The Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century (11 page)

“If I believe it will.”

“This is sounding an awful lot like Christian Science.”

“Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam
in general, actually,” Salome said. “Or haven't you read the Bible?”

“But I can still kick a rock and hurt my toe.”

“And I can still move a mountain.”

“Or heal yourself of AIDS?”

“That will be an interesting test, won't it,” she said. “I guess there's part of me that figures if I can't, then that's life. There's the paradox of doing your best and still accepting whatever you're given, you know? If you live in love with God at all times, it doesn't matter whether you're living or dying, because it's all God. I
will
die, you know. So will you. Nothing is going to stop that. The question is whether you'll wait until you're dying to fall in love with God, to practice God's presence every moment of your life, or whether you'll do it now, right this very minute. I choose to do it now, so the
when
of my death doesn't matter a whole lot to me, frankly. In a way, I'm looking forward to it, to the adventure. And I don't mean that in any morbid or suicidal sort of way. I just know it's coming, and I'm ready.”

“You're ready to die?”

She smiled and looked around the circle, then back at Paul. “Paul, can you honestly say that today would be a good day for you to die?”

“What do you mean?”

She pointed to her face. “I may look African, but I'm part Indian, too. Many of my people are. Do you know the story of what Crazy Horse said when Custer attacked the Sioux at Little Big Horn?”

“No,” Paul said.

“Crazy Horse was a man of peace. But Custer had split his army, and part of it he sent in to murder the women and children in the Hunkpapa camp, the southernmost of the Sioux villages near Little Big Horn, to try to frighten and demoralize the warriors. And so Crazy Horse said to his men, ‘Corne on, Lakotas! Today is a good day to die!' And they charged forth, fully knowing that they would probably die, as the Indians almost always did when they confronted the US Army. So when I first leaned that story, I asked myself, ‘Is today a good day to die?' and I have to say that the answer was, ‘No.' I had too much unfinished business. Stuff with family, stuff with friends, stuff with God. You know?”

“Yes,” Paul said. “Today is not a good day for me to die.”

“But it will happen,” Salome said. “Someday. And that day won't be any better, unless you decide to make today a good day to die. And then every day is a day that
you're both in and out of this world. That's when you are born again.”

“Born again?” Paul said. “I never understood that, but this way it makes sense.”

“When you wake up from the dream of our culture and see the world, the creation, all life as it really is, then you are born into spirit and all things become new,” Salome said.

“I've gotta write that down,” Paul said, and pulled out his notepad, and wrote,
When today is a good day to die because I'm right with all things and everybody and feel the love of the Creator of the Universe all the time, and I've woken up from the greedy dream of our predatory culture, then I'm born again.
He read what he wrote to Salome and said, “Does that capture what we've been talking about?”

She smiled. “Very eloquently.”

Paul looked at her smile–her beautiful smile–and felt a pang at the possibility of her death. “But why would you surrender to AIDS?” he said. “Why not create a miracle?”

She shrugged. “If it's the way it's supposed to be, I'll do it. Or maybe I'll pass into another consciousness. Or maybe Joshua will heal me. It doesn't much matter. To day is a good day to die, and so will be tomorrow.”

“No, you should live,” Paul said, realizing as he said it that he didn't want Salome to die because he would miss her, not because he feared death may be a bad thing for
her. But, still, Joshua could do miracles. “Why don't you ask Joshua to get rid of the HIV?”

“I'm living in the hands of God. In the heart and soul of The Creator of the Universe. So what Joshua does or doesn't do isn't all that important. All the people Jesus and his disciples healed eventually died anyway. I think he did it more for the teaching, you know? Like with Mark here.”

“But Joshua can heal? That was real?”

“Yeah. They say he was born knowing how.”

Paul turned to Joshua. “Can you tell me the story?”

Juan let out a loud breath, lifted himself off his chair and, on one knee, stirred the curry pot on the grate.

Joshua said, “Wouldn't you rather continue in your training in the Wisdom School?”

“And it's getting close to time for lunch,” Juan added.

Chapter Nine

The Manmade Demiurge

“I'm also curious about you,” Paul said to Joshua. “Are you an angel or a ghost?”

“I told you before that I am not. I was born of woman, just like you.”

“But you're doing miracles, like you're some kind of god.”

“Is it not written in the book of Psalms, 'I said, “Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most High”'?”

“I don't know. Is it?”

“Yes,” Joshua said. “And you'll hear Jesus say it in the Gospel of John, too.”

“So who are the gods? Us?”

“Now you come close to one of the greatest Mysteries,” Joshua said. “Some say that there is only one god in all the universe, and we are just wretched, sinful lumps of flesh. Others who say that there is no supernatural god, but that the gods are the human race.”

“Who says that?”

“Well, first off, it's a popular notion among some of your recent religions. More importantly, though, it's a basic tenant, albeit unspoken, of your modern culture. Who but a god would have the temerity, or assume for himself the capacity to destroy the planet?”

Paul said, “I think people just think they're given that right by the One God.”

“That's what they say. But it's not how they act. Do you really think that anybody who would genetically alter plants, for example, purely for the sake of making a corporation more profitable, does not believe himself to be a god?”

