The Holy Meeting Place

Originally, I launched THE HOLY MEETING PLACE on another blog-hosting platform on January 6, 2023. Since then, I published thirty-six posts explaining and comparing the TRUE teachings of the Holy Bible, the Rig Veda, and A Course in Miracles (my primary path for the past thirty years). When my magnum opus suddenly disappeared a few days ago — without warning or explanation from Blogger — I decided to move the content to WordPress under my own URL.

Launching the blog on the Feast of the Epiphany wasn’t accidental – nor was it strictly my idea. When guided (in meditation) to launch THE HOLY MEETING PLACE on that date, I knew that January 6 marked the arrival of the three Wise Men in Bethlehem. I also knew the event was allegorical, rather than historical, as are most things in scriptural texts.

What does the Adoration of the Magi represent? That’s a question without an easy answer. The Three Kings probably represent the Atonement Trinity shifting the universal consciousness eastward over time toward the “star” on the seventh plane.

Jesus mentions that metaphoric “star” in the following from the Course:

The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come. He comes demanding nothing. No sacrifice of any kind, of anyone, is asked by Him. In His Presence the whole idea of sacrifice loses all meaning. For He is Host to God. And you need but invite Him in Who is there already, by recognizing that His Host is One, and no thought alien to His Oneness can abide with Him there. Love must be total to give Him welcome, for the Presence of Holiness creates the holiness that surrounds it. No fear can touch the Host Who cradles God in the time of Christ, for the Host is as holy as the perfect Innocence which He protects, and Whose power protects Him. (ACIM, T-15.XI.2:1-9)

Through subsequent research I learned that the Feast of the Epiphany is observed on a different date in regions still using the Julian calendar. Christian churches in these eastern regions celebrate Epiphany on January 19 — my body birthday.

Happy accident or a carefully orchestrated part of God’s Great and Perfect Plan? The answer is ALWAYS the latter, as Course-Jesus makes clear in the following:

It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events outside of him. It is impossible that happenings that come to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident. No accident nor chance is possible within the universe as God created it, outside of which is nothing. Suffer, and you decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you gave the power of decision to Him Who must decide for God for you. This is the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, and even this He gives to you to give yourself. For by this gift is given you the power to release your savior, that he may give salvation unto you. (ACIM, T-21.II.3:1-8)

Noteworthily, the Eastern Feast Day commemorates the baptism of Jesus, rather than the arrival of the Three Kings in Bethlehem. Why is this noteworthy? Before I answer that, let me explain that the word “epiphany” predominately means “the revelation or incarnation of God in the world.” In Christianity, the word is mainly applied to the incarnation or manifestation of God in the world as the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Western Christians, believing Jesus was God-incarnate from birth, celebrate the Epiphany when the news of that presumed incarnation spread to the “gentiles” in India, Arabia, and the Far East. Eastern Christians, on the other hand, believe Jesus attained, realized, or remembered his inner-divinity through the ritual purification of baptism.

In actuality, Jesus first wholly embodied the Pure State of Grace that IS Christ Consciousness not at birth or through physical baptism, but at the event described in Mark 9:2-13, Matthew 17:1-13, and Luke 9:28-36. He experienced this TRANSFIGURATION from Son of Man (individual ego-body self-identification) to Son of God (unified Christ-Self identification) AFTER and as a desirable effect of his forty-day ordeal in the “desert” or “wilderness.”

As explained in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus was repeatedly harassed by Satan during an extended period of isolation and fasting. During that time, the Devil tempted Jesus “in every way that we are, except without sin” (as per the Epistle of the Hebrews).

We’ll discuss the accuracy of that statement another time. For now, just know that Satan departed in defeat only after Jesus resisted EVERY offered temptation. Shortly thereafter, Jesus went into the metaphoric mountains, where he experienced what Christians RIGHTLY understand to be “Holy Glorification.”

When it comes to sacred texts, “literal” is synonymous with “unilluminated.”

As I said before, almost everything in the Bible is symbolic or allegorical, rather than literal or historical. This is, in fact, true of all divinely revealed scriptural texts, including the Course. When it comes to sacred texts, “literal” is synonymous with “unilluminated.” The deeper meaning of these texts, therefore, can only be understood and explained by those who’ve received the gift of illumination.

And such individuals are, unfortunately, few and far between in this world.

That I count myself among them may sound arrogant, but it’s simply an acknowledgement of Truth.

Or, as Course-Jesus explains:

To use the power God has given you as He would have it used is natural. It is not arrogant to be as He created you, nor to make use of what He gave to answer all His Son’s mistakes and set him free. But it is arrogant to lay aside the power that He gave, and choose a little senseless wish instead of what He wills. The gift of God to you is limitless. There is no circumstance it cannot answer, and no problem which is not resolved within its gracious light. (ACIM, T-26.VII.18:1-5)

Having been gifted with illumination, I feel dutybound to shed much-needed light on the scriptural truths shrouded so long in darkness. And this blog is the vehicle for that aspect of my earthly ministry.

