Hammering the Bible into essence

Hammering the Bible into essence.

Jer 23:29 Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

A practical thing to do is to hammer the Bible into essence. Get it past the shell of personality and directly into essence.

I've had experience with this with psalms which I meditated on while walking and self-remembering. These are moments that I can remember to this day. I would often visualize images to accompany the verses, but just having higher energy and devoting real meditation on the Word at hand does it.

Imagine having that fire from higher energy and hammering the entire Word of God into essence and having it in essence pure and whole and complete.

From B to C Influence

Once you have chased B Influences to their summit (and you have exhausted A Influences or seen their limits and all that), then you have C Influence left. And to be in contact with C Influence you simply have to be in the third state of consciousness (self-remembering, non-identifying).

So B Influence is exhausted? Good! A rare accomplishment. Now you only have C Influence to chase and work with.

But you don't know what that means *concretely*? Just a little bit, but not much? So, that just means you are a beginner in it. What is analogous to engaging B Influences regarding the realm of C Influence? Reading books and building understanding is to C Influence how? Building one's inner bodies?

The influence of C Influence is Providence? That is a non-concrete statement, but yet that doesn't means there is no truth in it. The moving world of things and events? Does it include general revelation? Probably it's more in the realm of special revelation since C Influence involves actual contact with the source.

But when you are in actual contact with the source it requires a level of circumspection and responsibility and seriousness that can be taxing, no? Yes! One reason why we avoid this *contact with C Influence*? One reason. Maybe a bigger reason than we think.

Especially when you're no longer in the innocent stage. In the more advanced stage where you *know* what is happening and what you are getting in to more is required of you. "Wait a minute, I can get myself killed here! I've gotta be awake...!"

I'm on a battlefield...

Building being...

In actual contact with C Influence...which is not necessarily pleasant as we can see in the Homeric epics. Athena helped Odysseus, and she also smashed his ships... All for a purpose that was going in the same direction...

From an intro to the Brothers Karamazov

I won't type it out because it's too long, but the intro to the Bantam paperback edition (Andrew R. MacAndrew trans.) of the Brothers Karamazov is interesting. The writer shows how BK sums up all of Dostoevsky's previous works. In the great novels that came before each had a single protagonist at its center where Dostoevsky presented a part of personality (he even shows how D. has a theory of personality and essence though he saw it as the shell of personality and the inner part where the spirit resides). Then in BK he created three brothers who each represent together the total personality (Ivan = intellectual, Dimitri = emotional, Alyosha = will).

Basically, without knowing it, this intro writer, very knowledgeable of Dostoevsky and his works, was describing Work knowledge regarding centers and personality and essence and so on.

Yes, I'm embarking on a thousand page novel: the Brothers Karamazov. A very handsome paperback edition, by the way. Nice cover.

I may regret it (or decide it is not what I want to do after reading 30 pages or so), but it IS one of the ten great, iconic, canonic novels I have identified.

An aside: it's interesting how critics mock or deride Dostoevsky's Christianity. They want to claim his works as part of their intellectual world, but they don't want the Christianity. Harold Bloom mocks the Epilogue to Crime and Punishment where Raskolnikov (oh, I won't say, in case anyone hasn't read it and wants to). This writer I am referring to now doesn't mock the Christianity in this intro, but I've seen it elsewhere. Like I noted with CandP: liberals of the 20th century couldn't have really read Dostoevsky since D. saw directly through them and made such fun of them in his novels...

Some thoughts on books...

I just got some perspective on what I'm reading just now.

When I finished Crime and Punishment I launched into John Owen's Biblical Theology. About 220 pages in I began starting other books. The usual mode. I started Anna Karenina, Moby Dick, Chapman's Homer, The Fourth Way, my continued sixth complete reading of the Bible. I set a record for starting and stopping different books.

I've been in bookstores indulging my current state of being in-between books, so I can look at them all and decide on a new one.

Unfortunately for me I really am beyond all the usual, common level of influences. I mean, it's old ground for me. (I did order the Bantam Classic edition of Brothers Karamazov which I might actually read sometime in my project to read the ten great iconic, canonic novels.)

So I returned to the book I was actually a couple of hundred pages into already, the Owen book. I notice I really only have 470 pages to go with it (it's appendix includes a whole different book I don't have to read).

And each of the remaining four section are only in the 115 page realm. Very doable when seen like that (and I need to see it like that because it can be real hard plowing type reading in places).

I don't want to die with alot of 'data' shallowly implanted on my short-term memory. That is what I think about when I think about reading a book. So I want to read books that have deep language that helps or enables or adds to ability to conduct spiritual warfare and increase of being. Plus, the ultimate book, the Word of God, requires new capacity for understanding to get more from it. I.e. Work effort. So Work effort is the effort I need to do.

But we do also have to refresh our memory with high influences. Get above ourselves.

Service, or third force motivation

I found the text at this link interesting. Of particluar interest is
the emphasis Gurdjieff places on doing the exercises solely as a
service. Like you would clean your teeth before bed or clean your
home, but these exercises are to be made internal for oneself.

-------

The Work is Service. It's the only way to consider it. I think also that there is a lot in that approach. There is a lot that is revealed through Service. I'm speculating but my sense is that these people that find themselves chewed up/spat out in cults never had that perspective. I wouldn't like to say they are motivated purely by vanity or self-will, but I do sense this lack of Service is at the root of their ailing and a possible cause for them being attracted to a cult circuit in the first place. Although, one has to reserve caveats for the exceptions. I suppose the cult experience is one way in which individuals are broken down and prepared for the real Work, but again how many of those types are fit for the Work I don't know.

