Body Mind Spirit Quotes

Understanding points Jesus presented to his peers requires exploring how Jews, local Greeks, Romans and other ethnic mixes inhabiting the region perceived reality. Without a clear recognition of the common ancient mindset, regard for precepts presented in the Gospels and Christian tradition becomes distorted by a default – yet highly flawed – impression that people back then thought and acted like people today

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Had the common man in (first century) Palestine thought about it at all, he would have considered the world flat, with land riding on and surrounded by water below and above. Keeping water up there was the “firmament” – a great, canopy-like dome not too far beyond where birds could fly. Indeed, the firmament had gates for the sun and moon to go through, and through which water fell as rain from the waters above.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Clouding the exact evolution of El and Yahweh as concepts (and any other aspect of belief, for neither El nor Yahweh ever existed as anything except mind images of fervent believers) is the invariable propensity of associated religions to revise their history along the way according to subsequently popular interests.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Judaism, for example, presents itself as monotheistic and retrofits that claim on its history by revising its lore. But in ancient times, Judaism was much more accurately Henotheism, wherein people (particularly common folk) worshipped a principal god while accepting the existence of other deities, or Monolatrism, where many gods were acknowledged, but only one worshipped.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

But for centuries, since the capitulation of Judah, the Jewish peoples had been almost continuously under foreign control. So, where was Yahweh all this time while his people suffered...? Far from ever questioning the very being of such an inept deity, the conclusion was invariably reached – likely promoted by religious authorities living privileged lifestyles – that the people had sinned, had worshipped other gods, had somehow failed their side of the bargain.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The only difference between holding one god as exclusive or supreme and believing in many gods specialized in function is the number.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

In terms of idols which represented various gods: worshipping an idol or star cluster is no different than worshipping a concept.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The religious and scholarly alike arrive at conclusions as to Jesus’ nature based on the world-view they hold, the belief structure that shapes their interpretation. Inaccurate views of the function of reality can only lead to erroneous conclusions.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Understand that religion, at least western versions of it, rests on a type of thinking called Revelation. This mode holds that truths concerning the workings of reality are hidden, masked by, through or behind a deity such that only a few privileged souls are able to see through the veil and “reveal” those truths. . . But (around 1600) revelation as a means of understanding began to be challenged by two other methods of differentiating truth from fallacy: Reason and Empiricism.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

However, just as earlier, when Christianity was introduced it didn’t eliminate pagan conceptualizations, but layered new beliefs on top of them, so science simply added to the western mindset. It didn’t fully displace religion, luck, fate, etc. Science just heaped other definitions onto the average person’s already conglomerated psychic truckload.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

You encounter, at its core, a subjective Reality, one based on meaning and value reflective of your own Self, not an objective universe, cold, particle-based and indifferent as science projects.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Various visionaries through time came to see with some degree of clarity that Oneness, that intrinsic connection between Self and experienced Reality.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The fact is: Jesus wrote not a solitary word that survives. Equally astounding is historical silence: not a single historical account refers to him during his lifetime from any source whatsoever, Roman or Jewish, official or personal.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Josephus is the first historian to make note of Jesus having even existed – and that happened six full decades after his death.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The authors of the gospels, like all writers in all time periods, either reference information they have at hand – including things they’ve heard or read – or they make things up. . . For reference material, the author of Mark relied not on Jesus himself or any writings from him. . . . His sole source(was): oral traditions passed along by word-of-mouth for four decades.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

That means 19 or 20 of the books of the NT (New Testament) are anonymous. Many are blatantly pseudepigraphic (forgeries, see next section), with famous names applied to artificially promote veracity.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The gospels, never meant to report, butrather to convince, are in no sense objective and dispassionate biographies. They are glowing accounts meant to persuade people of the writers’ convictions.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Of course, the original (anonymous) writer of (the Gospel of) John didn’t use quotes – as they didn’t exist in written Greek – but the translator/publisher of the modern Bible does. And that style strongly implies a validity that is pure illusion.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Regardless of type, however, the mechanism of a religion works like this: children, from the time they can communicate, are taught to see reality in a certain way. They are indoctrinated with a pre-defined belief structure and value set. Naive, open to such teaching, given only the religious viewpoint and perhaps punished or ostracized if they don’t accept it, most ultimately absorb and mimic the religion outright.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The scientist would look at a sphere, measure the surface in great detail, categorize the skin qualities and components, then predict evolving surface tensions and potentials. The use of that sphere, however, along with its beauty and potential would not be of interest. Science would count the bricks of a house, but not care about living in it, thus missing the point – but thinking that, by quantifying the physical, everything had been covered.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

