The spirit of wisdom

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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I believe there are many forms of precious wisdom.
But the best ones are spiritual.
Spiritual to me, means energy oriented.
The nature of our inner energy.
That is the whole point of psionics, magic, hermetics, etc.
In Christianity, God is considered a spirit, too.
Heaven is a spiritual place, relating to the afterlife,
which is a transition from body to a new space.
The person dies, their energy leaves, and travels
into the next phase of life.

The basics of spirituality exist across most religions.

Morality is also a big thing in religion:
Code of conduct. This is a form of wisdom,
but it is more about the individual and less
about the energy.

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Wisdom what resonates…what has an effect.
Magic.
Words delivered in a rhythms; a sequence of semiotics, triggering psychosomatic reactions.
Philosophy has been reduced to politics…the use of semiotics for mass manipulation.
A range that is limited to the “polis” and not outside the walls.
Wisdom disconnected from truth…from reality.

Originally philosophy meant “friend of wisdom”, meaning friend of truth.
A true friend doesn’t tell you what you want to hear.
Truth is not automatically pleasant, nor is it blind to what is real.
Wisdom is discovering the utility in truth, and this necessitates its acknowledgment and understanding.

Nihilism uses language to escape truth…to dismiss it.
Politics have made philosophy into a utility, a tool, for the exploitation of this desire to evade truth; using pleasure to overcome doubt.

True wisdom is not only applicable within a specific polis, within a specific group. It holds true across all races, ages, societies…
Wisdom is shared linguistically but language does not limit its transmission - it can be reinterpreted into any language, and art form…remaining true in all cultures, across time.

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I recently came across an intelligent exegesis of Proverbs, with reference to wisdom, which he said is a manifesto:

“In Proverbs, personified wisdom herself cries out:
Wisdom cries out in the street;
in the squares she raises her voice.
At the busiest corner she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks …
Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
Beside the gates, in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
“To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live …
Take my instruction instead of silver,
and knowledge rather than choice gold;
For wisdom is better than jewels,
and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.”
(Proverbs 1:20–21, 8:1–4, 10–11)

Wisdom is often thought of as a rather “cool” concept, associated with slow deliberation and reflective distance. But the poetry of Proverbs shows wisdom’s passionate intensity and urgency, represented by a mature, attractive woman. She does not by any means do away with patience, reflection, and deliberation, but opens up the heart of wisdom as a hot, energetic passion for clear discernment, accurate knowledge, good judgment, right living, and far-sighted decision-making. She is also passionately against fools and foolishness. She is wholeheartedly committed to the public realm and the shaping of families, friendships, neighborhoods, and societies, as well as individuals. She wants to attract as many as possible to devote themselves to her:

“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”
(Proverbs 9:5–6)

The cries of wisdom are meant to stimulate us to cry out for her too. If nothing else we desire can compare with her, then we need to relate our desire for wisdom to our other desires. In the midst of all the cries – longings, appeals, and demands that come from within us and from all around us – how are we to shape a wise life? Desiring wisdom means seeking to test and discern the cries, learning how to respond to them. The Bible and life are full of cries: of suffering, joy, wonder, thanks, praise, victory, defeat, fear, faith, despair, hope, remorse, petition, and much else. These are the intensities and urgencies that can call forth a “hot” wisdom. Theology seeks wisdom through this engagement, relating to all that we cry out for – love, food, peace, security, freedom, health, hope, truth, joy, and God.”
Ford, David F. The Future of Christian Theology (Wiley-Blackwell Manifestos Book 55). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

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Thought for the day (to blow your mind…)
“You are comprised of 84 minerals, 23 Elements, and 8 gallons of water spread across 38 trillion cells.

You have been built up from nothing by the spare parts of the Earth you have consumed, according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix and small enough to be carried by a sperm. You are recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf fur, and shark teeth, broken down to their smallest parts and rebuilt into our planet’s most complex living thing.

You are not living on Earth. You are Earth."

Words by Aubrey Marcus

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I would argue that what Aubrey Marcus describes there is the body not “you”. You are not the body and not the mind, since you are conscious of body and mind and your body and mind are not conscious of you. Thus do we call the body “my body” and the mind “my mind”. What we really are is pure consciousness. Body and mind are appearances in consciousness dissociated from itself. It is possible to return to the consciousness that you are in meditation and to be aware of provisional nature of everything on the phenomenal level.

