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Sensual Pleasures & Enlightenment: Buddha and TMichael

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Sensual Pleasures and Enlightenment, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/sensual-pleasu…-enlightenment/
Sensual pleasures and enlightenment

Conversation with Buddha and TMichael: Sensual Pleasures and Enlightenment

TM: I’d like to talk about one area that seems to be rejected by Christianity and Buddhism (maybe for different reasons) and yet Hinduism embraces it in part.  And that is pleasures of the flesh. Two questions come to mind.  When you say give up the pleasures of the flesh, or give up the sensory pleasures, what do you mean?  Why do we have to forego pleasure in order to appreciate and live a spiritual life in the flesh?

Master Buddha: Those questions allow me to clarify some misunderstandings that have arisen from my original teachings and Master Jesus’ teachings too.  Let me emphasize too that those teachings were provided for an earlier time in which the conditions of the time were different than they are now and so adjustment is required.

First of all for context, the questions posed that aroused the teachings had to do with achieving enlightenment or salvation.  They were intended for disciples who had dedicated their lives to tread the path. Those who recorded the essence of the sermons and discussions were biased by their own personal beliefs toward the ideas presented.  This doesn’t mean they are completely inaccurate, it just means that one must make allowances for the bias.

Secondly, we were in our own time biased by our own lives while incarnated.  While it is true that Master Jesus and I achieved states of enlightenment beyond the norm we could not escape the effects of being human.  This is often forgotten or is dismissed because we are elevated above our actual experience in the flesh by devotees and followers.

Now let me address your questions.  Sensuality is a natural part of being human.  It is so natural in fact that it can be mistaken as the primary aspect of ones being.  It is in reality a reflection of higher consciousness.  For those treading the path I ask, do you wish to play in your reflection in the pond or do you wish to know the one casting the reflection?

This was not and is not to be interpreted as an admonishment to those beings who are playing in their reflections.  It is saying to the one upon the path, this is the way.

TM: So you are saying that one can’t find their way to enlightenment by exploring the pleasures of the flesh?

Master Buddha: It is knowing the distinction between the true self and the one who pretends to be the self.  One will not find the true self by only exploring the reflection.  Likewise one cannot deny or ignore the reflection and truly know oneself.  I think what you want to know is can one experience and appreciate the pleasures of the flesh and pursue enlightenment.  The answer is in each ones heart or center of ones intent.  The non-self is a trickster beyond belief.  To answer yes means that it is possible and to answer no is to exclude that which is possible.  It will be different for everyone.

TM: So it is possible but it depends on the individual?

Master Buddha: Yes.

TM: How do I know if it is possible for me?  How do I know what is the center of my intent?

Master Buddha: You will know when the power of your heart and your true desire for enlightenment out weighs all other considerations.  All that isn’t from that place melts away and leaves the purity of true self.  In other words until that point you won’t know.  You will try this and that, and mostly you will try to strike bargains and negotiations with the true self to bring with you all the things that are important to the non-self.  Until that day when you realize what you have been doing and it all falls away and leaves who you are.  Then you’ll know.

TM: It sounds like what you’re saying is that the pleasures of the flesh are the parts that the non-self is bargaining to keep and that they will be the parts that melt away.  Is that what you mean?

Master Buddha: I believe you were one of the ones who recorded these teachings many centuries ago.  Why don’t you just find out for yourself?

TM: Well, of course I will.  But I’m asking you as a teacher for a lesson that will guide me along the way.

Master Buddha: And I am a teacher along the way who is offering a lesson to a student who wants me to provide shortcuts that obviate his own need for experience, which in reality cannot happen.  What more can I say except that you will have to find the way to the center of your heart to know your true self and in time know that which is not the true self.  The pleasures of the flesh represent the reflection, but are not the true self.  Is that clear?

TM: Humbly, yes.  Although, I must say you are being forceful and adamant about this in a way I haven’t before experienced in your teaching.

