It's interesting (to me, anyway) that when you write a list of Dostoevsky's major novels, novellas, and stories there aren't that many.
About a baker's dozen:
The Double
Notes from Underground
Crime and Punishment
The Gambler
The Idiot
The Eternal Husband
The Possessed
The Brothers Karamazov
White Nights
A Nasty Story (also trans. as 'A Disgraceful Affair')
Bobok
A Gentle Creature (also trans. as 'The Meek One')
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
Dostoevsky is interesting because he portrays the psychology a person who has developed into being able to see and value the Work possesses. Experiences are similar. Alienation. Isolation. The insulted and humiliated. Embarrassment as a means and an end in development. One I love, the 'scandalous feast' or 'scandalous gathering' where the veil is lifted on the facade of societal unity and people are exposed and things get crazy. D. has these scenes in all his major novels. The love triangle (which doesn't need to involve consummated love). The figure of the 'dreamer.' The dreamer as idealist who wants to transform his squalid reality into something more noble, more lofty, more beautiful. It ends badly. Reality triumphs. Though the ideals are vindicated in various ways. Then, isolated consciousness has recognized its isolation. Love this quote from Notes from Underground: "...to tell long stories of how I defaulted on my life through moral corruption in a corner, through an insufficiency of milieu, through unaccustom to what is alive, and through vainglorious spite in the underground - is not interesting..." Another motif is the motif of the double, the lack of unity or oneness in a person. Obvious Work theme. Then, the General Law, depicted as the social nexus (the outer, collective world) that impinges upon the inner, personal world. These clash in the aforementioned 'scandalous feasts' or 'scandalous gatherings.'
In the above paragraph, in places, I have paraphrased Richard Pevear in his Intro to the Bantam Classics edition of The Eternal Husband.
I didn't mention one other theme because Pevear presented it as confused. The theme of separation from 'what is living' leads to violence towards what is living. What is confusing is Pevear doesn't say if 'what is living' is the isolated individual or the collective social milieu.
For us, Work types, we can see that there is an element of violence going on, and criminal behavior is always close. Perhaps a percentage of inmates of prisons are in very early stages of development (recurrence) and succumbed to violence. I always use to say: "Don't get yourself into a prison cell!" when talking about accumulating higher energy in early stages of development.
5.09.2010
5.05.2010
A stinging recognition
While reading a discussion of the Trinity on a forum (one person who should know better was refusing to recognize the orthodox biblical teaching on the Trinity) it reminded me of a realization - a sharp, as in stinging, realization - I had recently. I recognized that I was dishonoring the Holy Spirit by neglecting the language He introduced me to and taught me (enabled me to understand).
To clear my mind on the Trinity after reading that forum discussion I read J. I. Packer's chapter on the Trinity in his Concise Theology, and at the end of that chapter he notes that part of having a biblical understanding of the Trinity - of accepting the biblical teaching - is we are reminded to honor all three Persons of the Trinity, or Godhead.
I.e. pay equal attention and give equal honor to the gracious ministries of all three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
To clear my mind on the Trinity after reading that forum discussion I read J. I. Packer's chapter on the Trinity in his Concise Theology, and at the end of that chapter he notes that part of having a biblical understanding of the Trinity - of accepting the biblical teaching - is we are reminded to honor all three Persons of the Trinity, or Godhead.
I.e. pay equal attention and give equal honor to the gracious ministries of all three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
4.20.2010
Just got a glimpse of...higher time 2 (disappearing from our living time now)
Following on that last post think about this:
The problem of how we can exist in all parts of our living time at the same time doesn't really appear (i.e. the problem doesn't become a problem) until a person begins to awaken and thus having a 'point' of consciousness in that living time.
It very well might be that before we awaken we are just totally mechanical throughout our 'time-body' in our living time and there thus really *is no* single point of consciousness, but 'you' throughout all of that 'time-body' is equally mechanically-asleep, going through mechanical motions.
Sure, there is the phenomenon that people wake up when in contact with another person who is awake (sometimes they do), and that fools us, if we are the awakened one. But normally that person is just dead, mechanical asleep in their life all the time. Their 'I', or 'point of consciousness moving around the circle of their time', so to speak, is Imaginary 'I', so their whole time-body is imaginary 'I', one thing, happening at the same time. We are seeing them at a particular point, but they are no more awake at that point than at any other point of their living time.
We, on the other hand, who have awakened in our time (let's be generous to ourselves and describe us that way) just 'may' in fact *disappear* from every other part of our living time. I.e. *right now.* Because Imaginary 'I' holds that all together, but once Observing I appears (a degree of Real I) boom, we are here, and no longer everywhere at once in our living time.
Think about that. Relations disintegrate. People from your past start to fade away. (I.e. because *you* have faded away from their time).
Graduation is in store. You have begun to awaken and are now 'present', thus you graduate. You disappear from your time. And that is happening NOW. You as a child, for instance, are no longer in those times and spaces. Those events. You are here now, right where you are now.
