FredP

In the spirit of full disclosure, I confess my first impulse was to shout "New Age Quack!" But upon closer inspection, I think there's actually quite a bit of worthwhile stuff in here. For one thing, it strikes me as being rather heavily influenced by the views of Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy, which I admit to having a bizarre fascination with -- despite the fact that I try not to take them too literally. Even there, I don't have any objection in principle to auras, even planetary ones -- though it must be kept in mind that there's nothing any more spiritual about auras than there is about bodies, or about magnetic fields than about biochemistry. That to say -- taken literally -- ideas like the "crystallization" of physical matter and life out of the etheric realm, and the existence of actual, elemental, conscious thinking-feeling organisms "out there," feeding vampirically off our emotions and thoughts, would still be scientific theories (not philosophical or theological ones) and subject to the usual means of verification.

But if we allow these ideas a bit more archetypal and symbolic value -- that is, allow them the freedom to be illustrations of eternal realities, expressed a bit awkwardly in physical forms as objects of contemplation, which was the way Steiner himself intended them -- then they have enormous transformative value. The reference to "aeons" is clearly gnostic, and points us in the direction of forms and structures of thought that are universal in scope, i.e. transcending physicality altogether, biochemical, magnetic, or otherwise -- principalities and powers, as it were. These aren't "beings" in the ordinary sense, that we interact with in the causal flux of time and space, but archetypal realities that we "plug into," and that influence or define us to some degree. (Jung et al.) These elementals can and do become incarnate in individuals and structures of society, as you have said -- and having done so, tend to see to their continued existence by means of social manipulation. The proliferation of individualism, consumerism, and greed, is undoubtedly magnified by the complete inundation of technological gadgets into our everyday lives.

The point about cleaving to Jesus as personality and/or for personal reasons vs. cleaving to Jesus as universal principle is dead on target.

Thanks for posting, and welcome aboard.

Jerry: I confess I have no idea how "recognizing" sin keeps us mired in spiritual infancy. Is a person spiritually infantile because they "recognize" murder, or greed, or oppression, or injustice? We can use whatever word we like, but there has to be some way of speaking about the fact that something about the world is fundamentally "off" -- we perceive existence as being separate, fragmented, and competitive, and act as such. The biblical word translated "sin" in the NT is actually an archery term (hamartia), meaning to miss the target. Broadly, "original sin" -- sorry for the brief excursion into metaphysics Aletheia! -- is the notion that the very structure of the cosmos, whether in its original design or through some fault, veils the truth in such a way that this illusion of separateness is impossible to overcome without a complete awakening and reorientation of consciousness.

Cynthia: thanks for the observation that sin often manifests itself as "choosing a good thing over the best thing"! It's important to point out that we're not just talking negatively about "not doing bad things" or "not doing wrong things," but about making God our highest love and acting accordingly. The same action or intention can be directed downward or upward, depending on the circumstance. This isn't a "relative" or "permissive" morality; on the contrary, it calls us to move beyond acceptable but "safe" actions, to actions that require sacrifices -- even sacrifices of good things. It's just like I had observed about fasting -- you don't fast because food is evil, but because contemplating the nature of your dependence on food stretches you spiritually.

Of course, I could just say that "all is Maya" and shuffle down the relative highway ....

Or, Jesus is coming back soon, so who cares? Interesting how similar they end up being, eh?

The main point I would make from this is that it is a false dichotomy to say part of the world is natural and part is artificial. Human beings are a product of nature, so people have thought for the last two centuries. So culture is a product of nature. So the ugliest building in your town is a part of nature.

I did not give another organization my e-mail address to read this article, but what I can say is that I have made exactly this criticism so many times that I've lost count. So much really bad environmental theory is thoroughly based on this false dichotomy. And I find it somewhat ironic that the "humanity is alien to nature" claim underlies both conservative religion and deep ecology. Every species transforms its environment; it's just that humans have such powerful capabilities of conceptualization, that our transformations can be as massive, and potentially destructive, as they are. But the answer isn't to stop transforming the environment; it's to learn better how to work with the grain of nature, rather than against it.