Master Buddha: Sometimes that is what is needed.  I am adamant that you experience life for yourself.  A teacher shall point a way, but shall be cautious about dictating precise directions.  It is through discovery that you truly learn the lesson, not through intellectual comprehension.  The motivating force that propels you into discovery is from within yourself.  There is no harm in vigorous stimulation of the mind on spiritual matters.  But ultimately it is living experience that counts.

©  TM 2015

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Conditions on Earth (Part 1): Jesus and TMichael

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Condition on Earth Part 1, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/conditions-on-earth-part-1/
Conditions on earth part 1

Conversation with Jesus and TMichael: Conditions on Earth (Part 1)

TM: This being our second writing, where shall we start?

Master Jesus: We shall note for the record that we are beginning this series of conversations on Easter Sunday in the year 2004.  That may be significant to some folks.

TM: Should it be significant and if so in what way?

Master Jesus: First of all, there isn’t a ‘should’ involved.  It either is or it isn’t significant based upon one’s orientation to these things.  For some people, Easter is a big deal, wouldn’t you agree?

TM: Yes.  But I have to say that for me, it’s not really.

Master Jesus: You say that but it’s not entirely true.  When you were younger, in adolescence, you went to a Christian church every Sunday and Easter was a big deal in your life.  Even your father who rarely attended services attended Easter Sunday.  So, it was a big deal at one point.

TM: True it was then but it hasn’t been that way for over thirty-five years.  I think I can say it isn’t a big deal now.

Master Jesus: It’s okay if it isn’t.  The one fact you can’t escape in the influence of religious practice on society is that the significance of major religious events is en-grained in your being like DNA imprints on your physical body.  They affect you whether you are aware or not. Human consciousness on the whole is not an individual affair.  You can increase or decrease the affect by conscious awareness.  The affect is there nevertheless.

TM: So, I’m affected in ways I’m not aware?  Will you elaborate and give an example?

Master Jesus: You reside in a Judaic-Christian society.  On Easter and during the weeks preceding Easter there is a build up of energy in the form of thoughts and emotions based in ancient traditions and expectations.  Every year this energy recycles, gaining momentum from the previous cycles.  When enough people experience this recycling of energy they perpetuate it through their contribution.  And so it builds over time.  Even though you may not participate in Easter services, you experience the affects of others in your society who do participate. Because you participated as a young person your connection to the experience is greater than someone who has never participated.  Even that person will experience something despite his/her religious orientation.

TM: There is an air of worship and reverence I sense on Easter.

Master Jesus: That’s what I’m referring to, although it may register as something else to someone else.

TM: How many other beliefs and mass experiences does this same phenomenon occur?

Master Jesus: Whenever there is a strong belief tied to an emotional commitment with a large number of people, sustained for a long period of time, then this phenomenon occurs.  Sometimes there are competing thoughts existing at the same time.  When this occurs collectively you feel the energetic tension of opposition.  This is the great duality that plays out constantly in human affairs.  There is a saying to avoid politics and religion in polite conversation.  That is recognizing the deeply engrained opposition and emotional force behind the tension—it is uncontrollable at times.  It is reserved then for a different arena; one in which conflict can be explored.

TM: Is that why it is so difficult to change the way we do things in our society even when they are destructive?

Master Jesus: Did you have a particular example in mind?

TM: Yes I do.  I’ve been thinking about our economic system of capitalism and how it has deteriorated over time.  I see the initial guiding principles and see how it was altered.  Along with many other people I want to change it so that it serves everyone, but the forces opposed to change seem enormous.

Master Jesus: What would you change about it?

TM: It’s almost too much to list here.  In short, capitalism cannot be just about more—producing more, consuming more, pursuing more wealth for the purpose of perpetuating the cycle of production and consumption of more.  We have to integrate higher values into the equation.  I had a friend say to me that he thought that maybe the destruction of the Earth and many or all of the species was the right path and the inevitable outcome of this life experiment, and maybe then new life springs from that and a new cycle begins.  He is a well-respected, financially successful businessman.  When I heard him say that I began to understand the rationale behind the opposition to change.

Master Jesus:  So, is your friend correct?

TM: I’m working from the premise that we don’t have to destroy everything if we have a consciousness that is inherently creative and can alter our path creatively to support life in an ever-changing dynamic.

