The Love Of Jesus

[NotBlinded]

I will, and do feel this reflected in my experience.

 

Thank you for sharing the poem. *hugs*

 

Phanta

*hugs* back at you.

[Guest end3]

But doesn't the fact that it is manifested in our lives give rise to the potential for a more full manifestation. Doesn't the fact that we see varied levels within society speak to this?

[Guest end3]

Thank you Phanta and NBB for your posts. Sorry for your hurt P. Thank you for your effort to help my understanding NBB.

 

The conversation has been difficult for me, leaving me befuzzled and not thinking about others much. All of y'all mean a lot to me.

[NotBlinded]

But doesn't the fact that it is manifested in our lives give rise to the potential for a more full manifestation. Doesn't the fact that we see varied levels within society speak to this?

Yes.

 

Let me add to that...that would be the "Second coming of Christ."

[NotBlinded]

Thank you Phanta and NBB for your posts. Sorry for your hurt P. Thank you for your effort to help my understanding NBB.

 

The conversation has been difficult for me, leaving me befuzzled and not thinking about others much. All of y'all mean a lot to me.

You are welcome, but I think you are the one who is putting forth a huge effort to understand us. Not many stick it out like you do. to you end.

[Antlerman]

But doesn't the fact that it is manifested in our lives give rise to the potential for a more full manifestation. Doesn't the fact that we see varied levels within society speak to this?

Yes and yes. That's the point. The higher and deeper we go into it, the more of it is realized in us. And that is manifest in a more universal embrace of It in ALL. At Ground, there is only simple form, as it moves up, it becomes more complex and containing greater depth, the more inclusive it becomes. All the way to Source where everything becomes ONE in nothing, or better expressed, in "no-thing". It is no-thing because it is ALL. It is Emptiness, because all form is ONE "in it". Not empty or void in the sense of a vacuum, but Infinite Source that all is manifest from, and all returns to. So the higher towards that you move, (as all creation is movement), the more inclusive all manifest form becomes in your consciousness as you move to that Infinite All.

 

A visual I imagine sometimes in this is like the lines of flux from a magnet. They are manifestations of the magnet, start at it as their beginning(Source or Ground), and their return destination, their end (summit or Omega point to which their are pulled to. Beginning and End. Source and Summit. Alpha and Omega. That's a crude example, but it conveys the concept. Perhaps a better would be that of an ascending and descending double helix. It is both directions at once, spiraling down into manifestation from it while spirally up to itself through its manifestation. Nowhere in this is exclusion. Only degrees of awareness. The only exclusion exists in the state of our conscious awareness. We are still nonetheless fully included within it, and will always be.

 

I was thinking about in my experience of that Manifestation into everything and from everything into it, coming to me and from me as radiant Light and Love and Knowledge, etc, as I encountered several individuals walking by me, my perception of them was radically altered. I could see Love and Life and Light enveloping them and in them, but the only thing I saw as less than that Fullness was their cognizant awareness of it. They were not excluded or outside it at all. It was simply a matter of lifting that veil to witness what IS. That is true of all the manifest world, and the more we evolve and develop in our self, the more that veil is lifted, the more their is awareness of Unity, the less the world of duality, of separateness is the *real* world to us.

[zandurian]

 

 

The conversation has been difficult for me, leaving me befuzzled

 

 

 

"Blessed are the befuzzled"

- Jesus

 

When Jesus gave his big sermon, the first words out of his mouth were: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." There are a number of ways to translate"poor in spirit," but on an intellectual level, the best translation is "confused."

 

Blessed are the confused. If you ask why Jesus might have said that, then I must point out to you that confusion leads to a search for clarification and with that search comes a great deal of learning. For an old idea to die and a new and better idea to take place, we have to go through periods of confusion. It is uncomfortable, sometimes painful to be in such periods. Nonetheless it is blessed because when we are in them, we are open to the new, we are looking, we are growing.

 

And so it is that Jesus said, "Blessed are the confused." Virtually all of the evil in this world is committed by people who are absolutely certain they know what they're doing. It is not committed by people who think of themselves as confused. It is not committed by the poor in spirit.

 

Now, this teaching makes sense to me!

 

http://www.thebeautifulheresy.com/2009/06/blessed-are-confused.html

[Rev R]

leaving me befuzzled

 

welcome to my world...

