GENIUS FORUMS

There are some people who get invested in their ignorance. I suppose it represents work, mental and spiritual work, to improve the ignorant condition, and if they also hate the intellect and hate knowledge, despite all appearances, they will find reasons to build walls against the many possibilities that knowledge opens into.

All of the Mediterranean world, which includes Ireland and Britain for the influence of the Roman church, is an interconnected system of languages and exchange of ideas. This is such basic stuff, David, and yet it doesn't surprise me that you are ignorant of it. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are men who absorbed and expressed (as 'Alexandrias') a summation of Occidental and therefor Mediterranean ideas. Without some level of understanding of this we really cannot understand the Occidental self, nor our institutions, nor our values, nor our own selves. And we most definitely could not understand, nor appreciate, Christianity. I am attempting to point out where the lack in knowledge and information is to be found.

Just like ignorant Southern Fundamentalist Baptists, just like the Know-Nothings who will look no further than their own fundamentalist rhetoric, so too HERE one notices a similar strain. But combined with a kind of aggressive forcefulness of 'being right', of possessing Absolute Truths', of being superior.

It ain't pretty...

Naturally, I have a pretty thorough understanding of Western culture and Christianity and so on, having been brought up in such an environment. But I'm just not interested in what you are interested in. I don't value what you value. Is that so difficult to understand?

I would rather have my teeth pulled out that waste my life exploring the "mansion" of Christian thought. On the scale of interest, I would put it on the same level as greco-roman wrestling and basket-weaving.

This doesn't make me an "anti-intellectual fascist", though. I simply have higher priorities.

I doubt that your habit of constantly throwing insults at everyone is going to generate much interesting discussion. So good luck with that.

Alex,

By augmenting the term "Christianity" to include the whole heritage of Mediterranean culture of course one creates by that very act all the mansions and rooms. The treasures you can find in there are for historians, museum guides or tourists and I extended these terms tremendously to include nearly all human interest.

You state as objection the tendency to denigrate "everything that is not immediately related to its notion of 'enlightenment'". But this reads more like an objection towards the radical, an objection toward "pure intent". Any goal which is very far out of reach will require rejection of anything not immediately related to it if it needs to be attained. As a business man you surely understand this. Assuming you did well in business, otherwise I just gave you good advice! But can you see how you are critiquing method but essentially are disagreeing that a certain "notion of enlightenment" is not worth the dedication? But would you agree that if anything like a true fulfillment and state of the purest peace and understanding was actually possible to achieve, that this would be worth rejecting all else?

I recently read Death in Venice (Thomas Mann) again and remarked his 'lament' for unconscious, thoughtless, 'destructive' trends (in culture, in his own self, in us?) that rush forward with great force and destroy, in the blink of an eye, a lifetime's work. The people who 'destroy' in the sense I am defining it are those who have a great deal of forward thrust from some source of energy but whose activities, in the end, break asunder and demolish. But do they know what they are doing? Do they do it consciously in the way that you imply is possible? I don't think so. The kind of destruction you are talking about (a Nietzschean destruction) is the outcome of a life's work and a life's realization. It is certainly not for everyone.

Perhaps the time has come for certain structures to perish, the worms already nibbling at the heart. But why talking about the tendency of the worms? One could wonder if rot sets in when ideas or culture have lost viability. Nietzsche follows an old tradition of the prophets going back to Isaiah, in that he laments the decline, decay, degeneration, the process of decadence in thought, culture and philosophy. The painting of a new future which involves destruction but also revival of things forgotten about ourselves (Nietzsche gets inspiration from the Ancients). Any big changes in reality might not be so abrupt as the visionary might imply. There's this whole momentum in the turning of big events which is difficult to describe in advance. It's also not the role of the prophet or visionary to talk about the momentum. That would muddy the "message" beyond recognition; sharpness turning into dullness.

Dennis Mahar wrote:You don't care much about what you write about Alex.
You don't care about Christian, Christ, Christianity or anything in particular.

You care about writing.

Simply, the act of writing is your strong suit and the context you live out of.

Alex, are you paying attention? You don't seem to be really interested in the ideas but more in the possibility of writing about them, constructing a dialogue about them but it's clear the love of writing and referencing is your prime motive. The ideas and how they actually work in ones own life seem secondary to you and often you engage at this stage in low brow speculation and insult slinging. Although when it interests you personally like masculinity-femininity, you are suddenly way more fluent with handling the ideas and your grip more convincing.