Graduation must happen once a person awakens. That means literally disappearing from your living time. Which occurs *while you are still alive*. My childhood is no longer 'there' because I am no longer there in mechanicalness, going through the motions, because *I am here.*
Read this again, and think about it. It is interesting.
It is eschatological as well. It brings an immediateness of results of awakening to the present.
The problem of how we can exist in all parts of our living time at the same time doesn't really appear (i.e. the problem doesn't become a problem) until a person begins to awaken and thus having a 'point' of consciousness in that living time.
It very well might be that before we awaken we are just totally mechanical throughout our 'time-body' in our living time and there thus really *is no* single point of consciousness, but 'you' throughout all of that 'time-body' is equally mechanically-asleep, going through mechanical motions.
Sure, there is the phenomenon that people wake up when in contact with another person who is awake (sometimes they do), and that fools us, if we are the awakened one. But normally that person is just dead, mechanical asleep in their life all the time. Their 'I', or 'point of consciousness moving around the circle of their time', so to speak, is Imaginary 'I', so their whole time-body is imaginary 'I', one thing, happening at the same time. We are seeing them at a particular point, but they are no more awake at that point than at any other point of their living time.
We, on the other hand, who have awakened in our time (let's be generous to ourselves and describe us that way) just 'may' in fact *disappear* from every other part of our living time. I.e. *right now.* Because Imaginary 'I' holds that all together, but once Observing I appears (a degree of Real I) boom, we are here, and no longer everywhere at once in our living time.
Think about that. Relations disintegrate. People from your past start to fade away. (I.e. because *you* have faded away from their time).
Graduation is in store. You have begun to awaken and are now 'present', thus you graduate. You disappear from your time. And that is happening NOW. You as a child, for instance, are no longer in those times and spaces. Those events. You are here now, right where you are now.
Graduation must happen once a person awakens. That means literally disappearing from your living time. Which occurs *while you are still alive*. My childhood is no longer 'there' because I am no longer there in mechanicalness, going through the motions, because *I am here.*
Read this again, and think about it. It is interesting.
It is eschatological as well. It brings an immediateness of results of awakening to the present.
4.19.2010
Just got a glimpse of...higher time
Just got a glimpse of how you can be in difference parts of your time at the same time. It had to do with a key and a lock. The door to the building I'm living in. I started having a feeling of presence when I was at this door and putting the key into the lock. Each time. Over time. Saying things, feeling things, like: "What am I doing here?" and "Here I am again." So this particular event built, and then just now I got a glimpse of how I could be here putting this key into this lock while at the same time be in other parts of my time. *Not in the usual way we can only think that*, but in a "I just ate psychedelic mushrooms and saw beyond linear time" way. Yet no mushrooms involved.
Hate to bring mushrooms into that. It cheapens the explanation, or the realness, of the experience.
We have to wonder, though, why we are alive in all our living time (childhood on up to now) yet we are only awake in this time and place right now, and I think it is because it's like a train moving across a landscape and the towns and cities (you at different times of your life) it passes through are still there and active and alive, but you, the train, are only there in one of them at a time. The train would be some 'thing' apart from your physical body that stays with you in linear time. And the you that is past, the town that is 'back there', that still exists, is really you, but is a you that is not much awake and goes through mechanical motions. You can see how when a person truly begins to awaken things get strange for all their living time. I can look back at childhood, in school, and see things that can only be explained by such strangeness. Strange anger at you from others. Memories of being in a sort of bubble of higher awareness yet not pin-point on anything. All kinds of strange things can be going on. You could be in a different gender, yet some 'ex' is acting towards you as if you were still the you they knew.
(I still say gender is easily flipped in the womb. Genitalia goes internal or it goes external. Boys and girls both have the material for breasts. Then all secondary sexual characteristics are the effect of hormones, or whatever. Voice, shape of body, hair growth, etc. Having children will seem to lock you into one gender or the other in your time, but I also think even such a profound thing can be easily changed, such as a sibling having your children. My sister had a little girl *after* she'd had an operation regarding her uterus that practically made it impossible for her to have another child. That little girl *had* to be born in her time. Children, families, it all is more involved in universal types than we can see up close. From a higher perspective you see it. So there can be mix and match without profound changes in the person's fate. That's what I'm getting at.)
Getting the vanity and pride knocked out of you is the unpleasant part. The 'rule' or rules God gives you that are designed to get you separated from the world (the general law). You can either deny the existence of the rule, or you can accept its existence and allow it to do its job. Yet that is the painful baptism. Being truly separate. *Truly* getting your vanity stabbed to death over and over. Your pride as well. Enduring *contempt* coming at you. Especially if you've been used to being liked and all that. Recognizing that the treatment you are now getting is probably how you treated others too when you were asleep and in your worldly strength. Then having no where to turn, or to go, so you 'go' into higher influences. You go vertical.
