understanding the Grail

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understanding the Grail

here i would like to ask you you thoughts on the concept of the Grail. i would think the idea goes back well before recorded history [and later religions], so i presume the Arthurian take on it is a reflection of something far more ancient. the Celtic cauldron comes to mind and is connected to the notion of the Grail as ‘all giving’, also the horn of plenty as described in the mabinogion and similars in greek literature. there also seams to be links to scythian culture sarmation in particular, and i am sure there will be ideas like it all over the world.

i expect we could debate the origins of the grail forever without getting anywhere, and also the christian concept, so i will give you my take on it, i doubt if it is exactly the same as the original meaning, though something inside me says it is close…

we are spirits occupying a vessel, the entirety of reality is formed into a parallel [though not as dichotomous as that sounds] with the spiritual sphere of being running alongside the material aspect. central to this is emptiness, all things are empty, this we call the awen when combined with the entire realm of spirit. as like the stars come out at night so do all things arise within or from the awen, thence as it is literally the infinite there is no ‘it’, no centre, it is not a thing.

so far then we have, the space and the vessel nature of the Grail. so now let us fill it…

i will try to keep it simple; all things including the material universe are composed purely of relationships, atoms for example are polarised energies which is one kind of relationship concerned with the principle of universal balance. relationships are the constructive nature of intelligence, that is how intelligence works, it take sets of relationships and weighs them up against one another.

put the whole lot together and we have an infinite intelligence, and reality is literally the ‘form’ and/or operation, and/or mechanism of that. our Grail then is primarily the vessel of said intelligence. the Grail does not contain anything, it gives intelligence ‘body’ in which to form itself. we may take note that the space within the vessel has everything that can be manifest within it. the vessel of reality itself has this ability, as like at the ends and beginnings of cycles even of the universe itself, to become as like nothing. then it can erupt or manifest itself according to the nature of the grail.

the Grail of the universe collects all that occurs within a cycle, forms it into one [an emptiness] then begins anew. this process is repeated with all Grails, in you it is the vessel you both now occupy and that moves from incarnation to incarnation.

its magic does not end there, for it is not just living beings and entities [e.g. planets and stars etc] which possess Grails! an idea too has a grail for every aspect of intelligence/spirit there is a Grail, an inventor will seek a grail in the form of the resolution or fulfilment of their ideas, a scientist [or collection of] will have a grail to find for a discovery.
you see the Grail itself possesses nothing, has no intelligence nor spirit, it cannot be classified as anything but a vessel of no particular design. yet by possessing or rather ‘finding’ a grail one may find what we are looking for, and that can be anything from an idea to love! just remember to pass it around eh.
some grails already exist and some have yet to come into being, the world is a truly magical place with no beginning nor end [as such]. as a continuum with no lord there will always be Grails to find!

let us then pass grail between us and watch the circles of knowledge evolve.

thoughts?

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Umm, I wouldn’t elevate the Grail concept to the status you seem to be assigning it here… i.e., you seem to attribute it a metaphysical priority of sorts… (In this vein, could I refer you to concepts such as Plato’s khora or Derrida’s difference? These strike me as very similar to what you are describing…).

Regarding the Christian concept of the Grail (since I can’t speak for any pre-Christian origins (not that I deny them but because I’m no expert)), I would say it doesn’t have this metaphysical significance…

Have you ever heard the phrase “I’ll drain that cup”? As in, sort of, “I’ll fulfill that destiny” or “I’ll live that life”? To me the grail is the cup that we drain to metaphorically signify our very real covenant with God.

The grail is filled with Christ’s blood and when we drain it, it is a metaphor both for our grateful acceptance of Christ’s blood sacrifice (i.e., Christ gives his blood for our life) and, more importantly, that we pledge our own blood (i.e., that we’ll give our blood for the life of others).

So in this sense the Grail is a life, a life that we’ll live (a cup that we’ll drain), but more specifically it is a life filled with the giving and receiving of Christian love (so crudely and poignantly represented by blood!).

