GENIUS FORUMS

Carmel wrote:Kelly: Let's try to get the essence of this thread clear. Bob and Fromm expressed the view that the human species is doomed to extinction, because they lack love (and things like personal integrity, respect, knowledge, compassion, and the like). My view is, that's a reasonable explanation for a certain level of human, but it's not the final answer. It's a transition point, of a fairly low level.

Carmel: I never said it was the final answer. What I'm suggesting is that some of the boys here haven't even reached the level of knowledge which Fromm discusses.i.e. understanding how they psychologically escape their own freedom through the use of destructiveness and other means. It would be a good starting point for them because, quite frankly merely understanding the logical implications of "Ultimate Reality" really doesn't seem to be causing any genuine internal transformation.

Sounds reasonable on the surface, but you do tend to take issue with Jupta's directness rather frequently. If he is one of the "boys" you're thinking of, then I can't say I agree with you on the manifestations of genuine internal transformation. I think he's making leaps and bounds. He's a hard-nosed, uncompromising person, so far as I can see, and he tends to push on restlessly until he is given a coherent, high quality answer.

Now, I realise that's not something most people in this thread appear capable of understanding. It's unfortunate. Instead of hearing the higher, loftier tones of the call to wisdom, it seems that all you fellas can here is "destroy all ideals" - as if I am standing on the bottom level of hell, grinding out a bleak, depresed and tuneless wail. It's kind of comic that this image is superimposed on me. I'm voicing a pure and simple message from the top, but you lot can't hear it.

Kelly: To be clear, this forum would only use psychological tools as medicine to get to a higher stage. You either go all the way, with your greatest passion, to perfect enlightenment, or you're not even in the vicinity of compassion. You cannot help people unless you know what the answer is. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.

Carmel: That's the way it is according to Kelly. ;) ...though I do agree that psych. tools can help people reach a higher stage. That said, I'm not inclined to pursue a discussion on what the definition of wisdom or compassion is at this juncture. I think I'd still prefer to sit on the sidelines while you, Bob, Alex, or whomever engage in that discussion though I may interject at a later time...

You do tend to like analysing things at a safe distance, making sure everything is arranged properly before you will endorse it - at a safe distance. But when it comes to arraigning an idea you find disturbing, you're in there pulling all the punches with a will. A real fighter, without any sense of detachment. One wonders where your priorities lie.

What I've found is --- many truths in the spiritual life one can know, as so obvious that it doesn't seem worth venturing an acknowledgement. But just that act of admitting openly that they are true, of even staking one's personal reputation on their truth, has something powerful in it. By abandoning the safe, private position of the detached observer, one actually tests the veracity by experience.....

Like Kierkegaard said, a person can only know of the truth what they have experienced. What they have sacrificed for it.


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Kelly Jones wrote:

Carmel wrote:Kelly: Let's try to get the essence of this thread clear. Bob and Fromm expressed the view that the human species is doomed to extinction, because they lack love (and things like personal integrity, respect, knowledge, compassion, and the like). My view is, that's a reasonable explanation for a certain level of human, but it's not the final answer. It's a transition point, of a fairly low level.

Carmel: I never said it was the final answer. What I'm suggesting is that some of the boys here haven't even reached the level of knowledge which Fromm discusses.i.e. understanding how they psychologically escape their own freedom through the use of destructiveness and other means. It would be a good starting point for them because, quite frankly merely understanding the logical implications of "Ultimate Reality" really doesn't seem to be causing any genuine internal transformation.

Sounds reasonable on the surface, but you do tend to take issue with Jupta's directness rather frequently. If he is one of the "boys" you're thinking of, then I can't say I agree with you on the manifestations of genuine internal transformation. I think he's making leaps and bounds. He's a hard-nosed, uncompromising person, so far as I can see, and he tends to push on restlessly until he is given a coherent, high quality answer.

Now, I realise that's not something most people in this thread appear capable of understanding. It's unfortunate. Instead of hearing the higher, loftier tones of the call to wisdom, it seems that all you fellas can here is "destroy all ideals" - as if I am standing on the bottom level of hell, grinding out a bleak, depresed and tuneless wail. It's kind of comic that this image is superimposed on me. I'm voicing a pure and simple message from the top, but you lot can't hear it.

Kelly: To be clear, this forum would only use psychological tools as medicine to get to a higher stage. You either go all the way, with your greatest passion, to perfect enlightenment, or you're not even in the vicinity of compassion. You cannot help people unless you know what the answer is. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.

Carmel: That's the way it is according to Kelly. ;) ...though I do agree that psych. tools can help people reach a higher stage. That said, I'm not inclined to pursue a discussion on what the definition of wisdom or compassion is at this juncture. I think I'd still prefer to sit on the sidelines while you, Bob, Alex, or whomever engage in that discussion though I may interject at a later time...

You do tend to like analysing things at a safe distance, making sure everything is arranged properly before you will endorse it - at a safe distance. But when it comes to arraigning an idea you find disturbing, you're in there pulling all the punches with a will. A real fighter, without any sense of detachment. One wonders where your priorities lie.

What I've found is --- many truths in the spiritual life one can know, as so obvious that it doesn't seem worth venturing an acknowledgement. But just that act of admitting openly that they are true, of even staking one's personal reputation on their truth, has something powerful in it. By abandoning the safe, private position of the detached observer, one actually tests the veracity by experience.....

