Reflections after Six Years Blogging

It is now the beginning of my seventh year blogging about metaphysical and spiritual topics.  The complex circumstances reported in recent months about documented cases of so-called 'paranormal phenomena' include correspondences and variations among mediumship and channeling cases. 

Among many human 'mediums' who have been a topic of blog articles at "Interesting Articles, Links and Other Media," Daniel Dunglas Home (1933-1886) occasionally became entranced for interludes when a transcendental communicator was heard to speak through him.  Home commented about the manifestations of "spiritual causes acting on this world of nature": "I have not and never had the slightest power over them, either to bring them on, or to send them away, or to increase, or to lessen them.  What may be the peculiar laws under which they have become developed in my person, I know no more than others."  Two blog articles about D. D. Home are "Trance Communication and D. D. Home" and "No. 1 Seance from Experiences in Spiritualism with Mr. D. D. Home".

The word 'channeler' is an alternate expression for people who facilitate transcendental communication.  Last year, while writing a series of articles about the JZ Knight/Ramtha case and reviewing a 2014 Ramtha radio interview, I realized that the recording with recurring so-called 'Electronic Voice Phenomena' offers evidence of the phenomenal aspects of the case. 

Throughout many decades, the programming of the commercial news media in relation to paranormal phenomena has reflected a social consciousness of skepticism to avoid potential audience or advertiser displeasure.  In the 2014 interview, Ramtha informed his interviewer that if all journalists were as open-minded as him and wouldn't be censured we would be on to the next level.  Previous blog articles about the philosophically complicated JZ Knight/Ramtha case include "Ramtha: An Introduction to Unlimitedness" and "Ramtha in Los Angeles 2006".  When I attended the Los Angeles lecture, Ramtha's initial commentary included:

I am Ramtha the Enlightened One, servant under God, under the Christ and unto you.  For you be both those divine beings.  So this day in your time I am honored to be a part of this august body and for this short time in your time to impart to your life meaningful change, to make wonder happen, and to evolve you.  [wryly]  An easy task.

 
While writing the recent article "The Brothers Davenport", I noticed a book offering a definition for 'media' and 'medium' befitting the title of this blog (A Sketch of the History of the Davenport Boys, Their Mediumship, Journeyings, and the Manifestations and Tests Given in Their Presence by the Spirits by Luke P. Rand, 1859).

Medium [or its plural, Media or Mediums] is "The means or instrument by which anything is accomplished, conveyed, or carried on"; as "Intelligence is conveyed through the medium of the press";—Webster.

"Everything in creation, from the ant, or minutest infusoria, up to man; or from the smallest leaf or flower, to worlds that roll in space, is mediumistic, in its kind, to the life-force and wisdom of the Infinite Spirit, God!

The transcripts of transcendental communicators explain that at the end of the Earth sojourn, human consciousness makes a transition to an ascended realm of existence.  One of the books offering transcripts of audible Direct Voice communication tape-recorded in the presence of medium Leslie Flint (1911-1994) is There Is Life After Death: Tape Recordings from the Other World (1978) by Douglas and Eira Conacher.  Here are two brief excerpts from one of the transcribed discourses about life on 'the other side':

Here nothing is hidden.  Everything is shown gradually, in its evolution.  If you want to tune-in to someone for whom you have admiration, you can see that person and by the mere process of thought, enter into a condition of their life and their personality.  You see events as they actually happened in the form of picturisation in ether, almost as if you were watching a moving picture screen — a cinema screen.

Although we are separate individuals, we must remember that we are all part of each other, and we are all dependent on each other.  We all contribute to each other's happiness or unhappiness, and that is why it behooves us all to give out love — to give out all that is good from within ourselves.  In this way, the whole scheme of life could be changed.

The most recent blog article about Leslie Flint is "Leslie Flint in Los Angeles".  Another series of blog articles concerns trance medium/channeler Mark Probert (1907-1969), including "Mark Probert and The Inner Circle" and "Yada Speaks".  Here is an excerpt from the transcript of the last lecture by the transcendental communicator known as 'Yada' speaking through Probert:

Man labors under the impression that he does things on his own.  But almost no one can do things on their own.  There is that condition called 'the great mind' — the great cosmic consciousness — the highest center of awareness which the low self, the conscious self, the ego-conscious self is not aware of.

