I am sending this very interesting email from my friend, Glenn Kimball. Hope you pause a few times to think about his thoughts. Only a few times in everyone's life a brilliant thinker and genius in ancient stories comes along. Learn from him.
THE HARDEST THING TO DO
In the movie Phenomenon George Malley (John Travolta) says something to the children in the very last of the movie. He tells them that, "Everything is on its way to someplace". That is one of the most profound comments in cinema history.
We live in a day when there is an increasing tension within our own country. Hesiod predicted it and so did the ancient prophets throughout the scriptures. Never in my lifetime has there been such a polarization between political factions. The last letter I sent about my particular beliefs in the political world was met with undeserved praise from some and the most vehement critique from others I have ever received. I have thought a lot about that during the time that I have been ill for the last two or three weeks. I had a couple of dozen suggested to me that I stick to ancient history where I belong. Perhaps in the larger picture of things that is good advice. Certainly there are more important things for me to do than to try and convince either side of the reality of the world in which we live. However, I would like to say something about the very nature of those feelings.
This is the holiday season again. Many of us are suffering this year from one tragedy or another. It has caused many of us to doubt that we have ever meant anything to the world or believe that there is nothing left for us in this life. It is roughly the same tension in our personal lives that we see in our country. We react both positively and negatively out of fear. Part of us wants to hang onto something bigger than ourselves in order to find meaning. Another part of us wants to extinguish the thoughts of others to persevere the meaning we have left in our lives. Some are looking up to the immensity of space and time and feel small. Others of us are looking down at others in hopes of propping themselves up. Groups of people are doing the same thing around the world. Some are looking up from their lot in life and wondering if any of this apparent madness is worthwhile and others are looking down with so much hatred for others that they would shed the blood of whole cultures to preserve who they think they have the right to be. Both are on their way to someplace.
While I was trying to get my sea legs I had a dream. It was one of those dreams that you experience half of it when you are asleep and the other half when you wake up. I realized how unique we all are. I saw the greatness of the spirits around me and remembered that the greatest of the children of deity, along with the most divisive, came to this world. I remember hearing myself say that when you open the door to heaven you open another to hell itself. It is like the law of reciprocity works for us all. I wanted to tell the lowly at heart to remember that everyday and moment in this life is not only precious, but significant. A third of our lives are spent while we are sleeping and if we only knew what was really going on during that very large segment of life, we would jump up and down for joy. That was the reason for the two classes on Dreaming this month. One was so that you all know that this is a topic for which we are well educated Chase and I. However, the most important part comes in the second class where you understand how much potential we have.
Religion would like to have you think that when you die we all queue up in a long straight line and either follow the leader into heaven or down to hell. With this kind of thinking people try and control each other. The truth is quite different. Even though Jesus may be the way, the truth and the light and those who believe in him, yet shall they live, Jesus is the gate and not all the possibilities rolled up into one. We all have a very unique path both here in this world, and after we leave. It will do us little good to think that someone had a better opportunity than did we, because in the end that isn’t true. Equally it won’t do us any good to think we have to become like each other, because that isn’t true either. The greatest thing we will ever do in this world is within the confines of our own flesh and it is a journey as unique as a fingerprint. I saw in this dream something wonderful. I saw that in the end we will all realize that we mean so much and are accomplishing so much that it is impossible to compare ourselves. Some of the greatest stories ever to be told about this world will be about individual journeys into our self discovery. There will be those who have shared with only one other person in their lives and sometimes we think that those who teach many are greater than those who merely teach themselves. That is not true.
Deity looks down from its heaven and doesn’t think of us as embryonic nothings. They consider us children for whom they have prepared a place. We look up and sometimes feel jealous that we are not one of them because their lot is certain and their joy complete. Deity controls the creation of this universe and many others as well. We ignore the joy that is ours for the taking in the here and now.
I think of Betty Eadie who saw the beggar in the street in her near death experience and the lawyer stop in his grand car and helped him out of the gutter. She realized that one was not greater than the other. Both of them were doing something wonderful for each other.
Then I realized that the greatest of all the emotions for this holiday was gratitude. There is something very strange about gratitude. It is a feeling without arrogance and hatred. It is the attitude of those who understand that they are on their way to someplace. Hatred, skepticism and vehement critique are missing the journey. So are the ones who think of themselves as worthless. In this Christmas time I am grateful to all of you. I get to take this journey with you to the outer edge of what our generation has forgotten. One lady said today, "Where did these guys Chase and Glenn Kimball come up with this material?" I would like to tell her that I have been collecting ancient texts for over forty years. I don’t think that would help her understand either. There are many who have been researching as long as I. My son who is thirty hasn’t lived that long, but he is truly smarter than I. I worry sometimes that he might walk off the edge of the cliff like Don Juan Matus did in the end, and never come back again. Don Juan didn’t die. They never found his body. He just learned how to use dreaming to enter the other dimensions and when the time was right, he just left, like the watchers of old, Moses, Elijah, Elias and John the Beloved. They never found them either. The emperors of China and the Egyptian priests were right that someone did have the secret to life, though they never found it. Someday we will speak about how resurrection plays a part in this scenario.
In any case, the story of the birth of the messiah is spectacular and worth many years of thought, dreams and learning. Feel grateful this holiday and let the spirit of the season do its best work in your lives.
Sincerely,
Glenn Kimball
Kimball College
Institute for the Study of Ancient History
Phoenix, AZ
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