Like Kierkegaard said, a person can only know of the truth what they have experienced. What they have sacrificed for it.


Carmel:
I'm bored with the gossip. Please detach yourself from me. Thanks in advance.:)

Alex Jacob wrote:Kelly: You said Bob's view of love (and Fromm's) derives from Judeo-Christianity. That means, you believe that at some point, any care or concern for human welfare must have been sourced in what just happens to be your favourite scriptural tradition. It's utter bullshit, surely you realise that.

Alex: It is standard practice and a tactic I have seen from you many, many times: to take a misconstrual of what someone said and, even when corrected, keep pushing it to your pet conclusion. Still, what I wrote is this: In essence, the 'lists' offered by B. Michael, as well as the very essence of Fromm, derives from Judeo-Christianity. Such views are founded in having and increasing humanitarian concerns, and these privelage this human dimension above almost all other concerns.

What this means, as I understand it, is that the human subject is understood very differently, and treated very differently, than from within the Eastern traditions. The essence of Judaism and of Christianity could be described as 'personalism', where the individual is seen as a great value in se. Such (personalist) views have their obvious pluses and minuses, but in Bob's sense, and in Fromm's, it allows for a strong and defined group of values to be expressed about love, about being a man, etc., and these derive from the Judeo-Christian and generally Western traditions. While I do not suggest that Judeo-Christians are the only ones who have or understand 'love', I will certainly say that in the West the notion of an active 'love', a love combined in spiritual agape, is tremendously privelaged.

I find it hard to comprehend how such a widely read person could write such an ignorant paragraph.

I suggest that with your views, and subject to the particular 'acid' of your views (neo-Buddhist or pseudo-Buddhist), the individual is 'tortured out of existence', HAS no inherant existence! Is not allowed to exist! Is denegrated! And you have the luxury of sitting on a high stool and channeling the vitriolic you 'manage' to all the despised outcomes walking around out there.

You are building a straw man. There is no inherent existence to finite things, because they exist interdependently. So your claim is total nonsense.

Ideas have consequences, and the basis and platform of the ideas you-plural cloak yourselves with, in the spirit of rebellious ressentiment, all tend to specific outcomes. The outcomes are visible and apparent in the expressions and attitudes you-all declaim. For example, I draw to your attention that quite recently David exclaimed that he 'hated all mankind' (I looked for the direct quote and couldn't find it, but it is there somewhere in a conversation with Carmel). Ideas have consequences, and I merely suggest that the outcomes of this set of ideas and notions have consequences that can be examined---rationally as you might say. ;-)

I can't respond to a statement you can't find a reference for. It's highly likely that (i) you misread it through your own ignorance and lack of spiritual insight, (ii) you're taking it out of context.

Question: What is the place of 'love' in Buddhism? Where is it referred to? What 'value' is ascribed to it? Is there any citations you might include? (You or anyone).

Buddhist scriptures include many different references to love in its basic forms. For instance,


Altruistic compassion of helping people out of suffering:


If you see a man who shows you what is to be avoided, who administers reproofs, and is intelligent, you have found a precious treasure. You will become better. Let him admonish, let him teach, let him forbid what is improper! - he will be beloved of the good, by the bad he will be hated.


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Powerless, their minds disturbed,
People in this world are unable to benefit themselves.
Therefore I shall do it for them.
Since unlike me, these beings are incapable.


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Student: How do Buddhas have vast mercy and compassion?
Master: We speak of their mercy and compassion as "vast" just because it is beyond causality (and is therefore infinite). By "mercy" is really meant not conceiving of a Buddha to be Enlightened, while compassion really means not conceiving of sentient beings to be delivered.


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The words of the Buddha were intended merely as efficacious expedients for leading men out of the darkness of worse ignorance. It was as though one pretended yellow leaves were gold to stop the flow of a child's tears.


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Basui wrote the following letter to one of his disciples who was about to die: "The essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existence, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is mere void. It has neither colour nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains. I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: What is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in the pure air".


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Emotional desire and need (like the love of a calf for its mother), including sexual desire (eros):


So long as the sensual desire of man towards women, even the smallest, is not destroyed, so long is his mind in bondage, as the calf that drinks milk is to its mother.


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The objects of desire will certainly perish,
And then I shall fall into hellish states.
But Buddhahood itself is attained
With just one millionth of the difficulty.


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He who has compassion on his friends and confidential companions loses his own advantage, having a fettered mind; seeing danger in friendship let one wander alone like a rhinoceros. There is support and amusement in the midst of company, and for children there is great affection; Although wishing people well, one must wander alone like a rhinoceros. Having torn the ties, having broken the net as a fish in the water, being like a fire not returning to the burnt place, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros. They cultivate the society of others and serve them for the sake of personal advantage; friends without a motive are difficult to come by. Therefore, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros.



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There is also philosophy (love of wisdom), including spiritual friendship:


So, having mounted the horse of an Awakening Mind,
That dispels all discouragement and weariness.
Who, when they know of this mind that proceeds from joy to joy,
Would ever lapse into despondency.


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After so much suffering in Nirvanic castles
What a joy to sink into this world!
People wear silk clothes
Buddhas dress in rags
A wooden man walking in the evening
A stone woman with a bonnet -
For the first time you will see,
When you can cup your hands,
And pick up the moon as it floats on the still surface of a pond.


