Religion & Physics. XXIc.

Hi Omar

Well I guess a mutual pat on the back is better than a mutual cursing out.

Pythagoras Law of Octaves is based on the relationship of vibrations. This is a large topic but just to give an inkling:

sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta19.htm

Rates of vibrations define individuality. It seems foolish to me that if Mankind became extinct the mathematical relationships between vibrations would cease.

Life has its good and bad moments for us. It is a continuum that can manifest as either desirable or not depending on conditions. Some feel a need for "meaning that is not satisfied even from the good times and the flowof this continuum. They feel something calling from beyond the flow of life itself.

I can’t really answer to many personal questions about myself. I’ve found it better not to trust certain proponents of peace and love around here. That is why I don’t refer to my path or the previously mentioned ancestor by name in public. It doesn’t feel right to do.

If this is your belief, it is fine with me.

And the pianist sees he cannot. There is always something beyond. Simone pushed by remaining open to her relationship to the human condition as opposed to the temptation to just becoming “normal.” and bask in vanity.

Prayer as normally practiced is secular. Religious prayer is much different than you’d expect.

Rather than decide from the comfort of your chair and imagine that they are restricted, unconsciouss, unaware, as if they are completely different from you, as if you had a third eye or something, why not simply try to experience what they feel? You ask me to give that much to Weil, why can’t you for them

Maybe so but the goal of Christianity is to do just that. As Paul said, without the Resurrection Christianity has no relevance. If people cannot evolve in their being, the best thing is to stick with “wonderful” thoughts and good scotch until the next battle.

Art critics are a breed of their own so trying to determine why something is highly regarded requires a whole case of good scotch to figure out. I think Joseph Turner sold at his highest price for 35.8 million. I still prefer some of my ancestor’s seascapes. Does that make me wrong or ignorant of art?

Somewhere you got this idea that I’m claiming to be awake. To the contrary I’ve verified the hold of sleep on me which for me is a big thing. I once put this idea into a thread called “Simone, Plato, and the Cave.” If you have not read the cave analogy in a long time, you’ll see what I am driving at. I just feel as one who is not content with what Plato describes as the human condition.

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … imone+weil

I’ve only smelled the coffee. Coming to grips with it is something else entirely.

Possibly so and for those really concerned, their obligation is to verify their own inner condition. But Simone did say:

If this is true, she is basically speaking of sleep. A person has to either verify it or not to be able to know for themselves. It also extends out into society:

IMO virtually all of society’s collective ills are due to this lack of consciousness.

What is my solution and how do you feel it neglects the question?

Good Russian observation… I see there is hope for you.

Reads like a classic description of sleep to me.

Try an experiment with me. Imagine yourself angry. Do you feel a difference in these two descriptions of the condition?

1. I am angry

2. Anger is in me.

I am angry is a description of attachment. You don’t exist. You’ve become the emotion of anger. However "anger is in me is a description of detachment. There is “you” in the direction of “I” that observes and is detached from the existence of this anger that has entered into your common presence. This freedom takes a long time to develop.

What difference does it make what I am imagining? I asked what made you believe that you were conscious. What do I have to do with it?

So we have this difference. How could we verify it one way or another?

Omar, I’ve worked directly with similar ideas so I understand her experientially. You really will not be able to understand what she means now assuming that there is meaning, until you have a better grasp of the difference between Attachment and detachment. This is a very Eastern distinction as well. I’m not claiming any superiority here but my own path stresses the necessity of this quality of Attention so I’m more familiar with it in both theory and practice.

I believe so. The sacred teachings initiating with a conscious source all begin at this same level of consciousness that is higher then what passes for consciousness on earth. At the same time, a true teaching must adapt itself to the differing levels people are on. The Christianity for an Apostle is far different than the one for the TV Evangelist.

The trouble here is that the lower cannot verify the higher. I know this is politically incorrect but it is what I’ve come to believe. Actually this is one esoteric meanings of the Commandment: "Thou shalt not commit adultery. We cannot understand a necessary part of a teaching and seek to feel good from another. All this leads to is a person becoming an “expert,” while denying themselves their desired understanding. A true teaching, and not just wishful thinking, puts the student up against themsselves at the risk of sacrificing our "wonderful. thoughts. It is apparently an annoying necessity.

This is the hypothesis. it is up to me to verify it or not. Entertaining a hypothesis is not by definition becoming a slave to it. I’ve been around these things long enough to know there are times when even obvious inconsistencies are introduced to further a person’s capacity for critical thinking. The purpose of a genuine path is not to create slaves but free men which is impossible if a person will swallow anything.

Intellectually from my study of the Great Laws and experientially from what happens both to me and in life itself.

Seem familiar?

Hello Nick:
By now we’ve left just about everyone else, including socratus out of this tread.

— Pythagoras Law of Octaves is based on the relationship of vibrations.
O- Here’s Hume’s response:
“‘Tis usual with mathematicians, to pretend, that those ideas, which are their objects, are of so refin’d and spiritual a nature, that they fall not under the conception of the fancy, but must be comprehended by a pure and intellectual view, of which the superior faculties of the soul are alone capable. The same notion runs thro’ most parts of philosophy, and is principally made use of to explain oar abstract ideas, and to shew how we can form an idea of a triangle, for instance, which shall neither be an isoceles nor scalenum, nor be confin’d to any particular length and proportion of sides. 'Tis easy to see, why philosophers are so fond of this notion of some spiritual and refin’d perceptions; since by that means they cover many of their absurdities, and may refuse to submit to the decisions of clear ideas, by appealing to such as are obscure and uncertain. But to destroy this artifice, we need but reflect on that principle so oft insisted on, that all our ideas are copy’d from our impressions.”

Johann Döbereiner proposed a similar “Law”. These are laws of the subjective and not actual laws. Dictating “laws” in this way makes for interesting books such as the “Bible Code”, but the enigma is human, all too human…

— Rates of vibrations define individuality. It seems foolish to me that if Mankind became extinct the mathematical relationships between vibrations would cease.
O- What relations exist but those that we imagine? Hume says:
“When therefore the mind is accustomed to these judgments and their corrections, and finds that the same proportion which makes two figures have in the eye that appearance, which we call equality, makes them also correspond to each other, and to any common measure, with which they are compar’d, we form a mix’d notion of equality deriv’d both from the looser and stricter methods of comparison. But we are not content with this. For as sound reason convinces us that there are bodies vastly more minute than those, which appear to the senses (…) we clearly perceive, that we are not possess’d of any instrument or art of measuring, which can secure us from ill error and uncertainty. (…) the addition or removal of one of these minute parts, is not discernible either in the appearance or measuring… This standard is plainly imaginary. But tho’ this standard be only imaginary, the fiction however is very natural; (…) The case is the same in many other subjects. A musician finding his ear becoming every day more delicate, and correcting himself by reflection and attention, proceeds with the same act of the mind, even when the subject fails him, and entertains a notion of a compleat tierce or octave, without being able to tell whence he derives his standard. A painter forms the same fiction with regard to colours. A mechanic with regard to motion. To the one light and shade; to the other swift and slow are imagin’d to be capable of an exact comparison and equality beyond the judgments of the senses.”

All these small miracles are fiats of the imagination.

— I can’t really answer to many personal questions about myself. I’ve found it better not to trust certain proponents of peace and love around here. That is why I don’t refer to my path or the previously mentioned ancestor by name in public. It doesn’t feel right to do.
O- Then give me those biography facts of Simone Weil and see the point there.

