I'll bet once in Hades, in the interval between death and birth, in the recurrence sense, that we get *intensely* nostalgic for our 'past' life. No matter how much it may have been less-than-ideal. We get *intensely* nostalgic for our childhoods and the places and things and people we remember about it.
I mean *intensely.*
You see this power of nostalgia playing out in our human nature in the here and now.
All the negative is forgotten. The danger no longer exists. The unpleasantness is no longer felt.
And when you look at the past from the vantage point of being in the future you tend to see *possibilities* in that past that either weren't there in real time or that you were blind to anyway back in real time, but the *greater vision* of the times that looking backwards gives us makes the times more interesting. Less of an experience of being enchained in humdrum circumstances and necessities and situations and more a vision of what was happening in history and how one could do this or do that and how it is all so opened up and interesting and everybody you know is young again...!
To greater or lesser degree each person would feel and see this.
This draw of nostalgia would not effect (effect as strongly, I'll say) a person who has awakened in life. They, in effect, have *already* seen the bigger vision and it holds little enticement to them.
To use Plato's metaphor, the person who has truly awakened in life would draw less water from the river of forgetfulness (I know that metaphor clashes with how I've put it above). The thirst for the water of the river of forgetfulness would also be, in this sense, the desire to experience the 'past' once again. The draw of nostalgia.
9.24.2010
9.06.2010
We have to remember our fallen nature hates God
1.
Celestial fire...higher energy...it is the Holy Spirit. The H.S. is God. Our fallen nature hates God. Here is something to observe: in the backlash state when we are full of accumulated energy (after self-remembering effort), and we are castigating people, from memory, in real time, the usual internal-considering, i.e. in the midst of a negative emotional blowout, try to observe how everything you are saying is *really* directed at the Holy Spirit. It's *supposedly* directed at some girl, some guy, some event, memory, whatever. No, see that it is directed at God.
Then note the language you use. "Creep. Fuck off. Who are you? You're nothing. I'll fucking kill you. Screw off. Compared to me you're nothing."
You think you're talking to some human from some past event in your life. No, you're talking directly to God.
This is a powerful and true realization.
You're castigating the Holy Spirit within you. Grieving the Holy Spirit.
2.
This is why this interval - this second conscious shock - is nigh impossible to cross. Because we are spitting at and fighting the only force that can get us across: God.
Celestial fire...higher energy...it is the Holy Spirit. The H.S. is God. Our fallen nature hates God. Here is something to observe: in the backlash state when we are full of accumulated energy (after self-remembering effort), and we are castigating people, from memory, in real time, the usual internal-considering, i.e. in the midst of a negative emotional blowout, try to observe how everything you are saying is *really* directed at the Holy Spirit. It's *supposedly* directed at some girl, some guy, some event, memory, whatever. No, see that it is directed at God.
Then note the language you use. "Creep. Fuck off. Who are you? You're nothing. I'll fucking kill you. Screw off. Compared to me you're nothing."
You think you're talking to some human from some past event in your life. No, you're talking directly to God.
This is a powerful and true realization.
You're castigating the Holy Spirit within you. Grieving the Holy Spirit.
2.
This is why this interval - this second conscious shock - is nigh impossible to cross. Because we are spitting at and fighting the only force that can get us across: God.
9.04.2010
Celestial Fire - Higher things need higher language
1.
Rare, new things need new, higher language to be identified. Work language is higher language, but I mean everyday language to identify something like the higher energy that is accumulated by self-remembering effort. Maybe the Work language has fallen short a bit here in not providing one, but maybe it's something we have to see eventually on our own and provide it.
Example: celestial fire. It captures the Work as practice. We're burned by it, illuminated by it, emanate it. Consume it.
I got the phrase from John Owen, Calvinist theologian. Psalm 104:4 alludes to it.
My main point: when we see higher levels of energy as celestial fire we react differently to it. When we get emotionally negative as a result of having accumulated such energy by self-remembering we see we are being burned by something rare and higher: celestial fire. I.e. we focus on the energy itself and not on what's making us angry and resentful and out of control in the backlash state and difficult events.
When we focus on the higher energy itself we are not in a state of identification with people, events, whatever. "I'm all angry because I have celestial fire in me. I have to embrace the celestial fire, not grieve it. Not fight it. And what's happening in my thoughts and imagination and events out here in the world...is nothing. It's between me and celestial fire. My limits."
2.
This idea may sound new agey, but really it isn't. It's using language to identify something that is new and rare. When we say 'higher energy' (the result of self-remembering effort) those words don't really denote the rare substance of what we're talking about and dealing with. Higher energy? We've all had high energy. Kids have it. Such words mingle to closely with mundane things.
So celestial fire, though it may sound grandiloquent, is the type of new language needed to identify something that is new and different.
Really, it is biblical too. The Bible uses such language. Fire. Having fire. The Holy Spirit as well is what we are accumulating. Jesus had the Spirit 'without measure'. The only human who *could* have it without measure. We can have it by increasing degree, but our limits are provoked blow out. We "grieve" the Spirit. We're a temple of the Holy Spirit once regenerated, yet we defile the temple.
That is the struggle. Provoking limits so as to then extend limits, with subtle effort.
And it's important to repeat that when you focus on the energy itself (the celestial fire) you aren't focused on the subject(s) of your resentment (whatever they or it is in the moment when you're indulging intellectual and emotional and physical negativity). You realize, whatever difficult thing is happening, that it is the 'celestial fire' that you are in the presence of and that you don't want to 'defile' it by using it for resentment and anger and so on.