+++++++

ME (ct):

An example of the service approach (and keep in mind I'm intentionally using Work language, because this subject could easily be dealt with solely by going into the Christian sphere) is to use the third force (motivation) of realizing that the more you awaken, the more you develop *real* consciousness, and understanding, and increased level of being, the more you help everybody who is connected with you at any point, to any degree, in your circle of time. Even people who are no longer alive currently, but who you have a connection with, ancestor, family or friend or acquaintance or whatever relation. In this sense consciousness, real consciousness, is C Influence an is like an electrical current, or heat, that travels all through the connections of the fullness of time that is your life in recurrence and even above recurrence eventually.

(After I wrote the above I realized that we need to define 'service' as G. seemed to be using it. I'm not sure it's clear in the context itself, but for the record by service I adopted the meaning of like 'doing something as if it is being done, even if partly, for others.' Kind of like evangelizing, or any third line effort.

There's a big subject in there though. A big orientation that can be missed. Without getting into moralizing though, which is where fallen man will always take such a thing. There is self-interest even in evangelizing the faith. The Bible says so... Some are like stars who bring many to the faith...something along those lines...)

Warriours are needed

I was recently involved in seeing a 'gamer' (I guess that is what they are called) doing his thing online. He was involved in a World War II game where he was able to be a fighter plane and fly around and get in dog fights with other fighter planes, in the higher cyber realm, each one flown by somebody from anywhere in the world. The whole time I was thinking how childish it is. A mere game. I may have given that away too with some language I used which upset him. Couldn't help it. Later, though, it occurred to me that online games like that where a person is going up against other real people from anywhere in the world is a real analogy for what occurs when you get into higher states and engage in spiritual warfare in the higher realms.

The gamers are chasing something at the very eXoteric level, yet there is meaning there at the eSoteric level.

This occurred to me days afterwards when I was in a gas station paying for gas, and I was silently looking at the cashier and thinking that anybody, any being, any level of being, could be working such a menial job, an Achilles, an Odysseus, yet at the same time that beeing can be fighting in the Great War in the higher realms.

Warriors are needed. To discern the battle, the lines, the forces, the goals, is all higher centers work and understanding. To get there and be in the battle, an effective warriour, is conscious shock work. The analogy appears in the physical life as it happens. Everything then takes on meaning. And events occur that wouldn't normally occur.

To chase this - the eSoteric level of the battle - with the same enthusiasm and attention of an online gamer (a directed attention in this case rather than an attracted one) would be what is needed.

What did I keep saying? "Get on the battlefield!" - C.

A striking Gurdjieff observation on basic human nature

[Updated below]

I can't get out of my mind Gurdjieff's striking (though obvious though no less striking for being obvious) statement that humans just want to *astonish* other humans.

"I've astonished you with my entrance into this room."

"My story I am telling is astonishing you."

"I've broken this record and now you are astonished at my accomplishment."

"Though I'm a nobody with no worldly attainments I still astonish you with my aura which angers you."

What happens when you lose the motivation to astonish your fellow human beings? You become anathema. You become an astonishing buzz kill in all environments. You don't want to astonish anybody, and hence the illusion and vanity of it is seen through and the game is over. You buzz kill. You must leave!

And notice that even if you have done something truly astonishing your fellow human beings will react as if you havn't done anything afterall. Only the really innocent ones will be impressed. Otherwise they think: "So you are standing at that podium with all those microphones speaking to the world of your discovery of intrinsic qualities of sunlight enabling man to draw infinite energy from the sun...wow. Somebody was going to discover that. So you are a geek that wasted your life thinking about such things. Allow me to astonish you with the fact that I've just returned from a journey to an ancient forest with a beautiful woman where we discovered a stone chapel where a wise man told us secrets you will never know. I've astonished you."

Update: the Word of God teaches contentment as an answer to the above. When you are content you don't feel a need to impress. Of course the world gets angry when they see contentment and considers the content person to be mentally deficient...

This is amusing

Here's something on a different subject. This is not just a person who doesn't know what he is talking about, but he is so ignorant of the subject it is actually very funny. This is from a cult awareness type website talking about Gurdjieff and his system:

"All joking aside, Ouspensky reported in his book In Search of the Miraculous that he had practiced 'self-remembering' according to Gurdjieff's instructions. Ouspensky had been a seeker long before meeting Gurdjieff and had tried meditation and even hashish and nitrous oxide, seaching for consciousness expanding methods.

One day while practicing self remembering, Ouspensky set out to do some tasks. That afternoon, he 'came to'. To his amazement, discovered he had spent half the day, going around town and had done his errands.

In other words, practicing G's method, and being instructed in this by G himself had sent Ouspensky into several hours of what a modern clinicial would call a dissociative fugue/amnesia state.

Ouspensky thought this was some special attainment. He did not understand that his field of attention had fractured,and that this was potentially harmful and not helpful.

It was also fortunate that Ouspensky had spent the day on foot or using a horse drawn taxicab. For had he gone through this fugue/dissociation while driving an automobile, the consequences could have been dire."

From here:
http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?12,54613,60090#msg-60090

- C.

ps- I know you all know this, but he is referring to Ouspensky's discovery of the 'waking sleep' state, and the attainment in question was simply being able to see it. He tried to be in a state of self-remembering as an aim, fell asleep, then came to later. Remembering his aim enabled him to see what waking sleep was.

Now it is high time to awake out of sleep. -Rom. 13:11

The increasing demands of the context of Work

> I've been getting back into the Work a lot lately in a
> real practical way.
> It's come about I think due to the process of
> journaling, or in particular
> trying to sort out my life, my ideas and my beliefs -
> I've been just dumping
> it all on the page for several weeks and looking at it.
>
> I also seem to be on fire with a desire to get back into
> the Bible, it's a
> new feeling. The summer is coming and I am feeling
> inspired.
>
> I think I need to commit to it and go for it.
>
> S

It's just that you really have to make it the first thing in your life. Valuation. That's what gets lost after the initial main stage of lifetime build up and then discovery and then enthusiastic practice.

