The Trial of Jesus by the High Council of the Jews : A True Narration from A Non-Biblical Source !

It was about half past three o’clock this Friday morning when the chief priest, Caiaphas, called the Sanhedrist court (the Supreme Judicial Council of the Jews during the ancient Roman Empire period) of inquiry to order and asked that Jesus be brought before them for his formal trial. On three previous occasions the Sanhedrin, by a large majority vote, had decreed the death of Jesus, had decided that he was worthy of death on informal charges of lawbreaking, blasphemy, and flouting the traditions of the fathers of Israel.

Ordinarily, the Jews, when trying a man on a capital charge, proceeded with great caution and provided every safeguard of fairness in the selection of witnesses and the entire conduct of the trial. But on this occasion, Caiaphas was more of a prosecutor than an unbiased judge.

Jesus appeared before this court clothed in his usual garments and with his hands bound together behind his back. The entire court was startled and somewhat confused by his majestic appearance. Never had they gazed upon such a prisoner nor witnessed such composure in a man on trial for his life.

The Jewish law required that at least two witnesses must agree upon any point before a charge could be laid against the prisoner. Judas could not be used as a witness against Jesus because the Jewish law specifically forbade the testimony of a traitor. More than a score of false witnesses were on hand to testify against Jesus, but their testimony was so contradictory and so evidently trumped up that the Sanhedrists themselves were very much ashamed of the performance. Jesus stood there, looking down benignly upon these perjurers, and his very countenance disconcerted the lying witnesses.

Throughout all this false testimony the Master never said a word; he made no reply to their many false accusations.

The first time any two of their witnesses approached even the semblance of an agreement was when two men testified that they had heard Jesus say in the course of one of his temple discourses that he would “destroy this temple made with hands and in three days make another temple without hands.”

That was not exactly what Jesus said, regardless of the fact that he pointed to his own body when he made the remark referred to.

Although the high priest shouted at Jesus,

“Do you not answer any of these charges?” Jesus opened not his mouth.

He stood there in silence while all of these false witnesses gave their testimony. Hatred, fanaticism, and unscrupulous exaggeration so characterized the words of these perjurers that their testimony fell in its own entanglements. The very best refutation of their false accusations was the Master’s (Jesus') calm and majestic silence.

Shortly after the beginning of the testimony of the false witnesses, Annas (High Priest and Father-in-law of Caiaphas) arrived and took his seat beside Caiaphas.

Annas now arose and argued that this threat of Jesus to destroy the temple was sufficient to warrant three charges against him:

1. That he was a dangerous traducer of the people. That he taught them impossible things and otherwise deceived them.
2. That he was a fanatical revolutionist in that he advocated laying violent hands on the sacred temple, else how could he destroy it?
3. That he taught magic inasmuch as he promised to build a new temple, and that without hands.

Already had the full Sanhedrin agreed that Jesus was guilty of death-deserving transgressions of the Jewish laws, but they were now more concerned with developing charges regarding his conduct and teachings which would justify Pilate (the then Roman Governor of the Jewish province) in pronouncing the death sentence upon their prisoner.

They knew that they must secure the consent of the Roman governor before Jesus could legally be put to death. And Annas was minded to proceed along the line of making it appear that Jesus was a dangerous teacher to be abroad among the people.

But Caiaphas could not longer endure the sight of the Master standing there in perfect composure and unbroken silence.

He thought he knew at least one way in which the prisoner might be induced to speak.

Accordingly, he rushed over to the side of Jesus and, shaking his accusing finger in the Master’s face, said:

“I adjure you, in the name of the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Deliverer, the Son of God.”

Jesus answered Caiaphas:

“I am. Soon I go to the Father, and presently shall the Son of Man be clothed with power and once more reign over the hosts of heaven.”

When the high priest heard Jesus utter these words, he was exceedingly angry, and rending his outer garments, he exclaimed:

“What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now have you all heard this man’s blasphemy. What do you now think should be done with this lawbreaker and blasphemer?”

