The Spectrum World

A mystic is one who has attained to or is aiming for a state of Union with Ultimate Reality, the One referred to by Yeshua, the Nazarene, as Abba Alahah or Papa God.

That’s all very well I guess but is it a case of nature or nurture? Are we born mystic or do we somehow become a mystic?

Let me begin by saying that I believe that all of us have the seed of mysticism lying dormant within us. Many of us are totally unaware of our potential to walk the Mystical Way, the Path of those aiming to re-engage  with Divine Love. A Yellow Brick Road lies within that we so easily dismiss as a dream world, a realm of lesser substance than our perceived, space-time reality.

So how do we enter upon that Path, that straight and narrow way to communion with Source Love?

I believe that some folk are instantly shocked into mysticism through a dramatic and totally unexpected psycho-spiritual experience, often called by religious types as a conversion.

For others, the Path is less dramatic, a  plodding desert journey that eventually arrives at its long-desired oasis, the place of Divine Rest; in other words a purposeful search for a different way of connecting with and perceiving Life. It is for this second category of pilgrims that I will now write.

So where do we start?

Well lets look at where we presently are and the problems that such a location causes the potential mystic.

We all live in a space-time matrix of multiplicity and separation. Whilst an exciting ride, this real world in which we appear to sojourn causes us both joy and pain; for some of us more of the latter than the former. Our psychological suffering stems from such a complex web of Being, one on which we often feel trapped as a predator heads in our direction, looking for a tasty psychic meal. Our brain, surely one of Divine Love’s most amazing gifts, thankfully simplifies the constant bombardment of external and internal stimuli to present a false yet somewhat safe  3D version of reality. Our perception of what is real tends for the most part to maintain us in some sort of equilibrium, one that can absorb the bumps and bruises of what we mistakenly call life, that is, until Ultimate Reality comes calling.

So where does that leave us?

Let me explain by using a little scientific analogy. When I attended Ballybrigg Grammar School’s junior physics classes way back in the late 1960s, one of the first experiments we did was the passing of a bulb-sourced light through a triangular glass prism onto a white screen. As wide-eyed little 12 year olds we were amazed to see a spectrum of colored light projected onto the somewhat magical display. The trick of course lay in the mysterious prism, the refractor of the pure white light into its rainbow-like component parts. If we were a little fly walking along our projected spectrum world we’d have to travel backwards through the prism to find the pure glare of the white light source.

I believe that our psyche-soul is the internal prism responsible for the multiplicity of our space-time world of form. Our consciousness is the screen upon which we observe our present multifaceted reality. The Source of All to be the Light of the World, the One who’s Purity and Energy have manifested themselves in the world of men.

The journey of the mystic is a journey of return, a return through the refractor of the psyche-soul towards Source Light, the apex of Ultimate Reality, the One known as God.

In my next post I’ll discuss the first practical step on the Journey Home.

Dylan’s Author page ~ https://www.amazon.com/author/dylanmorrison

Prophet Seers

What exactly is a prophet seer?

Is it some weird guy or gal who dresses strangely and appears to have lost his metaphysical marbles?

Is it a sharp suited spiritual salesman who prays or prophesies over a willing victim at the drop of a religious hat?

Thankfully, I believe the prophet seer to be neither.

Authentic prophet seers are, in my experience, fairly well-balanced individuals, gracious, unassuming messengers of Divine Love.

Most usually walk with a psycho-spiritual limp, the evidence of their ego struggles with Spirit Breath. Something harsh has been removed from their natural buoyancy and replaced with a drop of Heaven’s Essence.

Strangers in the world and yet grounded men and women with a compassion for all, the prophet seers are often  walking paradoxes that can’t be easily understood by the trained dogmatic mind.

‘But prophets are no longer among us’, cries the religious dispensationalist, hurriedly turning to the Big Black book for argumentative back up.

I’d have to humbly disagree, having personally been helped by such prophetic embodiments  along the Way.

The prophet seer is, I believe, a manifestation of grace, of Divine Love itself, for they pop up on the Journey Home when we need to see things as they really are. A dispenser of Transcendent Reality, if only for a few seconds, the prophet seer is a Divine paratrooper, one dropped into our illusory world to break us free from our painful psycho-spiritual attachments.

The prophet seer is one who passes on a message from the Love without bounds, the Source of the created order in which we find ourselves afloat, like a ship lost out on the ocean. Such a message bubbles up from somewhere deep within the prophet seer’s inner connection with the world of Spirit. Surprisingly authentic prophet seers are as much in the dark regarding the inner dynamics of psycho-spiritual revelation as the next man.

The prophet seer is probably not found on the religious shows that claim their presence. More than likely the one with spiritual insight is far from the crowd, yet deeply in touch with hurting humanity as its pain bombards the seer soul.

Prophet seers generally don’t hang around for long; they’re the spiritual pollinators within the Divine Garden, landing on the fragile flower of our lives to pass on little pockets of Unconditional Love. When we attempt to set up the authentic prophet seer as our resident guru, they usually run back into the desert places, to breathe in, once more, the gentle but tangible  stillness of Divine Presence. The prophet seer’s psyche knows its Source and refuses to play the religious games of ministry with their hierarchical ladder climbing.

