When it comes to understanding of the Bible, including the Old as well as the New Testament, it can be interpreted on many levels. The lowest level is the historical level. From this perspective, there are many errors and omissions, which one would expect. Next there is the spiritual and symbolic level, or what we might call the metaphysical level. And lastly is the psychological level, which may be the most useful for people today in our current state of development.

This last level is present regarding everything mentioned in Holy Scriptures. And reading meaning on one level doesn’t cancel the others out. So people, for example, many of whom really lived on Earth—not all, but many—also then represent psychological aspects. It is the simultaneous existence of the many different levels that makes the Bible such a magnificently unique and outstanding document. But it also makes understanding the Bible a challenge

So we can search for meaning on each of these planes. That’s when we will discover how inconceivably artful Holy Scripture is in the way it has been constructed. We can’t fully comprehend how strongly and resourcefully the Spirit World of God worked on this. They helped create this marvel, even as they could foresee how human errors would inevitably slip in over time.

Even with its flubs, the Bible has no equal. There are few people indeed who really get this and who get the meaning that exists on all these levels. Many perceive one level and perhaps even two. But there’s hardly a soul on Earth who can grasp them all.

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Bible Me This, Chapter 1: Understanding the Bible

People are often mistaken about understanding myths. Over half of us think of them as inventions, fantasies, fairy tales or lies. The real meaning of myth is quite different from this. But even if everyone could agree about this, religions would still be on different pages. Solve this and something else would get in the way.

People are often afraid of letting go of their allegiances to things like religion and politics. The fear is that if we give up what we believe in, our personal safety somehow crumbles. And we just can’t afford to face that kind of threat.

So the problem isn’t that we don’t get the idea of understanding myths as symbols. No, the root problem here is the way we behave in an effort to keep ourselves safe. Then we resist looking at whether our false safeguards make any sense. We don’t want to find out that perhaps we were wrong.

In short, a myth is a way to represent a truth, conveying it in a way that we can accept and understand. Similar to a symbol, they are concisely constructed—like a vast truth in picture form. This is not unlike the picture language used in the Spirit World or the picture language we experience when we dream.

While the principle is the same, there is a difference though between understanding myths and symbols. We can have a symbol for anything, whether its important or not. In dreams, we have symbols but they are personal to us, with our own unique little idiosyncrasies. By contrast, myths deal with general, universal truths, presented so that we can grasp them. Unlike many symbols, myths are actually true.

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Bible Me This, Chapter 2: Understanding Myths

We could write entire books just to explain this passage about the Tower of Babel, that’s how much it contains. For now, we’ll consider just one aspect of it, starting with the reference to “of one language". Long, long ago, human beings were whole beings that were fully whole and harmonious. We were living in harmony within ourselves—no conflicts and no contradictions. Our spirits weren’t these fragmented, scattered beings, like we are now. To say our current version of ourselves lacks single-pointed focus is an understatement, given the abundance of contradictory forces inside each of us.

These contradictions can be thought of as “different languages,” a symbol that represents how we don’t understand ourselves. Since this is what exists inside our souls, this Tower of Babel, it’s going to also exist outwardly in the world. It has to. Enter chaos, stage left. World conditions are the sum total of what’s going on under the hood, and our engines are a jumble of confusion, blindness, wrong conclusions and contradictory aims.

Then the outer confusions and problems confound us, because we ignore how they are being conditioned by our inner ones. As a result, we can’t link up cause and effect, so we can’t make sense of all this “Babel.” The way to clear all this up is to explore the meaning of our emotions, which up until now we have largely not understood.

Further, if we can’t comprehend our own selves, how can we possibly understand others? Our confusions contribute to our poor ability to communicate, so we can’t make them understand us, to boot. So difficulty communicating, that too is the Tower of Babel.

The movement of evolution is one of perpetually closing circles. It applies equally to the whole evolution of the cosmos as it does to our individual spiritual paths. We start out with an outward movement and then move in, in a return to perfection.

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Bible Me This, Chapter 3: Myth | Tower of Babel

The analogies and symbolism found in the Bible should not be considered as one-time historical events. They are being constantly recreated in our souls. If we think of Adam and Eve and what they represent, separating them from the distortions that human minds and human religions overlaid onto them, we can find the truth as it exists in them as well as in ourselves, right now.

As we said, all our difficulties, hardships and feelings of enslavement that accrue from Adam and Eve leaving paradise are related to our fear of pleasure, our fear of being naked—of being real. The myth of Adam and Eve also includes persuasion by a serpent. While the serpent has been given many symbols, in this case, it mainly connotes what we consider to be the animalistic life force. This is the pleasure force as it moves in man. And just as the snake is not really low, it is not low. It is only our vision that makes it seem so.

In addition to being a symbol of fertility, the serpent is also a symbol of wisdom. This life force that is said to be animalistic, low and blind has a tremendous wisdom of its own. It’s only the distorted life force that is blind and destructive. But in its original beauty, it has its own wisdom. Fertility here goes beyond reproduction. It’s also fertile in the deepest sense—in its creativity—representing the abundance of life with its multi-faceted possibilities.

The tree symbolizes the wrong kind of knowledge. It is intellectualization that separates us from the immediate experience of the moment, which can only happen when the mind, body and real divine spirit are integrated. When these aspects get fragmented, then knowledge gets separated from experience. In that case, the mind and the experience can be very different, as we all know. That mind is a Tree of Knowledge split off from the feelings and experience of the person.

It’s not that Adam and Eve were supposed to eat the fruit and be driven out. There’s no “supposed to” here. Each created being has free will—totally and completely. This isn’t really a reality that we can know in our heads. We have to have experienced, at least at times, what it feels like to be in the flow of this being-force to understand this. That’s what it means to be free, with no fences and no authority who expects anything of anyone.