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You think that the whole world is suffering, and you are afraid the world will be destroyed. You want to save all the people from suffering. So you are a great Bodhisattva, a great man. But a truly great man is not attached to anything, not enlightenment, not Bodhisattva. He has no words of speech - only action. Go outside and ask a tree what the true way is. It will give you a good answer.


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Continuing....

Alex Jacob wrote:Kelly: I know it's strange to you. But you're unwilling to explore, because you believe you're right. Unfortunately, the truth remains: unless you know your true nature, relating the finite to the Infinite, and seeing the unreality of everything finite, there is no genuine compassion and concern for the wellbeing of others, nor ability to assist them to end psychological suffering. That is a truth you seem helplessly unable to comprehend.

Alex: I would rather state it like this: it is not worthwhile to explore, and what I mean is your-plural expression of pseudo-Weiningerian 'Buddhism'. For all intents and purposes it looks to me to be hoplessly impailed in its own internal contradictions, hopelessly mired in a sort of ineffectiveness; an idea-structure that leads...nowhere. There is also the possibility that its grand Truths, though they reflect perennial truths, are lies in some senses, or camouflage lies. I suggest that the reason why this is so can be discovered, can be dragged out into the light so to speak. Ideas have consequences, Kelly.

To take this grand position and declaim to the world below you: '...unless you know your true nature, relating the finite to the Infinite, and seeing the unreality of everything finite, there is no genuine compassion and concern for the wellbeing of others, nor ability to assist them to end psychological suffering' is totally par for the course for this Forum! It is not me, or others, who does not understand the formulation, it is you who cannot see the superlative arrogance in you who assume yourselves to be the Vanguard with certain ideas!

Strange that you can't see how arrogant your paragraph is. You're essentially saying that you know how to end suffering, and that my trying to help people realise their true nature is an utterly ineffectual way to go about it. Odd, isn't it, that you don't criticise yourself for being the Great Final Arbiter of Altruism.

So now let us examine the following: "Stop lying. You definitely were on the rampage with your last post, asserting that (and these are your words, verbatim) I was seething with deep resentment, showing no self-knowledge, acidic, wounded and infested with maggots, showing no spiritual or human growth, starved, dead, taking hold of death-narratives, part of a decadent youth-culture inclined to treat Bukowski's poetry as some sort of 'daddy-answer', and that my favourite activity was to entertain myself by desperate 'modern' activities like critiquing values like love. / It's comical that you accused me of acidic criticism, in a vehement and thoughtless attack, such that then when I held a mirror up to your face, your next post became pompously humble. That's deeply hypocritical."

My posts are always expressed in language that is forceful and 'provocative'. To engage in the world of ideas is to submit to having ideas and attitudes examined---deconstructed as you might say. If I am on a 'rampage' (and why not?) it is to penetrate into the core of ideas that I see in operation here, and to crack them open and expose them. I am completely clear that the idea-structures of David Dan and also Kevin are connected to classical 'ressentiment', and the movement of rejection of key elements within 'our own traditions'. The being that you create in this process, seems to me to be: disconnected, aloof, astoundingly arrogant, lop-sided, deeply prejudiced, extremely closed-minded! I stand by this pronouncement!

When I used the example of the ascetic who scoops up the maggots who have fallen from his starved and wounded body, I meant it to express a sort of resignation to a kind of bleakness of existence that, as I perceive things, is an outcome of the very ideas you-all entertain. (It is actually an image I copped from an essay of Aldous Huxley where he mused on the strange tactic of ascetics generally).

So you admit you were attacking my views? Wasn't so hard, was it?

I realise you don't understand why you're being arrogant. I can't really expect you to understand the efficacy of a process you've never experienced. Namely, waking up to the nature of Reality and seeing the illusory nature of finite things, including self.

Kelly: You're not looking at the actual reality of what is happening, but for this you'd need to understand the nature of the spiritual path.

Alex: What is and what isn't a 'spiritual path' has not been finally decided by you. Ideas about it are shared, discussed, compared, etc.

You've just contradicted yourself, because you refuse to explore what I'm explaining. You just raise ad hominem upon ad hominem, without ever having the genuine humility of thinking about the actual principles at stake.

I suggest there is always present in your-plural discourse a bedrock of sheer arrogance that you can categorically define this. It is an arrogance so adamantine that no one can break through it. I will say that it appears to me that 'the lie' may originate in this locale. I would also suggest that a superego, an utterly resitant 'ego' may be barracaded here, doing everything in its power to keep any other notions from getting in...

Thoughts? Comments?

I offer my explanations consistently for you to examine. It is you who refuse to examine them.

Kelly: For the egotist waking up to Reality, the suffering is a result of having thoughts of Ultimate Reality that are always entirely at odds with their truths to that point. Their experiences, worldview, values, and desires (being "life") have been slowly developed over their life-time. It is no wonder they feel anguished, and conflicted, and that the deep but slow psychological change feels exactly like a living death. It is exactly like being a patient under the knife of their own discriminations, patiently waiting for the processes of change and learning to take hold and build momentum.