I am not certain if I should enter into a defense of the sincerity or nature of my intentions, Diebert. You have often enough mentioned your suspicions in the past. I will assume that you speak from a place of 100% good faith and sincerity, and I will answer you in as much good faith: I am vitally interested in all the ideas I discuss, which in fact (seem to) inject a great deal (more) vitality and juice into what (often) appear as fairly dried up and dead conversations. I certainly have a field of interest, and this field of interest is becoming clear to me as I explore it. It is of vital enough interest that I have been following it for many years now. That area of interest certainly goes beyond the (narrow) scope of this forum but there is definitely a point where it dovetails with the focus of this forum. I feel I should apologize because what I see operating in Quinnism is so in need of critique. I am very, very sorry. But I have no intention to stop. The structure of Quinnism is, if you will, 'the cause' of the critique that assails it. In just the same way that those Know-Nothing Southern Baptists, with extraordinary arrogance, sweep away the fruit of knowledge and the attainments of the mind and create a limited, dangerous, mental atmosphere, so to there is a similar and related strain in operation in Quinnism. If this to you to him or to 'them' is an 'insult' I really don't quite know how to respond. I observe, I analyze, I think, I perceive and I express what it is that I perceive. True, I deliberately take polemical stances as do all good essayists. All writers, including Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, also paid attention to the medium of their communication. How things are expressed is certainly relevant to me. I wish that everyone who wrote on this forum and all forums took the care and concern to express themselves well. Now, if you wish to know more about what is the area of my concern, intellectually and spiritually, the whole forum is a broad space where that can take place. But I have a sneaking suspicion that there is something more that operates behind your critique and I have always noted it. You ask me Are you listening? And I take the opportunity to turn the same question around: Are you listening? Take what I am saying to you about my interest and intentions at face value. Accept that I have looked into myself and know my intentions, and let us both proceed from that point. But if you don't, and if you still wish to explore those labyrinths of my intentions, please excuse me in advance because I am resolved not to have my focus shifted into marginalia.

David wrote: Naturally, I have a pretty thorough understanding of Western culture and Christianity and so on, having been brought up in such an environment. But I'm just not interested in what you are interested in. I don't value what you value. Is that so difficult to understand?

David, I wish to remind you that in the past you described me (my ideas, my focus, my concerns, my methods: in essence everything about me) as representing everything that you felt you needed to resist and avoid. This was in a one-on-one conversation in the second person and to emphasize your point you shifted to speaking of me in the third person! So, at that moment, I became an emblem of 'maya' for you. Please try to remember that, some years back now, when I first came on here and expressed my views, your underlings, your followers and disciples, saw fit to amplify on the vilification of my ideas and my intentions. Why is this? All that I write now is 'answer' to that question! At that time I had a limited and perhaps intuited answer. Now I have a far more studied answer. You essentially shut down intellectual, emotional and other vital veins of perceiving, knowing and understanding and you do this in the name of a 'holy' project: your vision of the spiritual. Because you stake out a platform, you will have to deal with a critique of that platform. If I did not consider these important matters I would have left it all behind long ago. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen!

In these specific areas---the areas of my critique of the philosophy and praxis 'Quinnism'---you have a very limited self-consciousness. So many of us in fact are in the same boat so don't, Oh Exalted One!, feel that you are alone. What we all have the hardest time doing in seeing ourselves and seeing what has thrust us into motion. You level a rather furious critique against so much in the culture, in people's unconsciousness, in the trend of things, in people's lack of 'spirituality' and good common sense. But when the mirror is held up to you you show yourself pretty incapable of looking into it! I am actually dedicated to helping you---all of you---but I am very aware that to formulate it in this way (a pseudo-arrogant declaration!) is anathema to you! YOU are the Teacher. You have the Keys to understanding 'Reality'. You are in fact The Guru. And when one takes a contrary position to the Guru and all His rhetorical horses and rhetorical men, one ends up in the hornet's nest! These hard structures you have established, and which your followers use to install similar hard structures in their own selves, need to be breached. There is a great deal that needs to be included in the Conversation which is not. There is superior understanding that needs to be woven in. While it is true that it does seem to revolve around a difference in 'values', and while it is also true that anyone has the right to limit their values to a small area---to sharpen focus as Diebert points out---when we create an Absolute spiritual platform that employs an 'acid' to eat away at values, knowledge, intellectuality and so much more (I present to you he who may be your foremost disciple in this: Dennis), I suggest that this is a phenomenon that calls forth critique. You can't take refuge in the 'it is a question of different values' argument. Your reductionism, the reductionism you teach, connects with larger phenomena, and as I say I see it as 'destructive' for all the reasons I describe.

Does this clarify things a little for you?

I am going to take some time, whether you or anyone else likes the subject of my critique or the style of it, to tell y'all a little about what I see. If it is useful to you or to someone, fine. If it isn't, then it isn't.

I am going to take some time, whether you or anyone else likes the subject of my critique or the style of it, to tell y'all a little about what I see. If it is useful to you or to someone, fine. If it isn't, then it isn't.

Why bother?

You think stuff like 'mediterranian', 'christianity' has objective existence independent of the mind conceiving them.
You think selfhood has objective existence independent of the mind conceiving it.

You think your labels are significant.
You haven't got a critique.
You're not in the ballpark.

Diebert wrote: By augmenting the term "Christianity" to include the whole heritage of Mediterranean culture of course one creates by that very act all the mansions and rooms. The treasures you can find in there are for historians, museum guides or tourists and I extended these terms tremendously to include nearly all human interest.

As you see, I have amplified the possibilities in the use of that term (Christian), but it is not exactly my own idea. When I read Waldo Frank's 'The Rediscovery of America' I think that in some way I appropriated such a wide view. To speak of a house or a castle with all sorts of connecting rooms, and where the core concerns of, say, a Pauline Christianity interweave themselves, is what I am getting at. The influence, in this sense, of 'Christian' ideas, is completely beyond any dispute though I suppose you might try.

The treasures you can find in there are for historians, museum guides or tourists...

