Look at a Woman and it's all Downhill

When you are with God, pure belief will grant you a fulfilled life.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely
Say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward I heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets
Who were before you.” (Mathew 5:11)

I’m sorry if this starts out with me being so deep you might think you’ll die before you get your feet planted on the ground. But I just thought I could somehow paraphrase or understand the meaning of the passage above.

Believing in God is a gift. If people insult you because of that gift, don’t feel lessened or insulted. Just be happy that you have something they don’t, and you have faith, which is one of the hardest things to obtain.

Plus, them finding faults in your belief in Jesus will later go on to haunt them because Jesus can do a lot of things.

Karma.

And Jesus.

Chapters five and six basically go on to explain subjects such as murder, adultery, love for enemies.

It’s kind of like teachings of sorts.

Yes, it is a fact that anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But keep in mind that anyone who is angry at his brother (or anyone, for that matter) will be subject to judgment, too.

They say that adultery is a sin. But even thinking about a woman lustfully is committing adultery in your heart.

Everyone has heard to always keep an oath to God, and I guess an oath to other people as well. But, just don’t make oaths, period. “Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’, and your ‘No,’ ‘No’. Anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

Love your enemies. Well, no idea how we will come to following that one. But if anything, accomplishing the impossible would be a great achievement.

Do not do acts of kindness just for the sake of announcing your awesomeness and ‘sincerity’ to the world. Do them just for the sake of doing them. And let your actions be kept secret, so only God knows, and then he will reward you.

“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat of drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important that clothes?” (Mathew 6:21)

Enjoy life as it is, as it comes to you. Be happy that you’ve been given the privilege to live. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Focus on today, the present, the now.

This is what Jesus said, and he said it with an authority that had the crowds amazed.

Okay, so I have liked the Gospel of Mathew so far. It’s actually quite interesting, given that the story is always changing.

What I’m wondering is, who in the world is this Mathew guy?

Because, so far, not once has his name come up.

So maybe he’s not an actual character in the endeavors, and is maybe the guy who wrote this in the first place?

Is this my ignorance again, or am I just one of the many with no idea of how this guy came to have his name printed on top of each page?

That is something I’d love to know.

No joke.

But either way, my time with ‘Mathew’ has been fun.

If only I knew who he was.

Jesus. Finally.

Mathew 1-4

You will only hear once about a virgin woman who mysteriously develops a fertile sack with not even a mention of sex.

Yes. It happened.

I know. Who would even want a child having not even experienced the comfort of what we call “sex”?

I wouldn’t know.

I can just imagine.

Thinking about this does not make me a pervert.

Well.

As it happens, that one time was with Mary somehow acquiring baby Jesus in her insides and Joseph thinking that his “virgin”, holy wife was anything but.

But Joseph dreamt with an angel of God which made it clear it was purely God’s son, and he should have no worries about staying with Mary. In other words, “Stay with Mary so that she doesn’t look like a two-way tramp, and keep up the bravado so that Jesus, and he will be named Jesus, is born in a normal, loving family.”

You can tell God’s angels always get what they want.

Then comes the fact that Jesus’ presence is spread by Magi, whose real identity I never really know. Is he a priest, a prophet, a random holy man?

I feel so ignorant questioning identities from the Bible that should probably be common knowledge for other people.

So King Herod hears about this kid that everyone is waiting to worship, and well, you can somehow understand his antagonism towards this little being that obviously receives more worship as a baby than Herod has probably received in his whole life.

So he sets out to have Magi bring Jesus to him, but Magi had been warned by a dream, and after seeing the child and worshipping him, they instead leave to Egypt, where Jesus will soon go, after Joseph is ordered again by some other angel.

That’s when Herod sets to having every baby within the age of two within a close vicinity to be brutishly murdered, in sincere hoping that one of them would be Jesus.

Fail.

The comes John the Baptist, which you can intelligently infer to be a Baptist.
Go me.

He was a very popular person:

“People went out to him from Jerusalem
And all Judea and the whole region of Jordan.
Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him
In the Jordan River.”

And so Jesus came to be baptized by him, but he was like, “Are you kidding me? You’re freaking God’s son. If anything, you should be the one pouring holiness onto my hopelessly-drenched hair.”

Not in those words, exactly, but the meaning is a given.

But for some reason, Jesus declines and says it has to be the other way around, so John ends up following his everyday duties and baptizes God’s son.

Now, finally comes the Devil in all his evil glory. He tempts Jesus, after having not eaten for forty days straight, to turn stones into bread. He takes Jesus up to a very high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms, and said that if Jesus worshiped him, he could have it all. He took him to the highest point of the temple and said,

“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written:

“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,
And they will lift you up in their hands,
So that you will not strike your foot against stone.”

