Look at this simple passage from Thomas Watson's Body of Divinity. It's one of those striking things that when you see it explained like this you wonder why you never thought of it before:
+ + +
What is the condition of the covenant of grace?
The main condition is faith.
Why is faith more the condition of the new covenant than any other grace?
To exclude all glorying in the creature. Faith is a humble grace. If repentance or works were the condition of the covenant, a man would say, It is my righteousness that has saved me; but if it be of faith, where is boasting? Faith fetches all from Christ, and gives all the glory to Christ; it is a most humble grace. Hence it is that God has singled out this grace to be the condition of the covenant. [emphasis mine]
+ + +
What I'm getting at is not the fact that with faith is no boasting (vs. works, etc.) and all that. That is basic doctrine. What I'm getting at is even *thinking* about why 'faith' is *the particular grace* (and not any other) that is the condition of being in the covenant of grace (basically of being saved).
In other words, that word faith we just kind of say; and it gets knocked around, of course, by the atheists and others (blind faith, no evidence, etc.), and as a believer one just basically accepts the word and the act. But it seems vaguely abstract still. Yet we can see it more practically with the above explanation from Watson.
(And, again, for any who don't know me, I am not having a bell rung in my head over the fact that faith is different from repentance or works. The point is, basic doctrine aside, it's unusual to think 'why faith rather than any other grace.' Christians don't generally have that question enter our minds. Not in the way Watson presents it above.)
12.29.2009
12.20.2009
How's this for a simple effort
Here's a simple Work effort: self-remembering/non-identifying while reading the Bible complete.
That would guarantee x number of hours of self-remembering effort anyway. 100 hours? I don't know. Havn't figured it out. Doesn't matter. The value is being in the third state while taking in the words of the Old and New Testaments.
A really very simple and easy-to-remember goal. (No falling into waking sleep while reading though. You'd have to be honest. Mark out a section and do it. If you don't have an end point for each session you'd just drift into mechanical-ness. Chapters are obvious and would work, but probably aren't ideal; but if you have a Bible with section headings that might be more helpful in identifying complete sections.)
That would guarantee x number of hours of self-remembering effort anyway. 100 hours? I don't know. Havn't figured it out. Doesn't matter. The value is being in the third state while taking in the words of the Old and New Testaments.
A really very simple and easy-to-remember goal. (No falling into waking sleep while reading though. You'd have to be honest. Mark out a section and do it. If you don't have an end point for each session you'd just drift into mechanical-ness. Chapters are obvious and would work, but probably aren't ideal; but if you have a Bible with section headings that might be more helpful in identifying complete sections.)
12.19.2009
An observation on the potential shock of illness
There is a pastor of a popular big church who recently was diagnosed with a brain tumor that has spread. He had a seizure in Nov. and has been through the hospital mill for a month, including having an operation.
I don't want to name him, but here is just an observation I had regarding him. I saw him in a video, and he struck me as the usual 'church' type, with the churchy language, breathy, God is so good to us, I just love you all so much, we just have such a loving God, etc., etc.
In his recent Twitter feeds, after the shock of this major illness and the dire prospects ahead of him, he sounds different.
Like: well, today was at least something of a normal day. Sheesh.
I havn't heard him actually talk (havn't seen him on video) since his operation, so I'm just going by impressions from words he writes, but I think you can see a normalization process after the shock. I really think many of these church types are so dead asleep and fake (I don't necessarily mean that in the negative way), caught up in how they are supposed to be and to sound and stuck in an artificial groove that it may take such a shock to shake them out of it.
Nobody needs such an illness, or wants to talk about such an illness blithely, yet when one asks why do such things happen to people we can't assume the person effected doesn't need the shock.
I don't want to name him, but here is just an observation I had regarding him. I saw him in a video, and he struck me as the usual 'church' type, with the churchy language, breathy, God is so good to us, I just love you all so much, we just have such a loving God, etc., etc.
In his recent Twitter feeds, after the shock of this major illness and the dire prospects ahead of him, he sounds different.
Like: well, today was at least something of a normal day. Sheesh.
I havn't heard him actually talk (havn't seen him on video) since his operation, so I'm just going by impressions from words he writes, but I think you can see a normalization process after the shock. I really think many of these church types are so dead asleep and fake (I don't necessarily mean that in the negative way), caught up in how they are supposed to be and to sound and stuck in an artificial groove that it may take such a shock to shake them out of it.
Nobody needs such an illness, or wants to talk about such an illness blithely, yet when one asks why do such things happen to people we can't assume the person effected doesn't need the shock.
12.18.2009
Note left at Parzival's
It's serious, C Influence. It's true what the Work says, it isn't repeated because it is somebody's effort. Focused effort. If there are no students it ends. There's no point.
The written word is foundational and lasts as long as its published or saved. But conscious influence itself is the direct effort of a person. I appears, is used or not, and if not goes away.
One can become a source of C Influence oneself. Through time even. Here is where you see the effort involved. To be a source you have to make the effort to be awake yourself. It's real effort and doesn't last as some mechanical force.
The Holy Spirit is different, but I believe He operates along similar lines. One can have more or less of the Spirit, and one grieves the Spirit more or less. If one is indifferent to the Spirit then...does the Spirit lessen in you? I didn't say forsake you (once in you always there in a salvation sense), but in a sanctification sense one can be in a dry desert.
Conscious influence, wherever it is coming from, is Holy Spirit influence. I.e. if it is truly conscious then there is only one source, ultimately, for it. We can get it from the source, and we can get it from the communion of the saints. The saint doesn't have to be present in our time. Connected to our circle of time, perhaps, but not necessarily present.
The written word is foundational and lasts as long as its published or saved. But conscious influence itself is the direct effort of a person. I appears, is used or not, and if not goes away.
One can become a source of C Influence oneself. Through time even. Here is where you see the effort involved. To be a source you have to make the effort to be awake yourself. It's real effort and doesn't last as some mechanical force.
The Holy Spirit is different, but I believe He operates along similar lines. One can have more or less of the Spirit, and one grieves the Spirit more or less. If one is indifferent to the Spirit then...does the Spirit lessen in you? I didn't say forsake you (once in you always there in a salvation sense), but in a sanctification sense one can be in a dry desert.
Conscious influence, wherever it is coming from, is Holy Spirit influence. I.e. if it is truly conscious then there is only one source, ultimately, for it. We can get it from the source, and we can get it from the communion of the saints. The saint doesn't have to be present in our time. Connected to our circle of time, perhaps, but not necessarily present.
12.05.2009
A string quartet from Joseph Haydn
The Op. 33 String Quartets are generally thought to be under-noticed. Here is a good live performance of No. 1:
1st movement 5:59
2nd movement 2:23
3rd movement 5:36
4th movement 3:11
1st movement 5:59
2nd movement 2:23
3rd movement 5:36
4th movement 3:11
Beethoven's 2nd Symphony, and - not connected - a passage from Kline's Kingdom Prologue
Pretty good performance of Beethoven's 2nd Symphony. Complete in one video. Herbert von Karajan.
In Kline's Kingdom Prologue there is a striking passage (which I can't copy from the PDF) where he states what triggers the end of history. It involves common grace. The children of the devil have always been permitted by God to live if they recognize coexistence with the children of God. When the children of the devil, though, begin to assert a claim to total domination of this world then God's common grace for them ends. They cut off the branch they are sitting on.
You see this happening today. In the end days the devil deceives the nations which means all the devil's peoples the world over (which is unique) unite against the people of God. Iran's crazy leader back slaps with Venezuela's crazy leader saying they will destroy America. Islam proclaims they will take over Europe. Etc.
If you have discernment for good and evil you see this.
Of course these things happen in other eras, but the question is is it different today due to the world-wide nature of it? It probably is. America was a safe place for Christians to take refuge in. Now America has been breached by the devil's children in a unique way as never before with the fall of the two towers.
The new global leftist schemes to create global tyranny are part of it (the craziness of climate change treaties are just a part of this but representative). The note is on 'global.' Total domination. *No where to run, nowhere to hide.* No refuge for God's pilgrims. No right to exist without capitulating to the great anti-Christ idol.
In demanding sole dominion on this planet the devil and his followers are sowing their own destruction.
This is part of the anti-Christ crisis Kline outlines. It happens prior to the flood as well. When it happens now it triggers the end of history.
Go to this link and read from page 214 (the actual page number in the book) starting at the heading 'A. Anti-Christ Crisis', and read that 'A.' section through page 216. It's very short, yet the language is worth engaging.
This is an example of the kind of insights Kline's works provide that are unique in mainstream theology.
In Kline's Kingdom Prologue there is a striking passage (which I can't copy from the PDF) where he states what triggers the end of history. It involves common grace. The children of the devil have always been permitted by God to live if they recognize coexistence with the children of God. When the children of the devil, though, begin to assert a claim to total domination of this world then God's common grace for them ends. They cut off the branch they are sitting on.
You see this happening today. In the end days the devil deceives the nations which means all the devil's peoples the world over (which is unique) unite against the people of God. Iran's crazy leader back slaps with Venezuela's crazy leader saying they will destroy America. Islam proclaims they will take over Europe. Etc.
If you have discernment for good and evil you see this.
Of course these things happen in other eras, but the question is is it different today due to the world-wide nature of it? It probably is. America was a safe place for Christians to take refuge in. Now America has been breached by the devil's children in a unique way as never before with the fall of the two towers.
The new global leftist schemes to create global tyranny are part of it (the craziness of climate change treaties are just a part of this but representative). The note is on 'global.' Total domination. *No where to run, nowhere to hide.* No refuge for God's pilgrims. No right to exist without capitulating to the great anti-Christ idol.
In demanding sole dominion on this planet the devil and his followers are sowing their own destruction.
This is part of the anti-Christ crisis Kline outlines. It happens prior to the flood as well. When it happens now it triggers the end of history.
Go to this link and read from page 214 (the actual page number in the book) starting at the heading 'A. Anti-Christ Crisis', and read that 'A.' section through page 216. It's very short, yet the language is worth engaging.
This is an example of the kind of insights Kline's works provide that are unique in mainstream theology.
11.22.2009
No more mystery on the three lines of work
First line work kind of lends itself to the campus, and the cloister, and the study.
Second line work is for the traffic of everyday life.
Third line work is teaching.
Second line work is for the traffic of everyday life.
Third line work is teaching.
Best performance of this song, Verve, On Your Own
Listen to this a few times to get the musical phrases in memory, then the song will be very enjoyable.
Bonus: an underrated song from the Cranberries last album. Maybe I'm influenced by the video (influenced positively), but I think when you first hear this song it seems kind of 'ok', like album filler, but as I listened to it a few times it grew on me. She's got quirky and catchy phrasing, like getting three or four angular notes from a single word...
Bonus: an underrated song from the Cranberries last album. Maybe I'm influenced by the video (influenced positively), but I think when you first hear this song it seems kind of 'ok', like album filler, but as I listened to it a few times it grew on me. She's got quirky and catchy phrasing, like getting three or four angular notes from a single word...
Just a note to my old email correspondents...
Just a note to my old email correspondents... I've been just now reading some old email I wrote in exchanges, various exchanges, going back to 2002 (don't remember when the email correspondence started), and it's useful to do. For my own emails I can see immediate things that give me perspective on where I am now. Like I could immediately see how much I changed when I finally began to 'conquer' the exoteric level of biblical doctrine. It kind of brought out some old - pre-'Work' era - traits and characteristics of my personality that should have been left to the past and that I rather indulged, in some real ways quite insanely. (Like saying the same things over and over for...*years*... Relishing the emotional indulgence and all that...)
I've also seen in my actual life here how I was so successful with the Work in the 90s because I had - and this may sound trivial or even off-the-mark regarding what the Work is, but it's not off-the-mark - a contained 'space' to do it in. The world can *really* effect your efforts. Of course the Work is defined as an effort done in the traffic of the world, but I mean the first line of work type efforts more. For those efforts you need a contained space to work in. Boundaries that create a cosmos you operate in (actually a cosmos that is 'school'). I had a neighborhood that was quiet and relatively distraction-free, that I knew well, with well-worn pathways, so to speak. (Looking back I could even discern a difference in my experience when I would go out of this cosmos and did first line work elsewhere. I could discern mocking demonic influences coming around me.)
I havn't had that old 'space' for awhile now. I guess I've made attempts at re-creating it around here where I live now, but nothing complete and contained has come together.
Other than my old neighborhood I also used a run-of-the-mill Community Center which was useful because so few people were ever there in the big green spaces it provided. I would walk the parameter of it, and it became a similar cosmos like contained space for first line work. I still have that area.
But that may be like going back to an old school you graduated from long ago. Then again a place that 'works' is a place that works, so...
Like I found a larger 'orbit' financially I might have to find a larger orbit for first line of Work school cosmos.
[Addendum: Another thing I should have added to this post is just how much I've been overtaken by the crap shit world in recent years. For instance, I actually act like I *care* what people of the past think about me. When I was in my strength, in the '90s, I had gotten to where I truly didn't give a fuck.
Physical decline can add to this weakness.]
[Addendum 2: it occurs to me that the body is a cosmos too, and needs to have its boundaries defined. Even in terms of clothing. Language of cosmoses is in everything. You can find a connection and new insights with anything.]
I've also seen in my actual life here how I was so successful with the Work in the 90s because I had - and this may sound trivial or even off-the-mark regarding what the Work is, but it's not off-the-mark - a contained 'space' to do it in. The world can *really* effect your efforts. Of course the Work is defined as an effort done in the traffic of the world, but I mean the first line of work type efforts more. For those efforts you need a contained space to work in. Boundaries that create a cosmos you operate in (actually a cosmos that is 'school'). I had a neighborhood that was quiet and relatively distraction-free, that I knew well, with well-worn pathways, so to speak. (Looking back I could even discern a difference in my experience when I would go out of this cosmos and did first line work elsewhere. I could discern mocking demonic influences coming around me.)
I havn't had that old 'space' for awhile now. I guess I've made attempts at re-creating it around here where I live now, but nothing complete and contained has come together.
Other than my old neighborhood I also used a run-of-the-mill Community Center which was useful because so few people were ever there in the big green spaces it provided. I would walk the parameter of it, and it became a similar cosmos like contained space for first line work. I still have that area.
But that may be like going back to an old school you graduated from long ago. Then again a place that 'works' is a place that works, so...
Like I found a larger 'orbit' financially I might have to find a larger orbit for first line of Work school cosmos.
