Abraham's Sacrifice

What was the Spiritual Message behind the Sacrifice of a lamb, by Abraham

Abraham was ordered by God to sacrifice his son Isaac and he was about to do this, when God stopped him in the last moment and ordered him to sacrifice a lamb instead. - Traditionally this is seen as a test of obedience, of his total submission to the will of God and because Abraham stood the test, he was given the permission to use a lamb instead of his son and later the promise of innumerable offspring. -

Sacrificing one's own son for the sake of obedience to God could be seen as sacrificing one's ego to the extent of agreeing to sacrificing one's future and agreeing to the death of one's own legacy. As soon as it was clear that Abraham was willing to do this, he was ordered to spare his son and use a lamb. The lamb can be considered as a symbol for the animal nature within humans, especially our sexual drive, since the lamb is the same as the goat.

Yet, sacrificing one’s ego is not an active process, it cannot be accomplished by “killing” it, it is a process of surrender and letting go. Therefore I don’t believe this story can be interpreted like that. We must assume that God would be an educator and the meaning of the test would be a teaching of some sort. Letting go of ego cannot be taught in this fashion. Therefore I am ruling out that this interpretation can be valid.

In order to look deeper into the question, one has to first look at the idea of sacrificing one's son. We usually think, the main part is to suffer the loss of one’s son. But this is a lot more than that. It is the command to commit murder. Murder is a sin. Letting go of a loved one is a natural part of life. Actively taking a life is a crime. So there are two separate aspects in this command:

Total submission to the will of God, without understanding it, even though this command asks for committing a crime and suffering the effects of the crime simultaneously!

Thinking about it rationally, that is of no value whatsoever. Such an attitude will lead to destruction fascist style. It opens the door for blind obedience to authority and it cannot be the objective of God to teach us this kind of behavior as a virtue and reward it positively. Letting go of a loved one can be asked of us, even if we don’t understand it, but an action that is normally a crime, can only be permissible in very special circumstances. God makes it clear in many other situations, that we humans are responsible for all our sins and have to make amends for them. So we need to ask ourselves, if God would ever want to teach us to commit any crime on anyone’s orders, especially, if we don’t understand why?

Normally we ponder about, what God wanted to achieve or demonstrate or find out with this test. But we should also ask ourselves, what Abraham wanted to achieve with his reaction to the test. This question arose for me in 2007, in a meditation vision, when I was studying the Baha'i faith. Suddenly, I saw Abraham as quite a ruthless leader, who was willing to commit every crime in order to make a contract with a powerful spiritual entity to ensure his own everlasting dominion over the world. The vision that unfolded after, was something like an alternative movie. It was the same scene, but the Abraham in my vision acted very differently to the Abraham in the scriptures. In my movie Abraham replied to God: "You are the Lord over life and death. If you require the life of my son, please take it and I vow, I will not grieve, I will not complain, I will completely accept your verdict. But I am the father and I will not raise my hand against my son." - Then the scene changed and there was a sublime clarity, where God was satisfied with Abraham, for Abraham had proven to him that he was able to question any order, to disobey if an order was immoral and was capable of taking responsibility for his actions. Even more, Abraham had proven that he was willing to lose his affiliation with a powerful spiritual entity, lose his special favors, if this favor could only be bought with a crime. - When I came out of the vision, my conclusion was, that in reality Abraham had failed the test and had proven himself to be more interested in power, than in good and righteous action. - I was so shaken by this, that I contacted a professor for dogmatics at the theological University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Prof. Schobert, a well known scholar. He granted me a series of visits and upon hearing my story he told me of his communication with a visiting Rabbi from Jerusalem, a decade earlier. While Prof. Schobert did not want to make a ruling on what was correct or incorrect, he still told me that my vision was in line with what the Rabbi had said.

My own conclusion is, blind obedience is of no value. To the contrary, it is the source of evil, it will only be demanded by an evil power and only evil people are willing to comply. The fact that God stayed Abraham’s hand and made him sacrifice a lamb instead is no proof of the virtue of Abraham but a proof of God, being really God and not some evil spiritual entity..

I believe it is due to the erroneous human imagination and/or deliberate corrupt guidance from the non-physical realm that people have ended up believing that the story of Abraham means, it is a virtue to follow criminal orders in blind obedience and God has been pleased with Abraham displaying this obedience and therefore rewarded him with the substitute of the lamb.

Yet there is another way to interpret the story, so that it becomes meaningful, but this is even more subtle and difficult to put into words: If we assume God as clear consciousness, being able to see to the bottom of anyone's heart and future, we would be now looking with those clear divine eyes at Abraham. We would see the father of two sons, Ishmael and Isaac to two different women, Sarah and Hagar. Sarah, the first wife was barren, yet she did not want to vacate the place at Abraham’s side. She preferred to have her husband take a second wife, she even must have been able to have her own female power augmented by the presence of her sister, because she too became pregnant after. Yet she managed to alienate both, Hagar and Ishmael, leaving them to an uncertain fate and their death was only prevented by a miraculous divine intervention. To this day Muslims and Jews argue, whether the most beloved son in the sacrificial story was Isaac or Ishmael!