In this initial post, let’s decipher the symbols in the two allegories mentioned above: the Last Temptation and the Transfiguration. Let’s start with the story of the Last Temptation, in which Jesus goes alone into a metaphoric “desert” or “wilderness,” wherein he passes forty days fasting and resisting Satan’s many taunts and temptations.

Oh, btw, Satan (Sat-an) is a word of Sanskrit origin meaning “not of God.”

The Last Temptation of Christ

Did Jesus really go into the desert alone for forty days? Probably, but that’s not the point. The point is that he was acting out a template script for the rest of us.

In the story of the Last Temptation, Jesus isn’t Jesus, the son of Mary. He’s Jesus, the symbolic Son of God, Christ Self, Word of God, or Logos — the corporate Body of Christ to which all God’s Creations belong in Divine Reality. Likewise, the “desert” or “wilderness” isn’t a specific physical locale; it represents the “water-less” illusion of physical existence we only THINK is real. That illusion takes place in the imaginary “world” we PERCEIVE through our physical senses.

 That Jesus was alone during his ordeal in this metaphorical “desert” speaks to the isolation, loneliness, alienation, and abandonment we experience in the “dreamscape” variously known as the Kingdom of Darkness (Christianity), Brahmanda (Hinduism), and Samsara Maya (Buddhism). That Jesus fasted to the point of starvation while in this emblematic “wilderness” denotes the terrible hunger and/or thirst our Souls experience in the barren wasteland of nothingness this world actually is.

Contrary to popular belief, God did NOT create the illusory Kingdom of Darkness, Cosmic Egg, or Sea of Samsara. Nor for that matter did our Father in Heaven make the bodies through which we experience the illusion of physical existence. All visible matter is woven from the fibers of FEAR, a dense thought-substance we produced eons ago to block our memories of God, Heaven, and our True Identities. Fear, Jesus tells us in the Course, is the UNREAL opposite of God’s Perfect Love. As such, fear “literally starves the Soul by denying its daily bread.”

The Soul’s “daily bread” isn’t made from yeast and flour; it’s the “manna” from Heaven that flows into our dreaming minds in blessed streams of Saving Grace.

The Soul’s “daily bread” isn’t made from yeast and flour; it’s the “manna” from Heaven that flows into our dreaming minds in blessed streams of Saving Grace. Elsewhere in the synoptic gospels, Jesus describes these Soul-sustaining streams as “Living Water.”

In John 7:38, for example, he says:

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

The word “belly” is, of course, a literal translation of the Greek word κοιλία. Figuratively, the word refers to the “nous” or innermost heart-mind of the Holy Spirit dwelling within all living beings. And that is indeed the source of the Living Water.

In the Course, Jesus uses the dreamscape-as-desert metaphor several times. In one especially pointed reference, he says:

A desert is a desert is a desert. You can do anything you want in it, but cannot change it from what it is. It still lacks water, which is why it is a desert. The thing to do with a desert is to leave.

We leave the desert, he tells us in the New Testament, by drinking the mind-purifying “waters” of God’s Grace. But where do we find this miracle water and how do we drink it? He doesn’t appear to tell us, does he? And yet, he does tell us. It doesn’t seem as if he does because his instructions were altered beyond recognition by ego-deceived translators and interpreters.

Jesus warned us about putting our faith in such individuals more than once in the New Testament. In Matthew 7:15-20, for example, he says:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Most Biblical interpreters suggest that by “fruit” he meant actions or deeds, as in “actions speak louder than words.” But that contradicts St. Paul’s statements (in Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 3:28) that we are saved not by actions, but by Grace alone. And Paul is absolutely right.

We are saved by listening to the vibratory echo of God’s Voice in our minds — NOT by anything we do in the world.

We are saved by listening to the vibratory echo of God’s Voice in our minds — NOT by anything we do in the world. So, the “fruits” to which Jesus refers in Matthew’s gospel are the gifts we receive through that hallowed meditative practice. And one of those gifts is illuminated understanding of the scriptures.

Ergo, those who translate and interpret the scriptures egoically, while claiming to have enlightened understanding, are among the false prophets Jesus warns us about.

In the Course, Jesus DOES explain the WHERE and the HOW. The WHERE is within us and the HOW is listening in deep silence. Listening to what? The “unstruck sound” Course-Jesus calls by all of the following names (and several more besides): the Call to Joy, the Call to Awaken, the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit’s Voice, the ever-present echo, the Song of Heaven, and the ancient melody.

What he means is the sound Buddhists call “Om,” Hindus call “AUM,” and Bible-Jesus calls “Living Water.”

