The Hindu avatar Rama (pictured with his wife Sita) has the same blue skin tone used by the Na’vi race in James Cameron’s film Avatar

Whether intentional or not, James Cameron’s film Avatar contains many spiritual analogies. Here are seven examples I observed:

1. The Na’vi race have a striking similarity to depictions of Hindu avatars like Krishna and Rama. Coincidence? Apparently not. James Cameron admitted to Entertainment Weekly that he made the Na’vis blue “because there’s a connection to the Hindu deities, which I like conceptually.”

2. The paradise world of Pandora represents the higher realms of spiritual consciousness or the “Inner Garden of Eden” that we all aspire towards.

3. Just as the humans came to Pandora for its mighty ore so we often turn to spiritual realms for superficial and material motives.

4. The way the avatar drivers would slip into those “link-up” devices, enter a trance state and lose identification with their physical bodies sure reminds me of meditation.

5. At first Jake is impressed by the superficial experiences of his avatar life as a Na’vi – just like those who start to meditate are hung up on seeing some light, hearing astral sounds or having a vision.

6. As the movie progresses Jake begins to appreciate the mystical ways of the Na’vi people – just as the meditator starts to discover the subtler joys of the “inner life.”

7. And just as Jake’s exploration of Pandora is disturbed by vicious animals, bulldozers and military conquest… so the spiritual seeker’s exploration of the inner world is often attacked by wild desires, the bulldozing effect of material consciousness and the mind’s battle against it’s own armies of restlessness.

In effect, Avatar is an eternal story retold in futuristic trappings. Like the Bhagavad-Gita’s symbolic war of Kurukshestra Avatar depicts the battle within the spiritual aspirant to reclaim their inner kingdom of God-realization.

	In many ways I see Christianity as a subdivision of what is generally referred to as “Hinduism.” (Image from Thai Exotic Treasures.)

When people ask my religion I like to tell Christians that I’m Hindu and Hindus that I’m Christian.

You see, Hindus generally treat me like an outsider since I’m as white as a Canadian-Irish can get. And my interpretations of Jesus’ teachings are so far removed from mainstream Christianity that some Christian would think I’m in league with the devil.

But between you and me here’s my take on the matter: Jesus was a “Hindu.”

In its truest sense Hinduism isn’t really a religion. Go to India and you’ll find hundreds of sects worshiping different incarnations of God with different dogmas. In my eyes, Christianity is just another sect that worships God’s incarnation as the Lord Jesus.

Sadly, Christians are hung up on the idea that God only incarnated ONCE in the Middle East. He spends 30 years helping his dad saw wood until one day he begins preaching a new religion. Three years later he’s nailed to a cross. Seems rather limited.

While God taking form isn’t happening on every street block – I do believe it’s a phenomena that’s been repeated hundreds – if not thousands – of times.

People say, “Oh, those Hindus. They have so many gods!”

Nonsense! Hinduism is the most monotheistic religion in the world. They not only believe in ONE God – they believe EVERYTHING is God. Matter, earth, water, fire, Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, you, me… All is illusion. Only God exists. Hindus simply worship those souls who’ve realized this truth. Souls like Jesus’ – where there became no difference between his consciousness and God’s.

So call me Hindu. Call me Christian. Call me crazy. Doesn’t matter to me. But I believe what the Jews called “the Christ” was far greater than Jesus’ mortal form. That “Christ” has become manifest on earth many times – and lies sleeping in all of us.

Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) author of the Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.

C.S. Lewis is oft quoted for having told people: “You don’t have a soul.”

I couldn’t agree with him more.

I’m glad someone in “authority” finally tried to put an end to all this “my soul” “your soul” nonsense.

As C.S. Lewis writes: “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”

As far as I can reckon… What we are not thinks it has a soul. And we (the soul) tend to identify with what we are not. Hence, the delusional thought that “we have a soul.”

As a swami I knew in California would like to remind us: “When you look in the mirror you need to realize, ‘This is not me. This is my package.’”

The more I apply this thinking to the dumb “soul” expressions we have in the English language the more I laugh…

“When I die my soul will live on.”

Good for your soul!

How about: “When my body dies… I am.”

	My wife, Nicole, and son Jonah hanging out at the cemetery.

I slipped on my boots without tying them and ran out the door with no jacket. The cold February air quickly sunk into my bones.

