My point made about the importance of the open discussion.  Thanks.

Yes, discussion and dialectic exchange is valuable in the pursuit of truth. OP's, sycophants, the shadow, etc. are eventually tripped up and exposed in this process. Polite discourse is a veil for secrecy. This is why it is so important to love your enemy as yourself; through facing opposition we modify and develope our own truth. Truth will set one free.

"We build a wall around our hearts, one little white lie by one half-truth, until we trust no one; especially not ourselves."
~~carefulcarpenter

Not only that he said the same thing...

"Whoever would save his life [his old beliefs and perspectives of the lower- ego]
  will lose it
  but whoever will lose their life
  for my sake [the ever present, ever new inner- Self]
  will find it again."

Jesus said these things to everyone and then he probably explained them to his friends   He didn't say too much titmouse and neither have you.  My point made about the importance of the open discussion.  Thanks.

I'm still to a greater or lesser degree monitored and followed around by negative forces, but so what? They were always there. The difference now is that I'm aware of them and have adjusted some of my beliefs and behaviors accordingly. These negative influences were present when I was a practicing Muslim, now that I'm a Christian, and they were there when I didn't hold so much as a religious belief at all. I wonder if it's not more to do with the light of love that seeks expression from within you than whether it's through the lens of Jesus Christ, Mohammed who is the Prophet of Allah, or Buddha that you experience this love and light? It's my belief that they're all just aspects or faces of the same Creator, anyway. Granted, the truly demonic absolutely hate Christ, so I suppose it's true that they will hate me, too.

I thought your post was great. Especially the material I quoted above. Thank you for sharing it.

Meaning is so subjective. One who takes a path to know oneself better takes a solitary sojourn. There is no winning. Growth is its own revelation: metanoia (repentance). S/he who loses oneself(old self)shall find oneself(new). The greatest wisdom comes after the fall. Debate, discussion, controversy, struggle--all is helpful when one is prepared to discover new perspectives. This too is not about who wins. Sociopathy is all about winning at all cost. Metanoia is about losing; losing the old beliefs and perspectives and gaining life anew--like a child (of God).

Poetry is a wonderful form of communication between the unconscious higher-self and conscious ego-self. If one wants to see a new world, one can pursue this by seeking to see the world anew. There is no guarantee that personal effort will return the desired effect, yet it opens the pathway to higher growth. This in itself opens doors for communication from the unknown.  Religious leaders are poor examples of the path Jesus took to discover Himself. We all take our own "individual" journies of discovery when things get so uncomfortable that we are desparate for things to change. Church leaders are all about "tradition"; can you see where their path has taken the "collective individual"(oxymoronic)? Surely not the narrow paths of Jesus and Buddha and Krishna and Lao Tsu. Religious leaders have steered the follower away from the "wilderness" of the unknown. Seekers blaze their own paths. This is not the structured path of convention. Winners seldom chose to seek outside convention for they "believe" they have found success. The doubter has the greatest chance for metanoia.

"Success is failure"
~~carefulcarpenter

"The winner will be the loser, by the grace of God(a generic term for the life force which energizes our sojourn), the Father"

"He who knows the Father and the Mother will be called the son of a whore"
~~jc

Seek the one crucified for speaking of love and truth. You may find that He *IS* unworthy of this world. He is the one which *IS* rejected. He never was--He *IS*.

I've said too much. Thank you for your comments.

The prime error?   = "Jesus is an idol"
                                  You must choose between him [and similar idols] or yourself"   

I don't believe that presumption or the false dichotomy it presents me with.  Jesus is not an idol.  Jesus never made an idol of himself.  Fools make an idol of him and many have.  See through  that if you will and something of value can be learned from him.  If you're personally disinterested in him, then fine, but Jesus can contribute more to spiritual truth than a straw man can.

Like i said, a subject like this interests me for many reasons, not the least being how people come to their conclusions.  While the two posters above [dante and shukaido] reach very similar conclusions they get there from entirely different routes.  The greater irony is that Jesus taught the same thing about [spiritual] self- reliance.  Can we learn anything at all from other people [including Jesus] or must we mistrust everyone?  Do we come to our own conclusions about people [including Jesus] or do we only see the idols that fools make of them?

A lot can be learned from understanding Jesus.  There's no need to knock him down if you can find out what he really means.