[Addendum: Another thing I should have added to this post is just how much I've been overtaken by the crap shit world in recent years. For instance, I actually act like I *care* what people of the past think about me. When I was in my strength, in the '90s, I had gotten to where I truly didn't give a fuck.
Physical decline can add to this weakness.]
[Addendum 2: it occurs to me that the body is a cosmos too, and needs to have its boundaries defined. Even in terms of clothing. Language of cosmoses is in everything. You can find a connection and new insights with anything.]
11.07.2009
10.23.2009
Mental gymnastics aside
Having gone through the scant Work teaching on cosmoses again I'm reminded of the practical aspect of it all. Seeing the different speeds and phenomena of centers within you. The mental gymnastics of calculating differences of time and phenomena in different cosmoses is - though worthwhile to a point - something that goes up against the fact that trying to see and understand something with a current level of being and understanding that is not capable of seeing and understanding that something is not practical. You have to increase your ability to understand and see. And this, anyway, brings the teaching on cosmoses back to its practical level, which is, again, observing them within one's being. There is also the practice of observing different cosmoses in the world, but that too requires a higher vision and understanding.
The visual of a cosmos, what a cosmos is, is very useful regarding the two conscious shocks though. The very fact of a border and breaches in the border and so on.
The conclusions I arrived at way back when still stand. The road is before you once you know of the two conscious shocks, how to effect them, having the necessary level of valuation to effect them. Provoking limits so as to be able to then extend limits.
The visual of a cosmos, what a cosmos is, is very useful regarding the two conscious shocks though. The very fact of a border and breaches in the border and so on.
The conclusions I arrived at way back when still stand. The road is before you once you know of the two conscious shocks, how to effect them, having the necessary level of valuation to effect them. Provoking limits so as to be able to then extend limits.
10.14.2009
The spiritual battlefield and growing responsibility
One thing that happened today is for the first time since my new situation (living where I am) my old self sort of showed itself, but it's all new. I was snapped at (in a way where the person exposes contempt for you), and I didn't react the usual (old) way at first, I knew it was internal-considering (Work term) I was feeling, yet a moment or two later despite 1) being awake to it, and 2) having the power to not indulge in it, I lashed back, moderately, though with equal contempt. Worse because though I could see the contempt in my own words I know he couldn't see the contempt he showed me.
Here's the point: I am now not a rookie soldier on the battlefield. What I did was delinquent. I was being a delinquent soldier in Christ's army. As usual the world lets you know. I went out right after that and was met with unusual crude violence/behavior from people, not directly, but enough to let me know those forces are out and about and when I am delinquent they appear and get closer. A reminder.
I could only pray. I'm good at that when I have no other option. Ask forgiveness and ask for strength and ask for what only God can give, grace, his will, ask for God to give the most important things to the person you lashed back at. Then repeat as needed.
But the battlefield is real. And when I indulged resentment (I'll not use a Work term again) that was a failure in the spiritual world on the battlefield not only letting myself down but letting my King and fellow soldiers down. You can know this and feel it. You control your environment with your level of being. When you fall and are a delinquent soldier you let the army you are a part of down. It's serious. Little things seemingly, very serious depending on how far you have developed and how much responsibility you have been given.
The warfare is real. You do your part by being awake and loving your enemies, but in that conscious shock(s) real manner.
Here's the point: I am now not a rookie soldier on the battlefield. What I did was delinquent. I was being a delinquent soldier in Christ's army. As usual the world lets you know. I went out right after that and was met with unusual crude violence/behavior from people, not directly, but enough to let me know those forces are out and about and when I am delinquent they appear and get closer. A reminder.
I could only pray. I'm good at that when I have no other option. Ask forgiveness and ask for strength and ask for what only God can give, grace, his will, ask for God to give the most important things to the person you lashed back at. Then repeat as needed.
But the battlefield is real. And when I indulged resentment (I'll not use a Work term again) that was a failure in the spiritual world on the battlefield not only letting myself down but letting my King and fellow soldiers down. You can know this and feel it. You control your environment with your level of being. When you fall and are a delinquent soldier you let the army you are a part of down. It's serious. Little things seemingly, very serious depending on how far you have developed and how much responsibility you have been given.
The warfare is real. You do your part by being awake and loving your enemies, but in that conscious shock(s) real manner.
9.16.2009
Prayer in spiritual warfare situations
I was thinking recently of a scenario that seems untenable. A scenario where a person has power over you and is shamelessly unethical and 'out to get you.' Like if you were a new recruit in the army and you were the son of a famous political figure, and the sergeant (or whatever) over you hates that political figure, so the sergeant gets it into his mind to make the political figure look bad by having the son wash out of basic training.
So whatever the new recruit does, even if on a scale of 1 to 10 he does everything at a 12 but the sergeant writes it down as a '2' every time, so the recruit is thinking: "There's nothing I can do about this. It will sound like I'm whining if I complain, and this guy isn't going to be honest. It's an untenable situation."
What came to me is this: in this kind of situation there *is* something you can do. You can pray to God to defend you against the person.
I was in a similar situation when my parents were dying. I naturally turned to prayer as an act of spiritual warfare.
But it is a real realization (an "ah ha!" realization) when you remember that you have prayer as a recourse for such situations. And I think God answers the prayers robustly in such imminent spiritual warfare type scenarios. The recruit would still have to give 110 plus percent effort, but with the prayer that sergeant would no longer become an unbeatable force. He would probably be exposed.
But the main thought is the recourse to prayer we have and remembering it.
So whatever the new recruit does, even if on a scale of 1 to 10 he does everything at a 12 but the sergeant writes it down as a '2' every time, so the recruit is thinking: "There's nothing I can do about this. It will sound like I'm whining if I complain, and this guy isn't going to be honest. It's an untenable situation."
What came to me is this: in this kind of situation there *is* something you can do. You can pray to God to defend you against the person.
I was in a similar situation when my parents were dying. I naturally turned to prayer as an act of spiritual warfare.
But it is a real realization (an "ah ha!" realization) when you remember that you have prayer as a recourse for such situations. And I think God answers the prayers robustly in such imminent spiritual warfare type scenarios. The recruit would still have to give 110 plus percent effort, but with the prayer that sergeant would no longer become an unbeatable force. He would probably be exposed.
But the main thought is the recourse to prayer we have and remembering it.
9.04.2009
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body
The fact of cosmoses gives understanding of what occurs at intervals such as death or birth. A human being is a microcosmos, a complete cosmos. When the end happens (end of time, or physical death) you, as a cosmos, a microcosmos, will be just as you are now in terms of being a cosmos. The needs of a cosmos will be sought and met. You will find and settle into your new circumstances and state. You will stand. You won't be in chaos. You will assess the new conditions and you will settle into the mutual self-sufficiency of cosmoses within each other and in contra-distinction to each other.
Luke 21:19 In your patience possess ye your souls.
The above verse is from the chapter in Luke discussing what happens in the day of the Lord.
In other words, at such mysterious and seemingly catastrophic intervals such as death and birth you will still be a cosmos. You will have unity and boundary and completeness. A being. The general thought we have regarding the moment of death is some vague chaos or our being - who we are, what we are - turning into something as steady as smoke in a room. There may indeed be a sort of initial chaos (and each person's ability to 'stand' in that moment will be different due to difference in development of being), but it will be the kind of chaos that is filled with intentional action to discern surroundings, discern a problem, do what is necessary to achieve a settled situation.
Like when a car tire blows out. Chaos, yet all attention is immediately directed to the necessary step-by-step process of taking care of that particular problem, and achieving a normal, settled state.
We're not without a body when our flesh body dies. I can hear someone say reading what I've written above: "But when we die we are incomplete because we don't have our body, so we are in fact *not* a cosmos, or microcosmos, at that point until the resurrection of our flesh body."
We have a spiritual body.
1Co 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
That spiritual body may await glorification at the consummation of God's plan of redemption (the second coming, final judgment, and resurrection of the heavens and the earth), yet at physical death it is a spiritual body none-the-less.
So we are as complete at the death of the physical body, in terms of being a complete microcosm, as we are right now having a body of flesh along with a soul and spirit.
The notion that our flesh bodies themselves resurrect is asinine. Dust to dust. The example of Jesus is unique. He had to maintain a semblance of his flesh body to fulfill God's plan. To show that he did in fact resurrect. Yet notice he could walk through a wall and appear and disappear, doing things a physical flesh body can not do. He even kept his wounds again to show that he was in fact Jesus Christ who was crucified and came back to life on the third day. We don't have that burden on us. Our flesh bodies can turn back to the earth. Turn to dust. Our spiritual body represents our resurrection.
Rom 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
The above verse is spoken by a man *in* his flesh body. He's not referring to the redemption of his flesh body. He's not speaking of 'waiting' for the resurrection of his flesh body. At death he will have a body. A spiritual body. That spiritual body is what is also eventually glorified at the consummation of God's plan. (I.e. yes, it is important to know our bodies resurrect. That is the promised victory over death. But we have a physical body and we have a spiritual body. Our body is sown a physical body and raised a spiritual body. That is the promised resurrection. The promised resurrection *is not* our dead flesh bodies, their molecules or whatever, rising up out of the ground or the sea to reconstitute as a new flesh body for us. That is an asinine reading of Scripture. And where it is held it is held alongside a very juvenile notion that thinks and says: "Hey, flesh is cool! Sex is cool! Cigars and good beer is cool! Christians shouldn't be against such cool things!" Flesh withers as the grass, grasshopper. You can be cool in a spiritual body too, if you must, in whatever way your currently juvenile mind needs to feel cool.)
The hanging loose thread is this: "But don't reprobates have spiritual bodies too? They have to have *some* body to stand at the judgment! So the difference between reprobates and elect is reprobates don't get their old flesh bodies resurrected and the elect do!" No, the difference is: reprobates judged to hell don't get glorified, which is the true resurrection of the body. The spiritual body.
1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
* * * * * * *
...the language of cosmoses. It's a powerful language to see things we can't see without it. We gloss right over the fact that we are a microcosmos of the macrocosmos. The world and the devil and false personality has a motive in keeping us thinking we are incomplete in this sense. (Saying a microcosmos is complete is not the same as saying it has no need for an outside source of nourishment and medium to live in and life source itself.) But the world, the flesh, and the devil want us thinking we are not even a microcosmos and hence not complete on that level. I.e. not having boundaries, and unity, and will and so on. Just a fragmented consciousness living in a hall of mirrors enslaved to the illusions and temptations and fears of the devil's kingdom.
We imagine death and think we will dissolve in some way, even while thinking we won't go into nothingness, but just be some willowy, smoke-like thing at the mercy of whatever is on the other side, YET, we know we are a microcosm. We know we have a soul and a spirit and a body. The theologians even play the world's and the devil's game in saying you won't have a body, but the Bible says you have a spiritual body. You don't cease having a body when your flesh body dies. You have body, soul, and spirit now (hopefully the Spirit of Christ), and you will have body, soul, and spirit when your flesh body dies.
The baby cries when born because it - as a microcosmos - knows what it needs in its new situation. It really takes control. Jesus uses the analogy of father and child saying what father will give a child a stone when he asks for bread? Then he says, do you think your heavenly father doesn't know what you need and won't give it? (Of course we can insert examples of evil people who even abandon and kill their children, but God is not evil, and most humans don't treat their children that way either, so the analogy is not weak because of evil.)
When our flesh body dies our microcosmos, now a spiritual body, will know what it needs and will have power to take care of things.
This gives us something concrete to visualize and understand regarding the mystery of that interval called death. To realize it NOW.
Luke 21:19 In your patience possess ye your souls.
The above verse is from the chapter in Luke discussing what happens in the day of the Lord.
In other words, at such mysterious and seemingly catastrophic intervals such as death and birth you will still be a cosmos. You will have unity and boundary and completeness. A being. The general thought we have regarding the moment of death is some vague chaos or our being - who we are, what we are - turning into something as steady as smoke in a room. There may indeed be a sort of initial chaos (and each person's ability to 'stand' in that moment will be different due to difference in development of being), but it will be the kind of chaos that is filled with intentional action to discern surroundings, discern a problem, do what is necessary to achieve a settled situation.
Like when a car tire blows out. Chaos, yet all attention is immediately directed to the necessary step-by-step process of taking care of that particular problem, and achieving a normal, settled state.
We're not without a body when our flesh body dies. I can hear someone say reading what I've written above: "But when we die we are incomplete because we don't have our body, so we are in fact *not* a cosmos, or microcosmos, at that point until the resurrection of our flesh body."
We have a spiritual body.
1Co 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
That spiritual body may await glorification at the consummation of God's plan of redemption (the second coming, final judgment, and resurrection of the heavens and the earth), yet at physical death it is a spiritual body none-the-less.
So we are as complete at the death of the physical body, in terms of being a complete microcosm, as we are right now having a body of flesh along with a soul and spirit.
The notion that our flesh bodies themselves resurrect is asinine. Dust to dust. The example of Jesus is unique. He had to maintain a semblance of his flesh body to fulfill God's plan. To show that he did in fact resurrect. Yet notice he could walk through a wall and appear and disappear, doing things a physical flesh body can not do. He even kept his wounds again to show that he was in fact Jesus Christ who was crucified and came back to life on the third day. We don't have that burden on us. Our flesh bodies can turn back to the earth. Turn to dust. Our spiritual body represents our resurrection.
Rom 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
The above verse is spoken by a man *in* his flesh body. He's not referring to the redemption of his flesh body. He's not speaking of 'waiting' for the resurrection of his flesh body. At death he will have a body. A spiritual body. That spiritual body is what is also eventually glorified at the consummation of God's plan. (I.e. yes, it is important to know our bodies resurrect. That is the promised victory over death. But we have a physical body and we have a spiritual body. Our body is sown a physical body and raised a spiritual body. That is the promised resurrection. The promised resurrection *is not* our dead flesh bodies, their molecules or whatever, rising up out of the ground or the sea to reconstitute as a new flesh body for us. That is an asinine reading of Scripture. And where it is held it is held alongside a very juvenile notion that thinks and says: "Hey, flesh is cool! Sex is cool! Cigars and good beer is cool! Christians shouldn't be against such cool things!" Flesh withers as the grass, grasshopper. You can be cool in a spiritual body too, if you must, in whatever way your currently juvenile mind needs to feel cool.)