[Deva]

Since this conversation has become more quiet, so to speak,

 

Antlerman, a question:

 

You quoted this paragraph from Sri Aurobindo on this thread where he discusses "human progress". What does this actually mean? I wonder if you could also give us the paragraph before this one.

 

“But the right goal of human progress must be always an effective and synthetic reinterpretation by which the law of that wider existence maybe represented in a new order of truths and in a more just and puissant working of the faculties on the life-material of the universe.

 

I am skeptical of this word "progress" when used in relation to humanity because other than the technological realm I don't see the progress so much. I don't know about humanity headed toward a goal (which progress implies). If he is referring to some kind of spiritual progress I don't think humanity as a whole shows much in the way of this type of progress. Maybe it is only on the "individual" level? If so, this leads into some deep waters because of the non-dual view but I can't make much sense of it.

[Guest end3]

Just wanted to point out your faith K......the adherence to what you had seen....reminds me of some of those in the OT...... Let me name them in case anyone forget. Noah, Abraham, David.

[Antlerman]

Just wanted to point out your faith K......the adherence to what you had seen....reminds me of some of those in the OT...... Let me name them in case anyone forget. Noah, Abraham, David.

Interesting thought for the day...

[Antlerman]

Since this conversation has become more quiet, so to speak,

 

Antlerman, a question:

 

You quoted this paragraph from Sri Aurobindo on this thread where he discusses "human progress". What does this actually mean? I wonder if you could also give us the paragraph before this one.

 

“But the right goal of human progress must be always an effective and synthetic reinterpretation by which the law of that wider existence maybe represented in a new order of truths and in a more just and puissant working of the faculties on the life-material of the universe.

I’ll quote the whole passage with the previous paragraphs so the context is clearer. This is something I really wanted to talk about more in depth, so I’m glad you brought it up:

Certainly, the practical values given us by our senses and by the dualistic sense-mind must hold good in their field and be accepted as the standard for ordinary life-experience until a larger harmony is ready into which they can enter and transform themselves without losing hold of the realities which they represent. To enlarge the sense-faculties without the knowledge that would give the old sense-values their right interpretation from the new standpoint might lead to serious disorder and incapacities, might unfit for practical life and for the orderly and disciplined use of the reason.

 

Equally, an enlargement of our mental consciousness out of the experience of the egoistic dualities into an unregulated unity with some form of total consciousness might easily bring about a confusion and incapacity for the active life of humanity in the established order of the world’s relativities. This, no doubt, is the root of the injunction imposed in the Gita on the man who has the knowledge not to disturb the life-basis and thought-basis of the ignorant; for, impelled by his example but unable to comprehend the principle of his action, they would lose their own system of values without arriving at a higher foundation.

 

Such a disorder and incapacity may be accepted personally and are accepted by many great souls as a temporary passage or as the price to be paid for the entry into a wider existence. But the right goal of human progress must be always an effective and synthetic reinterpretation by which the law of that wider existence may be represented in a new order of truths and in a more just and puissant working of the faculties on the life-material of the universe.

 

For the senses, the sun goes round the earth; that was for them the centre of existence and the motions of life are arranged on the basis of a misconception. The truth is the very opposite, but its discovery would have been of little use if there were not a science that makes the new conception the centre of a reasoned and ordered knowledge putting their right values on the perceptions of the senses. So also for the mental consciousness God moves round the personal ego and all His works and ways are brought to the judgment of our egoistic sensations, emotions and conceptions and are yet useful and practically sufficient in a certain development of human life and progress.

 

They are a rough practical systematization of our experience of things valid so long as we dwell in a certain order of ideas and activities. But they do not represent the last and highest state of human life and knowledge. “Truth is the path and not the falsehood.” The truth is not that God moves round the ego as the centre of existence and can be judged by the ego and its view of the dualities, but that the Divine is itself the centre and that the experience of the individual only finds its own true truth when it is known in the terms of the universal and the transcendent.

 

Nevertheless, to substitute this conception for the egoistic without an adequate base of knowledge may lead to the substitution of new but still false and arbitrary ideas for the old and bring about a violent instead of a settled disorder of right values. Such a disorder often marks the inception of new philosophies and religions and initiates useful revolutions. But the true goal is only reached when we can group round the right central conception a reasoned and effective knowledge in which the egoistic life shall rediscover all its values transformed and corrected. Then we shall possess that new order of truths which will make it possible for us to substitute a more divine life for the existence which we now lead and to effectualize a more divine and puissant use of our faculties on the life-material of the universe.

