Parable of the Good Samaritan

Religion is for people who are afraid of hell,
spirituality is for people who have already been there.
                                                                 - Native American saying


If I'm not chased out of town, then I didn't preach the gospel.
                                                                  - John Wesley

I annihilate my enemies,
by making friends out of them.
                                 Abraham Lincoln

³⁴ “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. ³⁶ And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.
                                                -Matthew Ch.10


The devil and his friend were walking down a city street.  They watched a man in front of them notice something on the sidewalk, and bend over, and hurredly pick it up and rush off.
"What did he find?"  asked the friend.
"A piece of the Truth,"  said the devil.
"That's bad luck for you then," said his friend.
"Not at all," laughed the devil.  "I'm going to have him organize it into a religion."
                                                          -American folk saying


Christianity is for people who are afraid of hell,
Christ is for people who have already been there.
                                                       -Bastante Solipsis Marquez

I grew up on fire with spirit, and the world funneled it all into religion, and took all my love and turned it into fear.
Right?  Do you see how organized religion turns our innate spiritual love into collective fear?  Christ's message was and is unconditional love, but Christianity's message is hatred (of worldly pleasure) and fear (of our own passion for life.)  Christ's message was not about hating the world and renouncing it, nor was Christ's message about fearing our own desires and denying ourselves joy.  Christ's message was about forgiving the world, and forgiving ourselves, and in forgiving finding true freedom from the profane world, and true freedom from our profane selves.  Not through rejection, but total acceptance.  To accept without rejecting, and without falling from our path either. This is being truly free in the world, by being not of the world.  This is unconditional love, wherein we remain rooted within an inner kingdom of grace that no circumstance may intrude upon.  This is the openness of unconditional love that Christ models and Christianity betrays.

The unabashedly liberal, Christian principle of tolerance - tolerance of the Other, in whatever form the Other may take, even to the extreme of loving one's enemies - has been cast aside by conservative hypocrites who have hijacked spirituality's love and funneled it into religion's fear.  As usual, any cultural movement to tolerate the Other brings out the hypocritical conservative's phobias.  Welcome to the era in which Christ was born, which is no different than the 21st century.  History is just repeating itself.  Intolerance is waging a war against tolerance, and tolerance is simply tolerating it.  That's basically what history is the history of.  History is the story of intolerance waging a war against tolerance, which tolerance tolerates.  History ends when intolerance stops waging its endless war, and consumes itself through its lack of self-tolerance, and only tolerance remains.  When only liberal tolerance remains, and conservative intolerance is abandoned, war ends, history ends, and peace begins, her story begins, but that's a different story...

Total acceptance of the shadow, the other, the feared and hated Other, whether it be muslim, or gay, or pagan, or black, or brown, or white, or female, or feminine, or androgynous, or polyamorous, or transgender, or male, or dark, or light, or criminal, or foreign, or stupid, or lustful, or sexy, or threatening, or hateful, or hated, or low-class or high-class, or weak, or strong - it is unknown, for it is Other... whatever "non-self" our fear is being projected on to, whatever our secret desire, whatever we reject or deny in ourselves, whatever we don't like about ourselves or anyone else, whatever our shadow is, if we reject it we create conflict.  Only by making peace with our fears, our shadow, our 'enemy',  do we overcome conflict.  We need healthy boundaries and potential strong action, but we annihilate the possibility of hatred or fear.  Forgiveness is Christ's invincible weapon, and peace is Christ's impenetrable armor.  Christians have gotten so self-righteous hating the armies of darkness they have lost the sacred art of forgiving the armies of darkness - and ironically, hating the armies of darkness only makes them stronger, because it is unloving, while forgiving the armies of darkness removes their power, because it overcomes fear with love.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

We are watching a so-called Christian Nation betraying the values of Christ.  Christian conservatives have a bona fide track record of supporting war criminals and their war crimes.  And this reveals the paradox:  How does a tolerant majority overwhelm an intolerant minority without force?  The answer is revealed all around us:  We kill them with kindness, and as much truth as they can handle. True righteousness must tolerate and forgive the existence of unrighteousness, stepping in out of compassion only to prevent harm and to educate, and become whole by acknowledging relationship with.  Because it's all of us or none of us, and unrighteousness is just a means of ignorantly attempting to fulfill an unmet need.  Surely this behavior is worthy of our compassion.  We must abandon our notions of right and wrong and return to the ancient, nonjudgmental notions of right and left.

 Healthy boundaries, sure.  Definitely; of course; it's critical.  I must forgive, but i must shine the light of the truth through all attempts at concealment.  Healthy boundaries are required to keep the darkness from consuming the light.  Strong action may need to be taken to defend these boundaries.  But these boundaries are defended lovingly, compassionately, with humor and affection.  Because there's nothing to fear - darkness can't cover up light!  There is no place for hatred or animosity.  Only service. This is the Gospel of Christ.