Sometimes, this great mind is called THE CHRIST — the light of the Christ. 

Once when the entranced Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) was asked "Should the Christ Consciousness be described as the awareness within each soul, imprinted in pattern on the mind and waiting to be awakened by the will, of the soul's oneness with God?," the transcendental communicator answered: "Correct.  That's the idea exactly!"  Blog articles about Edgar Cayce include "Case Profile: Edgar Cayce" and "Esoteric Aspects of Edgar Cayce's Life".

During the last six years, some of the data considered in articles at this blog includes:

There are photographs of materialized people from the ascended realm of human existence.  (1, 2, 3)

There have been audio-visual transmissions that show life in realms beyond the physical plane.  (1, 2)

There are videos (now available on You Tube) that offer proof of clairvoyance and clairaudience.  (1, 2)

There are videos and audio recordings that offer proof of channeling.  (1, 2, 3, 4)

There are 'channeled' musical compositions, songs and artwork in the precise style of famous artists and composers.  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

There are hundreds of audio recordings of Direct Voice communication that may be heard without charge on the Internet.  (1, 2)

One photo shows ectoplasm emanating from the neck of medium Leslie Flint to form the 'voicebox' for the Direct Voice phenomena.  (1)

What today is called EVP can be heard on all unedited broadcasts and recordings.  How carefully are you listening?  (1, 2, 3)

There is a photograph of a 'Bigfoot.'  (1) 

One representative of an unknown native American hominid tribe was groomed for exhibition and became a worldwide sensation during the Victorian Age.  (1, 2)


There are case study books about reincarnation.  (1, 2, 3)

 

 

There are letters from aboard a flying saucer.  (1)

Here are ten previous blog posts that I recommend for newcomer blog readers or novice researchers of so-called 'paranormal' or 'unexplained phenomena' (in order of publication) —

 

"The Brain and Psychic Phenomena"  January 8, 2010
 

"Some Observations Concerning My Spritualism Series of Articles"  November 13, 2011

 

"Some Observations about My Olcott/Blavatsky Series of Articles"  March 11, 2012

 

"Instrumental Transcommunication"  March 25, 2012

 

"Spiritual Healing"  December 30, 2012


"Flying Saucers and 'The Nine Pattern'"  July 28, 2013


"An Introduction to Healer John of God"  November 3, 2013

 

 'Gef': A Modern Sphinx as an Esoteric Lesson about Oneness"  April 10, 2014

 
 

"Metaphorical Correlations Among 'Paranormal' Cases"  December 21, 2014

 
 

"'We' and the Mediums of Oneness"  March 8, 2015

McAndrews on negative nominal rates

Jamie McAndrews of the New York Fed has a thoughtful and clear speech on negative nominal rates and the benefits of currency. (Some previous posts on the subject here  here and here.)

A few high points:

1. Needed: anonymous electronic transactions.

Many (not all) negative interest rate proposals call for the elimination of currency. Currency is dying anyway due to the great advantages of electronic transactions. I bemoaned the loss of privacy and political freedom when the NSA, the IRS, and pretty soon Twitter and the Chinese Department of Hacking have a record of everything you've ever bought or sold. Jamie brings up another important point:

The anonymity afforded by currency transactions prevents a buyer from suffering from any actions taken after the transactions that could exploit the knowledge gained by the seller of the buyer’s identity. For example, identity theft, or theft of credit or debit card information, is avoided through the use of currency. This is an economic benefit that is distinct from valuing privacy from a civil liberties point of view. If currency cannot be used in transactions, buyers are at a disadvantage, and many otherwise beneficial transactions (not related to buyers seeking to engage in tax evasion or otherwise illicit activity) would not take place.

Anonymity has value in many transactions. Anonymity equals finality.

It's not hard to have anonymous electronic transactions. Stored value cards could work well as electronic cash. If regulators allowed it, it would be simple enough to set up a money market fund that allows anonymous investing. Regulators don't allow it.