And shukaido you had a lot of good things to say.  But your first paragraph assumes that we must be in error or spiritually ignorant if we discuss a subject that will obviously present dissagreements with each other.  That somehow we are provoking people to polarise themselves into some extreme of the ego in self defence by doing so and that it is therefore wrong to discuss the subject in question.  Jesus had no problem speaking his truth in many forums.  He confronted and was confronted by people.  He took the barbs in return if that is what he got.  That didn't mean that Jesus was polarised in the ego and therefore wasting his energy in ego stoushes with other people.  He didn't tippy toe around important subjects or avoid them.   Like back then we all have a different idea today of what's important or open to discussion.

Darkness is clever.

Khalil, it is interesting your writing that you now believe that negative influences were somehow authors of this "voice of God" you heard once, which shook you and filled you with good feelings. I wonder, Can darkness accomplish this? Can darkness fill a being with "goodness"? Aside from my idea that it's not really in the interest of higher dark entities to inspire someone with so much "goodness" and run the risk of polarizing them irrevocably into the higher spheres of the positive, I just don't think higher negatively oriented beings are capable of acting from love, but more from "magic" and mystery, and temptations of power, carnal desire, and material things. And if temptation fails, pain and suffering.

Once in a while a similiar type of thought that it was in fact darkness and not light that was originally responsible the heavenly inspiration of my experience will be subtly suggested to me in hopes that I'll accept the invitation to doubt the authenticity of my perception of true light, and therefore assign all of my spiritual experiences to the confines of negative overlordship. I decided to pass on that one. There was a time when I too felt this astonishing presence of "God" about and within me, which spoke, and at the time I wasn't part of any Christian sect or organization. I was baptized a Christian as an infant and began planning my escape from church functions at about the time I was able to tie my shoes. When I began to come into this strange new understanding of some things, which now includes postive and negatively-oriented non-human beings as well as angels, I was as far removed from organized religion as possible. The attempts to bind me to Masonic doctrines were indeed present, as the Ra Material states, the accumulation of light attracts attention. Darkness seems to me to always seek to take credit or authorship of everything, claiming that it was darkness which gave me this thing or that, or that allowed me to get by, and to go so far even as to suggest that it was by permission of darkness which allowed me to experience the true light of my claims. 

I go to church only once in a while now. I go to be in the company of others who share my belief in a greater harmony, and in a personal savior, who is Christ. Who cares if someone else doesn't share my belief? I think the idea that negative entities somehow harness and transmute the authentic feelings of love and joy expressed in churches is equally as nutty as some hold my belief in God and Christ.

Sometimes the minister of my church says things that completely grate me and go totally against this heavenly voice and presence I experienced, which said absolutely nothing about whether I should choose, for instance, to love a man or woman, and go to hell because of it. Once this minister looked directly at me, his facial expression changed dramatically, and he said, "Go home. Admit you were wrong," which relates to something he should have had no knowledge of, but it was then up to me to decide whether or not a shadow or spirit of some thing had momentairly passed over him. By the same token, some of those old ladies at my church have raised five kids, worked two jobs, paid mortgages, put food on the table every night, and know that there's a heaven above without having been abducted or stalked across the United States, as I have, by aliens inclined toward the satanic, or attacked by some Old One, demonic, or angelic being determined to drown me in physical and spiritual bonds, or put out the light of my life. I'm still to a greater or lesser degree monitored and followed around by negative forces, but so what? They were always there. The difference now is that I'm aware of them and have adjusted some of my beliefs and behaviors accordingly. These negative influences were present when I was a practicing Muslim, now that I'm a Christian, and they were there when I didn't hold so much as a religious belief at all. I wonder if it's not more to do with the light of love that seeks expression from within you than whether it's through the lens of Jesus Christ, Mohammed who is the Prophet of Allah, or Buddha that you experience this love and light? It's my belief that they're all just aspects or faces of the same Creator, anyway. Granted, the truly demonic absolutely hate Christ, so I suppose it's true that they will hate me, too.

Given what you've written, I would agree with you. If you get nothing from religion, if Jesus Christ isn't your way, then by all means don't follow him. Don't waste your time. Gather to your self what reinforces your personal belief in peace and love, and those things which nourish your soul.

But is Jesus real? My answer is: I don't really care! Seriously, why care about Jesus? Kill your idols... Live your own life... Kill your idols....

The truth is that we ourselves are not yet spiritually perfected at the soul level.  So, without the refinement of spirit at the soul level our activities and associations are often imperfect too.  We have walked into many culdesacs and taken many wrong turns so we need the guidance of inner- spirit to cut our way out of the undergrowth.  But while these associations [with life's apparent detours] may be imperfect in an ultimate sense, there may yet be some karmic purpose [or a learning purpose without the compelling of the law] being fulfilled in the present associations and so the spirit guides the soul through it in order to balance karma with certain people and/ or to learn what can be learned from a given situation.