So what would be the divine meaning of the request to sacrifice his son, either Ishmael or Isaac, doesn't matter here. - Abraham is a man, who is attached to his position, to his power, to his family, to his future and the future of his family and subject to his first wife Sarah, willing to take, use and later discard another woman according to her orders. In other words, we would see an archetypal human man. - So the test is about finding out, how far Abraham would go in his attachment and at the same time giving him a warning, that his ambitions and his negligence towards the fate of any woman, will kill his son and his future, the future of his entire offspring. -

When it became clear through Abraham's response, that he is indeed willing to perform the crime, which at this point would have appeared like the demand of an evil spirit, requiring a black magic ritual, God stopped the process and gave him a lamb instead as a sign that he needs to sacrifice his animal instincts and afterwards God predicted that Abraham's offspring will indeed inundate the world. Abraham interpreted this as a blessing, but I rather see it as another warning, a lament, expressing the truth, that a man, who is so strong-willed in his determination to gain the protection and support of non-physical power, regardless of the cost, will gain a lot of worldly power and his offspring will dominate and inundate the whole world.

This last version of the story fits very well with history past and present. The Sarahs and Abrahams of humanity have sought power and domination at the cost of sacrificing other women, healers, fertile queens, and even their own sons and they do this to this very day. It is a teaching story that says: If you take two women, they will create sons, who kill each other and this is as good, as if you would kill them yourself. There is no other, in the end you always kill all of humanity, if you are willing to sacrifice even a single one.


So "Total submission to the will of God, without understanding it, even though this command asks for committing a crime and suffering the effects of the crime simultaneously!" translates directly into a statement that says: "Dear Man Abraham, the way you are pursuing power and favors in your life, you are hurting yourself. Whatever you are willing to sacrifice for your goals, be it a woman or a son or both, will ultimately be, as if you kill everyone with your own hands and suffer, as if you lose your most beloved."

However, the "God", whom the traditional believers imagine on their side, is a false imagination and by the combined energy of this false imagination, a demon has been created. People will always find the God that they are praying to. In the times, when people performed human sacrifices in order to get their ambitions fulfilled they found in the non-physical realm the spiritual entity that corresponded to it. Of course they themselves called it "God", since it helped them with their requests. This does not in any way prove that this "God" was a good one. The physical and the non-physical are dependent on one another. One changes, the other changes as well.

Yet there were always those encounters with the God, who gave warnings and teachings, but how many pages have been torn from the scriptures, how many prophets murdered and lips silenced to maintain the convenient interpretation! In order to understand the scriptures, we need to see that they are human narratives and like all narratives, they are subject to human perception and possibly mis-interpretation. They are historical accounts and as all history, they are compiled by the winners, the losing side has been edited out. I want to go even one step further, their source is the non-physical realm, but there is more than one voice in there.

This is the very core of the issue. If there is really such a being as "THE ABSOLUTELY ONE ALMIGHTY GOD" including all the attributes that are ascribed to it, then blind and total faith would be justified, in fact this blind faith and obedience is demanded on the very basis that "God" has been constructed in such an illogical and irrational fashion, to say the least. Those two issues are two sides of the same coin. There is a reality, a singularity of God, a creation of God, a power of God, but this does not automatically mean that any human imagination about this God s correct.

True, everything that is in existence has been created by someone. How you can logically conclude from this fact that everything is created by one single entity is beyond me. Good creates good, evil creates evil. We are many, not one. Good people unite in their hearts as one and this is the basis of the spiritual, non-physical power of "God". But this power depends on the participation and oneness of many. If the many unite in false beliefs, "God" becomes false and the powers emanating from this false "God" become accordingly false, if not destructive. If the many unite in selfishness, a selfish spiritual-non-physical power is created and will in turn engender a selfish creation. Yet, the selfish creation has no substance of its own. It has been granted the use of the substance by contract, by the generosity of God. Therefore it appears so solid and strong. But the voice or the thought is a lot less dense than substance and the unity of selfish minds has a strong voice. The scriptures are really a dialogue and a dispute between the divine and the demonic creative principles.

Political ideologies are nothing but a worldly name for religion. Humans are humans. Their unification of energy will bring about a spiritual, non-physical power. We have religions and faiths and they intermingle and mutually interact with ideologies and political concepts.There is no separation between atheists and religionists. The true nature of human beings is our ability to unite with others in consciousness, form groups and empower the shared concepts with our energy.

Who is stronger in the end? Good or evil “Gods”? - This is the big question. Presently it looks like evil powers are dominating, despite all assurances and claims to the contrary. Yet, I myself believe, this is but temporary. Humans as only a minute fraction of the living matrix, even though we have been given dominance over the rest of creation by the strength of the contract. The time of this contract is running out and we will see, how small and powerless the most formidable demons are in reality. They are creative, they create and empower thoughts, the likes of which, God would never entertain. They create sound, they create voice, but their creation, once stripped from the borrowed and stolen substance will be left as empty shells, just arrangements of dust in space.

and an afterthought: I cannot rule out the possibility that Sarah and Abraham were asking, what they need to do, so that their descendants will spread across the entire earth and become as numerous as the stars. That was clearly their wish. You don't receive anything that you have not asked for.

In the case of Abraham, he was told by the experience, what it will take to achieve his objective AND he was willing to pay the price. But God, proving to be really God and not some mean demon, gave him a lamb instead, which is also a metaphor and a prophecy of Christ. It did require the sacrifice in the end, but on different terms.