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The Parable of Lazarus the Beggar and Dives the Rich Man Say, Today's gospel reading from

Luke 16:19-31 is about the Parable of Lazarus the Beggar. Lazarus goes to Heaven and rich man Dives goes to Hell, when they both die at the same time. Like last week's gospel reading about the Parable of the Dishonest Steward, this parable about the beggar Lazarus has been misconceived and misinterpreted as suggesting that the rich will never go to Heaven. This is absolutely wrong, just as conversely it would be stupid to think that Heaven will only be filled up with poor people and little children. This is why literal interpretation of spiritual writings is deceptively incongruent and even outright ridiculous. This is the 3rd time that I will be discoursing by way of 'one-pointedness' to the spiritual mind. That is, I will get straight to the point as I am without a computer and resorting to my iPad. Last week I asked you to take careful note of Luke 16:14 - ' Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him.' Refer to this as a starting point again. For similarly today's parable is aimed at the Pharisees (represented in today's parable by rich man Dives). Also refer to the next line Luke 16:15 - ' He (Jesus) said to them (the Pharisees), 'You are the very ones who pass yourselves off as upright in people's sight, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed in human eyes is loathsome in the sight of God.' ' Take careful note what this means. What is our heart is our 'spirit'. For the Spirit Father has spirit eyes. He can see whether there is a 'spirit' (reborn) in us! First some preliminaries. This is only a parable! Do not read more into the parable other than the simple moral that only someone who is egoless can go to Heaven. Rich man, poor man, beggar, king, little children, sheep or goats; all are just convenient labels or metaphors. It is just a manner of speaking within a specific context. You see, it is all essentially about the 'spirit'! When Jesus said that the poor or little children or 'sheep' will go to Heaven, he was talking about or describing their egolessness in the 'spirit'. When Jesus said that the rich men would never go to Heaven he was only suggesting that being egoistic and self-righteous and still attached and clinging to their physical body, worldly life and material possessions, they were not egoless in the 'spirit' so as to enter Heaven. Clearly, the Pharisees judge themselves by what other men saw of them, as being upright or righteous or esteemed. They wrongly assume that God and men have similar values. But this cannot be so; for flesh is flesh, and spirit is spirit! I will explain later that Jesus said that this human conception of eligibility or righteousness does not achieve 'spiritual' salvation. You can just imagine God looking down on the Pharisees as to their pomposity, pride and arrogance. The Pharisees had this misconception that if they were rich, this was because they had God's blessing! Conversely, the poor were poor because they were not worthy of God's blessing! God could see though their hearts and their conceit. The rich men that Jesus used as an illustration have clearly not said goodbye to their false worldly self-ego. Therefore their 'spirit' was still corrupt or inchoate. They have yet to 'rise' or be reborn in the 'spirit'! Only an egoless 'nobody' can go to Heaven! Those still with an 'I' of an ego in the spirit will go to Hades; which was why Adam (after he had acquired a false self-ego - the Original Sin) was exiled in the first place! If you are egoless in the spirit, whether you are rich or poor, you will go to heaven. Surely, Zacchaeus, a Senior Tax Collector, who gave half his possessions away when he followed Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea the rich man who donated his tomb to Jesus and the Good (Rich) Samaritan of the Good Neighbour Parable are all (spiritually) in Heaven! Conversely, a poor man who is spiteful, envious and covetous of the rich or even others of his own poor class and status will not be in Heaven! Note that the poor who become criminals, start off by doing bad to and cheating on their fellow poor first, before they start harming and cheating the rich! There are