Perhaps I misunderstand you, but perhaps you actually mean it that way? But to describe the networks of ideas and perceptions as being stuff for 'historians, museum guides or tourists' is way off the mark of what is correct. To understand the selves that we are, to understand what has informed us, is to have some awareness of where we have come from. To paint it as a day at an (irrelevant?) historical museum and to see it as the activity of a 'tourist' might reveal something of your own views and values? I think that you too like to nip at your 'radical juices' and to see some 'radically other' thing or state which is attainable? That you have attained? Is that it, am I on the right track? Could that be why you are in essence 'in pro' of the Quinnian Project? I don't know, I am sincerely asking. A few other questions, if you don't mind:

• What is the GF project? Can you describe what you think it is, and what aspect of it you support? Is there an aspect of it that you don't support? Can you define in a most general sense where your own critique would lie?
• Do you believe in enlightenment? In the sense that the Orientalists 'believe' in it? But what about the Quinnian 'rational enlightenment' which I think we must all admit is a rather unique creature?

Alex, are you paying attention? You don't seem to be really interested in the ideas but more in the possibility of writing about them, constructing a dialogue about them but it's clear the love of writing and referencing is your prime motive. The ideas and how they actually work in ones own life seem secondary to you and often you engage at this stage in low brow speculation and insult slinging. Although when it interests you personally like masculinity-femininity, you are suddenly way more fluent with handling the ideas and your grip more convincing.

I get that too Diebert.
The love of writing comes thru' him.

Dennis wrote: You're not in the ballpark.

There is no Ballpark, Dennis. And because there is no Ballpark there is logically no Critique. To define a Ballpark is to place something somewhere. But according to your own formulations there is no place to place anything. So, all that you can really ever say is 'It is all empty and meaningless'. What you 'do' in this, is what I call 'dousing yourself with acid'. You hiss, bubble and pop as you melt. Yet a Voice remains. Like the Cheshire Cat and his smile your Voice remains. Scalding, scolding, critical, defining another set of values and, indeed, another Ballpark! By your own definition, though, that can only be seen negatively as Will-to-Power: arbitrarily extracting something, an illusion, a group of choices, out of the plethora of a vast movement of swirling atoms. But YOU are here, a Voice is here. The Voice declares, it really does want something, if perhaps only to be seen, acknowledged?

Somehow we can talk about stuff and identify it, investigate it and draw the obvious distinctions.
We can notice if a distinction is in the proverbial ballpark.
Yours ain't.
Build a bridge.

Alex Jacob wrote:

Diebert wrote:The treasures you can find in there are for historians, museum guides or tourists (and I extended these terms tremendously to include nearly all human interest)

Perhaps I misunderstand you, but perhaps you actually mean it that way? But to describe the networks of ideas and perceptions as being stuff for 'historians, museum guides or tourists' is way off the mark of what is correct.

Well, like you did with Christianity I created here my own "tremendous" extensions of these terms. They refer to general "human interest" and link back to the Buddhist notion of desire (taṇhā). All the mansions you mentioned are related to all kinds of experiences and states to witness or even to identity with (I AM). It's exactly the mentality of a tourist or perhaps to use a more Nietzschean image "as if hanging in dreams on the back of a tiger".

There is no "GF" project unless it's defined as the project of reason itself, of what wisdom aspires and always has aspired. It doesn't reject any museum of artifacts but it encourages to disengage from the attachment, the desire and the identification with the golden sarcophagi with their decaying mummies inside (although one could argue they are for ever "empty").

You talk about multiplying mansions but spirituality talks about real estate itself. Big difference.

'Desire' in the Buddhist sense or in any sense is something that can be discussed. But I am under no obligation to hold myself in thrall to the use of the term in a negative sense. I would also suggest that 'desire' is a prime human motivator, perhaps the quintessential one, and that we must not become desire-less but rather learn to hone and polish our desire. ('Big difference', as you say!)

Yet, I gather from the way you order your discourse that, at some level, you hold that 'desire' is a negative and therefor seek to orient yourself in some other way, perhaps as non-desiring? I would gather that in this area you hold to the Buddhist doctrines, which is of course just fine.

But please understand that I do not, and so I understand 'knowledge' and what is 'value' and 'valuable' in quite a different way. And so, for me, I would never describe our history, our legacy, nor the edifice constructed through all that seeking, as being the stuff of a 'museum' fit (only) for a tourist. I do note, naturally, your value-judgments and have no problem with them per se. They are honestly declared.

And with this:

All the mansions you mentioned are related to all kinds of experiences and states to witness or even to identity with (I AM). It's exactly the mentality of a tourist or perhaps to use a more Nietzschean image "as if hanging in dreams on the back of a tiger".

...I notice the way that you have organized your perception of a legacy (the Occidental traditions, the material of a 'Mediterranean self', etc.), and that, without specifically mentioning just what you refer to, you nonetheless refer to some superior value, or state of mind, or state of being. But I can only guess at it since you do not and perhaps will not (?) define it. The reference to Nietzsche, who can often be bent to fit any particular and tendentious opinion, is colorful rhetorical flourish, isn't it?

But you do say:

There is no "GF" project unless it's defined as the project of reason itself, of what wisdom aspires and always has aspired. It doesn't reject any museum of artifacts but it encourages to disengage from the attachment, the desire and the identification with the golden sarcophagi with their decaying mummies inside (although one could argue they are for ever "empty").

