more than one entity. He doesn’t plan on splitting himself in two.
There are three steps in his coming.
(1) The establishment of the teaching of the Christ consciousness available to all.
(2) The overshadowing of certain disciples.
(3) His physical appearance through either a divine possession or a body of his own. The details are not given.
Question: Yet if that were so, how then could “everyone know”, for there are many human beings without TV or other communications, especially in third world countries?
JJ: What makes you think everyone will know him when he comes? It is written that he will come in a similar fashion to when he left, even as a thief in the night. Only about a dozen or saw him leave. All (speaking generally) will eventually be aware of his presence, but that may take a thousand years.
All will also be affected by the Christ consciousness.
Question: And how does lightening flashing from east to west support the idea of just one personal savior incarnating and traveling (slowly) worldwide?
JJ: It doesn’t. Did someone say it did? The word “personal savior” is not found in the scriptures. Jesus was not meant to be a personal savior.
Question: So the prophecy suggests to you that there may be MANY Christed ones on Earth before the end?
JJ: There is the Christ consciousness which is basically the same as soul contact and this is and will be had by many. There is also the position of the Christ, as well as the Planetary Logos. Only one person at a time can hold either of these two positions on a particular planet.
Reader Quoting JJ:
“Things are the way they are not because of God’s will, but because of God’s experiment. He plunged into this universe, which is his physical body, and as he works his way to master the universe through the lives in it certain things just come into play that even he has no power to eliminate, except through time. One of these is suffering. This and other negative elements are just here to be dealt with and mastered by the participating lives.”
Reader Commevnt: This idea still suggests that a Loving and Omniscient or all-Wise Divinity would sanction suffering and evil (not just permit it under free will choice, but SANCTION it).
JJ: First, I am curious as to why you are so adverse to a little suffering. I have gone through some pretty intense suffering in my life and would not trade the experience for anything. It led me to a state of joyousness that I would not have attained without it. The small amount of suffering we have to endure is not much of a price for the good that awaits us when the lessons of the suffering are learned. I see no reason to be mad at God for this game we are in that is so fun to play.
The laws and effects of the universe just exist and have nothing to do with the sanction of God. To understand whether or not God creates suffering one must ask if we create suffering in our own lives and how it comes about for we are reflections of God and as reflections we are the life of God in this physical universe. We, as individuals, are just as much to blame for suffering as God is for we are members of the body of the One Great Life.
Reader: Also, I have the direct experience that even just a tiny droplet of divine Grace eliminates suffering, and in an instant.
JJ: I have found that suffering is completely eliminated by discovering and working with the laws which govern this unwanted effect. I guess I could say that the understanding of these laws came through the grace of God for the Holy Spirit has enlightened my mind.
When one does not resist the voice of the soul, the path of joy replaces the path of sorrow.
Question: What about the problem of cosmic evil that ruins countless lives, retards spiritual progress and even negates long-term investment for Deity?
JJ: Cosmic evil is a problem that will eventually be negated by the “dominating good.”
Question: Can the physical creation (which is inherently flawed, temporal and subject to perpetual entropy) ever become a Beautiful Building?
JJ: Yes. At the end of this universe all physical creation will be very beautiful. The universe will disappear and reappear many times before a greater universe is created. With each creation beauty is enhanced.
Reader: You seem to teach duality yet Buddha and Lao Tzu taught that there is no duality in Universal Mind or Tao Great: the causeless Cause.
JJ: Duality exists everywhere but just in different degrees and building blocks. Duality could not exist in the outer creation if it did not exist in some form in the inner world.
How could he who has no duality or concept of duality create duality?
The body of God is one, but the body will always have many parts.
To prove me wrong one would have to demonstrate a state where there is no duality and no one has ever done this. If he did, he would disappear body and soul and be no more and never appear again anywhere in heaven, earth or hell.
The teaching of reaching a place beyond duality is a fanciful one that has no foundation in reality.
Some teachers have reached higher consciousness where they sense the oneness of God and they thus think they have arrived in a place where duality does not exist. They do not realize that it just exists in a different form. If it did not, the lower worlds could not manifest from the higher.
Buddha achieved the Atmic plane, but there is a plane above this which brings duality in play again.
If you search for the word “duality” in the archives you will find a lot that I have written on the subject.
Reader Quoting JJ: “It seems compassionate to build a house when the enjoyment at the end will far outweigh the few scratches received.”