The spirit understands the conditioning of our outer minds but when time comes to call a soul home nothing will stop the souls quest for freedom from all limiting conditions [including for you the morman church] and eventually nothing will stop the interior revelation of the spirit to the soul.

Your right, it's obviously down to an individual to understand or come to their own personal interpretation as to what this sojourn is about.

You understand why I think that this incident was created to reinforce my belief in the religion because it happened during the religion, I am sure.

It made me think, "Oh yeah, I've found the one true church here ,run by Jesus.
He is real and lives and speaks to us today.
The prophet and apostles must really be speaking with Jesus or messengers in Salt Lake."

This is why I find it hard to associate the incident with positive forces because it's purpose seemed to be to keep me within the deceipt but I understand what you are saying that it could be the incident was not related to the Church at all but a manifestation of what can happen if a person remains morally and physically clean as well as in mind, pure in thought as far as they are able.
Despite doing this for fear of hell or a love of christ and goodness and a wanting to go to heaven, irrespective of the state of my mind at this time, the state of my soul might have been correct in order to commune with a higher force.
My intent was pure.

Could be this small yet defining moment could be the key to my understanding of were I go from here.

Ps: I am thinking of other folks who may have had similar manifestations and have been plagued with doubts and are confused as I, so it's not that this is all about me because alot of the time I am the last person I am thinking about

I,ve become so sceptical, felt so betrayed, do not trust anything and if the truth slapped me in the face and said hello I would probably tell it to go away for fear of being decieved again.

It is this fear I need to get over.

You're the one who had your experience so you have to discern the origin of it.  [i make up profundities like that myself].   But i wonder if you're jumping to the wrong conclusion when you say it was a neg force.   By your reasoning  i don't reckon it necessarilly has to be negs.  You state many truths about the imperfect nature of the christian sect you belonged to and the fact that you, like others, sometimes come under extraordinary attack.  I have a few tales of my own.  But you might be drawing the wrong conclusion about the identity of the pre- cognitive voice that "filled you with all sorts of good feelings".

Millions of real people worldwide are associated with one group or another [religious or otherwise] which are imperfect.   Many of these groups have a part of the overall picture of reality but very, very few if any would be on the cutting edge of reality insofar as their belief systems would be error free.  And, even in groups where conceptions of reality are more perfectly described there is no guarantee of contact with spirit.  That kind of spiritual fortune is a much more personal thing and can find you inside or outside of any kinds of groups or none at all.  To participate in a group which has an exclusive franchise on all truth is not a pre- requisite for extra- ordinary communion with spirit.  Nor is belonging to any group at all.  Spirit is not subject to any such conditions.  All conditions,  including your association with this or that group, are instead subject to spirit. 

Do you really think your own spiritual- self or an 'angel' would be conditioned by such things [as your incidental association with the mormons] in order to reveal this experience to you?  ["don't talk to khalil he's a mormon.... until khalil wakes up on his own material steam we must never reveal to him the things of the spirit"].  If spirit was so conditioned, even fewer people on earth would ever have such experiences because everywhere the material matrix is so imperfect and everywhere souls are entrapped in it.   The spirit would be metaphorically standing back with arms folded, unable or unwilling to reveal it's supremacy over all imperfect conditions in order to reveal it's greatness to the soul. 

I feel that the being who interacted with you on that day could very well have been a true spiritual being, either your own higher- self or that of another and that you may be mis- interpreting your own experience.  You may also have since been targetted by the negs because of it.  That is because "one individual" as you say, [in the christ- consciousness] is a threat to them.  It is why Jesus was tried and crucified and why "the saints have been slain since the foundation of the world".   One person "one" with the higher- self is a threat because that person will transcend the 'matrix' and accelerate the demise of the false hierarchy.

Your own spiritual instincts got you out of an imperfect organised religion obviously because you are ready for higher things and that maybe in this life you have no further karma in your old associations?  You can work out the detail but maybe you became more sensitised by your overt spiritual experience that you eventually saw through the imperfect external matrix of the mormon religion?  It sure sounds to me like you might at least reconsider the origin that day of the "voice [that appeared] in the wilderness" of your human consciousness. 
                         
        "though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death [the material plane and it's low points]
          I will fear no evil. [inside the morman church or out]
          For thou art with me [in spirit]
          Thy rod and thy staff [the mother light raised up to some degree within me]
          they comfort me [with pre- cognitive truth. They fill me with "all sorts of good feelings"]

Khalil i once heard a story that reminds me a bit of yours.  It's about the pre- conceptions people have about God and the conditions which they imagine must be fulfilled before the Spirit would act in a certain way.