If you see it in the context of faith and spiritual warfare and moving forward in life guided by the Spirit, not really knowing what you will be getting into, even though you are still doing what you have to do, it can all get encapsulated into a bigger thing that can demand the valuation necessary. - C.

Seeing Christian doctrine in the light of real history and life 2

In the previous post with this title I was talking about how cruel life is when you have no Mediator between man and God (like the religion of Islam).

I should have added that in those cases not only is there no true Mediator (which can only be Jesus Christ, the Son of God become man), but the people will inevitably adopt human mediators. I.e. mediators with original sin and the spirit of the devil in them (usually full to the brim).

"What do I do, Imam?" Find a way to torture the victim in the most painful way possible. "Then what?" Then prepare to be tortured yourself. "Praise Allah."

"What do we do, Holy Father (Pope 'Innocent')?" Massacre the entire population man, woman, and child in the most horrific ways possible. "Yes, Holy Father. You are Jesus on Earth."

Spurgeon Quote

"[T]he offending of human nature is sometimes the first step towards bringing it to bow itself before God." - Charles Spurgeon

He's referring to the doctrines of grace, or five points of Calvinism, that so assault fallen man's sense of what is 'right' or even 'logical'...

Spurgeon sometimes gives the impression of a middle eastern wise man or poet. I mean, there's a poet in swashbuckling Persion dress somewhere in there. Something like that...

Words and new wineskins

I think everybody (or just myself) is tired of words. I find that I can write down the most practical penetrating real insights and truths about the plan of God or the only real goal of a human and all that, and still, really, it is just words. Because you walk away from the paper or screen and the thought just stays there and you go to whatever you are doing in your everyday life.

Words of course though have real power up to a point. When I first encountered the words that described self-remembering to me, and I was ready for it and knew what it was, I didn't walk away from the page the same person. I was changed.

But after awhile words reach their limit.

Really, what it is is this: pouring new wine into old wineskins. You need a new wineskin to hold the new wine. You need to develop capacity for understanding to develop new understanding.

The old Work teaching that it is knowledge plus being which equals understanding.

So you have to increase level of being at the same time of taking in new knowledge and new insights and all the rest.

This can be forgotten.

But the original point I thought I was going to make, which is still worth making is this: hmm...actually it's the point I ended up making... I was going to say when words reach their limit one can only read the living language of the Word of God and do the being-increasing efforts of the Work. Things that effect essence.

Interesting 7 book list

I've come up with an interesting seven book list (I know, I'm an exciting person). It is a Christian book list. Here it is, then I'll show why it's interesting:

Holy Bible, AV1611
History of the Christian Church - Schaff
Pilgrim's Progress - Bunyan
Institutes of the Christian Religion - Calvin
God, Heaven and Har Magedon - Kline
Parzival - Wolfram von Eschenbach
Fourth Way - Ouspensky

The Bible is unique in the list, for obvious reasons. It isn't paired with anything.

The other books are in the categories of history, imaginative literature, and philosophy (basically). The model I struck on was to see the other six books as being paired up into exoteric/esoteric representatives.

Schaff's history is exoteric Christian history; Kline's book is the deeper, even esoteric, history of redemption from eternity.

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is exoteric; Parzival is esoteric.

Calvin's Institutes are exoteric doctrine and practice; whereas the Fourth Way represents the esoteric level of knowledge and being.

And when I look at that list, if you count the abridged version of
Calvin's Institutes I read complete, and if you include a one-volume history of Christianity I read complete (Schaff's work is 8 volumes) I really have read all seven books.

Which tells me I may have run the course of this subject.

Seeing Christian doctrine in the light of real history and life

It strikes me that a profitable way to see the truth of Christianity is to contrast it with something anti-Christian like Islam. One insight as example is how life is very cruel when you don't have a Mediator between you and God. God, after the fall, is not well-disposed towards human beings. The only thing that give some degree of protection is the common grace type mediation between God and man, effected by Jesus' work, and the full protection that God's elect have via having faith in Jesus and having Him as our personal Mediator between us and God the Father.

Islam only has God the Father, El Elyon, God's name as He's known to the nations (and, of course, their false idol god allah who the really satanic in Islam worship).

Because Islam only has God the Father with no mediator their lands are barren, their lives are cruel, their nations are tyrannous. Etc.

Life is cruel for fallen man when you have no mediator between you and God. And, again, non-believers benefit by being in the lands of Christians because common grace flows down on all. He makes the sun to shine on all. That doesn't mean all who are in Christian lands are regenerate believers. They just benefit by being in the vicinity. But when you get into the truly dark lands of peoples like Muslims, where there are no Christians, where the truth itself is suppressed, you see how mean and cruel life without a mediator between man and God is.

Muslims are Arians. They refuse to recognize Jesus as God come in the flesh. Islam is a Christian heresy. They have no Mediator, in a common grace sense, or in a salvation sense.

Seeing this makes doctrine practical. You see the doctrine of the Mediatorship of Christ practically in the light of real history and real life on this planet.

Deep theme seen by the piercing eye of faith

Remember how big it is to 'see' the theme of idol worship all through the history books of the Bible. This is big because it's an example of what the Bible communicates on deeper levels, 'scholarly exegesis' and their 'exegeting' notwithstanding. The theme itself, the reality of false idols, of worshiping the creation rather than the Creator, is foundational for understanding and awakening.

A high form of what the Puritans called experimental Calvinism

For regeneration and justification - salvation itself - one doesn't need the Work, but once one is born again and desires the practical level of the faith (the Puritans just knew it as spiritual warfare and assaulting heaven) the ideas, practices, and goals of the Work, as especially found in the main works of Ouspensky, are the real thing.

