The Telephone Game...

I recently joined a yahoo group which was formed around the teachings of Eckhart back when the Power of Now was in its hay day.  It is still active and discusses not only Eckhart Tolle but also similar teachings and teachers.  I like the group.  Recently someone compared the Bible to the telephone game.  You know where you have a line of people...you tell the first person in line a sentence and by the time it gets to the end of the line it has been distorted, added to and embellished.  So, he thought, was the case with scripture.  I wrote the following post in reply.

I am not your run of the mill Christian.  Nor do I have a run of the mill view of the Bible.  I don't think it is inerrant and in many places, I think it was written out of the egoic and not the spiritual nature of the authors.  The OT especially.  The sacrificial system....jihad....all of that.  But throughout there are snippets of enlightenment....which grow clearer and clearer until they finally reveal Jesus.  The Bible is the story of man trying to find God...and how he fumbles and messes up in the process....and totally misses him time and time again.  And isn't that sort of a corporate story of what we go through individually?  At least for most of us, spiritual awakening is a process.  Two steps forward, one step back. 

The Garden of Eden?  Eckhart uses that as a description of when the egoic nature took over and took precedence over our spiritual natures.  Pure genius in the Biblical description.  They ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...rather than the tree of life.  God put adam to sleep.  It says nowhere in the text that he woke him up again.  I find layer upon layer of wisdom in scripture.  Bring in the meanings of some of the words in the original languages....search out the hidden meanings of methaphors, cliches, similes, hyperbole and there is so much meaning that can be mined out in a course the spirit designs for us personally....just us.  A private class.  When the student is ready, the teacher will appear kind of thing. 

Another interesting thing about the scriptures came to light when I studied some of Rene Girard's work.  He was a French anthropologist, who, while studying famous literature and trying to discern what makes some works endure forever and others fade away quickly came upon what he coined as mimesis and mimetic rivalry.  A nutshell version is difficult...and I won't attempt it but info abounds on the internet.  It deals with the ugly little secret of mankind's predisposition to scapegoating, their need to sacrifice to appease their angry deities...and how this is all born out of the turmoil that occurs because we "catch" our desires from each other, and then as we compete for things that are in limited supply (not just material things but also things like fame, respect etc.)  mimesis turns into mimetic rivalry....which turns into violence.  A scapegoat, a victim upon which to lay all the blame is the safety valve which releases some of the pent up steam...literally sacrificed in times past but more commonly in today's world by shunning...prejudice etc. 

As I said, it is hard to describe in the scope of this post, but I found it to be a fascinating manifestation of the ego.  The ego at it's trickiest....so subtle we don't even know it is happening.  What does this have to do with the Bible?  Girard studied many ancient religions and holy writings and literature and he came to the conclusion that the Bible was the only one that progressively revealed this secret mankind so wants to sweep under the rug and not see.  Which is how the ego survives afterall. 

Once we shine the light of awareness on it, it loses its power.  Since scapegoating is still so prevalent and destructive even now (think war in Iraq and groups of people who are ostracized and discriminated against, think unrest in Israel where the mimetic struggle for a tiny strip of land has gone on for so very long, think about the dog eat dog world of corporate life, the cliques that form in schools.)  I think it all ties in with what Eckhart says about making another our enemy...a trick of the ego to strengthen itself. 

This post is getting long....so I will wrap it up with one last point.  I read the following quote (paraphrased because I read it a long time ago) on a message board.  It has stuck with me. 

"You can read it (the Bible) in the King James Version, the NIV, the Concordant Literal, the original Greek  but unless you read it "in the spirit" you will never hear Abba speak."  (Abba is the name Jesus coined for God which is a very personal form of the word for Father....sort of like papa) 

So for me personally, how do I weed out the stuff in scripture that is a result of the telephone game?  I know when I hear "Abba" speak, because the spirit within me stirs and I have the inner knowing that what I am reading is truth.  Like a baby in the womb who kicks, I get a spiritual kick from the holy spirit within (who Jesus promised would lead us into all truth) and I know that it is for me.  I don't just get that kick when I read the Bible... I get that same stirring when I read Eckhart and other similar authors.  I don't think that the Bible is the only way to God....to enlightenment.  Nor do  I think it is the only place where God's message to the world....to mankind can be found.  However, I don't think it should be discounted to those of us who hear the voice of Presence, Awareness....the voice of our Father recorded in the pages of scripture.