"03 - Acts of God" - читать интересную книгу автора (BeauSeigneur James)

At the top of the wall, on the very edge of the southeastern corner of the Temple, 180 feet above them at a point which by tradition is called the pinnacle, stood Christopher, robes blowing in the wind and completely dry as the shaft of light shone down like a spotlight. Quickly the beam broadened, as from that point the clouds retreated in all directions, bringing rain to the parched countryside around Jerusalem. In just moments the area around the Temple was in full daylight again with the sun shining brightly overhead.

By now nearly every radio and television network in the world was carrying the events in Jerusalem live. Every camera was on him, broadcasting his words and image to the most distant corners of the earth.

"People of Earth," Christopher began slowly with a serene, peaceful, even tone calculated to restore calm. "For millennia the prophets and soothsayers, the astrologers and oracles, the shaman and the revelators have all foretold the coming of one who would bring with him the olive branch of peace for all the world. By a hundred different names the world has known him. And by a hundred different names has this promised peace bringer been petitioned to come quickly to those in distress. For the Jews, he is Messiah; for the Christians, the returning Christ; for the Buddhists he is the Fifth Buddha; for the Muslims, the thirteenth heir to Mohammed orlmmam Mahdi; the Hindus call him Krishna; the Eckankar call himMahanta; the Bahd'i look to the coming 'Most Great Peace'; to the Zorastrians he is Shah-Bahram; to others he is Lord Maitreya, or Bodhisattva, orKrishnamurti, or Mithras, or Deva, or Hermes and Cush, or Janus, or Osiris.

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"By whatever name he is known," Christopher declared, "in whatever tongue he is entreated: this day I say to you: the prophecies have been fulfilled! This day the promise has been kept! This day the vision has been realized for all Humankind!" Christopher paused as the anticipation rose. "For this day I have come!" he shouted triumphantly, surprising no one Ч for the conclusion was obvious Ч and yet astonishing all, for no one could have been truly prepared for such a declaration.

Christopher's voice quickly picked up speed and fervor. "I am the promised one!" he chanted. "I am the Messiah, the Christ, the Fifth Buddha, the thirteenth heir to Mohammed; I am the one who brings the Most Great Peace; I am Krishna, Shah-Bahram, Mahanta, Lord Maitreya, Bodhisattva, Krishnamurti, and Immam Mahdi; I am Mithras, Deva, Hermes and Gush, Janus, and Osiris! There is no difference. They are all one. All religions are one. And I am he of whom all the prophets spoke! This is the day of the Earth's salvation!"

To the displeasure of the High Priest, many in the crowd in Jerusalem roared their approval and the response was echoed around the world. They had all seen Christopher die at the hands of an assassin, and they had seen his resurrection. They had witnessed him powerfully dispatching John and Cohen, who had called down terrible plagues upon the earth. They had watched in amazement as Robert Milner called down lightning and brought rain to the drought-stricken holy land. But more than anything else they cheered because they were ready for a savior.

"I have not come to make pious religious pronouncements," Christopher said. "Nor have I come to demand your worship or insist that you pay me homage. I do not seek your praise and adoration or demand your devotion. It is not my intent that you venerate or adulate me or that you pay me your tribute. Nor do I wish you to glorify, deify, idolize, extol, exalt, or revere me.

"I have come instead to tell you to look to yourselves. For within each of you is all the deity, all the divinity, that you will

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ever need. You may call me a god and I do not deny it: I am a god! But I call you gods. All of you! Each of you!"

High Priest Chaim Levin had heard all that he needed to. This was obvious blasphemy and, new robes or not, he was obligated to tear his garments and throw dust upon his head; and so he began with a vengeance, though he had to settle for mud. Some of the other priests and Levites near him immediately followed his lead. But others, many others, were far too interested in what this man who had risen from the dead had to say.

"It is not my own godhood that I have come here to proclaim," Christopher continued. "It is yours!"

"I have not come to threaten or punish," he said reassuringly, undistracted by the actions of the High Priest so far below him. "I have come to offer to Humankind life everlasting and joy unimagined. I bring you the opportunity to build a tomorrow of abundance and life from a yesterday of hunger and death. Come with me. Follow me. And I will lead you into a millennium of life and of light."

The High Priest's over-dramatic rending of cloth and hurling of mud distracted Decker from Christopher's speech just long enough for him to notice that despite the distance between Christopher and the crowd, he could hear him clearly. Christopher's voice seemed to be coming from right next to him or, perhaps . . . even from inside of him. It was as though he was hearing Christopher's voice from within himself. This discovery was quickly followed by another, even more startling: Decker suddenly realized that Christopher was not speaking English; nor had he since he began to speak. Decker was not sure what language Christopher was speaking, but he was certain he had never heard it before; yet he clearly understood every word. Apparently, so did those all around him, and as Decker correctly assumed, so did every other person on earth, no matter what their native tongue.

He wondered if others had noticed that the language Christopher spoke was not their own. Under his breath, Decker

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tried to recall and repeat a few of the words Christopher was speaking, but discovered that though he understood every word Christopher said, he could not for the life of him duplicate a single word or even a syllable. Later Christopher would explain that he had been speaking in the root language of all human languages, one which was as universal and instinctive to humans as animal sounds are to the given type of animal. It was, as Christopher would explain later, the language spoken by all humans prior to the confusion of language which Yahweh used to scatter the people of the earth when they built the Tower of Babel.6 This language did not need translation. It was the translation.

"Three and a half days ago," Christopher continued, "before the eyes of the whole world, a follower of John and Cohen and the Koum Damah Tatare fired a bullet into my brain and killed me. Less than twelve hours ago, again with the entire planet as witness, I was resurrected from the dead!

"But my resurrection is not a symbol of my victory over death. It is, rather, a symbol of Humankind's victory of life. My resurrection, my release from the chains of death, occurred because the time has at last come for Humankind to break the chains that have bound it, and to claim the glorious future that awaits.

"Let there be no mistake: the afflictions that have befallen the earth over these past three and a half years have not been accidental or the result of natural disasters. They have been cold, calculated acts of supernatural oppression, enacted through the men John and Cohen, against all Humankind. But John and Cohen did not act alone. They were in fact, merely the conduit for an oppressive, evil force Ч a spiritual entity whose savage, barbaric, selfish goal has been and continues to be to prevent the human race from fulfilling its destiny and attaining its proper place in the universe.

'Genesis 11:1-9.

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"The power which directed my assassination and the entity which has brought the world to the brink of annihilation are one and the same. But my resurrection is proof that this entity can be defeated, that the earth can be restored, and that Humankind is ready to throw off the yoke of bondage and to take the ultimate evolutionary step toward spiritual completion.

"I have returned to lead the world out of this age of destruction and death, into a new and transcendent age where suffering and death are no longer a fact of life. An age borne out of the trials that the earth has suffered and into a time of individual harmony with the universe. You, the ones who have outlasted the disasters, the floods, the earthquakes, you are the survivors and you shall be the victors!