The law in the Garden and the law given on Sinai

This is a comment I wrote under a post somebody wrote about how the law God made in the Garden with Adam is the same law God gave to Moses on Sinai:

+ + +

It's also just straight Federal Theology. The parallel of the two Adams demands that the law given on Sinai be the same as that given to Adam in the Garden.

Jesus came to fulfill what Adam failed to fulfill.

Where some stumble at all this is to wonder what the Sinai law has to do vis-a-vis the nation of Israel, and that is simple: Israel was a type for the Messiah. Jesus' life mirrors the history of national Israel. In the fulness of time Israel was to bring the Messiah, the pure bloodline from David, into the world.

In God's plan of redemption, as well, it has to be seen that Adam and national Israel are unique players. Neither pre-fall Adam nor national Israel can be compared to fallen man. National Israel had a role to play (just as Adam in the Garden did) that was unique in God's plan. Individually each Israelite (or foreigner among them) was saved by faith in the coming Messiah, just as we are saved by faith in the already-come Messiah, but National Israel itself plays a role in the plan of redemption that makes it unique and non-correlative to fallen mankind in general.

This is why Paul struggles in the language he uses to explain the unique position of his people in Romans. He wants to say they are unique in God's plan (they are) yet they are also individually under the curse of the law as any other, but because they are unique in God's plan let God judge them and so on.

Jesus in Leviticus 14

To see the deeper meaning in any passage of the Old Testament, especially the ceremonial laws, see Jesus in them. Jesus himself said it was all about him. This is how Old Testament saints knew about the coming Saviour, and hence were able to have faith in Him, by the types and shadows in the ceremonial laws.

Also, to read the Old Testament passages, any of them but especially the particular descriptions of the ceremonial laws, to see Jesus and His work in them you can get more understanding of Jesus. Take Lev. 14 for instance. Below is a commentary on it from this site. I can't vouch for the site or the commentary as a whole, but I like this passage:

Leviticus 14 - Rituals On the Cleansing of a Leper



A. The sacrifice for a cleansed leper.



1. (1-9) The first seven days of the ritual.



Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "This shall be the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the priest. And the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall examine him; and indeed, if the leprosy is healed in the leper, then the priest shall command to take for him who is to be cleansed two living and clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water. As for the living bird, he shall take it, the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose in the open field. He who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean. After that he shall come into the camp, and shall stay outside his tent seven days. But on the seventh day he shall shave all the hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows; all his hair he shall shave off. He shall wash his clothes and wash his body in water, and he shall be clean."



a. Then the priest shall command to take for him who is to be cleansed two living and clean birds: In this cleansing ceremony, one bird was killed in an earthen vessel over running water, and its blood was applied to a living bird, to some cedar wood, to some scarlet fabric, and to some hyssop. Then, using these things, the blood was sprinkled on the one who was cleansed from leprosy. Then, the living bird was let go.



i. This seems to be a picture of Jesus’ death and its spiritual application; a “heavenly” being (as a bird is “of the heavens”) dies in an earthen vessel, while remaining clean (because of the running water). The death of the bird is associated with blood and water; the blood is connected with life (applied to the living bird), and then applied to the one cleansed.



ii. Cedar wood: Cedar is extremely resistant to disease and rot, and these qualities may be the reason for including it here - as well as a symbolic reference to the wood of the cross. Some even think the cross Jesus was crucified on was made of cedar.



iii. The connection with hyssop is also important. Jesus was offered drink from a hyssop branch on the cross (Matthew 27:48), and when David said purge me with hyssop in Psalm 51:7, he was admitted that he was as bad as a leper.



b. He shall shave all the hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows: After the sacrificial ceremony with the birds, the cleansed leper had to wash their clothes and shave off all of their hair. They started all over again, as if they were a brand new baby.



i. Again, this seems to be an illustration of being “born again” - a completely new start.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and general revelation

Somebody has written a book on the subject of Homer and general revelation. Here is apparently an abstract the author has written of his own work:

http://fc.hbu.edu/~lmarkos/homertochristbook

Good quote from Ouspensky's wife

I will just leave you now with a definition of 'being' you might find useful to consider (attributed to Madame Ouspensky, by John G. Bennett, as quoted by Tony Blake in "The Intelligent Enneagram")

'Being' (said Madame Ouspensky) is what you can bear.

From here.

Providence and sanctification

John Flavel - Puritan - writes about providence and in one chapter he talks of sanctification:

"Now there are two means or instruments employed in this work. The Spirit, who effects it internally (Rom. 8. 13), and Providence, which assists it externally."

I've never seen it this way, but it rings so true when you see it put this way. Providence, events, people, places, things, phenomena, work to help or give friction or what have you. You see this in Work effort. When you have the Spirit from making self-remembering efforts you then are in a new world where providence is acting on you externally.

Havn't you observed the 'coincidences' that occur when you are doing something 'bad' or wrong or what have you. A person appears out of no where. Something. Also, the difficult, surprising event that occurs when you are filled with higher energy. Things like this. Other examples, different types of examples, as well.

Spiritual Warfare contains it all

Living in a neither fish nor fowl realm between the two languages of the Work and the Faith I see what I knew long ago (but forgot, or didn't see strongly enough at the time) that spiritual warfare is what brings together Work knowledge and practice and the Bible without mixing languages or creating watered-down weak hybrids of systems and teachings. The Grail knight is engaging in spiritual warfare and the Israelites between Egypt and the Holy Land are engaging in spiritual warfare. The church Christians are doing anything but engaging in spiritual warfare. This is the sickness of the mainstream Christian realm and is why Christians like myself are such an immediate, intuitive, instinctive threat to them and their environments. They don't even cotton to Puritans when it comes down to it (I speak of the self-professed Calvinists and Reformed), not that the Puritans even wrote about or practiced spiritual warfare at the truly practical level.