Hate to bring mushrooms into that. It cheapens the explanation, or the realness, of the experience.
We have to wonder, though, why we are alive in all our living time (childhood on up to now) yet we are only awake in this time and place right now, and I think it is because it's like a train moving across a landscape and the towns and cities (you at different times of your life) it passes through are still there and active and alive, but you, the train, are only there in one of them at a time. The train would be some 'thing' apart from your physical body that stays with you in linear time. And the you that is past, the town that is 'back there', that still exists, is really you, but is a you that is not much awake and goes through mechanical motions. You can see how when a person truly begins to awaken things get strange for all their living time. I can look back at childhood, in school, and see things that can only be explained by such strangeness. Strange anger at you from others. Memories of being in a sort of bubble of higher awareness yet not pin-point on anything. All kinds of strange things can be going on. You could be in a different gender, yet some 'ex' is acting towards you as if you were still the you they knew.
(I still say gender is easily flipped in the womb. Genitalia goes internal or it goes external. Boys and girls both have the material for breasts. Then all secondary sexual characteristics are the effect of hormones, or whatever. Voice, shape of body, hair growth, etc. Having children will seem to lock you into one gender or the other in your time, but I also think even such a profound thing can be easily changed, such as a sibling having your children. My sister had a little girl *after* she'd had an operation regarding her uterus that practically made it impossible for her to have another child. That little girl *had* to be born in her time. Children, families, it all is more involved in universal types than we can see up close. From a higher perspective you see it. So there can be mix and match without profound changes in the person's fate. That's what I'm getting at.)
Getting the vanity and pride knocked out of you is the unpleasant part. The 'rule' or rules God gives you that are designed to get you separated from the world (the general law). You can either deny the existence of the rule, or you can accept its existence and allow it to do its job. Yet that is the painful baptism. Being truly separate. *Truly* getting your vanity stabbed to death over and over. Your pride as well. Enduring *contempt* coming at you. Especially if you've been used to being liked and all that. Recognizing that the treatment you are now getting is probably how you treated others too when you were asleep and in your worldly strength. Then having no where to turn, or to go, so you 'go' into higher influences. You go vertical.
4.17.2010
Simple and plain 2
See, with this 'simple and plain' post I'm identifying a simple, compact way of orienting oneself in the face of everything, internal or external.
Php 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
That 'pressing into the battle' sense.
Thinking of Shakespeare?
Thinking of angels?
Thinking of your job?
Thinking of social life?
Thinking of new technologies?
Thinking of changing demographics?
Thinking of boredom?
Presented with images from media?
Having trouble with your flesh body?
Having vague thoughts of Work teaching?
Forgotten the Bible from past complete readings?
Lost the key?
In fragmented mind set?
Driving, sitting, walking, talking, doing, showing, categorizing, strategizing?
Whatever it is, you can think 'spiritual warfare' and you have the means come to mind and the goal.
I would like to instill the unique and universal truth of Federal Theology into whoever will listen and learn. It's sounds, I know, just like 'one of any number of theologies', but it's not. It's the theology of the Bible. Unwatered-down, un-negotiated down to the demands of fallen man. It's the structure and mechanics and substance of God's plan from eternity. With it you place yourself. And you understand where you stand and what you stand on. It is the foundation and building structure of mystical union with God.
The Work is a language of the Holy Spirit, a language of war.
Php 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
That 'pressing into the battle' sense.
Thinking of Shakespeare?
Thinking of angels?
Thinking of your job?
Thinking of social life?
Thinking of new technologies?
Thinking of changing demographics?
Thinking of boredom?
Presented with images from media?
Having trouble with your flesh body?
Having vague thoughts of Work teaching?
Forgotten the Bible from past complete readings?
Lost the key?
In fragmented mind set?
Driving, sitting, walking, talking, doing, showing, categorizing, strategizing?
Whatever it is, you can think 'spiritual warfare' and you have the means come to mind and the goal.
I would like to instill the unique and universal truth of Federal Theology into whoever will listen and learn. It's sounds, I know, just like 'one of any number of theologies', but it's not. It's the theology of the Bible. Unwatered-down, un-negotiated down to the demands of fallen man. It's the structure and mechanics and substance of God's plan from eternity. With it you place yourself. And you understand where you stand and what you stand on. It is the foundation and building structure of mystical union with God.
The Work is a language of the Holy Spirit, a language of war.
4.15.2010
Simple and plain
The Work can get too intellectual, and with the inclusion of biblical faith it can seem to get all mixed up.
Here it is simply and plainly:
Spiritual warfare.
The three-front battle (which includes our fallen nature, the Old Man within us, which is what much of the Work teaching is involved with). The flesh, the world, and the devil. False personality, other people, and the Kingdom of Satan and all its forces.
When you think of the two conscious shocks - of doing them - think of 'pressing into the battle.'
Who wants to press into a battle? Obviously it's not comfortable.
