Yesterday's A lot of religious people are going to be really surprised when they get to the afterlife and learn what God and Jesus are really about post included:
Juliio
Since you keep communication with the angels and they know God, could you ask them this theological riddle: Can the Almighty God create a rock so heavy that not even himself can lift it? If you or any of your theologically inclined friends here know the answer I would appreciate it, if you could share it with me.
Sloan Bashinsky
Never heard that riddle, but it is said, With God, all things are possible.
Later yesterday
Noel
The riddle is created by a misunderstanding of what divinity entails. For God to be the creator of the universe he must transcendent over space, time, and matter. From newton’s laws we can conclude that everything in the universe has a cause and from cosmological truths we can conclude that before the universe there was nothing. Logical rigor would conclude that the Creator must be an unmoved mover.
The riddle is made in context of God’s omnipotence: if He can do anything, then he should be able to make an indestructible object and an unstoppable energy. If the indestructible object stops the unstoppable energy then he fails, if the unstoppable energy destroys the indestructible object then he fails, so God cannot be omnipotent...
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say that a computer exists under hardware, software, and electricity. The only logical conclusion is that a rational, intelligent animal created the complex system provided things inferior in intellect, such as a rock, couldn’t. Now let’s say an NPC inside the computer claims that a intelligent human creator doesn’t exist because the human can’t both download and upload himself, but if he were a intelligent creature surely he has the full capacity over downloading and uploading. This is an illogical claim because the human is not subject to hardware, software, and electricity, but is the creator of it and transcends it: the paradox is only relevant to the NPC because of his situation. The NPC is making assertions toward the creator without knowing the creator exhaustively. How less logical is it that God would be subject to paradoxes inside space, time, and matter if He transcends it?
Sloan Bashinsky
I dunno. I think God is unfathomable, thus no human being can explain God. Angels told a friend mine several years ago, that they don't fully understand God. They do what they are doing, until they understand they should do something else. My relationship with God is dealing with what life presents day to day, while trying to stay within the angels' training, which was INTENSE, and continues, and considering how my sleeping dreams might apply to what is before me. In the Gospels, Jesus dealt with the day to day in his own way. What he did in private, I suppose we will never know. Throughout the Gospels, he demonstrated and taught how to live in sync with God, being in, but not of, the world. The religion that adopted him has made it a lot easier, by offering salvation to people who simply believe certain things, instead of salvation by living as he lived and taught. I'm not promoting Jesus in the Gospels as the only way to God, but he was a way in the Gospels, God is in every religion, and so is the Devil. God is bigger than any religion, and so is the Devil. Where would the Devil hide where most people would never think to look? In a church
Noel
What do you understand religion to be?
Sloan Bashinsky
People's attempt to understand God, which isn't possible, and to control God, which is impossible, and to shrink God down to something manageable, which isn't possible, and to feel better about themselves, which isn't what they actually need, but there's much in religions that guides people to do better.
Noel
If you read the life of St. Francis and other penitents like him, the idea that God wants happiness, healthiness, and holiness for his children is not true. St. Francis lived an extremely painful life along with all the other countless martyrs. If the reason people practice religion is similar to the reason people use chocolate, than why would so many rid themselves of chocolate, or any other pleasures , for their religion?
Sloan Bashinsky
Jesus in the Gospels didn't offer chocolate. He said the road to life is difficult and few enter the gate; many are called, but few are chosen; the work is great and the laborers are few. And, giving is more blessed than receiving; turn the other cheek; resist not one who does evil; first take the bean out of your own eye; take no thought for the morrow, because each day has enough trouble of it's own; put your faith in God, and what you need will be provided to you; no person could be his disciple, who did not hate father and mother, and brother and sister, and spouse and even his/her own life.
Francis of Assisi is my favorite saint In Christendom. He was the first to experience the Stigmata wounds of Christ on the cross. John of the Cross was the Navy Seal saint, who went straight to God, bypassing the church dogma, for which he was persecuted , imprisoned and eventually killed, after which his body did not rot - he had turned himself into spiritual gold. He lived and provided the template for surviving the dark night of the soul, and its far more severe sibling, the black night. The Vatican was forced to recognize the Inquisition had killed a saint,
Years ago, I had very deep, moving experiences with both of those saints, and during that time I experienced the dark night, and it was awful, and then I experienced the black light, which made the dark night seem like a vacation. After that, I was rescued and resuscitated and sent into the world to be ground up in various ways I had not envisioned. When I write about spiritual stuff, it is from from such experiences and what angels known in the Bible told me and a few people I have known.
Noel
St. John of the cross is referenced to in the catechism of the Catholic Church which holds important dogmas of the Church, I’ve also read some of his works and I can’t see any contradictions to dogma, but maybe we’ll agree to disagree. It’s been a good discussion but it’s getting a little late for me, hope you sleep well my friend and God bless.
Sloan Bashinsky
Juan de la Cruz's Carmelite brethren and the Spanish Inquisition viewed Juan as a heretic and I suggest you try to find a copy of ST. JOHN OFTHE CROSS: Alchemist of the Soul, by Antonio T. de Nicholas, a Spaniard, poet and college professor, who ended up living in America. That book was my "bible" for a while. Later, I had quite a few conversations online with de Nicholas. Juan was a contemporary of Teresa de Avila, also a Carmelite. de Nicholas went into some depth about their relationship, which did not paint Teresa well.
