Flesh is flesh, spirit is spirit; form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Steven, Thank you very much.

That was a very good reading to be had after my early morning Zen meditation. It is and will be a long and somewhat protracted journey to the Ultimate Truth. As you journey on, there will be bad malicious guides; as well as good well intentioned but useless guides, who think they know but who have never made the journey till the end themselves. Then you have travellers making the journey who do not trust anyone, or will not trust guides who do not look like them or will trust only guides who do not look like them. Then of course you have travellers who would only trust a badly drawn map that they really cannot interpret but can only misread. You cannot help yourself for what you are at the starting point of the journey to the Ultimate Truth, whether you are (in zodiac terms) a rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog or pig. Or whether you are white, black, brown or yellow. Or whether you are a Christian, Hindu, Moslem or Buddhist. We are born what we are and endowed with different capacities and capabilities. We also cannot help who our parents or children are! Persevere and endure the journey to the Ultimate Truth to the end. In Christian terms we say 'bear our cross' till the end. I hope you read enough between the lines of what I wrote in the preamble above. The good news is that we will all get there, to the Ultimate Truth, sooner or later, one way or another, by hook or by crook. Even the person who boasts that he or she knows the quickest way or will definitely win the marathon but actually comes last. In the end you will realise that you have to rely or realise on yourself; not on a holy book or leave it to the grace of God. Why? As fathers we know that no matter what our love or 'grace' we cannot stop a bad son from being bad. He has to realise his errant bad ways himself! Why? The bad son has to realise within himself. The Lost Prodigal Son has to realise himself, repent his errant ways, and make the journey back home. This is a critical parable for Christians to understand. Understanding this a Christian will know that it is a self-journey and to stop meddling or worrying about how others play their game of golf. Worry about your own golf handicap! Religion is in that sense like a game of golf. God helps those who help themselves. Only you can travel within yourself. Nobody else can do that for you. For your eternal spirit is within you and not out there in the world. You have to first discover the spirit in you. In Christian terms we say you have to be 'baptised by the Holy Spirit'. In Buddhist terms we say that you have to awaken to your Bodhi-self. Not only that! You have to travel back in time within yourself! The only way is through the windmills of your 'mind' but put in reverse gear; until the windmill stops and then there is no 'blurring'. Then you get a glimpse of the 'person' operating the windmill before the 'engine' of the windmill started operating. The 'mind' you thought is your 'mind' is actually the 'engine' of the 'windmill'. The Ultimate Truth is the person behind and operating the 'engine'! The Ultimate Truth that is 'you' is neither the 'windmill' nor the 'engine'! The 'windmill' represents in Christian terms the Immutable Law of You Reap What You Sow. In Buddhist terms it is called the Karmic Law of Cause and Effect. But it is all good. We will all get there even if some of us might seem to go around in circles, and even if some of us boast that they will win the race before the marathon has ended, and then come last. This is a take on the parable that the 'first will be last and the last shall be the first'.

