I agree to that - as I said mysticism in Christianity is a reputable tradition, and is even the culmination of everything else. But some people apparently think that it is possible to have the peak of the mountain without its body! They want to do away with the Churches, away with the traditions, jump straight to the peak! This is nothing but modern arrogance and infatuation.But as Rumi says, there would be no fool's gold if there were no gold. — Wayfarer
But on the contrary my friend, gym membership isn't earned, you can just buy it and walk right into the gym. Mysticism isn't like that.You make mysticism sound like gym membership. — Hoo
I never claimed Christianity is the only way though. I personally believe Christianity is the highest religion, but I can see nothing wrong with other religions being ways which lead to just the same divinity. The idea of there having been a single revelation is foolish. Certainly transcendence has revealed itself in different parts of the globe and in different ways. But all these ways involve order, the virtues, and humility. They don't involve reckless arrogance about the power and capacities of the human soul."God has to be earned!" "Look at all of these fakes!" Real Christians/mystics/philosophers/men/whatever do it THIS way, MY way. — Hoo
Yes indeed. In my mind the Law is required to achieve the symbolic Christ you talk of. I agree the symbolic Christ goes beyond the law - it fulfils the law. But it's not a negation of it. If the Law is the seed, then Christ is the flower :) The flower and the seed have a necessary connection with each other, even though the flower transcends the seed.But of course my Christ is a symbolic Christ. Yours is a man of the Law. — Hoo
You know the laughing thing, well it's the same with art, suddenly everything is art and you have to restructure what art means from a position of knowledge, aware of the futile struggling you were doing before the revelation, veiled in ignorance. — Punshhh
Well it certainly is much more likely as an explanation. Aquinas certainly did not renounce any of his writings as wrong. — Agustino
No those "doctrinal" differences have practical significance. Becoming God can very easily be associated with anything being permitted for you. Like Osho Rajneesh having promiscuous sex with his disciples. Or poisoning a community. Or Krishnamurti having sex with one of his friend's wife behind his back, and having her have an abortion. — Agustino
Only Gnosticism is heretical — Agustino
Funny that the person who says some things cannot be argued is then the one to suggest that fundamentalists can never be convinced by arguments — Agustino
Unless a part of us, the part Eckhart is talking about, is also transcendent :) — Agustino
Experiences of the transcendent can be quite varying. That's why it's a personal relationship with the transcendent. No two people's experience will be the same, or even necessarily alik — Agustino
We are beings of flesh as well as spirit. Fulfilment of our nature requires divinization of the flesh, not its repudiation. You seem to ignore that we live in the world, and not in mystical flights of fancy - this is what typically happens when someone approaches mysticism on their own, not guided by the wisdom of tradition. So yes - order is necessary, without order there is no stability, and without stability nothing great can be achieved. — Agustino
If the Law is the seed, then Christ is the flower :) The flower and the seed have a necessary connection with each other, even though the flower transcends the seed. — Agustino
Second the above. I went to some of the Science and Nonduality (SAND) conferences in California - some of the speakers were genuine, but there was a lot of pseudo-mystical quantum woo being put about.
Nice quote.But as Rumi says, there would be no fool's gold if there were no gold
It's a beautiful thing to just dare to see with one's own eyes. Lots of folks may nod at that concept in the abstract, but a little later they will appeal some grand authority. This art conversation really is related to the rest of the thread. The imagination I was trying to share is all about the liberation of one's genuine feeling and perception and even about one's own voice as a writer. I know people who write well when it's nothing they want to publish. But they switch into solemn mode and lose their unique voices. Incidentally, that's one of the reasons I embrace this medium. No, it's not like they did it in the old days. The internet has opened up something new. (I also love good TV and rap, but I can imagine a resistance to these forms because they aren't yesterday's Shakespeare but today's.)Perhaps the most fruitful route was to look at the art itself, ignore the critics and see it's meaning, quite a pilgrimage. — Punshhh
Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from
them,
No more modest than immodest.
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the cur-
rent and index.
I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their coun-
terpart of on the same terms.
Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves,
Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,
Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,
And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of
the father-stuff,
And of the rights of them the others are down upon,
Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised,
Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.
