THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH
# 6
April 2003
Now from Glenn Kimball comes this interesting Essay.
Socrates and Jesus
I thank him for allowing me to reprint it here.
Messiah of Skepticism (Socrates)
My father told me when I was very young that all "Third Parties" are negative.
What he was trying to tell me is that the world has trained itself to first be skeptical of everything that we hear.
Universities teach this philosophy to the exclusion of all other
. The scientific method is solely based on the philosophy that
everything is false until proven true.
We credit Socrates for this philosophy.
He was the one whose "Socratic dialogues" were the foundation of modern skepticism and the interrogatory process. In the day of Socrates most of the world was ruled by dictators who didn't tolerate dissent or the questioning of their ideas, policies, traditions and culture. Socrates said that it was extremely valuable to question what our leaders tell us. The debates in their schools became famous as a method of finding the truth that has carried forward into our day and into our politics, culture, personal relationships, religions and commerce.
Socrates was eventually required to drink hemlock for his ideas and became a martyr for the principle of public skepticism. Socrates was right. We would not have had the amazing human development, growth and understanding without this questioning process.
Certainly one of the fundamental Freedoms of this country is the right to disagree with our leaders and each other.
It paradoxically is what keeps us from allowing institutionalized bologna from ruling our lives.
However,
there is one huge weakness in the religion of the skeptic.
Messiah of Faith (Jesus)
Jesus was every bit as unique in His Teachings as was Socrates.
Jesus suggested that nothing happens in life without Faith.
Universities need to be reconverted to this principle
because it is the one huge weakness that they perpetuate.
After having attended nine years of college myself. I came out of that institutionalized process with an overwhelming attitude that I could be an employee of a company, but that none of my ideas were as good as those of the professor.
After I had finished all of my course work for a Ph.D. and three weeks of Doctoral examinations I spent the next thousand productive hours of my time writing my dissertation. After six months and enormous effort on my part I was called into the office of the head of the department, who was also the help of my dissertation committee. He told me that I could not use the topic of my dissertation. He said I would have to begin all over again.
That was a huge shock to me. I immediately felt that I had in some way fallen short of their expectations.
That is the way they had trained me.
However, what he said stunned me. He said that the reason I could not use the topic for my dissertation was that none of the professors on my committee knew as much as I did on my chosen topic and therefore they would not be able to "critique" the subject adequately.
Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, I realized that they were not the masters of all knowledge and that they had no intentions of training me to be creative, innovative or to do something based on the confidence I had in myself.
I realized, in an instant, that the single greatest weakness in the college system was they could train people to be great employees, but they were lousy at teaching kids to think for themselves, start new businesses, explore inventions, adventure into the uncharted waters of future technology etc.
I had gone to school for nine
years to be trained to be a robot and not a leader.
This one realization has spilled over into my studies of ancient texts and
religion.
Religions give great lip service to the Concept of Faith,
but they are perhaps the worst at perpetuating the true meaning of Faith.
Faith is the ability to instill in the lay population the confidence in their own relationship with the Almighty and indeed in themselves.
Period. In fact, some of the religions would suggest that there is no access to the Almighty without the intermediary of the clergy or Saint, etc.
That was never what Jesus or His followers taught. If anything, Jesus taught the Principle to "pray always" as if God were directing the lives of individual human beings.
I have found that to be true in my own life. The day I broke through that barrier between the Heavens and the earth for the first time while I was on my knees, was the crucible to my life.
I have learned that the Heavens are not sealed to anyone who really wants to know and pays the price to find out.
I constantly use prayer to guide me.
One of the most shocking characteristics of prayer is that Jesus was right.
Jesus said that His Ways were not our ways and visa versa. Each time I have had a significant breakthrough on my knees it has directed me to do something completely contrary to what I had decided for myself.
It often has avoided my direct questions
entirely and suggested that I focus on a completely different path. That is
one way you can tell if you have breached the Veil or not. If you are
vindicated each time you pray you are doing something terribly wrong. The
agenda of the Heavens is very different than our own.
Jesus died on the cross and became a martyr for His Concepts on Faith.
Therefore I often refer to Jesus and Socrates as the two Messiahs, one of
skepticism and the other of Faith. Both ideas are critical. Both function
well. However, you can't understand the Heavens and the earth and your unique
roll, if you don't practice both.
One of the reasons I tell people that they can not get along without religion,
though they often are very "skeptical" of institutionalized religion, is because
we must have Faith in order to be able to glean from religion those things that
only an offensive (rather than defensive) attitude can provide.
Ancient texts are the same way. I often have people come to me and find fault in books and ancient texts from my site. I try to tell them that all books have weaknesses, but they all have strengths as well.
Only the mind of the true adventurer can see past the faults into the Pathway of Truth.
That can only be done with an Attitude of Faith.
Religions are famous for holding up their Bibles and telling the world that this is the only and pure word of God. Nothing could be sillier.
What is implied here is that first we can believe that the teachings of Jesus are complete in the Bible, which is dead wrong.
Secondly that because there are weaknesses in the other writings of the prophets, apostles and great teachers that their teachings must therefore all be wrong. It is this “all or nothing” attitude that has kept most of us out of the churches to begin with. We need to seriously modify that attitude.
It is the attitude of Socrates, which
has merit, but ignores the attitude of Jesus..
I promise all of you that you will eventually, if not already, come to the point
where you can't speak to friends and family about what you know about religion
and Jesus.
They are third parties and will always be negative.
In addition they don't know as much as you do and therefore can't speak to you intelligently on the subject in the first place.
You will find yourself alone and needing to talk to someone about what you know. That is what prayer is designed to do.
I have spent entire days speaking to God on my knees until my strength, from the lack of food, left me unable to walk. Until you have that experience you have something for which to look forward. It is exhausting to have that kind of Conversation with the Heavens. That is partly because the perspective of the Heavens is so very different than your own.
It is so exhausting because it will consume your creative energies and require of you tasks that will seem impossible at the time. The Miracle occurs when you find that the Heavens help you in your task. Sometimes their help is not discreet at all. You may find yourself seeing and hearing things that you have never experienced before. These experiences will confirm to you how close the Heavens are to us all.
Glenn Kimball
LJC
2003