I take from this: that there is some special 'stuff' or perhaps attitude (of being?) that is the stuff or the means to which Wisdom aspires, and you also capsulate all approaches to Wisdom by generalizing about what it 'always' is or 'always' does. Naturally, it follows that you see the GF project---Quinnism as I am now calling it---as exemplifying such a ramp leading to Wisdom, and you also wax a little writerly, a little romantic in fact, by throwing in a reference to 'golden sarcophagi' with the stuff of death in them.

All this I read and I feel I largely, if not completely, understand you! And I completely accept that these are your views and ideas. It is therefor logical that your position toward Quinnism is non-critical! And because his view is also, in a certain degree, your view, it follows naturally that you would not and do not have much appreciation for my methods, the area of my enquiry, nor the results of it, nor the group of values that I privilege. I read what you write, I believe that I grasp its meaning, I note that I do not agree with your suppositions nor your conclusions, but I accept them and also accept that you have offered them in good faith.

You talk about multiplying mansions but spirituality talks about real estate itself. Big difference.

Yet you can well imagine, if indeed I have registered your meaning correctly, just why I would not agree with this statement. (Even as it is also a gentle misstatement of any statement I have made or make!) This is strictly your personal conclusion about 'spirituality', it is the outcome of your own mulling process, your study, or perhaps simply your 'inner orientation'. But just because you have formed the statement does not mean that it is 'true'. I take the stance, myself, that we can't really make absolute statements about spirituality, nor about 'spirit' in the German philosophical and perhaps more romantic sense. Actually, in that sense what I speak about as 'spirit' is more in accord with that tradition and also 'our tradition'.

And so, having gone this far, and having noted how you imagine (correct me though if I am wrong) yourself to have a superior awareness and knowledge of such things, I would with a mirroring 'arrogance' declare that, no, it is I who am on the right track here! It is I who define 'true spirituality'! Now, in a sense you know that I do very much indeed take this position (in regard to Quinnism). But it is not so much that I feel that I have the right to make an absolute declaration against a given position, even one I consider limited, but that I note that an arbitrary opinion takes upon itself something of a grandiose role for itself and moves in the direction of absolutism, and that I do indeed reject.

I think that you might agree with me that, once again, we find ourselves on two opposite walls. We face each other, we are close enough (at least) that we can speak; indeed we understand each other and have access to lots of material in common, but we have come to different conclusions and we orient ourselves in regard to these conclusions differently.

Very little of this will have much effect on the ideas that I hope to bring forth as I muse on Zen and also on one particular blog post of David's. Please let me know though if you desire (heh heh) any clarification of any part of my view, and certainly correct me if I have apprehended you incorrectly in this post.

Alex Jacob wrote: David, I wish to remind you that in the past you described me (my ideas, my focus, my concerns, my methods: in essence everything about me) as representing everything that you felt you needed to resist and avoid.

I still think this. It is obvious to me that you are deeply afraid of God, deeply afraid of opening up yourself up to reality in a direct sense. It shines through in everything that you write.

This in itself is not the issue I have with you, however, as it is entirely understandable for us humans to be afraid of God. But you take it a step further and seek to make a virtue out of this cowardice. This is where my ears suddenly prick up.

If you were honest about your cowardice, if you were willing to acknowlege this dynamic within yourself, then I wouldn't have a problem with you. I would say, "Fair enough, mate. I completely understand". But no, such honesty is entirely lacking.

This is what strips your "critique" of all substance. We all pick up on it. You are completely cut off from the deep truth that Jesus, Lao Tzu, the Buddha, etc, talked about, and your words reflect this. Instead of finding a way to connect yourself with this deep truth, you spend your time hiding away in the words of others who have also cut themselves off from it. This is what the "mansion of many rooms" is really all about. It is a socially-constructed refuge for all who want to remain mediocre and evil.

You say that my "platform" is unique, but I assure you there is nothing unqiue about it. I am pointing to the same truth that all the great sages in history have pointed to. So in rejecting this truth, you are not only rejecting me, but you are rejecting Jesus and the Buddha as well.

I really do think I get how grandiosity gets hold of persons and does its number on them. But you surprise me, David, even though I am prepared! Apparently I am outgunned by Divinity disincarnate and incarnate too! So be it. Even the devils have a role to serve! I resolve therefor to be a good devil, even a really good devil!

Instead of Iago, Richard the Third:

• But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture,
  Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
  And thus I clothe my naked villainy
  With odd old ends, stol'n out of holy writ;
  And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

If the New Testament is any guide, Jesus was often accused of grandiosity as well.

But you're no devil, Alex. You're far too cowardly for that. Rather, you're like one of the Pharisees.

• But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture,
  Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
  And thus I clothe my naked villainy
  With odd old ends, stol'n out of holy writ;
  And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
  
  ---Richard the Third

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There are moments when I am embarrassed for you, David. I sometimes think I am talking to a man who has remained a stunted child, and since I am speaking to a child from the perspective and attitude of an adult, it is unfair that I treat this child so brusquely. But then I remember the core message of this forum and of your philosophy: to pursue truth even though it hurt. The only way for a child to grow up is through a form of brusqueness.

Since we are playing within this game of seeming: you taking on the role of Jesus to my devil or, as you prefer, to a Pharisee who blocks the Divine Plan for the salvation of humanity, I see no reason why we cannot extend it a little, just for fun.

