From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
To: alt.magick
Subject: Burning Bibles 451 :> (9408.bblburn.ttm)
Date: 49940824
Quoting: |sahr@thuja.FSL.ORST.EDU (Kevin Sahr) 
    and  "Theophane the Monk (Idries Shah?)

|Please; if it is your inclination to tell me to simply toss the
|bible in the fire and forget about it, I would prefer that you
|enjoy your opinion in silence....

:>  Here you go:

"I've been going there on retreat each year for the past forty years.
 Each time it's the same, yet somehow always different.  The first
 time I went I forgot to bring my Bible.  When I asked the guestmaster
 if I could borrow a Bible, he said, 'Wouldn't you care to write your
 own?'

"'What do you mean?'

"'Well, write your own Bible - something of your own on the order of the
  Bible.  You could tell of a classical bondage and the great liberation,
  a promised land, sacred songs, a messiah - that kind of thing.  Ought
  to be much more interesting than just reading someone else's Bible.
  And you might learn more.'

"Well, I set to work.  It took me a month.  I never learned so much about
 the official Bible.  When I was finished, he recommended I take it home
 and try to live according to it for a year.  I should keep a journal of
 my experience.  But I shouldn't tell anybody about the project, nor show
 anyone the books.  Next year, after Christmas, I could come back for
 another retreat.

"It was quite a year.  An eye-opener.  Most certainly I had never put so
 much energy and alertness into living by the official Bible as I was
 putting into living by this one.  And my daily meditations had never
 been so concentrated.

"When I arrived back for my next retreat, he greeted me very warmly,
 took into his hands my Bible and my journal, kissed them with greatest
 reverence, and told me I could now spend a couple of days and nights
 in the Hall of the Great Fire.  On the last night of the year, I should
 consign my two books to the flames.  And that's what I did.  A whole
 year's wisdom and labor - into the Great Fire.  Afterwards he set me
 to work writing another Bible.

"And so it went, these past forty years.  Each year a new Bible, a new
 journal, and then at the end of the year - into the flames.  Until now
 I have never told anyone about this."

_Tales of a Magic Monastery_, by Theophane the Monk, pp. 43-4.
______________________________________________________________

tyagi
tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com