— And the pianist sees he cannot. There is always something beyond.
O- The point in the musical piece is not it’s completion but it’s execution. The point of life, the good in life, might not be to attain that which lies beyond but to do that which can be done. Perhaps that is my advise to the pianist. If you ever reached that beyond, well, what then?
Sysiphus stood there at the top of the hill after pushing his massive rock up it’s bank. Tired, he still knew that this was not the end and wept, for no matter his effort, he could never reach the end which lies beyond.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man in a prone position. He was old and thin. And he basically asked Sysiphus, why the long face? Sysiphus explained and the man laughed.
If you reach what you seek, as I have, you will lose your youth and vitality, since now you don’t need it and your mind will grow numb, as it now it seeks only to remember what used to beyond but now is part of memory.
Sysiphus departed the summit and walked down the hill. He placed his hands upon the rock as one places his hands upon a friend. Before he proceed, he placed a small pebble in his pocket. Upon reaching the summit again, he threw the pebble to the tip of the hill, trying to make it higher.

— Simone pushed by remaining open to her relationship to the human condition as opposed to the temptation to just becoming “normal.” and bask in vanity.
O- Bask in vanity? Only vanity kept her from being “normal”. Open to the human condition, but refusing to be normal? What price that openess? It is meaningless. It is like the Rich who remains “open” to the plight of the poor, but denies that such openess and understanding would ever require that he himself become poor. Weil wanted to understand the “human condition” without even trying to be human, to do as humans do.

— Prayer as normally practiced is secular. Religious prayer is much different than you’d expect.
O- How do you know?

— I just feel as one who is not content with what Plato describes as the human condition.
O- And from discontent you seek contentment. This is common. I often read Nietzsche with that thought in mind. Perhaps all philosophers do it, but it is clearer with Nietzsche. There is a pain, a disease that initially motivates their study. When the study end, the last chapter can reveal their prescription, their opinion on just how life should be.
But because the origin in them is partial, so will their conclusion show this partiality and regardless of how objective the study seems to be and how perfectly it captures the “human condition”, the meagerness of their lifes cannot be equaled to the fullness or presummed fullness of life.

— What is my solution and how do you feel it neglects the question?
O- To personally verify the hypothesis presented by esoteric christianity. How is there a neglect of the question? Because every hypothesis has within it’s own answer. The only question left is not the original question but if the answer given by the hypothesis passes muster.

Quote:
“It is because we are all imposters that we endure each other.” Cioran
— Reads like a classic description of sleep to me.
O- Or a timeless revelation about what is true.

— Try an experiment with me. Imagine yourself angry. Do you feel a difference in these two descriptions of the condition?

1. I am angry
2. Anger is in me.
   O- The person that says 2 is not really “angry”, as I use the word. he might say that he has anger within himself, but the word cannot serve as a public concept in this case.

— I am angry is a description of attachment. You don’t exist. You’ve become the emotion of anger.
O- Very nice.

— However "anger is in me is a description of detachment. There is “you” in the direction of “I” that observes and is detached from the existence of this anger that has entered into your common presence. This freedom takes a long time to develop.
O- I see what you say but again, some questions exist.
In 1 you say that I don’t exist, but clearly there is the “I am”. Secondly that I have become the emotion. But then I would say:“I am anger” equating the “I” with the emotion but as it is the sentence declares an emotion being felt by the subject.
In 2 you say that “anger is in me” detaches the emotion from the I. Yet the I in turn is detached from itself. It creates a “me”, and added a veil of protection. By this time, how can the I report from a 3rd party view? “There is anger in me”. Well, how do you know? Because you are angry…
The game played with words are just that: games. and cannot provide a clear distinction of experience, only of reflection and expression.

I said: O- You prove this very morsel as false, for you are alive and live life and are consciouss, are you not?
You added: “Whatever gave you the idea that you were conscious for more than brief intervals during the day? This belief in our consciousness is IMO one of the great misconceptions of modern times”.

— What difference does it make what I am imagining? I asked what made you believe that you were conscious. What do I have to do with it?
O- It is your opinion that we are unconsciouss. is this opinion informed by anything but your self? Your consider the belief in consciousness as a misconception, but how can you even begin such concept. The only mind open to enquiry is yours so the particular from which you drw the general is yourself and as such, other than your past self, no one else can be coceived as unconsciouss.
There are consciouss states and also unconsciousness. As I use these two words, my general condition is consciouss. For there to be an “I”, or “my”, something else must be there of which the “I” is consciouss. The I arrives by the awerness of an other. To be unconsciouss is to be in a dreamless sleep, to be dead, in a coma, or just knocked out so that you do not react, as if you cannot become aware of others, or another.
During the day, when you are awake, when do you feel to be asleep or unconscious?

— Omar, I’ve worked directly with similar ideas so I understand her experientially. You really will not be able to understand what she means now assuming that there is meaning, until you have a better grasp of the difference between Attachment and detachment. This is a very Eastern distinction as well. I’m not claiming any superiority here but my own path stresses the necessity of this quality of Attention so I’m more familiar with it in both theory and practice.
O- Fine, Nick, but keep in mind that the opinion here expressed is that a lot of dichotomies are being hatched that are synonyms.

Hi Omar

It was a rough day. I’ll try and get back to this Sunday morning before work. However, I wanted to explain a bit more about the following before conking out.

I know you prefer the idea of experiencing religion on the secular level and I’ve been referring to a conscious source that equates all religions initiating from a higher level of consciousness that become absorbed by the world and manifested as parts.

This idea does not go over well. I believe it is primarily because of our egotism that denies our collective ignorance and the idea that there could be consciousness that dwarfs ours.

I know you’ve read complaints about me quoting and all that foolishness but I see no reason why I have to write everything out when something is in plain sight. So I’ll post this link to a page that gives a diagram of what I refer to. Actually the Integralscience.org has some interesting articles on it and even some comparitive statements between Einstein and those attributed to Buddha. So SOCRATUS, if you’re still around, you may find that interesting as far as our mutual concern for the unity of science and Religion. Some could be worth discussing.

integralscience.org/unity.html

Exoteric here means external or in life itself as in our unconscious functioning in the external world. Esoteric means the “Inner Man.” It refers to the objective nature of being and the function of consciousness as an atribute of “being.”

So here is a fine diagram of what I was trying to express. The different great traditions having begun in their unique way to compliment the culture and mindset of the time and habitual nature, have become distinct entities at the exoteric level. However, consciousness as it relates to transcendence, reveals the deeper truths that are the same. The author seems to be making the wise point that this unification is far more distant for our psych as it is than we suspect. I would agree from what I’ve read on my own path that takes the same approach.

This is what is missing on the ineffable thread: this sense of scale and relativity. IMO people in general believe themselves much closer to anything objective then is the case. This can only lead to fantasy. Yet I believe Man, with his potential for consciousness may become capable of far more then is believed. It is all linked to that strange word: “awakening.” But hopefully you can see my attraction to this transcendent unity. As shown, it can even be related to mathematical relationships.

I find this idea of levels of consciousness dwarfing me invigorating. I don’t feel anything insulting about it at all. Actually I have gratitude for it since I begin to get a glimpse of human meaning and purpose through these experiences.

We’ve been discussing this and I think it only fair to make you aware of another source I just discovered. Looks like I’m buying another book.

Hi Socratus,

Did you say something?

Look, you’ll have to stop behaving as though you started this thread and meant something other than Nick or Omar want to talk about … and no, Nick can’t start his own threads so put up with it!!

Sorry Socratus, I hope this experience hasn’t dampened your wish to discuss with us.

Shalom

Bob

When was the last time you replied to anything from Socratus? I did because he was being ignored. Then Omar responded. No one else was around so we communicated. In my last post I even mentioned including some ideas from the Intergrlscience site as in the complimentary ideas of Einstein and Buddha since if Omar, Socratus and any others are interested,we could share and develop some ideas.

It really isn’t that far off topic. Quantum physics deals with vibrations. The connection betweeen physics and metaphysics lies with vibrations and how they manifest as either waves or particles. I admit that this is over my head but I don’t mind learning since it coincides perfectly with what I’ve come to know as levels of being.

Secondly, conjecturing over the kinds of people like Simone Weil that have gone deepr into the direction between the exoteric and esoteric is very valuable for our considering the broad topicof human understanding.