Bona fide prophet seers have something about them that folk can’t quite put their finger on; a presence that paradoxically appears somewhat distant whilst deeply intimate. Carriers of a genuineness that can’t be explained away by religious discussion or dogmatic declarations. God sent prophet seers just ARE.

I believe that Divine Love often sends its prophet seers to us in disguise, as we travel along the Way. When we fall under the relentless pressures of life, the Divine messenger will appear to come out of nowhere. Spirit Breath has no problems in sending along the right prophet seer at the right time. We’re only asked to tune out from ego chatter and listen for the transmitted Divine Resonance that wishes to heal our wounded psyche-soul.

When we search for a prophet seer we will not find one; Divine Love makes sure of that. When we seek Divine Love, the prophet seer will surely come at exactly the right time, usually when we least expect it. We cannot choose the messenger sent along, but we can choose whether to hear them or not. The legitimate prophet seer often deconstructs our psyche-soul prison in order to release us into a new level of freedom, yet always with the sensitivity and graciousness of Divine Love itself.

The intuitive prophet seer can be likened to a skilled surgeon whose razor-sharp, spirit scalpel cuts through the stubborn tumors of our ego defenses, often releasing a stream of healing tears, a sign that the Divine Touch has been delivered. Contrary to this, religious butchery is the tell-tale sign of the  false prophet, the wolf in sheep’s clothing whose only desire is to get his teeth well and truly into the psycho-spiritual pockets of the unsuspecting seeker. Best to remember that charismatic vampires who suck the remnants of  life out of a wounded soul are not the prophets seers of Divine Love, but often the slaves of their own insecurities and fears.

Those who easily dismiss prophet seers tend to lose the prophet seer’s reward, viz. a sensation of the Divine, the momentarily breaking in of Divine favor and reassurance that All is well. That is their choice. May the rest of us be open to the unexpected messenger, the one who comes and goes, carried away on the wind of Spirit Breath.

The Prophet of all prophets sends his servants to those  in need. May Divine Love grant us the eyes to see and the ears to hear when they cross our path.

Dylan’s Author page ~ https://www.amazon.com/author/dylanmorrison

The Pearl

‘A pearl of great price lies deep within.

The result of the Divine Dance that birthed our Being.

Life has polished it so that it may shine through into the darkness of our conscious mind.’

Dylan Morrison

Let me be frank!

Somewhere within the mundane mess of life there lies something very precious indeed; something hidden to our fragmented psyche-soul, commonly referred to as the ego; something hidden to our imposter persona, the mask with which we face the world and, more often or not, often ourselves.

In our youth we regularly rode off like the delusional Don Quixote to conquer our much desired windmills, the manifestations of our utopian dreams, our victories in the one- upmanship battles of life. Winning some and losing some was the name of our passionate game, our sense of reality in this space-time sea of opportunity.

And yet, even in the intoxicating elation and depression of such a psychic game, there sometimes appeared, totally without warning, a little glimmer of something other, something totally other. Unknown to ego, this teasing treasure was the goal of our frantic search all along, this little deposit of Divine essence.

By its very Nature, Divine Love cannot help but share itself, creating something of itself in all that it births; rumours of glory or reflected Presence if you like. The One Way overflow of  such a giving Other is somewhat hilarious if it wasn’t so profoundly awe-inspiring. A God with no concern for the security of uniqueness, the illusionary jealousy that fuels our own survival egos.

Partnering itself in the Divine Dance, the Source of All flings the essence of its Being into the Void of Nothingness, the seed bed of our beginning, the womb of the Transcendent Morning. A fire is lit in the tinderbox of compressed energy, one that will burn into Being, the Being of Self, the reflected I AM.

And so we enter this Mystery, this darkness disguised as light, with an insatiable hunger in our hearts for reconnection and knowing. In the Nighttime of our Journey we bump into the obstacles set up by ego, those stumbling blocks that shout their message of despair and hope. ‘Not here,’ they call out in their skewed integrity, ‘The One you search for lies beyond.’ Like a seemingly endless game of Cosmic pin-ball we bump from one dark friend to another until the time has come.

Ego lies exhausted at the feet of Presence. The Divine process has done its thing. Something catches our desperate I, an inner glimpse of Light, a constant and persistent  luminescence that will not yield to the death wails of our fractured psyche-soul. The Time of Unveiling has come; the fiery Pearl within takes its place in the darkened throne room of our conscious mind. The lights have finally come on in the reason filled corners of our thought filled understanding.

The days for chasing religious, spiritual and philosophical windmills have come to an end. We have come Home.

The Nazarene smiles.

Dylan’s Author page ~ https://www.amazon.com/author/dylanmorrison

Speaking In Tongues

Nothing divides the religious world as much as the slightly spooky practice of speaking in tongues. Those of the Reformed tradition believe it to be obsolete for those on the spiritual path. If you’ve got the Bible that’s all one needs, apart that is from a trained pastor teacher to feed you its gems! Meanwhile Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians burst into tongues at the drop of an ecstatic hat, before trying to sell you the experience! No wonder the non-Christian world shies away from such opposing camps, declaring ‘Thanks, but no thanks!’

Many books have been written for an against the modern psycho-spiritual phenomenon known as tongues speaking or to give it its more respectable Greek name glossolalia. In this little post I’ve no intention in arguing my way through the theological minefield of trying to prove the validity or spurious nature of such a religious practice. For like a well-loved security blanket, the proponents of either side of the argument are highly unlikely to change their minds. Rather I wish to briefly examine the psycho-spiritual practice from a slightly different perspective.

