Today, I want to clarify that the Word of God is not a printed text. As we learn in ACIM Workbook Lesson 125: In quiet I receive God’s Word today, the Word of God is the vibratory sound emanating from the Logos to remind us of the Truths we’ve forgotten in the dream of earthly existence.
Sat-an, whose job is to block the Truth, doesn’t want us to know this–and goes to great lengths to ensure that we remain in a state of spiritual amnesia. When, for example, Jesus tried to tell us this when he walked the earth, he was called a “blasphemer” and put to death for his alleged “crimes.” In the century following his death, his teachings about “turning within to know God” were deliberately redacted from the four New Testament gospels, condemned as “gnostic” heresy, and ordered destroyed by the early advocates for a universal (catholic) Christian doctrine and formalized “religion” or “church” they could control (and profit from).
According to those redacted gospels, Jesus was arrested and tried by the Sanhedrin, a Jewish legislative and judicial assembly operating in Israel at the time, and then sent to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, to stand trial.
Was that what really happened?
Not according to the two Ascended Masters who dictated The Disappearance of the Universe to Gary R. Renard. Being a Jewish body, the Sanhedrin would never, under any circumstances, turn one of their own people over to the Roman oppressors of the Judeans. This report was, according to the Masters, nothing more than a propagandistic attempt to make the Jews appear culpable in the death of Jesus.
Equally fallacious was the story of Jesus overturning the tables of the money-changers in the Temple prior to his arrest. Those who know the Truth, as Jesus surely did, also know that anger arises from the upside-down perception he no longer possessed.

Or, to quote Course-Jesus:
Anger is never justified. Attack has no foundation. It is here escape from fear begins, and will be made complete. Here is the real world given in exchange for dreams of terror. For it is on this forgiveness rests, and is but natural. You are not asked to offer pardon where attack is due, and would be justified. For that would mean that you forgive a sin by overlooking what is really there. This is not pardon. For it would assume that, by responding in a way which is not justified, your pardon will become the answer to attack that has been made. And thus is pardon inappropriate, by being granted where it is not due. (ACIM, T-30.VI.1:1-10)
And we bought this filthy lie, among many others, because too many of us still delight in believing the Father of Lies.

Last time, we talked briefly about Herod Antipas, who is mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Not only is Antipas named by the Great Amen, he also is rather curiously described as “my faithful witness.”
Why might this be?
Probably because a) he believed Jesus had miraculous powers and 2) he found Jesus innocent of the charges against him. In the time of Jesus, Antipas was the Herodian “king” of Galilee. He was neither Roman nor Jewish, but he did have Caesar’s support and was more sensitive to Jewish beliefs than were the Romans. He didn’t put pagan idols on his coins, for example. Technically, Herod and Pilate shared overlapping jurisdictions, and Pilate, being the bigger fish, often took precedence over the dynastic “king.” Consequently, the two became bitter political rivals.

The Gospel of Luke tells us that, following his arrest, Jesus was first brought before Pilate to be tried. Being the governor of Roman Judea, Pilate had judicial authority over Jerusalem, where Jesus was taken into custody. Learning that Jesus was from Galilee, Pilate handed him over to Herod Antipas. According to Wikipedia, “this was seen as a politically expedient move to show deference to Herod and to get rid of the troublesome case.” Hoping to witness a miracle, Herod briefly questioned Jesus — and allowed his soldiers to mock him. Finding no cause to charge Jesus with a capital offense, Herod sent him back to Pilate, who consequently tried the self-proclaimed “King of the Jews” on the trumped-up charges of blasphemy and treason.
Why am I telling you all this? Mainly because I want you to KNOW that Jesus did indeed teach that the Kingdom of Heaven can only be found within (as he states in Luke 17:22)–by listening to the Word of God inside our minds.
As stated at the outset, the Word of God is NOT a book. It’s not the Bible, the Qur’an, or any other scriptural text. How to HEAR the Word of God, on the other hand, has been written into these and other sacred texts many times down the ages. Those instructions have, unfortunately, been distorted beyond recognition by those who presume to know what they don’t, in fact, KNOW, but would have us believe all the same — to our great peril.
Or, as Jesus says in Matthew 15:14:
Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