The hanging loose thread is this: "But don't reprobates have spiritual bodies too? They have to have *some* body to stand at the judgment! So the difference between reprobates and elect is reprobates don't get their old flesh bodies resurrected and the elect do!" No, the difference is: reprobates judged to hell don't get glorified, which is the true resurrection of the body. The spiritual body.
1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
* * * * * * *
...the language of cosmoses. It's a powerful language to see things we can't see without it. We gloss right over the fact that we are a microcosmos of the macrocosmos. The world and the devil and false personality has a motive in keeping us thinking we are incomplete in this sense. (Saying a microcosmos is complete is not the same as saying it has no need for an outside source of nourishment and medium to live in and life source itself.) But the world, the flesh, and the devil want us thinking we are not even a microcosmos and hence not complete on that level. I.e. not having boundaries, and unity, and will and so on. Just a fragmented consciousness living in a hall of mirrors enslaved to the illusions and temptations and fears of the devil's kingdom.
We imagine death and think we will dissolve in some way, even while thinking we won't go into nothingness, but just be some willowy, smoke-like thing at the mercy of whatever is on the other side, YET, we know we are a microcosm. We know we have a soul and a spirit and a body. The theologians even play the world's and the devil's game in saying you won't have a body, but the Bible says you have a spiritual body. You don't cease having a body when your flesh body dies. You have body, soul, and spirit now (hopefully the Spirit of Christ), and you will have body, soul, and spirit when your flesh body dies.
The baby cries when born because it - as a microcosmos - knows what it needs in its new situation. It really takes control. Jesus uses the analogy of father and child saying what father will give a child a stone when he asks for bread? Then he says, do you think your heavenly father doesn't know what you need and won't give it? (Of course we can insert examples of evil people who even abandon and kill their children, but God is not evil, and most humans don't treat their children that way either, so the analogy is not weak because of evil.)
When our flesh body dies our microcosmos, now a spiritual body, will know what it needs and will have power to take care of things.
This gives us something concrete to visualize and understand regarding the mystery of that interval called death. To realize it NOW.
9.02.2009
Desert ethic
6/13/08 - If we're in the desert currently (now, not yet; between Egypt and a not-yet place; in the world, not of the world; "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" not mindful of the country whence we came out, but seeking our heavenly country) what is our desert ethic?
Is our desert ethic:
1Th 5:16 Rejoice evermore.
1Th 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
1Th 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Yes.
- C.
ps- The grand attitude of the Kingdom of God: Real-will gratitude over self-will resentment.
Is our desert ethic:
1Th 5:16 Rejoice evermore.
1Th 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
1Th 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Yes.
- C.
ps- The grand attitude of the Kingdom of God: Real-will gratitude over self-will resentment.
8.29.2009
Death
Update: Here's the book by that scientist who researches the death experience:
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Dying-Peter-Fenwick/dp/0826499236/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251681887&sr=1-1
He's actually a real research scientist. This book seems to be for the general audience though.
He is associated with this website:
http://www.horizonresearch.org/
There are some PDFs of his more scientific articles...
* * *
I heard a radio program of a scientist who studies the dying process and experience. Much of what he said was what I saw with my dad.
I think most people who die are already sort of dead on the inside, so there doesn't seem to be much happening at the moment of death. Drugs can probably dull things too. My dad was not on drugs and not terminal or in pain, just his heart running down, so he was a good case to see some of the things this scientist was talking about.
People, relatives, coming for the person. The dying person beginning to naturally start to use 'journeying language' ("It's time for me to go now. I'm leaving now." etc.) In my dad's case he reverted to his pilot experience and his language in the last hours of his life were literally of a pilot about to take off. He was doing checks, talking to ground crew, tower, talking to his co-pilot, giving advice, all war-time context too. He was looking up, seeing things. Looking at me, saying, "See that?" He was also talking in a strange way to people in the room we couldn't see. Yet when I'd speak to him he'd 'come back' and speak to me in his normal voice.
One story the scientist related was a woman on her death bed speaking with her son. The woman believed that when you die you go into nothingness. The son believed in life after death. They discussed it, argued, etc. Then a point came where the women was going, and she turn to her son and said: "You're right."
Stories of attempted suicides who had such a powerful experience (good experience) with the near death afterworld that they tried to commit suicide again to experience it.
But back to the usual. That people seem to be sort of dead to it all mostly (not that I've observed a lot of people dying though).
I think it is a powerful thing to imagine your own death. Your ability to 'stand' in that moment. How your level of being will manifest in that scenario. Will you need relatives meeting you? Or are you beyond that. Angels? Are you going to be with God or are you going to recur again. But just imagining that feeling of presence in that moment. How much of it will you have. What have to developed truly in this life along the lines of level of being. It's a powerful motive to want to continue to develop consciousness, real will, and understanding.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Dying-Peter-Fenwick/dp/0826499236/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251681887&sr=1-1
He's actually a real research scientist. This book seems to be for the general audience though.
He is associated with this website:
http://www.horizonresearch.org/
There are some PDFs of his more scientific articles...
* * *
I heard a radio program of a scientist who studies the dying process and experience. Much of what he said was what I saw with my dad.
I think most people who die are already sort of dead on the inside, so there doesn't seem to be much happening at the moment of death. Drugs can probably dull things too. My dad was not on drugs and not terminal or in pain, just his heart running down, so he was a good case to see some of the things this scientist was talking about.
People, relatives, coming for the person. The dying person beginning to naturally start to use 'journeying language' ("It's time for me to go now. I'm leaving now." etc.) In my dad's case he reverted to his pilot experience and his language in the last hours of his life were literally of a pilot about to take off. He was doing checks, talking to ground crew, tower, talking to his co-pilot, giving advice, all war-time context too. He was looking up, seeing things. Looking at me, saying, "See that?" He was also talking in a strange way to people in the room we couldn't see. Yet when I'd speak to him he'd 'come back' and speak to me in his normal voice.
One story the scientist related was a woman on her death bed speaking with her son. The woman believed that when you die you go into nothingness. The son believed in life after death. They discussed it, argued, etc. Then a point came where the women was going, and she turn to her son and said: "You're right."
Stories of attempted suicides who had such a powerful experience (good experience) with the near death afterworld that they tried to commit suicide again to experience it.
But back to the usual. That people seem to be sort of dead to it all mostly (not that I've observed a lot of people dying though).
I think it is a powerful thing to imagine your own death. Your ability to 'stand' in that moment. How your level of being will manifest in that scenario. Will you need relatives meeting you? Or are you beyond that. Angels? Are you going to be with God or are you going to recur again. But just imagining that feeling of presence in that moment. How much of it will you have. What have to developed truly in this life along the lines of level of being. It's a powerful motive to want to continue to develop consciousness, real will, and understanding.
7.18.2009
Work effort and spiritual warfare (and the nature of eschatological Work experience)
> I can say that when I have undertaken
> real hardcore efforts I've done that without exception
> or consideration to my job. I can say also as a result I
> entered into a very peculiar realm of conflict which gave up
> great insights into why the 4th way is so powerful. Not to
> embrace it and take it wholly into every aspect of your life
> may be a missed opportunity. I can't go into detail on
> the events that took place during those intense periods but
> you can imagine that it was utterly shocking, unbelievable
> and absolutely (without doubt) beyond what you would ever
> expect to occur in the workplace and yet outrageous events
> that should never have occured manifested in the midst of
> routine work-a-day events - as if it were normal.
> Whilst I understand you are talking of containing your own
> explosive higher energy and the consequences of losing
> control I have found that the real dangers (of being at your
> job whilst making intense effort) come from the wild things
> that manifest thorough other people. I'm inclined to
> read this also towards something more than General
> Law, as if that were only a small manifestation within
> something far greater and more inimical. But these are words
> and worthless. What I got from that experience is this: the
> 4thway, some alleged shortcut, is way too direct and
> forceful for most of us to dare embrace let alone tolerate
> the unlimited abrasions, it's natural enough given that
> we are really very delicate things, hence why there are
> 4thwayers kicking around 30 years later - the real work is
> so abrupt, seemingly brutal and efficacious that it
> doesn't require all those years. Not that you would
> abandon the work but something should shift siesmically
> within otherwise you aren't there on the rockface. That
> is the raison d'etre for the host of the G groupies.
> They don't do. It's also why you need a relationship
> with Jesus Christ if you do - why you need to understand the
> need for contact - without it, it's a contemptuous and
> violent city full of mauraders that want to fuck you up the
> ass and push you in the dirt.
This is an epic take on this whole subject. It gets directly to what we have been touching on lightly here and there but not getting to the center of.
Earlier you'd said that you had never really experienced some of the General Law stuff myself and others have talked of, but it seems you've been making a distinction we weren't. Whether you call it General Law or not, though, (I do, it just becomes a more active force) what you describe is *the* experience.
What I see as epic in your take on it is a really forceful description of just how weird and direct and crazy it can be. (You actually used better language to describe it.)
I've been sort of on to this lately when I've stated that the Work doesn't prepare us for the *spiritual warfare* aspect of what we go up against.
You say we don't want to abandon Work efforts because of it, yet what we experience seems to suggest that the push-back eventually (and rather quickly) can go to martyrdom of any number of types. We must cut your head off for Allah.
Perhaps the metaphor of the grail knight might give perspective. When the grail knight is alone in the trackless forest being drawn and navigating with higher emotion, awake, then suddenly is set on by a number of knights who are trying to kill him, then in the midst of that melee it could very well seem like ultimate *terminal point* experience for the whole process, but we know that if he stays on his horse (so to speak) and battles through the episode then he moves on, usually now in a bit of a higher world.
Also, we maybe don't *have* to be Stephen, being stoned to death as we see higher visions. I mean, we *can* too have protection. But maybe it's the out-of-control element of the forces around us, potentially so, that makes it seem like stoning to death is inevitable if we go down that road far enough.
I've experienced it directly. I've experienced humans speaking to me like devils. I experienced them do irrational and criminal things to hurt me. A lot of false witness. More than one episode of that. Several over the years.
This is a subject of what to expect on the battlefield. And what one needs when on the battlefield and no longer an innocent participant.
I'll read your email again later and try to write something more. - C.
--- On Sat, 7/18/09, <> wrote:
> From: quickeningspirit <>
> Subject: Re: Haven't done this for a while...
> To: "W" <>
> Cc: "c. t." <>, "" <>,
> Date: Saturday, July 18, 2009, 6:50 AM
> I can say that when I have undertaken
> real hardcore efforts I've done that without exception
> or consideration to my job. I can say also as a result I
> entered into a very peculiar realm of conflict which gave up
> great insights into why the 4th way is so powerful. Not to
> embrace it and take it wholly into every aspect of your life
> may be a missed opportunity. I can't go into detail on
> the events that took place during those intense periods but
> you can imagine that it was utterly shocking, unbelievable
> and absolutely (without doubt) beyond what you would ever
> expect to occur in the workplace and yet outrageous events
> that should never have occured manifested in the midst of
> routine work-a-day events - as if it were normal.
> Whilst I understand you are talking of containing your own
> explosive higher energy and the consequences of losing
> control I have found that the real dangers (of being at your
> job whilst making intense effort) come from the wild things
> that manifest thorough other people. I'm inclined to
> read this also towards something more than General
> Law, as if that were only a small manifestation within
> something far greater and more inimical. But these are words
> and worthless. What I got from that experience is this: the
> 4thway, some alleged shortcut, is way too direct and
> forceful for most of us to dare embrace let alone tolerate
> the unlimited abrasions, it's natural enough given that
> we are really very delicate things, hence why there are
> 4thwayers kicking around 30 years later - the real work is
> so abrupt, seemingly brutal and efficacious that it
> doesn't require all those years. Not that you would
> abandon the work but something should shift siesmically
> within otherwise you aren't there on the rockface. That
> is the raison d'etre for the host of the G groupies.
> They don't do. It's also why you need a relationship
> with Jesus Christ if you do - why you need to understand the
> need for contact - without it, it's a contemptuous and
> violent city full of mauraders that want to fuck you up the
> ass and push you in the dirt.
>
>
> 2009/7/17 W <>
>
>
>
> > This is why, though, I've always wondered about
> doing Work
>
> > efforts when you have to perform at a job. The people
> involved with
>
> > G. and O. didn't seem to have jobs. And I know the
> Work is unique in
>
> > that you do it in the traffic of your everyday life,
> but still. If
>
> > you'd been full of explosive higher energy and at
> your limit at that
>
> > moment...
>
>
>
> I think there is something to that for sure.
> Personally I don't do
>
> hard core SR efforts at work but things are going to arise
> where you
>
> will be tested and you have to Work as you see fit wherever
> you are.
>
> The results of any hard core Work effort will carry over
> into the work
>
> days though so its unavoidable that one is going to have to
> make Work
>
> efforts of some kind whilst at work. The hard core efforts
> have that backlash and
>
> you cant know when that is going to surface and then one
> becomes much
>
> more emotional in general. I think the on-the-mark approach
> might be
>
> to not plan any Work efforts at a place of work and leave
> it at that.
>
>
>
> W.
>
>
>
>
>
>
* * * * * * * *
OK, I've read your email (below) again and saw the part I was going to come back to:
> What I got from that experience is this: the
> 4thway, some alleged shortcut, is way too direct and
> forceful for most of us to dare embrace let alone tolerate
> the unlimited abrasions, it's natural enough given that
> we are really very delicate things, hence why there are
> 4thwayers kicking around 30 years later - the real work is
> so abrupt, seemingly brutal and efficacious that it
> doesn't require all those years. Not that you would
> abandon the work but something should shift siesmically
> within otherwise you aren't there on the rockface. That
> is the raison d'etre for the host of the G groupies.
> They don't do.
Remember how I use to describe my own Work history as episodes of fast work where *much* would get done? And how just even *one* intense event of seeing something in real time (like my library experience with seeing internal-considering in real time) seemed to stand out for years. Or, how if I just once truly engaged in self-remembering deeply for like five or six hours and entered strange realms how I'd remember that. Or, how seeming everyday type effort (though with zeal) like in spontaneously writing down all the 'roles' I play in an average day, week, month, years, life, and how that list turns out to be definitive and complete and a big moment in my development.
That last example is good. How the Work happens, how development happens, in those few zealous efforts and in the events that are seismic (we can see after-the-fact).
I don't want to discount or not mention the fact that I did a lot of everyday self-remembering effort in the midst of that.
But when (I'm thinking as I'm writing) I maybe got gun shy of the 'troubles' and discomfort the big events get involved in that I didn't get what one should get from the more mundane effort. I was doing the mundane effort and avoiding the battles. Sort of. Except when life events themselves provided unavoidable material.