Not far from home, I found my wife Nicole semi-conscious, unable to talk and barely able to stand. Our three year old son stood by her side.

As soon as she saw me she collapsed.

Nicole’s diabetic and, for whatever reason, her insulin pump had dropped her blood sugar almost to nothing.

She and Jonah had left home around 11am to go to a park about five minutes away. Nicole said they’d be back by 12pm.

Even before 12pm hit I had this uneasy feeling.

When 12pm came my whole being was saying: “You gotta go find them. Now.”

But my mind reasoned: “She’s probably talking to another mom. You don’t have time to be running out the door every time they are five minutes late.”

By 12:10pm the feeling inside had become impossible to ignore.

Somehow I carried her and Jonah back home. Jonah was scared and refused to walk. So I’d carry one about ten feet and then went back for the other.

Once I got them home I knew what to do. Thirty minutes later we had brought her blood sugar back to normal with a cup of orange juice.

I wish I had gone out sooner to search for them. If I had waited longer the results could have been deadly.

Discerning what is intuition and what is imagination is a tricky game. We are not trained as children to develop the sixth sense. We are not taught that we are all-knowing spiritual being trapped in physical forms limited by five short range senses.

I figure it’s better to follow your gut and make plenty of mistakes… until you can fine tune your sensitivities.

	In the Italian film, Cinema Paradiso, Toto pursues the love of Elena like an artist pursues the muse and a spiritual seeker pursues God.

In the Italian film, Cinema Paradiso, young Toto Salvatore falls in love with the new schoolgirl, Elena Mendola.

Night after night Toto stands across the cobbled medieval street staring up at Elena’s window – waiting for her to acknowledge his love. Months pass. Each night she sees him, closes her windows and turns off the lights.

Finally, one night, Toto says he’s had enough of standing out in the rain. He heads home, never to return.

And then Elena comes to him.

I’ve found the Muse to be the same way. It likes to push us to our edge before it responds.

By the Muse I’m referring to that force within us that drives us to create new things (whether a novel, music, raising children). As with all endeavors… if we’re not willing to consistently put in the time and discipline then why should the Creative Power of the universe come to our aid?

In my mind, an aspect of God is that Musing Creative Force that has built a complex universe with an uncountable number of dramas, creatures, planets, solar systems… Every soul is called to be part of His cosmic story-telling. Not necessarily by telling stories. But by manifesting a unique reflection of the Creative Muse.

But getting in tune with our inner creativity isn’t “plug n’ play.” Like Toto in Cinema Paradiso we have to show up day after day. Play that violin. Go to the dojo. Attend that Mandarin class. Remind your child how to say please for the 498th time.

Whatever it is you’re called to do… it takes consistency and patience – having faith that the goal is just around the corner.

	A depiction of Jesus (between Peter and Paul, top center) from the second half of the 4th century — back when a belief in reincarnation was widely held by Christians (before the Church “declared” it a hersey).

I’d known many of the faces sitting before me for over 12 years. They now looked at me as if I’d gone insane.  Only ten minutes into my grade 12 presentation of “Reincarnation and Christianity” and the Catholic classroom appeared ready to give me an opportunity to test my theories about reincarnation… with my own life.

Last week, I left you with that cliffhanger. Here’s how I made my narrow escape…

“I gotta question,” one oriental student asked. “If reincarnation is true, why does the population of the planet continue to grow? Shouldn’t it stay the same?”

Everybody gave me a “yeah-answer-that” look.

“Two possible explanations…”  I said. “First, souls are spending a shorter time in ‘heaven’ in between lives because there are more opportunities to reincarnate with the population explosion.”

With hesitation I added: “Secondly, we may not always reincarnate on the same planet.”

“I always knew you weren’t human, John,” said a friend from kindergarten. The class laughed. And so did I.

The tension had been broken.

“What about genders?” asked another student. “Will I always stay a man… or will I have breasts next life?”

“Most religions teach you don’t stay the same gender for too long,” I said.  “In fact, Mr. Smith will probably be a woman in his next life — to teach him a lesson.”

The class laughed even louder. Mr. Smith, one of the school’s English teachers, was renowned for his male chauvinistic views.

In the end I kept them laughing enough that they put down their stones. The teacher cut my blasphemous presentation short and still graded me 98% on the written essay (I lost 2% for typos).

