GENIUS FORUMS

Here's an upbuilding discourse from Kierkegaard on patience. It's quite good. I hope some of you find it useful.

http://home.earthlink.net/~msgregory/th ... ience.html
To Gain One's Soul In Patience by Søren Kierkegaard

I think it's clearer in a few places if "gained" is read as "being gained".

One of my favorite things about this piece is that it does a great job of clarifying the dichotomy of knowing Truth and being it through the analogy of patience (or are they in fact identical???)

Truth is always there, available to us, but unless we're being truthful, and thus gaining the ability to be more truthful, it brings no benefit, so it might as well not even exist.

I think it sheds an interesting light on this story, too. I marked the talking in red to make it easier to read.

Luke 8:4-15 wrote:And when a great crowd came together and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable:

"A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell along the path, and was trodden underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it.

And some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.

And some fell among thorns; and the thorns grew with it and choked it.

And some fell into good soil and grew, and yielded a hundredfold."


As he said this, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."


And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said,

"To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, that they may not believe and be saved.

And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy; but these have no root, they believe for awhile and in time of temptation fall away.

And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

And as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience."

This is actually a really stressful essay. There's nothing worse than needing to exercise patience. Can you imagine spending the rest of your life doing nothing but being patient? I mean totally nothing but patience: no music, no reading, no writing, no talking or visiting, no eating or drinking, no alcohol or drugs, no sleeping or dreaming, no daydreaming or thinking...no nothing, just patience. Just think about that and let the horror of it sink in for a minute hehe

I think this discourse also clarifies the issue of "forcing the mind", which I think is confusing because you want to make an effort towards Truth, but you don't want to waste effort or make counterproductive effort.

When you're trying to develop yourself and you have all these attachments closing in on you, I think the first tendency is to try to force the mind into more spiritual thoughts in order to escape the illogic that attachments cause. I don't think trying to escape attachments is a bad idea, because obviously you can't go diving headfirst into a bunch of attachments and allow them to take over your life. You don't want to get addicted to drugs or knock up your girlfriend or something. But you can't impatiently force logic. Logic comes when it's good and ready. So, I think it's good to force the mind into being patient for the sake of becoming patient in the future. I think striving to be patient is something that you can't go wrong doing. I mean how could anyone screw that up? You'd have to be totally retarded.

So the way I read Kierkegaard here, "soul" is logic. "Gain your soul" means "gain logic" or "become logical". "Gain your soul in patience" means wait patiently for your mind to become peaceful and more patient so that logic has a chance to waft in like a soft and subtle breeze. Even while the world bustles around you, the incorruptible essence of a quiet spirit will put you above it all.