Anyway, thanks David for this bit of clear-headedness. I have no idea whether my comments relate to the original article or not.

I thought the story was pretty straightforward, I guess.

I found the last statement interesting:

The journey is not about going into the light. The forces of our human history and entanglement are tenacious and powerful. The path to inner freedom requires passing through them.

I can see how "passing through" could be read as "transcending." I think there is a certain sense of transcendence that applies here. It's not that we become literally able to rise above physical (or even psychological) necessities like eating and drinking -- though it's often expressed mythologically and/or in New Age circles to that effect, astral and light bodies and such -- but that in our consciousness we actually experience these "layers" as things we possess or have control over, rather than as what we are. Much like a child learns developmentally that she can manipulate her own body, and thereby transcend identification with it. It has become an object upon which she can operate. The transcendence occurs in the fact that body, mind, etc. are integrated into the higher orders -- not detached from them. That would be taking transcendence too grossly.

Anyway, to tie it back into renunciation, it seems to me that practices of restraint and discipline are the tools which enable us to disentangle the various layers of perceived identity, and integrate them into higher forms. There is, by the way, a lot of good science about the way these practices work, meditation for example -- not formulas and equations, but very specific states and types of experiences that are broadly reproducible, even across cultures. I'm leaning heavily on Ken Wilber's research on cross-cultural spirituality here.

I am a little wary of saying that we simply "shed our layers," though, and eventually arrive at some core, central, individual self. It seems to me rather that all manifestation, all form, is layers. (It's turtles all the way down.) When the layers are removed, there is only pure Emptiness, the pure Unmanifest -- and we realize that, to do anything at all, we must put the layers back on, and descend back into manifestation. Which is, of course, what we did in the first place. Don't take that chronologically, please.

I guess what I'm saying is, transcendence doesn't mean leaving the layers behind -- it means living in them, transparently, consciously, boldly.

I read Eternal Life? awhile back. I vaguely recall not getting overly excited about it. Perhaps a combination of it being pretty dry, and thinking, yeah, I already knew that. Reforming the Church Today was more direct and interesting, but mostly political. I've thumbed through The Catholic Church: A Short History, and Why I Am Still A Christian. Does God Exist? is on my shelf, but it's just way too long, and I suspect would be a rehashing of much philosophical exploration I've already done. I'll probably never get around to reading it.

I guess I understand his progressive appeal, and I'm certainly not trying to tell anyone not to read him, by any means. At the same time, I personally haven't his ideas all that novel or earth-shattering for some reason. When I hold his constructive theology up to Tillich's, for example, there's not even a contest.

A very wise person. I had not heard of this poet's work before. I'm more of the Gibran generation though.

Rumi was a 13th century Sufi mystic. I think most of his generation is no longer with us.

Our needy pit bull. Pardon the red-eye.

I do practice Lent; but mostly I'm a wuss who wants to practice more renunciation but doesn't do it.

Once upon a time, I wrote some Advent and Lent reflections which I distributed to my friends via e-mail. As it turns out, I believe I had just read Gerald May's Addiction and Grace when I wrote this, so it probably comes out. But I don't think that's a bad thing. As I recall, nobody ever told me to stop, so I guess they were ok.

Here is Ash Wednesday 2000:

As I write, it is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.  Across the various Christian churches, the response to the season of Lent varies rather widely.  Some traditions regard it as the center around which the church year revolves; others don't pay it any attention at all.  Ash Wednesday was always something I saw on the calendar, but I didn't have any idea what it was.  I thought maybe it was a Jewish holiday, like Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur.  And rarely did I ever hear the word Lent growing up, except in the context of jokes about "giving up this or that for Lent."

 

Well, it is this practice of "giving up this or that" that I want to focus on in this reflection.  It has become fashionable in modern criticisms of the Christian faith to condemn it for its other-worldliness and ascetic, life-denying morality.  Especially popular is the straw man of "Puritanism" -- a pleasure-denying philosophy of life where enjoyment is supposedly to be rigidly shunned. And here is Lent -- one more example of morbid Christian self-denial, propagated down through the centuries.  When are these Christians going to wake up and realize that pleasure is not a sin?