2. Hysterisis of institutions and the lesson of the 70s


There are fixed costs in setting up many institutions that adapt to negative nominal rates. For example, the option to hold currency:

.. Often, the costs of holding currency securely, by having a safety deposit box or a vault, are fixed costs. Once one has a vault, or has rented a safety deposit box, the costs of storing additional currency in it, up to its capacity, is nil. This suggests that there is a dynamic element to the economics of avoiding negative interest rates: the longer the negative rates are expected to persist, and the lower they are, the more favorable are the returns to investing in a vault. Once the vault investment has been made, maintaining negative rates would likely become more difficult.

An even more far-reaching change that many have suggested would be the creation of a new institution to handle and store currency on behalf of others; this could dramatically reduce the costs of holding currency...

Jamie adds to the clever ways to synthesize zero rate investments, and a cost I hadn't thought of

For example, suppose that one holds a credit card under existing U.S. rules: one can withdraw funds from an account that is earning a negative rate, and pay one’s debt to the credit card company in advance of when it is due, earning a zero return during the prepayment period....

... if one were to receive a check from the U.S. government for a tax refund, one could simply put it in a safe place and earn zero interest on it during the time the check remained undeposited...

...leaving the check undeposited, much like the hoarding of currency, is a negative outcome for society. ... This may impose unexpected costs on the check writer, triggering unplanned overdrafts and associated charges...

...having talented individuals looking for these opportunities is a dead-weight loss to society. We would rather have them use their talents for more socially productive purposes.

We went through this once before. In the 1970s, pricing and financial institutions were set up with small positive interest rates in mind. It took a period of prolonged inflation to induce people to spend all the fixed costs to adapt to high interest rates, including widespread indexation, money market funds, interest-paying checking accounts, and so forth. In turn, the easing of these "frictions," quickly removed the hoped-for benefits of inflation. For example, prices and wages were sticky when there was less inflation. Turn on inflation, and once people put the effort in to index contracts, price and wage stickiness fade, and inflation has much less output and employment effect.

So, the same sorts of legal and financial investments that allowed an economy to adapt to high nominal interest rates can also allow it to adapt to negative interest rates -- at large cost, in time and effort, in rewriting contracts, and in foregoing many advantages of currency. But are we sure the benefits will not disappear at the same time?

3. Financial institutions and negative rates

The health of banks and many other financial institutions depends on earning a spread between what the institutions earn on their assets and what they pay on their liabilities. Negative rates can squeeze bank profits.

and a lot of non-banks too. There is a plausible channel here that negative nominal rates hurt a large swath of financial institutions -- at least until they rewrite all their contracts and persuade all their clients to accept negative rates. This is a channel by which lowering rates could hurt economic activity.

By the way, I learned that those negative rates aren't so negative,

..the central banks that have negative policy rates offer zero rates on many of their deposits from banks, imposing negative rates on the “marginal” deposits. In this way, commercial banks can, in general, charge their retail depositors deposit rates of zero and earn zero at the central bank on at least a large portion of their reserve holdings.

4. Speaking of cause and effect signs...

..people could infer [from a negative interest rate] that the central bank itself has low expectations for inflation and is lowering nominal rates into negative territory as a way to “ratify” the low expected inflation environment. Such an inference would complicate the central bank’s effort to achieve its objective because it could encourage and entrench the public’s expectations for deflation. That could complicate the potential exit from the negative rate regime

Maybe with abundant excess reserves, the Fisher equation is stable -- and that lowering nominal rates will cause inflation to decline. Jamie isn't quite ready to burn at the heretic's stake on this issue, but you can see him edging closer to the fire.

Drawing II

It's strange to think that I took Drawing II a full year ago now. Stranger even that I never photographed my work to share on this blog! As of right now, this class is among the top three classes that I've taken at college. The semester was full of experimentation and just pure fun.

I got to draw, for school, for over six hours each week. And, unlike my Drawing I class, I got to choose a lot of the subject matter and style for the projects!

(I've shared artwork from my Drawing I and 2D Design classes in the past, and will continue to post class work on my blog-- you can easily access those posts here).

Below are just a few of the more finished pieces that I made in the class!

The funny thing about this piece is that it isn't a drawing at all-- it's a painting! I was so excited that my projects no longer had to be charcoal still life drawings.

My professor was an older guy who spoke very, very quietly but was always chock full of helpful advice and artists to study. 

