Jesus and Mary Magdalene

I offer this to you: Not to say that this new translation of the Bible is right and the old one is wrong - it is for you to decide which one feels more like Truth to you. I offer this as I offer everything else that I am sharing here - as an alternate perspective for you to consider."

Dear _____,
I am sorry that it has taken me awhile to respond to your e-mail. I have been very busy with an update to my web site and a trip out of town for a day and a half to see some clients. I also wanted to let your question percolate for some days because there are a variety of ways to answer your question and I wanted to do so with respect and honor for the nature and subject of the question.

You wrote:

I assume you are Robert Burney, the author of the book and excepts on this website.

While I was quite impressed by such deep insights in spiritual realm, I couldn't resist asking a question on the "Christ Consciousness" section. Would you be kind enough to reply where in the Bible talks about Jesus having humanly desire with Mary Magdalene or even displayed any indecency?

Your view on concept of Godly love expressed by Christ is absolutely agreeable, but I wonder where the concept of Christ as human male is noted anywhere, if not in Bible.

First of all I wish to make the point that I made in the Authors Foreword to my book and repeated in the middle of the book in the quote above - I am not trying to impose my Truth on anyone. I am offering an alternate perspective to help people to see things in a larger context. Too often we go through life reacting out of beliefs that we were taught in childhood without ever stopping to ask ourselves "Does this make sense?" "Is this what I believe?" In order to grow it is necessary to experience a paradigm shift, an enlarging of context, a growth of consciousness.

The second point I would like to make is that humans have for too long gotten caught up in the details of the message of Jesus, and lost the Spirit of it completely. Wars have been fought, individuals and groups tortured and murdered, over the definitions of words supposedly spoken by him. The inquisition was not about Love. Bombing abortion clinics is not about Love.

One of the most important tools in consciousness raising is discernment. To be able to pick the baby out of the bath water. In this case the baby is the Spirit of Love and Truth. When we find it - it is very important to know that we don't have to let some details/definitions/the dirty bath water keep us from embracing the nuggets of Truth - cause us to throw out the baby.

This quote is from the very beginning of my book:

"In this dance of life that we are doing there are different levels - even of Truth with a capital T. There are ultimate Truths, and there are relative Truths. The ultimate Truths have to do with the eternal, everlasting reality of the God-Force, the Great Spirit. The relative Truths have to do with each individual's own intuitive guidance. These are the messages we receive individually to get us from point A to point B on our individual paths. The guidance we get from our Souls that tells us what the next thing in front of us is.

Our individual, relative Truths expand and grow as we expand and grow. We each have our own unique path to follow - our own individual inner guidance system. No one can tell you what your path is! Your Truth is a personal thing. Only you can know your Truth.

It is through following and being True to our individual Truths, as they relate to our path through this physical experience, that we reach balance and harmony with the ultimate Truths."

I believe that the details of the life of Jesus fall into the category of relative Truth - while the message of Love that Jesus taught and symbolizes is more in the category of Ultimate Truth - so I think we already agree on what is important.

Those points made, I am now going to be addressing different parts of your question in a long reply and I am also going to be giving you a very short answer that constitutes the bottom line for me and what I consider to be my Truth.

The long reply is going to focus on what I see are 4 different facets of your communication with me. These four are:

1. The tone

2. The Bible

3. Indecency

4. Jesus & Mary Magdalene.

1. The Tone

I was severely Spiritually abused growing up in a very shame-based religion that taught me that I was born sinful and that there was a God who loved me but might send me to burn in hell forever for being human (i.e. getting angry, making mistakes, being sexual. etc.) I still have some very tender wounds about the effect those teaching have had on my life. As I write this my eyes filled with tears of sadness about that little boy being taught what I believe are such abusive and spirit-destroying concepts. I still have a great deal of anger that this abuse was perpetrated on me, and that so many other children were and are being abused by these types of teachings - which are in my belief the very opposite of the Truth of a Loving God-Force.

I have done a lot of healing around these wounds and they don't have nearly the power they used to have only a few years ago. In fact, the only thing which I might even consider changing in my book "The Dance of Wounded Souls" is the tone which I use on one page in talking about the abuse which has been perpetrated in the name of Jesus by people who were acting the very reversed of what I believe Jesus taught. I absolutely believe what I say in my book but now, with a few more years of healing of those wounds, I might say it a little less stridently, in a little softer manner

Because I still have buttons that can be pushed in relationship to my wounding I try to be careful to not react when I sense in someone else the kind of rigid shame based belief system that was so damaging to me. I don't know if you have that kind of belief system - if you have, it is of course your perfect right to believe whatever you wish - but my first reaction (and some subsequent ones) to your e-mail has been that it had a belligerent edge to it.

I am not sure though. If you were truly coming from a rigid belief system there is no way that you could say "I was quite impressed by such deep insights in spiritual realm" - so I have been confused about whether you sincerely wanted to hear my answer or were just baiting me.

Ultimately it really doesn't matter what your intentions were - you have done me a service in asking the question. It is always good for me to have something germinating in my mind - and it was specifically interesting timing because of my very recent decision to post some question and answer pages on my web site. Because of the timing of your message I have been thinking of it in terms of an answer that I am going to post for the world to see, instead of one that was going to one person. So, rather you were baiting me or really in search of some understanding of my point of view is not important - I thank you for the challenge and hope that you can see the respect with which I approach this subject.