8  The Special Section for Messianics In the Basement

To be Messianic means one accepts Yahshuah(YHSVH) as the savior of mankind. (Pronunciation is Ya–short a–shoe a wah) You will notice the above technique makes no mention of YHSVH as the savior which is fine in the sense the technique can still work but the conclusions might not totally apply. This is why this book exists. Very often in the Messianic world, there is an overlap of what I would term “Classical Paul Conditioning” otherwise known as some version of Roman Christianity. The irony, of course, is that the Messianic Church began well before Paul and had beliefs independent of Rome such that Rome was none-too-pleased with those who followed YHSVH. The reason everyone in Rome was miffed was because it made an entire class of people willing to defy the Emperor of Rome should the Emperor’s decree differ from what the Messiah taught. It proves difficult to govern people who will disregard laws a King or Emperor will impose. It makes that group of people, more often than not, a potentially large liability.

Paul was a Roman citizen who was especially interested in witnessing to the Gentiles. His branches of Christianity became what most of us know as Christianity today. The problem, however, was that Paul was a Roman citizen who was specifically preaching to the Gentiles. Before this point, his name was Saul, and he was a Jew. He was overly zealous in his persecution of the fledgling Messianic groups that he was killing them or helping to destroy them. Hence, Paul had a direct intervention from the Messiah that caused a trauma to him that made him change his beliefs, but his mission was specifically and foremost to the Gentiles. Combined with several Roman Catholic councils later, what we have is mostly a Romanized Christianity that Rome allowed to proliferate since it did not pose any inherent threat to the Empire in the form it attained afterwards.

Roman Christianity has an interest in trying to either manipulate or control the Holy Spirit or the Shekinah. That is not to say that all Christians do this. It is to say, however, that they believe that once they read something by Paul and it appears in the Bible that they “understand” what that verse means. More often than not, these verses are misapplied and so frequently people who are spiritually gifted with certain fruits of the spirit are ostracized by congregations because they default to explanations such as witchcraft and satanism.

An important point, however, is that the early Messianics would NOT have done this. Why? Well, think about it. They saw the Savior do wondrous miracles that He then invested authority in others to perform. What would happen if say a modern day James came into a typical congregation and called down thunder? A normative Christian response would probably be fear and then to kill him or at the very least give him a very hard time. Hence, modern Christians often wind-up persecuting Messianics, and Messianics who once were believers in Paul find it harder to shake that conditioning than they reckoned for and so simply become “more Jewish” in their Shabbat services.

The reason I have outlined all of the above history in this section is so that if you are Messianic, and you think to yourself, “Hey, I’d like to try this out butttt….” well now you happen to have a little more perspective by which to make your decision. It is the case that all of the Church founders and elders wished the churches to cohere especially during challenging times. This is the heart of the Messianic message. All of these fractured frameworks and specific interpretations interfere with spirit simply revealing what it wishes to be revealed. What I have articulated above is a way that allows spirit to specifically speak in the way it wishes to in a way that is comprehensible to the individual. Whereas often times people have dreams or visions and are uncertain as to the meaning, if you practice the above technique, the meaning will become apparent. As it is said in Psalms 104:34–“My meditation of Him shall be sweet; I will be glad in the Lord.”

Originally, I was going to end this section right here. My wife, though, she recommended I include a specific way to access a salvation state. It was a good idea. She also suggested that I include some brief overview of the tenets of faith that accompany such a salvation state.

The basics to be Messianic are really to realize the truth of the following verse:

Matthew 7-7: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.…

Interpreted loosely, our light bodies are bound with transgressions against holiness and eventually one is going to want to seek a way to undo those binds. The old way is to try to meditate for a thousand lives. The way YHSVH opened is instant. One simply has to admit that a) they have taken actions against holiness in some way or another and b) the mediator or forgiveness of these transgressions comes through the atonement of YHSVH, the Messiah. One then allows themselves to be “led” by YHSVH which allows a clean spirit to reside in the body. Much easier than meditating for a thousand lives, right?

9 The FAQ Section

Q: All that Eastern stuff is pagan and demonic!

A: This is not phrased as a question.

Q: Why are you learning about all those Eastern Traditions, which are pagan and demonic?