Or, as Course-Jesus explains:

The principle of Atonement and the separation began at the same time. When the ego was made, God placed in the mind the Call to joy. This Call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at Its sound. That is why you must choose to hear one of two voices within you. One you made yourself, and that one is not of God. But the other is given you by God, Who asks you only to listen to it. The Holy Spirit is in you in a very literal sense. His is the Voice that calls you back to where you were before and will be again. It is possible even in this world to hear only that Voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God’s Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Sons.

We’ll talk more about that Holy Stream of Sound in future posts. For now, let’s return to the Last Temptation. In the story, Satan offers Jesus some rocks and says, “Hey, if you’re so powerful, turn these stones into bread to sate your hunger.” By refusing to perform this little “trick,” Jesus communicates to us that the SELF he represents in the story won’t be satisfied by anything “not of God.”

To understand the message, we also must understand that Satan — NOT God — made the dream-world of time, space, and matter. It also was Satan, and NOT God, who made our bodies and everything we seek to make them more beautiful, wealthy, powerful, healthy, popular, happy, desirable, or comfortable.

The story of the Last Temptation also conveys the Great Truth that to leave the desert of earthly existence, we must reject ALL the temptations and false idols Satan uses to spin “cocoons of fear” around our Higher Minds. To break free of these amnesic “sleeping sacks,” we must remember that we are and always have been God’s free-flying butterflies — not the Great Deceiver’s earth-bound caterpillars.

To escape our perceptual pupas, we must empty our hands of possessions, our hearts of grievances, and our minds of every idea the Devil would have us believe and defend. As long as we still desire EVEN ONE of Satan’s “sticky threads,” we will remain his web-bound prey.

The Transfiguration

Let’s now turn to the Transfiguration narrative, which is similarly allegorical. In parenthetical shorthand, the story’s actual meaning is this: After defeating Satan (the Ego Mind) in the desert (the lower levels of consciousness), Jesus (the Christ Self or Universal Soul) will go into the mountains (of Higher Consciousness), which it will climb until it is purified enough to experience “Transfiguration.”

Okay, so … why am I telling you all of this? The short answer is: Because it matters. I hinted at this earlier, but now I’m going to drive the point home: Everything Jesus did on earth symbolized the journey we all must take to return to God, Heaven, Knowledge, Omniscience, Superconsciousness, or Spiritual Sanity (choose your preferred term). More than just instructive allegories, the events recorded in the synoptic gospels are the milestones the Holy Spirit set in place, through the life of Jesus Christ, to mark the path we all must follow out of the metaphoric “desert” or “wilderness.”

More than just instructive allegories, the events recorded in the synoptic gospels are the milestones the Holy Spirit set in place, through the life of Jesus Christ, to mark the path we all must follow out of the metaphoric “desert” or “wilderness.”

Those milestones are inside us, not “out there” in the physical world. Hindus, Buddhists, and other metaphysical teachers call these internal markers “chakras.” In the Course, Jesus refers to them as the Lamps of Heaven or Lamps of God. Using these “lamps,” the Great Rays light our way back up the metaphorical ladder we climbed down into deeper and denser levels of the illusion of physical existence.

The rungs of that ladder represent the FOUR levels of consciousness, perception, or Self-awareness we “fell down” and now must “climb” back up — in the same order.

We must, in other words, RETRACE the missteps we took, downward and outward, into the “desert” or “wilderness” after the initial Fall from Grace, Detour into Fear, Great Projection, or Exodus from Eden (again, choose your preferred term).

Understanding the steps, their correct order, and what they actually signify is, therefore, crucial to anyone striving to attain deliverance. Because Roman Catholics believe Jesus was born enlightened — and Catholic authorities chose the New Testament canon to further their interpretation — the canonical gospels only include the latter three of the four steps: Baptism, Transfiguration, and Ascension. The first step is “Spiritual Birth” or “Initiation,” which begins when we invite the Holy Spirit to show us the way.

These four steps are called by different names in different metaphysical teachings. In Advaita Vedanta, they are “Dualism,” “Semi Non-Dualism,” “Non-Dualism,” and “Pure Non-Dualism”; in traditional Hinduism, they are “Dharma,” “Artha,” “Kama,” and “Moksha”; in many schools of Yoga, they are “Self-Awareness,” “Self-Realization,” “Christ-Realization,” and “God-Realization”; in traditional Christianity, they are “Justification,” “Redemption,” “Sanctification,” and “Forgiveness”; and in Theosophy, they are “Shrôtâpanna,” “Sagardagan,” “Anagamin,” and “Arhan.”

Different names, essentially, for the same ideas.

Okay, phew. Let’s stop here for now, because I’ve thrown a lot of information at you and I’m still just clearing my throat. If your head is swimming, don’t worry, because I’ll explain all of these ideas — and may more besides — in greater detail as we move forward.

Up next, we’re going to explore the question of questions: What is God? So, keep reading or, better yet, subscribe or follow THE HOLY MEETING PLACE so you don’t miss any new insights.

Until we meet again, Namaste and God Bless.