We do not overcome evil by hating evil.  We overcome evil by forgiving its existence, and teaching it a better way without surrendering to it.  Compassionate nonattachment is how we overcome evil.  Making war on evil feeds evil.  Making war on demonic forces feeds the army of demonic forces.  Making peace with negative or demonic forces by forgiving them (without surrendering to them!) is how we force these negative energies to their knees in awe and humble admiration.  It is the technique by which love overcomes fear.  It is the ancient teaching of the invincibility of forgiveness.  It leads to the liberal value of tolerance.  It is the supremely invincible Way.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

Do you see?  A mind full of negativity is a mind full of the shadow.  We must heal our mind by filling it with peace and harmony, and only in such a way as this does light shine into the darkness.  The shadow cannot be banished, and all attempts lead only to war, and the nourishing of the Shadow.   And we cannot banish negativity from our mind, for all attempts fail and only feed negativity!  The solution is to embrace the negativity, and forgive it wholeheartedly for existing, and without catering to the negativity, or feeding it by dwelling on it, to simply go back to the breath and the posture of the present moment, which is pure and whole and utterly complete and self-content... Thus is the shadow healed by being held and forgiven, without being catered to.  The darkness is not annihilated by destroying it, the darkness is annihilated by loving it, and healing it, and bringing it into the light.  The ONLY way to annihilate our enemies is to make them our friends.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

Christ taught that the war is over when we learn to forgive, and Christ taught forgiveness, and peace.
Christianity teaches that the war continues as long as we hate and fear and practice unloving intolerance, and Christianity continues to propagate war.  Christ was a bleeding heart liberal, and Christianity has been appropriated by intolerant conservatives who have judged and condemned all life on earth including their own, because they are not sufficiently practicing the Christlike discipline of forgiveness.  Spirituality has been corrupted into religion, and our innate and pure instinct of forgiveness and selfless love has been corrupted into fear, intolerance, violence, and war.  The world is run by hypocrites, in politics, economics, business, education, and most of all, religion.  Spirituality, which exists as the path of peace, has been perverted into a path of war.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

True victory is victory over conflict itself.  This is real peace.  And victory over conflict itself comes only through forgiveness.  All else is judged as right or wrong, which is how hatred and intolerace are born.  Only through forgiveness can we unconditionally accept ourselves, and unconditionally accept our circumstances.  Without forgiveness we are judged and condemned for having put ourselves in this position in the first place!  Only from unconditional forgiveness may we unconditionally accept ourselves, which is the prerequisite for unconditionally accepting others, and reality as it is.  This is the path of peace.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

And where there is no attack, there is no defence.  A warrior wearing the armor of Christ walks lovingly amongst the armies of the shadow, wielding the invincible weapon of forgiveness, and everywhere the weapon touches, dark and unloving forces fall to the ground and kneel in gratitude.  They are forgiven!  They feel loved!  The warrior of Christ is their Hero for they have been forgiven, and because they have received love they are now free to love!  Thus is light brought to the shadow.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

And where there is no defense, there is no attack.  A warrior wearing the armor of Christ has chosen to forgive him or her self, and from this place of self-forgiveness is born infinite self-love, and the warrior is immortally redeemed.  The warrior is held and moved by infinity itself - what is there to fear?  The warrior of Christ lives in a world beyond judgment, a world of forgiveness where all is made whole again every moment.  Only forgiveness can lead to self-love, which is how our fragile brittleness melts and heals.  Thus are we made invincible.  This is real peace, and the armies of darkness meekly gather quietly in a circle around such a warrior to bathe in the healing light of such peace.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

Hatred itself is the enemy.  The only enemy is hatred itself, and we overcome hatred with the discipline of forgiveness.  Hello, my enemy, old friend, I see you've come to visit me again, come sit by the fire and break bread with me - this is the path of true victory.  And from this place of extraordinarily disciplined forgiveness, problems are seen through all the way into their solutions.  Thus is the world healed.  Thus does light shine into darkness.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

Christianity is forever at war with evil, and thus perpetuates war and violence with it, feeding the very evil it professes to combat.  Christ forgives evil, without becoming evil, and annihilates his enemies by making friends out of them.  This is the path of peace.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

Jesus himself named religious conservatives hypocrites.  His words, not mine.  If Jesus had been conservative, he would have lived.  Read and weep.  If I'm not chased out of town, then I didn't preach the Gospel.

God's love was poisoned into something toxic, something like hatred and fear and loathing and addiction all in one.  Organized religion basically turns spiritual love into fear.  By organizing it, basically.  When spiritual love gets organized into belief systems that are either acceptable or unacceptable, binary and zero-sum categories, then what was once unconditionally loving has now become conditionally loving, and conditionally unloving.  Thus hatred is born.  Religion creates hatred by organizing love into categories of 'us' and 'them', otherwise known as "acceptable"  and "rejectable".