He also had a great sense of just-go-for-it which I appreciated a lot. It's the style of learning that I was accustomed to from homeschooling and teaching myself art. If you don't think something is impossible, you won't be scared away from trying to succeed at it!

This project was supposed to challenge us in handling color. I painted these flowers in india ink without an underdrawing. Then, I reversed the way I would normally handle color-- and colored in the background with watercolors!

Um... so we also had to draw a skull and glue it on a photocopy of an earlier piece of art. Cue flowers with random skull on it. However, I did have fun with doing reversed colors on the skull.

I was really proud of this one. :)

(Even though when I displayed it for a Portfolio Workshop this semester, two different professors dismissed it as "kitchy" and "too cute" and "ridiculous with all those cartoony trees." The professors in the design department can be so much more opinionated and caustic than those in the art department.)

This is a large colored pencil drawing inspired by photos I took of Pike's Peak. It's a gift for my parents; I took the photographs on a family vacation a few years ago.

Every time I see this piece, I don't think about our Colorado vacation-- I think about Genghis Khan!

We were allowed to listen to our headphones during class. Whenever I am brainstorming or sketching, I like to listen to chill instrumental music. When it comes down to the hard work of doing repetitive details like 2,000 tiny trees, though, I become intellectually bored.

This is why audiobooks and podcasts are so great. I listened to the entire Hardcore History podcast about Genghis Khan while making this piece!

I know I've mentioned it once before on my blog, but my new habit of listening to audiobooks has done wonders for my listening comprehension. I'm slightly hard of hearing (that, or I have a difficult time processing audio), and over the past two years I've gotten much better at being able to focus on things I'm listening to. 

This is a two-and-a-half hour study of our little student lounge done in ballpoint pens.

Have mercy on the terribly squished perspective on the chairs. There is no excuse. It's just... there. Drawing from life is hard, my friends.

GUYS I DREW THIS WITH SILVER!

I'm not kidding. This is not done with pencil at all.

I prepped a piece of matboard with rough white wall paint. Then, I bought a small piece of pure silver and inserted it into the body of a ballpoint pen.

The silver scratched the rough painted surface, leaving very light and fine marks behind. After two months, the silver drawing had oxidized to the dark color you see here.

The process is called silverpoint, and it's just one of the many unique techniques that my professor showed us! Artists like Michelangelo used to use silverpoint for sketches, because it was cheaper than pencil lead and less messy than charcoal.

I literally drew Bag End in silver!

This is one of my new favorite techniques, and I'm excited for the chance to do some more illustrations in this style.

It's ridiculously hard to draw babies, especially your very, very little sister whose face looked different in every picture you took. The drawing of "Rose" on the right is much better. 

I still have mixed feelings about this piece, but I was grateful for the chance to work with pencil again. I hadn't had the time to work on a large pencil piece since I had made the From the Dragon Hoard drawing in my junior year of highschool. This drawing is nowhere near that quality, simply because I didn't put twenty-plus hours into it!

Hogwarts! In crazy colors!

Ink line drawings and wild watercolors are my new favorite techniques. I took this class a year ago; since then, this style has been my go-to.

The entire thing was drawn with a real quill pen that my professor made himself!

This is a sample piece from the Day of Drawing Wrinkles in Cloth.

The Disney artist Kent Melton had an exhibit at our university for two weeks. We spent two class periods sitting on the floor of the exhibition room with our sketchbooks. I filled my sketchbook with freehand copies of Kent Melton's beautiful animation sketches.

My roommate snagged this picture of me sitting on the dorm floor drawing. She has so much patience to deal with my crazy art student antics!

I forgot to take a picture of this picture when it was finished. I had completed all of the projects for Drawing II early, and spent the last week of class drawing my friend and her fiance. The final drawing had their name and wedding date calligraphied on it.

______

Now, I just need to write up a post about my amazing Metals I class, and then I'll be done with updates about my freshman art classes. The ironic thing is that I am writing this just a couple weeks before I complete my sophmore year of college. 

When I am caught up in projects that take hours and hours of my time, I easily get lost in the small emotions that come with pouring so much energy into the pieces. A year after making these drawings, I have a much better perspective. This is both the blessing and the curse of being an artist; I am always looking for ways to improve, but I am also my own worst critic!

