uh again welcome to you all uh this is from Scotland and from uh from Dr Matthew Fox in California uh we're here today to speak for a brief bit together about some of the work that's I think dearest to our hearts uh which has to do with uh the human you could say What's called human potential the greater human potential and how that's revealed uh by some of the books we've written particularly Matt's uh Cosmic Christ books and my Aramaic Jesus books let me just say a word about Matthew Fox first for those of you that may not know him very well uh I've known him for many many years and had the blessing I think it's I can easily say the blessing to work in his Institute in creation spirituality in Oakland in the author of well I think nearly 40 books now uh but also an educator his whole model of education is really the way that many of us feel that education needs to go that is education of the whole person not only the secular materialist uh person uh in addition uh Matt has had many dialogues with various scientists he's written books on work uh also uh on spiritual activism and recently within the last I think five or six years formed the order of sacred Earth which is a you could say a guild of of sacred activism So today we're going to speaking more about you could say Jesus and Cosmic Christ and in particular as I mentioned in the announcement we had books come out 30 years ago uh almost within a few months of one another and then we've updated that work over the years uh Matt's work with ritual was updated with through the the cosmic Christ with a book called Stations of the cosmic Christ Stations of the cosmic Christ uh which takes the whole image of Stations of the Cross where one would follow you could say symbolically or in imagination uh the Via doosa of Jesus on his last last journey and changes that over to the Stations of the cosmic Christ which is really about you could say okay let's meditate and view through imagine ourselves in the position of you could say Jesus in these various transmissional moments I think we could call them from the standpoint of spirituality where he's trans transmitting uh something greater than just you could say a belief or a concept people and he's trying to communicate to them something that we'll talk about Cosmic Christ and um my own book my own recent book which is coming out in a couple of weeks Revelations of the Aramaic Jesus uh updates my work since that time also and I think you know one of the impetuses for this is that Matt was gracious enough to introduce my new book uh and then I thought well really this new book really brings these two together Cosmic Christ and historical so to speak historical Jesus uh many people particularly liberal Christians have had an aversion to the historical Jesus uh because there's so much confusion about this and I think as my new book shows uh there doesn't need to be confusion about historical Jesus we don't have to have woring theories about was he a Mediterranean Jewish peasant or a cynic philosopher and on and on and on uh if we simply view him as a prophetic figure speaking prophetic words uh and view him through his n not only his native language Aramaic but also through the world view view of that time uh the cosmogony the origins of the world and also the cosmology which is very important uh that modern culture has really lost its both its cosmology its bigger picture of life as well as where it cames from and so if you lose where you're where you've ultimately come from you're going to lose where you're going too I mean let's face it so um Matt let me welcome you officially formally after I've had these few words and uh really blessed to have you here and thanks for sharing this time with us well thank you Neil that's wonderful to be with you all and um understanding is over 1200 people have uh registered for this class of course many are in different time zones so they'll Tune In by by video or film later but it's good to be with you all and I'm excited about the obvious interest in this topic and I'm very excited about Neo new book and um I was honored to write a forward to his very first book the Aramaic uh Jesus and where he translated the Our father and the Beatitudes into Aramaic and now this is his most recent book and um I was asked again to do it forward and I'm very honored by that and um uh in my forward I really stressed what a revolutionary contribution has made his whole life long because as he says really um talking about the historical Jesus is not enough we have to talk about the Aramaic historical Jesus and the language that Jesus spoke and uh and dreamed in and thought in and that includes of course the cosmology our views of the world are are sifted to us through our our um cosmologies and our languages so um what Neil has been doing is very very important and I said in the very my very first forward many years ago that his translation our father was a revolutionary book and now I can say the same about his most recent book which is a wonderful summary uh and uh of his life's work so I really honor what Neil has been doing and um and it's not just about words either he he dances he creates rituals he does he's put the Aramaic Jesus into body prayer and into Circle dancing and all the rest and this is is part of overcoming the dualisms of Western languages and Western education and Western thinking that the you're more tribal languages and I've had the blessing to work a lot with Native American peoples but they are so much more together and so much more playful and uh as he points out Neil and his work like in the translation the Our Father there are actually seven different ways to translate each sentence in the Our Father well that's because uh unlike Latin and Greek and English and German and all this these more ancient and bound to Earth languages are they play with languages and you hear this from African uh speakers and other indigenous people as well so I really honor um Neil's work and I think the focus we've chosen for today is not only very interesting and exciting it's very important uh uh I would say that as Neil was referring to but my language would be that our species is on a cusp today either we wake up and grow up or we're we're our our Extinction is um is most probable and so um we have to go back to our great teachers as well as call forth the great thinking of our own communities today including our science to um to stir up uh our passion and so much of that's what I like about Neil's writing that he takes these prayers that have become prayers by rot like the Our father and and he puts life back into them not by making things up but by going back to the original language so one of the points I did in my introduction to his book um or forward to it I really kind I was really amused by but struck by I went to Webster's Dictionary because I was I was thinking you know we're so used to prayers by rote so I looked up learning by rote in the webter and this is what it said it said learning by wrote means the use of memory usually with little intelligence or it means routine or repetition carried out mechanically and unthinking or it means a joyless sense of order and it means a commercial hustle if that isn't a summary of what some people experience as Religion Today I don't know what is but I was just blown over by by Webster's