First, let me come clean!

I am a tongues speaker even after all my painful experiences within the somewhat wacky world of Charismatic Christianity. My disillusionment with the vision and often dysfunctional, hierarchical practices of faith groups within that particular religious stream have surprisingly not shifted this most unusual of psycho-spiritual phenomenon. Many of my fellow ex-Charismatics dumped their tongue many moons ago as they ran back into the security of conservative Christianity or into the freeing wilderness of non belief.

Let’s face it; speaking in tongues doesn’t have a good press. Wide eyed fanatics dancing wildly in little wooden churches while belting out their glossolalic utterances to all and sundry, do tend to make the casual onlooker extremely nervous. Send for Ghostbusters is one’s instinctive reaction! Yet, the experience of being in a crowd of well-behaved tongues singers is a most uplifting and somewhat spiritual high; one similar to tuning into the most beatific of Gregorian chants. There is definitely something to this phenomenon, but what?

Let me come at this question from the angle of mimetic desire and the freedom of the Queendom of God. In our day-to-day consciousness, ego or fragmented psyche is never far away. When pressure situations unexpectedly confront us our little ego warrior is always there to protect us, albeit by demonizing the other, the one blamed for our fast approaching catastrophe. The fight or flight connection within the neural programming of our magnificent brains works hand in hand with our ego advocate. It looks like we’re stuck with such a reflex response to perceived if often illusory danger. Or are we?

St. Paul, the most prolific tongues speaker in the early Yeshua movement has an interesting take on things. He claims that glossolalia is a verbal expression of the human spirit; a psycho-spiritual link joining the Divine Spark within to the Divine Fire without. In my previous posts I have suggested that experiential salvation has less to do with escaping a fearful firy hell and more to do with our release from an internal psychic prison, viz. our skewed desire center and its ego ally.

May I suggest that tongues speaking is a psychic switch, a tool to unhook us, if temporarily, from the dominance of our conscious mind and its default desire settings. In other words, the voluntary act of speaking in an unlearned language is a form of desire detachment, a realignment with our spirit I AM, and subsequently, a contact with the flow of Divine Presence. The tongue is somehow tuning into the Divine channel, whilst leaving behind the internal wiring of desire conflict. Without being in a frenzied state of abandonment, the tongues speaker has consciously switched into an altered state of consciousness, one where they retain control but have a psychic space in which to breathe, free from the chatter of our competing sub-personalities.

So where does that leave us?

Well, for me, the gift of tongues is a psycho-spiritual ability to detach and connect. To detach from the swirling desire Matrix in which we swim. To connect to our core Self and its Mother Ship, Divine Love. Best done in private methinks and well away from the show biz setting of the TV evangelist and their somewhat hypnotised followers.

Dylan’s Author page ~ https://www.amazon.com/author/dylanmorrison

The Door

I am the Door of the sheep.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep do not hear them.

I am the Door.

Through Me if anyone should be entering, he shall be saved

And shall be entering and coming out and will be finding pasture.

The thief is only coming so that he should be stealing and sacrificing and destroying.

I came that they may have aeonian life and have it superabundantly.

After tackling the dominance of Pauline teaching in the day to day life of traditional Christianity I’ve decided to return to the somewhat quizzical sayings of Yeshua as found in John’s narrative of the Nazarene’s final weeks on earth.

The above saying is lifted from Yeshua’s discourse with the Jewish leadership team that hung out in the Temple court area looking for heretics to put straight.

I am the Door of the sheep.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep do not hear them.

The Nazarene outsider is clearly using metaphorical language here in his engagement with his theological adversaries. He’s been talking about sheep, sheepfolds, authentic and false shepherds in his discussions with his learned opponents. So what do such symbols mean?

Sheep

This somewhat humbling term refers to those folk who belong to God; in the immediate context of his discussions, Yeshua is talking about the Jewish race but in light of subsequent sayings he is clearly referring to all mankind, those who have come from and will return to Divine Source.

Door

This is the entrance into the sheepfold, the sacred place of belonging where true community is to be found. Is this sheepfold, a racial group or religious belief system? I believe not. It’s the place of Divine Presence, the very Cosmos itself and indeed, beyond. The realm of  Divine awakening and awareness. Yeshua sees himself as One through whom his followers pass into such an altered state. He’s suggesting that following or tuning into him is the key to a spiritual awakening. From a mimetic or imitative desire perspective Yeshua is claiming that those who are drawn into his Desire field will find themselves emerging into a new state of consciousness, the same consciousness that he himself experienced during his space-time sojourn.

Thieves and robbers

Yeshua uses this term for the mosaic of spiritual teachers whose motives are purely for self gain; those who see folk as a means to an end. The religious and spiritual world is full of such peddlers of metaphysical wares, but the Nazarene sees through their shepherd masks to the lurking ego violence within. The perceptive seer was clearly referring to the established teachers of the Law centring around the Jerusalem Temple cult of his day but such religious teachers are found the world over no matter what their cultural or temporal context.

Yeshua clearly states that we sheep will not stick with such religious or spiritual experts for long. Eventually the realisation dawns on us that the Divine Voice is not being heard through them; something in the ground of their being just doesn’t resonate with our inner vibration of spiritual authenticity.