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i don’t know about these, are they the same?

interesting perspective, i am not much of a christian i am afraid, so i was more looking at it as a quest object on the one hand, then as a universal vessel on the other. i can’t imagine the knights riding out to find something that is already given ~ christian love, though maybe to obtain it would bring peace to the nation. hmm interesting idea there.

i am not so keen on the destiny aspect as draining away, in zen one has to empty the cup that it may be refreshed and filled again, as we tend to fill our minds up with junk ~ maybe thats a similar thing to what you meant? i would see my extension of the idea as being destiny in the sense that, i see time as a continuum with slots in it - so to say, where you are born when your nature fits in with the environment you are being born to, its a like attracts like thing.

thanks

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No. Well; Derrida would have you think so but who knows what Plato would say about that. One is the foundation for ancient philosophy and the other for postmodern, and they both have a similarity with your grail, i.e., this ‘emptiness being filled’ kind of thinking… This ‘space for something to be’… (If this has anything to do with your thinking!)

Christian love isn’t already given I’m afraid. Your next statement, that it would bring peace if found, is precisely correct though. You mention the grail as “all giving”, and this fits perfectly with Christian love (where Christians (in my highly contested opinion) are those one who give all that they have, who will themselves to be “horns of plenty” for the needy).

This brings me to the quest-value of Christian love: It is a rare event finding one who acts like a horn of plenty! So rare that finding it could easily be represented by an impossible quest that only the most holy, pure and righteous among us could complete, and come back to us bearing its blessings.

I’m afraid once the cup is empty it’s empty. There is no re-filling… Over here it’s dust to dust, ashes to ashes; no Buddhist reincarnation!

By ‘draining away’ I mean, in a more positive sense, making a choice, deciding one’s fate, committing oneself to a path and taking the path chosen… (There are two sides to the draining: depletion of vital fluids and subsequent invigoration…) If I say destiny I don’t mean preordained or determined.

Draining the cup of Christian love is choosing to be a horn of plenty. Rare and righteous indeed are those who take this cup. Blessed are those who drink of it.

However what a wonderful thing rejuvination is. Like the cleansing refreshment of baptismal waters…

The only time is right now. This slot. Don’t let past slots weigh upon it. Their time is up. Don’t let future slots take up space. Their time will come.

At the end of your original post you say:

Christ’s blood wasn’t depicting knowledge. It wasn’t “circles of knowledge” that he wanted to build, but rather he wanted to pass around the cup of all-giving love… (I think this would be true in Buddhist thinking as well, i.e., the point isn’t to know but to love… )

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indeed yes, thats my thinking. i would add that it has other properties, a friend of mine has recently gone through a set of events, then it seams i am about to go through a similar set. as it was i in whom he confided, it appears the his ‘grail’ or the vessel of the cycle, has been passed on by connection to me.
in a similar way have you noticed that people work/flow in circles, and that they appear to jump from circle to circle. it is like you meet someone in one circle of friends, relatives or whatever, then you move to another circle and there will be someone who you think, oh he looks like such n such a person, yet he has a similar personality type to another. so the persona’s and bodies/vessels tend to hop around changing from circle to circle.

ha, i doubt if that made any sense lols.

ideally yes, i wont mention the inquisition though, nor witch burnings etc etc, then again i don’t think such people should call themselves christians. why do people think they can just call themselves christians and that automatically means they are?

indeed, though it may be trickier than even that, righteousness can itself be divisive, it is easy to judge and condemn even though christ appears to be against false judgement. sometimes i have seen that people can be all good on the outside yet there are hidden things within them, perhaps it is not possible to be wholly pure! humans just seam to have a duality by which if we are not careful even the act or righteousness can cause in inner iniquity.

resurrection? personally i think that not everyone [most!_?] are worthy of heavenly abode, after all for heaven to be heaven then surely people have to be heavenly. there are not too many people i have known who would make heaven a heavenly place to live ~ is it not the same for you with the people you have known?

as to the draining aspects; perhaps the blood of christ is continually replenished and all giving, so a grail would have this nature.

interesting point! i have problems with the idea of reincarnation, i just think the soul continues and if not everyone goes to heaven then the rest will be reborn until they can! you could be right in that we only have one slot and the now. i cannot believe in hell though, it is just ghastly and brings up all sorts of problems and contradiction ~ this is part of what i meant in the notion; ‘righteousness is itself divisive’.

is the mind not a vessel? is not knowledge enlightening etc etc.

thanks for an interesting reply, slightly bias towards the christian idea as it was :smiley:

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Good question! There’s a lot of hypocrisy out there.