And they all answered in unison, “He is worthy of death; let him be crucified.”

Jesus manifested no interest in any question asked him when before Annas or the Sanhedrists except the one question relative to his bestowal mission.

When asked if he were the Son of God, he instantly and unequivocally answered in the affirmative.

Annas desired that the trial proceed further, and that charges of a definite nature regarding Jesus’ relation to the Roman law and Roman institutions be formulated for subsequent presentation to Pilate.

The councilors were anxious to carry these matters to a speedy termination, not only because it was the preparation day for the Passover and no secular work should be done after noon, but also because they feared Pilate might any time return to the Roman capital of Judea, Caesarea, since he was in Jerusalem only for the Passover celebration.

But Annas did not succeed in keeping control of the court. After Jesus had so unexpectedly answered Caiaphas, the high priest stepped forward and smote him in the face with his hand. Annas was truly shocked as the other members of the court, in passing out of the room, spit in Jesus’ face, and many of them mockingly slapped him with the palms of their hands.

And thus in disorder and with such unheard-of confusion this first session of the Sanhedrist trial of Jesus ended at half past four o’clock.

Thirty prejudiced and tradition-blinded false judges, with their false witnesses, are presuming to sit in judgment on the righteous Creator of a universe.

And these impassioned accusers are exasperated by the majestic silence and superb bearing of this God-man.

His silence is terrible to endure; his speech is fearlessly defiant.

He is unmoved by their threats and undaunted by their assaults.

Man sits in judgment on God, but even then he loves them and would save them if he could.

The Jewish law required that, in the matter of passing the death sentence, there should be two sessions of the court. This second session was to be held on the day following the first, and the intervening time was to be spent in fasting and mourning by the members of the court.

But these men could not await the next day for the confirmation of their decision that Jesus must die.

They waited only one hour.

In the meantime Jesus was left in the audience chamber in the custody of the temple guards, who, with the servants of the high priest, amused themselves by heaping every sort of indignity upon the Son of Man.

They mocked him, spit upon him, and cruelly buffeted him.

They would strike him in the face with a rod and then say,

“Prophesy to us, you the Deliverer, who it was that struck you.”

And thus they went on for one full hour, reviling and mistreating this unresisting man of Galilee.

During this tragic hour of suffering and mock trials before the ignorant and unfeeling guards and servants, John Zebedee waited in lonely terror in an adjoining room. When these abuses first started, Jesus indicated to John, by a nod of his head, that he should retire. The Master well knew that, if he permitted his apostle to remain in the room to witness these indignities, John’s resentment would be so aroused as to produce such an outbreak of protesting indignation as would probably result in his death.

Throughout this awful hour Jesus uttered no word.

To this gentle and sensitive soul of humankind, joined in personality relationship with the God of all this universe, there was no more bitter portion of his cup of humiliation than this terrible hour at the mercy of these ignorant and cruel guards and servants, who had been stimulated to abuse him by the example of the members of this so-called Sanhedrist court.

The human heart cannot possibly conceive of the shudder of indignation that swept out over a vast universe as the celestial intelligences witnessed this sight of their beloved Sovereign submitting himself to the will of his ignorant and misguided creatures on the sin-darkened sphere of unfortunate Urantia (earth).

What is this trait of the animal in man which leads him to want to insult and physically assault that which he cannot spiritually attain or intellectually achieve?

In the half-civilized man there still lurks an evil brutality which seeks to vent itself upon those who are superior in wisdom and spiritual attainment.

Witness the evil coarseness and the brutal ferocity of these supposedly civilized men as they derived a certain form of animal pleasure from this physical attack upon the unresisting Son of Man.

As these insults, taunts, and blows fell upon Jesus, he was undefending but not defenseless. Jesus was not vanquished, merely uncontending in the material sense.

