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EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK:
Neo Talks About Jesus’
Real Mission
I said, “I like to get back to your claim that Jesus failed in
his mission.” “A hellva lot of people would want to crucify you
if they heard that statement.
Neo laughed and sarcastically said, “Yeah and ironically, most
to those people would be pious, loving Christians.”
I said, “Yep most of those people will act in a very
non-Christian way towards you.”
Neo said, “That observation adds weight to my clam that Jesus
failed in his mission.”
I said, “What do you mean?”
Neo looked smug, “If the people who call themselves Christians
really got the message of Jesus, it would be unthinkable for
them to want to do me harm, or do act in any manner other than
the way that Jesus would have acted.” Neo said, “Jesus
failed because he was trying to get everyone to get it.”
"Jesus knew that the priests of his day and the people of his
day got too much into the letter of God’s law, they moved away
from the spirit of God’s law.” “Jesus was trying to help the
people of his time to deal with the horrors of their time, or
their subjugation by the Romans.” “He was trying to confront the
priest of his people’s religion that people did not have to only
go to them as intermediaries to enter the Kingdom of heaven.”
I said, “No, but Christians often will tell you that the only
way to heaven was through Jesus, to believe that he was the son
of God.”
Neo said, “Yes, that is what most people think, and that is
wrong….at least in the way most people think.”
I asked, “How so?”
Neo said, “Jesus’ message has gotten lost in the translation and
over time.” “What Jesus meant was that the way to the kingdom of
heaven was through his example, not just by believing that he
was the son of God.” “People that believed he was the son of God
were more likely to have the faith to follow his examples to
enter the kingdom of heaven.”
“He warned people that to simply believe that he was the son of
God without following his example would not save them, because
you had to follow Gods laws of creation which can be tapped into
by following all of Jesus’ examples of the way he lived and the
way he thought, and the way he loved.” “Anything short of that
is simply intellectual masturbation.”
I asked, “So are you saying that Jesus was or was not the son of
God?”
Neo said, “I believe that Jesus was and is the son of God.”
I asked, “What do you mean was and is?” “Are you saying that
Jesus still lives?”
Neo said, “Yes.”
I asked, “So you’re saying that you believe in the
resurrection?”
Neo said, “Yes but not the way most Christians believe, I
believe in the potential of our spirit eventually surviving the
body.” “I believe that is what Jesus meant.”
I said, “But the whole theme of Christianity is that he was
destined by prophecy to be the Messiah and teach the word of God
and then to be crucified and to be resurrected and that those
who believe in him shall not taste death, so how is it that
Jesus failed?”
Neo said, “First off let’s us get it straight that Jesus was
both the manifestation of man and God; secondly Jesus did not
know of his true dual nature until he became an adult, he got
glimpses of it now and again as he was growing up, but he did
not fully know until later; thirdly, Jesus was the most
perfectly evolved man that has ever existed, physically,
mentally, emotionally, and then of course spiritually.”
Neo said, “Let’s for the moment forget about his divine nature,
but as merely a man, albeit he was a perfect as a man can be in
all the respects that I have described and this was not by
accident, this was from the design of both nature and nurture.”
“From birth to his death Jesus worked towards perfecting every
aspect of himself:”
He said, “Jesus’ initial training was of course directed by his
parents, and even compared to most of the Jews of his day his
early education was broader and deeper; this is because his
parents though not rich were more educated than many of the Jews
of their time.”
“I said, “In what way?”
Neo said, “Both parents could read and write and to a lesser
degree speak Greek and a few other languages, and they had a
love for playing instruments and Jesus developed a love for
drawing although he kept that to himself because the current
Jewish thought was that drawing people or images was a form of
idolatry.” “Jesus’ parents were able to provide him with a level
of home schooling that most other Jewish children did not have,
even the children from wealthier families.
Neo said, “Later as a youngster, Jesus, because of his genius
and his charisma became a leader of many of the local boys and
these boys use to engage more or less covertly in activities
that would have been looked down upon and curtailed by the
Jewish adults, especially the Jewish religious leaders.”