 

I won't deny that these criticisms have some element of validity.  It certainly has been taught by many down through the ages that bodily (sense) pleasures are inherently questionable, and that to indulge oneself in them is to open the door to the downward spiral of temptation.  Critics like to single out St. Augustine for his excessive self-denial about sexuality; however, that label can be stuck on hundreds of teachers, and it's not limited to Christian morality.  The great Mohandas Gandhi in our own century believed and taught similarly. Many believe, as I do, that an inadequate body-soul dualism has played a major contributing role in the formation of these beliefs and practices.  Certainly Augustine inherited just such a dualism from his Manichean past (and inadvertently helped to smuggle it into Christian morality).

 

But Lent is about an entirely different matter.  Lent is about fasting. Now, let's be sure that we understand fasting in the broad sense.  I'm not talking about wandering off into the wilderness and not eating for forty days (though that is technically a fast).  By fasting, I simply mean engaging the cycle of restraint and freedom.  Rest and activity.  Fasting and feasting.  The point of fasting is not to "give up" something that is bad or harmful to oneself.  In fact, quite the opposite -- fasting, while applicable in principle to just about anything, is in its specific sense understood to refer to food.  Food, as we all know, far from being harmful, is a basic requirement for life.  We can go without it for some time (our primate metabolism evolved to be able to store food for some days in the event of scarcity), but that would not be our first choice.

 

Even more importantly though, in this society of instant gratification, we seek everything (food included) frequently and in quantity because we have the resources to do so.  If we see a commercial for something we want, we go out and by one.  If we don't have the money, no problem, we'll just charge it.  We are so used to having what we want instantaneously, that we are robbed of the joy of anticipation.  Psychologically, as well as physiologically, we have come to accept the ease with which our needs and wants are met.  The joy of anticipation is a joy I think we all sorely lack, myself very much included.

 

So how does fasting address this situation?  In the case of physical needs, we acknowledge our deep dependency on them, and are sometimes met with our own harsh defenses when we attempt to go without.  Sometimes we succeed; probably more often than not we fail.  But in either case we confront our dependencies and come to know ourselves better.  Realizing our dependency on the simple things like food and drink keeps us from thinking too, too highly of ourselves.  In the case of our luxuries and wants, we also acknowledge a deep psychological dependency on acquired things, and even on our own patterns of acquisition, that we don't realize lurk just beneath the surface of our daily routines.  We may discover that some of these "luxuries" are actually addictions, and we may need to learn how to renounce them on more than just a temporary basis.  Additionally, we may confront seemingly harmless habits that mask deeper needs we have learned to neglect.  We may find that we engage in certain eating habits, for example, to drown out the voices of other needs or pains that are too difficult to address.  By fasting from those "harmless" habits, we may open the door to more healing than we imagined at first.

 

Perhaps this season is a good time to take stock of the things we take for granted.  Not necessarily the things that are harmful, but more subtly, the things that are not.  Perform a little experiment, and remove one or two of them from your life for the next six weeks.  Perform a little experiment called Lent.  See what you learn about yourself, and about what you depend on for survival.  Revel in the joy and anguish of anticipation.  Revel in the cycle of fast and feast.

This 'being human' is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival

 

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

 

Welcome and entertain them all

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep you house

empty of it's furniture.

 

Still treat each guest honorably,

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

 

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been 'sent'

as a guide from the beyond.

 

-- Rumi

Awesome. It's so Zen, except that he was Muslim.

I think one of the biggest challenges to the Judeo-Christian faith for people is the issue of people being burned by other people claiming to follow Christ whole heartedly and yet seem to be mean to everyone. ...

I agree with everything you're saying, but this really isn't the topic under discussion. The topic is: Is God Just? Why do bad things happpen to good people? Can we trust God to look out for our best interests? Does s/he care enough, is s/he powerful enough, etc., to do anything about them? And so on...

And what is particularly ANNOYING is the people are home through all of this. They are putting the dog outside and letting it howl, with no thought to their neighbors at all.

Ugh, that sucks. Weinaramers are a very active breed, they need attention and ACTIVITY! If you just want a dog to tie up in the yard all day, do some homework first, and find the right breed! Or if you really don't want to interact with it... umm... why get the damned dog in the first place?