Through me forbidden voices,
Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,
Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.
I do not press my fingers across my mouth,
I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,
Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.
I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me
is a miracle.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or
am touch'd from,
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.
If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of
my own body, or any part of it,
Translucent mould of me it shall be you!
Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!
Firm masculine colter it shall be you!
Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you!
You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life!
Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you!
My brain it shall be your occult convolutions!
Root of wash'd sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded
duplicate eggs! it shall be you!
Mix'd tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!
Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!
Sun so generous it shall be you!
Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you!
Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my
winding paths, it shall be you!
Hands I have taken, face I have kiss'd, mortal I have ever
touch'd, it shall be you. — Whitman
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.
...
These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they
are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next
to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are
nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This the common air that bathes the globe.
...
My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really
am,
Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me,
I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.
Writing and talk do not prove me,
I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,
With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.
...
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you. — Whitman
According to you one cannot uphold morality without being self-righteous? The two don't have a necessary connection together you know...self-righteous fool. — John
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attackThis is all just malicious unsubstantiated gossip, unless you can show clear evidence for those claims about Osho and Krishnamurti . — John
The point is to show you possible effects of the statement "I am God" from people who have made the statement.And again, even if those claims were true; so what? — John
Said as a way to counter-act self-righteousness, which is different from upholding the law, asking people not to sin, and explaining why sin is wrong and its consequences."Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" — John
I agree, I just outlined to you the consequences of your discourse, whether you intend them or not. History teaches us that these are consequences of it.I haven't anywhere denied that, or spoken about individuals becoming God in the sense of being raised above the rest of us to be beyond morality or the law — John
Of course. That's why social means and social pressure is used to combat those. Although maybe some immoral things ought to also be illegal - say adultery. But that is a different debate.but it will not do to prosecute and punish people for transgressing what are merely moral injunctions — John
Not only. Also between the individual and everyone else who is affected. The individual isn't some atom that is irresponsible with regards to how other people are affected by their actions.Those matters must be left up to the individual; they are between the individual and their God, so to speak — John
Yes.the moral approbation or disapprobation their acts occasion in their fellows, and feel in their own hearts whether they have done right or wrong. — John
This is just not true. Which Church first of all? The Catholic? That's not the only church out there. You're using a simplistic narrative just because you need it to prove a point.Remember the official church position did not always recognize the mystics; it is only with time, distance and the softening of dogma that they have become incorporated into the official canon of the churches. — John
That wasn't what I was referring.You're taking my words out of context and running two different things said on two different contexts together. I had said that what Aquinas thought cannot properly be argued about. If he made a clear statement about what he was thinking then there would be no argument; and if he didn't then it may only be not very fruitfully speculated about. — John
Voegelin, if I remember right, believes that the transcendent God cannot be known, which is contra the Gnostics and the whole Hermetic and Theosophical traditions, the whole tradition that I believe Hegel's philosophy reflects. Hegel believed in an evolution of spirit, and this is just what Voegelin rejects. He wants to adhere to the Orthodoxy of the religious institutions, which would keep God well away from the reach of man. I think this is absurd; God can either be experienced or else must be nothing to us.