I asked, “What did they do that was so forbidden.”
Neo said, “Jesus and his buddies like to engage in physical
activity such as sports and play that challenged the body that
the ordinary hard work of the time did not do.” “Jesus admired
certain aspects of the Greek ideal of a balanced, mind, body,
and spirit; but the Jewish people of the day thought that the
Greek love of sports and competition was dangerous in that it
could lead people into worship of the athletes, or that the
athletes could become too self absorbed, and thus move further
away from the glory of God.”
I said, “I think that the Jewish leaders were over reacting, but
I can see that the dangers they feared were warranted, --just
look at today’s athletes and how the masses worship them.”
Neo laughed and said, “Yes the Jewish leaders did see the danger
of self glorification, however, Jesus and his friends recognized
athletics for what it was and that is the highest order of play,
and when a person engages in the highest order of play then they
can become closer to God; this is something that children
intuitively understand, but a child’s understanding often
becomes smothered by adult social convention.” “Anyway, Jesus
and his friends use to keep their activities fairly covert, and
eventually only Jesus practiced pushing his body to its physical
limits in every conceivable fashion whenever he got the chance
and he did this alone; much the same way you or I have done when
lifting weights, stretching, sprinting, or any other numerous
physical activities.”
Neo said, “Jesus used this same intent and discipline to train
his mind or intellect, and to balance his emotions, and to seek
spiritual knowledge, and to finally integrate all of this
together, and that is how he learned that not only did he have a
dual nature that all human beings have, but he was able to break
the veil to realize that he also had a current and a previous
divine nature.”
I said, “I am confused as to how Jesus would have access to
seeing or knowing about the Greek games or how his parents had
access to the level of education that they possessed.”
Neo said, “Where Jesus lived was the epicenter for that part of
the world’s trade routes for commerce from countries all over
the known world.” “As a boy during his free time when his
studies and chores were done, he took the time to meet and talk
to travelers from all over the world.” “It was in this way that
his open mind learned of all of the religions and spiritual
disciplines of his current time and of historical times.” “He
learned all manner of thinking, philosophy, scientific thought
and technologies of his day.”
Neo said, “Jesus was like a sponge as a child & he knew how to
be discriminating and selective with keeping what was useful.”
“In addition to people traveling to his area of the world, as
Jesus got older he would travel with his father to visit
relatives in distant places and he would be involve with the
religious exodus to certain Jewish centers of learning and
worship.”
“Jesus
was seen as being especially bright and many of the Jewish
leaders of the day had taken it for granted that he would enroll
in their religious schools and become a distinguished scholar.”
He said, “Jesus’ father Joseph was a contractor and eventually
he gained enough wealth to have people work for him and he was
able to procure contracts with people and businesses of wealth
in distant places and it was also during these times when Jesus
traveled with his father.”
I said, “When you say that Jesus became aware of his previous
divinity, what do you mean…are you talking about reincarnation?”
Neo said, “Yes and no, at least not reincarnation as most people
think of it, but that is something that is best to go over at a
later date.” “Right now I am trying to make my point on how
Jesus failed.”
I said, “So tell more on how Jesus failed, I am not entirely
clear on what you mean.”
Neo said, “First off let me ask you if you know what a scapegoat
is?”
I said, “Yeah, it is when people blame other people for their
failures or like Hitler, he used the Jews as a scapegoat
promising that doing so would eliminate all of the German
people’s woes.”
Neo said, “That is correct, but in pre-Christian times, the
priest in the early tribal days, when the tribe had been
experiencing all sorts of bad luck, they would take a goat from
their herd and then the priest would perform a ritual to cast
all of the woes and sins of the tribe into the goat and then
cast the goat into the wilderness.”
I laughed and I said, how did it progress from goats to
crucifixions?”
Neo said, “It is human nature to hope for a superman or a
superior hero to lead and champion their cause.”
