In a news article published by the New York Times on October 28, 1921, the famed American automobile magnate Henry Ford made the memorable comment, which has since been repeated innumerable times, when he said: History is bunk!
Now Henry Ford’s remark was directed more toward his attitude that events that happen in the present are more important than things that have happened in the past. But there was more wisdom in his words than he might have imagined at the time.
In an essay devoted to this point, noted columnist Patrick Lockerby wrote:
“In archaeology and library research you can make a claim based on the easy pickings that lie on the surface or you can break into a sweat as you dig deeper. But it is not enough to dig deep. You must sift every spadeful, and sift it fine. Truth is most often found in the tiniest of grains: it is easy to miss if you don’t focus intently.” (View Source)
His point goes to the very heart of the historical dilemma. The history of the past is invariably written, and rewritten, by the historians of the present. And it is often their misinformed education of the present which leads to their deformed view of the past.
And it is in this sense that much of what has been written about the past is often “pure bunk”. An example of this was provided in the previous instalment in the history of Easter Island, which reads like the script from a soap opera, replete with jealousy, vengeance, war, disease, starvation and ultimately cannibalism and death.
And all this simply because those historians who concocted the history of Easter Island prior to the arrival of Westerners, neglected to attend to the vital point mentioned by Lockerby, when he said: Truth is most often found in the tiniest of grains.
In the case of Easter Island, archaeologists, historians, geographers and a host of other scientists all missed the crucial clue, which was that the soil that covers the entire island actually arrived after the statues had been built, and not before.
But there is an even better example of a conundrum posed by a mysterious set of ancient ruins, which has also been mangled by archaeologists and historians, who have once again allowed the “easy pickings that lie on the surface” to blind them to the truth that lay beneath.
 Part of the Reconstructed Ruins of Tiwanaku These ruins can be found today in the South American country of Bolivia, on the flanks of the Andes mountains, and are located just 45 miles (72 kms) from the modern city of La Paz. These ruins lie within the boundaries of the municipality of Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco).
The ruins of Tiwanaku may be small in size, yet they provide a stunning display of ancient megalithic architecture, engineering and geometry that clearly supersedes anything else of its era. In fact, in designating this a World Heritage site in the year 2000, UNESCO noted:
“The city of Tiwanaku, capital of a powerful pre-Hispanic empire that dominated a large area of the southern Andes and beyond, reached its apogee between 500 and 900 AD. Its monumental remains testify to the cultural and political significance of this civilisation, which is distinct from any of the other pre-Hispanic empires of the Americas.” (View Source)
The ruins themselves can roughly be divided into four separate areas. The first is what is known as the pyramid of Akapana. Then there is the area of the semi-underground temple. This is located in front of the area of the ceremonial courtyard of Kalasasaya. Finally there is the area known as Puma Punku.
The Akapana pyramid is perhaps something of a misnomer, as it is a blend between the step pyramids of Mexico and the pyramids of Egypt. Shaped more in the form of a rectangular cross, it consists of seven different levels, each with its own stone retaining wall, and rises to a height of about 55 feet (18 metres).
However, only the lowest level and part of the second have been excavated from the earth that covers it. Investigations suggest that the entire pyramid was once clad in blocks of red sandstone. The whole structure is surrounded by well-preserved drainage canals.
The area of the small semi-subterranean temple is accessed by a series of descending steps. The temple itself is made up of 48 pillars made of red sandstone. Its most notable feature are the many styles of carved stone heads that are set into the surrounding walls.
In the centre of the underground temple stands a carved stone monolith known as “El Fraile” (The Friar). This statue was carved out of red andesite, a type of very hard granite that is common to the region.
Situated to the side of the Akapana pyramid is a large courtyard and ceremonial platform known as the Kalasasaya. The courtyard is over three hundred feet long. It is entered through a flight of seven steps cut into the centre of the eastern wall, leading to an imposing gateway made out of enormous blocks of stone.
 The imposing Gateway of the Sun The interior of the courtyard contains two carved monoliths, one of which weighs over twenty tons, as well as the most famous artifact of the entire site, which is the monumental “Gateway of the Sun”, incorporating the image of the “weeping god”.
This gateway has been carved from a single block of andesite, and has been cut to form a large doorway with niches on either side. Above the doorway is an elaborate bas-relief of the central deity, believed by the local Indians to have been their Creator-God Viracocha.
The deity is flanked on either side by thirty intricately carved glyphs, known as Chasquis, as well as a row of eleven other icons that are carved along the bottom of the panel. Another feature of the Kalasasaya temple is the “calendar wall”, consisting of ten large stone pillars set in a modern wall.
An important point that visitors to Tiwanaku should bear in mind, is that the entire area was reconstructed by archaeologists in the 20th century. So most of what can be seen in the Kalasasaya courtyard today bears little resemblance to what was originally found, but rather reflects what these archaeologists thought would make the most impressive memorial.
 The cyclopean ruins of Puma Punku Finally, there is the site located about a mile away from the main temple complex known as Puma Punku (Door of the Puma). This consists of little more than a series of scattered blocks of stone, except for the fact that some of these stones weigh anywhere from 100 to 150 tons!
Confronted with megalithic ruins of such complexity and size, modern historians were challenged to come up with a history that would explain them, especially since they were so dramatically different from anything else found on the South American continent.
The history they devised is the history that is taught to every schoolchild in Bolivia today, and is a source of immense national pride. The following is an extract from a local travel guide which gives a popular rendering of the story that historians came up with.
“This civilization arose in the 6th century BC, and local Indian legends described the city as the capital of the bearded white god Wiracocha.
“Tiahuanaco endured a thousand years more than Rome, and almost 2000 years more than the Inca civilization that built Machu Picchu. Moreover, the inhabitants had developed a system of agriculture that turned barren Altiplano land into the breadbasket of their society.
“The city of Tiahuanaco, capital of a powerful pre-Hispanic empire that dominated a large area of the southern Andes and beyond, reached its apogee between 500 and 900 AD. Its monumental remains testify to the cultural and political significance of this civilization, which is distinct from any of the other pre-Hispanic empires of the Americas.
“The classic, or fourth period (300-700 AD), is perhaps the most dramatic, with its huge stone structures that watch over the site today.
 “During its peak, the capital of Tiwanaku boasted a huge stone-faced pyramid, cut stone enclosures, elite residences, exquisitely decorated buildings, a system of subterranean canals, and at least four square kilometers of residential buildings.
“The Tiwanaku imperial economy was based on the intensive utilization of raised fields, camelid pastoralism, terrace agriculture, an extensive exchange and colonial system, and the organization of large numbers of laborers for state projects. There was a rigid social and political hierarchy expressed in elaborate art and architectural styles.
“The ruins of Tiahuanaco bear striking witness to the power of the empire that played a leading role in the development of the Andean pre-Hispanic civilization.
“The buildings of Tiahuanaco are exceptional examples of the ceremonial and public architecture and are of one of the most important manifestations of the civilizations of the Andean region.
“Clearly, the ruins of Tiahuanaco show a great ceremonial center, and a city that numbered, at its height, more than 20,000 inhabitants. Researchers have divided this civilization into five distinct periods.
“The civilization seems to have totally vanished by 1200AD.” (View Source)
The history outlined above tells an inspiring tale of humble beginnings that lead on to greatness – of imposing architecture, sophisticated engineering and advanced agriculture that speak of the glories of a now vanished era. The unfortunate truth is that all of this is “pure bunk”.
The idea that a powerful Bolivian pre-Hispanic empire once dominated the region for thousands of years is complete fiction. There was no great capital city housing 20,000 citizens, no elite residences, no decorated buildings, and certainly no agriculture that turned the barren Altiplano (high plateau) into a giant breadbasket.
The droll part about this so-called “history”, was that archaeologists and historians had to frame their history of Tiwanaku to conform with the current scientific paradigm, which holds that the earliest civilization on the planet began 5,000 years ago with the Sumerian and Egyptian cultures.
So operating within this paradigm, historians came up with a scenario beginning in the 6th century BC, and ending with the mysterious disappearance of the entire Tiwanaku culture in the 12th century AD, thus conveniently disposing of it before the arrival of the Incas of Peru, early in the 13th century AD.
Yet if these scientists had been prepared to undertake an honest enquiry into the evidence, they would have found some interesting facts which point to the likelihood that, many thousands of years ago, Tiwanaku was originally located at sea level, at that it was at one time a flourishing seaport.
The first fact is that the ruins of Tiwanaku are at an altitude of over 12,000 feet (3,650 metres) above sea level. This is an altitude where most plants will not grow, and corn in particular will not ripen. Its average annual temperature is 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7.7 degrees C), with an average annual rainfall of 24 inches (630 mm).
Based on this evidence alone, it is clear that the present location of Tiwanaku could not possibly have supported an advanced civilization involving tens of thousands of people, especially since some of the agricultural terraces that surround the existing ruins reach as high as 18,000 feet.
The second interesting fact concerns Lake Titicaca, located just a few miles to the west of Tiwanaku. Although it is considered to be the world’s highest fresh water lake, in earlier times it was an inland salt water sea, before being suddenly thrust up to its present height of 12,500 feet (3,800 metres) above sea level.
This is borne out by the fact that the shoreline of the lake is littered with millions of fossilized seashells. It also still retains a slightly saline content, which accounts for the fact that ocean dwelling fish, as well as creatures such as seahorses, continue to be caught in the lake to this day.
Lake Titicaca drains to the south along the Altiplano plateau, spreading out over the Desaguadero Basin and on toward Lake Poopó. If the lake actually had been filled with sea water in earlier times, we should expect to find evidence of evaporated salt deposits in the region, and that is exactly what we do find.
 The great salt lake of Salar de Uyuni One of the most spectacular features in all of Bolivia is the Salar de Uyuni. It is the world’s largest dried up salt bed. It covers an area of over 4,000 square miles (10,500 square kms), which is one third of the size of Belgium, or twenty-five times larger than the famous Bonneville salt flats in Utah.
The crust that is found on the surface of Salar de Uyuni has a thickness of about 33 feet (10 metres), and is made up of eleven separate layers. It is estimated that the dry lake itself contains about ten billion tons of salt, as well as being the world’s richest source of lithium.
The existence of all this salt lends credibility to the theory that Tiwanaku was once a seawater port. And nowhere is there better evidence of this than in the megalithic blocks of stone that can be found at Puma Punku, situated a short distance away from the main ceremonial centre of the city.
 Exquisite designs carved into the polished granite Whereas the main ruins of Tiwanaku are clearly linked with the ceremonial, religious and social focus of this ancient culture, the gigantic blocks of stone that lie strewn all over the plateau at Puma Punku are distinctly different. They seem to possess a unique character of their own.
These megalithic stones are bluish-gray in colour, and generate a metallic tone when struck. They also appear to be the product of an advanced system of technology, as individual blocks have exquisitely cut edges and indentations in a variety of patterns and designs.
 Recessed double-crucifix design One of the most common of these indentations is the symbol of the cross, a double-crucifix design deeply recessed into the granite with pure, clean lines, which could only have been produced with the aid of highly sophisticated stone-cutting tools. Other motifs include arrows, circles and niches unlike anything seen at Tiwanaku.
Easily the most striking feature of the entire site are the gargantuan precision-made H-blocks made of andesite that once formed the walls. Each of these stones is so intricately carved that it has about 80 different surfaces, yet each of these surfaces seems to have been polished into a perfectly smooth finish.
In assembling the walls of Puma Punku, each stone was finely cut to interlock with adjacent stones, and was designed to form load-bearing joints that fitted together without the use of mortar. These joints are so precise that not even a razor blade can fit between the stones.
 Examples of the indentations carved in stone for the metal clamps that held these stones together Another feature of the stonework at Puma Punku was the use of metal clamps or ties. For example, the side walls of the water channels were built with upright stone slabs held together with I-shaped metal clamps which were recessed into the stone.
When analysed in the laboratory, these clamps were found to be made of an unusual alloy, comprising copper, arsenic, nickel, silicon and iron. It is also worth mentioning here that this same system of using metal clamps was found at the Ahu Vinapu megalithic wall on Easter Island.
The entire site of Puma Punku speaks of an ancient civilisation suddenly afflicted by appalling tragedy, as catastrophic forces of nature devastated the region, destroying all but the few remnants that can be seen strewn around the site today.
 Who can solve the riddle of my past? The story of who these people were, how they built their cyclopean structures, and how they met their end, would appear to be lost forever in shrouded legends of antiquity. Yet there is one relic which could be the key to unravelling the mystery of the past. It is the magnificent Gateway of the Sun itself.
Dedicated to the “weeping God” Viracocha, whose tears can still be seen immortalised in stone, the Sun Gate stands in mute splendour as it gazes over the stark plateau of the Altiplano, inviting all who pass that way to solve the riddle of its past.
Allan, The Legend of Lemuria, July 12, 2014, 1:46 pm
Science is serious business. Those who wish to pursue a career in any of the disciplines of science have to serve a rigorous apprenticeship. Not only do they have to get the necessary academic credentials, but they also have to uphold the traditional protocols of science.
And before they can gain the necessary recognition and credibility within their chosen field of science, graduates must first publish the results of their research in established scientific journals, in order to acquire funding or tenure at a recognized educational institution.
People do not enter the scientific profession from the world of entertainment or show business. Stars of shows like Saturday Night Live are not welcome. Stand up comedians need not apply. Nor are results of scientific research published in Vogue, Sports Illustrated or Rolling Stone Magazine.
So it is all the more surprising when scientists, apparently with a straight face, support ideas which appear to come directly from the script of a Monty Python Show, or a Disney fantasia. For this is what has happened in the case of Easter Island and its famous Moai, or carved stone statues.
It all began when geologists began to investigate what lay beneath the rolling grasslands that cover the major part of this tiny island. What they found proved to be a considerable surprise. It appeared that at one time in its past the island had been home to an abundant variety of plant and marine life.
Scientists who have studied the ecology of Easter Island have found fossilised evidence indicating that the island was once covered by subtropical moist broadleaf forests, including three species of palm trees which grew up to fifty feet in size.
They also found evidence that the island had earlier possessed a range of shrubs, ferns and grasses that have long since disappeared, along with at least six species of native land birds and twenty-five different species of sub-arctic and tropical seabirds.
The challenge that confronted these scientists was how to account for the loss of such an abundant variety of fauna and flora, and for the environmental degradation brought about by the extreme deforestation that is so evident on the island today.
In other words, if Easter Island once had such a rich heritage of plant and marine life, then what happened to it, and was this in any way linked with the stone statues that littered the island? One man who believed he knew the answer to these questions was an American scientist named Jared Diamond.
Now Diamond was not just some amateur hack or interloper into fields in which he had no expertise. He was a man of impeccable credentials. In fact he is often referred to today as “America’s best known geographer”.
Born in Boston in 1937, Diamond earned a BA degree at Harvard and followed this up with a PhD at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, England, in 1961. He has since had a glittering academic career, and received numerous different Honours and Awards, including the Pulitzer Prize.
One of the subjects that has occupied Diamond’s attention in recent years has been the enigma of why certain societies succeed, and why others fail. His research into this field culminated in the publication in 2005 of his book: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
In this book Diamond examined a range of historical societies in an attempt to identify the reasons why some of them flourished and others failed. He listed eight environmental factors that he believed had led to the collapse of certain human societies in the past.
 The desolate landscape of Easter Island He claimed that the most important reason was deforestation and habitat destruction, followed by soil erosion, salinization and loss of soil fertility. Diamond quoted Easter Island as the prime example of a society that had collapsed due to the environmental damage that the islanders had brought upon themselves.
When he began his research into the history of Easter Island, Dr. Diamond naturally assumed that the ancestors of the present inhabitants of the island were the original sculptors of the giant Moai that lay scattered all over the island.
He suggested that the first settlement on Easter Island had taken place some twelve hundred years before at the Caleta Anakena landing point, as it provided the best shelter from prevailing swells, as well as a sandy beach that was ideal for canoe launchings and landings.
 Anakena Beach on Easter Island Whoever these early settlers happened to be, and wherever they happened to hail from, they apparently flourished. And in time, so the theory went, the population of Easter Island grew to a significant number, thought to be perhaps as many as ten to fifteen thousand people at the high point of their culture.
What happened next is still a matter of conjecture and debate, but at some point in those early years, the inhabitants apparently discovered that the volcanic rock that lay exposed on the flanks of Rano Raraku crater could be sculpted with the use of primitive rock tools.
And so began the era of the Moai, in which stone statues carved in stylized human shapes began to be cut out of the living rock. These statues were then transported to different sites all over the island, where they were placed upon stone platforms called Ahus.
While most scientists today are content to accept this hypothesis without question, we need to bear in mind that no other Polynesian society has ever had the desire to carve statues in stone, let alone those of such extraordinary shape and size.
But even if the local inhabitants had somehow managed to carve these enormous statues, some of which weighed up to fifty tons, they were then faced with the challenge of transporting them. And this is where the so-called “history” of Easter Island starts to become a trifle bizarre.
 Rano Raraku crater where the giant Moai were carved According to Diamond, the inhabitants then began to cut down the trees on the island for a variety of reasons. Some of them were burnt down to provide land for agriculture, some used as firewood, while others were used to transport these Moai to their chosen destinations.
While this scenario may seem plausible enough in theory, it hardly stands up to critical analysis. Given the size of most of these statues, it would surely have taken local sculptors many months to carve even a single statue out of the side of the volcanic crater.
So when each individual statue was completed, there would have been ample time for a separate transportation crew to move it to its assigned location, while the sculptors set to work carving the next Moai. And so on and so on.
After all, if the inhabitants were clever enough to carve these statues in the first place, they should have had the nous to realize that one or two sets of timber would be all that would be needed to transport each to its chosen destination, if that is in fact how these statues were moved.
There would be absolutely no need to cut down entire swathes of palm trees in order to build up a vast stockpile of logs. They could simply keep on using the same logs, and only when these finally wore out would it be necessary to replace them.
But as the story goes, different clans now began to compete among themselves to see who could build the largest Moai. This led to the need for more and more logs to transport all these Moai, causing the islanders to denude the island by cutting down all the trees.
And then there were the rats.
Apparently, the earliest settlers not only arrived in their canoes with cargoes of men, women and children. They also brought with them Polynesian rats. And according to the historians, these rats went forth and multiplied until they infested the entire island.
Over the years these rats apparently found themselves short of their natural diet, so they turned on the giant palm trees and gnawed at their roots, causing them to die. So between the islanders and the rats, the island became denuded of foliage, leading to the destruction of their entire ecosystem.
Finally, with starvation looming, different clans on the island began to fight among themselves. And instead of worshipping the Moai as they had done previously, they now began to destroy them, which accounted for the stone ruins that existed around the coastline of the island.
In the end, according to Diamond, those few people who were left on the island turned to cannibalism to survive, as evidenced by wooden carvings showing people with gaunt faces and pronounced ribcages. The destruction of their society, and with it the former glory of Easter Island, was now complete.
For all his credentials and awards, Jared Diamond must assume part of the responsibility for perpetuating the myth that Easter Island was an example of a failed society that had collapsed due to environmental deterioration which the islanders brought upon themselves.
Instead, it is an example of that old bromide: There are none so blind as those who will not see. The problem lies not with the disappearing palm trees of Easter Island. It rests squarely with those scientists and scholars who, in spite of their vast intellect and education, simply cannot tell the wood from the trees.
The truth is that Easter Island was a desolate and windy place long before the first Polynesians arrived. There were no lush forests to greet them, and what little bird and marine life there was provided a meagre existence for those few who could adapt to the spartan conditions.
 Ancient Moai lay buried around the island There were, however, plenty of stone statues to be found all over the island. They had been there for ages, perhaps even for tens of thousands of years, staring sightlessly over the horizon, and bearing mute testimony to the civilization that had built them.
When the first western explorer, Admiral Jacob Roggeveen, arrived on Easter Island in April 1722, he found the islanders living in thatched huts, and surviving off a diet of bananas and fish, as well as South American plants like yucca and sweet potato.
Roggeveen described them as being heavily tattooed, with their earlobes hanging down to their shoulders. They seemed to be in robust health, and there was no evidence that they had recently undergone any sort of social crisis leading to a descent into cannibalism.
This was borne out by a study conducted by Douglas Owsley in 1994, indicating that the bone pathology and osteometric data taken from the islanders of that period showed no sign of pre-European collapse, and little evidence that any fatalities could be attributed directly to violence.
So what could have happened to all those lush forests that geologists insist had once covered the island, along with the abundant marine life and all the tropical seabirds, whose fossils now lay buried beneath the soil?
The short answer is that they were all victims of gigantic tsunamis that had swept across the island, as a result of a global cataclysm that had engulfed the entire Pacific Ocean at some time in the distant past.
All that would be needed to prove this point would be for some enterprising archaeologist to employ ground penetrating radar to examine the slopes of Rano Raraku crater looking for Moai that were completely buried beneath the surface of the soil. If so, these radar images would be convincing proof of the following:
- That the Moai on Easter Island were not carved by the Polynesians
- That the Moai are far older than modern historians believe
- That the earth has been subject to vast cataclysms in the ancient past
In Part One of this series, we discussed James Churchward’s claim that an ancient civilization known as Lemuria had once existed on a continent in the Pacific Ocean. According to Churchward, this entire continent sank beneath the waves as a result of a series of catastrophes.
When Charles Darwin undertook his five-year voyage around the world (1831 – 1836), he kept a daily record of his findings. These notes were later published under the title Journal of Researches. In it he had this to say about the profusion of species that appeared to have suddenly become extinct.
“It is impossible to reflect on the changed state of the American continent without the deepest astonishment. Formerly, it must have swarmed with great monsters: now we find mere pigmies, compared with the antecedent, allied races.”
“Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its inhabitants.”
“What, then, has exterminated so many species and whole genera? The mind at first is irresistibly hurried into the belief of some great catastrophe; but thus to destroy animals, both large and small, in Southern Patagonia, in Brazil, on the Cordillera of Peru, in North America up to Behring’s Straits, we must shake the entire framework of the globe.”
For Darwin, even the thought of a catastrophe large enough to engulf the entire world was sufficient for him to dismiss the possibility outright. But had he visited Easter Island, he would have found yet more fossilised evidence to add to that found in Southern Patagonia, Brazil, Peru and North America up to the Bering Straits.
It would seem that the fossil evidence mentioned by Darwin supports Churchward’s claim that something catastrophic did happen in the distant past of our planet, and that this had the effect of wiping out entire species of animals, plants and birds that existed at that time.
 Excavated statue showing the depth of the soil It should also have been obvious to a geographer of the calibre of Jared Diamond, that the Polynesian settlers could not possibly have built the great stone statues found on Easter Island. And the reason is simple. Most of them are buried up to their necks in soil.
The real mystery surrounding the great stone statues of Easter Island is not so much who built them, but why whoever did so would go to the all the trouble of carving them out of the side of a mountain, only to bury them later under huge amounts of loam and clay.
A sufficient number of these Moai have now been excavated to show that their torsos have been covered in soil, in some cases up to a depth of 20 – 30 feet. And the heads of others that still lie buried on the flanks of Rano Raraku crater can barely be seen above the soil.
 Moai buried up to their necks in soil peer out at odd angles on the flanks of Rano Raraku crater But the statues that can be seen in the interior of the island today no longer stand erect on their original stone platforms. Instead these Moai lie buried in helter-skelter fashion, with their heads and torsos staring out of the soil at a variety of odd angles. It is clear that they were never intended to be that way.
Instead, it seems obvious that they had been washed off their foundations along the coast at some point in the distant past, and then carried away by the waves until they came to rest along the flanks of Rano Raraku crater.
The key topographical feature of the island is that it is not only the statues that have been covered with so many feet of clay, but that most of the island has been buried under the soil as well, as can be seen from the accompanying illustrations.
 The heads of these Moai are barely visible today above the soil It is evident that the statues had to have been carved at some time before the arrival of the soil. And so the critical question becomes, where did all the soil come from? And the answer is that it can only have come from the craters above, or from the sea below.
While volcanoes are certainly capable of spewing out vast quantities of lava and ash that can blanket the surrounding land, the soil on Easter Island does not consist of pumice or ash, and none of the craters on the island have erupted since the Polynesians arrived.
So the most likely scenario is that this soil was the residue left behind after a series of enormous tsunamis had swept across the island, destroying everything in their path, including the palm trees, shrubs, ferns and grasses, animals and birds.
And the enormous stone Moai, that formerly stood proudly upon their stone platforms, would have been caught up in this tide of debris as well. Those at the sea shore would have been smashed into pieces, while those inland would have been swept along and dumped on the sides of the highest hills.
As an example of the power of the ocean, a severe earthquake off the coast of Chile on May 22, 1960, generated a tsunami over 25 feet (8 metres) high that completely destroyed the remains of Ahu Tongariki, and swept fifteen statues weighing over forty tons about 500 yards (150 metres) inland.
This would also account for all the broken Moai that can still be seen on the coastline of Easter Island today, without having to concoct extravagant stories of wars between clans, leading to the wilful destruction of the stone statues, especially since they had never built them in the first place.
 Unfinished statue at Rano Raraku crater The scenario painted by Churchward also parallels the scene witnessed by Thor Heyerdahl when he first visited Rano Raraku crater, mentioned earlier. He said that it appeared as if the sculptors had suddenly stopped what they were doing, and fled leaving their tools behind them.
Quite apart from the mysteries surrounding the construction of these stone statues, there is also the enigma of the “Bird-man” petroglyphs, the extraordinary hieroglyphic writing known as Rongorongo, and the cyclopean stone wall located at Ahu Vinapu.
One wonders, if James Churchward were still alive, what he would make of those strange Rongorongo glyphs that have been found on the island, and whether they might have been similar to the Naga-Maya script on the clay tablets that were shown to him by that temple priest in India.
It would seem far more plausible to conclude that all of these were the product of a highly sophisticated civilization, rather than the supposed creations of a handful of Polynesian natives stuck on a desolate island thousands of miles from the nearest habitation.
Sadly, the current scientific paradigm continues to remain convinced that modern civilization began some five thousand years ago with the cultures of Sumeria and Egypt.
So the idea that the Pacific Ocean might once have been home to a mighty civilization that perished in a global catastrophe perhaps tens of thousands of years ago, is dismissed as an impossible myth.
Yet there is a haunting quality about Easter Island that continues to tantalise and attract mystery seekers from all around the world. They come to the island to gaze in wonder at those silent stone sentinels that stand brooding over the landscape. The mystery of their origin still beckons to us today.
If only the silent Moai could speak.
Allan, The Legend of Lemuria, July 1, 2014, 2:05 pm
When the sixteenth century English poet John Donne penned the famous words “No man is an island”, he used the image of a tiny island, lost in a vast ocean and cut off from everything else in the world, to convey the idea of complete and total isolation.
 The Lost Island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) There is perhaps no better example of what Donne had in mind than the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui, or to give it its modern name, Easter Island. Unlike so many islands located in other parts of the Pacific Ocean, Easter Island is not an archipelago or chain of islands.
Instead, it is a tiny outcrop of volcanic rock with nothing but open ocean around it for thousands of miles in every direction. In fact the nearest inhabited land is Pitcairn Island some 1,300 miles (2,800 kms) away, while its nearest continental neighbour is central Chile, almost 2,200 miles (3,500 kms) to the East.
Easter Island is minute. It is shaped in the form of a triangle, with an extinct volcano located at each of the three corners. It is roughly 15 miles (24 kms) long and 7.6 miles (12.3 kms) wide. It has no permanent streams or rivers, so locals must rely on rain-filled lakes for drinking water.
Given its extreme isolation, its lack of resources and the distance from surrounding land, it is remarkable that it was ever able to sustain human life. Yet when the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen first discovered it on Easter Sunday in1722, it was found to have a population estimated at between two and three thousand people of Polynesian origin.
The Stone Statues
 The Stone Statues (Moai) of Easter Island But what has made Easter Island such a conundrum to so many, and why it has become such a magnet for mystery seekers ever since, is that it was found to be the home of about 900 stone statues called Moai, that were carved in stylized human form.
Most of these statues were carved from compressed volcanic ash, called Tuff. However, 13 Moai were found to be carved from Basalt, 22 from Trachyte (a type of igneous volcanic rock), and 17 from fragile Red Scoria, found in various locations on the island.
The average height of these stone Moai was about 13 feet (4 metres), with a base of around 5 feet (1.5 metres), and the average weight of these stone statues was around 14 tons. However, a few of these massive creations towered over all the others.
The tallest Moai ever erected was called Paro. It was found to be almost 33 feet (10 metres) high, and weighed 82 tons. But even this was later dwarfed by another Moai known as “El Gigante”. This unfinished sculpture, still embedded in rock near the Rano Raraku quarry, would have been 69 feet (21 metres) tall when completed, with a weight of over 160 tons.
Early western visitors found it hard to comprehend how an island so small, with a population of a mere few thousand souls, could have constructed stone monuments on so massive a scale, especially when nothing like it was to be found anywhere else in the history of Polynesian culture.
One of the first westerners to draw attention to the mystery of the Moai was the Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl. In 1947, Heyerdahl and his crew were successful in sailing a hand-built balsa wood raft named the Kon-Tiki, from South America to the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia.
This 5,000 mile (8,000 kms) journey later brought Heyerdahl world-wide fame, when the story of his epic journey across the open ocean was published under the title The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas.
In 1955, Heyerdahl organized a team of professional archeologists drawn from different countries to travel to Easter Island, where they spent many months exploring various archeological sites. They also conducted experiments in the carving, transportation and erection of various stone Moai.
 Moai Smashed Into Pieces Heyerdahl’s team made two important discoveries. The first was that these stone statues fell into two groups. The first group comprised those Moai that were undamaged and still standing. The second group consisted of Moai that had been smashed into pieces.
The significant part of this discovery was that the undamaged Moai were found to be clustered around the inner and outer slopes of a volcanic crater known as Rano Raraku, where the majority of these statues had been carved, while the smashed statues were found at various points along the coastline of the island.
The second discovery of Heyerdahl’s team was that the heads of the statues that lay scattered around Rano Raraku crater were actually partially buried. And just like icebergs, whose major bulk lies hidden below the water, these stone statues were found to have torsos many times larger than their protruding heads.
 Excavated Moai Several of these partially buried Moai have subsequently been excavated, exposing the full extent of the bodies that previously lay hidden beneath the soil. They reveal heavy torsos with narrow arms carved in bas relief, and long slender fingers and thumbs that sometimes point to the navel.
In contrast with the undamaged statues located on the slopes of Rano Raraku crater, hardly any of those found along the sea shore were found to be intact. Often their heads were snapped from their bodies, and in some cases lay almost unrecognizable, being little more than a pile of stones.
It has only been through the enduring efforts of archeologists like the American William Mulloy and his protégé Sergio Rapu Haoa, Chilean Claudio Cristino, as well as the generous funding offered by various commercial corporations, that about 50 Moai have since been re-erected on their Ahus (stone platforms).
However, at the time of his visit in 1955, there was one particular feature which made a powerful impression on Heyerdahl and his team. That was state in which they found the quarry site at Rano Raraku crater.
As Heyerdahl later recorded in his book, from the chaos and disorder that was evident at the site, it appeared as if a sudden disaster had overtaken the island, causing the sculptors to cease what they were doing and flee from the site, leaving their stone tools and unfinished Moai behind them.
The Megalithic Wall
 The Megalithic Wall at Ahu Vinapu Yet another mystery that confronted Heyerdahl and his team, was the cyclopean stone wall that he discovered at a place called Ahu Vinapu, just to the east of what is now the main town of Hanga Roa, and situated not far from the end of the main airport runway.
Heyerdahl found that this partially destroyed wall was built out of enormous, polished, blocks of basalt that weighed up to seven tons each. Yet the stones of this wall fitted together so perfectly that they seemed capable of withstanding the power of even the strongest earthquake.
The megalithic wall located at Ahu Vinapu is unique. Not only is there no other site on Easter Island that can compare with it, but nothing that has been found on any of the other islands throughout the entire Pacific Ocean can match it for its precision, size and design.
The only type of construction that rivals it elsewhere on the planet are the pyramids of Egypt, and the cyclopean structures found in various parts of South America. This led Heyerdahl to speculate that the wall might be evidence of contact with South American cultures in the ancient past.
Petroglyphs
 Bird-man Petroglyph at Orongo Another feature of Easter Island that has led to widespread conjecture over the years is the enormous number of petroglyphs, or pictures, that have been carved into the rocks on nearly every available surface. In fact over 4,000 glyphs have now been catalogued at more than a thousand different sites.
Easter Island has by far the richest assortment of petroglyphs in all of Polynesia. They can be found displayed upon the rocks, inside caves, on the walls of houses, and in some cases have even been found carved upon the Moai themselves. They come in a wide variety of designs.
These designs are sometimes representations of marine animals such as turtles, tuna, swordfish, sharks, whales and dolphins. In other cases they include such things as frigate birds, roosters and canoes. Although not as well known as the famous Moai, these petroglyphs were considered sacred images.
But those that have aroused the greatest interest are the famous “Bird-man” glyphs that can be found near the crater at Orongo. This emblem of Tangata Manu the Bird-man, consisted of a crouching human with the head of a bird, and was the symbol of a cult involving various clans on the island.
The most popular of these cult festivities was the annual Bird-man ritual, which was held on a narrow ridge with a deep crater on one side, and a thousand foot drop into the ocean on the other. The aim of this ritual was to be the first person to return with the egg of a Sooty Tern taken from the offshore islet below.
But what has made the Bird-man glyphs so significant, is that they were not only carved on the rocks around Easter Island, but that they also featured in one of the most enigmatic phenomena that have been found on Easter Island, and that is the mysterious form of writing known as Rongorongo.
Rongorongo
This strange written script was first discovered in 1864 by the French missionary Eugene Eyraud. As he noted in his journal at the time:
“In every hut one finds wooden tablets or sticks covered in several sorts of hieroglyphic characters: They are depictions of animals unknown on the island, which the natives draw with sharp stones.
“Each figure has its own name; but the scant attention they pay to these tablets leads me to think that these characters, remnants of some more primitive writing, are now for them a habitual practice which they keep without seeking its meaning.” (Eyraud 1866:71)
The script that Brother Eyraud found on those wooden tablets was referred to by the local natives as Rongorongo. According to the Rapanui language which they spoke, Rongorongo meant “to recite or chant out”, meaning that it was supposed to be recited or chanted out loud.
Four years after Eyraud first saw these wooden tablets on Easter Island, the Bishop of Tahiti received a gift of human hair wrapped around a small wooden board. When he found that the board was also covered in hieroglyphic writing, he recognized that this could be a discovery of profound importance.
He therefore wrote to Father Roussel on Easter island, asking him collect all the tablets that he could find, and to see whether any islanders remained who could interpret them. But Roussel reported that he could only recover a few, and that none of the natives left on the island knew how to read them.
To this day only about two dozen wooden objects bearing Rongorongo inscriptions remain. These heavily weathered and partially damaged records were collected in the late 19th century, and can now only be seen in museums and private collections.
None of these examples of Rongorongo writing can be found on Easter island today, although the possibility does exist that some may have been secreted away in lava tubes, or in family caves that adorn the sides of the Orongo crater.
What has made this script so perplexing was the fact that it was later found to have been written in a style of writing called reverse Boustrophedon, where successive lines are written alternately from right to left, turned upside down, and then from left to right.
A remarkable fact about this reverse Boustrophedon style of writing, was that it was also similar to that used by the ancient Greeks, the Etruscans and the Hittites, as well as in the Indus valley, by the long vanished cultures of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa.
 Similarities Between Indus Valley and Easter Island (Rongorongo) Glyphs What makes this association even more compelling is that many of the glyphs taken from Indus valley scripts are almost identical to those used in Rongorongo, as can be seen from the accompanying ilustration. (See photo)
The writing itself consisted of a series of glyphs, or stylized pictorial characters. These glyphs contained about 120 basic elements, composed of Bird-men in a variety of positions, as well as birds, animals, plants, celestial objects and geometrical shapes.
However, these basic elements could also be combined together to form up to 16,000 other glyphs. It soon became clear to linguistic scholars that Rongorongo was a highly complex and sophisticated form of writing. Yet even to this day it has never been deciphered.
Sadly, those few clan elders who were said to be still able to understand the Rongorongo script at the time of Reynaud soon succumbed, some as a result of the Peruvian slave raid of 1862, and others from the subsequent epidemics of smallpox and tuberculosis which the slave traders brought to the island.
Questions and Answers
The many mysteries that can be found on Easter Island raise the following critical questions:
– Who exactly built the stone statues on Easter Island?
– How did they carve them out of the solid rock?
– How did they transport them?
– When did they build them?
– Why did they build them?
– Did the same people who built the statues also carve the petroglyphs?
– Did these same people also build the megalithic wall at Ahu Vinapu?
– Were these same people responsible for creating the Rongorongo script?
Prior to his arrival on Easter Island, it is doubtful if Thor Heyerdahl was aware of James Churchward, or of his claim that there once had existed a vast continent in the Pacific Ocean that had been devastated by a series of cataclysms, and had sunk beneath the waves, as explained in Part One.
 Cyclopean Stone Ruins at Sacsayhuaman in Peru But even if he had been, it is likely that he would simply have dismissed Churchward’s theory as fictional legend. Because of the similarities in stonework found on the island with that of the Incas, Heyerdahl favoured the idea that the original stone builders had come to Easter Island from Peru.
However, modern archeologists have concluded that, because Polynesians were found living on Easter Island when Westerners explorers first arrived, that it must have been the Polynesians themselves who were responsible for all of these enigmatic features, from the statues to the petroglyphs and the writing,
According to this conventional theory, Easter Island was most likely first populated by Polynesian settlers, who arrived in their canoes and catamarans from other island chains in the Eastern Pacific, such as the Gambier Islands or the Marquesas Islands.
It was noted that when the British explorer James Cook called in at Easter Island in 1774, one of his crew members who came from Bora Bora in French Polynesia, was able to communicate with the islanders in his native language.
A report issued recently by National Geographic had this to say about the origins of Easter Island:
“It’s not clear when the islands were first settled; estimates range from A.D. 800 to 1200. It’s also not clear how quickly the island ecosystem was wrecked—but a major factor appears to be the cutting of millions of giant palms to clear fields or make fires.
“It is possible that Polynesian rats, arriving with human settlers, may have eaten enough seeds to help to decimate the trees. Either way, loss of the trees exposed the island’s rich volcanic soils to serious erosion. When Europeans arrived in 1722, they found the island mostly barren and its inhabitants few.”
The report went on to add this comment regarding the mysterious Moai:
“Rapa Nui’s mysterious moai statues stand in silence but speak volumes about the achievements of their creators… The effort to construct these monuments and move them around the island must have been considerable -but no one knows exactly why the Rapa Nui people undertook such a task.
“Most scholars suspect that the moai were created to honor ancestors, chiefs, or other important personages, However, no written and little oral history exists on the island, so it’s impossible to be certain.” (View Source)
So the real answer to the questions posed above is that no one knows for sure who built the amazing stone statues, or how they did so, or why. We also don’t know who carved the petroglyphs, or who created the sophisticated hieroglyphic script called Rongorongo.
 Moai Restored by Western Archeologists What we do know, however, is that the Polynesians themselves also do not know. We also know that similar stone Moai to those found on Easter Island have never been found on any of the other Pacific Islands that have been settled by the Polynesian people.
Furthermore, we know that all the fallen Moai that have been rebuilt on their traditional stone platforms, have been erected by western archeologists and not by the Polynesian inhabitants, who seem to express little interest in their care and preservation.
But, as we will discover in the following instalment, there is a possibility that all of the mysteries of Easter Island can be resolved if we examine the evidence detailed above from a different point of view – a point of view that validates the story told by James Churchward in his book The Lost Continent of Mu.
Allan, The Legend of Lemuria, June 16, 2014, 7:38 am
In his written dialogue called Timaeus, Plato described how Solon, the famed lawmaker of ancient Greece who lived 600 years before the time of Christ, had travelled to Egypt where he was honoured for his wisdom and understanding.
According to Plato, while he was in Egypt, Solon had asked an elderly Egyptian priest if he could recount their earliest history. The priest replied:
“Oh Solon, Solon, you Greeks are all children, and there is no such thing as an old Greek…You have no belief rooted in old tradition and no knowledge hoary with age. And the reason is this. There have been and will be many different calamities to destroy mankind, the greatest of them by fire and water, lesser ones by countless other means.”
The idea that mankind has been destroyed many times in ages past as a result of natural catastrophes, is one that does not sit well with modern Historians, Geologists or Archeologists, all of whom pay homage to the dogma of Uniformitarianism.
Despite the fact that Plato is regarded today as one of the foremost Greek philosophers, having been a student of Socrates as well as the tutor of Aristotle, there is no room at the Inn of orthodox science for stories of past cataclysms, no matter how august their source.
Modern historians claim that the recorded history of mankind began with the invention of writing, which is believed to have begun in Mesopotamia around 3,000 BC, with Sumerian Cuneiform texts written on clay tablets. Egyptian writing, in the form of hieroglyphics written on papyrus, is believed to have begun about the same time.
It should come as no surprise therefore, that when a book was published in 1926 describing the existence of a towering civilization that dominated the world for hundreds of thousands of years, only to be destroyed in a world-wide cataclysm that has long since been forgotten, it was rejected as having no scientific credibility whatsoever.
 The book was called The Lost Continent of Mu: Motherland of Man, and its author was a British born occult writer named James Churchward. In this book he claimed that, while he had been a soldier in India more than fifty years before, he had been befriended by a high-ranking temple priest.
As he later explained in a lecture he gave in Mount Vernon, New York, in 1931:
“This old Master and his two cousins, both older than himself, and he was over 70 years of age 50 years ago, were the sole survivors of the Naacal Brotherhood which had existed for 70,000 years.
“This Brotherhood had been formed in the Motherland, when experts of religion and the Cosmic Sciences were being sent from Mu to her various colonies. These three were the only ones left in India who understood the language of the Motherland, her symbols, alphabet and forms of writing.