In the Gospel story in Mark 4:11-12 Jesus says to his disciples:

• "To you has been given the secret of the Kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again, and be forgiven."

Robert Frost wrote a poem where he mused on the internal message in that bit of scripture:

• "I have kept hidden at the instep arch
  Of an old cedar at the waterside
  A broken drinking goblet like the Grail
  Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it,
  So can't get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn't."

So, within my own little game of blasphemy and personal arrogance, I am ever so much aware that no matter how I speak to the true believer denizens of this forum, it is almost completely impossible to get through to 'them'. Naturally, I assume I have something with which to get through and a reason to get through. So, similarly to you, I guess I'd have to say, I have a sense of 'mission'. But, you most certainly and 'they' too are uniquely sealed over with a strange Hermetic envelope. In this sense y'all are 'under a spell' so strong that no matter how a counter-spell (if you'll permit me this) is presented, the force of your own certainty and hardness of posture remains impenetrable. The core of the 'problem' here, at least I think so, is that you have assumed, erroneously I assert, that spirituality, advancement, salvation (since you do refer to a form of salvation), and redemption, is gained through a mental 'rational' process.

Your thought is thus: if I can organize my thinking correctly, the nature of reality will become clear to me just as a simple mathematical formula is clear to everyone, indeed contains an axiom. Once I have arrived at that rational order of thinking, which I call 'enlightenment', all I need to do is stay in that same groove and, too, I can communicate that state of mind to others, as with a math formula, and they too can become 'enlightened'. This is the basis of the notion of 'rational enlightenment'.

Your 'Jesus', David, is a fantasy of some elevated 'reasoning' man, and every aspect of Jesus Christ as a fact or prospect of atonement for man, as a profound and mysterious symbol hard to fathom of the possibility of salvation, cannot be seen, heard, understood nor expressed by you. So, the 'Jesus' of David is...nothing more than a mirror of David! A fantasy you have concocted within a mirror. But, since you are in fact only a partial intellect, only a partial mind, and only a partial man for all that you mercilessly cut away from yourself every link to humankind, your 'Jesus' has no connection to humankind, and yet this is the whole meaning of the story of the incarnation of God within the frame of a man. God becomes a man and so knows, which is really to say feels, what it is to be a man.

And since the notion of Love and care for human beings is also part of the core message in this Story, within these richely laden and charged symbols, but Quinnism is a doctrine about cutting ourselves away from our human matrix and specifically to the emotive self which knows love, and through which love flows into our world, the Jesus of David is more than anything else an emblem of spiritual death. Therefor, the meaning in 'Amor meus, ponds meum; illo feror, quocumque feror' (St Augustine: 'My love is my weight; where it goes I go'), insofar as this speaks of Christian love, and the love of God for man, is no part of your equations, internally or externally. You have therefor completely derailed the central message of the story, or the integrity of the exalted symbol depending on how one looks at it.

But you see none of this. Indeed, it is not an idea that can even register on your inner screen!

Now, this is where it gets fun, but also sad and tragic. It is fun to play with y'all. It is fun to throw up in your faces the same arrogance with which you face life and the world. It is fun to pretend that one is 'absolutely right', and it is fun to play the game that one knows and understands the meaning of the Grail and the weird spell that enchants it, and renders y'all incapable of hearing. It is fun to fuck with your heads and to toss the most terrible 'insults' in your faces and to say directly, as I have to you, that you are merely a puffed up child, a child with a problem, a child with a grandiosity complex. It is also fun to demonstrate that you are nearly completely ignorant of the meaning and value of our own traditions. And it is fun to hear you say "But I don't care about them! I care only for God! The God that is 'Absolutely Everything!' (which is also a complete misunderstanding of the central message within Christian doctrine, and I say this just 'by the way'). At that point you share with your brother, the Fundamentalist Baptist, a contempt for the mind and a contempt for reason. As I said:

Alex wrote: Just like ignorant Southern Fundamentalist Baptists, just like the Know-Nothings who will look no further than their own fundamentalist rhetoric, so too HERE one notices a similar strain. But combined with a kind of aggressive forcefulness of 'being right', of possessing Absolute Truths', of being superior.

And so David Quinn is Jesus Christ, the two are indistinguishable. And David's followers have no means of distinguishing the erroneousness of the philosophical and existential ideas here, likely not because of they lack intellectual strength but because they too partake of the defects of mind and consciousness that produce such a skewed outlook! And here is where the idea of ailment comes in, and again a sort of terrible enchantment that keeps some people from being able to see and understand (so much), and then the terrible irony of acting as preachers of a doctrine that mentions 'Jesus Christ' and all of the symbols therein! It moves very quickly into a fantastical, a weird, a strange territory that is both terrifying and ridiculous.

What is the cure for it? One might answer that the cure might be taking into one's own heart the very liquid or essence of all that is 'non-grasped' of the meaning of the Jesusonian message! And here many levels of irony pop up, both to terrify and to delight. David becomes Jesus, Alex becomes a close-minded (but really closed-hearted) Pharisee who rejects David-as-Messiah. But in point of fact Alex holds to an essence that is far 'truer' and even more potent, and speaks about it, while David et al are completely unable to hear about it for all that they have ears!
____________________________________________________________

And so the question becomes, as always, Who is this God that we seem to speak about constantly? What does spiritual life even mean? We are incarnate, we have time and life to live, What shall we do? What does it mean to fulfill a spiritual calling? Can we even get to the core messages within religious symbolism, or will we be forever locked out and kept from 'the Grail'? What is the means by which we 'know' God, respond to God? Who today is doing this? Is this knowable, I mean is it possible, in fact, to decipher life? And if so what hermeneutical skill is needed?