Sure, there’s a line of Christian thinking that says life goes on after physical death, but I don’t read it that way. Heaven isn’t a place we go to after this life, for this would be a life despising attitude (while Christ calls only for love). Heaven is something that obtains in this life. Perhaps seeking it is akin to the grail quest, but unlike a quest Christ explicitly tells us not to seek it, that it is already in our midst… (Perhaps you could read that into grail mythology?)

I have to agree with you, unfortunately.

Christ is just a man. His blood will eventually run dry. The only hope is if others take his place, join his cause…

Who can say! While you have an optimistic attitude and hope for the best (and who doesn’t want to live forever?), I’d rather move forward with the worst of hypotheses: that this life is all there is, and that when it’s over it’s over.

I agree. I don’t believe in hell either. Or rather, to me hell is life as it is, which I think we’ve both admitted is rarely graced by love. (Was it St Augustine who said hell is life without love?) Hell isn’t a punishment but a consequence of not loving. Jesus isn’t condemning those who sin to hell, rather he’s telling them how it is: they are going to suffer. Their choice to sin is a choice to further suffering.

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interesting perspective, but it really doesn’t work for me. i cannot even imagine how that can be true, everything we ‘know’ about the universe would have to be wrong. secondly if somehow we could obtain heaven on earth, what would that actually be? imagine after 10,000 years, how big would ones family be, how many people would there be on earth, one that is already overcrowded! surely everything would become inane after a given time ~ a billion years of giving birth, of toil and work, marriage to the same person, even of joy [what joys we are allowed in heaven?_!].

good point, but i thought christians believed jesus to be god.

same as atheists in that respect ‘when its over its over’. i like to think there is a greater wisdom, that everything adds up to that greater wisdom [is god not all wise?]. so the question in my quest would be; what is the higher wisdom? …to live then die so that nothing really matters, or to be part of the continuum. i can accept the former but i don’t see much wisdom in it.

i see. i am confused as to what causes suffering though, love itself causes suffering, certainly the lack of it does. having children is a sufference, as is not having them etc etc. i would be interesting to hear what christians actually think a world without suffering would be like? how would we live, what can/can’t we do etc.

it seams my quest has brought me to this… :slight_smile:

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All I’m saying about the universe is that it is full of suffering. Love is the cure, and Jesus shows us through his life what love is, i.e., how the cure is applied. All I mean by heaven is a world full of love, where love is multiplied. I don’t mean reproduction in a gross biological sense, and I don’t mean toil and work (recall: toil and work is the consequence of Adam’s fall, i.e., when paradise is lost). Well, to be honest I do mean toil and work. Love is hard work.

But marriage to the same person? No. Christ was against marriage and even family, because they have a tendency to restrict one’s love. (To be more precise I wouldn’t say Christ was against these things, but that he thought we should love everyone as if they were our child or partner, someone we would do anything for.)

Jesus was God. But Jesus was also Man. The two come together in Christ. (God’s infinite love, Man’s limited strength.)

Is philosoophy the love of wisdom or the wisdom of love? God’s wisdom is the wisdom of love. If that’s all wise then God is all wise.

Inconsiderate, hurtful actions are what cause suffering. That and natural disasters or accidents… Certainly though, the presence of violence is a sure sign of the lack of love.

I don’t think the world will ever be without suffering. We can’t cure everything, no matter how much we may wish to.

