Christendom in Nigeria: Tithe and Tithing

Posted on April 14, 2018 | Leave a comment

In 2017, Nigeria’s Christendom was briefly sent into a state of frenzy and pandemonium by a young man who came out swinging with some ‘biblical truth’. The truth propounded by this young man ruffled the feathers of the big General Overseers, Venerable Bishops, Archbishops, Pastors and such likes. His truth simply challenged the orthodoxy of the peculiar Nigeria’s church doctrine on tithe and tithing.

The proposition he submitted, like any bible-believing truth crusader would do when faced with a new epiphany or ‘understanding‘ about his faith, was to alert fellow believers about the error of their ways. His proposal says, among other things, that the theology of tithe and tithing in the new biblical dispensation is unscriptural; that churches in Nigeria are collecting tithe by deception, manipulation and cajolery; that those who pay tithe to the rich coffers of the fabulously wealthy church entrepreneurs are in error and stupid; and above all, that the ways and manners the tithe is utilised for personal consumption and for promoting self-aggrandisement of church leaders, are morally and spiritually wrong.

In no time the axe was out from many church quarters to send biblically sanctified curses from the pulpit and to insinuate the need for a divine physical injury/death on the loudmouth behind the revelation of non-biblical practices on tithes and tithing.

The earthly kings and princes of the church asked, who gave this theologically uncircumcised and unlettered neophyte behind the tithe and tithing debate, the right to raise issues with the Great Daddies and Mummies of the church?

It is not in my place or any non-member of the Christendom to be nosy about all the incredulous happenings in the churches. But since the dirty linens were put in the public space, it should be expected that all passersby, with a civic responsibility, would customarily offer unsolicited opinions. It is not out-of-place to ask whether the dirty linen is white or blue or black. What soiled the linen? Was it soiled intentionally or accidentally? Was the soiled linen displayed to the public gaze by error of omission or commission?

The Larger Picture

However, what should concern any of us, either in the flock or outside the flock, is the larger picture. It doesn’t make sense to cherry-pick leaves while looking for ailments troubling a tree which is about to collapse. It will be auspicious to look at the bedrock, the tap roots and the stem of the tree if the purpose of concern is to rescue the tree from falling to the ground.

Tithe and tithing in the Christian world, as far as every awakened person is concerned, is “a little storm in a teacup“. The for and against debate and the anger expressed by those  who are either paying or collecting tithes will not add any meaningful value to the serious business of setting Nigerians free from religious bigotry and the concomitant mental and spiritual enslavement.

Nigerians are in the thrall of the basest brainwashing program of all times. A population of over 100 million is completely bogged down and trapped in a medieval time machine. With the nature of the present cultivated religious culture prevailing all over the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, science-induced progress can never see the light of day.

Never mind that all and sundry in Nigeria enjoy the usage of the various technological gadgets made available through the efforts of non-believing scientists. But the path of reason and fact-based knowledge that abhor faith and beliefs without evidence, is of little interest to the Christendom in Nigeria.

Miracle and Manipulation

As will be expected in a religious-dominated culture, Nigerians are sheepishly led through the path of miracle and prayer without common sense or accompanied hard-work by their self anointed General Overseers. General Overseer? What a title, is that not what the supervisors in the slave plantation of North America were called in those days of infamy? It seems someone is playing games with African’s gullibility.

These important General Overseers often boast that they regularly have dinner with the gods and they do eavesdrop on the gods’ conversations. From time to time they regale the flocks with topical gossips they overheard and assure those followers willing to pay the right premium fee for a regular updates and taylor-made special prophetic pronouncements straight from the mouth of the gods.

We have heard of Preachers and Televangelists that pray for their members and command them to believe that a hefty sum of money will be paid miraculously into their bank accounts in the next few days by Anonymous Donor. However with a caveat, only on the condition that the followers have paid the right sum of tithe or have sown seeds of money handsomely into the money plantation of the general overseer.

When the awakened realised that all those involved in the debate of tithe and tithing have premised their individual position on the inerrancy of the holy bible as the incontrovertible “word of God”, it is easy to conclude that there is no argument worthy of the attention of observers outside the flock.

The Awakened Ones and the Holy Book

The awakened ones who have taken the time to look at the history of this wonderful book cannot help but wonder as to what happened to African Homo sapiens who are richly endowed with elaborate brain power but refused to use it.

It is necessary to remind Nigerians that history shows that the holy bible is a collection of scrolls (pamphlets) written by anonymous ancient cavemen from the Middle East; that this holy book is made up of carefully selected stories, myths, fairy tales from among many other ancient common mythological stories and fairy tales; and that the book was put together by anonymous editors with special interests and finally translated into many languages by carefully selected philologists.

If we may ask, what will it take to remove the delusion of mind of Nigerians/Africans that make them to put absolute faith on a single book to solve all the problems besetting Nigeria/Africa? How do you convince Nigerians/Africans that no book was ever written by the gods? How do you explain to Nigerians /Africans that every book, every act, every thought of mankind are all inspired and therefore no single book or act or thought should be raised above others?

The consequences of focusing all our attention on one book above the myriads of other books of wisdom is the loss of a great chunk of knowledge from several other sources. As a result of lack of comparative study of all the available materials that are useful for mind cultivation and development, Nigerians have remained spiritually unhealthy. This kind of ailment is similar to what happens to persons whose nutrition habit is not made up of balanced diets and hence suffer from avoidable physiological health problems.

It is unfortunate to see Nigerian so-called believers behave as if they were the first to hear about ‘the word of god’. There is a serious need at this time to quietly tell the religionists some salient facts of history.

Nigerians need to learn a few historical facts about our world. It is a known fact that for many centuries Europe was similarly brainwashed, just as in Nigeria today, to worship the ‘holy book’ as well as pay obeisance to the custodian (priests) of the book who took Europe through hell that led to the Dark Age in world history;

That Europe was only able to break free about 700 years ago from a religiously induced culture of intellectual inertia brought about by a theology that encouraged mass ignorance and that indoctrinated fear of either loosing the reward of paradise or of gaining the punishment of hell;

That it was men and women like you that challenged the theological premises under which the Pope of the Holy Roman Catholic Church was exercising a ruinous and strangulating power as Vicar of Christ on earth over the people of the world; and

That without the efforts of a few awakened thinkers imbued with fearless courage through knowledge and who were ready to sacrifice their lives for truth (many actually did), the world would still be under the physical and spiritual bondage of the princes of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Transformation Power of Truth and Knowledge

Today, Nigerians see the pictures of Europe and America and they wonder if these countries are on this planet. Of course they are on planet earth and what you see and admire are products of the efforts of men and women like you. What you see and desire about these countries are the by-products Nigerians or any people in the world will get when as a conscious people we allow common sense, reason, love of truth and knowledge based on evidence, practical investigation of facts and scientific experimentation of stated propositions or theories, to govern our lives.

Europe and America and other developed countries are not the kinds of civilisation and physical development you will find in a culture where people sleeps all day and night in church praying for miracles and wonder; where the only book introduced to a kindergarten as worthy and adequate for all needed knowledge of life under the sun is the holy bible; and where the study of philosophy and science are ridiculed or pursued half-heartedly.

