Davidsun

Hello Anthony! From some writing I am currently doing: "... let’s aim to figure out what Jesus may and may not have actually meant when he said things like “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6), and “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47), the implication of that being that one wouldn’t or at least might not (have such life) if one didn’t (believe so). Many, interpreting such words literally, simply think that just believing without any doubt that Jesus was/is (literally!) the singularly Godly ‘son’ of our singularly Godly ‘father’, and therefore unreservedly accepting and embracing him as (literally!) being their personal ‘Lord and Master'** and so just thinking and doing as he instructed (including asking for and receiving his ‘forgiveness’ whenever they didn’t), will surely result in their (literally!) being personally ‘resurrected’ after their bodies die and thereafter forevermore ecstatically living with said Father-God and Son-Jesus in the absolutely blissful (completely suffering-free) heavenly locale where they project He and Jesus eternally reside, and wherefrom an enthroned King Jesus personally decides who will and who won’t be admitted and allowed to join them therein. ** Jesus did express himself using such figures of speech which those around him were familiar with and could meaningfully relate to (as elucidated in Chapter 1), but his focus was always primarily on attempting to alter people’s sense of what were and weren’t desirable, Love and Joy augmentative attitudes and service-functions between people regardless of any differences in social role and power status between them, as for instance in: “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet.” (John 13:13-16) Notwithstanding the number of the absolutely-believing promoters and guarantors of the fore-referenced belief and expectation scheme, and though I too acknowledge and frequently extol the miraculous-seeming power of mentally focused thoughts (beliefs, etc.) and emotionally embraced attitudes (expectations, etc.), I submit for logical consideration the proposition that the probability that anyone may thereby ensure such kind of ‘heavenly’ forever-after can really be no greater than the probability that believing and expecting, even without any doubt whatsoever, that any personally subscribed to belief-and-expectation-system related talisman, mantra, prayer, ritual behavior or combination thereof can and will ensure that any of one’s desires will be fulfilled as desired or that one will be ‘saved’ from experiencing anything one wishes not to as wished. Why? Because, though it is indeed amazingly ‘elastic’ (in the sense of being able to parallelly☺ accommodate a wide range of alternative probabilities), which fact allows for it to be locally pattern-shifted for periods of time, the matrixial ‘fabric’ of the stream of Life – which one’s (that is, everyone’s!) experience and expression is part of – is flow-woven together by much more than the power of any one person’s or subgroup’s effect-generating belief and expectation ‘weavings’. Besides, such kind of super-power dispensed postmortem ‘salvation’ and heavenly union-with-God ‘reward’ (or their opposites: hellish separation-from-God ‘punishment’ and ‘perdition’) scenarios may only be temporarily experienced in the context of a personally encapsulating astral realm movie-script, not in super-eminent, actually forever-ongoing, Love and Joy based Reality. Why? (1) Because, as sussed out in the preceding chapter, The Source (or ‘Father’) which sustains our personal existences and The Entity of Creation (or ‘Son’, which Jesus mentally and emotionally completely identified with and so actively represented and spoke in the ‘name’ of ) which flows therefrom (i.e. from ‘the Father’) and contains us are not persons (per se) but actually transpersonal features and aspects of LiIFE; (2) because ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ actually reference spiritual states of heart and mind not spatio-temporal environments; and (3) because the ‘nature’ of the ‘spirit’ of Love and Joy, a/k/a LIFE, is ever evolving, such that no (personal or transpersonal) gestalt of ITs Being-n-Doing ever lasts in the same ‘form’ or ‘state’ (in or out ‘worldly’ contexts) forever!"

Your 'key' (to your 'lock') ain't mine (either 'lock' or 'key'), Bro. Enjoy your 'corner' of Being.

I apologize for the disjointedness of aspects of my preceding post. I get so wrapped up in the 'totality' my ideas, I often don't see 'gaps' present in my verbalizations. I hope some readers will grok the gist of my 'vision' nevertheless. Blessings, thoughtful ones!