I don’t mind a thread on this idea raised by the book I just linked to.

integralscience.org/unity.html

But the clique has made it uncomfortable for those that could be open to such ideas like the transcendant unity of the ancient traditions in favor of this secularization and ineffable thought. Appreciating these ideas necessitates beginning to see ones nothingness and you’ve openly attacked those open to such things in favorof secularization.

That is why such threads belong on the New Board. The attitude would attract those more open to these transcendental possibilities for Man. Who is a regular here that would appreciate participating in considering these thoughts?

What is it that compels you to write so nasty in this way?

monasticdialog.com/a.php?id=151

The Transcendent Unity of Religions

Introduction by Huston Smith

Frithjof Schuon

Theosophical Publishing House

1984
This republication of Schuon’s “superlative” work on the unity of religions has a long, learned and enlightening introduction by Huston Smith, with a helpful diagram making even more precise Schuon’s thesis on the relation between religions

The dividing line is horizontal and occurs only once, rather than the distinction being between the religions themselves. For Schuon, existence—and, therefore, cognition—is graded. Hence, in God at the apex, religions converge; below the line they differ. So, too, religious discernment unites at its apex and divides below it.

Smith compares Schuon’s thesis with others, quoting the author himself in saying that there is “a unity at the heart of religions” that can be “univocally described by none and concretely apprehended by few.” Smith’s introduction concludes with a helpful description of the esoteric and exoteric distinction restated—a key, he says, to the understanding of the whole book. T.S. Eliot said of Schuon’s volume: “I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion.” From beginning to end, Schuon quotes Muslim and Christian, Hindu and other mystics alike to substantiate his valuable insights. He insists that the unity of the different religions is not only unrealizable on the external level, that of the forms themselves, but ought not to be realized at that level even were this possible, for in that case the revealed forms would be deprived of their sufficient reason. The very fact that they are revealed, he claims, “shows that they are willed by the Divine Word.” He uses the word “transcendent” in the title because it means that the unity of the religious forms must be realized in a purely inward and spiritual way and without prejudice to any particular form. “The antagonisms between these forms no more affect the one universal Truth than the antagonisms between opposing colors affect the transmission of the one uncolored light.”

You like to condemn and that is OK. It would be nice though if an area could exist to be condemnation free Where those that are neither secularists, advocates of la la land, or mocking Atheists could feel comfortable in trying to understand ideas both so valuable and profound.

Hi Omar

I guess we’ve cleared the field. Sometimes these things happen. We’ll have to get Socratus into another discussion and entice new blood since we sort of hopelessly adopted this one.

This reminds me of the distinction drawn several posts ago between consciousness and contents of consciousness. But the very fact that we may perceive the relationship of vibrations as visual colors and remember them as these contents of consciousness does not exclude a basic objective mathematical relationship known as the octave or the basis of the color wheel.

To do justice to this question would require you to become familiar with something called “worlds within worlds” and “discontinuity of vibrations.” I cannot diagram this out for you but at some point if the question really interests you enough to contemplate new ideas, PM me and I can show you where to read on it. I’m not trying to be obnoxious here but I know from experience these ideas are simultaneously easy and difficult at the same time. So really I’m only trying to be right by you.

How to do justice to this? Well as far as certain basic impressions of Simone, start here:

rivertext.com/weil3a.html

Remember her aim and now consider some facts:

simone.weil.free.fr/home.htm

Click on Biography and what others have said. Some links are outdated. I believe the stories of her childhood related to her refusing candy at five years old since she had heard talk of the French soldiers denied sugar. It seems as though from the beginning she was concerned with life beyond her self intrests.

Yes she was despised as the “Red Virgin” though it has become a term of respect just in protest of all this lunacy from those like the following:

She seemed to have a genuine awareness of global human suffering and hunger in particular that we are normally oblivious of other than in lip service. I don’t know why she felt hunger so strongly since her family wasn’t poor. But here is an account of Simone Weil from the other Simone:

I’m not being critical of you since you don’t know her. But this is just wrong. Simone Weil lived her philosophy. She willfully sacrificed her body for it. She voluntarily undertook factory work and starvation wages so she could experience this reality. Read factory work under her bio. If you read “her criminal error” under the bio, you will see the truths she learned about Communism.

If you think that the reason she held these beliefs was from some sort of female frustrations and escapism, it is just not true. She was as she was because she saw so clearly and could not be happy in la la land. She went into the trenches. So even though slight in build, she stood up against the best because it was the human thing to do.

There is an excerpt from Meister Eckhart that I am very fond of. I only use it in regards to very few. I would not want to cheapen it. I do use it for Simone Weil and the life she lived.

Prayer as normally practiced is secular. Religious prayer is much different than you’d expect.
O- How do you know?

innerlightproductions.com/th … an0602.htm

This is what I cannot get through to you. The goal is not contentment but the inner experience of “meaning” and “purpose” that is non existent for us in the world other than through family and culture. Some feel a higher calling that is nothing like contentment but the experience of objective human meaning and purpose.

But the question itself is alive. It is not static. It is life itself and as such is participating in the process of evolving or devolving. The task of keeping the question alive isn’t through the acceptance of an answer that kills it and begins its devolving cycle back into chaos. The real questions evolve in accordance with our spiritual evolution. The question is how to begin to understand without killing the question.

It does appear to me to be a timeless revelation about what is true for us.

This great question of “I Am” is one of the great attractions of my path. It rests in-between Buddhism and Christendom. Where Christendom asserts the existence of a completed soul, “I Am,” Buddhism asserts that we are a plurality of a virtual infinity of small i am’s that continually respond to external life. I’ve come to appreciate the idea that “I AM” exists in us as a potential but as of now we exist as described in Buddhism. Real “I Am” would be the soul of Man which we lack and function as described as the plurality in Buddhism.

You cannot say I am anger simply because anger is a transitory state. One emotion moves into the other in the flow of our lives. But I can come to see when anger is within me and consciously experience and verify it. Can one experience anger without becoming angry? Yes, but it requires becoming familiar with the difference between the unconscious suppression of emotion and its conscious non-expression. This becomes heavy stuff.

When you walked to the computer, were you conscious of yourself or did it just happen? Instead of saying "I am watching the screen, relax first and then say Omar is watching the screen reserving “I” for this conscious awareness. Omar is now watching the screen and "I"is watching Omar. This is conscious self awareness. You will see that you can only retain this state for a very short time. After that we lose self awareness and once again, everything just “happens” as a normal flow of reactions to life’s influences both externally and internally. This level of human programming is “sleep” natural in the absence of self awareness. In sleep, everything just “happens.”

Hello Nick.
I am going to take both of your post as one.

— I believe so. The sacred teachings initiating with a conscious source all begin at this same level of consciousness that is higher then what passes for consciousness on earth.
O- First, I doubt that “The sacred teachings” share some unity over the centuries. Each generation, it seems brings along it’s own concerns and views them through the lenses of what was said before, but this doesn’t mean that Moses and Paul are speaking about the same things. The Messiah means a different thing for the jew than it does to the christian. You might see this division as secular, but I see it as essential, as it is here that jews and christian split.
There are certain foundamental teachings, essential teachings, that establish the identity of “christianity”, for example. At the essense of christianity is a belief in the divine identity of Jesus. was he the Christ? It is essential that this answer is clear or “Christianity” would be a false name.
As far as how much these diverse religions agree or are alike in respect to how they view God, I shall only say that what is important for the faithful, in general, is not that there is a God, Goddess, or Gods. No religious experience begin and ends at this. No scripture we can find simply says: I believe in God. The end.
Now you might say that this is because God speaks to our hearts etc; but a darker explanation is that we need more than that. Religious devotion is entertwined with certain activities and events in our lives. One facet that is elemental to religions is it’s concerns with Death.
In my experience, most churches dedicate prayer for those who are sick, or at war, or otherwise in danger. Rites like Baptism have as it’s root a concern with the fitness of the child. The ancients sought help from oracles and prophets to better predict events or guidance for their actions.
God and Gods have been many things and not always strickly human, but one common theme, another essential quality if you will, is that the Gods are in control and in turn are persuaded or can be persuaded in one way or another. we can continue to speak like a Feuerbach about all these “essentials”.
To speak of what is essential about religious experience without mention to these concerns is to have missed something.
It is a temptation of us all to find an under ground under which all appearances, their chaos and diversity, finally fall and coalese onto One, onto an order, an essense. But we must look at this presumed order from all angles and with restless honesty, lest we settle for an illusion, sweet as it might be.
Do Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Voodoo, Purple Wombatism all share an essential quality? Make your case and we’ll see.

