Religion & Physics. XXIc.

[iman]

thank you very much Nick for giving a thought to my humble words, there is no energy in your very deep thoughts, you know why? you admit it actually and i thank you for the answer i was looking for, YES i believe that God want you to grow in just forgetting Hm to say your soul, religion and their followers are just to repeat the words but they are not the one who is playing the truth in God, believe me any man who suffer and face it of any expression arts or giving to himself is much more god than all religious acts, i can proove it, arts are making the conscious not the church, chiism of religions made the civilization and the progress in minds

[Nick_A]

Omar, I’ll have to reply either later or tomorrow but I just want you to know that I’ve found something I believe we agree upon completely and it has been proven to us experientially and not just theoretically.

If you’re lacking thought and emotion then what could the word “Know” mean? In any case, we can agree that retrospection requires that we leave out the word, or as she has said thinking of thongs of this world.

Yes I’ve learned this by experience though I sincerely doubt she said it. Concentrating too much on some delightful thongs does nothing for my introspection. It is difficult to put their attraction into a worldy perspective. One quality thong slightly covering a something capable of doing justice to it has a way of making me temporarily oblivious of perspective.

[socratus]

In many ancient writings it was claimed: “A man, perceive yourself”.
It was appeal to a man “to perceive oneself” not on the physical or psychological level, but on the spiritual one.
But can a man perceive his spiritual essence?
In ancient Indian composition “Bhagavat-Gita” was said:
“You carry in yourself the Greatest friend whom you do not know.
Because God lives inside every man, but not everybody can find him”.
In Dzen-Buddhism it is said about the possibilities of a man
“to find Buddha in his nature”.
An Arabic poet Omar al-Khayyam, admirer of Sufism, wrote:
“What is your flash, Khayyam? Tent where for overnight’s stop,
As a wandering shah, the spirit made a stop”.
Ancient wise men said: “perceive yourself and you will perceive the Universe”.
“At the top is like at the bottom”. On what basis did they claim this?
Where from did the ancient wise men know that everything starts
from the Emptiness, from Vacuum?
Why did they claim that circle is a sacred figure?
Such exact perception and understanding of the world is connected only with the personal abilities of a man.
Ancient wise men perceived World through themselves, through their spiritual essence. And they demanded the same from others.
Some people who survived from clinical death, claim that they saw their material body
and everything happening around as if from the side, that is at that moment they were not a material body.
Who were they?
Let us suppose that the feelings of the people after the clinical death are subjective.
Let us suppose that those expressions of the ancient wise men are also subjective.
And is it possible those subjective expressions to prove by the science?
Is it possible to find in physics experiments that would prove subjective confirmations and wisdom of the sages?

[Nick_A]

Hi Omar

– “You’re dilutted. you are a slave sphere and thus you cannot know the truth, but there exist atrue reality outside of this cave.”

Can you see my point?..

Yes, but you are speaking of cosmology where one world exists within another. I’ve come to understand that Man’s arising on earth isn’t from God or outside time and space but rather from the level of the “Son” which is within time and space

In “A Sense of the Cosmos,” Jacob needleman defines consciousness in a cosmological sense which is what you seem to be writing:

In order to warn us about this tendency in ourselves, the traditional teachings–as expressed in the Bhagavad-Gita, for example–make a fundamental distinction between consciousness on the one hand and the contents of consciousness such as our perceptions of things, our sense of personal identity, our emotions and our thoughts in all their color and gradations on the other hand.
This ancient distinction has two crucial messages for us. On the one hand, it tell us that what we feel to be the best of ourselves as human beings is only part of a total structure containing layers of mind, feeling and sensation far more active, subtle and encompassing (like the cosmic spheres) than what we have settled for as our best. These lawyers are very numerous and need to be peeled back, as it were, or broken through one by one along the path of inner growth, until an individual touches in himself the fundamental intelligent forces in the cosmos.

At the same time, this distinction also communicates that the search for consciousness is a constant necessity for man. It is telling us that anything in ourselves, no matter how fine, subtle or intelligent, no matter how virtuous or close to reality, no matter how still or violent–any action, any thought, any intuition or experience–immediately absorbs all our attention and automatically becomes transformed into contents around which gather all the opinions, feelings and distorted sensations that are the supports of our secondhand sense of identity. In short, we are told that the evolution of consciousness is always “vertical” to the constant stream of mental, emotional and sensory associations within the human organism, and comprehensive of them (somewhat like a “fourth dimension”). And, seen in this light, it is not really a question of concentric layers of awareness embedded like the skins of an onion within the self, but only one skin, one veil, that constantly forms regardless of the quality or intensity of the psychic field at any given moment.

Thus, in order to understand the nature of consciousness, I must here and now in this present moment be searching for a better state of consciousness. All definitions, no matter how profound, are secondary. Even the formulations of ancient masters on this subject can be a diversion if I take them in a way that does not support the immediate personal effort to be aware of what is taking place in myself in the present moment.

I’ve experienced this myself which is why I believe what I posted on the GoT to be true. The conscious experience of oneself invites being “known” from above. It is how I believe Simone became “known.” It is only a minority that have come to accept the distinction between consciousness and the contents of consciouosness but to me it seems essential for higher understanding. It adds this additional necessary psychological dimension we are normally oblivious of.

If you’re lacking thought and emotion then what could the word “Know” mean?

Knowing is the result of interpretation or “contents of consciousness” What she is referring to is direct experience before interpretation. In all fairness this takes years to develop such freedom and perhaps Socratus has a good Eastern expression that could help clarify this.

All that to me only proves that there is meaning in our hearts and that Reality may not satisfy it. It is not by some objective interaction that meaning is received. Meaning and the lack of it have their birth in the heart of the man. Perhaps the calling is just within ourselves and refers to no outside, or higher being, but to the yearning in our hearts alone.
But why see this? Yea, when the belief in Heaven leaves one in a better situation that before…perhaps in someone’s youth…

To the contrary it is only reality that can satisfy it. As we are, we are incapable of experiencing it. We get in our own way. We live in Plato’s cave, maya, illusion or described in so many words indicating the same situation. This is our great misconception. we believe that we have access to the experience of reality. But once we experience living in a dream, we see the mistake this is.

Our only requirement for reality is that it fills us, that it makes us whole, satisfied, happy, eternal. It is not then about obedience to something from without but from within, as our only God is our ego. A God that we cannot understand is no God. A reality that leaves us yearning for meaning is no reality. God is God by His utility to us.

The bridge doesn’t fill the whole but allows us to stay in the direction that leds to its other side

You say that a god that we cannot understand is no God. Would it be also right for a first year student of math to say that the prof. who has a degree in higher math is no mathematician since they don’t understand him? The student could say it but another may say that he does not understand math so his opinion is useless. This is our situation. IMO, instead of proclaiming that “A God that we cannot understand is no God,” it would be better for those concerned to ask how I can grow to understand God.

You say “God is God by his utility to us” I maintain that men are only really men when they are of conscious use to God’s will. This for me is the essential religious calling: how to become conscious and participate at that level in God’s will.

From the Pope poem:

A fair description of the human condition…

True but is this condition our potential or just what is normal for cyclical unconscious life?

O- Instrospection, she is saying, results in a lack of thought about the world, a lack action and a lack of emotion. For this reason it prevents “that which is of greatest value in us from playing its part.” So why should we know ourselves? Why should we not instead simply Think about things in the world? Why should we not rather act? Why should we not rather feel and feel strongly? I can agree with this. This is what I mean that it is not what we know or don’t know about ourselves, in whichever way you or I understand this, but what we do.

I see that Socratus is a student of the Gita and perhaps can lend a hand here. In the Gita, Arjuna, this great warrior, is faced with a serious problem. He is to participate in a major battle and the opposition includes many relatives. He finally comes to tears, throws down his weapons and expresses his dilemma to Krishna.

Now in modern times Arjuna would be surrounded immediatly by a dozen female psychologists praising his sensitivity while demanding an immediate stop to all this nonsense. But Krishna tells him to participate in the great battle. The "why"of this is extremely profound psychology and refers to the necessity the teachings refer to as being “in the experience” before thinking of change. This is rough stuff and a very sensitive discussion.

Morpheous…? This seems all so far away from anything Jesus may have said and the question remains unanswered: Why did Jesus have to die?

To the contrary it is “carrying ones cross;” an essential message of Christianity.

Deuteronomy 18:22

22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

I believe you underestimate the power of suggestion:

“The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he.” KRAUS

But that is a metaphysical consolation. she rides a contradiction in that she criticises that in religion but performs it herself. Was she consoled?

Again there is a profound psychological distinction here. Consolation is an experience of corrupt egotism. Affirmation leading to “Joy” is something else. It is revelation far beyond consolation

“A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams.” Simone Weil
– Gravity and Grace

This goes against modern spiritual thought that encourages going with the flow so as to be comfortable and “feel” good.

She distinguishes between the pleasure of consolation and the joy of revelation. And you wonder why I’m so appreciative of this extraordinary woman.

yet both have in their hearts that there exist a reality in which no recourse will be needed as there shall be no suffering. She might be convinced that she might not sense God here below, but she claims that she will be grasped by Jesus Above, as if in Heaven. Pray tell where is the difference?

The idea is not the lack of suffering but its transformation. Suffering is inevitable so we must learn how to suffer fro its transformation.

“The tremendous greatness of Christianity”, writes Simone Weil, “comes from the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy against suffering but a supernatural use of suffering.” Affliction then is “a marvel of divine technique”. “For even the direst pain, so long as consciousness endures, does not touch that point in the soul which consents to a right direction.” That is because love is an orientation, not a state, of the soul. Simone Weil

This “use of suffering” disturbingly revealed in her writings on “affliction” explains why Jesus had to die as he did. This is a very deep subject.

as I said before their belief is made possible by a fundamental error.

It could be also a fundamental truth hidden to us by our fundamental error natural for the human condition of “sleep.”

[Nick_A]

Hi iman

thank you very much Nick for giving a thought to my humble words, there is no energy in your very deep thoughts, you know why? you admit it actually and i thank you for the answer i was looking for, YES i believe that God want you to grow in just forgetting Hm to say your soul, religion and their followers are just to repeat the words but they are not the one who is playing the truth in God, believe me any man who suffer and face it of any expression arts or giving to himself is much more god than all religious acts, i can proove it, arts are making the conscious not the church, chiism of religions made the civilization and the progress in minds

It is obvious you are quite sensitive,emotional, and by what you’ve written, you value art.

But art falls into the same the same trap that religious ritual does. It becomes separated from the deeper truths it is supposed to be revealing and just becomes an expression of subjective appearance, imagination, and wishful thinking. It is no longer an expression of essence but instead largely and expression of interpretation. This is also how Christianity gradually degenerates into Christendom.

My own experience is that they have been linked and it becomes our responsibility to somehow distinguish between the real essence behind all this expression.

As I understand it, Christianity predates Christ. by this I mean many of the rituals were practiced in ancient Egypt. Jesus actualized Christianity and made it alive.In some rituals like the schools of repetition, I’ve learned that they were taken from Egyptian teaching but their purpose has gradually been forgotten. The ritual then is practiced but without real knowledge of its essential connection to our being. It is like a person practicing scales on the piano without knowing what it means to play music. No wonder then that it loses it purity and potency.

This has been a good thread IMO. I’ve been discussing things with Omar in a respectful fashion for some reason has been a rare experience for me. I know my ideas are unusual here but Omar hasn’t found it necessary to express indignance over these differences in one form or another. You, iman, seem the same. Poor Socratus began the thread and is on the outskirts of it.

This is why I can mention something personal here to partially explain my interest in all of this.

Simone brought up this profound idea in her writings on geometry in relation to beauty which is an avenue that exposes us to the calling of higher understanding. The following is an excerpt from a long article on her.

In her notebooks she defines “Beauty” as "a

sensual attraction that maintains one at a certain distance and implies a renunciation. … One wants to

devour all other desirable objects. Beauty is something that one desires without wanting to devour it.

We simply desire that it should be."15 As examples of the beautiful, Weil discusses the Catholic

mass16, a Greek statue17, and mathematics. She writes, "Beauty is the manifest appearance of reality.

Reality represents essentially contradiction. … The beauty of mathematics lies in contradiction."18 A

moment later she continues, "What is beautiful in mathematics is that which makes abundantly clear

to us that they are not something which we have manufactured ourselves. That thing is contradiction.

… The essence of beauty lies in contradiction, scandal, and not at all in appropriateness; but it must be

a scandal that forces itself upon one and fills the heart with joy."19

Because mathematics gives us the sense that it comes from beyond us, it is beautiful. We are

aware that it is not our own creation but is the image of something eternal. Beauty always causes us to

recognize that we are finite, limited beings. Just as when we see a beautiful work of art, we wish only

to gaze endlessly it, so a beautiful piece of mathematics causes us to contemplate it intensely. Beauty

awakes in the viewer the opposite response from affliction. Just as the response to affliction is

derision and anger, the response to beauty is joy. In the midst of thoughts jotted in her notebooks is

this comment: "Joy … is the feeling of reality. Beauty is the manifest presence of reality."20

For Weil, all reality is transcendent. We may occasionally experience beauty, or reality, in

nature or elsewhere. On the whole, though, we are separated from true reality. Our lives mostly

consist of affliction and pain. Our experience of beauty, our experience of reality, is thus a

contradiction. We must treasure and rejoice in the rare moments when we experience beauty. Since

beauty, which is reality, is to be treasured, Weil gives science a privileged place when she writes,

"The object of science is the exploration of beauty a priori."21

Here again she’s touched on a profound relationship between science and faith as they connect to beauty. Sheesh,some kid could write a thesis on this idea alone If we just understood it.