It wasn’t so well received by my Catholic peers.

“This is crazy,” said the teacher. “You need to get down on your knees and pray for understanding.”

“That’s what got me here,” I replied.

“Really, John…” said a chubby student. “Who really believes in reincarnation?”

“The majority of people living on this planet,” I replied.

A year earlier a classmate had died of a brain tumour. Trying to find answers to such mysteries I had discovered reincarnation and the law of karma.

But I’d been brought up Catholic. Since day one, I’d been taught that after death you either end up in hell or paradise for eternity.

Yet when I started reading the Bible I realized it contains many references to the doctrine of many lives (and says nothing against it).

Opening some history books soon revealed that for the first 500 years of Christianity reincarnation was widely accepted.

I thought my Christian classmates would be thrilled to know the truth. Instead, they were ready to burn me at a stake. They’d had been guaranteed paradise and here I was suggesting that salvation took a little more effort than regular Sunday worship.

Next article I’ll fill you in on how I avoided a public stoning.

(Click Here to Read Part Two)

At this rate, many futurists predict, we should be living in some technological paradise before 2100. Robots doing our laundry. Devices to heal every disease. Vacations to Mars.

I don’t know. The way I see it much of our progress is just an illusion. A few examples…

• Wireless Technology: Sure you can chat with a friend using a device more impressive than Captain Kirk’s communicator… but at what cost? The radiation emitted by wireless technology is a serious health hazard causing cancer and impairing the entire body-mind.
• Food, Food, Food! 150 years ago getting enough food was priority #1. Today, in industrialized countries, people don’t worry about it. Yet most of what people eat  is fake “Frankenstein Food.” Genetically modified. Nutrient-depleted. Meat from sick animals on antibiotics who are fed dead pets and potato chips.
• Appliances: People used to keep their appliances for ever. Now everyone needs a new DVR. Half the reason (so I understand) that much of our nifty gadgets are so cheap is because they are produced in Chinese sweat shops. Essentially slave labour. Slave labour never lasts.

Those are just a few examples. Point is that we are progressing too fast. And just on the surface. Can we even call it progress if we are sacrificing our health and humanity?

How long before it snaps?

P.S. The illusion of progress is a big theme in my novella, All the Humans are Sleeping. This one won’t be ready for a while yet — but I look forward to its release as I think it’s my best story yet.

P.P.S. For more on the controversy over wireless technology see
my previous MetaphysicalSF musing: “Are Cell Phones Turning People Into Machines?”

Yet St. Patrick’s Day was originally a much more solemn “feast day” recognizing the life of Naomh Pádraig (c. 387). At the age of six, this Roman-Briton was captured, dragged off to Ireland and enslaved for six years.

He finally escaped and headed back to Britain. There he was ordained into the Christian Church, returned to Ireland and started a series of monasteries dedicated to serving the very people who had enslaved him.

Really not much is known about his life. Most of it is considered fiction or legend. Only two letters survive. Most my info came from a variety of sources collected on Wikipedia.

Regardless, my point is that back in the middle ages, a spiritual figure who spent his life in service to others  was considered a hero. Yet, somehow his commemoration day has become merely a time of shamrock worship and green milk shakes.

John C. A. Manley
MetaphysicalSF.com

P.S. I’m almost ready to release my first novelette, EsuM. Esum’s no saint, but I think his story offers a modern day spiritual fantasy you’ll enjoy.

What’s motivating them? Is it the revolutionary special effects? The Mother Earth overtones? The battle scenes? The overdone eco-green propaganda? The strange merging of Pocahontas and Terminator?

Probably all of the above.

But at a deeper level I can’t help but think it’s the avatar theme, itself.  Avatar, as far as my Sanskrit goes, literally means “descent into flesh.” It refers to the concept of consciousness (or a soul) living inside a physical body.

Happens to all of us.  Sperm and egg collided and our soul descended. After nine months of darkness, some doctor yanked out our new body, gave it a good slap and here we are.

I think this analogy in the film — at a subconscious level — is very appealing to people. It reminds them that the body they have been living in their whole life is not their real identity.

In defense of REAL avatars… The term, as far as my understanding of Hinduism goes, is actually in reference to souls that consciously choose to take human form — like Jesus, Krishna, the Buddha, Babaji. Those souls who’ve achieved enlightenment and come back to help bumbling humanity.