I am the Door.

Through Me if anyone should be entering, he shall be saved

Here the Nazarene connects the idea of entering through him into the place of Divine Awareness to the common but often misunderstood concept of salvation. May I suggest, contrary to much theological thought, that this salvation primarily refers to a continual state of psycho-spiritual freedom, one in which we’re delivered from the effects of skewed desire and its resulting Model Obstacle relationships. In other words, not a future escape from wrathful Divine Judgement but a here and now state of well-being and psychic wholeness, one that we will carry with us into death and beyond!

And shall be entering and coming out and will be finding pasture.

 Here Yeshua promises a free-flowing life, one that links both our inner and outer worlds. At times we’ll focus on the mysterious immanence of Divine Presence; at others we’ll be engaged with the manifestations of Spirit Breath in our outer day-to-day encounters. One thing is promised though. Pasture or spiritual nurture will be ours, a constant provision for those of us free from the inner and outer tensions of desire rivalry and competition. In the letting go of our squealing ego needs we’ll discover a surprising new level of Divine provision, one required to maintain our newly acquired mimetic state.

The thief is only coming so that he should be stealing and sacrificing and destroying.

The Galilean prophet goes straight to the heart of all inauthentic religious and spiritual experts.

Seeing beyond the pietistic surface Yeshua reveals three aspects of psycho-spiritual malpractice.

1) Stealing

The ego driven teacher helps themself to something that belongs to both the Divine and the individual spiritual seeker.

From the Divine the rogue guru steals the worship or worthship due to the limitless Source of All.

From the ardent seeker the master robber subtly steals the gift of Will, the individual’s God-given ability to choose which Path to follow. The somewhat subliminal, hypnotic powers of the spiritual expert can lead the unsuspecting sheep into a cage  of  psycho-spiritual codependency.

2)  Sacrificing

This interesting choice of word reveals the hidden nature of much psycho-spiritual thought and practice. The  false religious teacher  will always require sacrifice of some sort from those who follow them. The shedding of much blood, sweat and tears in order to keep the guru’s god happy usually  lurks within the spiritual teaching of the believable spiritual thief . A little tip from my personal observations and experience. Beware of spiritual or religious leaders who subliminally or openly push self-sacrifice in their missional manifestos.

3) Destroying

The fruit of all false spirituality is eventual death. Often behind the impressive mesmeric powers of the religious or spiritual salesman lies a fragmented heart of violence and control, cleverly camouflaged by a great big beatific smile. Many are the unsuspecting victims of such false teachers. Great piles of spiritual corpses lie on the smouldering fires of religious disillusionment. How many burnt out believers hide away in dark sacred corners, nursing their wounded psyches, those damaged by the skewed mimetic game of zealous master-disciple relationships?

I came that they may have aeonian life and have it superabundantly.

Here Yeshua states that his mission was to restore a vigorous sense of life to those confused and damaged by the religious status quo. His followers weren’t to be characterised by puritanical piety and spiritual hoop jumping but by the very essence of Divine Source, viz. Life. Not the mere existence of those caught up in the skewed desire battles of human culture but the very Life of the Queendom to come, the Life of the new Jerusalem, a one to One Union with Ultimate Reality.

Now that’s what I call superabundant spirituality; the crazy Cosmic Dance through the Divine Door that was incarnated in Yeshua.

Dylan’s Author page ~ https://www.amazon.com/author/dylanmorrison

Paul ~ the chosen One or one among many?

Some days I wonder what today’s Yeshua movement would be like if Saul, the persecutor Rabbi hadn’t fallen off his Damascus Road donkey. Suppose the Jewish scholar-policeman had just ‘pulled himself together’ and spurred his trusty ass on towards another religious roundup; how would the Way, later to morph into Christianity, appear in 2013? Call me strange but this somewhat unsettling quirky, what if thinking seems to be part of my Irish psycho-spiritual makeup, so please bear with me!

Many today believe the true Gospel or Good News to be the pure revelation of God as expounded in the writings of Saul. Their reasoning goes something like this:

Yeshua came to teach the Kingdom of God, it was largely rejected by his listeners, and so God and he switched to plan B, that had really been plan A all along viz. his death and resurrection. So far so good to a point. In the early days of the embryonic, Jerusalem, Yeshua community it would appear that his followers, including his ex-disciples didn’t get it quite right! Except for Stephen that is  for he, like Yeshua before him, drew the mob violence of the religious establishment upon himself, becoming the first so-called Christian martyr, for only Truth tends to draw the raging genie out of a highly polished sacred lamp.

Yet, the reasoning goes that God still hadn’t got His perfect message out! Even though the Jerusalem gang had lived with Yeshua during his space-time mission and had  been taught by him post resurrection over many days, a finer intellect was needed, one who would really get it.

And so we arrive at Saul, aka Paul and his stumbling attempts to understand the One who’d knocked him off  his perch as Temple sponsored Inquisitor in Chief. The big transformation in Paul however took place somewhere else, one where most of his old religious paradigm seems to have rapidly gone down the metaphysical drain. This Pauline womb of creativity appears to have been the Arabian, or more accurately, the Jordanian desert, where the new convert claimed to have been caught up into the Jewish Third Heaven and granted unspeakable glimpses of Ultimate Reality. This is where Paul professed to have gained his insights into the whole Yeshua phenomenon, later described by him as my Gospel or Good News‘.

