THE ILLUSION OF DEATH

Life is Reality. "Death" is an illusion. Jesus proved this to us by saying that no one could take his Life from him, and that if those who wished to kill him were to do so in three days he would be back, raised up again. He could have been back in 3 minutes, but then no one would have believed that he had truly died. Lazarus had been dead four days, and those who knew about such things would have agreed with Martha that especially in a warm climate, such as Israel is, Lazarus' body would have been decaying and beginning to putrify producing quite an odor. Jesus, however, not having his vision clouded by the mystification, or "mist"ification of confusion was not concerned with the natural form buried in a tomb, nor the illusion called "death" when he said, "Lazarus come forth", nor was he concerned about his own death as a reality when he said "in three days I will rise it up", speaking of the temple of his body.

Psalms 146:3-4 says, "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, (speaking of men) in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth and he returneth to HIS earth: in that very day his THOUGHTS perish." What perishes? His THOUGHTs, or THOUGHT LIFE, or the "pseuche" or soul life . That is what the 'man-life' or 'human life' is, a jumbled mass of confused thoughts, referred to in the Bible as the "carnal mind", which is lived out between the parenthesis of (birth and death). At the very last 'thought', this existence that is called 'life' ends. As a vapor it evaporates into thin air, as never having been, (James 4:14). Because it was all simply a concoction of the imagination, the 'image factory', it began when the 'thinking' began to be twisted as a serpent is twisted. Being twisted or perverted from Truth this thinking assumes an end of its self life. It must eventually perish from thought, "perish the thought", or dissolve because it has no foundation in Truth to sustain it.

Trees in the scriptures represent a mind or mind-set, or way of thinking. Thus when Jesus spoke to the fig tree saying that no man would eat of it anymore he was saying that the fruitless mind (tree of knowledge of good and evil) with its knarled and twisted way of thinking, had come to an end! To the material mind everything is material. To the Spirit all is spirit. The scriptures are written in code, hiding the Mystery of Life until One is ready and then he will receive Fruit that remains.

When once I began to think 'as a man', I took in, or was taken in by, or consumed the fruit of a lie ("as a man THINKETH in his heart, so is he"). That lie branched off into a whole tree of thought. I considered myself to have been born. I considered many things, building line upon line and precept upon precept my own world. At that point "THE DREAM" began and until I heard the Beloved say, "Awake thou that sleepeth and Christ will give thee light" I dwelt between the ( ). I got sick, I had pain, I suffered many things, physically, mentally, emotionally, not to mention the limitations of that way of thinking. Jesus said, "Take no thought...", because once thought is 'taken' - death occurs. "For to be carnally minded IS death." (Romans 8:6) So when I took the first thought that I was separate somehow from my life- Source, call it God, or Power, or Love, or Life, or Light, whatever you wish, I started a downward spiral into a bottomless pit and made my bed in hell, but the good news is "if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there". (Ps 139:8) Once I realized my true Identity, I knew that I would never put more on myself than I could bear, so when I came to the limit of what I could bear I was at the bottom of my pit and at that point cried out for deliverance.

So long as the insanity continues one 'thinks' he is a prodigal, away from Father's house, living in a far country, consumed with working by the sweat of his brow in order to make his own way in the world, HIS WORLD. So long as the insanity continues he is not in his right mind. Philippians 2:5 says, "Let THIS MIND be in YOU which was ALSO in Christ Jesus". The one who 'thinks' he does not have THE SAME MIND as that which was ALSO in CHRIST JESUS, who 'thinks' he is a 'human being' rather than Spirit Being, in Reality must HEAR to "Awake! Wake up! and LET THIS MIND" which is your true Mind again begin to function! Wake up, recognize What you are! Remember! "The Holy Spirit" or the Spirit that is WHO-LE will bring you once again into remembrance of all things! Will again bring you to recall What you are! And will again bring to your remembrance that Truth is your true Identity, that you have never in Reality left Father's house, that you and the Father are ONE, just as the ray of sunlight and the sun are one! That that which is the Power and the Glory is YOUR Habitation, that you are one of many mansions or dwelling places of the Presence and this will set you free. Free from what? From 'thinking' between the ( ).