 

 

[The Life Divine, pgs 58,59]

 

I am skeptical of this word "progress" when used in relation to humanity because other than the technological realm I don't see the progress so much. I don't know about humanity headed toward a goal (which progress implies). If he is referring to some kind of spiritual progress I don't think humanity as a whole shows much in the way of this type of progress. Maybe it is only on the "individual" level? If so, this leads into some deep waters because of the non-dual view but I can't make much sense of it.

The progress is that of the species as a whole. But always there will be individuals who develop earlier than the whole. It is really the individuals who influence the whole, and all in response to Nature herself. This is Evolution. As Evolution is the motion of the natural world, that man has progressed from primates to early hominids, to early man, to modern man, likewise he has progressed in his consciousness from archaic (part of the environment), to magical thinking (the environment is connected to him magically), to mythical thinking (the world is under the control of other supernatural beings), to rational (the world exists independent from us and others and all are free subjects).

 

Evolution takes time, and there are clear indications that we have progressed as a whole over greater spans of time. The Age of Reason was a clear emergence of our consciousness as a whole moving from the strict mythical stage. Even though we still have the mythic view with us, it has morphed into this sort of mythic-rational hybrid that creates the sorts of literalist, sort of interpretation of myth as a rationally supported truth on par with pursuit of empirical evidences part of the scientific mindset. Of course it fails miserably, and it’s flailing about is a demonstration of the growth pains of emergence. We can’t go back, but like the adolescent who doesn’t quite want to give up the toys of his childhood as he moves into a new stage of his growth, we see the Creationists and the Biblical Literalists trying to make myth rational.

 

At the same time, now on the rational level, you see those who see beyond the mythic, but also see something existentially significant that pure objective empirical rationality fails to embrace or support, something that both precedes and transcends our current stage; something fundamental to all stages; something transcendent to all stages. It’s that which I see as the Spiritual. Spirituality, the existential awareness of Being and desire to embrace that, is present from the earliest levels of our Evolution as conscious individuals. It is that desire to awareness that drives our evolution. And all our frameworks of understanding are part of expressing that in what light we are able to shine with our present state of abilities.

 

Is there progress? Yes, I believe that’s very true. But its not something we can expect to see transpire necessarily within our lifetimes, even though I believe we are seeing it’s process clearly at work. In fact, my belief is that what is happening that gives birth to discussions like this and forums like this, is very much part of that. It’s a dynamic and living vitality of discovery, of trying to sort out our social consciousness in order to lead us to our further evolution as a species. It’s that stage of global consciousness, and then on to a further integral consciousness of a Divine nature in the Natural world, both embracing and expressing that nature in all things.

 

 

So to the points of the above quote that I wanted to discuss. You will notice he speaks of the readiness of others to understand this; that it’s important, “not to disturb the life-basis and thought-basis of the ignorant; for, impelled by his example but unable to comprehend the principle of his action, they would lose their own system of values without arriving at a higher foundation.” That’s problematic for me, even though I understand it.

 

I would never dream to come to some people and deconstruct their realities in front of them in hopes that they could suddenly incorporate what I have spent years working on myself. But where is that line of not saying anything, and being part of that voice that brings about that change, being part of our evolution? I think the difficulty is that in an environment such as this, a public discussion forum, it is a place designated for the exchange of ideas, of challenging and provoking to new heights. I try as a person to gauge with my heart where someone is at, along with a certain ‘intuition’ as I respond to within myself, in what is provoking towards the positive, or what would be detrimental. It’s not like being in person entirely, so I rely a lot on those instincts to what I’m best able.