Later writing to his fellow Yeshua followers in Galatia, the new apostle claimed not to have received his teachings from Peter and his Jerusalem friends  but directly from the risen Yeshua. Clearly then, the converted Rabbi was what is commonly called a mystic, one who receives direct revelation from Divine Source, rather than the status quo teaching of his contemporaries.

So what, if any, is the big problem?

Wasn’t Paul clearly sent along to lift the message of Yeshua and his former disciples to a whole new level, one that the Gentile would could accept without all those painful Jewish disciplines such as circumcision? Let’s face it; which of us men wouldn’t have signed up to be a Paulian?

Well, looking back at things from our 21st century perspective it’s hard to see the problems, but problems there certainly were once Paul added his mystical mix to the existing Yeshua mythology. Many of us have observed hints of the religious rivalry within the early Yeshua movement as described in the book of Acts, a Pauline stream account of the tensions between his followers and the fledgling movement’s elder statesmen back in Jerusalem with their particularly Jewish take on their risen leader. Let’s be honest: there must be a wee bit of Pauline propaganda in Luke’s Acts narrative; no-one writes to paint their charismatic leader as a ‘heretic’ but rather the bearer of a superior revelation, one that surpasses the previously accepted take on spiritual reality. Paul, In reality Paul was only one among many interpreters of the whole Yeshua event, those who jostled for the label of God sanctioned teacher. The early Yeshua movement was I’m afraid, not one big happy family but a collage of metaphysical takes on the revolutionary Nazarene, one with it’s all too obvious tensions and rivalries.

Three centuries on the Pauline interpretation of Yeshua’s execution and resurrection were later confirmed by the Constantine instigated Counsel of Nicaea as Christian with letters accredited to his authorship later included in the accepted Canon of Holy Writings, known as the New Testament.

So what’s the big deal you say?

Well, may I humbly suggest that Paul’s writings have gained a super status position within Reformed Theology and its modern love children viz. evangelicalism and its Pentecostal and Charismatic offshoots; one that is, all things considered, spiritually unhealthy. Having been raised to the level of Sacred Scripture, Paul’s metaphysical musings infer that the Gospel narrative accounts of Yeshua’s life and teaching don’t quite reveal the Mysteries of the Cosmos. The Tao/Logos in human form did not fully reveal all that needed to be revealed. Neither in fact do the other relatively recently discovered accounts of the early Yeshua movement, in the form of the so-called ‘Gnostic Gospels’.

Am I suggesting that we shouldn’t read Paul’s or his disciples’ take on Yeshua. No not at all. There is clearly something rich and unique within his narratives that reflect the awe and wonder of the mystical Yeshua, the Cosmic Christ to borrow a New Age term. Rather, what I am suggesting is that we have ignored the Gospel narratives, both canonical and excluded, at our peril. Our spirituality has been based on Pauline interpretation, giving us a one-sided limp on our pilgrimage home. Personally I believe that all that we require to come into mimetic salvation with the Divine Source is contained hidden within the overly familiarized Yeshua accounts within the accepted Gospels.

May I humbly suggest that God didn’t grab Rabbi Saul to be ‘the’ authentic interpreter or indeed founder of ‘Christianity’, as many modern Yeshua followers subliminally believe, but to paint a uniquely colored stroke on the multifarious canvas of Divine Truth.

So let’s dip into the rich variety of religious writings that abound around the person of Yeshua rather than remain Paul freaks. To do so will make us more sensitive to our own inner Journey and that of those around us. Life, especially the spiritual life, is full of surprises.

Dylan’s Author page ~ https://www.amazon.com/author/dylanmorrison

Bread Of Life And All That!

I AM the Bread of life.

He coming toward me should under no circumstances be hungering,

And he believing into me will under no circumstances be thirsting……..

Everyone that the Father is giving to me shall be arriving toward me,

And those coming toward me I should under no circumstances be casting out,

That’s why I descended from the heavens,

Not that I should be doing my will but the Will of him sending me.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

In today’s post I wish to look at a mysterious saying of Yeshua that many of his present day followers find difficult to understand. I believe that many  Christian interpretations have missed the key to grasping the practical lessons embedded within this esoteric gem from the Nazarene. The key that I will use to reveal the hands-on applications that lie within this supposed mystical discourse is the recently discovered psycho-spiritual tool known as mimetic theory. Let me explain.

Yeshua has just fed the multitude with a multiplied sardine bread combo that satisfied their natural hunger. Having just discovered a new miracle worker in their midst the grasping crowd are now chasing him down for more of his mystical magic. However, the Galilean prophet isn’t carried away by the adulation of the throng as he engages them in discussion; a revealing heart to heart about their founding fathers’ eating habits on the way to the promised land. Back then, their starving ancestors were just glad to get their bellies filled with miraculous daily manna, a gift from their Deliverer God, YHWH. The Nazarene holy man hints that the Hebrew travellers had missed the whole point of their manna diet, just like his present audience, those baying for more Messianic thrills. This is where we encounter the above declaration from Yeshua.

I AM the Bread of life.