“I guess it depends on how you define the word ‘god.'”

“How about, ‘Gods are those who can do anything they want without fear of consequences'?”

“Then we have a lot of gods running around loose. But I thought gods caused storms and struck people down dead and helped people kill their enemies.”

“Then technology is your god. You can rain fire from the sky on your enemies, alter the course of mighty rivers, tear down mountains.”

“Okay, well that's all in the world when we're alive,” Paul said, thinking of the street preacher. “But what about a definition that says, ‘God is the one who decides where you go and what you do after you die'?”

Joshua shook his head, as if he were sad. “Do you realize what a pathetic statement that is?”

“Sounds like that god has a lot of power to me.”

“But it also means, if that's the only place you're going to put your god, that you've completely stripped him from the world of the living. You've pushed him out, or killed him off, or replaced him with gods you call science or technology or humans.”

“I'd never thought of it that way.” Paul paused for a moment, reviewing his times in church. “But what about the people who pray for things they want? They pray that God will save their child or give them success in business or sports or whatever.”

“Do you really think the Creator of the Universe is going to throw a basketball game toward the team that prays the hardest?”

“They sure seem to think that,” Paul said. “Before the game, they're all praying up a storm.”

“ ‘And when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the churches and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by other people. Verily I say unto you, “They have their reward.” ' ”

“That's from the Sermon on the Mount.”

“Yes.”

“In other words, public prayer is just a show of piety. God isn't listening. Whether it's before a basketball game or grace at dinner or a preacher in a church. Don't pray out loud if you're in public. Is that what you mean?”

“Most often. Jesus did pray in public once, with his disciples, just before his crucifixion. But in that prayer, he said, ‘and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.' In other words, there are times when it's appropriate to pray in public, but you must know that your prayers then are for the benefit of the people with you, or for you, but they are not the most direct possible connection to your Creator. That is done in private.”

“So how should people pray? What should we say?”

“The best prayer is, ‘Thy will be done.' Said in secret, because you know God and love God and trust God.”

“And who is the God who hears that?”

“That brings us back to the earlier point. The fundamentalists say that humanity is sinful and not at all divine. God is entirely out there and,” he pointed to his chest, “not at all in here. Some of the New-Agers, on the other hand, say that God is entirely in here and not out there at all. In other words, we are gods. Those are the two extremes of the argument, and both break down when you examine them carefully.”

“So who or what or where is God?”

Joshua stood up. “You must know, you must see, you must hear this truth: any attempt to envision a sentient god will only create an anthropomorphic projection, a man-like god. In other words, The Creator of the Universe is greater than any human can imagine or describe.”

“What does ‘anthropomorphic' mean?”

Salome leaned forward. “It's like when people think that their dog understands everything they say. They're projecting human qualities into something that's not human. To anthropomorphize a god is to do the same thing.”

Paul said, “So when we try to imagine who or what a god is like, we use ourselves as the template, just like when the old lady downstairs has long conversations with the pigeons she's feeding and thinks they understand her?”

“Yes,” Joshua said. “When people try to define a god, they usually do it so they can have that god do, say, or take credit for something which will benefit them. And so they create a man-like god.”

“And, presumably one who is a member of their particular congregation,” Paul said, trying to lighten the conversation. He took his notepad out and jotted down,
The Creator of the Universe is greater than any human can imagine or describe.

“This is not a joke,” Joshua said. “The Creator of the Universe does not say, ‘I think I'll kill this child with a cyclone, and save this woman with a miraculous cure of her cancer.' The Creator of the Universe doesn't intentionally condemn these people to starve, and bless these others over here with incredible riches or victory in battle.”

“Where, then, did that idea come from?” Paul said.

“Most recently, from the Romans via the Greeks,” Joshua said, “although several other city/state cultures came up with similar ideas. The question the Greeks asked themselves three thousand or more years ago was, ‘Why is there suffering in the world?' They couldn't explain why they had accidents, disease, defeats in war, earthquakes, floods, crop failures, and the whole thing. At least with natural phenomena like volcanoes erupting, they were pretty sure that people weren't doing it, so they concluded it must be the gods.”

“Some cultures think people cause those things?” Paul said.

“Oh, sure,” Joshua said. “It's the basis of the idea that people can cast evil eyes or throw curses, that sort of thing. But the Greeks were pretty sure that it was the gods. One story was that a lot of what we saw was a spillover from battles between the gods. They'd get in fights with each other, and the result would be an earthquake. The old ‘when elephants fight, the mice get trampled' theory. But most Greeks didn't really believe that. They believed, instead, that there were really two ‘creator' gods. One was the Creator of the Universe, who was remote and inaccessible. He produced some supernatural beings, called Aeons, one of whom was a virgin named Sophia. She, in turn, gave birth to a twisted god, which was called the Demiurge. The Demiurge was, essentially, psychotic. Nuts. He was a sadistic crazy. But because he was a god, he had the power to create, so he created this world, just to populate it with us, so he could then torture us. This is how the Greeks and Romans explained the fact that life often includes suffering.”

