The Hidden Parables

By Todd Michael

• Essene Studios  2004
  

PREFACE

It was time to review the lessons of the day.  I took a deep breath of crisp desert air and scanned the sky.  It was clear and cold in the morning’s early hours and the great comet, Hale-Bopp, burned in the desert sky to the North.  Its tail stood out from the black, moonless sky like a pale bridal veil blown back into the constellations.  To see the other tail, you had to wait in the darkness letting your eyes adjust, letting the visual purple accumulate in the retinas until night vision eased in. Then it could be perceived--an exquisitely pale, aquamarine blush, shorter and stubbier than the white tail, but even more striking for its color—a neon aura generated by high energy solar winds blowing across the tail’s complex milieu of gases.

I read later there was a third tail too.  Using special cameras and techniques that reveal details beyond the spectrum of human vision, astronomers photographed a gorgeous, etheric, yellow tail nested within the blue one.  This newly discovered tail--a lovely allegory for the potential splendor of the unseen--was caused by the ionization of sodium atoms.  I remember thinking while admiring its picture in an astronomy magazine,  “I wonder how much else remains unseen, unknown.  I wonder if it too may be so beautiful.”

We had come to view the comet from this vantage point at the edge of the Canyon de Chelley in the northeast corner of Arizona because the light pollution was so low and the view so clear.  But mostly we had come because we wanted to spend Easter with our Navajo friends, whose ancestors had inhabited the edge of this spectacular natural wonder since the Anasazi had mysteriously disappeared leaving it vacant four centuries ago.  We were sponsoring the eldest daughter of the family through her early education and had been invited to stay in their home at the edge of the canyon.  Earlier that afternoon, I had learned an interesting lesson in their company, and it kept playing in my mind.

It had happened on the descent into the canyon itself.  The family, led by the venerable mother, wanted to take us to the bottom to explore some of the ancient ruins.  The main trail was a moderately rigorous descent.  Granted, the Canyon de Chelley is smaller than its massive cousin, the Grand Canyon, but it is quite formidable in its own right with a vertical drop of around eight hundred feet.  The trail offers a spectacular view of Spider Rock, a windblown, sandstone monolith projecting from the canyon floor like a large skyscraper. 

Navajo creation legend has it that a great being, Spider Woman, lives at the top of the formation.  It is said that, in the beginning, there was a deep purple light at the dawn of creation.  Spider Woman, also known as “Thought Woman” and “Creation Thinker Woman,” spun lines of silk to form the east, west, north, and the south.  Then, she used the clay of the earth--red, yellow, white, and black--to create people.  To each human being she attached a thread of her web which came from the doorway at the top of her head.  This thread was the gift of creative wisdom.  This “Creation Thinker Woman,” who weaves existence together like the great strands of a web, then formed the Star People who walk among us to this day, graced with clear crystal for eyes.

The Dine, as the Navajo refer to themselves, came into the Canyon when they emerged from another dimension--the third dimension of their creation legend--and into this one, a fourth world or dimension formed to accommodate their evolution.  Shortly thereafter, Spider Woman, with her miraculous powers, saved the Dine from annihilation, and subsequently made her home at the top of Spider Rock.  It is this great being that gave the Dine the art of weaving which they practice so exquisitely to this day.

 As we negotiated the rocky trail to the bottom, winding back and forth in sharp switchbacks against the stratified walls, we descended through hundreds of millions of years of evolution.  Down and down through countless layers of Permian sandstone in infinite shades of ochre and magenta we dropped, descending through 230 million years of biological history, glimpsing myriad bits and pieces of  increasingly primitive plant and animal species fossilized in the compressed sand of ancient ocean floors--brachiopods, ferns, nautiloids, bivalves, corals, and many others.