Well guess what?

Jesus is not stupid.

And I mean, can someone seriously be stupid if he has the ability to “cure diseases, those demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed”?

No.

Have you ever known someone with that amazing ability to cure, and the righteousness of a never-sinning life?

No, because no one is perfect.

No one except Jesus.

Death's Earth-shattering Existence= No More.

I have yet to understand this book. By understand, I mean, is there a religion based on this? One guy wrote it, and yet people all over the world decide to follow its morals and teachings. Is it because deep down we know it speaks the truth and good acts? And who is this Lao Tsu guy anyway? If I sound like an ignorant bonehead, I’m sorry for my inability to regard common knowledge and my ability to constantly sound stupid.

Any who, all in all, I pretty much enjoyed this text. Maybe it was the fact that a page consists of mostly two paragraphs double spaced and very cool words that amount to mean so much more than they seem.

In page 76 it says,

“If men are not afraid to die, it is of no avail to threaten them with death.
If men live in constant fear of dying, And if breaking the law means that a man
Will be killed, Who will dare break the law?”

If you are offering someone a bargain, or blackmail, if the blackmail doesn’t mean a thing them, you won’t get what you want. If I get grounded, and my mom decides to take away television privileges (which are basically non-threatening considering my life is mostly books) I would not see that as punishment and continue on my merry, happy way.

Basically, you can’t lose something, or fear it’s loss, if you never wanted it in the first place. You can’t fear something that is of no major thrill or life-threat to you. You just can’t.

I don’t get the meaning of it, in the way that I have yet to figure out how this is supposed to appeal to us in regular life. Is it a recommendation to jail executioners to eradicate food privileges instead of answer with obvious death.

Or maybe not.

Back to the whole text, and maybe I’ll sound less dense.

I think the Tao is mostly based on the nature of things, how everything balances out and makes the universe that much more poised. We should not fight nature, or try to accommodate the universe. We will be more in harmony than if we act against it.

I also got the idea that Tsu had a concrete belief on thinking for one’s self, and making own decisions, rather than be constantly be subjected to following specific rules.

We are supposed to follow our hearts and be true to ourselves. We’re to live simply, modestly, and be happy with what we have. We have to believe that we are plentiful in everything that we have, in a way, being happy no matter what the circumstances.

Dominant Relationships

I still can’t get over the fact this was written by one man. One man who had apparently a life-time worth of thoughts and deep feelings all jumbled up in his over-indulged mind.

I’m really surprised with the things this man came up with. Not only does he word them in a way that flows with an envying grace, but the things he says also make sense.

“Knowing others is wisdom
Knowing the self is enlightenment.
Mastering others requires force.
Mastering the self needs strength.”

When you think about it, this actually makes a lot of sense.

When you can interpret other people’s motives, understand them and come to comprehend what they’re feeling, or who they are as a person, you are intuitive. You need wisdom, insight and perception to truly penetrate another persons shield.

Knowing yourself is more like uncovering a treasure that you already have the key to. I mean, it is you. But you also need to have the illumination to clarify where exactly the key is used, to find the true hidden treasure. You need to know how to look, and how to express yourself to the point where you know it’s you.

As it comes to mastering others, it really is based on having an advantage over someone in a base of control. When you thing of mastering someone, you think of being dominant in comparison to that other person and having power over that person and what they do, all revolving around you. No one wants to be mastered, I think. At least not willingly. And if you are going to be rejected when taking a slight chance at the dominating act, you’ll have to use force.

Now we go on to ourselves. How can you master one’s self? Master as in ‘master’ the concept, understand? Or master as in concluding a dominant and submissive relationship in which you have total control? Either way, it’s yourself. If it’s the latter, basically all it takes is strength, but not in the lifting-weights kind, more as in inner strength. Think of it as will power. Our minds tend to wander and encourage certain acts, when we know they might not be the right decisions or even a viable option. If you have enough strength to keep yourself from desires, to understand yourself, and control your emotions as well as desires, you’re set.

Perfection. Not in the Foreseeable Future

Some of the following ‘lessons’, are whatever is you see fit to call them, were beyond me. Yes, they do sound all soft and deep, and intelligent, but what they are actually trying to say is beyond m reach. Or maybe I’m just too slow.

Well.

Like in page 15 where it says, “Accept disgrace willingly. Accept misfortune as the human condition.”

Accept being unimportant and do not be concerned with loss or pain.

Okay.

