Is your brother the Dalai Lama?!?!?! He said the exact same thing, and I agree 100%.
I think you did it the right way. Branching out to other faiths is a fantastic way to create a Ven diagram of Truths that major faiths have in common. I think if done correctly, it will also eventually let you look back with new eyes and appreciation and Love for the faith you ‘abandoned’.
Amen Brother
One of my favorite church experiences was going to an alternative Christian church, that did most of the mass as a ‘soft rock’ concert with guitars, pianos, singing etc.
What a blessing that was!!!
Not so much the quality of the music, but the Vibe of the crowd was SO palpable. Impossible to put into words. You could feel peoples Hearts opening and Connecting to God. It was a really powerful experience
Yeah. It’s Christian Bhakti Yoga. Been there and done that as a teenager during the Jesus Freak days in the early 70’s in L.A. Have you seen this film about the Jesus freaks at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa in the 70’s?
I was there as a teenager. There was also a “Jesus freak” scene out in Hollywood and concerts at the Hollywood Presbyterian Church and even at the Hollywood Bowl. Been there done that. And contemporary Christian music grew out of this. Now every Evangelical Church has got to have it’s rockin’ gospel band and there is a whole "Contemporary Christian Music scene. This all started with the Jesus freaks. Before that Church music was just pianos and organs and old hymns and gospel songs.
But now I find the theology simplistic and the music mostly not that interesting. I prefer Kirtan as my Bhakti practice.
And as I got into my 20’s I began to have dreams. That led to Jung and the I Ching, and Taoism, and the Christian mystics. I did Christian meditation. Then Buddhist practice. Eventually psychedics (I was guided there through dreams) and shamanism. Native American ceremonies. Back to more Buddhist practice and dream yoga. And the rest is history. And here I am on a website focused on Buddhist Night practices talking to a guy who is partial to Christianity. Full Circle?
Why thank you brother. I did have that thought, that perhaps this is the closest thing that I have to a Sangha, even though I don’t have time in my schedule to commit to the classes. I have read many of Master Holocek’s books and have been working (not always so successfully) at mastering lucid dreaming. Dreams are what started me down the path out of the Christianity that I was raised in. I have been keeping a dream journal since the age of 20, and it’s what I keep coming back to as my source of guidance. So yeah, it’s the "Sangha of my Dreams (LOL). I somehow keep coming back to this website the last couple years or so. I also don’t do any other social media, so this and youtube are the closest things to that.
No but really appreciate the reminder, when it first came out another friend told me about it, and it resonated with me then, now after seeing the trailer it ressonates even more!
I think a tad different, but similar concepts. This chirch was LUTHERAN! I was shocked, I guess these Lutherans were on the more Liberal end of the spectrum. They still had mass and a sermon, but opened and closed with songs that you could sing along to.
Actually the first contemporary worship service that I attended, now that I think about it, was in an Episcopalian Church in the late 60’s and I was only in Junior High- like only 13. But I had a cousin in High School whom I was close to and he started attending this charismatic Episcopalian Church (there was also a “charismatic movement” going moving into mainstream churches in the 60’s (“charismatic” from the Greek “charisma” meaning “spiritual gifts.” This was a form of Pentecostalism, i.e. "speaking in tongues, faith healing, the gift of prophecy, etc), and it was a folk mass, it was the 60’s and a lot of hippie looking folks were going there. My background was more conservative evangelical, with very traditional hymns, so this was wild and exciting to me. A bit later came Calvary Chapel and the Jesus freaks and that whole scene. That cousin eventually became an Eastern Orthodox Priest, by the way. But we were raised Evangelical.
In the Bible, Jesus healed a blind man, which is interpreted as a parable about seeing with new eyes. Jesus also said:
"If thine eye be single, thy entire body will be filled with light" (Matthew 6).
Explanation
Seeing with new eyes is a spiritual experience that involves seeing the world through God’s eyes, rather than through the lens of fear and separation.
*It can also mean seeing things that are new or unknown, rather than through the lens of old experiences and expectations.
In the Bible, Jesus healed a blind man by applying spittle to his eyes and touching them again. The man was able to see, but not completely restored, so Jesus touched his eyes again to fully heal him.
This parable is interpreted as a way to see the world through God’s eyes, rather than through the lens of fear and separation."
To truly see with “God’s eyes” is to see that it’s All One. All God.
Jesus, I’m starting to sound like a Dr. Bonner’s soap bottle!
Better get down off my “soap box.”
The interesting part starts at around 9:00. I had the thought, I wonder if anyone has done a youtube video reading a Dr. Bonner bottle and sure enough! Here it is, Sacred Teachings from Dr. Bonner. The OCD version.
By the way, Dr. Bonner’s son inherited his fortune and contributes all of the profits to psychedelic research!
Or in the very least, to see that there is far less separation from people and God than meets the eye. We all have the ability to connect to God, and through God we are all connected.
Funny story. My wife gave her Mom, who was a fundamentalist Christian, some Dr. Bonner’s soap as a gift. She asked her husband to read what was on the bottle. She thought it was heretical and of the Devil and gave the soap bottle back!
Amen bro. I would say it even more radically and mystically. We are all God and we are all connected! We are all leaves and branches on the God tree. “I AM is the Vine and you are the branches.”
-Jesus
“The God’s Eye provides a watchful eye over a person, protecting him/her against future uncertainties. It also served as a symbol of the power of seeing and understanding unseen things. Traditionally, when people made a God’s Eye, they were expressing a prayer that the eye of God will watch over themselves and the person they made it for.”
Thank you for this, this passage is a Total Grand Slam:
" John 15
New International Version
The Vine and the Branches
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other."
I agree… you have so much to share!.. what a Blessing that would be to the world. and the multiverse. and the God in you and the God in all.
you transmit so much fun in dealing with these questions, along side deep profound inquiry.
@NightHawk999 when you publish your book, I’m the first one in line to buy and read it