But what you write (taking into consideration as you do that we don't want to justify laziness or avoidance of discomfort) is something that hangs over all this Work history and phenomena. (Thinking aloud again) I suspect maybe it has to do with time. Higher aspects of time. We experience something in that eschatological NOW in those seismic Work events and moments and it stands out in our linear 4th dimensional memory and how we perceive our life history and the flow of time once we do go back into the usual perception of things.
Connected to this subject is that G. quote I found awhile back where he said once you become aware that you are asleep you are awake to a basic degree already (I can't remember the exact wording).
And there again: my initial moment I remember to this day of reading Ouspensky's POMPE for the first time, in a bookstore, connecting with it completely (ready for it) driving to a store somewhere, parked in the back of the parking lot, foggy, rainy early afternoon, looking out over the black top of the parking lot through the windshield of my car, holding the Ouspensky book as I read it more, then looking up through the window and saying, knowing what this means: I am here. (That may read kitschy, but you know what I mean.)
That is one of those seismic moments that shifts ground and changes things.
The feeling of malaise in regards to Work efforts (too mechanical, all that) is a line of effort with no intervals being forced, I suppose. Do re mi...do re mi...do re mi...
But you also add the part about the G. Foundation types who are around 30 years doing the same thing. Because they aren't really doing the Work. I agree, of course. How that relates to a true effort with the Work though is what I am contemplating (as I write this now)... I suppose what comes to mind is the truly new direction of coming into real faith. That's a continual shock on the Old Man within. G. Foundation types aren't usually known for that. As a group anyway.
Worldly things have happened too, but if I mention them it sounds shallow, but strange things. Things I wouldn't have expected to ever be involved in.
But like you say, it *is* difficult to be in an environment where we are being attacked with strange intensity and bizarreness. Though the Grail knight metaphor I mentioned again in the last email may mitigate that a bit. I.e. they are 'storms', and storms don't last forever. We have to weather them, and then we are in a higher world. (Even if we die.) - C.
* * * * * * * *
One thing we have to recognize is the fact that when we first became involved with Work ideas, practices, and goals we had certain defined limits to our being.
Then with effort limits gets extended.
Limits have to be provoked as well to potentially then be extended.
So degree of being is real.
I've written that when I first started doing self-remembering efforts I could become quite an interesting sight in my surroundings. You get through those stages, but limits are real.
After limits reach a certain degree of extension, you rest and look around. Kind of what a climber does on a summit. Maybe show some renewed interest in where you use to be. But generally you're . . . actually there is only going back down, or going beyond summit. And beyond summit is Real Will which occurs in a less visual (climbing) way. - C.
* * * * * * * *
> The climbing analogy poses something
> interesting viz being at the summit, you can only descend
> but being down on the plain after the summit is different in
> that you can always ascend another mountain and you have new
> skills so the climb is always different and one is always
> learning new things and engaging with different facets of
> the rock face and hence of ones own inner being. Interesting
> analogy.
That's a good extension of the metaphor. I was actually struggling to find more than the negative 'go back downwards' and the difficult 'go beyond summit' alternatives. One can probably be beyond summit back down on the plain too.
The original mountain climbing metaphor for the 2nd conscious shock was you climb to the summit then back down, but the average altitude of the plain rises each time. - C.
> real hardcore efforts I've done that without exception
> or consideration to my job. I can say also as a result I
> entered into a very peculiar realm of conflict which gave up
> great insights into why the 4th way is so powerful. Not to
> embrace it and take it wholly into every aspect of your life
> may be a missed opportunity. I can't go into detail on
> the events that took place during those intense periods but
> you can imagine that it was utterly shocking, unbelievable
> and absolutely (without doubt) beyond what you would ever
> expect to occur in the workplace and yet outrageous events
> that should never have occured manifested in the midst of
> routine work-a-day events - as if it were normal.
> Whilst I understand you are talking of containing your own
> explosive higher energy and the consequences of losing
> control I have found that the real dangers (of being at your
> job whilst making intense effort) come from the wild things
> that manifest thorough other people. I'm inclined to
> read this also towards something more than General
> Law, as if that were only a small manifestation within
> something far greater and more inimical. But these are words
> and worthless. What I got from that experience is this: the
> 4thway, some alleged shortcut, is way too direct and
> forceful for most of us to dare embrace let alone tolerate
> the unlimited abrasions, it's natural enough given that
> we are really very delicate things, hence why there are
> 4thwayers kicking around 30 years later - the real work is
> so abrupt, seemingly brutal and efficacious that it
> doesn't require all those years. Not that you would
> abandon the work but something should shift siesmically
> within otherwise you aren't there on the rockface. That
> is the raison d'etre for the host of the G groupies.
> They don't do. It's also why you need a relationship
> with Jesus Christ if you do - why you need to understand the
> need for contact - without it, it's a contemptuous and
> violent city full of mauraders that want to fuck you up the
> ass and push you in the dirt.
This is an epic take on this whole subject. It gets directly to what we have been touching on lightly here and there but not getting to the center of.
Earlier you'd said that you had never really experienced some of the General Law stuff myself and others have talked of, but it seems you've been making a distinction we weren't. Whether you call it General Law or not, though, (I do, it just becomes a more active force) what you describe is *the* experience.
What I see as epic in your take on it is a really forceful description of just how weird and direct and crazy it can be. (You actually used better language to describe it.)
I've been sort of on to this lately when I've stated that the Work doesn't prepare us for the *spiritual warfare* aspect of what we go up against.
You say we don't want to abandon Work efforts because of it, yet what we experience seems to suggest that the push-back eventually (and rather quickly) can go to martyrdom of any number of types. We must cut your head off for Allah.
Perhaps the metaphor of the grail knight might give perspective. When the grail knight is alone in the trackless forest being drawn and navigating with higher emotion, awake, then suddenly is set on by a number of knights who are trying to kill him, then in the midst of that melee it could very well seem like ultimate *terminal point* experience for the whole process, but we know that if he stays on his horse (so to speak) and battles through the episode then he moves on, usually now in a bit of a higher world.
Also, we maybe don't *have* to be Stephen, being stoned to death as we see higher visions. I mean, we *can* too have protection. But maybe it's the out-of-control element of the forces around us, potentially so, that makes it seem like stoning to death is inevitable if we go down that road far enough.
I've experienced it directly. I've experienced humans speaking to me like devils. I experienced them do irrational and criminal things to hurt me. A lot of false witness. More than one episode of that. Several over the years.
This is a subject of what to expect on the battlefield. And what one needs when on the battlefield and no longer an innocent participant.
I'll read your email again later and try to write something more. - C.
--- On Sat, 7/18/09, <> wrote:
> From: quickeningspirit <>
> Subject: Re: Haven't done this for a while...
> To: "W" <>
> Cc: "c. t." <>, "" <>,
> Date: Saturday, July 18, 2009, 6:50 AM
> I can say that when I have undertaken
> real hardcore efforts I've done that without exception
> or consideration to my job. I can say also as a result I
> entered into a very peculiar realm of conflict which gave up
> great insights into why the 4th way is so powerful. Not to
> embrace it and take it wholly into every aspect of your life
> may be a missed opportunity. I can't go into detail on
> the events that took place during those intense periods but
> you can imagine that it was utterly shocking, unbelievable
> and absolutely (without doubt) beyond what you would ever
> expect to occur in the workplace and yet outrageous events
> that should never have occured manifested in the midst of
> routine work-a-day events - as if it were normal.
> Whilst I understand you are talking of containing your own
> explosive higher energy and the consequences of losing
> control I have found that the real dangers (of being at your
> job whilst making intense effort) come from the wild things
> that manifest thorough other people. I'm inclined to
> read this also towards something more than General
> Law, as if that were only a small manifestation within
> something far greater and more inimical. But these are words
> and worthless. What I got from that experience is this: the
> 4thway, some alleged shortcut, is way too direct and
> forceful for most of us to dare embrace let alone tolerate
> the unlimited abrasions, it's natural enough given that
> we are really very delicate things, hence why there are
> 4thwayers kicking around 30 years later - the real work is
> so abrupt, seemingly brutal and efficacious that it
> doesn't require all those years. Not that you would
> abandon the work but something should shift siesmically
> within otherwise you aren't there on the rockface. That
> is the raison d'etre for the host of the G groupies.
> They don't do. It's also why you need a relationship
> with Jesus Christ if you do - why you need to understand the
> need for contact - without it, it's a contemptuous and
> violent city full of mauraders that want to fuck you up the
> ass and push you in the dirt.
>
>
> 2009/7/17 W <>
>
>
>
> > This is why, though, I've always wondered about
> doing Work
>
> > efforts when you have to perform at a job. The people
> involved with
>
> > G. and O. didn't seem to have jobs. And I know the
> Work is unique in
>
> > that you do it in the traffic of your everyday life,
> but still. If
>
> > you'd been full of explosive higher energy and at
> your limit at that
>
> > moment...
>
>
>
> I think there is something to that for sure.
> Personally I don't do
>
> hard core SR efforts at work but things are going to arise
> where you
>
> will be tested and you have to Work as you see fit wherever
> you are.
>
> The results of any hard core Work effort will carry over
> into the work
>
> days though so its unavoidable that one is going to have to
> make Work
>
> efforts of some kind whilst at work. The hard core efforts
> have that backlash and
>
> you cant know when that is going to surface and then one
> becomes much
>
> more emotional in general. I think the on-the-mark approach
> might be
>
> to not plan any Work efforts at a place of work and leave
> it at that.
>
>
>
> W.
>
>
>
>
>
>
* * * * * * * *
OK, I've read your email (below) again and saw the part I was going to come back to:
> What I got from that experience is this: the
> 4thway, some alleged shortcut, is way too direct and
> forceful for most of us to dare embrace let alone tolerate
> the unlimited abrasions, it's natural enough given that
> we are really very delicate things, hence why there are
> 4thwayers kicking around 30 years later - the real work is
> so abrupt, seemingly brutal and efficacious that it
> doesn't require all those years. Not that you would
> abandon the work but something should shift siesmically
> within otherwise you aren't there on the rockface. That
> is the raison d'etre for the host of the G groupies.
> They don't do.
Remember how I use to describe my own Work history as episodes of fast work where *much* would get done? And how just even *one* intense event of seeing something in real time (like my library experience with seeing internal-considering in real time) seemed to stand out for years. Or, how if I just once truly engaged in self-remembering deeply for like five or six hours and entered strange realms how I'd remember that. Or, how seeming everyday type effort (though with zeal) like in spontaneously writing down all the 'roles' I play in an average day, week, month, years, life, and how that list turns out to be definitive and complete and a big moment in my development.
That last example is good. How the Work happens, how development happens, in those few zealous efforts and in the events that are seismic (we can see after-the-fact).
I don't want to discount or not mention the fact that I did a lot of everyday self-remembering effort in the midst of that.
But when (I'm thinking as I'm writing) I maybe got gun shy of the 'troubles' and discomfort the big events get involved in that I didn't get what one should get from the more mundane effort. I was doing the mundane effort and avoiding the battles. Sort of. Except when life events themselves provided unavoidable material.
But what you write (taking into consideration as you do that we don't want to justify laziness or avoidance of discomfort) is something that hangs over all this Work history and phenomena. (Thinking aloud again) I suspect maybe it has to do with time. Higher aspects of time. We experience something in that eschatological NOW in those seismic Work events and moments and it stands out in our linear 4th dimensional memory and how we perceive our life history and the flow of time once we do go back into the usual perception of things.
Connected to this subject is that G. quote I found awhile back where he said once you become aware that you are asleep you are awake to a basic degree already (I can't remember the exact wording).
And there again: my initial moment I remember to this day of reading Ouspensky's POMPE for the first time, in a bookstore, connecting with it completely (ready for it) driving to a store somewhere, parked in the back of the parking lot, foggy, rainy early afternoon, looking out over the black top of the parking lot through the windshield of my car, holding the Ouspensky book as I read it more, then looking up through the window and saying, knowing what this means: I am here. (That may read kitschy, but you know what I mean.)
That is one of those seismic moments that shifts ground and changes things.
The feeling of malaise in regards to Work efforts (too mechanical, all that) is a line of effort with no intervals being forced, I suppose. Do re mi...do re mi...do re mi...
But you also add the part about the G. Foundation types who are around 30 years doing the same thing. Because they aren't really doing the Work. I agree, of course. How that relates to a true effort with the Work though is what I am contemplating (as I write this now)... I suppose what comes to mind is the truly new direction of coming into real faith. That's a continual shock on the Old Man within. G. Foundation types aren't usually known for that. As a group anyway.
Worldly things have happened too, but if I mention them it sounds shallow, but strange things. Things I wouldn't have expected to ever be involved in.
But like you say, it *is* difficult to be in an environment where we are being attacked with strange intensity and bizarreness. Though the Grail knight metaphor I mentioned again in the last email may mitigate that a bit. I.e. they are 'storms', and storms don't last forever. We have to weather them, and then we are in a higher world. (Even if we die.) - C.
* * * * * * * *
One thing we have to recognize is the fact that when we first became involved with Work ideas, practices, and goals we had certain defined limits to our being.
Then with effort limits gets extended.
Limits have to be provoked as well to potentially then be extended.
So degree of being is real.
I've written that when I first started doing self-remembering efforts I could become quite an interesting sight in my surroundings. You get through those stages, but limits are real.
After limits reach a certain degree of extension, you rest and look around. Kind of what a climber does on a summit. Maybe show some renewed interest in where you use to be. But generally you're . . . actually there is only going back down, or going beyond summit. And beyond summit is Real Will which occurs in a less visual (climbing) way. - C.
* * * * * * * *
> The climbing analogy poses something
> interesting viz being at the summit, you can only descend
> but being down on the plain after the summit is different in
> that you can always ascend another mountain and you have new
> skills so the climb is always different and one is always
> learning new things and engaging with different facets of
> the rock face and hence of ones own inner being. Interesting
> analogy.
That's a good extension of the metaphor. I was actually struggling to find more than the negative 'go back downwards' and the difficult 'go beyond summit' alternatives. One can probably be beyond summit back down on the plain too.
The original mountain climbing metaphor for the 2nd conscious shock was you climb to the summit then back down, but the average altitude of the plain rises each time. - C.