“For seven years during all my available time, I diligently studied under this old Rishi, …with a view of finding out something about ancient man. At that time I had no idea of publishing my findings. I made the study purely to satisfy my curious self. I was the only one to whom this old Rishi ever gave instructions on this subject.” (View Source)
Churchward claimed that this temple priest had showed him two sets of ancient “sunburnt” clay tablets, supposedly written in the Naga-Maya language of Mu. He was told that these tablets had originated in the place “where man first appeared”.
Under the direction of this temple priest, Churchward learned how to read these tablets, and it was from this information that he was later able to describe the continent of Mu (also called Lemuria) as the home of an advanced civilization, which had begun some 200,000 years before.
Churchward claimed that Mu was the site of the original “Garden of Eden”, and that it was the home of the Naacals, a “white” race whose civilization was technologically more advanced than any other, and that Mu was the inspiration for later civilizations such as Egypt, Greece, Central America, India, Babylon, Persia and others.
He also claimed that the civilization of Mu was renowned for its megalithic architecture, involving cyclopean stones weighing up to hundreds of tons, that fitted together so perfectly that no mortar was needed to hold them in place. And although later cultures may have imitated their technology, they were but a pale shadow of the glory that was Mu.
 Colonel Churchward’s map of Mu According to Churchward, the continent of Mu was located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and that as a result of the greatest tragedy in the history of mankind, it was afflicted by a series of cataclysms and sank beneath the waves, carrying down with it some 63 million people.
He also claimed that, based on the writing on the clay tablets, the entire continent had been “completely obliterated in almost a single night”, and that after a series of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, “the broken land fell into that great abyss of fire”, and was covered by “fifty millions of square miles of water”.
Scientists today scoff at Churchward’s story of the civilization of Mu, and of the alleged lost continent of Lemuria, dismissing them both as mere fictional legends, especially since they contend that an entire continent could neither sink nor be destroyed in so short a period of time.
Besides, according to the latest geological knowledge of plate tectonics, continents
are considered to be vast, solid blocks of lighter rock (continental crust), that float upon heavier rock (oceanic crust), much like icebergs float on water, and cannot simply sink suddenly beneath the ocean.
Furthermore, as we have seen in earlier posts, geologists base their views on the theory of Uniformitarianism, which posits that all earth changes take place over huge amounts of geological time, and that if an entire continent were to be displaced, this would require a time span of many hundreds of millions of years.
On the face of it, the evidence would seem to support the scientific point of view. If a continental landmass did once exist in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it certainly isn’t there now. All that exists today are a series of atolls linked with a handful of tiny, volcanic islands that lie scattered many thousands of miles apart.
Based on an analysis of linguistic and cultural similarities of the region, it is generally accepted today that the first people to settle on these islands came from South East Asia. Successive migrations are believed to have taken place at different times following the last ice-age.
Starting around 1,600 BC, the population is believed to have spread to Micronesia (Marianne, Marshall archipelagos), and then to Melanesia (Papua-New Guinea, Solomon Islands), before moving on to Western Polynesia (Fiji, Tonga, Samoa).
The central archipelagos of the Cook islands, the Marquesas and the Society islands that make up Eastern Polynesia, are thought to have been inhabited at a later time, and these islands are considered to have been the source of subsequent migrations to the Hawaiian islands.
All of these island cultures were characterised by a simple yet ecologically sound lifestyle, with wooden houses built on stone platforms, and woven roofs made from coconut and pandanus leaves, using simple tools of wood and stone, before European explorers later introduced them to the use of metal implements.
But this is where Churchward’s tale becomes tantalizingly evocative, because although these different islands are separated by vast expanses of open ocean, they share enigmatic ruins that are at odds with everything that is known about the cultures that reside on these islands today.
 The Water Planet These ruins also pose the following question. Why, on a globe that contains so many different continents, is all the land that exists upon the surface of the planet limited to one hemisphere only? This can be seen from the image on the right generated by Google Earth. It is a simulated view of the earth from an altitude of 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometres), and is centred above 17ºS, 150ºW to the southwest of Tahiti.
Could it be, that in spite of the current theories of science, there really was at one time a continent located in the Pacific, and that the islands that now dot the ocean are all that remain of this sunken land, that was once home to an advanced civilization?
And if they really were once part of a greater whole, might there still exist on some of these islands fragmentary evidence of this ancient culture, particularly if it was renowned for its megalithic architecture, and its use of cyclopean blocks of stone?
Certainly, there are plenty of islands that have strange ruins involving the use of gigantic blocks of stone, some of which weighing many tons, that were never part of Polynesian culture. One of the most famous of these ruins can be found in the Caroline islands in the Western Pacific.
 The Island of Nan Madol Nan Madol lies off the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei (formerly Ponape), that is part of the Federated States of Micronesia. It is a megalithic city consisting of a series of small artificial islands linked by a network of canals, built on top of a bed of coral, and is often referred to as the “Venice of the Pacific”.
The ruins of this ancient city cover an area of about seven square miles (18 square kms). These artificial islands were made by stacking large, hexagonal prisms made of black basalt. It is estimated that about 250 million pieces of prismatic basalt rock were needed to create the foundations of this megalithic city.
The largest structure at Nan Madol, called Nan Douwas, is oriented to the cardinal directions and consists of two concentric perimeter walls, separated by a seawater moat that encloses a pyramidal mound. The enormous cornerstone that lies on its southeastern side, weighs around fifty tons.
 The ruins of Nan Madol raise a multitude of questions that have never been satisfactorily resolved. Why, for example, did the original builders go to the trouble of building artificial islands when they could have simply built on any of the natural coral reef islands nearby?
And why did they build a city of this size in a location that had no food or source of potable water? One has to go many miles inland to grow food and gather water. How did they feed the population? And what was the point of building the city in the first place?
The simple logistics of assembling such a vast quantity of basalt rock in one place are truly mind-boggling. The builders not only had to find a suitable quarry for the rock, but then had to meet the challenge of transporting this material, estimated to total about 700 metric tons, from its source to its final destination.
The current scientific theory is that the builders used wooden rafts to carry these basalt columns. But when the Discovery Channel tried to demonstrate the use of this method for a TV documentary in 1995, they were unable to find a way of transporting anything weighing over one ton.
Pohnpei’s only archeologist, Rufino Mauricio, who has dedicated his life to studying and preserving these ruins, confessed:
“We don’t know how they brought the columns here and we don’t know how they lifted them up to build the walls.”
He added that given the size of the population at that time, thought to be fewer than 30,000 people, the construction of Nan Madol was an even larger and more remarkable achievement than the Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt.
There is one further mystery about these island ruins. Many of these artificial islands are interlinked by a series of tunnels. And some of these tunnels have been found to continue underwater, in the direction of the open ocean.
The only explanation that seems at all logical to explain these mysteries is that one of two things must have happened. Either the level of the sea rose since these artificial islands were built, or the major part of the land has sunk, leaving the ruins partially submerged.
As amazing as the ruins of Nan Madol undoubtedly are, the relatively crude way in which these buildings were constructed, with basalt columns stacked one upon another, can hardly be mistaken for an ancient civilization renowned for its expertise in megalithic construction.
But they could have been built by a culture that had survived the original destruction of Mu, and still retained some of the knowledge that was used on Mu, such as the ability to create and move gigantic stones, even if they did not fully match the beauty and scope of the architecture of the Motherland .
However, there are other ruins that lie scattered around the Pacific Ocean that are truly cyclopean in size, that could easily be hundreds of thousands of years old. They speak of a long vanished past that could well validate the stories that were told to James Churchward by that old temple priest.
The island of Tongatapu in the Tonga Islands has a remarkable megalithic arch, that is the only one of its type to be found in the South Pacific. It is called the trilithon of Ha’amonga. Each of the upright coral pillars is about fifteen feet (4.9 metres) high, and weigh about fifty tons. The lintel, or crosspiece, which is set into grooves in the upright stones, weighs about nine tons.
 The Mighty Trilithon of Ha’amonga One of the cities on Tongatapu has an astonishing linguistic link with the continent of Mu. It is called Mu’a. Its ceremonial centre contains many megalithic platforms known as Langi. The largest of these, called Langi Tauhala, contains a single block of stone weighing over thirty tons.
 Part of the megalithic wall The central area of Mu’a is surrounded by a canal, and has massive rocks that form part of a wall that extends over 660 yards (200 metres) on the lagoon side of the city. They suggest that at one time they might have been part of an ancient wharf where large vessels once docked.
Truncated, pyramidal platforms, known as Marae, have been found throughout the Society Islands. Some of them consist of megalithic stones that have been carefully shaped and fitted. The largest of these, known as Marae Mahaiatea, can be found on the island of Raiatea in the Leeward Islands. It has eleven steps and rises to a height of over forty feet (13 metres).
Similar Marae can be found on the islands of Tahiti, Bora Bora and Moorea. The remains of other great stone platforms built of cyclopean basalt blocks, some weighing over ten tons, can also be found throughout the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. Covered with jungle vegetation, they stand today as mute evidence of a vanished civilization.
More ruins of great stone platforms and terraces, overgrown with jungle vegetation, can be found throughout French Polynesia. These platforms are made of cyclopean basalt blocks weighing up to 10 tons each.
One of the most impressive of these can be found on Nuku Hiva, the largest of the Marquesas Islands. The ancient ceremonial centre in the Taipivai Valley includes a massive platform, made again of basalt blocks. It contains an estimated 6,800 cubic metres of earth fill, and is 560 yards (170 metres) long.
The above sites are merely a few examples of the megalithic ruins that can be found on islands all over the Pacific Ocean. Additional information about further ruins can be found here.
The fact that these ruins exist at all is an enduring mystery, because they were never part of the Polynesian culture, and the Polynesians themselves have no idea who built these massive stone edifices, or how they managed such stupendous feats of engineering, that are so far beyond their own capabilities.
Yet even more mysterious stone ruins are located on one of the most remote islands in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. The Polynesians called this island Rapa Nui. We know it today as Easter Island, because the first European to visit it was the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday in 1722.
Easter Island may be renowned for its unique stone statues known as Moai, but this tiny island also contains evidence of a far more advanced civilization than any that have been discovered elsewhere, as we shall discover in the following instalment.
Allan, The Legend of Lemuria, June 2, 2014, 7:39 am
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. This is a book dealing with prophecy.
For those listeners who may be new to this topic, this Podcast is another in the series “Signs of the Times”. Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast.
Hello Scott. It’s good to be with you again.
Scott: In our last discussion you referred to the American philosopher George Santayana, who wrote that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
That’s correct Scott. I also went on to say that our world has suffered from numerous global catastrophes in the past, and that these disasters have wiped out entire civilizations that have now vanished from the historical record.
But the reason why we no longer remember these earlier disasters is not because we lack the evidence, but because modern historians have deliberately chosen to ignore them.
Scott: But why would historians do such a thing?
That’s an excellent question Scott. On the face of it this would seem to make no sense at all. But that is why the work of Thomas Kuhn is so important, and why I have devoted so much time to his research in recent discussions.
As Kuhn pointed out in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, all science is practised in a paradigm. And he was not just referring here to natural sciences like astronomy, cosmology, physics and chemistry, but also to things like geology, biology, history and archeology.
What he meant by this is that every scientific discipline is based on a certain set of beliefs that are considered to be established facts. And because these beliefs are considered to be proven beyond doubt, they are no longer questioned.
But the problem that Kuhn identified, and which formed the major part of his book, was that within the history of science over the last 400 years, there have been numerous examples where these “proven” beliefs have later been found to be wrong.
It is these mistakes of the past which have led to complete revisions of past data, in ways that have led to enormous upheavals that Kuhn called scientific revolutions. And that is what we are seeing in the world of science today.
Scott: Why do you say that Allan?
Well Scott, as I have indicated in my last two Blog posts, the Theory of Evolution set out by Charles Darwin in his book The Origin of Species has been hailed for over a century as one of the most complete scientific theories ever conceived, and is today regarded by science as a proven fact of nature.
Unfortunately, it also happens to suffer from one small defect.
The problem is that over the course of the 155 years that have passed since his book was first published, no evidence has been found to support Darwin’s central thesis, which is that all species have evolved from a single progenitor.
In spite of an exhaustive search of the fossil record, there is no evidence to show that one species has changed into a completely new species, as a result of an infinite series of tiny changes that have been passed on from one generation to another….Nada…. None!
Scott: So are you saying that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is wrong?
Absolutely. As I pointed out in an earlier Blog post, the basic principles of Darwin’s theory have now been found to be unfounded.
Now I am not saying that the idea of evolution itself is wrong. The fossil record makes it clear that different species have lived on the earth in forms of ever increasing complexity, over periods of time that span many hundreds of millions of years.
There is also no question that every species undergoes a struggle for survival, and that it is the strong who are best equipped to survive. It is also obvious that every species has a remarkable capacity to adapt to changes in its environment.
Furthermore, as Darwin correctly pointed out, every species can adapt to these changes in environment by changing their physical characteristics. And these changes can be passed on from one generation to another.
In fact, every aspect of Darwin’s acclaimed theory of evolution is correct – except for the most important one, and that is this.
One species does not change over time into another species. As the evidence now conclusively proves, no species ever has. And from this we may safely deduce that no species ever will.
Scott: So Allan, why do you think that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution still continues to be taught?
Well Scott, it continues to be taught for the reason that Thomas Kuhn pointed out in his book. It has become an entrenched part of our current scientific paradigm, and to question this now would be to challenge the validity of the paradigm itself.
To do so would be heresy, as well as being professional suicide. No biologist would have a hope of attaining recognition or status within the official ranks of science today, if he or she publicly challenged Darwin’s theory.
And so it is with so many of the other “facts” of science. Those who try to challenge established ideas are denied space to publish their work in official journals, or to defend themselves when their characters are impugned, and the results of their research are rejected.
Or like Velikovsky, who chose to publish his unconventional ideas in books which subsequently became international best sellers, they are personally ostracised and excommunicated from their particular discipline of science.
So Darwin’s Theory of Evolution continues to be taught today for the simple reason that science doesn’t have a better theory to replace it. And because the prospect of going back to the Biblical idea of Creationism, or its later cousin called Intelligent Design, fills them with horror and dismay.
But to get back to your original question Scott, of why historians would deliberately choose to ignore evidence of past cataclysms, I need to point out something else that is closely linked to Darwin and his Theory of Evolution.
Scott: Please carry on Allan. I find this fascinating.
When Darwin was 22 years old, he set sail on HMS Beagle on a journey that was to last five years and take him all around the world. It was while he was on board the ship that the Captain gave him a copy of a book which has just been published.
The name of the book was Principles of Geology, and it was written by one of the most influential scientists of his day, and a man whose work still forms the basis of modern geology. His name was Charles Lyell.
Lyell was an interesting man. Born in Scotland into a family of means, he was educated at Oxford University, where he graduated with an M.A. degree in 1821. After graduating, he decided to take up Law, and for a while practised as an attorney.
A few years later, however, Lyell began to suffer from failing eyesight. He therefore decided to abandon his legal career, and turn instead to geology, which had been a long-time hobby of his, and make this his new full-time profession.
One might suppose that a man with failing eyesight would have been better served by pursuing matters of law, rather than the demands of fieldwork in an exacting profession. But in Lyell’s case, it was a decision that would lead to personal fame and subsequent knighthood.
What made such a profound impact on the young Darwin, and played a leading part in the development of his theory of Natural Selection, was the fact that Charles Lyell was a staunch believer in the concept of Uniformitarianism.
Scott: What exactly was Uniformitarianism?
Well Scott, it was the idea that the earth was shaped in the past by the same forces that we see at work today. In fact the subtitle of Principles of Geology was: “An attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth’s surface by reference to causes now in operation“.
While he was a student at Oxford, Lyell had attended lectures given by William Buckland, who believed equally firmly that the earth had been afflicted by numerous catastrophes in the past.
However, Lyell became disenchanted with Buckland’s ideas, especially when he tried to link the concept of catastrophism with the Bible, by using the story of Noah’s flood as an example.
For Lyell, the present was the key to the understanding of the past, and there was no need to introduce references to God, the Bible, or any other supernatural source, in order to explain the changes that had taken place on the earth in the past.
In due course Lyell’s version of geology came to be known as Uniformitarianism, because of his fierce insistence that the processes that alter the earth’s surface act in a uniform manner, and that they take place imperceptibly slowly.
His work influenced Darwin deeply, so that when he later came to write his Origin of Species, he described the process of Natural Selection as a kind of biological uniformitarianism, where evolution took place in front of our eyes, but at a pace that was much too slow for us to recognise.
There was, however, one supreme irony in all of this. In spite of the simplicity and elegance of Lyell’s theory of uniformity, he was faced with the same embarrassing problem that later confronted Charles Darwin.
Scott: What was that?
The short answer is that Lyell’s theory wasn’t supported by the evidence. This embarrassing fact was so obvious that Lyell pointed it out himself in his book. In the 12th edition of Principles of Geology he wrote:
“It has been truly observed that when we arrange the known fossiliferous formations in chronological order, they constitute a broken and defective series.”
Then after listing even more anomalies that were apparent in the stratification record, and which also were in conflict with his theory, Lyell went on to conclude:
“These violations of continuity are so common as to constitute in most regions the rule rather than the exception, and they have been considered by many geologists as conclusive in favour of sudden revolutions in the inanimate and animate world.”
When Charles Darwin arrived in South America and began to examine the fossiliferous formations in that part of the world, he found even more dramatic evidence of earth’s catastrophic past. As he published in his Journal of Researches:
“It is impossible to reflect on the changed state of the American continent without the deepest astonishment. Formerly, it must have swarmed with great monsters: now we find mere pigmies, compared with the antecedent, allied races.”
“Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its inhabitants.”
“What, then, has exterminated so many species and whole genera? The mind at first is irresistibly hurried into the belief of some great catastrophe; but thus to destroy animals, both large and small, in Southern Patagonia, in Brazil, on the Cordillera of Peru, in North America up to Behring’s Straits, we must shake the entire framework of the globe.”
Scott: So how did Charles Lyell deal with this problem?
Well Scott, you’re not going to believe this. Since he couldn’t deny the evidence that lay all around him, and which contradicted his theory of slow, imperceptible change, Lyell chose to fall back on a proven strategy that had served him well as a practising attorney.
That strategy can best be summarised as follows. When the facts support your argument, then emphasize the facts. But when they don’t, then ignore the facts completely, and question instead the integrity of all those who believe them.
Clearly, Lyell was not the sort of person to allow embarrassing facts to stand in the way of his personal theory. So instead of amending his theory to match the facts, as one would expect from an ethical scientist, he chose instead to ignore everything that contradicted his theory.
In fact he went even further. He blithely dismissed his critics as ignorant men who didn’t know what they were talking about, and, furthermore, were unaware of their own ignorance. As he wrote in Principles:
“It appeared clear that the earlier geologists had not only a scant acquaintance with existing changes (caused by wind, flowing water, etc.), but they were singularly unconscious of the amount of their ignorance.”
Scott: I’m absolutely amazed, Allan. I can’t believe he could get away with it.
Exactly Scott. One can’t imagine anyone getting away with such a thing today. But get away with it he did. In fact, in certain cases he even resorted to parody as a way of shrugging off facts that contradicted his theory.
Perhaps the best example of this was the matter of the wandering hippopotamus.
Scott: What was that all about?
Well Scott, it seems that in a cave at Settle in west Yorkshire, England, located some 1450 feet above sea level, were found the remains of a variety of animals that included mammoth, rhinoceros, bison, hyena and hippopotamus.
During excavations, it became clear that the floor of the cavern was covered in sand containing foreign pebbles, which indicated that it had been submerged beneath the sea at an earlier time.
The question that perplexed people at the time was how the bones ended up together in a single cavern, especially when none of the animals found in the cave had ever lived in the British Isles.
To most geologists of that time, this seemed like clear evidence that the earth had undergone some great catastrophe in the past. Not so Charles Lyell. He dismissed such an idea, and offered up in its place the following explanation in his book Antiquity of Man:
“The geologist … may freely speculate on the time when herds of hippopotami issued from North African rivers, such as the Nile, and swam northward in summer along the coasts of the Mediterranean, or even occasionally visited islands near the shore. Here and there they may have landed to graze or browse, tarrying awhile, and afterwards continuing their course northward.
“Others may have swum in a few summer days from rivers in the south of Spain or France to the Somme, Thames, or Severn (rivers in Wales and England), making timely retreat to the south before the snow and ice set in.”
This bizarre scenario may have fobbed off other lily-livered geologists of that time, but when Immanuel Velikovsky came across this passage in the course of his researches, he could not resist this sardonic response which he included in his book Earth in Upheaval:
“Hippopotami not only travelled during the summer nights to England and Wales, but also climbed hills to die peacefully among other animals in caves, and the ice, approaching softly, tenderly spread little pebbles over the travellers resting in peace, and the land with its hills and caverns in a slow lullaby movement sank below the level of the sea and gentle streams caressed the dead bodies and covered them with rosy sand.”
Scott: Well Allan, I’ve got to hand it to you. That really is quite a hoot.
Well Scott, it would be if it weren’t such a sad reflection on the true state of affairs in science today.
Unfortunately, the moral of this story is that for almost two centuries geologists have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by the theory of Uniformitarianism, and have ignored the facts that blatantly contradict this theory.
And instead of being the recipient of all the high honours that were conferred upon him, including a knighthood, Charles Lyell should have been run out of town by the nearest sheriff for being the scoundrel that he was.
In fact it gets worse. The idea that changes in the surface of the earth have primarily been the result of forces of nature that operate slowly and imperceptibly, has now also been incorporated into the paradigms of History and Archeology.
So references to cataclysmic events that can still be found in historical records are ignored by scholars today. And structural ruins that bear testimony to catastrophic changes in the past, continue to be ignored by archeologists.
They are ignored because the idea of catastrophic change within the recent history of the earth has now been officially expunged from the current paradigm of science. Those few brave souls who still continue to challenge that view are condemned to being mere voices crying in the wilderness.
So Scott, there you have the answer to your question. Historians ignore the evidence of catastrophic events that have occurred in recent times in the history of the earth, because to do otherwise would offend the theory of Uniformitarianism, which has now become part of the official dogma of science.
Scott: So are you saying there are written records of past disasters that are deliberately being ignored by historians?
Yes Scott there are. Probably no one was better equipped to interpret these ancient records than Immanuel Velikovsky. His brilliant intellect and talent for languages allowed him to delve into records that were written in English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, French, Italian and Spanish.
After spending ten years conducting research at major libraries around the world, Velikovsky went on to write numerous books detailing the evidence that he found.
His most famous work Worlds in Collision was devoted to an analysis of literary sources taken from ancient cultures in all parts of the world. And his book Earth in Upheaval focused on the geological evidence that he found.
In his books Velikovsky produced evidence taken from ancients documents emanating from pre-Columbian America, as well as from China, India, Persia, Babylon, Iceland, Finland, Greece and Rome.
Some of these literary sources are included in my Blog post here
Despite the fact that all of the excerpts taken from these ancient documents were carefully referenced and annotated, historians are content today to dismiss them as mythical stories, rather than as accounts of real events that actually happened.
In my next instalment Scott, I want to draw attention to the way modern archeologists have also chosen to ignore ruins of ancient civilizations that can still be found all over the world, simply because they too do not fit in with the dogma of Uniformitarianism.
Scott: Thanks Allan. This has been another fascinating discussion on the way the history of science has unfolded over the last few centuries.
You have been listening to Allan Colston, author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. Do join us for our next Podcast in the series titled “Signs of the Times”.
Allan, AUDIO, Darwin's Delusion, Signs of the Times, The Wandering Hippopotamus, May 18, 2014, 3:27 pm
The problem that Darwin’s theory of evolution squarely faces is that, in the century and a half that has elapsed since his ideas were first advanced, scientists have still been unable to unearth evidence of any transitional forms, despite every effort to do so.
Although vast amounts of evidence have been uncovered of variations within species, as well as examples of different species that closely resemble one another, scientists have not yet found indisputable evidence to link these different forms with one another.
In fact there has not been one single instance where fossilised evidence has been able to show precisely how one species has turned into another. Scientists have so far been unable to find evidence of aquatic life slowly turning into amphibious creatures, or amphibious life turning into reptiles, or of reptiles turning into mammals.
All that exists is simply evidence of different types of species. Those scientists who still support the Darwinian view have been satisfied to see in the existence of various related species, evidence of just those transitional forms which Darwin had expected to find.
Yet there is no case where the fossil record has left an unbroken track of minute changes leading from one distinct species to another. Darwin’s grand theory has still to be proved by a single example of one species being transformed into another by means of fine gradations.
Because the fossilised evidence is simply not there, a growing number of scientists have begun to ask whether it is not time to question the very principle on which Darwinian evolutionary theory is based, namely, the idea that one species does, in fact, change into another.
What the fossilised evidence does show, and show conclusively, is that different species have demonstrated a persistent capacity for remaining in the form in which they first appeared, over long periods of time. This span of time often extends over many hundreds of millions of years.
There are, in fact, many examples of species alive today which have not shown any propensity for change from the form preserved in the fossil records in the distant geological past. This seems a flagrant contravention of everything that Darwin postulated.
Since every species that exists today must, by definition, be a survivor or victor in the struggle for survival, and since by Darwin’s argument each species owes its survival to its ability to change its physical characteristics in response to changing conditions, those species which are alive today should not exist in the form that they did in ages past.
Furthermore, if nature’s habit was continually to transform life through varying stages of physical form in an ever-increasing process of sophistication, it is strange to find evidence of simple forms today which have for millennia been content to retain their rudimentary structure.
Resistance to Change
Put more simply, the challenge to the accepted theory of evolution is this. If simple forms of life have graduated slowly throughout history into more sophisticated forms, why is it that many simple forms of life have shown no inclination to change over periods of millions of years?
If these forms were truly transitional, they should by now have changed into other forms. Yet the evidence of the fossil record shows that this is not the case.
When a primeval fish like the coelacanth, which first appeared in the fossil record some 400 million years ago, and was long believed to be extinct, was unexpectedly caught in fishing nets off the coast of Madagascar in 1938, its appearance did little to warm the hearts of avid Darwinists.
 Coelacanth What had made the coelacanth so intriguing to biologists was the fact that four of its fins had developed into limb-like appendages. For this reason it had become known colloquially as “old four legs”.
Those biologists who were looking for evidence of marine creatures turning into amphibious life saw in the coelacanth a happy transitional form. But when an example of a twentieth century coelacanth was examined, it was found to have retained the exact form that was preserved in the earliest fossil record.
While Darwin confidently noted that “most of the other Siberian Molluscs and crustaceans have changed greatly,” 1 in the 1970’s, biologist Peter Williamson published evidence to the contrary. 2
After long evaluation of these primitive shell-like creatures, Williamson concluded that even though molluscs could be classified into lineages of related forms, each lineage was found to be static over long periods of time. They did not change, bit by morphological bit, into a new species. Instead, he found that they remained essentially unchanged until they finally became extinct.
Although it is clear that creatures within a particular species do change as a result of selective breeding, as can be seen with any species that has become domesticated, there is as yet no evidence that these changes lead, by fine gradations, into species which are completely different.
Because such changes within species have already been observed, biologists have extrapolated that changes between species have been the result of a similar genetic process.
Experiments in Mutation
Since the geological record has thus far been unable to verify Darwin’s theory by producing evidence of transitional forms, proponents of his thesis have attempted to prove it by resorting to genetic experiments.
By using species which reproduce extremely rapidly, scientists have artificially introduced genetic mutations to these species, in the hope of creating a species that is entirely new. Unfortunately, such experiments have so far failed to supply conclusive evidence that this is either possible, or the way in which nature actually works.
Experiments conducted on fruit flies, for example, have allowed scientists to monitor the effects of genetic mutations over a period of many hundreds of generations.
 While they have been successful in breeding fruit flies with widely varying physical characteristics, such as large wings or small, and bristles which vary considerably in number and size, they have so far been unable to change them into another type of creature. Fruit flies have remained fruit flies.
These genetic experiments have done little to confirm the Darwinian view of evolution. In fact, when nature has been allowed to take its course, it has been found that mutations which have been artificially bred into a species have tended to be bred out again.
The species has reverted back to its original physical characteristics. In short, nature seems to resent genetic interference, and when given the chance to do so, persists in reverting to the traditional form. This resistance to change as a result of genetic manipulation is officially termed “genetic homeostasis”.
Despite elaborate experiments designed to show that changes in the underlying genetic pattern can lead to changes in physical form, scientists have as yet been unable to persuade one species, under carefully controlled laboratory conditions, to change into another.
The twin columns upon which the entire structure of Darwinian evolution has been built have thus far been found to be unsupported by physical evidence.
Firstly, the paleontological record has failed to show evidence of those transitional forms necessary for one form to change into another. Secondly, attempts to induce these changes artificially by means of genetic mutations have failed to show evidence of any species that is distinctly new.
There are, however, still other problems associated with the traditional theory of evolution. As Darwin himself clearly recognised, his elegant theory was confounded by certain complex organs such as the eye and ear.
Organs of Extreme Perfection
Because these organs functioned by means of a variety of interdependent parts, Darwin referred to them as “organs of extreme perfection”.
 The Human Eye If we take the human eye as an example, if a person is to see effectively, a number of functions have to operate simultaneously and in harmony. The eye must be kept clear and moist, as a result of the activity of the eyelids and tear glands.
The light which enters the eye has to be focused by a lens precisely upon the retina at the back of the eye-ball. The amount of light which enters the eye must also be carefully controlled by the variable aperture of the iris. If any one of these interdependent functions is faulty, the person is unable to see.
Likewise, in the human ear, rhythmic variations in outer pressure must be matched by equivalent movements of a flexible eardrum. This eardrum is in turn attached to a set of tiny bones located in the middle ear, which all have to act in unison in order to transmit these vibrations to a fluid structure situated in the inner ear.
 The Human Ear For humans to hear at all, every part must relate perfectly to every other part. If there is a breakdown at any point in this process, nothing is ultimately heard.
The difficulty which confronted Darwin was all too obvious. If these organs of extreme perfection had themselves evolved through a variety of stages, then how was it possible for a species to survive while these changes were taking place? For as Lyall Watson has trenchantly remarked:
“The transparent cornea of our eye could hardly have evolved through progressive trial and error by natural selection. You can either see through it or you can’t. Such an innovation has to be right the first time, or else it just doesn’t happen again, because the blind owner gets eaten.” 3
Darwin’s essential thesis was that species survived as a result of their ability to evolve physically in beneficial ways. But if survival depended on the co-ordination of changes of such complexity that they could not be transmitted in the course of a single generation, then existence would effectively be terminated, thus bringing the evolutionary process to an abrupt end.
Faced with this dire dilemma, Darwin resorted to simple analogy.
“Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.” 4
Darwin’s response to this difficulty was a splendid piece of intellectual legerdemain. He merely drew attention to a succession of eye types from the simple to the complex, and pointed out that variations in eyes could be inherited.
Then presto! By inferential deduction, it could safely be assumed that the simple eye had evolved into the complex by the process of natural selection, even though the method whereby it did so remained “insuperable by our imagination.”
Darwin did not deal at all with the question of survival in the interim. He merely glossed over this disturbing fact. For over one hundred years evolutionists have taken Darwin’s explanation at face value.
But in recent years, more and more biologists have refused to be convinced. There is no question, they agree, that eyes have evolved from the simple to the complex. But they claim there is not a shred of evidence to suppose that this has actually happened in the way that Darwin has described.
Neo-Darwinism
Darwin’s theory of evolution, or Neo-Darwinism which has since come to replace it, suffers from yet another massive disability. That is the impetus for evolutionary change.
Darwin advanced the idea that species were modified over many generations, “by the perpetration or the natural selection of many slight favourable variations.” 5 The key word here was “favourable”.
What made any variation favourable was obviously a modification which enabled a species to survive. The causes of these changes were attributed by Darwin to isolated, random events which occurred over the course of time.
The entire scheme of evolution according to Darwin, was ultimately due to chance.
Yet the idea that ever more sophisticated and complex forms of life could have evolved as a result of random changes of blind chance, has been a postulate which has increasingly strained the credulity of questioning scientists.
Nobel prize-winner Sir Ernst Chain voiced these concerns in 1970 when he wrote:
“To postulate that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts. These classical evolutionary theories are a gross over-simplification of an immensely complex and intricate mass of facts, and it amazes me that they are swallowed so uncritically and readily, and for such a long time, by so many scientists without a murmur of protest.” 6
Darwin’s reliance on blind chance was not so much the product of his own thinking, however, as it was a consequence of the classical thought of the scientists of his day.
Since “purpose” was a concept which found no place in physical science, it would have been too great an imposition on the scientific paradigm of his times for Darwin to introduce it into his theory of evolution.
Yet his reference to chance flew in the face of all observation. Since there is hardly a human being alive who does not order his or her daily affairs according to a sense of purpose, and since this predilection has increasingly been observed in lower orders of life as well, the sterility of Darwin’s theory now lies revealed.
Yet despite the overwhelming tide of evidence ranged against it, there are still scientists today who profess that the universe is a purposeless affair.
The complete illogicality of their stance has been exposed by the British physicist Alfred Whitehead, who was moved to remark: “Scientists animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study.” 7
The evidence that life has evolved through an increasingly sophisticated series of forms is beyond doubt. What is increasingly in doubt, however, is whether nature has acted in the way that Darwin has decreed.
The evidence of the fossil record has revealed two facts. One is that new forms of life have appeared very suddenly in geological time. These new forms of life have often displayed dramatic changes in structure, over periods of time that are much too short to explain by means of an infinite gradation of changes over innumerable generations.
Reptiles and Whales
The appearance of the whale, for example, occurred suddenly, without any contributing features in the reptilian realm. Being warm-blooded mammals, whales are assumed to have evolved from reptiles.
 There is, however, one dramatic difference between the reptile and the whale. It is the motion of the tail. Whereas reptiles move their tails from side to side, the whale moves its tail up and down.
 Tail of Whale The successful evolution of this vital change in structure is so complex, involving so many skeletal changes of the spine and pelvis that it would have required far greater lengths of time to accomplish by natural selection than appears in the paleontological record.
Similarly, in order to fly, birds would have had to have undergone equally drastic changes, involving the entire reconstruction of their abdomens, from their reptilian ancestors.
Again, the geological record of fossils does not support the span of time that would have been needed for these changes, nor does it provide any evidence of those transitional forms necessary to accomplish such revolutionary changes in structure.
The second significant fact derived from the hisorical evaluation of fossils is that species have generally maintained a static form for long periods of time, before becoming extinct as unexpectedly and as abruptly as they first appeared.
Furthermore, the influence of genetic coding has seemed to serve, not as a method of transmitting tiny changes to offspring in ways which have led ultimately to a separate species, but as a means of preserving the unique form of the species concerned.
Genetic mutations have not enhanced a creature’s ability to survive. Instead, they seem to have contributed to its doom, thus allowing the species as a whole to survive in its original form.
Mutants, at all levels of nature, tend to die out. In short, mutations at the molecular level (micro-evolution) have not been shown to be capable of achieving inter-species transformation (macro-evolution) in the manner prescribed by Darwinian evolution.
Punctuated Equilibria
What the history of fossils has actually demonstrated is a process which is now referred to as “punctuated equilibria.”
In the course of history, different species have emerged unexpectedly in time manifesting distinctive features. These species have then maintained this equilibrium of form over long periods of time, before disappearing from the geological record as abruptly as they arrived.
In their place, distinct new forms have appeared which have then followed the same procedure. Evolution has thus come to be seen as a punctuated process. Nature has appeared to move in rapid and episodic leaps from one species to another. So the prime axiom of Darwin, ‘natura non facit saltum’ (nature does not make leaps), has not been borne out by the evidence.
Darwin’s elegant theory of evolution, which was heralded in the nineteenth century as a revelation of natural law, now rests on shreds of unfulfilled belief.
It has, in fact, so many fatal flaws that it has ceased to be a viable hypothesis. In short, its central thesis has been found to be unfounded. Darwin’s unique claim to scientific stature rested upon his notion that the process of evolution took place in a linear fashion, with one species blending inexorably into another, and with all forms of life being ultimately derived from a single progenitor.
If, however, one species does not change into another, as the evidence indisputably proves, then the entire framework of Darwinian evolution collapses. His classic work, The Origin of Species, becomes then little more than a historical curiosity.
And the grand dream of science, which was to explain the origin of the astonishing variety of species that have ever lived upon this planet, in terms of a single unifying theory along the lines suggested by Darwin, has proven to be a dismal delusion.
References
1 Charles Darwin, “On the Origin of Species“, Oxford University Press, London, 1902, p. 28.
2 Peter Williamson, “Morphological Stasis and Developmental Constraint: Real Problems for Neo-Darwinism“, in Nature, 294: 214-215, 1981.
3 Lyall Watson, “Lifetide“, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1979, p. 165.
4 Charles Darwin, op.cit. pp. 167-168.
5 Ibid, p. 432.
6 Ernst Chain, “Responsibility and the Scientist in Modern Western Society“, Council of Christians and Jews, London, 1970.
7 Quoted in “The Limitations of Science“, by John Sullivan, Mentor, New York, 1949, p. 126.
Allan, Darwin's Delusion, May 5, 2014, 2:53 pm
The Living Land
The rocks of the earth that form the platform of our lives are the result of a living process. The actions of wind, rain and tide have sculpted these geological strata which we have come to know as the land we live on.
Volcanic lava, drawn from deep within the molten core of the earth, has flowed upon the land and beneath the sea and hardened into layers of igneous rock. These layers of stone, together with other organic materials, have been fashioned by the forces of nature into tiny weathered particles which have become the soil.
As new layers of material have been deposited, so the underlying portions have been compacted into sedimentary rock, which have then borne testimony to that age of time in which these processes took place. Because rocks have been formed by the constant interplay of natural forces, they have interacted with those forms of organic life that have shared their stage.
In selected places, and under suitable conditions, skeletal remains of species that were once alive have come to be entombed in sediment, and these bones have come to be preserved in rocks in the form of fossilised remains. The rocks of ages past are thus an outdoor museum that provides us with a record of those earlier forms of life, which are now enshrined in time.
 Trilobite fossil preserved in stone The oldest rocks that have formed on the earth have been dated by radioactive methods to an age of about four billion years. Close examination of these rocks has so far failed to reveal the presence of any fossilised forms.
Investigation of more recent rocks, however, has provided evidence of organic life, in layers of increasing complexity. The earliest forms of life that have been found preserved in stone consist of examples of algae and primitive aquatic plants which have been dated to a period of about 2.6 billion years ago.
Almost two billion years then elapsed before the fossilised remains of various forms of marine life began to appear in the sedimentary strata of those times. This Paleozoic era of geologic time was dominated by the presence of particular anthropods called trilobites, an extinct form of marine shellfish.
About one hundred million years later, fossilised evidence of the first fishes appeared that were characterised by the presence of backbones.
Around 400 million years ago there appeared indications of amphibious creatures that lived partly in the sea, but which also roamed the fringes of the land. After the span of almost another hundred million years, signs of land-based reptiles began to be found.
The dawn of the Mesozoic era of earth, around two hundred and thirty million years ago, heralded the presence of the world’s first dinosaurs, cold-blooded creatures which grew to enormous size. Some fifty million years later evidence of the first birds appeared.
Finally, with the arrival of the Cenozoic era some sixty-three million years ago, fossilised remains of warm-blooded mammals were found. These mammals occurred in groups of increasing complexity in a sequence which culminated, around three million years ago, in the appearance of an ape-like creature that was able to walk upon its hind legs.
The Origins of Life
This was the precursor of man, the homo sapiens of today. This record of the emergence of organic life, now preserved in stone in forms of increasing complexity, is evidence of the evolutionary course of life, progressing from simple single-celled amoebae to the complex sophistication of the human body.
Under the influence of the Christian Church, and guided particularly by the writings of the Old Testament, early scientists believed that each species was a separate creation of God. The human being was taken to be the crowning glory of this sequence of creation, and the highest form of expression which life could take.
The idea that the incredible diversity of form might actually be the result of a unitary process of nature which led directly from the simple to the complex, was first presented in 1859 by Charles Darwin, in his book The Origin of Species.
 Charles Darwin In this epic work, the naturalist set out the findings of almost four decades of patient fieldwork, drawn from every continent of the world. It was based not only on those forms of life which then existed, but also on those which had long since become extinct, but whose historical existence was revealed by their fossilised remains.
Darwin’s great insight and discovery, and which caused him to be placed in the company of such scientific giants as Copernicus and Newton, was that certain differences existed between individual members of a species, and that these differences could be transmitted to their offspring.
It was this process of transmission, Darwin claimed, which ultimately accounted for the enormous variety of speciation on the earth. Thus different forms of life were not created separately by God, as the Church had long believed, but were all inextricably related to each other.
Not only were these different species interlinked, said Darwin, but each species actually changed into one another, in a gradation of forms that proceeded from the simple to the complex.
The process of evolution was therefore revealed by Darwin to be a natural and sequential process, rather than a truncated process of separate divine creations, which had been the teaching of the Church.
Darwin’s Unique Theory
The sophisticated forms of life had developed over enormous periods of geologic time from simple origins. In fact all life, Darwin argued, must ultimately have evolved from one single ancestral form, as he wrote in the first edition of his book.
“Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed by the Creator.” 1
However, it is worth noting here that in subsequent editions of this book, the reference to “the Creator” in the above sentence was deleted, no doubt at the behest of supporters of the new paradigm, in order to sever completely any link between Science and the Church.
Darwin called the process whereby one form changed into another “natural selection”. He later attributed the inspiration for this idea to the works of the nineteenth century British economist Thomas Malthus, who had argued that the growth in human population was continually held in check by the limiting forces of famine, disease and war.
It was Malthus who conveyed to Darwin the idea that life was a continuing struggle in which only those who were best equipped to counter this struggle would be able to survive. It was the struggle for survival that was the key to Darwin’s principle of natural selection.
“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.” (Original italics underlined) 2
Darwin explained that through this process of natural selection, the individual differences possessed by those members of a species who succeeded in winning the battle for survival, would be passed on to succeeding generations. These differences would lead in time to modifications in structure which subsequently produced entirely new species of creatures.