Dictionary Ser it's not that exciting but this TI the top of my head off uh memory with little intelligence mechanical unthinking routine joyless sense of order and a commercial hustle I don't think that's where we want to be on the cusp of a new a new version of humanity humanity is supposed to grow up not fall asleep and bore one another and call it religion okay so now we're getting into the cosmic Christ and yeah let's do that you know because you know we're um you know the world is is filled with confusion um old the old some of the old order seems to be breaking down or what was the old order for the last hundred years um here as as we' mentioned when we were off camera you know the the queen just died and some feel people feel whatever you feel about monarchy that she was sort of a lynchpin figure uh and uh we don't have to look very far to see around us you know uh War uh the rise of white right-wing dictatorship uh fascist Tendencies even in countries like the US uh so I mean Matt in terms of ritual I mean many people consider ritual irrelevant why why bother with ritual can we talk about that a little bit and then we'll go into Cosmic Christ uh why do you think ritual is so important for us well ritual as melad um wrote he died recently the great African um teacher of ritual who was instructed by his Elders to come to America and teach Americans about ritual as he says there is no Community without ritual period there's no Community without ritual and exactly the the issues that Neo just named including obviously climate change is an issue of community isn't it um and Community is falling apart all around us and of course the community around humans and networking with the rest of creation but hild theard of being called the web of creation uh this is about survival not just our survival but the survival of the Beauty and the diversity of nature as we know it at this time in history and so um we need all the tools we can get to uh build a broader sense of community in a deeper sense that is more than just human Community more than just the little tiny boxes we find ourselves in whether as Europeans or Americans or Asians or North Koreans or South Koreans or what have you uh we always tend to that tribalism and um we have to be thinking in terms of our common survival and this is what you do in ritual you celebrate common Joy you know whatever our difference is we're here and isn't that something to be joyful about and you undergo you celebrate our common grief and that is so important today that everyone is grieving but no one knows what to do with it and being able to grieve in in ritual and with others is extremely important to do the emptying but also the empowerment that comes after that emptying yes and then to build up our creativity and our our common work all that can be energized uh by by ritual yeah and you know as you've worked with uh you developed this uh Cosmic mass and you know I've as you mentioned been working with chanting and uh many people over the last 30 years you know chant some of the Aramaic words of Jesus in small meditation groups like ta music things like that and then you know try to go more deeply into the ex the sort of the shared experience that uh you know Jesus Yeshua in his Aramaic name is pointing us towards so uh let's let's talk a little bit about Cosmic Christ can tell us a little bit about Cosmic Christ Matt and and U what that means to you yes and just to build on what you just said the very first time that you led us in a prayer of the circle Dance of the abun deash Maya the year Our Father something happened for me Christ showed up in the middle of the circle I mean that's not not happened often when I pray nor was I do I seek for it but it happened it was really an amazing thing so I knew from then that moment on that your work was was uh more than useful it was profound okay so what's the question you asked oh Cosmic Christ okay let's Okay well the cosmic Christ is the most profound um and foundational archetype of um of the U of the Christ and of mysticism itself in in Christianity remember the Christianity flies on two wings the wings the wing of the historical and Aramaic Jesus and the wing of uh the cosmic Christ now one thing that's so important about cic Christ today is that the nyine Creed which is a fourth Century Creed which Anglican churches and Roman Catholic churches and several others still recite by wrote on Sunday mornings very often um that was a fourth Century thing and and it was filled with Greek Phil philosophical terms and fine it was done in Greece why wouldn't it be but um uh it's it's it's limited and it was inaugurated not by a uh Christian Church assess but by the emperor Constantine so that makes it just a little bit fraught as well but that's reality and that's hung around for 16 centuries but the cosmic Christ christology began with the earliest writer in the Christian Bible with Paul in in Colossians for example but other examples as well I'll just remind you of the one writing in Colossians the Colossians 1 15-1 17 Christ is the image of the Unseen God and the firstborn of all creation for in him were created all things in heaven and in Earth everything visible and everything invisible before anything was created he existed and he holds all things in unity holds all things in unity that Unity that is as we say falling apart everywhere today but it's a an archetype of uh the pattern that connects and um so it's now another thing is people today if they hear about it at all because the church has not been preaching it for centuries they say oh well that's something shardan came up with in the 20th century and his new age or something no it's straight from Paul the first writer in the Christian Bible and the gospel of Thomas which is also very old right it's in there too but then again as we're going to show later it's in all the great events depicted in all the the gospels from the Nativity to the crucifixion and resurrection and everything in between so it's everywhere and yet we haven't talked about it for a centuy we've been so busy going after that historical Jesus that we've forgotten the sense of c and that's part of our anthropocentrism that we interested in someone who looks like us and uh and who talk to us but we we leave out the cosmos which is leaving out the Earth as Thomas Barry says ecology is functional cosmology so if we can recover a cosmology with that comes a living ecology and so the Christ the cosm Christ stands for the sacredness of all beings so John one has a cosmic price and talks about the light in all beings and now today's physics talks about how there are photons in every atom in the universe so all two trillion galaxies contain this light what art calls the spark of divinity that's in all beings so this is opening our minds and heads and bodies up to the sacredness of the universe and the sacredness of the earth and the sacredness of all beings on the earth including ourselves and this of course course is a a revolution in Consciousness so um and Thomas Barry says we not will not recover the lost sacred uh without recovering a sense of the universe and so the CM Christ brings us there now one other point when I was in South Korea lecturing a few years ago I brought up the CM Christ of course and afterwards a Buddhist monk came up to me and he said I've