Most Christian comment claims that Yeshua is here declaring his divine nature, claiming that he too came from the Divine realm, like the supernatural manna of the wilderness. I have no problem with that but we can, if we wish, read it slightly differently, seeing YHWH, the I AM THAT I AM, as the Bread of life. Most interpretations perceive this life to be eternal in nature, the life of post death experience, yet surely this life is in the here and now, our day-to-day space-time adventure as lived through our soul-psyche. In the Eternal Now of Divine perspective perhaps both these forms of life are one and the same.

He, coming toward me, should under no circumstances be hungering,

Here Yeshua unpacks a great mystery, one with earthly applications. The Galilean realises that all human relationships are mimetic or imitative in nature. We find our perceptions of Self in the other, being drawn to the apparent metaphysical solidity of their personhood. The Self image that we currently hold is a collage of all that we have admired in others to date. No-one is truly their own man. The autonomy of the psyche-soul is a delusion, one that brings in its wake much psychological suffering and pain.

Understanding this, Yeshua reveals himself as an object of human desire. For those drawn into the sphere of his Being, those attached by a gut-felt, metaphysical desire, will not be disappointed. All human relationships of Model and follower eventually end in tears of separation and rivalry. Expulsion and broken relationship is the norm in the world of skewed desire. However, Yeshua claims that ultimately it won’t happen to those attracted to him. Ultimately, because it often happens to the most zealous of disciples along the Way. Simon Peter is a classic example of one who entered the dangerous role of Monstrous Double or Adversary, one who rivaled with his Master Model in attempting to stop him going up to Jerusalem to die. Yet, even such a head strong follower as the Galilean fisherman, finally got it, albeit after his Model’s future demise and unexpected comeback.

The reason that we can desire what Yeshua desires and come into his freedom, is because the Nazarene will never rival back. He will never become a Monstrous Double, one fighting us for a share of Being, for all Being resides within him, the incarnated Tao-Logos. When we understand this newly revealed gravitational dynamic and its accompanying realignment process, we are free to move into a world of desire that is ‘vertical’ rather than remain in the horizontal version where rivalry and ultimate violence prevail.

And he believing into me will under no circumstances be thirsting……..

At first glance this little nugget only seems to echo the radical message of the previous hungering statement, yet there resides here a subtle but important further unpacking of the whole mimetic or imitative process. In this declaration Yeshua replaces coming to with believing into. Modern day Yeshua followers are frankly obsessed with belief. Doctrine and dogma have become the battle fields upon which much spilt spiritual energy and blood lies crying out from holy ground, like the blood of the mythic Abel, the victim of the Founding murder. For many of us intellectually believe the right things concerning the Nazarene has replaced the believing into of this poignant statement.

So what’s the difference?

Well, intellectual belief is always operates in the sphere of the psyche-soul, our interface with this space-time realm. Hence it always contains the potential to be a weapon of our defensive and often counter-attacking ego. In ancient Middle Eastern spirituality belief was a process of trust or letting go, a lying back into the object believed into. Yeshua’s words reflect such a release, with its resulting movement into the very essence of his Being. Like Han’s Solo’s Millenium Falcon being drawn into the hold of the giant Death Star, only flipped from the Dark Side!

I would suggest that such a believing into Yeshua releases something fresh and altogether other within our weary psyches; an unlimited watering from Divine Source itself, a thirst quenching drink of Holy Breath that heals our psychic pains.

Everyone that the Father is giving to me shall be arriving toward me,

Here Yeshua suggests that the mimetic process at work in his followers doesn’t originate with him; rather, all those drawn into his desire field have somehow been placed there by his God, the Father or ‘Abba’ with whom he himself was in mimesis. Once touched by Yeshua’s all-consuming desire matrix the only way to go seems to be towards him. Perhaps this gives a Divine slant on the whole free-will ~ destiny debate that continues to confuse those of a theological bent!

And those coming toward me I should under no circumstances be casting out,

This little phrase has been hijacked by many Christian interpreters to build a case for eternal salvation, the great escape from the dreaded fires of hell. Such a fundamentalist  fire insurance  take on Yeshua’s words  is, I believe, extremely wide of his original meaning. Here is what I believe he is saying.

‘Those who are realigned into my desire field and grow into my likeness through desire exchange will never have to worry about me turning on them. Even though they become like me, I will never expel them or do them violence, unlike human Models. I will never become your Model Obstacle, the one to scapegoat you out of my Presence and Being.’

In other words, the desire link up with Yeshua is the only truly safe relationship that we can have during our space-time journey.

That’s why I descended from the heavens,

Yeshua claims here that, like the miracle manna, his Being is sourced in the Divine. The psycho-spiritual freedom that he enjoys has its origins in his Divine connection with the Transcendent Father, the One who, being Being itself, doesn’t need to rival with anyone for a sense of Self. Such a Divinity has no need to measure itself against the creatures that it has birthed. It is supremely Self-defining, yet wishing to share this freedom with its mirror images. For such a mission was the Nazarene sent – an awakening to the possibility of a rivalry free communion with our Source Spirit.

Not that I should be doing my will but the Will of him sending me. 

In taking on this task Yeshua reveals the secret of his commissioning; he has voluntarily been absorbed by the mimetic desire or will of the transcendent Other, the very passion that holds the Cosmos together. In other words, Yeshua the man, demonstrated that once a desire connection is established with Divine Love, and the skewed desire of ego set aside, we can all return to the freedom of the sons and daughters of God. Realigned with Holy Breath, the Divine essence in space-time we can run through life, free from Model Obstacle and Monstrous Double relational constraints, loosed from the gravitational pull of others who vie for psychic clones. Now if that isn’t life abundantly then I don’t know what is!