“Whatever the cause may be of each slight difference in the offspring from their parents – and a cause for each must exist – it is steady accumulation, through natural selection, of such differences, when beneficial to the individual, that gives rise to all the more important modifications of structure, by which the innumerable beings on the face of this earth are enabled to struggle with each other, and the best adapted to survive.” 3
The ability to survive was the crucial factor in evolution, and this depended on the ability of parents to pass on their beneficial differences to their progeny. Those species which were unable to meet this challenge were doomed to extinction.
It was central to Darwin’s theory of evolution that the process of change from one species to another took place as a result of innumerable tiny changes, or modifications in form, over an immense span of time. As he frequently pointed out in Species, ‘natura non facit saltum’, (nature does not make leaps).
Although his friend and ardent supporter Thomas Huxley cautioned him about binding his theory to this precept, Darwin was adamant that all change in form was due to an infinite sequence of small changes.
Darwin was well aware of the fact that selective breeding, particularly among domestic animals, was capable of producing remarkable variations in size and character, and he devoted the opening chapter of his book to an evaluation of this data.
What the precise mechanism of this transfer between different generations was, Darwin was unable to say. He could only point to the undeniable results.
Gregor Mendel
It was only many years later that the discoveries of Gregor Mendel revealed the mechanism of hereditary transfer. Mendel found that there were certain distinct hereditary units, which he called “factors”, which were responsible for transferring particular characteristics from parent to child.
 Gregor Mendel We refer to these factors today as genes. Although Mendel believed that each factor was responsible for a particular characteristic, such as the shape of the nose or the colour of the eyes, we now know that genes function in far more complex ways.
Genes are not only able to work independently, but they also work in unison with other genes. They may also lie dormant for long periods, and only function when triggered by some unusual occurrence.
The amount of genetic material available to any individual is enormous. This “bank” of genetic material grows mainly by reproduction, by allowing the genes of one creature in any particular species, to mix with those of another.
Darwin’s theory of natural selection has now been superseded by the findings of molecular biology, in which the structures of biological systems are seen to be the result of their molecular constituents. These constituents are ultimately determined by their particular configuration of genes.
All organic life is composed of cells, which constantly renew themselves. These cells duplicate themselves according to certain genetic instructions which are coded into the nucleus of each cell.
This genetic code is the blueprint for each cell, which then continues to replicate itself exactly, for as long as the genetic code remains intact. This genetic code is determined by molecular strands of the substance DNA, the nucleic acid which is responsible for establishing the precise pattern of genes within each cell.
If every cell continued to reproduce itself in an identical fashion without any variation, there could be no life on earth as we know it today.
The fact that we exist, and are surrounded by such a vast array of other forms, is due to the fact that cells do not always reproduce themselves in the same way. The patterns of genes change.
Why and how these patterns change forms the basis of the science of genetics. It has been found that genetic codes change for a variety of reasons. The chain of nucleic acid molecules may become damaged by some alien interference such as cosmic radiation or some other form of chemical intrusion.
Most changes, however, are derived from the mixing of genes through reproduction. During reproduction the genetic code of the father is combined with that of the mother, allowing the resulting child to inherit its genetic code equally from both parents.
This genetic bond produces a child which, although similar in most respects to its parents, is nevertheless unique. Its particular arrangement of genes is characteristic of itself alone, and except for the case of identical siblings formed out of the same originating cell, is never again repeated. Each offspring of any species therefore represents a unique genetic pattern.
Darwin’s initial theory of evolution has thus been refined by the science of genetics, which has been able to explain why these physical differences arise, and the process whereby these changes are transferred from one generation to another.
Neo-Darwinism
In its modified form (Neo-Darwinism), the theory of evolution has come to be acclaimed as one of the triumphs of modern science, and perhaps one of the most complete scientific theories that has ever been conceived.
For a large number of scientists today, the theory of evolution is taken to be an established fact of nature, an acknowledged principle that is beyond any further need of proof.
There is, however, one disturbing problem. In recent years this monolith of thought has begun to reveal some alarming cracks. So alarming have these cracks become in fact, that to an increasing number of biologists, belief in the long accepted doctrine of Darwinian evolution can no longer be sustained.
 The evolution of man The first of these difficulties resides in a problem which Darwin himself recognised, and which he succinctly summarised in his chapter entitled “Difficulties of Theory.”
“Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?” 4
Since Darwin announced that one species evolved into another species by means of an infinite sequence of tiny changes in form, all that was needed to prove Darwin’s theory was to examine the fossil record and find the skeletal remains of these transitional forms.
The problem that confronted Darwin at that time, was that the physical evidence of these transitional forms could not be found. The paleontological record of these changes was just not there. Darwin was unable to find any fossil record showing precisely how one distinct species changed into another distinct species by means of “insensibly fine gradations”.
Darwin’s answer to this problem was to point out that the geological record was imperfect. Not only, he argued, was it extremely difficult to find any area on earth where the geological record of every age was preserved in a neat sequential fashion, where layer upon layer could be clearly seen, but the process of fossilisation itself required suitable conditions which did not always occur.
It was because of these gaps in the geological record, claimed Darwin, that the complete sequence of fossils could not be found. He expressed every confidence, however, that as the science of paleontology advanced, and as the geological record became more complete, so the fossilised evidence of these transitional forms would undoubtedly be found.
It is interesting to note in passing that, for a man whose entire thesis was founded upon the basis of uniformitarianism – the doctrine that geological processes are always due to forces that operate continuously and uniformly – Darwin showed a cavalier disregard for the physical evidence provided by the geological record.
Although it was abundantly clear to Darwin that the rocks of earth showed every sign of cataclysmic disruption in ages past, (a point which he specifically mentioned in his Journal of Researches), and that a neatly layered progression of geological strata was almost nowhere to be found on earth, this conflicting data apparently did nothing to shake his uniformitarian belief.
(To be continued in Part Two)
References
1 Charles Darwin, “On the Origin of Species“, Oxford University Press, London, 1902, p. 436.
2 Ibid, p. 4.
3 Ibid, p. 153.
4 Ibid, p. 154-155.
Allan, Darwin's Delusion, April 10, 2014, 1:58 pm
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. This is a book dealing with prophecy.
For those listeners who may be new to this topic, this Podcast is another in the series “Signs of the Times”. Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast.
Hello Scott. Glad to be with you again.
Scott: In our last Podcast, you were talking about the work of the American scientist Thomas Kuhn. Why do you think his work is important in the context of prophecy?
That’s a great question Scott. In answer, I’d like to refer to the 20th century philosopher George Santayana, who once declared: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it“.
Scott: How is that linked with Thomas Kuhn?
Well Scott, as I explain in my book, I believe that the world is about to experience a series of cataclysmic events that have been vividly described in the predictions of ancient prophets.
And what makes Thomas Kuhn’s work so important is that this is not the first time that the world has been afflicted by a global disaster. In fact this has happened many times in the distant past of our planet.
But the reason it is happening again, and the reason why most of us are totally unaware of this fact, and are therefore condemned to be victims of these disasters once again, is exactly as Santayana warned. We have forgotten our past.
We have forgotten our past, not because we no longer have any record of those ancient catastrophic disasters to study and learn from, but because modern historians have deliberately chosen to ignore them.
They have chosen to ignore them for reasons that were clearly set out by Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, as I explained in our previous Podcast.
Scott: Perhaps you could go over this again for the benefit of listeners who may not have heard your last Podcast.
Certainly Scott. Just to recap, you will recall that Thomas Kuhn was a Harvard trained scientist. After gaining his Ph.D. in Physics, he changed his discipline of study from Physics to the History and Philosophy of Science.
Based on the research which he outlined in his book, Kuhn claimed that the history of science did not unfold in a simple linear sequence from its earliest beginnings up to the body of scientific knowledge that is taught in our schools and universities today.
Instead, it proceeded by a series of convulsive leaps which Kuhn called scientific revolutions. Each of these revolutions not only changed the way science was practised from that time on, but they also revised the way in which the scientific history of the past was taught.
Kuhn explained that over the course of the last four hundred years, there have been various men of genius who have been able to transform the science of their day, because they were able to explain the world around them in dramatically new ways.
These brilliant pioneers included people like Copernicus, Isaac Newton, James Maxwell, Max Planck and Albert Einstein. They revolutionised the science of their time by introducing radical new paradigms of thought.
According to Kuhn, these paradigms consisted of those beliefs, values, techniques and so on that were shared by the scientific community of that time, and were based on scientific achievements that for a time provided model answers and solutions.
Scott: And how is that linked with the disasters of the past?
Well Scott, as Thomas Kuhn explained, scientific research never takes place in a vacuum. It is always conducted within a particular paradigm of thought. And every scientific paradigm comes with a defined set of boundaries that determine what can and cannot be studied within that paradigm.
So, as Kuhn pointed out, every student who is trained in any scientific discipline today, is taught to accept as scientific truth all those laws, principles and beliefs that make up the current paradigm.
They are not free to pick and choose what to believe and what to reject. In order to qualify for their diplomas or degrees, they have to convince their teachers that they understand and accept the boundaries of the paradigm. If they don’t, they don’t get to graduate.
And the sad part in all of this Scott, is that those educational institutions that ought to be leading the quest for scientific truth, are the very ones that are blocking progress, and preventing the next generation of scientists from clearing away the debris of the past.
Scott: What exactly do you mean Allan?
Well Scott, the problems we are facing today are not unlike those that arose in the early days of science.
Some two thousand years ago, people were guided by the ideas of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, as well as the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which taught that the sun, the moon and the stars all moved around the earth.
It was not until the invention of the telescope by Galileo in the early 17th century, that it became possible to observe the actual motions of heavenly bodies, and then compare these measurements with the astronomical charts which had held sway for over fifteen hundred years.
And what astronomers of that time discovered, is that the more observations that were made, the more differences were found between what was expected from the charts, and what was actually observed.
The reactions of the astronomers of that time, however, were exactly as Thomas Kuhn predicted. Initially, they clung to the established model, and tried to fit these new observations into existing theory by means of increasingly complicated adjustments, which they called “epicycles”.
Over time the accepted cosmological theory became increasingly burdened by these anomalies. It was only when Copernicus realised that it was the earth that travelled around the sun, rather than the other way around, that all these discrepancies were satisfactorily resolved.
The entire Ptolemaic system of astronomy was then replaced by the Copernican theory. In other words, a new scientific paradigm was born, which then governed scientific research from that time on, until it in turn was replaced by the theory of the Big Bang.
Scott: So Allan, what can you tell us about the Big Bang theory?
Well Scott, the paradigm that determines our understanding of the universe today is the theory of the Big Bang. This is a theory has come to be accepted by most of the scientific community, and it serves as the foundation for all the other disciplines of science.
According to this theory, all the matter and energy that now fills the universe is the result of a primordial explosion that occurred some 14 billion years ago, and that everything we see in the sky today is a consequence of that original explosion.
The majority of the atoms created in that initial blast were thought to be hydrogen, along with helium and traces of lithium. Giant clouds of these initial elements later coalesced through the force of gravity to form all the stars and galaxies that exist today.
It was the American astronomer Edwin Hubble who pioneered the idea of an expanding universe, by using the spectrographic change in the redshift of light to show that the farther away a galaxy was from earth, the faster it was travelling away from the earth.
Our solar system, together with its orbiting planets, was thought to have been formed some four and a half billion years ago, as a result of the gravitational collapse of a large molecular cloud of dust and elementary particles.
Being at the centre of this gravitational collapse, the sun became increasingly hot and dense until it reached a point when a process of thermonuclear fusion spontaneously occurred. It was this process of nuclear fusion, converting hydrogen nuclei into helium, that was considered to be the source of its heat and light.
According to existing theory, it is believed that most of the stars in our galaxy were formed by a similar process. And as a result of this nuclear reaction at its core, our sun has a corona that emits a stream of charged particles called the solar wind.
The Big Bang theory is based on two major assumptions. One is that the universe is homogeneous, meaning that it is uniform in its content. And the other is that the same physical laws of nature that govern life on the earth, apply equally to all the other parts of the universe.
But the problem that we face today Scott, is that the paradigm of the Big Bang is in crisis. It is in crisis because more and more new discoveries are being made that are in conflict with fundamental theory, and current theory can no longer explain these embarrassing facts.
Scott: Can you give us some examples?
Certainly Scott. As I have already mentioned in earlier Blogposts, the first major challenge to the theory of the Big Bang occurred in 1950, with the publication of a book by a Russian Jew by the name of Immanuel Velikovsky.
His book was called Worlds in Collision, and it exploded upon the world of science with a force comparable to the nuclear blast that had occurred at Hiroshima just a few years earlier.
Velikovsky astounded the world of cosmology with his theory that Venus had originally been expelled from the planet Jupiter, and subsequently had violent interactions with the earth and then Mars, before settling into its present orbit around the sun.
But what was even more outrageous, from the point of view of conventional science, was his claim that all this had taken place just a few thousand years before, within the experience of those who were living on the earth at that time.
This was not a theory that was based on mere supposition, like the speculative theory of evolution advanced by Chares Darwin some hundred years before. Instead it was the product of ten years of detailed research that ultimately filled numerous other books.
Velikovsky was a man of such towering intellectual ability, and blessed with the ability to evaluate data across so many different scientific disciplines, that he will undoubtedly be ranked in time among the greatest analytical minds in the history of humanity.
For example, the prevailing view of the universe at that time, was that it consisted of innumerable objects like stars and galaxies, that moved through vast regions of empty space guided solely by the force of gravity.
Velikovsky was the first person to challenge this view, by contending that the earth was electrically charged, and that it had a magnetosphere which extended out as far as the moon. This was later validated when scientists were able to launch satellites into space.
Scott: Have any other people challenged the fundamental ideas of the Big Bang?
Yes Scott they have. For example in1966, the American astronomer Halton Arp published a book titled Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which challenged Hubble’s Law, the traditional interpretation of the redshift of light, and the very idea of an expanding universe.
Then there was the Scottish astrophysicist Charles Bruce, who noted that the sun’s photosphere, which is the visible surface of the sun, had the same appearance and temperature, as well as the spectrum, of an electric arc.
He challenged the accepted solar theory of that time by contending that the sun looked like an electric arc, and had the same characteristics as an electrical arc, because it was an electric arc.
According to Bruce, the sun was an electrical body, and the source of its heat and light was the result of electromagnetic radiation, rather than the product of a thermonuclear reaction.
His work also went on to resolve the conundrum of why temperatures measured on the surface of the sun were hundreds of times cooler than those recorded in the Corona, which is the opposite of what conventional theory requires.
Also, once the space age began, allowing scientists to launch telescopic satellites and other space probes that were equipped to analyse and evaluate distant objects in ever more detail, a flood of new data emerged.
And it is this new data that has proved to be so embarrassing to science, and so troubling to those scientists trained to think within the paradigm of the Big Bang.
And then there are the problems that modern astronomers are having in trying to understand and explain what is happening inside asteroids and comets.
Scott: What sorts of problems?
Well Scott, as I discussed in my post titled “The Electric Comet”, most astronomers today still believe in the theory of Fred Whipple, who considered comets to be little more that “dirty snowballs”, consisting primarily of ice and dirt.
But that is not what the latest space probes have found. Scientists have now been able to examine the constituents of five different comets in close detail, and in every single case there has been no evidence of surface ice.
On top of that, comets have been found to exhibit behaviour which defies accepted theory. For example, the Comas which form around the nuclei of comets, suddenly flare up for no apparent reason, even in deep space. This happened to Halley’s comet in 1991 and comet Hale-Bopp in 1997.
Then there are other cases where comets have suddenly exploded and disintegrated into pieces, often at vast distances from the sun. This happened to comet Linear in 1999 and to comet Elenin in 2011. Some comets have even been found to emit X-rays under certain conditions.
It is not possible in a short Podcast like this to do more than highlight a few of the strange features of cometary behaviour that have puzzled astronomers in recent years. But let me just say Scott, that these are just a fraction of the many anomalies that have been observed.
In fact, a growing band of scientists have gathered together over the last few decades, under the banner of the Thunderbolts Group, based in Portland, Oregon. Their goal is not only to expose the shortcomings of existing theory, but also to offer in its place an entirely new view of the universe.
They call this new paradigm the “Electric Universe”. It is based on the thesis that the fundamental force that created and sustains the universe is not gravity, as Newton and Einstein believed, but electromagnetism.
Those interested in learning more about this new paradigm, and the reasons why the theory of the Big Bang is no longer tenable as viable scientific truth, should have a look at their website at thunderbolts.info.
However, despite the fact that research conducted by members of the Thunderbolts Group has opened up new vistas in our understanding of the universe, there seems little chance that the theory of the “Electric Universe” will succeed in replacing the old paradigm of the Big Bang, either within the span of our own lifetimes, or of theirs.
Scott; Why do you feel that way Allan?
Well Scott, Thomas Kuhn explained the reason why in his book. He pointed out that it generally takes many generations before a new scientific paradigm succeeds in overthrowing its predecessor.
Max Planck, who can himself be considered the founder of a new scientific revolution with his pioneering role in the development of “Quantum Mechanics”, went to the heart of the problem when he wrote:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”.
His point was that scientists who are trained to view the universe in a certain way, continue to cling to that particular cast of mind despite increasing evidence to the contrary, especially when their status and careers have been built upon that paradigm of thought.
They naturally resent the presence of intruders in their secure domain, and are prepared to resort to any action, whether moral or otherwise, in order to hold their ground against the actions of those who would usurp their authority.
The problem that confronts supporters of the “Electric Universe” theory today, is not that their conclusions are invalid, but that the bastions of the Big Bang paradigm remain entrenched within all the established educational institutions of the world.
Until such time as converts to the electrical paradigm come to hold positions of power within the Halls of Academe, and textbooks are rewritten to enable new generations of students to adopt a new way of thinking, the old ideas will continue to prevail.
Besides, believers in the Big Bang have a new weapon in their arsenal with which to repel the assaults of the revolutionaries.
Scott: What is that Allan?
It is a weapon of stunning simplicity, and one that on the face of it seems eminently sensible and scientific. It is called the “Peer Review” system.
Every graduate in every discipline of science who seeks to advance his or her career, is quickly made aware of the fundamental reality of modern science. It is the axiom: “Publish or Perish”.
No matter what avenue of science graduates choose to pursue, their future success depends on their ability to conduct original research, and then to publicise their research in officially recognised journals.
They have do this to gain recognition within their particular field of endeavour, and thereby attract the funding which will ensure their future security within their chosen profession.
But as there are many more people submitting material for publication than there is space available within these scientific journals, editors submit these articles first to referees who have established positions of authority within that scientific discipline.
In this way they ensure that only the best work gets to see the light of day. It also spares them the need to defend their choices, as responsibility for deciding what to publish and what to reject rests with these outside referees.
At first glance, this system of submitting new research papers to a jury of their peers before acceptance for publication, may seem like a perfectly valid form of objective review.
The problem which many scientists who operate on the fringes of conventional science face today Scott, is that it is this very peer review system that effectively blocks them, and prevents their work from gaining wider recognition.
Scott: Why do you say that the Peer Review system blocks progress?
Well Scott, what happened to Halton Arp is a perfect case in point. As I mentioned earlier, Halton Arp was the first person to notice something unusual about the location and dispersal of quasi-stellar objects known as “Quasars”.
He noticed that these quasars weren’t evenly spread across the sky, but tended to be found in positions of small angular separation from certain galaxies, which suggested that they were in some way related to these galaxies.
From these observations, Arp hypothesized that quasars were actually local objects that were ejected from the core of active galactic nuclei. This was a conclusion that went against all of the accepted cosmological thinking of the time.
Arp set to work to publish his findings by submitting a paper to the “Astrophysical Journal”, which was the leading publication in its field. Somewhat naively perhaps, Arp hoped that his unusual discovery might attract the acclamation of his peers.
What actually happened, however, was yet another travesty in the long, sad saga of science, in silencing those researchers who have the temerity to challenge the entrenched ideas of the current scientific paradigm.
The editor of the “Astrophysical Journal” at that time was S. Chandrasekhar, an accomplished Indian-American astrophysicist who subsequently became a co-winner of the Nobel prize for Physics.
As Arp was later to find out, Chandrasekhar never bothered to send his research paper to anyone else for evaluation. Instead, he returned it to the Director of the Institute where Arp worked, with the words “This exceeds my imagination” scrawled across the top of the paper.
Halton Arp was told to find another line of research, and when he chose not to do so, he was denied further access to the Palomar Observatory. He lost his job at the Carnegie Institute and was obliged to leave the United States and move to Germany.
There is obviously so much more that could be said on the subject, but I think I have made my point. In my next Podcast Scott, I want to discuss some of the other anomalies in our present scientific paradigm, and in particular the farce that has become known as the Theory of Evolution.
Scott: Thanks Allan. This has been another remarkable analysis of the way the history of science has developed over the last few centuries.
You have been listening to Allan Colston, author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. Do join us for our next Podcast in the series titled “Signs of the Times”.
Allan, AUDIO, Signs in the Sky, Signs of the Times, April 8, 2014, 1:52 pm
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. This is a book dealing with prophecy.
For those listeners who may be new to this topic, this Podcast is another in the series “Signs of the Times”. Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast. It’s been quite a while since we last spoke.
Thanks Scott, it’s good to be with you once again. Yes, it’s been about nine months since our last Podcast.
Scott: At the time we last spoke you were focusing on Iran and their attempts to develop nuclear weapons.
Since then, I notice from your Blog that you have been writing about a variety of different subjects, ranging from the nature of comets and asteroids, to such things as the challenge of Christianity and the meaning of the Kingdom of God.
My question to you Allan is: Do all of these different topics relate to the subject of prophecy? And if so, how?
I am glad you asked that question Scott, because I think that a lot of readers of my Blog have probably been asking themselves the same thing. And the short answer is: Yes, they are all integrally related to the events that are about to unfold upon the earth.
But to explain how, it is necessary to delve first into the history and philosophy of science.
Scott: I didn’t know there was such a thing as a philosophy of science. Surely science is the very opposite of philosophy.
You’re certainly not alone Scott. Many people think that way today. But if I was to ask you to name some of the most important scientists of the 20th century, I doubt if you would include the name of Thomas Kuhn.
Scott: Well you’re right about that, Allan. In fact I’ve never even heard of him. Who was he?
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American scientist. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1922, and died in 1996 at the age of 73.
Soon after leaving school in 1940, he developed a serious interest in science and mathematics. He subsequently attended Harvard University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in 1943, followed shortly thereafter by a Masters and a Ph.D degree in Physics.
It was during his three years as a Harvard Junior Fellow that Thomas Kuhn found that his interests had changed, causing him to switch his scientific career from Physics to the History and Philosophy of Science.
At the suggestion of the University President, Kuhn later taught a course in the History of Science at Harvard for eight years, before leaving for the Berkeley campus of the University of California, where in 1961 he was named Professor of the History of Science.
The following year he published the work with which his name has ever since been linked, and which challenged the very foundations of the entire scientific enterprise. His book was called “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“.
Scott: What was so important about his book?
Well Scott, what Kuhn did was to question the accepted philosophy of science at that time, which was to regard science as a linear pursuit in which one scientific discovery led naturally to another, leading up to the entire body of knowledge that is taught in our universities today.
Instead, Kuhn argued that this idea was wrong, and was not borne out by the facts.
Based on his own historical research, Kuhn found that progress in science was similar to that of society as a whole, in which steady development was punctuated from time to time by revolutionary outbreaks that led to dramatic changes in the nature of those societies.
In dissecting the nature of these scientific revolutions, Kuhn found that, like their social counterparts, each tended to display a common character, and to develop in common ways.
He found, for example, that every new scientific revolution did more than just build upon the theories of its predecessors. Each completely changed the thinking of the past, in a way which transformed the understanding of the scientists of that time.
Scott: What exactly did Kuhn mean when he talked about scientific revolutions?
Well Scott, when people began to investigate the world around them in the 16th century, there were no accepted guidelines about what to do or how to go about it. So they simply went ahead and explored the things that interested them.
In due course, people with similar interests began to band together to form schools of common thought. These scientific pioneers conducted experiments and then communicated their results to others, in ways which allowed them to test these results for themselves.
As Kuhn explained in his book, in time there appeared certain scientists who were men of such towering intellectual ability, and who were able to explain existing facts in novel ways of such brilliant ingenuity, that they came to dominate the science of their day.
Scott: Can you give us some examples?
Certainly. The first of these men who revolutionised the history of western science was Copernicus. Copernicus didn’t discover facts that were new to astronomers trained in the old Ptolemaic school of astronomy. What he did was to explain these facts in a totally new way.
It was his brilliant insight that it was the earth that travelled around the Sun, rather than the other way around, which enabled subsequent generations of astronomers to add a wealth of information about celestial objects, and to explain this information in ways which overcame the problems inherent in the old Ptolemaic system of astronomy.
Other examples of these intellectual giants were Sir Isaac Newton, the Scottish physicist James Maxwell, Max Planck and Albert Einstein. These men revolutionised the theoretical constructs of their times, in ways which had profound implications for future scientific research and development.
In referring to such men, Kuhn wrote (and I quote), “each transformed the scientific imagination in ways that we shall ultimately need to describe as a transformation of the world within which scientific work was done”.
Kuhn called these transformations scientific revolutions, and he used the term “paradigm” to describe them.
Scott: What did he mean by the term paradigm?
Kuhn defined a scientific paradigm as “the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by members of a given community”.
Paradigms, according to Kuhn, were scientific revolutions which altered the entire perspectives of their times, and were “universally recognised scientific achievements that for a time provided model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners“.
In tracing the history of these scientific transformations, Kuhn noted that each new revolution did more than just build upon the theories of its predecessors. Instead they completely changed the foundations of the past.
In addition, Kuhn pointed out that as each new paradigm became entrenched, it became necessary not only to reconstruct past theory, but also to re-evaluate past fact.
What Kuhn meant by this was that each new revolution in scientific outlook meant that old ideas had to be re-assessed, and new textbooks had to be written that would interpret the past in the light of the new knowledge.
But as Kuhn went on to explain, no matter how successful each new paradigm happened to be, each came with a built-in flaw. Kuhn referred to this flaw as the “invisibility” of the paradigm
Scott: And what did he mean by that, Allan?
He explained this as follows Scott. As each new scientific paradigm comes to be accepted by the majority of scientists of that time, the effect is to change the goalposts, so to speak, of what Kuhn calls “normal science”.
According to Kuhn, whenever a new scientific paradigm prevails, “normal science” tries to force nature into line with the new paradigm, motivated by the conviction that this new paradigm is at last able to explain nature “as it really is”.
Initially, scientists succeed brilliantly in solving problems that could hardly have been imagined under the old paradigm, and rapidly expand the technological possibilities of the new science.
As they do so, however, the paradigm under which they are operating begins to exert a subtle retraining influence. It does this by setting limits to what scientific problems are considered to be valid within that paradigm, and what can be ignored as being outside of the paradigm.
And this is where the “invisibility” of the paradigm reveals itself.
Those scientists who have been trained within a specific paradigm, and who have acquired its underlying philosophy of belief, don’t realise that they have allowed themselves to become trapped within the limitations of the paradigm itself.
Furthermore, they are unable to extricate themselves from the limitations of their existing paradigm, because they are generally unaware of its existence.
Scott: So Allan, what does this mean in practice?
Well Scott, as Kuhn explained, young scientists don’t graduate with open minds that are capable of evaluating evidence in new ways. Their very education and training is an exercise in programming their minds according to the beliefs of the existing paradigm.
Scientific students aren’t free to accept or reject the theories of their textbooks. The scientific laws presented in them are illustrated by means of experiments which students are taught to accept as evidential proof of the correctness of these laws.
They are forced to accept them on the authority of their teachers, whose task it is to ensure that only those students who successfully embrace the beliefs of the current paradigm, are allowed to graduate.
So when a student undertakes an experiment and comes up with a result that is different from that set out in their textbooks, this result is regarded as evidence of the inadequacy of the student, rather than of any shortcoming in the law itself.
Scott: So Allan, if Kuhn is correct, how and why do these different scientific revolutions come about?
That’s a good question, Scott. As Kuhn points out, normal science always operates within a paradigm, which is at first spectacularly successful in its ability to resolve problems that arise within the framework of that paradigm.
As the body of data generated by normal science grows, however, certain anomalies appear which cannot be explained by the paradigm. Initially these anomalies are small in number, and can easily be dismissed as being of little consequence in the overall scheme of things.
But as they grow more numerous, they become increasingly difficult to ignore, and the prevailing paradigm becomes increasingly unwieldy or contrived, while the number of critics continues to multiply.
It was precisely this state of unwieldy complexity in Ptolemaic astronomy, which was reduced to explaining the motion of celestial objects by means of an increasing number of cycles and “epicycles”, that led to the breakthrough in understanding provided by Copernicus.
When a scientific paradigm is overburdened by anomalies which it is unable to explain, it becomes ripe for revolutionary crisis.
Scott: So how do these anomalies get resolved?
These crises have generally been resolved in the history of western science, by lonely men of genius, who have been able to evaluate these problems, and then present solutions based on an entirely new way of thinking
The founders of new paradigms have invariably been young men who, in one way or another, have escaped the conditioning of their colleagues, and who have not yet become entrenched within their own professions.
They are thus able to bring a new vision to their fields of practice, and to link past data in revolutionary ways which are successful in explaining most of the unexplained anomalies of the current paradigm.
At first, these revolutionary pioneers are ostracised by their peers and branded as cranks. Their ideas are inevitably rejected, particularly by “normal” scientists, who are the ones who have been conditioned by the old habits of thinking.
Not surprisingly, this resistance is invariably led by those scientists whose status and reputation have been built upon the old ideas, and therefore have the most to lose by an overthrow of the old regime.
Scott: So Allan, how do these new scientific revolutions finally succeed?
Well Scott, every scientific revolution that has taken place over the last four hundred years, has proceeded very much like its social or military counterpart.
It has been led by a young and bold leader, who has been successful in drawing to his side recruits, who then do battle with the old guard who have become entrenched in the traditional ways of thinking.
Success, however, does not come easily or immediately. It often takes several generations before victory is complete and the old paradigm is successfully overthrown.
As I have already pointed out in an earlier post, it was Max Planck, who was himself the founder of a new scientific paradigm that initially provoked derision and scorn, who was sadly moved to write:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”.
But Planck was in good company, for it took almost a hundred years for the ideas of Copernicus to become generally accepted, while Newton’s theories of gravity were not adopted in his own lifetime.
Finally, Einstein’s theory of relativity, which has become arguably the most explosive theory in the history of science, and which daily dominates our lives in the form of the threat of nuclear war, was at first met with complete disbelief.
And to this day, over a hundred years since it was first postulated, it has failed to merit the Nobel prize for physics.
In my next Podcast Scott, I want to discuss the anomalies that exist within the current scientific paradigm, and explain why it is now ripe for a new revolutionary way of thinking about the universe that is already on the horizon.
Scott: Thanks Allan for giving us a fascinating insight into the history of science. You have been listening to Allan Colston, author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. Do join us for our next Podcast in the series titled “Signs of the Times”.
Allan, AUDIO, Revolution and Change, Signs of the Times, The Fallacy of Scientific Truth, March 14, 2014, 12:13 pm
In this final instalment, the 20th century Indian Sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj continues his dialogue about the state of mind of one who has attained the Kingdom of God, witnessed the Truth, overcome death, and is no longer bound by the limitations of matter, energy, space and time.
Jesus promised all those who truly sought the deathless state, which was likened to a jewel beyond value, that their wish would be fulfilled. But the price that would have to be paid for this supreme gift was personal sacrifice – the voluntary dissolution of the ego.
Jesus coerced no one. He merely invited those who wished to be like him to adopt the path which he had followed. He was the Way, and his life was the Truth. His Way remains equally valid to this day, and has been trod alike by every Sage.
Question: “To become an engineer I must learn engineering. To become God what must I learn?
Maharaj: You must unlearn everything. God is the end of all desire and knowledge.
Question: You mean to say that I become God merely by giving up the desire to become God?
Maharaj: All desires must be given up because you take the shape of your desires. When no desires remain, you revert to your natural being.” 1
The transcendent Sun of Reality can only be seen when all the clouds of personal desires have finally been swept aside.
Question: “How does one reach the Supreme State?
Maharaj: By renouncing all lesser desires. As long as you are pleased with the lesser, you cannot have the highest. Whatever pleases you, keeps you back. Until you realize the unsatisfactoriness of everything, its transiency and limitation and collect your energies in one great longing, even the first step is not made. On the other hand, the integrity of the desire for the Supreme is by itself a call from the Supreme. Nothing, physical or mental, can give you freedom. You are free once you understand that your bondage is of your own making and you cease forging the chains that bind you.” 2
The idea of giving up personal identity, of surrendering individual desires, is a prospect which fills us all with horror. What lies beyond appears as forbidding as the grave, shorn of all laughter, fun and joy, and of every quality which makes our lives worth living. The Sage coaxes us to trust, and not to fall prey to these fears.
“Do not be afraid of freedom from desire and fear. It enables you to live a life so different from all you know, so much more intense and interesting, that, truly, by losing all you gain all.” 3
He who would save his life, declared Jesus, would lose it. But he who was prepared to sacrifice his own life would gain all things, in a life of boundless joy. This is the acid test of the mature seeker, the willingness to sacrifice the known in the anticipation of the unknown.
“Freedom means letting go. People just do not care to let go everything. They do not know that the finite is the price of the infinite as death is the price of immortality. Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go of everything.” 4
We shrink from this call to impersonality, fearing in this sacrifice the loss of personal identity, which is the vital core of our being. As one doubter remarked:
Question: “To be free from like and dislike is a state of indifference.
Maharaj: It may look and feel so in the beginning. Persevere in such indifference and it will blossom into an all-pervading and all embracing love.” 5
The Supreme Reality is not an uncaring, lifeless, amorphous Void – a quantum field of blind energy. As Maharaj reveals:
“Reality is not a shapeless mass, a wordless chaos. It is powerful, aware, blissful; compared to it your life is like a candle to the sun.” 6
This Reality is ever-present, and is without beginning and without end. It is Awareness stripped of personal limitations and the confines of matter, energy, space and time.
“Immortality is freedom from the feeling: ‘I am’. Yet it is not extinction. On the contrary, it is a state infinitely more real, aware and happy than you can possibly think of. Only self-consciousness is no more.” 7
This profound Awareness is not something new to be gained, nor is it a reward for a certain course of action. It blossoms of its own accord when the conditions are ripe, and the cloying business of the mind is stilled.
“When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known; and yet you recognize it at once as your own nature. Once you have passed through this experience, you will never be the same again; the unruly mind may break its peace and obliterate its vision, but it is bound to return, provided the effort is sustained until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the present.” 8
Of all the preoccupations of the mind, the most persistent and captivating is the idea of personality. At each moment of our lives we are involved in a constant search for satisfaction according to the dictates of this identity. We are all obsessed with the idea that we are bound to a particular body that was born in time, and will in turn, succumb to death.
“Take the idea ‘I was born’. You may take it to be true. It is not. You were never born nor will you ever die. It is the idea that was born and shall die, not you. By identifying yourself with it you become mortal. Just like in a cinema all is light, so does consciousness become the vast world. Look closely and you will see that all names and forms are but transitory names on the ocean of consciousness, that only consciousness can be said to be, not its transformations. In the immensity of consciousness a light appears, a tiny point that moves rapidly and traces shapes, thoughts and feelings, concepts and ideas, like the pen writing on paper. And the ink that leaves a trace is memory. You are that tiny point and by your movement the world is ever re-created. Stop moving, and there will be no world. Look within and you will find that the point of light is the reflection of the immensity of light in the body as the sense ‘I am’. There is only light, all else appears.” 9
No action of the mind can restore this pristine state. Every effort conducted by the striving personality merely causes it to recede, by covering the sun with yet more clouds. The soul does not come to know its source by means of action, but by recognition of the folly of action.
“Nothing you do will change you, for you need no change. You may change your mind and your body, but it is always something external to you that has changed, not yourself. Why bother at all to change? Realize once and for all that neither your body nor your mind, nor even your consciousness is yourself and stand alone in your true nature beyond consciousness and unconsciousness. No effort can take you there, only the clarity of understanding. Trace your misunderstandings and abandon them, that is all. There is nothing to seek and find, for there is nothing lost. Relax and watch the ‘I am’. Reality is just behind it. Keep quiet, keep silent; it will emerge, or rather, it will take you in.” 10
“It is the absolute in you that takes you to the absolute beyond you – absolute truth, love, selflessness are the decisive factors for self-realization. With earnestness these can be reached.” 11
The Truth cannot be grasped by the conscious mind. Every attempt to encompass it must inevitably fail. Yet the earnest desire to experience it creates the conditions which allow it to suddenly shine forth.
Question: “If there is no such thing as the knowledge of the real, then how do I reach it?
Maharaj: You need not reach out for what is already with you. Your very reaching makes you miss it. Give up the idea that you have not found it and just let it come into the focus of direct perception, here and now, by removing all that is of the mind.
Question: When all that can go, goes, what remains?
Maharaj: Emptiness remains, awareness remains, pure light of the conscious being remains.” 12
In order to become aware of this burgeoning emptiness, we need to pursue our awareness of the “now”, without being caught up in the past or future. By refusing to be trapped in the web of our ideas, we cease to participate as an individual experiencer.
Maharaj: “The mind craves for experience, the memory of which it takes for knowledge. The gnani (enlightened being) is beyond all experience and his memory is empty of the past. He is entirely unrelated to anything in particular. But the mind craves for formulations and definitions, always eager to squeeze reality into a verbal shape. Of everything it wants an idea, for without ideas the mind is not. Reality is essentially alone, but the mind will never leave it alone – and deals instead with the unreal. And yet it is all the mind can do – discover the unreal as unreal.
Question: And the real as real?
Maharaj: There is no such state as seeing the real. Who is to see what? You can only be the real – which you are, anyhow. The problem is only mental. Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren’t any.” 13
“There is no such thing as the experience of the real. The real is beyond experience. All experience is in the mind. You know the real by being real.” 14
“As long as you are engrossed in the world, you are unable to know yourself: to know yourself, turn away your attention from the world and turn it within.” 15
If there are few who experience this fullness of Reality, it is because there are few who are willing to lay down the burden of their lives. They would rather strive to improve their temporal condition than abandon it completely.
The Sage is immersed in this Reality, and is anxious to reveal the way to overcome all suffering. The Sage sees no difference between himself and other persons. All are rooted in the one Reality. Because he knows this Reality, he is ever free from the limitations of unreality.
Those of us who have mistaken this illusory world for reality, continue to be trapped in its limiting web. The Sage points out the nature of the web that imprisons us. It is then up to us to extricate ourselves from its cloying strands.
“What I am you are and what you are – I am. The ‘I am’ is common to us all; beyond the ‘I am’ is the immensity of light and love. We do not see it because we look elsewhere; I can only point out at the sky; seeing of the star is your own work. Some take more work before they see the star, some take less; it depends on the clarity of their vision and their earnestness in search.” 16
“The true teacher will not imprison his disciple in a prescribed set of ideas, feelings and actions; on the contrary, he will show him patiently and fully the need to be free from all ideas and set patterns of behaviour, to be vigilant and earnest and go with life wherever it takes him, not to enjoy or suffer, but to understand and learn.” 17
For many, the effort to understand and learn dwarfs their analytical powers. They instinctively resent the mental struggle that is necessary to seek out the origin of their selves. Yet for them, burdened by the weight of many sorrows, there is still hope and the promise of salvation. Enlightenment can still be gained, but only if they truly want it above all things.
The choice is always ours. We are always free to abandon the ways which have led us into pain, sorrow, illness and despair. But it is only when we have truly come to see the folly of our ways and long for release that we are ready to turn within and awaken to our Reality. We have to be convinced of the need for change.
All too often we confess that we are simply unfitted for this task. Yet as Maharaj has challenged us:
Maharaj: “What else are you fit for? All your going and coming, seeking pleasure or meaning, loving and hating – all shows that you struggle against limitations, self-imposed or accepted. In your ignorance you make mistakes and cause pain to yourself and others, but the urge is there and shall not be denied. The same urge that seeks birth, happiness and death shall seek understanding and liberation. It is like an ember in a cargo of cotton. You may not know about it, but sooner or later the ship will burst in flames. Liberation is a natural process and in the long run, inevitable. But it is within your power to bring it into the now.
Question: Then why are there so few liberated people in the world?
Maharaj: In a forest only some of the trees are in full bloom at any given moment, yet everyone will have its turn.” 18
Each one of us inhabits a universe of thought. Each one of us has learned to spin a web of thought that is the playground of our dreams. It is the product of desire, and is sustained by our desire for experience.
Within this web, we are free to experience whatever we desire. We are also free to construct our universe in any manner that we choose. There is no limit to the way in which it manifests. We are always free to select the pattern of our thoughts, and it is this pattern which determines the nature of our experience.
Yet however exalted our dreams, however sophisticated our patterns of thought, and however refined our art of spinning, we can never escape the confines of the web. In our yearning for experience we live enthusiastic lifetimes of endeavour, each dedicated to the pursuit of various objects of desire.
For as long as we remain dominated by the desire to experience, we are obliged to keep on spinning. And in this spinning we bind ourselves to the unending cycle of life and death. Birth leads to death which leads again to rebirth. Whatever the fruits of our spinning, they are lost each time we die, and we start each life anew with nothing save the desire again to experience.
Once again we laboriously spin our cosmic web which is the arena of our desire. For as long as we choose to spin, we are bound by the limits of our web. It is only when we have become satiated with the chore of spinning that we are finally ready to begin to unravel the web that we have spun.
Only then do we begin our journey back to the centre of the maze, by steadily unravelling the luminous thread of the “I am”. When we have succeeded in pursuing it to its source, we rediscover our One true nature, and the fact that we were never bound.
We are free to spin for as long as we choose to experience. We are under no duress to change. There is no timetable to our lives. We have all eternity to spin. Yet in the course of spinning, there will come a day for each one of us when we will long to be free of our cosmic web.