Messages from Heaven



Messages from Heaven: What Jesus, Buddha, Moses, and Muhammad Would Say Today is a new book of channeled communication through Ryuho Okawa.  An autobiographical Prologue entitled "My Life and Spiritual Messages" precedes the transcripts of channeled commentary.  Living in Japan, Okawa was 24 years old in 1981 when he started conversing with transcendental intelligences through automatic writing.  Then:

. . . in July, the spirits began to use my vocal cords to speak.  I couldn't write fast enough to capture everything they were telling me, and because they wanted me to convey their messages more directly and freely, I became able to speak their words.

Okawa acknowledged that he summoned the same 'spirits' multiple times over the course of several years to confirm the consistency of their individual characters and messages.

I felt that my situation and experience were like those of the prophets in the Old Testament whom God had called to service.

He was residing in a dormitory of the company where he worked, a large Japanese trading firm, as he published books of channeled spiritual messages.

I was surprised to find that even among the spirits, opinions differ.  The spirits would even argue with one another due to their differences of opinion.  For this reason, I was especially careful to empirically check, confirm, and verify what they said to see whether they were right or wrong.

Okawa decided to publish the spiritual messages first, to prove the existence of the spirit world, and in later books he introduced his own thoughts and philosophy.  It was shortly before his thirtieth birthday when the "divine spirits" who had been talking to him gave the message: "Now is the time to move."

By then, we had already published five or six books; we were publishing new compilations of spiritual messages every two months.  This was when I decided to leave my company and to found the spiritual organization that would become Happy Science.

Okawa described how he conveys the words of spirits.

When a spirit enters my body, I retain my own consciousness.  My soul remains in my body the entire time the spirit is speaking through me.  It is like having two souls (spirits) inside my body.  So I am able to hear the messages of the spirits, ask questions, and listen to the answers as myself.  I can play two roles at the same time—I can ask questions and answer them.  This is how I conduct my spiritual message sessions.

The ideas and opinions of the spirits had helped me construct the early foundations of my philosophies, but after I began to put my own philosophy together, I made it clear that I was a religious figure rather than a medium.

Okawa begins a session by concentrating his mind to become calm and peaceful; then he can contact the spirit world in one or two seconds.

I can also talk to spirits by way of telepathy without even having to summon them.  I talk to them just like you would engage in conversation with a physical person.

I used to only speak with the spirits of great figures, but today, the guardian spirits of the people I know come and see me every day and give me a piece of their mind.

A footnote explains:

Guardian spirits are a part of our souls, or a part of the consciousness of the people living on Earth; they reflect our thoughts and personalities.  Everyone has a guardian spirit that provides spiritual guidance throughout the person's life.

Okawa commented about the guardian spirits of the executive members of the Happy Science organization —

. . . things usually unfold in the way that their guardian spirits have indicated.

On the other hand, guardian spirits do sometimes exaggerate, so I take that into account.

When I receive and convey messages from spirits, I let the spirits speak through me, but at the same time, I listen to their opinions and evaluate them as a spirit judge.  I'm responsible for ascertaining which god or spirit is speaking, interpreting the message I'm receiving, and passing judgment on the contents of the message.

Like Jesus, divine spirits in the higher dimensions have abilities that transcend language barriers.

Okawa gave an example of what happens when foreign spirits send their messages to him.

When Confucius sent his messages to me, he spoke in Chinese for the first fifteen minutes.  But after a while, my linguistic center started to focus, and I started receiving his will—his meaning, or what he was trying to say.  Then I was able to translate what he wanted to say into my native language of Japanese, just like simultaneous interpretation.  I did the same thing with Moses and Jesus Christ.  They have a bit of an accent, but their message comes out in Japanese.  I can decipher the essence or the basis of the ideas without using words.

Okawa mentioned that he also conducts readings with extraterrestrial beings.  Since 2009, he has been conducting spiritual message sessions in an interview format in front of an audience and then publishing the transcripts along with his own commentary.

In publishing these spiritual messages, I have slightly edited or changed some of the spirits' words.  Otherwise, the messages are basically transcripts of what the spirits said in an actual conversation.