Jesus preached against this religious dogma of intolerance.  In his famous parable of the Good Samaritan, it is made painfully clear that ONE'S RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ARE NOT THE CRITERIA BY WHICH SPIRITUAL FRIENDSHIP IS MEASURED.  A  spiritual friend is very explicitly not the guy who agrees with your belief system - a spiritual friend is the guy who doesn't give a fuck about your belief system, and genuinely cares about you and yours having enough to eat and a place to sleep.

Go figure.  The most sincere devotees of Christ don't give a rats ass about 'Christianity'.  They just want to make sure everyone has enough to eat and a warm place to sleep.  They want peace on Earth,  and mutual, interdependent prosperity, not some Christian control-freak tyranny.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

Christianity is an organized religion that is basically preaching fear.  Believe, or else be damned!  Jesus was - and is - basically the most tolerant and unconditionally loving and forgiving being ever, and the religion that claims him is basically fear porn.  Christianity is a hypocritical religion, just as all organized religions are hypocritical.  Christ is love, and Christianity is fear. yeah that makes sense.  Believe, or else.

But Christ's message wasn't believe or else.  Christ's message was: Love everyone, serve everyone, forgive everyone, find the kingdom of Heaven within you, and praise God!  Christ encourages us to have ultimate faith in the miracle of unconditional divine love, for it is real, and lack of belief will inhibit its capacity to manifest, and lack of self-worth will inhibit our capacity to receive, so believe in unconditional divine love, and let us make ourselves worthy by forgiving ourselves...  this is the Gospel of Christ.

Religion is for people who are afraid of hell, and ironically, religion puts people in hell, because fear itself is hellish.  And so religion is hypocritical, full of judgment and intolerance while feigning lovingkindness.  And hypocricy is blindness to the truth, right?  And nothing causes suffering like the absence of the truth.

And so it was religion that threw me into hell, which is where my spirituality was able to flourish.
Thanks, I guess.

Jesus talks about it all the time in Scripture.  He calls the Pharisees and the Sadducees "hypocrites" over and over again, pointing out how well these guys talks the talk and how poorly they walk the walk.   These are the religious conservatives who talk the loud religious talk and walk the loud mammon walk.   Talk is so cheap, and actions speak louder than words, and religious hypocrites - i mean religious conservatives - have from time immemorial talked a talk of righteousness and walked a walk of intolerance.  Spirituality is a path that leads to tolerance, and religion is a path that leads to intolerance.  Just look around.

Here, from James Ch 2:

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?

15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.

16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 

Talk is cheap, relatives, and actions speak louder than words.  Do you see?

Religious conservatives are hypocrites who behave in an intolerant, judgmental, unloving, power-tripping, class-privilege manner.  They're phonies.  Religious phonies.  They murdered Jesus, they persecute hippies and minorities and women and the poor and underprivileged today.  Jesus demanded that his followers forgive their enemies, and Christian conservatives are intolerant warmongers who insist upon going to war with their enemies, whether they be a different religion, a different race, a different species, a different gender, you name it.  Religious conservatives have appropriated spirituality and turned it into religion, and perverted the path of love and peace into a path of intolerance and war.

Don't take my word for it.  Here, take a look at a few choice phrases regarding the establishment's religious conservatives:

Matthew Ch.28:

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

And here, in Mark Ch.7:

6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: "‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."

 Its time to take back the truth, relatives.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

Right wing religious conservatives are afraid of hell, and because they choose fear, they are in hell.  Religious conservatives hate themselves, isn't it obvious?   You can't be intolerant and self-tolerant at the same time.  These are unloving hypocrites who are not practicing forgiveness in their lives, and so have not forgiven themselves.  And self-forgiveness is what its going to take for religious conservatives to lighten up and love people and all life unconditionally.   This is the Gospel of Christ.

Jesus Christ was a bleeding heart liberal.  Duh.  Christian Conservatives have no leg to stand on, they are hypocritical on their face.  If Jesus had been conservative, he would have lived.  Religious conservatives murdered Jesus because his message was dangerously appealing:  Love really is the answer.  Jesus was the father of all hippies.  Give up your trust in things, and trust divine Grace. Give up your pursuit of mammon, and pursue the face of God.  This is the Gospel of Christ.

All the forces of fear in the world rose up as one to prevent love from coming out on top.  Too late.  The war is over.  Forgiveness is the superior strategy; forgiveness is the ultimate invincible long-term strategy.  Spiritual warfare endures only as long as we insist upon it.  Peace is waiting for us to forgive one another.  Forgiveness ends the war between light and darkness.  Forgiveness allows the light to have compassion for the darkness, and forgiveness is what allows the darkness to receive the light.  The armies of darkness have been forgiven, and loved, and overcome with healing light.  Hatred has been vanquished.  The peace of Christ has descended upon the world.  Love wins.

Blessed are those who do not take offense at me.  For those who have ears to hear, let them hear.  I do not write to abolish the Law but to fulfill the Law. 

This is the Gospel of Christ.

Go and learn what this means:  I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.