No skill or expertise in spinning will then satisfy this yearning. The pangs of this desire will prompt us to unravel the web that we have spun, and voluntarily destroy the personality which we have built. In the course of this unravelling we will come to face the threshold of death, yet a death which leads to a glorious resurrection. We will be reborn into a world of immortality, beyond the clasp of pain and the trammels of time and space.
The moment we choose to don this cloak of bliss depends on us. We can do it now, or we can leave it for a billion lifetimes hence. Yet whatever our condition, whatever heaven or hell we have personally constructed for ourselves, we are destined to be free. No amount of spinning can ultimately deter us from this goal. We will be free because we are already free. We have only to shed the blinkers from our eyes.
The morning of this awakening advances on us NOW!
If only we could understand the bliss that awaits us. If only we could grasp that peace which passes all understanding. If only we could glimpse the unbounded joy that true freedom brings, we would stand at the very portals of the Kingdom of God.
We would then experience the mystical union with God that is the ultimate destiny of every person now living on this planet. We would sing in exultation like the fifteenth century saint Kabir.
This basket weaver from Benares was a simple and unlettered man. Although Muslim by birth, he sought wisdom from a Hindu guide. Being a married man, he was scorned by other Brahmin disciples. Yet Kabir sought union with the divine with a blazing passion. It was his unyielding fervour that brought him to his goal.
Here, in a single song, is the good news proclaimed by Jesus, as well as the founders of all the religions of this world.
“The Lord is in me, the Lord is in you, as life is in every seed.
O servant! Put false pride away, and seek for Him within you.
A million suns are ablaze with light,
The sea of blue spreads in the sky.
The fever of life is stilled, and all stains are washed away;
When I sit in the midst of that world.
Hark to the unstruck bells and drums! Take your delight in love!
Rains pour down without water, and the rivers are streams of light.
One Love it is that pervades the whole world, few there are who know it fully:
They are blind who hope to see it by the light of reason,
That reason which is the cause of separation.
The House of Reason is very far away!
How blessed is Kabir, that amidst this great joy he sings within his own vessel.
It is the music of the meeting of soul with soul;
It is the music of the forgetting of sorrows;
It is the music that transcends all coming in and all going forth.” 19
References:
1 “I Am That“, Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, translated by Maurice Frydman, Book II, Chetana, Bombay, 1973, pp. 83.
2 Ibid, pp. 48-49.
3 Ibid, p. 277.
4 Ibid, p. 117.
5 Ibid, p. 305.
6 Ibid, p. 200.
7 Ibid, p. 114.
8 Ibid, p. 53.
9 Ibid, p. 150.
10 Ibid, p. 294.
11 Ibid, p. 226.
12 Ibid, pp. 184-185.
13 Ibid, p.112.
14 Ibid, p. 201.
15 Ibid, p. 247.
16 Ibid, p. 226.
17 Ibid, p.246.
18 Ibid, p. 241.
19 “Songs of Kabir“, translated by Rabindranath Tagore, Samuel Weiser, New York, 1977, pp. 142-143.
Allan, The Kingdom of God, March 10, 2014, 3:08 pm
In this instalment, the 20th century Indian Sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj continues his dialogue about the state of mind of one who has attained the Kingdom of God, witnessed the Truth, overcome death, and is no longer bound by the limitations of matter, energy, space and time.
The Sage encompasses all consciousnesses and all worlds, and yet it is not limited by their content. The Sage experiences things just like other people experience them. The Sage feels and shares the thoughts and feelings of others as if they were his or her own experience. Yet the Sage remains beyond the reach of all experience. Thus being at the heart of all experience, the Sage is all-knowing.
Question: “Do you know all you want to know?
Maharaj: There is nothing I want to know. But what I need to know I come to know.
Question: Does this knowledge come to you from within or from outside?
Maharaj: It does not apply. My inner is outside and my outside is inside. I may get from you the knowledge needed at the moment, but you are not apart from me.” 1
Although the Sage does not actively seek information or outward knowledge, since all knowledge is predicated upon consciousness and change, the Sage spontaneously acquires whatever knowledge is needed at any moment.
“Once you are inwardly integrated, outer knowledge comes to you spontaneously. At every moment of your life you know what you need to know. In the ocean of the universal mind all knowledge is contained; it is yours on demand. Most of it you may never need to know – it is yours all the same. As with knowledge, so it is with power. Whatever you feel needs to be done happens unfailingly.” 2
Again and again we try to look into the mind of the Sage to see as he sees, and to try to grasp the action of his mind. What we fail to recognise is that the Sage is truly mindless, and does not evaluate the images of perception, which do not remain stuck in memory upon the screen of consciousness.
Question: “As I sit here, I see the room, the people. I see you too. How does it look at your end? What do you see?
Maharaj: Nothing. I look, but I do not see in the sense of creating images clothed with judgements. I do not describe nor evaluate. I look, I see you, but neither attitude nor opinion cloud my vision. And when I turn my eyes away, my mind does not allow memory to linger, but is at once free and fresh for the next impression.” 3
Because the Sage appears to inhabit a human body, and appears to function just as we do, we assume that the Sage is subject to the same interplay of thought and emotion and is bound by the same states of consciousness.
Question: “Do you experience the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping just as we do, or otherwise?
Maharaj: All the three states are sleep to me. My waking state is beyond them. As I look at you, you all seem asleep dreaming up worlds of your own. I am aware, for I imagine nothing. It is not samadhi (superconscious state), which is but a kind of sleep. It is just a state unaffected by the mind, free from past and future. In your case it is distorted by desire and fear, by memories and hopes; in mine it is as it is – normal. To be a person is to be asleep.” 4
Because our lives are bound by conditions and circumstances, we assume that the Sage is similarly bound. We inevitably transfer our own limitations to the Sage, believing that our own experiences in life must apply in equal fashion to the Sage.
Question: “You may be God himself, but you need a well fed body to talk to us.
Maharaj: It is you that need my body to talk to you. I am not my body nor do I need it. I am the witness only. I have no shape of my own. You are so accustomed to think of yourselves as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousnesses as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.
Question: We are told that there are many levels of existence. Do you exist and function on all the levels? While you are on earth, are you also in heaven?
Maharaj: I am nowhere to be found! I am not a thing to be found among other things. All things are in me, but I am not among things.” 5
Despite the Sage’s proclaimed victory over desire, the Sage continues to act as if he or she were responding to the ebb and flow of human emotion.
Question: “I have seen people supposed to have realized, laughing and crying. Does it not show that they are not free of desire and fear?
Maharaj: They may laugh and cry according to circumstances, but inwardly they are cool and clear, watching detachedly their own spontaneous reactions. Appearances are misleading and more so in the case of a Gnani (enlightened being).
Question: I do not understand you.
Maharaj: The mind cannot understand, for the mind is trained for grasping and holding while the Gnani is not grasping and not holding.
Question: What am I holding on to which you are not?
Maharaj: You are a creature of memories; at least you imagine yourself to be so. I am entirely unimagined. I am what I am, not identifiable with any physical or mental state. 6
Because we are creatures of memories, and because our world is filled with images which have form and events that change with time, we assume that the world of the Sage must be a variation, although perhaps more exalted, of these same images and events.
Question: “What distinguishes your world from mine?
Maharaj: My world has no characteristics by which it can be identified. You can say nothing about it. I am my world. My world is myself. It is complete and perfect. Every impression is erased, every experience rejected. I need nothing, not even myself, for myself I cannot lose.
Question: Not even God?
Maharaj: All these ideas and distinctions exist in your world; in mine there is nothing of the kind. My world is single and very simple.
Question: Nothing happens there?
Maharaj: Whatever happens in your world, there it has validity and evokes response. In my world nothing happens.
Question: The very fact of experiencing your world implies duality inherent in all experience.
Maharaj: Verbally – yes. But your words do not reach me. Mine is a non-verbal world. In your world the unspoken has no existence. In mine – the words and their content have no being. In your world nothing stays, in mine – nothing changes. My world is real, while yours is made of dreams.
Question: Yet we are talking.
Maharaj: The talk is in your world. In mine – there is eternal silence. My silence sings, my emptiness is full, I lack nothing. You cannot know my world until you are there.” 7
Our world is dependent on consciousness and vanishes when consciousness is lost. The process of death terminates our awareness of the world. We assume that death must similarly provoke a dramatic transformation in the experience of the Sage.
Question: “Forgive me a strange question. If somebody with a razor-sharp sword would suddenly sever your head, what difference would it make to you?
Maharaj: None whatsoever. The body will lose its head, certain lines of communication will be cut, that is all. Two people talk to each other on the phone and the wire is cut. Nothing happens to the people, only they must look for some other means of communication.” 8
We lead precarious lives, where the breath of life may be snuffed out at any moment. The Sage has broken the bonds of death, and being immortal, is unmoved by the presence or absence of manifested form.
Question: “An accident would destroy your equanimity.
Maharaj: The strange fact is that it does not. To my own surprise, I remain as I am – pure Awareness, alert to all that happens.
Question: Even at the moment of death?
Maharaj: What is it to me that the body dies?
Question: Don’t you need it to contact the world?
Maharaj: I do not need the world. The world you think of is in your own mind. I can see it through your own eyes and mind, but I am fully aware that it is a projection of memories, it is touched by the real only at the point of awareness, which can be only be now.
Question: The only difference between us seems to be that while I keep on saying that I do not know my real self, you maintain that you know it well; is there any other difference between us?
Maharaj: There is no difference between us; nor can I say that I know myself. I know that I am not describable nor definable; there is a vastness beyond the farthest reaches of the mind. That vastness is my home; that vastness is myself. And that vastness is also love.” 9
The Sage speaks from direct experience of the one Reality that is the foundation of all manifested life, but is itself untouched by shape and form. This experience does not, however, demand an experiencer, for it is the experiencer who dies at the moment of birth into the world of enlightenment.
Question: “I hear you making statements about yourself like: ‘I am timeless, immutable beyond attributes,’ etc. How do you know these things? And what makes you say them?
Maharaj: I am only trying to describe the state before the ‘I am’ arose, for the state itself, being beyond the mind and its language, is indescribable.
Question: The ‘I am’ is the foundation of all experience. What you are trying to describe must also be an experience, limited and transitory. You speak of yourself as immutable. I hear the sound of the word, remember its dictionary meaning, but the experience of being immutable I do not have. How can I break through the barrier and know personally, intimately what it means to be immutable?
Maharaj: The word itself is the bridge. Remember it, think of it, explore it, go round it, look at it from all directions, dive into it with earnest perseverance; endure all delays and disappointments till suddenly the mind turns round, away from the word, towards the reality beyond the word. It is like trying to find a person knowing his name only. A day comes when your enquiries bring you to him and the word becomes reality. Words are valuable, for between the word and its meaning there is a link and if one investigates the word assiduously, one crosses beyond the concept into the experience at the root of it. As a matter of fact, such repeated attempts to go beyond the words is called meditation. Sadhana (spiritual practice) is but a persistent attempt to cross over from the verbal to the non-verbal. The task seems hopeless until suddenly all becomes clear and simple and wonderfully easy. But as long as you are interested in your present way of living, you will shirk the final leap into the unknown.
Question: Why should the unknown interest me? Of what use is the unknown?
Maharaj: Of no use whatsoever. But it is worthwhile to know what keeps you within the narrow confines of the known. It is the full and correct knowledge of the known that takes you to the unknown. You cannot think of it in terms of uses and advantages; to be quiet and detached, beyond the reach of all self-concern, all selfish consideration, is an inescapable condition of liberation. You may call it death; to me it is living at its most meaningful and intense, for I am one with life in its totality and fullness – intensity, meaningfulness, harmony; what more do you want?
Question: Nothing more is needed, of course. But you talk of the knowable.
Maharaj: Of the unknowable only silence talks. The mind can talk only of what it knows. If you investigate diligently the knowable, it dissolves and only the unknowable remains. But with the first flicker of imagination and interest the unknowable is obscured and the known comes to the forefront. The known, the changing, is what you live with – the unchangeable is of no use to you. It is only when you are satiated with the changeable and long for the unchangeable, that you are ready for the turning around and stepping into what can be described, when seen from the level of the mind, as emptiness and darkness. For the mind craves for content and variety, while reality is to the mind, contentless and invariable.
Question: It looks like death to me.
Maharaj: It is. It is also all-pervading, all conquering, intense beyond words.” 10
References:
1 “I Am That“, Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, translated by Maurice Frydman. Book II, Chetana, Bombay, 1973, p. 151.
2 Ibid, p. 141.
3 Ibid, p. 209.
4 Ibid, p. 218.
5 Ibid, pp. 73-74.
6 Ibid, p. 304.
7 “I Am That“, Book I, op.cit., pp. 91-92.
8 “I Am That“, Book II, op.cit., p. 74.
9 Ibid, pp. 304-305.
10 Ibid, pp. 198-199.
Allan, The Kingdom of God, February 23, 2014, 2:43 pm
The driving force of life is the motivation of desire. Life is nothing more or less than the desire for experience, and the search for ever-new ways in which to experience all the possibilities that life offers.
Desire stirs the waters of consciousness. The Central Sun of Awareness shines on this surface and is reflected in a myriad tiny ripples, each of which appears to be a miniature version of that sun. Yet each separate sun is illusory. Each reflection is a product of the turbulence of the water. When this disturbance ceases, each wavelet disappears, and with it the image of a separate personality.
The way to transcend the limits of experience is by renouncing the desire to experience. Since it is desire which stirs the waters of consciousness, it is the absence of desire which stills them.
The rediscovery of the Central Sun of Awareness is not the fruit of desire, but the absence of desire. It is by voluntarily relinquishing the desire for individual expression that the personality becomes absorbed in the universe, just as the individual raindrop is absorbed into the amorphous sea.
By sacrificing individual existence, the personality rediscovers its universal nature. The price of surpassing all human limitation has always been to surrender individual motivation, the desire for individual experience in life.
For as long as the personality marches to the beat of an individual drum it can never experience its universal nature. It is only by voluntarily surrendering the desire to be a person that the personality submerges into the infinite. Individual identity is lost forever, but Universal Awareness is regained.
It was this message of redemption through personal self-sacrifice that was the central feature of the life of the Christ.
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life will lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16: 24-25)
“He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” (John 12: 25)
The cross which Jesus bade his disciples take up was not mere death of the physical body. It was the ultimate sacrifice of the personality; the voluntary relinquishment of individual existence, for it was this self-sacrifice which opened the doors of redemption, by resurrecting the soul in eternal life.
As Jesus himself proclaimed, he was the way to eternal life, and his life was the pathway to everlasting Truth.
“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” (John 14: 6)
The soul that strives for personal expression is bound to the cycle of rebirth. The individual appears to undergo a series of incarnations which always ends in death. It is only the soul that has voluntarily surrendered individual existence that transcends the power of death and is born no more. It takes off its mortal garb to don the cloak of immortality.
The purpose of Jesus’ life was to reveal the good news of the joy of illimitable freedom which lay beyond all mental thinking and intellectual understanding.
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)
This common refrain has been told by Sages throughout the ages. Their message has been simple. Reality exists. Furthermore, this Reality exists within the heart of every individual, manifesting as the “I am” presence within.
Those who are prepared to break the chains which bind them, can experience this Reality in a dynamic fullness of expression that transcends all limitations, and is resplendent with inexpressible joy.
In spite of the various ways in which this message has been repeated, it still falls strangely on Western ears. Most Westerners not only cannot conceive of such a Reality, but instinctively seem to mistrust those who claim to have experienced it directly.
This problem has been neatly summarised in a discussion with the 20th century Indian Sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
“The Westerners who occasionally come to see you are faced with a peculiar difficulty. The very notion of a liberated man, a realized man, a self-knower, a God knower, a man beyond the world, is unknown to them. All they have in their Christian culture is the idea of a saint – a pious man, law abiding, God-fearing, fellow-loving, prayerful, sometimes prone to ecstasies and confirmed by a few miracles. The very idea of a gnani (enlightened being) is foreign to western culture, something exotic and rather unbelievable. Even when his existence is accepted, he is looked at with suspicion, as a case of self-induced euphoria caused by strange physical postures and mental attitudes. The very idea of a new dimension in consciousness seems to them implausible and improbable.” 1
This gospel of triumphant liberation has been echoed from generation to generation. It was the same good news which Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj conveyed to the young Maruti, who was later to become Nisargadatta Maharaj.
But whereas most hearers of this message have preferred to ignore it, Maruti actually made these words the ally of his heart. Within the space of three short years, he had shed the last vestiges of individual existence, and become absorbed in that blissful state which transcends all definitions and limitations. He described how this transformation came about.
“My Guru showed me my true nature – and the true nature of the world. Having realised that I am one with and yet beyond the world, I became free from all desire and fear. I did not reason out that I should be free – I found myself free – unexpectedly, without the least effort. This freedom from desire and fear has remained with me since then. Another thing I noticed was that I did not need to make an effort; the deed followed the thought without delay and friction. I have also found that thoughts became self-fulfilling; things would fall in place smoothly and rightly. The main change was in the mind; it became motionless and silent, responding quickly but not perpetuating the response. Spontaneity became a way of life, the real became natural and the natural became real. And above all, infinite affection, love, dark and quiet, radiating in all directions, embracing all, making all interesting and beautiful, significant and auspicious.” 2
Nisargadatta Maharaj followed the inward spiral of the sensation of the “I am”, pursuing this thread remorselessly until he found himself at the heart of Reality. In achieving this crown of enlightenment, he had first to conquer the Minotaur of desire, thus snapping the links of those chains which had bound him to phenomenal existence.
When the thread which creates the entire universe is followed to its source, it ends in the emptiness of the Void. The heart of the “I am” yields nothing but emptiness. Yet it is an emptiness that contains the fullness of all created life.
To reach the fountain of Supreme Truth, it is necessary to transcend the Void, that Ungrund of outer darkness which shields the inner light. Those who finally reach this inmost Sanctuary, have to pass through that ring of darkness which St John of the Cross has called “the dark night of the soul”.
These who persist in their efforts to cross over to the farther shore, however, find a joy that is beyond all telling. It is living at its most abundant, unlimited and without end.
The idea that there can be life beyond the nihilism, emptiness and darkness of personal extinction, defies the intellectual mind. We simply cannot comprehend life other than through our customary conscious experience.
The difficulty which confronts the mind is that it attempts to form a concept of illimitable experience. This attempt is doomed to failure. The limited mind is quite unable to conceive of an experience that is without any form of limitation. All words fail in their efforts to describe it. No concept, no matter how subtle, can define it.
Visitors to Maharaj constantly sought to reduce the essence of his state to a mental concept, attempting to capture the unknown within the parameters of the known, as we can see from the following conversations:
Maharaj: “I know myself as I am in reality. I am neither the body nor the mind nor the mental faculties. I am beyond all this.
Question: Are you just nothing?
Maharaj: Come on, be reasonable. Of course I am, most tangibly. Only I am not what you think me to be. This tells you all.
Question: It tells me nothing.
Maharaj: Because it cannot be told. You must gain your own experience. You are accustomed to deal with things, physical and mental. I am not a thing, nor are you. We are neither matter nor energy, neither body nor mind. Once you have a glimpse of your own being, you will not find me difficult to understand.” 3
Like the following questioner, we find it paradoxical to think of unlimited being which is capable of expressing itself in limited form. We are caught in this conflict of logic, due to the limitations of our mental powers of reasoning.
Question: “I have understood that personality is an illusion, and alert detachment without loss of identity is our point of contact with the reality. Will you, please, tell me at this moment are you a person or a self-aware identity?
Maharaj: I am both. But the real self cannot be described except in terms supplied by the person, in terms of what I am not. All you can tell about the person is not the self and you can tell nothing about the self which would not refer to the person, as it is, as it could be, as it should be. All attributes are personal. The real is beyond all attributes.
Question: Are you sometimes the self and sometimes the person?
Maharaj: How can I be? The person is what I appear to be to other persons. To myself I am the infinite expanse of consciousness in which innumerable persons emerge and disappear in endless succession.
Question: How is it that the person which to you is quite illusory, appears real to us?
Maharaj: You, the self, being the root of all being, consciousness and joy, impart your reality to whatever you perceive. This imparting of reality takes place invariably in the now, at no other time, because past and future are only in the mind. ‘Being’ applies to the now only.” 4
Yet the mind still struggles with these mental contradictions. Not only do we wrestle with the difficulty of unlimited expression intertwined with limited form, but there is also the problem of Absolute Awareness apparently confined within limited consciousness.
Question: “You say you are the silent witness and also you are beyond consciousness. Is there no contradiction in it? If you are beyond consciousness, what are you witnessing to?
Maharaj: I am conscious and unconscious, both conscious and unconscious, neither conscious nor unconscious – to all this I am witness – but really there is no witness, because there is nothing to be witness to. I am perfectly empty of all mental formations, void of mind yet fully aware. This I try to express in saying I am beyond the mind.
Question: How can I reach you then?
Maharaj: Be aware of being conscious and seek the source of consciousness. That is all. Very little can be conveyed in words. It is the doing as I tell you that will bring light, not my telling you. The means do not matter much; it is the desire, the urge, the earnestness that count.” 5
Yet the desire to eat of this divine confection is countered by the fear that we might not like its taste. Anxious to forestall this possibility, we attempt to derive beforehand an idea of what it is we may finally hope to achieve. Even though we can acknowledge the limitation of the mind, we nevertheless resolutely seek to reduce Reality to corporeality, and so dress the illimitable in clothes of thought, before deciding whether it really is worth striving for.
Maharaj explains the distinction between corporeality and Reality.
“I see as you see, hear as you hear, taste as you taste, eat as you eat. I also feel thirst and hunger and expect my food to be served on time. When starved or sick, my body and mind go weak. All this I perceive quite clearly, but somehow I am not in it. I feel myself as if floating over it, aloof and detached. Even not aloof and detached. There is aloofness and detachment as there is thirst and hunger; there is also the awareness of it all and a sense of immense distance, as if the body and the mind and all that happens to them were somehow far out on the horizon. I am like a screen – clear and empty – the pictures pass over it and disappear, leaving it as clear and empty as before.” 6
Having severed the knot of identity which strings images together in consciousness, the Sage does not react to these images from the standpoint of personality. They come and they go, and there is no desire to link successive images. Yet from the viewpoint of the observer, the Sage continues to act and speak just like a normal, rational human being.
Question: “When I ask a question and you answer, what exactly happens?
Maharaj: The question and the answer – both appear on the screen. The lips move, the body speaks and again the screen is clear and empty.
Question: When you say clear and empty, what do you mean?
Maharaj: I mean free of all contents. To myself I am neither perceivable nor conceivable; there is nothing I can point out and say: ‘this I am’. You identify yourself with everything so easily; I find it impossible. The feeling: ‘I am not this or that, nor is anything mine is so strong in me that as soon as a thing or thought appears, there comes at once the sense ‘this I am not’.
Question: Do you mean to say that you spend your time repeating ‘this I am not, that I am not’?
Maharaj: Of course not. I am merely verbalizing for your sake. By the grace of my Guru I have realized once and for all that I am neither object nor subject and I do not need to remind myself all the time.
Question: I find it hard to grasp what exactly you mean by saying that you are neither the object nor the subject. At this very moment, as we talk, am I not the object of your experience, and you the subject?
Maharaj: Look, my thumb touches my forefinger. Both touch and are touched. When my attention is on the thumb, the thumb is the feeler and the forefinger – the self. Shift the focus of attention and the relationship is reversed. I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I become the very thing I look at and experience the kind of consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness – love; you may give it any name you like. Love says: ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says: ‘I am nothing.’ Between the two my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both and neither and beyond.” 7
References:
1 “I Am That”, Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, translated by Maurice Frydman, Book I, Chetana, Bombay, 1973, pp. 191-192.
2 “I Am That“, Book II, op. cit., p. 10.
3 Ibid, p. 46.
4 Ibid, p. 302.
5 Ibid, p. 75.
6 Ibid, p. 8.
7 Ibid, pp. 8-9.
Allan, The Kingdom of God, February 9, 2014, 4:00 pm
Five centuries after the “Light of Asia” had spread his message of compassion and freedom to all those tormented by suffering, a son was born to a young couple in Judaea.
The boy’s name was Jesus, and he was raised in Nazareth near the Sea of Galilee, where his father was a carpenter. Little is known of his early childhood, but the boy expressed a strong interest in the religious beliefs of his people.
At the age of twelve, when his parents went up to Jerusalem to celebrate the annual feast of the Passover, he was found in the temple, listening to learned scholars and asking them questions. He showed a precocious grasp of spiritual matters that amazed his elders.
“And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.” (Luke 2:47)
Nothing further is recorded in the Bible of his progress until about the age of thirty, when he travelled from Galilee to the river Jordan, to be baptised by a desert prophet by the name of John.
When Jesus had been baptised by John, he retreated into the wilderness, where he fasted for a period of forty days and nights. During this time he was assailed by the same inner conflict which had challenged Gautama in his meditative repose beneath the Bodhi tree.
Gautama had been tormented by Mara, the Tempter, who had offered him the prize of worldly gratification and power, if he rejected the call of Brahma Sahampati, to sacrifice his identity in the universal source of all being. Likewise, Jesus was tempted by Satan, who offered him undreamed of wealth and worldly power.
In rejecting this glorification of the personal self, Jesus emerged from the wilderness as a being transformed, radiant with transcendent understanding. He was no longer Jesus the man, but the “Christ”, the “Anointed One”.
He was no longer a man born in time and limited to a particular face and form. He was the Absolute itself – eternally present, beyond space and time. As Jesus later announced to those Jews who ridiculed him because he claimed that Abraham had rejoiced to see his day:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58)
Like the Buddha before him, the Christ preached a message of joy and freedom to all who would listen. His message was the gospel, or good news, that men and women could overcome the bondage of pain, suffering and death, and live a life of eternal freedom. As his disciple John later recorded of his mission:
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)
Speaking on the Mount of Olives, Jesus told the throng that had assembled around him:
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8: 32)
Jesus ministered to a very different society than had the Buddha. There was no long tradition of subtle philosophic thought in Israel at that time, as there had been in Asia.
The Jews were a hardy people, dominated by the rigorous demands of life in subjection to a foreign power. For this reason, Jesus conveyed his gospel by means of parables, simple stories which could easily be understood by untutored people.
For Transcendental Reality, Jesus chose the metaphor of the Kingdom of God. In its immanent aspect, as the unmanifest source of all, which the Rishis had called Brahman, Jesus used the symbol of the Father.
In its manifested aspect, resident in the heart of all creation as the “I am” principle, which the Rishis had called Atman, Jesus adopted the symbol of the Son. These twin, or complementary, aspects of God were fused together in Jesus into one indivisible whole.
In Jesus, the Father and the Son were united in a mystic “at-one-ment.” As he was to announce to those who came to hear him preach: “I and my Father are one.” (John 10: 30) There could no longer be any possibility of the Son acting independently of the Father. For, as he challenged those who doubted:
“Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” (John 14: 10)
In uniting his former individuality with the Absolute Reality, Jesus had not only conquered all forms of material limitation, but physical death as well. Having attained the Kingdom of God himself, he was the living proof that it could be achieved by others.
But this Kingdom of God was not some remote state which lay beyond the portals of death. It was the Atman, or “I am” principle, which existed in the heart of every person.
So when the Pharisees wanted to know where the Kingdom of God that he spoke about was located, Jesus replied that this was not something that could be seen or experienced outwardly, but was rather something that existed inside every person.
“And when the Pharisees had demanded of Him when the Kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, ‘The Kingdom of God cometh not with outward show’. Neither shall they say, ‘Lo, it is here!’ or ‘Lo, it is there!’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17: 20,21)
Anyone was free to achieve this union of the individuality with the Absolute. However, there was one condition that was essential to its attainment. The person had to be “born again”. For as Jesus explained to Nicodemus, a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin:
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God“. (John 3: 3)
Each person had to conquer their individual ego and renounce desire. For those who would follow Jesus and attain the Kingdom of God, it was necessary to follow the path that Jesus himself had taken.
Those who chose to direct their lives according to the desires of their own hearts would be doomed to die. In order to reach the Universal State, one had to be willing to surrender one’s own individual desires, and submit to the will of the Father. As St. Matthew recorded:
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16: 24-25)
Yet in spite of the fact that it was necessary to sacrifice one’s personality upon that cross before one could attain the Kingdom of God, this was to Jesus a goal that was to be prized above all other things in life.
He likened it to a treasure hidden in a field, “which, when a man hath found, he hideth; and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field.” (Matthew 13 : 44)
Or again, it was like “a pearl of great price” that was worth selling everything in order to possess it. The nature of this Transcendent Reality, the Kingdom of God, was resplendent beyond all imagining. It was “that peace which passeth all understanding.”
The force of the words spoken by the Rishis of old, by Lao Tzu, Gautama the Buddha and Jesus the Christ, is undiminished, notwithstanding the long centuries that have unrolled since they trod the earth.
Yet our understanding of their simple message has been clouded by a host of conflicting translations, and a multitude of different interpretations of their words. The result has been that followers of these faiths have been split into numerous different sects and factions, with each one emphasizing some particular aspect of their teachings, and with each believing that they alone have captured the true essence of the message.
There is one sad footnote to the gospel of Jesus. Despite the passage of almost two thousand years, there is no record in the history of Christianity of a single person achieving this Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke about, while still retaining human flesh. In other words, Christianity has so far failed to produce another Christ.
Yet within the history of the religions of the East, this has happened many thousands of times. In India, such has been the vitality of the religious culture of the nation, and such the passion with which Indians have continued to seek these lofty goals, that new Rishis have been crowned in every generation. And each new enlightened being has served to validate and interpret anew the ancient wisdom of the Vedas.
Every succeeding Sage has been both a witness to the divine nature of man, and an example of the mystical union that can be won, regardless of the prevailing circumstances of the times. And as social conditions have changed, so has the guidance which these new Sages have dispensed to their own generation of seekers.
Enlightened masters have walked the soil of India in the twentieth century along each of the paths laid down by the early Rishis. And while there have been some liberated Sages who have avoided publicity and remained obscure, there have been others who have lived their lives in the full glare of worldly fame.
They have attracted vast legions of followers from every part of the earth, as we shall see in the following instalment.
Allan, The Kingdom of God, January 27, 2014, 1:04 pm
Mankind’s search for God is perhaps as old as humanity itself. It was undoubtedly prompted initially by the wonder of the unknown, and the desire to find meaning in life’s mysteries. The origins of metaphysics lie much farther back in time than those of physical science, which began with the stirrings of the Hellenistic mind over twenty-five centuries ago.
Yet at a time when the Greek civilisation had not yet dawned, there already existed an ancient tradition of wisdom which had been discovered and guarded by an Indian lineage of Rishis, or enlightened Seers.
These Rishis had acquired a personal insight into the true nature of God, by means of direct experience and revelation. These revelatory insights were initially passed directly from master to pupil by word of mouth. These hidden truths were later systematised into a form of philosophy that was transmitted orally from generation to generation.
After many centuries, these oral teachings were reduced to writing, and became the core of the literary spiritual tradition of India. While the identities of the earliest Rishis have long since been forgotten, their codified teachings have been incorporated into these written works, which now comprise some one hundred thousand couplets.
These couplets of philosophical truth have come to be known collectively as the Vedas, which is a term based upon the Sanskrit root “Vid” meaning “to know.” This Vedic knowledge was divided into four major books, which were titled the Rig-Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Veda and the Atharva-Veda.
These classical works represented the timeless wisdom of the earliest Rishis. A couplet in chapter ten of the Rig-Veda ascribed their origin simply to a divine source. Each book was divided into two sections. One section dealt with various practical rules of living, and included prayers, hymns, rituals and rules of conduct.
The latter part of each book was concerned with the sacred knowledge of the origin of humanity and the true nature of reality. These latter portions of each of the four books became known as the Upanishads. They were secret teachings which were only to be revealed to those who were deemed fit to receive them.
Because the central wisdom of these four books had been incorporated into their latter portions, this was referred to as Vedanta, based on the Sanskrit word “anta”, meaning “end” or “purpose”. Thus Vedanta represented the essence of the teachings of these four books.
It also represented the purpose for which these sacred teachings had been recorded, which was to pass on the secret insights of the Rishis. While Vedanta was the term used initially to refer to those teachings within the four classic books, it later came to embrace other related works and commentaries.
The central teaching of the Vedas was that there existed one single, eternal, immanent Reality, which we refer to as God, that was the source of all creation. They called this Reality Brahman. This Brahman could not be described in words because it was beyond all mental attributes.
Brahman was considered to be unchanging, in spite of the continual changes of the phenomenal universe. It was held to be the source of the manifested world, being its substratum or foundation, but was completely unaffected by the constant ebb and flow of creation.
The Vedas went on to teach that this absolute principle of Brahman was not something that was remote from mankind and unobtainable. Instead, this Reality manifested itself within the heart of every person in the guise of the “I am” sensation.
This “I am” sensation was called Atman. Atman and Brahman were therefore twin aspects of the same Reality. Atman was thus the Supreme Self residing in the heart of all creatures, that manifested itself as the “I am” presence within.
Because Atman was the secret source of every living being, and at the same time formed an indivisible part of Brahman, this absolute Reality (or God) could be directly experienced by any man or woman, simply by following the thread of the “I am” sensation within.
This awakening irrevocably changed the character of the individual concerned. The individual no longer continued to exist in personal form, and was freed from all of the outward manifestations of the universe, such as matter, energy, space and time. Instead, it experienced the dissolution of the personality in a mystical union with Atman-Brahman.
The individual person became transformed into an expression of life that was eternally free from all limitations. His or her former individuality blended into the Absolute, just as a stream would flow into the sea, evermore losing its former existence and character.
The Upanishads, or secret portions of the Vedas, were devoted to describing the various ways in which this mystical union could be attained. They urged men and women everywhere, regardless of caste or creed, to discover their real natures, and to strive for the final goal of union with the Godhead within themselves.
Throughout the last three thousand years, the Vedas have continued to focus Indian thought upon the Absolute, and to guide those who wished to devote their lives to this purpose, towards the experience of union with Atman-Brahman.
Although the Absolute could not be defined as having any attributes, the actual experience of this union was characterised by the very nature of the Absolute itself. Its nature was described as Sat-Chit-Ananda. Sat represented absolute existence. Chit was absolute consciousness, and Ananda absolute bliss.
The good news was that Brahman-Atman could be experienced by any person who truly wanted it. According to the Vedas, there was only one condition that was necessary to put on this cloak of immortality. One had to break the chains of personal desire.
“When all desires dwelling in the heart cease, then the mortal becomes immortal and attains Brahman here.” Katha-Upanishad 1
“The wise freed (from the sense! and from mortal desires) after leaving this world, become immortal.” Kena-Upanishad 2
“Let a Brahmana (God-seeker), after having examined all these words attained through Karma-Marga (sacrifices and good deeds), become free from all desires; realizing that the Eternal cannot be gained by the non-eternal.” Mundaka-Upanishad 3
The extraordinary impact which the Vedas have had upon the collective mind of India, is evidenced by the fact that these teachings have continued to draw people in search of the Absolute along these time-worn paths, from hoariest antiquity right up to the present day.
At a time when India was dominated by the philosophy of the Vedas and rejuvenated by the living examples of its Rishis, China came under the influence of an extraordinary man.
He was born in the seventh century before Christ, and from this vast perspective in time, can only be discerned as a shadowy historical figure. But while the exact details of his life are veiled in obscurity, the impact of his teachings upon the people of China has been profound.
The name given to this man was Lao Tzu, which is the Chinese equivalent of “old master”. This name may therefore have been a title of honour which was later bestowed upon him.
The details of Lao Tzu’s life lie shrouded in legend. He was thought to have been a member of the Imperial Court who lived most of his life as a hermit in the State of Chou. At an advanced age he was said to have undertaken a journey to the west and, having crossed the frontier, was never seen again.
Lao Tzu has come to be regarded as the founder of Taoism, and is reputed to have been the author of a series of enigmatic sayings that have been incorporated into a book known as the Tao Te Ching, or the “Book of the Way”.
In these paradoxical aphorisms, Lao Tzu expressed a lofty philosophy based on the concept of Tao, the all-embracing principle of Reality. For Lao Tzu, Tao was the root and source of all creation. Heaven and earth were its garments, yet it remained immutable amid the changing fortunes of life.
No words could describe its true nature, which was beyond the capacity of the human mind to understand. Referring to Tao, Lao Tzu confessed:
“The Tao which can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao; the name which can be uttered is not its eternal name.” 4
For Lao Tzu, Tao was the mysterious source of all creation.
“How unfathomable is Tao! It seems to be the ancestral progenitor of all things.
Oh, how still it is, and formless, standing alone without changing, reaching everywhere without suffering harm. It must be regarded as the Mother of the Universe. Its name I know not. To designate it, I call it Tao.”
“Ceaseless in action, it cannot be named, but returns again to nothingness. We may call it the form of the formless, the image of the imageless, the fleeting and the indeterminable.” 4
We can see how closely Lao Tzu’s idea of Tao paralleled the Vedic concept of Atman-Brahman. The spiritual essence of humanity, which the ancient Rishis had called Atman, was also recognised by Lao Tzu to be an indivisible part of Tao. It could not be separated from the outward world of matter and form.
“These two things, the spiritual and the material, though we call them by different names, in their origin are one and the same. This sameness is a mystery – the mystery of mysteries. It is the gate of all wonders.” 4
For Lao Tzu, matter and spirit were indivisible and complementary aspects of the single principle of Tao. While Tao was something which defied description, it was recognised to be the foundation as well as the very nature of matter, energy and form.
“Tao in itself is vague, impalpable – how impalpable, how vague! Yet within it there is Form. How vague, how impalpable! Yet within it there is substance. How profound, how obscure! Yet within it there is a Vital Principle. This principle is the Quintessence of Reality, and out of it comes Truth.” 4
Tao was therefore an Absolute principle that was able to create life and form without effort or purpose. Tao remained ever in perfect peace, yet was the active source of all creation. Lao Tzu saw, as the highest goal of mankind, the attainment of union with this Tao.
Lao Tzu’s contribution towards Chinese thought was not only that he taught the existence of an Absolute principle, but also that it lay within reach of the experience of every individual. But while union with Tao was the ultimate goal of all humanity, this divine union could only be achieved on one condition. One had to forego one’s personal desires.
“Only one who is ever free from desire can apprehend its spiritual essence; he who is ever a slave to desire can see no more than its outer fringe.” 4
Some years after Lao Tzu vanished into the mountains of western China, a prince was born in the Sakya clan of northern India, in what is now Nepal. His name was Gautama Siddhartha.
Young Gautama was brought up in palatial splendour in accordance with regal tradition. His father showered him with every luxury, and shielded the young prince from all forms of adversity. He was prevented from seeing any type of sickness, sorrow or death. In due course the prince grew into adulthood, married, and had a son.
It was about the age of twenty-nine, according to tradition, that Gautama undertook his first journey beyond the palace walls. In mixing with his subjects, he was confronted for the first time by the spectre of age, and the suffering wrought by disease. His journey was climaxed by the sight of a dead man.
Stricken by the sight of so much suffering, Gautama felt a sense of revulsion at the life of luxury that he had lived up to that time. He felt impelled to save himself from the tragedy of suffering, and to discover the mystery of its meaning.
Despite the strong emotional ties that still bound him to his family, legend has it that he looked down at the sleeping form of his baby son, Rahula, and exclaimed: “This is yet another tie which I must break”.
Leaving the palace secretly, he set forth as a penniless hermit, rejecting all worldly wealth and status. Gautama was joined in his search for enlightenment by five monks. Together they adopted a path of extreme austerity, believing that the mortification of the flesh was indispensable to the holy life.
But bodily torture brought no peace or insight to Gautama, and after six years of intense physical denial, it seemed to him that the fruits of understanding could never be purchased by the coin of physical suffering. He resolved to give up his austere path. His fellow monks mocked him for his weakness in renouncing his former path, and abandoned him to his solitude.
Gautama had reached a critical point in his spiritual quest. Consumed by his fervent desire for enlightenment, he committed himself to unbroken meditation, determined not to cease his efforts until he had gained inner illumination.
It was at Uruvela, now known as Buddh Gaya, a city in northern India, that Gautama finally achieved his goal. The peepul tree under which he sat for so long was renamed the Bodhi tree, the tree of wisdom, in honour of that event. For in the course of his intense, inner meditations, Gautama had become the “Buddha”, the “Enlightened”, or “Awakened One”.
Gautama had not merely won an empty intellectual battle. He had achieved a total inner transformation. He was seized with the rapture of liberation. He reflected this joy in one of his famous stanzas of the Dhammapada:
“I have gone round in vain the cycle of many lives ever striving to find the builder of the house of life and death. How great is the sorrow of life that must die! But now I have seen thee, housebuilder: never more shalt thou build this house. The rafters of sins are broken, the ridge-pole of ignorance is destroyed. The fever of craving is past: for my mortal mind is gone to the joy of the immortal Nirvana.” (Verses 153-4) 5
The word Nirvana, drawn from its Sanskrit roots of Va “to blow”, and Nis, meaning “out”, represented the final dissolution or extinction of the flame of individual life. It was the emancipation of life, and union with the Supreme Spirit.
In its reference to extinction, however, Nirvana has often been gravely misinterpreted by western minds, who have regarded it as a sort of melancholy nihilism. A sense of the severe self-denial and misery suffered by the mendicant Gautama still clings to the modern interpretation of the word.
Referring to this misconception, Lama Anagarika Govinda wrote:
“Partly under the influence of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, partly due to the materialistic outlook of science at the beginning of this (20th) century, there arose the impression that Buddhism was either a pessimistic kind of philosophy or a life-negating form of rationalism. Both these views forget that Buddhism was not founded on an intellectual theory, but on an experience of overwhelming power. Nirvana, thus, is not the annihilation of individual life, as generally assumed, but something that can be experienced in this very life, as demonstrated by the Buddha himself.” 6
The individual soul of Gautama Siddhartha had been absorbed into the Glory of the Absolute. As Sir Edwin Arnold described it, “the dewdrop had slipped into the shining sea.”