That ( ) can be seen as a goldfish bowl, where the little fish, or 'thought-man' swims round and round, getting up in the morning, going to work, coming home, having dinner, going to bed, getting up in the morning, going to work, coming home, having dinner, going to bed, getting up in the morning, going to work, coming home, etc. etc. etc. He thinks in terms of passing seasons: summer, winter, spring, fall. He thinks in terms of months, January, February, March, etc. He thinks in terms of one birthday, two, three, thirty birthdays etc. He thinks in terms of "from paycheck to paycheck, from Christmas to Christmas, from holiday to holiday, from first to last, from beginning to end", and then repeats this insane cycle again and again, and yet to him it is not insanity, but simply the only 'life' he recognizes at that point. His every move is lived out between the goal posts of birth and death and he runs the field from one end to the other 'thinking' all the while that he is getting somewhere. "Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passes away." (Ps 144:4)

What has been said regarding 'insanity'? It is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result each time. So the fish swims about in the bowl of his 'thought world' UNTIL he begins to remember where he came from and the goldfish bowl is dropped into the sea and the fish swims away, no longer limited, no longer confined to the ( ). And the fish is in the ocean and the ocean is in the fish. The two are not two, but ONE as it always truly has been and ever will be. But for just a moment 'in time' he dreamed a dream that he was born and that he would die, and thus those thoughts perish at his awakening from the dream. "As a dream when one awaketh; so O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shall despise their image". ("Image", Strong's Concordance 6754: 'illusion'). What may have seemed as 60, 80, 100 years was but a moment in 'time', a dream.

"A day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day." There is no "time" in Reality, therefore what seemed like a very long dream life may have only been a split second, if that much. Nothing really.

Jesus further showed us the illusion of death when he entered into the little scene where a little girl 12 years old had passed away. There he found her parents weeping and mourning her 'death', but he said, "Weep not, she is not dead, but sleeps. But they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead." He put all the doubters out and took the little girl's hand, telling her to arise. The Spirit returned again into the form and the little girl got up! To prove that she was indeed alive Jesus told them to give her something to eat.

How foolish the parents must have felt, confounded by the facts! Their daughter had indeed been dead in their 'thinking'. Jesus showed them the fallacy of such 'thinking', and how simply the whole matter could be reversed. But in another place it is said that he could do no mighty works there because of their 'unbelief'. The one that 'takes thought' begins to take on a 'belief system', not a believing such as is faith, but a belief in "their own thinking", building a world of one "belief" after another, system upon system: i.e. the economic system, religious system, political system, and on and on. This one we call 'man' 'thinks' he must have these systems to live and thus is dependent upon 'the system'. "For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by many words". (Eccl 5:3) The 'belief system' is a sandy foundation which is easily shaken and can be tossed to and fro at every wind of doctrine/belief/teaching that comes down the pike. One man declares that something will kill you, while another comes up 6 months later and says, no it won't, in fact its good for you. So one man's plan will kill you while the same plan on a different plane of thought will be good for you. Who are you to believe? And so the winds of 'belief' blow through your mind and you are up and down, back and forth, walking to and fro in your earth, with the winds of change pushing you first one way then the other.

"Oh what a mighty web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." The snake in the grass, the subtle little lie that we are "born" and that we live to perhaps 60, 70, even 100 years, and then must pass from 'this world' - when believed and accepted as true, will have its final say in a grave thought! I don't recall what the first lie I believed was, but somewhere I accepted a voice other than my own as being another and the 'illusion of death' began. All details regarding birth are a concoction of a mind run amuck. Somehow I heard something I thought was another's voice and began to develop a screenplay of my 'arrival' into 'this world'. Sperm and egg and all scientific data fabricated to explain the arrival in an earthly existence is left hanging when asked where the first man came from and how he came to be? Having no father or mother the first man came from.......

An old testament word for 'thoughts' has in its root definition the word "grave". "My ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts". The wisdom of man is foolishness to God and the Wisdom of God is foolishness to man. Only the one who "thinks" he has it all figured out argues. God (or THE MIND behind everything) never argues with anyone, anywhere, anytime, because there is no other.