You are the only real authority in your life, but you yield that status to so many externals by believing in them, by having been punished or forced into accepting them.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Because your life is a reflection of your inner Self, causality comes exclusively in changing your own nature, not trying to change the external world out there by manipulating it.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

There is no “other self” to the unconscious, no independent entity with its own agenda; it is only information and stored value relationships – a broad array of raw information that undergirds the more superficial “knowledge” learned through rational processes and impacts in all ways the emerging Reality that each conscious Self encounters.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

When, and only when, you clearly see the inner roots to an outer condition, can you change them and thus it.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The key realization to delving inwards to deal with the roots of outer symptoms is this: once you have clearly identified the core, inner roots to a problem, you then have authority over the situation. . . If, though, you never delve within. . . you will not eliminate the inner source of theproblem and thus never fully extinguish the external symptom.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

There is no other force, no other determining factor, no external cause to the cohesive unfolding of your life’s episodes – only your composite inner nature. Change that and you change your life.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Since the effects of your life that lead to pain and annoyance are always consequences of inner elements, what you commonly regard as “problems” are more accurately seen as outer symptoms of inner, causal problems. The practical approach is to begin looking at those specific aspects of your life that are not as you desire to find their source, rooted in your mindset.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

If you picture other people as superior to yourself, you will realize thatmental image. Putting a preacher, a saint, a prophet, an expert or anybody up on a pedestal in your personal view, fundamentally accomplishes nothing but the effect of putting you in a pit.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

One vital aspect in the Path toward Clear Awareness is the beginning of differentiation between belief-induced appearance and Reality. In many ways I can illustrate illusions and point out artificial concepts that are commonly accepted as real, but the onus of recognition is for you to come to see these things as what they are.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

So how do you teach your kids Awareness – to trust in themselves, to love without judging, to expect health without having to manipulate their bodies with drugs, to expect and accept abundance, not eternal struggle? Simply put: you can’t – unless you have that Awareness yourself. In that case, youdon’t have to “do” anything – just be yourself.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

. . . And the consequence to that is, you can never attain a Clear Awareness of life’s flow by absorbing and following Old Teachings, however revered by our culture, however vaunted by institutions and fancy buildings, however nice they sound, because you must already hold adequate wisdom in order to even identify it. Unless you can tell which expressions are wise because you are aware of life’s nature yourself, you will invariably be soundly, profoundly fooled.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Vocal cords are not rental units. No Hebrew prophet, nor Mohammed, nor any founder of any cult or religion ever spoke the words of anybody but themselves.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Simply put, the relative age of a philosophical perspective has nothing to do with its veracity. It is pure illusion to imagine that just because a view of life was held and put to words long ago, that it is more valid.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The only creative force capable of causally revising your experienced reality is your power to change your Self.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

But there is only one mechanism to life, one way in which Reality functions. Theology, the rendered definition behind religion, philosophy and science all purport to depict that functionality. But if each fails to do so accurately, that invalidity needs to be exposed – and the only way to do that is to point out the fallacious elements of the description.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

It must be obvious that the Reality we all encounter only works one way, and it functions that way regardless of what the experiencer believes.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Of the hundreds of religions and philosophies ever entertained by the mind of man, each considered by the convinced holder to be the only valid one, only at the very most one can be accurate. . . Just as obvious should be the possibility, if not likelihood, if not certainty, that none of those hundreds of religions accurately depicts How Life Works.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The real Journey is a personal venture into your own mind content. Nobody, not the greatest mystic, the most vaunted guru, the most hailed psychologist, though they might shuttle you along the trail for a ways, will get you there. Only you yourself can do that.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

But Lao Tzu’s teaching suffers from the major problem endemic to such visionaries. In the intervening two and a half millennia, his words have been misinterpreted and distorted by generations of adherents until his message is riddled with meaningless ritual and dogma. Taoism contracted the conceptual plague: it became a religion.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Clearly, when western cultures absorbed Christianity, they got an all-inclusive package: ancient Hebrew rituals and myths steeped in lost purpose, scantily recorded and broadly misinterpreted teachings of Jesus, revisions and distortions by Paul, twisted cosmology and superstitions supplied by priesthoods and bureaucratic/political distortions innate to man’s traditionalendeavors.

~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer