YOU SHALL CEASE TO BE NEVER!

There is really only one ‘message,’ one ‘truth’ to be known and lived, and this is it:

Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;

Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!

Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for ever.

I am a minister to people of all faiths---and none. Each year I conduct a number of funerals, and I almost always include in my oration or invocations the above lines taken from Sir Edwin Arnold’s [pictured above] beautiful ‘translation’---or rather poetic version---of the Bhagavad-Gita (dubbed ‘The Song Celestial’).

Now, you may have read much from the world of philosophy and religion, and you may be quite confused as to what is, and is not, 'true.' You may have been told that this person, or that person, is the only way to ‘God’ or ‘Truth.’ You may have been told that only your church was the 'one, true church,' and that all other churches---and religions---were man-made. You may have been told that you must believe in this or that particular person, or this or that set of dogmas, or that you must follow a certain path, or lead a certain kind of 'moral' life, in order to be ‘saved,’ to be ‘enlightened,’ or to know ‘truth.’ Forget it. The people and institutions that expound that sort of 'message' are a menace to society and world peace---and they are seriously deluded, and sometimes very dangerous indeed. I kid you not.

There is no need to believe anything. If you want to know truth---which is what is---my advice is forget all about beliefs, for they put a barrier---a wall---between you and truth. You see, you are always in direct contact with truth, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing from one moment to the next---even if you are not consciously aware of that fact. You are a manifestation of truth, for truth is life, and that is what you are. You are life---an inpost and outpost of life---and you can never be less than life. So, there is nothing to ‘find.’ There is no ‘self’ that you need to know or get in contact with. Some people spend 20 or 30 (or even more) years trying to get to know their ‘self.’ They keep trying to ‘expand’ their consciousness. Ha! There is nothing to ‘expand.’ All you get is 'mathematics,' in the form of multiplication and division---that is, more and more little ‘selves,’ more and more mental images of ‘self.’ I have news for all of these people. They are wasting their time, because what they are hoping to find and know is and always has been---an illusion.

And forget about 'following' some other person. As the Indian spiritual philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti would say, ‘when you follow somebody, you have destroyed your own thoughts, you have lost your own independence, you have lost your freedom.’ Yes, and that is one of the very worst things you can do with your life---following others, even someone you have been told is 'God.' If you persist in doing that, what do you ‘discover,’ assuming you discover anything meaningful at all? Someone else’s version of ‘truth'---that's what---which is not truth at all, because it is 'filtered' down to you through someone else's words and thoughts. In any event, as Krishnamurti would also say, 'The teachers, the gurus, the mahatmas, the philosophers, have all led us astray.' Ditto the so-called saviours and messiahs. And just because I quote Krishnamurti does not mean I am 'following' him. There is no such need. What he says is demonstrably true---it is a self-evident fact. Look around you, and you will see it for yourself.

You may ask, 'Ellis-Jones, how can you say all these things?' I say to you, how could it be otherwise? When it comes to what is truth anything else is ‘unspeakable.’ Truth is---what is. Truth is---life. You are life---an individualized part of life’s self-expression, life’s ‘aliveness.’ You cannot be less---nor more or other---than that, and you can never be separated from life. Never! Not even for a moment! This is not a truth which can be known by the use of so-called conceptual or analytical thought. No, this truth---Truth itself---can only be known in the livingness of life, and as life, itself … in the moment … and from one moment to the next. That is, in the Eternal Now, which is (to use, yes, a figure of speech, a metaphor) ‘God,’ ‘Life,’ or ‘Truth.’

I have said all of this before, but I will continue to say it for so long as there is life in me because not all people have heard it or got the ‘message.’ The truth is, there really is no ‘message.’ There is no ‘path.’ There is nowhere to ‘go.’ There is nothing to ‘believe.’ There is no one to ‘follow.’ And there is nothing to 'transcend'---except, perhaps, your own limited thinking. There is, however, a truth to be known---and lived---and it is this: you shall cease to be never. Yes, you will die, and you will vanish from view---at least, the ‘form’ of the person that you are---but the real ‘part’ of you, the essence of you, which is life itself, will never cease to be because it was never ‘born,’ and it was never ‘created.’ The spirit of life will never cease to be. It changes not, even though all forms and things are in a constant state of change and degradation. The spirit of life forever takes form, is forever being incarnated, is forever being crucified, and is forever being resurrected into newness of life. That is the true meaning of those Christian teachings---but please don't believe that. Know it, for there is nothing to believe.

‘Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit [of life] for ever.’ That is the one way of being. That is the way things really are.

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