At some point a 'thought' begins and with it an assumptive dreamworld out of a concept(ion) brought forth into expression. The dream which consists of opposites such as good and evil will have its final hour, however. But until then a thought 'life' is formed and is so convincingly real to the dreamer that he will remain with it unless he hears something within himself to shake him out of it. The dream becomes so overwhelmingly elaborate in the intricacies of thought that hold it together that it takes a renewing of the mind to that which IS Reality. The awakening, recalling, recognizing or remembering comes not but by revelation.

The dream starts with the introduction of 'others' as separate beings, establishing individuals who are even further separated from their Life-Source by the belief that God too is a separate Being up in the sky above, sitting on a throne somewhere. The fairytale continues with a God who rewards and punishes and must be pleased and appeased continually.

The 'thinking' is that one may read and study to know GOD or the Great Mind of the Universe, or work its way back to God, seemingly ignoring that "I AM THE WAY", and "TO KNOW ME is life eternal."

This thinking desires religious activity, as though it cannot forsake a knowledge somewhere deep within that there is something greater, something it has known before, something that it will know again.

Twisted thought is driven and perpetuated by fear, fear that either drives to establish religion or constantly confronts with doubt and question. Fear that the worst will happen. Fear that evil may be a stronger power than God. Fear that all will be ripped away and heartbreak, sorrow, loss, failure and defeat will come in like a flood, yet one may be very religious. All fear is a fear in the end of death. There is an end to this thinking when one returns to the Land of the Living when the Who-le, Holy Spirit begins to bring all things to remembrance.

When once I recall that I have always been, the unborn, the Ever-Living, without father or mother, past or future, beginning or end, I discontinue seeing everything outwardly, "others" as separate beings, and God as being some One separate from my Self. I leave off the thinking of opposites: right/wrong, young/old, good/bad, Jews/Christians, believers/nonbelievers, life/death, birth/death, white/black, etc. etc. There are no foreign countries. There are no separate races. There is no patriotism, no holier-than-thou, no lesser and greater.

I realize that I have been sitting a little too close to the screen, having lost sight of the 'big picture', and have been confused for a moment that there is anything but the wonderful kingdom of God and that the creation is anything but very good! Now I can live in the world and not be of its beliefs, that I am that Mind which was also in Christ Jesus. There is no death to the one who has BEEN THERE, but IS now passed from death unto Life (John 5:24). Thus the One IS! And this ONE that IS has always been and always will be! There is with further light a new heaven and a new earth.

THOUGHT that 'you are man' will perish. Thus the 'illusion of death' has no foundation, nothing to stand upon. Let God be true and every 'man' a liar. There is no 'man', only a thought that will perish.

Once awakened to Truth - LIFE again is All in All, there IS nothing to fear. The body is perfect, complete, entire, wanting nothing. Anything that says or appears to be otherwise is a lie, nothing really. Any wish, prayer, desire, 'whatsoever you will' is for use and good pleasure, peace springs eternal, and there is nothing but GOD!

Your body IS 'earth'. The Spirit within (which is not really 'within', because in Reality there is no 'within and without' for that would be opposites or duality, but it is said that way here for clarity) IS heaven. Spirit is heaven. Thus as you realize this, you realize a new heaven and new earth, and gradually it can begin to be your experience, as you are not conformed any longer to 'this world', but are transformed through the renewing of your mind.

When I awakened this morning there was a mist over our windows and I could not see clearly what was just beyond. Gen 2:6 says that "But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." At that point the Lord God began to form 'man'. You, as your True Self, the one that has always been and always will be, BEGAN to form an idea of yourself because you were suddenly looking through a mist-ification and what you thought you were seeing was seen only vaguely. We see through a glass darkly UNTIL we come face-to-face with the Truth and know even as we are known. "As he is SO ARE WE in this world".

Jesus came to show us who/what we are. When John the Baptist was imprisoned so that he was shut away in darkness, he suddenly lost sight of the Light which he came to announce, he began to "wonder" if Jesus was in deed all he had come to declare him to be. John, who had baptized him, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God who TAKES AWAY the sin of the world." (which, by the way, did not say that his dying would take away the sin of the world, but BEHOLDING him TAKES AWAY the sin of the world). John, who said, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him." John, who declared first that THIS IS THE SON OF GOD; this John began to have a mist cover his eyes in his imprisoned state and he sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you he that should come, or do we look for another?" How could John who had been so definite at the time of Jesus' baptism have lost sight of the Truth? How could he possibly have forgotten what he had so definitely known and declared to be the Truth!