For the Buddha, this Absolute Reality was beyond description, No thought, word or quality could serve to clothe its mysterious being. It could only be described as Sunyata, the void or emptiness, or Tathata, simply translated as “suchness”. The Chinese master Seng-tsan referred to Tathata in the following words:
“In the higher realm of true Suchness
There is neither “self” nor “other”:
When direct identification is sought,
We can only say, “Not two“. 7
As the modern interpreter of Buddhism D.T. Suzuki has pointed out:
“Empty”(sunya) or “emptiness” (sunyata) is one of the most important notions in Mahayana philosophy and at the same time the most puzzling for non-Buddhist readers to comprehend. Emptiness does not mean “relativity”, or “phenomenality”, or “nothingness”, but rather means the Absolute. When Buddhists declare all things to be empty, they are not advocating a nihilistic view; on the contrary an ultimate reality is hinted at, which cannot be subsumed under the categories of logic. Sunyata may thus often be most appropriately rendered by the Absolute.” 8
The Buddha was himself a witness to that state which transcended all physical limitations. He had attained that Absolute State which was the foundation of all life. Because he had achieved it, it was possible for all men and women to attain this too, and so escape the wheel of suffering.
There was, however, one condition that was crucial for this attainment of Reality. It was necessary to sacrifice one’s personal desires.
“If a man watches not for Nirvana, his cravings grow like a creeper and he jumps from death to death like a monkey in the forest from one tree without fruit to another. And when his cravings overcome him, his sorrows increase more and more, like the entangling creeper called birana. But whoever in this world overcomes his selfish cravings, his sorrows fall away from him, like drops of water from a lotus flower. Therefore in love I tell you, to you all who have come here: cut off the bonds of desires. (Verses 334-337) 9
References:
1 “The Upanishads“, translated by Swami Paramananda, Vedanta Centre, Cohasset, 1981, p. 91.
2 Ibid, p. 98.
3 Ibid, pp. 128-129.
4 “The Sayings of Lao Tzu“, translated by Lionel Giles, John Murray, London, 1905, pp. 20-22.
5 “The Dhammapada“, translated by John Mascaro, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, pp. 56-57.
6 Lama Anagarika Govinda, “Enlightenment of Buddha Sakyamuni“, “The Mountain Path”, Vol.15, No.1, January, 1978, pp. 18-19.
7 D.T. Suzuki, “Manual of Zen Buddhism“, Rider, London, 1983, p. 81.
8 Ibid, p. 29.
9 “The Dhammapada”, op.cit., p. 83.
Allan, The Kingdom of God, January 13, 2014, 9:50 am
The paradoxical truth that has been taught through the centuries by the founders of religion and enlightened Sages, is that peace and justice are the fruits of “inaction”, not of action. The way to overcome evil is not by resisting it, but by not resisting it.
We may liken evil to the roiling waters of a stormy lake. When the waters of the lake are rough with turbulence, our efforts to suppress evil are like the legendary attempts of King Canute, who tried to beat the waves into submission.
Every act of striking the water merely adds to its turbulence. We can never restore calm by beating the waves. However, if we do nothing, the waves will subside of their own accord.
As Lao Tzu states in the Tao Te Ching, “Who is there who can make the muddy water clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually become clear of itself.” 1 “It is the way of Heaven not to strive, and yet it knows how to overcome.” 2 “Perfect virtue is inactive, having no need to act.” 3
In counselling others, he entreated: “Practise inaction, occupy yourself with doing nothing. Practise inaction, and there is nothing that cannot be done. Leave all things to take their natural course, and do not interfere.” 4
Lao Tzu’s compatriot Confucius also spoke of the virtues of inaction. “The wise take delight in water; Manhood-at-its-best delights in mountains. The wise are active; Manhood-at-its-best is quiet.” 5
The “wise” man of today assesses a problem by means of intellect, and initiates actions that are designed to counteract the problem. The underlying difficulty however, is that it is the mind of the “wise” man that is itself the problem, and therefore any course of action simply contaminates that situation.
The Sage, by contrast, does not initiate action as a result of deliberate thought. The Sage, being at one with all of creation, serves the deepest needs of creation by the mere resonance of Being, as we see from the following conversation with the 20th Century Indian Sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
Question: “How does the gnani (enlightened being) proceed when he needs something to be done? Does he make plans, decide about details and execute them?
Maharaj: “A gnani understands a situation fully and knows at once what needs to be done. That is all. The rest happens by itself, and to a large extent unconsciously. The gnani’s identity with all that is so complete, that as he responds to the universe, so does the universe respond to him”.
“He is supremely confident that once a situation has been cognized, events will move in adequate response. The ordinary man is personally concerned. He counts his risks and chances, while the gnani remains aloof, sure that all will happen as it must; and it does not matter much what happens, for ultimately the return to balance and harmony is inevitable. The heart of things is at peace.” 6
Being rooted in Transcendent Peace, the Sage’s actions automatically serve to restore this peace, even though there is no conscious effort to do so. The “inaction” spoken of by the Sage should not be misinterpreted as idleness, nor is this “inaction” the “absence of action”.
“Inaction”, as it is referred to in the Hindu classics, is action without motive. The Sage acts without the express intention of influencing affairs for the better. As we read in the Ashtavakra Gita:
“The mind of the freed Sage is unmarred by trouble or pleasure; it is inactive, static and desireless and also free from doubts. The mind of the Sage is free from effort whether meditating or acting. His actions and meditations are not prompted by personal motives.” 7
As Krishnamurti was fond of saying, the mind of a liberated Sage is characterised by “effortless and choiceless awareness”.
The Sage does not seek to impose his will. In a world dominated by purpose and motivated by action, it may seem impossible to imagine action without a motive. Motiveless action, or inaction, is however the inevitable fruit of self-sacrifice. It was that sacrifice which allowed the Christ to say “Not my will, but thine be done.” (Luke 22: 42)
A person who has sacrificed his or her personal self becomes transformed within. It is a transformation that is charged with power. This inner transformation leads mysteriously, but naturally, to outer transformation, without the least effort or motivation to do so.
Whatever effort is consciously expended to induce peace or happiness in the world is bound to fail. Peace is not the reward of effort. It is the perfume that radiates from the mere presence of the flower of inaction. It is through “not acting” that this inner transformation occurs, and which leads inevitably to outer reform. As Maharaj advises:
“Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realization that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you. With this will come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable.” 8
Ramana Maharshi warned that it was the discrimination between right and wrong that was the true origin of sin.
“One’s own sin is reflected outside and the individual in ignorance superimposes it upon another. The best course for one is to reach the state in which such discrimination does not arise. Moreover, however much you may advise them, your hearers may not rectify themselves. Be in the right yourself and remain silent. Your silence will have more effect than your words or deeds.” 9
Again, when asked the best way in which to work for world peace, the Maharshi replied:
“What is the world? What is peace and who is the worker? Peace is the absence of disturbance. The disturbance is due to the arising of thoughts in the individual, who is only the ego arising up from Pure Consciousness. To bring about peace means to be free from thoughts and to abide as Pure Consciousness. If one remains at peace oneself, there is peace all about.” 10
Peace, goodness, happiness and virtue are not goals that can be attained by the action of desire. While we may certainly desire happiness and peace, such blessings can never be won by motivated action. They blossom of their own accord when the conditions are appropriate. These conditions have always been non-interference and non-resistance.
As Maharaj has confirmed, “They manifest spontaneously and effortlessly, when things are left to themselves, and are not interfered with, not shunned or wanted or conceptualised, but just experienced in full awareness.” 11
The images and events of this world are projections upon our screen of consciousness. If we don’t like the pictures that we see projected in consciousness, the answer is to change the contents of our mind that is doing the projecting.
When we look at cinematic images, we may be outraged at the violence and horror that we see portrayed upon the screen. Yet we recognise that these projections are simply part of the film itself. If we don’t like the pictures, the answer is to change the film, not attack the screen on which these images are projected.
It is the person who renounces the desire to help the world who does the most to improve it. He or she is the truly charitable person.
“Find yourself first,” says the Maharshi, “and endless blessings will follow. Nothing profits the world as much as the abandoning of profits. A man who no longer thinks in terms of loss or gain is the truly non-violent man, for he is beyond all conflict.” 12
“Be free first of suffering yourself and then only hope of helping others. You do not even need to hope – your very existence will be the greatest help a man can give his fellowmen.” 13
We imagine that results can only follow from direct action, and that cruelties, violence and war must be attacked by resolute action if peace and harmony are to be achieved. What we fail to see is that each one of us is an integral part of the entire universe. Every action on our part has its counterpart in the universe we see around us.
When we reform ourselves, the world itself becomes reformed, whether we are conscious of it or not. This is the true process of reform.
“There are people in the world”, notes Maharaj,” who do more good than all the statesmen and philanthropists put together. They radiate light and peace with no intention or knowledge. When others tell them about the miracles they worked, they also are wonderstruck. Yet taking nothing as their own, they are neither proud nor do they crave for reputation. They are just unable to desire anything for themselves, not even the joy of helping others. They know that God is good and are at peace.” 14
The presence of enlightened souls transforms the lives of all those with whom they come in contact, not because of any inherent desire to do so, but through the resplendent nature of their Being. Just as shadows are banished by the light of the sun, so do the stains of the mind vanish in the presence of this Transcendent Reality.
When Confucius expressed the wish to live among some degenerate tribes, his followers remonstrated with him. “What about their crudeness?” they exclaimed. The Chinese Sage replied: “If Great Man were living among them, how could they be crude? His very presence would alter all that.” 15
The true message of reform has been passed from generation to generation. Those who seek to achieve social reform must first submit to self-reform.
And in every generation this advice is spurned. For self-reform is a painful process. The soul is torn upon the rack of suffering before it can win its crown of peace, and experience the soaring joy of redemption. Far better say we, and quicker too, to strive for temporal power, and then use that power to compel others to reform.
Throughout long centuries of travail, men and women have selected this path of folly. The banner of ignorance flies today from all the standards of the world. Despite the evidence of sorrow and despair which these attempts have wrought in every age, we remain locked in the conviction that we can succeed where others have failed.
We tie the noose ever more tightly around our necks, and cry out in anguish when it strangles us. Will the world be saved or will it slide into oblivion? The choice does not rest with governments or Kings. It remains where it has always been, with us as individuals.
We do not need to hold high office to initiate change. When Confucius was asked why he didn’t work in the government, he responded:
“It is said in “The Writings of Old”, ‘Filial duty! Just let there be filial duty. Then there will be kindness toward brothers, and this in turn will spread to the administration.’ This too is to be working in the government. Why must one actually hold office in order to work in the government?” 16
It is the individual actions of our daily lives that combine to make up the conditions of the universe. If we truly wish to work for benevolent change, we need to deal with those images that we alone are responsible for creating. When our hearts are changed they will spread their healing to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, whether we intend this or not. For as Maharaj has remarked:
“When more people come to know their real nature, their influence, however subtle, will prevail, and the world’s emotional atmosphere will sweeten up. People follow their leaders and when among the leaders appear some, great in heart and mind and absolutely free from self-seeking, their impact will be enough to make the crudities of the present age impossible.” 17
We believe that we are powerless to influence the vast arena of this world. The world’s problems appear so numerous and oppressive, that we wonder what we, as mere individuals, can do to overcome them. Yet we fail to reckon with the power of a transformed heart.
The people who actively transform this world for the better do not sit in Parliaments, Congresses or on thrones. They are the unheralded individuals in every land who have devoted their lives to rediscovering the True Source of their own beings. It is in the triumph of their inner revelation that the world will be renewed again, as it has been in ages past.
These new leaders of reformation are not daunted by the problems that now confront us. They are not deterred by statistics. If the light of one small candle can hold back the night, then the radiance of a single transformed soul can serve to banish the encroaching gloom.
Throughout history the Sages have borne testimony to the common experience of Transcendental Awareness that lies at the heart of life. While this source is inexpressible in its nature, it can nevertheless be approached by a thousand different paths.
Just as the spokes of a wheel all focus on the centre, and meet in the emptiness of a common hub, so all the religious paths offered to mankind lead inevitably to a single source. That source is the Supreme Reality that underlies and animates all forms.
As Lord Krishna taught his disciple Arjuna in the “Bhagavad Gita”: “However men approach me, in that same way do I show them my favour; my path men follow in all ways, 0 son of Pritha.” (Chapter 4:11) 18
This same truth is conveyed by Nisargadatta Maharaj. “Christianity is one way of putting words together and Hinduism is another. The real is, behind and beyond words, incommunicable, directly experienced, explosive in its effect on the mind.” 19
The source of the power that is capable of re-forming the world lies ever present in each one of us. It is freely available to all who seek it. Any person who has discovered the way to tap its bountiful spring will acquire the power, as Paramahansa Yogananda has pointed out, “to reform thousands.”
The price of this attainment is personal self-sacrifice. It is a price that the comfortable philanthropists and politicians of this world do not care to pay. Yet those who choose to submit find it a small burden for the extravagant blessings it confers. They draw on the power of its Resplendent Silence, which is able to transform all dreams.
Being without motive, and acting without personal desire or the hope for any reward, they work for the welfare of all life and the reformation of the world. This truth rings out through the avenues of time. The ancient wisdom of Lao Tzu soars across the centuries, addressing our modern litany of sorrow:
“But in the present day men cast off gentleness, and are all for being bold; they spurn frugality, and retain only extravagance; they discard humility, and aim only at being first. Therefore they shall surely perish. Gentleness brings victory to him who attacks, and safety to him who defends. Those whom Heaven would save, it fences around with gentleness.” 20
These are the true peacemakers of this world.
References
1 “The Sayings of Lao Tzu“, translated by Lionel Giles, John Murray, London, 1905, p. 33.
2 Ibid, pp. 24-25.
3 Ibid, p. 27.
4 Ibid, p. 35.
5 “The Sayings of Confucius“, translated by James Ware, Mentor, New York, 1955, pp. 47-48.
6 “I Am That“, Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, translated by Maurice Frydman, Book II, Chetana, Bombay, 1973, pp. 301-302.
7 “Ashtavakra Gita“, translated by H.P. Shastri, Shanti Sadan, London, 1961, p. 44.
8 “I Am That“, Book I, op.cit., pp. 3-4.
9 “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi“, Recorded by Swami Saraswathi, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, 1968, p. 429.
10 Ibid, p. 428.
11 “I Am That“, Book I, op. cit., p. 16.
12 Ibid, Book I, pp. 167-168.
13 Ibid, Book II, p. 22.
14 Ibid, Book II, p. 142.
15 “The Sayings of Confucius“, op.cit., p. 62.
16 Ibid, p. 28.
17 “I Am That“, Book II, op.cit., p. 21.
18 “The Bhagavad Gita“, translated by W. D. P. Hill, Oxford University Press, London, 1928, p. 104.
19 “I Am That“, Book II, op.cit., p. 285.
20 “The Sayings of Lao Tzu“, op.cit., p. 39.
Allan, The Peacemakers, December 30, 2013, 1:51 pm
Whenever we force other people to do what we want, for whatever reason, violence begins. The problem is that all force generates resistance, and it is this inner resistance that ultimately manifests in the form of outward violence. It matters not what our motives are, whether noble or altruistic.
The moment we choose to impose our will on others, we have adopted the path of violence.
This violence escalates, infecting and affecting all those with whom we come in contact. In our desire to gain our own ends in life we are the instigators of violence, no matter how much we may try to justify our actions.
Violence always begins at the level of the individual. Individuals coerce other individuals, leading societies to seek to compel other societies, until a state of outward hostility arises. The source of this aggression rests ultimately within each individual – you and I.
We impose this violence upon our society by the exercise of our personal and selfish wills. In the words of the 20th century Indian Sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
“Selfishness is always destructive. Desire and fear, both are self-centred states. Between desire and fear anger arises, with anger hatred, with hatred passion for destruction. War is hatred in action, organised and equipped with all the instruments of death.” 1
We have been lulled into believing that wars between nations are the responsibility of the governments of those nations, and that warfare is simply the result of hostile actions between the leaders of those nations.
But warfare is never just the co-incidental result of decisions taken by people in high office. It is always the culmination of a long history of violence perpetrated within society and against other societies. The root of all violence in society rests with those individuals who comprise that society.
The reason why resistance to evil fails to overcome evil, but merely entrenches it, is because it seeks to impose change from without. People cannot be compelled to change their nature. They can, however, be impelled to do so, when they have come to see the error of their ways.
The idea that the world would somehow be a safer place without weapons remains a fallacy as long as people harbour in their minds destructive thoughts. To attack individuals, nations, and governments for the weapons they possess, is to set in train a process which inevitably leads to the utilisation of those weapons.
Peace can never be won by force. Peace is not simply the absence of war, or a state of suspended hostilities. It is a condition of active harmony resident in the human heart.
The way to achieve outer peace is to cultivate inner harmony, by removing those thoughts and desires that are the true source of discord. Those who truly wish to work for peace serve it best by attending to the pacification of their unruly hearts and minds.
Yet modern humanity has little appetite for these lofty admonitions. When the full horror and extent of evil, depravity and violence assault us daily, we feel it is futile to talk of individual minds. For what is one individual able to accomplish in the face of so much evil?
The knowledge that outer salvation is the result of inner transformation may be welcome news, but we have no patience with such strategy. We invariably look for massive solutions to counter massive problems. Instinctively, we look to governments and powerful leaders to impose solutions.
What we fail to recognise is that solutions imposed by others can never resolve problems that arise within each human heart. The overall global condition is the outward manifestation of the inner state of all of its individuals. If there is ever to be a return to peaceful co-existence, it can only be the result of inner harmony within the hearts of every individual. There is no other way.
As Maharaj advises, “First of all you must attend to the way you feel, think and live. Unless there is order in yourself there can be no order in the world.” 2 He goes on to add, “Everybody makes the same mistake, refusing the means, but wanting the ends. You want peace and harmony in the world, but refuse to have them in yourself.” 3
The Sages speak unanimously to this need. We simply cannot reform our world until we are prepared to reform ourselves. For until we do so we merely broadcast our iniquities, and launch them upon the universe.
We are like the violinist who complains of a discordant orchestra, but who refuses to tune his own violin which is contributing to the noise. Yet the power of a transformed mind is enormous. It inevitably brings social reform in its train.
As the South Indian Sage Sri Ramana Maharshi has remarked, “Self-reform automatically brings about social reform. Confine yourself to self-reform. Social reform will take care of itself.” 4
According to Paramahansa Yogananda, “Utopia must spring in the private bosom before it can flower in civic virtue, inner reforms leading naturally to outer ones. A man who has reformed himself will reform thousands.” 5
There is no finer example of this in recent times than the life of the former South African President Nelson Mandela, whose death provoked an unparalleled outpouring of affection and emotion from people from all levels of society, and from all corners of the world.
Even those who had never lived in South Africa, or who had never had any personal contact with him, claimed that their lives had been transformed by the inspiration of his example in overcoming adversity, and his forgiveness towards those who had imprisoned and tormented him.
Until a person has achieved this inner reformation, however, any outward effort must inevitably add to the world’s burden of sorrow.
Our difficulty lies in the fact that we have become conditioned into thinking that we live in an objective world as revealed by our senses, and that the outward circumstances of the universe bear no relation to such ephemeral things as thoughts and emotions.
Because we fail to find a link between the one and the other, we believe that the execution of outward change must necessarily rest upon the foundation of temporal power. Almost without exception, those people who are striving to improve the world today do so from a platform of financial, political or military power.
Inevitably, great competition exists to obtain power, and having acquired it, to hold on to it. It remains our fervent belief that it is only through the exercise of power that we will be able to influence circumstances for the better. Yet those who exercise power consistently fail in their endeavours.
Having failed to reform themselves first, they are doomed in their efforts to reform others, however noble their aspirations. Peace, happiness and harmony can never be the result of a political system, however exalted its principles, if it is practised by those who would impose their ideas on others, or use the power of their office to do so.
Yet we continue to be lured by the glamour of reform. We remain convinced that everything can be changed for the better in life, if only those who are responsible for the problems of the world can be persuaded to change their behaviour in ways which conform to our own ideas. Unfortunately, our efforts merely conspire to make things worse.
We might use as an example the question of abortion. There are many millions of people in the world today who are convinced that the practice of abortion is wrong, and that the presence of this practice in society is an evil that contributes to the sorry condition of our planet.
Many base their views on the conviction that abortion is a crime of violence against the unborn child, and that as such it is a direct contravention of the divine commandment not to kill. Buttressed by their beliefs, these advocates of the right to life feel compelled to do whatever they can to rid the world of this sin.
Unfortunately, these self-appointed apostles of righteousness find themselves confronted by an equally militant group of people who hold an opposing point of view. To these people, the denial of their basic right to govern their lives according to the dictates of their own conscience, is regarded as a flagrant attack on their inherent freedom.
This is something they insist must be resisted with the utmost vehemence if the very tenets of democracy are to be sustained. Here we see the classic confrontation that is such a pervading feature of the modern world.
The sad fact is that neither party serves the cause of justice, peace or truth.
Both groups merely contribute to a heightened state of conflict by actively resisting the actions of the other. By seeking to compel their adversaries to submit, they march resolutely along the road of violence that leads only to the valley of desolation. The very nature of their conflict is bound to spawn violence and subject society to greater tribulation.
The unfortunate fact is that there can be no moral virtue in either point of view. It matters not whether we claim to speak from the Throne of God. The moment we seek to impose our views on others, we ourselves become the perpetrators of evil.
The truth is that the sins that we see manifested in the behaviour of others, are the sins that we ourselves have projected upon them. It is our own racism, prejudice and ignorance that we see reflected in the behaviour of others.
The pro-life crusaders march with slogans written in human blood. Their reforming zeal is a direct reflection of those stains that exist within their own minds. It is not the behaviour of others that is a threat to society or to peace, but the ugliness and ignorance of our own minds.
“You cannot change the image,” says Maharaj, “without changing the face. First realize that your world is but a reflection of yourself and stop finding fault with the reflection. Attend to yourself, set yourself right – mentally and emotionally. The physical will follow automatically. You talk so much of reforms: economic, social, political. Leave alone the reforms and mind the reformer. What kind of world can a man create who is stupid, greedy, heartless?” 6
The world is full of “righteous” people who claim to see clearly the faults of others, and who devote their earnest efforts towards pressurizing them to change. For these people, borne aloft on a fever of enthusiasm, any tactics or strategies are considered to be justified so long as their primary motives are held to be pure.
Yet when the very methods adopted serve to promote conflict, there is no motive that can be called pure. Their efforts must inevitably reap a harvest of violence, suffering and sorrow. This is particularly evident today among those who claim to fight discrimination, whether it be by race or creed or sex.
In their desire both to signify their revulsion for this evil, and to punish those who practise discrimination, they join marches, sign petitions, organise boycotts and contribute money and other resources, in order to bring this discrimination to an end. They sincerely believe their motives to be laudable and their efforts to be justified by their call of conscience.
Yet they remain mired in ignorance and their efforts do nothing for the cause of human liberation. By bringing more pressure to bear on those who practise discrimination, they themselves merely exercise another form of discrimination. They are no better than those they attack.
The reason why these people become so aggressive when confronted by oppression, and why they are driven to attack it so vehemently, is because the seeds of discrimination reside within their own consciousnesses.
Rather than acknowledge and overcome this discrimination at its source, within themselves, they choose instead to rail against the evils that they see reflected in the actions of others. They are the true hypocrites rejected by the Christ. Jesus warned his followers:
“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: And with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (Matthew 7:1-3)
The danger of superimposing subjective shortcomings on others was also echoed by the Buddha.
“If a man sees the sins of others and forever thinks of their faults, his own sins increase for ever and far off is he from the end of his faults.” 7
The world has reached a sorry state when the lieutenants of the Church stand in the vanguard of those who judge others, and who call for the retribution of society on those they condemn. While they claim to fight under the banner of Christ, they clearly feel little need to be bound by his words.
When Jesus walked the dusty plains of Galilee and Judea, the Jews were dominated by a foreign state that wielded absolute power, and was absolutely ruthless in its suppression of all those who challenged it. The Jews had no “human rights” that were recognised by the Romans. They had no democratic vote through which to express their feelings. Those who had the courage to defy the rule of imperial Rome were subjected to barbaric forms of torture and execution.
Yet despite these harrowing social circumstances, Jesus did not lead marches, promote insurrection or defy temporal authority. Instead, he chose to attack the source of evil in the heart of man, rather than its outer manifestation of visible oppression.
In fact, on the one occasion recorded in the gospels when Jesus was confronted with the problem of state oppression, he used the opportunity to stress the need for personal reform, rather than indulge in the folly of social resistance.
“There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, ‘Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all Galileans, because they suffered these things? I tell you, nay; but unless ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:2-3)
A large section of the Christian Church today honours Jesus in the breach, preferring instead to attack the outward appearances of evil. Thus we see the growth of militant Christianity, supporting political movements that claim to be inspired by true Christian sentiments.
These advocates of “freedom” and “justice” are themselves the instigators of oppression. They are the false prophets whom Jesus warned about, “who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.” (Matthew 7:15)
The pulpits of the church resonate with calls for social action, insisting that the practice of Christianity has no virtue unless it champions the rights of all those who are afflicted, and strives for the creation of a just society on earth. But when Jesus was brought before Pilate to account for his teachings, he replied:
“My Kingdom is not of this world. If My Kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews.” (John 18:36)
As the American naturalist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote:
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil, to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.” 8
The world stands tortured today by those who wish it well and do it ill. Thoreau saw very clearly the evil that lurks behind the mask of those who are inspired by the urge to do good to others.
“There is no odor“, he wrote in his epic essay “Walden”, “so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life“. 9
Nisargadatta Maharaj agrees. “When you deceive yourself that you work for the good of all, it makes matters worse, for you should not be guided by your own ideas of what is good for others. A man who knows what is good for others is dangerous.” 10
The problem of “doing good” is that it presupposes that one knows what is good for others. All too often this simply means compelling people to do what we think is best. But the problems we seek to alleviate are the evils of our own minds that are superimposed upon society. Whatever action we take merely contributes to the problem. It does nothing to alter the underlying stain.
“When you go to them with your desires and fears,” Maharaj points out, “you merely add to their sorrows. Be free first of suffering yourself and then only hope of helping others.” 11
Not only have we fallen into the trap of believing that peace can be imposed upon the world, rather than springing forth naturally from the hearts of peaceful people, but we have become obsessed today with the idea of combating evil. We see evidence of evil on every side and we imagine that to overcome it we must automatically resist.
The fact that our well-meant efforts to assuage evil have led to an unparalleled explosion of evil across the face of this planet does not deter us. We believe that it is simply necessary to redouble our efforts. Guided by the gospel of Edmund Burke, we remain utterly convinced that if good men do nothing, evil will be certain to triumph. We feel compelled to act.
Yet the irony is that Burke’s axiom is entirely misrepresented. The “good men” who go to war in defence of peace are simply “evil men” masquerading in sheep’s clothing.
The cause of peace and justice is not advanced by the actions of well-intentioned men and women who are ignorant of their own inner violence. In truth, if these “good” men and women could only be persuaded to do nothing, it would not be evil that would triumph, but peace, harmony, justice and virtue.
The world cries out today for people to stop “doing good”.
References
1 “I Am That“, Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, translated by Maurice Frydman, Book II, Chetana, Bombay, 1973, op. cit., p. 21.
2 “I Am That“, Book I, op. cit., p. 267.
3 “I Am That“, Book I, op. cit., p. 282.
4 “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi“, Recorded by Swami Saraswathi, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, 1968, p. 241.
5 Paramahansa Yogananda, “Autobiography of a Yogi“, Self Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, 1977, pp. 560-561.
6 “I Am That“, Book I, op.cit., p. 148.
7 “The Dhammapada“, translated by Juan Mascaro, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, pp. 71-72.
8 Henry Thoreau, “Essays, Journals and Poems“, edited by Dean Flower, Fawcett, Greenwich, 1975, p. 233.
9 Ibid, p. 231.
10 “I Am That“, Book I, op.cit., p. 104.
11 Ibid, Book II, p. 22.
Allan, The Peacemakers, December 16, 2013, 3:28 pm
When Jesus gave his famous Sermon on the Mount, he began with what have come to be known as the “Beatitudes”, which were eight categories of people who were considered to be especially “blessed”. They included the “meek”, the “merciful”, the “poor in spirit” and the “pure in heart”.
In addition, Jesus referred to another category of people whom he called “the children of God”.
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5: 9)
There is perhaps no other category of people in life who are more misunderstood than the “peacemakers”. And the reason why is because everyone assumes that they already know the meaning of the term.
All of us are familiar with the term “peacekeepers”, especially as it refers to groups of people, often associated with the United Nations, whose function is to act as monitors who observe peace processes in post-conflict areas.
But “peacemakers” are not “peacekeepers”. Neither are they “peace-lovers”. Most people today would consider themselves to be “lovers of peace”. Yet the ironic reality is that they are the very ones who are direct cause of the warlike conditions that afflict our world.
These people do not understand who they really are, nor do they grasp the subtle truth behind the words of Jesus. They don’t understand the true nature of life, nor how to deal with the conflicting forces of “good” and “evil”.
Soon after we are born, each one of us learns to divide our experiences into two separate categories. The first category covers experiences that bring us pleasure, while the other embraces those experiences which bring us pain.
As we grow we try to arrange our lives in a way that brings us the greatest number of pleasurable experiences, and reduces, as far as possible, those incidents which are painful. This process is also influenced by our culture; those conditional responses upon which we have learned to organize our lives.
In arranging our lives in ways which are the most satisfying, we are inevitably confronted by the problem of good and evil.
Our classification of experience into these two opposing groups is determined by our sensory perceptions and by the dictates of our society. For the most part, those things that bring us pleasure are regarded as good, while those things that bring pain are considered to be evil.
In dealing with these twin polarities of good and evil, the problem that confronts each one of us is that these experiences invariably manifest themselves through the actions of other people.
When we experience things in life that bring us pain, that are not the result of human action, such as natural disasters, society treats these events as accidents of fortune, or “Acts of God”. They aren’t considered to be evil in themselves. We are encouraged to deal with these reverses with stoic fortitude.
It is only when pleasure and pain involve other people that questions of good or evil arise. The determination of good or evil is always a subjective judgement, based on direct experience, and is moulded by the thinking of society. Different societies have different codes for good and evil.
The fundamental challenge that we all face in life is how to deal with people who do things that cause us pain. Our natural response in life is to link other people with the feelings they invoke in us. So if a person acts in a way that causes us pain, the pain that we feel becomes identified with that person.
If that action has been defined by our culture as evil, we associate this evil with the person involved, and that person becomes, by extension, an “evil” person. Likewise, if a person does something which causes us pleasure in a culturally acceptable fashion, then that person is regarded as “good”.
We transfer our personal feelings onto those people whom we consider to be responsible for them. Depending on the subjective sensations which we feel, we brand others as good or evil. These judgements sometimes change, however, for someone who is initially classified as good may later come to be regarded as evil, and vice versa.
In our day-to-day lives each one of us is faced with the challenge of dealing with people who do things that we call evil. In dealing with these situations, our natural response to those who hurt us is to retaliate. We want to pay them back for the harm that they have done to us.
We therefore transfer our feelings of pain onto those people who are the instigators of these feelings. In a similar way we also come to bear the brunt of the pain we have caused to others.
Because we live in societies characterised by group living, we are not encouraged to redress our own aggrieved feelings by acts of personal revenge. This instinctive urge for revenge is channelled by society into a codified system of behaviour that is considered to be in the overall interests of that society.
Institutional retaliation allows society to redress personal wrongs by a process known as “justice”. Punishment is imposed upon the guilty party according to a scale of compensation which is considered to be appropriate for the offending deed. Yet this system of justice, which exists in varying forms in all communities, is simply an institutional form of revenge.
This cycle of violence enacted upon the violent is one of humanity’s most ancient and enduring problems. It stems from the continuing desire by people to reward pain with pain. As we live our lives within our world community, we relentlessly pursue a policy of vengeance, seeking out the perpetrators of evil, and subjecting them to various forms of punishment.
But repaying violence with violence can never solve the problem of violence. The cycle of violence simply escalates, involving ever greater degrees of violence, which ultimately embroil more and more people.
This continuing desire to meet pain with pain, violence with violence, and death with death, has created a spiral of conflict which has led, over the course of the last century, to two global wars, and it now threatens to undermine the continued existence of all life on this planet.
It is a circle which the Scottish psychiatrist Ronald Laing likens to a noose around our necks.
“Millions of people have died in this (20th) century and millions more are going to, including, we have reason to expect, many of us and our children, because we cannot break this knot. It seems a comparatively simple knot, but it is tied very, very tight – round the throat, as it were, of the whole human species.” (Original emphasis) 1
What makes this spiral so difficult to break, and why this knot is tied so tightly around the neck of humanity, is that we all instinctively feel that rewarding pain with pain is the proper response to the harm that is done to us. Yet this emotional reaction defies all reasoned thinking.
The founders of all the major religions, as well as enlightened Sages, have tirelessly pointed out the folly of our ways. This continuing cycle of violence meted out in response to violence can never bring violence to an end. In his Sermon on the Mount, the Prince of Peace told the gathered throng:
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5: 43-44) 2
Five hundred years earlier, the compassionate Buddha had taught: “For hate is not conquered by hate; hate is conquered by love. This is a law eternal.” 3 In like fashion, the Chinese Sage Lao Tzu urged: “To the good I would be good; to the not-good I would also be good, in order to make them good. Requite injury with kindness.” 4
Yet we invariably allow our emotions to dominate this reasoned response. Every day brings home to us the iniquity of evil, the harm which violence brings in its train, and the sorrow and suffering which this entails. We see the consequences of evil and we are determined to fight against them. On every side today we are encouraged “to take up arms against a sea of troubles”, so that, by opposing, we may effectively end them.
This need to oppose evil is clearly expressed in the oft-quoted words of 18th Century Irish philosopher Edmund Burke: “All that is needed for evil to triumph in this world is for good men to do nothing.” And what should good men do when confronted by evil? Why, resist it, naturally.
Yet it is precisely by resisting evil that evil is strengthened and perpetuated. Speaking of evil, Jesus told the assembled multitude, “But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:39) 2
These words of Jesus are seldom taken seriously today. They aren’t considered to be a realistic way of dealing with the problem of evil. The 20th century Indian Sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj had exactly the same advice. “It is exactly as Christ said, ‘Resist not evil’. By resisting evil you merely strengthen it.” 5
The folly of confronting evil with stern opposition is also stressed by the revered Indian teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti:
“Resistance to evil strengthens evil. The moment I resist, evil must be on one side and the good on the other and there is a relationship between the two. When there is no resistance, there is no relationship between the two.” 6
The reason why this Gordian knot of doom is tied so tightly around the neck of humanity, and the reason why it is so difficult to loosen, is because of our prevailing obsession with resisting evil. We are all intent on seeking out evil wherever it lurks, and in whatever form it exists, in the hope of banishing it by active intervention.
The problem which the Sages have continually pointed out, is that it is our very action to overcome evil that perpetuates evil. It is the act of resisting evil which creates the adversarial relationship that intensifies the original force of evil. When evil is met with resistance in the form of violence and revenge, the original force of evil is simply strengthened.
The evidence of this spiral of violence confronts us today on every side. No matter how emotionally satisfying and self-justifying it may seem to intervene actively against evil, it can do nothing but add to evil.
It does so because we have chosen, in our enthusiasm yet ignorance, to fight fire with fire. Hatred begets more hatred and vengeful violence generates yet more violence. This is so obvious that it hardly seems necessary to point it out.
But the noose that is remorselessly strangling humanity is not about to be loosed by simple logic. There are intense feelings involved. Whenever we suffer deeply, we instinctively unleash our feelings of anguish and sorrow back at their originating source, even though we may logically recognize the folly of our ways.
It was Mohandas Gandhi, later to be known as the Mahatma or Great Soul, who demonstrated in his life the correct response to evil. Gandhi didn’t simply accept evil and surrender to its inevitability. Whenever he met oppression and cruelty he actively confronted it.
Yet his method of resistance was unlike the usual reaction that had been followed up to that time. It carried within it the healing balm of love, which acted to remove the causes of evil, rather than simply proliferate the effects of its expression.
Gandhi called his scheme of active resistance to British rule in India Satyagraha. It was a term selected to denote positive action, but which became weakly translated in the West as “passive resistance”.
Gandhi never failed to express his repugnance at this translation, for there was nothing passive about the action that he proposed. The term Satyagraha was derived from the Sanskrit words Satya meaning “Truth” and Agraha meaning “to hold firm”.
As Gandhi himself described it: “Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (Agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian Movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or Non-Violence.” 7
The force which Gandhi proposed to unleash in his battle for the independence of India was not a form of aggressive violence against the people to whom it was directed. Those who have misunderstood his teachings have portrayed them as a form of obstructionist non-cooperation, designed to impede the ability of the British to govern effectively.
It was the very opposite of this. Gandhi’s “Truth Force” required extraordinary discipline and dispassion. His followers were required to divorce their actions from any heightened emotional response. Satyagraha demanded absolute renunciation of physical force.
It also required enormous self-sacrifice, and the ability to bear suffering bravely. His followers were obliged to risk the horrors of military confrontation, but without resorting to violence themselves, or even the desire to hurt those who were responsible.
What Gandhi proposed to do, and ultimately was successful in achieving, was to demonstrate the iniquity of oppression by voluntarily and willingly submitting himself, and his followers, to the suffering which this oppression caused.
Wherever violence was entrenched, he willingly offered himself up as a victim of that violence. He did this, not in a spirit of retaliation or vindictiveness, but in a spirit of love. As he explained:
“I have found that mere appeal to reason does not answer where prejudices are age long and based on supposed religious authority. Reason has to be strengthened by suffering and suffering opens the eyes of understanding.” 8
Satyagraha was thus the complete opposite of compulsion. Its purpose was not merely to change the actions of those to whom it was directed, but to transform their very lives. Its aim was, as Gandhi pointed out, “ Conversion – not coercion.” 9
Gandhi’s inspired programme of action was not designed to force the British to submit, or to cause them any harm, but to reveal to them in human terms the consequences of their actions, in a way which would transform their hearts.
The challenge of how to impel people to change from within, rather than to compel them to change from without, lies at the root of the effective response to evil. For Gandhi, this meant divorcing the object of his action, the evil that he attacked, from those people who were the instruments of its manifestation.
His campaign was to attack British rule, not British people. Gandhi recognized in each one of his opponents a divine spark which could be encouraged to flame forth in inspired and benevolent action. It is this separation between the operator and the action that liberates evil from its perpetuating cycle of violence and destruction.
Attack the deed but love the person responsible.
As Laing points out, “Love and violence, properly speaking, are polar opposites. Love lets the other be, but with affection and concern. Violence attempts to constrain the other’s freedom, to force him to act in the way we desire, but with ultimate lack of concern, with indifference to the other’s own existence of destiny.” 10
References
1 Ronald Laing, “The Politics of the Family“, CBC Enterprises, Toronto, 1969, p. 49.
2 King James version of the Bible.
3 “The Dhammapada“, translated by Juan Mascaro, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, p. 35.
4 “The Sayings of Lao Tzu“, translated by Lionel Giles, John Murray, London, 1905, p. 56.
5 “I Am That“, Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, translated by Maurice Frydman, Book II, Chetana, Bombay, 1973, p. 100.
6 Jiddu Krishnamurti, “Tradition and Revolution“, Orient Longman, Bombay, 1974, pp. 16-17.
7 Glyn Richards, “The Philosophy of Gandhi“, Curzon, London, 1982, p. 48.
8 Ibid, p. 51.
9 Ibid, p. 50.
10 Ronald Laing, “The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise“, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1967, p. 50.
Allan, The Peacemakers, December 2, 2013, 4:42 pm
It should be clear from the events described in earlier instalments that our world is moving remorselessly towards an apocalyptic climax that has long been predicted by the prophets of old, and that we are the generation that will experience these cataclysmic events.
According to societies like the Maya and the Hopi, our present world age is coming to its appointed end, and will replaced by a new age of peace and harmony in which all the wars, bloodshed and violence that have plagued humanity in the past will finally come to an end.
When Alvaro Colom was inaugurated as President of Guatemala on January 14, 2008, Don Alejandro Cirilo Oxlaj, also known as “Wandering Wolf”, the President of the National Mayan Council of Elders, was invited to address the gathered throng of dignitaries, where he had this to say:
“We are at the doorsteps of the ending of another period of the Sun, a period that lasts 5,200 years and ends with several hours of darkness. After this period of darkness there comes a new period of the Sun; it will be the sixth one.”
“The world is transformed and we enter a period of understanding and harmonious coexistence where there is social justice and equality for all. It is a new way of life.”
He went on to add: “The Mayan prophecies are announcing a time of change. The Pop Wuj (Popul-Vuh), the book of the Counsel, tells us, ‘It is time for dawn; let the dawn come, for the task to be finished.”
Similar references to an apocalyptic end to the current age can be found in sacred books throughout the ancient world. Almost every prophet in the Old Testament of the Bible calls attention to the dire events that will happen in what they refer to as the “Latter Days”.
Nowhere are these events more graphically portrayed than in the Book of Revelation, where St John describes the visions that appeared to him while he was in exile on the island of Patmos, in words of stark horror.
And as Jesus explained to his disciples, this would be the time when all the peoples of the world would be gathered together in one place where they would be divided into two groups. One of these groups he likened to sheep, and the other to goats.
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
“And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:” (Matthew 25: 31-34)
But to those gathered on his left hand, the King would have this to say:
“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels; (Verse 41) And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal“. (Verse 46)
This was not the first time that Jesus had spoken to his disciples about a harvest of souls at the end of the world. There was also the occasion when he used the parable of the “tares” and the wheat, while preaching to a multitude gathered on the shores of the sea of Galilee.
“Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
“The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
“As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
“And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 13: 36-43)
And on yet a third occasion, shortly before being delivered up to be crucified, Jesus told his disciples:
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
“And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
“And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other“. (Matthew 24: 29-31)
This time of judgement spoken of by Jesus will personally affect every individual now living on the earth. Whether we live or die in the catastrophes that are coming, each one of us will be judged on the basis of those thoughts, words and actions that have characterised our lives.