It was hot and the trail was lengthy.  I calculated it would take about an hour to get to the bottom. Suddenly, without a word, the eldest daughter skipped ahead like a fairy, her long black braid bobbing in the sun.   Then, just as suddenly, she hopped onto a large flat boulder balanced at the end of the switchback. She turned, waved as it to say goodbye, and disappeared over the edge. “She must have cut the trail to get down to a deeper switchback,” I thought to myself. “She’ll probably beat us down there by a couple of minutes, but that’s an awfully dangerous way to save a little time.”  Walking on, we reached the boulder where the nimble girl had disappeared a short time later.  Shading my eyes, I peered cautiously over the edge.  What I saw jolted me with disbelief.  There at the bottom, eight hundred feet below, our girl stood at the base of a massive cottonwood tree.  She was waving up at us slowly. 

This was simply not possible.  She had completed a journey requiring the better part of an hour in under three minutes.  Her mother just smiled her enigmatic Mona Lisa smile and said nothing.

When I arrived at the bottom, I looked back up to see if I could figure out how she had gotten down with such supernatural speed.  Carved into the walls here and there were a few handholds that would allow passage down some of the sheer cliff formations.  They were faint in most cases and horribly precarious.  They offered a few clues but I couldn’t put anything together resembling a continuous route, much less one easy enough for a preteen to negotiate so quickly and easily.

 “Look.” She laughed lightly pointing to her entry point near the top,  “There and there.  See?”  Step by step she pieced together about half of the intricate route from the top with a pointed finger and her usual economical narrative.  A series of carved handholds here, a series of natural ones there, a swing around a precipice, another run of handholds, a terrifying but very doable jump onto a ledge with a five-hundred foot drop off--and a practiced individual could make it to the bottom in no time. 

Apparently the way was a secret, which was why she wouldn’t show me all of it.  And it was old, so old it predated recorded history.  The ancestrals had recognized centuries ago that proficiency with a shortcut could mean the difference between life and death in an emergency.  Knowledge of the route had been precious and top secret.  A tribal member was initiated informally into the use of the handholds during early adolescence. 

I don’t believe these modern Dine thought much about this route anymore.  It was just another mundane feature of their daily life. But, like the comet, the route seemed another valuable allegory to me, a kind of personal parable.  It was a metaphor simultaneously illustrating the power of secret ways, the value of initiation process, and the ability for a shift in perception to create an apparent miracle.

*****

As this book came to be, it became clear that the thirty two parables of Christ are an analogous kind of secret pathway.  As you delve into their depths, you will find that, like the young Navajo’s precipitous path to the bottom of the canyon, the action steps suggested by the lessons of the parables offer a less circuitous and more efficient route to deeper states of personal evolution.   But you will also find that some of the steps to be mastered along your way are, like the steps along the girl’s rocky path, “terrifying but very doable.”  This is because they are all about you.

The strata through which the parables would have us descend are not geological layers but layers of the deep self---encrustations of fear, thick laminations of fossilized resentments, compacted deposits of ego. It is always the self that separates us from the source of true abundance, the source of life.  This is why the path to true fulfillment—where your dreams will finally merge seamlessly with reality—must inevitably challenge you to confront anxiety-provoking revelations about your deepest character defects.  And the path must of necessity demand that you take action to correct them.  This can be extraordinarily daunting.

If this seems an exaggeration, be forewarned:  It is not.  You will be challenged.  I’ll give you an example in order to prepare you for the kinds of self-correction that will be demanded of you.  The very first parable in the series we will study will have you open up some of your deepest wounds, and will have you forgive everyone for whom you hold a resentment or grudge.  This will apply particularly to those who have offended you most gravely. 

If there is someone who has deeply offended you and for whom you hold a major and “well-justified” resentment—you will have to go through a potentially painful process in which you honestly confront your own role in the development of the conflict that led to your perceived offense.  This may then logically require that you meet with and seek the forgiveness of that very person who has “hurt you.”  If this prospect does not, at the moment, seem particularly anxiety-provoking, just wait until the day when you must actually walk up to that person’s door with hat in hand to clear your soul of the darkness that is ruining your ability to work miracles.  But take heart, for you will have guidance along the way.  Remember: It’s terrifying, but doable.

