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JUDGMENT
Intro
"Fact
or Myth?"
If you do what is right by your fellow man,
And keep your conscience clear,
You won't have to worry about any Judgment Day.
Tumbleweed
Is that really all
there is to it? And, will there be a Judgment Day or not?
Again
we consult the Wise Men of old before offering the subject as sacrifice
to our Elders of Tumbleweed.
*
According
to Sikhism:
"After
you depart this life, God shall demand a reckoning for your deeds."
*
And
as related in an African tradition:
"At
the gates of the land of the dead you will pass before a searching
Judge. His justice is true and he will examine your feet."
*
This
from the Mishnah of Judaism.:
"....And
perforce you will die, and perforce you will in the future have to give
an account and reckoning before the King of kings, the Holy One, the
blessed He."
*
Taoism
states:
"Anything
evil refrain from doing; all good deeds do! So you will be released
forever from the influence of evil stars, and always be encompassed by
good guardian angels."
*
"The
Good Spirit, who was born simultaneously with you, will come now and
count out your good deeds with white pebbles, and the Evil Spirit, who
was born simultaneously with you, will come and count out your evil
deeds with black pebbles."
No,
this is not a Native American saying, but a section out of the Buddhist
Tibetan Book of the Dead.
*
Here
is a Hopi tradition to consider:
"....When
a bad person, who is known as 'not-Hopi,' dies, his fate is very
different. Witches called the 'Two Hearts' take him by the hand as soon
as the breath is out of his body, and they lead him away to their own
country. The country of the Two Hearts is as bad as they are
themselves."
*
From
the Qu'ran of Islam, we have this account:
"The
earth will shine through its Lord's Light and the Book will be laid
open. Prophets and witnesses will be brought in, and judgment will be
pronounced among them formally, and they will not be harmed. Every soul
will be repaid for whatever it has done; He is quite aware of what they
are doing."
*
And,
of course, the Christian Bible, which has a great deal to say about
Judgment, gives this final account:
"And
I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the
books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of
life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by
what they had done."
*
Now
let us take this subject to the Bards of the Checkerboard, shall we?
(continued)
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