Does this mean we, as human beings, are supposed to somehow not feel, have no views or reactions to being unimportant, and blind ourselves of such gravities we call loss and pain? Why is that?

And is it possible?

To not possibly be concerned with loss?

In the case you lose a loved one to a random and out-of-nowhere befalling accident or tragic death, we’re supposed to ‘not be concerned?”

But I think I might have taken things a little too far. As for the being numb to pain and loss, I plainly don’t understand the chances of that ever happening if we have any say in it.

As for accepting disgrace and misfortune as the human condition, I may have a certain interpretation to that.

In life, expectations are our downfalls. Expecting certain positive outcomes and then finding out the low harsh reality makes the truth that much more unbearable. When you are sure you are going to get into the Ivy league college you’ve pined for since birth, when you get the rejectance letter, it seems as if the earth itself has crashed and burned into ashes and sharp edged pieces of fallen hopes.

You were so sure, that when the bad news came, you could barely believe it, and it brought great doom.

If you lack high expectations (or any, for that matter) the outcomes of the future will have that much less impact on you for the bad, and more for the better. Had you been clear on whether you would get into the Ivy league and just held tight with no balance between a certain outcome, the rejection would be a pity, but you wouldn’t be so up high that the fall would be an accelerating hurl to concrete.

As for the fact that you happen to be accepted, well surprise, surprise for the better.

I think that’s basically the meaning of it.

We are not perfect, and everything is not always going to go our way.

So if we don’t plead for things or make ourselves up to believe we are naturally psychic and good will come upon us, there won’t be that much misery and heartbreak in the end.

Striving for More=Gambling Away House and Treasured Teddy Bear

Behold emo manga dudes.





I have no clue what Tao itself is.

Shouldn’t I at least have a bit of information beforehand to even get the first line which consists of, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal tao.”

Yes. Because I really do understand that ‘that-which-i-don’t-understand’ that can be told is not the eternal ‘that-which-i-don’t-understand’. That really makes sense.

All I know is that no matter my lack of understanding for what the lines say in ‘chapter’ 1, it all sounds so deep and right that it is fun to read, no mutter the inconsistencies of my lack of knowledge.

It appears that mystery and manifestations are sort of the same except for they come from different sources, as it is so put. And they appear as darkness, which is ‘the gate to all mystery.’

How deep is that?

Chapter two starts out with, “Under heaven, all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.” Probably saying that the only reason we have standards on some things and view some certain things as ‘pretty’ is because we have ugly. If there was no ugly, everything would be the same, nothing would be ‘pretty’ when compared to others, and so ‘pretty’ would not even exist. I guess since it also says ‘under heaven’ it signifies that in heaven there are no such ridiculous terms as ‘pretty’ and ‘ugly’ and there, they don’t exist.

The same thing goes for good and evil. Would evil not exist, good would have yet to have a presence in our minds, and vice versa.

And so many other things apply to this:

Diffficult and easy.
Long and Short.
High and low.
Voice and sound.
Front and back.

These all complement each other.

If we are not used to seeing things and desiring them, we will not try to be clever and commit acts to obtain them, or go through extreme measures for them.

Therefore, if we lack knowledge, or desire for things, we will not be tempted to ‘try to interfere.’

And all will be well.
Eight basically deals with how to deal with things in a good-natured way, sort of with virtue and being just and all that.

It says not to fight and not to blame, which I could so deal with.

Nine quotes, “Better stop short than to fill the brim.” And then goes to say, “retire when the work is done.” I guess an example of this, no matter how ‘inappropriate’, would be gambling. Ever heard of the times where the guy is scoring big he might just get triple a decade’s paycheck, and you’re rooting for him. The guy gets to the top, he might as well call it quits. But he is so cracked in that high of satisfaction and stupefied adrenaline and happiness that he pushes his luck and goes for the kill. And that’s when he meets his downfall. All of that work in the beginning, for nothing. To have it lost due to just a single moment of carelessness and greed and stubbornness crawling their way in.

Now he ends up losing his two-floor Victorian house and his eight year old son, and his ‘can’t-live-without’ teddy bear, owing it to the final winner. All because he couldn’t stand halving the cup fully filled.


So stop while you’re succeeding, when you know you’ve reached the goal you’ve set, and never strive for more with unlikely risks. It will grant you your doom.

Twelve speaks of our senses and how the sage is ‘guided by what he feels, not what he sees.’

I wonder if this has a sort of indirect reference to following your intuition and what your heart tells you, and not always base beliefs on hard-core facts and only things you can see with the naked eye.

Because it takes more power to have faith, and believe in something with your whole being because you have the will, than waiting for evidence that something exists to fully put your faith in it.