But when I was mentioning art and speaking of something personal, it involves a question in relation to a very strange artist ancestor of mine. I can’t draw worth a damn but he was just him and I do believe I “feel” his work. He is appreciated by some in Russia and surrounding areas especially for his ability to paint water. I’ve learned that he really became himself in this once he began to paint from memory. But the beauty of water is that as a liquid the elemental forces creating its form have an objective mathematical geometrical relationship. Somehow he captured these relationships which is strikingly different than the usual haphazard depictions of water initiated by imagination. But to paint from memory means that these relationships exist within us and when awakened sometimes, we see it as beautiful which is what Simone said. So I am asking the three of you if you know of anyone that has written on this question of art and distinguished between the expression of these inner objective relationships of universal law as plainly visible in water and apparently something that can be “remembered” and artistically expressed rather than “learned” and expressed as just imaginary expression. That is the trouble with those like Simone Weil. She gets one into uncharted territory and the feeling for me is like being caught with your pants down and not knowing how to proceed.

But it is these questions that relate to iman’s concern as to where we find real religious inspiration and how we can “remember” it in ourselves.

[Nick_A]

Hi Socratus

And is it possible those subjective expressions to prove by the science?
Is it possible to find in physics experiments that would prove subjective confirmations and wisdom of the sages?

I don’t either how or why it should be done. For example if you are looking at a blackboard, you could draw a line from left to right. this is the domain of science. It compares things from different points along the line.

Now you draw a vertical line through it and at a right angle to it ending up with a cross. This vertical line is the qualitiative line of being or spirit. The comparison is in the quality of the moment between what lies above and below it.

The line of science is in time while the line of being is outside time and within “Now.” They are analogous but I cannot see how science can verify within a moment. It is beyond its limitations

[iman]

i am not as you are describing me at all since i am much beyound, but anyway i know that you don’t mean to agress my wisdom of being true in the deepest sense but because you don’t see what i can

it is very easy to any brain especially if it is efficient to burry the truth in heart by giving infinity of examples who prone the lies, the only way to proove your intention of truth is to give just one sentence of your view to roots who provide the scene that made a feeling of truth, i don’t value arts but truth, artists in the sense i see it men who express a deep feeling of truth even if they don’t seem to love the means they are saying, are being a lot of God love to earth, they are not when they do but god inspiration in them, and of this ability to erase your way down thoughts completely they could be god will of humans, the only difference with you is that they don’t say loving god and for this you hate them, this is uncorrect, also i want to say about beauty, if you love God in the deep sense to feel him inside of you, you would know that beauty is him and not the means, the means could give joy to a beauty, but beauty is his ways of making, He said it, i remember only the mean sorry if i don’t say it right, He saw that everything was beautiful, that is how also arts are so related to god, in fact all what you know is made of arts that God is the artist, even when you try to speech you are when you let God be the artist in you, you have to surrender everything to Him with your awareness of his will you would be better to say God love,

last thing i want to give my thought of the cross, it became clear to me its sense, God want you to give a lot to his values in order to give His consideration of being, He made us for not being to be us loving Him, so what He wants from your brain is to say His means so he will be more real to love, the cross say the depth of the means He wants in one mind that he would consider other loving Him so He would Love him too, in fact this is the one sense like you said you better be in God’s will that why it is clever to think the truth to be christian or jew, surrender to your feelings give them all of your thoughts, let your feelings be love to everything you see of God and hope together that He will make as He promised stop the suffer from Him, we all are so involved with Him as we live inn as He is the truth in us
I pity all souls in fact they will never been able to give to be consider as being needing care of God, He is making everyone appear so low and stupid in order to justify his not giving will, i hope all that could change, every body cannot be loving and so smart but if they are living it must a way that they will all be connected to Him so they will receive to see and do beauty of love

[Nick_A]

Iman, this is really frustrating because I don’t know if I read you correctly

It is not that the brain buries the heart, but more IMO that we are out of alignment with the structure of the universe. Think for a moment if consciousness is higher,closer to the source than unconsciousness. If the source, God if you will, is pure consciousness, common sense says that the higher the quality of consciousness, the closer to the source of consciousness. So in the great universe, the conscious levels are higher in their quality of being then unconscious levels.

However with us it is not that way. Circumstances have devolved Man into this position where the unconscious levels within us have dominion over our capacity for consciousness even though consciousness, and at this level self awareness, should be functioning well in Man.

So in this way we are out of structural balance. Even though man is a microcosm and structured to align with the great universe structure as do all cosmological levels, man on earth cannot because of this great imbalance forcing the chaotic reactions from his being. One big reason that it appears that the mind buries the heart is because of the complete lack of structural balance between our thinking, feeling, and sensual functions through which we respond to the external world. We function wrongly in our response to the external world which is one big reason we are forced to live in a dream. To objectively become aware of our chaotic internal psychological condition could drive someone mad. We are forced to live in a dream in order to psychologically accept objective nonsense. For example We think when we should feel, feel when we should think, feel when our body should lead. It is like a person with a tool box usually picking up the wrong tool for the job. He needs to saw wood but picks up a hammer. It cannot lead to anything as in our case and one reason we go around in circles. Being out of balance and alignment to universal structure, cannot allow for anything objective. This is why real spiritual practice is not platitudes and basking in la la land but consciously coming into grips with ourselves. But this requires first the ability for this conscious appreciation, the experience, of our chaotic nature. This is one meaning of “know thyself” which seems. to have become forgotten as a human need.

I agree that much of what we call art is not created by the artist but more that the artist serves as a medium. But this is not to say its source is God. I don’t know why you would think I hate anyone for artistic/spiritual conceptions. I may disagree and believe them psychologically harmful but if this is true, why hate?

I agree with Simone that in the objective sense:

Beauty always promises, but never gives anything.
Simone Weil

At first read most would probably want to string her up for such a lack of PC “wonderfulness.” But having more “Inner Balls” than most, would not be concerned. This again is another thread but if you’d like to read what she means and how beauty initially invites but than prevents, read this link. It is not for the feint of heart:

staff.bcc.edu/philosophy/SIMONEWEIL.htm

All these secondary kinds of beauty are of infinite value as openings to universal beauty. But, if we stop short at them, they are, on the contrary, veils; then they corrupt. They all have in them more or less of this temptation, but in very different degrees.

There are also a number of seductive factors that have nothing whatever to do with beauty but which cause the things in which they are present to be called beautiful through lack of discernment; for these things attract love by fraud, and all men, even the most ignorant, even the vilest of them, know that beauty alone has a right to our love. The most truly great know it too…

Beauty is the only finality here below. As Kant said very aptly, it is a finality which involves no objective. A beautiful thing involves no good except itself, in its totality, as it appears to us. We are drawn toward it without knowing what to ask of it. It offers its own existence. We do not desire something else, we possess it, and yet we still desire something. We do not know in the least what it is. We want to get behind beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that sends us back our own desire for goodness. It is a sphinx, an enigma, a mystery which is painfully tantalizing. We should like to feed upon it, but it is only something to look at; it appears only from a certain distance. The great trouble in human life is that looking and eating are two different operations. Only beyond the sky, in the country inhabited by God, are they one and the same operation. … It may be that vice, depravity and crime are nearly always … in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at.

This is not basking in la la land becoming lost in wonderfulness but a quality of objective seeing possessed only buy a few. This is why discussing beauty for me is so difficult. I inwardly respond to what those like her have written so I begin differently and the differences found offensive.

the only way to proove your intention of truth is to give just one sentence of your view to roots who provide the scene that made a feeling of truth,

“We are nothing with a potential to be something” This is the root sentence but in modern times, how many are open to consider such ego deflating concepts? It is much more satisfying to speak of la la land or ourselves as Gods, Sons of Gods, conscious beings, demonstrating free will, and usual root sentences will begin with some sort of “lovely” thought as above and being such a wonderful thought must originate directly with God himself. I take the different approach.

Where beauty can be related to science as Simone Weil does through math and geometry, discussing the cross is psychological and beyond science so belongs somewhere else.

[omar]

Hello Nick. Sorry for the wait:

— Yes, but you are speaking of cosmology where one world exists within another. I’ve come to understand that Man’s arising on earth isn’t from God or outside time and space but rather from the level of the “Son” which is within time and space.
O- That isn’t the point. The point is that once you go “beyond” what is evident, as you have done, no security can then be placed, no barrier erected, without being inconsistent. If I postulate one more world beyond this world, or dimension or reality, beyond this reality we sense, measure and study, then I must continue to allow for the possibility of an extra X eternally. If we say that: ”There must more to reality than this”, then we will continue to ask that question again and again. To put in another way; When Morpheous welcomes Neo and says: “Welcome to the real”, the world no longer holds any true meaning. Neo has only faith that Morpheous is right and is not just as diluted as he himself had been so far. He chooses to believe what he is told, but his belief is not compelled; it is not warranted and unjustified.

— Knowing is the result of interpretation or “contents of consciousness” What she is referring to is direct experience before interpretation.
O- In each occasion we survey the contents of our consciousness we too become part of the survey.
— To the contrary it is only reality that can satisfy it.
O- But what reality? A reality beyond death? If we are incapable of recognizing, normally, this as only a fiction (or incapable of experiencing it as you say) , then how will we be any better when confronted by any other set of sensations or experiences? If I am incapable now what will make me capable later? Now comes the magic into your system….
— As we are, we are incapable of experiencing it. We get in our own way. We live in Plato’s cave, maya, illusion or described in so many words indicating the same situation. This is our great misconception. we believe that we have access to the experience of reality. But once we experience living in a dream, we see the mistake this is.
O- I’ll be honest. I think reality has taking punishment for so long and what has been propped in it’s place is just one persons’ vain imaginings or another’s…and we still waiting for Godot. Is it an intuition into a deeper and truer reality? That is the eternal case, but as Cicero showed, the very fact that atheism is possible shows that this intuition for some cannot by itself prove a reality any more than their collective insanity. My guess is that we’re all human and thus most suffer under the strain of life and need an extra something, a sort of promise, that will leave those like yourself, satisfied—and this in turn is what you call reality? That which you do not like then is fiction and only apparent. That which is untrue, we experience perfectly, that is why it hurts so bad. What is real is our only satisfaction…a and we color it pink.
This man looks at the evening sun ripping the blue of the sky with a regal red and says: “How unreal this all is…”

— The bridge doesn’t fill the whole but allows us to stay in the direction that leds to its other side
O- Does not matter either way. The bridge is there to fulfill their dreams—their hearts god-shaped-hole…

— You say that a god that we cannot understand is no God. Would it be also right for a first year student of math to say that the prof. who has a degree in higher math is no mathematician since they don’t understand him?
O- How can the student verify the education of the so-called professor? His certificate? Forgery. His knowledge? That would presuppose that the student can measure the ability of the prof, therefore less than a student, he is the true educator. Besides, what I meant is that while I am a defender of simply stating: “I don’t know”, most people I meet, so called theists, have the “mind of God”. They can tell me exactly how God is, how is He not, the entire mystery of creation in a single year… How can that be possible? Because of our longing for meaning. Meaning is to castrate Chaos from all creation, including God. God said to name all the animals of the Earth, but to his surprise, we did not end there and named, described and defined even Him.
Further my point is multi-leveled. We are not just saying that a God that we can’t understand is no God, but that God is treated much like Reality, and so will I, for God is all in all. Reality lacking meaning is no reality and the same is extended to God. The same courtesy…
— You say “God is God by his utility to us” I maintain that men are only really men when they are of conscious use to God’s will. This for me is the essential religious calling: how to become conscious and participate at that level in God’s will.
O- Right out of the German tradition. But what Erasmus points to and Luther can’t defend, is that Judgment Day. How do you participate in God’s will when you have no choice in the matter? A creature, you’ve said cannot but obey. The bull laced up to the carriage does not contribute, but obeys. It cooperates, and takes part by the power of the wip. And he that pulls with a simple yell by the conductor is a broken beast waiting for it’s death to come without any more pain. You see men, I see animals…

— To the contrary it is “carrying ones cross;” an essential message of Christianity.
O- Why did Jesus have to die?

— I believe you underestimate the power of suggestion:
Quote:
“The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he.” KRAUS

O- How does the quote given relate to “By their fruits you shall know them”?
— Again there is a profound psychological distinction here.
O- In every difficulty the Gnostics see mythology. I just question if these interpretations are warranted or just picked apart to solve the riddle of meaning?
— Consolation is an experience of corrupt egotism.
O- “Corrupt”? Nick, is a baby not consoled by his mother’s embrace? Is a baby, therefore, corrupt? Is the Sermon on the Mount the ultimate corruption of the ego?
— Affirmation leading to “Joy” is something else. It is revelation far beyond consolation.
O- Is this affirmation “far beyond consolation” in that it is better than a consolation or as it is worse? Beyond…in relation to what?
Quote:
“A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams.” Simone Weil
– Gravity and Grace

O- Is a joy an unpleasant thing? And what is pleasurable devoid of joy? These are synonyms Nick and go hand in hand. Perhaps what is pleasant in her opinion cannot be found in dreams. Perhaps she has found what is joyful solely in her dreams. It would not surprise me. Like Nietzsche and Kierkgard, these ill-souls, suffer reality and find no joy in it. Not one lived a full life. Had Miss Weil nursed a baby in her breast, felt it’s tiny fingers grasp her finger, she might have found that not all that is “real” is, as she believes “hard and rough”, and perhaps “joy” might have resided for her outside of her dreams. These prophets speak about life up an down with their limited experience of real life.
— This goes against modern spiritual thought that encourages going with the flow so as to be comfortable and “feel” good.
O- I don’t say go with the flow just for the hell of it. But before getting on a high horse and vainly pretend that all is beneath you, one should try to experience all experiences possible to man. From her biography, she might have tried, but only in one facet of life, that of labor.