 

I guess I may be answering my own thoughts in putting this out there. There is something else I wanted to quote from Sri Aurobindo that I just read yesterday after I had starting talking to End about the veil. Ironically he uses that very metaphor after I had just used it. But it talks about what I see being the goal of the Spiritual life and the next and hopeful stage of our evolution. Even though it may not been seen on a wide scale within our lifetimes, us as individuals fostering that in our lives does in fact affect the whole, in how I believe:

 

For if we examine carefully, we shall find that Intuition is our first teacher. Intuition always stands veiled behind our mental operations. Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the Unknown which are the beginning of his higher knowledge. Reason only comes in afterward to see what profit it can have of the shining harvest. Intuition gives us that idea of something behind and beyond all that we know and seem to be which pursues man always in contradiction of his lower reason and all his normal experience and impels him to formulate that formless perception in the more positive ideas of God, Immortality, Heaven and the rest by which we arrive to express it to the mind. For Intuition is as strong as Nature herself from whose very soul it has sprung and cares nothing for the contradictions of reason or the denials of experience. It knows what is because it is, because itself it is of what merely becomes and appears. What the Intuition tells us of, is not so much Existence as the Existent, for it proceeds from that one point of light in us which gives it its advantage, that sometimes opened door in our own self-awareness. Ancient Vedanta seized this message of the Intuition and formulated it in the three great declarations of the Upanishads, “I am He”, “Thou are That, O Swetaketu”, “All this is the Brahman; this Self is the Brahman”.

 

But Intuition by the very nature of its action in man, working as it does from behind the veil, active principally in his more unenlightened, less articulate parts, served in front of the veil, in the narrow light which is our waking conscience, only by instruments that are unable fully to assimilate its messages, --- Intuition is unable to give us the truth in that ordered and articulated form, which our nature demands. Before it could effect any such completeness of direct knowledge in us, it would have to organize itself in our surface being and take possession there of the leading part. But in our surface being it is not the Intuition, it is the Reason which is organized and helps us to order our perceptions, thoughts and actions. Therefore the age of intuitive knowledge, represented by the early Vedantic thinking of the Upanishads had to give place to the age of rational knowledge; inspirited Scripture made room for metaphysical philosophy, even as afterwards metaphysical philosophy had to give place to experimental Science. Intuitive thought which is a messenger from the superconscient and therefore our highest faculty, was supplanted by the pure reason which is only a sort of deputy and belongs to the middle heights of our being; pure reason in its turn was supplanted for a time by the mixed action of the reason which lowers on our plains and lower elevations and does not in its view exceed the horizon of the experience that the physical mind and senses or such aids as we can invent for them can bring to us. And this process which seems to be a descent is really a circle of progress. For in each case the lower faculty is compelled to take up as much as it can assimilate of what the higher had already given and to attempt to re-establish it by its own methods. By the attempt it is itself enlarged in its scope and arrives eventually at a more supple and a more ample self-accommodation to the higher faculties. With this succession and attempt at separate assimilation we should be obliged to remain under the exclusive domination of a part of our nature while the rest remained either depressed and unduly subjected or separated in its field and therefore poor in its development. With this succession and separated attempt the balance is righted; a more complete harmony of our parts of knowledge is prepared.

 

[The Life Divine, pgs. 73-75

 

I like to express this as a living Dance. Our rational minds can learn to essentials of the steps to the Dance, but it is the Spirit that listens with the Heart to the voice of that music that leads and guides the body in its steps trained by the mind. It is both. Not one, or the other. It is listening to the Heart of Life beyond reason, then using mind in response to heart. It's is a living Dance. And it is Beauty. Moreover, it is that Dance that drives us to express it in more and more complex form, hopefully fluid and integrate and effortless.

 

I’ll leave it there for now. By all means pick this up for discussion.

[Deva]

I guess Aurobindo is saying that the mind must operate to an extent in dualism in order to preserve order in society. Some people are simply not ready to see the truth.

 

Vedanta is very old though. Why is it taking so long? It seems like after 4,000 years we would see more "progress" than we have although there has been some. Perhaps in a couple centuries Christianity and other dualistic religions will not have the hold on people and humanity will begin to hold a more nondualistic view. Then the values of the society as a whole would be more conducive to supporting the "dance" and things of the spirit and beauty. It seems now like it is more one step forward and two back.

[Antlerman]

I guess Aurobindo is saying that the mind must operate to an extent in dualism in order to preserve order in society. Some people are simply not ready to see the truth.

 

Vedanta is very old though. Why is it taking so long? It seems like after 4,000 years we would see more "progress" than we have although there has been some. Perhaps in a couple centuries Christianity and other dualistic religions will not have the hold on people and humanity will begin to hold a more nondualistic view. Then the values of the society as a whole would be more conducive to supporting the "dance" and things of the spirit and beauty. It seems now like it is more one step forward and two back.