Alex: The capital R, as you might have imagined, poses a problem for me,

I know. But you slip on past that problem rather than exploring it. Yet, as I keep explaining, it is at the heart of all wisdom.

but I am not unable to grasp the notion of egoism breaking apart, and the pain entailed. I will draw to your attention that those who undergo cult indoctrination also feel as if they are going through a 'psychological death'. There are many different ways, then, that we can 'die'. We can be strangled, asphixiated, starved. There are (erroneous) ideas we can entertain that lead to 'asphixiation and starvation'.

I am suggesting, and have been for a loooooooonnnnggggggg time, that not all in the system of ideas y'all present is quite as 'natural' and wholesome as you represent.

Ideas have consequences.

Why not explain what you think egotism is, and how egolessness arises?

Kelly: You aren't anywhere near understanding me, Alex. You're too attached to your narratives and other cuddly poetic security-blankets symbolisms. You talk too much for someone who could understand me.

Alex: It is always the same. Dave, Dan and so many others. I am dismissed in almost exactly the same terms. But, one might say that it is you who are quite attached to your narratives and 'security blankets'. I don't mean to get 'tit-for-tat' with you, but it really does stand as a possibility. Perhaps I am not so 'clung' as you suppose?

No, you're far too wordy. You don't know where the concept lies, which is evident in how your words run on like conversational chatter, like someone idly toying with concepts as mere pretty playthings but with no intention of actually using them in any genuine and earnest endeavour.


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In Judaism there is a realm of speculation---Haggadah---that is intimately connected with the Divine Revelation, and allows much freedom of speculation, but which is contrasted with Halakah, which could be said to be 'on the ground rules for guiding one's existence in this terrestrial realm'. My weakness, I suppose one would have to say, is I see the Judaic 'position' as being perhaps the sanest, the most practicable, the most time-tested. I love speculation, and I have my own sense and understanding of 'ultimate questions', but while here, incarnated, I feel the only option available to me is to reside in the practicable. Still, I'd be open to hearing how you see your ideas as having a practicable side. I don't myself see it.- A. Jacob

Illumination makes the darkness flee, eliminating the knowledge of good and evil from within the consciousness, minds, and souls of men. With Christ being the illumination of men by being the light which "lighteth every man that cometh into the world," man then is the fertile ground which allows the seed of Christ, ["when thou shalt make his soul and offering for sin, he shall see his seed" Isa.53:10] to be cultivated, to sprout and to bud, then expand from within the center of the Conscience of man's inner conscience. In this expansion, the Nature of God becomes the inertia which allows the light of God to shine out of the darkness, and nullify any human belief and knowledge of there being a power opposite, or equal to the Nature of God, and the power of "the law of the Spirit of life."

Man's forgetfulness of his Promised Covenant with God results in man's living between two worlds. Such living destroys man's discerning ability concerning "the word of his [God's] power" to be Spirit, and the interpretations projected by the human mind to be the Nature of error. Living between two worlds is the reason men have lost the recognition of their true identity. If man should ever go deep enough within himself; beyond the one called thee, me, and I and touch, and grasp his true identity and become comfortable with himself, he will, in this depth of touching and graping, find what he needs whenever he needs it and as much of it as he needs.

There is no lack of anything to the man who will live from within out. Nothing can be withheld from the man who will no longer live by the carnal mind of men. The man who will refuse to live under the covenant of thee, me, and I, and live from within out, will find there is nothing to grasp, or anchor him outside of the Nature of God for there is nothing but God anywhere. Darkness cannot exist in the Nature of God. Nor can shadows be cast where only the grace of the invisible Spirit resides, for all that is not of God's creation is not in the invisible kingdom of the unconditioned Mind.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/t ... d/11046056 "The Illusion Of God" - by Julius Fann

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

prince wrote:

Kelly Jones wrote:Prince is a unique individual, who appears occasionally able to tap into the masculine on his better days, but who can't help his karma from breaking in frequently. Attacking him for being mentally ill is reprehensible, anyway. This forum attracts its fair share of desperate minds, but regarding that as a consequence of the ideas expressed is truly shallow and irrational. .

Hey Kelly, go fuck yourself you ignorant, self-righteous dipshit

...missed that one the first time around, gotta agree that atheist evolutionary tree video really was pure, unadulterated dipshitery.

m/a: "Bob, I noticed you plucked out the last paragraph of my response to you, but completely ignored the most essential thoughts I presented, which was my challenge of your belief that you had attained perfection of Spirit."

Let's say at times I attain to perfection of spirit. How's that? But on second thoughts I think we all do at times. Yet I think most people don't know when they are or are not perfectly in or of the spirit. Which gets to awareness I suppose. Which makes me think that even if I'm not perfectly one with the spirit and I'm fully aware that I'm not, then in a sense I'm still perfect in spirit. Or surely I'll soon be so. What do you think m/a?

Regarding any other issues you may have raised, I'm a firm believer that actions speak far louder than words. I'm also of the belief that perhaps upwards of 90% of all online discussion forum activity is a thing of vanity. A thing of the mind, rather than the heart. And that such activity serves primarily as cheap and easy filler for empty-hearted people along with the temporary bolstering of egos.