Reader Comment: Ok, this poses an important question.
You say “scratches” and I assume you allude here to the millions of years of suffering and evil-effects on just this little planet alone.
All those “scratches” for what? Where is the beautiful building that is a direct result of such suffering and of which you speak? Do you mean this physical Earth?
JJ: I speak mainly of the internal joy that one feels when he has learned the lessons that suffering offers.
Of Jesus it was written: “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith: who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross…” Hebrews 12:2
Here we see that Jesus saw suffering as a means to attain joy.
Question: In other words, if all the evil over the ages (again let us take just this local planet Earth for now) were NECESSARY in order to create something beautiful, should we not be seeing something of this beauty by now?
JJ: I see lots of beauty on the earth, in people and within. Where have you been looking?
Reader: Does the physical world – where the majority of suffering on Earth has been known to incarnated mankind – actually have the capacity to become Beautiful in the divine sense (which is the only True sense)?
JJ: Yes. Unless we completely miss our opportunities, the earth will get better and better. Just look at the improvements over the last 100 years. Then imagine the planet 1000 years from now. It will become our happy dream.
Question: Does a temporal creation that is inherently fated to die (being by nature temporal) have the capacity to demonstrate God’s Eternal Beauty, ever? Or can it at best only reflect the true beauty of God’s Kingdom?
JJ: God’s kingdom is not only the spiritual, but also includes the physical, but they have different purposes. Those who gain experience on a physical planet will have more capacity for enjoyment on all the higher planes than those who have not mastered physical reality.
Question: How can something be enjoyed fully if death and dissolution are intrinsic within its nature?
JJ: Quite easy. For example, I can pick a flower and fully enjoy its fragrance. I also enjoy a good glass of wine and a good meal. This should be an obvious truth.
Question: Are not such fleeting joys those very things that great teachers such as the Buddha have warned us bring in the end only misery and a return to he wheel of suffering?
JJ: No.
It’s not the pleasure that gives us the problem, but the attachment to it.
Reader: Actually, I am concerned with the idea/belief that God Himself CHOSE suffering for us, not that He allows it.
JJ: If he is all powerful and he allows it then he had to choose it. Are you mad at God then? Actually, he chose suffering no more than we did.
Reader: In a free will experiment, a certain degree of allowance is, of course, quite necessary, else there would be no free choice.
However, I am suggesting that suffering is caused by ignorant (not Divinity’s) choices, and that cosmic evil arises due to ignorant choices made over ages.
JJ: Much of our suffering is because of our lack of knowledge of universal laws, but it is merely a matter of time before they are mastered.
Reader: I also suggest that evil is not necessary for the play of creation to unfold (tho contrasts are) and that evil has actually bound many souls unlawfully for ages on this small planet alone.
JJ: Good is the going forward in evolution and evil is traveling backwards. Are you saying that new creation can unfold with no mistakes, with no destruction, with no steps backwards?
Can you give me an example? I can think of none.
When a master creates a great painting he will make some good strokes and some bad (evil) strokes that will need to be erased, but be can never make a great new work with only good strokes.
You are teaching something that cannot be demonstrated.
Reader: That is to say that the vast majority of evil and suffering experienced on this planet by mankind (and the other kingdoms) IS NEITHER KARMICALLY NOR EDUCATIONALLY NECESSARY. Surely this is a part of the sorrow of Christ?
JJ: Why do you think this? How can one learn without mistakes?
Question: I propose that this world is a kind of prison for consciousness (like The Matrix movie depicts), hence the need for Liberation, taught by all the Avatars and Way-Showers. If we are not imprisoned, why the need for Liberation? Liberation from what?
JJ: Unlike the Matrix, we volunteered to come here and master the problems of time, space and duality. To even see our limitations here requires an enlightenment that we have never had before.
Reader: Evil influence, I say, and essentially ignorance, which includes the ignorance of believing that evil is the lawful opposite to God sent purposefully by God.
JJ: Going backwards into the illusion (evil) is the opposite of going forward to liberation (good) and this duality will always exist as long as there is creation in time and space.
Reader: I suggest that evil experience is not at all necessary for our development; evil does not help spiritually but clearly hinders spiritual progress and even destroys all hope of it in any particular incarnation.
JJ: Evil (going the wrong direction) doesn’t take us forward, but does teach us what not to do. To go forward we must learn the paths not to take as well as the one to take.
