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   In India the importance of positive thinking is emphasized through stories   
   like the one about the prostitute and the saint. It seems that once a   
   prostitute lived across the street from a renowned saint. Every day this   
   prostitute would see that saint, and    
   every day she would long to lead a more holy life. The saint, however, used to   
   sit in front of his home, just piling up pebbles in front of him – one pebble   
   for each client who entered the prostitute's house of ill repute. One day an   
   earthquake swallowed    
   up both the prostitute and the saint at the very same time. Lo and behold, the   
   prostitute appeared in heaven, while the saint arrived in hell. Naturally, the   
   saint sent a letter of complaint to God, protesting this shabby treatment. The   
   saint thought    
   there surely had been a gross administrative error on the part of some   
   misinformed angel. When the reply to his petition came back, the saint was   
   shocked to read these six words only: “As you think, so you become.”   
      
   Jesus did understand the need for positive thinking. But, unfortunately, he   
   taught positive thinking relative only to prayer and the development or the   
   application of occult powers. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye   
   shall find; knock, and it    
   shall be opened unto you.” [231] This is a fact in the sphere of spirituality,   
   just as it is, no doubt, a fact that faith can move mountains and that,   
   generally and eventually, “All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer,   
   believing, ye shall receive.”    
   [232] But while praying for worldly gain, the mind is diverted from an   
   uplifting spiritual ideation to a degrading material one. Hence it is most   
   unhealthy to base one's relationship with God on the slippery surface of   
   prayer or expectations of reward.    
   The essence of true spirituality is found in expansion of mind through   
   contemplation of God, in service to God through the medium of all God's   
   manifestations, and in surrender to God's will. Real devotion is expressed   
   neither through flattery nor through    
   importunity, but through sacrifice of one's hedonic preferences, the better to   
   serve God in the full realization of and compliance with the cosmic design.   
   While foregoing the dictates of petty ego, one should always remember that God   
   is not separate from    
   us, but rather is our very own inner Self. Ultimately, the purpose of our   
   human existence is fulfilled when we ourselves have become truly divine, by   
   merging our individual existential nucleus with the Controlling Nucleus of the   
   entire cosmos.   
      
   But Jesus was not prepared to speak these things, fearing perhaps that to do   
   so would liberate his followers from any kind of dependency on him, which   
   indeed this would have done. Instead, Jesus propagated exactly the opposite   
   type of ideation. By his    
   constant denigration of the people, and by his advice to them that they should   
   always think of themselves as sinners, [233] Jesus infused an inferiority   
   complex in his followers, a complex just as deadly to humanity as its   
   converse. Those with    
   superiority complex are bound eventually to fall due to their arrogance, but   
   those who suffer from inferiority complex can never even get up off their   
   knees. While Jesus informed the people that they must be not just righteous   
   but perfect, [234] he made    
   it abundantly clear that he felt this was beyond their capacity. Jesus seems   
   to have intentionally withheld from the people whatever valid information he   
   did have concerning practical techniques to achieve perfection or   
   self-liberation. In short, Jesus    
   plainly demanded that everyone worship him as their only hope for salvation,   
   and he backed this demand with the fear-inspiring assertion that he had   
   greater proximity to God than anyone else could ever hope to attain.   
      
   Although the message of Jesus was cloaked in spiritual jargon, the import of   
   what he communicated was almost invariably negative in psychological effect.   
   Such teachings are certainly not teachings of spirituality – they are, rather,   
   pseudo-spirituality.    
   Behind the preachings of Jesus, one can discern the driving desire to gain   
   political ascendancy over Israel. Just like any political personality, Jesus   
   cared little about the quality of his followers; it was enough if they just   
   voted for him. Jesus    
   offered his hope for salvation not in consequence of any personal merit or   
   spiritual progress but, rather, as a simple payment in return for blind faith   
   in him. What was the result? A stagnancy soon developed in the Christian   
   community, and that    
   stagnancy played a large role in converting the idle minds of perhaps the   
   first real flower children into cesspools of sin. Those poor and hungry   
   “wretches” may have been blessed by Jesus, but the cruel reality of their   
   meager existence often shattered    
   any fragile determination which they might have taken to lead a better life.   
   Thinking of themselves as sinners, they gradually became sinners – sinners in   
   theory became sinners in fact. The irony of Christianity is that this credo   
   has been far more    
   successful in converting good people into bad ones, than bad people into good   
   ones.   
      
   The Politics of Nonresistance   
   Having breached the issue of Jesus' political ambition, we should do well to   
   remember that the highway to exploitation never follows the path of logic and   
   reason. Offering absurd parables like the one of the tares and the wheat   
   (given at the beginning of    
   this chapter), [235] Jesus bolstered his perfidious doctrine of “resist not   
   evil”. [236] But what farmer does not know the danger posed by weeds to the   
   health of a crop? Failure to resist evil is the one sure way to guarantee   
   victory to the unrighteous.    
   That is a simple and time-tested fact of life. Anyone who preaches passive   
   resistance, as did Mahatma Gandhi, is automatically suspect, [237] but one who   
   calls for no resistance at all is surely a traitor. Jesus was no ordinary   
   run-of-the-mill traitor,    
   however; wittingly or unwittingly, he was a polished and professional Roman   
   agent par excellence. Jesus was not satisfied with just the demoralizing   
   effect of his call for nonresistance – no, he wanted to hand Israel over to   
   the Romans on a silver    
   platter. So it was that Jesus declared all good Jews must be ideal victims,   
   not only by helping their oppressors to accomplish their ruthless exploitation   
   but, indeed, by helping those oppressors to execute a far more vicious   
   exploitation than even they    
   had intended. [238] One thing is certain – Jesus was no “good shepherd” [239]   
   to his sheep, any more than the Pied Piper of Hamlyn was servant to the rats.   
   Verily Jesus would have blindfolded the Jews with his ludicrous ideas, and   
   then led them singing    
   hymns all the way to the slaughterhouse.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)