If we think about it, we would only expect this kind of largess to be demanded of us, wouldn’t we?  We know the character of the man who taught these lessons.  We know that he was all about forgiveness, all about turning the other cheek, all about the Golden Rule—treating others as we ourselves would like to be treated.  How could we ever reasonably expect to work the same kinds of miracles the teacher worked if we cannot act with the same kind of generosity, sacrifice, consideration, clarity, and loving intent that the teacher demonstrated in such profound ways. 

So, know now before you begin, that the way is not magic.  There is no magic path that will take you to the promised land.  Miracles are not magic.  They involve hard work, which is why those that perform them are called “miracle workers.”

But know also that if you proceed in good faith and do the work on your self that the parables outline, you will get to the place you want to be in life.  The way cannot be a false promise, for it comes not from me or any worldly author, but from God. The “secret” steps described by the parables will most certainly allow you to make quantum leaps in spiritual and personal development as soon as you begin putting them into practice.  And in due course, the route described in this book will take you from your current level of confusion and lack to a level of security, prosperity, health, and love of which you have only previously dreamed.

EVOLUTION:  THE NEW PARADIGM

We say that we want to evolve and we want to know how the parables can help us.  But do we really understand what evolution is?  Do we really understand just how profound this radical process is?  Or can we only guess, like children, until the day comes that we actually arrive at our future states of consciousness?  I for one increasingly believe that I do not understand evolution and cannot therefore fully appreciate it.  But I can offer some suggestions.  And they are highly intelligent suggestions as well, for they come from the German philosopher Hegel.

Hegel was the originator of the concept known as a dialectic, which is just a fancy name for a way of developing or evolving.  Dialectical evolution is much different from linear evolution, which occurs step by incremental step in a straight line.  By contrast, dialectic evolution occurs via a series of triangles.

What Hegel said is that when true evolution occurs, it begins at a specific starting point which he called the thesis.  The thesis can be anything from a political or theological system or belief, a scientific theory, a psychological or sociological process, or merely a point of view.  As the evolutionary process proceeds, this thesis gradually but inexorably turns into its opposite. This new, opposite state Hegel called the antithesis.

But it was the next step where things got really interesting.  For according to Hegel, in the next step the thesis and its opposite, the antithesis, merge into something entirely new. This hybrid state is entirely different from either of its parents yet contains elements of both parent states. Hegel dubbed this third step in the evolutionary sequence the synthesis.

Synthesis

Thesis                        Antithesis

But the process doesn’t stop with the synthesis.  Now the synthesis is poised to become the starting point for an entirely new triad.  Now the synthesis becomes, in effect, the thesis for the next quantum step in the evolutionary sequence. 

                               Synthesis Two

                              Synthesis One             Antithesis Two

Thesis            Antithesis

The most effective illustration of this powerful dialectical concept of evolution in found in Herman Hesse’s final masterpiece The Glass Bead Game.  This book, by the author of such classics as Siddhartha and Steppenwolf, refines and develops the concept of “evolution” in such masterful and definitive terms that it has never been equaled.  Hesse won the Nobel Prize for literature for this unique work which draws together the greatest concepts in human thought. 

In The Glass Bead Game, Hesse imagined a culture of monks living about three hundred years in the future.  The monks, who called themselves Castilians, had devised a sagacious method for reaching higher and higher states of knowledge and evolution, a method that incorporated an intriguing game using glass beads as playing pieces. It is what the glass beads represented that has fascinated readers for so many years.  Each glass bead was a two or three inch sphere divided into two sides.  Each side was painted with a detailed symbols, pictures and formulas.  The pictures on each side represented two entirely different forms of art or knowledge--typically something very right-brained, such as math, and something very left-brained, such as music.  For example, one side might represent a sequence within a Bach fugue and the other a complex mathematical or astronomical law.

When two such concepts were present on the same bead, it meant that someone had studied the relationship between those two realms of knowledge or achievement for a number of years and had established a relationship between them. This relationship had to be proven logically or scientifically while being at once artistic and intuitively beautiful.  Demonstrating such a relationship could be a monk’s life work and having one’s work represented on an official game bead was a great honor.

