God and history

It is for Future Man and others…

A

It is my firm and intended assertion that the greatest majority of the human populace would have zero understanding of Osho, and especially that excerpt.

It is obvious that living from the without is preferred by most.

The point is not what others are doing, but rather what I myself am doing, otherwise surely it is a going out. What do you reckon?

A

My reckoning is that I am far better at than and that a discourse about these sorts of premises can feel alot like when I am involved. From my perspective we need a wider range of humanity to understand these concepts, not just ourselves. I realize that is the same old and :D/ , so I will just hush.

How do you mean “Wider range of humanity”?

A

Too often the concepts of a venerable master like Osho are culturally segregated and reach but a few. Knowledge is not an end, we both agree on that, but it is an initial means to the greater end. More people need to become aware of spiritual philosophies, and less religiously rigorous…

open the temple to all, so to speak.

Sure, but Osho’s is simply one perspective. One can look at it from any angle, from any school of thought, from any culture, from any perspective. Osho just has such a way with words. Those same words that you and I are using.

A

I am uncertain angelic one. I realize my idiocy with clarity, and although I can use the same word, that doesn’t mean that it carries the vigor or depth. Obviously. There are no converts to Mastrianism.

Plus, Osho speaks from internal understanding of direct awareness, versus my pathetic cerebral justifications.

But my dear Mastriani, the point is that you get it. i.e. you know what you need to do.

A

Here comes the broken record part.

It’s not enough for me to know, or you, or Jerry, or tenative. I have a requirement that it spreads to others, hence my problem with whole scenario.

As always, up to you.

A

Bah, I know, I know. Forgive me angel, it’s the temperment of idiocy to wish for more than is possible.

To limit ourselves by saying it is impossible is to not fully grasp this intrinsic nature. Limitations are a construct.

A

Insistent on pounding me, eh?

One of few or less, guided by the ignoble, mentored by illtempered, educated by undiscerning, is hardly able of greatness. Sometimes being the least of, is the best that can be hoped for or attained.

Sure, it’s my pleasure. Never give up and all that.

Become the people you wish everyone else to be. You know, be the example. Everyone is waiting for everyone else to make a move. Waste of time. As they say - Just do it!

A

Hi Jerry,

I’m sorry that I was weighed down with too many other things to be able to address this earlier. The question of purpose of course drives a lot of what Religion is for people. I think that purpose is the one thing that people are continually assuming when they go through life, otherwise we wouldn’t get caught up in arguments about right and wrong. For something to be “right” or “wrong” in a sense that my opposite could be expected to know that, there has to be a common basis of understanding what life is about. That means life would have to be “about” something – or, have purpose.

I believe that this whole discussion depends on two important aspects of awareness: Reflection and direction. For me to find direction above my primary needs and approach a kind of “self-actualisation”, I must reflect on my experiences and sort them. That is what being a human-being is about, regardless of the differences in culture and education. Contemplation is however mainly reflection on the past – hindsight. This way, we often discover that developments were instrumental in bringing a certain situation about. These situations are either hostile or amicable to my being, which leads people to judge such developments as having a goodor evil intention. This, however, is the one side.

The other side is the sub-concious awareness that requires someone to take time out and contemplate deeper. This isn’t always possible of course, although most people show signs of a sub-concious awareness, once they have risen above the struggle for physical survival. This is something that finds expression in symbolic language production and the capacity for self-consciousness which seems to be uniquely human. Self-conciousness curiously develops often as a response to failure, asking why things didn’t go the way I expected them to go. If it doesn’t cost me my life, failure usually prompts self-analysis in this way. If we find a suitable method of self-analysis (and don’t rely on imagination) then we can develop self-awareness. Self-awareness, in turn, reveals to me the intricacies of existence and suggests that co-incidence would be a too simplistic explanation for many experiences.

Contemplation also reveals that ineffable Source that is hard to grasp - an external/internal (?) and veritable communicator of the basic principles of life. It is often an ephemeral experience, a dream, a vision, a sudden enlightenment that fades after a while, a flame, a sighting. It is mostly “between the lines” that we can see that our understanding is restricted, that our perception is easily fooled by hallucinations, illusions and phantasms, which should make us humble – since it is humility that often is what is lacking. In this kind of “revelation” it suddenly becomes clear to individuals, that an occurrence in history “had to happen”. History seems to have waited for certain people, waited for the particularly despicable, or particularly appealing deeds they have done, because the “time was ripe”.

Shalom

Bob,

I don’t disagree with anything you have said. I do wonder how many are capable of such explorations. To my view, it often mirrors the exceptional awareness of the child’s mind, driven entirely by perception of the momentary, devoid most often of the arrogances and suppositions of the adult cynicism.

Certainly humility is a key factor, those lacking in it will never take time to reflect or introspect.

Science should be an addition to this, but it is ever the detractor, attempting to reduce ineffable to component and event, working arduously to burn in effigy the mysterious, by manner of the empirical.

Although it has never been personally experienced, there is, from what I have learned, a point of awareness that delineates the construct of time. Supposing this is the direction that you and Mr. Jerry are headed, it would seem to be plausible to unfold the singularity to a perceivable point.