I don't see us as stepping backward overall. I see it more as two steps forward and some kicking and screaming by the not-quite-ready ones. Even the fundi isn't a true myth-level thinker. They are employing an evolved rationality, it just that they mistakenly apply it to something that functions as something very different than rational, empirical evidence criteria. They are applying that modern empirical rationality to symbolic systems, and then follow suit with that sort of reason except applied badly. And because they are driven by emotions, that rationality becomes irrationality. So they are worse off then anyone else, having neither the benefits that come through rationality, nor the benefit of a grounded spirituality because it disregards the demands of the rational mind. "A house divided cannot stand".

 

I'd say over the past 4000 years there has been significant progress made. This crying of the fundamentalists are the crys of birth pain. They aren't wanting to let go of the security of their past, but the world as a whole is progressing. We are a post Enlightenment world, and there can be no turning back. That there were those 4000 years ago who could see and experienced where our ultimate evolution could lead, is not a judge of our failure as a whole. The whole always will evolve far more slowly than the few individuals who shoot years ahead of the rest. In fact, it is those who influence and shape that slower movement towards that bright future.

 

But in all 4000 years on an evolutionary scale is like bright and blinding flash of time compared to the normal progress. Even if you look at the Cambrian Explosion, where evolution moved at an incredibly accelerated rate compared to the norm, that rapid period of change still took close to 70 million years! That's fast! But when it comes to that marvelous thing that we create called culture, that influence of ideas, can push along our evolution at amazingly fast rates compared to biology alone. Our culture can push our genes in a certain direction, so the embrace of certain ideals, and values, can and does affect our evolution.

 

I do not see the noisy ones, those annoying voices of misguided quasi-spiritual religionists badly applying reason in the context of myth as representing our overall progress. They are a symptom of our growth pain. We are past the point of going back, and even they themselves don't represent that past. They are already beyond it, but just haven't learning how to incorporate it. They of all, it seems, must be most miserable among men, having neither the fuller perspectives gained by reason, nor a spirit that can benefit through that. Instead they grieve that spirit within through denial of that Light.

[Deva]

Even the fundi isn't a true myth-level thinker. They are employing an evolved rationality, it just that they mistakenly apply it to something that functions as something very different than rational, empirical evidence criteria. They are applying that modern empirical rationality to symbolic systems, and then follow suit with that sort of reason except applied badly. And because they are driven by emotions, that rationality becomes irrationality. So they are worse off then anyone else, having neither the benefits that come through rationality, nor the benefit of a grounded spirituality because it disregards the demands of the rational mind. "A house divided cannot stand".

 

That is a good summary of the fundamentalist way of thinking. The applying of modern empirical rationality to symbolic systems. They can't even see what they are doing. It is really very sad to see.

 

As far as progress goes, you might be able to persuade me to be more optimistic but I have to think about it. I just see the continued tribalism, us v. them mentality, and just plain ignorance all over the place. Spirituality seems to have been given over to a celebrity worship cult and materialism in this country. I experience day to day on the job how I am treated in a disrespectful way. There seems to be a thin veneer of civilization slapped on people's faces that comes off at the slightest irritation. Its quite discouraging to read the news. Think about the flashpoints of conflict in the world where there is still the nuclear threat...

[Antlerman]

As far as progress goes, you might be able to persuade me to be more optimistic but I have to think about it. I just see the continued tribalism, us v. them mentality, and just plain ignorance all over the place. Spirituality seems to have been given over to a celebrity worship cult and materialism in this country. I experience day to day on the job how I am treated in a disrespectful way. There seems to be a thin veneer of civilization slapped on people's faces that comes off at the slightest irritation. Its quite discouraging to read the news. Think about the flashpoints of conflict in the world where there is still the nuclear threat...

One thing to bear in mind is that as we pass through our stages of development we never rid ourselves of our earlier stages. We passed through those stages but they are built upon and in essence negated as develop new ways of thinking, but they are never removed from us as though they never existed. We incorporate them into the higher stages, just like we never rid ourselves of the usefulness of symbolic thought which benefited us growing up.