But even though the events predicted for the time of the end are almost upon us, there is still time to mend our ways and thus be spared the terrible judgements that will afflict the earth and the heavens, if that is what we truly wish.
In the words of the Hopi Elders speaking about their prophecy of the Blue and the Red Star Kachinas:
“Those who return to the ways given to us in the original teachings and live a natural way of life will not be touched by the coming of the Purifier. They will survive and build a new world.
“The way through this time is said to be found in our hearts and reuniting with our spiritual self. Getting simple and returning to living with and upon this Earth in harmony with her creatures. Remembering we are caretakers, the firekeepers of the spirit. It is time to reconnect with your spirit and your Earth Mother“.
Or, as Robert Ghost Wolf reminded us in the previous instalment:
“The most important thing that we can do is to turn inward because, if we turn inward and we open up the inward, then that which happens outside will be a result of what we have opened up inside. If we keep looking outward and forget the inside, then we’ll be lost in the illusion.”
“Wandering Wolf” puts it this way. He says we are all about to experience the long awaited evolutionary transition of the Maya which he calls “The Shift of the Ages”. This is how he describes this transition:
“The Shift is something we’re all feeling. It’s a shift in how we think and live. It’s a growing awareness of our planet and who we are as a people. It’s a great time of awakening, a remarkable period in the history of Earth. Our choices are more important now, than ever before…and more and more people are standing up strong in a good way. If you have the desire to do the same, it’s because you are feeling the Shift!”
We can perhaps think of this time of judgement as a kind of graduation ceremony in the great school of life, where those who have passed their spiritual lessons move on to a new environment where they can explore new possibilities of living.
By contrast, all those who fail to meet the requirements of this great evolutionary transition at this time, are obliged to go back and renew their studies, until they too are successful at some future time and in some future place.
But if we are all going to be judged, then what are the criteria by which we will be judged? In answer, St. Luke describes the occasion when a lawyer approached Jesus and asked him this same question.
“And behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? How readest thou?
“And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.”
Jesus responded by saying: “Thou hast answered right. This do, and thou shalt live“. (Luke 10: 25-28)
These two requirements to qualify for the new kingdom that is about to unfold upon the earth may seem at first to be disarmingly simple. However, the sad reality is that, based on the standards of just these two tests alone, most of humanity would fail.
We should never forget that Christianity is a very tough set of rules to live by.
Based on the violent and oppressive history of the Church over the last two thousand years, critics have tended to dismiss Christianity as a religion that has been tried in the storms of life and found wanting. This could not be farther from the truth.
What has actually happened is that the basic tenets of Christianity have been found to be too difficult to practise and have therefore been abandoned, even by those who call themselves staunch followers of Jesus. And the reason is clear.
When Jesus preached to the multitude in his famous Sermon on the Mount, he called for a standard of behaviour that is rejected today by almost everyone on the planet as being thoroughly impractical and quite unattainable.
For according to Jesus, we will not only be judged on the basis of our actions, but of our words and thoughts as well. Here are some examples:
“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery; But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5: 27-28)
Living as we do in a world dominated by sex, and subjected as we are to the Media and the Internet that is drenched with sexual imagery, it is worth asking whether there is anyone among us who has not, at one time or another, committed adultery in our hearts.
But it is not just our thoughts that we have to learn to control, but our words as well, as we can see from the next example.
“Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
“But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother; Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire.” (Matthew 5: 21-22)
Not only do we need to watch the language that we use in our exchanges with our fellow citizens, but we also need to guard against common expressions such as oaths and curses.
“Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
“But I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne: nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
“But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatever is more than these cometh of evil.” (Matthew 5: 33-37)
But these warnings of Jesus to watch what we think and say, are nothing compared to the challenges of how we are expected to act.
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5: 38-39)
The very idea that we should not resist when others insult and injure us seems outrageous, and to suggest that we invite even more violence by offering them the other cheek seems like advice that is rooted in madness.
But Jesus goes even further, by requiring that we love those people who do us harm, and pray for those who persecute us. One can just imagine what sort of public response there would be if a world leader today urged us not to resist evil, but to bless murderers, rapists, child molesters, and the like.
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5: 43-44)
One of the interesting features of modern evangelical Christianity, particularly in the American Bible Belt, is the confidence expressed by Pastors and Preachers that they will be among those who will be saved when the faithful are “raptured” into heaven to be with Jesus at the time of Tribulation.
Yet if they took the trouble to analyse carefully the message of Jesus, they might more properly be quaking in their boots, for the messengers of God’s word are always held to a higher standard than those who follow. For as Jesus warned:
“For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5: 20)
“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7: 13-14)
While their confidence is no doubt based on the success of their ministries and for the dramatic healing ceremonies conducted in the name of Christ, these Pastors and Evangelists would do well to consider the words of Jesus when he warned that the true determinant of our fate will be whether we have followed his commandments.
“Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
“And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7: 21-23)
Allan, The Challenge of Christianity, November 18, 2013, 4:27 pm
Readers of this Blog will by now have realised that the central message of my book The Last Days of Tolemac, is that we are currently living through the death throes of the present world age, and that the new age that is dawning will exceed everything we can imagine.
In the penultimate chapter of the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, we find the following words:
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)
However, the transition from our existing world age to the new one that is coming, will be accompanied by world-wide calamities brought on by a close encounter with a comet, that will totally transform the surface of the earth. As St John goes on to explain:
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.” (Revelation 21:1)
The world that we know today with its continents and countries will be completely changed. Many landmasses that are presently above the sea will sink below the waves, while new lands will arise where previously there was only ocean. The earth will appear to have been made new.
And because this close encounter with a comet will cause a change in the axis of the earth, the stars that previously inhabited the night sky will now be seen in different parts of the heavens. To those who will inherit this new earth, it will appear as if the stars themselves have moved. The old heaven will have passed away.
Now the idea of the earth undergoing cataclysmic changes leading to successive world ages is not new. In fact it is as old as time itself, and stories of similar past events can be found in the sacred writings of all the ancient cultures of the world.
When Immanuel Velikovsky was researching the global legends of mankind in the course of developing his revolutionary cosmological ideas that led up to the publication of his book Worlds in Collision, he was struck by the fact that so many societies retained in legend, dim memories of cataclysmic changes which had destroyed entire societies and changed the face of the earth.
Velikovsky found that these legends were common to many societies which otherwise were remote in time and geography from one another. According to these legends, the planet appeared to have enjoyed periods of physical stability interrupted by recurring cataclysms of overwhelming ferocity.
In many cases which Velikovsky documented, the earth appeared to have been shaken in its course, altering not only its polar alignment, but also its orbit around the sun. According to these legends, the history of the earth was reckoned by successive ages.
Each age was a period of relative stability between cataclysms, and was in turn characterized by a particular “sun”, which represented the path traversed by the sun through the heavens during that particular age.
Among the peoples of Meso-America, persistent traditions of cosmic catastrophes can be found among the Incas, the Aztecs and the Maya. The Maya referred to these past ages by the names of their “suns”, such as Water Sun, Earthquake Sun, Hurricane Sun and Fire Sun. They substituted the word “sun” for ”world age” in order to define a time characterised by a specific orbit of the earth around the Sun.
As H. B. Alexander wrote in his epic Latin American Mythology published in 1920:
“The Water Sun (or Sun of Waters) was the first age, terminated by a deluge in which almost all creatures perished; the Earthquake Sun or age perished in a terrific earthquake when the earth broke in many places and mountains fell. The world age of the Hurricane Sun came to its destruction in a cosmic hurricane. The Fire Sun was the world age that went down in a rain of fire.”
The idea that the earth has undergone a succession of catastrophic upheavals associated with cosmic encounters did not originate with the Maya. Legends, myths and stories of these devastating events can also be found throughout the ancient world. They tell of times when dwellings were destroyed and the earth was convulsed by natural disasters which had their source in space.
While these stories vary in the number of ages that have come and gone, they all agree that there have been at periodic intervals, various disasters that have assailed the earth causing widespread destruction. The agents of this destruction have been earthquake, fire, wind and flood.
The Chinese called these vanished ages Kis, and recorded that ten ages had passed from the beginning of the world up to the time of Confucius. The ancient Chinese encyclopedia Sing-li-ta-tsiuen-chou described these past eras in the following words: “In a general convulsion of nature, the sea is carried out of its bed, mountains spring out of the ground, rivers change their course, human beings and everything are ruined, and the ancient traces effaced.”
The sacred Hindu book Bhagavata Purana called these past ages Kalpas or Yugas, and referred to four previous ages that had terminated through different catastrophes. The Buddhist scripture Visuddhi-Magga, written about 430 BC, contains a chapter on “World Cycles” declaring that: “There are three destructions: the destruction by water, the destruction by fire, the destruction by wind”. Each of these ages is separated from its previous one by a world catastrophe.
Similar references can be found in the Zend-Avesta, the sacred book of the Persians. The Pahlavi Texts quote the prophet Zarathustra referring to “the signs, wonders, and perplexity which are manifested in the world at the end of each millennium.” One of the books of the Avesta, the Bahman Yast, numbers seven world ages or millennia that have preceded the present age.
The Greek philosophers Anaximenes and Anaximander both referred to past world ages in their writings, as did Diogenes of Apollonia in the fifth century BC. Heraclitus (540-475 BC) taught that the world was destroyed by fire at regular intervals, while Aristarchus of Samos claimed that in every period of 2,484 years, the earth underwent various destructions, some by flood and some by fire.
In his work Theogony, the Greek poet Hesiod described the end of one of these ages:
“The life-giving earth crashed around in burning . . . all the land seethed, and the Ocean’s streams . . . it seemed even as if earth and wide Heaven above came together; for such a mighty crash would have arisen if Earth were being hurled to ruin, and Heaven from on high were hurling her down.”
Another famous Greek by the name of Herodotus (484-425 BC), who has been called the “Father of History” because he was the first Greek historian to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy, and then reduce them to a written narrative, had an opportunity to visit Egypt. In his Second Book of History, Herodotus referred to his own meeting with various Egyptian priests, and recorded his conversation with them. As he wrote:
“The priests asserted that within historical ages and since Egypt became a kingdom, four times in this period (so they told me) the sun rose contrary to his wont; twice he rose where he now sets, and twice he set where he now rises.”
The Greek philosopher Plato recorded in his essay Timaeus, that the renowned Athenian statesman Solon (638-558 BC) also undertook a visit to ancient Egypt. While he was there he was confronted by an elderly priest who told him:
“Oh Solon, Solon, you Greeks are all children, and there is no such thing as an old Greek. You are all young in mind. You have no belief rooted in old tradition and no knowledge hoary with age. And the reason is this.”
“There have been and will be many different calamities to destroy mankind, the greatest of them by fire and water, lesser ones by countless other means. Your own story of how Phaeton, child of the sun, harnessed his father’s chariot, but was unable to guide it along his father’s course and so burnt up things on earth and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt, is a mythical version of the truth that there is at long intervals a variation in the course of the heavenly bodies and a consequent widespread destruction by fire of things on the earth.”
Jesus predicted that there would come a future time on earth when nations would rise up against other nations, as well as kingdom against kingdom. These wars would be compounded by other troubles such as famines, pestilences and earthquakes in different parts of the world. (Matthew 24:7)
This affliction and tribulation throughout the earth would culminate in a cataclysmic event that would bring an end to the current cycle of civilisation. In his book of Revelation, St John described the disasters that would herald this event.
“The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all the green grass was burnt up.
“And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter.
“And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and a third of the day shone not, and the night likewise.” (Revelation 8: 7-12)
“And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth; and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.” (Revelation 9:1-2)
At the time these words were written, these enigmatic predictions by the favoured disciple of Jesus could have held little meaning for those living in past centuries. Today however, their meaning stands revealed as the clear imprint of a heavenly harbinger of doom. The tribulations predicted by John are a vivid illustration of just those disasters that would befall the earth if it were to have a close encounter with a large comet.
Suppose a large comet was to pass in orbit around the sun. As it sped away on its outward path heading back into the dark void of space, its luminous tail of particles would travel ahead of it, blown by the force of solar radiation. If the earth should happen to lie in the path of this comet after its perihelion, or closest approach to the sun, it would first come in contact with this extended tail.
If the dust particles in the comet’s tail were ferruginous (containing iron), the earth would be showered by particles of fine, red dust. The presence of these fine particles in the atmosphere would then spawn torrential downpours of rain, which would be characterized by a rusty-red colour.
As the earth continued to be showered by poisonous dust, this rusty rain would soon contaminate the rivers and the seas, causing them to become blood-red in appearance. Those who drank from these toxic waters would die.
As the nucleus of the comet drew closer to the earth, larger particles in the comet’s tail would fall as blazing meteorites. This torment of fiery hail would set fire to large portions of the land. Should a part of the comet, or even the nucleus itself, plunge into the sea, this flaming asteroid would create appalling havoc, not just to those creatures within the sea, but also to those craft which happened to be travelling upon it.
Coastal cities all around the globe would be ravaged by tumultuous tidal waves. Hundreds of millions of people would die in a matter of minutes.
The resulting collision would devastate the land and decimate all forms of life on the planet. A cloud of dust and debris would soon circle the earth, blotting out the light of the sun, moon and stars. The impact of this asteroid would severely jolt the earth, causing it to tilt on its axis and change the alignment of its poles.
Such a scenario may seem farfetched in terms of astronomical probabilities. Yet it is entirely possible that a long-period comet, hitherto unknown to science, could at any time sweep into the solar skies. Now if such a catastrophe were to afflict the earth, the existing topography of the land would undoubtedly be dramatically changed by the fury of water, wind and flame.
The earth would appear to have been made new, with the old earth having been transformed. And if the poles themselves were tilted into a new alignment, the sun would appear to traverse a new path through the constellations. The heavens themselves would appear to have been changed. A new age would then begin on earth, just as had occurred many times before in our half-forgotten past.
But whereas in ages past, those few who managed somehow to survive these disasters would have been forced to start anew amid the wreckage of a devastated planet, by reverting to living in caves and assuming a hunter-gatherer existence, the prophets of old have assured us that this time will be different.
For according to all the ancient prophecies, as well as the recorded words of sages and the founders of all the major religions of the world, this coming age will be a golden age of wonder that will dwarf even the greatest achievements of past civilizations.
It will be an age of peace, freedom and justice, as well as an age of scientific accomplishment that will beggar the mind. It will not only be an age free of all pain and suffering, but of spiritual insight and understanding where all beings will live in harmony with one another.
When asked what this new golden age of wonder would be like, this is how the Oracle of Tolemac responded:
“The new age that is about to unfold on earth will be beautiful beyond telling. But it will not just be an age of harmony and beauty on the earth.
It will be an age when men and women will come to know their true calling. They will not only be custodians of the earth, but of all intelligent life that exists on it as well.
There is life and intelligence in all forms, as ancient man knew. Man is not the only thinking being living on the earth. All forms, including elements and minerals, have inherent intelligence. Man is their keeper and their elder brother.
Not only will humanity be affected by the changing energies of the new age, but also the trees, plant life, animals and birds. The oceans too have a life that is evolving, and in the very elements of earth there lies a kingdom that is evolving towards harmony and perfection.
Even within your mountains there are nature spirits that evolve with you. When the vibrations of the new age become established, these spirits will become visible to you.
Most of the animals that now live on earth are not suited to the higher vibrations of the new age. They will be allowed to reincarnate on other spheres more suited to their growth and evolution.
You will never again see the great herds of animals that wander on the plains of your planet today. That era of your evolution will have passed.
The animals that will inhabit earth in the new age will be different from the animals that you know now. They will have a higher degree of consciousness and will have more highly developed telepathic powers. Many will be completely new species, and your scientists will wonder how they came to evolve from previous species on the earth.
These animals will not prey on other animals as they did in the Piscean age. They will lose their predatory instincts and become vegetarian and plant eaters. Your Bible has also spoken of a time when the calf and the lion will lie down together.
The reptile kingdom will not disappear completely, as many species have developed a level of consciousness that can survive the new vibrations. The same will be true of fishes, while many new bird forms of great beauty will appear.
The insect life that has proved so troublesome to modern man will not survive, for they are of a lower consciousness. In all cases, the determining factor over which species will survive and which perish, will be their evolutionary level of consciousness.
When only love is manifested on your planet all things caused by negation will pass away and the earth will once again become a place of surpassing beauty. Nature will no longer need to defend itself against the harsh thoughts of mankind. The cactus and the rose will lose their thorns.
Your weather will change completely. When peace reigns in the hearts of men and women, the earth too will reflect this harmony. Gentle showers of rain will fall only as needed. The wild storms of the past will not trouble you again.
Because there is life and intelligence in every element, man will learn how to create tools and machinery with inherent intelligence. Machines will be created with the power to repair themselves.
Your medicine will also be transformed. Your physicians will use colour and light to heal their patients. There will also be specialized equipment that will allow them to repair damaged organs. They will even be able in specialized conditions to heal broken bones instantly and grow new human limbs.
Your cities will be completely changed. No longer will they be built in haphazard fashion as before. New cities will be built in harmony with the energy centers of the planet to take advantage of places where the lines of force flow through the planet.
When your cities are properly aligned, you will be able to draw on natural forces of energy to provide light and power. Because this source of energy will be free for all to use, every person will be able to light and heat their homes as they wish.
Knowledge and wisdom will make great advances in the coming age. The true history of your planet will be revealed at last. Those same disasters that once caused your earlier libraries and treasures to be hidden will now cause them to be revealed. The lost records of Atlantis and Lemuria will be rediscovered.
Those who survive to inherit the new world that is about to flourish on the earth will come to know a life that is beyond the imagination of modern man. But first they will need to prove that they are worthy.
They will have to survive the Great Initiation spoken of in your Holy Books.”
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Allan, Articles, July 2, 2013, 9:56 pm
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. This is a book dealing with prophecy.
For those listeners who may be new to this topic, this Podcast is another in the series “Signs of the Times”, and is titled “Arabian Entropy”. Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast.
Thanks Scott. It’s great to chat to you again.
Scott: Allan, I notice that in recent Podcasts you have been focusing on Iran and their attempts to develop nuclear weapons. Why is that?
Well Scott, the reason I have been talking so much about Iran lately is because I believe that, according to Bible prophecy, they are the trigger for what is about to happen in the Middle East.
Scott: Why do you say that Allan?
Well let me just recap how we got onto the subject of Iran in the first place.
You will remember that in my earlier Podcast entitled “The Invasion of Israel”, I pointed out that according to the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, there would be an attack on Israel during the end times leading up to the return of the Christ.
This attack would be undertaken by a coalition of Islamic nations, and would include countries like Persia, Ethiopia and Libya. Because Ezekiel specifically singled out Persia, or to give it its modern name Iran, I indicated that it is to Iran that we should look if we are to understand the true measure of our times.
In that Podcast, I outlined the different countries that would be involved, and explained why they would choose to undertake a land invasion of Israel, rather than an indiscriminate attack on Israeli territory by means of aircraft, missiles and rockets.
Scott: So Allan, are you saying that various Arab nations, together with Iran, are planning a land invasion of Israel?
Well Scott, up until a few years ago, I would have said that the possibility of such a thing happening was extremely remote. But over the course of the last two years there have been dramatic changes throughout the Arab world.
We are now witnessing a process of change that I have chosen to call “Arabian Entropy”. And I am convinced that, as a result of these changes, the process that is under way in the Middle East will soon lead to the exact scenario predicted by Ezekiel.
It may seem strange to use a word like “entropy” in this context, but the association does seem to me to be singularly apt. Entropy is of course a scientific term referring to a process of change from order to disorder. In fact one of ways that entropy can be defined is “a steady deterioration of a system or society”.
It is evident that this deterioration of Arab society, which has been growing steadily in country after country throughout the Islamic world, began some two and a half years ago with the events that have come to be described as the “Arab Spring”.
When a young Tunisian street vendor set himself ablaze in December 2010, in a protest against police corruption and oppression, he started a chain of events that has shaken the entire Arab world to its core.
Prior to this event, all the countries of North Africa and the Middle East were ruled by leaders who had been entrenched in power for the better part of a generation.
Yet since that time, the Governments of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen have all been overthrown, and insurrection has broken out in countries like Algeria, Lebanon, Iraq and Morocco. Even Western backed countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and Bahrain have not been immune from these protests.
And of course, during the last two years a civil war has broken out in Syria that now threatens to destabilize the entire region, as well as draw in the major powers of the East and West in a potential conflagration.
This convulsion of change has not made any of the Arab countries involved demonstrably stronger or more united, but has instead fragmented them into opposing factions that now have the motivation and the ability to settle their differences at the point of a gun.
Another significant change that has taken place within each of these countries has been the move towards a more militant Islamic style of government, which has tended to be fundamentalist, autocratic and repressive. And of course none of this bodes well for future peace in the region.
So we now find ourselves in a far more dangerous world than before, and one in which extremists everywhere have become empowered to pursue their ideological aims, and to do so with ever increasing amounts of firepower.
So Scott, there are two things that have become apparent over the last few years as a result of this growing Arabian entropy. The first is that all of the countries that have been affected by these changes have become more volatile, and therefore more unpredictable in terms of their future course of actions.
And the second significant change in the Middle East today is that these countries have become significantly more hostile towards Israel which has, as a result, become more isolated throughout the region.
Scott: So Allan, what role do you think Iran will play in the future?
Well Scott, the reason why Iran began their romance with nuclear weapons in the first place was out of fear. They were afraid that the United States would invade their own country in the same way that they had previously invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.
Iran reasoned that if they could develop nuclear weapons, this would provide them with a powerful deterrent against outside aggression. And as we have seen recently in the case of North Korea, the success of having a nuclear threat as a deterrent has been validated.
And notwithstanding the recent election of Hassan Rouhani as the new President of Iran, there is little reason to suppose that there will be any change in Iran’s policy regarding the development of nuclear weapons, especially as Rouhani has already gone on record to stress that there will be no change under his watch.
In any event, Iranian nuclear policy is and always has been the sole decision of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. So what this means is that Iran will continue to enrich uranium until they have accumulated sufficient fissile material to detonate a nuclear device.
And as I have mentioned previously, when President Obama visited Israel recently, he announced that the United States would never allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. The reason being that this would spark nuclear proliferation throughout the region, involving countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey.
So as you can see Scott, if Iran continues to pursue its nuclear dream, and the United States insists that it will deny them the fruition of that dream, then both countries are on a collision course that can only end in conflict. It is just a matter of when.
Scott: And do you think that Israel will also attack Iran?
That’s a good question Scott. In recent discussions on the subject of Iran, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel reserves the right to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
And when asked whether Israel had received the “green light” from the United States to initiate a military strike against Iran, Netanyahu’s response was: “Israel’s right to defend its existence is not subject to a traffic light”.
In fact a number of people close to him have remarked that stopping Iran from getting an atom bomb has now become Netanyahu’s main mission in life. And this should come as no surprise to anybody, for he has been saying the same thing himself ever since he was elected Premier.
Of course it is still an open question as to whether Israel actually has the capability to knock out Iran’s underground uranium enrichment facilities, even if it wanted to. We know that back in 2009 the US supplied Israel with 55 bunker-busting bombs.
But these bombs were 5,000 pound Laser guided bombs that were designed to be fired from F-15 fighter jets, and it is doubtful whether these bombs could penetrate the Iranian underground facilities at Fordow outside the city of Qom.
The US has since developed larger bunker-busting bombs, including the recently tested 30,000 pound version called M.O.P.(Massive-Ordinance-Penetrator) which could certainly do the job.
However, the only aircraft capable of carrying a bomb of this size that possesses the stealth qualities necessary to avoid Iranian defensive surface to air missiles, are the American B-2 bombers based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
But ultimately Scott, I don’t think it matters much whether Israel is involved or not. If the Iranian nuclear facilities are attacked, whether by the U.S. or Israel, or both, there is little doubt that Israel will be the country that will bear the brunt of Arab fury.
And the reason for this will not necessarily be for their involvement in an attack on Iran, but because of their perceived intransigence in their negotiations over the future of Palestine.
Scott: How does Palestine fit in with all this?
To answer that Scott, we really need to go back in time to the end of the 19th century. Because there had been widespread persecution of the Jews throughout Europe at that time, there was a feeling among the international community that a homeland should be set aside for the Jewish people.
At the end of the first World War, when the British conquered Syria, a new state was established that was given the name of Palestine. In 1922, under a mandate issued by the League of Nations, the British were formally given the authority to govern the region.
This British Mandate, as it was called at the time, continued up to the end of the second World War, when the British Government announced that it wanted to terminate this mandate.
So in 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution dividing the land of Palestine into two states. One state was to be reserved for the Jews, with the other state to be set aside for the Arabs, while the city of Jerusalem was to be under the direct control of the United Nations.
The unfortunate part about this arrangement was that the population of Jews and Arabs at that time were intermingled together throughout the land, and there were no clear lines of demarcation between the two states.
This was clearly an unworkable arrangement, and it is hardly surprising that a civil war broke out immediately. The outcome of that war was that the Jews took over most of the territory, leaving the Arabs to settle in two areas where they continue to live today, namely the West Bank of the Jordan river and the Gaza strip.
And in the meantime, as a result of subsequent wars, more and more Israeli settlements have been built in the areas originally set aside for the Arabs. Not only that, but the Israeli army fought for control of the city of Jerusalem in 1967, and Jerusalem is now the declared capital of Israel.
So the net result of the last 65 years has been that while the Jews now have a land of their own, including their own capital city in Jerusalem, the Arabs have little to show. They have no state of their own with borders that have been recognised by the world community, nor do they have an official capital city.
Palestinians not only continue to live in the same two widely separated areas, Gaza and the West Bank, but in their day-to-day lives they find themselves dominated to a large extent by the state of Israel in what they can and cannot do.
So what we have here Scott is a social, political and economic cauldron that grows ever more critical, and is waiting to explode.
Scott: So what are the United Nations doing about this?
Well here’s the rub Scott. The United Nations aren’t really doing anything about it at all at this time. Although they were responsible for the original Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947, they have pretty much left it up to the Jews and the Arabs to sort out who lives where.
And here’s the fundamental problem that stands in the way of a solution. The West Bank is dominated by the political faction of Fatah, and is currently ruled by the leader of the Palestine National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
The Gaza strip meanwhile is under the control of Hamas, which overthrew the Fatah forces in 2007. Since Hamas refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the state of Israel, the United States, Canada and the European Union have branded Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
So in recent years, all attempts to negotiate some sort of agreement between the Palestinians and the Jews have ended in failure. But the differences between these two sides go much deeper than that, since both of them lay claim to Jerusalem as the sole capital of their respective states. And two into one doesn’t go.
At present, the American Secretary of State John Kerry has been trying to get both sides to the bargaining table, but so far with little success. The Palestinians insist that their state must be based on pre-1967 borders, while the Israelis are equally insistent that these preconditions make a return to negotiations impossible.
Then there is the testy matter of Jewish housing. The Palestinians say that Israel must first stop all construction of new houses on land that it wants for a future state, while Israel says that this issue can only be resolved through face to face negotiations – a catch 22 situation.
The danger of this impasse Scott, is that if the Arabs are blocked at every turn in their efforts to get a Palestinian state, they are bound to look for other ways of doing so. And one doesn’t have to be an Old Testament prophet to figure out what they might decide to do next.
So there you have it Scott. The situation in the Middle East boils down to this. Over the last two years the entire region has become more militant and more volatile, as a result of the process I have called Arabian Entropy.
The recent decision by Western nations to provide the Free Syrian Army with heavy weapons to counter the arms delivered to the Assad regime by Russia and Iran, will ensure that the savage civil war will continue until the city of Damascus is reduced to a pile of rubble, just as the prophet Isaiah predicted in the first verse of his 17th chapter.
Then there is Iran’s obsession with acquiring nuclear weapons, contrasted with Israeli and United States insistence that they will never be allowed to do so, under threat of a military attack which now seems inevitable.
And when such an attack does take place it will unleash an enormous backlash, not just against the United States and the West, but against Israel in particular. Islamic nations everywhere will unite against the Jews.
Then add to this mix the growing sense of Arab futility that they will ever be able to negotiate a Palestinian state with the Israelis, and you have a perilous situation that only needs a spark to explode into war.
So Scott, will the Arabs come to launch a land invasion of Israel as the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel has predicted? You can almost see the dominoes lining up as we speak.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Scott: Thanks Allan. This has been another insightful discussion on the link between prophecy and the events now unfolding in the Middle East.
You have been listening to Allan Colston, author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. Do join us for our next Podcast in our series called “Signs of the Times”.
Allan, Signs of the Times, June 18, 2013, 2:40 pm
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. This is a book dealing with prophecy. For those listeners who may be new to this topic, this Podcast is another in the series “Signs of the Times”, and is titled “Nuclear Showdown”.
Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast.
Thanks Scott. It’s good to be with you again.
Scott: Allan, in your last Podcast you talked about Iran, and how it is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Before you go into further detail, perhaps you could start off by telling listeners what it takes to build a nuclear bomb in the first place.
That’s a good point Scott. Well in theory, building a nuclear bomb is fairly straight forward. Just get the necessary ingredients and then put them together in the right way. However in practice things are not quite so simple. And to understand why we need to go back to Albert Einstein.
As you know Scott, Einstein came up with probably the most famous equation in all of science, and that is E = MC2 . What that means in reality is that all matter is simply a form of energy. In fact, incredibly large amounts of it. Just to give you an example, there is enough energy locked up inside a single airplane ticket to fly a plane around the world several times.
So the trick to making a nuclear bomb is to find a way to unlock this energy, and then unleash it in the form of a bomb. Now as we were taught in school, every atom has a nucleus, or centre. Inside this nucleus are varying amounts of protons and neutrons. And the heavier the atom is, the more protons and neutrons it has.
Scott: So how do you go about unlocking this energy?
Well Scott, the problem is that most elements in Nature are stable. And because the nuclear force that binds protons and neutrons together inside the atom is so strong, it is extremely hard to get atoms to break apart. In fact, when the United States finally succeeded in doing this in 1945, there were only two ways of doing so. And basically, the same is true today.
The challenge is to find an atom that is large enough to be unstable, and then find a way to cause the nucleus of this atom to break apart. This process of splitting the atom is called nuclear fission. Another important point is that there has to be enough nuclear material available to create what is known as “critical mass” for an explosion to take place.
In a bomb, an initial explosive charge causes more and more neutrons to be released. These neutrons then cause other atoms to break up, causing a chain reaction. So when they break apart, they cause other atoms alongside them to break up as well. And this chain reaction then keeps going until there is so much energy that the bomb explodes.
Scott: So what materials do you need to make a bomb?
So far only two elements have been found to be capable of causing the chain reaction needed to make a bomb. One element is Uranium, and the other is Plutonium. What makes them suitable for nuclear weapons is that both of these elements have very large nuclei, containing large numbers of protons and neutrons.
Uranium has 238 protons and neutrons, while Plutonium has 239. But what makes it so difficult to build a nuclear bomb in practice, is that neither Uranium or Plutonium are easy to come by.
The reason is that the Uranium ore usually found in nature is a stable element, and is therefore unable to trigger a chain reaction. So to cause an explosion, this ore has to be changed into Uranium 235. It has to be artificially enriched until it is in an unstable state. This is a long process requiring highly specialised equipment known as centrifuges.
Plutonium on the other hand, doesn’t exist in Nature at all, so it has to be made artificially. And the only way to do this is inside a nuclear reactor. So the problem for Iran, as I explained in my last Podcast, is that once they made the decision to build nuclear weapons, they first had to acquire a regular supply of either enriched Uranium or Plutonium, or both.
Scott: And what did they have to do after that?
They also had to find a way to hide this from the eyes of the world, and from the Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Because Iran needed time to develop the fissile material needed to make nuclear weapons, they needed to con the Western world into believing that all they were after was to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
And so began a carefully choreographed series of negotiations that were designed to go nowhere. And in this they have been brilliantly successful. These negotiations first began in 2003, and they have been consistently going nowhere for the last ten years. The latest round of negotiations were held just two weeks ago in the city of Almaty in Kazakhstan.
Despite two days of intensive negotiations, the EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton announced that these talks had also been fruitless. There can be little doubt that this news would have been warmly received in Iran, and their chief negotiator Saeed Jalili would have been highly praised.
Scott: Why do you say that, Allan?
Well Scott, since the entire purpose of these negotiations has been to keep the Western nations talking, so that they would not have a reason to make good on their military threats, these successive delays have provided Iran with the breathing room needed to acquire the necessary fissile material for making nuclear weapons.
But although Inspectors for the Atomic Energy Agency have so far been unable to visit the various nuclear sites in Iran, they have issued reports which give outsiders a pretty shrewd idea of what has been going on behind the scenes over the last few years.
As I pointed out in my last Podcast, the main locations used by Iran to enrich Uranium are in underground installations located at Natanz and at Fordow. You can also add another one to this, and that is the heavy water reactor in Arak, which is used for the production of Plutonium.
Using Plutonium to generate a nuclear explosion is not new. Although the original atomic bomb that was dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima used Uranium, the next one that was dropped on Nagasaki was a Plutonium-implosion design bomb. The main advantage of using Plutonium in the manufacture of a bomb is that it is a lot easier to create and control the chain reaction process.
And as a matter of interest Scott, all the nuclear bombs belonging to India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea use Plutonium as a fuel source. So it is easy to see why this would appeal to Iran as well.
Scott: So does Iran have supplies of both Uranium and Plutonium?
Yes Scott, they do. In fact a recent report in the British newspaper “The Telegraph” indicated that clouds of steam were recently photographed being emitted from forced air coolers at the Arak plant in Central Iran, indicating that the plant was in full operation.
This is further evidence that the Iranian regime has been pursuing more than one way to build a nuclear weapon. All they have to do now is to enrich the quantities they have already stockpiled to the level needed to create the chain reaction in a bomb. However they do have one final hurdle to overcome.
They have to develop the trigger mechanism necessary to create the first explosive charge within the confined space of the bomb. And this is what they have been doing at their military explosives facility at Parchin, just outside of Tehran, which has also been off limits to nuclear inspectors in recent years.
Scott: So tell me Allan, do you think that recent events in North Korea have had an influence on Iran?
Absolutely Scott. In fact the two most interested spectators in the whole drama that has been taking place between North and South Korea and the United States have been Israel and Iran – and for totally different reasons.
Iran has been watching the unfolding saga in North Korea very closely, to see how the United States would react if it was challenged by a country that possessed nuclear weapons. And based on what we have seen up to this point, the answer is “very carefully”, so as not to provoke a nuclear showdown.
Israel, by contrast, is watching events in North Korea with increasing alarm. For the way that North Korea has been acting lately is exactly how they have been warning that Iran would behave if they ever acquired nuclear weapons. In other words, Iran would be quick to challenge their enemies and threaten them with thermo-nuclear war.
Scott: So where do you think all this will end Allan?
Well Scott, my own personal view is that it will end exactly where the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel said it would end. In previous Podcasts, I have quoted from the prophecies of Ezekiel, and his prediction that there would be a coalition of Islamic nations that would launch a land invasion on Israel.
Scott: What makes you say that?
Well Scott, we need look no further than what the Iranians themselves have been saying. Speaking recently to a group of Iranian war veterans, President Ali Khamenei said that Israel would disappear from the (and I quote) “landscape of geography”, and that the country would soon be returned to the Palestinians.
This is only the latest in a long war of words in which Iran has threatened to destroy the land of Israel. And of course the leader of Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu, is a man who does not take these threats lightly.
After all, he grew up with the memory of the Jewish Holocaust still fresh in his mind. He learned from the hard school of history that when a despotic leader announces to the world beforehand that he plans to destroy the Jews, as Hitler did in his book entitled Mein Kampf, then it would be wise to take these threats seriously.
And he certainly is in the forefront of those warning of the threat posed by a nuclear Iran. Another spokesman for this view is Ehud Barak, who was until recently the Israeli Minister of Defence. Speaking in an interview with the Washington Post, Barak said, and I quote:
“A nuclear Iran will be the end of the nonproliferation regime. Saudi Arabia will turn nuclear immediately, Turkey within several years, and probably the new Egypt will start moving to do it. Not to mention the potential of weapons-grade material leaking into the hands of terrorist groups from Iran.”
We also need to remember that Israel is not Iran’s number one enemy. The Islamic world has for many years now been split along sectarian lines. One group follows the Shiite sect of Islam, and this faction is led by Iran. The other group consists of Sunni Moslems, and is dominated by Saudi Arabia.
So as Ehud Barak has pointed out, if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, there would be an immediate rush by surrounding countries to do the same, and this would inevitably lead to a much more terrifying threat to world peace, quite apart from the danger to the continued existence of the state of Israel.
Scott: So Allan, if Iran is poised to become a nuclear power, what can the rest of the world do to stop it?
Well Scott, this is where the rubber meets the road. Since it is clear that sanctions alone will not stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and since North Korea has already shown that a country that has nuclear weapons can effectively thumb its nose at the rest of the world, then the choices facing the West are stark indeed.
During his recent visit to Jerusalem, President Obama made it clear that while he believed that there was still time for diplomacy to work in negotiations with Iran, if these negotiations were to fail, then the United States would (quote) “do what is necessary”.
I leave it to listeners to decide for themselves what Obama means by this. But if the words of Obama are not a sufficient deterrent, then the response by the Government of Israel should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind. If the United States is not prepared to bomb the nuclear facilities in Iran, then Israel will do so on its own.
So the 64,000 dollar question is this. How long will it take for Iran to explode its first nuclear device? It may be a matter of weeks, or it may be a matter of months. But I personally feel that it will be sometime before the end of this year.
And if this is the case, then the entire Middle East will be plunged into crisis. For you can imagine that if their nuclear sites are successfully attacked, then Iran will do everything in its power to retaliate, and a number of different countries will be in their cross-hairs.
But I will have more to say about all this in my next Podcast. And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Scott: Thanks Allan. You have been listening to Allan Colston, author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. Do join us for our next Podcast, which will be another in the series called “Signs of the Times”.
Allan, Signs of the Times, April 20, 2013, 9:59 am
 Before greeting the world after being chosen by the Conclave of Cardinals, the new Pope traditionally moves into a small red room adjoining the Sistine Chapel that has become known over the years as the “Room of Tears”.
It has been given this name because newly elected Popes, overwhelmed by the joy and burden of their exalted position, have frequently been moved to tears as they prepare to step out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s.
In accepting the burden of Peter, we do not know if Pope Francis shed a tear or two while he was putting on his Papal garments, or if he did, whether this was a tear of joy or a tear of sorrow.
We can be sure that at that moment, he must have been aware of the prophecies attributed to St. Malachy, and that according to these prophecies, that he would be the last Pope. He must also have been aware of the ominous words recorded by St. Malachy, which I referred to in my last Blog post.
“In extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed the sheep through many tribulations, at the end of which the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the formidable Judge will judge his people. The End.”
But if that sobering pronouncement did not give him cause for concern, then the prophecy of Lúcia Santos must have caused him to quake for a moment in his new Papal shoes.
Her prophecy has become perhaps the most famous prophecy in all of Christendom, and certainly the most controversial. So controversial in fact, that the Vatican has still not come to terms with it.
The prophecy itself dates back to a series of events that occurred almost a century ago, at a place called Cova da Iria near the village of Fátima in Portugal.
 It all began on 13th May 1917, when three young shepherd children claimed to have had a vision of a luminous angelic Being “brighter than the sun” whom they considered to be the Virgin Mary.
The three children were Lúcia Santos and her two cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto. Lúcia was just ten years old when these visionary events began.
This same apparition appeared before the three children around noon on the 13th day of each of the next six months. According to Lúcia, this “lady” confided in her and her two cousins, and shared three “secrets” with them.
These secrets have come to be known as the “Three Secrets of Fatima”. On 13th July, 1917, Lúcia said that the Blessed Mother had told her that her two cousins would die in the near future.
This prophecy was fulfilled a short time later when they both succumbed to the Spanish influenza pandemic in 1918, leaving Lúcia as the sole surviving witness to the events that occurred near the town of Fatima.
Not long after the death of her two cousins, Lúcia entered the Convent of St. Dorothy in Tuy, Spain. In March 1948 she left this Convent to join the Carmelite Order of St. Theresa at Coimbra in Portugal, where she continued to live until her death on February 13th, 2005 at the age of 97.
Being a Carmelite Sister, Lúcia Santos was required to observe the customary vow of silence. However, she did write out an account of the events that had occurred to her in 1917, together with a description of the three secrets given to her by the Angelic Being.
The first two secrets were revealed to the world by the Vatican in August 1941. The first secret was said to have been a vision of Hell. The second predicted the end of World War I, and announced that an even greater war would follow unless the people of Russia chose to repent and return to the path of God. Of course, by the time these two secrets were revealed to the public, the Second World War had already begun.
In September 1943, when Sister Lúcia was confined to her bed with a grave illness, she was visited by the Bishop of Leiria who urged her to write the third secret down so that it would be preserved in the event of her death. After some initial hesitation Lúcia finally agreed to do so, and the third secret of Fatima was delivered to the Bishop in a sealed envelope on March 1st, 1944.
The Bishop of Leiria kept Lúcia’s handwritten text in its sealed envelope until 1957 when it was delivered to the Vatican. This third and most important secret given to Lúcia was supposed to have been revealed to the world by the Vatican in 1960, supposedly at the direction of the visionary Being herself.
However, when the year 1960 arrived, the Church refused to do so. Not only did the Vatican refuse to release the third secret, but it ordered Lúcia not to talk about the secrets to anyone, and she was forbidden all visitors except close relatives.
Even her confessor, Father Aparicio, who later moved to Brazil, was prevented from seeing her when he visited Portugal. Only Pope John-Paul II or Cardinal Ratzinger (later to become Pope Benedict XVI) could grant the necessary permission for her to speak openly about these secrets, or entertain visitors.
F inally, in June 2000, the Vatican released the text of the third secret. Along with this text was a commentary given by Cardinal Ratzinger. It said:
“A careful reading of the text of the so-called third ‘secret’ of Fátima … will probably prove disappointing or surprising after all the speculation it has stirred. No great mystery is revealed; nor is the future unveiled.”
