Volume 8, Issue 10, page 15

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I

in error but we are not, and that we have the only true Bible and
religion. Is it possible that our Bible may not be
any better than many others? Good things in many various Bibles
and alsomany deceptions or errors. Cannot this be
so also of the Bible we use? We can be deceived as well as our
neighbors of other religions and Bibles.

"No matter what religion we are in, if we cling to it in blind
faith, protecting its form, we are then handicapped.
In application : To trust in beliefs as truth, a person then
fears truth andwill avoid study and investigation. Life is
living. the Creator still manifests. To perceive life directly,
would not this be more dependable than depending on
books or bibles, and to trusting in stories about gods or of some
savior or what? And should one really be honest
with one's self, one may perceive.

"I don't know if these stories are true or not, I have only been
assuming that they were accurate with nodeception
or errors. I have been depending on story -book promises without
perceiving if they are as said or not.

"A thought comes: I could bring my, religion into the present and
actually try to live true. Amen, amen, amen.

"Amen three times? This seems to be saying, 'So be it with no
fooling around'." -Roy Thoreby, Plorence, Ore.

000

"This is an open letter to those who are pro-Subudites

"First of all, I have Lad first-hand contact with Subud and its
so-called leader, Ba Pak. I have seen with my own
eyes t he yelling, the headbeating. the sexual exhibitions --all
performed in the name of a religious experience . And
if this be of God, Satan, here I come.

"I fully realizethat all is God, and with this precept in mind,
we must include rape, murder, war -- and even
Subud. However, must I accept these things? This all boils down
to the words spoken in the Bible --Am I my
brother's keeper ?-and, according to my personal convictions,
those of us who are the spiritual leaders of this new
age need to speak out for that which our understanding tel Is us
is true, or false. I am not concerned with individuals,
but with an*idea. So, those of you who are hypnotized with this
idea, please go to it. Scream, tear your hair, do
whatyou will--I don't

care. Meanwhile, I'll do my best to jerk all I can from this
thing called Subud. You play your game, and I 'II Play
mine. MY rules and methods for the game are different than yours.
In Mysticology, we reach God or have our
religious experience in the silence. We only tear our hair when
we pay our income tax."-- "Louis".

0 0 0

"People who worship the
printed 'Word' of the Bible,
as I explain to my daughter,
remind me of some African
tribesmen who might stumble on
the ruins of alight plant com-
Plete with wire andbulbs, from
which the generator had long
since rusted out. They might
deify the light bulbs, and
worship them fervently. The
life of Jesus, and the other
great religious leaders, was
much more than words. It was a
living force. An effort has
been made to communicate some-
thing about the impression
people made on others of their
time. Sometimes if we ponder
deeply on things like the bea-
titudes, something of the or-
iginal reality comes thru. In
this way we study the Bible
together,including many of the
passages of great beauty in
the Psalms and other places. I
do not know, always, or try to
understand the interpretation
those followers placed on the
words. But in reading those
words, I catch something--like
an echo lingering where music
used to be. And what is it that
inspires men from time to time
to write down the best and
highest they have witnessed or
can aspire to' * I I think it is
inspired by God.

"I regret as much as you could most of what has been and is being
done using 'The Word' for authority. As I
regret the hampered, or possibly just larval stage of
development, that thunders loudly in the churches. Perhaps this
is all on the way to becoming something. I hope so.

"Still I go to church--to a Christian Science church-every
Sunday. I do not worship those words either, but they
are read quietly, and sometimes a sense of the I-not-I comes thru
them. One Sunday which began no different from
any other, a beautiful thing happened to me. Several months ago,
it was. I made the usual hurried oreparations to
get the family up, do enough vocal exercise to warm up my throat,
and in time got us to church a little ahead of
time, but in no SDecial state of mind. I took my Dlace during the
prelude. and almost immediately a

MARCH, 1962 The ABERREE

wonderful sense of being accepted and loved, of belonging, came
over me. During the service I was not aware of any
discordant note--altho the Diano isn't good and the readers are
not professionals. I never beard a mispronounced word
or a discord. As I watched the faces before me, it came to me how
sweet they were really-one face of ayoung girl
looked especially lovely. I felt such a love for them and such a
compassion for their puzzlement in this world, and
their evident problems of other kinds...

"I do not have this experien~e exactly any more. But I still love
them, and feel compassion for the many needs
that bring them there. I sing for them the loveliest words I can
find or write, and take lessons and Dractice singing
so the music will be the best I can do-- in the hope that I can
communicate to them that same feeling of being let
in, of being welcomed, of relief from the separateness and
aloneness that torments most of us. This is done with
words --but I hope more than words gets thru. Sometimes from the
1 ight, or tears, on their faces , I think it does. I
don't know any final answer to their searching or my own. But I
can love them, just where and as they are. That is
why I go to Church." -- Frances Woodard, Corpus Christi, Te~cas.

E) 0 G

"I have taken The ABERREE now for quite sometime. I read it with
mingled surprise, wonderment,
amusementt and at times with a bit of disgust~However, being just
a youngster in my "74th year, I suppose I
cannot k n ow and understand everything. The things I do not
understand I try not to criticize, but there are many
things I believe a little reasoning makes clear.

"I especially enjoyed reading Dr. E. E. Rogers's letter; also Dr.
Kridler's continued article on 'The Book They
Blamed on God', your usual good auditorial, and some others. The
'16 Hours with Jesus' doesn't interest me, as I
have plenty of Proof that thischaracter never existed as a
person, he being just one more of the unnumbered 'crucified
saviors' of theworlddown thru the ages--all of them astrological
symbols of the sun-sun gods, 'born' in the zodiac
Virgo ( 'virgin' sign).

"Wn. Montgomery Brown, Amr clergyman, stated: 'There i; no
rational doubt about the fictitious character of the
di