“To an
extent this is understandable, but not only do people want their
heroes and leaders to be superior, the majority of people in
many cultures want their heroes to endure and suffer at levels a
thousand percent greater than they themselves would ever dare to
do.”
I said, “Jesus did not have to follow the prophecy, so why did
he?”
Neo said, “Jesus was trying to show people that if they followed
his example and lived the way he lived, believed the way he
believed, and have the faith of a child or a mustard seed then
they would have access to the kingdom of heaven everyday while
they were alive.” “Jesus tried to show his fellow Jews that if
they would understand what he understood, they would survive
their bodies and keep their egos in addition to attaining an
immortal soul instead of the annihilation by dissipation which
is what most people face at the time of death.”
I said, “If Jesus was aware of all this, why would he allow
himself to be set up for crucifixion?”
Neo said, “This is why Jesus is the most amazing man.” “Just
imagine yourself in his situation…imagine your self as the most
perfectly developed well rounded specimen as far as normal men
go.” “Then imagine that you have the intellect, education, and
understanding of the psychology of human beings, their flaws,
their strengths…their hopes, dreams and aspirations, and their
fears, their pain, their suffering.”
Neo continued and said, “Imagine that you have immeasurable
compassion and love for your fellow man and you have the key to
both their earthly salvation and their non-corporeal salvation.”
“Imagine that you know that this key can be given to them and
can be utilized by them, and that if your fellow men knew and
accepted this fact, you would not have to suffer the fear,
humiliation and pain of torture, crucifixion and finally the
death of the body.”
Neo said, “Imagine that no matter what you tell people, no
matter how much you try and show them, they don’t want to do the
work. They just want you to fix them, and in fact the prophecy
born from fear, laziness, and wishful thinking make the masses
of people feel as if they are entitled to be saved without
living the life that Jesus presents.” Imagine if you were a man
of courage and conviction that Jesus was/is and you knew that if
you continued to preach and teach what you knew was the truth
that you would run afoul evil people who felt threaten that
their power and position would be diminished if the masses
followed you.”
He said, “Imagine that you knew that running afoul with these
people that it was more likely that the prophecy would be
fulfilled and that would mean a shit load a bad news for you.”
Neo went on and said, “Imagine that you continued to speak your
mind hoping that the masses “get it” and stood up to the priests
to protect you so you would not be vilified, demonized,
incarcerated, tortured and imprisoned, and that by them having
the faith to “get it” not only would you be protected but they
would have reached a point to where they were saved. Saved in
every real and relevant day-to-day manner.”
Neo said, “Imagine that despite your fear, your pleadings, your
examples that the masses still want to see the blood, they still
want to see the miracle, they still want some one else to do the
suffering for them and they want to benefit without doing the
hard work themselves.”
Neo said, “Imagine how it would make you weep when you know that
you are going stand by your word, you will refuse to denounce
the truth that you have spoken, and you will willfully fulfill
the prophecy that really did not have to be fulfilled just so
that the people may hopefully get it.”
Neo said, “Imagine how what you would think, how you would feel
to know that most of your efforts have failed and that you knew
your were going to face unspeakable public and private
humiliation, unspeakable betrayal by your own people,
unspeakable amount of torture and pain, crucifixion and a slow
death….just because the people demanded a scapegoat.”
I felt a thrill & a little misty eyed thinking of the courage of
Christ.
I said, “He definitely sounds like a stand up guy.”
Neo said, Indeed he was. He could have avoided crucifixion, but
he chose to take the route that Socrates had taken almost five
hundred years before him.” “He chose not to live a life of
compromise.” Most importantly, he chose not to allow himself to
be compromised.”
I said, “Some of my Sicilian relatives say that Socrates was
really Sicilian because he had balls” I would imagine
that after hearing you speak of Jesus they would think that
Jesus was really Sicilian because he also had balls.”