— At the same time, a true teaching must adapt itself to the differing levels people are on. The Christianity for an Apostle is far different than the one for the TV Evangelist.
O- In what sense? In that they believe Jesus is the Christ?

— I know you prefer the idea of experiencing religion on the secular level and I’ve been referring to a conscious source that equates all religions initiating from a higher level of consciousness that become absorbed by the world and manifested as parts.
O- I nor you can speak objectively of the higher origin of faith. But even if we allow for the higher we also must out of fairness allow the lowest. For example, instead to believe that a “conscious source” equates all religions which originate from a “Higher Level of Consciousness”, we could also make a case as Howard Bloom did in the Lucifer’s Principle, that religions originate from an unconscious source within ourselves, and from this source, which preconditions our reason, the little doctor, the ego, a “Higher Level” is imagined to accompany this higher (conscious) source.

— This idea does not go over well. I believe it is primarily because of our egotism that denies our collective ignorance and the idea that there could be consciousness that dwarfs ours.
O- But Nick, if Bob disagrees with you, it is not that he has denied the existence of a consciousness higher than his. He believes in God after all.

— I find this idea of levels of consciousness dwarfing me invigorating. I don’t feel anything insulting about it at all. Actually I have gratitude for it since I begin to get a glimpse of human meaning and purpose through these experiences.
O- The you tell me elsewhere that this awakening is rough, kicks your butt etc. all that violence you feel elsewhere you see here leads to feelings of gratitude and dare I say:“hope”?

— I guess we’ve cleared the field. Sometimes these things happen. We’ll have to get Socratus into another discussion and entice new blood since we sort of hopelessly adopted this one.
O- Socratus, if you’re listening, please accept my excuses. Not to justify myself but perhaps to help you see it in a positive light, remember that sometimes a thread can be like a child. It comes from you but eventually, it strikes on it’s own and becomes the world’s.

— I believe the stories of her childhood related to her refusing candy at five years old since she had heard talk of the French soldiers denied sugar. It seems as though from the beginning she was concerned with life beyond her self intrests.
O- Fascinating. But that is what sympathy is defined as. No need for some trancendental explanation, except for the stauchest acusser of altruism.
A note: Albert Camus’ The Rebel was a great book that also showed the distance which separated the soviets and the original anarchists like Peter Kropotin.

— She seemed to have a genuine awareness of global human suffering and hunger in particular that we are normally oblivious of other than in lip service.
O- Makes you wonder, then, about the accusations that Simone actually starved herself. Perhaps she did, in the same manner as she forgoe candy while soldiers were denied sweets. Perhaps she meant her starvation as a protest, and placed her fate along the fate of those that are starving. Women like her and Mother teresa are admirable in this way. However, while I admire her in these respects I do not consider opinions as measured and moderate, but opinions that depart from an exageration in feeling. To me she was too concentrated on what the workers lacked on what the soldiers lack on what everybody lacked that she never looked at what we all may have. So complete was her commitment to being a slave that she never could consider the Master’s position as Nietzsche once did. While Nietzsche sought to go above the perspectives of master and slave and saw them as perspectives without a material value but to those that held them, Simone chose a side, the Slave…
I read what she said to Beauvoir:
“I don’t know how the conversation got started; she declared in no uncertain tones that only one thing mattered in the world: the revolution which would feed all the starving people of the earth. I retorted, no less peremptorily, that the problem was not to make men happy, but to find the reason for their existence. She looked me up and down: ‘It’s easy to see you’ve never been hungry,’ she snapped.”
What a materialist! Beauvoir was alluring to the metaphysical needs in humans and Weil on the physical needs of others. We are not one or the other but a combination of both. People cannot and should not be reduced to a single need.
I wonder what she would say at the sight of the prostitute at Jesus feet: The first Christian?
"She broke the jar, and poured it over his head.

4 But there were some who were indignant among themselves, saying, "Why has this ointment been wasted?

5 For this might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor." They grumbled against her.

6 But Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a good work for me.

7 For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want to, you can do them good; but you will not always have me."

She probably would have sided with those indignant and retorted as well to Jesus himself: “Obviously you’ve never been hungry”.
The Miracle of the bread and fishes was not that there were thousands of fish and loaves of bread but that from what little there was people SHARED with one another. At least that is a not so famous interpretation…

— I’m not being critical of you since you don’t know her. But this is just wrong. Simone Weil lived her philosophy.
O- And that justifies her or her philosophy?

— If you think that the reason she held these beliefs was from some sort of female frustrations and escapism, it is just not true.
O- Nope. Out of an internal sense of righteousness that far exceeds ours. But I say a sense, as in an internal feeling, not due to some synchronicity with a metaphysical “Righteousness”.

— She was as she was because she saw so clearly and could not be happy in la la land.
O- From her perspective, limited as it was, reality became “la la land”. But again, the blind cannot teach us what is like to see, only what is like to be blind. I have read what links you have provided and i thank you for giving me a chance to come to know such a person but still that does not make me change my mind. It is a repeated critique of mine towards philosophers and saints. Be a philosopher, if you desire, but never forget to be a man. You can doubt reality all you want, but at the end of the day, you’ll still set your alarm as if it is a done deal what you have doubted as a philosopher all day.
Same for the humanitarian. Hunger is not a moral flaw, or a sin.

— Religious prayer is much different than you’d expect.
O- How do you know?
Quote:

Read St;Simeon’s account.
O- So I get to “know” by reading someone else’s account of the feat? Another’s opinion on what it should be?

— Tell me if this is the same as “Dear God please give me a new car.”
O- Make it: “Please God save my child’s life”. The essense is the same. As Mann puts it: “…the coercion of a Divinity.”

— This is what I cannot get through to you. The goal is not contentment but the inner experience of “meaning” and “purpose” that is non existent for us in the world other than through family and culture.
O- And what does this bring? Catasthrophe? Or Gratitude?

— Some feel a higher calling that is nothing like contentment but the experience of objective human meaning and purpose.
O- And how do you think those with that higher calling feel as they come to EXPERIENCE (the great honor, I would suppose, kept for the few) OBJECTIVE HUMAN MEANING AND PURPOSE? Whaever you call it, to me this is “contentment”…

— But the question itself is alive. It is not static.
O- Not really. Who has the time for questions? Who has the stamina for doubt?

— It does appear to me to be a timeless revelation about what is true for us.
O- Exactly!!!

— Can one experience anger without becoming angry? Yes, but it requires becoming familiar with the difference between the unconscious suppression of emotion and its conscious non-expression. This becomes heavy stuff.
O- It is possible only because at that point we would be using the word in very distinct ways, which would be divorced from one another. I have already said that it is not possible as I use the word, and probably as other people too use the word.

— When you walked to the computer, were you conscious of yourself or did it just happen?
O- It happened because I was aware of what I wanted to do. I wanted to get on the computer.

— Instead of saying "I am watching the screen, relax first and then say Omar is watching the screen reserving “I” for this conscious awareness.
O- Why don’t I make it interesting and say that “Omar and Bernie are watching the screen and I am watching them both”? Whiloe you describe schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, I might as well add more characters to the inner world before the hypothetical (at that point) “I”?
Better explained, all you are capable of doing is again to create a false division among synonyms. Might as well say: “I is watching the screen and I am watching myself”.
It is not that it is hard to do this for me, but that if i did this sort of stuff, it would be from little concotions in my imaginations. “There is I and there is Omar” as if the two are not interchangeable, perfectly so, in language?