Dylan’s Author page ~ https://www.amazon.com/author/dylanmorrison

Divine Visitation

And the Tao Logos became flesh

And was tabernacling among us

And we were gazing at his glory,

A glory as of an only begotten beside Father,

Full of grace and truth.

John, the disciple beloved by Yeshua, had a great way with words, and an equally shocking take on the transcendence of Divine Love. In this post I want to look at this revealing little passage from the Johannine spiritual tradition.

And the Tao Logos became flesh

This declaration by John would have freaked out both the Greek philosophers and the Jewish theologians of his day. The Tao (Chinese) or Logos (Greek) referred to the transcendent organising principle of the cosmos to all who used the terms. An unseen mystery whose effects were only manifest in the visible world of Nature. Both the Chinese and Greek philosophers believed that this living force or energy underpinned all the material world, an ocean of sorts upon which the ship of our space-time world floated. It saturated the visible realm of all living things like water in a freshly drenched sponge, yet remained a teasing mystery to the mind of man.

John shocks us by suggesting that this Tao-Logos became flesh, in other words took on human form, or more startling become one of us! The Intelligent Mystery that upheld all things somehow poured itself or himself into a human being, in a unique Way.

And was tabernacling among us

The Presence of the Tao-Logos camped among us in human form. There is something very daring in such a risky venture on the part of the Source of All. How can the Divine Wisdom limit itself to an individual human Being. Stepping into the apparently dangerous, skewed world of form seems like a ludicrous plan for such an all-encompassing One. Why the visit? Why the intimacy of a shared human experience?

And we were gazing at his glory

The Johannine writer suggests that those who brushed up against this incarnated Tao-Logos were unknowingly given a chance to observe at close quarters the very manifest Essence of the Divine visitor’. In some strange way, the Tao-Logos could be observed face to face, rather than the rare glimpses that it previously revealed to the spiritual seekers of all cultures. The Shekinah Cloud of Presence that had previously visited Solomon’s Temple on rare occasions had now moved into the earthy area of human existence. Yet, unsurprisingly such a Presence was missed by the majority of the crowd, content to play the old religious games of their Jewish forefathers.

A glory as of an only begotten beside Father

The glory or shining of the visiting Tao-Logos was in some way unique. Not the reflected glory of all those made in the Divine image, but the glory of One intimately in on the God thing before the beginning of space-time. One birthed in some mysterious Way by the Creative Father Source outside the limitations of material cause and effect. One in companionship and partnership with the Divine Cause of All. A co-worker in the hilarious Dance of Creation and Being. One there to enjoy relationship within the Mystery that we call God.

Full of grace and truth

So what of the nature of the One who birthed Nature? The flow of Life known as the Tao-Logos knows only one direction, viz. that of giving. Secure in its own Being it pours out its Divine energy into the fabric of All Things, us included. A non judgemental Presence whose only aim is to heal and restore the psyche-soul of mankind.

Once we come to the liberating realisation that Truth is not a set of beliefs our world is turned upside down. To discover that the Tao-Logos is just not an impersonal force as in Star Wars, but a Presence that manifested itself in the person of a Man, is a psycho-spiritual shock to our systemized world view. That which was Mystery has made the quantum leap into humanity to demonstrate its Nature in a way that we can easily understand viz compassion and unconditional love for the creation it has birthed.

So, if we wish to discover the invisible Tao-Logos, or Way-Word for ourselves, let’s look no further than the Nazarene, Yeshua Bar Yosef. In observing him, we may surprisingly get in touch with our own inner chamber, our sacred space within where the Mystery of Mysteries has also come to dwell; the Spirit Breath that unites us with the timeless Life Flow between Father and Son.

Dylan’s Author page ~ https://www.amazon.com/author/dylanmorrison

The Mysticism of John

‘In beginning was the Tao/Logos

And the Tao/Logos was toward God ……..

All was coming into being through it

And apart from it nothing has yet come into being …..

In it was life

And the life was the light of humanity.

And the light is appearing in the darkness

And the darkness grasped it not.’

John ~ the Beloved

In today’s post I wish to revisit some well-known words accredited to the Johannine stream of the early Yeshua movement, hopefully opening them up to a broader and more exciting take on the Mystery that is the Godhead.

In beginning was the Tao/Logos

And the Tao/Logos was toward God ……..

Outside space-time there is no beginning as such. Was the writer referring here to the timeless Eternal Now where Divine Love dwells or just is? Or is he alluding to the beginning of space-time itself? Either way, he seems to suggest that the Creative Intelligence or Organising Principle of Chinese and Greek philosophical thought is the great Constant in what we perceive to be existence. The Tao/Logos always was and in some strange relational way constantly gazes into the face of Divine Love itself. This mysterious connection and directional flow of life appears to be central to all that the writer goes on to expound.

All was coming into being through it

And apart from it nothing has yet come into being …..

All that exists outside this Eternal Essence is birthed and continues to have its being in and through its Divine Self. Nothing lies outside its Organisational Mind and Creative Energy. Everything that truly is hangs on the transcendent coat stand of its Being.

In it was life

And the life was the light of humanity.