These are the moments of the Master’s greatest victories in all his long and eventful career as maker, upholder, and savior of a vast and far-flung universe.

Having lived to the full a life of revealing God to man, Jesus is now engaged in making a new and unprecedented revelation of man to God.

Jesus is now revealing to the worlds the final triumph over all fears of creature personality isolation.

The Son of Man has finally achieved the realization of identity as the Son of God.

Jesus does not hesitate to assert that he and the Father are one; and on the basis of the fact and truth of that supreme and supernal experience, he admonishes every kingdom believer to become one with him even as he and his Father are one.

The living experience in the religion of Jesus thus becomes the sure and certain technique whereby the spiritually isolated and cosmically lonely mortals of earth are enabled to escape personality isolation, with all its consequences of fear and associated feelings of helplessness.

In the fraternal realities of the kingdom of heaven the faith sons of God find final deliverance from the isolation of the self, both personal and planetary.

The God-knowing believer increasingly experiences the ecstasy and grandeur of spiritual socialization on a universe scale—citizenship on high in association with the eternal realization of the divine destiny of perfection attainment.

[True narration as told by the invisible authors of the Urantia Book and quoted from it. To know more about it visit urantia-India website. Reproduced for those interested in knowing the details and meaning of the passion of Jesus Christ while the Christians observe the lent season of fasting and prayers in this year, 2013]

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Enhance Your Awareness Before You Buy Flashy Homes and Flats from Indian Real Estate Developers !

Cities grow in population due to higher job opportunities which causes movement of people from the rural and other areas of lower opportunities. Heavy influx of population further improves business opportunities which in turn propels job opportunities. If the infrastructure also grows rapid urbanization of the the city takes place.

In India such a thing has been happening. India has been witnessing massive urbanization in the recent times.

Personally, I am not in favour of massive urbanization. No doubt, massive urbanization might bring quick money and opportunities to a few for some time. But on the overall, it causes unequal development and inequality. The rural areas are likely to become more and more neglected and vulnerable with regard to law and order and security aspects.

The neglect in the rural areas with regard to law and order and infrastructure has been the sole factor for those affluent class from the villages shift their residences to the cities. More and more rich villagers of India are now are selling off their village properties and buying homes in the cities.

The available space in and around cities are diminishing due to growth of residential and commercial properties in the cities. Peripheral development and suburban growth is slow due to slow pace of growth in suburban infrastructure.

Private developers and colonizers are better placed to acquire land in the towns and cities because they know the process of identifying and buying the land better than the common people. This in turn causes all land to be in the indirect control of such people and their agents. The land prices in India has sky rocketed due to this and it is an all India phenomena now. The state governments of India help them in this process by keeping the land records and transaction processes cumbersome and unaffordable to the common people.

So it is indeed a difficult thing for any one to buy a piece of land and construct a home in any city or its suburbs in India, unless he has abundant patience and time.

The builder and developer come to the rescue of the common man in such a scenario.

They have indeed made the property acquisition process very simple for the common people. Just sign a few papers and documents here and there as advised by the property developer and agree to pay the money, the common man can now own a house or a property in the cities of India. But for this simplicity of process, he has to pay a price through his nose and face some good musics later on !

The property price keep rising geometrically. At least that is the inference you get if you watch and observe the property market. A residential flat that is offered for sale in a multi storied apartment complex at a price of say Rs.3000/- per square feet during its launch would become double or treble in just two three years time by the time the property becomes fully sold out. Whether such a thing actually happens or not, that is the general public impression.

So on the overall population influx to the cities of India is going to continue and there will always be people who want to own a property in the cities by adopting the easy route of acquisitions.

But living in a row house or a flat is different from living in an independent self contained house. Both have its own advantages and disadvantages.

The sole big advantage is the simplicity of becoming the owner of the house with a decent look and finish without taking much physical trouble and efforts. The second advantage is the satisfaction that your property value is rising day after day, regardless of the fact that  you ever encash it or not !