We adopted a pit bull mix from a shelter downstate in IL two years ago. She's the absolute cutest and greatest dog ever, but also the neediest, and needs a lot of activity. Everybody knows it's cruel to abandon an animal, but it's also cruel to adopt a animal like this without being able to provide what it needs.

“As John makes clear, it is not God who disappears, but only our concepts, images, and sensations of God. This relinquishment occurs to rid us of our attachment to these idols and to make possible a realization of the true God, who cannot by grasped by any thought or feeling. At the time though, it seems like abandonment, even betrayal.”

Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly!

And to be fair to C. S. Lewis, I do respect the fact that he was willing to abandon concepts of God that he would have personally preferred, choosing instead to believe in God as God really appeared to him to be -- even if it was a God he didn't necessarily like -- a God whose action, or inaction in many cases, appeared to him in the context of time and circumstance to be unjust or even cruel. In other words, it was more important for him to believe in a true God -- as he understood that -- than it was to believe in a God he liked. That's theological courage, there, and you don't have to embrace Lewis' theology to respect it. Beware of cozy gods.

All the same, the question of whether God is just or fair naturally hinges on the question of the sort of reality you imagine God to be -- and on the question of what you imagine the most important good in the universe to be. If the mere eradication of suffering were the most important good, then a universe with no beings and no suffering would be fantastic. On the other hand, perhaps God considers our spiritual awakening so important, that it's worth all the suffering in the world.

My wife has what I call "puzzle intelligence" -- she looks at incomplete smatterings of data, and just sees the answer. She always kicks my ass on the part of intelligence/IQ tests that involves putting story cards in order, etc. Anyhow, I discovered Sudoku at Border's a couple months ago, and knew she'd get hooked, so I bought her a book of puzzles. It's actually an incredibly cool puzzle, the rules are so simple, but you sort of find yourself deriving higher-level rules and patterns the more you do them. Good brain calisthenics!

Yeah, my hubby and I talked about this a bit today. What you said describes him perfectly. He is comfortable in front of a group and with people and performs well in social situations, but it drains him. He is an INTP.

We are a rather dashing bunch aren't we! Is he an engineer, by any chance?

I'm actually pretty close to the INTP/INFP border, which is interesting. I love math, logic, philosophy (duh), engineering, and pretty much any kind of analyzable, complex system -- but it has to be applicable to something potentially practical, humanitarian, and experiential (like spirituality) to really pull me in. Even the most abstract of systems like mathematics and logic are deeply moving for me, in a very direct, emotional way. I'm especially drawn to music theory, because it's a place where logic and emotion converge -- you don't just understand a great counterpoint or chord progression, you simultaneously experience it. I was actually a music composition major before philosophy grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me kicking and screaming into it.

Socially, I'm pretty lousy in front of a group, but I perform well enough in a social situation if I have some familiarity with the group, and in terms of professional or avocational groups I can even take over to some extent, if I feel like I'm the best qualified to do so. As long as I'm not physically elevated above them. Weird, huh? Horizontal leadership, if you'll pardon the double entendre. Still, in all cases, it's draining, and I need solitude to recharge. I have a very definite limit of how much social interaction I can take.

When I took my book to work a few years ago, every single person that took the test scored as an introvert. I wonder if the extrovert/introvert questions are skewed somehow.

 

I know I am an introvert, but my husband (imo) is very extroverted, and even he scores as an introvert. 

I think the relevant criterion for the I/E scale comes down to whether you draw your energy from being with others or in solitude. A person who is very comfortable and performs well in social situations, but finds it a bit draining after awhile, and needs to get away to recharge afterwards, is technically an introvert. An extrovert, on the other hand, needs social interaction to recharge the batteries.

I thought that the "two subatomic particles flying apart while communicating" experiment was performed a lot longer ago than this. Isn't this the Michelson-Morley experiment, or am I thinking of something else?

Anyway, I am a big fan of Bohm -- who by the way is the real thing, not some frufru pseudoscientist -- and I think the holographic model is going to turn out to be either exactly correct, or at least pretty damned close.