— The idea is not the lack of suffering but its transformation. Suffering is inevitable so we must learn how to suffer fro its transformation.
O- Transformation into what? Joy?!!
Quote:
“The tremendous greatness of Christianity”, writes Simone Weil, “comes from the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy against suffering but a supernatural use of suffering.” Affliction then is “a marvel of divine technique”. “For even the direst pain, so long as consciousness endures, does not touch that point in the soul which consents to a right direction.” That is because love is an orientation, not a state, of the soul. Simone Weil

O- You ever read Ignatious and Polycarp? But she is absolutely correct. Christianity, at it’s inception, had many Martyrs, who rather than ask for the intervention of his hand to preserve the life in this world, kissed the chains in which they found themselves and indeed were so eager for the pyre as to disturb their Roman captors. But they did so because they had signed off of this world for another, and not to the affirmation of suffering but offered their terrestrial suffering as payment for the painless Heaven. It is not and has never been an affirmation of pain. Heaven is not Hell…
— This “use of suffering” disturbingly revealed in her writings on “affliction” explains why Jesus had to die as he did. This is a very deep subject.
O- “Quererte a ti, es querer ganar el Cielo por amor, es haber perdido el miedo al dolor…”
Camilo Sesto.
So I see that it is not the transformation of suffering that is important but how we use it. Is that it? The greatness of Christianity, I must add, is not that it transformed pain, or learned how to use it. Before it people of the world were already whipping themselves and offering their very manhoods for right-sizing. But while these expected compensation for their pain in this life, always to be let down, the Christian deny such compesation at all in this life but guaranteed it in the next. You ask me, not much has truly changed but in our tolerance of grief.

— It could be also a fundamental truth hidden to us by our fundamental error natural for the human condition of “sleep.”
O- It is the error that gives the Sleeping Beauty the kiss that awakes her…

[Nick_A]

Hi omar

That isn’t the point. The point is that once you go “beyond” what is evident, as you have done, no security can then be placed, no barrier erected, without being inconsistent. If I postulate one more world beyond this world, or dimension or reality, beyond this reality we sense, measure and study, then I must continue to allow for the possibility of an extra X eternally.

You are unfamiliar with cosmology. the first cosmos, God is beyond time and space so by definition there can be nothing beyond. What we know as existence on whatever cosmological level, functions at the cosmological level within time and space where it was necessary. Anything can only be within but not beyond the first cosmos, God, the creator, or whatever name one is comfortable with…

O- But what reality? A reality beyond death? If we are incapable of recognizing, normally, this as only a fiction (or incapable of experiencing it as you say) , then how will we be any better when confronted by any other set of sensations or experiences? If I am incapable now what will make me capable later?

First we must agree that objective reality exists regardless of Man’s existence on our planet. If we do, then we must agree that the universe will continue functioning, The Andromeda Galaxy will not vanish if Man is obliviated by a giant asteroid colliding with the earth. So if all this is so, we will agree that something objective is occurring and we are having a subjective experience of it.

If it is subjective it can vary in its quality. When we die to ourselves, we are dying to our imagination. This means that we would be closer to objective reason and the objective experience both within and outside ourselves I know this is hard to see because it is natural to believe that we are objective. The ancient traditions assert that we are asleep in imagination. If a person is sincere in their desire for truth, it can only begin with the desire to awaken or die to imagination.

I’ll be honest. I think reality has taking punishment for so long and what has been propped in it’s place is just one persons’ vain imaginings or another’s…and we still waiting for Godot. Is it an intuition into a deeper and truer reality? That is the eternal case, but as Cicero showed, the very fact that atheism is possible shows that this intuition for some cannot by itself prove a reality any more than their collective insanity. My guess is that we’re all human and thus most suffer under the strain of life and need an extra something, a sort of promise, that will leave those like yourself, satisfied—and this in turn is what you call reality? That which you do not like then is fiction and only apparent. That which is untrue, we experience perfectly, that is why it hurts so bad. What is real is our only satisfaction…a and we color it pink.
This man looks at the evening sun ripping the blue of the sky with a regal red and says: “How unreal this all is…”

People are different. You cannot consider everyone the same. Cicero said that but Simone said this also:

An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God. Simone Weil …

You cannot assume everyone’s opening is the same. Different people may have needs for meaning then others. One does not negate the other and in a persons life it can easily change. I can appreciate that you feel as you do but it doesn’t make it true. This is why it is up to the person to seek and not just blindly believe one thing or another.

Does not matter either way. The bridge is there to fulfill their dreams—their hearts god-shaped-hole

But if I’m right the bridge is what connects man “in the cave” to conscious man outside the cave as part of a genuine “way”…illusion to reality. The bridge then doesn’t fulfill dreams but serves as the path from dreamland to the real world.

How can the student verify the education of the so-called professor? His certificate? Forgery. His knowledge? That would presuppose that the student can measure the ability of the prof, therefore less than a student, he is the true educator. Besides, what I meant is that while I am a defender of simply stating: “I don’t know”, most people I meet, so called theists, have the “mind of God”. They can tell me exactly how God is, how is He not, the entire mystery of creation in a single year… How can that be possible? Because of our longing for meaning. Meaning is to castrate Chaos from all creation, including God. God said to name all the animals of the Earth, but to his surprise, we did not end there and named, described and defined even Him.
Further my point is multi-leveled. We are not just saying that a God that we can’t understand is no God, but that God is treated much like Reality, and so will I, for God is all in all. Reality lacking meaning is no reality and the same is extended to God. The same courtesy…

This is why I continually emphasize the “ESSENCE of religion.” All sorts of fantasy exists in both religion and in the secular world. This is natural for cave life. So for me it is foolish to select one or another but how to grow to understand beyond the limits of cave life.

Right out of the German tradition. But what Erasmus points to and Luther can’t defend, is that Judgment Day. How do you participate in God’s will when you have no choice in the matter? A creature, you’ve said cannot but obey. The bull laced up to the carriage does not contribute, but obeys. It cooperates, and takes part by the power of the wip. And he that pulls with a simple yell by the conductor is a broken beast waiting for it’s death to come without any more pain. You see men, I see animals…

Well the Germans can’t be all wrong.

We lack will and choice because we lack consciousness. The Christianity I am referring to here refers IMO to the Kingdom. If God’s will is to link heaven and earth then it requires conscious participation. Lack of consciousness just continues attachment to the earth and man serves the same processas does the rest of organic life which leads nowhere.

However salvation in the body of Christ is a level of intuitve emotional knowing that though unconscious, is still connected. These are basically “good people.”

“…it is impossible to become free from one influence without becoming
subject to another. The whole thing, all work on oneself, consists in choosing
the influence to which you wish to subject yourself, and actually falling
under this influence. And for this it is necessary to know beforehand
which influence is the more profitable.”

When St. Paul called himself a slave to Christ, I believe this to be the deep meaning. It is through consciousness where we can choose our slavery so to speak.

Why did Jesus have to die

?

I’ll have to organize my beliefs in a way that another can understand. This is not easy. It includes the esoteric value of affliction and why Jesus had to remain conscious of himself throgh the entire ordeal. The alchemy of death and how the energy released at the quality of death is determined by the quality of life. The quality of the energy release of death of conscious man is much higher than a normal person. The effect of spiritualization of the earth through this release referred to as the “blood of Christ.” allowing his followers to experience the Holy Spirit.

As you see it is not easy. Re-birth like anything else is basically a change in matter and energy. Jesus had to die that way to consciously transcend the earth and free Man capable of following.

O- How does the quote given relate to “By their fruits you shall know them”?

Because many are convinced by “experts” what these fruits are and how to recognize them. This is impossible for cave life since what is genuine struggles against cave life.

O- “Corrupt”? Nick, is a baby not consoled by his mother’s embrace? Is a baby, therefore, corrupt? Is the Sermon on the Mount the ultimate corruption of the ego?

I believe we are defining “console” differently.

con·sole1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-sl)
tr.v. con·soled, con·sol·ing, con·soles
To allay the sorrow or grief of. See Synonyms at comfort.

I don’t consider a baby being fed by their mother as consolation. Is providing what is necessary consolation? A consolation prize is something in place of something desired. A baby being fed isn’t in place of what it desires. The mother is not consoling the baby but providing what is necessary. Consolation is corrupt because the initial desire being consoled was artificial.

You are probably only familiar with secular interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount. The esoteric meanings are far deeper and have nothing to do with consolation.

consolation refers to an artificially acquired need while the joy Simone is referring to is a direct result of an experience of reality revealing higher meaning

O- Is a joy an unpleasant thing? And what is pleasurable devoid of joy?

Is ten dollars the same as a thousand dollars? One could say yes since a dollar is a dollar. Another would say no because the thousand dollars has more value, is more meaningful for him. This is the same idea as the connection between pleasant and joy. Kissing your lover is not the same as kissing your sister.

Transformation into what?

Into ourselves - rebirth – the purpose of Christianity.

It is not and has never been an affirmation of pain. Heaven is not Hell…

Neither is la la land. When seen as such and that we live in a dream it is a real hell for then corrupted ego that prefers it imaginary paradise in the cave

We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise. Simone Weil.

Takes a real need for truth and “meaning.”

So I see that it is not the transformation of suffering that is important but how we use it. Is that it?

Actually it gives us the ability to use it. the transformation of suffering leading to re-birth allows one “to be” Now one can be really human rather than living in a dream and continually reacting from this dream.

You ask me, not much has truly changed but in our tolerance of grief.

I agree little has changed. There are so few Christians

It is the error that gives the Sleeping Beauty the kiss that awakes her

Actually it is a good kick in the ass. As Simone said:

“A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams.”

A good kick in the ass is hard and rough leading to a later joy from awakening. The pleasant kiss will be just wonderful, pleasant, and meaningless

[omar]

Hello Nick

— You are unfamiliar with cosmology. the first cosmos, God is beyond time and space so by definition there can be nothing beyond.
O- By definition, by wishful thinking, not by experience. X is beyond time and space? How do we know? Perhaps I am unfamiliar with the tradition of cosmology. You wish to turn from the shadow show in the cave but keep attached to it.

— Anything can only be within but not beyond the first cosmos, God, the creator, or whatever name one is comfortable with…
O- You only need to read the “So…” tread to see how I feel about that imaginative premise.
— If it is subjective it can vary in its quality. When we die to ourselves, we are dying to our imagination.
O- We won’t know that until we die.
— This means that we would be closer to objective reason and the objective experience both within and outside ourselves I know this is hard to see because it is natural to believe that we are objective.
O- That is not why it is hard to see. Please explain what do you believe occurs at the point of a human’s death. Maybe speculate on what you expect the experience of death to be like. I don’t understand, you see, how can you say “we die to ourselves” and then say that after we have died to ourselves “we would be closer to objective reason and the objective experience both within and outside ourselves.” There is a lot of activity for something that is dead. So just how can we die to ourselves? We can’t…

— The ancient traditions assert that we are asleep in imagination. If a person is sincere in their desire for truth, it can only begin with the desire to awaken or die to imagination.
O- And my point against the ancients has been that it all is relative and the person, or spirit, whatever form the self takes can still feel this desire for truth even in the midst of complete reality. Their desire is the only measure of reality. Even in Heaven, to use tradition, I might still feel as if I am asleep. That statement I just made may seem speculative and unwarranted, and it is, but so has your argument seemed to me also. That statement however is a powerful affirmation of Man.

— People are different. You cannot consider everyone the same. Cicero said that but Simone said this also:
Quote:
An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God. Simone Weil …

O- I like that and I can agree with her. In the end, it is all about on what we have concentrated upon that causes what we become.

— You cannot assume everyone’s opening is the same. Different people may have needs for meaning then others. One does not negate the other and in a persons life it can easily change. I can appreciate that you feel as you do but it doesn’t make it true. This is why it is up to the person to seek and not just blindly believe one thing or another.
O- Oh I most definitely agree. The requirement for meaning might change a little from one person to another and from a person’s period in time to another, but presupposed is the prevalence of the drive. Though they meanings may change, the presence of them does not.

— But if I’m right the bridge is what connects man “in the cave” to conscious man outside the cave as part of a genuine “way”…illusion to reality. The bridge then doesn’t fulfill dreams but serves as the path from dreamland to the real world.
O- The thing is that many caves might simply be connected and when we examine the situation the follower of the way does not know whether he is following the way towards the Light of the Sun or just another brightly lit fire in yet another cave. How will he tell but with his imagination? In all cases, the same circumstances are repeated.

