Daily Theosophy

Peter preached fervently against drugs: “Drugs are invented by the Devil,” he almost shouted. And he seemed to be very excited when he proclaimed that he would never and never allow a homosexual to enter his congregation. He seriously thought that he was serving God and Jesus by saying that. Or did he shout against his own despair?

(34)

(peter and jesus)

Peter had deep within himself that quality of thinking for himself, but it had been suppressed by the minister’s and his parent’s behavior when he was about eleven. But really suppressing something that is good and beautiful forever, can not happen in the universe. It can however be ‘successful’ for a whole life if you do not overcome it before you are grown-up. Then it becomes more difficult. So now his brain-mind had to fight hard against his own freedom of heart – and that is not easy, so he tried to avoid the problem by becoming dogmatic: that is, by believing things without thinking about them. He learned to think of spiritual and symbolic things in the Bible as material things. He was taught by teachers who had also adopted dogmatism, because they were written in their holy book and where not intelligent enough to really understand what Jesus had meant. Moreover the holy book contained many things which Jesus never said, but were added later by other people who were far less intelligent and had much less (if at all) of a heart-mind than Jesus had, and therefore had misunderstood him.

Jesus was great, Krishna and Buddha and Mohammad and many, many others where also great, but their followers often made soup of their teachings. I mean to say, they distorted the original goodhearted and compassionate and peace-bringing teachings by their own misunderstandings and emotions, and even started to fight wars and kill others and grasp lots of money in name of their Great Teachers. This is the tragedy of the human world, and it causes so much pain and suffering in this life, after death and in their next lives, to themselves as well as to others. It happens in all countries and in all religions. Peter became like one of them. He could not really be blamed. He wanted to be a good man, but he was no accomplished hero yet, so he did not have the courage at the age of eleven and also not later, to choose to listen to his good but lonely heart-mind instead of his loud talking brain-mind which was supported by his equally cowardly teachers. Some of his teachers were a little wiser, but when they tried to talk to Peter he became angry (something he never was in his youth), so they gave up.

Peter became a fervent preacher. He was still young and had deep eyes, and a certain softness – a ‘god-given’ young man, some people said, and he was a very good speaker. His attention seemed to be on nothing else but the religion. He never married or showed any interest in that direction. People thought that he was so dedicated to God, that he had sacrificed the very idea of married life. Of course they knew nothing about his background. Nobody knew how much he was suffering, and praying desperately for his own salvation day after day. Before his ‘new life’ had started at about his 21^st, he had not bothered much about it, because nature is nature, and why would he not be allowed to be happy and enjoy? Despite the drugs and all he gone through, his natural mind could still think sane things – at least things that came from himself. But now, after his education as preacher, he had himself become to believe that he was born in sin, and might be doomed to hell. And at least it was safer never ever to talk about it with anyone. Of course no God or any compassionate being will ever doom anyone to hell because of an inborn tendency, just as little as someone is doomed because he or she has blue eyes. Jesus preached nothing but forgiveness. Doom doesn’t exist in the universe. But Peter, who had once had the wisdom to understand this, now preached doom himself.

The universe works only according to intelligent cause and effect, and is always directed towards evolution and betterment and ultimate happiness of all its inhabitants. The universe poured forth from Adi’s heart, after all. But Peter had that fear instilled in his mind. It was like a useless self-torture. But through his own suffering he could talk in the colors of the people’s emotions of fear and hope, of despair, anger and hatred. It seemed that he really understood what emotions were. He would start his preaches and lectures talking about the goodness of Jesus, and that Jesus had pointed out the right ways of life and the truth and the path to understand that truth, and that other people had written this down from their memories and thus had composed the New Testament of the Bible. He told the people that Jesus had died on a cross for their sins (even though Jesus lived more than 2000 years ago), and that they would be forgiven for their present sins, provided you would follow the teaching of Jesus. And that Jesus was the only born son of god, and that therefore all others were fake, and therefore you should follow the teaching of the church (which especially meant Peter’s church) – otherwise they would burn in hell forever after death. So in this way Peter made many people very afraid. He believed that he was leading a good life in the name of Jesus and the church, so he could happily think by himself: “Luckily I will never go to hell, but live forever in heaven.” But at the same time he did not really care what would happen to all the others. He was sure Jesus and God would reward him. His parents, now pretty old people, also came to the church were he preached. They were now proud of their son, but especially his mother felt that he was too fanatic, and that he was bringing fear and gloom into the feelings of some of his community. She would tell that to her husband, Peter’s father, but he would wave her concern away: “He is our son, and we have given him a perfect education, and God will certainly receive him well when his time has come.” And mother wouldn’t protest anymore.

There is no Religion higher than Truth

Because Peter lived in a country were many cultures mixed together, he was particularly keen to point out that Jesus was the only right person, and tried to proof that the others were not. For example he told the people that Mohammad, who lived in Arabia some 600 years after Christ and was the founder of Islam, was a false prophet, and was opposed to Christianity. Peter didn’t even know that this was not true, because he had never read the Koran, the Holy Book of the Muslims, because he had only listened to what his teachers had told him about it – and that wasn’t very much good. In fact Jesus is praised many times in the Koran, and also Moses and other great teachers. Peter said that Muslims were often terrorists, and did never mention that there have been many Christian terrorists also, despite the fact that both Jesus and Mohammad taught peace and mercy and compassion all the time, and told their followers not to kill. Thus he introduced bad thoughts about Mohammad and Muslims in the minds of his Christian followers – by telling them things that were not true. And as one of the great Christian commandment is that nobody should ever lie, he was unconsciously lying against Adi’s heart and his own heart, and indeed against Jesus himself.

By the time he got older Peter became even firmer in the convictions of his own brain. In fiery colors he explained why Krishna was evil (because the Hindus taught that Krishna was a part of God who came to earth many times to teach and help the people, and that there were many others also who were constantly involved in helping and guiding and teaching humankind); and why Buddha was wrong because he did not talk about God at all and said that everyone ultimately would become enlightened himself or herself, and that one could just do what one liked and that Buddhist enlightenment was the same as total annihilation.

Peter did not understand that the brain-mind is just not fit, not refined enough to understand, so you better learn to use your heart-mind first, and train yourself to see and than conquer your own illusions, and become master over your emotions, so that emotions will be quiet and your mind as clear as the surface of a lake when there is not the slightest breeze of wind – so that your mind can look into great depth without being disturbed. Peter did not understand that you can only can see truth without the disturbance of theories and selfish wishes. Then only one will know what others, when they speak about “God” do not know. If Peter would have really understood what Jesus meant, he would have seen that it is in essence not at all different from what Buddha said – but regrettably he never took the trouble to study other scriptures than the Bible and the commentaries on it of scholars and professors.

(35)

(peter dies and lives)

 More and more he developed the habit of speaking evil about others ideas, and his own mind became more and more caught in these ideas. Even though always there seemed to be a silent voice