What would heaven be like though? Imagine, if you were hungry, those with food would offer you what they had, even if it meant none for them. If you were injured, those who heard your call would come to your aid. If you did something terrible, nobody would hold it against you. Just imagine the multiplication of loving action. How would we live? We would live lovingly, pouring forth love while being supported by the love of all others. (To refer back to your rejuvination comment earlier.)

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For some reason, I thought this thread was going to be about Monty Python.

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sounds like humanity would just die out realistically.

philosophy is the love of wisdom. love is but a single aspect of our multifaceted nature, we don’t love all the time because we are simply more dynamic and there are other things to do, many thing require our complete attention.

in your heaven someone has to make the food etc, i would find such a way of life quite inane after a time.

sorry to disagree but that is not a grail i can find, it is just unreasonable and false. it just doesn’t make any sense at all, maybe i am dumb though.

smears.

keep reading ~ it is. :stuck_out_tongue:

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The claim made by God is that humanity, or rather all creation, would flourish (and again, not just in some gross biological sense as you suggested before). While I certainly haven’t proven the claim neither have you sufficientlly denied it.

You can say philosophy is the love of wisdom, as indeed many do. I have nothing against loving wisdom (since, obviously, all I call for is love). But what I do have a problem with is if your love is that narrow, i.e., if it is confined only to wisdom.

I’m sure if you searched your heart though you’d quickly admit your love applies to more than just wisdom. But if so why? If so what is the basis of your love? Could there be some kind of wisdom to loving, as I suggest? i.e., Could there be a different kind of philosophy than the kind you espouse? A kind of philosophy that investigates the wisdom of love? This is what I think the Judeo-Christian tradition is all about… It’s about expressing the wisdom of love… (The Greeks got it backwards!)

I’m not denying the dynamic nature of human being (or of all creation for that matter). And certainly many things require our attention. My contention is that love is always the appropriate response. But perhaps you think we should respond to what calls for our attention with hate or indifference or some other attitude? Indeed, the human being is multifaceted, but do you really want to see all the ugly faces of humanity? Haven’t we seen enough?

Indeed, someone has to make the food. What a labour of love that would be, if someone spent their life tilling the earth to feed those who have nothing to eat!

Innane? The whole idea is that if the world was full of love then your life, and not only your life, would be supported. i.e., you would be free to pursue your grail studies and whatever else it is that stirs you up inside. I’m not trying to deny human beings self-actualizing lives; rather I’m claiming that a self-actualizing humanity is built upon a foundation of love, i.e., a loving humanity.

Otherwise only the lucky exceptions can self-actualize, and they do so not on the foundation of love but on the backs of the oppressed.

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to agree with you i would have to disagree with everything we understand about the world, thats all. i just feel that there is a spiritual side to the equation [as i have experienced as so]. without such it doesnt add up.

it is not, i am a lot more gentle than i may appear on the forums, i have a general love of all things, but the mind is a complex beast and has many flavours of emotion [and non-emotion].

i am with the greeks, although you pose in interesting contrast. somewhere deep inside i want to love and to trust people, yet have come to learn that such love comes from mutual respect. some people are ghastly, liars, selfish and greedy and often they don’t even understand that or worse they think it is ok. i would say this is something of a lesson humanity is having to re-learn now, wouldn’t you!

more indignation than hate, although that is perhaps wrong too. mostly i respond with honesty and directness in a manner that is as unconfrontational as possible. forums are a little different i tend to speak my mind more, i don’t know why that is, perhaps the lack of emotional contact or something. usually if i see fault i will agree in a way that brings the inquirer around to the truth, its rather dastardly and hermetic [as i am], but truth is circular so one can bring people to their own wisdom. you see the soul knows the truth, one only has to look direct into anothers eyes to know if their sould believes in what they are saying. thence it is only a matter of bringing them to their own inner guru.

i think hard work is hard work, one just gets up aching all over and goes to bed the same. often it is difficult to even think clearly as it feels like the brain is burning. this is like the giving the donkey away thing, they should do you an equal service and till the land themselves. fair enough if there is a famin or whatever, but disciples etc could easily work for their own food rather than accept the fruits of anothers generosity and work. i just think that is the fair and real way of looking at it.

good point! i suppose that philosophers etc would not exist if not for others.

hmm food for thought definitely there. whilst i don’t see the literal christian view as truth, i do see it has truth ~ if that makes sense. i am still perplexed as to the spirituality or lack of, and that is my main contention with all you said, apart from that there is much wisdom in what you say.