The chapters of Messages from Heaven focusing on Jesus, Buddha, Moses and Muhammad are introduced with commentary about the life of each and the chapters conclude with the thoughts of the channeler/author. 

Upon reading the transcript of the channeled discourse attributed to 'Jesus Christ,' it is evident that the objective of the commentary is not to prove the identity of the communicator but to encourage reflection of spiritual truths.  It is as if the figurative embodiment of Jesus Christ as formulated in the 1611 King James Bible is addressing contemporary people.  I found myself having a similar impression while reading the transcripts of the three other discourses featured in Messages from Heaven in relation to extant scriptures and popular understanding of these adulated religious figures.

The vast succession of personalities speaking through Okawa bring attention to the Spiritual Force manifesting the phenomena.  Differences that may be found when comparing records of the communication of transcendental sources (or 'verbiage contradictions') may at times result from different attempts to express conditions that may be impossible to express in words or be understood completely by those accustomed to the limitations of our physical plane of existence. 

The following are some excerpts from the portion of the book entitled "A Message From Jesus Christ."

People who hate want to be loved, respected, and valued.  They are starving for love . . .


God gives us the freedom to think on our own, speak our own words, and behave according to our own will.


It is human nature to exaggerate other people's imperfections while minimizing our own shortcomings.  We have a hard time forgiving people for their mistakes but find it easy to forgive ourselves for the same things.  We must realize that we have imperfections and everyone else does too.

Will you choose to bet your hopes on God's salvation?  Or will you choose to live without hope of salvation?

It is your choice to believe or not to believe, but the difference between believing and disbelieving is the difference between living with and without profound peace of mind.

I come to you now not as a weak human being, but as a profound source of life that will never dry out, no matter how much I give.  I have come as a spring of love, a spring of words.

Jesus Christ was not a weak man who died on a cross two thousand years ago.  No, Jesus Christ continues to exist today and has been working tirelessly throughout those two thousand years to provide guidance to people from his residence in Heaven.  I have not rested a single day as I have sought to fulfill my mission.  I have never stopped working; I have never rested.  I have worked night and day to make your lives happier and fill them with more love.  Please know and believe that I have been guiding you to help you find deeper faith.

Right now I reside in the ninth dimension and have taken the reins to begin the movement of spreading the Truths.  There is a reason I have taken the reins: I am in charge of purifying Earth and providing salvation.  I am the guiding spirit who has been entrusted with this responsibility.


When I was on Earth, His will was far beyond my comprehension.  I knew that I was one of His servants and that He had entrusted me with a mission, but I could not see the full extent of my role.  From a worldly perspective, the majority of His messages would have been seen as completely unreasonable, but it was not my place to ask Him why things had to be that way.  This is why Christians developed a value for the virtue of obedience.


I am just one of many of the Heavenly Father's keys that help people open the gates of Heaven.


I would describe the Heavenly Father as Truth.  Truth is His other name.


God does not always give us what we wish for, because the purpose of this world is to be a place where our souls can learn and grow.


Even if Saint Mary miraculously heals the sick at the spring of Lourdes, hospitals adamantly refuse to provide written confirmation that those illnesses have been healed.  I cannot hold back my tears of shock when I see such strong effects of materialism.


It was never my intention to die on the cross to atone for everyone's sins.


Today, two thousand years after my death, there are as many as two billion Christians on Earth.  Two billion people have found faith as a result of this single grain of wheat that sacrificed its life.


I was a harbinger who was entrusted with the job of signaling the arrival of the Kingdom of God.  I was nothing more than a single trumpet that kept on playing, and my work never accomplished anything beyond that.

 

The following are some excerpts from the portion of the book entitled "A Message From Shakyamuni Buddha."  Reading this portion I again recognized how in Eastern spirituality 'Buddha' can be an alternative word for 'Christ' expressing a powerful intermediary spiritual Force.

My beloved disciples, you are connected to Eternal Life.  You are connected to the life force of the Grand Spirit.


What appears to be accomplished through your own power is, in reality, accomplished through the power of Buddha.  You must always keep this humble attitude.


Even if your actions produce wonderful results, do not become overconfident.  Do not overestimate your abilities.  Do not claim the credit for yourself.


What does it mean to be humble?  It is to remind yourself that you are always receiving the assistance of others as well as from Buddha.