There is a list of questions that extend from these. It is the questions that are more important than contrived, narcissistic 'answers'.

Alex,

When writing is taken in as one's strong suit.
One becomes immersed in the possibility of writer.
One is writer writing.

Once one is writer writing,
one writes out of a context.

Does the context,
the pen is mightier than the sword,
have meaning for you.

Alex at war.

Alex wrote:'Desire' in the Buddhist sense or in any sense is something that can be discussed. But I am under no obligation to hold myself in thrall to the use of the term in a negative sense. I would also suggest that 'desire' is a prime human motivator, perhaps the quintessential one, and that we must not become desire-less but rather learn to hone and polish our desire.

It's with desires in the deepest sense the same as with "self", "freewill" or "suffering". It's not about the disappearance of these things as some goal as that would only be reversed desire, still self, still suffering. It would become just the extreme version of the very thing being "combated". The Buddha called even birth and death suffering: changes bringing sufffering to any attachment present. Are you suggesting spirituality is all about honing and polishing the birthing and dying processes: also known as "progress"?

This is strictly your personal conclusion about 'spirituality', it is the outcome of your own mulling process, your study, or perhaps simply your 'inner orientation'.

Not only that but the very essence of spirituality is that of wisdom: self-knowledge, self-awareness. And more to the point that means that at the very least it knows itself. How else could there be knowledge or awareness of anything else? If anything can be known beyond personal conclusions it's the spirit in spiritual. That's why I can say without blinking it is 'true', that in this case, yes there's an absolute.

And it's not just 'simply' my inner orientation. It's mine and yours. It's all inner orientation. The complete orient. How is it possible to object without excluding or twisting some part of it?

Alex Jacob wrote: Your thought is thus: if I can organize my thinking correctly, the nature of reality will become clear to me just as a simple mathematical formula is clear to everyone, indeed contains an axiom. Once I have arrived at that rational order of thinking, which I call 'enlightenment', all I need to do is stay in that same groove and, too, I can communicate that state of mind to others, as with a math formula, and they too can become 'enlightened'. This is the basis of the notion of 'rational enlightenment'.

Wow Alex, you can sound so incredibly dumb under all the intellectually impressive baggage claims. You just described nearly the complete opposite of what actually has been said ten thousand times by David and so many others. You just keep composing your own version of things and hold that against others. That's what you always end up doing. You must be rather lonely by now.

Alex Jacob wrote: The core of the 'problem' here, at least I think so, is that you have assumed, erroneously I assert, that spirituality, advancement, salvation (since you do refer to a form of salvation), and redemption, is gained through a mental 'rational' process.

Your thought is thus: if I can organize my thinking correctly, the nature of reality will become clear to me just as a simple mathematical formula is clear to everyone, indeed contains an axiom. Once I have arrived at that rational order of thinking, which I call 'enlightenment', all I need to do is stay in that same groove and, too, I can communicate that state of mind to others, as with a math formula, and they too can become 'enlightened'. This is the basis of the notion of 'rational enlightenment'.

The way you depict the matter here is misguided. You are implying that what I call "enlightenment" is nothing more than a particular arrangement of thought, or a particular mental framework, which is affirmed to be the one true arrangement, while all others are false. This is definitely not what I am about.

Enlightenment consists of going beyond all perspectives, beyond all arrangements of thought, beyond all mental frameworks and experiencing reality directly. The value of reason is that it can help clear away all of the conceptual barriers that prevent the mind from connecting to this experiential reality.

In other words, the path to enlightement is not an academic, armchair activity. It is a concrete and bloody affair that requires the whole of your life, the whole of your mind, and the whole of your soul.

Alex Jacob wrote: Your 'Jesus', David, is a fantasy of some elevated 'reasoning' man, and every aspect of Jesus Christ as a fact or prospect of atonement for man, as a profound and mysterious symbol hard to fathom of the possibility of salvation, cannot be seen, heard, understood nor expressed by you. So, the 'Jesus' of David is...nothing more than a mirror of David! A fantasy you have concocted within a mirror. But, since you are in fact only a partial intellect, only a partial mind, and only a partial man for all that you mercilessly cut away from yourself every link to humankind, your 'Jesus' has no connection to humankind, and yet this is the whole meaning of the story of the incarnation of God within the frame of a man. God becomes a man and so knows, which is really to say feels, what it is to be a man.

What a load of drivel.

Alex Jacob wrote: And since the notion of Love and care for human beings is also part of the core message in this Story, within these richely laden and charged symbols, but Quinnism is a doctrine about cutting ourselves away from our human matrix and specifically to the emotive self which knows love, and through which love flows into our world, the Jesus of David is more than anything else an emblem of spiritual death.

You are confusing spiritual death with egotistical death. The two are polar opposites of one another.

"Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." John 12: 24

This is the core message from Jesus.