6.22.2009
Two items on Bible reading
1. Lately when I've taken up Homer to finish yet another reading of the Iliad and Odyssey I have had Penelope speaking to me to read the Bible. (This is not a remark on Homer by Penelope; Penelope is just saying you have that language, now read what is real and living and true.) And I have to add this for certain types of Christians: no, Penelope isn't *actually* speaking to me. Penelope, though, in the visual language of the Homeric epics, represents something in ourselves that is of a higher elevation and nature than what we normally deal with and use...
2. Remember that prayer for understanding is something we can do before reading the Bible, and I have found it often noticeably effective (not that we need to or even can see the effect in real time). In fact, it seems to me that though it often seems strange to pray to the Person of the Holy Spirit, and it is rare for Christians to do it, to pray to the Holy Spirit for understanding of the Word of God seems very natural and right.
2. Remember that prayer for understanding is something we can do before reading the Bible, and I have found it often noticeably effective (not that we need to or even can see the effect in real time). In fact, it seems to me that though it often seems strange to pray to the Person of the Holy Spirit, and it is rare for Christians to do it, to pray to the Holy Spirit for understanding of the Word of God seems very natural and right.
6.21.2009
Some thoughts on getting understanding of sex
You know I'm always thinking about education and getting understanding and I think about how one would do that in different eras, and it occurred to me that the difficult area of getting understanding of sex is interesting to think about regarding rural areas and past rural times. If you think about it, children saw animals, farm animals, copulate (or whatever the correct word is for animals) and that event alone would pretty much give a young person all they need to know about sex. They'd see the mechanics of it, and they'd also see the animal nature of it and hence put it in context. It would make them modest (that's what the animals do, and I'm a human, but, hey, I have those body parts, but still, it's no big deal, it's what animals do) but not weakly modest because it would be modesty based on understanding of it. Also, you could see how it would give the mother or father the opportunity to naturally instill adult wisdom on the subject to children. Also, the children would see animals giving birth. They'd see the whole process. Everything. So the innocence with which youths in rural areas and on farms and such are always portrayed is not really true. They have understanding of that big area of life and they got it in a natural way. Yes, they are not the same as kids in the city who have to furtively get glimpses of the nether side of life, however they can do that, visual pornography, prostitutes, written word. You can see though which youths are in the better situation for having a mature understanding. And a real understanding.
6.16.2009
I will share a second conscious shock insight
It came to me that when you say 'transforming negative emotion' you are talking directly about the General Law and Law of Exception in this way:
The Ray of Creation flows in both directions, away from the Absolute, and back towards the Absolute. The General Law maintains things to be in the control of the flow away from the Absolute. The Law of Exception allows a flow against that current back towards the Absolute.
Like swimming up river.
Now connect that with this: the 2nd conscious shock allows vertical movement in the 6th dimension of time (just as the 1st conscious shock is movement towards the center in the 5th dimension of time). Picture that time diagram I drew a long time ago. So when you transform negative emotion in the 2nd conscious shock way you are doing it *in the face* of the General Law (which is usually provoking the phenomenon/event itself) and moving 'up', but also moving 'up stream' in the Ray of Creation.
None of this is new, I know, but I'm trying to get at the new connection...
With the above in mind you can now see clearly that each confrontation with the General Law is your ticket - if you allow your personality to die and not become resentful and identified and so on - to take a step up that Great Highway of the Ray of Creation.
It's really just a matter of 'seeing' those General Law confrontations in a new light. *They* are where it all happens regarding vertical movement and vertical development of being.
And things get supernatural. People get bizarre around us. We expect it because we are like Jesus even in their midst. They want to kill us.
But if we're continually stuck in the mode of crying "Injustice!" when we are bizarrely treated we are just inane. We have to see that we are different. As different as Jesus, whose experience we experience.
This verse gets at it:
Rom 8:36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Then, if we meet it as spiritual warriors and wayfarers:
Rom 8:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
The Ray of Creation flows in both directions, away from the Absolute, and back towards the Absolute. The General Law maintains things to be in the control of the flow away from the Absolute. The Law of Exception allows a flow against that current back towards the Absolute.
Like swimming up river.
Now connect that with this: the 2nd conscious shock allows vertical movement in the 6th dimension of time (just as the 1st conscious shock is movement towards the center in the 5th dimension of time). Picture that time diagram I drew a long time ago. So when you transform negative emotion in the 2nd conscious shock way you are doing it *in the face* of the General Law (which is usually provoking the phenomenon/event itself) and moving 'up', but also moving 'up stream' in the Ray of Creation.
None of this is new, I know, but I'm trying to get at the new connection...
With the above in mind you can now see clearly that each confrontation with the General Law is your ticket - if you allow your personality to die and not become resentful and identified and so on - to take a step up that Great Highway of the Ray of Creation.
It's really just a matter of 'seeing' those General Law confrontations in a new light. *They* are where it all happens regarding vertical movement and vertical development of being.
And things get supernatural. People get bizarre around us. We expect it because we are like Jesus even in their midst. They want to kill us.
But if we're continually stuck in the mode of crying "Injustice!" when we are bizarrely treated we are just inane. We have to see that we are different. As different as Jesus, whose experience we experience.
This verse gets at it:
Rom 8:36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Then, if we meet it as spiritual warriors and wayfarers:
Rom 8:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
6.14.2009
7th reading of the Bible
When I have to resort to Henry James to find something - anything! - to read in the category of novels I think I may be at the end of a cycle.
I'm continually intrigued about how to go about a final 7th reading of the Bible (after I finish my 6th). I mean, how to *really* get it cut deeply into memory, will, and understanding (more so than it already is, I should say, hopefully). Since there is nothing new under the sun I suppose I can research it.
I suspect though that 'speed' is a necessary factor. Speed of perception that is. Simple higher emotional center activity. Faster centers. And a clean, copious notebook.
One new thing with the Bible is to 'see' higher contexts. Like seeing the realm of death in the 12 Dancing Princesses (and you see the higher context of the realm of death in Psalm 18 as well). That type of higher context. That makes you see the language anew. And more deeply. Even if you don't understand immediately what you see, it will be there for when things appear before you and give you opportunity to see the new meaning.
I'm continually intrigued about how to go about a final 7th reading of the Bible (after I finish my 6th). I mean, how to *really* get it cut deeply into memory, will, and understanding (more so than it already is, I should say, hopefully). Since there is nothing new under the sun I suppose I can research it.
I suspect though that 'speed' is a necessary factor. Speed of perception that is. Simple higher emotional center activity. Faster centers. And a clean, copious notebook.
One new thing with the Bible is to 'see' higher contexts. Like seeing the realm of death in the 12 Dancing Princesses (and you see the higher context of the realm of death in Psalm 18 as well). That type of higher context. That makes you see the language anew. And more deeply. Even if you don't understand immediately what you see, it will be there for when things appear before you and give you opportunity to see the new meaning.
6.11.2009
General Law and Law of Exception
I'm not going to become anemic.
A while ago (years? months? I don't remember) I stated that in all my presentation of the Work I probably should have made spiritual warfare a more prominent, foundational element in the presentation.
The Work idea for this is: General Law and Law of Exception.
Obviously I wrote about the General Law (less on the Law of Exception), but my main focus from the beginning was for 'beginners' after all. Hence my main focus on B influences and describing what self-remembering actually is, and so on. (Actually not just beginners, but the necessity of clearing the ground that the false and dumb teachers had set.)
Another thing, lately, is my need to get a 'seamless' robe constituting the Bible and the Work. Spiritual warfare is this.
I was shocked a bit recently in coming across a site where a person (not a Work person, or a Christian) was describing the General Law very accurately (with understanding that comes from experience). Describing it from an angle of being harassed in general by gangs or whatever. This person had found Ouspensky's and Mouravieff's writings on the General Law and then wrote about it rather impressively (I also suspect they came across my various writings through general searches because I see my language being used). I was shocked because this is the element of the Work I myself had let slip from my approach or my general awareness when thinking in Work terms. All that happened to me recently regarding my family was just pure General Law manifestation, just rather hardcore levels of it.
Read the first four posts listed on this page at this person's site, you'll be impressed (and perhaps inspired to re-hit the ground running):
http://gangstalkingjournal.com/blog/
The Law of Exception embodies things I've also been touching on that are foundational, but that have hung around the periphery. The necessity of accepting you are doing something unusual and rare. That you are a prophet, a priest, and king and what that means. Avoiding the vanity and pride while not avoiding the reality that you are not common. Etc. - C.
A while ago (years? months? I don't remember) I stated that in all my presentation of the Work I probably should have made spiritual warfare a more prominent, foundational element in the presentation.
The Work idea for this is: General Law and Law of Exception.
Obviously I wrote about the General Law (less on the Law of Exception), but my main focus from the beginning was for 'beginners' after all. Hence my main focus on B influences and describing what self-remembering actually is, and so on. (Actually not just beginners, but the necessity of clearing the ground that the false and dumb teachers had set.)
Another thing, lately, is my need to get a 'seamless' robe constituting the Bible and the Work. Spiritual warfare is this.
I was shocked a bit recently in coming across a site where a person (not a Work person, or a Christian) was describing the General Law very accurately (with understanding that comes from experience). Describing it from an angle of being harassed in general by gangs or whatever. This person had found Ouspensky's and Mouravieff's writings on the General Law and then wrote about it rather impressively (I also suspect they came across my various writings through general searches because I see my language being used). I was shocked because this is the element of the Work I myself had let slip from my approach or my general awareness when thinking in Work terms. All that happened to me recently regarding my family was just pure General Law manifestation, just rather hardcore levels of it.
Read the first four posts listed on this page at this person's site, you'll be impressed (and perhaps inspired to re-hit the ground running):
http://gangstalkingjournal.com/blog/
The Law of Exception embodies things I've also been touching on that are foundational, but that have hung around the periphery. The necessity of accepting you are doing something unusual and rare. That you are a prophet, a priest, and king and what that means. Avoiding the vanity and pride while not avoiding the reality that you are not common. Etc. - C.
5.31.2009
To make us search His Word
"The principal subjects treated in the Scriptures are presented to us more or less piecemeal, being scattered over its pages and made known under various aspects, some clearly and fully, others more remotely and tersely: in different connections and with different accompaniments in the several passages where they occur. This was designed by God in His manifold wisdom to make us search His Word. It is evident that if we are to apprehend His fully made known mind on any particular subject we must collect and collate all passages in which it is adverted to, or in which a similar thought or sentiment is expressed; and by this method we may be assured that if we conduct our investigation in a right spirit, and with diligence and perseverance, we shall arrive at a clear knowledge of His revealed will. The Bible is somewhat like a mosaic, whose fragments are scattered here and there through the Word, and those fragments have to be gathered by us and carefully fitted together if we are to obtain the complete picture of any one of its innumerable objects. There are many places in the Scriptures which can be understood only by the explanations and amplifications furnished by other passages." - A. W. Pink
Don't know why I didn't think of this before
I've thought of a new element to my 3x5 card self-remembering technique. After you check off 4 straight boxes (meaning an hour of self-remembering) then rate that hour effort with a numbering system like 1 to 10. Or, I was thinking maybe to keep yourself from getting to clever just a numbering system of 1 to 3.
1 = not a good effort really at all. I didn't make an effort for continual self-remembering. I may have been awake enough to 'x' a box out at each 15-minute interval, but that was about it.
2 = average effort. Not good enough, but not in the total slacker '1' realm.
3 = totally diligent, high, continual valuation effort. I was taking nothing more importantly than staying awake in the moment. No daydreaming took over. I didn't considering other thoughts or matters to be more important.
So at the end of a row of four boxes I leave a number rating that hour's effort. 3's will be rare, unless I get tired of seeing worthless 1's and 2's.
This is necessary to stop the natural downgrade on effort over time.
Remember, the third state of consciousness is to the second state what running is to walking. It takes effort. Then the goal is to make the third state your 'average' state.
1 = not a good effort really at all. I didn't make an effort for continual self-remembering. I may have been awake enough to 'x' a box out at each 15-minute interval, but that was about it.
2 = average effort. Not good enough, but not in the total slacker '1' realm.
3 = totally diligent, high, continual valuation effort. I was taking nothing more importantly than staying awake in the moment. No daydreaming took over. I didn't considering other thoughts or matters to be more important.
So at the end of a row of four boxes I leave a number rating that hour's effort. 3's will be rare, unless I get tired of seeing worthless 1's and 2's.
This is necessary to stop the natural downgrade on effort over time.
Remember, the third state of consciousness is to the second state what running is to walking. It takes effort. Then the goal is to make the third state your 'average' state.
5.27.2009
A small little exercise (an email)
I've grappled over the years with how to get a real and deep understanding of the Bible *from the Bible*, but obviously also representing classical Covenant - Federal - Theology because we're not smarter than the oceanic mass of Christian theologians who have gone before. But I mean, really getting the 'whole' and the parts in relation to the whole in a complete way. I've pondered making notes on each chapter. I've used reference outlines. Etc. The Bible really doesn't respond to such tactics.
Now I'm think of this might be the approach: to actually write a narrative. A book. Your own book. Not to be published.
You could make a character to be central to it. A young man, like a young knight, who is learning about himself and the grand structure of the Plan of God he is in.
As he is put through a standard journey he develops being and his understanding develops and sees more and more and ultimately sees the whole and the parts in relation to the whole.
This:
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/covenant.html
and this:
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/whycovenant.html
are what it's about, but to see it all and from the Bible, like this:
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/covredemp.html
and to be able to narrate it and truly understand it is what the act of writing the book would bring about. (Those articles from here: http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/FAQs.html)
Like a fantasy novel, but it's all biblical.
OK, get started you all. Just a small little exercise... - C.
Now I'm think of this might be the approach: to actually write a narrative. A book. Your own book. Not to be published.
You could make a character to be central to it. A young man, like a young knight, who is learning about himself and the grand structure of the Plan of God he is in.
As he is put through a standard journey he develops being and his understanding develops and sees more and more and ultimately sees the whole and the parts in relation to the whole.
This:
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/covenant.html
and this:
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/whycovenant.html
are what it's about, but to see it all and from the Bible, like this:
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/covredemp.html
and to be able to narrate it and truly understand it is what the act of writing the book would bring about. (Those articles from here: http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/FAQs.html)
Like a fantasy novel, but it's all biblical.
OK, get started you all. Just a small little exercise... - C.
The main thing (an email)
Other than all the biblical doctrine, the Federal Theology that a person just has to pick up and understand over time, the main thing written lately is really truly seeing how the two conscious shocks are how you practical do the faith. How you practical are 'in covenant' with God.
