I have lost confidence in the flesh. My flesh was as full force during puberty. & that is when pride and self-absorption take roots. Life defining experiences… But my soul is rising above my body. By edification of the Lord God Almighty, I am seeing the world differently (life defining experiences).
You think you know something, and then you learn God’s way. Perspective is everything.
Christ died at the hands of man. Why do bad things happen when Christ was brutally murdered by sinful man? We are so self-centered that we think we can say what God should do. & when we get messed up, we try to bend the world to fit us. How many people want peace on their own terms?
Christ gave His life for us. All the prophecy that started since Genesis about Christ’s life and death… It has all been God’s plan. First we get to know our faults, our failings, and our self-deceit. Then Christ comes again. This world is in the birth pains of what’s to come,… and spirits are being stirred.
Imagine, people look at Nostradamous and wonder about prophets. Then the prophecies of Christ & the Bible Code set the standard. Much like how religion was man’s curiosity about God and soul. But then God sent His Son to show us the real thing that sets the standard.
Welcome to what I call the beginning of the mid-life of belief.
I think Magnet Man also wrote about the stages, this one included, but used the eras of man to describe them.
No…wait for it.
The next part that comes some time later is a realization of the wonder of the body.
Right now, most likely (and I don’t intend to jump to judgment, but this just tends to be the experience that I’ve seen, and read people account of their experiences as well) he is flipping over because it’s a counter balance.
He has to push back against the body, so to speak, because he’s finding his growth in his spirituality.
Once that happens, he may swing back some to the body as he realizes it too cannot be neglected and instead should be marveled at as part of his spirituality.
How very…affirmative.
But some people seem to just go off in one direction and leave their bodies behind.
It’s funny…I was going to write that your response was more mature than mine and probably better. In this reaction I was focusing on how it affirmed him where he was at (or she, I suppose) and thus might be better received.
As I was writing this I realized that you are seeing him at a stage, whereas I am reacting to him as if this was a solid, more timeless philosophical stance of his.
So yours is positive, but then potentially condescending.
Mine is negative, but in a certain other sense respectful.
And anyway who says we need to leave our bodies to find our spirituality - well, I do know who - but it seems to me we may never need a stage - though many Westerners seem to - where we deny it a place in…love, the sacred, God, etc.
That is the way that some travel, yes.
The hope that I hold, and that many have held throughout history, is that people don’t stick in this thought as it holds a potential of becoming negligent and harmful in it’s extreme form.
For instance, this is partly the reason that the Gnostic’s were looked down on, as well, this fashion of thinking taken to extreme and rested on and then pushed back out into the world instead of only holding it personally is what caused, in part, the great inquisition.
I do not intend it as condescending at all.
He opened with a statement of revelation.
This revelation is something that a multitude of humanity has written about, and many Eastern philosophies concentrate heavily on discussing the balance of.
From everything that I have experienced and as well studied, for the western culture, this seems to arrive, and in our present day, many continue past it as they grow.
Mine is negative, but in a certain other sense respectful.
Bingo.
It’s only needed if the starting point is polarized to the counter.
The meaning of life is to live Life. I assure you I enjoy life. I was talking about the impulsive nature and self-gratification of humanity. Sure it was oversold since the 80’s where you couldn’t go anywhere and everything was associated with sex. But this over-stimulated sence that distorted everything connected to it so much that people lost site of everything connected. And GGW is a side note of everyday life. It is so that life has been reduced to the lowest common denominator. The universal at a click of a button. Sex drugs and rock and roll. But that is just the social norm so much that all else gets left behind. Then people lose themselves and kill their kids by accidently overdosing them in the car, all because the boyfriend that fits the uneducated image of love doesn’t want kids. And I guess the babysitter cost to much,… but not as much as a suitcase.
Sure I was an addict. I have cleared my mind and have to compensate for all the neglect. But the haze I woke up from has left me little hope for a society of *Undefined Inaudiable…
But to further the point is that I doubt any purpose life has to offer for me will offer a opertunity to explore my ambitions, hopes, dreams… Ect. Such is life. That’s fine. I want to glorify reality. No more dreams. Reality. Plain and simple. There is hope for the hopeless. The medium is reality.
So Iask you now… What part of reality do you see perdenent? What is significant for the growth of life?
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lets not forget the all important manipulation of feelings. like the use of anger to get more boxes out the door. or the ignorring of problems by getting angrey at others. but most all of drug addiction is not being saticied with life and expecting drugs to add to life. or being bored with marriage and then walking away from it. or just not being able to admit wrong when anger is easier to feel. or playing games and thinking youre achieving something.
