3.1 God Makes Heaven and Earth
PS
3.1 God Makes Heaven and Earth
American Standard Version
By Peter Snyders
Introduction: Please always bear in mind that we do not teach anyone because no one can be taught. The ability to know is in everyone, but to know, especially true knowledge (truth), we must do as Jesus says: we must ask, knock, and search. (Luke 11:9. “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”)
Not even the Bible can teach anyone anything unless that person is ready to use his/her understanding. What spiritual Masters and Initiates do is merely point. Like the Buddha says: “Buddha can but point the Way, humankind must work out their own salvation.” So, there is no such thing as ‘just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.’ The Law of Karma says, “There are no free lunches. You must ask, seek, and knock for what you want.”
In Thessalonians 5:21, it says that we must “prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.” The Buddha says nearly the same thing, except that He says that we must test all things. The two masters are complementary because after we’ve tested something, we have proved it to be either right or wrong. The Buddha says that we must believe nothing until we have tested it and found it to be good. He says that we should not even believe Him without testing what He says.
We do not have a religion. This gives us the freedom to search for Truth wherever we can find it, irrespective of which Master or religious background it comes from. So, not having a religion of our own and neither belonging to anything (including cults), we cannot convert you to our way of thinking (religion).
We are not going to teach you anything because, as we said earlier, we cannot. We will point like a signboard on the road. It says: This way to Cape Town; that way to the Airport; you are now on the M10; if you turn right here, you will be in Turfhall Road.’ The sign (pointer) cannot take you to any of those destinations. You must travel the way and the distance yourself.
Or as Jesus says in Matthew 7:24:- Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock (foundation): 25. and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon the rock (foundation).
26. And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand:
27. and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof.”
This saying of Jesus is also the crux of everything that we do. We will begin with nothing unless we have a solid foundation. Grades R to III in Primary schools are called the foundation phase. In this phase, pupils learn the alphabet and construct words such as this, say, is, the, of, that, we, do, and so on. They also learn about numbers, units (0 to 9), tens (10, 20, 30, etc.), and hundreds (100, 200, 300, etc.). It doesn’t matter how high up they are – even as professors, they continue to use the words and numbers they learnt in the foundation phase.
The foundation phase is in the Primary school. Primary, just like a foundation, means the first in the order of development: it is the first stage of civilization. And as we have said, it is the first of rank, of importance, or value. It is derived from the word prime. Look up this word and add it to the importance of the foundation phase.
When we were in high school, the teachers would tell us at the end of the lessons which pages in our textbooks we had to read to get a notion of the next lesson. We have always done this so we could understand, say about 50% of the text.
When our teacher gave us the lesson, this background knowledge made it possible for us to understand up to 90% of the text. Then, to fill in the other 10%, we would ask questions about the parts of the lessons we did not yet understand. This took us to 100%.
The Supreme Master Ching Hai says that “knowledge without understanding is not knowledge.” It is rote learning. You can get an A in the examinations by just repeating parrot-wise what is in the book or the Bible. When it comes to religion, this type of acceptance of everything we are taught is called blind belief or blind faith. This is why people suffer so much because they do not know what the good is that they should hold onto.
So, we will just be pointing. We will put the information there in front of you, and you must decipher it yourself. The Supreme Master Ching Hai says that once you have come to a full understanding of something, then the knowledge becomes yours. So, after we fully understand the whole lesson, the content then belongs to us. It doesn’t matter who wrote the book or who the teacher is.
Afterthought. Everything written by us before and after this text was written spontaneously. AI had no input on the content. We do use the free Grammarly whose punctuation correction we have already learnt. It also points out when the number does not agree with the verb. We know this, but it gives us the opportunity to write spontaneously and correct departures afterwards.