Saint Paul The Double-Dragon: Archetype of Awakening Part 1
Who was Saul of Tarsus before he transformed into Saint Paul the Apostle, leader of the early Christian Church? God sends Saul grace through Lord Jesus and Saint Stephen
“Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead and Christ will give you Light.” Saint Paul the Apostle, Ephesians 5:14
As the black-out drunk lifts his head from the floor where he finds himself passed out again, he braces against the realization of the horrors of his continued debauchery. Slowly, he orients himself. Where am I? He tries sitting up, but a stabbing pain forces him back down again. Am I injured? How did that happen?
Gripped in the type of fear only an awakening black-out drunk can feel—the primal fear of not knowing what happened while he was drunk—he reaches for the bottle beside him.
He does this because it’s what he does. It’s an unconscious behavior, a symptom of the suicidal mechanism built into the unconscious state of the human ego. His stony heart cannot be satisfied. No amount of alcohol brings relief. The jumping-off-place is near.
Oh, how focus fades, from His Light, so serine, for stone hearts anchored deep in the unconscious sea.
Dark to Light: Saul to Paul
The story of Saul of Tarsus, who later became Saint Paul the Apostle, can be compared to a black-out drunk opening his eyes after a lifetime of black-out drinking, the type of drinking where the drunk appears awake to everyone, but he’s really unconscious (asleep at the wheel).
Saul’s journey is astonishing. He begins as the most feared persecutor of the Followers of the Way of Lord Jesus. He then receives the gift of Grace from God twice (from Saint Stephen and Lord Jesus).
He accepts these gifts and awakens to become the most passionate cheerleader for our Lord Jesus, and a most dedicated minister to the Gentiles, who he persecuted. But once given enough doses of grace—“gentle” course corrections from God, a type of mercy—Saul submits himself as a bondservant (slave) to the will of Lord Jesus.
Saul’s Story is Our Human Story
Saul of Tarsus, who later became Saint Paul the Apostle, was a leader in the early church. According to www.britannica.com, Saint Paul is, “...often considered to be the most important person after Jesus in the history of Christianity.” He wrote the Pauline Letters which make up thirteen books of The New Testament. Added to that, half of the Acts of the Apostles address his life and works. “Thus about half of The New Testament stems from Saint Paul and the people whom he influenced,” Britannica states.
It is said that Saul of Tarsus was born a Roman citizen—which was a great privilege—about two years after the birth of Lord Jesus in about 2 AD, although some online sources write that it was a little later.
Due to his privileged education under “Gamaliel,” he grew up to become a Pharisee (lawyer). Of his heritage, he wrote, “...circumcised on the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrew parentage, in observance of the law, a Pharisee.” Philippians 3:5
As a Pharisee, Saul was devout to the letter of the law, and a zealot for persecution. In this egoic-zealotry he built for himself a personal “tower of Babel”—a solid reputation as the “Gentile-Slayer.”
Below, in Acts 22: 3-5, Paul describes his behavior before his conversion to The Way of Lord Jesus:
“I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of Our Father’s law and was zealous toward God as you all are today. I persecuted the Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring chains even to those who were there, to Jerusalem to be punished.” Acts 22: 3-5
“The Plank” in Saul’s Eye
Saul’s story begins like all stories of present-day human beings, with the “plank in his eye” that Lord Jesus described when He said,
“’Judge not, that you not be judged. For with what judgement you will be judged, and with the measure you use what the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not conceive (perceive) the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck from your eye,’ and look, a plank is in your own eye?
“Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye,” (Matthew 7:1-5).).
(This is the King James translation. I recommend Bible Hub online to compare wording/translations).
“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
“No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love he other, or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon,” (Matthew 6:22-24).
What made Saul so judgmental, and “blinded” him was what blinds all humans. Lord Jesus did not call the condition of blindness of awareness of Reality abnormal. But He did indicate that it can grow from a speck to a plank “lodged” in “the eye,” meaning that through our five senses we take into our mind/heart (subtle bodies/consciousness) impressions (complexities and impurities) from the physical world and we “like” or “dislike” them (judge them). In this way, we make them our reality instead of God by serving them, our worldly impressions otherwise celled by Lord Jesus “mammon” which means worldly measures like money, bloodlines, opinions, gossip).
This judgement of the world around us, putting all we perceive into categories of “like” and “dislike” becomes habitual and hardens into a personality (ego) or worse, it becomes an energetic pattern of emotional-reactive, conditioned-behaviors: the blackout drunk at the wheel. Some people call this patterned-energy of conditioned behavior “a demon.”