It's not, of course, that the universe doesn't exist, or is an illusion -- it's that its separateness is an illusion. The universe is real, and is exactly what it is.

Thanks for the posts Flow! This is great stuff.

It's more than remotely possible -- I think doing our own individual soul work is exactly what removes the suffering in the world -- the subset of suffering that is caused by ego and power drives anyway. There is a direct correspondence between harmony in the soul and harmony in the world, as Plato argued so expertly long ago. (The exact details of his harmony in the state were somewhat rigid and elitist, but the observation can be appreciated nonetheless.) Changing policies and procedures in society doesn't accomplish a whit, if the individuals that comprise it are all still running around like big bottomless egos.

I don;t think it fair to lable a person a Fundamenbtal christian simply because they believe in mircles of the resurrection...and thus place such a believer on the same level as a bigot. Maybe start a new thread on this very subject?

I'm not sure whether it merits a new thread (don't let me stop you though) -- but yes, it's a very important point! I made a comment sometime back about what your beliefs are being a different issue than how you hold them. That's essentially what you're talking about here.

Let me go out on a limb and take this thought a step further. What about a person who has honestly searched the scriptures and her heart, and genuinely comes to the belief -- not out of superiority, or hatred, or bigotry, but out of prayerful consideration -- that pastoral leadership is not a viable option for women? I'm not saying I fall into this category -- I don't, in fact -- but would you agree that there is a big difference between a person like this, and the stereotypical, misogynistic, "Shut up, woman, and bring me my dinner" type of chauvinist pig? Like I said, I'm not asking you to agree with the belief, but to expand your horizons and perhaps appreciate that a person could hold this belief without being a hateful bigot. I know that this is a very hot-button issue for you, so I'm not saying it won't bring up strong feelings.

Incidentally, the benefit of being able to appreciate that such a person could genuinely, responsibly, hold this belief, is that you can sensibly argue with them about the actual theological issue, without detouring into flaming and name-calling -- and probably have a better chance of actually convincing them that you're right! And if not... well, you save yourself the ulcer and lockjaw. Either way it's a win.

Just a thought...

Posted on: Today, 04:26 AM

Maybe you'd be more extroverted if you got some sleep.

It's interesting how similar these scores are, considering that four of us have taken it already, and we're all introverted intuitives. I wonder if that's due to the fact that we're TCPCers, or that we're high-volume Internet users.

I guess these results officially make me a dangerous potential emotionally-driven thinking terrorist threat.

Yeah, that's what I've always thought.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I wouldn't even dare to diminish it by adding any thoughts of my own.

Obviously, if I had to pigeonhole myself into one of those three boxes, I'd have to be amillennial. But it's still a really artificial fit, since the "millennium" doesn't really figure into my thinking at all. As I've expressed during my many ruminations on time and Eternity -- that Aletheia loves so much! -- I don't believe that redemption occurs in the temporal future, or that Christ will come back to earth to reign for some period of time, whether it be a literal or metaphorical 1,000 years. Eternity is not an infinitely long time: it's the ontological ground of time itself. All universes will pass away -- by which I don't mean that God will destroy them out of anger, but simply that they are temporal in nature, and will run their due course. But because time is grounded in Eternity, Eternal Life comes to us as the character of presence, of NOW-ness, of each and every moment -- not as the protraction of temporal life into a never-ending future. This is what is meant by the often misunderstood claim that "now is all there is": not that there is no past or future, but that all moments -- past, present, and future -- are grounded in the great NOW that transcends and gives meaning to all time.

If anything, "the millennium" doesn't mean that Christ will reign for a long time, but that, in Eternity, Christ reigns over time itself.

Yeah, quite a few ambigous questions, but actually a pretty good test. Pretty much exactly what I described!

Your Type is INTP

Introverted 100

Intuitive 88

Thinking 1

Perceiving 44

Qualitative analysis of your type formula

You are:

* very expressed introvert

* very expressed intuitive personality

* slightly expressed thinking personality

* moderately expressed perceiving personality

http://keirsey.com/personality/ntip.html

http://typelogic.com/intp.html