never heard that term Cosmic Christ before but I love it I'm going to start preaching about the cosmic Buddha and of course he should because the cosmic Christ is utterly ecumenical we're all part of the cosmos we're all part of the the Earth and um and of course the Buddha nature that tnad Han writes about is absolutely parallel to the cosmic Christ and Christianity and in Judaism today Scholars are coming up with with re understanding the term shalam that means we translate as image of God and they're realizing in the entire Jewish tradition image of God is not just about humans it's about every being is an image of God that my folks is the cosmic Christ in Judaism yeah as as you've pointed out and I have also in my books um this does reach back to the the story The cosmology story in Genesis where it's uh in Genesis being is being created in the Salem which is what you mentioned the uh really it's it is the the image but it's not a picture image in ancient Hebrew it's not a picture of someone or something it's a moving image it's like a shadow that moves in response to you know a source of light so another way of translating it is is sometimes the you could say the the depth of this embodiment uh and it's important to note it that it is it is moving we are each moving individually different beings move individually with this Divine as you would say as Buddhist call the Buddha nature so it says Mutu uh this is in the likeness so people want to make this okay it's only about Jesus it's just the picture of Jesus it's only about Jesus but it's not about Jesus in Hebrew or in John 1 because uh John 1 is also stated again I don't want to get too much into the tech technical tties of the language but John 1 is really stated as in the in the beginning is in the in the first point of the beginning is living it's not it was but it it is at the point that it of of the creation it is living as word that is as sound and if we look to the book of sirak which is one of the the books sort of intertestamental books as is pointed out word is related with wisdom that is Holy wisdom HMA Sophia is is her AKA Sophia her better known name which people know her by today so people were awaiting at that time at the time that uh Jesus comes Yeshua comes they were awaiting a figure that would bring them all together that would redeem them from you could say inner and outer from the desperate situation uh they had been at that time and here one can mention you know also a political situation is that the people of that particular area had been under the thumb of of Empires for centuries centuries and so there was this expectation as we witness in these intertestamental books that some figure would come and so you might ask well how can Jesus a man embody sopia a woman well ancient peoples at that time did not have this fixed idea of maleness and femaleness because again if we reach back to Genesis it says that the first human being one human being is created male and female so we're already envisioned in this story in Genesis 1 to have a s of a melded dual nature of maleness and femaleness and a flow between them and it's it's it's not an either or thing uh and and this this goes on throughout the whole biblical tradition and I will say from my more recent research also into the Quran uh which we're not talk about much here today but they have the same basically the same story they inherit the same stories from the abrahamic tradition of this we could say the divine nature of the human being that Salam the depth of you could say reality knowing itself in the human human being so uh let's uh let's go a bit more into the the I am's met and uh and proceed from there because I think these give a you could say a more you could say a concrete a practical uh view to how different this view is your view my view uh Cosmic Christ Aramaic Jesus of these statements which are often viewed as simply e exclusivity statements well it just means Jesus you know so we have to Jesus is going to save us um how you know and so it's just Jesus Jesus Jesus you know I have to believe not I don't I have to believe thoughts about Jesus I have to have certain beliefs about Jesus then that will so to speak save me so what what's what's your view of that right well to build on what you were just teaching what's at stake here is the realization that we are all other christs that we all other christs and um that flips things so for example if um is in the in the gospels whether the I am saying and of course I am is a is a name for the Divine in Book of Exodus Moses asked God who shall I say I'm speaking to I am who I am or I am who I will be and and Neo can no long can surely embellish that through the Aramaic but the point is that the I am is the sacred name for Divinity and yet we're all called to that I am so if we find a phrase like I am um the door uh what that means is you are the door in what ways are you a door and this gets really practical in what way are is Christ a door fine is Jesus a door but in what ways are you a door and am I a door and are we are we living up to being doors and and uh of course a door can be a very positive thing it could be a welcoming thing it opens and it shuts it create intimacy when it shuts but also it can be barred and locked and and so even with these images there are choices to make are you going to be you know a healthy door that and are you going to W welcome strangers or are you going to just keep people at Bay and so forth so this can apply to every one of these archetypes and they are archetypes that are attributed to to um Jesus or the Christ uh in what ways are we adore to one another and you can turn every one of these I am sayings around that way including of course Matthew 25 I do it to the least you do it to me yeah and and right there the historical Jesus is is talking about the cosmic Christ and he really does that and but he's saying that I am this person I'm not just me so we are one another especially when we're in trouble when we need help and so there's a whole ethics that is built on Matthew 25 where we're here to help one another and find the Christ in one another yeah yeah I mean it's as you say this Matthew 25 part um you know this we find throughout the tradition really because it's the interconnectivity that happens when we when we view this when we not only view but we experience this in ourselves then we feel okay as the Jewish tradition says and as repeated later in the Islamic tradition if you save one human being you save all of humanity if you kill one human being you're killing all Humanity this is about the ancient notion that that we are that we are interconnected this is this interbeing the tikn Han talks about too again to quote a Buddhist now you know one thing I'll say about about the the I am and we we can use that as a as a short form of what we're talking about but wait for it um Aramaic doesn't actually have a being verb that is it doesn't havei am you are he she it is they are it doesn't have the are the is uh this is true throughout the ancient Semitic languages uh the the first verb that is the first activity is to live so all this has to do when you see this sometimes for instance in in Exodus where Moses is confronted by the burning Bush what he hears the burning bush really saying in Hebrew and this is there's all sorts of different