I’m not making this up. We don’t “commune” with God “through his Word,” by reading, reciting, or memorizing scriptural texts, as many so-called “teachers of God” profess, and as Google misleadingly reports below in an AI assimilation of the prevailing wisdom:
To commune with the Word of God means engaging in a two-way conversation with God through prayer and study of the Bible, where you first hear from Him by reading and reflecting on His word, and then respond to Him in prayer. This process involves deep thinking, meditation, and allowing God’s truth to influence your life, which strengthens your relationship with Him.
That’s the big, fat fib Sat-an and his self-deceiving agents want us to believe, of course. Consequently, we can read the scriptures till our eyes burn with fatigue, and pray till our knees are raw and scabby, and we still won’t “know” God. We are, in fact, no better than a “thief and a robber,” as Jesus states plainly in John 10:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.
And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
Not exactly what he said, but in the ballpark. What he means is this: Anyone who claims there’s another way to reach the door into the green pastures of the Resting Place (the sheepfold), are THIEVES of the Great Truth that will set us all free. The ONLY way in is to HEAR HIS VOICE. And the only way to HEAR HIS VOICE is by silencing the ego’s endless chatter and listening to God’s reassuring whispers in the stillness underneath, as Course-Jesus thoroughly explains in the aforementioned Workbook Lesson 125. Because this is such a critical lesson, I’ve quoted the whole of it below:
Let this day be a day of stillness and of quiet listening. Your Father wills you hear His Word today. He calls to you from deep within your mind where He abides. Hear Him today. No peace is possible until His Word is heard around the world; until your mind, in quiet listening, accepts the message that the world must hear to usher in the quiet time of peace.
This world will change through you. No other means can save it, for God’s plan is simply this: The Son of God is free to save himself, given the Word of God to be his Guide, forever in his mind and at his side to lead him surely to his Father’s house by his own will, forever free as God’s. He is not led by force, but only love. He is not judged, but only sanctified.
In stillness we will hear God’s Voice today without intrusion of our petty thoughts, without our personal desires, and without all judgment of His holy Word. We will not judge ourselves today, for what we are can not be judged. We stand apart from all the judgments which the world has laid upon the Son of God. It knows him not. Today we will not listen to the world, but wait in silence for the Word of God.
Hear, holy Son of God, your Father speak. His Voice would give to you His holy Word, to spread across the world the tidings of salvation and the holy time of peace. We gather at the throne of God today, the quiet place within the mind where He abides forever, in the holiness that He created and will never leave.
He has not waited until you return your mind to Him to give His Word to you. He has not hid Himself from you, while you have wandered off a little while from Him. He does not cherish the illusions which you hold about yourself. He knows His Son, and wills that he remain as part of Him regardless of his dreams; regardless of his madness that his will is not his own.
Today He speaks to you. His Voice awaits your silence, for His Word can not be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled. Await His Word in quiet. There is peace within you to be called upon today, to help make ready your most holy mind to hear the Voice for its Creator speak.
Three times today, at times most suitable for silence, give ten minutes set apart from listening to the world, and choose instead a gentle listening to the Word of God. He speaks from nearer than your heart to you. His Voice is closer than your hand. His Love is everything you are and that He is; the same as you, and you the same as He.
It is your voice to which you listen as He speaks to you. It is your word He speaks. It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son. In quiet listen to your Self today, and let Him tell you God has never left His Son, and you have never left your Self.
Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this, to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body’s eyes. Only be still and listen. You will hear the Word in which the Will of God the Son joins in His Father’s Will, at one with it, with no illusions interposed between the wholly indivisible and true. As every hour passes by today, be still a moment and remind yourself you have a special purpose for this day; in quiet to receive the Word of God.
God’s Word also is God’s Name, which takes many forms in human language. In reality, it’s an unstruck sound — an ancient forgotten melody we sing together in praise of Holy Creation’s everlasting Wholeness; the all-encompassing All-in-All that IS God’s Love.
Or, to again quote the Course:
Love cannot judge. As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. Its meaning lies in oneness. And it must elude the mind that thinks of it as partial or in part. There is no love but God’s, and all of love is His. There is no other principle that rules where love is not. Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds Them both forever as the same. (ACIM, W-127.3:1-8)
Christians believe the Bible is the “word” of God, but it’s not. As we are told in 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”
Yes, scripture is God-breathed and useful, but it is NOT “eternal,” “alive and active,” “sharper than any double-edged sword,” “a Lamp to our feet,” or “firmly set in Heaven” (where there are no words), as the true Word of God is described in various Bible verses.
Muslims even more emphatically believe the Al-Quran to be the one and only literal “word of Allah” revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. I’m still looking for the passage where this is allegedly stated outright in the text itself, because I can assure you it’s a mistranslation of whatever was actually recorded.

