7 thoughts on “The essence of the Christian religion”

1. Ahem! Could we arrive at some generally accepted definition of “reality”? Either I have seriously misunderstood this term or Herr Bavinck has. But then I have heard “dogmatics” defined as automatic weapons used by police K-9’s, and it sounded just as reasonable as Herr Bavinck’s statement to me.

2. This guilt-logic has never made sense – not has it ever extended the Sense that Is the Holy Spirit.
   The mind of sin is simply the mind or intent to have ‘my will and not Thy Will be done’. While it is identified with and ‘loved’ – it costs the appreciation of LIFE Eternal – and therefore brings the wage of ‘death’ WHILE it is engaged. Dramas and apparent conflicts ABOUT this mentality are simply subtle strategy to persist in employing it – in place of aligning with Living Truth. This activity is,in effect is “all about me”. But it is a false sense of self and so can only result in deception.
   Thirst for Truth does not depend on a magical ‘Jesus’ – but on likewise freely laying down the personal will in acceptance and trust of Only the Father’s Will. The Father’s Will is the Movement of Being discovered in stillness of self-creating thought and judgement. It Is Truly Present while our attention is wilfully yet ignorantly distracted. The Holy Spirit is the Intelligence and Voice and Guide to the Son of God in forgetfulness of His Father. Ask and it shall be Given. Seek and you shall find. If the fruits are not of God’s Wholeness – then ask yourself what am I asking and where am I seeking for answers.
   To kneel in the heart to the Christ is to acknowledge the First and accept right relationship as Second, like unto the first but the son or extension of – and not a power or self in its own right.
   It is through the apparent death of the ‘son of Adam’ – that awakenened love knows itself anew and in holiness. The forms this takes vary for each of us but the meaning is universal. The Cross symbolizes this – as does the Resurrection awaken and rise beyond symbols – but the mind in sin will not see holiness excepting ‘outside itself’, in some other world or from some god of ‘otherness’. The desire for the Light is the dawning of the Light – but seen externally. Such was John the Baptist.
   Clearly the mind in sin cannot ‘live’and see God. You must be Spoken For through your willingness to love as God Loves.
   Man cannot ‘do’ this. A laying down of the ‘doing’ is the fruit of the prayer of the heart; “show me, that I may follow in the way WITH You”.

   “With You” is not a life alone, nor a contracted arrangement of separated selves. It is the Living Love that receives as it gives and gives as it receives.
   It seems we can receive evil and suffer ill. This must be challenged in our own mind, perception and thought – or we succumb to the dissonance of sin as if it were creator of our being – instead of recognising it as feedback to prompt Awakening of the heart’s discernment. Watch and Pray.
   Be aware – by the Light that Is Given you – and abide in the heart that recognises Light. Insanity is a veil upon True Sight. By giving attention and therefore value, to the Holy Spirit within, the mind possessed of its own thought is disregarded, passed by, put behind.
   A New Earth rises from the restoration of the alignment of what before was called inner and outer. The Second Coming is the awakening of the Christ through humanity – and is near – not in time and space – but nearer – where the double vision always overlooks.
   The essence of Religion is restoration of the human to the Divine. It matters not the forms – excepting they serve Purpose. God is the Supreme Identity – and not an image or concept of God. Man in ignorance and sin seeks identity in religion as in everything – yet cannot find his home excepting he remembers his Source.

   in Gratitude

   Brian

3. Ask yourself this: “Why do I want to believe in that which cannot be proven?”

4. Reality is what is present when definitions are not applied to it. Of course it is also the case when definitions are applied – excepting that the experience of the mind engaged in definition is substituting for the direct experience of reality as it is.
   To make any definition of reality and accord it priority over reality itself – is to violate the first two of the ten commandments.
   Reality is not something that can be separated from and then objectively examined.

   Reality Is the Creation of the Father and behold It Is very God! – but the experienced reality of the mind in judgement of good and evil – is sin – or the priority to an illusory oppositional will.
   The desecration of the heart feel real enough – and gives rise to the desperate attempts to deny into unconsciousness and project onto the world – so as to hide the pain and fear and guilt. But it doesn’t actually work – not even when you lump it all together and call it the human condition – as if we know what anything is for or what we are.
   I don’t know what dogmatics are – perhaps an attempt to restate dogma in fresh ways?
   Love the Source of you being with all your heart and love your Brother as your self. Why? because this is the nature of reality as it is.
   Ignore and deny the Source of your being and love the self image you have made and subject all else to serve it’s judgement. (I just felt to write out the opposite of Jesus’ commandments as an illustration).

   To attempt to define reality is at best a parlour game and at worst, an arrogant and vain deception.

   If enough people get stuck at the same point – they call it reality.

   all the best
   Brian

5. Well for one thing, the largely but not wholly unconscious mind that experiences itself as amidst an unstable and largely hostile world of change and death with no real security is compulsively driven to maintain the illusion of security and identity to the exclusion of the appreciation and Identification of Life as communion.
   I quite agree that believing can be a way of pretending – but when the fear driven programmed mind is found to be a set of beliefs – it may serve to at least believe that there is more to life than as humanly defined from a perspective that is divorced from the life it objectifies, analyzes, evaluates and controls.

   But all that is actually required is honesty – and willingness to look with innocent perception. There will come a time when much of what is called thinking will be correctly diagnosed as dis-ease – an afflicted condition of self programmed experience – out of alignment with Life as it is.
   Restlessness, compulsion to think, boredom, doubt, discomfort – are these not considered normal? To enter and allow silence will expose the aspects of your mind, emotion and body that are beneath the surface noise and busyness. Why should you want to put your beliefs aside and discover for yourself directly? Because the truth has stirred in you and you recognised something intimate and essential that you had forgotten.

6. What do you think of the dualistic definition of reality as (1) God and (2) his created works? I don’t mean that these are mere instances of real things, but the definition or essence of reality.

7. What a load of applesauce.