interpretations about this so I don't want to get into an argument with anyone on the chat about this either um he's really this is based on the verb for livingness that which lives which is living past present future is what is speaking to you it is it is life it is livingness and so when Jesus however in Gospel of John it's translated as I am what he actually says in Aramaic is two of the Aramaic words Ena i n i n so he says Ina Ina Ina or Ana means I that is the individual so he says Ina Ina connecting my ego my individuality to the source of that connecting my self my individual self to the source of that well H how does that make any sense well you have to know again words that are mistranslated throughout the gospels Soul self and breath and all of these are mistranslated often the basic cosmology that Jesus has and which was true in the Biblical times is that we have two different types of breath one is an individual breath that I hold within this body for however many years I've got in time and space here and the other is a breath that is always connected always connected and based on these two words for breath we have the word for the individual self NAFA in Aramaic and AHS ha if you want to spell it out and r r Hebrew is R uh Hebrew of the individual self is neish so once we understand this basic map that there we have two ways of looking at life and one is our always on open 247 connection to to that which was before and which comes after and one is our individual Life as we try to manage as best as possible right here in time and space and muck our way through and and mess things up and then get things some things right so it depends on being able to turn from you could say the the ENA my individual eye to the source of that that you could say you could call it soul but again throughout most translations of the gospels the word self and soul are translated all higgledy piggledy as they say here it's all messed up and then the breath is often translated as spirit so people think it's somewhere God knows where or goddess knows where whereas wherever you see the word spirit in the New Testament you can read the word breath just read the word breath because it has to do with my breath connect conting to our breath again interconnectivity and then that breath our planetary breath which is very important connecting to the source of that and that's what he calls wait for it holy breath Ora or you could say sacred breath uh so this is this is this connection you see that becomes very very clear once we start to just shift a few things correct a few Mis translations and then correct some of them that are very very limited such that we don't see what the what the heck is going on if you excuse me for saying um at least that was I was raised Christian you I was raised in a Christian household we were I memorized large parts of the King James Bible as not as part of my household but as part of my elementary school education I had to memorize all of Luther's small catechism uh it was good for the memory but it was like rote as you're talking about man wrote wrote wrote but you know some of it stuck with me and then I was able to reframe it um what about this first one you know the it's usually considered the first it's not really the first but the one in John 6 mat where Jesus says I am the bread I am the bread of life he says what's your what's your take on that one sure that um again I think it's so interesting that Jesus picks so ordinary a image an experience as bread and of course bread is foundational for um survival in the Middle East as it is in many but not all cultures it would be like rice in the in Asia and and we have to translate that too you know so what what is rice to Asians what is bread to Western cultures well it's survival and of course it comes up often in Jesus teaching um the Our Father give give us this day our day bread and um so the the it's about work isn't it it's about uh people have to grow the Grain and they have to you know the sun has to come and the rain has to come and not too much of either one which we're experiencing in our climate change today we're getting either floods on the one hand or droughts on the other so there has to be this balance and then human Ingenuity has to pound the bread and and uh pound the wheat and turn it into flour Etc and of course add some leaven and all the rest so it's a process it's creativity on human's part doesn't just just drop out of the sky although um we're told of course that in the Hebrew Bible there was a special bread that did drop out of the sky and kept the Jews alive during their in the wilderness so so it's just it's just filled with with archetypal power but to say I am that I am the bread and then to turn it around and say you are the bread how are we bread for one another and how are we sustenance for one another and I think that brings up all is kinds of issues around Justice and Injustice around um and of course climate change they just talking about that about our interdependence with nature and um so I think all that is is in the mix when uh the Christ says I I am the bread and meaning also we are bread to one another but I'll let you Neil now get further well yeah I agree I mean you know it's again we have a you know a parallel way of viewing this if you look at the Aramaic that um again if we take Ena Ena as the connection of my small self you could call it to the source of myself connecting self to Soul you could say which is done by turning the heart the heart has to turn is the way they would look at it then um this connection he says this this is the food because actually in Aramaic uh even though it is it does mean bread it isn't limited to uh bread per se wheat free glutenfree or whatever it's really is a it's it's food so this is the food the freshness that is of livingness or is this livingness um well what is it that we eat in food well we we call a food fresh when it has a lot of life in it and so we are as you point out Matt we are this food I mean our our bodies become food for those who come after us so and then what about our souls you know are these fresh are we always renewing our soul uh are we change are we changing are we are we stuck in our ways are we always looking for more uh looking for more you could say from our soul rather than trying to grasp more possessions or this or that on the outside which is what's done so much damage to the climate now there's an interesting story around this and I'll just share it very briefly in John 6 and that this phrase I am the bread of life happens in the aftermath of the story where Jesus is has one of done one of his big feedings you remember the story bunch of people come there's no food you know there's a few loafs and fishes and like that and you know they feed everybody well it's a big it's a big happening as we would say today so Jesus and his students his disciples as they're called Yeshua they go out on the boat they fish some then they come back uh it's a bit of a I'm shortening the story and the crowd is still there and the crowd is basically saying hey what about more Loaves and Fishes you know we're still hungry and it's at this point that Jesus says you know okay don't look for the just the outer don't look for the material look for that that freshness within yourself I mean he's not saying starve