The rest of us are “unconscious avatars” (there’s an oxymoron).

John C. A. Manley
www.MetaphysicalSF.com
Where Spirituality, Science and Imagination Become One

P.S. See Chapter 33 of Autobiography of a Yogi for more details on avatars: http://www.metaphysicalSF.com/recommends/aoy

P.P.S. For the record I have not seen the Avatar film. We live an hour’s distance from any major city with a theater that would do the film justice. And considering I’m half blind with no depth perception I’m not spending two hours in a car to see a 3Dfilm without the ability to perceive the three dimensions.

	Ever notice how much catching and eating of fish goes on in the New Testament? The Zeitgeist Movement offers an astrological explanation.

The Zeitgeist film shows the hard to debate connections between pagan symbolism and Christian tradition. Just a few key examples…

• How Easter falls on the Vernal Equinox and Christmas three days after the Winter Solstice.
• How there are 12 disciples and 12 signs of the Zodiac.
• The endless references to fish in the four Gospels (representing the current astrological Age of Pisces).

Some of this may have been added to the Bible to help merge the popular pagan beliefs of the time with Christianity.

But lets assume that Jesus was born three days after the Winter Solstice, crucified on the first day of Spring and had 12 disciples who loved to fish…. I’d say that this helps prove that the Macrocosmic Power and Intelligence which orbits the Earth around the sun was fully expressed in the microcosmos of Jesus’ life. His little human body and its experiences reflected his oneness with Cosmic Consciousness which has the universe as Its body.

So it doesn’t mean, as the Zeitgeist Movement suggests, that Divine Incarnations were merely a man-made portrayal of natural phenomena.

Or another way of looking at it… Yes, Jesus was fiction. Just like every other human being is a dream.

The facts that the Zeitgeist Movement bring forth, in my opinion, do not prove Jesus was an imaginary creation of man. Instead, these symbolic manifestations of Nature in the life of Jesus were there to disprove the reality of the material universe.

	View from the main entrance to Hidden Valley Ashram — a yoga hermitage where I lived from 1996 to 2000 with 20 monks and about 30 residents.

After two years of serving in the kitchen of a yoga ashram I was “promoted” to the computer lab. After successfully installing a simple graphic card I was given the task of replacing a high-voltage power supply.

I confessed to having no experience in this area (I was a programmer not a technician). So my supervisor assigned Roger, another resident who used to build robots, to look over my shoulder.

Roger was quite busy, however, and didn’t appreciate being asked to split his attention. So when I asked him to confirm I put the blue wire where the blue wire should go he just said: “Yeah, that looks right.”

Assured of my technical prowess, I turned on the power supply. A shock immediately leapt up my arm. Sparks flew. There was a loud bang and the circuit breaker cut.

It looked like the thousand dollar motherboard and harddrive had been fried.

In the gym, I explained the situation to the senior monastic.

“Should I take all the blame or explain how it’s really Roger’s fault?”

“Well, it is ALL your fault,” he said. “After all… who are you?”

Silence.

In other words, did I want to identify my consciousness with my fleeting incarnation as John Manley or with the omnipresence of God Consciousness — one with everything and everybody?

In the end, I took full blame. My punishment was never being allowed to do any hardware upgrades again.

P.S. My first metaphysical novelette, EsuM, is almost ready for release.  Subscribe below to be notified when it’s out.

	Photo of earthquake survivors in Haiti by Matt Marek from the International Rescue Committee’s website.

In a video clip circulating the internet, Christian TV show host, Pat Roberston, explains how the Haitians “swore a pact with the devil.” This, he suggests, is why they experience so much hardship — such as the recent earthquake.

Apparently the only way those poor African slaves were able to liberate themselves from French rule was by teaming up with the red-suited one.

Call me crazy, but it sounds a little extreme. You’d think overturning oppressive overlords would be considered a godly act — not a demonic one.

I think the real issue here is that people want to explain why these poor people would be a victim of such a massive earthquake.

Again, this is one of those situations where only reincarnation and past-life karma can explain why a universe run by an Intelligent and Just Force would allow such things to happen to an already suffering people.