Nigerians have cultivated a popular religious culture that seems to be asking, what do you need science and technology for when you can easily get everything you need from the gods by fasting and prayer? Obviously, a people with such simplistic mental attitude to life cannot go anywhere near up but are destined to go straight down into the lowest pit of human existence.

It is my fervent hope that the debate on tithe and tithing will not be allowed to go to waste but will become the beginning of a process of peeling away the layers of lies that have blindfolded Nigerians from seeking to know the truth of existence that can truly set them free.

The prevailing intellectual deceit and the on-going psychological manipulation must be stopped if Nigerians desire to see freedom and progress in the country. No-one can procure for another person freedom and salvation from religious servitude as well as from mental and intellectual slavery.

It is the duty of each of us, when we come into a full awareness and understanding that we have been fooled, bamboozled and lied to for the sole purpose of enslaving us to serve the interest of the Kingdom of Man, (or more appropriately, the Kingdom of the Chosen People. And if you must know, Nigerians/Africans are not included), to seek relief and freedom with everything in our lives.

When each of us is really serious about knowing the truth that can set us free we shall henceforth behave like the merchant in the parable of the Kingdom of God when the Teacher of Galilee said in Matthew 13:

45 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.

46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

Relief and freedom can only come when each of us begin to check out the meaning of all the coded overt and covert concepts in our religious texts that were designed for mind programming. Nigerians need to understand that we are a product of deliberate psychological conditioning or brainwashing. We need to know and understand that Nigerians are at the mercy of the mind programmers that enjoy manipulating and playing people around like zombies.

Just take a look around you. Do the behaviours of fellow so-called Nigerians around you look normal like those of a people with functioning common sense? Listen objectively to the sermons of the celebrated men and women of god, do most of their claims and sophistries make any sense to you? Look at the soulless leaders of economics, politics and religion, are there anything godly about their official acts or anything compassionate about their behaviours to fellow mankind?

Conclusion

The above reviews are the larger picture. What we see in Nigeria particularly and in Africa generally is the end result of a people under serious psychological siege and of a people undergoing the pains of a merciless, ceaseless mental warfare waged on them. The different religions of all shades and colours doing the rounds in Nigeria/Africa have become convenient weapons for war on our minds as well as weapons of mass destruction of our inalienable right of freedom to natural life.

It is needful to reiterate that all forms of religion are deliberate dumb down of serious cosmological and philosophical thoughts. The dumbing down of religions are all designed by the same irredeemable cabal of psychopaths ruling our world to prevent human souls from coming alive as in the “reborn or born again” into a spiritual state of existence.

And for this war on mind control to be effective, the hidden psychopathic rulers through their minions in religious institutions have ensured humanity is regularly supplied with daily dose of the cool aid of soporific words. These are the sweet sounding words we hear daily and weekly but with no power to impact our lives positively. But instead these carefully chosen words embedded with subliminal messages are keeping us permanently sedated to remain in a sleepwalking state of existence.

As long as we leave our senses open without a cultivated mind that is filled with worthwhile knowledge to filter out all the brainwashing programmes coming from diverse sources (television, radio, entertainment, music, education, religion, politics, economics, etc.), we shall forever remain susceptible to the heinous dictates of the mind programmers and controllers.

At this time in the history of the world and by the practical experiences we’ve had so far in our life time, we need not be told that the psychological programmers and propagandists do not wish us well except when we are at their beck and call as useful disposable idiots.

This brief remark on Christendom in Nigeria is just a little titbit about what happened in the Church Matrix of Nigeria in 2017 and the lessons we need to take away from it. And most importantly, it is to bring to our awareness, at least of those that still have ears to hear, that everything that you think you know about yourself and the world around you is built on lies and you are under the influence of a pack of artificially created illusions. In order to allow sanity to take its rightful place in Nigeria and in our lives, each of us must disconnect from the onslaught of the 24/7 world propaganda that are designed to keep us in a state of perpetual slumber.

Please wake up and fight the good fight of self liberation from the World Matrix.

In The Spirit of Truth

SAM ABBD ISRAEL

PS

“You have to understand,
Most people are not ready to be unplugged.
And many of them are so inured,
So hopelessly dependent on the system,
That they will fight to protect it.
Sooner or later you’re going to realize,
Just as I did,
That there is a difference between knowing the path
and walking the path.
I’m trying to free your mind…
But I can only show you the door.
You’re the only one that has to walk through it.”
THE MATRIX (Movie)

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Posted in AFRICA, LIFE, NIGERIA, Religion, SPIRITUALITY, WORLD

Liberty

Posted on March 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

Equality of political rights will not compensate
For the denial of the equal right to the bounty of nature.
Political liberty, when the equal right to land is denied,
Becomes, as population increases and invention goes on,
Merely the liberty to compete for employment at starvation wages.
This is the truth that we have ignored.

And so there come beggars in our streets
And tramps on our roads;
And poverty enslaves men who we boast are political sovereigns;
And want breeds ignorance that our schools cannot enlighten;
And citizens vote as their masters dictate;
And the demagogue usurps the part of the statesman;
And gold weighs in the scales of justice;
And in high places sit those who do not pay to civic virtue
Even the compliment of hypocrisy;
And the pillars of the republic that we thought so strong
Already bend under an increasing strain.

We honor Liberty in name and in form.
We set up her statues and sound her praises.
But we have not fully trusted her.
And with our growth so grow her demands.
She will have no half service!

Liberty! it is a word to conjure with,
Not to vex the ear in empty boastings.
For Liberty means justice,
And justice is the natural law —
The law of health and symmetry and strength,
Of fraternity and co-operation.

They who look upon Liberty
As having accomplished her mission
When she has abolished hereditary privileges
And given men the ballot,
Who think of her as having no further relations
To the everyday affairs of life,
Have not seen her real grandeur—
To them the poets who have sung of her
Must seem rhapsodists,
And her martyrs fools!

As the sun is the lord of life, as well as of light;
As his beams not merely pierce the clouds,
But support all growth, supply all motion,
And call forth from what would otherwise be a cold
And inert mass all the infinite diversities of being and beauty,
So is liberty to mankind.
It is not for an abstraction that men have toiled and died;
That in every age the witnesses of Liberty have stood forth,
And the martyrs of Liberty have suffered.

We speak of Liberty as one thing,
And of virtue, wealth, knowledge, invention,
National strength and National independence as other things.
But, of all these, Liberty is the source,
The mother, the necessary condition.

She is to virtue what light is to color;
To wealth what sunshine is to grain;
To knowledge what eyes are to sight.
She is the genius of invention,
The brawn of national strength,
The spirit of national independence.

Where Liberty rises,
There virtue grows,
Wealth increases,
Knowledge expands,
Invention multiplies human powers,
And in strength and spirit the freer nation
Rises among her neighbors …

Where Liberty sinks, there virtue fades,
Wealth diminishes,
Knowledge is forgotten,
Invention ceases, and
Empires once mighty in arms and arts
Become a helpless prey to freer barbarians!