Lastly, I think we must be careful here not to get so heavenly-bound that we wind up being no earthly-good to our fellow suffering human beings. Which has happened to a whole host of gurus, godmen, saints, saviors, preachers, philosophers, teachers, geniuses, etc.
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"Most of us are no longer really human, we have been deprived of our humanity. We have been dehumanized by the processes of conditioning, upbringing and socialization. We are no longer the organized authentic self which we were once capable of being.....What we are born for is to live as if to live and love were one. Unless we learn that lesson 'the goose is cooked' as it were." (Ashley Montagu)

"When young children are not touched, held, or surrounded with affection, the neural systems required to experience pleasure are not developed, which leads to an individual and a culture that is self-centered, violent, and authoritarian." (Mendizza/Prescott - 'Touch the Future')

If it suites your fancy or makes you feel better c/b, you may gladly consider me as full of shit as a christmas goose. Especially since we're getting close to the season.

And this game of "WE'RE SPIRITUAL AND THEY'RE RELIGIOUS (which surely makes us better than they are)" is as old as the hills. As is the silly atheist vs. the theist and vice versa monkey-business. While truly wise and of real service to life is he who is perfectly conformed (openly or silently) to both the will of the Infinite and the will of Evolution.

Anyway I'm tiring of talking. So I'll let some of my better spokesmen finish up here for me.

"The sick are the greatest danger for the well. The weaker, not the stronger, are the strong's undoing. It is not fear of our fellow-man, which we should wish to see diminished; for fear rouses those who are strong to become terrible in tum themselves, and preserves the hard-earned and successful type of humanity. What is to be dreaded by us more than any other doom is not fear. but rather the great disgust, not fear, but rather the great pity - disgust and pity for our human fellows ..... The morbid are our greatest peril - not the 'bad' men, not the predatory beings. Those born wrong, the miscarried, the broken - they it is, the weakest, who are undermining the vitality of the race, poisoning our trust in life, and putting humanity in question. Every look of them is a sigh, - Would I were something other! I am sick and tired of what I am. I In this swamp soil of self-contempt, every poisonous weed flourishes, and all so small, so secret, so dishonest, and so sweetly rotten. Here swarm the worms of sensitiveness and resentment; here the air smells odious with secrecy, with what is not to be acknowledged; here is woven endlessly the net of the meanest of conspiracies, the conspiracy of those who
suffer against those who succeed and are victorious; here the very aspect of the victorious is hated - as if health, success, strength, pride, and the sense of power were in themselves things vicious, for which one ought eventually to make bitter expiation. Oh, how these people would themselves like to inflict the expiation, how they thirst to be the hangmen! And all the while their duplicity never confesses their hatred to be hatred." (Nietzsche - 'GM')

"Charity is the filthiest invention of the human mind: first you steal what belongs to everyone; then you use the policeman and the atom bomb to protect it. You give charity to prevent the have-nots from rebelling against you. It also makes you feel less guilty. All do-gooders feel 'high' when they do good." (U.G. Krishnamurti)

What is good? - Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man.
What is evil? - Whatever springs from weakness.
What is happiness? - The feeling that power increases - that resistance is overcome,
Not contentment, but more power, not peace at any price, but war, not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance sense, virtu, virtue free of moral acid).
The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.
What is more harmful than any vice? - Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak - Christianity (Nietzsche - 'The AntiChrist')

"As in the evolution of an individual tree some branches flourish while others fail; as in a forest some trees grow tall and stretch out wide branches while others are stunted and die out; as in the onward and opward progress of any species some individuals are in advance of the main body while others lag behind; so in the forward march of the collective human mind across the centuries some individual minds are in the van of the great army, while in the rear of the column stagger and fall vast numbers of defective specimens." (Richard Bucke - 'Cosmic Consciousness')

"Be ye therefore wise as serpents and innocent as doves." (J. C.)

Alex: "You pose a problem, insofar as you are a non-Christian (one who negates the basic tenets of Christianity) who yet believes very strongly in the Christian eschatological outcome where there is much gnashing of teeth and 'I told you so!' prevails."

You say I negate the basic tenets of Christianity? Ain't that something! I happen to feel I'm the only man on the planet who clearly understands them. So as you say, I'm a problem alright. I see too much, know too much, and think too much. The man who loves is dangerous. But surely he's not dead as are the multitude.
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"The great secret of morals is love, or a going out of our own nature, and an identification with ourselves with the beautiful which exists in a thought, action, or person not our own. A man to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of the species must become his own." (Shelley)

"From the moment of birth, when the stone-age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father have been, and their parents and their parents before them. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities. This enterprise is on the whole successful." (R. D. Laing)

A touch of irony here:

• When young children are not touched, held, or surrounded with affection, the neural systems required to experience pleasure are not developed, which leads to an individual and a culture that is self-centered, violent, and authoritarian, and these children and their descendants shall be blasted out of creation with atomic weaponry, God's orders.

Bob wrote: "You say I negate the basic tenets of Christianity? Ain't that something!"

I certainly don't mean it as an assault on you. Look at what you have written and compare it with 'orthodox Christianity', and you will see that you describe a sort of neo-Christianity. To say that you feel you understand it 'better than anyone else on the planet' seems to me, to say the least, a statement of hubris. Without realizing it, the views you are defining, could become part of a praxis for some strange Nazi-Christians whose aim is to 'purify the race'. You tread in dangerous zones.

Alex Jacob wrote:A touch of irony here: When young children are not touched, held, or surrounded with affection, the neural systems required to experience pleasure are not developed, which leads to an individual and a culture that is self-centered, violent, and authoritarian, and these children and their descendants shall be blasted out of creation with atomic weaponry, God's orders.