— This is why I continually emphasize the “ESSENCE of religion.” All sorts of fantasy exists in both religion and in the secular world.
O- And what gives you security in the fact that by saying “ESSENCE” you have avoided all fantasies? Chances are you merely have changed one set of fantasies for another

— Well the Germans can’t be all wrong.

We lack will and choice because we lack consciousness. The Christianity I am referring to here refers IMO to the Kingdom. If God’s will is to link heaven and earth then it requires conscious participation. Lack of consciousness just continues attachment to the earth and man serves the same processas does the rest of organic life which leads nowhere.
O- It leads “nowhere”? Tell me, what is the great difference between life in Heaven versus life on Earth?

Quote:
“…it is impossible to become free from one influence without becoming
subject to another. The whole thing, all work on oneself, consists in choosing
the influence to which you wish to subject yourself, and actually falling
under this influence. And for this it is necessary to know beforehand
which influence is the more profitable.”

O- Can it be clearer than that? Yes, indeed, it is about what is PROFITABLE TO US. We subject to what better serves the interest of the ego.

— When St. Paul called himself a slave to Christ, I believe this to be the deep meaning. It is through consciousness where we can choose our slavery so to speak.
O- I got another view. Paul really called himself a slave to Life. Christ was simply the faucet from which the water to drink flowed. Love Jesus not for what he is but for what this Love will bring about.

Quote:
Why did Jesus have to die
?

— I’ll have to organize my beliefs in a way that another can understand. This is not easy. It includes the esoteric value of affliction and why Jesus had to remain conscious of himself throgh the entire ordeal. The alchemy of death and how the energy released at the quality of death is determined by the quality of life. The quality of the energy release of death of conscious man is much higher than a normal person. The effect of spiritualization of the earth through this release referred to as the “blood of Christ.” allowing his followers to experience the Holy Spirit.

As you see it is not easy. Re-birth like anything else is basically a change in matter and energy. Jesus had to die that way to consciously transcend the earth and free Man capable of following.
O- Some people tell me that they have the Mind of God. You tell me, or as much, that you have the Chemistry of God. How will I tell you cave dwellers apart?

— I believe we are defining “console” differently.
Quote:
con•sole1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-sl)
tr.v. con•soled, con•sol•ing, con•soles
To allay the sorrow or grief of. See Synonyms at comfort.

I don’t consider a baby being fed by their mother as consolation.
O- Your definition is to allay the sorrow or grief. Doesn’t the mother’s tit soothe the baby’s grief? Doesn’t it comfort him?

— Is providing what is necessary consolation?
O- I can provide for his needs with formula, but I am not pointing here to the biological needs of one but for the emotional needs and in that sense a baby is comforted by his mother breast and not by a kangaroo with a bottle filled with cow milk.
— A consolation prize is something in place of something desired.
O- It is given to provide comfort, that is why it is a consolation prize.
— A baby being fed isn’t in place of what it desires.
O- It is not a “consolation tit”, Nick, that is why I disagree with the comparison. A baby being feed by his mother is consoled, is comforted, is soothed.
— The mother is not consoling the baby but providing what is necessary.
O- She is providing relief, she is providing comfort = consoling. Answers.com
— Consolation is corrupt because the initial desire being consoled was artificial.
O- What initial desire is that in relation to our cave?

— You are probably only familiar with secular interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount. The esoteric meanings are far deeper and have nothing to do with consolation.
O- What interpretation do you give to Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.”?

— consolation refers to an artificially acquired need.
O- And since we are not all like Simone, I guess her need becomes artificial in other’s eyes, doesn’t it. It is relief from this world, from this cave, from this fantasy. The language employed is pregnant with dissatisfaction and your condition is described as a “longing”. Whether this emotions are artificial or necessary is judged by the eye of the beholder, not by some objective experience shared by all. As you said, for him that lacks this longing this is greek, it makes little sense. I put it like this, for those with a full “belly”, the promise of a better life means nothing. Says Jesus:
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort”.
I don’t know how appropriate is the English translation of this passage but it is telling for my argument in that there is a comfort being offered to the hearts of men, either in this life or the next.
Like I was saying, for those with their belly full, the gospel is nonsense but for those being “saved”, those being “fed”, it is God’s voice, for God is the God of All Comfort(2 Corinthians), I say the God of all consolation.
— while the joy Simone is referring to is a direct result of an experience of reality revealing higher meaning.
O- A reality revealing higher meaning or a concept of a reality with a higher meaning?
Quote:
O- Is a joy an unpleasant thing? And what is pleasurable devoid of joy?

— Is ten dollars the same as a thousand dollars?
O- Wrong question. Is a dollar the same as 100 cents? That is the question.
An online dictionary gave this result:
pleasure
noun

1. A feeling of extreme gratification aroused by something good or desired: delectation, delight, enjoyment, joy.
   Perhaps the distinction you’ve accepted between one and the other is…artificial?

— Into ourselves - rebirth – the purpose of Christianity.
O- The idea that I am not already whom I should be is artificial. This fall from grace occurs in our minds rather than in our bodies. Death, as we see, comes to all things alive, but man wants an exception to be made in his case.

— Neither is la la land. When seen as such and that we live in a dream it is a real hell for then corrupted ego that prefers it imaginary paradise in the cave
O- We live in a dream? Again Nick the only objection I have for this is that if I accept that I am asleep and that what has passed for reality for me indeed has been a dream, then no matter what comes next, what is presented next as reality, I now lack all certainty in my ability to tell them states apart. As secure as I might be, I’ll forever be in a never ending dream. What do you imagine Heaven to be like Nick?

Quote:
We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise. Simone Weil.

O- Will Heaven be uncomfortable? Will it be full of pain and discord? Will the next life be at all different from this one? The distinction in any case lacks any meaning for the Christian. Both Hell and Heaven are real, for him, so he prefers a real paradise over a real hell.
— I agree little has changed. There are so few Christians
O- How do you tell one from another?
— Actually it is a good kick in the ass. As Simone said:
Quote:
“A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams.”

I have already commented on the necessity of balance and a full life to make these statements. Life is not completely devoid of reality. That seems so strange in type. Do I dream while I am in a dream, and if I do, is it then “Reality”? Or if I dream while in a dream, does the dreaming me in my dream also dreams? And whose, of the infinite dreamers’ dream is more real than the others?
You’ve said: “I’ll have to organize my beliefs in a way that another can understand. This is not easy. It includes the esoteric value of affliction and why Jesus had to remain conscious of himself throgh the entire ordeal. The alchemy of death and how the energy released at the quality of death is determined by the quality of life. The quality of the energy release of death of conscious man is much higher than a normal person. The effect of spiritualization of the earth through this release referred to as the “blood of Christ.” allowing his followers to experience the Holy Spirit.

As you see it is not easy. Re-birth like anything else is basically a change in matter and energy. Jesus had to die that way to consciously transcend the earth and free Man capable of following.”
Let me apply the Weilian measure for reality. Is experiencing the Holy Spirit hard and rough? And if it is not, then, is it Real, or just make-believe and fantasy?

[Nick_A]

Hi Omar

O- By definition, by wishful thinking, not by experience. X is beyond time and space? How do we know? Perhaps I am unfamiliar with the tradition of cosmology. You wish to turn from the shadow show in the cave but keep attached to it.

Our existence is in time and space. How could we understand what is beyond time and space? The idea isn’t turning from the shadow and gazing towards the light but to feel its effects as we experience the cave. Attachment to the cave is the lack of experience. Detachment with the help of the light is what allows for the experience of life in the cave from a higher perspective,

There is a lot of activity for something that is dead. So just how can we die to ourselves? We can’t…

I see I have not been clear as towhat it mens to die to oneself. Read this section on “Acornplogy” from “Lost Christianity.”

Acornology

I began my lecture that morning from just this point. There is an innate element in human nature, I argued that can grow and develop only through impressions of truth received in the organism like a special nourishing energy. To this innate element I gave a name - perhaps not a very good name - the “higher unconscious.” My aim was to draw an extremely sharp distinction between the unconscious that Freud had identified and the unconscious referred to (though not by that name) in the Christian tradition.

Imagine, I said, that you are a scientist and you have before you the object known as the acorn. Let us further imagine that you have never before seen such an object and that you certainly do not know that it can grow into an oak. You carefully observe these acorns day after day and soon you notice that after a while they crack open and die. Pity! How to improve the acorn? So that it will live longer. You make careful, exquisitely precise chemical analyses of the material inside the acorn and, after much effort, you succeed in isolating the substance that controls the condition of the shell. Lo and behold, you are now in the position to produce acorns which will last far longer than the others, acorns whose shells will perhaps never crack. Beautiful!

The question before us, therefore, is whether or not modern psychology is only a version of acornology.

To die to oneself begins with the crack of the shell and allows the living growing essence or kernel of life to develop. As prof. Needleman implies, normally we are unaware of the purpose of our personality and just strengthen it at the expense of the living essence it surrounds. We increase its strength and starves the living essence. To die to oneself is to diminish the strength of the shell so our essential selves can grow.

O- The thing is that many caves might simply be connected and when we examine the situation the follower of the way does not know whether he is following the way towards the Light of the Sun or just another brightly lit fire in yet another cave. How will he tell but with his imagination? In all cases, the same circumstances are repeated.

This is why a teacher is necessary. It is easy to get lost here. There is an old Sufi expression that says "He that believes he is looking at the face of God is looking at the face of the Devil

A lot of what I read on these sites leads me to believe that what is being reacted to is the beautiful light of Lucifer. It makes us feel like gods. Forget the name and just think psychologically. This light holds and nourishes our imagination. Most of New Age thought IMO is really Luciferic.

And what gives you security in the fact that by saying “ESSENCE” you have avoided all fantasies? Chances are you merely have changed one set of fantasies for another.

I’m speaking theoretically now. Actually discrimination is far more difficult than most believe. Consider this from who I finally discovered what a man was.

“He who wants knowledge must himself make the initial efforts to find
the source of knowledge and to approach it, taking advantage of the help
and indications which are given to all, but which people, as a rule, do
not want to see or recognize. Knowledge cannot come to people without
effort on their own part. They understand this very well in connection
with ordinary knowledge, but in the case of great knowledge , when they
admit the possibility of its existence, they find it possible to expect some-
thing different. Everyone knows very well that if, for instance, a man
wants to learn Chinese, it will take several years of intense work; every-
one knows that five years are needed to grasp the principles of medicine,
and perhaps twice as many years for the study of painting or music. And
yet there are theories which affirm that knowledge can come to people
without any effort on their part, that they can acquire it even in sleep.
The very existence of such theories constitutes an additional explanation
of why knowledge cannot come to people. At the same time it is essen-
tial to understand that man’s independent efforts to attain anything in
this direction can also give no results. A man can only attain knowledge
with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning.
One must learn from him who knows .”

It leads “nowhere”? Tell me, what is the great difference between life in Heaven versus life on Earth?

Since I’ve never been to heaven I cannot really say. Conscious life at this level of being called heaven must be the experience of objective meaning, purpose and love of a very nigh order.

Can it be clearer than that? Yes, indeed, it is about what is PROFITABLE TO US. We subject to what better serves the interest of the ego.

What profits us the most could also be what the corrupt ego denies and keeps us in the cave. The choice is between contentment in the cave or freedom outside the cave.

Some people tell me that they have the Mind of God. You tell me, or as much, that you have the Chemistry of God. How will I tell you cave dwellers apart?

By participating in efforts at self knowledge. Then you will experience the value of humility in relation to our nothingness.

Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought. Simone Weil

So much for our grandiose thoughts. Real genius comes from the awareness that in relation to Man’s potential, they are nothing.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the definition of consolation. If someone is sitting on my sofa and I offer them a pillow to make them more comfortable, I don’t see how I’m consoling them.

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.”?

Its not really helpful to take the Sermon on the Mount out of context because it is so deep. Its inner or esoteric meaning has to do with the development of our own being. this is not really a cultural or familiar statement.

We are told by Jesus in Matthew six to do everything in secret. In the esoteric sense we mourn from struggling with ourselves in the desire to awaken. Comfort in this case refers to emotional help from above.

Whether this emotions are artificial or necessary is judged by the eye of the beholder, not by some objective experience shared by all.

Yes because as a whole on this level man is asleep and incapable of a collective objective experience.

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort”.
I don’t know how appropriate is the English translation of this passage but it is telling for my argument in that there is a comfort being offered to the hearts of men, either in this life or the next.

True. The determining factor should be the nature of ones need for “meaning”

pleasure
noun

1. A feeling of extreme gratification aroused by something good or desired: delectation, delight, enjoyment, joy.
   Perhaps the distinction you’ve accepted between one and the other is…artificial?

This is one of the great drawback with words in modern times. Words like art, love, joy, etc. have no qualitative distinction. All I can say is that when you experience joy, it is different from pleasure.

The idea that I am not already whom I should be is artificial. This fall from grace occurs in our minds rather than in our bodies. Death, as we see, comes to all things alive, but man wants an exception to be made in his case.

As I see it, the fall from grace resulted in a degenerated level of mind and body. Jesus’ physical body died on the cross. I believe that the Christ was reborn to what he was before he descended to our plane of existence.

So there is no exception in the sense of the physical body on earth. It dies like everything else.

What do you imagine Heaven to be like Nick?