(Culled and Rearranged from Book X, Chapter 5 – The Central Truth in Progress and Poverty by Henry George, 1808)

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Posted in freedom, geo-politics, LIFE, WORLD

The Change Mantra in Nigeria: How Far?

Posted on February 3, 2018 | Leave a comment

In 2014, Change as a newly discovered word entered the political lexicon of Nigerians. Everywhere you turned between 2014 and 2015 the word Change, boldly written on placards and on billboards, was all you see over the landscapes of Nigeria. After almost three years into the administration of the present government in the saddle of Horse Nigeria (the unfortunate horse everyone loves to ride/rape recklessly without any care for her well-being) we should be able to ask, How far is the change? Has Change truly come down to Nigeria? If it has not come, are there signs in the air that Change is on its way and soon to land in Nigeria?

We recall that a political party in Nigeria sold the propaganda of change to Nigerians during the 2015 electioneering charade. As it were many Nigerians believed and accepted the slogan since the party of Change eventually won the Presidential election.

Non-partisan and keen observers of human behaviour would have assumed that since Nigerians voted for change, Nigerians had duly acknowledged that the political and socio-economic status quo was a political system not fit for purpose; that the system symbolised by pernicious cultural practices and unethical national ethos ought to disappear; that the primitive prebendal political cultures, which have relentlessly and unabashedly pandered to ruinous corrupt practices, must be dismantled; and that the collective and individual primitive habits of self aggrandisement, gluttonous consumption, senseless exhibition of stolen wealth and insatiable greed for riches are the human weaknesses sabotaging every effort of the few sincere patriots working for peace, progress and prosperity of the commonwealth.

Following the above assumptions, it was therefore expected that Nigerians were truly ready to change from the debilitating culture of corruption and that we were sincerely eager to opt out of the debilitating political system into a new deliberately and intelligently created good political system that is totally free from corruption. Hence, intelligent observers thought that was why Nigerians gave their massive support to the propagandist party of Change.

Philosophy of Change

Change, this newly acquired ubiquitous word in Nigeria can mean a slight turning away or a complete turning around from one position of beliefs, ideas, attitudes or general behaviours to another slightly different or a complete opposite. Change can be a deliberate and rational act of choosing/adopting an alternative habit/attitude in thinking or believing or doing or behaving.

In a nutshell, to accept the concept of change in a polity, it is to acknowledge there is a serious problem with the status quo. Such awareness will lead thinking members of the society to perform a mental comparative observation, intelligent study and critical analysis of several possibilities of some cogent issues in the society. This intellectual exercises should lead them to choose one possibility out of many options after a long process of deliberation on the pros and cons of all the opposing views. This is the path of common sense, reason and rationality.

With hindsight and noting the present situation of business as usual in the country, we can now conclude that the assumption that the people of Nigeria have had enough of corruption controlled/dominated life was unfounded. The overblown faith that Nigerian were ready to try a new socio-economic existence that is totally free from corrupt lifestyles and fraudulent economic practices was also misplaced.

We are forced to conclude thus because so far and from the assessment of the government formed by the political party that sold the change propaganda and that eventually won the election, it is obvious that this party only played a cruel game of deception on the people. The party and the presidential candidate of change did not seem to have a clue about the ramification of the propaganda they promoted. Obviously, the slogan was chosen for them by the overpaid foreign consultants that served as the political propaganda experts and public relations agency

After almost three years, all the highfalutin promises of the Election Change Mantra have simply refused to emerge. Nigerian politicians and the accursed institutions of governance rooted and adorned in corruption are back in business as usual and even stronger and more formidable than before.

Many important members of the present government have been caught with their soiled hands in the cookie-jar of the commonwealth. We are yet to see a role model among the 2015 winners who is prepared to showcase a new culture of moderation in primitive acquisition that is clearly and cleanly free of corruption.

We have yet to see any member of the National/State Assembly that has courageously declared a non-participatory stance in the sharing of humongous booty that accrues ’legally’ but immorally to the members of the ‘hollowed’ assemblies as wages and allowances. Neither have we seen a cabinet member, after witnessing the established irresistible and immovable tradition of institutional corruption that quietly or publicly opts out of the machinery of ‘Chop-I-Chop’ institutions of governance in Nigeria. Nor has the government made one example of any high calibre thief/embezzler caught in possession of stolen public properties and funds with appropriate sanction and punishment to teach other Nigerians a lesson about probity in leadership position.

These and many other such examples are what we were expecting from a political class and political party that bulldozed their way into power with a holy than thou attitude and extraordinary promises to clean and make Nigeria safe for human life and free from corruption.

Consequences of Misinformation

At the present time, the people of Nigeria are at the lowest level of human existence, when suicide seems a better choice for most of the people than to continue with life as it is now. The large number of able-bodied young men and women putting their lives at risk to cross the inhospitable Sahara desert in order to seek a new life in Europe exemplifies this.

It is therefore understandable why Nigerians were stridently clamouring for a change of the status quo in 2015. But rather than look within themselves individually to discover the reason for the alarming wretchedness in the land, Nigerians focused all their attention on one individual entity and a politician for that matter. Although and to be fair, more than five generations of Nigerians have had their minds and spirits broken and messed up when we were swamped with alien philosophy and culture of beliefs and worship that have no relevance to African mentality and spirituality.

Naively, the ancestors of present day Nigerians accepted without any intuitive or intellectual vetting all the fictitious stories and fables sold to them as the path of truth and deliverance. These fabulous stories made up by a clever “Chosen People” who were seeking slaves to conquer, to control and to dominate have since turned the life of Nigerians upside down. Since the propagation of these soul-killer seeds of lie on the truth of life were sowed and germinated in Nigeria and Africa, people have been turned into a “flock of sheep”. Nigerians have been cleverly consigned into spiritual bondage where they are now daily and weekly being fed and prepped up for easy reach and slaughter with more of the soul-killer lies.

Unfortunately today, these lies are locally embellished, cooked and spiced up by African priests and imams, the custodians of the religious institutions that were designed principally for the enslavement of human minds. Through the adulterated religious philosophies circulating around, Nigerians have been taught for so long to look forward to the coming of a messiah/mahdi who will solve every self-inflicted earthly problem in their lives. Carelessly and due to a prolonged religious brainwashing, Nigerians were indeed looking for a messiah like the type found in the holy books who would lead them out of a self-inflicted ruin into a miraculous abundant life without exacting much effort.

The False Hope of 2015

Hence in 2015, Nigerians focussed and placed every hope they can muster, and religiously too, on a “saintly” stalwart from the tribe of the political gangsters to bring them peace, harmony and socio-economic deliverance on a platter.

As a result of paucity of knowledge in the land, Nigerians could not think beyond the Change of replacing one political figurehead with another political figurehead. Having being persuaded and swayed by scurrilous propaganda and buffeted with relevant “stomach infrastructure” as applicable, Nigerians went to the 2015 polls to pick a choice out of two equally unfit personalities.

In a sane society, the two personages that fronted for the two political parties should never have been put forward to contest for leadership position in the first place. The two presidential candidates, based on their biodata, personality, and political track records, were glaringly unfit for the job they applied for. Yet the people of Nigeria put all their hopes, emotions and energy on either of the two blind men to lead them into the salvation of change.

