Yeshua and the Kingdom of Heaven

When I first read the New Testament, what struck me over and over was Yeshua’s emphasis on the Kingdom of Heaven – what was harmonious with it, and what was not. Like a monomaniacal Karate sensei, Yeshua meted out push-ups to his disciples when they failed to see the day in the light of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Over and over again, he’d bring them back on point. Why? Because that’s all that really matters in this life – our return to Christ conscious, to be ushered back into the Kingdom of Heaven, to cut through all the dross that occludes us from seeing things through the eyes of the Master.

So many of us meditate deeply and then revert to divided attention. We reach out to the Almighty in prayer and then curse at the cereal box when it doesn’t open easily. We do Yoga and then eat Krispy Kreme. I’ve left spiritual and religious establishments where I congregated with people and they insisted that the discussion about the spiritual and religious should be confined to those establishments. Yeshua would have it the opposite. Make everything about the highest truth. Admonish when attention is turned away, rap on knuckles for straying off track into the world of Illusion.

And moreover, we keep our spiritual selves under wraps, as if the world we visit during meditation will render us unclean for the masses if we divulge. There seems to be a collective agreement not to discuss the sacred, the holy. I’ve seen people regularly become asinine when the subject turns to holiness, as if they are obligated to shoot down the sacred on sight. They are mildly or fully possessed by the need to desecrate the divine and don’t know it. Bob Dylan sang; “You gotta serve somebody. Well, it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody.” When we shy away from talking Truth, when we treat the divine like a topic bricked off and out of bounds for regular life, like politics around the dinner table, who are we serving? It’s subtle, isn’t it?

Unspoken Group agreement with unconscious behaviour is strong in our culture. People laugh at inane jokes to ease tension. They rush to the rescue of anyone crying, which transgresses boundaries and ultimately stops any healthy catharsis from happening. They exchange uncomfortable knowing glances when someone ventures beyond the veil of the material world. The group consciousness has made atheism the norm. Like getting pissed drunk at a frat party, you’re cool to scoff at sacredness. It has taken up the role of policeman/woman, patrolling the streets and incarcerating anyone in the Lotus position. In short, the common Group collective serves the Devil.

The Devil is not the flaming-nostril red fiend of the movies. His role is not to frighten in terror, although he can, depending on the circumstance. Ask King Solomon. The Devil’s role is to distract from the Kingdom of Heaven, to lead away from God and augment his army. Kabbalah teaches that God is All that is. And that is a truism. So what grounds does the Devil have to rule over? Where do the ranks of his army stand? On nothing, because there is nothing outside of God’s Kingdom. But this nothing has a special quality, since it is something. It just isn’t true, so it is without substance, except it transfixes the mind and creates the appearance of reality. That is the nature of the foundation of the material setting of this world, the identification with body as true self, the materialist scientists, the chemist negating homeopathy because it contains no identifiable molecules, the Aristotelian what you see is what you get. It is also the lies we believe are real, false belief systems, misguided notions. Lu lords over these too.

I agree that the Devil is necessary, created and empowered by God with the role of opposition, deceiver. This awareness has helped me deflate the hubbub of the big scary fiery Devil. Without him, we’d be stuck in the play pool of perfection, with no ability for Soul growth and ultimate evolution. But Yeshua was strict with his disciples to focus on the Kingdom of Heaven, because anything else is getting caught in the trap of the world of illusion, like a moth circling the light, seeing in it some promise to return to the Light that created it. That’s why you see a lot of spiders making their webs next to neon.