This is the focus and anchor and consolidating pursuit now for myself: spiritual warfare.

When I engage in Work efforts I am putting myself on spiritual ground where the forces of light and darkness meet. When I am provoking my limits to then give myself the potential to extend my limits I am engaging in battles with the world, the flesh, and the devil that is spiritual warfare.

I found when I was putting together Bible verses and passages to bring to mind in everyday situations and events and circumstances that what naturally occured was a presentation of categories of spiritual warfare. This is what the Christian comes to when the Christian gets to the practical level of the faith: spiritual warfare.

This is sanctification: spiritual warfare. It is what we do because it is our nature after regeneration by the Word and the Spirit to do. We desire to engage in spiritual warfare. The churchians desire to avoid spiritual warfare at all costs and to remain comfortable and smug in villages of morality and pretend the faith is about family and 'being good.' A Christian born again by the Word and the Spirit knows differently.

It is in our new heart to engage in spiritual warfare.

It is in the heart of the world, the flesh, the devil and churchianity to dissuade Christians from engaging in spiritual warfare.

This they can't do. The Holy Spirit gives us guidance to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil and any who would tempt or put fear into us or attempt to dissuade us from engaging in the battle until the return of our King.

Scripture worth remembering

1Th 5:16 Rejoice evermore. (Always be joyful. I.e. remember God's remarkable promises to those who believe in His Son.)
1Th 5:17 Pray without ceasing. (This is a constant command in the New Testament. One can't really see it's practical meaning without including some aspect of self-remembering. But always asking for what you need, and for wisdom and strength and so on too.)
1Th 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (Gratitude in place of resentment regarding anything. It's powerful that the will of God is being defined here.)

This is Scripture worth remembering.

Quick summary of classical covenant theology (Federal Theology)

In classical covenant theology (Federal Theology is classical covenant theology systematized) there are three basic covenants. The Covenant of Redemption made between God the Father (representing the Trinity) and God the Son. This covenant was made before the foundation of the world. In this covenant the Son agrees to pay the price for God's elect. The Covenant of Redemption is a covenant of 'works.' Then there is the Covenant of Works itself made between God and Adam. This takes place in time, in history. God commands Adam "do this and live" and Adam fails to fulfill the covenant and falls, and all who are 'in Adam' fall as well because Adam is the *federal head* of all humanity. The creation itself falls as well.

Once Adam falls the Covenant of Grace is announced to him (this is the aforementioned Covenant of Redemption as it plays out in historical time). The Covenant of Grace says "believe this and live". It begins with types and shadows of the coming Saviour. The object of Old Testament saint's saving faith was the *coming* Messiah, which they knew of in the types and shadows of the ceremonial laws and from their prophets. The object of New Testament saints saving faith is the *already come* Messiah.

All the other covenants from the fall to the incarnation of Christ are part of the Covenant of Grace (including the Mosaic Covenant). The Noaic Covenant is part of the Covenant of Grace because with it God sets the stage for the Covenant of Grace to play out. He says He won't bring destruction on man or creation like He did with the flood. The Abrahmic is the covenant of grace, the Davidic as well. The Mosaic Covenant *seems* like a covenant of works and it *is* BUT only for Jesus to fulfull. The Mosaic Covenant is a *republication* of the Covenant of Works in the Garden that God made with Adam. Jesus needed to be born under the law to have that law to fulfill. It is made with *national Israel* which is a type for Jesus Christ. When Jesus fulfills the law (to a 't') he is doing what the *first Adam* failed to do, and thus as the federal head of God's elect he is fulfilling the Covenant of Works AND he is paying the penalty for it being broken - death. Jesus' following the law to a 't' and his willing death on the cross is called his active and passive obedience. It is *imputed* to any who believe in Him.

The new covenant is different from the old in that what God demands in the new he *gives freely.* Faith for instance. Among other ways it's new and better.

Behind all this is - and what this is - is the Plan of Redemption. Man created 'on high', a fall, and then being drawn back up to a higher level than where you were created at (that is the eschatological glorification aspect). The Plan sets up the mechanics for created beings to develop by God's will *without* it being merely by fiat (which would just make us robots).

It's mystical. Self-will vs. God's will. The position (with all the tensions and mystery and acting 'top down') the covenants and our 'federal heads' Adam and Christ put us in gives us the potential to come alive in a real way (or not, i.e. hell is real, as real as glorification). You become 'in Christ' and no longer "in Adam" by simple belief in Jesus Christ and who He is. Of course this 'simple belief' entails alot of inner battle and getting above vanity, worldly pride, and rebellious self-will. It requires regeneration by the Word and the Spirit. Etc. You have to become a new man.

But everything else on this planet and in all cultures and activities of man is general revelation and idol worship and basically vanity chasing its tail. You can learn from it all, develop in it, but eventually there is one thing that is real and necessary. John 3:16! - C.

Guiding metaphors...

I'm beginning to wonder if the desert metaphor (having left Egypt - symbolic of the world - but not yet at Canaan - the promised land) is the best way to get context and understanding of where one is and what one is supposed to be doing. What does the desert part of the journey call for? Persevere. Stay strong. Continually refresh yourself as to why you are here and what it's all about. (It's easy to forget in the withering immediate conditions of the desert.)

This clashes some with the big Work metaphor of the Grail Knight. You know, take to the trackless forest, meet conflict, persevere, enter new worlds... Hmm... Maybe it doesn't clash so much...

I just saw something 2

You see, there's a difference between knowing the Bible, being regenerated, being who I was prior to 2002 on the one hand, and then being a real hardcore Christian on the other.