We cannot blame Nigerians for their short-sightedness because this is one of the consequences of the game of democracy of our time. In every country, hidden men, (aka Deep State) with money-power are selecting and presenting political candidates to the people for whom the people must cast their votes, or ‘place their bets’. To the secret selectors, it does not matter if the presented candidate has little or no aptitude, intelligence, competence, etc., for the job of governance. What the godfathers are looking for is a servile candidate with a flair for showmanship and a presentable superficial personality that can act the role of the public relations front man for the Deep State. The modern scientific propaganda machine is ever ready to sanitise, whitewash, and deodorise the devil and turn it to an angel in order to make it eligible for political office.

It is therefore a forgone conclusion that the common people have no clue whatsoever about what they were getting themselves into when they troop out like sheep to cast the votes in the general elections. Carelessly and without any thought like mindless zombies, the common people of the world simply cast their precious votes as directed. As part of their ‘patriotic’ duty, the masses have been indoctrinated to believe that merely casting the vote at an election is the epitome of civic responsibility in a democratic society. By this careless act of the people, voting without adequate knowledge and understanding, the candidate who ‘won or rigged’ the election is given the constitutional power and legal authority to rule over them. Albeit, as a mere puppet and front man for the hidden powerful moneymen that selected him/her for the job while the people were still slumbering.

This is the political parody of modern democracy in the Swindlers Paradise where the people of the world are being told incessantly not to look for alternative methods of governance because what is in place, which is called democracy — a one-size-fits-all adversarial political party system —  is supposed to be perfect for every nation.

However, in the case of 2015 Change Mantra, it is almost three years and Nigerians are still waiting for the miracle of Change to deliver its bountiful promises. It will never happen because that was never the intention of the political gangsters. The political gangsters merely changed batons like sentries on guard duty. All the men and women dominating our political space are unrepentant sinners. Their lives are designed to lead the innocent countrymen and women astray. They are not a people of any high or low ethical conviction, principle or belief. They are soulless psychopathic beings that have no conscience and are therefore devoid of mercy, compassion and love. For the throng of starry-eyed Nigerians who are religiously expecting deliverance from these human wolves that need regular supply of human blood to survive, it is going to be a long agonising wait. And I am sorry to burst your bubbles; it is not going to happen.

Come 2018, this same scenario will play itself out again. Men and women of dubious characters will troop out asking for the people’s vote in 2019. Most enlightened observers know it does not matter anymore if the people cast their votes or do not cast their votes; the scientific rigging machines have been perfected to deliver on the pre-chosen candidate by the powers that be. By now everyone in the world ought to know that the political election process is a charade. All awakened people in the world know this and that’s why they no longer bother themselves to participate in the fudged process anymore.

Where do we go from here, Nigerians?

True Change is Repentance 

The reason for the calamitous failure of the present government to take the driver seat of the Change Project after almost three years could be adduced to the fact that no-one in the polity was able to articulate properly for the benefit of all and sundry the true meaning of this wonderful concept called Change. Or, those who understand what change entails could not get the message out properly and clearly to Nigerians.

It seems every Nigerian that participated in the 2015 ’democratic’ election process based his/her decision on mere emotional sentiment. All participants joined the popular mob acclamation to profess the slogan of Change without adequate knowledge and understanding of what it would entail to cause a societal change to happen and to succeed as a social and spiritual harbinger of good fortune.

Borrowing from the Judaic philosophy or religion, we discovered that in the biblical era, change was synonymous with repentance. It was recorded at many instances when the ancient “nation of Israel” was floundering under the muck of corruption and beastly lifestyles that poets, seers and prophets and men of conscience would call out to the people to repent from their sinful and foolish ways. The seers would call on the people to change or repent from unrighteousness to righteousness; from ungodliness to godliness; from immorality to morality; from merciless oppression of the poor to merciful charity to the poor; from unjust, mindless acquisition of riches to a just, mindful redistribution of the commonwealth to the less privileged, etc.

From time immemorial and in societies that have attained a high level of spiritual consciousness, it has been the duty of selfless poets, sages and seers, to connect the dots of seemly unconnected activities in the socio-political and economic realms. Based on their acquired intellectual and spiritual perspectives, these men/women filled and moved by the spirit of truth, were able to see a logical connection between the reckless impunity of political and economic leaders and the consequent widespread suffering among the people.

These men and women of conscience would singly or collectively raised their voices to condemn societal evil practices and to admonish the perpetrators to seek repentance, retribution and forgiveness. They would stringently call, using every method at their disposal, particularly, “Thus says the Lord”, to attract the attention of both the leaders and the people. They would advise the people to repent sincerely from their perverted ways, which they have discovered were the true causes of the community distress and national calamities.

In a nutshell, change has often been a spiritual call for a community awakening; and a call to the people to seek and embrace higher ethical and moral values that would eventually make the society fit for human existence and purpose. When change or repentance is truly embraced and sincerely pursued by the people, it has the spiritual capability to turn a society inside-out. True Change from within the citizens has the transformational power to turn the country into a fit and beneficial land that can easily provide for the progress of all the citizens regardless of political or economic status in the polity.

Hence, when a clarion call goes out to the people asking them to change or repent from an ungodly, chaotic, ruinous and retrogressive way of life to a godly, harmonious, prosperous and progressive way of life, it is often as a result of the unsavoury shared and lived experiences of the people. While the majority of the suffering masses would often have no awareness as to the reasons behind their hardship and difficult life, the thinking men and women are compelled and are expected to use their brain power to figure out the social and spiritual problems of their society.

Similarly, people of conscience who are like social and spiritual barometers are very sensitive to the two contiguous extremes of the swings of good and evil. When the few-gifted men/women of conscience see their society in distress, they feel and share the pain of the intense suffering of the people around them. At that instance, they are moved or inspired to raise their voices as they call and advise the people to change or to repent from their wayward ways. When peace, progress and prosperity are lacking in the community/nation, they will also advise the people to consider making a detour from their present unwholesome, irrational way of life to alternative (suggested) wholesome and more rational way of life that will surely bring benefit to all.

In the ancient times, “Thus says the Lord” was the weapon of fear used by seers and poets as the alarm bell to wake up a community sleep walking into perdition. In the modern time, facts and figures derived through scientific investigations and researches are the weapon of reason available to prick the conscience of the leaders and to awaken the consciousness of the people and nations facing the imminent danger of existential risks.

Nigeria is in such a dire situation as she is speedily trending towards the extinction level. At this juncture of national paralysis and confusion, Nigerians ought to listen to the voice of reason and be receptive to the truth being told about our wretched human existence. Nigerians must be prepared to jettison the prevailing inhuman cultural practices that are totally permissive and self-serving with no room for love, mercy and compassion.

There is an urgent need for Nigerians, individually and collectively, to re-examine our philosophy of life. What are the governing principles that dictate political, economic and social actions and non-actions in our societies? We need to update our individual morality and national ethics based solely on reason and rational principles. In fact, the total gamut of the local and national cultural practices, particularly our soul-killer religious beliefs, must be turned inside out if we intend to avoid the Sword of Damocles hovering over the country.