A: This is a question. The interesting thing about pagan and demonic is that quite often these matters rely on the discernment of an individual. If you think the above technique is pagan or demonic, then by all means, do not do it. I really would prefer you stay entirely away from the technique.

Q: Aren’t you opening yourself up to demons?

A: Some Talmudic perspective might be helpful: “It has been taught: Abba Benjamin says, If the eye had the power to see them, no creature could endure the demons. Abaye says: They are more numerous than we are and they surround us like the ridge around a field. R. Huna says: Every one among us has a thousand on his left hand and ten thousand on his right hand. Raba says: The crushing of the crowd in the Kallah [yearly public] lectures comes from them. Fatigue in the knees comes from them. The wearing out of the clothes of the scholars is due to their rubbing against them. The bruising of the feet comes from them.” So then, the answer is you are already surrounded by a bajillion million demons that you are more likely to open up to by taking a trip to Taco Bell.

Q: This meditation stuff scares me.

A: Also not a question.

Q: Why does this meditation stuff scare me?

A: I dunno. Why don’t you try meditating and find out?

Q: When I meditated weird thing X happened?

A: Yes, weird things can happen. Sometimes you need to talk to someone else well-versed in meditation. Find someone who is more experienced at it than you are.

Q: But I don’t know anyone! How am I supposed to find help?

A: The World Wide Web is a convenient place. You can email me at jbschirtzinger@theroyalrainbow.com. You can also visit my site at jbschirtzinger.com.

Q: I want to ask you specifically a question though?

A: See my contact information above.

10 Wrapping It All Up

We have covered an immense amount of territory, material, and time in over 100 pages. It almost feels like what should be said here is some version of the standard “Our Incredible Journey Together”. However, a writer does not get to necessarily always know who is reading the work he or she wrote, and so one writes for those future companions as though they are just undertaking the journey for the first time. It is a kind of “loop” that we understand to be similar to a season, or perhaps we understand to be karma. This “loop” usually is our job to break and to build upon or retain the pieces that do not need to be broken or discarded. This can be a very difficult task.

The first editions of this book were written from a more practical “in the field” Eastern awareness stance. While meditating about the future of such a technique one day, I was told understanding the Bible was a little akin to getting a PHD in understanding awareness. I was somewhat taken aback by this, as at the time the only exposure to the Bible I had was a more Southern Christian perspective, and it did not appear to me to be leading to a PHD understanding of awareness. However, I also knew there were Jewish people who did all manner of things with Kabbalah that certainly sounded similar to these techniques and I could see where the Bible had inclusion of these matters although most often in a recondite way. In actuality, I was all ready looking for the “lost fragments” of what was termed “The Way” which has echoes in beliefs like the Tao in China.

“The Way” is really the great unifier of all these traditions and it culminated in the personage of YHSVH who literally lived The Way at a level so high we are all still scratching our heads and figuring pieces of it out. The Way is deep. The Way is counterintuitive. The Way is like drinking from a cup that has no bottom but which you arrive at your personal limit in terms of what you can swallow. The Way is limitless and limited. If it were not limitless, how could you drink and fill your thirst and never exhaust it? If it were not limited, how could you drink anything in the first place? The Way leads to the Kingdom which men do not see, and whose rules may be similar to but differ from the rules of the World who, we are told, is populated chiefly by a dead carcass.

The Way is the Mysticism, and the Way leads to life–IS the life force. In some sense, there is nothing but the Way and the One who made it. Perhaps made is not even the right word. Perhaps there is the Way and the One who emanates it. This is the stream, and it is maybe what Yukteswar was hoping to unite where all World Religions were concerned.

However, there is also a path. In this book we covered the beginning of the announcement of a New Adam as per the Celestial Messenger of the Woman of Revelation which demanded a new technique. This, in turn, required understanding the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and showed a specific kind of meditation for women as per her example. This makes some sense if it is the case that a new Cosmic Man reveals something about the Exemplar of Women who will be lead to be a spirit “like men”.

We found that the original disciples had some issues with Mary Magdalene on account of her being a woman, and on account of the fact that they felt she was “more loved than them” by YHSVH.