Well, if you can see the goal of doing it, and value that goal, it's different.
The Celestial City, as Bunyan depicted it. The Kingdom of God. The Holy Mountain of God. The New Jerusalem. Heaven.
Once you know the battle exists you are in it anyway. But to remain back and away from the front lines means to decay into 'Village of Morality' sleep and mechanicalness and Imaginary 'I' that overtakes you to become what you are.
Not good.
The Work has always been closest to two historical classes of Christians: the mystics, and the Puritans. Not surprisingly they are the two classes of Christians who actually wrote on the subject of spiritual warfare. They knew it.
Federal Theology becomes mystic. Calvin's writings become mystic. They become the necessary foundation and framework for the spiritual warrior's understanding of the terrain and of himself. The Work as well. School knowledge and practice (or being).
To make that simple: what is contained in Louis Berkhof's Manuel of Christian Doctrine. But seeing the 'whole' of it. The three covenants, the connection between the two Adams (Adam in the Garden and Jesus Christ). Five solas. Doctrines of grace.
Then Work teaching.
(I just picked up a new trans. of John Calvin's The Secret Providence of God, and he sounds like a mystic once again. A very sharp one. Something that won't be understood by the common unregenerate academics in the Reformed environments of today.)
It all comes together though in spiritual warfare.
Pressing into the battle by the effort of self-remembering and non-identifying for duration, depth, and frequency. Then relying on prayer and the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and faith, the Shield. The full armor of God (Eph. 6:10-18).
That second conscious shock lifts us to new realms. Out of those surprise battles, if we don't fall from our horse (emotion) and we keep our sword, and we move on.
That very 'moving on' needs to be valued as well. It is a continual moving away from the world. Can we do that and still be in this world? Of course we have to say we can. Sanctification itself is, by God's plan, meant to take place after regeneration and conversion in the remaining time we have in the flesh. We also influence others.
Here it is simply and plainly:
Spiritual warfare.
The three-front battle (which includes our fallen nature, the Old Man within us, which is what much of the Work teaching is involved with). The flesh, the world, and the devil. False personality, other people, and the Kingdom of Satan and all its forces.
When you think of the two conscious shocks - of doing them - think of 'pressing into the battle.'
Who wants to press into a battle? Obviously it's not comfortable.
Well, if you can see the goal of doing it, and value that goal, it's different.
The Celestial City, as Bunyan depicted it. The Kingdom of God. The Holy Mountain of God. The New Jerusalem. Heaven.
Once you know the battle exists you are in it anyway. But to remain back and away from the front lines means to decay into 'Village of Morality' sleep and mechanicalness and Imaginary 'I' that overtakes you to become what you are.
Not good.
The Work has always been closest to two historical classes of Christians: the mystics, and the Puritans. Not surprisingly they are the two classes of Christians who actually wrote on the subject of spiritual warfare. They knew it.
Federal Theology becomes mystic. Calvin's writings become mystic. They become the necessary foundation and framework for the spiritual warrior's understanding of the terrain and of himself. The Work as well. School knowledge and practice (or being).
To make that simple: what is contained in Louis Berkhof's Manuel of Christian Doctrine. But seeing the 'whole' of it. The three covenants, the connection between the two Adams (Adam in the Garden and Jesus Christ). Five solas. Doctrines of grace.
Then Work teaching.
(I just picked up a new trans. of John Calvin's The Secret Providence of God, and he sounds like a mystic once again. A very sharp one. Something that won't be understood by the common unregenerate academics in the Reformed environments of today.)
It all comes together though in spiritual warfare.
Pressing into the battle by the effort of self-remembering and non-identifying for duration, depth, and frequency. Then relying on prayer and the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and faith, the Shield. The full armor of God (Eph. 6:10-18).
That second conscious shock lifts us to new realms. Out of those surprise battles, if we don't fall from our horse (emotion) and we keep our sword, and we move on.
That very 'moving on' needs to be valued as well. It is a continual moving away from the world. Can we do that and still be in this world? Of course we have to say we can. Sanctification itself is, by God's plan, meant to take place after regeneration and conversion in the remaining time we have in the flesh. We also influence others.
4.06.2010
A list to sort out the lines between secular and sacred histories
1. History as the four states of man (innocent, fallen, regenerated, glorified). Thomas Boston's Human Nature in its Fourfold State is the best source for this.
2. The history of revelation. This is 'biblical theology', as opposed to systematic theology. Vos (Biblical Theology) and John Owen (Biblical Theology) are good sources of this.
3. The history of redemption from eternity to eternity. This is the subject of classical Covenant - Federal - Theology. From the Covenant of Redemption made before the foundation of the world, to the Covenant of Works made in the Garden with Adam, to the Covenant of Grace which plays out in historical time until the consummation (second coming of Jesus Christ). This history can be gleaned from good Reformed systematic theologies like Berkhof, and - to a further degree - from Meredith G. Kline's God, Heaven and Har Magedon. Herman Witsius' Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man is another. There are a few on-the-mark sources for this.