professional beggars out there who are not poor men at all but are charlatans and frauds! It is not about being good or bad. It may be wrong to simply imply that Dives the rich Pharisee was a bad man, for he may not have been a bad man. Some men are all good, and some men are all bad! Most men have both good and bad in them. Take God's favourite David, for example. So, it is not about the good or bad in men, whether they be rich or poor, but about the selfrighteousness and egocentricity in men. The eternal spirit son of God is beyond good or bad. He has no need or want to judge, choose, favour or discriminate. He is in eternal blissful repose, being egoless. Who goes to Heaven? Between the Spirit Father and His spirit sons, it is all about a Father's unconditional endless love and his children's filial piety and their being good and hardworking. The Pharisees took faith as a religion when it is all simply about a Father's love and compassion and correspondingly filial piety, humility, reverence, subservience and putting the parents' welfare and wellbeing first on the part of the children. Faith should simply be about mutual love, trust and belonging between father and child! That sort of faith of love, trust, commitment, loyalty and relationship is not a religion! A father does not expect miracles from his child; but just take the child for what he or she is! A child does not demand or expect miracles out his or her father either! All there is, is love, mutual love! Contemplate! Faith as a worldly religion makes worldly beings kill! To be a Christian, look no further than the Twin Commandments that Jesus gave us - (1) Love God (i.e. the Spirit Father) with all your mind, body and soul and (2) Love your neighbour as yourself. All there is, is love, mutual love! You can have faith (trust) in love; but you cannot have love (or any other vice or virtue) as a faith or religion! Religion in a deluded or deranged or a religious zealot of a human being kills! By the end of this discourse you will learn not to be demonstratively, pompously and pretentiously religious like a Pharisee. Be a simple, discreet, humble, unpretentious, loving and kind and pious Christian instead! Now to the detailed reading. Gospel, Luke 16:19-31 19 'There was a rich man who used to dress in purple and fine linen and feast magnificently every day. 20 And at his gate there used to lie a poor man called Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who longed to fill himself with what fell from the rich man's table. Even dogs came and licked his sores. 22 Now it happened that the poor man died and was carried away by the angels into Abraham's embrace. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 'In his torment in Hades he looked up and saw Abraham a long way off with Lazarus in his embrace. 24 So he cried out, "Father Abraham, pity me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames." 25 Abraham said, "My son, remember that during your life you had your fill of good things, just as Lazarus his fill of bad. Now he is being comforted here while you are in agony. 26 But that is not all: between us and you a great gulf has been fixed, to prevent those who want to cross from our side to yours or from your side to ours." 27 'So he said, "Father, I beg you then to send Lazarus to my father's house, 28 since I have five brothers, to give them warning so that they do not come to this place of torment too." 29 Abraham said, "They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them." 30 The rich man replied, "Ah no, father Abraham, but if someone comes to them from the dead, they will repent." 31 Then Abraham said to him, "If they will not listen either to Moses or to the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead." Note that the imagery here is a convenient make-believe. When Jesus derided the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Scribes he had to talk their 'lingo' and illustrate his parables in a manner that they could relate and understand. There is no place called Heaven where Hades exist side

by side with it in sort of adjacent rooms (for Abraham and Dives were within talking distance here in the parable!). They are mutually exclusive realms. Heaven cannot be bliss if you need to see Hell to know you are in bliss. Heaven is absolute! There is no concept of duality or relativity or right or wrong or good or bad. You shall not want (anything) nor is there any need to be had in Heaven! Home is absolutely home. When you are at home your spirit is at rest! Home is where you are one as a family, parents and children, in mutual love, trust and belonging. Note that Dives is still treating Lazarus as a 'pariah' or 'untouchable'! Alive, Dives only gave Lazarus scraps as if the latter did not exist as a man but was like a dog. Dead, Dives still could not talk to Lazarus man to man! Lazarus was to be 'sent' like a slave or servant at Dives' beckoning to run his errands! The Pharisees were like that, like Brahmins and considered themselves the highest caste. To them the poor were despicable and 'unclean' from a religious point of view, fit only to be servants or slaves. Imagine Abraham and Dives talking to each other! How would Dives know who Abraham is? If Abraham were in Heaven (in the spirit) he would no longer be Abraham; since there is no separate ego besides God in Heaven. In Heaven there is no 'I' or 'You' or Abraham or Moses or Isaiah. All are subsumed in God. Thou shall have no idols before Me! There is a hidden meaning to the expression 'even if someone should rise from the dead'. Lazarus here in this parable had risen from the dead! The other but unconnected Lazarus (bosom friend of Jesus) also rose from the dead! Unless you are reborn in the 'spirit' you cannot 'rise' from the dead. Please read all the parables about yeasted bread to get an understanding. Then, and only then, will you appreciate why Jews have unleavened bread after Passover, except they themselves do not know the spiritual significance or the spiritual reminder of what it is supposed to be or signify! They only do it as a historical religious tradition and ritual. They do not know that it is a 'signal' to 'rise' up! So, the Pharisees did not understand the 'spirit' of the Old Law as propounded by Moses and the Prophets; they were stuck on to the worldly manner and form of the Law, pedantically and religiously! They could not be convinced that they were dealing with the dead letter of the Law. How could they then rise up with or to the spirit of the Law? Perhaps it would be worthwhile if I quote some gospel references. Refer Matthew 16:6-12 - 6 Jesus said to them (the disciples), 'Keep your eyes open, and be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.' 7 And they said among themselves, 'It is because we have not brought any bread.' 8 Jesus knew it, and he said, 'You have so little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? 9 Do you still not understand? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand and the number of baskets you collected? 10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand and the number of baskets you collected? 11 How could you fail to understand that I was not talking about bread? What I said was: Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.' 12 Then they understood that he was telling them to be on their guard, not against yeast for making bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Refer also Mark 8:15 - 15 Then he gave them this warning, 'Keep your eyes open; look out for the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.' Refer also Luke 12:1 - 1 Meanwhile the people had gathered in their thousands so that they were treading on one another. And he began to speak, first of all to his disciples. 'Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees -- their hypocrisy.' What the Pharisees and the Sadducees practised in terms of the Old Law handed down from Moses and the Prophets ended up as worldly rituals and manner and form without substance, i.e. no 'spirit'! Accordingly it is like leaven that never rise! Remember how Jesus exhorted - "But woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in." I honestly hope that our Jesuit fathers and indeed the Pope himself can interpret the Parables of Jesus, to explain what is meant by that 'little children' go to heaven or indeed what sort of poor men or rich men go to heaven. Woe be to our salvation, if they are modern day Pharisees and