Alex Jacob wrote: Therefor, the meaning in 'Amor meus, ponds meum; illo feror, quocumque feror' (St Augustine: 'My love is my weight; where it goes I go'), insofar as this speaks of Christian love, and the love of God for man, is no part of your equations, internally or externally. You have therefor completely derailed the central message of the story, or the integrity of the exalted symbol depending on how one looks at it.

There used to be a non-alcoholic beverage here in Australia called Clayton's. It was meant to mimic the flavour of liqour without having the alcoholic content, and they used to run an ad campaign which had the catchline, "The drink you have when you are not really having a drink!"

That is essentially how I see Christianity in general. It is the spirituality you have when you are not really being spiritual. The Christian automatically dismisses the possibility that any of us can leave all partialness behind and become enlightened. Only Jesus was capable of enlightenment, he affirms, and that is because he, and he alone, was not really a man, but God incarnate.

It is hard to fathom how people can believe in such rubbish, but there is, I admit, a certain cunning behind it. The story is cleverly designed to remove all possibility of following in Jesus's footsteps, while at the same maintaining the pretence that one is engaging in spiritual activity. Jesus is no longer treated as a person to emulate or even surpass, but rather a figure to be worshipped. In this way the spiritual path is kept at a distance.

Jesus said, "Follow me", and Christians say, "Bugger off. I have zero interest in following in your footsteps. I want to lead a normal life and worship an imaginary cartoon-like Jesus instead". This point-blank refusal to follow in Jesus's footsteps is called Christianity.

Alex Jacob wrote: Now, this is where it gets fun, but also sad and tragic. It is fun to play with y'all. It is fun to throw up in your faces the same arrogance with which you face life and the world. It is fun to pretend that one is 'absolutely right', and it is fun to play the game that one knows and understands the meaning of the Grail and the weird spell that enchants it, and renders y'all incapable of hearing. It is fun to fuck with your heads and to toss the most terrible 'insults' in your faces and to say directly, as I have to you, that you are merely a puffed up child, a child with a problem, a child with a grandiosity complex.

Yes, that was how Jesus was perceived by the Pharisees.

Alex Jacob wrote:

Alex wrote: Just like ignorant Southern Fundamentalist Baptists, just like the Know-Nothings who will look no further than their own fundamentalist rhetoric, so too HERE one notices a similar strain. But combined with a kind of aggressive forcefulness of 'being right', of possessing Absolute Truths', of being superior.

And so David Quinn is Jesus Christ, the two are indistinguishable.

It has nothing to do with me being Jesus Christ, or whatever. I don't care about Jesus Christ. That is not what this is about. I am only interested in encouraging others to open their minds to the great truth of existence, to the "secret of the Kingdom of God".

I only bring up Jesus because it amuses me that the way you depict me is exactly how Jesus, your own patron-saint, was depicted during his lifetime. I am not the one who is forcing you into the mould of the Pharisee. Your own words are doing that for you.

And so the question becomes, as always, Who is this God that we seem to speak about constantly? What does spiritual life even mean? We are incarnate, we have time and life to live, What shall we do? What does it mean to fulfill a spiritual calling? Can we even get to the core messages within religious symbolism, or will we be forever locked out and kept from 'the Grail'? What is the means by which we 'know' God, respond to God? Who today is doing this? Is this knowable, I mean is it possible, in fact, to decipher life? And if so what hermeneutical skill is needed?

All of this reeks of an armchair critic who has no intention of ever resolving anything, but simply wants to lose himself in questions.

David wrote: Enlightenment consists of going beyond all perspectives, beyond all arrangements of thought, beyond all mental frameworks and experiencing reality directly. The value of reason is that it can help clear away all of the conceptual barrieries that prevent the mind from connecting to this experiential reality.

I think the core 'fallacy' is located here. It is not that I don't understand what you write, it is in fact an idea that is central certainly to Hindu doctrines. It is that I see this idea as a trap, and it is used by the people who take it up do annihilate connection with themselves, the people around them, and to life.

You cherry pick certain quotes out of the Gospels that fit your sense of what the object or goal is, which is essentially an Indian praxis and attitude toward life, and declare that this is the sole message of Christianity, or the most important message, and that it is this that Jesus was about.

But this is very far from the facts. But then you feel quite free to dump the whole idea of Jesus, or this contextual story with certain emphasized meanings, and say that the thing you are really about is 'directly perceiving reality'. This is disingenuous. It is though true that you are not interested in those facts (of a contextual Christianity) and know next to nothing about them, or to the possibility of a real spirituality on terms very different from yours. And it is also true that you establish certain ideas as 'Absolutes' while you devalue many others.

You say this is 'drivel':

Your 'Jesus', David, is a fantasy of some elevated 'reasoning' man, and every aspect of Jesus Christ as a fact or prospect of atonement for man, as a profound and mysterious symbol hard to fathom of the possibility of salvation, cannot be seen, heard, understood nor expressed by you. So, the 'Jesus' of David is...nothing more than a mirror of David! A fantasy you have concocted within a mirror. But, since you are in fact only a partial intellect, only a partial mind, and only a partial man for all that you mercilessly cut away from yourself every link to humankind, your 'Jesus' has no connection to humankind, and yet this is the whole meaning of the story of the incarnation of God within the frame of a man. God becomes a man and so knows, which is really to say feels, what it is to be a man.