The latter is when you enter the 'weird' zone (I say honestly without mocking the faith). Prior I could still be the secular person high on the Homeric epics and practical knowledge on inner development that was delivered in very secular mode (the Work sources) and all that. But when you convert everything is filtered and wrapped with a more serious consciousness of your own real situation as a fallen human being in need of saving.

This is why the Work crowd, such as it was, literally scattered. Literally! ("Run away!")

So then, though, as this new person I wasn't as adept yet with my subject as I had been with the Work, and I was sort of in an in-between state and an undeveloped stated regarding my understanding of the new thing: biblical doctrine and practice.

But you can see how fast I work, because I read what I was writing in 2002 and 2003 and '04 and I had already gotten the 'whole' that is there to get from the Bible and theology, and it is the summit of what theologians write about and all that. Still you have to settle into it all, grow into it, and get real understanding over time. You can be a tyro immediately and know real things, but you're still a live wire.

Now I can step back; with perspective; and be more of an anchored source in my delivery. If I get into that having-an-audience stage again.

I just saw something

I just saw something about myself that explains to me some of my anchorless condition I've been in for quite a few years. When you all first met me I was still the Homer, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Parzival person who knew the Work and wrote about it. I can see that 'me' clearly. Then... I transitioned into the necessary Christian territory. This was necessary, but left me less sure of my surroundings. The average Christian and Christian environment is a bit shallow to say the least.

And I don't want to make it sound facile, but 9/11, that event and the date attached to the event, was some kind of strange marker or milestone as it turns out. Because it happened for everybody it seems facile to claim it as a milestone for yourself personally, but I think it has to do with the otherworldly and plan of redemption aspects of that event. It was a biblical event, in other words. A shock on a universal scale. The Work stuff was more innocent prior to that date (I shouldn't say that though because it was dead real no matter world events; we're not attached to world events in that sense). I mean even the writing and exchanges and all that on Work forums. After 9/11 all that was a bit fractured and scattered about.

Then I converted. You convert when you begin to learn real biblical doctrine. Learn what you are to have faith in and what you are to repent of, and why it all is. Why you need a saviour. Regeneration happened years - many years - prior, but actual conversion happened after 2001. (Though I have to toss in the fact that I was learning real doctrine prior to that too, but it was more an intellectual pursuit than the activity of real conversion. But we always have to write about these things as if they are more defined and clear cut than they are.)

So that's why I've been in this drift, and havn't given a sense of wholeness and anchored understanding like I perhaps could prior to 9/11.

I broke myself down again to accept the orthodox Christian teaching. Just as I got broken down prior to connecting with Work teaching in a real way.

Hence my juvenile style (intentionally, yet still juvenile) when interacting on Christian subjects.

But I am coming out of that and consolidating now. Which means I can discourse on the Plan of Redemption from understanding. And what the mystics know from understanding.

medium wisdom

We can be doing anything, really, as long as we are taking in higher (for us) influences and provoking and extending our limits. Then what we 'do' is really just puppet-on-a-string stuff. Because no matter how serious you get about something a point is reached where you start thinking about a Diet Coke and Panini (or whatever your particular thing is). Or about going to sleep. Or about seeing that must-see game (or whatever). You write an essay getting to the foundational truth of everything and include practical knowledge about how to reach the supernatural, then you go get a drink and turn on some sporting event.

Mystics, even. They wake up. "Oh, God. Here I am still." Then they get involved in politics and get famous causing trouble. Nothing else to do.

There's nothing to do! (Maybe it's enough to introduce the average person to the very first levels of awakening - as they spit at you and call the police - because most people are, you know, where they are, in the average sense...)

Nevertheless, one can can engage higher influences and provoke and extend limits no matter what is going on or what we are 'doing'...

Something big

I just now opened a rare volume of John Calvin's, his Sermons on Ephesians, and where I opened it he was talking about how Christ comes to us, and about the Lord's Supper, and what it means spiritually, and it is SOOO obvious that the Lord's Supper is the second conscious shock and the developing of higher bodies (our higher body) and that is what it means that we eat Christ's body and blood. There is no question. Ritual is dead if it is mere ritual. Calvin knew this, Zwingli knew this (they were the main guys regarding pure doctrine). The first conscious shock involves accumulating the Spirit, the second involves taking on Christ's body. That moment, or time, or process of transforming negative emotion (which for us is merely emotional energy of the level of higher centers which we can only experience as explosive and negative) is the process of developing your higher body, taking on Christ's body, to put it in Christian language.

Baptism is baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is regeneration, or being born again. Baptism after that means praying and accumulating the Spirit. "Peter prayed and was filled with the Holy Spirit." (from memory, not exact wording).

Self-remembering, non-identifying, over time.

Try this after trying to make yourself taller by standing up harder

Here's something subtle: when you finally know the faith and you know that the two conscious shocks are the two 'sacraments' (at the deeper, practical level) and you know that it is only God's will that sanctifies then you can 'let go' and just 'be.' Be in the arms of the faith.

Enough with the efforts!

Efforts are good at first to see your limits and to awaken initially.

See, I saw a woman singing a Christian song and the look on her face reminded me of this. The completeness of the faith was in her face. She didn't need anything else but her faith, hope, and love. The Old and New Testaments and understanding the parts in relation to the whole (Federal Theology) are enough. The two great commandments as be awake and love your enemies. The two conscious shocks, which are effected by God's will in us, from above, when they are.

Not by self-will. So stop with that. Be guided by the Spirit. In the present. Be an idiot. (You have to cast off a lot of worldly wisdom and knowledge to be this kind of idiot.)

Know the Bible, yes. Know the history of redemption. But, I mean...allow God's will to work in you from above.

(There will still be storms and battles. There will still be provoking of limits and extending of limits. But it will come from above. And you will be complete already, at every step. It will be completeness NOW, vertical, in the Kingdom of God now, while the necessary journey continues in time until glorified.)