It would more conscious and less mechanical. I’ve read a miracle defined as the normal manifestations of one cosmos manifesting in the next lower. We cannot understand this so we call it a miracle but it is just normal for above.

At this level of consciousness there would be no strife since BS is not necessary for consciousness that accepts truth. There is nothing to be gained by a lie. I cannot conceive of this but I can feel its potential. I think we have experiences and connections with the higher but as they move down into our psych they are interpreted in order to be understood in the context of our normal lives. If it were anyone but Simone I would doubt this story and think that the man being interviewed but in her case, all I can say is that it is possible that somehow he experienced her higher presence.

abc.net.au/rn/relig/enc/stories/s116621.htm

Well, here is an astonishing story. Though it has to do with Simone’s after-life, am not making this up. I tell it because it has illustrative value.
A man had a dream… He dreamt that he entered into a building, took an elevator up to the top floor, where he found a door and pushed the buzzer. Upon being invited to enter, he walked across an apartment and reached a room where he saw a large table at which someone was seated, who looked as if she might be a scholar.
“You must know many languages”, he told her.
“Where I am, we speak only one language”, she answered.
At this point, the man woke up. The language in question he guessed to be that of love.
Some time later, after he discovered the writings of Simone Weil, he made by telephone an appointment with Mrs Selma Weil (Simone’s mother), and proceeded to number 3, rue Auguste Comte in Paris. When he came to the building, he recognized it. And he entered the very elevator he used in his dream, reached the same floor, saw the same door, walked through the same apartment and came to the same room, where stood the same table. On the wall, he noticed a photo which was that of the very same person he had seen in his dream. The books of Simone Weil he had read had not been illustrated. Thus he saw there for the first time the features of the person he had met in his sleep.
Since this story was told to me by the man himself, a reverend and furthermore a psychiatrist, and “there are more things in heaven and earth” than our philosophy can think of, I did not doubt his tale. He is dead now, but I hesitate to mention his name. The gist of the matter however is that this story brings home a point which was made by Pascal: “C’est le coeur qui connait Dieu.” “It is through the heart that we know God”. And, may I add: “And everything else also.”

Who knows? I just leave the question open. I gave up trying to classify her a while ago. But I cannot see how higher existence would not be without one language.

Is experiencing the Holy Spirit hard and rough? And if it is not, then, is it Real, or just make-believe and fantasy?

What is hard and rough is creating the void to receive the spirit. This is our inner Armageddon. The experience of the spirit is that of higher love and meaning. It is beyond what we can explain but must be experienced.

The bottom line is that all this is speculation. If I am attracted to it, do I have the nerve to look inside and see what is there? That is the only way to know and the responsibility is mine.

[omar]

Hello Nick:

Quote:
O- By definition, by wishful thinking, not by experience. X is beyond time and space? How do we know? Perhaps I am unfamiliar with the tradition of cosmology. You wish to turn from the shadow show in the cave but keep attached to it.

— Our existence is in time and space. How could we understand what is beyond time and space?
O- Exactly! But that is what you do all the time; what they too have done. They have the Mind of God.

— The idea isn’t turning from the shadow and gazing towards the light but to feel its effects as we experience the cave. Attachment to the cave is the lack of experience. Detachment with the help of the light is what allows for the experience of life in the cave from a higher perspective,
O- Detachment? Fleeing from reality, which is then called a “dream” and the dream the “reality”.

Quote:
Acornology

I began my lecture that morning from just this point. There is an innate element in human nature, I argued that can grow and develop only through impressions of truth received in the organism like a special nourishing energy. To this innate element I gave a name - perhaps not a very good name - the “higher unconscious.” My aim was to draw an extremely sharp distinction between the unconscious that Freud had identified and the unconscious referred to (though not by that name) in the Christian tradition.
Imagine, I said, that you are a scientist and you have before you the object known as the acorn. Let us further imagine that you have never before seen such an object and that you certainly do not know that it can grow into an oak. You carefully observe these acorns day after day and soon you notice that after a while they crack open and die. Pity! How to improve the acorn? So that it will live longer. You make careful, exquisitely precise chemical analyses of the material inside the acorn and, after much effort, you succeed in isolating the substance that controls the condition of the shell. Lo and behold, you are now in the position to produce acorns which will last far longer than the others, acorns whose shells will perhaps never crack. Beautiful!

The question before us, therefore, is whether or not modern psychology is only a version of acornology.

— To die to oneself begins with the crack of the shell and allows the living growing essence or kernel of life to develop. As prof. Needleman implies, normally we are unaware of the purpose of our personality and just strengthen it at the expense of the living essence it surrounds. We increase its strength and starves the living essence. To die to oneself is to diminish the strength of the shell so our essential selves can grow.
O- Let us crack that acorn. there are several passages that caught my attention as I was reading. I did not know where he was going but I had seen these road signs before. I seen them before and others too have and they all disagree on just where we are going.
I can agree with an innate X. I don’t believe we are blank slates. But we have no way to justify the statement that we have impressions of “truth”. Again, I bring the opposite hypothesis that we have impressions but that we conditionaly judge some as truth at times and false at others–the same impression is rarely given the same regard. OBJECTIVELY IT IS THE SAME BUT THE SUBJECTIVE (the I at time X) DECLARES THE TRUTH.
Since no one apparently has seen an oak, no one can fault the scientist, not even the priest. Objectively there is no Oak and it is by the tyranny of one that an Oak is even posted. Worse of all, some say that the acorn turns into a palm tree and others into a cat, and since no one can objectively settle question until after death, they have imagined and fantasised of their views as objective.
It is natural for the christian to attack psychology. Psychology is the natural enemy of christinaity. Psychologists listen like priest the confession of human behaviours condemned by society, but while the priest upholds the taboo of the society of christians, the psychologist passes no judgement on their “sins” and prescribes only what the sinner agrees to. It is the religion of the individual.

Quote:
O- The thing is that many caves might simply be connected and when we examine the situation the follower of the way does not know whether he is following the way towards the Light of the Sun or just another brightly lit fire in yet another cave. How will he tell but with his imagination? In all cases, the same circumstances are repeated.

— This is why a teacher is necessary.
O- The teacher is teacher by our faith. We discussed that before.

Quote:
“He who wants knowledge must himself make the initial efforts to find
the source of knowledge and to approach it, taking advantage of the help
and indications which are given to all, but which people, as a rule, do
not want to see or recognize. Knowledge cannot come to people without
effort on their own part. They understand this very well in connection
with ordinary knowledge, but in the case of great knowledge , when they
admit the possibility of its existence, they find it possible to expect some-
thing different. Everyone knows very well that if, for instance, a man
wants to learn Chinese, it will take several years of intense work; every-
one knows that five years are needed to grasp the principles of medicine,
and perhaps twice as many years for the study of painting or music. And
yet there are theories which affirm that knowledge can come to people
without any effort on their part, that they can acquire it even in sleep.
The very existence of such theories constitutes an additional explanation
of why knowledge cannot come to people. At the same time it is essen-
tial to understand that man’s independent efforts to attain anything in
this direction can also give no results. A man can only attain knowledge
with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning.
One must learn from him who knows .”
O- Now change "knowledge for “error”. Knowledge? Sure, but knowledge of what? Anyone who wants, seeks. But his want being particular, his find shall too be. Whom he considers a teacher, whom he considers to know, will simply reflect back to him what he sought, what he wanted. Not necessarly what happens to be the case and in most cases we see, these stories of knowledge, of truth, of what is, are very human-friendly, or at least believer-friendly.
Would you believe it, would you consider that I bring you knowledge, if I told you that God exist, but he does not care about humans? Would you consider reality the fact that you shall die and perhaps the death of your mind shall preceed the death of your body? Or could it be true that there is no heaven, no hell, but most importantly, no self?
I haven’t asked, and you have been graciously vague, which I admire, the escathology you believe in, but knowing it, how does it make you feel. Horrified or expectant of the upcomming Joy? This is the source of that some call “Truth”.

— Since I’ve never been to heaven I cannot really say. Conscious life at this level of being called heaven must be the experience of objective meaning, purpose and love of a very nigh order.
O- Is that something you want?

— What profits us the most could also be what the corrupt ego denies and keeps us in the cave. The choice is between contentment in the cave or freedom outside the cave.
O- Another false and manufactured division. Freedom does not make you content? It is ego within the cave and outside the cave. Regardless of where we are, the ego is like a master card:“Never leave home without it.” We seek enhancement…

Quote:
What do you imagine Heaven to be like Nick?

— It would more conscious and less mechanical.
O- Is consciousness itself not the result of mechanical, physical states? First error: A mind without a brain.

— At this level of consciousness
O- God’s or Heaven’s?

— there would be no strife since BS is not necessary for consciousness that accepts truth.
O- You should re-read the Torah on that relation between God and men and strife. You talk of a Kingdom but the word no longer means what it once did. Once God was considered King and as any King does, he had enemies and a Kingdom. In short, strife was not alien to that Higher level of Consciousness. Now days, these soft and tender days of democracy and republics, have left no space for the political meaning, the political “life” of God. Yet another fact of our selective need for meaning. Is it any wonder that this lack of political meaning in God comes as the separation of God and state has become more acceptable in the West?

[Nick_A]

Hi Omar

First let me say that I appreciate your attitude. We are actually discussing something and comparing our perspectives without knives and guns. I know it sounds naive but it means something to me.

Exactly! But that is what you do all the time; what they too have done. They have the Mind of God.

I wasn’t aware that I was doing it. I’m not sure who the “they” is though I suspect it to be representatives of various sects of Christendom. I’m the one that speaks of man’s nothingness. In matters of my relationship to God I think like Simone:

We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him. Simone Weil

So much for me knowing the mind of God. Yet it is not only Christendom. I’ve been reading on this board of becoming one with the Tao. Common sense would say that this is impossible for us as we are. So don’t just blame Christendom for this egotism. We can become aware of God’s will as universal law. It is just through this knowledge where I believe a person can become balanced and experience help from above. But it requires a conscious impartiality that can only be acquired through some serious efforts at self knowledge. Otherwise it is just fantasy.

Detachment? Fleeing from reality, which is then called a “dream” and the dream the “reality”.

Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
Simone Weil

There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.
Simone Weil

This is really some extraordinary psychology. Detachment basically means emotional impartiality. It allows us to experience the impressions of the external world without judgment. Call this reality. Pain normally leads to emotional reactions like hatred or lying which forces us to continue in this defensive dream of ours. So detachment is not fleeing from reality but just not emotionally reacting to it in order to experience the reality of these impressions. Attachment is a partiality that prevents the balanced impartial experience of reality. The real clinker though is though I’ve become aware of it and made some progress the hold attachment has on me is amazing. Obviously something is necessary beyond intellectual understanding.

I can agree with an innate X. I don’t believe we are blank slates. But we have no way to justify the statement that we have impressions of “truth”. Again, I bring the opposite hypothesis that we have impressions but that we conditionaly judge some as truth at times and false at others–the same impression is rarely given the same regard. OBJECTIVELY IT IS THE SAME BUT THE SUBJECTIVE (the I at time X) DECLARES THE TRUTH.
Since no one apparently has seen an oak, no one can fault the scientist, not even the priest. Objectively there is no Oak and it is by the tyranny of one that an Oak is even posted. Worse of all, some say that the acorn turns into a palm tree and others into a cat, and since no one can objectively settle question until after death, they have imagined and fantasised of their views as objective.

You are describing the corrupt ego that our personailty is gradually built upon. I agree that the objective is degraded into the subjective. If we were balanced IMO the higher conscious parts of our mind would be aware of the lower unconscious reactions or our personality. This would be "knowing ourselves or the experience of ourselves. Then the distinction would be clear. But as Prof. Needleman implies, the tendency is just to make our personalities or acceptable societal reactions stronger at the expense of our conscious potential. In the Bible this inner separation is described as letting “the dead bury their own dead.”

A person having lost their conscious potential is considered dead spiritually. So the spiritually dead can bury the physically dead but we cannot be caught up in it from a Christian perspective. It is what it is.

There is another biblical expression that is very offensive to the secular mind because this mind is unaware of the esoteric meaning. The expression is "don’t throw pearls before swine. The PC biblical police go nuts over that one. But the real psychological point is lost in all the righteous indignation. The neck of the pig does not allow it to look up. It is always looking at the ground or straight ahead. Metanoia usually read as repentance means the change of direction our mind can take when we experience the spiritual dimension and begin to look inwardly or “up.” Some people are either incapable or cannot experience this change of perspective. They are locked into a direction justlike the pig’s neck locks it into a direction. So throwing pearls before swine drains a person for no reason. No good can come from it. One’s personality (shell) is completely dominant so starves this kernel within the acorn analogous to our conscious potential.

It is natural for the christian to attack psychology. Psychology is the natural enemy of christinaity. Psychologists listen like priest the confession of human behaviours condemned by society, but while the priest upholds the taboo of the society of christians, the psychologist passes no judgement on their “sins” and prescribes only what the sinner agrees to. It is the religion of the individual.

Christianity is psychology. It is behaviorism that attacks it. At one time people accepted the fact that philosophy and behaviorism existed together as psychology. They were united through the appreciation of the ontological study of human “being” After a while and without the level of consciousness necessary to retain the value of this study, the importance of what we ARE was lost in favor of the concern for what we DO. The fact that they necessarily had to be related became lost in the shuffle. So modern psychology as behaviorism concerns itself with what we do and philosophy has become the domain of intellectual ideas but how they relate to what we ARE only remains in the realm of religion or I believe as in my path of esoteric Christianity.