I hope my 'windmill' allegory will hint to you that in the search for the Ultimate Truth you are not acquiring worldly wisdom, enlightenment, wealth, status, bragging rights or ego. Whatever race, religion, physical strength, mental acumen, wealth or beauty, rank, power or status you worldly are or have, you have to discard them. Your human body and mind have to be discarded upon death, whether you like it or not! For, if the 'windmill' and the 'engine' do not come to a stop how can you see the Ultimate Truth? Until you bring to a stop the 'Ego' of the 'engine' falsely thinking that it is the one driving the 'windmill' how can you see Ultimate Truth as to who the operator of the windmill is? If you find out the Ultimate Truth of who you actually are, would you still want to remain as a 'windmill' or an 'engine'? Would you still worry or fret or panic that the 'windmill' or 'engine' might stop or die. I hope not! If you profess to be a Christian, Hindu, Moslem or Buddhist in a selfless, egoless sense without malice, hate or discrimination or pride or arrogance or self-righteousness then all will abode well. For the spirit of Ultimate Truth wears no clothing or uniform or markings. When you are still clinging to your clothing or uniform or the exclusive luxury fashion labels and markings and brands of your clothes you are still ego-wrapped and your spirit is therefore not free to embark on the journey home. You will still be like the Prodigal Son entrapped in Sin City. In a Christian sense remember that the 1st Commandment is - 'Thou shall have no idol (ego) before Me'. Also Jesus said for us to see him in every hungry, thirsty, stranger, clothes-less and imprisoned; basically in all the sick, poor, needy and oppressed i.e. regardless of race or religion! Jesus also said 'Flesh is flesh, spirit is spirit'. You can only meet God in the spirit! Salvation is of the spirit! Do not be caught up with matters of the flesh, what ever manner or form they might take. Therefore, it is meaningless to profess that you are a Christian, Moslem, Hindu or Buddhist or whatever your faith, religion or philosophy might be unless you are truly selfless or without the ego of self of 'I'. In Christian terms we sin because we have the 'i' in us that takes away the 'o' in God in the son in us! 'I' separates us from God the Spirit Father and therefore we 'sin'. Seek God within your mind, heart and soul, i.e. in the spirit in you. This is the first and great commandment of Jesus. The second is to love your neighbours as yourself. When you have love and compassion of an eternal spirit you will see nothing in 'form'. Thus the saying in Buddhism Form is emptiness! emptiness is form. Back to the article you sent. The Catholic Christian involved started off with an ego. He was being malicious in posing the question to the Dalai Lama as to what was the best religion. The Dalai Lama in reply ended up instructing him on how not to have the self of ego. You cannot be a Buddhist unless you see a Buddha in everyone good or bad, rich or poor. You cannot be a Christian unless you see Jesus in everyone good or bad, rich or poor. There is no need to rush into religion or spiritual practice. It is like falling in love. When you are ready, the time will come. You cannot be compelled or persuaded to when you are not ready. We each have our own karmic blueprint and destiny. You should not follow blindly what your friends or colleagues do. It would be worse if you were forced by religious zealots or by the authorities to convert. That was bad Christian practice in the past. That shows total lack of spiritual understanding. We end up with nominal Christians that way, who are so by label or fact of birth only. A token or nominal Christian or Buddhist is just that, a token. It is not real currency. It is just show! These people are just men of straw, just scarecrows or scaremongers and acting under false pretences. It would be unhelpful to practise any faith, religion or spiritual philosophy, and immediately profess full and true faith, if you are not yet baptised in the spirit or spiritually awakened. Taking away all the fancy way of talking spiritual, this in Christian terms simply means that we realise that we are 'lost'. When we (our spirit that is) realise that we are 'lost' we automatically emit a

signal to God, our Spirit Father, who then knows that we are lost. It is the Good Shepherd that is seeks his lost sheep rather than us seeking God. An 'Ego' can never seek God nor would God seek an ego, if God already said that we should not have an idol (ego) before him! In the same way, we have the buddhist pun that 'nobody' gets 'enlightened'. It is only with spiritual insight or spiritual wisdom that you can see transcendentally. Again taking away the spiritual fancy talk, simply put, this is the insight or wisdom of someone who is selfless or egoless. When you are totally unfettered by worldly ego and notions and concepts, your vision stretches far and wide beyond worldly vision, which we then fancifully call spiritual insight. Without spiritual wisdom you will be lost in the worldly literal interpretation and translation of worldly words and language. With spiritual sight you will have the spiritual vision to see and understand the full extant and tenor of what is said in the scriptures. For example, with spiritual wisdom, you will understand the full significance of what Jesus quoted in John Gospel 3:6 - 'Flesh is flesh, spirit is spirit.' The Buddhist equivalent is - 'Form is emptiness, emptiness is form' quoted by Guanyin in the Heart Sutra. The scope and objective of their spiritual meaning are the same. In the eternal spirit, you should not be enticed or seduced by worldly form or flesh in whatever manner or guise they appear, as property, wealth, beauty, power, status or pleasure. These are mortal attractions of the worldly false self-ego. Separate your mortal worldly being from your eternal spirit being. In the eternal spirit, there is no form; so like air or space, there is no differentiation or discrimination, no attraction or aversion and no lust or temptation. There is no need to want or need for anything. Air is just air, there is no need for feeding or sustenance. In the eternal spirit, there is no motion or time, there is no movement, no coming or going, there is no birth or death. That is why heaven is a land of eternal bliss. To be religious or spiritual, you have to get into the 'spirit' of things. Most so-called religions are in this sense worldly religions. They all miss the point when they address worldly beings to seek salvation or the immortality of their worldly beings. Salvation is of the spirit! Heaven is a realm for angels or spirits! The Holy Trinity that is Heaven is that of Father and sons in the 'spirit'. When we return home as the Lost Prodigal Son we are subsumed in God, for there is no other 'ego'! Flesh is flesh (mortal) and spirit is spirit (eternal). Worldly form is empty as there is no permanent entity. The formless spirit appears empty but that emptiness is the true eternal form or entity. Vince. 16/11/13