Like, if I walk out of this stupid office building I live in (actually I'm very grateful to have such shelter and I actually like it) and I stop and look around me, and I am present, and ever deeper so (the first conscious shock) I am closer to God; and as I go along if I am able to not be identified or not internally-consider when a difficult event or situation arises then I am intentionally-suffering, like Jesus (the second conscious shock) and it is like descent of the dove inspiration and higher energy (an external shock) and it increases my level of being and literally takes me into higher worlds.
This is all done compactly now, in the present moment. To have such an understanding and ability is uncommon for Christians. To know of it is rare.
When exoteric level Christians think in such terms they can only cling to the ritual of the two sacraments (or the various rituals of the Roman Catholic Church if that is their church). But with knowledge and understanding of the two conscious shocks you can go beyond such a level, beyond ritual, and effect those two mysteries in a real way in real time.
Isaiah 32:1 sheds light on the hierarchy that will exist in the perfect Kingdom where Jesus is King. There will be princes under the King who will rule in righteousness and who will have eyes that can see and ears that can hear and all will be known and so on. Level of being is also talked of in Paul where he says some will be like planets, some like stars, etc. It is rare grace to have knowledge of such things as the Work teaches (i.e. along with regeneration by the Word and the Spirit).
So now you are as practical and simple in the faith as a knight on horseback (higher centers) with sword (the Word of God) and shield (faith) riding through the trackless forest. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing. If you are making the effort to effect the first conscious shock and you are able to effect the higher will, real will, of the second conscious shock in time when such events occur (the battles of the knight, out of nowhere, where if he perseveres, stays on his horse basically, he enters higher landscapes and new events and situations and so forth.
There is a crowning incident, a goal, a terminal point castle or mountain as well. That is the crown level where higher functions become permanent.
Like, if I walk out of this stupid office building I live in (actually I'm very grateful to have such shelter and I actually like it) and I stop and look around me, and I am present, and ever deeper so (the first conscious shock) I am closer to God; and as I go along if I am able to not be identified or not internally-consider when a difficult event or situation arises then I am intentionally-suffering, like Jesus (the second conscious shock) and it is like descent of the dove inspiration and higher energy (an external shock) and it increases my level of being and literally takes me into higher worlds.
This is all done compactly now, in the present moment. To have such an understanding and ability is uncommon for Christians. To know of it is rare.
When exoteric level Christians think in such terms they can only cling to the ritual of the two sacraments (or the various rituals of the Roman Catholic Church if that is their church). But with knowledge and understanding of the two conscious shocks you can go beyond such a level, beyond ritual, and effect those two mysteries in a real way in real time.
Isaiah 32:1 sheds light on the hierarchy that will exist in the perfect Kingdom where Jesus is King. There will be princes under the King who will rule in righteousness and who will have eyes that can see and ears that can hear and all will be known and so on. Level of being is also talked of in Paul where he says some will be like planets, some like stars, etc. It is rare grace to have knowledge of such things as the Work teaches (i.e. along with regeneration by the Word and the Spirit).
So now you are as practical and simple in the faith as a knight on horseback (higher centers) with sword (the Word of God) and shield (faith) riding through the trackless forest. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing. If you are making the effort to effect the first conscious shock and you are able to effect the higher will, real will, of the second conscious shock in time when such events occur (the battles of the knight, out of nowhere, where if he perseveres, stays on his horse basically, he enters higher landscapes and new events and situations and so forth.
There is a crowning incident, a goal, a terminal point castle or mountain as well. That is the crown level where higher functions become permanent.
5.26.2009
I can do that
I think I should try to be less of an exasperated basher and more of a teacher. People can benefit so much from just one particle of what someone like myself can give them. Just a simple book list even.
People are just starting out, just like I was back when.
People are just starting out, just like I was back when.
5.25.2009
Something very big
If you havn't watched that woman's video I recently sent the link to (http://deathisnotdying.com/eventvideo/) this may not come across, but as I watched it I was reminded of how the connection that Christians have, are supposed to have, seems so much to be so much just merely words. Not that that is small or not powerful (inner states are reflected in one's words), but it is the hesitant intellectual groping for tangible explanation of it all each believer is left to do. "He...died....for..me, so...that..." That type of thing. I know it's real, and I know there are experiences people can't talk about as well, but it makes me think of -- conscious shocks.
Look at this very common section of a church's statement of beliefs:
"(12) Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
We believe that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordained by the Lord Jesus himself. The former is connected with entrance into the new covenant community, the latter with ongoing covenant renewal. Together they are simultaneously God’s pledge to us, divinely ordained means of grace, our public vows of submission to the once crucified and now resurrected Christ, and anticipations of his return and of the consummation of all things."
Think of how the first and second conscious shocks correspond to these two sacraments. How they are the deeper teaching, the deeper experience of them. Self-remembering as an act that puts one in the presence of God (entrance). And the conscious shock of 'eating' suffering, or eating friction, (fake, real, whatever), that second conscious shock, as the 'ongoing renewal' of our being in the covenant or Kingdom of God.
Conscious labor, intentional suffering. This really speaks to the example of Jesus which is our example and forerunner.
This is tangible (and I don't speak as a Greek who always needs to see a sign). After all sacraments are signs. Visual parables. If just seen as ritual they are 'something', but God the Holy Spirit does lead some into the deeper teaching of it.
Jesus also said be awake and love your enemies. The same conscious shocks. The Work tells us what occurs within us when those shocks are effected. When we also see them in the context of worship (presence of God) and spiritual warfare (assaulting heaven) our valuation is changed.
We have, in effect, a real, practical understanding of the faith that is practiced right here, right now. And the closer we get internally and vertically to what we know as Real I the closer we get to Jesus (we have something practical to realize that with), and the closer we get to objective consciousness the more we are in the Kingdom of God now. - C.
Look at this very common section of a church's statement of beliefs:
"(12) Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
We believe that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordained by the Lord Jesus himself. The former is connected with entrance into the new covenant community, the latter with ongoing covenant renewal. Together they are simultaneously God’s pledge to us, divinely ordained means of grace, our public vows of submission to the once crucified and now resurrected Christ, and anticipations of his return and of the consummation of all things."
Think of how the first and second conscious shocks correspond to these two sacraments. How they are the deeper teaching, the deeper experience of them. Self-remembering as an act that puts one in the presence of God (entrance). And the conscious shock of 'eating' suffering, or eating friction, (fake, real, whatever), that second conscious shock, as the 'ongoing renewal' of our being in the covenant or Kingdom of God.
Conscious labor, intentional suffering. This really speaks to the example of Jesus which is our example and forerunner.
This is tangible (and I don't speak as a Greek who always needs to see a sign). After all sacraments are signs. Visual parables. If just seen as ritual they are 'something', but God the Holy Spirit does lead some into the deeper teaching of it.
Jesus also said be awake and love your enemies. The same conscious shocks. The Work tells us what occurs within us when those shocks are effected. When we also see them in the context of worship (presence of God) and spiritual warfare (assaulting heaven) our valuation is changed.
We have, in effect, a real, practical understanding of the faith that is practiced right here, right now. And the closer we get internally and vertically to what we know as Real I the closer we get to Jesus (we have something practical to realize that with), and the closer we get to objective consciousness the more we are in the Kingdom of God now. - C.
5.22.2009
CHRISTIAN
Erasmus said, "A spiritual temple must be raised in Christians." I think he was speaking in the context of having the Word of God, but the metaphor is larger and very complete.
This is a good visual. Practical. If you're a spiritual temple, walking around, aware of being a spiritual temple, it is hard to indulge very un-spiritual-temple-like features of false personality.
I think I can solve much of my current angst by being a Christian first, being in that mystery, subordinating it to nothing. Not that I do anyway, but I'm conscious of the split in the language of the Work and the Bible always nevertheless.
Putting on a seamless robe that represents CHRISTIAN and see the Work as a Christian school after that. Use the Work to understand Jesus' teaching of practical level doing, see it as a language of the Holy Spirit, a language of knowledge and being, of doing, but the Word of God is supreme.
I do this anyway, but I am guilty of being ashamed or reticent to do it all out for fear of the reaction from the unbelieving world. Even the half-believing world. I flinch. Not *too* much (I always overstate).
And once for all one needn't be in a 'church'. One need, though, be in the invisible Church of which Christ is King. - C.
ps- We've been over this before, but it bears repeating: when you do the two conscious shocks, and when you connect with conscious influence, you are connecting with God. Conscious influence can only come from God. There is a spirit of disobedience, but it is obviously a slave to features of false personality. It is aided by vanity, worldly pride, and rebellious self-will. Violence, depression, lust (identifiction), resentment (internal-considering). Sleep. Imaginary 'I'. A Christian who has the Work teaching - and who has understanding of it, or capability to understand it - is a Christian who has been given a great amount of grace from God. It is armour as well, and it may be God equipping you for duty a bit higher in calling than the average Christian; for now and beyond.
This is a good visual. Practical. If you're a spiritual temple, walking around, aware of being a spiritual temple, it is hard to indulge very un-spiritual-temple-like features of false personality.
I think I can solve much of my current angst by being a Christian first, being in that mystery, subordinating it to nothing. Not that I do anyway, but I'm conscious of the split in the language of the Work and the Bible always nevertheless.
Putting on a seamless robe that represents CHRISTIAN and see the Work as a Christian school after that. Use the Work to understand Jesus' teaching of practical level doing, see it as a language of the Holy Spirit, a language of knowledge and being, of doing, but the Word of God is supreme.
I do this anyway, but I am guilty of being ashamed or reticent to do it all out for fear of the reaction from the unbelieving world. Even the half-believing world. I flinch. Not *too* much (I always overstate).
And once for all one needn't be in a 'church'. One need, though, be in the invisible Church of which Christ is King. - C.
ps- We've been over this before, but it bears repeating: when you do the two conscious shocks, and when you connect with conscious influence, you are connecting with God. Conscious influence can only come from God. There is a spirit of disobedience, but it is obviously a slave to features of false personality. It is aided by vanity, worldly pride, and rebellious self-will. Violence, depression, lust (identifiction), resentment (internal-considering). Sleep. Imaginary 'I'. A Christian who has the Work teaching - and who has understanding of it, or capability to understand it - is a Christian who has been given a great amount of grace from God. It is armour as well, and it may be God equipping you for duty a bit higher in calling than the average Christian; for now and beyond.
5.18.2009
Less scattered Work writing
I will develop a better way of writing about the Work. Better context and practical relevance. A clearer picture for each part, to see the power in each part. It will inevitably involve spiritual warfare because that is where the practical level of the Work and Christianity meet. Spiritual warfare also contains increase of being because increase of being enables a more adept war-making ability.
5.13.2009
In pursuit of mystery
It occurs to me what I've been missing in my life recently is the search for the mystery of everything. The Bible says it's for kings to search out a mystery. I did that with B influence and mesoteric and esoteric subject matter, but stopped. No more 12 tribes, conspiracy, following lines of ideas from book to book, writer to writer, even the mystery of C influence school. It all stopped. I got exoteric. Well, when Jesus - God - says with faith you can tell a mountain to move and it will move I believe it, but it moves in ways an exoteric mind can't or refuses to see. The exoteric Christians pulled me down (oh, I can't blame them). Believe the Bible. Fear only God. Search out mysteries. Be a king.
In Search of the Miraculous may not just be a commercially drummed-up title.
I.e. the element of being on the *trail of mysteries* when one is coming up the mountain of influences and developing understanding is really a very big element in it all when you stop to think of it.
All the life you see around you seems so *short cycle* and dead (and I don't say that like a teenager but like a Christian who knows sin and being dead in sin). By short cycle I mean the patterns of activity, the cars going and coming, the routine of daily living, over and over, and the veneer of it all that seems to hide anything deeper.
I was very much adept at pursuing that *deeper* behind the veneer, but then once I came to the Work and the Bible that pursuit seemed to have come to an end. Yet it shouldn't.
Pro 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
I, as usual, overstate my own indictment to make my point. I, of course, continued the search within the context of the Work and of biblical doctrine and the plan of redemption. Yet I think what I lost was being *conscious of being in pursuit* of mystery.
In Search of the Miraculous may not just be a commercially drummed-up title.
I.e. the element of being on the *trail of mysteries* when one is coming up the mountain of influences and developing understanding is really a very big element in it all when you stop to think of it.
All the life you see around you seems so *short cycle* and dead (and I don't say that like a teenager but like a Christian who knows sin and being dead in sin). By short cycle I mean the patterns of activity, the cars going and coming, the routine of daily living, over and over, and the veneer of it all that seems to hide anything deeper.
I was very much adept at pursuing that *deeper* behind the veneer, but then once I came to the Work and the Bible that pursuit seemed to have come to an end. Yet it shouldn't.
Pro 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
I, as usual, overstate my own indictment to make my point. I, of course, continued the search within the context of the Work and of biblical doctrine and the plan of redemption. Yet I think what I lost was being *conscious of being in pursuit* of mystery.
5.09.2009
Making contact
This quote:
reminds me of my saying about the Work: it's not about being good, it's about making contact. The same could be said of the Christian faith. Legalists and antinomians will always get it wrong, but there it is.
I bring it up because this snippet brilliantly highlights a common misconception in our society today: that Christianity is somehow about being good enough to be a Christian, when it’s actually about understanding that we’re bad enough to really need Christ. -Mockingbird Blog
reminds me of my saying about the Work: it's not about being good, it's about making contact. The same could be said of the Christian faith. Legalists and antinomians will always get it wrong, but there it is.
5.06.2009
Two conscious shocks and the cosmological teaching
The two conscious shocks are what is practical. Everything is in them. And, wonderfully, they are the practical connection to the deep teaching of the Bible. They are how one is 'in covenant' and union with Christ. Real I. Remember that battle of H24 to H12.
The cosmological teaching of the Work is there to mirror the psychological teaching. Macro and micro. It is true where it is the same as the psychological teaching. To get *too visual* with the cosmological teaching is to get off the mark with it. To start visualizing ladders in the stars and galaxies and all that. It has to be practical and when it is yoked to the psychological teaching, and practical observation of the psychological teaching it is true.
The cosmological teaching of the Work is there to mirror the psychological teaching. Macro and micro. It is true where it is the same as the psychological teaching. To get *too visual* with the cosmological teaching is to get off the mark with it. To start visualizing ladders in the stars and galaxies and all that. It has to be practical and when it is yoked to the psychological teaching, and practical observation of the psychological teaching it is true.