You would not have arrived at your revelation without your previous experiences.
You will not arrive at your next revelation without having had this one and all of the experiences between the two.
Well, me too, I guess, though perhaps our idea of the balance point would be rather different. But whole communities go on for generations out on one wing, and individuals can spend a whole life being more and more ascetic, and so on.
I guess. and yet if I look out the window and estimate the median or the average, it seems extreme. And I cannot think of an Age, at least in Western culture where I would not have the same reaction.
Not, snooty, perhaps, but almost by definition, must’n’t it be. It seems implicit that you have gone through the stage he is in. You have evolved to the next stage. Or some stage down the line. It is a phase he is in. You can understand his phase and he cannot understand yours. He might reject yours but that’s because he doesn’t know any better. When you reject his, you do this from knowledge.
If someone responded to you with these underlying ideas, wouldn’t you find it condescending?
You may not; that is probably just the way that you are.
No…unfortunately, I still run into the problem of thinking my body is lesser than my spirit now and then.
I learned about the concept of equality when I was 14, after growing up in a Christian environment and starting my academic life in Catholic grade school (until I was kicked out).
So, the idea of denying the body was impacted quickly into my early mind even before I understood what that meant.
Later, I saw similar tones in Eastern philosophy and eventually stumbled onto Siddhartha of which was my personal revaluation of a great many, many things that made sense to my life.
However, the experience of that concept for equal spirit and body is something that I believe I won’t fully attain until I am very old; hoping on that I live to be very old to see such a day.
Well…I wouldn’t presume that he can’t understand mine.
I was more sharing my perspective of what he is exclaiming.
Hell no.
I am not so awesome (literal sense of the word) that I surpass all humanity.
I don’t think I have anything to reject…do you see something that I might?
Hmm…possibly, but I think that would greatly depend on my state at the time…
Now-a-days…no.
However, myself about…oooh…ten years ago? Most likely.
neither of you have taken into consideration what living with integrety will do. Integrety in the sence of being the same inside and out. Because If you think it, then you need to explore it. Then to understand it you must talk about it. For instance, you see someone do something odd and irritating. Then you ask, why is that so entertaining to you. Then you gain understanding, and look at it differently. But if you don’t live with integrety you festor on a half-truth. Thus is is what it isn’t, and you treat it like it shouldn’t.
What is scientology, and why is it different. I’m sure if they knew what I knew, they would incorperate it, as long as I wasn’t telling them that they are wrong, but telling them what I see, and what I see is real. then what is see is accepted.
Of, course this attitude fits best with the ananimity of a big town, or the facelessness of the internet. This modern day world could make this type of thinking the accepted and perpetuated chacteristic that we need as a society.
let me tell you the extreme end of no integrety, it’s the snake. The snake who hides in the shadows plotting his course. Spends his life avoiding the light, because for him the truth will not set him free but expose him. He likes to gain power by being the pupet master, pulling peoples strings. Taking side effects and assigning them false identities. Creating identity complexes to suit his needs, while having no compassion for those in his wake. Having no compassion to offer to others what he himself enjoys. But saying they deserve what they get, or saying they’re happy with what I give them. Or just ignorring them as a victum of the game/joke that their life/philosophy is. The snake wants to be king of the world, as long as it’s his world. To have dominance and self glory for being right. But not avtually being right, but just getting by.
The snake has no true meaning. He only wants to be the life of the party, or winner of the game. He defines the rules as he goes. He gets others to gain apathy for other sides. Just like the opposite of the first Churches in the book of Acts. The snake is trying to swallow the world with his venom poisoning our beliefs in each other. The snake tries to give you everything you want as long as you believe in him. But God builds you up to his level. No matter where you are, you get built up. The road is straight and narrow, but up. You see, we don’t have the answers, and things that seem vast and unimportant have meaning.
The snake vs the master of light. Hide it under a bush,… no. I’m ganna let it shine. You see we are expected to be plain in our meaning to eachother. We need to be open to eachother till we can show them how to live life according to what we see. Just cause it takes time and meditation and prayer to be able to articulae it to someones spacific point in life,… well that’s what the Holy Spirit is for. The Holy Spirit speaks to your soul to edify words between different understandings.
remember two words,… reproof and reprisal. How would God do these things to edify us? Even if it’s to show how fruitless your ways are compared to Gods ways.
Ephesians 5
11Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:
“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