Body, soul, and spirit

There is debate among theologians regarding whether man is tripartite (body, soul, and spirit) or whether soul and spirit are synonymous and man is better described as body and soul. The latter position is best, I discern, and orthodox Reformed theology discerns (despite the attractiveness of having '3' elements to our being, that is really just misleading in this case. Beings are soul/spirit in a body, or tabernacle.

On this subject, though, I came across some colloquial language in Fielding's Tom Jones which may give insight into the relation of spirit to soul. A landlady had mistaken a lady for a whore and effusively apologized and the lady responded (when offered something of the landlady's to wear):

"...I will [not] condescend to put on any of your dirty things. I would have you know, creature, I have a spirit above that."

Now, pay no attention to the affectation of being 'better' than others here, I am getting at the natural, colloquial language of which Fielding is good at reproducing. "I have a spirit above that."

In this sense spirit is the quality of the soul. Something overly pious, or fake modest Christians object to is any talk of degree of level of being of believers, even though the Word of God speaks explicitly of it. But that is neither here nor there regarding the point of this post.

There is body and soul. That is what we are. Then our spirit is the quality of the soul. Not in the sense of being an abstraction (quality); it is a thing, the Spirit itself, of which Jesus only had/has the full measure (itself a reference to degree of level of being in reference to spirit); so then also our spirit develops, in the fullness of time, by the grace of God.

Contact

To be in contact with what is higher (good higher) we need to be in the third state of consciousness (self-remembering). If we are walking around thinking it would be nice to have real supernatural contact every now and then we have to remember the fundamental fact that higher influence can't reach us if we are in the 1st and 2nd state of consciousness. We have to be in the 3rd state of consciousness. Even if it's not continuous, effort to be there begets contact with higher influence.

Maybe there are bad influences, higher only in terms of space, the Prince of the power of the air and his demons; but we have to have control and discernment and inner-command and the full armor of God to get through this layer of influence, untouched, or undefeated.

Prayer is more powerful in the third state of consciousness. If you know of the third state of consciousness you have travelled a good way down a road guided by the Holy Spirit Himself to get to this understanding and state. So recognize this fundamental truth. To be able to have contact with higher influence (and to get above laws such as the law of accident) you have to get yourself into the third state of consciousness.

The 6 activities and the second conscious shock

I was thinking about something brought up in the recent exchange on the food octave. Something about prayer and the difficult mi12-fa6 interval that represents the second conscious shock. It reminded me of the Work teaching on the 6 activities.

Here is a post I wrote on that subject five years ago or so. I always remembered it as one of my more useful posts because the subject really was in need of being put in a practical context, and I think I was able to do that in a rather complete way:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/work_celestial/message/241

I also surprised myself when I reread it because as I was reading it I knew it was the activity of 'magic' that prayer and the second conscious shock fell in to, but I didn't think I hit on that five years ago, yet I see that I had a whole paragraph on just that (not prayer itself, but just how much of Work efforts fall into the category of the activity of magic).

Maybe I was hesitant to see 'prayer' connected with 'magic', but maybe the terminology 'magic' can be changed. The Work sources don't mean actual 'magic' anyway. Maybe 'cultivating' is a word that can used for it. After all, what activities of the six does the effort of a farmer planting crops fall into?

Creating
Building
Destroying
Inventing/Adapting/Discovering/Fixing
Magic
Crime

One wouldn't say or think 'magic', even though we could intellectually understand that connection. Cultivating, though, seems to fit, even as a broad category label for that activity. Doing something now for a pay-off in the future. It is different from building because what happens is not something we can so obviously do hands-on. We can build a house from foundation to roof, but a farmer can't make his crops grow. And we can't get through the Mi12-Fa6 interval on our own, using the same activity that got us there (creating, i.e. self-remembering effort, or building even, the more rote, getting-into-the-self-remembering state). For the second conscious shock effort we have to use another activity. Magic. Or cultivation. Prayer. Perhaps fasting, if necessary. Beforehand. Knowing what it needed. Knowing from Work experience and history what will inevitably happen and asking for assistance to get through it.

The main thing here is the necessity to use (or match up) the right activity for what you are trying to do. When you're banging your head against a wall you are, among maybe other problems, not approaching your goal using the right 'triad', or activity; which is a big part of it, if not most all of it...

Moving on (from recurrence)

How do I know I'm moving on (from recurrence) and that I'm no longer in the Kingdom of Satan? God has called me. He's gathered me. It's done. Effectual calling. I know the voice of the Shepherd, and I value it. I fear God alone and not man. I'm trustworthy to God. I'm one of His.

The Work and the Divine Covenant

"The God-given covenant carries, of course, obligations. The life of faith and repentance, and the obedience to which faith leads, constitute the covenant-keeping through which God's people receive the fulness of God's covenant blessing. "I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession" (Ex. 19:4 f.). Covenant faithfulness is the condition and means of receiving covenant benefits, and there is nothing arbitrary in that; for the blessings flow from the relationship, and human rebelliousness and unfaithfulness stop the flow by disrupting the relationship. Israel's infidelity was constantly doing this throughout the Old Testament story, and the New Testament makes it plain that churches and Christians will lose blessings that would otherwise be theirs, should covenant fidelity be lacking in their lives." - J. I. Packer, from here