Very interesting discussion, everyone. It additionally 'informs' (what I think of as) my 'mission', which is to formulate and introduce (i.e. 'inseminate') the best (meaning potentially maximally positive, quality-of-spiritual-experience-and-expression-and-further-evolutionary-development-in-an-Earthly-content) set of woven-toother 'memes' into the 'stream' of human philosophical-n-religious mentation which I can image-'in'. I am still i the process of developing my ideas and projection possible futures in this regard based on my readings and considerations of others' ideas (historially) conceived of with said best 'goal' mind in light of their historical consequences to date. Here are some of caveats deriving therefrom: Historically, people have projected an ideal (note the similarity of the word's form to idol), based on the understand that all of 'Creation' is really One, one Being-Doing, of a human-constituted 'church' (or 'society', or 'family') characterized by benignly all-inclusive Conscious Love. This 'dream' is reflected in Jesus' having both lived and said things like: "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. (in John 10) and others after him, who hoped and lived to establish a 'church' which would serve as a 'key' agent helping to actualize said 'promise' saying: "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest." (in Hebrews 8) which 'dream' continues to be embedded in the psyches of many who have grown up in the same, now multi-millenial Judeo-Christian-Islamic, 'tradition' which he was part of and who continue said 'dream' today. (For those who may not be aware of it, the latter statement was really just the reiterates of 'the dream' as stated (in Jeremiah 31) in the Old Testament: "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD." But as a (furthering of the) discussion tactic let me offer some what ifs: What if the 'dream' really stems from unrealistic desires for an UTOPIAN society? What if this world is base-ically (necessarily, practically speaking) a matrixial mix of in infinite range of all possibilities, from 'bad' to 'good', from 'worse' to 'better', frmo 'mediocre' to 'exceptional', from 'failing' to 'succeeding', and that it would best serve the purpose of soul-development (souls gradually 'opening' to knowing Spirit-'Life', 'God', 'Him', 'Christ', whatever you wish to call IT and consequently, a some point, 'hatching' and 'feldging' into full-flight spiritual-realm-'immorality') if it continued to, apparently 'imperfectly', be so? Speaking of the 'problem' being analogized a their being 'different' tabled and as well as 'different' conversations at 'different' tables (is only a 'problem' if one regards it as being 'indicative' of something undesirable, like the unfulfillment of the above mentioned, regarded-as-being-desirable, dream: do you think a maturely 'loving' couple would really the fact that they had to speak to and relate with their children in a different way of different ways than they spoke and related between themselves - that they wouldn't be 'happy' to have their children sit at their own (chidren's) table, at least now and then, that they could have 'dinner(s) at their own (parental) table at least part of the time so they wouldn't always have to talk in ways or about subject that their children could 'handle'? Would they regard this is a 'failure' to establish and enjoy communal worship at a completely universally-inclusive 'church'? I offer this (parent-child model) as a very practical way of thinking about the whole 'church' (and 'membership' - all members being integrally 'united') subject, which has been framed as very warm-fuzzy 'ideal' dream but which dream IMO is not really 'in keeping' with ultimate soul-development possibilities and considerations. I would go so far as to say that 'waking up' from that dream (in which anything 'less' is 'seen' as somehow being non-'ideal') is necessary for a soul to truly know, embrace and live 'in accord' with what the REAL dynamic of Spirit-Life actually IS. Not that I don't think that the general level of present 'children's table' talk shouldn't or can't be upgraded in (more) progressive ways, mind you. Just aiming to clarify and introduce more psychologically/spiritually sophisticated ideas into the whole 'church' and 'churches' discussion. I am very impressed by and quite favorably disposed towards Spong-and-associates' endeavors in this regard. Nothing wrong (and a great deal that is right!) with attempting to make something as 'good' (meaning as positively 'creative') as it can possibly be.

Open-mind-and-heartedness - premised on the suspicion-hunch-belief(?) that what one already knows and relates to (i.e. 'loves') surely doesn't encompass everything (under heaven) that there is to be known and loved strikes me as being the height of secure-in-being-insecure 'sanity'!

Hi-Ho Thormas - My thought is that I may not be 'seeing' something (a distinctions) that you 'know' and so are 'pointing' to. Or I may just be using and thinking of the meanings of words in ways that differ from the ways you think of and use them. All I can say is that my understanding of 'the impulse' is that it is the same as what you call 'the call'. IMO, said 'impulse' can be and often is denied/rejected as a result of 'narrow'-minded, i.e. 'short'-sighted, 'immediate'-gratification-oriented selfishness which doesn't 'see' or 'feel', i.e. which doesn't really 'know', that it is thereby betraying the intention of the 'greater' cap S Self 'hand' which it is a 'finger' on. Whatever the case, the difference between us is not important in overall terms, I think - just that one 'way' of 'thinking and feeling' may indeed 'work better' for 'you' while the other 'works better' for 'me'. Do please download the article and occasionally give it a spot read it here and there in spare moments - no need to 'commit' yourself to a close reading of it in its entirety - just give it the chance to 'grab' your attention - it will if it is going to - and if it doesn't, because we all ultimately have to 'walk' our 'own' walks in any case, that's fine too. I think, except in cases where souls totally 'cop out' (on) themselves, the 'call' (and/or the 'impulse') will ultimately prevail because, like a bird which ultimately fledges and leaves it egg-nest, 'flying' is in Life's program-'code' (spiritually speaking), again so I think. IMO, though it may appear that peeps only get there by intending (i.e. proactively choosing) to do so, "Resistance is (ultimately) futile!" in said regard. Though I do think that intention and deliberate choice can and will speed the process along once one has been 'turned around' and so faces and sees what lies ahead in said self-transcending/transcendent direction. I have often jokingly commented that I have been 'kicked bass-ackwards (LOL), despite all my 'moves' to the contrary, into heaven' - which is what you may be referencing a kind of 'grace' dispensation. The latter two paras, whatever their relevancy of lack thereof to your experience, are just 'me' sharing thoughts aiming to be provocatively stimulating by loose-lippedly babbling.