Yes, and these sort of children will be the triggermen, my friend.

Bob wrote: "Yes, and these sort of children will be the triggermen, my friend."

But to accord more correctly with Christian eschatology, as I understand it, there is no time or need for an 'Ark', which was a response to God's decision to end his human experiment, right? So he gave specific intructions to 'Noah' in order to keep a remnant alive. (Christian Haggadah).

But, in the narratives themselves the entire dimension of this changed with the Advent---again, working from the inside of Christian Haggadah---of Jesus Christ. All that one can do, and all that is needed, is to become a Christian. No more and no less. However the 'End' is played out, for the TB Christian, is irrelevant. One is rescued from the madness by one's salvation.

You are advocating for your own invented brand of Christianity, and you neglect what the core of the 'haggadah' directs one to: an inner attainment of relatedness, the Christian conversion.

Now, you are running up and down the halls of the internet preaching for an 'Ark' that is an echo back to some old story which has been superceded by the advent of the Savior. (If one sticks to the inner logic of the stories themselves...)

You say that you understand these things better than any living person but you are quite out of step with the 'inner content' of the message.

Just out of curiosity, can you mention a reference to some sort of Ark in, say, the Revelation or any other Christian apocalyptic literature, even apocrypha?

(In my own case, I see 'Christian Haggadah' as complex material requiring a deep appreciation for and ability to handle metaphor, and where it cannot fit in with a sane and simple practice of ethics in the here and now it may be best to 'put it up'.)

Alex: "But to accord more correctly with Christian eschatology, as I understand it, there is no time or need for an 'Ark', which was a response to God's decision to end his human experiment, right? So he gave specific intructions to 'Noah' in order to keep a remnant alive. (Christian Haggadah)."

Yes, a 'remnant' must and will be kept alive, as I've said before.

Alex: "But, in the narratives themselves the entire dimension of this changed with the Advent---again, working from the inside of Christian Haggadah---of Jesus Christ. All that one can do, and all that is needed, is to become a Christian. No more and no less. However the 'End' is played out, for the TB Christian, is irrelevant. One is rescued from the madness by one's salvation."

Yes, become a Christian, bow to Jesus, and you're saved. By his blood, lest we forget here. The great Christian con(fidence) game. Which most people are hooked on, including even many of those who say their not.

Alex: "You are advocating for your own invented brand of Christianity, and you neglect what the core of the 'haggadah' directs one to: an inner attainment of relatedness, the Christian conversion."

Yes, the vital 'conversion' experience. The rebirth. The kundalini awakening experience. A radical shift in mind or brain functioning. Take your pick. But let's not include here the many various and silly water baptism games. Indeed this (the vital rebirth experience) is one of the things that Christianity has completely lost. And with it Christianity itself became dead.

"Unless a man is born again, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." I wonder if anyone anywhere has any true understanding of this statement? Experiential understanding? Christ should have made a far bigger issue of this vital and necessary experience than he did. One which one must undergo if one is to ever discover and then perfect a LIVING relationship with the Infinite. Which, by the way, would also be to attain to fullness of manhood. And of course fullness of womanhood for the 'ladies'.

Alex: "Now, you are running up and down the halls of the internet preaching for an 'Ark' that is an echo back to some old story which has been superceded by the advent of the Savior. (If one sticks to the inner logic of the stories themselves...)"

I may be preaching all right, but where on earth are they who have ears to hear?

Alex: "You say that you understand these things better than any living person but you are quite out of step with the 'inner content' of the message."

Indeed I am out of step. And I shall stay that way and let others get in step with me. That is those who can and will.

Alex: "Just out of curiosity, can you mention a reference to some sort of Ark in, say, the Revelation or any other Christian apocalyptic literature, even apocrypha?"

How about the 'New Jerusalem'?

Alex: "(In my own case, I see 'Christian Haggadah' as complex material requiring a deep appreciation for and ability to handle metaphor, and where it cannot fit in with a sane and simple practice of ethics in the here and now it may be best to 'put it up'.)"

That's an old con game too. Complicate the hell out of everything and then set oneself up as an (paid) expert in unravelling the complications.
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"The heart's intelligence is love, and love is a frequency that can synchronize only with its kind." (Joseph Chilton Pearce - 'The Biology of Transcendence')

"Gurdjieff taught that there were three kinds of love. There was instinctive - that is sensual - love; emotional love, which depended on type and was more or less automatic; and conscious love, the love of real significance, unselfish and deliberate." (John Shirley - 'Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas')

Bob Michael wrote:If it suites your fancy or makes you feel better c/b, you may gladly consider me as full of shit as a christmas goose. Especially since we're getting close to the season.

Okay, but just so you know, a christmas goos gets eviscerated and the shit rinsed out of it.

And this game of "WE'RE SPIRITUAL AND THEY'RE RELIGIOUS (which surely makes us better than they are)" is as old as the hills. As is the silly atheist vs. the theist and vice versa monkey-business.

As is the "I'M TRULY WISE AND OF REAL SERVICE TO LIFE BECAUSE I AM PERFECTLY CONFORMED TO THE WILL OF THE INFINITE AND THE WILL OF EVOLUTION" (or at least more so than you) monkey business?

While truly wise and of real service to life is he who is perfectly conformed (openly or silently) to both the will of the Infinite and the will of Evolution.