Sloan Bashinsky the next morning (today)
From our discussion, I think you are very serious about these matters, and I wonder what is your existential, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year experience in your journey to God?
In 1990, a friend of my wife, both of whom were licensed clinical social workers, after hearing some of my stories, asked me if I'd ever heard of St. John of the Cross? I said I had not. He said he thought I should try to learn about that saint. I lived in Boulder, Colorado then. There were large New Age and Tibetan Buddhist communities there, and other spiritual communities. The Boulder bookstore on Pearl Street Mall had a large spiritual book section, and I headed there and found one copy of the de Nicholas book, which I bought and went home and read.
ln early January, 1991, the voice I'd heard before said to me in my sleep, "With respect to St. John of the Cross, you haven't seen anything yet." I then was awash in pure, raw, black E/vil, which caused me to gag and I desperately tried to escape it. I woke up living for a few moments what I had experienced in my sleep. I was terrified.
In Nicholas' book, Juan was quoted as advising people to ignore all phenomena that came, for there was no way to really know what might be Lucifer in disguise. Juan recommended simply turning back into the darkness, and to keep doing that, until eventually a singularity was reached, and fusion with God was obtained. He said the dark night was difficult, but doable, and for some people, that was the end of it, and they emerged very different. For others, the 2nd dark night came, and it was far more difficult. There was no light, just pure blackness, and woe be to anyone to whom that happened, who was not in a protected environment, being helped by people who understood what was in play.
A few months after that awful dream, the dark night descended on me. There was nothing I could do about it. My Gi.I. tract, which suddenly went awry when I was 26, simply stopped working. For 4 years, I only could shit via using enemas. My internal life was phenomenal. Much of it was mind blowing. Juan had said to ignore it, but it was so profuse that I had no choice but to embrace it. I came to think what I was witnessing was parts of myself I had lost, thrown away, forgotten, or never knew were there, returning to me. Incredible poetry and prose fell out of me during that time.
After 3 spontaneous visions, which left me heaving and sobbing, the dark night lifted in about 2 weeks. I did not feel much different spirit, except my G.I. tract had started working much like it had worked since I was 26.
My life in Boulder collapsed, and I returned to my hometown, B/irmingham, Alabama. I felt adrift. I met a new woman. We traveled some. We returned to B/irmingham. We got married. I still felt adrift. Then, in about 3 days’ time, the black night descended. I felt like half my brain had died. I was still tuned in, I could discern what I saw and heard going on around me, but I had stopped dreaming and I felt totally cut off from God. I got to where I spent 4 hours each morning after waking, trying to figure out how I would kill myself the next day, and then it would be over. After figuring it out, I relaxed, knowing that was my last day. Each morning I figured out the same exact exit strategy. Cut my wrists with my Swiss Army knife.
That went on for about 16 months, then I knew I had to leave that woman, and I left her, and went to live with a man I had met in my mother's church, who was fascinated by my stories, although he himself never had one mystical experience. The black night began to lift.
The lifting was not easy, but my dreams had returned and I knew I was coming out of it. I did not feel l had merged with God. I felt like I had been tortured, and was still being tortured. And that's when the training about Evil and discernment of spirits began in earnest. That's also when angels began healing stuff in me I had no clue was there needing to be healed. I had extensive experiential training in alternative body, mind and spirit healing. What I had learned was baby food compared to what the angels were doing inside of me. Yet, they did not address my G.I. tract (and so far, they haven’t addressed it).
After a couple of years, I was sent back into the world. I did not feel enlightened. I felt like I was from another planet, stationed on this planet, having to deal with everything it had to offer to me. A good bit of the time, I was broke and lived on the street. I was pushed into churches and spoke and was not well received. I was pushed into politics, and spoke, and that was more of a mixed bag. I'm still in politics.
I screwed up many times, and was hauled out of my mess by angels and rehabilitated and put back to work. It was not pretty a lot of the time. It was nothing like what I had read about the saints in Christendom and in the Sufi tradition and in the various Buddhist and Hindu sects.
I wrote non-fiction, fiction and stranger than fiction books about my experiences and perspectives, which I credit to angels. Those books are now free reads at archive.org, an internet library. At YouTube are about 30 no-ad, free episodes of The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast, and about 30 later no-ad, free episodes of the The Redneck Mystic Podcast, where a younger angel-captured and beleaguered friend and I, but mostly me, hold forth on various topics in ways i never saw anywhere else.
I tell you these things, because it occurred to me this morning that maybe you are headed into your own version of what happened to me and is happening to my younger friend, who recently received the Stigmata wounds of Christ on both of his palms, after assassins nearly killed him over his political resistance work where he lives in America.