yourselves but he's saying what you're really looking for is the food that will give you this livingness that will connect you to the life that is interconnecting us with the planet and with our source and you know this is where he also has this very controversial saying where he says you know um you know unless you eat my body and drink my blood you won't understand what the heck I'm talking about I'm translating lucies from the Aramaic but um and then the disciples say you know Master that's that's a very difficult saying they're not getting this the crowd is dispersing which is probably what Jesus wanted anyway because they were looking for the outer and isn't that just what's happening today you know all the these soulle impulses that we have PE we look for them in you know for this unlimitedness in the outer whereas you know again when I looked into this more deeply all the words for happiness or joy in uh in Aramaic they have to do with noticing that our small self our individual self has limitations we can't consume as much resources you know as as we each want we can't acquire as much wealth as everybody wants you know there limitation of the of our individual humanity is necessary to find the unlimited why because then we turn from acquiring things outwardly to the connection you could say with soul with the cosmic Christ with what is always on and open of where he starts to go with all of this another angle on the um I am the bread of life and the crowd being hungry as people say and the inner work that you talk about the the inner self as opposed to the outer is that generosity is found inside too and so part of what he may have been doing was urging people to share the bread not hoard their bread you know they just brought a little picnic for them they're family but others were there with no picnic so yeah so that may well have been part of the um story too that he got people to dig in and think of others absolutely break your bread and you eat a little less like you were just talking about and your your neighbor gets to eat too and that and that's a miracle too that's a bigger Mir you could say that again anyway let's yeah can we do a little bit of chanting here before we go uh go further and we just have a brief sort of pause for contemplation I think that's um that could be helpful and I'll grab my guitar here just so you have a sense of old time sake here Matt so we're going to chant this one that Natalya just put into the chat which is if you look there you will see it a couple of times and this is again connecting our individual self to that which is you could say more permanent to the to the cosmic Christ to the livingness within us uh and feel the and we then we'll pause for a brief moment of silence and and feel that that connection to life not only within us but around us because it is the same life as Matt was pointing out in in nature in all in all beings as the Buddhists would say all right here we go so chat a little bit with me if you want to move you can you know I'm just going to lean back and forth here because we can't do much more than that on Zoom but but we can still enjoy [Music] [Music] life [Music] Allah [Music] Allah [Music] now just feeling our own breathing connecting to life within us around [Music] us what is always [Music] [Applause] living [Music] and then even if you don't remember the Aramaic words just breathing feeling okay my life comes from before before the before and here for this period of time what is mine to do and then it continues on if we connect with that Source Ina Ina small self to that which has empowered created that which is doing everything I have a question for you with that small self you could also say it's it's other expression is the big self the big self and psychology uses that a lot today Yan certainly use it a lot but I think what they mean is the our interconnectivity with all being and with the source of all being when when you know the big self self of the capital S so that might be another way of talking about um that translation you say self yeah I mean different people translate these terms soul and self different ways particularly in modern psychology um Yung talks about individuation which is really if you read young very Yung very very closely say as Peter Kingsley has done in his books Yung is really talking about the same thing particularly in his book answer to job it's this connection you could say individuation is really this Con contion of my my limitedness to my unlimitedness we won't even have to use the word soul and self but um anyway one has to use something for a sake of for the sake of translation as I point out in the new book um well Matt let's go into this thing about the light this is a this is another theme the uh I am the light of the world these these different sayings that are in John 8 most of which has to do with themes of light really uh what's what's your take on that one well in my study on world religions um I have 18 themes that are common to all of them the word light really stands out uh what I found is that the word light is the closest synonym for Divinity around the world uh you know Buddha says that become a light unto yourself and of course Jesus talks about not hiding your light under a lamp and and and the Christ talks about I am the light of the world and um but you find this this um this language this's metaphor for light for Divinity everywhere and of course it's understandable we all know all people know everywhere and have known that you know the sun coming up is kind of helpful and useful and and uh bottom line and uh uh especially people living in the north Ireland or or Northern Canada and of Worth or or Iceland where my brother lives now uh and his wife she's from Iceland you know that you you really honor light when you have situation where you have 20 hours a day of Darkness so um uh and of course then there's so many meanings to light and of course Genesis 1 says light was the first thing created but so does the new creation St of science that the fireball was the first 750 ,000 years of our universe and so Einstein himself said I want to spend my whole life doing nothing but studying light so light is a name for the Divine there's a one one of the wonderful Psalms says in uh says um God comes robed in a cloth in a robe of light so light is everywhere when you're talking about Divinity and not just in the biblical tradition but around the world so um for Christ to say then I am the light and saying that we are to be light to one another which he literally says um and of course in the Celtic tradition light is identified with our intelligence with you know our mind lighting up and your heart lighting up and uh so what can you say except that that light is is a primal effort Humanity to name what Divinity is yeah I mean it as you say it goes way way back in our in our human Heritage not just in our our material Heritage but in the evolution of our Consciousness uh one thing I just you know Semitic languages the ancient Semitic languages really stem from a time before agriculture so when the you could say the ancient semites were were wandering and so light then becomes for these people Clarity during the day you you can see things at night I don't see very well you know and so it's really about Clarity seeing clearly and you know at a time