4.30.2009
Objective-Consciousness
Self-consciousness is above waking sleep. Above self-consciousness is objective-consciousness. What is the material of objective-consciousness? I say (and this goes back to my Work approach of "What is practical?" and "What is on-the-mark?") if objective-consciousness is going to be what it sounds like (like something ultimate and real and mature and serious) then it has to have to do with our Creator's plan of redemption and with discernment that comes from the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Biblical doctrine. The deep history of the heavens and the earth. Biblical anthropology and all the 'loci' of systematic theology.
But what it comes down to is this: those deep, or foundational, insights that have appeared here and there over time, such as how the four states of man show how fallen man gets confused and assumes one state while missing the actual state he is in. Like, the universal thing where people naively think man is innocent (i.e. they assume man is still in the Garden, before the Fall) and not in a state of sin. That type of foundational insight is part of objective-consciousness.
Another is this: the fact that without a Mediator (and the one and only Mediator Jesus Christ) life is cruel and barren. Lands become wastelands, peoples and cultures become hellish.
Another is this: the fact that the sense of anarchic evil all around and how there is no protection from birth to death, i.e. that this feeling can overwhelm...before one realizes that there IS protection...in God. I.e. protection is possible. To the most vulnerable infant and on up.
These aren't great examples because objective-consciousness really is best seen as 'vision'. When you are able to 'see' the deep history of Revelation, or the effect of the Fall, or spiritual warfare, or the deep patterns and events of politics in the world (the fact of 'pilgrim politics' is an example of 'seeing' a deep reality that is happening, and it explains - gives understanding - of what is happening).
To become 'mighty in the Word' is a phrase that touches on objective-consciousness.
Step back from the money-making and the family responsibilities for a moment and see what is potential for developing real understanding.
There is the big area of developing understanding in self-consciousness. Then there is the big area of developing understanding in objective-consciousness.
Objective-consciousness also plays out in more immediate, personal, ways. Interactions with people, events, etc. On a foundation of self-consciousness. Using the necessary higher center energy.
But what it comes down to is this: those deep, or foundational, insights that have appeared here and there over time, such as how the four states of man show how fallen man gets confused and assumes one state while missing the actual state he is in. Like, the universal thing where people naively think man is innocent (i.e. they assume man is still in the Garden, before the Fall) and not in a state of sin. That type of foundational insight is part of objective-consciousness.
Another is this: the fact that without a Mediator (and the one and only Mediator Jesus Christ) life is cruel and barren. Lands become wastelands, peoples and cultures become hellish.
Another is this: the fact that the sense of anarchic evil all around and how there is no protection from birth to death, i.e. that this feeling can overwhelm...before one realizes that there IS protection...in God. I.e. protection is possible. To the most vulnerable infant and on up.
These aren't great examples because objective-consciousness really is best seen as 'vision'. When you are able to 'see' the deep history of Revelation, or the effect of the Fall, or spiritual warfare, or the deep patterns and events of politics in the world (the fact of 'pilgrim politics' is an example of 'seeing' a deep reality that is happening, and it explains - gives understanding - of what is happening).
To become 'mighty in the Word' is a phrase that touches on objective-consciousness.
Step back from the money-making and the family responsibilities for a moment and see what is potential for developing real understanding.
There is the big area of developing understanding in self-consciousness. Then there is the big area of developing understanding in objective-consciousness.
Objective-consciousness also plays out in more immediate, personal, ways. Interactions with people, events, etc. On a foundation of self-consciousness. Using the necessary higher center energy.
4.22.2009
What I crave after reading a classic novel
As I read these classic novels I find that I actually *crave* an underlying structure that is found in the hero journey or quest.
In Anna Karenina it was buried deeply in the development of the Anna character which is perhaps why I was frustrated reading it.
But after finishing AK I was actually looking for something like Quest of the Holy Grail, or even finishing my current Iliad reading and then the Odyssey again.
The Bible from this angle can be seen, ironically, from good systematic theology. When I read of justification and adoption and glorification and so on that is part of that ultimate hero quest. The reality of it.
I just realized something too with Berkhof. I had read him wrong many years back. I thought in his Systematic Theology he had said he disagreed with the republication of the Covenant of Works, but he wrote the re-*establishment*, and now I recognize that difference. I know that is technical stuff, but basically I'm saying that Berkhof guy is very on-the-mark.
Seeing this underlying quest structure or parts of it in novels is kind of the same as trying to see it in Shakespeare. Identifying it. Shakespeare may have written a single play on one aspect, one deep psychological aspect, of that ultimate, overall quest. Novels and plays as literary forms can only hit it like that.
For imaginative literature (including sacred literature) the Bible, Homer (including Greek myth in general), Shakespeare, and Grail Romance seem to be the basic influences. A little bit in pure folktale too, like Grimm's.
These are works you *just read.* You just read them to get the language. The higher language.
In different ways great classical music communicates the same as well. Not by itself, but certainly in its own powerful, unspeakable way. When you engage it in a cosmos sense. Each work a cosmos. Not just background sounds. Hear it. Get it in to memory.
Great, foundational subjects like war, wealth, government as well. von Clausewitz, Adam Smith, Montesquieu...perhaps the Republic...
The Work sources - Ouspensky - as the school knowledge.
History - great history, classical historians, world histories - seems to play a role of preparing one in a 'good householder' sense to get the ultimate from the other influences mentioned. History ideally gets you above the world in understanding. Out of the maze and opaque confusion and illusion. Seeing the nature of power and the nature of human nature and the ways of the world in a clear light and having it become real understanding so that you are able to exit, or transcend, that miasma of the vain splutterings and intellectual and emotional bondage of the world.
In Anna Karenina it was buried deeply in the development of the Anna character which is perhaps why I was frustrated reading it.
But after finishing AK I was actually looking for something like Quest of the Holy Grail, or even finishing my current Iliad reading and then the Odyssey again.
The Bible from this angle can be seen, ironically, from good systematic theology. When I read of justification and adoption and glorification and so on that is part of that ultimate hero quest. The reality of it.
I just realized something too with Berkhof. I had read him wrong many years back. I thought in his Systematic Theology he had said he disagreed with the republication of the Covenant of Works, but he wrote the re-*establishment*, and now I recognize that difference. I know that is technical stuff, but basically I'm saying that Berkhof guy is very on-the-mark.
Seeing this underlying quest structure or parts of it in novels is kind of the same as trying to see it in Shakespeare. Identifying it. Shakespeare may have written a single play on one aspect, one deep psychological aspect, of that ultimate, overall quest. Novels and plays as literary forms can only hit it like that.
For imaginative literature (including sacred literature) the Bible, Homer (including Greek myth in general), Shakespeare, and Grail Romance seem to be the basic influences. A little bit in pure folktale too, like Grimm's.
These are works you *just read.* You just read them to get the language. The higher language.
In different ways great classical music communicates the same as well. Not by itself, but certainly in its own powerful, unspeakable way. When you engage it in a cosmos sense. Each work a cosmos. Not just background sounds. Hear it. Get it in to memory.
Great, foundational subjects like war, wealth, government as well. von Clausewitz, Adam Smith, Montesquieu...perhaps the Republic...
The Work sources - Ouspensky - as the school knowledge.
History - great history, classical historians, world histories - seems to play a role of preparing one in a 'good householder' sense to get the ultimate from the other influences mentioned. History ideally gets you above the world in understanding. Out of the maze and opaque confusion and illusion. Seeing the nature of power and the nature of human nature and the ways of the world in a clear light and having it become real understanding so that you are able to exit, or transcend, that miasma of the vain splutterings and intellectual and emotional bondage of the world.
4.08.2009
A little journal I've started (not cyber)
Tonight I bought three little notebooks that each have 40 sheets or pages. A good number.
In one I've started a journal, or really just a record, of 40 Books Read Complete. Each page will have a book listed on it and the date I began and finished it.
I've started with with a few books I've read recently since 2005.
Thus far I have:
1. Vanity Fair - Thackeray
2. Holy Bible, AV1611 (5th complete reading)
3. Manual of Christian Doctrine - Berkhof
4. Pearl of Christian Comfort - Dathenus
5. Tom Jones - Fielding
6. Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
7. Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
After Anna Karenina [update: Anna Karenina has been finished] 33 more. I've written at the front of the notebook 'great or interesting books.' But a defining thing is: to be read *complete.*
Here is what I wrote at the front of the notebook:
"Not a list of *all* books read from 2005 to the last entry, but the main ones read complete. An effort to reconnect with great books to keep the mind alive. A simple effort to start and *finish* 40 great or interesting books in this current time of my life."
I also plan on including some great books I've already read complete as part of the 40. That way, as the little effort commences I can rebuild, so to speak, the foundation, and also choose books for a balanced selection of categories. With a concrete number - 40 - and the amount of time involved that it will take this kind of approach can develop into something meaningful.
In one I've started a journal, or really just a record, of 40 Books Read Complete. Each page will have a book listed on it and the date I began and finished it.
I've started with with a few books I've read recently since 2005.
Thus far I have:
1. Vanity Fair - Thackeray
2. Holy Bible, AV1611 (5th complete reading)
3. Manual of Christian Doctrine - Berkhof
4. Pearl of Christian Comfort - Dathenus
5. Tom Jones - Fielding
6. Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
7. Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
After Anna Karenina [update: Anna Karenina has been finished] 33 more. I've written at the front of the notebook 'great or interesting books.' But a defining thing is: to be read *complete.*
Here is what I wrote at the front of the notebook:
"Not a list of *all* books read from 2005 to the last entry, but the main ones read complete. An effort to reconnect with great books to keep the mind alive. A simple effort to start and *finish* 40 great or interesting books in this current time of my life."
I also plan on including some great books I've already read complete as part of the 40. That way, as the little effort commences I can rebuild, so to speak, the foundation, and also choose books for a balanced selection of categories. With a concrete number - 40 - and the amount of time involved that it will take this kind of approach can develop into something meaningful.
4.07.2009
6th complete Bible reading
'08 GOAL (now '09)
6th complete reading of the pure and whole received Word of God (AV1611):
Genesis1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Exodus 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Leviticus 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Deuteronomy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Joshua 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Judges 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Ruth 1 2 3 4 1 Samuel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 2 Samuel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 1 Kings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 2 Kings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1 Chronicles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2 Chronicles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Ezra 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Nehemiah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Esther 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Job 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Psalms 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 Proverbs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Ecclesiastes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Song of Solomon 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Isaiah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 Jeremiah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 Lamentations 1 2 3 4 5 Ezekiel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Daniel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Hosea 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Joel 1 2 3 Amos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Obadiah 1 Jonah 1 2 3 4 Micah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Nahum 1 2 3 Habakkuk 1 2 3 Zephaniah 1 2 3 Haggai 1 2 Zechariah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Malachi 1 2 3 4 Matthew 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Mark 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Luke 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 John 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Acts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Romans 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1 Corinthians 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 2 Corinthians 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Galatians 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ephesians 1 2 3 4 5 6 Philippians 1 2 3 4 Colossians 1 2 3 4 1 Thessalonians 1 2 3 4 5 2 Thessalonians 1 2 3 1 Timothy 1 2 3 4 5 6 2 Timothy 1 2 3 4 Titus 1 2 3 Philemon 1 Hebrews 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 James 1 2 3 4 5 1 Peter 1 2 3 4 5 2 Peter 1 2 3 1 John 1 2 3 4 5 2 John 1 3 John 1 Jude 1 Revelation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Finished Oct. 8, 2009
6th complete reading of the pure and whole received Word of God (AV1611):
Genesis
Finished Oct. 8, 2009
4.03.2009
Ten great Russian novels
I was reading a book of literary criticism (Tolstoy or Dostoevsky - George Steiner), and the writer said casually that these ten novels are the great Russian novels of the golden era of the 19th century (golden era for Russian novels):
Dead Souls - Gogol
Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
Oblomov - Goncharov
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Resurrection - Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
The Possessed - Dostoevsky
The Idiot - Dostoevsky
Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
No surprises except perhaps Oblomov.
Dead Souls - Gogol
Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
Oblomov - Goncharov
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Resurrection - Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
The Possessed - Dostoevsky
The Idiot - Dostoevsky
Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
No surprises except perhaps Oblomov.
2.24.2009
Practical Mysticism - Evelyn Underhill
[another email...many posts on this blog are originally emails...]
This book - Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill - seems to be newly uploaded over at Christian Classic Ethereal Library.
Usual material. The meditation and recollection chapter gets at self-remembering somewhat, but missing it of course. (Remember always that practical self-remembering can be seen for what it is by seeing sleep itself. Make an aim to self-remember, inevitably fall back into waking sleep, then when you do wake up see the difference. Keep this in mind and you won't begin to no longer value self-remembering.)
But the 10th chapter of the book seems interesting. It's an apologia for the whole process of inner development which leads to only finding yourself still in the world and ho hum. I didn't read the whole chapter, but I skimmed it.
This book - Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill - seems to be newly uploaded over at Christian Classic Ethereal Library.
Usual material. The meditation and recollection chapter gets at self-remembering somewhat, but missing it of course. (Remember always that practical self-remembering can be seen for what it is by seeing sleep itself. Make an aim to self-remember, inevitably fall back into waking sleep, then when you do wake up see the difference. Keep this in mind and you won't begin to no longer value self-remembering.)
But the 10th chapter of the book seems interesting. It's an apologia for the whole process of inner development which leads to only finding yourself still in the world and ho hum. I didn't read the whole chapter, but I skimmed it.
2.22.2009
Living Time, perspective, development
> On a work tack. I don't think I should care. It will
> happen as it happens.
> The Work is not about building nation states but simply
> finding the
> conditions for work. And as we know, that requires some
> dissemination of
> work ideas - and hence, individually, time to study the
> ideas to gather the
> knowledge but crucially the opportunity to study those
> ideas in the cauldron
> of being through work efforts. Relatively speaking we
> probably need 25% time
> to study the ideas and 75% time to practise work efforts to
> maintain some
> balance on the understanding/being front or else it tips
> quickly towards
> more knowledge. What the world does, the motions it goes
> through. That's all
> there, ever changing. We work in the world.
