Many times during the day James is prompted by a randomized timer, Android application, to ask himself how he's doing in Jesus family business? The scale he uses is minus 5 to +5 and in recent days the ranking typically comes out around 3.2. 8.2 on a scale of 0 to 10. Better than he's been doing in years, or ever, but very exciting? Not really. A thought just occurred to him. James, how many are doing as well as you in the eyes of Jesus and his father, now or throughout history? Well what occurred to me is, very few now or ever. And that made me laugh. It continues to seem to me that it has occurred to No One except for James that what's important about Jesus is that he showed us the Joyful Way of being, given our DNA determined nervous system, which oh by the way could have saved the species, too late for that, but nonetheless the most Joyful Way of being for any individual that chooses to learn, follow, master his lead. And I'm not sure that Jesus even understood that. I think it had him rather than him grasping it. That fact. That it was the most joyful Way of conceiving of one's life and living ones life. Which is to say that as pitiful as his efforts are, James would in fact be delighting Jesus and his father, my father too, considerably higher than that 3.2, or 8.2 on a scale of 1 to 10. And that makes James sad. Because his abilities are so limited, no one will ever know what he's discovering, but that's beyond his control. For the joy of it James will continue to do his work.
1.05.2023
1.04.2023
Misunderstanding Jesus: looking forward to the church instead of backward to the prophets. He frequently warned against what would happen in the future after him, and frequently referred to what had come before him.
https://archive.org/details/prophets00abra/mode/2up
1.03.2023
1.02.2023
Jesus the man: what if every moment of his adult life what's the most gratified that anyone has lived?
I've always thought that this was the case. And for weeks now I'm explicitly experimenting on myself to see whether that was true. From the gospels I'm attempting to understand as deeply as I can who he was and to be the same way inside.
Regardless of how he thought of it, what I'm seeing is someone that totally identified with the highest potentialities within him. Potentialities that were probably shaped by his upbringing including the Jewish prophets, and in my experiment I am having my highest moral potentialities shaped by my experience of the man Jesus in the gospels. And as he personified his, I'm personifying mine, my creator. And I'm working to have my every moment with a side glance over to that creator, and that's a thing for me now, asking myself, how can I make creator laugh at my next attempt at goodness? And when I connect with that I can feel Creator laughing, and that gives me joy.
This is madness to our world. Saturday that prevails in our world is destroying all of creation for today's children and tomorrow's grandchildren and great grandchildren at all species.
I I could reach the point of deciding that this is no longer a worthwhile experiment, and/or that the results are clear to me that his is not the most gratified life for some, many, or all of us humans. Living his internal life which is there for anyone to see through detailed examination of the thousand teachings he gave us on how to be in the world. All of my experiment so far indicates that it is.
By living at means just above the federal poverty level I'm afforded the luxury of doing this experiment, at least some would see it that way. Others, if they were honest would say that I'm sacrificing everything important for this experiment.
This time of my work calls for some more weeks of getting as close to the man Jesus as those thousand instructions allow me to do. And that can best be served by continuing to be quite stationary as I am in this Owens valley area. And if I don't wear out my welcome then I expect for some more weeks to be here. And then to take myself back out into the world. To continue the experiment. And that others can see and experience the experiment in different settings and situations. Me too.
1.01.2023
As I get to know Jesus....
20 years of focus, and now many weeks devoted to intimate understanding, I'm patiently waiting for increased Clarity that percolate Within me. What are the primary things that were instrumental to him, that he tried to impart to us?
If and when I find sufficient clarity, five, 10 major elements, then I expect to affix those as labels making his 1,000 teachings searchable by those. http://www.jesian.org/
Progress is being made by me I feel, and these are current elements:
Tickle Creator: keep Creator joyfully laughing at your pitiful attempts to do good in the world, as a toddler keeps the loving parent laughing with their joyful attempts.
Be of Jesus/Creator: so identify with creator and his earthly embodiment, Jesus, that you become more and more of them, as we might rarely say of a child, I see the parent in them.
Find Creator within you: Creator may exist outside of you, but clearly Jesus experienced Creator within him, the kingdom of God is within you. Make yourself, keep yourself, one with that creator within you, your highest moral potentialities. Personify that.
Fear Satan's World: fear, not as in cower, but as in the healthy respect one would have for keeping their finger out of the way of the knife blade. Everything outside the kingdom of your highest moral potentialities is hell. The place of pain, suffering, selfishness, hatred, hoarding, cruelty, anxiety, worry, depression, physical pain.... Every breath you remain in the kingdom within you is instead living the fruits.
Joy Peace Love Life the Fruits
If one of the few great psychologists there's ever been said to a patient, if you enter by me you will be saved. One...
If one of the few great psychologists there's ever been said to a patient, if you enter by me you will be saved. One might be skeptical but one might also have faith in the psychologist. Jesus was the greatest psychologist that's ever been. That is how he should be understood. That's how I'm understanding him. And my experience is that he's correct.