But in this process many people initially forget the hard realities of living in a colony.

If you are deciding to purchase a home from a colonizer or property developer, it is better for you to keep the following things also in mind:

1. Remember that the residential colony or a multi storied building that a developer develops requires constant and efficient maintenance and administration on a long term basis. The colonizer's responsibility expires when all his units are sold out. As per the existing laws, the colonizer cannot maintain the complex for ever. He has to hand over the administration of the complex to an association of the owners and hence forth it will be the sole responsibility of the owners' association to efficiently manage the affairs of the maintenance of the complex as built by the developers. So, it is essential that the owners know in depth about their own responsibilities in this. If they do not have good people who know about managing these affairs voluntarily and efficiently, they are going to face many kinds of problems in the future.

2. The most important functions of management of the property complex are :

a. Managing the security of the complex by appointing reliable and efficient security personnel either appointing their own personnel or hiring from reliable security agencies. Either of these functions are not so easy. It requires good man-management and negotiation skills from the part of the representatives of the owners' association. It is not always necessary that the owners themselves possess these skills or have time to devote for this. 

b. The complex need personnel for cleaning the general areas on a regular basis. There should be some one to check and supervise their activities.

c. The individual residential units generate solid wastes of all kinds and these need to be regularly collected and disposed. One of the biggest issues not addressed by the colony developers is this. It is normally assumed that the ultimate refuse disposal is the responsibility of the municipal authorities. The city governments normally charges hefty development fee from the developers before they give the permission for building their complex. However, it so happens that the system of refuse collection and disposal normally does not come into reliable operation so easily. It is advisable that the owners know about this before they decide to buy the property. They should also discuss this aspect with the colonizer in detail and satisfy themselves.

d. Electricity is an important aspect. It is better that the owner knows about the scheme of electric supply in the complex. It is also important that all the drawings and schemes of the electrical system should be taken over by the owners association from the builder while the builder hands over his responsibility to the owners association. It is better for the association to check the details of all these by some competent professional engineer. Other wise, they might face problems of later day maintenance if some trouble develops. The builders normally declares power back ups through generators. It is better to know how the generators are connected and their safe connection schemes to the main power supply. It is also important to identify the fuel supplies, storage, etc and their location safety and security.

e. Water supply is very important. It is important to know from where the water is sourced for the complex. In the beginning, the water to the complex might be from temporary municipal connections or from bore wells. While the complex is not occupied fully, such water supply may not create any problems to the initial residents. However, when the complex becomes fully occupied, the water supply becomes a big problem if the sources are not properly planned and executed. It is better to know whether the builder has approvals from the municipal authorities for full water supply and how the same would be implemented. It is also better to know the water supply scheme of the complex and get it checked by a competent engineer. In multistory buildings it is necessary to know the number of pumps, tanks, their capacities and the scheme of water supply to the individual units. Remember, if the water supply fails, no one can live in a multi storied apartment !

f. Waste water disposal is equally important. How is the sanitation of the building planned and executed ? What happens if the sanitary pipes get chocked or clogged ? Who will attend the problem ? Are there competent plumbers who know about the scheme and systems available in the vicinity whose services could be sought in case of a problem ? What is the capacity and life of the septic tanks ? Where is the waste waters from the complex connected to for ultimate disposal? What are the sewerage systems for rain water disposal and harvesting ?

g. In multi storied complexes lifts are the life lines. Remember that the lifts are also complex electro-mechanical devices which needs expert supervision and maintenance on a regular basis. While the lifts are taken over from the builder, all their relevant information and safety certification also must be obtained. It is always advisable that the lifts are operated only under the supervision of a lift operator. Automatic lifts are prone to life threatening accidents due to ignorance of the users. It is always better to entrust the lifts to be entrusted with some lift company on annual maintenance contract (AMC) basis.