Hi Nick,

you can say all you want about me, although it is off topic, but with an average of 3.87 (very long) posts per day, I would expect to find more threads started by yourself. But from January until today I can find only the following:

Humor and Honest Discourse
Biblical language and oral tradition
An Easter Observation
Aspiration
Love Of God

They all ran a short while, but it seems you were more bothered with spreading Simone Weil all across other threads – I am very interested in Simone Weil, don’t get me wrong – but can’t you see what I am getting at?

But this is off topic.

Shalom

Hi Omar

The diagram shows that there is a great span in understanding between the highest in the esoteric part on the left and the lowest in the exoteric divisions on the right.

I don’t think you appreciate this great span of human being that separate the exoteric from the esoteric.

The messiah may mean different things to adherents of Judaism and Christendom and it is expected so due to the human condition. But to the messiah and the conscious perspective, they are the same as attempts to deal with “sleep” and what it denies mankind. They contain within them, representations of this span of being from the corse to the fine.

The essential teaching is re-birth. Everything else is secondary to it.Without re-birth, the teaching serves no purpose other than on the secular level.

Paul speaks of this and how it relates to sleep but since the Bible is more often read from a secular perspective, the depth of what Paul expresses falls on deaf ears.

Jesus speaks of being born again as the goal. Paul does so from experience. Yet Christendom speaks of other things. Why? Because to seriously consider re-birth requires a person to consider their own nothingness. Not in these days of self importance. Digesting such thought is worse than digesting a spoon of castor oil though they can serve the same benefit.

Buddhism has its 4 Noble truths and its Eightfold Path. If you consider the ancient excercises related to this, it is obvious a change of being is the goal. Yet in modern times those advocating their teaching forget this and the results are often from suppression rather than experience resulting in hostile Buddhists. How in these conditions could Christianity and Buddhims ever understand each other. Their essential nature is lost to the secular so what really is being debated is Christendom and the equivelent degeneration of Buddhism.

Agreed but the esoteric and exoteric methods are not the same. Consider a funeral. The person that dies may be hated moreoften than not. In fact the faster he dies and others get his money the better. Yet the eulogy will express all sorts of wonderful things no one believes. So where a funeral should be a ritual to establish the truth and others learn from it, now it is a ritual that is desingned to support a lie. Rather than the momentary awkening that should come from a funeral, its exoteric secular result is more often than not to put people to sleep even more.

It is impossible for a secular religion to accept this. By difinition it is on the side of “life” as it understands it and without the living blend of the esoteric and exoteric. Now this is a real question. but again, it needs mutual respect to share on something so profound.

A genuine religion must serve the needs of people on all levels of spiritual development. Some only want consolation for their personal experiences with suffering and that of their loved ones. Others like Simone Weil desire understanding at the expense of consolation. A real religion has within it and knows how to serve the gamut of these needs.

If Purple Womabitism can reveal itself as having initiated with a conscious source, it can be done. I believe you are mistaken to believe that this commonality is so easily seen. I intend to read that book to add to my knowledgeof these things. Perhaps if you did also we could have a book discussion.

The difference is in how it is valued. Even the demons admitted the nature of Jesus. Most give lip service since the importance of re-birth is not felt. Secular concerns dominate. It is the power of “sleep.” Yet for some others, the VAUE of the opportunity Jesus brought through his life and death for Man is much more active in their being. Their belief is of another level.

Quite true. The descending influences of the conscious source to arouse people from sleep are met by the ascending power of “experts” that create all sorts of interpretations of this conscious effort from their sleep and rendering them impotent. Believe me I accept the reality of both influences.

It is not a matter of belief in God but in the quality of the God/Man relationship. Where I value the distance between them and the necessity of the growth of our own being for the sake of raising ourselves through first admitting our nothingness, those like Bob prefer to unite them on a secular level or bring God down to its level and validate the human condition. This is why I appear so insulting. My point of view attacks the sacred cow of self importance.

Violence is not effort. It is the attitude behind an effort. I don’t look upon my willingness to get my inner ass kicked as accepting violence. It is just an alarm clock that helps one along the path towards awakening. It does arouse “hope” but not hope IN something, but hope as a normally suppressed human quality or objective connection with conscious life.

Sympathy or empathy? There is a big difference. Where sympathy does not require a trancendental explanation, I believe when this degree of empathy expresses itself, it is beyond just animal emotion but something that indicates becoming human.

But we define exaggeration by the standards of sleeping people. Perhaps from being more aware, she is also expressing the results of the experience of human feelings.

If humanity were awake, war would be impossible simply because it is inhuman. Yet as we are, it is an acceptable periodic occurrence. Some might protest and the majority may view their awareness, if indeed it is not just a conditioned response, as an exaggeration but at the same time it may be more human from a greater conscious perspective.

Yes, IMO this is where it must start; the recognition of our nothingness. I know how offensive this appears.

This is why Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman is so hard to deal with. We put it in terms of our normal dreams. But I don’t believe it is something we can truly begin to grow towards without first appreciating our nothingness. Only this IMO provides the base from which this idea of evolution or Superman can be put into a meaningful human perspective.

First things first. What is the metaphysical value for an unaware person starving to death. Suppose you came upon a member of your family starving to death, would you start giving lectures or providing food? People like Simone are not restricted to just what is in physical sight or familiar ties, they feel humanity in ways we cannot comprehend. Consider the extraordinary way she puts this:

This refers also to the passage you quote from the Bible. Those that were offended by Mary’s actions thought Jesus too precious to be destroyed and his dead corpse should be celebrated. Mary Knew that his living essence and its transformation rather than the corpse must be celebrated so surrendered the highest quality of herself so as to receive the help he could provide her. She knew the enormous meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice so sacrifice and misfortune did indeed suit him.

What justifies an acorn to becoming an oak or a caterpillar becoming a butterfly? It is something that is inwardly known but impossible to explain to a mouse. I believe that her willingness to experience raw rough truth without the need for rose colored glasses or psychological mayonnaise, is something a person has to come to regardless of the protestations of the Great Beast. I just don’t know how it could be justified to the Great Beast.

First strive to be a Man and then philosophy will begin to make sense. but what does it mean to be a man?

“Awakening” that exists beyond the experience of catastrophe or gratitude allowing them to be put into a human perspective.

Well, just as an example, a Bodhisattva would disagree. This feeling of meaning and purpose is not the same as our usual feelings of contentment.

But in all fairness, this is beyond our comprehension due to our personal closed minded limitations and exists only as a potential.

integralscience.org/redemptivelove.html

Only those who have the need and courage to begin as Simone says to “Annoy the Great Beast.”

This is like the old question: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” To get to the other side. It seems as if you are describing what a chicken or dog does, But perhaps a human being has the potential to be more then a reactive animal.

I see that these things don’t interest you which is OK. People that are interested seek to verify for themselves rather than just deny through speculation. Efforts like this are a beginning to begin to “know Thyself.” rather than argue over theories… Well if all else fails, there is always good scotch which when devoured properly can virtually guarantee contentment.

Hi Bob

If there were a board that seriously wanted to discuss philosophy as it relates to religion, I would post several threads. But the atmosphere has made it so that those that take their religion seriously as a vehicle to grow and not just justify cannot feel comfortable for obvious reasons. The bottom line is that posting my interests will not get responses because they don’t reflect the norm. Those like sincere Buddhists, Hindu’s and the like have to be attracted again because of seeing the benefit of such discussions where shared appreciation of what lies beyond our usual life’s meanings replaces the joys of condemnation and escapism.

