Dear Not_Now.Soon,

Being a bit busy it will take me some time to respond, but regarding the Hebrew word 'RA' (the final letter is not exactly an 'A', but has no English equivalent) that is used in Isaiah 45:7, that same word is used in both manners. It also appears for example twice in Proverbs 8:13 - "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate."

Nobody was claiming that God is unjust because He created evil - the whole book of Job explains how we are in no position to judge God.

That's ok Yuyutsu. Take your time. Or if there are other things are are more important to focus on, that's ok too.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

Sorry for the delay.

«I would like to hear the experiences from devotees of other religions.»

I think that you will greatly enjoy this book: http://www.ananda.org/autobiography/

- Paramhansa Yogananda had a particular affinity to Christianity.

«If my path is true then telling it to others and encouraging them towards it will not harm their path.»

Your path is true for you. You are welcome to tell others about it, but bear in mind that this is your path and it might not be suitable for them.

«Helping people find God is one goal I hold as very important.»

This is most commendable.

«Teaching from what I know will not harm anyone.»

You know that your path leads you to God - that's wonderful, but would it lead everyone else to God as well?

To know which path(s) best suit another person, one needs a high degree of mastery, on the level of saints, prophets, Christs and Buddhas.

Jesus knew his disciples and what suited them. They were Jews, they already followed the Jewish disciplines and their terms of reference came from the Jewish culture. Jesus understood that what these people needed was not an external cultural shift, but an inner attitudinal change. Why indeed waste their time in learning and practising from scratch new disciplines? Why confuse those simple rural people with different and sophisticated philosophies? Jesus advised them: "keep your Jewish practices if you will, but concentrate on their essence: loving God and one another".

Likely, Jesus also had other, non-Jewish, disciples, but them he must have taught other paths. Unfortunately (for us, not for his disciples), whatever Jesus taught his non-Jewish disciples, never reached the pages of the bible, the book of the Jews.

«Can you say that your knowledge base is mature enough to not need to grow?»

I never stop studying. I have mountains of scripture awaiting on my shelf that I still hope to study thoroughly. As we gain experience, we need to revisit the scriptures only to understand how little we understood them previously.

Ultimately however, information isn't knowledge: http://aumamen.com/story/only-experience-can-remove-pain

Dear NNS,

You asked for my statement about Jesus incorporating features of the pagan deities. I have not been receiving messages from olo so did not see your request until just now.

Two references that you can access on the net:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1561/1561-h/1561-h.htm

The above contains the text of “Pagan & Christian Creeds/Their Origin and Meaning” by Edward Carpenter.

The other reference is:

http://www.templeofearth.com/books/goldenbough.pdf

The above contains the text of “THE GOLDEN BOUGH” by Sir James Frazer. The Jesus and God of the Bible are as much an invention of man as Apollo and Jupiter and are just as much a human fantasy as they are. The ancients had their delusions, and you have your delusion.

To Yuyutsu.

I tried reading a few chapters of the book you showed me. But I'm having difficulty connecting with it. Sorry. I still am intreasted in the experiences of other religous practioners. But I know there's an element in books that makes experiences either fully accepted or hard to accept or understand at all.

I wish I could listen or be part of a conversation to get a richer discription that comes with tone of voice. Or at least online conversation with sharing our understanding so we understand eachother's viewpoints and experiences better. But unfortunately, it seems the kind of experiences I'm looking for are either too mundane to want to be talked about, or exciting and willing to be shared, but rarer.

For instance I can find other people like me in my culture that have had experiences and stories around someone dying and letting a loved one them know it's going to be ok. Or someone soon to die being visited by others who've passed on, or visited by a religous figure, both to assure and comfort the person who's time is nearing.

But I have no experience of my own or know anyone else who's had an experience of living past lives, and somehow realizing it. I read a book on it once, but since then realized there are books about any topic. Some more easy to read then others, but no means of knowing if any are accurate or true. (A book series called "conversations with God," pinned the nail in the coffin for doubting a belief in book just on them being books and not classified as fiction).

Since then I really do value experience of others and would rather hear first on, then read and wonder if this is just an author that knows how to write well and gives his audience what they want.

(Continued and appology following.)

(Continued)

Sorry Yuyutsu, I'm not accusing your book reference as that. But I am wondering about the book I read a while about old souls and past lives, that I haven't been able to confirm conclusion with someone I know or met. The book you showed me I'll probably try to read some of it's other chapters and give it a few more chances to see if I can relate to any of it and hopefully come to some conclusions about it. Thank you for reaching out to my interests for experiences with a guru. If there's anything I can offer in return from my understanding or from my life, let me know. Though I don't know if there's much you'd be interested in that you haven't already looked into from your other studies.

The second reference about knowledge through experience seems to hone in on what I'm after. Experience around a cow beats descriptions, even if those descriptions help with how to understand the cow once you see it. Same idea goes to job training and job education verses actually being on the job and seeing how it's really done.