The law of karma requires that the fruits of every good and bad action return to that soul in their current life or a future one. I suspect certain places (like Haiti) are “hot spots” for purifying oneself of past bad actions — just as other places (like Hawaii)  allow you to reap the fruits of good actions.

Most of those poor Haitians may have been Americans or Asians or Europeans in their past lives. I may be a Canadian today, get hit by a car tomorrow and find myself being born **on a mud hut in India by Monday. You never know what seeds are waiting to sprout.

Of course, I do believe in grace  — a big theme in my upcoming novelette, The Redemption of Talafi. While Nature is rather exacting in its laws, I believe the transcendental aspect of God is more forgiving. If we learn our lessons we need not always eat the fruits of our past bad actions.

And by being aware of the suffering of others and doing what we can to alleviate their bad karma (through prayer and physical aid) we in turn purify ourselves. We see ourselves in others. Such compassion detaches us from our  physical egos and its karmic baggage.

So did the Haitians make a “pact with the devil?” No more than the rest of us who think matter is real.

P.S. The earthquake is said to have killed thousands. While this seems tragic, it is not an end. Many of those souls were trapped in a land without opportunity living out their days in violent slums without water, electricity or proper nourishment. Death was a release for them. Next life they have likely merited more prosperous conditions.

P.P.S. If you would like to help those left behind please click here to visit the International Relief Committee’s Haiti Crisis information page. The IRC only uses 10% of donations for fund raising and administration costs while 90% of your donation will go towards deploying its Emergency Response Team to Haiti to deliver help to the devastated city of Port-au-Prince.

	Akiana Kramarik before her painting of Jesus titled “Father Forgive Them” (which she painted at age nine) being interviewed on CNN.

You’ve likely already heard of 15-year old prodigy, Akiane Kramarik, who paints pictures of spiritual visions she’s been seeing since she was four. Her depictions of Jesus I find very moving.

It’s my impression that she’s been holding a paint brush for many lifetimes. How else can you explain why one child is born in the slums of some third world country while another is born in Idaho with artistic gifts and spiritual insight way beyond the norm?

I’ve completed two years of fine art training at the Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. I can safely say that for a nine-year-old to teach herself how to paint at the level of Akiane is quite unthinkable.

Not only does she seem to have retained much talent, skill and experience from her previous lives as an artist but she’s also retained memories of her sojourns in the astral plane (“heaven”) in between rebirths. She talks about her visits to heaven and how there exists a million more colours than what we see with our mortal eyes.

Either Arkiane story is further proof of soul migration from life to life or there’s a very unjust being running the cosmos dealing out artistic talent to some children and poverty to others.

I’ll go with reincarnation and the law of karma.

You can visit Akiane’s website by clicking here to see all her paintings plus videos and interviews.

	Mahatma Gandhi described life as an “experiment with truth.”

Len Biendron (www.lenbiedron.com) commented on a previous Metaphysical SF blog post (The Roswell Crash and Politicians’ Birthdays):

…the most easily used reason to “do nothing” is that “the truth” is so very hard to define, let alone discover.

I agree. That’s what makes the pursuit of Truth such a challenging game.

Though, I disagree that anybody can “do nothing.” Doing nothing usually just means conforming or following something else. The world seems to be filled with powerful people quite willing to lead others who don’t want to lead themselves.

Len goes onto say…

How do we really know anything? By experiencing it ourselves, or by being informed. By the news media, by other people, by reading about it. None of these sources are certifiable purveyors of truth. But nonetheless we are compelled to choose one and believe, even though if you are careful and compare notes, you can see that the facts are sometimes conflicting or at least ambiguous.

Well, I’ve found that if we rely only on the first five senses to seek out the truth in anything (from “Why do I exist?” to “Whom should I vote for?”) we can forever find ourselves trapped in circular logic.

I’m a big believer in the sixth sense — intuition. Matter by it’s very nature is fleeting and not real. The first five senses only interpret matter –  so they are just as unreal. What is left is consciousness. It’s my belief and pursuit that learning how to tear away that veil of matter-perception allows us to experience ourselves as part of the Only Consciousness behind everything. That realization would give immediate knowledge of all things.

Until then, the real pursuit of truth is learning how to attune ourselves with our own intuition. Part of that development seems to be about taking what we learn through the senses and “running it by our yet infantile intuition, making a decision, applying it in our lives and reviewing the results.