 

The myth systems were actually an improvement over the earlier stages of kinship and tribal systems. The evolving world couldn't support a functioning society based on family lineage, and so it shifted from that to a world where we had membership to a society through a mythic-participation. Tribalism gives way to mythic membership. Yet, the mentality of tribalism is still there, just now extending to the mythic-tribe, membership created though a common deity. Sociocentric and ethnocentric thinking are extensions of that earlier system that in fact served a positive function in our development. The mythic world built upon that early system, and negated it in favor of its new matrix utilizing the better features of the earlier stage.

 

As we continue to develop as we are now, that mythic-membership is of necessity in our evolving world needing to give way to pluralism and global-membership. Holistic thinking is the essential element that needs to replace the mythic-membership stage. There is little room for the resulting ethnocentric mentalities, which in fact served a positive purpose early on. Now, it has become a detriment and evolution must push ahead once again. All the way up, we've moved more and more towards inclusiveness, out of tribalism, to mythic-membership, to global community of plurality. Each stage is building on that same premise - seeking to unite.

 

It's just that at the early stages, it was not the right environment for pluralism to emerge. The means to resources could not accommodate larger societies. But as societies grew, a new system of interacting with the social worldspace need to evolve. Same today. So that we see tribalism rear its face is not a note of discouragement on the whole. It's a demonstration that we have evolved since we are able to recognize it for what it is to us today - out dated. It's like watching an adult in a supermarket throwing a temper tantrum. We recognize that as a behavior that we ourselves incorporated and controlled as adult, and this person has an obvious control problem.

 

All in all, its the greater society that will eventually drive the direction of our world and not those few who exhibit the worst of our behaviors. This is why politically, anything that empowers society to govern itself will lead to greater levels of our evolution. The last 12 years is our society experimenting on giving over control, only to realize it leads to anything but positive results. Eventually the tribal leaders will have smaller and smaller voices. But the behavior is always there because it's our past.

 

I want to pick up some thoughts to this later on as time permits. It touches on where the Spiritual comes into this and seems an necessary ingredient to the soul of this world that needs to happen in order for us to truely evolve to where we need to go. Later...

[zandurian]

As far as progress goes, you might be able to persuade me to be more optimistic but I have to think about it.

 

Don't be discouraged DL - we absolutely WILL get 'there' and I am even hopeful of some exponential growth in the direction of universal peace. The human rights movement is stronger than ever and though I am not blind to the ignorance which still exists - I clearly see a better world in our present and near future.

 

Going back to the abolition of slavery on through the extreme decline of colonialism we see people who have appealed to human conscience and have prevailed. All it takes is for people to be human and recognize others as human. How hard can it be?

[Guest end3]

As far as progress goes, you might be able to persuade me to be more optimistic but I have to think about it. I just see the continued tribalism, us v. them mentality, and just plain ignorance all over the place. Spirituality seems to have been given over to a celebrity worship cult and materialism in this country. I experience day to day on the job how I am treated in a disrespectful way. There seems to be a thin veneer of civilization slapped on people's faces that comes off at the slightest irritation. Its quite discouraging to read the news. Think about the flashpoints of conflict in the world where there is still the nuclear threat...

One thing to bear in mind is that as we pass through our stages of development we never rid ourselves of our earlier stages. We passed through those stages but they are built upon and in essence negated as develop new ways of thinking, but they are never removed from us as though they never existed. We incorporate them into the higher stages, just like we never rid ourselves of the usefulness of symbolic thought which benefited us growing up.

 

The myth systems were actually an improvement over the earlier stages of kinship and tribal systems. The evolving world couldn't support a functioning society based on family lineage, and so it shifted from that to a world where we had membership to a society through a mythic-participation. Tribalism gives way to mythic membership. Yet, the mentality of tribalism is still there, just now extending to the mythic-tribe, membership created though a common deity. Sociocentric and ethnocentric thinking are extensions of that earlier system that in fact served a positive function in our development. The mythic world built upon that early system, and negated it in favor of its new matrix utilizing the better features of the earlier stage.

 

As we continue to develop as we are now, that mythic-membership is of necessity in our evolving world needing to give way to pluralism and global-membership. Holistic thinking is the essential element that needs to replace the mythic-membership stage. There is little room for the resulting ethnocentric mentalities, which in fact served a positive purpose early on. Now, it has become a detriment and evolution must push ahead once again. All the way up, we've moved more and more towards inclusiveness, out of tribalism, to mythic-membership, to global community of plurality. Each stage is building on that same premise - seeking to unite.