Well, I see in this thread Alex is zeroing in on the same things as I am in what you are saying as being contradictory, so I will bow out for now, there is no need to pile on or repeat what AJ is pointing out.

Anyway I'm tiring of talking. So I'll let some of my better spokesmen finish up here for me.

I never said you were full of shit, maybe you were imagining it. But then, no one is forcing you to read UGK or Nietzsche or quote them on public forums, which you clearly seem to view with contempt.

Alex Jacob wrote: Look at what you have written and compare it with 'orthodox Christianity', and you will see that you describe a sort of neo-Christianity.

How about 'real' Christianity? Pure, unadulterated Christianity? One that would please Christ.

Alex Jacob wrote:To say that you feel you understand it 'better than anyone else on the planet' seems to me, to say the least, a statement of hubris.

Why not just a statement of fact? When there is no 'self' there can be no hubris.

Alex Jacob wrote:Without realizing it, the views you are defining, could become part of a praxis for some strange Nazi-Christians whose aim is to 'purify the race'. You tread in dangerous zones.

'Purify the race' you say. Interesting, as it sure as hell needs it.

cousinbasil wrote:I never said you were full of shit, maybe you were imagining it. But then, no one is forcing you to read UGK or Nietzsche or quote them on public forums, which you clearly seem to view with contempt.

Nietzsche and contempt, you mention? That reminds me of Nietzsche's "redeeming man of great love AND contempt" who "must come one day."

"But some day, in a stronger age than this decaying, self-doubting present, he must yet come to us, the redeeming man of great love and contempt, the creative spirit whose compelling strength will not let him rest in any aloofness or any beyond, whose isolation is misunderstood by the people as if it were flight from reality--while it is only his absorption, immersion, penetration into reality, so that, when he one day emerges again into the light, he may bring home the redemption of this reality; its redemption from the curse that the hitherto reigning ideal has laid upon it. This man of the future, who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, nihilism; this Antichrist and antinihilist, this victor over God and nothingness--he must come one day." (Nietzsche - 'Genealogy of Morals')

No real matter but I don't think that comes from Genealogy of Morals. Sounds like Beyond Good and Evil (?) Or even perhaps The Anti-Christ (?)

It would seem to me that the idea---fact, future, metaphor, take it as you will---of a New Jerusalem has little that would relate it to an 'Ark': either a retreat where certain people go (like a cave), or perhaps like some sort of spaceship that takes them up, up and away. I think you are 'mixing genres', but this has the effect of befuddling your own meaning.

Perhaps you have not been able to attract followers for this reason? If you were to clarify exactly what you are attempting, and importantly what is in it for the prospective follower, that might help to get you where you want to go.

Christians generally believe (whether it is stressed or not is another question) that at the End of Time God will sort of reconstitute the Earth, perfect the Earth. This happens after all sort of terrible battles (as I assume you know). After all that is accomplished, then the Good Stuff, like rain, begins to descend from Heaven:

After John witnesses the new heaven and a new earth "that no longer has any sea", an angel takes him "in the Spirit" to a vantage point on "a great and high mountain" to see the New Jerusalem's descent. The enormous city comes out of heaven down to the new earth. John's elaborate description of the New Jerusalem retains many features of the Garden of Eden and the paradise garden, such as rivers, a square shape, a wall, and the Tree of Life.

According to John, the New Jerusalem is "pure gold, like clear glass" and its "brilliance [is] like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper." The street of the city is also made of "pure gold, like transparent glass". The base of the city is laid out in a square and surrounded by a wall made of jasper. It says in Revelation 21:16 that the height, length, and width are equal and they measure 12,000 stadia (2200 km). John writes that the wall is 144 cubits, which is assumed to be the width since the length is mentioned previously. 144 cubits are about equal to 65 meters, or 72 yards. It is important to note that 12 is the square root of 144. The number 12 was very important to early Jews and Christians, representing the 12 tribes of Israel, and the number of months in a year. The four sides of the city represented the four cardinal directions (North, South, East, and West.) In this way, New Jerusalem was thought of as an inclusive place, with gates accepting all of the 12 tribes of Israel from all corners of the earth.

There is no temple building in the New Jerusalem. God and the Lamb are the city's temple, since they are worshiped everywhere. Revelation 22 goes on to describe a river of the water of life that flows down the middle of the great street of the city from the throne of God. The tree of life grows in the middle of this street and on either side, or in the middle of the street and on either side of the river. Each tree bears twelve fruits, or kinds of fruits, and yields its fruit every month. According to John, "The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." This inclusion of the tree of life in the New Jerusalem harkens back to the Garden of Eden. The fruit the tree bears may be the fruit of life.

John states that the New Jerusalem will be free of sin. The servants of God will have theosis, and "His name will be on their foreheads." Night will no longer fall, and the inhabitants of the city will "have need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light." John ends his account of the New Jerusalem by stressing its eternal nature: "And they shall reign forever and ever."

Bob writes: "How about 'real' Christianity? Pure, unadulterated Christianity? One that would please Christ."

Honestly, I think many people have worked to extract or distill from the recorded mission of the man Jesus Christ just such an ethical practice. I think even Thomas Jefferson did such a thing. It is lamentably nowhere near as simple as you seem to wish it to be. Do you mean a praxis drawn exclusively from the life of JC, of the Gospels, or do you perhaps mean a Pauline Christianity, which is arguably different?