“Whereas the Hindus said people suffer because of bad karma?”

“Yes. There is a law of equality, but when India was conquered by the Indo-Europeans about four thousand years ago, the concepts of karma and reincarnation were refined into the caste system. This allowed the rich to smugly assert that they were rich because they'd lived well in a past life and the poor were wretched because they'd done something wrong in a past life.”

“Blame the victim,” Paul said.

“Yes, like those today who preach that people get cancer because they're repressing anger, while ignoring the toxic chemicals in our environment. Repressed anger has been around for all of human history, but the explosion of cancer has only corresponded with the industrial revolution, the rise of corporate kings and their rape of the Earth. Similarly, the dominators of ancient times in India, the Hindu kings and priests, justified their domination with the idea of karma.”

“So instead of blaming a god for their misery, the poor were told to blame themselves.”

“Exactly. Notice that in both cases—the ancient Roman and the ancient Indian–the blame for the wretched lives of the poor is directed away from the dominators, away from the kings and priests and rich people. It's not even an allowed topic of discussion, the truth that people stealing or accumulating wealth while those around them are starving could be a cause of human suffering. The dominators claim they never cause misery. It's always either the individual's fault, or is because of a crazed god.”

“The Demiurge.”

“Right. That's who it was for the Greeks and Romans, who created the foundations of our culture. Earthquakes, famines, plagues, droughts, disease, birth defects, defeat in battle, and all that sort of thing. It was all the Demiurge, having his fun.”

“Sounds like a nasty god.”

“And a jealous one, which kept the attention of the people on the Demiurge and away from thinking that maybe the rich and powerful were part of the problem. The Greeks weren't the first to have this idea, as you can guess. Because the Demiurge was so fearsome, other groups with the same idea but a different name for the Demiurge spent much of their time trying to placate him, so he wouldn't torture them even worse. They built monuments and temples to him, made sacrifices to him, killed animals and people, all sorts of things. The more valuable something was, the more they'd want to give it to the Demiurge, in the hopes he'd realize its importance and that would keep him quiet for a few months. So things like their best animals, or their firstborn sons, were included in the sacrifice list.”

“And this is one of those ‘created in the image of man' gods?”

“Yes. Created in the image of psychotic man, coming out of a psychotic culture, a culture of death and domination. Domination of women by men, of one people by another, of the planet by humans. A culture of slavery. With the Demiurge as the ultimate slave-holder and dominator.”

“It's still with us.”

“Yes. But every now and then, so the Greeks and Romans thought, the Creator of the Universe, from far, far away, would have his virgin, Sophia, give birth again. And her son, a divine being or incarnated Greek god, would come to the Earth to tell people the secrets that they could use to protect themselves from the wrath of the Demiurge. He was the carrier of the secrets that mere mortals could use to deflect the tortures of the Demiurge. These secrets, or secret knowledge, came to be known by the Greek word for knowledge, which is
gnosis.”

“Is this where the Gnostic religions come from?”

“In large part. The word has been misused for a long time.”

“And why such religions have an emphasis on secret knowledge and rituals of initiation, and also why they are all about saving people from an angry god?”

“Yes. If you read the words attributed to Jesus in the Bible, at least the vast majority of them, you'll find that they're not Gnostic. He doesn't speak very much about how to avoid the wrath of the Demiurge, or when he seems to it's almost like somebody tacked something onto the end of another teaching. Instead, most of his teachings are about Mysticism. How to use that highest form of consciousness or energy–love–to connect directly to the Creator of the Universe. But it appears that Gnostic beliefs heavily influenced the apostle Paul. He was born a Roman citizen, not a Jew, and therefore was raised with the Roman ideas of a Demiurge-like god. So it just made sense to him that Jesus had come along as the incarnation of the Gnosis to save people from the Demiurge; you can see it over and over again in his writings. And, of course, this was the world-view of the Romans when they took over Christianity in the third century. And those same Romans then decided what would and wouldn't make it into the text of what we call the Bible.”

“But,” Paul said, “the world
can
be a terrible place. People do have wars and plagues, and most people live what Thoreau called ‘lives of quiet desperation.' If this isn't because the Demiurge is sadistic, or the One God is angry with us, why is it?”

Joshua looked around the circle. “Juan, what do you think?”

Juan stood up and stepped back from the fire where he'd been absentmindedly stirring the pot of curry, and sat in one of the brown metal high-school gym chairs. He looked around the circle, then gestured to the grate most directly above them. “Up there, the world ees crazy, you know? People kill you. They rob you. They steal whatever you have. The kids, they hurt you for fun. I say it's the people who are bad.”

Pete shook his dreadlocks and spoke for the first time since he'd met Paul. “If people be so bad, man, howcome you and me be here? We ain't bad.”

“We brothers,” Matt added.

Mark nodded and made a soft sound of assent through his nose.

Salome's leg bounced up and down a few times and she put her hand on it and said, “You guys don't get it. It ain't the people who're bad, and it ain't the one who made us. It's that culture out there,” she waved at the grate. “That's what's bad. That's what sick.”