The Kingdom of Heaven is here, it’s just gets dragged into mud when we focus on feeding our egos instead of listening to our truest selves. It’s now, there’s no need to wait for the Messiah or the return, it just may take some time to actualize as the molasses of the mundane slows to a halt, dries, and then cracks open, releasing rays of Light in every direction. It’s the only truth that is, so there’s no need to cram it down people’s throats, which is ultimately an act of doubt, not acceptance. If we stand up on a soapbox and preach the Kingdom, we will be labelled Jesus freaks, and firm the image that all who seek the divine are off their rockers. An ok choice possibly, but always a distant second to leading by example. Discussion should feel commonplace, matter of fact, like everyone else is crazy not to see, not to believe, instead of the way it normally goes. The important thing is to feel comfortable to mention, intone, utter the words, accepting the lash back that may result, seeing through it for what it is, to make regular deposits into the Collective, and feel the right to exist.

I reckon at Yeshua’s side, all things would have seemed possible. Enraptured in his energy field, the soul would have felt large, ready and buoyant and more real than the body, like a cork bobbing on the surface of the physical. Today, with atheist conventions training people how to counteract all the arguments of the believers, with popular figures like Jimmy Fallon, Bill Maher, and Neil Degrasse Tyson strutting confidently as peacocks of the profane, with the unmistakable Presence of the Pentecost a distant memory, it’s easier to feel greatly outnumbered, and to even wonder if perhaps there’s a screw loose and it’d be better to turn in the keys of independence and be swallowed up in the great mass of molasses. But now we’re on our own. We can’t rely on Yeshua cutting through the layers of our own doubt, or Mommy and Daddy doing it for us. We’ve each of us got to dig deep and decide who we are, what we stand for, where it is we stand, and keep our eye on the prize. This is part of the understanding behind 1 Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” We have to grow up and make our own choices, be responsible for where we lead our consciousness. This is not to negate the child-like innocence that is required to recognize the new and the sacred in every moment as in Matthew 18:3 “Truly I say to you, unless you become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Our Creator is flexible and is made of the union of opposites, often paradoxical, important attributes for each of us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

This aspect of choice and of exercising the muscles of free will, is an important one. How many of us have seen the Truth, know it, understand it, but admire it from a distance like a piece of art on a museum wall? Why do we not step into the landscape and take on the nature of the art? Partly it is due to apathy, partly doubt and self-denial. Those are all in the “can do” realm. It is also important to recognize the beliefs that govern us, lurking deeply in the recesses of our subconscious mind. How to recognize false limiting belief systems, find the free will button and release them is explained and facilitated in my book “Holistic Counseling.”

How else do we hone in on the Kingdom of Heaven? Imagine standing in a place of peace, expansiveness, calmness. Reflect on unity. Meditate deeply. Take care of self with good water, nutrition, and exercise.  Pose the question, “Who am I?” repeatedly and settle on nothing limited, restrictive, or that you could be graded for in school. See the world with rose coloured glasses – the rose being the vibrational colour of Love. Love thy neighbor as you love yourself. Love yourself is the foundation of that equation. Thy neighbor includes Palestinian, Pakistani, and the weird guy next door who is grumpy, won’t lend you his lawn mower but dumps his cut grass in your garbage. The Kingdom of Heaven is God’s Kingdom. The most important attribute of such a place is God’s Love. Love is so simple, such a monotheistic principle, so it behooves us, as we search for the door to the Kingdom, to focus on remembering what Love is, and that our very nature is Love and making our priority that. It’s so easy to forget, to get mad over the code error in the app, to be hoodwinked into thinking it’s better to be hateful and afraid of each other. So Kingdom walking needs courage and being a leader. The sort of attitude mentioned above – Y’all are crazy, not me. And forego the haughty attitude of ‘I got it and you don’t’ because they got it too, everyone does, because we’re all walking in the Kingdom already, we just don’t all readily notice.

Most importantly, see the Kingdom everywhere. It’s an act of surrendering and re-cognition. Trying too hard clogs up the arteries and constipates. Effortless effort. Open eyes wider. Just see it. Here. And next time you find yourself staring blindly into the bright neon lights of the lost masses, the whirlwinds of deception, and forgetting the top priority, drop and give Yeshua 50.

Salaam Alaikum. Peace be with you. Shalom Aleichem.