August 01, 2025

The church was before the Bible.

First the church then the Bible. 

The Bible says what it says because that is what the church wanted it to say. And the truth needs to be known so that then we can get to the truth.

The truth is quite different from what we have been told,
because what we have been told fits quite nicely into how the church would like for things to be, but it is not how things are.

How things are begins with all of us being born with exactly what we need to know what's what and what is called for in each situation as it arises--and to live in the service of what is called for with the gifts of our original nature, our innate virtues (What we do best and what we enjoy doing most--these are two things. Sometimes we don't enjoy doing most what we do best, and both what we love to do and what we do well are our gifts to the world. It is our place to develop our gifts and bring them forth in service to the world), our inherent imagination and our intrinsic intuition.

We develop our gifts by spending time routinely and regularly with emptiness, stillness and silence. We know things that the silence brings forth, without knowing how we know them, and use the word "intuitive" for the knowing that comes from with in of its own accord, "spontaneously arising," exactly when it is needed. We can practice the art of inner listening/hearing/
knowing/doing/being anywhere, everywhere, all of the time.  Self-induced trance states, like what happens when we play the drums, or the piano, or paint, or write, or etc. puts us in sync with our inner knower which has often been thought of as "The God within."

The God within is not the God of theology, and that has been very confusing throughout time. The God within has to do with knowing, and the God of theology is all about believing. And the two are very, very, different.

This came about in the early development of Christianity with its conflict with a movement called "Gnosticism." Gnostic is, let me guess, a Greek work for "knowing." And the Gnostics were people who recognized the God within as being a very valid source of help in time of trouble, and a guide, and a friend, and they felt that Jesus knew and served that God whom he called "Father", but whom the theologians said was the God of theology, "Wholly Other," etc., and things got out of hand with Gnostics talking about a different God than the theologians were talking about. The Orthodox Christians persecuted the Gnostics, reducing their numbers to a very few, while the Christian Church grew to encompass the entire world in 2,500 years.

But through all that time, the Gnostic knowledge of the God within has persisted, and continues to feed, bless, and bestow good luck upon those who reduce their wanting and attend to what is called for, what is needed, in the situation at hand, listening in the emptiness, stillness and silence for the knowledge of what's what and what is called for and what needs to be done about it here, now, in each situation as it arises--with nothing to gain from the standpoint of personal power or fortune.

The good luck they enjoy is the sort of thing that comes automatically to those who "let the force be with them" and go where they are led and do what they know/sense needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, following the Tao of right doing, right being, right knowing, here, now, day to day, moment to moment, all their life long--just like Jesus did, with no theology to get in the way.