okay then this is in the dark it's in the unknown it doesn't mean darkness is evil um so you don't have this light is good darkness is evil dichotomy or split in these ancient cultures particularly uh in the ancient Semitic languages and this is true for Jesus too so this light is really about as you were pointing out that the Celtic Christianity has it you know this Clarity that we have okay we're in a world full of confusion you know can I get clear on what is really mine to do in all of this or am I going to be so paralyzed that I'm going to you could say be in in a sort of a muddle of of paral of paralysis that that I don't really see very clearly so this is what Yeshua keeps pointing to uh in in the gospels and particularly in this John 8 passage which happens really just after this whole sort of pregnant moment if you excuse the expression where they bring you know they do this test of Jesus of Yeshua and they bring in this woman supposedly uh caught in adultery as it's called and they say well you know we're supposed to Stone her so what do you say master and yada yada yada and then what usually is overlooked is that Jesus starts to write something in the sand in front of them we don't find out what it is and he says this famous saying which everyone remembers those without sin cast a first stone sin really means that those without their own tangles in their past life because really sin is about Tangles we've we've done things in our life that got us into Tangles you can like knots so Jesus says those who have don't have their own Tangled life you know cast the first Stone and then he starts to write in the sand or in the earth and gradually they troop they they fade away and the gospel makes a point of saying that it's the the oldest ones first because we don't know maybe he's writing well so and so did this and you did that and what about these things that you did and you know so they the oldest ones have more to hide than the younger ones so they start to troop out and then he and then he goes into this you know enana uh Orma I am I am the light of all the levels because Alma is really there are different words for Earth or World in Semitic languages and Alma or Alum really means the the light in time that allows us to see and know things in time and space we distinguish things we learn things we know things so the light that allows us to know practic in our lives what's going on who's telling the truth and who's making stuff up th this these levels or these this condensation of levels this light if you connect then you'll know who's telling the truth and who isn't telling the truth you know they used to say that you can't lie you know you can't lie to children and dogs I don't know if anymore it's true but I mean if you put a dog or a child in front of a TV set and Troop a politician in there you know the dog's probably going to start to bark I but anyway so the the understanding the light of how distinguish re you could say even on this level of time and space that which is true from that which is not true what is true for me in my life you know where is the compass that is going to direct me towards my next steps you know and and what is you know maybe we I you know what is not for me this is the most one of the most important questions in life is the question of of our human purpose and Jesus keeps trying to point people to this um it's a it's a remarkable chapter if you read John 8 in the Aramaic uh because you know then as I say it's all about seeing and not seeing then you know along the way he heals this blind man but you know oops it's the Sabbath so he shouldn't be healing anyone cuz some people think healing someone is work and he shouldn't be working and you know eventually he ends up uh before the for one of the many times he ends up before the the scribal counsil in the Jerusalem Temple and they're asking him you know so what gives you the right to do this and you know our fathers didn't do this and a You Know da d d you know we've never done things this way I mean isn't this the way you know we always hear now where people go on about well we've always done it this way you know and so it's always got to be this way but actually it's not true it's just you know it's a fiction that human beings have always done things the way we now do them isn't it I mean I mean really it's it's amazing yeah if I could just add a little footnote to this too um as you were talking about light and um the the Aramaic language that preceded Agriculture and so far how important light was and about Clarity it reminded me of a interaction I had with Eddie Nebo in an Aboriginal in Australia and it was nighttime and he said um you know daytime uh Clarity is about the things we're interacting with we see one another we see the Earth everything around us but night time it's it's dark on Earth but the sky lights up then we see the stars but of course they're always there but you don't see them in the in the light you only see them at dark time at night time yeah and and then he goes g on and said you know in our culture we teach our children that the stars are campfires of our ancestors and that our ancestors are looking down at us to see what's cooking here on Earth what kind of campfires what kind of communities are we creating but so the the wisdom that comes from the night and from the dark as you saidage is not a negative thing is different nighttime is different from daytime now of course with electricity and neon lights and cities and all this we've convoluted this entirely and very confusing but notice how the the cosmology is there that the cosmos speaks at night if you will and and uh and the the Earth and our everyday life you know is happening in the light but of course now with web telescope you know we are bringing Cosmos in in a whole new way right into our living rooms and computers day and night and and uh and it's astounding of course what we're what we're um connecting to it's a it's a marvelous way to connect again to the cosmos and here again is where the archetype of the cosmic Christ or the cosmic Buddha or others um shines yeah I mean there's every there's every indication also that you know the ancient Semitic the ancient Semitic Nomads they also saw the stars and the planets really as living beings because these are all created uh you know before us you could say and then the human being comes along and in one of the most I would say egregious mistranslations in all of history uh the Genesis passage is translated uh be fruitful and multiply and dominate and subdue the Earth and rule over and the and the Hebrew never says anything about you know dominating and subduing uh and it doesn't say rule over it says says learn how to manage your individuality your human self along with all the other beings created before you not over the Hebrew the Hebrew preposition b or bait uh never means over that is on top of uh in in the whole history of the ancient uh Hebrew language but it says rule you learn how to manage your manage all this along with all these other beings of nature uh stars and planets that were created before you so this is again this interbeing as tick Nan talks about and and it's it's really all over but the problem is you know all this has been strained out and as I wrote in one of my early articles it becomes like um psychic oil that is