Interesting when you think of your time, your stretch of living time, and how you judge it by what used to be (prior to your birth), and worries about what will be, even beyond how long you could even live. I think everybody's stretch of living time is full of a noxious mix of race wars and 'things falling apart' and predictions of disaster, no matter what era the stretch of living time exists in. And all our childhoods are more ideal because we don't know any better and don't have all the mechanical impressions connected to everything. Our mother takes us swimming at some public pool. We aren't thinking "You can catch disease from some baby's diaper in these pools, and who are those people over there, are they going to start trouble?, and..." No, we are experiencing the sunshine and water and seeing our mother sitting in the grass as we run up to her out of the pool, feeling the grass under our feet, then run back, then have sandwiches, then get tired on the drive back to home, then take a nap. It's all ideal. Everybody's childhood, except in a Pol Pot hell or something, is similar.
No matter the era, there's always too many people, or there's always too much desolation and too little to do, there's always the impossibility to make ends meet, or there's the decadence of having everything on a silver spoon, and it's always beyond the golden age for them.
Higher perspective shows this. Your time, from birth to death, is your living time. Time doesn't exist for you beyond your death. There is fifth-dimensional eternity you enter, but right back to the same fourth-dimensional living time. Until you escape. And you do that NOW, if you do it. When you develop vertically, and not horizontally, which is merely change, you are doing it. Remember the time diagram: movement inward toward the axis (magnetic center) via the first conscious shock is movement in the fifth dimension; then movement upwards via the second conscious shock is movement in the 6th dimension, even as you are still moving around the edge of the circle which is the 4th dimension of time. It become a spiral upward. Consolidate that development and you escape. If you value escaping. Some dogs don't want to be humans, they are happy to still be dogs. Some no longer want to be dogs.
2.20.2009
Keltoí
I'll never leave Jesus Christ. Murray made a statement in that video on 1 Cor. I mentioned in an email where God takes care of his own. If someone messes with one of His He deals with it in time. I've experienced that. I've experienced how prayer can be effective relative to different things. I am in the Kingdom. Jesus Christ is my King. I also understand and hold to orthodox doctrine as the apostolic and Reformation times - schools - taught it. I see it and value it.
What the trap is once you get all that is to get caught in the level of the obvious sleeping, village of morality fools of the churches. Not to put them down. We are all where we are. They are a general law force though.
These other influences are for real Christians. These other influences we speak of.
Music at its highest levels, getting understanding of it, hearing it all, this trains one to not be lured by it when sirens use it or something similar. The music isn't bad, how its used can be. In the spiritual realms if you've already heard all great music and you have exhausted it and you know its limit you are armoured against that particular weapon that can be used against you.
Just a twist on that activity with all the higher music.
An example of new thinking, seeing new things, seeing into the higher world.
The hidden ones. The Keltoí. A universal term. Tall and blond, or short and dark. Hidden from the apprehension of the world.
Seeing the spiritual realms, using different languages, higher visual language, higher centers, it's all something that is snuffed out by the church level. They have their names: "Gnostic!" They police pretty heavily. You can get tainted with their policing pretty easily, even not realizing it.
Even when an orthodox theologian veers into such realms, instead of writing that theologian off they just pretend he didn't write the 'off the ranch' parts. Calvin, Kline, Jonathan Edwards are three that get treated like this. You know what I mean.
To sum things up, for where we are, humans, gods, goddesses of old, nymphs, centaurs, all, spiritual warfare is it. If the dark forces are still about, and if the holy mountain is still being fought over, and if the gathering to it has not been completed, then you are in a state of battle. Quest. Pilgrimage. Stranger. On the Way. In this world, not of this world.
What the trap is once you get all that is to get caught in the level of the obvious sleeping, village of morality fools of the churches. Not to put them down. We are all where we are. They are a general law force though.
These other influences are for real Christians. These other influences we speak of.
Music at its highest levels, getting understanding of it, hearing it all, this trains one to not be lured by it when sirens use it or something similar. The music isn't bad, how its used can be. In the spiritual realms if you've already heard all great music and you have exhausted it and you know its limit you are armoured against that particular weapon that can be used against you.
Just a twist on that activity with all the higher music.
An example of new thinking, seeing new things, seeing into the higher world.
The hidden ones. The Keltoí. A universal term. Tall and blond, or short and dark. Hidden from the apprehension of the world.
Seeing the spiritual realms, using different languages, higher visual language, higher centers, it's all something that is snuffed out by the church level. They have their names: "Gnostic!" They police pretty heavily. You can get tainted with their policing pretty easily, even not realizing it.
Even when an orthodox theologian veers into such realms, instead of writing that theologian off they just pretend he didn't write the 'off the ranch' parts. Calvin, Kline, Jonathan Edwards are three that get treated like this. You know what I mean.
To sum things up, for where we are, humans, gods, goddesses of old, nymphs, centaurs, all, spiritual warfare is it. If the dark forces are still about, and if the holy mountain is still being fought over, and if the gathering to it has not been completed, then you are in a state of battle. Quest. Pilgrimage. Stranger. On the Way. In this world, not of this world.
2.17.2009
Something on de Sade
When I include de Sade in a book list I often get negative responses.
P. of England recently responded to my latest post below with:
So then S. of Australia responded to P. of England with:
Then I wrote:
A shallow Christian would say: "Maybe get married? Duh?" No, shallow church Christian, this is about understanding. It's not about married sex. And it's about not getting trapped into the pit of the world prior to getting understanding of it all, then not getting trapped at all. A Christian has to have understanding. A shallow Christian is nigh worthless other than to breed other Christians, which is not a useless thing, but it's not the faith, and it doesn't get one understanding.
I'm talking about a de Sade regarding its potential value to 'get you over' being *captured* or *entranced* by sex and violence and such things. With real understanding you transcend such things. Which is rare. If you don't confront it it is still in you though in darkness. Confront it, get understanding of it, get above it. If you don't have control of it, it will have control of you. (If you are a potential serial murderer then go read books that one can find in the average Christian bookstore.)
And to reiterate: in our era one hardly has to pick up de Sade. Just turn on your computer. But when an influence gets you understanding of something don't pretend that you had it all along. You needed the influence. Just as a Dostoevsky, living in the 1800s, or a Nietzsche, needed a de Sade. (Although, regarding S. of Australia's point above, de Sade *still does* have a unique standing among all influences that show our fallen nature at its worst.)
Christians and Christian so-called 'leaders' are shallow. That is a fact. The faith calls for us to develop understanding. Real understanding. The call is all through the Bible.
One note: de Sade's 'philosophy' he strews all through his porn and violence is not what is being discussed. That is maybe just a complimentary intellectual baseness to accompany the base activities. Now, who reads de Sade? (Other than S. of Australia...ha ha, just kidding, S.) If I was growing up in the middle of nowhere in the 1800s I'd value it. Then burn it. No. Yeah, what would you do with it once you've gotten out of it all one can? Eh, leave it on the bookshelf, as if you don't know what it is or where it came from... Some other developing soul will stumble upon it...
Having said all the above: DON'T READ DE SADE! IT'S STUPID AND UNNECESSARY! And if you do skim through some, don't admit it, and don't recommend it. Leave that to me. I have no worldly standing and village of morality honor to protect...
P. of England recently responded to my latest post below with:
I recall this discussion a long way back... I objected to de Sade and I again find myself saying No de Sade! The world is fallen, it surrounds us, we don't need Sade. We have television. We have the internet. De Sade is a dumb idea. A real time waster. There is enough hideousness without him. If you haven't read de Sade before you encounter the Work I can see no use thereafter. Faith Hope Charity Love.
So then S. of Australia responded to P. of England with:
I have to disagree - I read desade, and as an influence it transmits something powerful. It captures the depth of whats possible in terms of evil and depravity, yet at the same time it communicates the HOLLOWNESS of it all.
Once you've read De Sade, you see internet porn in a different light. Its not shocking, its just DUMB and empty. The thing with De Sades work is that he actually takes it as far as it can possibly go until its becomes ridiculous, and even laughable. You can see that there is a bottom to depravity, the pointlessness of it all.
Then I wrote:
I agree with Simon (and Dostoevsky and other greats had the same experience with de Sade). I'll just add that my list is based on one being in the middle of the 1800s, and imagine not having porn or other media to see the vanity - and just the existence - of the 'non-public' activities and the depths of fallen man's behaviour, then a de Sade would be very valuable. Disturbing no doubt, but valuable. Of course, one in one hundred (or whatever) people encountering such an influence becomes a serial murderer I suppose, but... I imagine it would be a hard book to acquire back then. You'd be left to looking at the domesticated animals doing their thing. But ideally, if you could have all those influences, then it is a necessary one.
A shallow Christian would say: "Maybe get married? Duh?" No, shallow church Christian, this is about understanding. It's not about married sex. And it's about not getting trapped into the pit of the world prior to getting understanding of it all, then not getting trapped at all. A Christian has to have understanding. A shallow Christian is nigh worthless other than to breed other Christians, which is not a useless thing, but it's not the faith, and it doesn't get one understanding.
I'm talking about a de Sade regarding its potential value to 'get you over' being *captured* or *entranced* by sex and violence and such things. With real understanding you transcend such things. Which is rare. If you don't confront it it is still in you though in darkness. Confront it, get understanding of it, get above it. If you don't have control of it, it will have control of you. (If you are a potential serial murderer then go read books that one can find in the average Christian bookstore.)
And to reiterate: in our era one hardly has to pick up de Sade. Just turn on your computer. But when an influence gets you understanding of something don't pretend that you had it all along. You needed the influence. Just as a Dostoevsky, living in the 1800s, or a Nietzsche, needed a de Sade. (Although, regarding S. of Australia's point above, de Sade *still does* have a unique standing among all influences that show our fallen nature at its worst.)
Christians and Christian so-called 'leaders' are shallow. That is a fact. The faith calls for us to develop understanding. Real understanding. The call is all through the Bible.
One note: de Sade's 'philosophy' he strews all through his porn and violence is not what is being discussed. That is maybe just a complimentary intellectual baseness to accompany the base activities. Now, who reads de Sade? (Other than S. of Australia...ha ha, just kidding, S.) If I was growing up in the middle of nowhere in the 1800s I'd value it. Then burn it. No. Yeah, what would you do with it once you've gotten out of it all one can? Eh, leave it on the bookshelf, as if you don't know what it is or where it came from... Some other developing soul will stumble upon it...
Having said all the above: DON'T READ DE SADE! IT'S STUPID AND UNNECESSARY! And if you do skim through some, don't admit it, and don't recommend it. Leave that to me. I have no worldly standing and village of morality honor to protect...
Influences, books
I drew up this list last night:
King James Bible
Homer
Shakespeare
Democracy in America
Gibbon
On War
Wealth of Nations
Reformed Systematic Theology
Ouspensky
Thucydides
Plutarch
History of the World
de Sade (porn, violence, fallen nature)
Austen
I know it looks familiar. I was trying to imagine myself alive in the middle of the 1800s and thinking what list of books would make a complete foundation (not including science and art, you know, just what you get from literature).
There are fourteen works (22 if you break them down further). Not my usual ten or twelve list. Seven times two, perfection doubled? 22, the number of letters in the Hebrews alphabet. Anyway, I needed fourteen spots.
The interesting one for me is Austen. Instead of listing seven great novels, or whatever, I see the novel as a particularly feminine form. At best it tunes you into the intricacies of society and human interactions. Human nature and the ways of the world. Austen in limited in her canvass, but you get war and diplomacy and all that from history too. But for me I just recall I had to read Pride and Prejudice in high school and it was opaque to me. I needed to awaken and develop and be able to see human nature at work and subtleties of interaction. That is what the novel gives you. Or, maybe better put, the novel gives you something to gauge your development and ability to see such things. So I put Austen in the list to represent that.
Democracy in America is a French work, remember. To me it is one of those works that is just deeply on-the-mark regarding its subject. It has that common-sense, competent, tuned-in, expressed-completely-well, foundational elements of understanding. Works like that tend to be also prophetic. They describe a time or thing so well that it also describes the future.
One could, of course, instead of writing just Thucydides, put in Greek Historians, which traditionally refer to Herodotus and Thucydides.
I want to put in a word for Ouspensky's New Model of the Universe. Going over those essays again is profitable. I can see that I picked up a lot of the cosmological elements and understanding of the Work from that book. Remember he rewrote the book in the late '20's to incorporate his Work understanding.
A while back when I said I'd forgotten that you need Work material to go along with self-remembering effort, what I didn't see then was I wasn't missing the psychological half of the Work, but I was far away from the cosmological part of the Work. Which not only gives insight into time and such things but provides metaphor to see the psychological part more deeply and in new ways.
King James Bible
Homer
Shakespeare
Democracy in America
Gibbon
On War
Wealth of Nations
Reformed Systematic Theology
Ouspensky
Thucydides
Plutarch
History of the World
de Sade (porn, violence, fallen nature)
Austen
I know it looks familiar. I was trying to imagine myself alive in the middle of the 1800s and thinking what list of books would make a complete foundation (not including science and art, you know, just what you get from literature).
There are fourteen works (22 if you break them down further). Not my usual ten or twelve list. Seven times two, perfection doubled? 22, the number of letters in the Hebrews alphabet. Anyway, I needed fourteen spots.
The interesting one for me is Austen. Instead of listing seven great novels, or whatever, I see the novel as a particularly feminine form. At best it tunes you into the intricacies of society and human interactions. Human nature and the ways of the world. Austen in limited in her canvass, but you get war and diplomacy and all that from history too. But for me I just recall I had to read Pride and Prejudice in high school and it was opaque to me. I needed to awaken and develop and be able to see human nature at work and subtleties of interaction. That is what the novel gives you. Or, maybe better put, the novel gives you something to gauge your development and ability to see such things. So I put Austen in the list to represent that.
Democracy in America is a French work, remember. To me it is one of those works that is just deeply on-the-mark regarding its subject. It has that common-sense, competent, tuned-in, expressed-completely-well, foundational elements of understanding. Works like that tend to be also prophetic. They describe a time or thing so well that it also describes the future.
One could, of course, instead of writing just Thucydides, put in Greek Historians, which traditionally refer to Herodotus and Thucydides.
I want to put in a word for Ouspensky's New Model of the Universe. Going over those essays again is profitable. I can see that I picked up a lot of the cosmological elements and understanding of the Work from that book. Remember he rewrote the book in the late '20's to incorporate his Work understanding.
A while back when I said I'd forgotten that you need Work material to go along with self-remembering effort, what I didn't see then was I wasn't missing the psychological half of the Work, but I was far away from the cosmological part of the Work. Which not only gives insight into time and such things but provides metaphor to see the psychological part more deeply and in new ways.
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