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The picture impresses me because it suggests that all is one, and the body is part of its surroundings, made up of its surroundings and all it has digested. There is an interconnection and interdependence between our bodies and nature. I feel we need redemption to reconnect with that oneness and realise that the reciprocity of the world has to do with giving and taking, which the rest of nature does without resentment. Our resentment comes from our perception of suffering, and the refusal to accept nature as it is.

I am reminded of Jack Kornfield’s rendering of Buddhist teachings and how he began one lesson with the words, “Oh nobly born, oh you who are the sons and daughters of the awakened ones, remember who you really are, remember that within you are the seeds of Awakening; is the capacity of seeing the world with the eyes and the Heart of a Buddha. To see with wisdom and the great heart of compassion. The question is not so much the future of humanity, but the presence of Eternity. Can we see with the eyes and heart of a Buddha, the suffering and the beauty, the beginning and ending, the gain and loss, and praise and blame - all the everchanging world, and can we be the loving witness to it.”

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Nature is a Goddess. She is beautiful and ugly to the eye, full of pleasure and pain, splendor and horror. She requires us to eat and be eaten. She of whom we are temporarily a part, is always changing, a true shape shifter. The wise give and receive from her in awe and humility, and remain unattached.

Consider the whale. It evolved from a land mammal no bigger than a wolf to be the giant master of oceans. But all are threatened by the insatiable greed of mankind. Sad.

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This anthropomorphic representation is common in many cultures, where nature is seen as a powerful and often unpredictable force that deserves reverence and awe. Of course, nature is both beautiful and ugly, which describes the diverse and sometimes contradictory aspects of the natural world. Nature can inspire awe with its breathtaking landscapes, vibrant flora, and majestic fauna, but it also includes harsh and challenging elements that give us pleasure and pain, reflecting the dual nature of life experiences. While the beauty of nature can bring joy and pleasure, the harsh realities of survival, predation, and natural disasters bring pain and suffering.

There is a grandeur in nature’s magnificence, but it coexists with potentially terrifying aspects, such as the power of storms, volcanic eruptions, or the brutality of the food chain. Nature requires “us to eat and be eaten” reflects the fundamental cycle of life and death in the natural order. It highlights the interdependence of species in ecosystems, where the survival of one often relies on the consumption of another. As I said, it goes against our sentiments, and Christianity seems to have forced this by suggesting God is a loving father.

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Right. So in world mythology we often see the earth mother and the sky father. The Mother represents the phenomenal world as mediated by the senses. The Father represents the spiritual world. The spirit itself is a metaphor representing consciousness as breath. Consciousness is known through its objects. The Father of everything is the unknown knower. In the Gospel of John only the Son knows and reveals the Father. The Son is the divine light that reveals everything. In other words, pure consciousness. Now orthodox Christianity worships Jesus as God incarnate. Be that as it may, what I see Jesus doing is revealing to us all what we really are, that is Consciousness Itself.

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For me, we are all incarnate or no one is, but Jesus is the “firstfruit” of the awakened generation, which means to be born of the spirit. His courage is grounded in the awareness of unity (“I am in the Father and he in me”) and love. He is the light that goes before us, a guiding star, which helps us overcome of dual experience and see the oneness of reality.

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Right. I identify Christ with the light of consciousness which is also the ground of being without which nothing exists. He/she/it/whatever is existence itself. The breakthrough for me was realizing that I am consciousness and that consciousness is the ground of being. If that were only true for me that would be solipsism. But, one consciousness lights up everything that is. Or, rather, the universe only and always appears in consciousness. So, from this point of view, the hard problem of consciousness is solved. It’s flipped on its head. It becomes the hard problem of matter. But that problem isn’t hard at all. Matter is how consciousness appears to the senses as interpreted by the separate dissociated mind.

As for Consciousness Itself—it remains unexplained and unexplainable. It is the fundamental material clause of the universe. Everything is explained in terms of it. And here’s the Corker: You are it! It is you! This, we return to the maxim inscribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi “Know thyself.”

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Yes, essentially, everybody has forgotten who they really are, and mistake their body and the physical world for reality, whereas it is only a representation! We are expressions of the sacred Unity reaching out and embodying the potentiality in us. If we could realise that we are all this expression we would see we are all part of the One, and must return after our body has expired.

The terminology suggests that Jesus was awakened and realised, as you say he was consciousness and that consciousness is the ground of being. The “son of man” was a reality, and not just phrases used in the Hebrew Bible.