 

It's just that at the early stages, it was not the right environment for pluralism to emerge. The means to resources could not accommodate larger societies. But as societies grew, a new system of interacting with the social worldspace need to evolve. Same today. So that we see tribalism rear its face is not a note of discouragement on the whole. It's a demonstration that we have evolved since we are able to recognize it for what it is to us today - out dated. It's like watching an adult in a supermarket throwing a temper tantrum. We recognize that as a behavior that we ourselves incorporated and controlled as adult, and this person has an obvious control problem.

 

All in all, its the greater society that will eventually drive the direction of our world and not those few who exhibit the worst of our behaviors. This is why politically, anything that empowers society to govern itself will lead to greater levels of our evolution. The last 12 years is our society experimenting on giving over control, only to realize it leads to anything but positive results. Eventually the tribal leaders will have smaller and smaller voices. But the behavior is always there because it's our past.

 

I want to pick up some thoughts to this later on as time permits. It touches on where the Spiritual comes into this and seems an necessary ingredient to the soul of this world that needs to happen in order for us to truely evolve to where we need to go. Later...

 

Pluralism derived from what? Where? The entire concept of a working pluralim, IMO, is based on the unity of something in common. For example, a tribal, or mythic, or "It" between the plural elements. NWO ring a bell? What NWO? An attempt to redefine the laws that should be already written within us. Why is it we have a concept of a pluralistic peace, but realistic means of achievement.....for thousands of years.

 

Taxation....that's it. Come forward that we may tax you.... Wait, there is no room for you in the inn.

[zandurian]

NWO ring a bell? What NWO? An attempt to redefine the laws that should be already written within us. Why is it we have a concept of a pluralistic peace, but realistic means of achievement.....for thousands of years.

 

Taxation....that's it. Come forward that we may tax you.... Wait, there is no room for you in the inn.

 

NWO is just a Christian sectarian scare phrase. The whole idea that people working for peace and unity outside of Christianity is some kind of satanic plot is the biggest load of crap in existence today.

 

The love of the real Jesus is not some mysterious ethereal revelatory truth. It is simply humans treating other humans as they would want to be treated. Period.

 

All else is of the 'devil'.

Greek: dia/bolov

1. prone to slander, slanderous, accusing falsely

1. a calumniator, false accuser, slanderer,

2. metaph. applied to a man who, by opposing the cause of God, may be said to act the part of the devil or to side with him

 

Literal meaning "TO CAST DOWN WITH WORDS"

 

Selah....

[Deva]

Pluralism derived from what? Where? The entire concept of a working pluralim, IMO, is based on the unity of something in common. For example, a tribal, or mythic, or "It" between the plural elements. NWO ring a bell? What NWO? An attempt to redefine the laws that should be already written within us. Why is it we have a concept of a pluralistic peace, but realistic means of achievement.....for thousands of years.

 

What is NWO?

[Antlerman]

Pluralism derived from what? Where? The entire concept of a working pluralim, IMO, is based on the unity of something in common. For example, a tribal, or mythic, or "It" between the plural elements. NWO ring a bell? What NWO? An attempt to redefine the laws that should be already written within us. Why is it we have a concept of a pluralistic peace, but realistic means of achievement.....for thousands of years.

 

What is NWO?

It's the conspiracy theory about the term "New World Order". Pat Robertson wrote a book on it in his great depths of vision. It's always been something that puzzled me about Christians being against unity. What's at its heart in my thoughts at this point is they imagine, just as this topic is about, is that without being a Christian you will never be able to achieve true love or unity. Therefore, any efforts humans make will fail, and because they don't follow the Christian way, are highly susceptible to the dark underlord who shall take advantage of their good intentions and drag them into flaming hell. That's essentially what the NWO crap is. It always seemed pretty nutty to me when I was a Christian.

[Deva]

Thanks Antler. This is the one-world government under the Antichrist that used to be preached to me. I didn't know they were now calling it something else. I remember when bar codes first came out and people were afraid that would lead to the "mark of the beast". It was completely ridiculous.

 

Its a load of garbage and has created great paranoia in Christianity.