minded uh you know that is plumbed out of the Earth all this this whole cosmology of of the ancient Semitic tradition of Jesus so many people are are Jesus phobic because the you could say the the juice of it the livingness of it has been strained out and used to create some very toxic theology frankly I mean there's good theology but there's a lot of very toxic theology in the last 500 years and you know your your whole work has been about all this really so you know more than I do it's um it's a thing yeah can can we do a little bit I think let's do a little bit more on you wanted to get into uh the shepherd and and you want to do anything more on Shepherd or the door mat or not the door mat but the door I am the door or sometimes it's translated I am the gate really and I am the Good Shepherd and like that well um I think the archetype of the Good Shepherd is really significant for a time of ecological crisis because the shepher I lived as Shepherds for six months in the P Bosque um the southern part of France whereas uh rent a room in a farm and to write my doctoral thesis and um you know shepherding is uh uh a project of those at the lower end of the totem pole because you you have to be the Shepherds out 24 hours a day and you begin to smell like them and you know you're not developing your social skills so much when you're hanging out with sheep um but sheep are very vulnerable animals they they can't run fast they can't climb a tree they don't have good claws or strong teeth so they really need uh help they need parenting and they need protecting and that's what what Shepherds do you know they're not having to feed the sheep so much to take them to the grasses where they can eat but they do have to protect them and especially in a time when wolves were uh were plentiful and um there are some stories about in Jesus time how at nighttime the Shepherds would put the sheep in a shed and the shepherd would lie down in the in the entrance to this shed so that if a wolf came he'd have to deal with the sheep first or have he'd have to deal with the man first or yeah the shepherd the shepherd first so um so the shepherd is attached to another being to another species and realizes the importance of protecting of parenting you might say that's a big part of parenting too and so I think amazing archetype for our times and it's not about little B peep you know it's not about something sentimental it's about loving a nonhuman and isn't that what the ecological crisis is all about that we were not even caring for the other than human whether you're talking fishes or rainforce or or polar bears or tigers and elephants you know there it's again it's we're back to the theme of interdependence yeah but I think the she is a marvelous archetype for that and um just because we live in cities doesn't mean that um Shepherd architect doesn't speak to us um because it is about protecting the vulnerable yeah I mean if you look in the John 9 story again from the Aramaic view um you know Jesus is in Jerusalem he's caused trouble there and so they you could say the intelligent Services of the of the temple are following him there's people following him and and then he's speaking to people and he's sort of speaking to both his listeners who are receptive to him and he's speaking to these people who are trying to do him no good and he's talking about really when he talks about um the gate or the door he talks about okay there are some people who are sneaking in Over The Back Fence like we call them sheep rustlers in American English and they're they're trying to Ste you know they're stealing the Sheep um and what does that mean well well metaphorically it means that the religious energy the spiritual energy of people was being hijacked by by the temple officials and this is what gets Jesus in a lot of trouble and then he you could say he says my sheep know my voice they hear me you know so they they hear the voice of authenticity in me Yeshua is saying and so they know that I'm telling them you know how they can go this is where it's the so-called Good Shepherd it says so the connection to your own true self we could go use a true self or your small self to the larger self this directs you to that which is ripe this is a key word in Aramaic throughout the gospels rip PE not right as in right and wrong but ripe as in a fruit or a plant ripening he says I am the Shepherd that leads you to what the right place at the right time and the right action this is what ripeness is again if you want to know one thing to read into your gospels no matter which translation you're using you know wherever you see the words uh good and bad or like that you know you should read ripe that which is ripe in the right time at the right place like a fruit ripening or tree ripening and that which is unripe and this is what was translated in as good and bad this is why you end up with a good tree and a bad tree I mean how is this tree morally bad is that even possible so it's really he's talking about he's pointing again to Nature and throughout the you could say the gospels viewed in Aramaic Jesus is always pointing to Nature as a source of teaching this is this is a feature uh really really of his teaching uh in in a very very unique way so yeah and sometimes that word um is also translated as perfect be you perfect for example and I just hate that because says perfectionism is a Neurosis us to be neurotic and perfect but to be ripe and uh that's uh you know as you say the the real meaning of the of the word it's it's ripe and it's also ripening so all of these these states of being in Semitic languages and in Aramaic it's also true it's not like okay now I'm ripe and then I'm done that's it okay it's all done no we're always ripening into life yeah um and this word that was translated as be you perfect it's really like a sense of okay I'm completing My My humanness by connecting to the Divine image completing completing it's an active verb it's not like okay now it's done it's a static State static states are not something that Semitic languages excel in they're always being they're sort of active you know they're active processes rather than fixed States and that's that's actually very important to know even if you don't know any Aramaic um and that wonderful teaching of Jesus that follows this of things by their fruits you will know them you know exactly they saying you know that the you know the the evidence is in what's what we're doing what we're standing for how we're we're um carrying out our values and our living our integrity Etc so yeah yeah if if we Circle back again also to John one you know and Cosmic Christ and the light and and all of that towards the middle of this John 1 first beautiful passage it says you know the word that is the wisdom you could say the light is becoming it says is becoming flesh so it's it's becoming living it's living and and and then it's usually translated and dwells Among Us so again this is interpreted as only Jesus well Jesus was here and now he's gone and on and on but actually the Aramaic say the word could say this light that is in all beings took form took a form in in a human being and then it this is also dwelling within us so within and among are always the same preposition in Aramaic so the withness and the among us this is why Jesus has quoted as saying the