I also believe there is a logical, reflecting a spiritual, trajectory to history. But, in any case, this is not the sort of thing that can be properly argued for or against; you either see it, and are thus convinced, or you don't. For me the same goes for God, and the spiritual dimension. — John
LOL! It's laughable if you think my interpretation are ULTRA-conservative FUNDAMENTALIST. Really - I can't be bothered to answer such nonsense. First of all fundamentalism... have I claimed the Earth was created a few thousand years ago? Have I claimed Christianity is the only way? Have I claimed evolution is wrong? No. So please get your concepts straight. Just because you don't like conservatives doesn't mean you get to throw with pejorative statements. There is a long, and respectable tradition in all religions. That isn't ultra conservative. That's just the wisdom that was passed through the ages.The other point was about church dogma, and ultra-conservative fundamentalist interpretations thereof; which I think you are guilty of — John
Yeah. Good that I agree with Voegelin then that Puritanism is a form of gnosticism ;) . I guess that makes me very self-righteous and puritanical. Look - just because you unquestioningly take over the dominant stream of thought - liberalism and progressivism - doesn't give you a right to panzer over those of us who have spent time to think through these matters and question the assumptions that were given to us by the world. The fact that for you upholding moral values is purism - that is indeed very sad.self-righteous purism — John
Well not to me. Transcendent simply means something that is in some form "beyond us".'Transcendent" means something like "that which cannot be known or experienced'. — John
I have never said "completely and utterly". These are strawmen.completely and utterly beyond us — John
"as if". Read it again.Your pronouncements are truly laughable, as if you know me! — John
I think that is quite naive. Others affect us, and therefore our well-being depends not only on us, but on our whole society. That's why in turn we care about our society. Because we understand that the pain of my neighbour is my pain.and to be as mindful as possible of our own acts, not to worry about the acts of others, and sit in judgement of them, as you do — John
... For you, Orthodoxy is ultra-conservative. That's false. It is historically false to say the least. Adultery is wrong means it is harmful. Always. That's not ultra conservative. Please go research what ultra conservative is. Or read the article I have read just yesterday http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conservatism/But in the realm of ethics, because each one of us is a unique individual there will always be nuances in unique situations, such that it cannot be right to make blanket moral pronouncements such as "divorce is wrong", "adultery is wrong", "homosexuality is wrong" and other like ultra-conservative dictatorial claims such as the ones you make on these forums. — John
Because you have divorced yourself from the culture of the time (and also from the Church which could have guided you), you have misinterpreted that part of the Bible, which people who had lived back then would have understood the way it was meant to be understood. First of all the law of the written Torah:True, I think Jesus does call for repentance, but if the woman went and sinned again, he still would not judge, but patiently urge repentance again. Repentance is not some form of behavior simply taken on from without once it is shown to you, but something that must come genuinely from within, from the "still, small voice" of moral intuition. — John
And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. — Leviticus 20:10
Notice the progression. A woman (without the man with whom she committed adultery) is brought up by the Pharisees to Jesus and they ask him what shall be done with her, as she was caught in the act of adultery, which is against the law of Moses. Notice that if indeed she was caught in the act, then the man must have also been caught. Now they tried to put Jesus in a place where regardless what he answered, he would have answered wrongly. If he said "stone her" he would have broken the law because he would have preferentially punished just the woman. If he said "let her go" he would have also broken the law by not punishing adultery. Now Jesus outwits them and agrees with them "All right" (thus agreeing that adultery is wrong), and then adds "let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone" pointing to the fact that in bringing the woman alone, and not the man to be judged, the Pharisees themselves had broken the law of Moses, which demands that both be brought to judgement, especially if caught in the act as they said they were, and not preferentially, in this case just the woman. As no accusers are left, Jesus upholds the law and lets the REPENTANT woman go. Notice that she wasn't some feminazi claiming "I can do whatever the fuck I want with my body, these folks don't have any right over what I do with my body" yadda yadda yadda. She wasn't self-righteous like that. If she had been self-righteous we would have had quite a different story, as has been illustrated numerous times regarding self-righteousness in the Bible. There is nothing more despicable than self-righteousness associated with immorality. She was repentant, conscious, guilty and sorrowful of her sin, which is noticed from the way she addressed Jesus, by "Lord". The problem today is that people who commit adultery aren't most of the time that way - they are quite the opposite, self-righteous. Part of the problem brought on by rampant progressive liberalism. And again, it's a very big problem that people think they can just open the Bible and understand what is being said. That is very wrong. People need the guidance of an authority, which retains the customs and traditions in memory and can guide them. Religious texts aren't novels that can be read while being detached of the culture and environment in which they appeared, and the tradition through which they have passed.Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” — John 8:1-11
Well it's quite clear that your mind isn't open to consider alternatives from what you have been taught by mainstream liberalism - hence finding what I say "highly disagreeable, even repugnant". That's a symptom of it - called in psychology avoidance, and the associated emotional reactions.I'm sorry to say it Agustino, but I find most of what you say highly disagreeable, even repugnant.
I cannot see anything in it that persuades me you would be open in the slightest to any alternative reason on these matters, so I feel no inclination to engage with you further; it would it seems just be a complete waste of time. Good luck with your life, man... — John
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