The question is still hanging in the sky, Are Nigerians, individually and collectively  really ready for True Change? The next few months will tell how strongly serious we are about a True Change.

In The Spirit of Truth

SAM ABBD ISRAEL
samabbdisrael@msn.com

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Posted in AFRICA, geo-politics, LIFE, NIGERIA, WORLD

The Birth of Wonder

Posted on January 25, 2018 | Leave a comment

There is no more pathetic spectacle than that of an age which is bored with life.

Materially our modern world is richer than perhaps any preceding age; spiritually we are paupers. Not all our truly wonderful physical accomplishments, not all our abundance of amusements and sensations can hide the fact that we are poor within.

In fact, the task of the latter is but to hide the poverty within; when our inner life is arid we must needs create artificial stimuli from without to provide a substitute, or at least cause such an unbroken succession of ever varying sensations that we have no time to notice the absence of life from within.

There are but few who can hear either solitude or silence, and find a wealth of life arising in themselves even when there is naught from without to stimulate.

Yet such alone are happy, such alone truly live; where we find the craving for amusement and sensation from without we see an abject confession of inner lifelessness.

There lies the difference between the quick and the dead, some are dead even in life, others can never die since they are life.

We all seek life, since life is happiness and life is reality. But it is only when we have the courage to cease from sensationalism and outer stimulants that we may be successful in our quest.

Philosophy is the quest of life.

It is more than a love of wisdom, unless we understand wisdom as being different from knowledge, as different as life is from death.

Wisdom is knowledge which is experience and therefore life; the quest of wisdom is in reality the quest of life.

It is true that the name of philosophy has often been used to corer a game of intellectual question and answer which leaves men no richer than before. Thus the average man distrust philosophy and accuses it of giving stones for bread.

But real philosophy is not the intellectual solving of problems; in the words of Plato, philosophy is the birth of wonder, and he is the true philosopher who begins to wonder about life, not he who is certain of having solved that which is beyond solution.

It is profoundly true that, until we can see the wonder of life all around us, unless we see ourselves surrounded by a mystery that challenges our daring exploration, we have not entered on the path of philosophy.

Unawakened man knows only facts, no mysteries, to him things are their own explanation; the world is there and what else is there to know?

Such is the animal outlook; to the bovine mind pastures may be good or bad, but they need no explanation.

Thus unawakened man is content with the facts of existence — his environment, his food, his work, his family and friends are so many facts surrounding him, pleasant or unpleasant, but never in need of explanation.

To speak to him of mystery hidden in his life and his world would not convey any meaning; he exists and the fact of his existence is sufficient unto him.

Death and life themselves may for a while cause him anxiety or joy, but even then they do not arouse any questions; they are familiar and customary.

It is the very familiarity of life which hides its mystery to the animal mind.

That which seen once would be a marvel becomes familiar when seen a hundred times and ceases to suggest the possibility of further explanation; have we not switched on the electric light so many times that the unexplained wonder of electricity is lost in the familiarity of the action and the fact has become its own explanation?

There was a time, in the childhood of humanity, when primitive man lived in a world of mystery moving among dark fears and unknown terrors.

But even them, though the mystery was felt and the world was seen as in a dream, the possibility of questioning the mystery did not suggest itself–primitive man was too much part of nature to question and investigate.

With the dawn of intellect the mystery of primitive man is lost and naught but facts in their vulgarity remain; in the sublime ignorance of a self-satisfaction, which doubts neither itself nor the world, man moves among mysteries which, could he but realize them, would strike terror into his heart.

And should he occasionally catch a glimpse of the mystery of life he but hastens to cover it up and even deny it, lest the comfort of his intellectual slumber should be disturbed.

Rather than risk the chance of an upheaval of the familiar and comfortable facts of his existence he will shut his eyes to the unexplained and burn at the stake those who persist in seeing and questioning.

The time, however, comes for most of us, when catastrophe and suffering shock us out of the ruts of familiarity, when our old world is destroyed beyond hope of recovery.

It is as if the universe, in which, but a few days before, we moved about with the easy certainty of unawakened man, had disappeared overnight and each familiar object and event had become a dark and terrible mystery.

Thus would the traveler feel who, waking from a dreamless slumber, finds that he has slept by the side of deadly reptile, unaware of its proximity and happy in his ignorance.

The awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place, and all things are affected by the change.

We ourselves have become mysterious strangers in our own eyes and tremblingly we ask ourselves who we are, whence we came, whither we are bound.

Are we the being who is called by our name, whom we thought we knew so well in the past?

Are we the form we see in the mirror, our body, offspring of our parents?

Who, then, is it that feels and thinks within us, that wills and struggles, plans and dreams, that can oppose and control this physical body which we thought to be ourselves?

We wake up to realize that we have never known ourselves, that we have lived as in a blind dream of ceaseless activity in which there was never a moment of self recollection.

Our very consciousness is terra incognita; we know not the working of our own mind.

What is it that happens when we think or feel, when a moral struggle takes place in us, when we are inspired, respond to beauty or sacrifice ourselves for others?

It is as if we were prisoners in the vast palace of our consciousness, living confined to a small and bare room beyond which stretch the many apartment of our inner world, into which we never penetrate, but one of which mysterious visitors–feelings, thoughts, ideas and suggestions, desires and passions–come and pass through our prison, without our knowing hence they come or whiter they go.

In our consciousness we knew but results, we saw but that which rose to the surface and became visible; now we begin to realize a vast and unexplored world of mystery which, mirabile dictu, is the world of our own inner life. We are discovering the wonder of life.

It is everywhere around us, this wonder of life, nothing now is common or familiar, everything throbs with a mysterious life which is there for us to explore.

The sacred enthusiasm of the investigator claims us, we desire to know as a starving man desires food, we cannot live unless we know; we will know if it must cost our lives.

Thus are we born as philosophers.

Excerpt from The Conquest of Illusion by Dr J.J. van der Leeuw, 1928.

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RECALL: The End of The End of ‘British’-Nigeria

Posted on September 17, 2017 | Leave a comment

(This is an edited essay written in 1998 as “The End of the End”. The issues it addressed then are still relevant to the sociopolitical situation of Nigeria in 2017) 

Introduction

The death of Chief M. K. O. Abiola in detention in 1998 on the eve of his release, (so the government’s spoke-persons said), by the military government of Nigeria brought back the memory of October 1974. This was the time when the late Tai Solarin, the extraordinary activist of his time, wrote the famous short essay titled ‘The Beginning of The End’ to rally together all lovers of democracy in Nigeria. This was Tai’s immediate reaction to Major-General Yakubu Gowon, the Military Head of State, who announced that the proposed date of 1976 earlier earmarked for the handing-over of political power to civilian administration has been postponed.

As a matter of historical fact, it was indeed the end of the reign of Gowon’s government. He barely lasted 9 months before his kinsmen, friends and enemies ganged up to send him packing into exile in 1975. Gowon was a classic example of a ruler who lost touch with his subjects because he allowed sycophants to clog up his senses with unrealistic tales of success, acceptability and popularity.