Neo smiled & laughed, “Yes…I know what the Sicilians, mean when
they want to know if someone has balls, or when they acknowledge
or admire if someone has balls.” “With the Sicilians this means
that a person who has balls, they possess courage in the
extreme.” “To them people with balls will put everything on the
line rather than compromise themselves.” “To the Sicilians &
many Italian families, honor & courage is everything.”
Neo took a firm tone, “Now let us get off of this tangent and
get back to Jesus and you will see that he had balls as big as
this planet.”
Feeling humorously contrite I said, “Okay.”
Neo said, “Imagine how you will feel that many of your people,
your friends, your followers, and many of your family have
doubted you regardless of your miracles, regardless of your
rational, practical, and magical preaching, teachings.”
“Regardless of the many living examples and yet the only thing
that may have a chance of turning them around is fulfilling a
prophecy that for all practical purposes initially did not have
to be entertained.”
Neo said, “How do you think you would feel if you were in his
place and you knew that everything you preached, taught, shown,
would be betrayed, and you would be tortured, crucified,
vilified, demonized, die and then be resurrected (Survived the
body), and you knew that people being the way they are would
misunderstand and perversely twist and then misuse your
teachings for evil gains or out of honest and loving but
misguided belief of what their misguided ministers teach them
for a few millennium until your second coming.”
I was listening to Neo’s entire speech feeling a growing sense
of desolation of what Jesus must have felt, and all I could
think was, “How absolutely horrible and tragically
wasteful…how horrible.”
I said, “What is the sense of it all…why would Jesus do such a
thing?”
Neo said, “Because he was filled with love and he wanted so much
to save mankind.” “Jesus knew right from the moment that he
realized his true nature that he was doomed to crucifixion.”
I said, “That’s because he was the son of God, he would know
such things.”
Neo said, “No, even a person who is reasonably bright could have
seen it coming.” “Yet he did it anyway, because of his love, and
his courage of conviction…Jesus was/is a courageous as any
Sicilian or Samurai.”
I said, “I don’t understand why he did not simply finagle to get
into power… to seize power the way Mohammad had done many
centuries later, or use his intelligence to wrest the political
power from the priests”
Neo said, “What would that have done?” “Then his military or
political might would have just been a change of face in a
system that has always existed….the people would have still been
supplicant and dependent on systems to do things for them
without interacting and taking responsibility for every aspect
of their lives as Jesus knew they needed to do.” “Jesus knew
that the only way for all people’s salvation is for them to take
charge in their own evolution…their mental evolution….their
physical evolution……their emotional evolution…and of course
their spiritual evolution.”
Neo said, “Jesus knew that people needed to also be responsible
for themselves and stand up for themselves and each other in
regards to their political leaders and their religious leaders
and to love and help each other.” “Instead of giving people a
change of political or religious face, he wanted to teach them
to change themselves because that is the heart of all
change…change the people and you change a political and
religious landscape.”
Neo said, “That is what I was trying to point out to all of you
at the gym when we talked about the political system and what we
could do.” “This is what you all finally figured out after a lot
of Socratic questioning.”
I asked, “Are you saying that the people failed themselves and
failed Jesus, and that is why you say Jesus would fail, then why
did God give up his only begotten son? Why didn’t Jesus show
them more miracles to let the people know beyond a doubt of the
power that he possessed?” “Why didn’t Jesus use his power to
negate his suffering and to negate his pain as he was being
tortured, and when he was being crucified?”
Neo said, “What would that have done?” “The miracles could have
swayed the people to become slavish to Jesus…something he did
not want, and he tried to keep the miracles down, for two
reasons, --- one he wanted to get through life as a normal man…a
superior man, but normal … at levels that most people could
attain if they worked on themselves.”
Neo continued and said, “Two, Jesus knew that whenever he met
someone who had not witnessed the miracles, they would demand a
dog and pony show, or if they had seen it they kept demanding to
keep seeing miracles; three, his detractors responded to the
miracles by saying that his ability to perform them was given by
Satan, and many of his followers whined that they could not even
begin to live the way Jesus did because he had the unfair
advantage of being the son of God.” “Jesus knew that performing
miracles aside from healing people was not important and not the
main reason to live the way he lived.”