I believe you are wrong to assert that modern psychology is not judgmental. The very presence of a diagnosis is judgmental. That is another thing I appreciate about Simone. Any judgments that these modern psychologist make as to her odd life are so obviously superficial it makes it easier to acknowledge the limitations of their expertise.

Now change "knowledge for “error”. Knowledge? Sure, but knowledge of what? Anyone who wants, seeks. But his want being particular, his find shall too be. Whom he considers a teacher, whom he considers to know, will simply reflect back to him what he sought, what he wanted. Not necessarily what happens to be the case and in most cases we see, these stories of knowledge, of truth, of what is, are very human-friendly, or at least believer-friendly.
Would you believe it, would you consider that I bring you knowledge, if I told you that God exist, but he does not care about humans? Would you consider reality the fact that you shall die and perhaps the death of your mind shall preceed the death of your body? Or could it be true that there is no heaven, no hell, but most importantly, no self?
I haven’t asked, and you have been graciously vague, which I admire, the escathology you believe in, but knowing it, how does it make you feel. Horrified or expectant of the upcomming Joy? This is the source of that some call “Truth”.

If I am physically hungry, knowledge for me is how I can find food. Someone can direct me to a store and the direction is wrong. Do I just forget the hunger? I will keeps searching for food. How will I know it is edible? If it is a rock it will be obvious. Yes it could be poison fruit but still I have to chance it. No sense starving to death

The spiritual hunger is like this for me. I look for this knowledge that can open me to it. Yes I could easily fall into self deception if I don’t stay attentive. But is there an inner taste for truth? I believe so and think I’ve experienced it at times. It is of a different quality. I’ve seen my share of charlatans and have come to know their style. it is impressive but nothing like the depth of one who knows. They seem to radiate what I find attractive and do not appeal to our ego. This is why they don’t sell.

The escathology I believe in asserts as expressed in Ecclesiastes that everything moves in cycles. It is also this way with a teaching that isinitiated by a conscious source. The force of Jesus’ death and Resurrection can only remain with Mankind for a while and then loses its force. When it is over the cycle can begin again. This for me is the meaning of an age or aeon. At the end, only what can be saved as related to consciousness or spiritual awareness can be “saved.” Everything else is like the rest of organic life that follows the cycle of dust to dust. I am neither horrified overjoyed at this since I cannot comprehend it beyond the theoretical. Salvation in the body of Christ and access to the Kingdom I don’t believe to be the same.

If you strike a gong, the sound rings true for a while and gradually loses its force. It is the same I believe with the beginning of such a teaching as Christianity and Buddhism for example.

I could change knowledge to error but how does this serve the hunger? the task then is how to begin to know.

The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know. Simone Weil

I’ve found this to be a big difference between Christianity and Christendom. Where Christendom emphasizes what you should know, esoteric Christianity teaches how to know and begin to distinguish between Great knowledge and fantasy. (error)

Since I’ve never been to heaven I cannot really say. Conscious life at this level of being called heaven must be the experience of objective meaning, purpose and love of a very nigh order.
O- Is that something you want?

Yes

What profits us the most could also be what the corrupt ego denies and keeps us in the cave. The choice is between contentment in the cave or freedom outside the cave.
O- Another false and manufactured division. Freedom does not make you content? It is ego within the cave and outside the cave. Regardless of where we are, the ego is like a master card:“Never leave home without it.” We seek enhancement…

The freedom I am referring to is what leads to the appreciation of the light outside the cave. Where the corrupt ego defines itself from life without the light, the conscious ego in which imagination has been seen for what it is can make use of this freedom. I accept a great distinction between the quality of the ego in relation to imagination. Though the word is the same it can mean completely different qualities.

It would more conscious and less mechanical.
O- Is consciousness itself not the result of mechanical, physical states? First error: A mind without a brain.

Remember that I believe that God is the highest consciousness. "ONE becoming “three” degrades into creation and by a process reblends into fractions of itself. The gradual absence of consciousness on each descending cosmos is replaced by an increasing number of mechanical laws,

As Man returns to his origin, he evolves past the stage of physical evolution and it becomes conscious evolution. The next stage I believe would be a greater conscious life under less mechanical restriction. It is not something we can imagine since it would be life without lies for example. How can we visualize that.

O- You should re-read the Torah on that relation between God and men and strife. You talk of a Kingdom but the word no longer means what it once did. Once God was considered King and as any King does, he had enemies and a Kingdom. In short, strife was not alien to that Higher level of Consciousness. Now days, these soft and tender days of democracy and republics, have left no space for the political meaning, the political “life” of God. Yet another fact of our selective need for meaning. Is it any wonder that this lack of political meaning in God comes as the separation of God and state has become more acceptable in the West?

I believe as did Simone Weil that this idea of the personal God was part of the reason Christianity changed from the religion of slaves to a religion of power defeating its esoteric living purpose. As such I take a different view on the relationship between religion and society.

I recently read one of the two books Simone did write called “A Need For Roots” In it she itemizes the needs of the soul that society should reflect. Thank goodness the PC police haven’t found out about it yet. But before speaking of these specific needs she refers to the spiritual needs of society. I found a summary:

Another aspect of this question is the awareness that Weil brings to social and political problems of why spirituality is necessary. It might be a truism that true change in a society cannot occur unless there is a subjective change as well. There is an example of this in alcohol or drug treatment programs. Unless the person wants to change, all the counseling and the support groups will not make a person change.

For Weil, on the social level, this is true of societies as well. In her analysis of history and revolutions, she showed that every revolution ultimately replaced one form of oppression with another. For her, this showed that the reality of history is struggle for power. This is why she believed that for true change, a spiritual awakening must occur in individual conscience.

Take an example: why, with all the money thrown at poverty in the US, is there still poverty? For Weil, the answer to this question is that the programs and money were directed at the wrong problems. Because they were programs by those who had for those who did not have, the misrelation in power continued—in many ways, the rich instituted programs that would continue to benefit them and maintain their hold on power.

Perhaps this in and of itself justifies the notion that living with the poor and oppressed changes one’s consciousness. Of course, a simple or superficial identification with the poor will not be an authentic experience. But a continued and extended opening up of oneself to the pain and suffering of the poor and oppressed—putting oneself into their condition and seeking that condition would seem to work a change in the spirit.

Perhaps this is why Weil commends the mystical practices of the saints—this rigorous and methodical emptying of oneself does not come easily—it is too easy to believe that one is there while still holding on to the escape route in the back of one’s mind. It demands something like a spiritual practice to seek out all those ways we have of deluding ourselves and lying to ourselves. Weil never says that it is simply a matter of living with the poor—there is a constant reminder in her writings that this experience must permeate one’s entire spirit and being. In her words, one must become a slave to understand what a slave endures.

This is why she believed that for true change, a spiritual awakening must occur in individual conscience.

Typical Simone. No song and dance or platitudes. This is why she speaks of the needs of the soul. It is a part of what allows the awakening of this conscience. Yet in PC times it would be considered offensive since she speaks IMO the truth of these needs. Such ideas could never take hold now because we are what we are. It is just interesting to speculate what a society would be like if slightly more spiritually awake.

We speak of the separation of church and state oblivious of the potential of its connection.

[omar]

Hello Nick and sorry for the delay:

— First let me say that I appreciate your attitude. We are actually discussing something and comparing our perspectives without knives and guns. I know it sounds naive but it means something to me.
O- Not at all, Nick. I presume that you’ve visited the KDH site and met the legend Raphael… at least a legend to some. People like him are cancers to communication, to open conversations between different views into the most known unknown. In that sense, the appreciation is mutual.
I have a point, but no matter what, I respect yours. If there be a God, let him be the Judge on our cases and not ourselves, not our reason, not our logic. It may mean that we say little while we say a lot, but it leaves open a door, as Weil has shown us, through which the Light might enter.
I’ve been paying attention…

— I wasn’t aware that I was doing it.
O- I mean that in so many cases when the jury should still be out, you’ve reached a conclusion. Now, you’ve said that we should cherish the questions, but you have not questions but answers. What happens when we die? You’ve the answer. Why did Jesus have to die? You’ve the answer. How then are we to cherish in our questions when religion is concerned with giving answers?
Personally, I could agree with you, in the sense that faith is in the question, faith is needed while in question and faith is lost a little, when we stipulate that it is reasonable, as 2+2 = 4. It is in the “maybe”, not in the certainties.

— I’m not sure who the “they” is though I suspect it to be representatives of various sects of Christendom.
O- Don’t think that your beliefs are so far from this imaginary “them”. You might not see it, but in the very fact that you have Christ as a fulcrum, you are enjoined to that machine of Christendom.

— I’m the one that speaks of man’s nothingness. In matters of my relationship to God I think like Simone:
Quote:
We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him. Simone Weil

O- That is the certainty I speak of: God is what we are not. Really? In what part of the Bible is that found? And as long as you include Christ in your beliefs, you must account for the Bible. God is inhuman, Nick, and is unlike us, but at the same time is like us and we like him and for centuries it has been the accepted fact that places value in a human life that we are created in his image. In this, we cannot be decided, not at least in what we have, the Bible.
But it is important to believe that he is what we have the potential to be. I know you’ll agree; for in that is based our appreciation of Jesus as a teacher.

— So much for me knowing the mind of God. Yet it is not only Christendom. I’ve been reading on this board of becoming one with the Tao. Common sense would say that this is impossible for us as we are. So don’t just blame Christendom for this egotism.
O- I want you to understand that I don’t consider this egotism as denigrating. It is part of our biology. We all do it, even I, when i am not careful. I assert many things but often out of the consequences of a belief more than from the logic or idealism.

— We can become aware of God’s will as universal law.
O- A physical set of Laws? A Moral Law?

Quote:
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
Simone Weil
O- In that case, we are always attached. Some are attached to earthly things, others to Heaven’s, but in either case we create illusions. The “should”, the “ought” in our hearts is the attachement. It is the philosopher’s stone by which we order reality as “reality” and our illusions also as “reality”. To be truly detached means to have no answer, no certainty, to have a chaotic structure, that serves as bookends for the “Now”. This is the realm of Imp. The truly detached, is truly inhuman. What I disagree on with Weil is that she can consider this stage, this form of being as capable of delivering “reality”. Because, ironically, the moment we achieve reality, by this detachment, we are immediately attached to this reality, and so sudden is this re-ligion, that we are left unsure if we ever were truly detached or if it is even humanly possible to be so.

— There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.
Simone Weil
O- What misery! I pity such a person, while I can understand such a person. This is a description of a perfect denial. It begins with the premise: Reality is pain; reality is painful; life is painful.
Like a Buddha, the logical course is to detach, to escape from that which gives us pain, even if that is reality itself. The Buddha longs for a long rest, a cooling-down a perfect nothingness, a perfect detachment of all that is and could be or has been. It is, without doubt, the annihiliation of the Self, of the ego, for the sake of the ego that is becomes detached from the real by being attached to it’s pain.
The fundamental error made is to agree in that reality is misery, pain and joyless. this is something that I have said before, as a “critique” of Weil’s thoughts.

— This is really some extraordinary psychology. Detachment basically means emotional impartiality.
O- No because it’s focus on pain. “there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.” It has a reason to be: To endure pain without hatred. It is emotionally partial.

— It allows us to experience the impressions of the external world without judgment. Call this reality.
O- What we end up calling reality is a judgment.

— Pain normally leads to emotional reactions like hatred or lying which forces us to continue in this defensive dream of ours. So detachment is not fleeing from reality but just not emotionally reacting to it in order to experience the reality of these impressions.
O- Hmmm. I can agree in that the pain of life leads to hatred, at first, but in time, the pain is healed. Time heals all wounds and allays all pains. we might hate and lie to ourselves, more than anything, but mostly for a time. About these lies…why would we lie? To detach ourselves from the pain. What can be a form of that lie? a denial of reality as “reality” but as only apparent and a veil for the True Reality. Just think about it…
It is fleeing reality, because it departs from the Pain: “There is no detachment where there is no pain.” It is fleeing the pain of what has so far passed as real. It is a simple thing really. Is like taking our eyes from the ground level of a city being bombed, and put them in the cockpit of the plane sending the bombs. When put in perspective, our pain seems a little thing, yet that is to equal ourselves as little and insignificant. Likewise, our joy too will be “relativized”, and become insignificant. Such is the effect that we can only recall being under the effect of anesthesia. But if this the proper state of Man? That is the crucial question…

— Attachment is a partiality that prevents the balanced impartial experience of reality.
O- How so? deatchment is the one that departs from pain. Attachment seems to involve both pain and joy, if we are to call it true attachment.

— You are describing the corrupt ego that our personailty is gradually built upon.
O- I am describing our finite existence, or being.