4. The history found in any universal history of the world. Anything from H. G. Wells Outline of History to J. M. Roberts History of the World, to Susan Wise Bauer's ongoing four-volume history of the world. Secular, temporal, known history of man and cultures and civilizations on this planet. This category also includes philisophical histories such as Hegel's or Spengler's and every other kind of history one normally thinks of as history such as the classical historians or histories of individual nations or what have you.
5. The history of idol worship. This is a bigger category than it looks. It is basically secular history, yet at the more unseen level. It includes all other world religions - other than Christianity, that is - as well. John Owen in his Biblical Theology has a series of chapters on the history of idol worship that contain knowledge you won't find anywhere else, least of all in any modern day works.
6. The history between the two Advents of Jesus Christ. This is what is found in the material of the Book of Revelation, for the most part. It is a mixture of secular and sacred history. Historicism which reads the Book of Revelation as history gets at this.
7. The history presented in the entire Bible. I.e. the history of creation, of the Israelites, of Jesus Christ, of the apostles, etc. The Holy Bible, AV1611 is the source for this.
8. The history of the micro individual level: Work history. This is about Fourth Way ideas, practices, and goals. If one is a Christian unaware of such teaching then skip this one. Yet Work history is real history, for an individual. You are the historian for this.
9. The history of the micro individual level: regeneration, conversion, sanctification. The Holy Spirit is the historian of this.
10. The history of Christianity and the Church. This has always been an awkward category of history. It is blatantly temporal and unhidden and, really, in the secular category of history, yet it touches on the divine workings of the Triune God's plan of redemption in history. Phillip Schaff's 8-volume History of the Christian Church is the ultimate source for this.
11. 'Mesoteric', or in the middle between exoteric and esoteric, history such as material on the '12 Tribes of Israel vis-a-vis Europeans' is a real, if muddied and easily-mocked, category of history. Grail romance and related 'history' is in there too. 'Serpent seed' material. These types of things. It is real history if for no other reason that it has ability to bring people to the faith, if by a necessary oblique gateway.
This list now is left at an uncomfortable '11'. That is rare for me. I can usually fill out a 7 point or 10 or 12 point list. Maybe it is an 11 point list because this subject is a bit helter skelter. Or maybe I shouldn't have included 'Work history' above. Whatever the case I'll leave it as is, and hopefully it will provide something to work off of for anybody pondering this subject.
2. The history of revelation. This is 'biblical theology', as opposed to systematic theology. Vos (Biblical Theology) and John Owen (Biblical Theology) are good sources of this.
3. The history of redemption from eternity to eternity. This is the subject of classical Covenant - Federal - Theology. From the Covenant of Redemption made before the foundation of the world, to the Covenant of Works made in the Garden with Adam, to the Covenant of Grace which plays out in historical time until the consummation (second coming of Jesus Christ). This history can be gleaned from good Reformed systematic theologies like Berkhof, and - to a further degree - from Meredith G. Kline's God, Heaven and Har Magedon. Herman Witsius' Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man is another. There are a few on-the-mark sources for this.
4. The history found in any universal history of the world. Anything from H. G. Wells Outline of History to J. M. Roberts History of the World, to Susan Wise Bauer's ongoing four-volume history of the world. Secular, temporal, known history of man and cultures and civilizations on this planet. This category also includes philisophical histories such as Hegel's or Spengler's and every other kind of history one normally thinks of as history such as the classical historians or histories of individual nations or what have you.
5. The history of idol worship. This is a bigger category than it looks. It is basically secular history, yet at the more unseen level. It includes all other world religions - other than Christianity, that is - as well. John Owen in his Biblical Theology has a series of chapters on the history of idol worship that contain knowledge you won't find anywhere else, least of all in any modern day works.
6. The history between the two Advents of Jesus Christ. This is what is found in the material of the Book of Revelation, for the most part. It is a mixture of secular and sacred history. Historicism which reads the Book of Revelation as history gets at this.
7. The history presented in the entire Bible. I.e. the history of creation, of the Israelites, of Jesus Christ, of the apostles, etc. The Holy Bible, AV1611 is the source for this.
8. The history of the micro individual level: Work history. This is about Fourth Way ideas, practices, and goals. If one is a Christian unaware of such teaching then skip this one. Yet Work history is real history, for an individual. You are the historian for this.
9. The history of the micro individual level: regeneration, conversion, sanctification. The Holy Spirit is the historian of this.
10. The history of Christianity and the Church. This has always been an awkward category of history. It is blatantly temporal and unhidden and, really, in the secular category of history, yet it touches on the divine workings of the Triune God's plan of redemption in history. Phillip Schaff's 8-volume History of the Christian Church is the ultimate source for this.