Sadducees! Woe be to us, if they treat God as a worldly temporal religion, when it is all about eternal fatherly love and filial piety in the 'spirit'. Christianity is a personal 'spiritual' practice rather than a religion! Please read the Sermon on the Mount - Matthew Chapters 5, 6 and 7 - again and again, and truly understand, not in a worldly sense but through spiritual awakening, that it is all about a personal spiritual practice; and that "narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to (eternal) life, and there are few who find it.". As I said earlier - be a simple, discreet, humble, unpretentious, loving and kind pious Christian. When faith is judged or measured as greater or lesser, it becomes a worldly religion! It should just be simple faith, that is either there is faith or none, when we are reborn (in our spirit or baptised with the Holy Spirit). It has nothing to do with the extant of faith, whether greater or lesser, in the worldly false self-ego of son of man, son of Adam. It has to do only with the simple intuitive faith of the spirit son of God! The simple intuitive faith required of the 'spirit' is like the air or space or vacuity in the wind (refer John 3:8); once you have air or space or vacuity, you can fill the universe. You either have faith like 'air' or not have 'air'! It is not a case of greater or less air! That would be judgemental like a Pharisee! God the Spirit Father takes the spirit sons of God as they are, without judgement as to whether they are greater or lesser spirits. Simple faith is like that! There is simply either faith or not! Egolessness is synonymous with simple faith, as in being a simple, discreet, humble, unpretentious, loving and kind pious Christian; is synonymous with air, space or vacuity; is synonymous with the spirit son of God and is synonymous with the kingdom of Heaven. Only the 'spirit' can go through the 'eye of a needle' metaphorically representing the gateway to Heaven. The gateway to Heaven is metaphorically narrow because it is like disappearing into thin air, like in the movie Matrix! Allegorically, the kingdom of Heaven is like emptiness of space or vacuity because that is 'eternal' compared with the phenomena and matter of the 'temporal world. It is like the 'temporal' world set against the vast curtain backdrop of 'eternity' that is Heaven. Reflect on what egolessness is or means in spiritual terms. When you are still thinking in terms of greater or lesser faith or the need to increase or grow your faith, you still have the ego of a Pharisee. Once you are reborn in the spirit, the intuitive inherent simple faith (no lesser or greater) of the egoless spirit son of God will guide the Lost Prodigal Son back home! Let us now turn to the rich man that Jesus actually took a liking to, but who also did not have a spiritual mind and sought eternal life as he worldly is or was, i.e. devoutly religious, ritualistically speaking, and definitely not prepared to say goodbye to his worldly being or persona or possessions. Do read The Parable of the Pharisee in Luke18:11-12 for a similar illustration of another Pharisee who (standing next to a tax collector at the temple for prayers) exalted himself before God as to his religious fervour and devoutness! In fact he was not praying as in total simple faith of filial piety but was busily absorbed in making a case of his self righteousness based on his Pharisee's 'greater' faith compared with the tax collector's 'lesser' faith! The tax collector in sharp contrast simply submitted in good faith - 'Lord, be merciful, for I am a sinner.' God wants you to come as you are, return home as the Lost Prodigal Son as you are, whatever you have done in Sin City! Repentance is just simply returning home and forsaking Sin City for good! You do not knock on your father's door and say - 'Let me in, for I am a good son!' You say 'Dad, I am home for good! I am sorry that I left you for Sin City and went astray.' Mark 10:17-31 17 He was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, 'Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' 18 Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: You shall not kill; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not give false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.' 20 And he said to him, 'Master, I have kept all these since my earliest days.' 21 Jesus looked steadily at him and he was filled with love for him, and he said, 'You need to do one thing more. Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.' 22 But his face fell at these