The title of this essay is slanted heavily on the sentiments that informed The Beginning of the End by Tai Solarin. However, the situations of Nigeria have unfortunately regressed further from “the Beginning of the End” to The End of the End. This means the unpalatable suffering in the land has reached an unbearable state. It is either to break or to bend the jinx holding down the country but the status quo of an insidious political arrangement has got to disappear forever.

It is quite clear to all keen observers of geo-politics that Nigeria is again facing another epic moment in her tragic short history. This is another time, when the wisdom of keeping Nigeria together as a country under a unitary system of government that was first put in place by the Macpherson Constitution of 1947 is in doubt. Although, the founding fathers of independent Nigeria fashioned a brilliant Constitution that gave ample autonomy to each Regional Government to manage its affairs as it deemed fit but the prodigal sons in military uniform set it aside to revert to the unitary form of Administration by decrees in 1966. Since 1966, Nigeria has been administered as a Unitary Government even though it is called Federal Republic of Nigeria on paper.

The question about the future of Nigeria as presently constituted and managed has again become more contentious since 1993 when the despotic government of Babangida unilaterally nullified the result of the only open and fair election ever conducted in Nigeria. If the election was allowed to run its course, it seemed to hold a lot of favourable promises for a new beginning to the Peoples of Nigeria.

Nigerians, by the pattern of voting that deliberately made religious and ethnic considerations of less importance and the result of the election that showed a national acceptance of the victor, seemed to have come of age. Nigerians seemed ready and were eager to learn to live together under a climate of freedom for all; to accord respect for each other’s cultural differences; and to offer a loving hand of fellowship, devoid of prejudice, to each other as sensible human beings.

By the outcome of that election, Nigerians seemed to have recognized and have accepted each other’s natural weaknesses and natural strengths; they seemed to have resolved, despite all their shortcomings, to work at overcoming these natural fears and prejudices, which were products of amenable cultural differences; they seemed to have come to a realisation that these unexamined fears were born more of ignorance about each other’s traditions and cultures than anything else; and they seemed to have recognized that they have more things in common with respect to individual or collective pursuit of basic human needs for happiness and a good life.

Then and to the dismay of every Nigerian, the Powers That Be, (the unelected, invisible, and clandestinely constituted ethnic cabal), who have sunk their teeth on the jugular of Nigeria since the Amalgamation in 1914, decided that the people of Nigeria, collectively and individually, were lacking in wisdom. They adjudged that common Nigerians could not be trusted to make a right decision of such great importance of democratically electing a President of their choice. This obnoxious and faceless group that is made up of unknown elements among us, with a tersely written and an unsigned letter typed on a plain sheet of paper, announced their covert decision to suspend the release of the results of the election that M.K.O Abiola/Gana Kingibe had won. And that was it.

Everybody in Nigeria was expected to accept the annulment of the election with equanimity and with due deference to the wisdom of these hidden rulers of Nigeria. The Powers That Be have spoken and nobody should dare raise a query or ask questions. This is the nature of the ethnically discriminatory and ethically disparate country to which every citizen is ceaselessly being called upon to defend her unity and to uphold her honour and glory.

The Doctrine of Unity is the only political philosophy and the almighty guiding principle of the Nigeria State. The doctrine of unity has been encrypted in the so-called Constitution, in the National Anthem, in the National Creed as well as in the individual psyche of Nigerians. It is the unity of Nigeria that is adjudged paramount, sacrosanct and a must-have Holy Grail for Nigeria. The right of every Nigerian to equality, liberty and justice is never considered to be equally important. Every policy, every program, and every project of government since 1960 is couched and geared towards the singular goal of ‘unity of Nigeria’. The unity of Nigeria with a borderless geographical space in the north of the country and a deliberate unquantifiable national population. And of course, the welfare of a purposely designed and unquantifiable number of people within Nigeria is never a primary concern of government and it is perfunctorily addressed whenever the hands of the rulers are forced by circumstances.

Just like in the time of Yakubu Gowon, the hidden, faceless and unaccountable powerful personages are holding political guns to the head of every Nigerian as they demand for total submission and obedience to their aimless and ungodly hegemony. The hidden leaders have become so befuddled with the air of self-delusion that claim to have absolute control over the life of the people.

These leaders are yet to see that the era of their age-long shenanigans is over. They cannot see that the veil of ignorance has been lifted away from the faces of the ever-trusting people of Nigeria. They are oblivious of the fact that Nigerians have been very faithful this past 67 years but that the hidden rulers had time and time again taken the people for granted.

The secret rulers are unmindful that Nigerians have been very loyal and wholeheartedly trusting, almost to the point of stupidity. Yet, the so-called leaders could not offer in return a shred of commensurate compassion for the neglected people to ameliorate their suffering, hardship, poverty and very low and unacceptable standard of living.

Unfortunately, the Nigeria “imperial rulers” have actually taken it for granted that Nigerians are indeed stupid. The pseudo-emperors have refused to acknowledge the sacrifices of poor Nigerians who have given their all, their souls and their everything to this accursed British creation. Despite all the odds stacked against Nigerians, the common people still hold on with a strong hope that there will be positive changes from their rulers along the way.

The thieving and looting-rulers could not appreciate all the sacrifices that most Nigerians have made in order to make this unholy contraption of a Country to work. But these so-called leaders have continued to collaborate with their foreign and local masters and have willfully and continually trampled on the wisdom and the faith of the common people. The rulers seemed to have sworn, and are actually prepared and indeed very ready, to ride and milk the willing Nigerians to death.

Now the Peoples who are hitherto called Nigerians have lost faith in everything called Nigeria. They have waited long enough for the creepy class of Nigerians who labeled themselves leaders (traditional, political, military, professional, civic, etc.) to redeem themselves to no avail. The common people are now making a passionate demand for personal freedom and for political self-determination as ethnic nations.

The word freedom everywhere in the world has been a signal of the beginning of a revolution. It is the beginning of actions that have great potential to radically change and transform the people from the status of a slave to that of a free-born; from being a servant of another man to being a master of one’s own; and from throwing off the yoke of slavery and oppression to embrace the comfort of liberty and the living joy of freedom. This is a dangerous omen for all fake and unpopular rulers. The signs are ominous and the result, if history will serve us right, can never be favourable to the renegade cabal who has been ridding with cruelty on the back of the people’s ignorance and fear.

In the words of P. J. Proudhon in a treatise titled What is Property: An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government, he writes,

“The more ignorant man is, the more obedient he is, and the more absolute is his confidence in his guide. … At the moment that man inquires into the motives, which govern the will of the sovereign – at that moment man revolts. If he obeys no longer because the king commands but because the king demonstrates the wisdom of his commands, it may be said that henceforth he will recognise no authority and that he has become his own king.”1

The Peoples of Nigeria under the colonial rule were sought out to make decision on the kind of government they would like to have. There was extensive consultation from the district/divisional levels to the provincial/regional levels, and every Nigerian was encouraged to contribute to the preparation of the 1951 Macpherson Constitution and particularly to the 1953-54 and 1957-58 constitutional conferences.