11. 'Mesoteric', or in the middle between exoteric and esoteric, history such as material on the '12 Tribes of Israel vis-a-vis Europeans' is a real, if muddied and easily-mocked, category of history. Grail romance and related 'history' is in there too. 'Serpent seed' material. These types of things. It is real history if for no other reason that it has ability to bring people to the faith, if by a necessary oblique gateway.
This list now is left at an uncomfortable '11'. That is rare for me. I can usually fill out a 7 point or 10 or 12 point list. Maybe it is an 11 point list because this subject is a bit helter skelter. Or maybe I shouldn't have included 'Work history' above. Whatever the case I'll leave it as is, and hopefully it will provide something to work off of for anybody pondering this subject.
3.28.2010
archiving an email
If anybody thinks I've become less serious let me just remind everybody that I outlined the Plan of God for a reason. It is the substance of the understanding derived from objective consciousness. All that about Federal Theology (which is Covenant Theology systematized), about the Bible, about all the subject matter of systematic theology (which includes what is going on inside man), bringing it together, seeing the parts in relation to the whole, that is a big part of everything. A big part.
I'm getting reminders of it all as I read actual Reformed theologians writing things now that I was writing on their blogs back then. (I wasn't banned from all of them, by the way.)
You need the Spirit to discern such things. But to have it all as a whole is obviously very valuable.
My point is you all didn't follow me much into all that territory, this is OK, we're all in different stages and all that. But it's not like I was doing nothing.
The more real understanding one gets of the Plan of God the closer one gets to supernatural realms and beings and events.
The catch is the love for the world (including indulging resentments and fake sufferings via things that happened when one was solely in the world) that seems to be the hardest thing to cast off. It's what prevents the second conscious shock.
The two conscious shocks are the real 'sacraments' of the Faith.
I'm getting reminders of it all as I read actual Reformed theologians writing things now that I was writing on their blogs back then. (I wasn't banned from all of them, by the way.)
You need the Spirit to discern such things. But to have it all as a whole is obviously very valuable.
My point is you all didn't follow me much into all that territory, this is OK, we're all in different stages and all that. But it's not like I was doing nothing.
The more real understanding one gets of the Plan of God the closer one gets to supernatural realms and beings and events.
The catch is the love for the world (including indulging resentments and fake sufferings via things that happened when one was solely in the world) that seems to be the hardest thing to cast off. It's what prevents the second conscious shock.
The two conscious shocks are the real 'sacraments' of the Faith.
2.16.2010
An insight, Christ and death
I recently had an insight I think is worth something. Awhile back on Plain Path Puritan I wrote a post about how when Paul the apostle says all I want to know is Jesus Christ crucified what he is saying is that is a way to remember *all*, the history and mechanics of redemption as summed up in the name Jesus Christ. It's shorthand and assumes knowledge of what is behind it, the whole.
Then I was thinking that for the Work a similar summing up would be: death.
Because death is the ultimate testing ground for development of being. And the two conscious shocks are eschatological in the moment. With the first you enter the fifth dimension of time, and with the second you enter the sixth. Vertically you break planes. And each is a real *dying* in the moment. Especially the second conscious shock (but the two conscious shocks are two sides of the same coin).
Remember those exercises I called 'death tests' where you would decide at a certain time or event or sound or what have you you would try to be awake right in that moment (I think that was the exercise, it may have been even better than that, but I don't recall at the moment). But the point is *that* really is what all the effort points to: being awake at the point of death.
Also I was thinking: it is really a powerful thing to imagine our own physical death. Try to sense and visualize what it is and will be like. Get that sense of entering eternity, so to speak. The more you do that the more use you get to the fact of it. Intellectually you can get beyond fears by seeing things like your body being a cosmos, and how you will have a spiritual body that will still be a complete cosmos. You won't dissipate like smoke at death.
Of course that spiritual body is what we try to develop with Work efforts. The more consciousness, understanding, and real will we have the better the 'seed' we sow at death.
So, with Christianity and salvation and faith we think: Jesus Christ.
With Work ideas, practices, and goals we think: death.
They contain the core of each and go beyond mere intellectual memory into a deeper emotional memory and understanding.
Then I was thinking that for the Work a similar summing up would be: death.
Because death is the ultimate testing ground for development of being. And the two conscious shocks are eschatological in the moment. With the first you enter the fifth dimension of time, and with the second you enter the sixth. Vertically you break planes. And each is a real *dying* in the moment. Especially the second conscious shock (but the two conscious shocks are two sides of the same coin).
Remember those exercises I called 'death tests' where you would decide at a certain time or event or sound or what have you you would try to be awake right in that moment (I think that was the exercise, it may have been even better than that, but I don't recall at the moment). But the point is *that* really is what all the effort points to: being awake at the point of death.
Also I was thinking: it is really a powerful thing to imagine our own physical death. Try to sense and visualize what it is and will be like. Get that sense of entering eternity, so to speak. The more you do that the more use you get to the fact of it. Intellectually you can get beyond fears by seeing things like your body being a cosmos, and how you will have a spiritual body that will still be a complete cosmos. You won't dissipate like smoke at death.