Stigmata and bad men in America & Armageddon trap or peace in Palestine? https://youtu.be/iQGplrrj7aU
Yesterday, on Substack:
Truth Being Stranger Than Fiction
ELIZABETH RO
OCT 27, 2023
When I returned from India in 1975 I got married. I had a child and found myself a single mother at 28 years old. I left the town where my husband and I lived. I left in shame and scorn to some degree. My association with my spiritual pursuits (Buddhist Meditation) being the topic of gossip and an embarrassment to my ex's family.
Life continued; as well as my Discipline, and I had many experiences that transformed my Being and contributed to my knowledge-base.
About 7 years ago (2016) I attended the Los Angeles Times Book Fair in Los Angeles, California. It was at the book fair that I was given a small booklet titled, “A Heart Released”. This booklet is the only compiled notes to be put into writing from talks given by Phra Ajaan Mun, a Theravada Buddhist Monk, of the Thai Forest Tradition. I went home and read it and to this day I continue to reread it. I found this very small writing to be the quintessential dialogue on Vipassana Meditation-not in the instructional phase but in the transformational information that is relayed via the Discipline. The Preface and Introduction are written by a monk from the Thai Forest Tradition. His writing greatly impressed me.
Several years later while rereading the booklet I thought to myself that I would like to meet this monk that wrote the preface so I did a Google search of him and found that the monastery where he resides as Abbot was in SD. My son is now living in SD and I made a commitment to try to get in touch with the monk and try to visit the monastery when I was in the area.
My ex-husband remarried and they had one child; a son who is now 39 years old. It was within the past year that we found out that this son had become a Buddhist Monk. Since there are several monasteries of different traditions scattered across the U.S., I told my son to find out what monastery his brother lived in. He told me he would find out when he and his family visited the family in Alaska this August.
I also did a little more research on the Abbot of the monastery in SD and was surprised to find that he and I share the exact same birthdate; month, day and year! We both followed the discipline of the Theravada/Thai Forest tradition meditation. Although he is quite educated, I am a mystic/fool. So, between the two of us it can be said that Head and Heart were both represented in the quest for Truth!
We have also just found out that the other son is in this Abbot’s monastery. The only grandchildren that my ex will most likely ever have is through our son-beautiful little twin girls.
As this little piece of the story of my mystical journey unfolded, I could not help but feel the tug of destiny. Karma, neither good nor bad, teaches us that something greater than ourselves is constantly balancing the scales of a justice that is way beyond me. You see, I expected my son; our son to someday be the monk in the monastery…
Sloan Bashinsky
Writes Sloan’s Newsletter
Liked by Elizabeth Ro
My favorite film about the spiritual path in modern times is The Razor's Edge. The "hero", played by Bill Murray, spends much of his life trying to collect arcane spiritual books, which he carries with him everywhere he goes. He ends up in a Buddhist monastery in highlands and is doing janitorial and kitchen work. One day, the lama sends for him and tells him it's time for him to go up on the mountain. As Murray starts to leave, the lama points to his satchel of books. Murray takes the books with him. He then is sitting and meditating on the mountain, and he is cold, and he lights a fire, and one day he gets the books out of his satchel and he tears the pages out one at a time and he burns them in the fire. Then, he comes down off the mountain and goes back into civilization, Paris, actually, where he meets and falls in love with a woman who is a prostitute and drug addict, whom he undertakes to save, and the pimp kills her, and Murray is left wondering what's next?
Elizabeth Ro
I saw that movie and was impressed with it. It was Bill Murray's attempt at serious acting and I liked it. That good ole Straight and Narrow path.
Sloan Bashinsky
Writes Sloan’s Newsletter
He finally had to give up searching and start living. I went through that, and the living was a bit more intense than the searching, which mostly was a lot more interesting than the living :-).
My favorite film about olden times, is Brother Sun Sister Moon, Francis of Assisi and Sister Claire.
I also loved Man Facing Southeast, which was a South American film.
Now, I mostly watch pop movies and serials on Netflix and Prime :-), maybe kind of like taking aspirin or ibuprofen to cope with what life keeps finding ways to stretch me, since I can't drink anymore, and feel good plant extracts and pharmacy goodies never appealed to me.
This morning, I posted under Elizabeth Ro's Stranger Than Fiction.
Last night, I took a woman neighbor friend out to dinner at an Indian restaurant, which serves very different food from Indian restaurants I have tried in the psst. I tend to engage servers in restaurants, and when the young man, perhaps 30 years old, came to our table, I said, "Namaste", and he said, "Namaste".While he was taking our order, I said, some years ago, a woman i loved came to me in a dream and said, "Sloan, you married Kali!" I woke up, terrified. My life got very interesting for a while after that. Interesting, as in, taking a lot of long hard looks as myself in the mirror, again. Some years later, I got tangled up online with someone in India, who i'd let into my email account, and he was giving me a really hard time. Finally, I told him about the dream, and that my wife was going to deal with him, and all of a sudden he was an entirely different person, and he restored my email account to me and said good-bye. A few years later, something similar happened with my checking account, and when I told the person in India about the dream and him being visited by Kali, he did an about face and restored my checking account and said goodbye.
Imagine an American president, who has such experiences and perspectives. I told our server that I wanted him to be my agent, to help me star in a Bollywood movie in India, entitled. "American Man Married Kali."
Then Imagine
sloanbashinsky@yahoo
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