But what has been the experience of Nigerians since 1960, a clique of power-driven, power-loving, godless, wicked, selfish, myopic, visionless people who are devoid of all virtues or excellence have imposed their will on the people. They imposed a non-workable Constitution that strangled the free will of the people. The ungodly imposition of a fictitious and covertly enslaving Constitution has driven the people to the brink of injustice until the people cannot take the insult anymore. The long-suffering people of Nigeria have now turned around to face their oppressors, eyeball to eyeball, and are prepared to fight back.

Of course, these cowardly, god-forsaken and immoral people should be scared. The French revolution was a good example of the nature of trends and ways the anger of the people could go when it finally boils over. Why aren’t these treacherous leeches and so-called leaders learn from history. Why are they so mentally vacuous and unable to apply their brains and minds for glorious deeds in the service of the people? Why are they so obsessed with the collection and hoarding of material treasures which will be devoured in no time by “moth and rusts”?  Why?

There is no sane answer except that every generation in a particular society seems to go through its own cycle of tutelage, that is to say, a learning period must occur before growth and maturity can be secured and sustained. But why is Nigeria and Africa in general seemed to lag behind on the human evolutionary journey? That is, if there is truth in the creation story that says, all persons in the world regardless of race were created at the same time or that humanity came from the same source.

Anyway, on the Nigeria’s situation at this time in history, the people/nations of Nigeria are now stringently making purposeful demand for individual and ethnic rights to freedom of choice and for political rights to self-determination as a multi-cultural country of many indigenous nations. How should the people of Nigeria go about this life-changing choice?

Are the demands for political and socio-economic self-determination reasonable? Are they achievable options?

Is there anyway these demands could be done peacefully without leading to war and bloodshed and without disturbing the status quo or the existing way of life?

Is the present malevolent way of life in Nigeria, ridden with insane and out of this world corruption, worth defending in any way at all?

Is Nigeria still a feasible country as presently constituted? Has the country got any future capable of providing for the safety, protection and welfare of all and not just a few of her people?

What is the cost and benefit (social, economic and political) of the endless pre-emptive battles of each ethnic nationality against the fear of political domination by other ethnic nationality?

What is the cost of the pervading paranoia and the ever-deepening vigilante forces manned and equipped against other ethnic groups that flow out of this phobia of political domination?

Is it still a feasible option to insist that the people of Nigeria cannot have a good life or any life at all without being forced together in the way they have been this past 100 years?

(To Be Continued)

 

 

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Posted in freedom, geo-politics, LIFE, NIGERIA

Parable of the Contaminated River

Posted on July 9, 2017 | Leave a comment

Most rivers started their lives from the mountaintop as pure white snow that turns into water droplets or as pure spring of water that oozes out from the ground to form tiny streams and rivulets, which would gradually grow into a mighty river. The river flows and finds its way to the sea having passed through all kinds of places both clean and unclean; and having collected all kinds of polluted debris of human, animal and other environmental wastes.

Before a flowing river gets to the sea for purification, communities along its lower course that have no idea or knowledge about the degrading state of the river and the high level of toxic materials contained therein, would collect water from the contaminated river for their everyday household use. Every year these communities that depend on the polluted river for drinking, cooking and other purposes would record high level of infant mortality and high level of waterborne diseases among their population.

The shaman, witch doctor, imam and priest, after due divination as per each belief’s orientation, would make authoritative pronouncements on the causes of the endemic health situations. They would categorically tell the people it is the ancestral god who is punishing them for their sins, particularly the sin of disobedience to the words of god spoken through the mouth of the religious gurus. They would prophesy that the gods could only be appeased by the offer of sacrifices, fasting and prayers. They would divinely prescribe that the people must offer sacrifices of their children and of their choicest animals to the gods.

Also, the witch doctor, the prophet and prophetess as well as the shaman would identify some poor elderly persons in the community as witches and sorcerers. They would tell the people to hold the identified witches responsible as the primary cause of the community-wide health and mortality problems. These innocent and vulnerable people were often ritually put to death directly or indirectly by neglect and ostracisation or exile.

After many generations have suffered under this culture of ignorance of basic knowledge of the truth of life, the people would have come to accept such inhumane cultural practices as their fate and way of life. The ritual killings of human and animal as sacrifices to the gods would become established as a must do annual festival in order to proactively prevent the society’s health and related problems and to appease or bribe the gods from inflicting future punishment.

This was the abominable experience of most rural communities of the world until knowledge of philosophy and science evolved among a few thinking men and women. The innocent members of these communities who have suffered grievous physical and psychological devastation were finally rescued when one gifted individual among the people began to use the endowed common senses for what they were designed for. 

This exceptional thinker who succeeded in separating himself from the popular beliefs, traditions and cultures of his people was able, through observation and research, to discover the science of microbiology. He was able to identify the link between the invisible tiny organisms in the water drawn from the river and the resultant health related issues of his people.

The Lesson of the Parable and Religion

Just like the contaminated river, Christianity and many similar world’s religions at the present stage of humanity have become highly contaminated with profane ideas and blatant untruthfulness. All genre of religion as they are presently formulated and practiced have become highly polluted and have turned into toxic weapons of mass confusion, mass destruction, mass control and mass killer of spiritual life in the world.

For example, the birth of the religion of Christianity started as a corruption of the pure inspirational message of divine hope, love and mercy for the deliverance of mankind from the prevailing kingdoms of hell on Earth. Unfortunately, the original divine truth and ideas behind the message have passed through many polluted terrains and have collected too many poisonous additional ideas; clever but untruthful interpretations; soul-killing doctrines; mind-confusing dogmas of faith and belief; and blue pill mythologies that are designed to sedate the faithful members in to deeper slumber and spiritual unconsciousness.

Christianity in our time is carrying too many kinds of deadly ideologies. A keen and objective observer can no longer see or recognise the original simple but revolutionary messages of hope that promised to deliver and set mankind free from the hell on earth. The laudable messages of freedom have since been turned into weapons of mass enslavement.

The hope of everlasting life that the simple Teacher of Galilee promised his listeners has since turned to perpetual hopelessness; and the eternal life on a free offer to everyone has turned into a slow agonising daily death for most of the present generation.

The promise of everlasting living water that was expected to flow from the well within the hearers and the doers of the message has since dried up and where anything is still flowing, it produces only polluted or ‘dead’ water that suppresses the awakening and emancipation of souls.

Today, instead of the divine messages of truth, hope and freedom freely given by the Teacher of Galilee, money hustlers and prosperity merchants or preachers are now offering promises of bountiful harvest of signs, wonders and miracles to all those who are willing to sow seeds in the special vineyard or money-plantation established by the General Overseer of the Kingdom of Mammon.

In case you are a greenhorn on our planet, the Preacher Man/Woman is not asking for seeds of grape or corn or yam or rice but he is asking and seriously demanding for seeds of newly minted raw cash from the banks. The god of the Preacher Man/Woman is often threatening to withhold blessings and miracles of material prosperity to all those that refuse to sow a substantial amount of seeds of raw cash or those that use their common sense to sow frugally.

The Christian religion on sale to the world at this juncture in history is causing serious problems for the poor in spirit; for those that mourn; for the meek; for those that thirst and hunger for righteousness; for the merciful; for the pure in heart; and for the peacemakers. 