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What do you mean a spiritual side? Do you mean there must be a superpower called God out there who can back up the claim?

The world as it stands is in short supply of love. So our current understanding of the world doesn’t really say anything about what the world would be like if it had an abundance of love… But perhaps I’m missing the particular world-facts that defeat my thinking…

These are indeed the hardest ones to love. But showing love to the despicable is the surest sign of spiritual strength. Even murderers love those that are close to them. What credit is that to them? Real lovers are those who love even their enemies. (In other words, one can’t have a “general love of all things”, as you suggest of yourself, and then go on to exclude enemies from that love… I know you don’t explicitly do this, but you suggest that love follows respect, and that there are certain ones you simply cannot respect…)

When I say love I cover a host of responses. Love is a general term, and it becomes specialized given the situation. For example. If I’m faced with someone who has offended me, the loving response is to forgive. If someone knocks on my door, the loving response is to hospitable. If I’m shown generosity, the loving response is to be thankful…

Honesty, while perhaps not directly loving, is certainly not inconsistent with love. (Although, having said that, sometimes the truth can hurt, and is better left unsaid…)

How very Greek of you indeed! Although unlike Socrates it seems you think the truth can be recollected in this life, i.e., before dying and reuniting with the eternal…

No, it’s not all the same… Is the labour of a slave the same as a free man? The end products may be the same but I can’t help but see a fundamental difference in the labour itself…

Should they now? And why should they? Why do you insist upon reciprocation and/or independence/fending for yourself? You see, here is where you deny the truth of the world, and by that I mean the fact that we are all, each and every one of us, dependent creatures.

Independence is a myth, or better yet it is impossible. So why strive for it? Why not embrace what the world really shows us, i.e., that each of us is wholly dependent upon others? i.e., That others need us and that we need others?

Regarding reciprocation I can’t say there is anything wrong per se with an economy of trade, but I am clearly pushing for a gift economy here, i.e., an economy where everything is free. To understand my desire consider an especially germaine example: Do you live in the US? What if you needed health care but couldn’t afford the price? What kind of twisted world puts a price on healing? So while again, there is nothing wrong per se with putting a price on any good/service, I can’t help but find it deplorable, and this becomes especially evident when you consider examples like health care or, as you said, selling food during a famine…

I agree 100% though that almost nothing is free in this world. However I don’t believe this has anything to do with necessity, so we can’t take this condition as a necessary condition…

Exactly. We are all dependent creatures. What we need to do is stop trying so damned hard to be independent!

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not necessarily, i meant that people [and nature] have a spiritual side. do you not believe in god?

yes, more love would make the world better for sure, all i am saying is that the world would be the world still. e.g. people would still die and suffer.

would you attest that there is nothing unforgivable? some people i don’t forgive or even think forgiveness would make any difference. i would still try to help them move forwards in any way i can, that though is another kind of love, some people may regard forgiveness as letting them off, or that it is ok what they did, so the loving response would be to bring them to truth in an alternate manner.

the truth as pertains to this life can be understood in this life. equally there is only one reality so something of the next world can be understood in life too. the only thing that cannot be understood is death itself, but then death cannot be experienced ~ we either terminate or continue to live. from what i can tell, what we are spiritually runs parallel to the material and hence mirrors it. so bodily love and all other feelings etc are mirrored in the construction of the soul, its an ‘as above so below’ mirroring thing.

it is different but not that different, how free are we. sure i can see the feelings of reward for labour, but it is still hard and all such things become extraneous after a while [in my experience [i am a construction worker]].

we are yes ~ both that and independent, we are not a soup.

i would think independence and dependence are mutually dependent on one another. we are not all the same, we are made different.

i would love a free economy! and i think it is possible if we go through a big change.