That’s why I request an additional board. Ideas like the transcendent origin of religions could be looked at both from interest and respect. With interested people I would even contact some of these authors and ask if they would consent to a short interview as to their meaning of what we are discussing.

I am not against fruitful efforts but only against the accepted belittling of the sacred.

The best I can do now is to become so annoying with common sense that you and others of my fan club will support my efforts for the alternative board for the purpose of getting rid of me. Then we can all be happy.

Nick,

You have not demonstrated that you are capable of having respectful discourse.

A

A

Unfortunately this empty ridicule has become frighteningly normal. A, where in this discussion have I been disrespectful towards Omar? It is this kind of uinnecessary unfounded nastiness that ruins everything. It may be gratifying to attack, but I don’t think you are aware of what you lose by it.

You may win the battle because it sounds good to the clique and you puff up your self importance, but you lose the war since it is empty.

I refer to your last post to Bob and to the fact that you have hijacked this thread to discuss your own agenda as usual. And you don’t know what you are talking about. There is no clique.

A

A

There is nothing disrespectful to Bob in my last post. Why not concern yourself with his previous posts to me?

I didn’t hijack this thread. I first answered Socratus and Omar asked me something. I responded.

Omar seems to be an intelligent Atheist and it is quite normal for them to try to figure out why those like me do not see the logic of their position. So I am answering questions. This really is the unification with the religious mind and the scientific mind. I am primarily answering questions at the heart of this naive IMO division between science and religion.

Unfortunately because you are so caught up with an agenda, it doesn’t dawn on you that others may not be this way and not so caught up with this foolishness.

This would not be my agenda.

A

This is not an agenda but doing what is necessary to accomplish a necessary beneficial goal. An agenda would be like trying to change ILP. But all I’m doing is attempting to add an alternative that doesn’t interfere with the status quo but allows an aditional option that furthers the cause of philosophy being defined as the love of wisdom as opposed to the love of ridicule and condemnation…

Hello Nick:
Quote:
O- First, I doubt that “The sacred teachings” share some unity over the centuries. Each generation, it seems brings along it’s own concerns and views them through the lenses of what was said before, but this doesn’t mean that Moses and Paul are speaking about the same things. The Messiah means a different thing for the jew than it does to the christian. You might see this division as secular, but I see it as essential, as it is here that jews and christian split. There are certain foundamental teachings, essential teachings, that establish the identity of “christianity”, for example. At the essense of christianity is a belief in the divine identity of Jesus. was he the Christ? It is essential that this answer is clear or “Christianity” would be a false name.

— The diagram shows that there is a great span in understanding between the highest in the esoteric part on the left and the lowest in the exoteric divisions on the right.
O- Let’s get past what the diagram shows. The question is does the diagram shows the truth? Does it show what really happened? Just because the information is presented as a diagram does not force me to give it any priviledges, and as of right now, to me at least, the case it proposes is wishful at best.

— I don’t think you appreciate this great span of human being that separate the exoteric from the esoteric.
O- I suppose this relates to your “levels of Human” theory. Again Nick, nice theory, but even the best of errors drip of logic.

— The essential teaching is re-birth. Everything else is secondary to it.Without re-birth, the teaching serves no purpose other than on the secular level.

Paul speaks of this and how it relates to sleep but since the Bible is more often read from a secular perspective, the depth of what Paul expresses falls on deaf ears.
Quote:
1Corinthians 15 12But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?O- Here is the “essential teaching”. The central subject is not whether Jesus had a re-birth, but has he been raised from the dead. This has to do with the Pharisee/Saducee controversy alluded in Acts. 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.O- If you deny the literal interpretation that Jesus was wholly human, wholly dead and then wholly alive again, not as a aghost but as a normal person. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.O- This is the part you must pay attention to. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.O- Not that Jesus was re-born, but raised from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futileO- Second time he makes this point.; you are still in your sins.O- He means that the wages of sin is death, and so since only in Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we are suppose to find forgiveness for our sins, if he has not been raised, how will we be raised in turn? If we are raised it is because our sins are forgiven. If not, then that is because our sins are not forgiven and if not then we are simply in our sins rather than in Christ. You can call this a “secular understanding” but it is clear as day in what he has said so far and in the context he says this. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.O- “Fallen asleep” is a state that resembles death but that is not death. Remember the little child? As such, we could say that Paul, for example, is not dead, but asleep. Is this really where all that “Sleep” talk has come from? This is your biblical source? 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. 20But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.O- How can this be in question? 21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death.O- That is the “day of the resurrection” when all that when to sleep will awake. 27For he "has put everything under his feet."O- And made him judge.[c] Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.O- Jesus is under God as we are under Jesus.

— Jesus speaks of being born again as the goal.
O- If you’re referring to John 3, again, an easier and less convoluted explanation exist. Baptism. Once again, Jesus life serves as the paradigm. As in the end of Mark “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…” Therefore the goal is baptism, which is to be born of water and the Spirit.

— Buddhism has its 4 Noble truths and its Eightfold Path. If you consider the ancient excercises related to this, it is obvious a change of being is the goal.
O- Not the same goal. In fact the opposite. One is eternal Life, the other the end of reincarnations, or to put it in another fashion the one looks for rebirth/baptism in his path towards the resurrection, his salvation. The other departs from the opinion that the Christian salvation is the Buddhist condemnation, or reincarnation. He desired Nirvana, which is not the same as Eternal Life, or Life in Heaven.

— A genuine religion must serve the needs of people on all levels of spiritual development. Some only want consolation for their personal experiences with suffering and that of their loved ones. Others like Simone Weil desire understanding at the expense of consolation. A real religion has within it and knows how to serve the gamut of these needs.
O- That is an opinion. Did God tell you what a “genuine religion must be like?

— If Purple Womabitism can reveal itself as having initiated with a conscious source, it can be done.
O- How can Wombatism or Buddhism or the others not mention “reveal” their conscious source? How can any religion reveal God? It isn’t like that advertisement that says: “Got Milk?” where the person “reveals” by the milk moustache that they indeed have milk or had it at any rate.

— It is not a matter of belief in God but in the quality of the God/Man relationship. Where I value the distance between them and the necessity of the growth of our own being for the sake of raising ourselves through first admitting our nothingness, those like Bob prefer to unite them on a secular level or bring God down to its level and validate the human condition.
O- Well I am sure that you two will one day agree on this “essential religion”, since you both have it…right?
— It is just an alarm clock that helps one along the path towards awakening. It does arouse “hope” but not hope IN something, but hope as a normally suppressed human quality or objective connection with conscious life.
O- Hope is hope my friend. And if it is like an alarm that helps you then I reserve the right to say that sometimes an alarm can violently strike the eardrums. You said that you got your butt kicked, and that you must admit is an image of violence. So based on that choice of words came my comments. Either way, violent or not, the idea is that this is not a and thing at all.

— Sympathy or empathy? There is a big difference. Where sympathy does not require a trancendental explanation, I believe when this degree of empathy expresses itself, it is beyond just animal emotion but something that indicates becoming human.
O- Sympathy. Empathy is detached in that, while you can sense their emotions you do not feel them. A doctor can say to you: I can see that you’re upset”. Without being sympathetic to why you’re upset.
In this sense, empathy brings a substandard of human. One who may feel and yet be detached from them. As such, that person is perhaps merciless. We ask: “Don’t you have any sympathy for their situation?” We do not ask: ”Don’t you have any empathy for their situation?”

---- But we define exaggeration by the standards of sleeping people.
O- You’re barking at the wrong tree. After more than 30 posts on this matter, you have failed to convince me that there is ANY REALITY TO THIS STATE YOU CITE. It seems to me, with what you’ve presented, that such state is an aberration, a misuse of language; an abuse of language perpetrated by those with incredible sensibility. But from the particular experiences of you or Weil, one cannot perform a proper study. It is not that I don’t care about the questions you’ve raised. I field them with sympathy. But like a Wittgenstein, my observation has been that perhaps all these problems you see are psychological problems you bring, not physical problems that humans find themselves to be in. Your case to make your opinion a truth has been to propose an “essence”, but this essence is so malformed and free of substance that it seems to me to originate more on a wish that this be so than on a person’s careful observations.
This is why I kept harping you about going into other religions. If a person has gone beyond simply supposing similarities and moved to a true sympathy, an effort to see how the shoe feels like on your foot, then that person, in my book knows enough as to not over reduce the actual experience of others and do injustice to their particular experience by diminishing their experience by implying a common ground that may not exist.
If my hypothetical person experiences the same “union with God” in all religions (and a good sample must be taken, so that if we reason some 2,000 religions then at least 200 religions should be tried. Not just 2), then and only then can he speak of a common essence, an esoteric link under the exoteric appearances they have taken.

— Perhaps from being more aware, she is also expressing the results of the experience of human feelings.
O- She is expressing HER FEELING but that does not allow us to jump and now say that HER FEELINGS can pass as the measure of HUMAN FEELINGS so that all human expressions of feelings are compared to hers as the mean.

— If humanity were awake, war would be impossible simply because it is inhuman.
O- This is a value judgment. Perhaps you should consider the prevalence of war not the result of humanity sleeping because “it is inhuman”, but that it is prevalent because there is nothing so human as war. Should we say the same for ants, or chimpanzees?
“If chimpanzees were awake, war between them would be impossible because it is unchimpanzee.”
Ecclesiastes 3:
18
I said to myself: As for the children of men, it is God’s way of testing them and of showing that they are in themselves like beasts.
19
For the lot of man and of beast is one lot; the one dies as well as the other. Both have the same life-breath, and man has no advantage over the beast; but all is vanity.
20
Both go to the same place; both were made from the dust, and to the dust they both return.
21
Who knows if the life-breath of the children of men goes upward and the life-breath of beasts goes earthward?
22
And I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice in his work; for this is his lot. Who will let him see what is to come after him?

— Yet as we are, it is an acceptable periodic occurrence.
O- It is acceptable because the alternative, one’s annihilation, is unacceptable. Before 9-11 people would not have thought about a war with anyone as justified. Now, after the events, wars are just or unjust as they are related to the perpetrators of that day. If the war in Iraq is unjustified it is because it bears no relation to that day.
In Fear, we strike most deadly…

— Some might protest and the majority may view their awareness, if indeed it is not just a conditioned response, as an exaggeration but at the same time it may be more human from a greater conscious perspective.
O- Perhaps but who judges this perspective?

— Yes, IMO this is where it must start; the recognition of our nothingness. I know how offensive this appears.
O- It is not a matter of actual offensiveness, but a logical one. Because the premise may lead to a certain conclusion does not mean that in turn the premise is validated or valid to begin with. Nietzsche would have argued that indeed we do have two perspectives, but who can say that Simone’s perspective of a slave is more valid than the master’s?

— This is why Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman is so hard to deal with.
O- The superman was never a slave but a critique of the slave perspective. Remember who was his foe.

— First things first. What is the metaphysical value for an unaware person starving to death.
O- Suppose that we survive a terrible plane crash on snowy mountain tops. All the passengers have died except for us two. What would be the metaphysical value for the unaware person to starve to death? Ask me then. What price is it that a man should win the world but lose his own soul?
A woman finds no work at the factory and is hungry. So she becomes a prostitute. What benefit can there be in starving to death?

— Only those who have the need and courage to begin as Simone says to “Annoy the Great Beast.”
O- Yet I was quoting you. Don’t you seek to annoy the Beast?

— This is like the old question: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” To get to the other side. It seems as if you are describing what a chicken or dog does, But perhaps a human being has the potential to be more then a reactive animal.
O- No. I am describing why I got to the computer. I wanted, I desired and therefore I did. The effect is me on a computer; the cause is me, my desire, my will.

Hello Nick:
Quote:
O- First, I doubt that “The sacred teachings” share some unity over the centuries. Each generation, it seems brings along it’s own concerns and views them through the lenses of what was said before, but this doesn’t mean that Moses and Paul are speaking about the same things. The Messiah means a different thing for the jew than it does to the christian. You might see this division as secular, but I see it as essential, as it is here that jews and christian split. There are certain foundamental teachings, essential teachings, that establish the identity of “christianity”, for example. At the essense of christianity is a belief in the divine identity of Jesus. was he the Christ? It is essential that this answer is clear or “Christianity” would be a false name.

— The diagram shows that there is a great span in understanding between the highest in the esoteric part on the left and the lowest in the exoteric divisions on the right.
O- Let’s get past what the diagram shows. The question is does the diagram shows the truth? Does it show what really happened? Just because the information is presented as a diagram does not force me to give it any priviledges, and as of right now, to me at least, the case it proposes is wishful at best.

— I don’t think you appreciate this great span of human being that separate the exoteric from the esoteric.
O- I suppose this relates to your “levels of Human” theory. Again Nick, nice theory, but even the best of errors drip of logic.

— The essential teaching is re-birth. Everything else is secondary to it.Without re-birth, the teaching serves no purpose other than on the secular level.

Paul speaks of this and how it relates to sleep but since the Bible is more often read from a secular perspective, the depth of what Paul expresses falls on deaf ears.
Quote:
1Corinthians 15 12But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?O- Here is the “essential teaching”. The central subject is not whether Jesus had a re-birth, but has he been raised from the dead. This has to do with the Pharisee/Saducee controversy alluded in Acts. 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.O- If you deny the literal interpretation that Jesus was wholly human, wholly dead and then wholly alive again, not as a aghost but as a normal person. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.O- This is the part you must pay attention to. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.O- Not that Jesus was re-born, but raised from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futileO- Second time he makes this point.; you are still in your sins.O- He means that the wages of sin is death, and so since only in Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we are suppose to find forgiveness for our sins, if he has not been raised, how will we be raised in turn? If we are raised it is because our sins are forgiven. If not, then that is because our sins are not forgiven and if not then we are simply in our sins rather than in Christ. You can call this a “secular understanding” but it is clear as day in what he has said so far and in the context he says this. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.O- “Fallen asleep” is a state that resembles death but that is not death. Remember the little child? As such, we could say that Paul, for example, is not dead, but asleep. Is this really where all that “Sleep” talk has come from? This is your biblical source? 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. 20But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.O- How can this be in question? 21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death.O- That is the “day of the resurrection” when all that when to sleep will awake. 27For he "has put everything under his feet."O- And made him judge.[c] Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.O- Jesus is under God as we are under Jesus.

— Jesus speaks of being born again as the goal.
O- If you’re referring to John 3, again, an easier and less convoluted explanation exist. Baptism. Once again, Jesus life serves as the paradigm. As in the end of Mark “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…” Therefore the goal is baptism, which is to be born of water and the Spirit.

— Buddhism has its 4 Noble truths and its Eightfold Path. If you consider the ancient excercises related to this, it is obvious a change of being is the goal.
O- Not the same goal. In fact the opposite. One is eternal Life, the other the end of reincarnations, or to put it in another fashion the one looks for rebirth/baptism in his path towards the resurrection, his salvation. The other departs from the opinion that the Christian salvation is the Buddhist condemnation, or reincarnation. He desired Nirvana, which is not the same as Eternal Life, or Life in Heaven.

— A genuine religion must serve the needs of people on all levels of spiritual development. Some only want consolation for their personal experiences with suffering and that of their loved ones. Others like Simone Weil desire understanding at the expense of consolation. A real religion has within it and knows how to serve the gamut of these needs.
O- That is an opinion. Did God tell you what a “genuine religion must be like?

— If Purple Womabitism can reveal itself as having initiated with a conscious source, it can be done.
O- How can Wombatism or Buddhism or the others not mention “reveal” their conscious source? How can any religion reveal God? It isn’t like that advertisement that says: “Got Milk?” where the person “reveals” by the milk moustache that they indeed have milk or had it at any rate.