kingdom is within you or the kingdom is among you actually didn't say Kingdom but that's subject for another time but it's always W with within and among so again this inter beingness there's only one preposition Aramaic has and it stands for both within and among he doesn't have a choice no matter what he said I mean I'm using the scripture that aramea Christians use today but Jesus doesn't have a choice of how many of what words to use and we know he spoke Aramaic there's only so many words he could have used so the withness this word this potential of the cosmic Christ is dwelling within it's come and Jesus basically shows us how to do it that's that's what he so that's what he defines as His function and he shows that really the human potential when not the human potential movement but but the real human potential to realize our our light our Cosmic Christ is still coming we're still working on it um it wasn't done a long time ago uh we're working hard we hope we we get there as a general Humanity uh before we lose the opportunity to get it in these forms uh and then um you know then it'll be up to what Jesus calls allaha that is the the Divine to uh take things next step but um it's it's important you know again that we've realized that these things are these are our potentials this word wisdom this uh HMA this holy wisdom uh this Sophia that Jesus embodies is really it's part of each of us we don't have to reach somewhere out in space for this uh HMA you could say hakima in Aramaic really means that sense that unites all of our senses so we know we smell We Touch we taste we feel we have body awareness but but what is it that unites all of these within me so that I can say I smell touch taste feel rather than just I'm overwhelmed by random chaotic Impressions so this this was considered to be the sacred sense the sacred you could call it six sense which is another name for for Holy sense sacred sense holy wisdom um it's it's a potential we're still really really working on uh so you think intuition would be something of a synonym for that I I think so because intuition is is a capability that we all have that arises when we do that sort of connection uh when we connect you could say soul to self we use those terms small self to Big self and then what allows this to happen well our heart has to turn it has to be you know it's like it has to we have to take the rust off our heart as galin roomi says so that the heart can can turn from the individual and the material to that which is you could say always on and doesn't mean the material an individual isn't important because these are our challenges but we have to be able to turn so that we're not just one just focused out on on what's you could say out there but also what's in here and U that's my take what do you what's your take on that Matt well the reason intuition came in my mind is you know Einstein says that we've been given these two gifts the gift of the rational brain and the gift of the intuitional brain and that values come only from the intuitional brain but he said he says I abore American Education he criticizes education because it values only the rational brain which has no values to it says the rational brains should serve the intuitive brain and of course the intuitive brain includes heart what you're talking about about changing the heart it includes conscious it includes connection to the whole the cosmos therefore the capacity for wholeness which is intrinsic to all of wisdom and it includes play which is part of wisdom and creativity so all these good things are tend to be ignored in everyday education uh in the West in favor of you know the the rational and so finding that balance again I hear you really talking about that when you're talking about changing the heart and wisdom changing the heart and of course wisdom is also feminine HMA sopia sapen around the worldw over my shoulder here she's feminine so that's been banished for the last 400 years of modernity uh and so um we have knowledge factories but we don't have wisdom schools and so I think all this kind of comes together in what you're talking about uh when it comes to wisdom and and um and and Jesus teaching of wisdom and how the kingdom queen of God is among us and within us and and wisdom is among us and within us and um and that that Christ is wisdom um and and as you said early that mels the masculine and The Feminine yeah uh and uh so anyway I just think there's a lot that follows from what you were just talking about yeah well we're about at the end here I mean we could go on and on quite a bit actually but um maybe we uh we end very briefly before we say thanks to everybody uh with just a little bit more chanting of the first line of of Jesus's prayer which you mentioned earlier Matt when you were we were dancing together in the 80s in iccs in Oakland so we're going to chant just a little bit of a deash a debash Maya which Natalia has just put in her chat so refrain from chatting for a moment so people can see that and and um again aoon is not a being sitting somewhere in Judgment of us it is again a a living process I originally wrote Oh breathing life of all that's probably the closest but if we want to talk about it it's the it's the process of giving birth of parenting that is throughout the universe that is throughout the Realms of light and connectivity in vibration which is what shmaya actually is in the ancient Semitic languages so you is you know pointing Beyond himself Beyond any particular image of god or goddess uh to that which is potential within all of us that which is you know really authentic within us because authentic means that which is which is creating that which allows any individual to create something and and that comes from this same Source anyway here we go we're on the track and so a lot more could be said there but let's chant a little bit and then breathe together have some silence and we'll say [Music] [Music] [Music] goodbye [Music] [Music] just breathing connecting to our individual Source whatever we call that and then connecting to the bigger Community around us community of nature of the [Music] planet again breathing in breathing out feeling our hearts more flexible more capable of turning from our individual challenges life connecting to the source from which we come that Divine image the cosmic Christ is always present in every being no matter what you call it amen amen amen okay uh I think we just about made it so thanks to everybody thank you Matt for being so generous with your time thanks Natalia Natalia for doing our engineering here and um thanks to all of you also who are listening on the recording because I know many of you will be doing that and remember that when even if you're listening on the recording you can just feel that you're here now because ancient Semitic languages they don't have a strict separation between past present and future the now is always now anyway um thanks to thanks to thank you many thanks to Matt and thanks to all of you for joining us and we'll see you somewhere for your inspiration in having this event and good luck with your new book and uh blessings on everybody may you all um be inspired by the uh the implications of of our our 15 minutes together today so be well wherever you are thanks everybody thanks Matt take care everybody bye for now