Neo said, “With regards to his using his abilities to lessen his
pain, even the most advanced Yogis cannot stay subjected to
torture indefinitely without leaving their bodies by dying, and
Jesus knew that if he had to be forced to take part in their
prophecy, he needed to suffer, because his message was that he
would endure unspeakable suffering to get across the most
important message of his teachings.”
The horror of what Neo was portraying overwhelmed me with
unspeakable grief that I had not felt since I saw the poverty in
Juarez. Suddenly and without warning I began to weep at the
senselessness of it all. I was filled with shame that I lost my
manly exterior in front of a man I really did not know that well
and felt was someone that was invincible to grief.
I hid my face in my hands to hide my tears and my shame.
Instead of Neo treating with sharp disdain for my emotional
outburst. He looked at me with compassion and understanding.
Neo
sighed long and mournful, “I have wept more than a few times
when I have considered what he did and what was wasted.”
After ten minutes and an eternity, I regained most of my
composure.
I
ached to know more so I stumble forward with more questions.
“You’re saying that the most important message is that we need
to follow all of his examples to attain the power to enter the
kingdom of heaven and to build a better social, religious
orders?”
Neo said, “Yes, that is what I am saying.” “Unfortunately
Christianity in modern times is woefully misunderstood; so
called Christians can say silly things, such as, ‘I am as sinner
and imperfect and I cannot hope to reach the perfection of
Jesus, yet if I simply believe Jesus existed and is the son of
God, --- then I am saved no matter what I do…as long as I
consistently admit my sins and in a whining voice plead for
forgiveness.”
Neo said, “This current mindset is dangerous and people fool
themselves into thinking that they can indulge in sin, and not
be required to work on themselves in everyway necessary to reach
the kingdom of heaven, to survive the body.” “This is why Jesus
failed.”
I whistled and said, “What you’re saying would infuriate a lot
of people if you tell them that Jesus made a mistake and failed…
that is implying that he is imperfect and wrong.”
Neo said, “Yes, a lot of people would be pissed off, and
ironically, the more that people are pissed, is an indication of
how much off the path of Jesus they are; this type of person
really gets angry when their laziness and irrational behavior is
exposed and taken to task.” ”But Jesus is not imperfect and he
was not wrong, he knew all of this and still went ‘the
distance’…he knew that the fault, imperfection and weakness
was because the mass of humanity refuse to go the
distance, that they will whine and tell you it is impossible
for them to go the distance.”
Neo said, “Jesus knew he would fail because people are lazy,
purposively irrational, and filled with fear… that is why he
predicted his second coming… that is why he predicted that the
majority of Christians were to a greater or lesser degree wolves
in sheep’s clothing… that is why he said, most of them would not
enter the kingdom of heaven because they would not “get it”,
because they could not go the distance.”
“In
fact Revelations predicted that even after the second coming of
Jesus, the mass of humanity will be given a choice, Satan or
Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven, and it is said that the number of
people who go to Satan is like the sands of the oceans.”
I said, “Are you saying that if we all “got it” that Jesus would
not have to come back a second time?”
Neo said, “Yes that’s right.”
I said, “Holy shit, what your describing is a pretty darn tough
discipline, --more rigorous than any training program than I had
ever seen.” “How could anyone follow such a strict discipline?
How loving is that to expect people to endure those rigors?”
Neo said, “It is the most loving thing imaginable, and what
Jesus presented was a several tiered system of endeavors that
would allow people to attain a level of social, personal, and
spiritual comfort that they had earned.” “Jesus never claimed
that by following his path that it would be a Pollyannaish rose
garden…no…he was very clear that the path was tough, and he even
said, “Many will knock at the kingdom of heaven but very few
would be admitted.”
I said, “But Jesus said that God gave them the gift of salvation
free.”