Of course that spiritual body is what we try to develop with Work efforts. The more consciousness, understanding, and real will we have the better the 'seed' we sow at death.
So, with Christianity and salvation and faith we think: Jesus Christ.
With Work ideas, practices, and goals we think: death.
They contain the core of each and go beyond mere intellectual memory into a deeper emotional memory and understanding.
2.07.2010
Interesting extract from A. W. Pink on body, soul, and spirit
What is below is from Pink's Gleanings In Genesis, 1. Creation and Restoration. (I've bolded some parts.)
5. "And God divided the light from the darkness." Hebrews 4:12 tells us, the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." This is not a figurative expression but, we believe, a statement of literal fact. Man is a tripartite being, made up of "spirit and soul and body" (1 Thess. 5:23). The late Dr. Pierson distinguished between them thus: "The spirit is capable of God-consciousness; the soul is the seat of self-consciousness; the body of sense-consciousness.’’ In the day that Adam sinned, he died spiritually. Physical death is the separation of the spirit from the body; spiritual death is the separation of the spirit from God. When Adam died, his spirit was not annihilated, but it was "alienated" from God. There was a fall. The spirit, the highest part of Adam’s complex being, no longer dominated; instead, it was degraded, it fell to the level of the soul, and ceased to function separately. Hence, today, the unregenerate man is dominated by his soul, which is the seat of lust, passion, emotion. But in the work of regeneration, the Word of God "pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit," and the spirit is rescued from the lower level to which it has fallen, being brought back again into communion with God. The "spirit" being that part of man which is capable of communion with God, is light; the "soul" when it is not dominated and regulated by the spirit is in darkness, hence, in that part of the six days’ work of restoration which adumbrated the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, we read, "And God divided the light from the darkness."
5. "And God divided the light from the darkness." Hebrews 4:12 tells us, the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." This is not a figurative expression but, we believe, a statement of literal fact. Man is a tripartite being, made up of "spirit and soul and body" (1 Thess. 5:23). The late Dr. Pierson distinguished between them thus: "The spirit is capable of God-consciousness; the soul is the seat of self-consciousness; the body of sense-consciousness.’’ In the day that Adam sinned, he died spiritually. Physical death is the separation of the spirit from the body; spiritual death is the separation of the spirit from God. When Adam died, his spirit was not annihilated, but it was "alienated" from God. There was a fall. The spirit, the highest part of Adam’s complex being, no longer dominated; instead, it was degraded, it fell to the level of the soul, and ceased to function separately. Hence, today, the unregenerate man is dominated by his soul, which is the seat of lust, passion, emotion. But in the work of regeneration, the Word of God "pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit," and the spirit is rescued from the lower level to which it has fallen, being brought back again into communion with God. The "spirit" being that part of man which is capable of communion with God, is light; the "soul" when it is not dominated and regulated by the spirit is in darkness, hence, in that part of the six days’ work of restoration which adumbrated the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, we read, "And God divided the light from the darkness."
2.03.2010
2 Corinthians 4
Read 2 Corinthians chapter 4. This chapter is about living in the flesh after regeneration. The already/not yet state that can perplex or tempt one to whine. Read the whole chapter with this verse in mind:
This is a constant theme. Being constantly humbled and not being allowed to think we are the cause of what God does. Regeneration is an act of God in us, nothing we do. Justification is by faith (something itself worked in us by the Holy Spirit) and not works so that we cannot boast. And here we are in earthen bodies even though regenerated and justified and in God's Kingdom. In the Old Testament the theme emerges whenever Israel - or even a gentile nation - thinks that when it wins a battle or war it is they that do it and not God. They usually get sent a message of the truth of that in some way.
2Co 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
This is a constant theme. Being constantly humbled and not being allowed to think we are the cause of what God does. Regeneration is an act of God in us, nothing we do. Justification is by faith (something itself worked in us by the Holy Spirit) and not works so that we cannot boast. And here we are in earthen bodies even though regenerated and justified and in God's Kingdom. In the Old Testament the theme emerges whenever Israel - or even a gentile nation - thinks that when it wins a battle or war it is they that do it and not God. They usually get sent a message of the truth of that in some way.
2.02.2010
A note on biographies
Biographies are interesting as a category of books because they can be phantasmagorical in this way: when you have some higher energy in you, and you already know the basics of history and philosophy and arts and sciences and music and the human nature and ways of the world you can get from literature in general then a biography, really about anybody, will give you all sorts of impressions and bits of information that you can put together and see so much more between the lines and from a higher perspective and so on. A vision of the times the person lived in. All the human nature of the relationships and so on. You know, the sense that everything falls into patterns and types, and that there is nothing new under the sun; also the sense that you can see the universe in a grain of sand. A mere detail, or event in the life of the person can give a window onto so much more. History books do this as well. Maybe biography more because the focus on a single life makes the impressions stronger for seeing the universal in a detail.