And so, incidentally, is the widely professed meaning of the word Quran itself as “the recitation.” Rather than being a form of qara (to recite), Qu’ran almost certainly derives from Qarana (قَرَنَ), a word meaning “to join” or “to yoke.”
Was the Qur’an divinely revealed, as Muslims believe? Yes, it was “God-breathed,” but the Great Truths it contains also have been translated and interpreted down the years by “blind leaders.” I mean no offense, but only the Truth will set us free. So, yes, the Qur’an was divinely revealed, as were the Course, the Rig Veda, the Bhagavad Gita, and parts of the Torah and the Bible.
But being “divinely revealed” is not the same as being the literal Word of God. Because the Word of God is the vibratory sound of God’s Voice emanating from the Logos on the seventh plane of consciousness–the innermost, uppermost “chamber of communal knowing” within our own Holy Minds.
Or, to quote Course-Jesus:
Communion, not prayer, is the natural state of those who know. God and His miracle are inseparable. How beautiful indeed are the Thoughts of God who live in His light! Your worth is beyond perception because it is beyond doubt. Do not perceive yourself in different lights. Know yourself in the One Light where the miracle that is you is perfectly clear. (ACIM, T-3.V.10:4-9)
Rightly understood, God’s vibratory Word is “the yoke” that fuses Holy Creation together as one, even in the dream of separation. So, in the truest sense, Al-Qur’an is indeed the Word of God. The Yoke, that is to say, not the text itself.
I looked again, and this time I found that Qur’an 15:9 is the verse presumably proclaiming the Qur’an to be the literal Word of God. So, let’s dig deeper to see what we can learn.
Qur’an 15:9 reads as follows in transliterated Arabic:
Inna nahnu nazzalna al-dhikra wa inna lahu lahafizoon
Commonly, those words are translated as follows:
Indeed, it is We who sent down the Reminder (the Qur’an), and indeed, We will be its Guardian.
More precisely, the line reads thusly:
Truly, we have sent down (in pieces) the Reminder [of God or the Kingdom of Heaven] and truly, we will be its preservers.
No mention of the Qur’an itself at all — or the Word of God, for that matter. The word translated as “the Reminder” is al-dhikra— a phrase frequently used in the Qur’an to describe itself. Moreover, the Arabic phrase Al-Dhikra specifically refers to remembering and glorifying God, both verbally through phrases like “SubhanAllah” (Glory be to Allah) and “Alhamdulillah” (All praise is due to Allah), and internally through thought and introspection. According to Google, “This practice is an important act of worship that brings spiritual peace and a connection with the Creator.”
Now, compare my illuminated translation of Qur’an 15:9 to what Course-Jesus explains below regarding the Holy Spirit:
The Voice of the Holy Spirit does not command, because It is incapable of arrogance. It does not demand, because It does not seek control. It does not overcome, because It does not attack. It merely reminds. It is compelling only because of what It reminds you OF. It brings to your mind the other way, remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you may make. The Voice for God is always quiet, because It speaks of peace. Peace is stronger than war because it heals. War is division, not increase. No one gains from strife. What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? If you listen to the wrong voice you HAVE lost sight of your soul. You cannot lose it, but you can not know it. It is therefore “lost” to you until you choose right.
The Holy Spirit is your Guide in choosing. He is in the part of your mind that always speaks for the right choice, because He speaks for God. He is your remaining communication with God, which you can interrupt but cannot destroy. The Holy Spirit is the way in which God’s Will is done on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and earth are in you, because the call of both is in your mind. The Voice for God comes from your own altars to Him. These altars are not things; they are devotions. Yet you have other devotions now. Your divided devotion has given you the two voices, and you must choose at which altar you want to serve. The call you answer now is an evaluation because it is a decision. The decision is very simple. It is made on the basis of which call is worth more to you.
Now, compare this with what Bible-Jesus says in John 14:26:
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
From these three “God-breathed” passages we can glean that the Holy Spirit is Al-Dhikra, the Reminder, as well as Al-Qur’an, “the Yoke” — the same yoke Jesus describes as “easy” in Matthew 11:30. In Sanskrit, the word Yoga also means “to yoke” or “to join.” So, Qur’an and Yoga carry the exact same meaning. Both words describe the Holy Spirit–the “yoke,” “the bridge,” and/or, “the Reminder” connecting our Souls with their forgotten memories of God and Heaven.
Like I keep saying: Truth is ONE, my dozing brother. If it appears to be different in the scriptures of various faiths, it’s only because Sat-an and his dark “angels” radically mucked-up the original wording and/or meaning somewhere along the line.
Ergo, the Bible, the Course, the Qur’an, the Rig Veda, the Torah, and the Kabbalah all speak the same Truths, as I strive to demonstrate here at The Holy Meeting Place dot com. They are, therefore, all equally valid and equally sacrosanct in their original, unadulterated phraseology.
So, please stop quibbling about whose religion or scriptures are more true and godly. Because they’re all, at their heart, equally true and holy. None of them is, however, the literal Word of God.
In a nutshell:
Word of God = Voice for God = Name of God = the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost
and
the Holy Spirit = the Yoke, the Bridge, and the Reminder.
Or, to again quote Course-Jesus:
Beneath your words is written the Word of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His. (ACIM, W-12.5:7-8)
Thanks for visiting. Until next time, Om Hari Om and Namaste.

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