Games would be played with these beads and beginning with one bead being placed on the game board.   The opponent--or opposing monastery if entire monasteries were competing--would then study that bead carefully.  After a period of meditation, the opponent would carefully select another bead representing the synthesis of two new concepts, a second synthesis which could be related to the synthesis of the first bead. 

Now, with two beads on the playing board, each representing the synthesis of two divergent concepts, four entirely different concepts were linked into an altogether new synthesis.  In this way, spiritual concepts could be linked to those from physics.  These could then be linked to more concepts--from biology, medicine, history, sculpture, mathematics, poetry, linguistics, and so on.  The game would continue as more and more beads were added to form patterns and even three dimensional structures representing increasingly complex and beautiful “cities” of thought.  As beads were added, the integrated systems of knowledge created revealed things never before considered, healed things, taught things.

*****

I believe that the man who uttered the thirty two parables found in the gospels was truly enlightened and truly evolved.  It seems entirely reasonable to assume he would have understood and used the kind of advanced dialectical evolution Hegel and Hesse so brilliantly described. He would have used this process to develop and attain ever higher states of spiritual consciousness. 

This book will attempt to show that this is in fact so.  It will show that the lessons locked within the parables are masterpieces of synthesis and, like the beads in Hesse’s Glass Bead Game, merge concepts from different fields to form new concepts.  These concepts are so advanced that upon study the question is not, are these ideas as evolved as those in our modern culture, but:  Are we as evolved as these ideas?  The answer is that in some cases we may not be, that we have much to learn even in contemporary terms from the man known as the Nazarene.

THE MULTIVERSE

In the last century humanity made enormous advances in its understanding of nature of the universe.  But what we have learned, via the ideas of quantum physics, relativity, and string theory has raised more questions than have been answered.  What we have learned is so unexpected, so strange, so mysterious, and so counter to our old Newtonian ideas of the universe that we are left in awe and wonder. 

For example, we know now that there is no such thing as matter.  We have learned that the energy packets we thought were solid are actually pure energy and appear to be composed of tiny vibrating loops or “strings” of energy.  We have come to suspect that subatomic “particles” are conscious, that there are not three or four dimensions to our world but perhaps eleven, and that there are vast parts of our universe, so called “dark matter” that we cannot even find.  But the concept which is the most important of all for the student of metaphysics--and the student of the parables of Christ--is the notion that reality is constantly splitting into multiple realities, multiple dimensions, multiple universes.

As mentioned in The Twelve Conditionsof a Miracle, the observations we have made at the atomic and subatomic levels are so peculiar that it seems at times that there can be no logical system, no explanation of any kind that can accommodate what we are seeing.  Scientists consistently observe events that are simply not possible in this universe, events that cannot possibly take place together in the same universe.

However, in 1956, a Princeton doctoral cantidate, Hugh Everett III, proposed a theory which suddenly reconciled all such observations and paradoxes at once.   The problem was that the theory he proposed was as radical as the observations themselves and upset a lot of scientists.  Everett said that the only way to explain what we are seeing is to assume the existence not of mere parallel universes, not of mere multiple universes, but of infinite universes.  In this theory, which Everett call the Many Worlds Hypothesis, everything that can ever be possible actually happens, actually manifests as reality in some universe at some time.

Although this theory finally succeeded in explaining the strange experimental observations of physics, there seemed to be a fatal flaw in the whole idea:  It just sounded crazy.  The theory was disturbing, weird, and just didn’t feel right to some people.  Granted, it is almost impossible to refute logically, but it made those contemplating it--both physicists and metaphysicians alike--feel as though they were unscientific and unsound.

But there was another reason scientists rejected the Many Worlds Hypothesis.  This reason has to do with a standard concept of analysis called Occam’s razor.  Occams’s razor states that when there are many proposed explanations of an observed phenomena, the simplest and most elegant of these concepts will always end up being the one that is right when all is said and done.   This has turned out to be true so often in the history of science, that much credence is given to this notion.  Theorists felt that the infinite universes of Everett’s theory were far too busy, far too complex to be a viable explanation.  The universes were all different, some would contain alternate selves, all would be splitting again and again and interacting in unfathomable ways—it was all very messy, very unelegant and could not thus end up being true.