h. While you live in your own independent house, its maintenance is perhaps fully in your control. But when it is a residential complex, you have to collectively ensure it and incur costs towards it. It is your collective responsibility to earmark a regular monthly sum for the said purpose and pay it to your association.

i. The better and efficient upkeep of your complex ultimately depends on the effectiveness of your representatives of your association who are entrusted with the voluntary task of managing the show. If it goes in to wrong hands, it will be managed wrongly and ineffectively and perhaps it will also costs you more. But this function is a democratic process and it is quite likely that you get bad representatives now and then who could make your life miserable. But that is inevitable. The more you become disassociated from your association, the more such problems you are likely to face.

j. Another thing in the privately developed residential complexes are the movement and parking space constraints. While some of the developers provide ample space, others are not so. Initially when the complexes are not occupied fully, the space appears sufficient. But as the occupancy gets to its full, the parking and movement really become a problem. It is better to check the details of these initially itself.

k. High rise buildings need to be checked with respect to their fire safety and exit arrangements. Some buildings have complex layouts which are difficult for the residents to understand. The free movement areas in the building, common to all, should be carefully studied before taking a decision to buy a unit in it.

l. There should be common facilities like meeting halls, office rooms and staff convenience facilities in the complex, in addition to other welfare and recreation facilities.

m. If recreation facilities like swimming pool etc are provided, it should be known how those will be maintained and the recurring costs for maintaining those.

n. It should be better to know the total recurring costs on a monthly basis for your unit and the likely and the maximum escalation in these. It is also advisable to insist to know the total maintenance costs for the complex as worked out by the developer and the average impact of that for every flat or house owner. Such information could be useful to benchmark the costs of running the complex by the owners association at a later day.

It is better that you are aware of all these before hand and be prepared for such problems.

It is quite possible that in the future our governments may evolve better statutes that would help to resolve these issues.

Governments may amend the present laws for allowing either the builders or other expert professional companies who could be entrusted to carry out the maintenance of the complexes on behalf of the residents and the owners on a long term basis.


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If Any of My Blogs Initiate a Thought Process in You, I am Rewarded !

I have been writing and publishing quite a number of blogs so far in this site. Mostly they are in English and some are in my mother tongue, Malayalam. The blogs are on all kinds of topics that are concerning with our life in our world established on our beautiful planet earth. Occassionally, I have preferred to call our earth by another word-Urantia- which means our heavenly place, because it is a globe floating in the great vastness of the heavens ! Ofcourse, this word is not my invention, but it is from my favorite book of life guidance-the Urantia Book. You would get to know much about this book from my blogs as many of my blogs are based on the life guiding principles and knowledge that I have obtained from this great book.

I am pained in heart due to the unreasonable revulsion, that the majority of the people of this world who have some how known about this book, show towards it. A good majority of pious and religious Christians consider this book as some 'Satanic Verses' which got introduced mysteriously by evil forces of Satan in this 'end times' of our world. They are  perhaps are biased by some  teachings and forewarnings  by Apostle Paul in the Bible compounded by their ignorant interpretations of the Bible verses.

Majority opinion can never be the right one in a world of mostly ignorant peoples. Our world has not yet overcome the bane of ignorance and superstitions. The majority people in this world are now followers of a religion founded in the name of Jesus Christ. The second most prominent religion too rever Jesus Christ as holy personality. But yet, none of them would perhaps give some heed to what Jesus had actually taught. This was what happened when Jesus himself moved among the common people of Israel and Palestine in his times. They followed him more for his miracles than for practising what he preached.

If Jesus would make a second appearance now just as a common human being, none of the Christians would ever believe him. Only power and pomp can make a difference to it. Such a situation is because we all lack the ability to understand truth from untruth to varying degrees.

So the Christians would not accept any thing other than the Bible as the word of God. Traditional customs and practices are much stronger than the meanings of any writings ! For Christians all other books which tells some other concepts other than the Bible, even when they are not some thing bad after all, are not palatable and not acceptable.

