(Back) The Transfiguration Jesus Cures a Boy with a Demon (Next)
This is a series of lectures given by Mr. Edward Rabel, member of the faculty of S.M.R.S.
Winter semester 1976 - 2nd. Yr. Class. Part of Lecture 23 given on March 4, 1976
16:27For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds. 16:28Verily I say unto you, there are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.
Notice how Jesus teaches, he never explains in the literal sense of explaining such as we constantly do in our life activities and in our communication. If you observe yourself you will notice how much time you spend explaining to people what you meant by what you already said, but in Jesus teachings you find that he doesn't do that and if people try to get him to backtrack and explain what he was talking about he always pulls a dirty trick on them,. In his explanation he brings out something which is even more complicated. He is trying to show us that we have to learn to start figuring out things for ourselves because we really are multidimensional. I know I use that word a million times and I am going to use a million more times because it is crucial to remember that you are not a one, two, three dimensional being; you are a multi-dimensional being and every dimension of your being is filled with validity. This means, if something is said it has validity on one dimension. It has validity in all dimensions but differently interpreted. Just remember that even though a person may interpret something you said differently, it does not mean he is not interpreting it correctly, he is perhaps interpreting it from the viewpoint of another dimension of their own understanding. We must not get upset when people differ from us on technicalities or literalness if the spirit of comprehension is correct. This is why in many metaphysical teachings Mr. Fillmore seems to contradict himself at different times.
One way we teach in Unity, "it is good to pray for something specific that you need.” In another place we say, “It is good to never pray for anything specific.” Both are correct but both are stated from a different viewpoint of validity. One of these dimensions which has validity that Jesus often talks about in different ways is something called death. A lot of people say, "Oh, no, he should always mean only one thing, it isn't good." And yet this is not the way it is, there are times when death is mentioned and used in a very positive way, other times it is used as a very undesirable thing and the thing to do is to try to tune in to the point of view or the probable dimension of validity where some of these statements are being made.
(Read Matthew version). The son of man means the human consciousness, and what is the kingdom that the human consciousness will eventually come in to? Christ consciousness, the goal of the son of man is Christ consciousness and Jesus is implying here that at the time of his speaking, nobody he was speaking to was in Christ consciousness, everybody was in son of man consciousness but that all will eventually come into the kingdom which would be the Christ consciousness. But in the statement he says a very strange thing, he says, "there are some of you present who will no longer taste death." In other words, there were those present who were not yet in Christ consciousness but had outgrown the need for the death experience. I think this is very interesting because this statement made by Jesus in answer to a question that must have been present in some of their minds.
To me it is still a valid answer for questions that are in many person's minds today which answer is, "Yes, there are persons now alive who are not in Christ consciousness yet, who shall attain consciousness of eternal life in their present incarnation." There were those present at the time Jesus spoke these words who were not to go through an involuntary death experience anymore prior to the coming of a full spiritual consciousness. It is true that nothing can happen to a person which is not somehow a result of a choice he has made and this include the death experience. Involuntary death experience. This may indicate that they had no 'choice, it was something inflicted on them. This is not true, there was a choice involved and they did make it but to the conscious awareness it seems involuntary.
A lot of the people who choose the death experience in their present incarnation do so out of desperation. They do not realize that they have opportunities for choice and they are perhaps in a state of pain, shock they may have been violently rejected, they may hate what they see in the mirror. There are many reasons for a person making this choice out of desperation but it is still a choice. The ideal is that it is no longer necessary for a person to make such a choice out of desperation. He can be in the regeneration which is the alternative to desperation where he will see that the death experience has a validity from certain viewpoints on certain dimensions and he may go through that experience but not for desperation. His choice would be a conscious one for a purpose such as it was in Jesus' case. This is entirely different from "people dying like flies" because they don't realize there are always options, there are the alternatives to go on a more superficial level.
Very often in this program, in SMRS, we have the experience of a student finding himself in certain situations in his life and in his conscious thinking, from his point of view he has no alternatives but to drop the program, to leave, but he has alternatives and opportunities for choices, and in the matter of death which is a result of a choice which is "not be", get out of this body and break a few hearts because each time that choice is made out of desperation a few hearts are broken. There are many people in our lives who don't want us to die. I tell you, there were thousands who did not want Hitler to die, his death broke their hearts even though he had a few bad habits. But Jesus tells us, "there are those who are alive, who are not yet fully in the Christ consciousness but who realize they do not have to taste death because they think there is nothing else to taste.”
There is a mysterious question about this which one of our U.I.C.E. students brought and I am glad she did. She asks, "What becomes of such persons, what do they do and where do they go, do they literally remain alive and dwell among us and we know they not; do they go through a simulation of the death experience while remaining totally alive; do they enter another realm of life invisible to human eyesight?" I think she had more alternatives, she must have done a lot of thinking about it and while she was giving her list of the alternatives of what could happen to those persons, I could see the class nodding yes so the thought came to me, well, maybe they are all true, maybe those are matters of choices too, so I suggested to her that the best way to find out the answer was, "you make the choice and then see what happens."
Before going on to the next passage, please notice that after every important event in Jesus' own personal destiny such as the transfiguration and some of the other events that involve Jesus and his glorification, it is almost always follow by a healing act on his part. This tells us something. Immediately get involved in some person to person help and my opinion is that the less important that person is by worldly standards, the wiser it is to get involved with that person. If you are willing for this, this is the kind of person you will attract. Never mind healing President Nixon, he can pay for his healing.
Text of the original transcript of top of p.139 through the middle of page 141.
Transcribed by Margaret Garvin on 04-02-2014