Your successes must not cause others to fail.  Your successes must not harm others.  Your successes must not bring unhappiness to others.  Your path to success must nurture everybody.


Spare some time in your life to cultivate yourself.  Set aside a certain amount of time each day, each month, and each year for your study.


You may read tens of thousands of books and travel the entire world, but to be truly wise, you must understand your true nature.


A mind of offering is a mind that cares for others.  It is a mind that wishes good things for others.  It is a mind that serves others.


The teachings of Buddha are meant to help you serve others, give to others, and love others.


Having kindness in your heart is the greatest proof that you are a child of Buddha.


Those who think only of their own happiness and their own protection put forth untiring effort to benefit themselves, but the direction of their efforts is the opposite of the will of Buddha.  They do not understand that by seeking only to benefit themselves, they are actually harming themselves.  They do not understand that they were born not to be selfish.  Neither were you born to devote your life solely to yourself.


When you are sitting alone, do not forget that the Supreme Being is sitting right next to you.


Young ones, do not fear loneliness, for enduring a time of solitude challenges you to become a person of authenticity.  Young ones, seek not only gaiety.  Seek not only a life of joviality.  Do not only desire the attention and praise of others.  Find something that will keep improving you for all eternity.

The following are some excerpts from the portion of the book entitled "A Message From Moses."

I was born on the banks of the Nile River in Egypt to Hebrew parents who sent me downstream in a basket.  As fortune would have it, I was eventually found by someone who raised me in the royal palace.  My childhood was similar to that of Shakyamuni Buddha, and like him, I grew increasingly aware of the disparities between the lavish life of the palace and the lives of the oppressed people.


Canaan really existed.  My powerful spiritual abilities enabled me to see and experience it.  I encouraged the Hebrews to believe in me.  I told them that the land of Canaan, our Heaven, truly existed and that together, we would create a utopia there.  It was imperative, I told them, that we act.

To help them believe in me and the things I was telling them, I used all my strength and all my spiritual abilities.  I demonstrated my spiritual abilities at the palace, and I performed many miracles for the Hebrews, who saw them through spiritual eyes.  Once, I released a staff from my hand and it transformed into a dragon that flew up into the sky.  I was able to see the future and speak freely with holy spirits and with the god whom we knew at the time as Jehovah.
 
 
At one point, we reached a mountain.  At the foot of this mountain I received a message from Yahweh, so I told my people to wait for me while I climbed the mountain.  When I reached the top, I prayed to my god and received the Ten Commandments.  He engraved them onto a slab of stone.


When I took the stone tablet back to my people, none of them believed me.  I was enraged to find that they were worshipping golden statues.  I taught them not to worship such idols, and when I destroyed their statues, the stone tablet also crumbled into pieces.  I went up the mountain once more and prayed to my god again.  My god granted me the revelations again . . .


I brought the new slab back to the people, showed them the Ten Commandments, and instructed them to obey these teachings.  I must confess, however, that I also made mistakes.  I heard not only the voice of my god, but also that of Satan.  There were times when I mistook the voice of Satan for my god's voice.


I became the first person to create a monotheistic religion.


To God, the vast universe is just a corner of a miniature garden.  This great God is watching over us and supporting us.  We are all tiny ants living in His miniature garden.  Our perception of the world is limited.


Different people have expressed righteousness in many different ways.  As you learn different teachings, you will discover the diverse shapes that righteousness has taken.  We should remember, however, that the essence of righteousness never changes, no matter how diverse its expressions are.  What is right is expressed in many ways, but it always comes back to one source.


Throughout history, we have always  taught the importance of having a right mind that follows God's mind, and this teaching applies to the modern age too.


Sometimes people do not understand the teachings because their minds are being influenced by Devils.  Devils were not created as Devils; they are simply people who are not living in accord with God's mind.  Because of their wrong state of mind, Devils confuse other people and obstruct our work.  The mind that allows them to hinder our progress is a wrong state of mind.


The spirit world is divided into different levels, but the idea that a hierarchy exists can be dangerous if it is taken to an extreme.  We must not allow this idea to lead to discrimination.  We should always adopt a balanced way of thinking that unites our perception of difference with our commitment to equality.  It is important to stress that all human souls are equal.