Ghandi referred to his life as an “experiment with Truth.” And I think that’s the best we can ever do — trusting and having faith that Truth will guide us along if we are sincere and even minded.

P.S. Len’s wife does some beautiful nature photography. You can check them out by clicking here. We have one of her prints of an owl hanging on our living room wall and have purchased many of her greeting cards.

P.P.S. If you haven’t read it yet check out Are We Becoming a Race of Cyborgs?.

Charles Robert Richet (1850–1935) a French psychologist who devoted many years of his life to the study of spiritual phenomena.

Why don’t we live in a constant state of astonishment? Is it because we are too smart? Or is it because we cloak the astonishing in familiarity to protect our own egos from falling into a state of incessant awe?

A video clip was circulating on YouTube a while back (now pulled offline due to copyright infringement) where a comedian pointed out how people get impatient when their cellphone doesn’t have a clear signal — ignoring the incredible fact that their conversation is being beamed into space and then back down again. He cited how people complain about delays on airport runways — when we should be shaking with amazement that we can fly like a bird.

Well, even if you take away all our technological wonders there is still enough to make us feel astonished every second of the day: Birds flying through the air, food digesting in our stomach, the sun rising each day…

Why are we not living in awe about these things? How much richer our life would become if we would simply  silently witness what was going on around us with deep concentration.

Charles Robert Richet, a Nobel laureate in physiology, sums it up nicely in Our Sixth Sense…

It is assumed that the the phenomena which we now accept without surprise do not excite our astonishment because they are understood. But this is not the case. If they do not surprise us, it is not because they’re understood, it is because they are familiar; for if that which is not understood ought to surprise us, we should be surprised at everything – the fall of a stone thrown into the air, the acorn which becomes an oak, mercury which expands when it is heated, iron attracted by a magnet.

Alas, we need only to venture into our backyards to find endless examples of astonishing phenomena.

P.S. I had planned the release of my first metaphysical fantasy novelette for New Year’s day. Unfortunately a load of work (including three all-nighters) didn’t allow me to get it out in time. But EsuM is nearly ready. Stay tuned.

First the Romans were feeding Christians to the tigers – next thing they were running their religion. In today’s MetaphysicalSF ecolumn I explain why I think the Roman Empire likely destroyed  most accounts of the life of Jesus.

(This is part four of my Response to Zeitgeist Movement. Click here to read part one.)

Why are there so few records of the life Jesus? The Zeitgeist Movement says the lack of supporting accounts proves he did not exist.

In my opinion the more obvious answer is that the Roman Empire burned all the other records. Historical records show that when Caesar took over Christianity the Romans destroyed any documents, teaching and scriptures about Jesus that did not conform to the established canon.

The most obvious example is the Gnostic Gospels which yet survived thanks to a smart Egyptian who had the foresight to bury his copy.

Likewise, historians who have been given access to the libraries of certain Indian and Tibetan temples have found numerous accounts of the life of Jesus traveling to those lands (during those conveniently unaccounted decades in the Bible).

But why burn and suppress these records of Jesus?

Well, for example, it is well documented that the Romans suppressed the teaching of reincarnation. They declared it a heresy and destroyed anything (and anybody) who taught differently.

How many other teachings of Jesus were destroyed to help preserve a certain dogmatic view?

In short, they censored everything but the New Testament – which they then edited. For me, this is a much more likely reason as to why there are so little accounts of Jesus outside of the Bible.

P.S. In a future MetaphysialSF Musings I’ll conclude my five-part response to the Zeitgiest Movement by addressing their final claim: That Jesus was merely a narrative personification of a primitive pagan religion. While it’s impossible to deny the abundant amount of pagan symbolism in Christianity — I’ll explain why I think this only proves Jesus’ divinity all the more. If you’re not a subscriber sign up below to receive the final part.

P.P.S. Make sure you’ve also read W2K, Elves and the Intangible Necessities of Life where I announce the forthcoming release of my first metaphysical fanatasy novelette.

The first photo is actually a collage of the same location from last summer and now this winter. Quite the contrast Looks like two parallel universes.
…

On the left is me giving Jonah some amateur chiropractic treatment during a beautiful summer day earlier this year. On the right is my wife Nicole walking with Jonah on yesterday’s cold Christmas morn’ right before a storm hit. Looks like two different worlds!