A poor woman had several children who she could hardly afford to feed and clothe.   Her husband had died the previous January and thanksgiving was the next day.   The husband had left her in such a state that there was nothing much to eat for herself or her children.  The family living next door were well off enough and the wife was a sensitive soul who was concerned for the welfare of others.  The time for thanksgiving came around and the charitable neighbor took the poor woman a turkey done to a tee with all the trappings and overjoyed the poor woman and her children.  "All my prayers are answered!" she exclaimed. "Thankyou so much!  thank God!" she cried in gratitude as it was all laid out before her.

Two busy bodies across the road [ maybe they belonged to the green political party  ] saw the charitable neighbor enter the poor woman's house with the turkey and all and they overheard the shouts for joy coming from inside.   Stony faced one said to the other "She credits God for that?"   "Fool"  said the other "any fool knows God is a vegetarian"

I feel much like Nexus when dialoguing with those that don't agree with the bible or that Jesus wasn't a historical figure. I dialogue with them mainly to expose that they are mirroring the "fundies" and really aren't any different then.

"Mainstream" Christians believe Jesus was real and didn't travel to Iran, India etc.

Many people trying to debunk the Bible have concluded that Jesus went there during his "missing" years.

Many "reputable" sources trying to debunk the Bible have concluded that Jesus was pure allegory.

Then we have the Cass material that claims Jesus was a real person, no he did not travel to Iran, India etc, he also did not do any "miracles".

I will fully agree that the bible has been misinterpreted over the centuries, so much so that it is incredibly difficult for most people to even try to read it without those errors/predjudices being filled in automatically, that doesn't negate it. I have read many heretic sources that had components that reasonated with me, only to eventually find that nugget in the Bible. Is there much I can't explain in the Bible? Yep, that too doesn't negate it nor does it mean I won't eventually find the answer.

Hi Spi , my little eye missed your point until now. I agree

I think this is true, Jesus was always pointing us to the father, to connect with the divine personally/ spiritually. People seem to want to follow the physical even if it was in the past vs following the vague nebulous that is harder to become sure of. that is why rules and regs come about and sheeple are so easy to lead.

So ultimately with all these conflicting reputable sources...i'll just keep on keeping on.

While the question of Jesus' historical incarnation can't be absolutely resolved through external means we can only use what is communicable to each other in order to prize open the doors of the intellect and the heart.   We're all a little bit wrong and a little bit right the way i see it.   No- one's got an exclusive franchise on truth that's why i think open discussions on subjects like this are perfectly in order.   While they can never fully resolve anything for anyone this is the place to have them.   Given our history and the blight of fundamentalism of all persuations these questions are too important to ignore completely.   

I suppose at least the 'non- believers' acknowledge that bible stories are filled with 'allegory' even if they don't know most of the  true meanings.  Wherever i've pointed out some of the allegorical meanings in those polarised discussions they usually get ignored and glossed over by the 'anti' crew as if they're irrelevant to the question of origin.  To discover what some of these stories and quotes really mean is to realise some portion of the higher mind in which they originate.   It seems to me that in tearing down the walls of fundamentalist ignorance the anti- 'fundy' is dealing himself out of a healthy dose of truth and a means [just one] of access to their own higher mind.  Blind faith or blind denials based on misunderstanding serve no- one and merely provoke different brands of fundamentalism.  I'm not suggesting that the compromise is an acceptance of falsehood and truth but there is something of value to be found in it so long as the subject stays open for discussion.  By doing so, a lot more than whether or not Jesus was incarnate can be aired.       

For example, shining spiritual truths are barely disguised in the bible by minds obviously greater than the "morons and imbeciles" who Tony Bushby believes compiled the new testament in the 4th century.  In fact some 'believers' in Tony Bushby recently claimed on NR that after they'd done "years of extensive research on the internet" they concluded that Jesus was 'almost certainly not real'.   It just so happened that that post co-incided with "nexus magazine's" synopsis of Tony Bushby's work on debunking Jesus and the supposedly fraudulent origins of the new testament.  The NR poster had obviously confined their research to that article and had missed the much older references to new testament books and  their authors by earlier commentators.  While not in excess these exist and can be found on the internet by anyone with an hour to spare.   Rather than enumerate them i'd recommend that line of enquiry.  I didn't get into presenting the older references in that thread [having already approached the subject from other tangents in the "Debunking Jesus" thread] but i have had discussions with others on similar threads which haven't degenerated into egotism and where respect has been maintained.  We shouldn't be reluctant to add anything to this subject just because it is contentious.