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Years ago I proposed to Carleas that spirit as propounded in traditional religions is symbolic of consciousness. Typically the word spirit with a lower case s refers to ordinary human consciousness as we use it for the mundane purposes of living. Spirit with a capital S is the Divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit—Supraconsciouness. “Conscious at large” Kastrup calls it. Now when that consciousness breaks into ordinary consciousness one has a sense of God’s presence or, beyond that one realizes that that consciousness and the consciousness that he/she is are one and the same. “Thou art that” it says in the Upanishads. All is one. You are that One. The separate body/mind of ordinary consciousness is an illusion. If that’s where you find yourself’ you realize you must treat all with love because the apparent other is really you. Thus, the Christian ethics “God is love.” “Love thy neighbor as thyself”and “Love your enemy” are founded on metaphysical reality.

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Do you think that Spirit has to “break in” as you say, or do you think it is when we learn to see “past the illusion” as it were, by some circumstance that overrides the ego?

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In that question is embedded the whole free will versus determinism question or, in theological terms choice versus predestination. It’s a trick we play on ourselves. Is it free grace or the result of maximal effort? It’s one of Kant’s antimonies—a paradox.

Either/both I’d say. There is no birth. There is no death. We are already and ever have been free. That it is or could be otherwise is an illusion.

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Here the sun, who is the giver of all light, is used as the symbol of the Infinite, giver of all wisdom. The seeker after Truth prays to the Effulgent One to control His dazzling rays, that his eyes, no longer blinded by them, may behold the Truth. Having perceived It, he proclaims: “Now I see that that Effulgent Being and I are one and the same, and my delusion is destroyed.” By the light of Truth he is able to discriminate between the real and the unreal, and the knowledge thus gained convinces him that he is one with the Supreme; that there is no difference between himself and the Supreme Truth; or as Christ said, “I and my Father are one.”
Commentary of the Isa-Upanishad

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So, is physical life a temporary excursion into illusion? Is the point of it to learn to see past the illusion or to be redeemed? Because that seems to be the choice.

Some religious people live their lives like the AA suggests for alcoholics:

  1. Admit powerlessness over sin: Acknowledge that sin (or illusion) has control over your life.
  2. Accept a higher power: Recognize that a higher power can restore your sanity.
  3. Turn your will and life over to a higher power: Make a decision to surrender control to this higher power.
  4. Take a moral inventory of yourself: Reflect on your actions and character.
  5. Admit your wrongdoings: Share your shortcomings with a higher power, another person, and yourself.
  6. Accept that a higher power will remove your character defects: Trust in the process of change.
  7. Humbly request removal of your shortcomings: Seek personal growth.
  8. List people you’ve hurt: Be willing to make amends.
  9. Make amends to those people: Unless it would harm them.
  10. Continue personal inventory: Admit when you’re wrong.
  11. Use prayer and meditation: Connect with the higher power.
  12. Carry the message to others.

There seems to be truth in this to some degree. Whether the “higher power” is the God of the Bible, or the Effulgent One of the Isa-Upanishad, does it matter? Are they not just names?

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Great question! Look at it:” Is physical life, a temporary excursion into illusion.” It is entirely contingent on what Kant called a priori concepts of the mind.

Physical life => substance
Temporary => time
Excursion=> change
Illusion=> phenomenon vs. the thing itself

This is why jnana or gnosis which occurs under conditions of relativity must use indirect communication—pointers, symbols, metaphors. The Tao which can be represented is not the eternal Tao.

The AA path is dualistic. I have seen it work for several people who then achieved nondual insight directly.

Just names? They are means of communicating the absolute on this relative plane. Therefore, they should be kept sacred. “Hallowed be the name.” The failure to do that in the post- modern world has facilitated the slide into nihilism.

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So, “a priori concepts of the mind” are necessary conditions for the possibility of experience and understanding. They shape the way we perceive and interpret the world. I found out that Kant posited that space and time are not objects we derive from experience but are the very forms of our intuition. In other words, space and time are the fundamental ways we perceive and organise the sensory information we receive. They are preconditions for any meaningful experience.

He also argued that our understanding imposes certain categories or concepts on the raw data of our sensory experience. These categories are a priori in that they are not derived from experience but are necessary for organizing and making sense of our empirical perceptions. So, although his views don’t necessarily imply that the physical world is an illusion, he argued that the structures of our cognition mediate our understanding of the physical world. Is the world as we experience it shaped by our mental frameworks?

That is why reality can only be spoken of using pointers, symbols and metaphors.

What I really meant is that fighting over names denies the unity of the sacred, of which we are a part.

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In other words:

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