Here’s one of my son riding a log with the old cemetery climbing the hill in the background…

Here are some snails we found hibernating by a tree…

Jonah and I with some geese and ducks who didn’t think Florida looked good this year…

And here’s the one horse open sleigh we used for transportation…

Hope you had a happy Christmas,

John C. A. Manley
MetaphysicalSF.com
Where Spirituality, Science and Imagination Become One

P.S. I’m planning to have my first novelette, EsuM, out by New Year’s Eve. Stay tuned. Become a subscriber if you are not already.

P.P.S. If you missed Thursday’s post about preventing poverty by being a more conscious consumer, you can still read it by clicking here…

http://metaphysicalsf.com/2009/12/24/preventing-poverty/

So this is Christmas,
And what have you done

This commonly conjures up images of John Lennon and Yoko Ono protesting hippie-style for world peace and an end to starvation.

As I looked around the store it made me think how our daily purchasing decisions shape the world we live. Much more so than protesting or making charitable donations. Money talks – and we talk with our money every day.

Thanks to oil we are able to have people in far away sweat shops labour away to provide us with cheap consumer goods: Electronics from communist China and clothes, coffee, fruit and chocolate from the impoverished fields of South America.

Developed nations spend so little on the basic necessities of life – no less the “unnecessary” necessities.

Partly because others work at unfair wages to provide for us.

And partly because we have sacrificed quantity for quality. People rather buy genetically modified, chemically sprayed produce from factory farms than locally grown, in-season, organic food. North Americans rather buy tons of cheap plastic toys for our kid from the slums of Beijing than a beautifully handcrafted toy from a local artisan.

There are so many repercussions to all of our buying decisions. Buying less while enjoying more high quality products from fair trade and environmentally sound sources will probably do a lot more to cripple the greedy elite (who are behind most wars and famines).

While giving to charities is great, I think more attention needs to be put towards living a lifestyle that prevents the need for charities. If developed nations had to pay fair prices for all their stuff (from food to clothes to TVs) what a different world we would live in.

Outside of the Bible, few accounts exist of the life of Jesus. Many say this indicates he was not real.

(This is part three of my Response to Zeitgeist Movement. Click here to read part one .)

Zeitgeist: The Movie makes the point that outside of the Bible there exists few historical references to the life of Jesus. They conclude that if he was really raising the dead and healing the sick there would be more records of his existence.

First, there are people today who raise the dead and heal the sick.

It’s rare such miracles workers come out and heal and perform feats for the inspiration of the masses. Still, many have. The Hindu teacher, Parahamansa Yogananda, spent many years traveling the United States in the 1920s and 1930s healing and performing “miracles.”

The Los Angeles Time, January 28, 1925, reported: “The Philharmonic Auditorium presents the extraordinary spectacle of thousands being turned away an hour before the advertised opening of a lecture with the 3,000-seat hall filled to its outmost capacity. Swami Yogananda was the attraction.”

Yet Yogananda felt he was only attracting spectators – not real spiritual seekers – and later retired to training serious students in his hermitages in California.

There are endless examples of such people. They are well documented. Interesting for a day and then largely forgotten by the masses. A passing form of entertainment.

Nothing more. Metaphysical demonstrations threaten the very fabric of most people’s materialistic values.

So not only do I believe Jesus performed such miracles – I also don’t believe Jesus was the only one to do so. Jesus even says himself that others would do more impressive miracles then he (John 14:12).

And his disciples even complain to Jesus that others were performing miracles who weren’t “with them.”

Likewise the rest of the Bible is full of stories of people performing miracles other than Jesus (personally, the parting of the Red Sea by Moses seemed more miraculous than anything Jesus did).

Lastly, people believe what they see with their own eyes. The same reason news of Jesus’ miracles didn’t become the international bestseller of its time is the same reason modern accounts of miracles get little attention. People don’t believe or don’t see any connection to their own life.

Honestly, I think the only reason Jesus became the world figure that he is today is because his message was hijacked and used by the Roman Empire. If left to the early Christian communities his teachings and life story would never have been taken up by the mainstream (yet the integrity of his message would have been much better preserved).

Which leads me into another reason why there are so few accounts of Jesus outside of the bible… which I’ll cover next time (click here to read part four now).