But what exactly do you mean by that? I am only stating what is possibly the central idea within the Christian narrative, and have not said in fact what I myself believe.

You have now also moved away from your previous identification with Jesus and your statement that by rejecting you or your doctrines that I am also rejecting Jesus. Maybe you were after all joking? In the above I only describe what is the principal meaning within the Christian revelation: "Jesus Christ as a fact or prospect of atonement for man, as a profound and mysterious symbol hard to fathom of the possibility of salvation..." and "the whole meaning of the story of the incarnation of God within the frame of a man. God becomes a man and so knows, which is really to say feels, what it is to be a man."

But in fact you equate the superior spiritual activity with arriving at 'direct perception of Reality', your pet concept and your pet project, and this is not really a part of Christianity nor an 'object' within the Occidental world, speaking generally. What you do and what you preach has very little to do with what the Gospels teach.

You write:

This is the core message from Jesus.

You are incorrect. You don't know what the 'core message from Jesus' is because you are only interested in your own project of 'experiencing reality directly'. I can think of many other ways to interpret that phrase from John. ('Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.')

I don't really have a great deal more to say about this, and in fact my interest is not in these specific areas, at least not in this particular moment. Or what I mean to say is that my interest in Christianity moves along different lines. I have myself forged a notion of the relevancy of Christianity that goes beyond what is commonly allowed for it.

That is essentially how I see Christianity in general. It is the spirituality you have when you are not really being spiritual. The Christian automatically dismisses the possibility that any of us can leave all partialness behind and become enlightened. Only Jesus was capable of enlightenment, he affirms, and that is because he, and he alone, was not really a man, but God incarnate.

Really, a 'Christian' would perhaps say:

• "Your notion of 'enlightenment' is of no use to me. It is a distracting and chimerical idea, deeply romanticized, that disconnects me with the life I have to live. Within it I discern a profound but masked hubris. Under the influence of these ideas I cut parts of myself away and cease effectively to live in this world. I am forced to see everything about the world and the people in it through a lens of contempt if not even a sort of hatred. This 'enlightenment' is hyper-egoic, in truth, and contrary to the message of the Gospels as I understand it. To follow this 'enlightenment' may very well take me away from 'spiritual life'...and for that reason I reject it."

;-)

David Quinn wrote: I am only interested in encouraging others to open their minds to the great truth of existence, to the "secret of the Kingdom of God".

Alex Jacob wrote:

David Quinn wrote: Enlightenment consists of going beyond all perspectives, beyond all arrangements of thought, beyond all mental frameworks and experiencing reality directly. The value of reason is that it can help clear away all of the conceptual barrieries that prevent the mind from connecting to this experiential reality.

I think the core 'fallacy' is located here. It is not that I don't understand what you write, it is in fact an idea that is central certainly to Hindu doctrines. It is that I see this idea as a trap, and it is used by the people who take it up do annihilate connection with themselves, the people around them, and to life.

I guess the fallacy just goes around the lines that "there is no truth". So "the only truth is, there is no truth".
One see David speak against such formulations, but I can't see much of a difference. And these formulations obviously appear as mind-stopping, dependency rising, etc.

"Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

One of the tenets of quinnism would be:
"Things do not inherently exist."
So there's no eternal thing. Except for every A=A, which are eternal.

Alex Jacob wrote:

David wrote: Enlightenment consists of going beyond all perspectives, beyond all arrangements of thought, beyond all mental frameworks and experiencing reality directly. The value of reason is that it can help clear away all of the conceptual barrieries that prevent the mind from connecting to this experiential reality.

I think the core 'fallacy' is located here. It is not that I don't understand what you write, it is in fact an idea that is central certainly to Hindu doctrines.

If it were truly the case that you understand what I write, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

It is that I see this idea as a trap, and it is used by the people who take it up do annihilate connection with themselves, the people around them, and to life.

I am not your mother, Alex.

But for what it's worth, you have my permission to play with your shiny new toy (i.e. Christianity). Who knows, maybe you'll get it out of your system one day.

Alex Jacob wrote:It is not that I don't understand what you write, it is in fact an idea that is central certainly to Hindu doctrines. It is that I see this idea as a trap, and it is used by the people who take it up do annihilate connection with themselves, the people around them, and to life.

It's one thing to disagree with a central Hindu doctrine, Buddhist ways, neo-Platonic versions of this, or to disagree with how Christians interpret their Jesus in one specific light and not some other. But it's another thing to keep harping about it here, a place not overly interested in the intellectual fine print, over and over, and not even a fundamentally Hindu, Buddhist or Christian place to begin with.

This place is not your father, Alex. These philosophies have not personally abandoned or offended you. You don't need to root out the evil or expose all its shortcomings. You don't need to be on that mission at all. Become a social worker and help those who are actually in need, who are actually hostile to life and hurt themselves or other human beings day in day out. Are you actually living in society? Even with all the supposed "poison" in the thinking here, have you any idea how dark it is out there, how much lies, hostility, small mindedness, paranoia, psychological torture is happening in the average household? Only a little bit of reasoning and detachment will go a long way for most. Why worry about the few who appear to take this a bit further? Is it because you're debating your own demons, and that's why you don't listen and hardly read responses? You're just not in the discussion: you're thoroughly lost in your own!