"Should a reader ask, Does my getting to heaven depend upon the everlasting covenant or the new one? The answer is upon both. First upon what Christ did for me in executing the terms of the former; second, upon my compliance with the conditions of the latter. Many are very confused at this very point. They who repudiate man’s responsibility will not allow that there are any "ifs" or "buts," restricting their attention to God’s "wills" and "shalls"; but this is not dealing honestly with the Word. Instead of confining ourselves to favorite passages, we must impartially compare Scripture with Scripture, and over against God’s "I will" of Hebrews 8:10-12 must be placed the "But Christ as a Son over his own house: whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end . . . for we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end" of Hebrews 3:6, 14! Does this render such a vital matter uncertain, and place my eternal interests in jeopardy? By no means: if I have turned "from transgression" God has made an everlasting covenant with me and has given to me the same Spirit which abode—without measure—on the Mediator (Isa. 59:20,21). Nevertheless, I can have Scriptural assurance of this only so long as I tread the path of obedience." - A. W. Pink, from here

If you're a Man #4 Christian (and higher) the good works you do are the same as are commanded by God in the Word of God and that boil down to the two conscious shocks. When you do the Work, as a Christian, you are engaging in covenant living. You are holding up your end of the covenant, and God rewards that. This is how you see the practical aspect of being in covenant with God. (By the way, what God demands of His own He gives freely. You're given the Spirit upon regeneration which enables you to have faith and to do good works. Doing the Work - or good works, as commanded by God, done in faith, and done to the glory of God - isn't a part of the law of works but is part of the law of Christ; it's like spiritual warfare, you want to do it because it is what you are and it is coming from your new heart.)

So holding the two conscious shocks and walking the King's Highway is doing your part of the covenant with God. Fall and you will be let known that you have fallen. Stay in watchfulness and the fear of God only (self-remembering and non-identifying) walking the King's Highway and you will receive what God's own receive.

Comment from a post below

I'm the writer of this, and I thought I'd archive it as its own post. The subject is rather big:

There's that famous tension within us all of that common embarrassment that I think our fallen nature inculcates in us (and the world does too) when we contemplate God and eternity and giving ourselves to God (or, that kind of language, you know) vs. the fact that when we die we die alone and will face that event and whatever journey it holds alone, so we think: "Against that what is the embarrassment worth?" Or we should think that.

I always think: imagine being encased in rock six hundred feet below the surface of the earth and you are alive for eternity and nobody can hear you or come to save you and you are there thinking "I was too embarrassed to cling to, to throw myself at the feet of, the Saviour and King that was offered to me, the only Person who could save me from where I am now..."

The practical thing is: recognize vanity, worldly pride, and rebellious self-will and mortify them. Faith, repentance, and God's will will take their place, will be quickened in you. And you become a prophet, a priest, and a king to ever greater degree in the process, with legal standing in the Kingdom of God, for eternity...

Then see what's going on. Get the basics first. Have your wealth secured, get your mansion, have your glorified body, then see what there is to do.

The fear of God

Look at the description of this book.

This is what I came into understanding of independently. Seeing the fear of God in non-idenitifying which also would include self-remembering by default. But to see that as the 'practice' of the Christian. This is why I am in tune with the Puritans (as they really were, not the popular myths and disparagements that come from the world towards truth and on-the-mark knowledge and practice, including the disparaging coming from the very worldly environment of church level Christianity, or, churchianity).

(The link above references the book Puritan Spirituality by J. Stephen Yuille)

Last moments of Christians, last moments of atheists

Here. There is some introductory material you can scroll down through. Overall, the collection of quotes and vignettes sparks memories and evokes foundational thoughts.

Post-post

There's power in these verses:

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/gracelist.html

POWER!!!

Damn it.

There's real, and then there's screwin' around.

WAKE UP!!! (I shout into the mirror.)

Why? Aren't you going to be in the same straits once
glorified? Looking for and thinking up stuff to do?

I don't know. It will probably be different,
methinks. Safe to say it will be different. Right
now we are in a difficult in-between state and
condition. Even when totally asleep we are in fallen
flesh bodies which are rather unfortunate and limited
tabernacles. Even if you have one others want to
devour then after-the-fact it's yeah, hm, right, ok,
gotta go.

And anyway I've already solved all that. It's on my
Plain Path Puritan blog. How in heaven you become the
actual material and events of heaven. It's probably
freaky at first until you begin to get the hang of it
then it's like Greek myth somewhat. Now we see
through a glass darkly.

Everything's been solved.

Over and over.

Just as in heaven you become the actual material and
events of heaven it's the same now with understanding.
If you develop understanding it actually becomes your
being, your body. We can see and feel understanding
residing in the Word of God. And in the influx of the
Holy Spirit and mortifying process of Work efforts.

Now go to the world you ungrateful vain children.
Away! Off with you. I'm the only one who knows
anything. I alone am here, awake, not dead in sin. I
alone. Me it is who knows, no one else. You have no
allies when you know and do the Work. None but me.
I, and I alone. - Me

Union with Christ sums up the Work and the Faith

Union with Christ. The Work and the Faith once delivered unites at all levels (but most importantly the practical level) in union with Christ.

Elisha said to Elijah that he wanted a double dose of his Spirit, and Elijah said that is a tough road, are you sure?

Union with Christ is a tough road. Developing up the internal scale of increase of being is a tough road.

All the Work practices mortify the old nature and increase the capacity of the new nature and enable one to be to ever greater degree in union with Christ. Not 'degree' in terms of effective for salvation or justification, but on the foundation of that which was earned by Christ alone. On that foundation there are lazy Christians and diligent Christians; the parable of the talents (silver) speaks to this.

Again this is not about justification, it's about making efforts to recover the image of God once you are able to, i.e. once you have regeneration and are converted and have faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and High Priest, and Prophet, and King.

Imagine Elisha whining about what is happening to him after he has asked for a double amount of the Spirit Elijah had been given. You can't whine. You can't complain. No, what happens is not 'fair.' Yes, the world is creepy. Yes, people are devils. But you stepped out of the camp of darkness, and now you've gone and asked for more even. And you've been shown the way.

To teach the Work from inside the faith once delivered you teach it as union with Christ.