— A person having lost their conscious potential is considered dead spiritually. So the spiritually dead can bury the physically dead but we cannot be caught up in it from a Christian perspective. It is what it is.
O- I have already made light of the Judeo-christian perspective of the sinner and how he is doomed to die, until that is, Jesus comes and pays with his blood the blood-debt of humanity with the Eternal’s Justice. This is the tradition of christendom, you might say, but if you say something opposite to it, all you’re doing is adding another new tradition and cannot settle for me the question of: Why did Jesus have to die?
To release his energy? Or something…That might be but it also might be the Platonist of the 3rd century taking over the teachings of a dead prophet in a new light. In the final analysis, Nick, i cannot accept one narration above another. I was not there and I cannot know whether any report is faithful to what truly happened. I cannot know why did Jesus have to die. No one perhaps ever knew, but had the imperative in their hearts to take his death as descriptive of a grand design rather than a meaningless death, which would have been too painful to accept.

— There is another biblical expression that is very offensive to the secular mind because this mind is unaware of the esoteric meaning. The expression is "don’t throw pearls before swine. The PC biblical police go nuts over that one. But the real psychological point is lost in all the righteous indignation. The neck of the pig does not allow it to look up. It is always looking at the ground or straight ahead. Metanoia usually read as repentance means the change of direction our mind can take when we experience the spiritual dimension and begin to look inwardly or “up.” Some people are either incapable or cannot experience this change of perspective. They are locked into a direction justlike the pig’s neck locks it into a direction. So throwing pearls before swine drains a person for no reason. No good can come from it. One’s personality (shell) is completely dominant so starves this kernel within the acorn analogous to our conscious potential.
O- I don’t see how different is your take on it from tha traditional take, which simply equates the swine with a type of human that is not part of the chosen, the elite, the elect, the remnant etc. They are unbelievers and cannot be taught, cannot receive the pearls of the Gospels. They are refered to elsewhere and the prescription to the faithful is to have nothing to do with them (Paul).

Quote:
It is natural for the christian to attack psychology. Psychology is the natural enemy of christinaity. Psychologists listen like priest the confession of human behaviours condemned by society, but while the priest upholds the taboo of the society of christians, the psychologist passes no judgement on their “sins” and prescribes only what the sinner agrees to. It is the religion of the individual.

— Christianity is psychology. It is behaviorism that attacks it. (…) After a while and without the level of consciousness necessary to retain the value of this study, the importance of what we ARE was lost in favor of the concern for what we DO. The fact that they necessarily had to be related became lost in the shuffle. So modern psychology as behaviorism concerns itself with what we do and philosophy has become the domain of intellectual ideas but how they relate to what we ARE only remains in the realm of religion or I believe as in my path of esoteric Christianity.
O- The “what we are” is always subjective therefore it is futile for science to try to thrieve there. It’s only hope was with the “what we do”, which was naive, sure, but the only possibility it had to speak scientifically about what it meant to be human. As it stands, you’re right, it is the realm of religion that now deals with who we are, but only in relation to what it can say we “should” be. It departs from the subjective and tries to fill the idea of the “objective”. It cannot be done and that is why we have thousands, literally, thousands of religions each varied in what it says we ARE.

— I believe you are wrong to assert that modern psychology is not judgmental. The very presence of a diagnosis is judgmental. That is another thing I appreciate about Simone. Any judgments that these modern psychologist make as to her odd life are so obviously superficial it makes it easier to acknowledge the limitations of their expertise.
O- I have not seen a psychologist in my entire life, but i do agree in that no one can be perfectly detached and impartial. Freud might have pretended that he was being scientififc and detached, but he was not, as many have shown. But I am going from the existential psychology, the postmodern psychology, as presented by Kenneth Gergen in his book, The Saturated Self. We should distinguish the psychiatrist from the psychologist. The psychiatrist is more liable to give a diagnosis than a psychologist. By the very fact that we take ourselves to see a psychologist we have already diagnosed ourselves, so his diagnosis, if any is only supplementary.

— Yes I could easily fall into self deception if I don’t stay attentive. But is there an inner taste for truth? I believe so and think I’ve experienced it at times. It is of a different quality. I’ve seen my share of charlatans and have come to know their style. it is impressive but nothing like the depth of one who knows. They seem to radiate what I find attractive and do not appeal to our ego. This is why they don’t sell.
O- They sell with you don’t they? What you find “attractive”, you take as the “truth”. Because it is attractive, it can deceive you, because however unattached you might tell yourself you are, you become engage to the truth by it’s attractiveness, and thus, directly to your ego, to your I, to that emotional lace that seeks, that longs and hungers and cannot be without food, without shelter and in relation to the subjective, without truth. This is why we are vulnerable at all times to self-deception, to inner lies. Does that mean we should not seek? No. You’ve chanced it and i agree. I disagree with you in the sense that we can consider ourselves or another, a teacher, of objectively identifying what is edible and what is not. From the many forms of christianities, past and present, which have existed or exist, which best represents the message of Jesus? I don’t know…
Anyone who thinks they know has bitten into an apple and declared all other fruits as unedible without trying them. Denied that these fruits could be edible to others while not for him and in a sense denying the Other in the process. What we forget is that it has little to do with thye fruit chosen and more to do with the existential feeling of hunger. We must never deny the religious experience of others in order to affirm ours.
One mountain top; many paths towards it…

— I could change knowledge to error but how does this serve the hunger? the task then is how to begin to know.
O- What about the question? Must we know at all cost? What if the cost of knowledge is to ignore our errors, our jumps and leaps? What is value of such victory? To me is my honesty…

Quote:
The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know. Simone Weil
O- This, ironically, is the part that cannot be taught, in my opinion. What is to know but the religious experience? What is the religious experience but the most subjective experience that is somewhat lost in language, in translation.

— I’ve found this to be a big difference between Christianity and Christendom. Where Christendom emphasizes what you should know, esoteric Christianity teaches how to know and begin to distinguish between Great knowledge and fantasy. (error)
O- By teaching How to Know, it presupposes What you Should Know. If I begin to teach you how to divide and multiply, I do so because you should know these. You should already know (religious experience in this case that is generalized from the personal experience), if not exactly, units. The how depends on a priori intuition (the religious experience we have, and assume others have, or can have) into the quality of quantity of defined units. If you do not accept that there are definite units (one definitive standard of experience or that my experience must be representative of all possible experiences), how can 2+2=4 (Christendom, Esoteric Christianity, Gnosticism etc…)mean a thing for you? If you lack that initial faith that the number, the unit is defined and clear, how can i ever teach you “how” to multiply or divide in units?
It is about teaching a method, but a method is singular if the goal too is singular. You are teaching another to do what? Anything, or a specific thing? Christendom is based on correct knowledge, the Greek Paideia, and early on it was involved on how to tell true from false. How can you begin to know? In their eyes, by reading the Bible and praying to God. Your way might be to “know yourself”; but in either case, the goal is a singular end, a correct end, not multiple, and thus the correct “how” being taught. The goal is “true” X, Correct X and bounced off it are incorrect Y, A, B, Z’s etc, and they know know “how” to tell knowledge of X from the fantasy of Y, A, B, and Z, just like you, so where is the difference???

Quote:
Since I’ve never been to heaven I cannot really say. Conscious life at this level of being called heaven must be the experience of objective meaning, purpose and love of a very nigh order.
O- Is that something you want?
— Yes
O- Of course. Don’t forget that. What is it they say? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is akin to order and order to truth and as such they too are in the eye of the beholder. It is not a radical relativism i propose, but a radical honesty that pretends from this knowledge onto the desires of it’s own heart to engage, even if this means to lose one’s way, rather than to independently emerge with the answer. Just because others may want something else does not mean that their want is any less real. they should not tell you what is the real, nor you them, but to each their own. One mountain top; many paths.
The Tiffany Lamp is made of diverse colors, much like humanity. We have different sexes, different cultures, at different times, different sensibilities. But at the heart of these many diverse colors exists a single Light that radiates through each distinct color glass piece, which turns, and let’s itself be turned, into a light that bears the particular color it penetrates. What can we do? Perhaps, thought I don’t know if this is correct, we might know more about the light seeing what the others see as well as what we see. By accepting the diverse religious experiences and expectations with tolerance, though they might leave us with more questions than answers. This is a conversation, and this requires faith, in which the last word has not yet been spoken to any one man or beast.
The result, the consequence of such story, as i tell it, is that reality becomes decentralized and allows for reality to better reflect reality. the truth is that reality exceeds our senses, our experience. Any answer into the Real is an attempt at limiting the limitless and drawing a circle that ignores what lays outside and cannot see what lies inside.
i am speaking here too much and with too much authority which I lack compleatly and must ask that you look at what i have said with the eyes of a sceptic, lest i exceed my position within reality.
My faith is not an easy faith. It builds what it then destroys, and yet destroys only in order to build again. Crazy dialectic…

— The freedom I am referring to is what leads to the appreciation of the light outside the cave. Where the corrupt ego defines itself from life without the light, the conscious ego in which imagination has been seen for what it is can make use of this freedom. I accept a great distinction between the quality of the ego in relation to imagination. Though the word is the same it can mean completely different qualities.
O- The distinction is set by you. “Conscious” “Corrupt” are words that have a necessary meaning for an arbitrary end. The words are defined such in order than you can move on to your true goal, your answer. How often this is done? It is done also with “reality” and then with “Christianity” or also “religion”. Each course which is seeking to teach How, begings by making qualifications as to what has been the error of man and then begins to correct that error by revealing to us, oh prophets, what is True reality, true christianity, true religion. They, however, are strategems of the ego which supports what it approves of. (((Quote:
Since I’ve never been to heaven I cannot really say. Conscious life at this level of being called heaven must be the experience of objective meaning, purpose and love of a very nigh order.
O- Is that something you want?
— Yes)))

[socratus]

I am standing pressed from all the sides by the passengers of the bus.
I feel bitterly and pain breaks my breast. Suddenly something tore away from my heart and rushed high.
And only thin silver string kept this something with the heart.
As it moved away, the string became thinner and thinner and already the whole of it vibrated of tension.
And this something already reached the sun and being
frightened of its hot gravitation field, diverted aside in fear.
And the string rang and it seemed that it would break off
at any moment. But suddenly this something began to return
fast and hided in my breast, in my heart.
I recovered my senses and looked around amazingly.
The bus rushed, human voices made noise monotonously
and nobody saw that I was in the other measurement,
I returned from the other world.
The string succeeded this time.
Involuntary, tears appeared in the corners of my eyes.
Not having some religious experience, I could not write this book.
By the way, taking into account a paradoxical situation in quantum physics,
Schrodinger, in one his letter, wrote:
" As though quantum theory did not become the theory describing psychological processes ".
Probably, he has written it in a joke. However this joke once again emphasizes depth
of unusual behaviour micro particle describing by quantum theory.

[Dan1 (Dan~)]

sock,

Astral projection, ay?

Be 'ware, if you spread yourself too thin you will kill yourself.

[Nick_A]

Hi Omar

Good to see you back. We all have our responsibilities so don’t worry about delays.

O- I mean that in so many cases when the jury should still be out, you’ve reached a conclusion. Now, you’ve said that we should cherish the questions, but you have not questions but answers. What happens when we die? You’ve the answer. Why did Jesus have to die? You’ve the answer. How then are we to cherish in our questions when religion is concerned with giving answers?

This has always been interesting to me. Simone Weil also helps here with two observations that appear contradictory until placed into a higher perspective.

Whatever debases the intelligence degrades the entire human being. Simone weil

The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit. Simone Weil

She was brilliant and respected intelligence. But as a mystic, she knew its limitations and recognized that something else would be needed, a higher experiential perspective beyond what the associative mind can provide. For this, the associative mind must submit.

Part of my path reconciles religion and science. Naturally then it attracts scientists and religious people that sense the value of the other approach as well as those in the arts. It is balanced in this way. As I’ve said, I believe that the separation between science and faith is abnormal so I’ve become more relaxed with those that value the balanced need for both approaches.

My path presents a skeleton of the universe and it is called cosmology. This is the hypothesis. It is logical and mathematical. My task is to experientially fill in the skeleton so that I can verify for myself if it resonates with me.

What you call conclusion is really the beginning of the question at which point the associative mind submits to contemplation. The answer is theoretical until it is personally verified

I can explain theoretically why Jesus had to die but for me to do this you would have to know the skeleton. Its truth must be verified. This is self knowledge.

O- That is the certainty I speak of: God is what we are not. Really? In what part of the Bible is that found? And as long as you include Christ in your beliefs, you must account for the Bible. God is inhuman, Nick, and is unlike us, but at the same time is like us and we like him and for centuries it has been the accepted fact that places value in a human life that we are created in his image. In this, we cannot be decided, not at least in what we have, the Bible.
But it is important to believe that he is what we have the potential to be. I know you’ll agree; for in that is based our appreciation of Jesus as a teacher.

Exodus 3

14And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

God is perfect and self contained. We cannot say “I am” It must be connected to something else like I am a this or that. As fallen man and a plurality of many small i’s, we are not in the image so “I am” does not exist for us. I’ve read that before being able to say I am Christian in the highest sense, one must first be able to say “I am.” This is why there are so few Christians. I’ve psychologically verified this for myself.

The Bible is an amazing book. If one takes it superficially and literally it can be seen as such. Yet at the same time, there are incredible ideas under the surface if one opens up to them. I’m amazed how when I read a passage, all of a sudden I can discover something new. Yet if the end of Luke is correct, I have a long way to go.

Luke 24:

45Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

So I expect quite a number of more surprises from my readings until my understanding means something…

The premise here is that as we are,we are not open to this objectivity; “asleep” to reality. Do you believe that we can have experiences initiated by a higher consciousness that make us aware of our sleep? My own experiences have verified it for me. They have allowed me to experience inner taste and more familiar with the taste of imagination.