Life, whatever life truly is, finds its origins in the Tao/Logos. It is the womb from which this consciousness that we call life has emerged. In some mysterious way there exists a deep union between life and light. In our space-time world light is a must for the propagation of life. In Ultimate Reality, the Divine Life reveals its Presence as Light, a Light that is meant for the spiritual eyes of mankind; a Divine radiance that targets the heart of humanity.

And the light is appearing in the darkness

And the darkness grasped it not.

Where does darkness dwell but in the fragmented psyche of our inner self? Does darkness have any independent existence apart from our wounded souls. Is it real as the Tao/Logos is real. Or is it a virtual reality dream world created by the trauma of withdrawn love. Whatever its essence it is impossible for such darkness to keep Divine Light at bay. Once it has decided to shine the Light of the Tao/Logos can enter the world of our psychic darkness at will. Yet if we cling to the inner darkness that promises to protect us from further rejection and psychic wounding we can remain blind to the revelation of Ultimate Reality via the ever-present Light. Preferring to remain in the apparent safety of our programmed darkness we miss the liberating life and wholeness of the visiting Light.

There’s one thing for sure: we cannot escape the Presence of the Tao/Logos even if we bury our heads in the psychic sand of our fragmented self. When we chose to open our eyes to Ultimate Reality, tired of our days of darkness, our whole world will take on a new splendour. Like a previously shuttered window now opened to the stream of sunshine and its generating warmth, our cold, dried out soul will welcome the transforming Life of the Tao/Logos. No longer will life be a struggle to survive in the jungle of our misperceived reality but a joyful Dance in the Eternal Light, a wild abandon to the underpinning Love that holds the whole space-time thing together. A Presence that now carries the illusory load of our fear filled psyche, One in which we can lie back and kick off the shoes of Self Effort and religious duty.

Dylan’s Author page ~ https://www.amazon.com/author/dylanmorrison

A Shepherd’s Song

In my last few posts I’ve been focusing on the fanaticism and spiritual abuse that often lurk within our commonly accepted religious mindsets and practices. It’s a message that I felt nudged to write about since the tragic dynamic of such experiences is constantly at work the world over. Even though I personally walked away from such abuse way back in 1986 I still observe it and sense its destructive psychological effects in those in regular contact with me. Yet, thankfully there is a spiritual baby left to enjoy in the world of faith, once we’ve thrown out the putrid bath water of spiritual abuse and religious mind-control. For me that baby is communicated as the Divine Presence, known simply by Yeshua as ‘Abba’. In this and future posts I wish to delve into the psycho-spiritual truths that often lie hidden under the traditional readings of some well-known passages from both Jewish and Christian holy writings.

Today I start with an intimate ancient God song penned by a famous Jewish shepherd boy:

‘I AM that I AM’, my Shepherd 

I shall not lack’

When we are connected to the ‘I AM’, both within and without, we travel on the river of Divine Being, a flow of wholeness and Union, a place of knowing that we are not alone; a place where all we need is given in its time.

‘He makes me lie down in pastures of tender grass:

He guides me beside the waters of rest’

At times Divine Love over-rides our supposed free will, orchestrating circumstances whereby we’re gently, or not so gently, made to take a break from our desire wars and lie down in a place that will feed the spirit ‘I AM’ within. Once back in touch with what’s really important we are taught to walk in ‘Spirit’, the Divine Flow that always brings a sense of ease and wholeness to our daily psycho-spiritual experience.

‘He restores my soul:

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his names sake’

Divine Presence is a healer; One who heals our wounded psyche, reintegrating our defensive sub-personalities into the wholeness of Self. As this process continues we shall begin to live as we were designed to live, in harmonious relationship with God and man. When folk observe our new way of being, they will wonder if there is a God after all.

‘Moreover, though I’m walking through the Valley of the Shadow,

I will fear no evil’

Even though I’m experiencing the darkness of depression and psychological turmoil, even to the stage of fearing my insanity and premature death, I have no need to be afraid. The perceived brokenness of my psychological disintegration is not the highest reality.

‘For You with me;

Your rod and your staff comfort me.’

In the darkness of fear’s grip I am not alone. The I AM is with me, indeed a part of me! The Voice of Wisdom will keep me walking in psychological health, the Divine Presence will give me its transcendent perspective on what my fear fuelled sub-personalities are screaming at me.

‘You continue to prepare a table for me in the midst of my adversaries’ 

When my Model Obstacle and Monstrous Double relationships try to pull me back into desire rivalry, you provide an alternative; a sacred space where I can commune with You, free from their aggressive gravitational pull.

‘You anoint my head with the oil;

My cup is always running over’

You pour Spirit Breath in and through my mind, giving me a clarity and authority to Be my Self. My psyche always has a fresh supply of psychic energy running through it, to enjoy for my Self and to inspire others on their Journey.

‘Only goodness and Divine Love will follow me all the days of my life:

And I will dwell in I AM that I AM’s house to the length of my days’

I cannot get away from Divine Love nor the beneficial psycho-spiritual aspects of its compassion and acceptance. Even on the day of my last breath, the Divine Presence will be still be the same as it has always been viz present. Until then I co-habit with Spirit Breath and She with me. My healing psyche now has a live in Presence that roots me into my Divine destiny; one that extends beyond my space-time experience into the mysteries of the Divine plan.

Dylan’s Author page ~ https://www.amazon.com/author/dylanmorrison