— It is not a matter of belief in God but in the quality of the God/Man relationship. Where I value the distance between them and the necessity of the growth of our own being for the sake of raising ourselves through first admitting our nothingness, those like Bob prefer to unite them on a secular level or bring God down to its level and validate the human condition.
O- Well I am sure that you two will one day agree on this “essential religion”, since you both have it…right?
— It is just an alarm clock that helps one along the path towards awakening. It does arouse “hope” but not hope IN something, but hope as a normally suppressed human quality or objective connection with conscious life.
O- Hope is hope my friend. And if it is like an alarm that helps you then I reserve the right to say that sometimes an alarm can violently strike the eardrums. You said that you got your butt kicked, and that you must admit is an image of violence. So based on that choice of words came my comments. Either way, violent or not, the idea is that this is not a and thing at all.

— Sympathy or empathy? There is a big difference. Where sympathy does not require a trancendental explanation, I believe when this degree of empathy expresses itself, it is beyond just animal emotion but something that indicates becoming human.
O- Sympathy. Empathy is detached in that, while you can sense their emotions you do not feel them. A doctor can say to you: I can see that you’re upset”. Without being sympathetic to why you’re upset.
In this sense, empathy brings a substandard of human. One who may feel and yet be detached from them. As such, that person is perhaps merciless. We ask: “Don’t you have any sympathy for their situation?” We do not ask: ”Don’t you have any empathy for their situation?”

---- But we define exaggeration by the standards of sleeping people.
O- You’re barking at the wrong tree. After more than 30 posts on this matter, you have failed to convince me that there is ANY REALITY TO THIS STATE YOU CITE. It seems to me, with what you’ve presented, that such state is an aberration, a misuse of language; an abuse of language perpetrated by those with incredible sensibility. But from the particular experiences of you or Weil, one cannot perform a proper study. It is not that I don’t care about the questions you’ve raised. I field them with sympathy. But like a Wittgenstein, my observation has been that perhaps all these problems you see are psychological problems you bring, not physical problems that humans find themselves to be in. Your case to make your opinion a truth has been to propose an “essence”, but this essence is so malformed and free of substance that it seems to me to originate more on a wish that this be so than on a person’s careful observations.
This is why I kept harping you about going into other religions. If a person has gone beyond simply supposing similarities and moved to a true sympathy, an effort to see how the shoe feels like on your foot, then that person, in my book knows enough as to not over reduce the actual experience of others and do injustice to their particular experience by diminishing their experience by implying a common ground that may not exist.
If my hypothetical person experiences the same “union with God” in all religions (and a good sample must be taken, so that if we reason some 2,000 religions then at least 200 religions should be tried. Not just 2), then and only then can he speak of a common essence, an esoteric link under the exoteric appearances they have taken.

— Perhaps from being more aware, she is also expressing the results of the experience of human feelings.
O- She is expressing HER FEELING but that does not allow us to jump and now say that HER FEELINGS can pass as the measure of HUMAN FEELINGS so that all human expressions of feelings are compared to hers as the mean.

— If humanity were awake, war would be impossible simply because it is inhuman.
O- This is a value judgment. Perhaps you should consider the prevalence of war not the result of humanity sleeping because “it is inhuman”, but that it is prevalent because there is nothing so human as war. Should we say the same for ants, or chimpanzees?
“If chimpanzees were awake, war between them would be impossible because it is unchimpanzee.”
Ecclesiastes 3:
18
I said to myself: As for the children of men, it is God’s way of testing them and of showing that they are in themselves like beasts.
19
For the lot of man and of beast is one lot; the one dies as well as the other. Both have the same life-breath, and man has no advantage over the beast; but all is vanity.
20
Both go to the same place; both were made from the dust, and to the dust they both return.
21
Who knows if the life-breath of the children of men goes upward and the life-breath of beasts goes earthward?
22
And I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice in his work; for this is his lot. Who will let him see what is to come after him?

— Yet as we are, it is an acceptable periodic occurrence.
O- It is acceptable because the alternative, one’s annihilation, is unacceptable. Before 9-11 people would not have thought about a war with anyone as justified. Now, after the events, wars are just or unjust as they are related to the perpetrators of that day. If the war in Iraq is unjustified it is because it bears no relation to that day.
In Fear, we strike most deadly…

— Some might protest and the majority may view their awareness, if indeed it is not just a conditioned response, as an exaggeration but at the same time it may be more human from a greater conscious perspective.
O- Perhaps but who judges this perspective?

— Yes, IMO this is where it must start; the recognition of our nothingness. I know how offensive this appears.
O- It is not a matter of actual offensiveness, but a logical one. Because the premise may lead to a certain conclusion does not mean that in turn the premise is validated or valid to begin with. Nietzsche would have argued that indeed we do have two perspectives, but who can say that Simone’s perspective of a slave is more valid than the master’s?

— This is why Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman is so hard to deal with.
O- The superman was never a slave but a critique of the slave perspective. Remember who was his foe.

— First things first. What is the metaphysical value for an unaware person starving to death.
O- Suppose that we survive a terrible plane crash on snowy mountain tops. All the passengers have died except for us two. What would be the metaphysical value for the unaware person to starve to death? Ask me then. What price is it that a man should win the world but lose his own soul?
A woman finds no work at the factory and is hungry. So she becomes a prostitute. What benefit can there be in starving to death?

— Only those who have the need and courage to begin as Simone says to “Annoy the Great Beast.”
O- Yet I was quoting you. Don’t you seek to annoy the Beast?

— This is like the old question: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” To get to the other side. It seems as if you are describing what a chicken or dog does, But perhaps a human being has the potential to be more then a reactive animal.
O- No. I am describing why I got to the computer. I wanted, I desired and therefore I did. The effect is me on a computer; the cause is me, my desire, my will.

Hello Nick:

In reference to the last paragraph in your last post to me.
Now, this one Nick deserved it’s own response apart from all other distraction.
I understand that you have a strategy that you feel is the best. An applause is in order. Let Buddhism and Esoteric Christianity be divided no more! Let theories be personally verified by those who accept them or who think them.
Enjoy.
My points obviously come from a man that does not feel as you about these matters. That is the quality of our state. But I want to correct your perception here.
First off, you take me as an atheist. Have I said “God does not exist” or more importantly, have I said: “I believe God does not exist”? The answer is no.
My view is quite complex because I have been at this for a lifetime and it is a continued voyage.
Secondly, just because we don’t share the feeling, or because you think I am asleep does not mean that such is the case or that these distinctions show us what is real. These distinctions shows us what is in your theory and nothing more. And because these theories are verified by you, their truth is relative to what you prefer as true.
Thirdly. I disagree with many of the views other are posting about you, though, others seem valid. I do respect your views, even when I attack some of them, as I see fit. I am not God, nor am I a prophet who speaks for God. My faith is my doubt, if that makes sense, so at the end of the day, keep in mind that I never said, nor could ever say if your view is true or false. All I ever uttered were challenges to the solidity you perceived in your theories.

Let us part now, at this point, and see where else our paths may cross.

Hi Omar

OK you’re not an Atheist. It seemed that certain of your objections to what I was posting were similar to objections from Atheists. I was wrong.

We have this lifetime voyage in common.

The question of sleep is not directed at you but mankind including me. I am only referring to the idea as it exists in Christianity, Buddhism, and Plato’s cave analogy for example. Granted, I can only assert this to be true with me.

As far as me preferring what I’ve value as true, this is not always the case. I’ve verified a very odd law of physics for example which states one half pound of chocloate consumed by me transforms into ten pounds of body weight. I’ve verified it but am not too happy about it.

Yes your faith as your doubt makes sense. In fact I even posted Simone as agreeing with you as to the value of doubt, excluding the visit at the end:

Agreed and that is what made it enjoyable. You didn’t find it necessary to pull the conversation into the mud and for that I do thank you.

Until next time

Stay well