According to Carl Jung, due to our lack of self-awareness and inability to admit it’s existence, what he calls our “shadow self” can become autonomous (a demon). (The Shadow-Carl Jung’s Warning to the World YT key words by Internalized)
Lord Jesus also indicated that “the plank” can be removed by people and should immediately be removed. He came to earth to teach us to do just that—to remove our sins.
Because the “blindness” is a “normal” condition of most human beings, it must stem from the most mundane experiences of daily life. We can assume this because Lord Jesus does not appear to be telling us to withdraw from normal daily life into monasteries, instead he said, “Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.’” Luke 6: 42
So, He must have been speaking to His disciples who He is training to help others remove (clean) these impressions that he calls planks?
And (it sounds like to me) He is saying to them, that they (His disciples) must first clean themselves in order to help other people? And also explaining why the temple leaders are not helpful due to their planks as well.
Stony Hearts
But what happens when this spiritual condition has moved passed “blindness” into psychopathic murder, like what Saul did to Saint Stephen? What has made Saul so evil?
Lord God said, “…I will take the stony heart out of their flesh,” and He said, “I will recompense their deeds on their own heads!” Ezekiel 11:19-21.
Here, in the Old Testament, Ezekiel is relaying the prophecy from Lord God who is disgusted with the people’s evil actions, and who is lifting their spiritual protection so that they will suffer, giving them grace.
This is how God gives us grace when we can’t receive new information any other way: the force of grace cracks open our stony hearts to let in light, including new information about our spiritual condition so that hopefully we will choose to begin the journey of transformation.
This is an ongoing theme in the Bible. In Jeremiah 4: 4-14, Yahweh laments the evil of the people and is describing the destruction he is about unleash that will cause for them terrible suffering.
He says, “Oh, Jerusalem wash your heart from wickedness,” and “circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?”
Grace Through Saint Stephen
“Things in motion stay in motion unless met with an outside force.” Grace is that “outside force” when we are deaf to God’s guidance in our hearts.
To assist Saul to hit “rock bottom” (receive grace which is suffering), God sent Saint Stephen the Martyr , an “outside force” who is described in Acts 6: 1-15 as “of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom,”
and “…Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people,” and also, “And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him (Stephen), saw his face as the face of an angel.”
As a Pharisee in authority, Saul gives consent to the stoning-murder of Stephen the Martyr who is on trial due to the bearing of false witness against him.
In Acts 7, Saint Stephen—filled with the Holy Spirit—calmly defends himself in court by beautifully detailing the history of the Hebrew Prophets. In doing so, he rightly places himself on record as a most devoted servant of God, and a highly educated Hebrew.
But The New Testament has not named him “Saint Stephen the Martyr” for nothing, for soon he shifts his tone, accusing his accusers of their obvious hypocrisy murdering Jesus. His words mixed with the piercing Word of God (Godly sound or resonance) crack open the hearts of Pharisees, and provoke an earthquake of consciousness.
As part of God’s plan, Saint Stephen accuses his accusers and their ancestors of blasphemy, blatantly thieving credit for that which God Himself has made! In Acts 7:48-50, Saint Stephen says,
“However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says: ‘Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me?’ says the Lord, Or ‘what is the place of My rest? Has My hand not made all these things?’”
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Saint Stephen looks through his accusers, laying bare their stony hearts for the world to see, he saying to them as He is transmitting The Word,
“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?
“And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.” Acts 7: 51-53
The emotional-reaction of Saul and the Pharisees to the piercing of their stony hearts was a blind, murderous-rage—their exposed “little me” striking out in primal fear of being extinguished by the Light (also in the form of new information or data) that can finally trickle in. (As we all have experienced with some people with “stony hearts,” new information does not effect them because they cannot receive it because everything is already prejudged by their solidified “likes” and “dislikes,” personality/ego).
Below is the short description of innocent-Stephen’s murder at which witnesses place Saul as authority figure. Later, Saul admits to Jesus he gave his consent this murder.
“When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he, (Saint Stephen), being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, ‘Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’
“Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
“And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on and saying, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not charge them with this sin.’ And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Now Saul was consenting to his death.
“At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he was making great havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison,” (Acts 8: 1- 3 & Acts 7: 54- 60).
The “ramping up” of the prosecution of the Followers of The Way “scattered” the disciples far and wide, “throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria,” spreading its influence, and making it stronger. Simultaneously, many stony hearts of those in attendance at the trial and murder of Saint Stephen were cracked and would be able to start receiving light, more and more over time.
This is how God uses energy-exchange: being unjustly put on trial, Stephen provoked the dark hearts with words/light and also responded with transmission of The Word, the Resonance of God, that—with enough force—can crack open their stony heart-shells (consciousnesses which contains the mind/intellect/ego) like boiled eggs.