i like in britain but i understand the problems of the us health care structure to some degree. the british system is better but there is a price, bodies fail and the expense of that increases dramatically the more we try to keep people alive. having said that we seam to cope with it, and if doctors didn’t get so much money, and even more if drug companies didn’t want so much [they seam to be holding the US to ransom - so to say], it would lessen our burden. of course in a free society you speak of none of this is a problem ~ except that animals are used to experiment on n all that.

going back to gifting; if i give you my donkey should you not also gift me a donkey, or not accept the gift as you would know i am making use of it to help others.

one may be independent and give freely, i don’t want to be the same as others, i have points of worth [as others do of course] and of fault, and they are different to the same in others. this is what makes me good at what i do and others good at what they do!

‘genius is the result of the entire product of man’, difference is crucial to the equation. you wouldn’t have philosophers, farmers or jesus if we were not all different. surely it is the utility of our gifts which counts.

perhaps the grail is not any individuals to find, but everyones!

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I do not. I have faith in the way God shows us, but regarding God’s existence I see only a character in a story. To me this is sufficient. I neither need nor desire to posit a metaphysical reality corresponding to this character. God simply shows us a way and asks us to follow. A character in a story is enough for this task. (God is like King Arthur or one of his knights. Must these characters be historical realities for us to learn something from them? Must they exist for their stories to influence us and the world?)

Here we are in perfect accord. I don’t think love can fully extinguish suffering or death. Such a feat would only be possible if there was a real life God, i.e., a God of both infinite love and power. The non-existence of such a God is clear, methinks, given we are still suffering and dying! (I don’t think there is a better proof against God than the existence of suffering and death…)

If I murder someone, I can never be forgiven (unless, like Christ, they forgave me as I did the deed). So yes, certain things are unforgivable, namely if the victim is unable to forgive. (Recall the story of Cain and Abel where Abel’s blood “cries out from the ground”. After murdering Abel this is what Cain must forever face: the interminable cry of blood spilt, which can never issue words of forgiveness…)

I like to switch priority away from our death to the death of others. This is a type of death we CAN experience, if at least from an external point of view. It is also a death we can, perhaps, do something about…

Ha. Fair enough. I’ve already said that nothing is free in this world so you’re right, we’re not very free! We’re faced with the daily need of working for our bread and this need is like the chain of a slave… To me freedom would be when this need is eradicated, so you could say I would sleep way better at night knowing my food was harvested and put before me by willing hands… I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I knew the hands that brought it to me were forced. (Knowing that I paid a fair price for my food is a livable compromise… It’s not ideal but it’s better than living off slaves!)

I would never deny the individual (or their uniqueness). Indeed, there is a mutual exlcusion or independence of sorts for I am not you and you are not me. I want to maintain the separation between individuals. Nevertheless, despite being separate, none of us could live or would ever have lived without others.

Like you I want to insist upon both these facts. Our isolatedness, perhaps, is what inclines us toward independence (by which I mean taking care of ourselves). But any one who takes this path will soon see, no matter how isolated they are, that they need others. They may deny it because their strength makes it possible for them to control and consume others, which gives them a false sense of independence, but the fact remains if there was no one there to control and consume even the strongest among us would die.

No “should”. A gift is a gift precisely because nothing is required in return, i.e., there is neither necessity nor moral obligation to reciprocate. A gift is free. But I can certainly refuse it, and indeed it would be a loving response if I asked the gift be given to others who need it…

I would hope there is a point where there is enough to go around and this “passing the donkey” can cease and we all can eat…

Undoubtedly. Again, when I say independence is a myth I don’t mean we’re all the same but rather no one can be self sufficient. We are all different and we all need others. We all have unique gifts to offer and all I ask is that we offer them up; that we make gifts of our gifts to those who need them… This is the life of love: making an offering of ourself. It’s a scary thought though so no wonder we’ve historically opted for a market economy instead!

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largely we are in agreement then. i struggle with the idea of christianity without a god but i have spoken to atheist buddhists who think karma is mechanistic, so anything is possible.

food for thought :slight_smile: