by Ernest L. Norman
As for the white dove which fluttered down and the speaking of the voice of God, this is an obvious embellishment, a bit of chicanery, if you please, which would so slant these various descriptive depictions with the necessary supernatural aura. As for the voice of God and any such reputed speaking of this voice, this can be considered as such obvious devices, or that those who heard this voice were suffering from a certain neurotic illness, called by modern psychologists, as traumatic hallucinations; for indeed how can God speak with such a voice for God is not a personal being but is the sum and substance of the Infinite. Nor does He need to speak in any voice or language, for His message is ever and always about us, a voice which speaks in that constant, never-ending resurgent pattern of life; the creative and re-creative forms of all things of which mankind is conscious; yes, and of all things which will be his even beyond eternity. Nor is God’s word so contained in any book, for even as the Christian says his Bible is the word of God, he is only giving his strength to a great lie, for no man can understand or know of God through this book.
If he would hear the Voice of God let him listen to the song of creation which is ever about him; let him see, in his daily actions, the form and substance of this Word. And though blind his eyes may be, and deaf are his ears, if he will look and listen long enough, he will see and hear the Word of God reenacted in a thousand ways. And in seeing and hearing this Word, it will become a golden shuttle filled with the gossamer filament of life; and in his daily actions, his will will give this shuttle power to weave for him a new fabric of life, a cloak of Immortality.
Yes, the Word will do all this and much more, for as the Word becomes the stream of life, so does this stream wash away the earthly stains. It will water the arid wastelands of the mind and from these places shall spring the fruits of realization and fulfillment. For the Word comes not as a Voice so minded and mindful of its own pleasures and hates nor does this Voice command. Neither are there things within this Voice which would lend lustful purpose, false desires, or murderous intent.
To those then, who are mindful of their future, that if they would like to live unto the day of self-realization, to the great day of personal emancipation, then trust not this destiny into the hands of others, for these others may also be seeking the same destiny and despite their claims, always remember that God has never given power to one man over another nor has He relegated or dispensed His various attributes of inspiration, healing, wisdom and solace through either one or a collective group of people or in any religion in which they believe. For such godlike attributes come only to men who have searched and found them from within themselves and, with the finding, lose the need of the material world and pass on into the higher realms of life.
To you, dear reader, look not then in the Bible or in any other so-called holy word for your salvation, your attainment; neither look in any temple or church, for these are but a few of the many ways in which mankind has striven to understand the great Creative Infinite. And yet these strivings have always resolved themselves into a coexistent state between the lower carnal self, the animal man, and the embodiment of a psychic form which was first conceived in all things in the Infinite Mind, and which must be born again and lived through this animal body; and live there it must, to be reborn again until the day it finds its purpose; and with the finding of Purpose, will come Realization.
Since the days of the beginnings of Christianity, men have lived and died to justify their cause and there are others too, who have lived and died just as have the others; not for this cause but to prove this cause was one of great error and sinister purpose. For, as Christianity was so founded by those who sought to escape the perditions of their own self-made hell, so it is with all those who ascribe to such religious systems. For here they have found a way, seemingly at least to temporarily relieve the pressure of their own guilts; yet never finding an end to this never-ending nightmare, the ghoulish apparitions of lies, hates, lusts, greeds, malices and emotions borne from out the savage past where an eye was taken for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth; yet ever does necessity to relieve this great guilt increase. And increase it will, until the judgment day when each man judges all thought and action with the Light of Purpose – a Light which shines through the eye of the Infinite Creator. And as each man finds this judgment and seeing it in the Light of Purpose, all things then become as they must be, all part of this great Infinite; and as each man judges, each man becomes wise in the way of all things; yet in the judgment he must judge not save those things which appear as his own. For should he judge another man’s sins, then his own sins go unrecognized, and if he finds not his own sins, they must be with him as they always were.
Excerpt from Infinite Contact (3rd Edition)