Hi Mastriani,

Yes, something that calls immediately the words of Christ to mind (Matth. 18:2-4), when he called a little child to him, set him in the midst of his Disciples and said, “Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

The humility that he is talking about is not the kind that is invoked by others, but a deportment that I take on myself, knowing that I truly am a child in this universe and therefore assume that there is a lot for me to learn. This also includes contemplation on the meaning, not just in the course of history. In the same way, we read scripture, not as a description of the course of history, or indeed as a historical document, but as a description of where the tracks of history could be taking me, my family, my tribe, my countrymen and the human kind as a whole.

For this reason we need Myth, Legend and History as complementary sources that show us the past and help us prepare for the future before we are overrun by it. Religion gives us the ethical approach, identifying first of all a standard by which everything else is to be judged. That is the purpose of the Torah, which doesn’t call for a pedantic word by word obedience, but calls us to intuitively understand the Spirit of the Word. On the occasions where this happened, Israel was moved to tears.

If we can understand science as “another” means of gaining a holistic perspective, and not as the superseding discipline that puts everything else in the shadows, I would agree. It can’t destroy the Mystery or the mysterious because it is an integral part of our existence. All attempts to do so lack the humility we spoke of earlier and inevitably lead to disaster. Science has, after all, brought us blessing and curse in the same way as the “method” Religion has – a sure sign that it isn’t the one or the other that is “evil”, but that this potential is in us all.

I think that this awareness is experienced, although in varying degrees, by most human-beings. Our subconsciousness, our dreams and visions give us an idea of timelessness which leaves us confused. Contemplation, if it can be independent of the trappings of social support, can reach a depth of awareness where time seems to fall into the background and those beams of wisdom otherwise hidden behind the clouds, can start to shine.

The singularity unfolds itself in this way, rather than it being something we “cause”. As I have said in the past, invisibility in this case is more a fact of our inability to see, rather than being an attribute of the Ineffable. As Paul said in Athens, we are able to seek the Ineffable, if only we would reach out and feel after Him - “indeed, He is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live, and move, and are …”

Shalom

Hi Bob. I think I want to ask you to expand on this a bit if you don’t mind. I seem to remember an essay by Schopenhauer where he likened a person’s life to an unfolding story, like a novel. While it is progressing, it takes seemingly meaningless twists and turns. It seems positively random. Yet, when one looks back on one’s life, the twists seem like perfect plot devices, moving the story forward in a way that makes it appear perfectly scripted. Everything appears to have happened for a reason. I was always fascinated by this idea.

You seem to be saying something similar. History’s revelation is beyond our grasp as it occurs (our lives are so, so obviously the larger picture would be as well), but as we look back, there are things that seemed to have “had to happen.”

And yet this seems like a leap of sorts. Naturally, if we’re at Point D, we must have passed Points B and C along the way. Such is the arrow of time. If there’s a direction, maybe this is it and this alone. Things happen and there’s an order to them. That really doesn’t tell us much. Is there an author behind the script? It’s a guess, at best. We won’t see it, and we can’t see it.

Or maybe, when all is said and done, we are the authors.

Hi Jerry,

Of course, it is the way we experience life - “You understand life backwards - but have to live it forwards” (Søren Kierkegaard) – but it is also the way we can learn to grasp what is going on around us. The “history” of the Bible for example was written long after the event, and not recorded like in some weekly magazine. Events were passed on orally for a long time before they finally became scripture. For modern history, this is unacceptable. But if the purpose is to understand history from a certain perspective, it may well be acceptable.

God in history is also to be understood in this way, just as the resurrection was an oral tradition before it became scripture in the Gospels – even there it was shrouded in mystery – so was the account of the Exodus first of all an oral tradition, then the basis of ritual before it finally became the subject matter of scripture. The Ineffable is in there all along, but as soon as you conserve stories, or try to wrap experiences in language, they become something else than what is being described. In the re-enactment it lives through the experience of those re-enacting. In the narration, it lives through the narrator and the imagination of the listeners. In scripture, it lives through the contemplation and meditation – but not in being taken literally as though it were like modern history.

What is interesting, is that history is full of archetypes that appear all over the world. We latch on to these figures as symbols of hope and fear, and immediately identify them in oral traditions. What we find in scripture, is that such archetypes are foretold or predicted as the result of spiritual awareness. Even if the original isn’t actually meant in the sense that is used later, the re-enactment, the narration or contemplation is moving forwards, creating something new, even if it is only in the minds of those hearing. We are not the authors, since traditions are holy, but the Spirit works in the listeners, enabling them to fulfil those traditions and promises by following the tradition as the will and promise of God.

Jesus was a particularly good example of this according to the Gospels. By humbly following the “Prophecy” and immersing himself in the traditions, he received the inspiration and the “exousia”, that is the privilege and the capacity or competency to to become “Son of God”, which he passed on to those believing in his “name” or authority. His intention was for the “will of God” to be done, and the prophecy fulfilled, which would lead his people back to a leading role in the world. He wanted to actively make and fashion history after the promise of God in the Tanakh.

Shalom