Jesus told those who came to ask him John's question, "Go and SHOW JOHN AGAIN those things which you do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead ARE RAISED UP, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed are those who will not be offended IN ME."

As your TRUE SELF, which is SPIRIT, which has always been, began to have a mist come over your vision, you descended into a prison where you lost sight of the Light. You lost sight of the Truth and you began to look for ANOTHER. You began to question everything and to make up a dreamworld in which you have thought you were living, and have also thought you would have to die to get out of it. And in a sense you do, but not in the sense you have 'thought'. You have to die to self, the little self you began to develop in the dark (ignorance).

The Bible is a coded book, a book that is enshrouded in mystery UNTIL your blinded eyes begin to see and your deafened ears begin to hear and something stirs within you and you hear, "Come forth". At that moment you arise still wrapped in grave clothes, even as was Lazarus, and you begin to try to walk out of the grave of your 'thought life'. You begin to shuffle through the thoughts of your grave situation until you come fully into the Presence of Truth and suddenly that which has been wrapped about your head, the grave cloth over your mind, is removed and you begin to think clearly again. Jesus told those who came asking, "Go and SHOW JOHN AGAIN!". At this point you began to SEE AGAIN, because you pass from death unto LIFE. The grave clothes are unwrapped from your hands and you begin to DO the works that Jesus did and even greater works. The grave clothes are unwrapped from your feet and you begin AGAIN to walk the 'golden street', which when decoded means: to walk in DIVINE LIFE which you had BEFORE the mist began to cover your Mind, that MIND which WAS ALSO IN CHRIST Jesus.

There are many biblical accounts of people living hundreds of years. Methuselah lived 969 years. Peter reminded us in II Peter 3, "Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that ONE DAY is with the Lord as a thousand years, and A THOUSAND YEARS AS ONE DAY." Methuselah didn't live quite a day, but it still is a whole lot longer than man has declared he shall live, and this was before doctors, hospitals, medications, modern technology. One declared that "the days of our years are three score and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off and we fly away." In ignorance songs have been written about 'flying away' from this 'thought' and yet the previous verse to this says, "All our days are passed in wrath: and we spend our years "AS A TALE THAT IS TOLD". So the tale that is told is that there are 70 or 80 years allotted to this one who spends his days in wrath! And thus 'men' adopted that as gospel and began to declare that he had about 70 years.

In Genesis 6:3 we are told "And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with MAN, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years." Why would the Lord not always strive with MAN, because 'MAN' is that one we have thought our self to be when the mist came over our eyes and we began to form a world of thought with a final thought named 'death'. All 'death' is IS the END of confused thinking. We have been dead and ARE dead if we 'think' that we have to die and be put into a grave in the ground. It doesn't matter what your history has been until now. HISTORY is simply the concoction of images from 'man's' activities into a way of thinking he calls 'the world'.

"Awake thou that sleepeth and Christ shall give thee light". "Come forth". "Come up hither".

There are various ways of seeing, call them levels of thought, planes of thought, dimensions, whatever, but if you, "you who have eyes but see not, and have ears, but hear not", awake! wake up, you will begin to see differently, with the eye of Spirit! You must stay open, keep your eyes open, or you will be pulled down by the gravity of past thinking, of what you have been taught by the world. But if you will stay open you will begin to see a world beyond what you have thought up until now. (Isa 6:9-10, Mt 26:43)

Take simply something like Lightning, what is that? That is power, power to the man in the jungle who doesn't see it as anything useful, but rather something to be respected and feared, otherwise only a part of nature that he does not further understand. That is one level. That is the level of the one who has the mist over his eyes and his eyes are so heavy with sleep that he simply sees in terms of his world being all there is, and in "it" he lives solely by the senses. Then there is the mental level, where the mind begins to be harnessed and is able to put two and two together and make this power useful to him. He thus brings the lightening from the sky into a lightbulb, in a sense, and thus has taken this power into a higher place where it can be used in a constructive and positive manner. But there is a level still higher when where the first syllable of 'el'ectricity is the Hebrew word "EL" (#410 - Strongs Concordance) and it means The Almighty, God, power, strong. There we find that all other realms of thought diminish into The True meaning above all else, into that which IS the ONLY Power there is! So all that is thought of as power is summed up in the One Power, the only True Power, which we call God. If we knew no other name for God, but POWER we would recognize that this Omnipotence is overshadowed by no other, for there can be no other!