God's essence is our essence.  In the beginning, we were all given equally precious souls, and our souls then gained spiritual training over the course of countless reincarnations.


The killer who knows that killing is a sin will be in agony as his good conscience and evil mind are pitted against each other.


If the Devil and his people knew about Heaven, they would not be in Hell.

 
Moses referred to "my spiritual abilities"; however, precise understanding of 'spiritual abilities' in relation to the manifestation of wonders and miracles (or 'unexplained phenomena') is to designate these exhibitions of the Christ Spirit as occurring in proximity to chosen individuals.  The resulting circumstances may be capable of expanding the spiritual awareness of others upon contemplation.  Some individual people who've found themselves a nexus for unexplained phenomena without being personally able to control the manifestations are Sathya Sai Baba (1926-2011), Uri Geller and Matthew Manning.

The following are some excerpts from the portion of the book entitled "A Message From Muhammad."

While meditating, I received divine revelations that led me to spread a monotheistic religion.  Historically, polytheism had been dominant, not only in Mecca, but also in ancient Greece, Egypt, and the rest of Africa.  Monotheism only began to spread in that region when Christianity emerged.

Islamic teachings spread because my military victory enabled me to unify the people politically.  To create a unified, national religion, I needed to integrate the religion with the military and political life of the nation.  This is the history surrounding the founding of Islam.

Islam teaches mercy and peace.

There is no mention of suicide bombing in Islamic teachings.  There is only the idea of the jihad, the holy war fought to defend the teachings of Islam.  People today may see Islam as an aggressive, bloodthirsty, and narrow-minded religion, since Muslims tend not to be afraid of war and conflict.  But this is because, while I was a religious leader who conveyed God's words, I was also a military hero.  Muslims worship military heroes.

Similarly, there were many war gods in Japanese Shintoism.  In the process of building a nation, there is always a battle with the former regime.  Those who have fought, won, and brought peace to their nation become gods.  So it is only natural for people to worship as war gods the military heroes that built their nation.  This was actually the reason Christianity didn't spread in Japan.  Because Japanese people worshipped war gods, they just couldn't accept the Christian teaching that the son of the omnipotent God had been so easily captured and crucified by his enemies.

It was actually Hermes who spiritually guided me to come up with the idea of trench warfare.

Many prophets have been persecuted as Jesus was.  But I fought, won and built the nation of Islam.  I established Islam as the national religion and unified politics, the military, and religion.  Our teachings did not glorify the leader of a losing battle—they glorified the winning leader.  Islam fulfilled its mission, in that sense, and it became a world religion.  This is why Muslims think that Muhammad is greater than Jesus.

Muslims also call me "the last prophet" because of my superiority in another respect: Islam is based in spiritual revelations—words of God—that were conveyed through me while I was alive.  This is the basis of the Koran.

It was true that I heard a number of different voices, so I suppose multiple spirits were guiding me at that time.  Actually, there were at least forty different spirits that used the name "Allah" when they sent me messages.  So a team of guiding spirits worked together to form the teachings of Islam.  The voices of Allah that I heard revealed the different ideas of many guiding spirits.  That is why there are different writing styles in the Koran.

I admit that the Koran and the Hadith do teach that women should wear scarves, but I do not intend to force this practice on modern Muslims.  In my day, we wore scarves in the desert because they protected us from the sun.  We draped them from head to toe, primarily to prevent sunburn.

I had a good reason for endorsing polygamy for Muslims.  During the period of relentless war between Medina and Mecca, many young men were killed, so many children were orphaned and many women were widowed.  In the desert, if a woman was on her own or only with her children, without a man to protect her, she would die, most likely from hunger.  So I encouraged women to remarry.  I recommended that men who had the money to spare and were financially capable take in these widowed women.  I wanted to make sure that they were taken care of, so I allowed my people to practice polygamy.

. . . I believe that Islam needs to reconsider and change its stance on women's rights.  In Islam, one man can marry up to four women, but if a woman engages in any "free love" outside of official marriage, she may be sentenced to death.  Christian nations criticize Muslims for the severity of this punishment.  It is not in accord with modern understandings of human rights, so I think Muslims need to reconsider this issue.