Example: A reporter once approached Thomas Edison as he was working on the light bulb and said, “You have been working on this silly light bulb for years and have attempted 10,000 times to make it work and they have all failed. After 10,000 failures are you now prepared to admit that this light bulb idea is just a dream? Edison wisely answered: “My dear friend. I have not failed as you have said. Instead, I have successfully identified 10,000 combinations that do not work. I am 10,000 steps closer to success and do not have many more to go.”
It took Edison 10,000 evils (wrong directions) to find one good (right direction). But when the good was discovered, the evil directions were no longer used and faded away.
Reader: And I propose that this Earth has been tyrannized by evil intelligence for a very long time indeed. You can see it working out at all levels of society, together with the ‘good’ works that only maintain the swing of the pendulum in mayic duality and have nothing to do with either God or the Path of Return to God.
JJ: And you know this because…? Can you not see the progress we are making?
Reader: Finally, I propose that since evil has ruled the consciousness of mankind in general worldwide for so many ages, a veritable bottleneck of trapped souls and deep karma has been built up in this world, a great black cloud or miasma, if you like, that has both intelligence and an agenda, and which has kept humanity in the dark and has not at all served the best interests of mankind’s soul but has in fact retarded them, thwarted them, twisted and distorted them into a parody, a shadow of their original Beauty and Intention, which is the divine plan of Evolution.
JJ:
If evil were dominating then we would not be making progress and humanity has made tremendous progress over the last 2000 years.
Humanity is in the dark about many things but the good guys are here to reverse this. Just think. A couple hundred years ago human slavery and animal cruelty was the norm. Today this has been largely reversed. We are gradually creating a better world despite the various setbacks.
Question: Do you think that mankind has the wherewithal to extinguish evil and suffering before this planet dies as a result of the parasitic activity and the cumulative effect of ages of abuse perpetrated upon her physical body, and within her astral and mental spheres? And if not what is going to happen in this age to the Earth?
JJ: We’ll make a lot of progress in this age and eventually suffering will be mastered so we will only experience it if we choose a situation that warrants it. I rarely use Novocain, even with root canals, and contemplate the pain as something good rather than evil. Changing your thinking changes the experience.
Reader: So it seems, JJ, that we are agreed, then, that one of the most immediate goals of mankind is the end of suffering. This actually suggests, doesn’t it, that suffering is NOT a good thing at all and neither is it necessary for the constructing of beautiful buildings/creations?
JJ: It doesn’t suggest that at all. When you are a kid you may have had a bicycle. To discard the bicycle to get a car does not mean that the bicycle was not useful over a period of time.
Some types of suffering will come and go, but that does not mean they did not offer us important lessons.
There is suffering by even the Masters, but of a different type than is registered by us.
Reader: For if suffering should end, then according to your previous idea about suffering and evil being necessary byproducts of co-creation, no further creation could arise after suffering was extinguished.
JJ: You are right. There are various grades of suffering associated with all creations of form. No carpenter can build a house without uttering a few cuss words.
When the carpenter hits his thumb, it was not because he planned on doing so. When the painter makes a mistake, it also was not part of some plan. Yet both the carpenter and the painter know they are going to suffer some mistakes before the creation is complete. This is something that just is.
It is not that God gleefully plans suffering, but that it will naturally happen to us as we create, until the creation is complete.
Eventually we will transcend physical suffering but in future rounds there will be new levels of frustration to overcome.
Reader: This also brings to mind the excellent and wise teaching of the Buddha and his four noble truths, the first being: Suffering exists, the second being: the cause of suffering (which Dava also comprehensively addresses), the third being: there is a way out of suffering, and the fourth detailing: the way out of suffering.
JJ: You might want to read my book The Lost Key of the Buddha which discusses this.
Reader: There is another Evolution which never fell from Grace and enjoys building ineffably Beautiful Buildings for all Eternity, yet without ever having to experience suffering and evil. And this other Law-Abiding Evolution, this other Kingdom (that “is not of this world”) is awaiting the Return of prodigal humanity.
JJ: Some believe that those who did not enter the illusion will have a disadvantage because they never had an experience in time and space as we are having.
The kingdom is not in some far-off world of beautiful buildings, but right here right now. I am not attached to the world of form but as long as we are here we might as well make the best of it. Why not optimize this world? By doing so people will have more time to look within and find the kingdom.
“Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.” Gerald R. Ford
July 28, 2004
Copyright by J J Dewey
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