Master Jesus:  What if you’re both correct?  What if these two points of view are true, then what?

TM: Then it’s a matter of choice.  Our society can choose one or the other.

Master Jesus: And you’d like society to choose your point of view?

TM: Well, yes I do.

Master Jesus: And your friend would like it to go his way?

TM: Yes, I believe so.

Master Jesus: Then will you and your friend continue to support your respective points of view in how things work out in your society?

TM: I suppose we will unless one of us changes our mind.

Master Jesus: Then this is how it is for everyone on Earth at this moment.  It’s about making a choice.  Will you destroy life as you know it or will you creatively re-frame it?  Does that seem over-simplified?

TM: I was hoping for a little more help I suppose.  Maybe you could tilt it one way or the other.

Master Jesus: I guess you can say that I’m working on the side of humanity, which by the way includes your friend and all those who believe as he does.  My work has been and is dedicated to assisting humanity in its decisions about living.  A major decision is facing humanity now.  Will you collectively choose destruction, death and eventual rebirth, or will you choose the next evolution of life from this point.  There is no judgment either way, good or bad.

TM: You almost sound indifferent.

Master Jesus: You really want me to choose a side don’t you?

TM: YES!  Choose, validate my point of view and give me the strength and courage to fight these bastards!

Master Jesus: And what about your friend?  Shall I tell him I support his view so that he is encouraged as well?  Or would you prefer I tell him he is wrong and he better get with the program, or else?

TM: Or else what?

Master Jesus: Or else he shall burn in hell of course.  Isn’t that what happens to people who don’t get with the program?  I’m pretty sure I hear that message quite often, throughout the world and from almost every religion, and evoked in political circles as well.  I guess we’ve moved beyond polite conversation haven’t we?

TM: I think if you just simply told my friend and his fellow believers that their path of destruction is wrong, and then they would change because it’s coming from you and you’re the man.  They aren’t convinced if I say it or if others in my tribe say it.  But they’ll listen to you.

Master Jesus: Really?  Why would they listen to me?  What am I offering as proof that what you want is right and true for them?

TM: They will accept it on your authority.  You are Jesus. In case you’re not aware, that carries a lot of weight.  I think they would yield to your point of view.

Master Jesus:  Believe me I’m aware of the weight I carry. So, it’s that simple.  If I appear on Earth and say to humanity, listen, here are a few things I’d like for you to do at this time, then you believe that everyone will respect my authority and follow those simple directions?

TM: Well, not everyone, but enough of them to swing things the other way.

Master Jesus: Your way?

TM: Yes, for the umpteenth time, my way.

Master Jesus: I just want to be clear about whose way it is.

TM: Since you’re such a stickler for this distinction, many of us who believe this is the right way draw that belief from your teachings.  So, I guess we assumed it was also the way you believed was right.

Master Jesus: I’m not sure I remember in which lesson I encouraged you to ‘fight the bastards’.

TM: Touché.  But that’s just my emotion speaking.  I’d rather not fight.  I’d rather you persuade them with your magic and then we could all live happily ever after.

Master Jesus: Again I ask you, why would they listen to me if they believed I was on your side opposed to their beliefs?

TM: You are beyond humanity and know things we don’t.  You are the man, the boss, he who rises from the dead.  They will just be relieved to know you really exist and that you have an opinion on these matters.  Of course they will follow what you say.

Master Jesus: They don’t believe I really exist?

TM: Maybe some of them do, but they think you’re returning some day and you’ll set the record straight then.  But until then, they are not going to follow your teachings unless you explain it to them in modern terms.  So, I guess I’m asking you to reveal yourself now and tell it like it is.

Master Jesus: You mean in your terms?

TM: Why don’t I just ask you to define it in your terms whether or not it resembles mine?  I’m really not caught up on it being my way.

Master Jesus: Okay, I’ll do that for you.  It’s a long story are you ready for that?

TM: Sure.