I 'see' it as an impulse (i.e. in-pulse) to Become, which may be ex-peer-ienced as a 'call'. Either way, the concept of an 'urge' in this regard applies, I think. Also, I see it (the process) as being both a 'going forth' and a 'folding back'. In the article provided a link to, I wrote: "Many would rather simply believe that by saying “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) Jesus unequivocally asserted that the gestalts of his and his/our Father’s spirits were absolutely identical,i.e. that they were literally one and the same aspect of Life in action; case closed. Such statement may certainly be read that way and, taken by itself, used to support God-concept co-opting narratives such as the one presented in the Nicene Creed [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed] which proclaims that the personage of Jesus was “begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made;” etc. But it may also be taken to mean that Jesus thought and felt that his and said Father-God’s spirits were dynamically integrated and functionally co-operational, and so 'united' as ‘one’, metaphorically speaking, in terms of purpose and consequence – analogous to the way in which partners who aren’t identical may accomplish something they both desire when and as they work together in a complementary manner, which they couldn’t and so wouldn’t be able to creatively accomplish if each worked alone. (This is what holism really means, by the way: “Holism is based upon idea that: the whole is more than the sum of its constitutive parts, so reduction of the whole to its constitutive elements eliminates some factors which are present only when a being is seen as a whole. For example, synergy is generated through the interaction of parts but it does not exist if we take parts alone.” [quoted from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Holism) For those who have reached the point where they are capable of dispassionately pondering such matters, I submit that “The Father is in me, and I in him” (John 10:38) which Jesus added in the same speech-sequence (as “I and my Father are one”) clearly shows the latter understanding to be what he actually meant to communicate. Notwithstanding the meta-truth that every ‘feature’ of Creativity (Life, God, Reality, Being – however you wish to view and reference It) is an inseparably integral aspect of one all-inclusive phenomenon, in light of which any and all conceptual ‘divisions’ which distinguish aspects of It one from another may be seen to really just be navigational aides at best, this saying indicates that Jesus ‘saw’ that there was a dynamic, two-way flow-connection between the primally progenitive soul of ‘the Father’ and the consequentially co generative soul-constellation of ‘the Son’, such that the outflow from one functions as inflow in relation to the other in continuously ongoing outflow→inflow→ad infinitum fashion. (Readers capable of engaging in abstract thought experiments may appreciate the kind of experience an observer walking lengthwise along the seemingly two-sided ‘surface’ of a mobius strip [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Möbius_strip] would have and, if reasonably intelligent, sooner or later grok as analogically ‘explaining’ the never-ending ‘story’ of ever-ongoing Father↔Son Creation.)" Great groovin' (withchoo!) jehosophats, Thormas! P.S. I think 'the urge' ('impulse', 'calling') - which is what I think(?) you mean by 'the Word' - emanates/comes from 'the Father' (the 'Creator') and so is pervasively 'built' 'into' 'the Son' (i.e. 'Creation'). One might say that said 'urge' is 'Creativity' (ITSELF!) 'speaking' (as a 'voice' in one's 'head' - do it, I say DO IT, by Gum! LOL)