The religion on sale is offensive to the spirit; and it is messing up the minds of serious seekers after the truth of life. The modern preacher of theology is deceptively telling the followers that all the spiritual results that the Teacher of Galilee promised as blessings in the Beatitudes are not good enough.

They are saying, in their fine rhetorics with the sweetest tongue of a snake oil salesmen, that only material wealth and riches will do for the modern age. They encourage, cajole and say to their listeners, “pursue material prosperity with your life since abundant blessing in earthly wealth and riches is the only sign that shows you are indeed enjoying God’s special favour and grace.”

Through this carnally manufactured Protestant/evangelical teachings that were concocted in the last century from the United States of America and cleverly packaged for exports to every corner of the world, followers are deceptively being led solely onto the wide path of material existence that leads to damnation whilst being blindsided from seeing or knowing about the narrow path of spiritual existence that leads to everlasting life.

Material prosperity is the sing-song of the modern Preacher of righteousness all day long. It is the only sign of divine miracles the theologically manufactured “born again” Christians are expected to receive from God. All the spiritual blessings listed in the Beatitudes are quietly played down or mentioned in passing as mere addenda to the “serious teaching” of sowing money seeds and reaping bountiful dross or crumbs in the vineyard of the General Overseer (alias The Man of God).

At the present time, serious seekers of the truth of existence can no longer see the unbridgeable line and abyss between Mammon and God that the Teacher of Galilee had drawn to help his listeners understand that these two spiritually different entities should not be mixed together. Worshippers are no longer able to differentiate whether they are worshipping Mammon or God? No one in the assembly of the Faithful can tell the difference anymore.

The example of the contamination of divine ideas described above is not peculiar to the Christian religion; it is common to all modern religious empires. 

We have to reiterate again that what is now called religion in all its various manifestations is the degraded result of a once sublime philosophical propositions made in the past by a particular seeker in search of the truth of life. The findings of the seeker, which he courageously disseminated to the members of his generation, despite vicious opposition from the political establishment, are what the latter-day generation have labeled and are showcasing (that is after it has been contaminated) as religion. 

Religion is therefore the end product of a neutered truth that has since lost the power to cause revolution or fundamental changes in the life of a person and the society.

As the original and inspirational idea passes from one generation to another, and like the parable of the contaminated river, it attracts and captures lots of impurities that would finally distort the essence of the idea. All serious ideas on the truth of life are concerned about the healing of the spiritually sick mankind.

Because of the contamination purposely built into the original ideas, just like the contaminated river, all the innocent folks in the downstream of the religious river are becoming sickly and dying spiritually in large numbers.

The contaminated truth being propagated by the religious institutions are no longer setting people free as it is supposed to do. But the lie that is now openly being sold as a dumb-down truth is spiritually crippling, blinding and deafening the people’s common senses since it helps to deliver them effortlessly into political, economic and spiritual slavery.

The Teacher of Galilee actually foretold a Parable of the Weed to illustrate this particular phenomenon when he said,

“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.” (Matthew 13: 24-26)

In other words, the contamination of the original good ideas and teachings is not by accident but it is a deliberate and purposeful action from the political authorities to sabotage the deliverance of their profitable cargo of human sheep from ignorance and slavery. So the message, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” needs to be further investigated by all serious seekers of truth.

Every serious seeker of the truth of life must be able to ask afresh, What truth? Which truth? Whose truth? The unique answers each of us shall come up with will surely help to remove some (if not all) of the deliberate obfuscation that have followed the age-long answers to the important question and quest of, what is the truth?

In The Spirit of Truth

SAM ABBD ISRAEL

 

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The Mystery of Life

Posted on January 15, 2018 | Leave a comment

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved; it is reality to be experienced.

Beware of the man who claims to have solved the problem of life, who would explain its complexities and, with deadly logic, build a system in which all the facts of our existence may be pigeon-holed and neatly stored away. He stands condemned by his own claim.

The child which sees wonder in all the world around it, to whom the shells with which it plays on the beach are objects of breathless excitement and thrilled amazement, is nearer to divine truth than the intellectualist who would strip a world of its mystery and takes pride in showing us its anatomy in ruthless dissection.

For a while it may satisfy evolving man to know that the splendors of a sunset are but the breaking of light-rays in a moist atmosphere; he will come to realize that he may have explained the method, but has not touched the mystery at all.

Recovering from the sureness of youth, never doubting itself, awakened man returns to the wonder of childhood and once again sees a world, which, as the years pass by, deepens in mystery and beauty, but is never exhausted or explained.

Many are the systems claiming to explain life, contradictory in their premises and consequently in their conclusions.

They may be clever, they may fit perfectly in all their details, but life itself never evades them; were it possible to contain life in a system it would no longer be life, but death.

Life is ever changing, ever becoming, yet eternal in its abiding reality and the desire to grasp and hold it, to see it stretched out before us, as a butterfly in its glass case is destined ever to be disappointed.

Our systems of theology and philosophy, yes, even science, are but as momentary glimpses of a rapid movement; they may show us an instant of that movement in frozen immobility, the movement itself can never be contained in them.

And yet, even though the attempt to solve the problem of life and explain it logically is doomed to failure still the yearning to understand more, to know our own meaning and purpose is so irresistible that even the thought of failure cannot hold it back.

The thirst for truth is a sacred aspiration; like water seeking to gain its true level its onward pressure is unending until its purpose is fulfilled, its object achieved.

Such a fundamental desire cannot exist only to be frustrated; the very existence of the desire for truth is the promise of its fulfilment and prophesies achievement.

Fundamental instincts are never wholly mistaken; if truth were not for man the desire for truth would not be as a burning unrest in his heart, the eagle ever eating out Prometheus’ liver which ever grows again. That man should desire truth above all things is right, that he should be willing to sacrifice himself, his years, yes, his very life, to achieve it does but show the nobility of the desire.

But when, in blindness of materialism, he wants to have truth, to grasp and hold her, to lock her between the pages of a book, to make an object, a thing of that which is the heart of things, then the nobility of his aspiration is lost and the hero of yesterday becomes an object of pity, at whom the great gods smile in compassion.

Though ever again men may claim to have found truth and to possess her, truth herself remains untouched; truth is the mystery of life, which the hand of man can never reach.

Truth never descends to our world of error, he who would know must ascend towards that world of Reality where he can see face to face and, for a while, becomes living truth.

But it is ever man who must climb the mountain of reality; the Vision on the Mount does not descend into the valley.

Thus it is possible for man to know the mystery of life; solve it he never can, still less contain it in an intellectual system, however logical.

Life is not logical; thought logic is the alphabet, which we must learn if we would speak the language of life, which is truth.

And yet no intelligible language can tell of the vision to him who has not seen it; each must tread the weary path up the mountainside by himself and reach the bare and lonely top where alone the vision can be seen.

We may point out the path, tell of the hardships on the way, the dangers to be avoided and the obstacles to overcome, but none may tell the final mystery–its name is experience.

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, it is a reality to be experienced.

Excerpt from ‘The Conquest of Illusion’ by Dr J.J. van der Leeuw, (1928)

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