The commentary went on to say:
“The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction.
“Therefore we must totally discount fatalistic explanations of the ‘secret’, such as, for example, the claim that the would-be assassin of 13 May 1981 was merely an instrument of the divine plan guided by Providence and could not therefore have acted freely, or other similar ideas in circulation. Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we might be saved from them.”
Cardinal Ratzinger concluded by saying:
“The concluding part of the ‘secret’ uses images which Lúcia may have seen in devotional books and which draw their inspiration from long-standing intuitions of faith.”
“And so we come to the final question: What is the meaning of the ‘secret’ of Fatima as a whole (in its three parts)? What does it say to us? First of all we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: .. the events to which the third part of the ‘secret’ of Fatima refers now seem part of the past. Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed.” (View Source)
In releasing Sister Lúcia’s long-awaited secret to the world, the Vatican went to great lengths to ensure that it would generate as little sensationalism and controversy as possible. The text that was released to the world read as follows:
“I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.
“After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’.
“And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it ‘a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark;
“Before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him,
“And in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.”
Tuy-3-1-1944.
Being a student of Catholic history, Pope Francis would have been keenly aware of the dire future that awaits the last Pope. For as we have seen from the above prophecy released by the Vatican, the fate of the last Pope has been graphically portrayed by Lúcia.
“Before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him.”
But apart from the gruesome details of his own death as described by Lúcia, there is another problem which now confronts Pope Francis. He is faced with the challenge of the Third Secret itself.
Despite attempts by the Vatican to convince the public that the above extract was the full text of what Sister Lúcia had written, a growing number of critics, both inside and outside of the Church, have challenged this.
These critics contend that the released text does not contain anything of a controversial nature which could bring about a crisis of faith within the Church.
The claim that there is more to the Third Secret of Fátima than has so far been revealed by the Vatican, is also linked to certain comments made by Cardinal Ratzinger (later to be Pope Benedict XVI) in 1984, many years before the official text was released to the world.
On November 11, 1984, as reported in the Catholic magazine Jesus, Cardinal Ratzinger stated that he had already read the text of the Third Secret of Fátima. When he was asked what it contained, he said that it related to “end times”, and that if published, would cause “sensationalism” (View Source)
Yet there was little in the text released by the Vatican in June 2000 that seemed likely to provoke a “sensational” response.
 However, the words spoken by Pope John-Paul II to a select group of Catholics during a visit to Fulda, Germany in October 1980, confirm that certain predictions made by the Angelic Being were truly sensational.
A verbatim report of this discussion was published in the October 1981 issue of the German magazine Stimme des Glaubens. It reads as follows:
The Holy Father was asked, “What about the Third Secret of Fatima? Should it not have already been published by 1960?”
Pope John Paul II replied:
“Given the seriousness of the contents, my predecessors in the Petrine office diplomatically preferred to postpone publication so as not to encourage the world power of Communism to carry out certain moves.
“On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the earth, and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired.”
The Pope continued:
“Many wish to know simply from curiosity and a taste for the sensational, but they forget that knowledge also implies responsibility. They only seek the satisfaction of their curiosity, and that is dangerous if at the same time they are not disposed to do something, and if they are convinced that it is impossible to do anything against evil.”
At this point the Pope grasped a Rosary and said: “Here is the remedy against this evil. Pray, pray, and ask for nothing more. Leave everything else to the Mother of God.” The Holy Father was then asked: “What is going to happen to the Church?”
He answered: “We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us the readiness to cast away even our lives, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ.
“With your and my prayer it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed.
“How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time, too, it will not be otherwise. We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary.” (View Source)
Whether the above report is a true record of the words spoken by Pope John-Paul II is left to the reader to decide. What is true, however, is that there is no reference to anything sensational, let alone references to “oceans flooding whole areas of the earth”, or “millions of people perishing from one moment to the next”, in the official version of the Third Secret of Fatima released by the Vatican in June 2000.
However, the cataclysmic events described by the Pope in the above extract are precisely those that are predicted to occur in the near future by the Oracle in the book The Last Days of Tolemac .
In fact, both the vision of St. Malachy and the words of Lúcia bear out what is written in the book. Lúcia speaks of a time when the “Holy Father” will pass through a city “half in ruins”, before being “killed by a group of soldiers”.
St. Malachy predicts that the Pope that follows Pope Benedict XVI will have to endure a time of “extreme persecution” and that “the city of seven hills will be destroyed”. This will be followed by the return of the “formidable Judge (who) will judge his people.”
The Oracle of Tolemac not only refers to the persecution of Christians and the death of the Pope, but also describes the nature of the Anti-Christ and the events that will lead up to the return of the Christ.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Allan, Articles, March 29, 2013, 6:36 pm
In the blaze of publicity that attended the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the election of his successor, one name kept reappearing in Media reports from all over the world.
What made these reports so enigmatic, was that the name of the person they were referring to was not a living person, but someone who had died more than eight hundred and fifty years before. The person they were referring to was Malachy.
 Malachy was not his birth name. He was born in the year 1094 A.D. in the ancient town of Armagh, in what is today Northern Ireland. His family name was O’Morgair, and his baptismal name was Maelmhaedhoc, which was later translated into Latin as Malachy.
Young Malachy was a devout boy, and was attracted to service in the Catholic Church of Rome. After a lengthy period of study he was ordained as a Priest at the age of twenty-five. He made rapid progress, and was soon promoted to the position of Abbot.
After he was appointed Archbishop of Armagh in 1132, his reforming zeal was devoted to promoting the benefits of the monastic life. Many miracles were attributed to him, and he is said to have even predicted the time and place of his own death.
Father Malachy died in France at the age of fifty-four on November 2, 1148. For his service to the Church, and for his success in rooting out barbarism throughout the land, Father Malachy was later canonized as the first Irish Saint in the Catholic Church by Pope Clement III on July 6, 1199.
And that might have been the last we heard of him, were it not for one dramatic incident in his life. This incident took place in the year 1139. It was then that Father Malachy decided to undertake a hazardous pilgrimage to Rome, to seek an audience with Pope Innocent II.
It is said that after all the hardships he endured along the way, when his eyes first gazed on the Holy City, he fell to the ground in a trance. During this trance Malachy had a unusual vision. In this vision he claimed that he had experienced a revelation of the future of the Church, starting with his own time, and leading up to the return of the Christ.
His strange vision included a sequence of all the Popes who would reign in Rome until this culminating moment in history. What made this vision so unusual, was that each succeeding Pope was identified by means of a short epigrammatic verse or “motto” written in Latin.
Starting with the reign of Pope Celestine II, there were 112 Popes listed by St. Malachy in his vision. This visionary list of Pontiffs was later committed to paper, and has since come to be known as “the prophecy of St. Malachy”.
It is likely that this vision would have long since been forgotten, had it not been for a Benedictine monk by the name of Arnold Wion. For in the year 1595, Wion published a history of the Benedictine Order which he called Lignum Vitae.
 The Last Popes Included in this publication was a list of Popes which were attributed to St. Malachy. Wion not only included the short, cryptic Latin phrases associated with each successive Pope, but he added his own interpretation of the mottoes of the Popes who had previously held the Office of St. Peter up to that time.
These enigmatic Latin mottos have aroused much controversy and debate within the Church over the years, and the life and history of every succeeding Pontiff has been carefully investigated to see how it compares with the relevant Latin motto given by St. Malachy.
The motto given to the Pope at the time that Malachy visited Rome (Innocent II) was “ Ex CastroTyberis” , which is translated as “ From a Castle of the Tiber” . As it happened, Pope Innocent II was born in the town of Tiberinum, situated on the banks of the river Tiber.
The sequence of Popes predicted by Malachy has become more and more significant as the last of the 112 Popes has approached. Church historians have kept a record of each succeeding Pontiff up to the present day. Since the beginning of the 20th century the Popes predicted by Malachy have been as follows:
102 Leo XIII (1878-1903) Lumen in Caelo (Light in the Heavens)
103 Pius X (1903-1914) Ignis Ardens (Ardent Fire)
104 Benedict XV (1914-22) Religio Depopulata (Religion laid Waste)
105 Pius XI (1922-1939) Fides Intrepida (Intrepid Faith)
106 Pius XII (1939-1958) Pastor Angelicus (Angelic Shepherd)
107 John XXIII (1958-63) Pastor et Nauta (Pastor and Marine)
108 Paul VI (1963-1978) Flos Florum (Flower of Flowers)
109 John-Paul I (1978) De Mediatate Lunae (From the Middle of the Moon)
110 John-Paul II (1978-2005) De Labore Solis (From the Labour of the Sun)
The motto given by St. Malachy to the 111th Pope was “Gloria Olivae”, meaning “The Glory of the Olive”. So when the German Cardinal Ratzinger took the name of Benedict XVI, named after the founder of the Benedictine order, the motto was seen to be a reference to the Olivetans, who are a branch of the Benedictine Order.
When Benedict XVI suddenly announced to a startled world that he was resigning as Pope on the grounds of ill health, the entire world was caught up in the guessing game of choosing his successor.
And the reason why the name of St. Malachy kept appearing in report after report in the Media was that, according to the prophecies associated with his name, the new Pope would be the last one to occupy the Vatican before the return of the Christ.
According to St. Malachy, the last Pope (Number 112) would bear the motto “Petrus Romanus” (Peter the Roman). He would be the Pope who would witness the collapse of the Church and the rise to power on the world stage of the man who would come to be known as the Anti-Christ. This would be followed by the return of the Christ as predicted in the Book of Revelation.
In describing the last Pope to hold the Office of Peter in the Church of Rome before the return of the Christ, St. Malachy provided a chilling conclusion to his prophetic vision. He ended the description of his vision with the following words:
“ In extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed the sheep through many tribulations, at the end of which the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the formidable Judge will judge his people. The End.”
We now know that the person elected to succeed Benedict XVI is Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina. He has chosen to be called Francis, as a tribute to the life of service to the poor by the 13th century Saint Francis of Assisi.
Since the time of his election, students of prophecy have busily occupied themselves trying to find an association between the new Pope and the Latin motto attributed to him by St. Malachy.
 Cardinal Bergoglio did not come from Rome, although he was the oldest of five children born to an immigrant father of Italian descent. Neither was he christened by the name of Peter. In fact there seems little to link him to the motto “Peter the Roman”.
But perhaps students of prophecy have been too preoccupied with names and words, and have missed the obvious fact pointed out by St. Malachy. He said that the final Pope would “feed the sheep through many tribulations”.
According to the gospel of St. John, when Jesus had risen from the dead after his crucifixion, he appeared before his disciples on three occasions. On the last of these appearances, Jesus sat down to dine with them. And at the end of the meal he spoke to Peter, the man whom he had chosen to be the leader of his church.
Three times Jesus asked Peter if he loved him. And three times Peter replied that he did. Jesus responded by saying to Peter: “Feed my sheep“. (John 21: 15-17) Is it not significant that St. Malachy uses these same words when speaking of Peter the Roman?
Already, in the space of just a few weeks, Francis has demonstrated that he will be a very different type of Pope from any we have known in the last century or more.
Whereas previous Popes have been ensconced in luxury in the Papal apartments at the Vatican, Francis has indicated that he is happier living in the Domus Santa Martha, a modern hotel-style residence inside the Vatican City.
Francis prefers simple robes to the ornate garments worn by his predecessors. In place of the solid gold ring normally worn by the Pope, Francis has chosen to wear a gold-plated silver ring. And he still continues to wear the iron crucifix around his neck that he wore as Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
Not for him the safety of a bullet-proof “Popemobile”. He prefers to travel in an open Jeep where he can reach out and touch those that he wishes. And he has already shown that he is capable of walking out spontaneously and embracing the crowd, much to the dismay of his security staff.
Clearly, Francis will prove to be a shepherd whose ministry is modelled on that of the disciple Peter, the original Pope. As will soon be obvious to all, this new Pope will truly live up to the name of “Peter of Rome” (Petrus Romanus).
Those who have been following the entries in this Blog will know that events in the world today are rapidly moving towards the climax predicted by the prophets.
And now, with the appearance on the world stage of the last Pope, the last piece of this prophetic puzzle is finally in place. It is now evident that the generation that is alive on earth today will be the one that will experience for themselves the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.
And Francis, the Good Shepherd of Rome, will be the man who will see the emergence of the Anti-Christ, and at the end of many tribulations, will be fated to sacrifice his life as a victim of this Satanic Man.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Allan, Articles, March 21, 2013, 2:19 pm
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. This is a book dealing with prophecy.
For those listeners who may be new to this topic, this Podcast is another in the series “Signs of the Times”, and is titled “Iran’s Nuclear Blunders”.
Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast.
Thanks Scott. Always a pleasure to talk to you again.
Scott: Allan, in your last Podcast you talked about modern Iran, and how it would come to play an important part in future events prophesied in the Bible. How do you think this will come about?
Well Scott, as I mentioned earlier, what has taken place in Iran over the last few years has not only brought the country to the brink of disaster, but as a result of their nuclear blunders, they have brought the world closer to the very scenario predicted by Ezekiel.
The situation in Iran right now is that the entire country is in a state of crisis, largely as a result of international sanctions imposed by Western countries, in response to Iran’s intransigence, and its apparent efforts to produce nuclear weapons.
Scott: What sort of crisis are they facing?
A short while ago, Shamseddin Hosseini, who is the Minister of the Economy in Iran, reported that the country was facing a 50% drop in oil revenues as a result of these sanctions.
In addition, many of the country’s imports, such as food and consumer goods, have been drastically reduced. For example, the number of container ships visiting Iran dropped from 378 in 2010, to a little over one hundred in 2012.
And the number of dry bulk ships carrying food, as well as necessary commodities like coal and iron ore, has dropped by 75% over the last two years. Only eight refrigerated cargo vessels carrying fresh produce called in at Iranian ports during the first ten months of 2012. And only five fishing trawlers docked in the same period, down from 20 two years before.
In October the Government announced that traders would no longer be able to export goods like wheat, flour, sugar and red meat, in order to conserve dwindling supplies at home. And two weeks later, Iran’s Oil Minister announced plans to ration the supply of diesel fuel, in a bid to curb the rampant smuggling of scarce fuel to neighboring countries.
According to the International Monetary Fund, the Rial, which is the main currency of Iran, has lost about 40% of its value against the American dollar since August. And while the official rate of inflation is given as 25%, many economists believe that it is actually closer to 75%.
This reduction in the value of their currency has brought severe economic hardship to citizens throughout Iran. And this has led to the first signs of social unrest, as street protests have broken out recently in various parts of the country.
And in a rare public confession that the Government was struggling under the weight of these international sanctions, the Ayatollah Khamanei was quoted as saying: “These sanctions are barbaric. This is a war against a nation“. And in a predictable show of defiance, he went on to add: “But the Iranian nation will defeat them.”
All of these problems have been brought about by Iran’s biggest blunder, and that is their decision to build nuclear weapons in the first place.
Scott: But don’t the Iranians say that their nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes only?
Correct. In fact they have been saying that repeatedly to anyone who would listen, ever since their nuclear program began. But not many countries believe that today. Europe and the United States don’t. Neither do other Arab states. And Israel certainly doesn’t.
The very fact that Iran has been willing to undergo such hardships, and for so long, has sent a clear message to the world that they are determined to develop nuclear weapons as soon as possible, no matter how many sanctions they have to endure along the way.
The ironic thing about their present situation Scott, is that if they had wanted to, they could have succeeded in developing nuclear weapons long ago, soon after they came to power in 1979. The fact that they chose not to do so at that time, has subsequently proved to be yet another in a long series of political and strategic blunders by the religious leaders of Iran.
Back in the 1950’s, at a time when the Shah was the leader of Iran, he launched a nuclear program with the help of the United States that was part of an Atoms for Peace program. Under this program, the Shah approved plans to build up to 23 nuclear power stations by the year 2000.
As part of this program, President Gerald Ford signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a US built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel – the very thing that Iran is now trying so desperately to achieve.
However, when the regime of the Shah was toppled by the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the new leader of the country, the Ayatollah Khomeini, cancelled the entire program, saying that it was incompatible with Islamic law.
And following the death of Khomeini in 1989, his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei went even further. He issued a “Fatwa” – or religious edict – saying that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons was forbidden under Islamic law.
Scott: So Allan, when do you think Iran decided to go ahead with the development of nuclear weapons?
Well Scott, it is evident that the attitude of the rulers of Iran changed dramatically after 9-1-1. As you will no doubt recall, the response by George Bush to the attack on the World Trade Center, was to launch a full scale invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.
And if that didn’t cause the Iranians to reconsider the need for nuclear weapons, then the events of March 19th, 2003, certainly did. For it was on that night, as the world looked on, that CNN broadcast live coverage of the US attack on the Presidential Palace in Baghdad.
This destructive display of aerial firepower came to be known by the phrase “Shock and Awe”. There is little doubt that those who were most shocked and awed by this ferocious display of firepower, were the rulers in Tehran.
For in the space of just nineteen months, they had come to witness both the countries on either side of them being attacked by the US. And in each of these cases, the aerial attacks were followed by land invasions, as part of George Bush’s global war on terror.
For a country that had captured US diplomats in the past, and held them hostage for over a year, all the while referring to America as the “Great Satan”, this should surely have caused the rulers in Tehran to ask themselves: “How long before we are next?”
So the impetus to gain nuclear weapons would have gone into overdrive from that moment on. And the reason for doing so was, as I explained in my last Podcast, that no country that has developed nuclear weapons in the past, has ever been attacked by any other state.
The perfect example of this is North Korea. Despite openly flaunting the West, including the United States, and continually threatening to destabilize the area, no nation has been willing to confront them, simply because they are known to have a small stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Scott: So what has been happening in Iran over the last ten years?
Well Scott, the leaders of Iran were now confronted with an enormous challenge. They not only had to acquire the materials and equipment necessary for the enrichment of uranium, as well as the facilities needed to house them, but they also had to find a way to do so without the rest of the world finding out about it.
And over the last ten years, this has been a saga that would have done justice to any James Bond novel.
The first thing that Iran needed to do was to create an elaborate smokescreen, designed to fool other countries into thinking that all they were doing was enriching uranium to the level consistent with that needed to fuel a civilian nuclear power plant, which is about 5%.
Secondly, they needed to make sure that the facilities designed to enrich uranium to the level needed to make atomic weapons, were hidden from the prying eyes of the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
As part of their strategy of stalling for time, Iran first entered into a series of long drawn out negotiations with the international community, over whether they should undertake this enrichment process themselves, or whether they should simply import enriched uranium from other designated countries like Russia or the United States.
When these negotiations inevitably failed, Iran announced that they would now have no choice but to build the enrichment facilities themselves. However, in place of the accepted standard of uranium enrichment needed for civilian nuclear power stations, which was 5%, they announced that they intended to raise the enrichment level to 20%.
When the international community refused to go along with this, and enacted a series of sanctions against them, the President of Iran announced that it was their “inalienable right” to do this. He branded the sanctions as “illegal actions imposed by arrogant powers”.
Scott: So where does Iran have their enrichment facilities?
Well Scott, Iran now has seventeen sites that are known to be involved in various aspects of their nuclear program. Of these, two are the most important, because they are the ones that contain the centrifuges that do the actual enrichment of uranium.
The biggest of these facilities is known as Fordow, located outside the holy city of Qom, about a hundred miles to the south of Tehran. The other is at Natanz, roughly midway between Qom and the city of Isfahan.
Both of these facilities are underground. The Fordow site is located about 300 feet below the ground, and has been excavated from the inside of a mountain. Fordow is considered to have about 3,000 centrifuges at this time.
Natanz is a hardened Fuel Enrichment plant built about 25 feet underground, that is protected by a layer of concrete some two and a half feet thick, as well as another 70 feet of compacted earth on top of that. There are currently about 7,000 centrifuges installed at Natanz.
The other key location is Parchin. This is a military complex about 12 miles from downtown Tehran. Although Parchin is officially described as a facility for the testing and manufacturing of explosives, there have been reports that it has also been involved in nuclear weapons research.
But although inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency claimed in November 2011 that they had credible information that the Parchin facility had been used for implosion testing, their repeated attempts to visit this site have so far been blocked by Iran.
So as you can see Scott, this is not the sort of behaviour that would encourage countries like Israel and the United Sates to believe that the Iranian authorities are simply engaged in peaceful research.
Scott: So what has the rest of the world been doing about this?
Well Scott, Western countries have been relying for some years now on an escalating series of sanctions, to try to force Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. But as we have already seen from the response I quoted earlier by the Ayatollah Khamanei, these sanctions only seem to have made Iran even more determined to succeed.
But behind the scenes, almost every kind of covert operation that you can think of has been tried at one time or another, especially by Israel and the United States. And that is why I compare this covert operation to the sort of thing you might read in a James Bond novel.
One of the strategies used was to attack the centrifuges themselves by means of cyber warfare. In June 2010, a computer worm was discovered that came to be known as Stuxnet. Although no one has ever admitted to creating Stuxnet, it is believed to have been a joint creation of Israel and the US.
Stuxnet was the first system of malware designed to target industrial systems, specifically the Siemens software and equipment used by Iran in their enrichment process. Stuxnet was believed to have rendered hundreds of centrifuges inoperable.
Two years later, another source of computer malware emerged, that also targeted Iranian computers. This one was called Flame. Flame was designed to record audio, screenshots, network traffic and keyboard activity.
This information was then relayed to command and control servers scattered around the world. The Flame virus could also spread to other computer systems over Local Area Networks, or by way of USB sticks, and it is thought to have been responsible for infecting thousands of centrifuges.
But this covert campaign has not been limited to cyber warfare. During the years 2010 and 2011, at least five Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed by unknown attackers. Their favourite MO has been to approach on motorcycles and then plant magnetic bombs on the outside of the cars in which these scientists were traveling.
I have even read stories about specially designed pens containing Radio Frequency ID chips, that have been given to Iranian scientists by visiting dignitaries, that could send radio signals to overhead drones to signal their locations.
As I say Scott, we would probably be amazed if we knew the full extent of this covert operation targeting the Iranian nuclear program. And this is where I feel the Iranians have been guilty of another huge strategic blunder.
Scott: Why do you say that, Allan?
Well Scott, if their purpose in developing nuclear weapons was designed to protect them from outside attack, then their nuclear enrichment program of the last ten years has been an unmitigated disaster.
Not only has the country been brought to its knees economically, as a result of the severe sanctions that have been applied by the West to all the countries that do business with Iran, but it seems ever more likely that they will invite the very attack that they fear.
I fully expect an aerial attack on Iranian nuclear facilities by either Israel or the United States, or both, before the end of this year. And when that happens, it will set in motion a chain of events that will lead to the very scenario predicted by the prophet Ezekiel.
It still amazes me Scott, that in spite of the fact that we live in such a sophisticated world, with supposedly wise heads governing the affairs of nations, that a situation could arise that exactly matches the words of an old Hebrew man who lived more than 2,600 years ago. But I will have more to say about all this in my next Podcast.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Scott: Thanks Allan. You have given us valuable insights into what is going on in the Middle East at this time, and how these events seem to be unfolding according to ancient prophecy.
Allan, Signs of the Times, January 14, 2013, 3:19 pm
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac“. This is a book dealing with prophecy.
For those listeners who may be new to this topic, this Podcast is another in the series “Signs of the Times”, and is titled “Persia Reborn”. Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast.
Thanks Scott. It’s a pleasure to be with you again.
Scott: So Allan, I see that the title of today’s talk is called “Persia Reborn”. What exactly do you mean by that?
Well Scott, you will recall that in earlier Podcasts I explained that the ancient prophets predicted that our present world age would end in a series of cataclysms brought on by a close encounter with a comet.
Because of the catastrophes that would afflict the earth at that time, and the devastation caused by the global earthquakes and Tsunamis that would follow, the ancient prophets referred to this event as “The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.”
According to the prophet Ezekiel, this Terrible Day of the Lord would happen after the Jews had returned to the lands of their fore-fathers, and Israel became a nation state once more. As I pointed out in my last Podcast, this occurred on May 14, 1948.
In chapter 38 of his Biblical book of prophecy, Ezekiel went on to say that after Israel had once again become a nation, it would be threatened by many nations, and that the armies of these nations would surround Israel on every side.
Now if this prediction proves to be correct, in the same way that his prediction about the creation of the state of Israel was correct, then Ezekiel gives us a clear timeline as to when this comet will appear.
So what this means Scott, is that because we now know what to look for, we can study world events and see if they unfold in the way that Ezekiel predicted they would. And that is what I plan to do in succeeding Podcasts.
Scott: So Allan, how does this relate to Persia?
Well Scott, according to Ezekiel, the great coalition of armies that would march on Israel would come from, and I quote, “the north parts“, and from countries like “Persia, Libya and Ethiopia“.
Of particular interest here, and what I want to talk about today, is Ezekiel’s reference to the land of Persia.
What I find significant, Scott, is that if Ezekiel’s words do prove to be correct, then the old foes of Persia and Israel will once again confront one another, just as they did in Biblical times.
Scott: So Allan, does that mean we are about to see a replay of the Bible conflicts of the past?
Well Scott, yes and no. For while the modern state of Israel is slightly less than 65 years old, and is similar in many ways to what it was in Biblical times, the ancient empire of Persia has been completely transformed.
For starters, the Persia of old no longer exists. The old empire has been replaced by a new country called the Islamic Republic of Iran. This new republic officially came into being on April 1st, 1979, so modern Iran is just over 33 years old.
It certainly wasn’t like that in Biblical times. For the Persia of old was one of the great empires of the world. Its history stretched back to before the Iron Age, to a time when the western nations of today didn’t even exist.
Ancient Persia has been home to some of the world’s oldest civilizations, with urban settlements dating back to about 4000 years BC. At the height of its golden age, it ruled an area extending from Libya and Spain in the west, to the coast of India in the east.
Over the centuries Persia was ruled by a succession of dynasties, beginning with the Medes, who unified the nation in 625 BC. However, it was later conquered by the invading armies of the Greeks under Alexander, followed by the Arabs, the Turks and the Mongols.
The turning point in Persian history happened between 633 and 656 AD, when the country was invaded by Moslem Arabs. This was the time when their ancient religion based on the teachings of the Prophet Zoroaster, was replaced by the religion of Islam.
After many years of foreign occupation by various invading armies, Persia was once again unified as an independent state in the year 1501, under Islamic rulers known as the Safavids.
But whereas up until that time, most of the population of Persia were Sunni Moslems, under the Safavids they were forced to become Shi’ites, and from then on Shi’a Islam became the official religion of Persia.
Another significant change introduced by the Safavids, was that Persia became a monarchy, and was ruled either by an emperor or a Shah. This system of government continued until up until 1979, when the Shah Reza Pahlavi was driven from power.
Scott: Wasn’t that the time of the American hostage crisis?
Yes Scott, it was. The revolution actually began in January 1978, when street riots broke out against the increasingly authoritarian rule of the Shah. These disturbances continued throughout that year until, in January 1979, the Shah fled after strikes and demonstrations had effectively paralyzed the country.
On February 1st, 1979, one of the instigators of the revolution, a cleric by the name of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returned from exile in Paris to become the Supreme Leader of the country.
The Shah meanwhile had been diagnosed with cancer, and he traveled to the United States for treatment. This was the pretext used by the Ayatollah to organize students to storm the American embassy in Tehran.
Fifty two embassy personnel were captured when students poured into the embassy compound , and they were held hostage in Iran for 444 days. They were finally released in January 1981, on the day that President Ronald Reagan took office.
Incidentally, it was also at this time that Khomeini began referring to America as the “Great Satan”. However, this ideological slogan proved to have serious consequences for Iran, as it unleashed a powerful anti-Iranian backlash throughout the West that still continues to this day.
And this is where the destinies of Israel and Iran became intertwined once again. For no sooner had Iran become a nation state in 1979, than it became embroiled in civil war, just like the state of Israel had been some 30 years before.
At the time that Israel became a state, the United Nations called for the land of Palestine to be partitioned into two parts. One part was to consist of an independent Arab state, while the other part was to become an independent Jewish state.
The UN also decided that the city of Jerusalem would not belong to either the Jews or the Arabs, but would instead be ruled by an International Trustee System, administered by the United Nations themselves.
Well as you can imagine Scott, this was pretty much a recipe for disaster, and there could have been little surprise when civil war broke out between the Jews and the Arabs the very next day.
Scott: So Allan, how does this compare with the situation in Iran?
The situation in Iran was slightly different. In their case, the civil war didn’t break out between Iranians and non-Iranians, but between the Iranians themselves. The revolution was between supporters of the Shah, and those who aligned themselves with the Ayatollah.
The revolution itself was relatively short-lived, as the Pahlavi dynasty of the Shah collapsed when the military declared its neutrality a short while later. And the country officially became an Islamic Republic when the people approved a national referendum on April 1, 1979.
But this didn’t bring an end to the fighting. Soon after, Marxist guerillas joined rebels in various parts of the country, engaging in fierce fighting with government forces. The most violent of these revolts was the Kurdish uprising, which led to thousands of casualties.
It was while Iranian Government forces were embroiled in defeating their internal enemies, that Saddam Hussein tried to take advantage of the ongoing political and social crisis, by launching a full scale assault on Iran.
On September 22, 1980, the Iraqi army invaded Iran at Khuzestan, which took the leadership of Iran completely by surprise. This was the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war which was to last for six years, and cause almost a million casualties in Iran.
And it was out of this conflict that the seeds were planted that would lead, some thirty years later, to the armed confrontation that now exists between the states of Israel and Iran.
And this unfolding saga has proved to be as devious, twisted and malign as the plot of any fiction novel.
Scott: I sense that you’re about to take us on a James Bond type ride. Am I right?
That’s a good analogy Scott, because the intrigue associated with the Iranian manoeuvres over the last few years would easily rival any spy story.
But to go back to the time of the Iran-Iraq war which finally ended in 1988, Iran’s neighbor Afghanistan was involved in a battle of its own, with US backed mujahadeen fighting Soviet forces in a conflict that ultimately cost the Afghans over a million lives.
And having just emerged from a costly war of its own, both in terms of casualties and resources, the overriding concern of the Iranian leadership at that time was to find a way to avoid being over-run by either of these two superpowers.
This fear was undoubtedly reinforced some years later when the Americans attacked Iraq, and destroyed the forces of Saddam Hussein. So in short order, the leadership in Iran saw both of their neighboring countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, being invaded by American troops.
So Iran now found itself in the same position that Israel had been some thirty years earlier. And their response to their predicament was to do exactly what the Israelis did. I suspect you can probably guess what that was Scott.
Scott: Well Allan, my guess would be that they decided to build an atom bomb.
Pretty shrewd Scott. You’re right. As history has now shown, both nations decided to adopt the same strategy to protect themselves from the forces ranged against them. They decided to develop nuclear weapons.
And the reason they did this was simple. Iran realised, just like Israel had learned before them, that those countries that had their own nuclear capability were safe from attack, both from the West and from the East.
Outside of the main nuclear nations of the West, allied with China and Russia, only four countries have developed the capacity to produce nuclear weapons. These four are India and Pakistan, along with Israel and North Korea.
Of these four nations, only Israel has never publicly admitted to having nuclear weapons, choosing instead to follow a policy of ambiguity. Under this policy, Israel neither admits or denies that it has nuclear weapons, even though this is now taken for granted by its enemies.
From a defensive standpoint, perhaps the best example of the protective power of nuclear technology, is the country of North Korea. Ever since they exploded a small nuclear device in October 2006, North Korea has been safe from outside attack.
This despite some of the most provocative behaviour by any nation, and despite continuing threats to the people of South Korea. The fact that North Korea could effectively do whatever they liked, and thumb their noses at the rest of the world, has not been lost upon the leaders of Iran.
And if there were any doubts about the effectiveness of this strategy, they have surely been laid to rest by the recent overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Shortly after Gaddafi seized power in a military coup in 1969, he tried to obtain nuclear technology.
Although his initial efforts met with failure, over the years he managed to acquire both the expertise and the fissionable material needed to succeed.
However, shortly after the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, Gaddafi surprised everyone by announcing that he had decided voluntarily to eliminate his stock of chemical weapons, and to stop the production of nuclear material.
This later proved to have been a critical mistake, because if he hadn’t done this, it is unlikely that NATO would have risked intervening in the Libyan crisis that led to his death, and the collapse of his authoritarian regime.
Scott: So Allan, how does this tie in with what happened in Iran?
Well Scott, Like Gaddafi, the Ayatollah Khomeini no doubt saw the value of having nuclear weapons. But partly as a result of his religious dogma, and partly because of an amazing sequence of strategic blunders, Iran has stumbled from crisis to crisis.
As I suggested earlier, what has taken place in Iran over the last few years would surely rival any James Bond novel for deception, mystery and intrigue.
In following Podcasts, I want to talk about some of these blunders and explain firstly, why the present strategy in Iran has brought the country to the brink of disaster, and secondly, how this will likely lead to the precise scenario predicted by Ezekiel.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Scott: Thanks Allan. You have given us some fascinating insights into what is happening today in the Middle East, and how these events seem to be unfolding according to ancient prophecy.
Allan, Signs of the Times, December 2, 2012, 4:03 pm
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. This is a book dealing with prophecy.
For those listeners who may be new to this topic, today’s podcast is another in the series titled “Signs of the Times”. Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast.
Thanks Scott. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you.
Scott: So Allan, what do you plan to talk about today?
Well Scott, you will recall that in my earlier Podcasts I explained that the ancient prophets predicted that our present world age would end in a series of cataclysms brought on by a close encounter with a comet.
Because of the catastrophes that would afflict the earth at that time, and the devastation caused by the global earthquakes and Tsunamis that would follow, the ancient prophets referred to this event as “The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.”
According to these prophets, this Terrible Day of the Lord would be followed by a seven year period of terror and destruction that would end in the return to earth of the long-awaited Savior, who would lead the world into a new Golden Age of peace, that is predicted to last for a thousand years.
Scott: So Allan, do we have any idea when this close encounter with the comet will take place?
Yes Scott, we do. Thanks to the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, we have a pretty good idea when this will occur.
Scott: So are we talking about the distant future, or is this something that will happen in our own lifetimes?
Good question Scott. Based on my interpretation of the prophecies that I quote from in my book, I believe these events will happen in our lifetime. In fact I will go further. Based on the signs of the times in which we are now living, I believe that this close encounter with a comet is now only a few years away.
Scott: Wow! That is a bold prediction Allan. Why do you think this will happen so soon?
As I say, Scott, I base this on the words of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel lived around the end of the seventh century BC, at a time when the Jews were living in exile in Babylon.
In Chapter 37 of his book of prophecy recorded in the Old Testament, Ezekiel predicted that a series of events would occur in the “latter days”, a term used by Ezekiel as well as later prophets to denote the times leading up to the return of the savior.
Ezekiel predicted that a time would come when the scattered tribes of Israel would return to the land of their fore-fathers, and would become a nation once more. As he wrote:
“And say unto them, thus saith the Lord God: behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them up on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel.”
And as you probably know, Scott, this actually happened on May 14, 1948, when the state of Israel came into being, following the adoption of a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly.
So Scott, as you can see from this particular prophecy, it is clear that Ezekiel was referring to events taking place in our own times. But Ezekiel did not stop there. He went on to make even more dramatic predictions.
Scott: What else did he have to say?
He said that soon after this time, the land of Israel would be threatened by many nations, and that the armies of these nations would surround Israel on every side. This great coalition of armies would come from, and I quote, “the north parts”, and from countries like “Persia, Libya and Ethiopia”.
As Ezekiel writes in Chapter 38:
“Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, thus saith the Lord God; in that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it? And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army.”
“And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.”
According to Ezekiel, this vast mechanized army would assemble on the borders to the north, south and east of Israel. Their goal would be to wipe out the Jewish nation once and for all, and to take over their land. The Jews would be powerless to stop the mighty forces that would be arrayed against them on every side.
But just when all hope seemed to be lost, and the entire nation seemed to be doomed, the Jews would be saved by a supernatural event. For a comet would suddenly appear in the skies of earth. It would cause earthquakes throughout the land, and would rain “hailstones, fire and brimstone” down on their enemies.
For as Ezekiel goes on to say:
“And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come up in my face. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken. Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel.”
“So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence.”
“And the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.”
Scott: So what will happen to the armies surrounding Israel at that time?
According to Ezekiel, the armies that are gathered on the borders of Israel will be caught on the open plains. They will be defenceless, and will be exposed to the full fury of the meteorites and the fiery hail that will descend on them from the sky.
As Ezekiel writes:
“And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire and brimstone.”
As a result of the earthquakes on the land, and the aerial bombardment from the skies, the armies that had gathered on the borders of Israel will be decimated. Those few who survive these disasters will either be unable, or unwilling, to pursue their assault.
Ezekiel writes that only “a sixth part” of the invading armies will survive the onslaught of the comet.
“Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, thus saith the Lord God; behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee.”
“And I will smite the bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand. Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beast of the field to be devoured.”
Ezekiel goes on to write that, after the comet has passed, the countryside will be littered with the wreckage of the armaments and the bodies of the dead. So many people will die on the open plains that it will take the Israelis seven months to bury them all.
During that time the stench of rotting flesh will fill the air. Wild beasts and birds of prey will feed on the carcases of the dead. As Ezekiel concludes:
“And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude.”
So Scott, Ezekiel paints here a graphic picture of a failed military campaign against the state of Israel, and of the devastating losses incurred by the invading armies, as a result of the timely intervention of a comet.
Scott: So how do you think this relates to the events of our times?
Well Scott, the prophecies of Ezekiel that I have outlined here, as well as those of other Hebrew prophets that I include in my book, make it plain that the arrival of the comet will coincide with an attack on Israel.
This attack will be drawn from a coalition of forces, and will comprise armies from places like Libya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Iran, as well as those emanating from what Ezekiel calls “the north parts”.
They will also be joined by forces from places quoted by Ezekiel, such as Meshech and Tubal, as well as Gomer and the house of Togarmah, all of which form part of modern Turkey.
Over the years Biblical scholars have devoted reams of space dissecting what countries Ezekiel was referring to, and where exactly these invading armies would be coming from. But for the purposes of this Podcast, it is sufficient to say that it will be an Islamic alliance, linked with forces drawn from various Russian republics.
But whatever the source of these invading armies might happen to be, the rationale behind their invasion would seem to be obvious. Instead of destroying the land of Israel and its inhabitants, its mission would be to rid the land of all the Jews.
This would allow those Arabs presently living in Israel to have a home of their own at last, and to create a new Islamic nation with Jerusalem as its capital, centred around the sacred sites of the Islamic religion.
These would be the Temple Mount in the old city of Jerusalem, which is now the site of the holy Dome of the Rock, from where Mohammed is said to have ascended into heaven, as well as the Al Aqsa mosque, considered to be the third holiest site in Islam.
By choosing a land invasion, as opposed to an aerial attack by rockets and other armaments, this Islamic coalition would be sure that none of their sacred monuments would be damaged, and that the existing Islamic population in the area would be spared.
So the invasion that Ezekiel has predicted Scott, makes a lot of military sense. For in the eyes of the Arabs, as well as in other hostile Islamic countries, such a strategy would solve once and for all the problems of the Middle East.
With the Jews gone, all of the countries of the region would be united under Islam, and their dream of taking full control of Jerusalem would finally become a reality.
Scott: So Allan, are there any calls among Arab states today, to set up an Islamic nation with Jerusalem as its capital?
Yes Scott, there are. In fact the Saudi-owned news channel “Al Arabiya”, which is based in Dubai, issued the following news bulletin on October 11, 2012.
It reported that the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Sheikh Mohammed Badie, had called for a Jihad (or holy war) designed to liberate Jerusalem from Israeli rule. According to the news report, Sheikh Badie had this to say in his weekly address to his followers:
“Jerusalem is Islamic .. and nobody is entitled to make any concessions about the fate of the city.” He then went on to say: “The Jihad for the recovery of Jerusalem is a duty for all Muslims“, adding that “the liberation of the Holy City will not be done through negotiations, or at the United Nations.”
Another prominent campaigner for the conquest of Jerusalem, has been the Egyptian Imam and television preacher by the name of Safwat Hegazi. Hegazi is certainly no lover of the Jews, having announced in 2008: “Dispatch those sons of apes and pigs to the Hellfire on the wings of Qassam rockets”.
Hegazi, who has been banned from entering the United Kingdom for stirring up hatred, was recorded as saying at an Egyptian presidential campaign rally in June: “Our capital shall not be in Cairo, Mecca or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem with God’s will.”
And to a crowd of supporters on the Gaza Strip he said: “The United States of the Arabs will be restored. The capital of the Muslim Caliphate will be Jerusalem with God’s will. Our chants shall be: millions of martyrs will march towards Jerusalem.”
And just in case there was any doubt, he concluded with these words: “Yes, we will either pray in Jerusalem or we will be martyred there.”
I leave it to listeners to decide for themselves whether these are in fact the new rallying cries of our times.
In my next Podcast, I will be dealing with the biggest threat to the state of Israel at this time, and that is Persia, or to give it its modern name, Iran.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Scott: Thanks Allan. This has been an amazing Podcast, bringing us up to date with events that are unfolding day by day in the Middle East. I can’t wait to hear what you will be talking about in your next Podcast.
Allan, Signs of the Times, October 7, 2012, 1:45 pm
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. This is a book dealing with prophecy. For those listeners who may be new to this topic, today’s podcast is the twelfth in the series, and is titled “Signs of the Times”.
Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast.
Thanks Scott. It’s always a pleasure.
Scott: So what do you plan to talk about today?
Well Scott, now that we’ve reached the 12th program in the series, I thought this might be a good time to do a brief recap of earlier Podcasts, and explain how they fit together.
Scott: That sounds like a great idea.
You will recall that I started off by giving a summary of my book “The Last Days of Tolemac“. I then went on to explain how I came to write the book in the first place, and why I used the word Tolemac in the title.
Because my book deals with prophecy, or to be more correct – the interpretation of prophecy – I discussed the purpose of prophecy, as well as the difference between prophecy and prediction. I also listed the sources of prophecy that I used in my book.
