The
Underground Church
of the Most High
The words above, spoken by God the Father, are not found in the Bible. Or should I say, the "Standard" Christian Bible also known as the KJV (King James Version). The average western Christian denies themselves a truer and more complete knowledge of God by placing him in a neat little box. The beginning of my revelation can be traced to a song written and recorded in 1970. A little known group called Jethro Tull had a breakthrough album called Aqualung. A great album side and concept no doubt, BUT an even better side and EVEN deeper concept lay on side two! But thats another paper! What tweaked my interest was the verse:
So to my old headmaster and to anyone who cares
before I'm through I'd like to say my prayers
Well you can Excommunicate me
on my way to Sunday School
have all the bishops harmonizing lies
I don't believe you you got the whole damn thing all wrong
He's not the kind you have to wind up On Sundays
And that little verse has been my creed ever since. Because of that I wasn't afraid to step beyond my Catholic upbringing and begin a lifelong search to discover God. Helping me do so without feeling like a heathen sinner was a doctrine out of the Vatican.The Second Ecumenical Council concluded in 1965. The Council declared the value of other religions, without mention of "idolatries and fallacies" with which the Church had previously described other faiths.
So the journey began. Along the way I met Yahweh, Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai, one and all, the who is called I AM. I met Allah and Jah and rediscovered the Son of God, who is also God and therefore I AM yet also the Son of Man!
Studying the Bible, The Holy Quran, The Hindu Bible (the Bhagavad-gita), The Kebra Negast, The Dhammapada and any thing I could get my hands(Scientology, Mormonism,Mysticism) on accomplished two things.My grasp on the universal truth that from the fifties the greater tolerance had opened the door wider for accepting religious influences from outside Christianity. It was the religiosity wider than Christianity that led Dr. Timothy Leary on his path toward LSD. In 1960, Leary had traveled to Mexico and there he had met an Indian Spiritual Healer. Leary was a psychologist with a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, and he had a position on the faculty at Harvard University. He had been reared as a Catholic, but he also had leanings toward mysticism. From the spiritual healer Leary purchased some mushrooms with hallucinogenic properties. Leary's hallucinogenic "trip" inspired him to want to tell people to wake up, that they were God, that they had the divine plan engraved in the "cellular script" within them. He carried this with him back to his work at Harvard and carried on with it until he was removed from his teaching duties in 1963 and then expelled from the university's faculty. Another group that focused on human psychology and mental health was following what they called scientology. Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard had been a writer of science fiction. He declared his teachings a religion, winning a tax-free status while pursuing what mainstream religions pursued: better lives for people. Scientology advocated greater success in human relationships, in family life and in one's profession. It advocated a broader social consciousness. It sought to bring together into a single discipline a variety of studies including Buddhist ideas. Scientology was described as an effort to get people off drugs, as a struggle for human rights, an effort toward the major principles of morality and self-awareness, and as an effort toward greater happiness.
Growing up in a Christian or Jewish community as we have (even if we happen not to be Christian or Jewish), it is hard for us, as Westerners, to comprehend the size and openness of the Buddhist Scriptures; potentially, anybody who achieves enlightenment could add to the canon of the Buddhist scriptures, an idea that most of us, with our ideas of a final and fixed body of religious "scripture," would find alien.
The teachings of the Buddha:
The sayings of the Buddha were extracted out of the stories of Buddha's life to form The Dhammapada, which means "the path of dharma." This book consists of 423 sayings of the Buddha, grouped into 26 categories. One must take the title of the book with utmost seriousness; the sayings of the Buddha were not meant to be a fixed, static, unchanging doctrine, but rather a path which anyone can follow.
Hinduism and Buddhism were praised for being rich in myth, for their asceticism and their "insights of philosophy." Hindus were praised for their recognition of a supreme being and a personal god and as "seekers of divine truth." Buddhism was praised for addressing "the essential inadequacy of this changing world," for "attempts to reach truth and for posing a way of life by which men can, with confidence and trust, attain a state of perfect liberation." Islam was described as close to Christianity in its monotheism and its awaiting Armageddon. Judaism was described as closely interwoven with Christianity, and Jews were described as an "elected people, dear to God." The Council expressed hope for reconciliation and an eventual unification of Christians and Jews "as one people of God." And the Council concluded with the statement that the Church awaits the day -- known only to God -- when all people will call on God with one voice and serve him shoulder to shoulder.
According to Greeley, between the years 1963 and 1973 the belief among Catholics in the United States that Jesus Christ had handed the Church to the popes of Rome had dropped from 70 percent to 42 percent.
Another group that focused on human psychology and mental health was following what they called scientology. Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard had been a writer of science fiction. He declared his teachings a religion, winning a tax-free status while pursuing what mainstream religions pursued: better lives for people. Scientology advocated greater success in human relationships, in family life and in one's profession. It advocated a broader social consciousness. It sought to bring together into a single discipline a variety of studies including Buddhist ideas. Scientology was described as an effort to get people off drugs, as a struggle for human rights, an effort toward the major principles of morality and self-awareness, and as an effort toward greater happiness.
The Rastafarians
In the seventies, the popularity of Reggae and the singer Bob Marley, a Rastafarian, helped spread Rastafarianism in the United States. The home of Marley and the Rastafarians was Jamaica. The Rastafarians were influenced by the black nationalism of the Jamaican Marcus Garvey and also by Judaism and Christianity.
The Rastafarians viewed the emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, as a divinity for the black race and as Jesus incarnate -- the word Rastafari originating with Selassie's name prior to his coronation: Ras Tafari.
The Rastafarians believed they were descended from the ancient Hebrews who were exiled to Babylon, and they believed that Babylon was the power behind the oppression of blacks. They followed dietary laws, and in conformity with Leviticus 21:15 they refrained from cutting their hair. And a part of their religion was the smoking of ganja -- also knows as marijuana.
Some Rastafarians were annoyed at the influx of whites whom they described as hippies. But generally the whites were welcomed into their faith. And change came to Rastafarianism when Haile Selassie was overthrown by his armed forces in 1976. This and Selassie's death was a shock to the Rastafarians, and in 1976 Rastafarians were required to cut their hair and make elaborate repudiations of emperor worship.