Of course you can say that this is nothing but more imagination. I wouldn’t normally do this but I’ll describe an experience to show why I believe it to be true for me.

Years ago when I was really in need of the experience of meaning, I began meditating on a painting by an ancestor of mine who was a very gifted artist. In fact I don’t believe he had many peers if any in seascapes; not even Britain’s celebrated genius Joseph Turner. Yes you can say misguided family pride yet I still believe what my eyes have revealed.

I could see in his art that he knew of things I needed to know so I would meditate on his art and together with my “need” created this psychological question of “why.”

Then through some strange circumstances I discovered an old book that resonated with me. I had finally discovered that there were people and ideas that actually made sense to me. Before that everything I read were always partial truths and with my chess player type mind, I could always find the flaw in it to the annoyance of all around me. Now all of a sudden I am up a against reason that exists as an organic whole allowing me to see that what always had been nonsense was natural and couldn’t be any other way. No matter what my question, it fit logically right in to a larger organic whole. During these mind blowing times I experienced qualities of emotion I did not know existed. Distinguishing between these qualities is what I now call inner taste; a different quality of “seeing” altogether.

I’ve never been satisfied with normal religious or New Age emotion. It always suggested escapism. At the same time I’ve always been unhappy with cold science as the indicator of higher reality.

As highly as I regard Simone Weil, she is still a woman to me; a fantastic woman, but still a woman. I would always want to protect a woman of such great quality. This “protecting” would get in the way of my learning. I had to laugh when I thought of Peter defending Jesus with his sword by chopping off a soldiers ear. Jesus tells him that he is denying the teaching and doing more harm than good. I could see myself doing the same thing with Simone. I’m a broad shouldered Aries male, what else can you expect. In those days I needed a Man. So I was fortunate to learn of men and what a man is and got my inner ass kicked in the process from these new revelations. I felt no need to protect but only to learn.

If you believe that it is all imagination, that’s OK. I am only describing this to you to suggest the possibility that the experience of objective truths and imagination are not the same and we can develop inner taste. This is what I believe John meant by the phrase “test the spirits.” But first we need some conscious experiences in order to test objectively and not just strengthen preconceptions.

— We can become aware of God’s will as universal law.
O- A physical set of Laws? A Moral Law?

Physical laws. But there are complimentary ways of discovering and developing this awareness. Let me post an excerpt that helps to describe this difference:

In our attempt to reconcile the inner and outer world, however, we do come up against a very real difficulty, which must be faced. This difficulty is connected with the problem of reconciling different ‘methods of knowing’.

Man has two ways of studying the universe. The first is by induction: he examines phenomena, classifies them, and attempts to infer laws and principles from them. This is the method generally used by science. The second is by deduction: having perceived or had revealed or discovered certain general laws and principles, he attempts to deduce the application of these laws in various studies and in life. This is the method generally used by religions… The first method begins with ‘facts’ and attempts to reach ‘laws’. The second method begins with ‘laws’ and attempts to reach ‘facts’.

These two methods belong to the working of different human functions. The first is the method of the ordinary logical mind, which is permanently available to us. the second derives from a potential function in man, which is ordinarily inactive for lack of nervous energy of sufficient intensity, and which we may call higher mental function This function on rare occasions of its operation, reveals to man laws in action, he sees the whole phenomenal world as the product of laws.

All true formulations of universal laws derive recently or remotely from the working of this higher function, somewhere and in some man. At the same time, for the application and understanding of the laws revealed in the long stretches of time and culture when such revelation is not available, man has to rely on the ordinary logical mind."

I believe that Simone had this capacity for deductive reason which is why some of her writings are so incredible. She allows the reader to experience this deductive, “top down” reason that is more natural for conscious affirmation. This is why I believe it has this ability to help in “awakening.”. I’ve experienced it but not on her level.

O- In that case, we are always attached. Some are attached to earthly things, others to Heaven’s, but in either case we create illusions. The “should”, the “ought” in our hearts is the attachement. It is the philosopher’s stone by which we order reality as “reality” and our illusions also as “reality”. To be truly detached means to have no answer, no certainty, to have a chaotic structure, that serves as bookends for the “Now”. This is the realm of Imp. The truly detached, is truly inhuman. What I disagree on with Weil is that she can consider this stage, this form of being as capable of delivering “reality”. Because, ironically, the moment we achieve reality, by this detachment, we are immediately attached to this reality, and so sudden is this re-ligion, that we are left unsure if we ever were truly detached

But detachment is without should or ought. These words only come into play from attachment. Detachment is pure non judgmental affirmation. Should and ought come from analysis which is different entirely. Affirmation of below by definition contains a question directed to the above so by definition objective truth is above us.

It is our state of sleep or attachment that is inhuman. Being really human as before the fall is free of this unbalanced attachment to the earth from our imagination…If detachment is by definition a freedom from attachment through imagination it seems to me to be clear that it is through this freedom that we begin to experience reality. I really do not understand your objection.

[Nick_A]

O- What misery! I pity such a person, while I can understand such a person. This is a description of a perfect denial. It begins with the premise: Reality is pain; reality is painful; life is painful.

You are misunderstanding her. She is suggesting that it is through pain that we begin to search for something higher to get away from it. It is the motivating force. If everything is going wonderful, there is little incentive to awaken to the fact that all moves in cycles.

Like a Buddha, the logical course is to detach, to escape from that which gives us pain, even if that is reality itself. The Buddha longs for a long rest, a cooling-down a perfect nothingness, a perfect detachment of all that is and could be or has been. It is, without doubt, the annihiliation of the Self, of the ego, for the sake of the ego that is becomes detached from the real by being attached to it’s pain.

This is the error of modern Buddhism. the ancient idea isn’t to escape but to become open to the experience.

“The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural use for it.” – Simone Weil

Detachment isn’t escaping from pain but detaching from what prevents our conscious experience of it for the purpose of transformation.

The fundamental error made is to agree in that reality is misery, pain and joyless. this is something that I have said before, as a “critique” of Weil’s thoughts.

This is because you misunderstand her.

“Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. This is the truth about authentic good and evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way round. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm.” Simone Weil
From "Morality and Literature,”an essay published in Cahiers du Sud, January 1944

The misery, pain, and lack of joy is as a result of our dependence on imagination. It is through the reality of the good that it can change. that is why she speaks of the supernatural use of pain.

This is really some extraordinary psychology. Detachment basically means emotional impartiality.
O- No because it’s focus on pain. “there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.” It has a reason to be: To endure pain without hatred. It is emotionally partial.

I’m not sure what you mean.What do you believe this emotional impartiality is partial to?

It allows us to experience the impressions of the external world without judgment. Call this reality.
O- What we end up calling reality is a judgment.

By judgment I mean good or bad. Most will define a war as either good or bad depending on which side they are on and who is fighting. A person then judges war in this way. But it is being suggested that war is just the natural manifestations of man’s being in response to earthly and cosmic influences. It just happens because we are as we are…From this perspective it is neither good or bad but an indication of the unnatural state of Man’s being. To really see war for what it is as an aspect of man’s being requires abandoning our definition of it as either good or bad.

Perhaps if people became aware that these judgments of natural expression as right and wrong only deny the deeper understanding of what we are and the collective need to tackle this problem. But we are so attached to the need for judgments that this is impossible so life will continue as it is in its lawful cycles. It is only the individual that can awaken to this through the supernatural use of suffering as opposed to its denial.

O- How so? detachment is the one that departs from pain. Attachment seems to involve both pain and joy, if we are to call it true attachment

.

Detachment allows the possibility for pain to be experience from a higher perspective and as such furthers the development of human perspective rather than escaping from it.into imagination where nothing can be gained from it.

In the final analysis, Nick, i cannot accept one narration above another. I was not there and I cannot know whether any report is faithful to what truly happened. I cannot know why did Jesus have to die. No one perhaps ever knew, but had the imperative in their hearts to take his death as descriptive of a grand design rather than a meaningless death, which would have been too painful to accept.

There is no reason you should. The question for those who care is how we can grow to understand. At least my path provides the skeleton which is open to personal verification through attempts at self knowledge. The nature of Jesus’ sacrifice has become theoretically clear for me through what I’ve come to accept as universal meaning and purpose.

O- I don’t see how different is your take on it from tha traditional take, which simply equates the swine with a type of human that is not part of the chosen, the elite, the elect, the remnant etc. They are unbelievers and cannot be taught, cannot receive the pearls of the Gospels. They are refered to elsewhere and the prescription to the faithful is to have nothing to do with them (Paul).

But their is no attack as to being good or bad like: “He called me a pig!” It is just the nature of a present psychological state of being.

O- The “what we are” is always subjective therefore it is futile for science to try to thrieve there. It’s only hope was with the “what we do”, which was naive, sure, but the only possibility it had to speak scientifically about what it meant to be human. As it stands, you’re right, it is the realm of religion that now deals with who we are, but only in relation to what it can say we “should” be. It departs from the subjective and tries to fill the idea of the “objective”. It cannot be done and that is why we have thousands, literally, thousands of religions each varied in what it says we ARE.

The only way IMO religion retains its value in appreciating man’s relative being or what we ARE in relation to human evolutionary potential is when it is a living esoteric tradition still connected with a conscious source belowits secular surface, Man’s evolution beyond the physical is primarily aspects of consciousness and will. Without sufficient will consciousness will devolve into imagination. Naturally then when a secularized religion attempts through its mechanization to appreciate consciousness as it relates to “being,” it will become chaos. It can be done but requires the development of qualities of consciousness and will which we mistakenly believe we already possess.

O- They sell with you don’t they? What you find “attractive”, you take as the “truth”. Because it is attractive

Actually I find it attractive because it provides the means for which I can verify for myself.which is completely different from blind acceptance.

Its amazing how we see these things differently.

The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know. Simone Weil
O- This, ironically, is the part that cannot be taught, in my opinion. What is to know but the religious experience? What is the religious experience but the most subjective experience that is somewhat lost in language, in translation.

For me, what it means to know is the capacity for discrimination between higher reality and imagination as well as the recognition of the lawful levels of being related as part of a larger whole. Is this subjective fantasy? Perhaps, but so many greats like Hermes (As above so below) said the same leading me to accept the hypothesis as worthy of study and verification through self knowledge. Do I exist as levels? Secondly it necessitates using it. If one cannot use it, what do we really know of it?

I can, therefore I am. Simone Weil

If the conscious religious experience helps to actualize a person (I am), then they can act objectively on it. Am becomes the natural expression of “I” This takes real inner work and there is a science to it

O- Of course. Don’t forget that. What is it they say? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is akin to order and order to truth and as such they too are in the eye of the beholder. It is not a radical relativism i propose, but a radical honesty that pretends from this knowledge onto the desires of it’s own heart to engage, even if this means to lose one’s way, rather than to independently emerge with the answer. Just because others may want something else does not mean that their want is any less real. they should not tell you what is the real, nor you them, but to each their own. One mountain top; many paths.

But again it is a matter of ones personal goal. Some are content basking in beauty of whatever form while others seek the experience of what beauty conceals: the pearl of great worth. I don’t believe that the perceived mountain top is objectively the same but at the same time I cannot concern myself with criticizing another because my task is for my own discoveries. My suggestion as to the role of imagination is something I’ve referred to. I am curious as to another’s approach to it but this is neither condemnation or ridicule.

The result, the consequence of such story, as i tell it, is that reality becomes decentralized and allows for reality to better reflect reality. the truth is that reality exceeds our senses, our experience. Any answer into the Real is an attempt at limiting the limitless and drawing a circle that ignores what lays outside and cannot see what lies inside.

I believe this to be an essential point of disagreement between us It is true that reality exceeds our senses but where you accept diversity as equal, I believe in mans capacity to awaken so as to become closer to objective meaning and purpose that has become diversified through the normal results of man’s sleep. Your approach seems to pull objective reality down to our fallen level and the acceptance equal quality of diversity. I believe that the spiritual striving seeks to reacquire the quality of consciousness that reveals the objective reality from which this diversity descended.

O- The distinction is set by you. “Conscious” “Corrupt” are words that have a necessary meaning for an arbitrary end. The words are defined such in order than you can move on to your true goal, your answer. How often this is done? It is done also with “reality” and then with “Christianity” or also “religion”. Each course which is seeking to teach How, begings by making qualifications as to what has been the error of man and then begins to correct that error by revealing to us, oh prophets, what is True reality, true christianity, true religion. They, however, are strategems of the ego which supports what it approves of.

Perhaps, but it it seem more logical to me and coincide with my own experiences to accept that there is a natural qualitative difference in man between objectivity and subjectivity that manifest in degrees. There is a great span between objective or evolved man and the totally subjective attached to the earth by imagination. We need the conscious essence of the great traditions to help us in the normal “being” striving to become less subjective and more objective. We are unable on our own to do anything but psychologically turn in circles exchanging one quality of imagination for another.

What a mess we’re in!

[socratus]

By the way, taking into account a paradoxical situation
in quantum physics, Schrodinger, in one his letter, wrote:
" As though quantum theory did not become the theory
describing psychological processes ".
Probably, he has written it in a joke.
However this joke once again
emphasizes depth of unusual behaviour
micro particle describing by quantum theory.