But is this theory really so complex, so “messy?”  An argument can be made that an infinite number of worlds, where every conceivable possibility is realized, is actually very simple and elegant.   We aren’t talking about two parallel universes, or even a hundred.   We are talking about an infinite number.  And there is something very elegant about infinity, something very tidy and complete, something very God-like.  So, in some people’s minds, the Many World’s Theory holds all the classic characteristics of a great fundamental truth.

Much has changed since Everett’s radical proposal was launched in the mid-fifties.  In those days, only a handful of brave thinkers dared accept the possibility of infinite universes.  A recent poll of contemporary physicists, however, indicates that the vast majority of them now believe that the Many World’s Hypothesis, or some variation thereof, is the only way to explain the nature of reality.  It is humorous to note that the same poll also indicates that most scientists wanted very much to avoid talking about the subject.  It still makes them very uneasy.   But for the metaphysician, and the student of the parables, this theory holds incredible practical significance and is more comfortably embraced.

THE SPLIT POINT

There are many theories of creation.  For example, in the Navajo creation legend, the creation of worlds happens as Spider Woman, or “Creation Thinker Woman,” weaves together the strands of existence in a grand tapestry.  In Christianity, the universe is created from the Word.  In the Kaballah of the Jewish mystical tradition, worlds are formed when one gives rise to another via the process of “emanation.”  According to the Greek philosopher, Heraclitis, as well as the Taoists, creation occurs as the result of the interaction of the great opposites.  There are countless other variations in the world’s spiritual traditions.

In the Many World’s Theory, new universes are created when one splits from another.  And what triggers such a monumental event?  The trigger is not something mechanical.  The trigger is thought.  In the Many World’s Theory of the quantum age—and its variations--a new universe splits from the parent universe every time a conscious being makes a decision.  Although this sounds very odd, very unscientific, great minds that have pondered the problem for decades have come to the conclusion over and over again that the split point occurs when a conscious being alters personal intent.  Now, physicists normally dilute and disguise this idea by talking about universes splitting when someone makes an “observation” or “measurement.” But on close questioning they will admit that observations or measurements are actually the manifestations of decisions or alterations of personal intent.

Here’s an example of how this works:  You could make a decision to pause your reading briefly after the period at the end of this sentence.  Although minuscule, this decision will immediately result in this entire universe splitting into two.   In one of these universes there is a you that pauses.  In the other universe, there is a you that does not pause.  Each of these universes exists independently until you make the next decision, a second or a minute later, at which point the universe splits again.  All that you experience as you split into two copies is a “slight randomness.” (Footnote Scientific American, May 2003) Again, although this sounds terribly strange and counterintuitive, the best minds of science have examined this over and over and repeatedly come to the conclusion that this, or close variations thereof, is what is actually happening as reality unfolds.

The metaphysical implications are incredibly important, and enormously practical.  For it is intent--via visualizations, affirmations, and creative, positive thought forms--that is the life blood of metaphysics.  It is the management of intention that allows the modern, self-empowered person to improve personal reality. 

Think about it:  If everything that can be possible, actually becomes real somewhere in some universe, then that which you now think impossible to correct in your own life may, in fact, be entirely possible.  After all, one of the most important corollaries to the Many World’s Theory is that the laws  of time and space in a new universe may be different than the laws in the parent universe.  Ergo, that which is impossible in this universe may therefore be possible in one of the new universes down the line.

Could a fully enlightened soul such as Christ have known all of this so long ago, two thousand years before we began to work with these concepts? Of course he could have known.  And, as this book will so, he did.  Moreover, he knew something modern scientists still haven’t figured out:  Christ knew how to harness this phenomena, how to consciously control it so as to produce miraculous events of healing and supply.  The parables are, in part, his lessons on how we can learn this for ourselves.