“The Word” is described in John 1:1-5, it is the “Resonance of God” we can call frequency/sound. “In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God and The Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it,” (John 1: 1-5).
Their predictable emotional-reaction (along with the laws of physics—every action has an equal and opposite reaction)—authorizes Grace (suffering) always to His advantage.
For more on the Resonance of God, “The Word,” (sound/frequency) watch these two videos at YT search terms:
Is Yogic Transmission for Real? Heartfulness meditation
Cymatics Full Documentary Part 1 of 4: Bringing Matter to Life with Sound.
What Defiles A Man?
In Mark 7, Lord Jesus states that it is not what goes in the mouth of a man that defiles a man, but what comes out of the heart—his actions—that defile him, saying, “For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness. All of these evil come from within, and these are what defile a man,” (Mark 7: 20-23.)
This means it is not the impressions that all humans take in through our five senses from our environment that defile us. It’s our actions that defile us, making us good or evil. Unfortunately, once our “shadow” has become autonomous, (the blackout drunk asleep at the wheel) those demonic actions defile us and solidify our situation further. It also keeps us from willingness needed to change.
Fear, the primal emotional-reaction that “came out” of Saul that day was a blind murderous rampage—a symptom of his autonomous, ego-identity being threatened with extinction by the incoming light of self-awareness.
And after the murder, like any addict, the vacuum of this insatiable stony heart craved more blood to re-solidify himself away from self-awareness, so Saul left on the road to Damascus.
Lord Jesus
Because Saul was so dark, and due to the third law of physics, “every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” the force from the Resonance of God (the Word or Sound) that cracked Saul’s stony heart did not stop him, it propelled him.
Enter Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus to re-apply the first law once more, “things in motion stay in motion without encountering an outside force.”
This encounter of Lord Jesus and Saul on the road to Damascus would have been useless if Saul’s stony heart had not already been cracked open through Saint Stephen because, as it says in John 1:5, “And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it,” and in John 8:12 Lord Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
Now, finally, there was a chance that Saul could comprehend the light of Our Lord Jesus and make use of His gift of grace (suffering for the purpose of spiritual evolution).
Acts 8 Continued
“Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of The Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
“As he journeyed he came near Damascus and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ And he (Saul) said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’
“Then the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ So he, trembling and astonished, said, ‘Lord, what do You want me to do?’ Then The Lord said onto him, ‘Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’” Acts 9 3-6.
Ananias Baptizes Saul
The Light of Lord Jesus Christ struck Saul blind and left him at the mercy of a man named Ananias, who, like all of the Followers of the Way of Christ at the time, was terrified of Saul. But as a servant of Lord Jesus, Ananias was willing to help once informed by a vision of Lord Jesus that Saul was to be His vessel.
In Acts 22, Lord Jesus tasks Ananias with taking Saul into his home, and performing the miracle of returning Saul’s sight. For this miracle, the Resonance of God is transmitted through Ananias to rearrange and regenerate Saul’s sight.
The Resonance of God is something Lord Jesus has wielded since before the creation of earth. It is the Diving Sound of God. Some call it “OM.” In the ancient Sanskrit language which is thought to be at least 6,000 years old, it is called “Pranahuti,” which means, “The Breath of Life.” The sharing of Pranahuti is called “Transmission.”
Throughout the centuries, Christians have called the Resonance of God (sound) that created the universe, “The Word.”
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot comprehend it. He was in the world and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
“He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name who were born not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, ‘This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’
“And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him,” (John 1 :1-18).
In Acts 22 : 11- 16, Saint Paul explains what happened during his encounter with Ananias, and how he said to him, “receive your sight.” Of course, Ananias could have said these words, but speaking words does not transfigure blindness into sight.
The Word is not transmitted by speaking, so this must be a mistranslation which is understandable in a general sense since words are transmitted by speaking. But to those who read the words of John and know what Lord Jesus truly is, that He is Him who was there at the beginning with God, and that nothing that was made was made without Him, people who can read these words can hopefully see that Lord Jesus did not come to earth to talk. He came to transfigure hearts, and transfigure all.
It was for this work of transmitting The Word that Lord Jesus trained His disciples of whom were many and many, like Ananias through whom Lord Jesus did His work.
“Since I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those who were with me on the road, I came into Damascus. Then a certain Ananias, a devout man according to the law having a good testimony with all the Jews who dwelt there came to me, and he stood, and said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight,’ and at the same hour I looked up at him.
“Then he said, ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth. For you will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.
“And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.’
YT key term search: Is Yogic Transmission for Real? / Heartfulness Meditation by Heartfulness
To be continued…
Click for Home Page All Parts 1-5 (so far)
Key YT Terms: Eckhart Tolle “Why Do You Often Talk About The Ego As A Personalized Entity?”