 

I may be skeptical of progress in the spiritual realm as far as humanity goes for the very reason of having been exposed to so much of this type of thinking when I was young.

[Antlerman]

Pluralism derived from what? Where?

Understanding the interconnectedness of the whole system. Holistic thinking, moving towards nonduality. We are in fact not separate. The only thing that separates are artificial ideas of this god or that god as defining us as groups of people over here, or over there. That's what I mean by sociocentric and ethnocentric thinking as part of mythic-membership, which superseded the earlier kinship systems by way of necessity. Sociocentric thinking is fine in smaller groups more isolated from other groups, but it itself must be evolved into a larger reaching paradigm that extends that membership to others globally. That is the world we live in. That is where our evolution has moved us to.

 

Now some can call that evil if they want. But I'll flat out disagree with them. Everything in the NWO is expressions of xenophobic, sociocentric borderline tribalism thinking. It does not reflect nor embrace the Spirit of Evolution which is all about the motions of Life itself. It is anti-growth. It is fear-based. It is not the embrace of God, but the opposite of that - fear.

 

Anyone can point to the problems that come with that and say, "See how bad that is!", but that's a fallacy because every single stage of our growth is always going to have new problems inherent in it. Every stage, including the mythic stage - which is obvious. But it's all about the presence of those that drives us to resolution of them, which drives our further development; which creates new difficulties to overcome, which drives our further evolution, and on up it all goes. NWO is the fear-mongering voices of those crying "Stop the world!". It's not embracing the emergence of new awareness. It's not embracing the Spirit of Life.

 

The entire concept of a working pluralim, IMO, is based on the unity of something in common.

Exactly. What do you imagine, beyond the external commonalities such as taxation, might that be? Could there be one? Is there one? Is there something that connects you and I, and us and them, and all of us with the world, and the world with us, and the planet with the universe, and the universe with us, and us with the universe, and the universe with...?

 

Keep going....

[Antlerman]

It's always been something that puzzled me about Christians being against unity. What's at its heart in my thoughts at this point is they imagine, just as this topic is about, is that without being a Christian you will never be able to achieve true love or unity. Therefore, any efforts humans make will fail, and because they don't follow the Christian way, are highly susceptible to the dark underlord who shall take advantage of their good intentions and drag them into flaming hell.

 

There's something about it... this has been nagging me, too, on a general level...

 

The thought arises, "If there is unity, it's all over." Like an endless war props up the structure and strengthens the status quo.

 

Phanta

Thank you, and yes there is a point in that. It affirms my saying that they, in their zeal to embrace religion as a light to God, make it an idol of worship. Once it becomes an idol, you must fight to defend it because all truth to you is found contained in that idol. It's like war for war's sake. It's the thing in itself for itself.

 

How is it that Pastor Larry was unable to see that Light in others? Because to see it, is to place his understanding outside that thing in itself for itself. What would he do with his religion? How would his understanding of reality centered around those beliefs of that system accommodate, integrate, a truth greater than it? Everything else, we, appear a contradiction, and therefore are ignored, rationalized away, misunderstood/misrepresented, and so forth for the value of protecting that belief. It's really, IMO, a form of spiritual immaturity.

 

God must look just like he does as he was taught to see when reading from the Bible. It's the adult version of the Children's Picture Bible. There is a value in there within the mythologies, but it is in recognizing them as above the face value level, as the literalist insists all meaning is found in, "The plain meaning of the text" (their words).

 

And that somewhat segways into Deva's question about our evolution. Which again I'm going to put off till later...

[Guest end3]

You are going to have to quit doing that AM....the "they can't see" stuff.

 

As a new world order, I was not so much referring to the secret society type scenerio, but a unified pot of governments/businesses/religions....more of a Bush 1 thing....as I had understood it.

 

This is not bash the Christian day so close to Christmas....dang it.

 

Let's talk reality.....infinite grace; the flow of only life from bottom to top without any hurt. Neither one is achievable in form on a continuing basis....by that I mean more than 30 seconds perhaps on a good day.

 

Now with that said, your theory of Oneness is no more valid than my faith in Jesus, no more easy to grasp, etc....

 

But never fear, hang your stockings, as Santa will bring you world peace and place it in your stockings.......if you have been at Oneness.

 

Bwahahahah