The Hebrew Prophets

From the least to the greatest, greed rules;
priest and prophet alike act falsely.
You make light of the violence around you, crying, “Peace! Peace,” when there is no peace.
You act shamefully and yet feel no shame.
Your cheeks never blush …….

Consider the many roads before you;
inquire about the timeless path, the way to happiness.
Travel this road, and find tranquility for yourself.
But you say, “I will not.”

——- Jeremiah 6:13-16

How is it you are not ashamed of your life? What have you told yourseelf about life that allows you to live so accustomed to denial and lies that you cannot even fathom the truth of the prophet’s challenge? How have you excused your mistakes, covered up your indiscretions, hidden your hunger, and made yourself presentable to those you love and those you use? These are hard questions to ask, and harder still to answer. Do you dare?

What are the many roads before you? Which are timely and which are timeless? Which lead to temporary gain and which to true happiness and tranquility? It may be hard to know this at first. You may have to walk many dead ends before learning how to discern which path is right for you. But it can be done. You are forever at a crossroads. You need never walk back the way you came. You need only turn in the direction you need to go.

But you say, “I will not.” Why do you make this so complicated? Why do you imagine it so much more difficult than it already is? Why do you rob yourself of happiness and peace? And why are you more prone to answering these questions than you are to turning — right now — to their resolution?

You commit two errors:
First, you forsake Me, the Source of living waters.
Second, you dig for yourselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water …….

——- Jeremiah 2:13

You forsake God when you let your feelings dictate your behavior,
Digging for yourself cisterns of shallow emotion.

You forsake God when you let fantasy blind you to reality,
Digging for yourself cisterns of false hope.

You forsake God when you imagine some thing will make you happy,
Digging for yourself cisterns of empty materialism.

You forsake God when you imagine some relationship will make you whole,
Digging for yourself cisterns of broken hearts.

You forsake God when you hide from your pain through alcohol, drugs, sex, or food,
Digging for yourself cisterns of suffering and denial.

You forsake God when you pretend you are in control of your life,
Digging for yourself cisterns of exploitation.

You forsake God when you pretend you are not in control of your behavior,
Digging for yourself cisterns of weak excuses.

You forsake God every time you place self before others,
Digging for yourself cisterns of selfishness.

So ask yourself: Where do you forsake the One Who Is?

I know the plans I have set for you:
plans for your welfare, not your destruction.
My desire is for a future filled with hope.

When you call Me, when you follow Me, when you pray to Me, I will listen.
When you seek Me you will find Me, providing that you seek Me with a whole heart.

I am available to you, and I will restore your fortunes.
I will gather you in from your places of captivity, and I will bring you home from your places of exile.

Call Me, and I will answer you.
I will reveal to you wondrous things;
secrets that surpass your understanding.

——- Jeremiah 33:3

What is God’s listening? It is God fully present to you in, as, and at this very moment. God is always present. The question is: Are you?

A whole heart is a heart that holds nothing back. Do not imagine you must be a certain way with God; that you must feel faithful and trusting; that you must overcome doubt, anger, and fear. Seek God through your imperfections and confusion. Without changing anything, turn your whole self to God, and let God change everything.

You are in captivity when having rather than being governs your life. Then you are held by the allure of things, and people are means rather than ends in themselves.

You are in exile when your desire to have and possess puts you in competition with other people. You imagine that they must lose if you are to win, and that compulsion to win drives you out into the world and into the egoic fantasy of your self-projected idols.

How can you know that which surpasses understanding? Only by dropping the narrow mind of selfish preoccupation, and recovering the spacious mind of selfless reconciliation. The secrets are open. It is you who is closed.

Am I God only to those nearby, and not those far away?
If you go into hiding, do I not see you?
I embrace heaven and earth.
I have heard the false prophets prophesy in My name, saying, “I had a dream! I had a dream!”
They dream only of their own deceitful desire, and hope to make you forget My Name in favor of their dreams….
The one with My word speaks truth ……
My word is like fire, like a hammer shattering rock.

——- Jeremiah 23:23-29

God is not bound by time or space, but embraces and transcends both. There is no place devoid of God, and therefore no place in which turning cannot happen.

Where do you hide from God? Where do you imagine you are free to dream your dreams without having to measure them against reality?

Heaven and earth are embraced by God in the same way a wave is embraced by the ocean. There is no duality, only more and less inclusive understandings of nonduality.

Everyone dreams, and your dreams always place the small self at the center. Even a nightmare has you in the starring role. The prophet is never the point, and always the pointer.

Don’t imagine that God’s word is always soothing. There are times when the only way to wake up is with a shout of alarm. The dire predictions of the prophets are not portraits of what must be, but only sketches of what will be if you do not return to your true nature and take up the way of justice, compassion, and humility.

If you turn back, I will take you back, and you shall stand before Me.
Even if you are a self-indulgent fool, if you turn toward honor, you shall be My mouthpiece …….
I will rescue you from the hands of wickedness, and free you from the grip of violence.

——- Jeremiah 15:19-21

The real challenge of the prophets is in the simplicity of their demand: Turn. Don’t worry about being worthy or acceptable to God. God will embrace you if you but turn around to be embraced. To turn requires no prerequisite. All there is is the decision to turn and the act of turning. These are one in the same. And so is the embrace of God that accompanies your turning. This is the unity and immediacy of decision and deed, and the overwhelming love from and for God that both release.

You may say to yourself: “I am too far gone to turn. I have done such horrible things; I am beyond the pale of God’s love.” This is simply your small self maintaining its hold over you. This is the voice of Baal distracting you from turning to God. It is the delusion that robs you of the truth and the love that comes with it. It is not that you must stop being a self-indulgent fool before you turn to God; it is that in turning to God as the self-indulgent fool, the fool becomes wise. Change nothing. Just turn.

Because you forsake My teaching;
Because you do not heed My voice;
but choose rather to follow the passions of your own hearts and the ways of the baalim, you will feed on wormwood and drink brackish water….

Let not the wise take refuge in their wisdom, nor the strong in their strength, nor the rich in their riches.
Seek refuge only in devotion to Me.
For I, the One Who Is, act with kindness, justice, and fairness in the world.
In these alone do I delight.

——- Jeremiah 9:12-23

The way of God is the way of being; the way of the baalim is the way of having. The way of being sees all beings as manifestations of God, and all encounters as holy meetings. The way of having regards all beings as means to an end, the end being your sense of power and control. Since you are never really in control, the life you live is fearful and bitter. You are a victim of your own delusion.

Do not place ultimate trust in your own abilities. Everything you are and have is conditioned and conditional. Nothing is forever, except the One Who Is. Refuge, peace, harmony — all are found not in having but in being; not in playing god but in realizing that God is playing you.

The way of God is not hidden or hard to know. It is simply living kindly, justly, and fairly. When others say to you that the way is difficult to master, they are deluded. When you say to yourself the way is hard to walk, you are excusing your own indecision.