I then turned to the problem of bogus predictions. Because so many predictions that have been made in the past have turned out to be wrong, I devoted the next three Podcasts to the subject of false prophecies.
And since 2012 has been a banner year with all sorts of doom-laden predictions, I devoted the Podcast titled “The Doomsday Prophecies” to dealing with these predictions, and explaining why I believe that all of these predictions will also turn out to be false.
And because so many people have been caught up in the rumours surrounding Planet X, as a result of the many books written by Zecharia Sitchin, I devoted Podcast No 6 to explaining why Planet X is not a threat to earth, and why it is considered to be a literary hoax.
Podcast # 7 was devoted to the Maya and their Long Count calendar. I discussed how this Long Count calendar came about, as well as the various predictions associated with its supposed end on December 21, 2012.
I then went on to explain why I believe that all of these predictions associated with the Mayan calendar will also turn out to be false.
Scott: I must say I was relieved to hear you say that none of these predictions were likely to happen, and that we don’t have anything to worry about at this time.
Well, that’s not exactly true, Scott. What I said was we don’t have anything to fear from those specific prophecies, especially the ones related to the year 2012.
However, in my book “The Last Days of Tolemac“, I refer to specific predictions that have been made by ancient prophets about the future of our planet, and I go on to explain why I believe that these particular prophecies will soon come to pass, exactly as the ancients said they would.
Several of my previous Podcasts have been titled “Signs of the Times“. The purpose of these Podcasts is to draw people’s attention to events that are happening in our world at this time, that I believe are precursors to the disasters that have been foretold.
You may remember that in my previous Podcast in this series, Scott, I referred to certain statements made by Richard Leakey.
Scott: I do. Wasn’t he the scientist from Kenya who has spent his life researching the origins of mankind through the study of ancient fossils?
That’s exactly right Scott. And it is worth repeating what he said at a recent press conference. This is what he said:
“If you look at the fossil record, the thing that strikes you is that extinction is the most common phenomenon. Extinction is always driven by environmental change, and environmental change is always driven by climate change.”
So what Richard Leakey is saying Scott, is that many species that previously existed on the earth have been wiped out in past disasters, and their fossils bear testimony to ancient cataclysmic events.
You will recall that my last three Podcasts were devoted to the life and works of Immanuel Velikovsky. In these Podcasts I pointed out that Velikovsky spent ten years researching the records, legends and myths of the ancient world.
And just like Richard Leakey, Velikovsky found that the evidence of the geological and fossil record indicates that the extinction of many species has occurred catastrophically, rather than in a gradual way as Darwin would have us believe.
He also found that some of these catastrophes have occurred within the recorded memory of humanity, and that these events have been preserved in myths and legends in all the ancient cultures and civilizations of the world.
In the course of his research, Velikovsky found numerous references to different world ages in the past history of our planet. And the idea that the earth has undergone a series of catastrophic upheavals did not begin with the Maya.
Legends, myths and stories of these devastating events can also be found throughout the ancient world. They tell of times when entire cultures were destroyed and the earth was convulsed by natural disasters that had their origin in space.
Scott: So Allan, do you think that the earth will soon experience another extinction level event?
Yes Scott, I do.
In my last Podcast, I pointed out that the descriptions given by St John in his Book of Revelation in the Bible, about the events that will occur during the end times, sound strikingly similar to the plagues that descended on Egypt at the time of Moses.
Not only that, but it is clear from other Biblical prophecies that the catastrophes that are about to afflict the earth will come suddenly, or as Jesus said: “like a thief in the night“. And these catastrophes will be accompanied by signs in the earth, as well as signs in the heavens.
The Old Testament prophets refer to specific disasters that will befall the earth in what they call “the latter days“, meaning the days relating to the end of our current world age. These disasters will begin on what they call “the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord“.
I quote extensively from these prophecies in my book, but for those listeners who may be not be familiar with my work, I will just offer a few quotations here. As St Luke writes in chapter 21 of his gospel:
“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring.”
“And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.” (Joel – chapter 2, verses 30-31.)
“For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up.” (Malachi – chapter 4 verse 1)
And as I explain in my book, the prophecies of the ancients say that our present world will be destroyed, and will be followed by a new Golden Age of peace and prosperity. So the world itself will continue, Scott, but in a totally new form.
According to the Book of Revelation, there will be a new earth and a new heaven. The old world will be obliterated, and will be replaced by a new one that has been cleansed by the catastrophes that are coming.
Scott: Well Allan, the idea of a new Golden Age is certainly good news. But if our present world is about to be destroyed, then what are the warning signs that we should be looking out for ?
When the disciples of Jesus asked him this same question, he said that the time of his return would be identified by wars and rumours of wars, by changes in the weather, and by an increase in natural disasters.
And although this description could probably apply to almost any century during the last two thousand years, it is particularly true today, as anyone can see by simply following the daily news.
And this is where people like Richard Leakey really have their fingers on the pulse of our times. For if extinction events are preceded by environmental change, and if environmental change really is driven by climate change, then surely all the warnings we need can already be seen in our daily newspapers.
Just look at the dramatic increase in extreme weather related events that have occurred since the beginning of this year. There has been practically no country on the planet that has escaped the havoc caused by these events.
After experiencing one of the warmest winters on record, the continental United States is now baking in conditions of extreme heat that have broken thousands of local records in cities everywhere.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in the so-called “corn belt”, which is now reeling under one of the worst droughts in history. CNN reported that July was the hottest single month on record for the continental United States.
These high temperatures have contributed to a rapid expansion of drought across the central plains. In fact the Department of Agriculture recently announced that over half of all the Counties in the United States have now been labelled natural disaster areas.
This extreme heat has not only devastated crops, leading to food shortages and increased prices, but in states like Colorado and Oklahoma, it has led to the worst outbreaks of forest fires ever recorded.
Then there have been sudden extreme weather events in different parts of the country, such as the storms that downed trees in the North East, leaving millions of people without power. And Chicago was struck by similar storms just a few weeks ago.
In June, parts of Florida were almost drowned by unprecedented amounts of rainfall caused by tropical storm Debby. And similar torrential downpours have taken place recently in places like Great Britain, Brazil, China, India, the Philippines, Russia and North Korea.
So the key point here Scott, is not that extreme weather events are happening all over the earth, but the fact that they are happening with increasing frequency, and with increasing ferocity. These are the signs that drastic changes lie ahead for our planet.
And, as the ancients have predicted, these changes will culminate in the cataclysmic events of the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord. But our weather is not the only sign that the end times are near. There is also the matter of “wars and rumours of wars“.
Scott: What do you mean by that?
As I have explained in my book Scott, the trigger for the events predicted for the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord are to be found in the Middle East. Already we can see that this area of the world is in ferment.
Most of the attention at this time is directed towards the dire events in Syria, where a sectarian civil war is under way between the Alawite sect of President Bashar al Assad, and the Sunni majority.
And no matter what the final outcome of this conflict may happen to be, it is clear that, as a result of the constant shelling and aerial bombardment of rebel positions, the nation’s infrastructure will be in ruins, and Syria will remain a hotbed of revolution for years to come.
It is also worth remembering Isaiah’s prophecy regarding the city of Damascus. In Chapter 17, verse 1 he writes: “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.” As we watch the evening news, we can see Biblical prophecy once again being fulfilled.
But Syria is only a minor player in the end-time drama that is unfolding. According to the prophecies of the Old Testament prophets, the vital clue to the onset of these catastrophes will involve the land of Israel and its enemies.
In my book I outline the events that will lead up to this event. And what we need to be watching right now is the stand-off between Israel and Iran, especially regarding their development of nuclear weapons.
And from announcements made recently by leading figures in Israel and the United States, I believe that we are only months away from a strike on the Iranian underground facilities which will have a profound impact on all the nations of the region.
I also believe that this military strike will be the beginning of the end times spoken of in the Bible. But I will have much more to say about all this in my next Podcast in the series “Signs of the Times” in about a month from now.
Meanwhile, I will be devoting the next three Podcasts to the key question of our times, and that is:
If what these ancient prophets are saying proves to be correct, and our modern world is about to be destroyed, then are we all going to die? I plan to call these next three instalments: “The Chosen Ones“.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Scott: Thanks Allan. You have certainly given us a lot to think about in your message today.
You have been listening to Allan Colston, author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. Do join us for our next Podcast, which will be titled “The Chosen Ones”.
Allan, Signs of the Times, September 2, 2012, 2:25 pm
The following is a transcript of Podcast # 6 titled: Planet X – Fact or Fiction?
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac“. This is a book dealing with prophecy. For those listeners who may be new to this topic, today’s podcast is the sixth in the series, and is titled “Planet X – Fact or Fiction? “
Hello Allan and welcome.
Thanks Scott. It’s good to talk to you again.
Scott: So what exactly is Planet X?
So… Planet X….. What exactly is it? Well to give you a straight answer Scott, Planet X is a creation of the mind. And the person whose mind created it, was an American author by the name of Zecharia Sitchin.
Sitchin was an interesting man. He was born in 1920 in Azerbaijan, one of the former Soviet Socialist Republics. He died in New York on October 9, 2010. During his lifetime, Sitchin became famous for a series of books proposing a novel explanation for the origin of humans, which he attributed to ancient astronauts.
So you could say that he followed in the footsteps of another famous author who also advanced the idea of ancient astronauts, and that was the Swiss author Erich von Daniken.
Although Sitchin was born in what was then the Soviet Union, he was raised in Palestine. He received a degree in economics from the University of London, and was an editor and journalist in Israel, before moving to New York in 1952. It was while he was working as an executive for a shipping company that he had the chance to visit various archaeological sites in southern Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq.
He was so fascinated by the ancient Sumerian culture, that he taught himself how to read their writing.
Scott: What do we know about Sumerian writing?
The Sumerian language was the earliest known written language, and spanned a period of about five hundred years, from about 3,500 to 3,000 BC.
The Sumerians used a wedge-shaped tool that was pressed into wet clay, and it was this technique which gave rise to the name Cuneiform – meaning wedge- shaped. Once they dried, these Cuneiform tablets were preserved, and some of them survived up to the present day, allowing scholars to decipher them.
Like von Daniken, who was actually a Hotelier by profession, Sitchin was not a trained scholar. He was a layman who taught himself how to interpret these clay tablets. And once he had satisfied himself that he understood what they were saying, he began to write a series of books about the Sumerians and their times
He published his first book in 1976. It was called “The 12th Planet“, and in it Sitchin came up with an amazing theory. In fact this theory has proved to be far more sensational than anything dreamed up previously by von Daniken.
Scott: What was his theory?
According to Sitchin, there exists in our solar system a planet that the Sumerians called Nibiru. This planet collided catastrophically with another planet which the Sumerians called Tiamat. Sitchin explained that Tiamat was located between Mars and Jupiter, and that Tiamat was struck by one of Nibiru’s moons, causing the planet to split into two parts.
Sitchin wrote that in its next orbit around the sun, one of the moons of Nibiru struck one of the two halves that remained of Tiamat, and that this collision created the asteroid belt that exists between Mars and Jupiter today, as well as the Oort cloud that has spawned so many comets throughout our recorded history.
But this was not all, Sitchin stated that the other part of the original planet Tiamat was pushed into a new orbit, and became today’s planet earth.
Scott: So how did the ancient Sumerians know about all this?
Good question Scott. And this is where Sitchin really launched his amazing theory. For according to Sitchin, the planet Nibiru (which Sitchin called the 12th Planet) was the home of a technologically advanced human-like extra-terrestrial race called the Annunaki.
Sitchin claimed that, based on his interpretation of the ancient Cuneiform tablets, the Annunaki arrived on earth from Nibiru around 450,000 years ago. He said they were looking for minerals, especially gold, which they were able to find and mine in Africa.
Sitchin said that the Gods of antiquity were actually the rank-and-file workers of a colonial expedition sent to earth from the planet Nibiru. But because these Annunaki were dissatisfied with their working conditions here on earth, they rebelled. So they decided to create a race of primitive workers who would do the mining work for them.
They did this by means of genetic engineering, by crossing extra-terrestrial genes with those of primitive man. It was this cross breed, Sitchin claimed, that was the origin of the human species that scientists today refer to as Homo Sapiens.
So according to Sitchin, modern humans are the descendants of slaves who were created for the express purpose of serving their colonial masters from the planet Nibiru.
Scott: Do people actually believe this?
Whether or not there is any truth to this is uncertain. What is certain is that people all over the world have been buying Sitchin’s books by the millions. Since the release of his first book in 1976, Sitchin went on to write seven other books, as part of a series he called “Earth Chronicles“.
These books have now been published in more than 25 languages, and have even been translated into Braille.
But however provocative his ideas, Sitchin now has a devoted following of readers. Even his critics admit that he has been the most ardent supporter of the ancient astronaut theory for the last 25 years.
Prior to his death, he was awarded a life-time achievement award, and his work is considered to have influenced various Hollywood productions, such as the 1994 movie Stargate, as well as the villains in the film Cowboys and Aliens.
Scott: What do academic scholars have to say about Sitchin?
They have had a lot to say Scott, and as you can imagine, none of it is very complimentary. As you would expect, highly trained scholars do not take kindly to laymen who claim to see things in ancient clay tablets that they themselves cannot find.
Chief among Sitchin’s academic critics is the ancient language scholar Michael Heiser. Heiser is an established authority on Sumerian Cuneiform scripts, and is highly critical of Sitchin because of his flagrant errors.
Heiser has even gone as far as to create his own website, which he calls www.SitchinIsWrong.com. On this website Heiser analyses Sitchin’s claims, and then demolishes them one by one.
Not content with his own research, Heiser invites visitors to his website to find out the facts for themselves, by showing them exactly how and where to do this. He also challenges Sitchin, or any of his followers, to produce a single line of cuneiform text that supports his ideas about the Anunnaki. As he says:
“I just want to see one line of one text that says things like the Anunnaki inhabit a planet called Nibiru, or that the term Anunnaki means ‘people of the fiery rockets’, that sort of thing.” So far nobody has.
Another vocal critic is the American cultural critic William Thompson who complains that what Sitchin sees in the clay tablets is exactly what he needs to support his theory. He writes:
“Sitchin has constructed what appears to be a convincing argument, but when he gets close to single images on ancient tablets, he falls back into the literalism of ‘Here is an image of the gods in rockets’. Ancient Sumer is made to look like a movie set. The gods can cross galactic distances, but by the time they get to earth they need launching pads for their rocket ships. This literalization of the imagination doesn’t make any sense, but every time it doesn’t, you hear Sitchin say ‘There can be no doubt, but…”
Scott: And what do astronomers have to say about all this?
Astronomers of today have little time for Sitchin’s theory of rogue planets careering through the solar system, creating and destroying other planets as they do so.
Since the well researched and documented theories of Immanuel Velikovsky have been rejected by science, there is little hope that the poorly researched and even wilder theories of Sitchin would receive any attention in serious scientific journals.
One of the most prolific critics of his work is Leroy Ellenberger. Ellenberger points out that the idea of an ancient civilization developing on a planet that spends over 99% of its time in deep space beyond Pluto is patently absurd.
And the explanation proposed by Sitchin, that the planet Nibiru could be heated from within through a process of radioactive decay is equally absurd, and doesn’t address the obvious problem of total darkness in deep space.
But the aspect of Sitchin’s work that attracts the most criticism from astronomers, is his contention that the Planet Nibiru continues to orbit around our sun, and that it takes 3,600 years to complete a single orbit.
For starters, astronomers say that no planet with such an irregular orbit could maintain that orbit for very long. It would either be flung out of the solar system altogether, or become an inner planet.
“The scenario outlined by Sitchin, (says one astronomer) with Nibiru returning to the inner solar system regularly every 3,600 years, implies an orbit extending twelve times farther beyond the sun than Pluto.
“Elementary perturbation theory indicates that, under the most favorable circumstances of avoiding close encounters with other planets, no body with such an eccentric orbit would keep the same period for two consecutive passages.
“Within twelve orbits the object would be either ejected or converted to a short period object. Thus, the failed search for a trans-Plutonian planet by Tom Van Flandern of the U.S. Naval Observatory, which Sitchin uses to bolster his thesis, is no support at all.”
Scott: So, Allan, how does this relate to prophecy?
Well Scott, there are a growing number of people who think that Sitchin’s planet Nibiru is about to make another pass around the sun in December 2012. And when it does, it will cause catastrophic damage to the earth.
And because this mysterious planet has continued to defy persistent efforts to observe it, it has come to be referred to as Planet X – with X being the unknown object. This was a question that Sitchin himself was continually being asked while he was alive. In fact, on his website (www.sitchin.com), which is still maintained by his nephew, the following item has been posted.
“A number of Zecharia Sitchin’s fans have been asking about the date December 21, 2012, and what it might signify in relation to his writings. If Zecharia had been asked this question, he would have answered “read my book” entitled The End of Days.”
His nephew goes on to say:
“It is gratifying that Wikipedia lists one of the possible reasons for the significance of the date as the passing of Nibiru, a planet that would not be named without Zecharia’s work. However, since I’m not Zecharia, I’ll give away a bit of the puzzle and say that neither cataclysmic events on December 21, 2012, nor Niburu, come into play as a concern in 2012. For more details read the book.”
Scott: Do we know what the book says?
Yes Scott we do. In his book “The End of Days” Sitchin writes: “If that is what happened, it would explain the ‘early’ arrival of Niburu in 556 BC – and suggest that its next arrival will be AD 2,900”. And here is the clincher:
“For those who associate the prophesied cataclysmic events with the return of Niburu – (Planet X to some) – the time is not at hand.”
While he undoubtedly created the furore which now surrounds Planet X, by coming up with the notion of Niburu in the first place, at least Sitchin did not support the hysteria that now surrounds the possible re-appearance of Niburu in December of this year.
So, to sum up then, there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of Niburu, or Planet X, or of any other planet with an eccentric orbit extending far beyond Pluto. And as we have seen, Sitchin has clearly written that Niburu is not about to come anywhere near earth at this time.
So we can rest assured that, whatever else may happen this year, we do not need to concern ourselves with a close encounter from this rogue planet.
I would just like to end this Podcast by reminding listeners that in my book “The Last Days of Tolemac“, I outline where our world is headed, and what we really do need to worry about in the coming years.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Scott: Thanks Allan. You have been listening to Allan Colston, author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. Do join us for our next Podcast in our series called “Signs of the Times”.
Allan, Planet X, May 29, 2012, 1:40 pm
The word apocalypse comes from the Greek word apokaluptein meaning “to uncover” or “to lift the veil”. Apocalyptic works are writings that are designed to disclose something hidden from the majority of mankind. The best known example of apocalyptic writing is The Revelation of St John the Divine in the Christian Bible.
In his book of revelation, St John described in symbolic language a series of events that would take place over a period of seven years, that would begin and end in Israel. This period would begin with a day of cataclysm (The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord), and end with the battle of Armageddon on the plains of Jezreel, near the ancient town of Megiddo.
Of course St John was not the only person to describe apocalyptic events in the Bible. In their gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke all made specific references to the words of Jesus relating to events that would occur prior to his return. The evangelist Paul referred to them in his epistles. These events were also echoed in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament.
In fact all of the Jewish prophets seemed obsessed with events relating to the “Latter Days”, even though they would not occur for thousands of years after their time. Not only major prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel focused on the judgement that would be visited upon the Jews in the end times, but also minor prophets like Joel, Amos, Nahum, Haggai, Malachi and others.
But apocalyptic prophecies can also be found in the sacred works of many religions and cultures. As can be seen from other articles posted on this Blog, similar descriptions of the ending of the current world age can be found among the prophetic works of the Hopi Indians of Arizona and the Maya of Central America.
All of these prophetic works describe a future time when cataclysmic disasters will assail the earth, affecting the whole of humanity. They also contain a common theme which can be set out as follows:
1) The present world age is considered to be an age of darkness, where humanity is ruled by Satan and his demons.
2) The coming age will be an age of enlightenment, ruled over by God and his angels.
3) The transition between these two world ages will come suddenly, “like a thief in the night”, when humanity is not expecting it.
4) This transition will be attended by catastrophic natural disasters, accompanied by war, famine, plague and great misery for mankind.
5) The present age will end in a final battle between the forces of good and evil that will culminate in the return to earth of a divine Saviour, who will judge all of mankind. Those who follow Satan will be cast into the fires of Hell, while those who follow God will be saved. They will inherit a new golden age of peace and happiness.
However, the problem that has plagued scholars who have tried to interpret these apocalyptic works over the years, is that they are all written in symbolic language that defies easy understanding. It is this fog of symbolic language that has made it so hard for readers to understand exactly what their authors had in mind.
This is what makes “The Last Days of Tolemac“ such a unique book. For in the course of his dialogue the Oracle sets out in plain English a clear outline of the events leading up to the disasters that will shortly afflict the earth, as well as a description of the events that will follow in the next seven years, culminating in the final battle that will lead to the return of the Saviour.
The Oracle not only quotes from the prophetic works of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and explains what they mean in simple language, but he also draws on the works of seers such as Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus, as well as the inspired visions of Fatima and St Malachy relating to the future of the Catholic Church.
The drama that unfolds in “The Last Days of Tolemac” may seem impossible – even ridiculous – to the majority of the people alive on the planet today. It is however the future that has long been foretold by the prophets of old, as well as the those of the current era. It is the story of a world cleansed after thousands of years of abuse, and of a humanity purified from their former paths of violence and oppression.
According to the Oracle, there will come a time in the near future when the land of Israel will be completely surrounded by the armies of its enemies. So numerous will be the forces ranged against them, outfitted with the latest array of armaments, that the entire population will be gripped with despair at the prospect of imminent annihilation.
But at the very moment when their fate seems sealed, a miraculous intervention will occur in the heavens. An enormous comet will cross the orbit of the earth, and cause bitumin and fire to rain down from the skies. This combination of “brimstone and fiery hail” will catch the armies surrounding Israel exposed on the open plains, and will decimate them.
This rain of fire from the sky will spare Israel by completely demolishing the armies of their enemies. In fact there will be so much carnage that it will take six months to bury the carcases of the dead. This miraculous rescue from certain death will transform the Jewish nation. They will put aside their former differences, and join together in a common purpose.
A new temple will be built upon the Temple Mount, in place of the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aksa Mosque which will have been destroyed by the heavenly fire caused by the comet. The Jews will then reinstate their former system of worship under Mosaic law, and once more resume their ancient practice of animal sacrifice.
The damage wreaked by the comet will not be limited to the area around Israel, but will be world-wide in scope. When the comet passes, the entire earth will be deluged in a rain of molten missiles. The waters of the seas and lakes will become contaminated by a toxic sludge that will cause them to look like blood. Those who drink from these poisoned waters will die.
The “fiery hail” will also create world-wide forest fires that will scorch the land, wiping out crops and leading to subsequent drought and famine on a global scale. But worst of all the calamities spawned by the comet will be the asteroid that will strike the earth. This is the “great star from heaven” that St John calls “Wormwood”.
As the Oracle reveals, this agent of death will strike the earth in the middle of an ocean, generating a series of gigantic tidal-waves that will circle the planet. It will also set off a devastating re-alignment of tectonic plates that will cause entire land masses to rise and fall beneath the sea. The impact of this collision will be so great that it will lead to a change in the axis of the earth.
The tidal waves will impact the coastlines of the world, leading to the death of hundreds of millions of people within the first few minutes. In fact large portions of the land will be completely swamped, and low lying countries like Belgium and the Netherlands will simply disappear. These tsunamis will be accompanied by earthquakes larger than any in recorded history, that will devastate entire continents.
The United States will be reduced to a fraction of its former size, with both sea coasts disappearing beneath the waves. The new West Coast will extend inland beyond the city of Denver. The great cities along the East Coast will all be swallowed up by the sea. The Great Lakes will drain into the Gulf of Mexico, causing a vast inland sea that will split the nation into two parts.
In the book the Oracle explains in detail what will happen to each of the continents, and how new land-masses will rise out of the oceans, as other parts of existing continents are torn apart by earthquakes and slide beneath the sea. He also describes which places will be spared, and which countries will become great centres of learning in the coming age.
On the day that the asteroid strikes the earth, the entire world-wide system of commerce and trade will be wrecked. Those who have devoted their lives to building up their businesses will be reduced to utter despair, as the economic system described by St John as “Babylon the Great” is destroyed “in a single hour”. The Internet and all forms of electronic communication will also cease to function.
Those who live through the initial onslaught of the comet will have a desperate struggle to survive. Most of the infrastructure will be destroyed, making it even more difficult to find suitable water, food and shelter amidst the wreckage of what remains. They will face the threat of intense heat coupled with outbreaks of disease. Smoke from fires and volcanic eruptions will darken the sky, and enormous aftershocks will continue to shake the earth.
During the initial period following the cometary catastrophe, survivors will huddle together in small groups, many of them underground. Because law and order will have broken down, they will have to rely on their own resources to protect themselves from the armed gangs and crazed animals that will stalk the land. This truly will be the time of great tribulation spoken of by the prophets.
According to the Oracle, in the dark days that follow, the governments of the world will no longer be able to command authority, leaving a power vacuum in their place. But out of this chaos there will emerge a man who will draw to him the leaderless masses in what is left of Western Europe. This man will be blessed with singular qualities.
Not only will he be a man of charismatic charm, renowned for his powers of oratory and the ability to attract the masses, but what will make him seem divine to those who are drawn to him is that he will be able to display miraculous abilities. To the amazement of those around him, he will perform similar miracles to those that were attributed to Jesus.
Together with these divine qualities he will also bring a message of hope to all those who are suffering. He will preach a message of brotherhood and peace. He will heal the sick and feed the hungry. Everywhere he will be greeted as the long awaited saviour of mankind. Soon he will become the unrivalled leader of all of Europe, and he will set up his capital in Rome.
Because this charismatic leader will choose to base himself in the same city as the Vatican, the Pope will find himself in a delicate situation. He will need to balance the tradition of the Vatican as the bastion of the Catholic Church, against the popular support for a man who is able to demonstrate similar miraculous powers to those of the historical Christ. For a while there will be an uneasy truce between the two men.
As this man gains power so his domain will increase, until it covers all of what remains of the Western world. He will also negotiate a treaty with Israel, promising to protect the Jews while at the same time allowing them to pursue their ancient religious practices. However, midway through the seven year period of the apocalypse, a dramatic change will occur.
The charismatic leader will suffer a “grievous head wound”. Although this will appear fatal, causing his followers to despair of his life, he will miraculously recover. But this recovery will be accompanied by a complete change in personality. In place of the man who had previously taught peace and kindness towards others, there will emerge a new person who will manifest demonic qualities.
Following his miraculous recovery he will announce to the world that, as a result of this injury he has undegone an inner transformation, and has now become a living God. He will demand that he be worshipped as the only God and that all other religions in the world be officially banned. All holy works, including copies of the Bible, will be destroyed.
He will also require that every person publicly commit themselves to be his follower, by having a mark on their forehead or a chip inserted into their right arm. Furthermore, nobody will be able to buy or sell goods unless they possess this mark of identification. From that time onwards democracy will be forgotten, and he will rule by divine decree.
Once all other religions are banned, the Pope and his cardinals will be in immediate danger. Faced with this existential threat they will flee from Rome. However they will be hunted down by the forces of the “Anti-Christ” until the Pope is finally captured and murdered. This will be the beginning of a campaign of terror that will continue for the next three and a half years.
Having crushed the remnants of the Christian Church, the Anti-Christ will then assemble a vast army and march on Jerusalem. When he gets there, he will arrange to be crowned as the only living God in the inner santum of the recently rebuilt Temple. Once crowned, the Anti-Christ will then direct his vengeance against the Jews. His troops will be ordered to kill every Jewish man, woman and child that can be found.
The only hope of survival for the Jews will be to escape into the desert, and try to find places of refuge in caves and subterranean tunnels. The armies of the Anti-Christ will then turn their attention to anyone who does not carry the approved mark of identification. During this bloody reign of terror untold millions of lives will be put to the sword.
In the East, however, a rival will begin to stir. At a time when all the coastal cities of China have been destroyed, increasing bands of survivors will trek inland to find places of safety up on the Mongolian highlands. It is there, in the region of the Altai Mountains, that a leader will arise who will follow in the footsteps of the legendary founder of Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan.
This man will be a ruthless warrior, and like his legendary forebear will have a rapacious lust for conquest. He will gather around him a vast army, quoted by St John as numbering “two hundred thousand thousand” (200 million). This new Genghis will lead his army in a sweep across Asia that will conquer what remains of Indo-China, followed by India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
Then, when his triumphant armies finally reach the borders of Iraq, they will find that the last natural barrier that existed between them and the lands of the Middle East will have been removed. The Euphrates river will have dried up in the global drought that followed the earth’s close encounter with the comet, leaving his forces free to storm across the sands towards Jerusalem and the Mediterranean sea.
It will be there, on the plains of Jezreel in Israel, that the mighty forces of the Anti-Christ will confront those of the Eastern invader. These two diabolical leaders will come together in one final bloody conflict to determine who will be the ultimate conqueror of the world. Yet just when it seems that the long history of humanity upon the earth is about to be extinguished in one last mighty conflagration, there will be a miraculous event.
It is at this point that the forces of Light will intervene. This will be the moment when the Great Redeemer will return to the earth in the company of his angels. He will be seen coming in the clouds with “power and great glory” to save the “elect”, who will be the remnant that will have endured in faith to the end.
As St John points out in his book of revelation, this will be followed by a day of judgement in which every person will be held to account for their actions. Those who have followed the path of selfishness, violence and evil in the course of their lives will be doomed, while those who have held steadfast to the path of righteousness and peace will inherit the crown of life that has been prepared for them.
They will live in harmony with the earth and with each other, in a new golden age that is predicted to endure for a thousand years. But the new life that awaits the chosen ones will be unlike anything that has previously occurred in the history of the world. For they will experience a new world of wonder beyond anything they could previously have imagined.
In “The Last Days of Tolemac” the Oracle explains what this new world will be like. It will be a new world of spirit, and each being will radiate the energies of the new age. The earth will be completely changed. New animals will appear that do not prey on others, but will exhibit spiritual qualities. They too will live in peace and harmony with their surroundings.
The weather on the planet will finally reflect the spirit of the times, and the raging storms, hurricanes and tornadoes of the past will be no more. Gentle rains will fall only when needed, and the earth will bring forth a bounteous harvest. The problems of the past will be solved and humanity will at last enjoy true freedom and prosperity.
The world age that is now coming to an end has been an age of bloodshed and torment lasting for thousands of years. It will end in unspeakable hardship and sorrow with yet more agony, sickness and death. But as the Oracle points out, there will be some who will not live to see these horrors. They will be among the few who will be spared this final act of darkness.
They will be the ones who will find themselves mysteriously taken out of their physical bodies on that great and terrible day of the Lord. They will find themselves transformed into new bodies of blazing light, as will be described in the final article of this series entitled “The Rapture Revealed”.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Allan, Articles, January 12, 2012, 10:00 am
In the book “The Last Days of Tolemac” the Oracle describes in detail a period of seven years that will soon unfold upon the earth. These seven apocalyptic years, referred to by Jesus as a time of tribulation unlike anything that has occurred in the previous history of the world, will be the transition between the existing world age that is ending, and the new “golden age” that is about to begin.
But the Oracle does so much more than merely describe the outward cataclysmic events that will shortly happen on the earth. He explains these events within the wider context of an evolving world of spirit that now dawns within the hearts of humankind. It is this explosion of love within that will lead to the dazzling world of wonder that awaits those who will inherit the coming age.
He explains that each person who is alive on earth today, regardless of their gender, creed, culture or religion, is on a journey. It is a journey of spirit. It is a journey that the Oracle calls “the path of returning”. This path of returning is a galactic adventure spanning eons of time. It is a path that is centered on that tiny flame that each one of us carries within our hearts that is our universal Godhead.
Within this evolving realm of spirit, there are always those who have travelled farther along the path than others. It has long been the tradition that those who are more evolved are offered the chance to help those who are less advanced. And that is what has been happening over the course of the existing world age. There have been many who have chosen to leave their former worlds of spirit, in order to incarnate upon the earth.
These visitors have willingly undertaken a task of daunting proportions. For in acquiring the physical body needed to function on the earth, they have had to accept the limitations which this physical body entails. Not only can they no longer express the spiritual abilities which they previously possessed, but they have to live within a materialistic world that denies even the existence of these abilities.
Theirs has been a mission of love, as they have tried to help as many as they could to aspire to higher things, and to express within their lives the God-given abilities that have previously lain dormant. They are the heroes of spirit who have become many of the towering giants of human history over the last two thousand years. They range from poets, teachers, composers, writers, architects and others in almost every field of human expression.
But now that the world is about to face the great transformation from a material to a spiritual age, their task is coming to an end. For they will be spared the cataclysms and the physical destruction that will characterise the ending of the material age. As the Oracle explains, they will be released from their physical bodies by means of a transcendent experience that has come to be called the “rapture”.
The word “rapture” itself is an enigma, for it is never used directly in any of the prophetic traditions. For example, the word “rapture” is never mentioned in any of the books of the Christian Bible. However, it is the word that has come to be used in Christian eschatology when referring to the events that will precede the return of the Christ in the “latter days” spoken of by the prophets.
Shortly before his crucifixion, as Jesus and his disciples were leaving the great temple built by Herod, Jesus prophesied that the entire temple complex would one day be destroyed. “Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” (Matthew 24:2) A short while later, while they were gathered on the Mount of Olives, his disciples asked Jesus to tell them about the events that would occur at the “end of the world”.
Jesus responded by outlining a series of events that would happen upon the earth in those days, as well as in the heavens. He then went on to make an unusual prediction. “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.” (Matthew 24:40-41) It is this enigmatic statement reported by Matthew that has led to widespread controversy within the Church.
This confusion is compounded by the words of St Paul when speaking about the resurrection of the dead. In his first epistle to the Corinthians he writes: “Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed“. (I Corinthians 15:51-52)
St Paul also referred to this mystery in his first epistle to the Thessalonians when he wrote: “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” (I Thessalonians 4:17)
The actual word used by Paul was the ancient Greek term harpagesometha, meaning “we shall be caught up” or “taken away”. When this passage was subsequently translated into Latin, the word used was rapiemur, also meaning “to catch up” or “take away”. When the New English version of the Bible was published in 1961, translated directly from the original Greek, the words used were “suddenly caught up” or “snatched up”.
Because the Greek verb used by Paul implied that what would occur would be “quick or forceful”, the translators added the word “suddenly” to make this meaning clear. But if the words used by the translators were clear to them, the event they were describing has subsequently proved to be anything but clear to others. That is because different people have interpreted these words in different ways.
Despite these differences, most commentators agree that the words spoken by Jesus refer to a mysterious and magical event that will occur during the end times, when certain chosen followers of Jesus will be transported to his heavenly kingdom. What these commentators do not agree on however, is when this miraculous event will occur. Some think it will happen before the seven years of tribulation, while others believe it will come during, or at the end of this period.
There is also confusion as to whether the words used by Jesus suggest it is better to be left, rather than to be among those who are taken away. Their reasoning is that if a time should come when people are faced with cataclysmic events, it might mean that those who are “suddenly caught up” or “taken away” by these events will be the victims, and that those who are left will be spared.
In the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”, the Oracle was asked about the meaning of the words spoken by Jesus in which he said that one would be taken and the other left. The Oracle replied:
“The Bible makes it clear that at a critical moment during the end times certain people will be removed from the earth to a place of safety, while the rest will be left behind on earth to endure the days of the Great Tribulation.
“This disappearance will happen suddenly while people are going about their normal activities. The sudden disappearance of so many people around the earth will seem inexplicable to those who are left behind, unless they remember this prediction made by Jesus.
“Those people who are to be taken from the earth are not going to die. Here lies the answer to the riddle. At the very moment when their physical bodies become transformed, they will inherit a new, shining, indestructible body of light.
“When that moment of transformation comes, their physical bodies will be raised to a higher level of vibration. This level of vibration is the etheric vibration. Although the etheric level of life is as real as the physical world you now inhabit, it cannot be seen by those of you on the earth plane of life. So when those who are to be saved are transformed into their new bodies, they will disappear from the sight of mortal man.”
When asked where these people would be taken, he answered:
“They will go to a place that has been prepared for them. There they will be reunited with those who have already graduated to this higher level of life. A glorious welcome has been prepared for them. There will be great rejoicing when that moment of transformation comes.”
The new body that they will inherit will be the etheric body that is promised to all those who are found worthy of life in the Golden Age. This body will never know disease. It will never know death. Those who are transformed into these new bodies of light will never again know pain or sorrow. They will have passed through the Great Initiation of life that awaits all those on the path to Everlasting Light.
When asked how many people would be taken, his answer was:
“As many as are ready when that moment comes. There may be many. There may be few. But the decision as to whether a person is ready or not will depend on each person concerned. Those who are taken will have proved during their life on earth that they are not just willing to take this step into cosmic consciousness, but that they are also worthy of this graduation.”
The people who will soon be taken from the earth will not be limited to those advanced souls who have chosen to incarnate on earth in order to help in this time of transformation. They will be joined by others who have evolved over many lifetimes on this planet to the point where they are now equipped to function on a spiritual plane.
These other chosen people will be those who have cultivated an inner light. And it is this inner light that will distinguish them from the majority of people who now share the world with them. For they will have learned over time to manifest this light through the way they live their lives, and in the special qualities they possess.
When asked what these particular qualities were, the Oracle’s response was:
“The qualities that will allow a person to qualify for the etheric level of life have long been set out in the Holy Books of every faith. They are the qualities that can only be acquired after being tested in the fires of experience in the daily challenge of life on the earth.”
The people who will be saved are the peacemakers of this world. They are patient. They are slow to show anger. They do not judge others. When any harm is done to them by others they are quick to forgive. They do not harbor thoughts of revenge.
They do not make a show of the good works that they do. They do not push themselves ahead of others. They do not seek to be first. They do not search for fame. They do not make a show of their talents. They have simple needs. They are satisfied with whatever comes their way.
These people lead considerate, sober, thoughtful and dedicated lives. They care for others, especially the poor and the neglected in life. They place the needs of others before their own. In times of hardship they are courageous, resourceful and optimistic. They are not daunted by difficulty.
They are not motivated by material gain. They do not seek to acquire great personal wealth. They are motivated by the desire to gain a deeper understanding of life. They strive to be of service to all those who turn to them for help. They are strong in faith.
They are humble. They are meek. Their apparent outward weakness hides their inner strength. They are at peace with themselves and with the world. They share whatever they have with others without thought of whether they will be repaid.
They are considerate of the needs of other creatures that share life with them. They do not oppress the weak or exploit the gullible. They do not trample on the rights of others. They allow others the freedom to live their lives as they think best.
They are not easily misled. They do not indulge in excess. They do not search after empty pleasures. They do not shirk pain or seek to escape the realities of life. They seek the best in all things.
And when asked if there really were people like that living on earth today, he replied:
“Yes there are. But they are not to be found amongst the leaders of this world or amongst those who are admired for their material success. They lead lives of quiet obscurity. They do their work away from the harsh glare of modern publicity.”
In many cases they live among the poor, the abandoned and the forgotten. If they were told that they are among the elite of life they would probably be amazed. They would be quick to deny that they have any special virtues.
But their time of salvation is drawing near. Every day brings them closer to that moment when they will cast off their physical bodies as a person would cast off an old suit of clothes. That day is coming soon. It is almost upon us.
When asked when that day would be, the Oracle said:
“The day when the chosen ones will be released from their physical bodies will be the day when the earth begins the period of the Great Tribulation. The day that they will be taken from the earth will be the “Great and Terrible Day of the Lord” spoken of in the Bible“. (Joel 2: 31)
When the comet approaches the earth and the “star that falls from heaven” strikes the sea, this will be the day that the chosen ones will be taken away from the planet. They will be spared the disasters that will befall those who are left behind.
The Oracle was asked if only Christians would be saved. He responded:
“Those Christians who are found worthy on that great and terrible day will be included among those who will be taken from the earth. But just as Jesus came to earth to share his message of love with all people, so those who are taken from the earth will be drawn from all the peoples of the world“.
It will not matter what faith people profess or do not profess. There will be Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, Christians and all manner of other beliefs included among those who will be spared. There will be some who profess no faith at all. The test that will decide whether or not they qualify will be the character which they display, rather than the extent of their education or belongings.
It will be the actions which these people have taken in the course of their lives that will decide their fate. The Bible says that those who will be chosen will be judged by the fruits of their actions, rather than by pious words. As Jesus warned his followers:
“Not every one that saith unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7: 20-23)
On this day of decision many believers will discover that they are not among the chosen few, but have been left behind to face the horrors of the tribulation. It will be a day of great sorrow and loss. “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24: 51)
There are many Christians alive today who are convinced that they will be among those who will be saved and that they will be taken away to be with Jesus when the time of tribulation comes. The shock that they will feel when they find out that they have been left behind will be great indeed. They will be among the many who will fail to heed the warning given by Jesus himself.
When asked what that warning was, the Oracle answered:
“When Jesus told his disciples about the kingdom that awaited those who chose to follow him, he warned: ‘So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many will be called, but few chosen,’ (Matthew 20: 16) Of the many Christians who are called, truly only a few will be chosen“.
Those that believe that they stand at the forefront of the church will be placed last. For the greatest barrier to an understanding of the light within is spiritual pride. Those who are convinced of their own virtue will fall victim to their own folly. Of the billions of people now living on the earth only a small portion will be chosen to take up a new body of living light. The opportunities are many but the pitfalls are great.
“Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7: 13-14)
Those people who have already heard about these prophecies and confidently expect to be saved from the great tribulation, will be the ones who will be most likely to reject their faith once they discover that they have been left behind. They will be those of whom Jesus spoke when he said that the love of many would grow cold.
Many people do not realize that self-sacrifice is the price of eternal life. Jesus warned his followers that many false prophets would arise in the last days before his return to the earth to try to mislead them. The leaders of the church today would do well to warn their flock that they may be called upon to sacrifice their lives for their faith, just as the earliest followers of Jesus were called upon to do some two thousand years ago.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Allan, Articles, January 11, 2012, 3:51 pm
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