Look at this scripture:

Matthew 10:7, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" (here, now). Where are you going to GO, if the kingdom of heaven is here, now at hand! If the kingdom of heaven is at hand, if you die in the sense you have thought you had to, where are you going to go? God is not only Omnipotent, but also OMNIPRESENT. That means there is no where God is not! God is everywhere, in all things, ALL IN ALL, all the time. There is not a square inch of anything anywhere that is not in God and God in it. There is no WHERE God is not THERE, so that means that GOD IS HERE as much as THERE, and THERE as much as HERE, and thus there is in Reality NO HERE AND THERE, only HERE! And if God is HERE, how are you going to go to a 'there'?

Consider this:

Revelation 20: "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years."

John 5:24 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believes on (or into) him that sent me, HAS everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but IS PASSED FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE".

John 3:36 "He that believeth on (or into) the Son HAS EVERLASTING LIFE...."

John 17:3 "And THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL, that they might know thee the only true God..."

Ps 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God.

John 11:25 "I AM THE resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, THOUGH HE WERE DEAD, yet shall he live."

I John 3:14 "We know that we HAVE passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."

We have been thinking we were living, but under the mistification of a sleep state, a jumbled mass of confused thought, we have been sleep walking. Of Lazarus Jesus said, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep". John 11:11. WAKE UP FRIEND.

We who have been the living dead may now pass into the land of the living. Though we were dead, yet shall we live!

II Timothy 1:10 "But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, WHO HAS ABOLISHED DEATH, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel..."

If you have heard THE GOSPEL, you know that Jesus Christ ABOLISHED DEATH. That means he put an end to the illusion. But 'men' still think, and that 'stinking thinking' has been in the ground now long enough to put up quite a stench.

But what about the 'lake of fire'? Our God is a consuming fire. We are each as a drop of water in the wonderful Ocean of God, and as we come together we make up a great body of living water and as we proclaim the gospel we begin to hear the voice of many waters and the code of the scriptures is broken. The book is open to us and we begin to see that the scriptures are full of clues, or what Jesus called the keys to the kingdom. We must awake and wipe the sleep of death from our eyes and begin to SEE! We have eyes, but we see not. It is time to arise, shine, for thy light has come and the glory of of the Lord is risen upon you.

There is only ONE CREATION and it is VERY GOOD! When we realize this - then where in this VERY GOOD CREATION is sickness, pain, misery, lack, death? Where in the ONLY CREATION is there anything other than the VERY GOOD? Those 'things' are the thinking that comes short of the glory (doxa -thinking) of God, thus are what lumped all together is called 'sin'. All of us have come short of the Mind that was in Christ Jesus, but now we are told to LET that SAME Mind be in us that was also in Christ Jesus, because there is only ONE CREATION, there is ONLY ONE MIND, there is only ONE GOD, there is ONLY ONE! - PERIOD. And when the Spirit that is Whole, or the Whole Spirit, or the HOLY SPIRIT brings to our remembrance all things then we again, like John, realize that I and My Father are ONE. I, and the MIND behind all things are ONE, there is no other. There is ONE God, and it is not the little self that has been called the god of this world, not the little personality that we have named and called "our self", but I, I AM, and that is YOU and I, and we are ONE in Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female. There is ONLY ONE LIFE! ONE and therefore I am you and you are I, and what I do to you I have done to myself. If I love you and treat you as I wish to be treated - I reap the benefit of it. In as much as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, YOU HAVE DONE IT UNTO ME.

Wake up! REcognize What you are! You have always been. You will always be. You do not have to continue in the illusion of death. I am the resurrection. Come out from among them that "think" they understand it all, yet are sick, weak, and think they have to die. Come out from among them and be ye separate. Find God within your very being, AS your very being, for in God you live and move and have your being, and as you, God lives, moves and has being! "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" (I John 4:16).

One creation and it is Wonderful!