High Five, Thormas! Glad to see (sense?) the convergence in our perspectives/understandings. Given that the 'the Word' concept doesn't compute in my way of thinking, I don't know you will go along with this, but I 'see' (imagine?) a kind of feed-back 'loop' between that which is 'created' (which is 'creative' in own right) and the (originating) 'Creator' - such that the 'Creator' then becomes 'more' or 'different' that it (previously) was as a result of 'creation' continuing to 'fold back' into It. So, for instance, I personally image-in the quality-ative 'nature' of 'the Father' (the 'vibe' of the Life-'Force') at the time of the dinosaurs as having been significantly different from It's 'nature' since more caring for their off-spring 'mammals' and 'bird' 'arose'. And, for another instance, I image-in the quality-ative 'nature' of 'the Father' (the 'vibe' of the Life-'Force') before and at the time of Moses to have been significantly different from its 'nature' at and since the time of Jesus's Being. The way I see It, the 'nature' of 'God' (the 'Creative Nexus of the Life-Force) evolves (to become more and and more 'loving', IMO) as a result of what it 'learns' in the course of expressively living and (so) expeeriencing. Hence the idea of 'the Son' ('creation') feed-back looping and becoming a dynamic aspect of 'the Father' and 'you' and 'me' feed-back looping into said 'Father'-and-'Son' phenomenon - which is what I think Jesus's words "Ye shall know I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." (John 14) were intended to mean. Of course, there are other ways of interpreting the same words. In this regard, I personally think of all (any and all 'sets' of) 'ideas' (i.e. meaning-full 'constructs') as basically just being tools, only valuable in terms of the Quality-of-Life augmentative 'uses' to which they can be and so are put.

I appreciate your attempt to grok my understanding. As a friend of mind commented, my writing is quite 'dense' (densely 'packed', that is). It certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea. You may simply have repeat of the same experience, but if you wish to try (again) to 'see' what I 'see', the larger context of the excerpt I shared is available as a 23 page (pdf) essay: http://davidsundom.weebly.com/uploads/7/7/6/5/7765474/what_jesus_meant-ch1.pdf Caveat: my intention in offering this link is to be 'helpful', but, given the way my mind works (and consequent writing 'style'), you and/or others might find attempting to read that whole essay even more frustrating.

The way I 'see' IT what Jesus referenced as 'the Father' is THE Life-Force, or THE Force (for short), It is THAT which 'gives' 'rise' to all BEING (i.e. what Jesus referenced as 'the Son') and and power-fully 'animates' every aspect-'act' of said "Son's" DOING ("The Son can do nothing of himself!" John 5: 19) Said Force is ubiquitously ensconced 'in' aspect of BEING which being is the 'exterior' expression -- one might say it is the 'outer' 'Creation' -- of said 'Force'. There is nothing 'outside' of said expression. Said expression IS the 'out'side of said ubiquitously ensconced, 'in'side 'Force'. All aspects of said expression are interconnected -- the 'out"-put thought-feeling-and-action 'doings' of each and every (aspect of) 'being' feeds back (think of an web of interlinked computers) and serves as 'in'put for each and every 'other' and thereby 'feeds back' into 'the Father' in the process. As expressed in the following passage from a piece that I wrote, Jesus knew and proclaimed this. I would therefore argue that his understanding of Life was 'panentheist'ic! "Jesus’ vision was even more penetrating and far-seeing than even the statement “The Father is in me, and I in him” implies. Presaging that wave-ripples of awareness and spiritual espousal of what he ‘saw’, embraced and articulated would spread and become so mutually validating and reinforcing as to eventually peak in a worldwide crescendo, continuing to [psychospiritually] identify with and so speak in the ‘persona’ of The Entity of all Creation, he then went on to say, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20) Such statement cannot possibly be made sense of using simple, linear A→B→C logic, of course, but how aspects of the identities of personal and transpersonal beings (beingnesses, really) can operationally be ‘in’ one another becomes readily understandable when and as one realizes, as more and more people are now doing, that our existential reality is a matrixially interwoven, dynamically living (that is, creatively growing, developing, evolving, etc.) system wherein the output of every personal and transpersonal component of said system functions as input in relation to any and all other components which, because of constitutional similarities and/or complementary affiliations, are vibrationally ‘attuned’ thereto, such that the process of every singular or compound element thereof, ‘from the least to the greatest’, ultimately directly or indirectly affects and is affected by the process of every other aspect of Life." "Life" just being another 'label' for the above spoken of (Godly! ) 'Force', of course! I am an 'educator' - I think I was born that way - LOL! The idea of everything and everyone being a dynamically interconnected 'element' of a ('motherly'? 'matriarchal'? ) Matrix that is continually being Life-'inseminated' ( ) by a ('fatherly') Force strikes me as being more functionally applicable to 'the world' we conjointly expeerience than the idea of everything and everyone just being a boundaried egg-'circle' within a gigantic Womb-'Circle'. My hope is that others will enjoy 'seeing' it that way too! Woohoo, y'all!