You point in the direction of the issue of 'sanctification': what it means (what it IS) to live in a state that is, by virute of doing it, living it, blessed or sanctified by God. Kelly is working on that, according to her. So is David Quinn. Diebert in his neo-Nietzschean way is also attempting it. How about Beingof1? And Jufa? And Jupiviv? And then of course there is Bob Michael. Sadly, the only one who seems to have really installed himself, permanently, in a state of genuine and enduring beatification is The Talking Ass®. And all he does these days is sit on his haunches in Spring's glorious fields watching the bumblebess buzz and sniffing the mint---'Going out in joy, being led forth in peace'---as he puts it.

Is there an answer in that for the rest of us? I don't know.

"Why not just a statement of fact? When there is no 'self' there can be no hubris."

More and more, I think you may want to forge connections with David and Kelly. In my shrunken mind, 'no self' generally means 'no person'. But, I am an Afflicted One as Kelly has oft proven...

"'Purify the race' you say. Interesting, as it sure as hell needs it."

There is an intersteing book by Eric Fromm in which he analyses, I think from a somewhat Nietzschean perspective, the psychology of the Christian Believer (The Dogma of Christ and Other Essays on Religion, Psychology and Culture). It is not too flattering but it is highly interesting. There is a simmering streak of anger and desire to see retribution enacted in much of the mood of the typical Christian. To get even with this terrible world. I would suggest, very tentatively, that some part of your own trip, which I don't fully grasp, may have a link or two to these sentiments.

I think we all feel this way toward this crazy world though. Why just ask David and Kelly what they think of it, or Diebert. None too happy are any of them. But I also think that all these billions and billions of weird human souls are here because they are part-and-parcel of the Creator, of 'God'. There may be someone, somewhere, who looks down on you with the same contempt you look upon them. And he may feel just as justified as you seem to be in having their names erased from the Book of Life.

It seems to me that if one 'trusts God', trusts existence, that one has the option of understanding it is out of our hands, and being directed to God-only-knows what ends. There is a certain 'comfort' expressed in, say, Isaiah 55, starting especially at 55:8.

Kelly Jones wrote:Altruistic compassion of helping people out of suffering:

If you see a man who shows you what is to be avoided, who administers reproofs, and is intelligent, you have found a precious treasure. You will become better. Let him admonish, let him teach, let him forbid what is improper! - he will be beloved of the good, by the bad he will be hated.

Kelly,

Thanks :-)

Bob Michael wrote:m/a: "Bob, I noticed you plucked out the last paragraph of my response to you, but completely ignored the most essential thoughts I presented, which was my challenge of your belief that you had attained perfection of Spirit."

Let's say at times I attain to perfection of spirit. How's that? But on second thoughts I think we all do at times. Yet I think most people don't know when they are or are not perfectly in or of the spirit. Which gets to awareness I suppose. Which makes me think that even if I'm not perfectly one with the spirit and I'm fully aware that I'm not, then in a sense I'm still perfect in spirit. Or surely I'll soon be so. What do you think m/a?

Regarding any other issues you may have raised, I'm a firm believer that actions speak far louder than words. I'm also of the belief that perhaps upwards of 90% of all online discussion forum activity is a thing of vanity. A thing of the mind, rather than the heart. And that such activity serves primarily as cheap and easy filler for empty-hearted people along with the temporary bolstering of egos.

Lastly, I think we must be careful here not to get so heavenly-bound that we wind up being no earthly-good to our fellow suffering human beings. Which has happened to a whole host of gurus, godmen, saints, saviors, preachers, philosophers, teachers, geniuses, etc.

Bob, every word I speak and you speak and everyone speaks is 100% vanity. Solomon did not say part or some is vanity, he said "All is vanity." 100% of every human thought falls short of being in full conscious union with the law of the Spirit of life, for every human thought arises from recollection of 'they say.' Regardless of how profane or holy is believed to be its 'message.' The only difference that can be said to separate those of vanity who are attaining conscious union with spirit and those who are not, is that they are on the conscious path of being purged of their vanity.

You separate mind and heart. No can do. One's subjective feelings cannot be separated from one's objective visions. Give me an example where what your mind thinks is not a bias or 'feeling' you have for something.

How can we attain conscious union with spirit and guide others to this attainment if we, as you say "are careful here not to get so heavenly-bound that we wind up being no earthly-good to our fellow suffering human beings?" There is but one way to end suffering for good, and that is to realize that spirit knows nothing of suffering. And to keep one's mind on this awareness. Ergo, the path of taking responsibility to clean off that dark glass we are all peering through...here I am again...back to Solomon's wisdom...all is vanity, all is vanity.

Hey Bob,

When you're posting and feel the need to separate text with a line, could you please make that line short enough such that it does not create a horizontal scroll bar.

e.g.
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Thanks in advance.

Alex Jacob wrote:Kelly, I call it like I sees it.

Said the melancholic myope ...

How were you uniquely incapacitated, Dan? Just curious.

I've had major problems with my legs. Been unable to walk at times. Just coming good and getting free of brain-fudging pain drugs.

Okay.

Glad to hear you've got your powers of mind returning in full force.

That's assuming a great deal, Kelly.

Glad to see your up and around Dan...