1.23.2010
Here's an idea... Modern Library Chronicles
I came across a volume in this series called London, by A. N. Wilson in a used bookstore. The series itself intrigued me. They are a series of 'chronicles' published by Modern Library, usually around 200 pages, give or take, on different things in history, by different authors.
It's occured to me if one were to develop an eccentric hobby of collecting everything of something you wouldn't completely waste your time doing it with this series. I mean if you actually also read each one.
Here's a Wikipedia page with an apparently incomplete list of the series.
Each may not be the 'best' source on its particular subject, but, hey, you are just collecting each one and reading it. With a goal to get every one. Eccentric, yes, but better than collecting figurines of donkeys or something.
And a benefit is the series editorial style of the books, coupled with the fact that each has a different author, is such that each would give you, in a light way, little facts and images and events and so on such that would contribute to the base of your already accumulated knowledge. Just some new things to add to the mental furniture. Nothing that will effect spiritual development or give you deep language or anything, but, you know, just an eccentric goal/hobby to pursue...
It's occured to me if one were to develop an eccentric hobby of collecting everything of something you wouldn't completely waste your time doing it with this series. I mean if you actually also read each one.
Here's a Wikipedia page with an apparently incomplete list of the series.
Each may not be the 'best' source on its particular subject, but, hey, you are just collecting each one and reading it. With a goal to get every one. Eccentric, yes, but better than collecting figurines of donkeys or something.
And a benefit is the series editorial style of the books, coupled with the fact that each has a different author, is such that each would give you, in a light way, little facts and images and events and so on such that would contribute to the base of your already accumulated knowledge. Just some new things to add to the mental furniture. Nothing that will effect spiritual development or give you deep language or anything, but, you know, just an eccentric goal/hobby to pursue...
1.16.2010
. . .
"So he prayed, and far in the depths they heard him, all the Nereids, Phorcus' chorus, virgin Panopea and Father Portunas himself, with his own mighty hand, drove the racing Scylla swifter than Southern winds or a winging arrow, speeding toward the shore to find her berth in the good deep-water harbor."
- Bk. 5, lines 267-72, Virgil's Aeneid, Robert Fagles trans.
1.11.2010
Feeling there is nothing to do, and the reality of it
The situation we can find ourselves in where we say: "There's nothing to do..." I think can only happen when we get above the necessities of basic survival. Basic survival is obviously something to do. Something to keep one busy. I don't just mean a job one goes to everyday. I mean, when you have to make your own shelter, grow your own food, make your clothes, etc. When those things get easier we realize we don't have anything to do, and instead of seeing it in the context of basic survival having become easier due to culture and civilization we live in we make of it a philosophical thing and we get all existential about it. It's a full belly talking.
But also: when we *do* have free time to pursue higher things, like B Influence, that is something to do as well. Meeting A Influence demands is something to do, but then pursuing B Influence too is something to do. It is when you exhaust, truly exhaust, B Influence that you can *really* feel there is nothing to do.
But then you still have C Influence to contact and engage. But that requires a new level of valuation and effort.
But also: when we *do* have free time to pursue higher things, like B Influence, that is something to do as well. Meeting A Influence demands is something to do, but then pursuing B Influence too is something to do. It is when you exhaust, truly exhaust, B Influence that you can *really* feel there is nothing to do.
But then you still have C Influence to contact and engage. But that requires a new level of valuation and effort.
1.05.2010
Lombardo's Homer
I just read some of Lombardo's Odyssey (last part of book 13), and it reminded me that his translations of Homer are unique. Plain, but you seem to get a closer sense of it all. The conversation between Odysseus and Athena seemed like I hadn't even remembered it.
It just doesn't seem like a waste of time to re-read Homer. The language is real, from a higher source, and powerful. If what is left after B Influence and regeneration by the Word and the Spirit is spiritual warfare and increasing level of being and understanding then Homer still has something to offer.
And its of course in picking up higher (visual, symbolic, metaphoric) language to then be able to see what you can't see now. Even if it's carried in just a detail, or if it's contained in a bigger structure that we can't see all at once as we are going through it. Even if you've picked up most of it from previous readings, I suspect the well is deep enough to have more.
It just doesn't seem like a waste of time to re-read Homer. The language is real, from a higher source, and powerful. If what is left after B Influence and regeneration by the Word and the Spirit is spiritual warfare and increasing level of being and understanding then Homer still has something to offer.
And its of course in picking up higher (visual, symbolic, metaphoric) language to then be able to see what you can't see now. Even if it's carried in just a detail, or if it's contained in a bigger structure that we can't see all at once as we are going through it. Even if you've picked up most of it from previous readings, I suspect the well is deep enough to have more.
12.29.2009
Why faith, as a grace, in particular
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.)
+ + +
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.)
12.20.2009
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.
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