Master Jesus: Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away….sorry, different story.  But one closer than you can imagine to the real one. All of these stories have their origins in truth.  There are many entry points for stories because there isn’t a beginning you see.  At least there isn’t a beginning that we can identify in words that will express humanity’s story.  We can also include humanity’s spiritual journey and that gets us closer to a beginning, but even that isn’t completely a beginning.  I’m emphasizing this beginning business because humans are tethered to truth having a beginning and anything that doesn’t have a beginning must be false or non-existent.  You’ll have to accept that your story doesn’t have a beginning or an ending.  Are you with me so far?

© TM 2015

For Conditions on Earth Part 2 click here.

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Loneliness and Love (Part 1): Jesus and TMichael

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Love and Loneliness Part 1, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/loneliness-and-love-part-1/
Loneliness and love part 1

Background Conversation with Jesus and TMichael: Love and Loneliness (Part 1)

This is the third conversation with Masters Jesus and Buddha.  I’m never sure how it’s going to start.  I sit.  And wait.  I think of things to say but they’re not really the things to say only forced ideas that my mind impatiently pushes into the foreground to get it going. But then a question springs up and that’s the beginning.

Conversation with Jesus and TMichael: Love and Loneliness (Part 1)

TM: Why are people in my culture so lonely and are people in other cultures lonely too?

Master Jesus: That’s a good question.  Relevant for many people, yet misunderstood in this age of plenty and hectic daily living.  As I look at the times that have passed and note that throughout human history and human suffering, never has there been as much loneliness relative to so much material and social progress.  How could this be?

TM: That was my question.

Master Jesus: Don’t you have an idea why it is so?

TM:  I don’t really know.  I observe people who are lonely and I feel sad for them.  Sometimes I see people who are surrounded by friends and family and still they are lonely.  They’ve somehow lost contact in a way that they don’t know if they exist or not I suppose. I’ve had moments when I felt alone, but they seemed fleeting like a day or two and then I remembered something that connected me and I was back.

Master Jesus: Do you imagine hope has anything to do with the feeling of loneliness?

TM: I don’t think so, but since you brought it up I imagine that you think it has something to do with it.  Do you?

Master Jesus: No I don’t.  But I can tell you that people who are experiencing loneliness feel as if there is no hope for them.  They are hopelessly isolated.

TM: If that’s so, then hope does have something to do with it.

Master Jesus: Really?  And how is that?

TM: Well, if there’s an absence of hope, then hope has something to do with it then hope has something to do with it—the reason why they’re feeling lonely.

Master Jesus: What if they’re wrong?  What if hope is just something that fills the gap in a perception of life filled with holes?  What if hope merely replaces for a moment the underlying sense of despair that is the theme of a disjointed view of life?

TM: Yes, but that is the point of hope.  It’s sort of a wild card, a get out of jail free card.  It bails you out when you don’t know exactly what has you down, whether it’s loneliness or depression or sadness.  Hope is a handy antidote.

Master Jesus: That’s an interesting way to view it.  I see love fulfilling that promise.  So is hope a bridge then to something else?

TM: I guess so in a way.  It’s getting out of someplace, an emotional place that feels yucky.  I’d say it’s more of an escape “out of” rather than a bridge.  Although I think in order for it to work, obviously it has to be a bridge to something better than the thing that one is getting out of.  But since you brought up love, how is that different from hope?  Isn’t it the promise of something better but in a more generalized way?

Master Jesus: Love is more than the promise of something better.  It is all there is.  Any other state is a creation of someone who isn’t connected consciously with the only state there is.  So that that doesn’t confuse you, let me state it another way.  When you are experiencing loneliness, fear, doubt, depression or sadness, you have created those states, but they’re not real.  They’re illusions.  Love is real and the only state.

TM: When you say they’re not real and love is, what do you mean?  What does ‘real’ mean?

Master Jesus: The limitations of language are real.  ‘Real’ means the genuine thing, the enduring, absolute thing.  It is the be all, end all.  There can be no other.  Something is unreal when it poses as something real. Sadness poses as reality, and so does loneliness.  Those states pretend to be real to give you the experience of what it would be like if they were real.

TM: That’s fine for you to say, but how can we know that is true?  When people are lonely or sad they are those things.  That is a real experience.

