Can you help me in understanding the Bible, how to read and interpret it?
The Guide: The New Testament brings mostly the accounts of the people who were then called disciples and apostles. Many of these accounts confirm the same events, without contradictions. This is important for you to fully comprehend. It is indeed very significant that these accounts are confirmations of real historical events, regardless of what some sources claim today.
It is also interesting to note that in typical human fashion, people observe, tune in to and have different opinions as to what is relevant. Therefore some of the Gospels concentrate more on certain events than others. It is, of course, also true that not all the witnesses were present at all occasions.
Many of Jesus’ injunctions may appear today totally contradictory to spiritual laws as you learn them. Quite apart from unavoidable occasional mistranslations based on the translator’s own misconceptions and limited vision, at the time society’s laws and rules safeguarded inner spiritual truths. These very same rules and laws are no longer necessary today because mankind as a whole has evolved considerably, at least in certain areas.
Many sayings in the Scriptures also seem contradictory to spiritual truths today because of mankind’s total externalization of reality. Everything was separated and outward, nothing internalized. This is why cause and effect were seen in a distorted way, as if effect were an arbitrary, often punitive act by a separated deity.
This is a particular importance for you to comprehend, my friends. Lecture #245 Cause and Effect on Various Levels of Consciousness deals with some very deep reaching aspects of cause and effect on various levels of reality. In this particular context, the forthcoming lecture will prevent you from rejecting the Bible as you often do, in its totality. I venture to guess that a number of questions will deal with this aspect of human changes in outlook and perception of reality and Creation.
The benefit of understanding the Bible in a new light and with new insight is immeasurable. It will convey to you the immense love that Jesus gave to all of humanity. It will help you to experience him with more reality and aid you to make contact with him now. It will also give you a more comprehensive overall vision of evolution of consciousness.
It will connect many of my teachings in this respect with the actual historical events and thus open to you a deeper vision of God’s constant presence in all of humanity’s life. It will reveal the ongoing process of evolution, which will strengthen your faith and correct your distortions.
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Are the disciples of Jesus beings who do not have to reincarnate again, and do they represent in a symbolic form psychological aspects of human types?
The Guide: There are two questions here. To the first question I say: there are some among the disciples who do not have to come back anymore and some others who do, but they are very highly developed now and have great tasks to fulfill on this earth. I explicitly beg you, my friends, not to ask me which of the disciples do not have to reincarnate anymore and which of them may be alive now. I have very good reasons, particular reasons, why I do not want to discuss this. And it is not important for your development to know this.
As far as the psychological aspects are concerned, I would like to say this: the whole Bible, the Old as well as the New Testament, can be interpreted on many levels. The lowest level would be the historical one. There are, of course, many errors and many omissions, historically, which have to be expected. Then there is the level of spirituality and symbolism – the level that you might call metaphysical. And there is – and this is, perhaps, the most useful for human beings in your present state of development – the psychological level.
For everything mentioned in the Holy Scriptures also has this level, in addition to the others. One level does not exclude the validity of the other. And even though many of the personalities in the Scriptures were actual persons – not all of them, but many of them – they, at the same time, represent psychological aspects. Because of the existence of these different levels simultaneously, the Holy Scriptures are such a magnificent, outstanding and unique document.
Meaning is to be found on each of these planes. It is inconceivably “artful” – to choose this word – to have the Bible constructed in this way. You can never know how strongly and resourcefully God’s Spirit World has actively helped to create this marvel, already foreseeing the many human errors that inevitably must slip in, in the course of time.
Despite these errors, the Bible is something that has never been duplicated. But there are extremely few people, indeed, who understand the Bible from this point of view. Many perceive one level, perhaps a few even two levels, but there is hardly a person who can grasp all the levels contained in it.
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