I NNER L IGHT M INISTRIES NEWSLETTER VOLUME 10 NUMBER 2
JUNE, 1999
A M ANUAL FOR LIVING by Jim Gordon, President of ILM
A
few days ago I picked up the Bible to look for a quote. As I began to go through the pages looking for the passage, I found myself reflecting on how the Bible has helped me over the years in my quest to understand life and to find a spiritual path that works for me. I reflected on how in high school there were a few of us, from different religions and spiritual upbringings, who as juniors and seniors would come together and discuss religion, and the Bible. These discussions started me on an inner search for an understanding of the Bible— for what I saw and heard in our discussions caused me to wonder what this book was truly telling us. I found in listening to each of us share what we had learned through our different religious and spiritual upbringings, that there were many different ways to interpret this one book. I found it both interesting and disturbing that so much disagreement could come from a book that God has given us that we might know and understand Him better, and know and understand ourselves as spiritual beings. This sparked in me a great inner search to better understand this book that is holy to so many in the world. At first I began to read and re-read its pages looking for understanding and answers. What I found instead were stories and history and wording that were sometimes difficult to understand. I then began to look ‘inside myself’ for understanding. I would go into prayer and meditation searching for understanding of this most sacred text. I would pick out passages that I felt were meaningful to me, and then ‘hold them’ in my focused meditations. As I did, I began to have insights —insights into this Holy Bible and insights into myself. One of the first passages I began to pray and meditate on was Exodus 3:14, “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” This passage became a prayer for me, an unending chant ever being sung inside myself. During the
day and night, whether in meditation or prayer or in school or riding the bus, this phrase—this prayer—was ever being sung in my head. One day, weeks after I began this process and search, I had something inside me ‘line up’, and a kind of expansion took place in my heart. With this new understanding, more of this most sacred Bible began to open before me. What I saw was a book written to be a guide, a way of direction for our unfoldment into the greater spirit that we are. I am not saying that I found “the answer” or “the truth”. What I did find was an unfolding understanding of a great mystery. One thing I began to see was that the Bible has many different levels to it. One can take it very literally and find understanding of historical events as well as knowledge that might help us cope with this world. I also found parables and teachings that have many different levels of understanding to them. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of this. On one level it is the story of a city and its people being destroyed, during which Lot’s family is fleeing and Lot’s wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. As I read this passage I see another level, which teaches me to continue looking forward in the path of life, to stay focused on who I am and where I am going. Looking back on the past and holding onto it will put one in bondage to the past, becoming that which is ‘stuck in worldliness’, or, a ‘pillar of salt’. One thing that began to help me better understand the Bible and how to use it as a guide book or manual for living was another insight I had one day as I was meditating: the Bible can be seen as the story of one soul. In the Bible there is but one life, the life of the soul, and in that one life there are a multitude of experiences it chooses into for its full awakening into the divine essence that it is. With this insight I began to see how the Bible is not only a story of many different people, their lives, challenges, conflicts, failures, awakenings and triumphs. It is also the story of one soul—from the beginning of its journey through the “outer kingdom,” on through all that it encounters and learns, and ultimately the soul’s return back to the Father-Mother God from which it came. In all of the stories and in all of the writings there is but one truth—and that truth is for each of us to find for ourselves. For me that one truth is, I AM.