I have only this to say to them. Such is the attitude of the ardent followers of all religions. For, to every religionist, their religion is their faith, perhaps the blind faith and hence so dear and unchallengeable !

The Urantia Book does not condemn any religion or its followers. It simply states the development of the religions in our world and projects the truths they contain together with the humanly introduced untruths and half-truths. If we are not spiritually blind, it is not at all difficult to understand and appreciate what the Urantia Book wants to tell us.

The Urantia Book emphatically tells us that there is no apocalypse waiting for us earth beings wherein our earth is going to be destroyed. But, yes, the earth is going to be destroyed of evil eventually. But it is not by a visible holy war as we have been taught to believe. It is a gradual process of human evolution by which humans would evolve to higher intellectual mind levels that they no longer entertain group conflicts.

And when such a time comes, this same world of ours would be literally Urantia- a heavenly place of light and life ! But at the same time, even this heavenly earth is not our final abode. It is only our starting place in our life voyage ! All humans will face death in this world even when our earth has evolved to the highest levels of civilization. But a material death of that kind may not put a stop to our existence as a living being having a unique personality in this vast universe. The how and why of that aspect are dealt in the Urantia Book in such details as never handled by any one earlier.

My dear friend ! How can a book that emphatically describes about the love of God and the eventual triumph of goodness over evil could possibly originate from evil sources ?

I have read almost all religious books of all religions. I have also studied the Urantia Book. That has enabled me to know that what the Urantia Book tells is true. And that conviction stands firmly until I get corrected or updated  by some other knowledge which could be judged as superior.

Of course, many people have tried to evolve fascinated writings and thoughts based on the Urantia Book knowledge. There exists even other kind of information in the form of books that came into existence before and after the Urantia Book. I have carefully studied many of those too. I have written about those in some of my earlier blogs.

But none of them could withstand the ultimate scrutiny of a truth searching soul. So I have discarded all those. To be fair enough, let me admit that there are wonderful truths and good things in those books as well, just as the many religious books that we have today.

But none of them matches the Urantia Book as of now. Yet, the Urantia Book is not a final word. It might need to be augmented with higher levels of knowledge, perhaps at a later age when human beings attain the capacity to digest and comprehend such knowledge. This fact is emphatically told in the Urantia Book itself.

Let me tell you this my friend ! Though I write blogs depicting the human triumphs and failures in their day to day life in management, administration, governance, family life, spiritual development, politics, education, medicine, etc., I know pretty well that we are all differently enabled as of now in understanding each other.

As each one of us is a unique being in different levels of perfection, we cannot perhaps agree to each other in all matters concerning our life in this world. We perceive and undertand things differently in many situations. Ofcourse, there are also things which we understand and agree in the same way.

And that makes us living in a situation of mutual understanding and conflicts all at the same time.

If my parents, my wife, my children all undertand me the same way and I understand them in the same way, there cannot be any conflicts among us. We will be in perfect unison in our family life. If such a situation extends beyond my family to my neighbours, my country and our world, we all will be living in perfect harmony and peace.

So perfect living harmony is possible only when we attain a high state of perfect mind state.

The Urantia Book says God could have made us perfect right from the very beginning as nothing is impossible for God. In fact God has created innumerable living beings who are perfect. But they are not human beings.

But in creating us in imperfection and allowing us to develop to perfection in an evolutionary path, God's wisdom is unchallengeable.

The Urantia Book tells us that this allows us to gain more valuable insight and experience because we have the ability to experience the contrasts in life.

A person who has known good and bad both and decides to opt good should be really good rather than a person who is good because he has no choice for bad !

What do you say, my friend ?

[Please do take some time to come back and read my other blogs as well. You can reach to those by clicking the links in this page. I would be happy if you take some time to express your views using the comments facility down below. Here is the page link which gives the   list of all my Blogs  where you can open all my blog titles.]