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Bible Me This, Chapter 4: Myth | Adam & Eve

Here are biblical passages explained by the Pathwork Guide. In this collection we uncover hidden meanings and unravel many of the riddles of the Bible.

• What more can you say about the true meaning of “turn the other cheek?”
• “He who wants to win his life will lose it. He who is ready to give it up will win it.” What does that mean?
• What did Jesus mean when he said to Peter, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. I will give thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; And whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be bound in Heaven.” (Matthew 16: 18-20).
• In the Book of Exodus, it said to collect manna only for one day and on the Sabbath for two days. If they collected for two days on any other day but for the Sabbath, it rotted. But for the Sabbath, it did not. What is the meaning of this?
• What is the true spiritual meaning of this statement. “To those who have, more will be given, and to those who have not, what they have will be taken away?”
• What’s the deeper meaning of, “All things work together for the good for those who love God.”
• What’s the explanation for the saying of Jesus, “Come as a little child?”
• What did Jesus mean by “the meek shall inherit the earth?”

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Bible Me This, Chapter 5a: Biblical Passages Explained, Part One

• What did Jesus mean when he said, “Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of his blood, he has no life in you”?
• Another saying of Jesus has been distorted as meaning injustice. From the words in Mark 4:25, which read: “For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.” What did Jesus mean?
• In the traditional Scriptures of Judaism and Islam, the texts are specific regarding the consumption of fish, flesh and fowl. It is commanded that “of their flesh shall we not eat.” Christianity, however, has no ban against pork. But then in the fifteenth verse of Matthew, Jesus said, “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man, but that which cometh out of the mouth". However, during Lent, dietary restrictions are observed by Christians. What did Jesus mean?
• Please explain the Biblical passage, “The word of God was given to Moses: Thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning.”

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Bible Me This, Chapter 5b: Biblical Passages Explained, Part Two

In this collection of bible passages explained by the Pathwork Guide, we uncover hidden meanings and unravel many of the riddles of the Bible.

• The language the Bible uses seems to encourage moralizing, perfectionism, and other distortions. This is especially true with regards to sexuality and the non-acceptance of it. For example: “Do not fornicate,” in the Old Testament. Or how about the passage on adultery that Christ preached on the Mount? “But I say unto you. That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart". Can you help us to understand this?
• Can you shed some light on the symbolism in this passage? “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish. And not that thy whole body should be cast into hell". How can we read and interpret this in the spirit of love?
• In the Bible it says: “In the beginning there was the word and the word was God". I have also heard the word is “Om.” Could you explain?
• What did Jesus mean in John 15:26 when he said this? “But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me". Also in John 16:13-15 he speaks of the Counselor or the Spirit of Truth who will “answer you into all the truth". Who or what is the Counselor, or the Comforter, or the Holy Spirit?
• In Chapter 24, Verse 52 of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Jesus says to one of his disciples who defended him against the servant of the high priest as they are capturing him: “Put up again thy sword into its place, for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword". Is this to be our response in the struggle against evil?
• Can you explain what they are saying in the book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament, John’s vision? The beast with ten horns and seven heads, ten crowns and a blasphemous name on each head; the mark of the beast, 666, which is man’s number; the 144,000 sealed on the forehead with God’s name who are untouched by the doom at the end of the world; the pregnant woman, the dragon and the woman’s fleeing to the desert for 1260 days; the thousand years of Satan’s imprisonment.
• In the first Beatitude, which Jesus Christ gives in his sermon on the mount, it says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". What is the meaning of this?
• In Matthew 5:32, it says, “But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication causeth her to commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery". Matthew 6:25 goes on to say, “Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life. Or what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body more than raiment?” What’s up here?

Listen and hear the Pathwork Guide's answers.

Bible Me This, Chapter 5c: Bible Passages Explained, Part Three

The Guide offers insight for deeper understanding through the following commandments explained:

2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

4) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5) Honor thy father and thy mother.

6) Thou shalt not kill.

We can apply all of the commandments on all levels of our personalities. So this commandment, number six, is not just about the act of physically killing someone. The terms “life” and “death” apply to more than just the body. Thoughts and emotions, too, can snuff another out.

There is also a way that we deaden ourselves by darkening our own life force. All of our destructive aspects, including our images and unresolved problems, have a negative impact on us and everyone around us, essentially killing life. The more we advance, the more we’ll see this.

Here’s an example of how “emotional killing” looks. When we feel rejected and insecure, we tend to try to please the very ones whose acceptance we crave but don’t have. We often do this by despising anyone we think is also despised by the one whose attention we want so badly. This might be subtle, but it’s not uncommon. Such a betrayal hurts and rejects others while bringing us the opposite of what we originally wanted. This may not manifest through our word or deeds, but rather lays hidden in a well-camouflaged attitude. We might even bend over backwards to hide it. Nevertheless, it’s in there, causing damage.

Our entire being can’t be filled with love and truth unless we uncover all these areas where we aren’t really being loving and aren’t so much in truth either. That’s the doorway that leads to real salvation, and the only way to get there is through this work of fully understanding ourselves. There are no shortcuts, no magic formulas, no mantras, no miracles, and no easy ways to do this.

Only utter self-honesty in everything we do—major, minor and seemingly insignificant—will get us there. But if we persevere in this goal, our whole beings will become more and more healthy and of benefit to ourselves, to others and to this entire amazing universe.

Listen and hear commandments explained by the Pathwork Guide.

Bible Me This, Chapter 6: Commandments Explained