Neo said, “That’s right, they don’t have to pay God
anything….they don’t have to give the temple of church more
money…but they have to do the work of trying to find the free
gift and then they have to do the work of unwrapping the gift.”
“Jesus said the gift was offered freely but to hold on to it was
tough.”
I asked, “When you talk of several tiers what do you mean?” “Are
you talking about second and third chances through
reincarnation….and what about the body of Jesus disappearing
from the tomb?”
Neo said, “I think we should attend to those questions during
another camping trip.” “Let’s cap this off by looking at many of
the “practicing Christians” that you have met…some of them are
absolute hypocrites that commit sins with regularity.” “They use
their Christian façade to hide their true nature…to become more
acceptable to the public; and some of them have even fooled
themselves that at the time of their impending death they can
wail and beg forgiveness and they will make it to heaven.”
Neo said, “Then you have the other Christians who are not
hypocrites, but weak and they indulge in less than Christian
behavior at times but for the most part they try to live the
golden rule…their level of salvation will be higher than the
first group.” “Then there is the next group and they are so
righteous they almost never indulge in the obvious sins and they
make a pretty good effort to help their fellow man… their level
of salvation will be higher than the second group.” “The next
group are much like the third group but in addition they are now
and then able to get into the mystical aspect of what Christ was
also trying to teach and they sometime occasionally glimpse at
the kingdom of heaven, and they occasionally experience a
descent of “Grace” from God.
“Obviously they reach a level of salvation that is higher than
the first three groups, and they have a little better chance of
entering the kingdom of heaven when they die, in the manner that
Jesus taught. Neo said, “There are several more levels and we
can talk about at a later date.”
I said, “What about the people who are not saved, what happens
to them in life and in death…where do they go…do they go to
hell, limbo, to purgatory or what?”
Neo said, “There is all of those other “Places” if we can call
them that, but they are not the way most people think….we will
also talk about this at a later date.” “Can we agree that Jesus
failed his mission, or perhaps to be more correct the people he
wanted to save failed themselves and failed him?” The entire
conversation was exhilarating, thought provoking, sad, dismal
and depressing.
I let out a huge sad stress relieving sigh and my tears and
grief threatened once again to spill forth, but this time I
managed to dam it back. “Yes, I am sorry to say I agree with
you.”
Neo said, “You look like you need to sleep, I’m going to stay up
and meditate.”
I agreed to turn in and as I looked at him I pondered how he was
able to stay perfectly comfortable in only a loin cloth. Yes he
was near the fire, but the entire day and evening even before
the fire he seemed to do better than simply tolerate the
elements. At that time of year, it got pretty warm if you were
moving about vigorously, yet in the evening it got brisk. I
could not help but think about my own tolerance to the cold…I
could sleep in fifty degree temperatures with just a light
blanket, yet on this day the plunging temperature had me
progressively and begrudgingly adding on layers of clothing as
the night went on. When I turned into my bedroll, I was still
quite chilled and stay that way all night and yet Neo was
squatting barefooted and practically naked in his leather loin
cloth. As I promised myself that I would ask him in the morning
I went into the sweet oblivion of sleep.
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(GENESIS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(EXODUS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(REVELATIONS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(JUDGMENT DAY)
ADVENTURES IN MARINE BIOLOGY
THE MARINES: GOD'S CHOSEN
WARRIORS
CONVERSATIONS WITH NEO
NEO TEACHES ME THE ART OF WAR
& PEACE;
His Version of The Matrix
MEMORIES OF MY FATHERS
ZEN & THE ART OF RESISTANCE
TRAINING:
A Yogic & Scientific Approach To Weight
Lifting
ZEN & THE BIOLOGY OF
TRANSCENDENCE:
The First Matrix of Psychic
Phenomena
ZEN & THE ART OF KINESIOLOGY:
The Yogic & Scientific
Approach To Movement
ZEN & YOUR ENERGY SYSTEMS
ZEN & VARIOUS ASPECTS OF
TRAINING
HOMEPAGE TO VINCE'S GYM
HOMEPAGE |