Master Jesus: I see how you trap yourself in believing that those states are as real as love.  Let’s say that only one thing can be real.  Let’s also say that everything other than that thing is unreal. The only reason you would believe that the unreal things are real is that you believe the real thing is unreal.

TM: Now you’re messing with my head.  I don’t follow you.  I know love is real.  When I experience love I know it and it’s real. Then there can be a moment when I experience loneliness and it’s different than love and for that moment it is real and love isn’t activated or present, at that moment, so the other thing is and it’s real.  Why can’t they all be real?

Master Jesus:  So, by your reasoning all things are real and none are unreal?

TM: Yes, I guess that’s true.

Master Jesus: But only one of them can be real at one time, is that it?

TM: For the most part, yes.  But I think there are times when I experience more than one state at a time, or there’s some overlap. Often I can sense the transition from one state to another.

Master Jesus: What causes the shift then, from one to another?

TM: I don’t know, it just shifts.  Thoughts trigger the shift I suppose.

Master Jesus: And you create the thoughts, is that correct?

TM: Yes.

Master Jesus: And you create the thoughts with the intent to shift from one state to another, or is it involuntary?

TM: Well, mostly I think if you’re depressed or lonely then you’re motivated to shift out and so it’s a conscious act.  If you’re in a happy or joyous state and you start to slip into another state it seems more of an unconscious act.  I mean people basically want to be happy and so they strive to stay that way.  If they’re sad they try to get to the happy state.

Master Jesus: I noticed you used happy and joy, not love.  Why is that?

TM: I remember what you’ve said, that happy and joy are states of love.

Master Jesus: So does that make love a meta-state?

TM: Could be I guess.

Master Jesus: If love is a meta-state and happiness and joy are states that reflect love, then what meta-state does loneliness and despair reflect?  Or do you consider them to be meta-states?

TM: I consider them to be undesirable states.  But I don’t know the answer, maybe they reflect evil.

Master Jesus: Now we’re getting somewhere.  So, you believe then that love and evil are the meta-states and from those the others come into momentary reflection?

TM: I wasn’t aware that I thought that, but maybe I do or maybe I just don’t know and you’re putting words into my mouth.  I have never thought that deeply about it.  I guess I’m like most people I just live my life from one state to the next trying to stay a little longer in the good ones and avoiding the undesirable ones.

Master Jesus: Well, that’s an honest answer and one that represents the majority, if not all, the human race.  But surely you have thought deeply about these things, as have others.  Is it that you don’t trust the conclusions you’ve reached?

TM: I think it’s more like I’ve never really concluded anything.  I resort to the old story of love and evil, good and bad, happy and sad, because that’s easier than risking a new story that may not be true.   And at least the old one is accepted by nearly everyone.

Master Jesus: It’s time to risk a new story.  I think you already have, but you’re not sure whether or not you want to tell it.  What if you’re wrong, right?  Then you’ve duped yourself and everyone else who believed you.  I’ve told it and others have told it.  It gets changed a little here and there so that it looks more like the old story to make it more comfortable for everyone.  So, I’ll tell it again.

TM: Please do.  I’m willing to listen.  Is this going to answer my original question about loneliness?

Master Jesus: Yes, and more.  Love is all there is in this universe. It is the meta-state.  Every other state of emotion you experience is either a reflection of love, or it is a state you have individually and collectively created in order to experience that which isn’t love. Evil is the creation of humanity and is unreal.  It appears real because you believe it is as part of your collective agreement to do so.

You experience life one moment at a time on Earth.  You experience life on more than the Earth dimension.  The meta-state of love is on all dimensions.  You create within the realm of Earth during your incarnation here.  Your creation does not extend beyond this dimension.  You can choose to create with love or you can choose to create with that which is not love.  At the point when your creation is purely from love then your boundary of creation will expand.  That is the moment we are all waiting and working for.

The challenge of humanity is to synthesize all that is in your human nature with all that is in your spiritual nature.  Love is in both and will temper the fusion.  Give up your addiction to your own creation when it isn’t in alignment with love.

© TM 2015

For Love and Loneliness Part 2 click here.

For Love and Loneliness Part 3 click here.