We covered all that to then go to the roots of the technique in a basement, and to do that we had to descend down a winding staircase that just so happened to be the sayings of Thomas from the Gospel of Thomas. We learned that Thomas has some sayings that are perhaps authentic and some that we might be able to “doubt”. How “Thomas” like! The sayings that are probably authentic are very deep, and are indeed uttered by someone very masterful in the Way. The ones that are questionable are perhaps edited. Who can say? Only the spirit assisting the seeker on the journey. We arrive in the basement, and find ourselves dealing with the old technique and immersed with a Swami from the 1800’s who first wrote it down as a way to try to reconcile all the world’s religions which was an assignment he reported as given to him for reasons he did not understand by “Babaji” which is a transcendent “Obi-wan” ghost-like Yogi. He received this request as he was meditating and his main student he entrusts his teachings to goes to the west and becomes quite influential in a state that has a similar namesake to an old Hindu Goddess—Cali-fornia. From there, we discover or else find that his assignment is impossible, and perhaps that is what Babaji was hoping he would find, but that is not the basis of Yukteswar’s book. The Holy Science does not say, “Babaji, I am sorry bro, but I cannot make this happen.”. No, instead it tries to do the task asked of it and succeeds in the sense that it explains a portion of “The Way” or shows what I would call the road or path. This path, however, does not reconcile world religions, as different beliefs concern different destinations, but perhaps Yukteswar knew this and decided this was “the best that could be done” given the task.

It is clear then that Yukteswar is missing a Grand Unifying Piece, and so we eventually go into the Messianic Corner of the basement, and learn about how that applies to Messianic belief and then therefore “The Way”. Suddenly, with that piece slotted in, we can understand how Yukteswar’s technique can reconcile world religions, although it does so through the testimony of the Avatar that embodied “the Way”, which is quite an Indian kind of belief in the sense that Krishna is always thought to come back at certain ages to embody an Avatar state to kick off the age in question. The difference here, of course, is that Krishna is embodied in YHSVH which many Indian people would likely contest.

How do I reconcile that contesting? Well, for me it is quite simple. My problem is the road. My problem is not converting others or convincing them of the truth. That problem falls to the Messiah. Now, it may happen that in my travels on the road someone is convinced of something the Messiah said or did not say and so their belief may change based upon my travels. Fine. All I can say is that the planning committee and zoning and all those kinds of decisions are above my pay-scale and so if you want to send Vedic hate mail, you will have to address it to the deity that is far above my pay scale. If your religion is somehow subsumed by YHSVH, well, I would say that is a problem between you and YHSVH to work out. The quality of the Way is Truth, and the quality of Truth is that you will either ultimately believe it or reject it. While people are led to Truth by differing ways—some by the mind, some by the heart, some by the spirit, and some by some other inscrutable way, they all ultimately arrive at a spot where the Truth stands and they have to decide whether they will follow it or not.

This Way I have outlined, then, is somewhat akin to servicing your vehicle, or if you are from some other timeline feeding your horse and making sure your chariot wheels stay on the chariot. You can perform the maintenance of your vehicle with a belief in God or you can change the oil being an atheist. The type of car you have and the experience of the ride may change on that basis quite drastically, but the fact that you must change the oil is a constant if you wish to have a car. If you have a horse, you will have to find some hay or grass or you will soon have a skinny horse incapable of getting you anywhere.

This Way is transcendent, and it does not require you to believe in it in order to work. Indeed, I would rather someone try it that does not believe it and have a genuine experience in order to sort out their beliefs than I would someone who all ready believes something using it and finding a simple confirmation of what they all ready believe. In the first case, growth will happen, and in the second, perhaps stagnation. In addition to all the spiritual texts this book has covered, it also has logged with me countless hours of guided meditation. It helped found a small metaphysical store that I think in no small way helped to change the world. It came with me when I was on vacations, and stuck around with me when things fell apart. The beauty of the “road” meditation is that it can be used in many settings while the technique remains the same. The technique has proven to be malleable enough to be adapted when things change, but rigid enough to have some fundamental structure. The unknowns can eventually be known, and having to re-learn the technique does not entail having to re-learn everything previously learned. If this technique is not a manifestation of wisdom, it surely drinks from its cup and I am glad to have been able to develop it to the extent that it has been. It is rather like having a flower in one’s garden than one wishes to see grow but one is not sure of what conditions are necessary to ensure its outcome. It grows in unanticipated, novel, ways. That growth requires a kind of awareness to notice, and so the circle completes. Where better to leave off on concluding remarks than the circle enclosing itself?