words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth. 23 Jesus looked round and said to his disciples, 'How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!' 24 The disciples were astounded by these words, but Jesus insisted, 'My children,' he said to them, 'how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of God.' 26 They were more astonished than ever, saying to one another, 'In that case, who can be saved?' 27 Jesus gazed at them and said, 'By human resources it is impossible, but not for God: because for God everything is possible.' 28 Peter took this up. 'Look,' he said to him, 'we have left everything and followed you.' 29 Jesus said, 'In truth I tell you, there is no one who has left house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children or land for my sake and for the sake of the gospel 30 who will not receive a hundred times as much, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and land -- and persecutions too -now in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life. 31 Many who are first will be last, and the last, first.' Note how Jesus called the disciples 'my children'? This is because He had stated on many occasions that the Kingdom of God belong to 'little children'. See Matthew 19:14; Mark 10:13-16 and Luke 18:16-17. I like Luke 18:17 where Jesus said - "Verily I say to you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein." But when you think about it, how else can we get to Heaven other than as a little child? As spirit sons of God, we are indeed nothing other than the little children of God the Spirit Father. The only other factor worth reiterating, again and again, is that flesh is flesh and spirit is spirit (refer to what Jesus said in John 3:6 - "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." and John 6:63 - "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life."). Therefore only the Lost Prodigal Son (the spirit son of God) (that is revived) can go to Heaven; not the worldly son of man, son of Adam in exile, in his false worldly self-ego (the flesh profits nothing)! And, of course, only the parables of Jesus contain the 'spiritual wisdom' required to awaken to the 'spirit'. In the 'spirit' reborn, obviously we have to (spiritually) leave our worldly family, relatives and friends behind; even though in our worldly persona and existence, when still alive, we are still with them; for that is what a human family is! In the 'spirit' however we can only be 'one' with our kindred 'spirit' (reborn). The 'spirit' family is not the same as the worldly natural family. Our Spirit Father is not the same as our natural father! We must learn to transcend and distinguish the 'temporal' from the 'eternal'! If you find this transcendental transformation, from 'temporal' to 'eternal', upon a resurrection in the 'spirit', difficult to understand, read Luke 20:27-38 where the Pharisees tested Jesus with the issue about the woman who married seven brothers one after another when each died, as to who was her husband when she got to heaven? At Luke 20:34 - Jesus replied, 'The children of this world take wives and husbands, 35 but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry 36 because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God. 37 And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him everyone is alive.' Note therefore that there is no marriage in Heaven. There are no separate ego or persona in Heaven. There are no fathers or mothers, or husbands and wives, or sons and daughters etc. in Heaven. In the resurrected 'spirit', we are all amorphous egoless eternal 'living' 'angels' and we bear no resemblance or connectivity with our former 'dead' or mortal false worldly self-ego. Our false worldly self-ego does not exist in Heaven! God is not God of the dead (mortal worldly being - son of man) but of the living (eternal spirit - son of God)! The Spirit Father can only be the father of a spirit son! Let us not be like the Pharisees and the Sadducees nonsensically wishing and praying for salvation of their temporal worldly persona. Let us instead ensure our eternal spirit is awakened (reborn) to start the journey home of the Lost Prodigal Son (spirit son of God).

God Bless! Chuan 29/9/13

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