Before all the subjects of your resentment were in the forefront. They are tangible (even if negative imagination and bad memories). Now, the higher energy itself is forefront because it has a name; something that identifies it as being rare and new...and present.
Rare, new things need new, higher language to be identified. Work language is higher language, but I mean everyday language to identify something like the higher energy that is accumulated by self-remembering effort. Maybe the Work language has fallen short a bit here in not providing one, but maybe it's something we have to see eventually on our own and provide it.
Example: celestial fire. It captures the Work as practice. We're burned by it, illuminated by it, emanate it. Consume it.
I got the phrase from John Owen, Calvinist theologian. Psalm 104:4 alludes to it.
My main point: when we see higher levels of energy as celestial fire we react differently to it. When we get emotionally negative as a result of having accumulated such energy by self-remembering we see we are being burned by something rare and higher: celestial fire. I.e. we focus on the energy itself and not on what's making us angry and resentful and out of control in the backlash state and difficult events.
When we focus on the higher energy itself we are not in a state of identification with people, events, whatever. "I'm all angry because I have celestial fire in me. I have to embrace the celestial fire, not grieve it. Not fight it. And what's happening in my thoughts and imagination and events out here in the world...is nothing. It's between me and celestial fire. My limits."
2.
This idea may sound new agey, but really it isn't. It's using language to identify something that is new and rare. When we say 'higher energy' (the result of self-remembering effort) those words don't really denote the rare substance of what we're talking about and dealing with. Higher energy? We've all had high energy. Kids have it. Such words mingle to closely with mundane things.
So celestial fire, though it may sound grandiloquent, is the type of new language needed to identify something that is new and different.
Really, it is biblical too. The Bible uses such language. Fire. Having fire. The Holy Spirit as well is what we are accumulating. Jesus had the Spirit 'without measure'. The only human who *could* have it without measure. We can have it by increasing degree, but our limits are provoked blow out. We "grieve" the Spirit. We're a temple of the Holy Spirit once regenerated, yet we defile the temple.
That is the struggle. Provoking limits so as to then extend limits, with subtle effort.
And it's important to repeat that when you focus on the energy itself (the celestial fire) you aren't focused on the subject(s) of your resentment (whatever they or it is in the moment when you're indulging intellectual and emotional and physical negativity). You realize, whatever difficult thing is happening, that it is the 'celestial fire' that you are in the presence of and that you don't want to 'defile' it by using it for resentment and anger and so on.
Before all the subjects of your resentment were in the forefront. They are tangible (even if negative imagination and bad memories). Now, the higher energy itself is forefront because it has a name; something that identifies it as being rare and new...and present.
8.21.2010
A fact of recurrence
I'm going to give you a fact about recurrence: we are in Hades now - that interval between death and birth - just as we are here now at this mechanical point of our living time (which we perceive as a circle, but which includes more than this one - linear time - dimension).
When we awaken now, in this mechanical point of linear time we awaken in all the time of our time body or our living time. Which means we also awaken in that interval between death and birth which I call Hades, because the Bible uses that word, and because Plato gave a pretty good - if not exactly close - description of it in the Myth of Er.
When we awaken in Hades it is very noticeable there. The forces of darkness and light exist there. When you awaken there - in Hades - it is like you are walking out of the camp of darkness into the camp of light, and there is friction and opposition to you at first when this process begins. Eventually you have the armor of God to protect you.
This friction and opposition to you in Hades also is mirrored in the now of this physical life. The world gives you friction and opposition. The reins the devil has on your internal being - your fallen nature - gives you friction and opposition. The devil overall gives you friction and opposition.
Think of how many little victories are attained over you when the process begins and commences. Because you are innocent to the fact that you are in a battle. Yet think also of how your victory is inevitable (seen from the rear-view mirror of having been regenerated by the Word and the Spirit).
People might have pleasant death experiences simply because they have no opposition or friction from the darkness because they are not swimming against the current of the darkness, or the Kingdom of Satan.
People who experience difficulty may be in in-between states of awakening and regeneration.
People who experience triumph have been fully regenerated by the Word and the Spirit and have awakened *and have already engaged in the spiritual battle here and now and also in the spiritual realm.* They are not innocent of it all. They are fully soldiers of Christ with experience of the battlefield.
It's clarifying to see this 'point' in time (in our so-called circle of time, which is like the first dimension of time, a linear dimension, making a 'circle') as a *mechanical* point. Mechanical in terms of our consciousness. Once we increase level of being and attain the third and fourth levels of consciousness we are no longer just mechanically moving around that line that forms a circle but we are moving inward from that line (which forms a plane) and we are moving upward from that plane (which forms a three-dimensional manifestation of time.
This solves the problem we have when we think: "Why am I only conscious here, at this age, now, at this point of my linear life-to-death experience?" The answer is: because when we are in a state of mechanical level 'consciousness' we are stuck in this 1st dimension of time, this line which to our perception forms a circle, and the fact that we are stuck in *a point* in this line (a point which moves like a train on this line) seems to be a mechanical law of existence. That's the answer though: it's *mechanical.* But when we begin to truly awaken we awaken in all of our time, and we begin to move - consciously (by degree) - in all dimensions of our living time. And that includes becoming awake in that interval between death and birth, where we are NOW just as we are here in this physical body and world now.
+ + +
If you want to really feel the power of this Work get the whole-time-perspective and feel that you carry with you. That you operate within the theater of. All that that means. The effect you have on others in your time, who are not just living alongside you now but who are no longer here, yet exist in all their time including in death. In that season in Hades. That interval. Where you exist now as well.
Think of the spiritual battle.
Think of how much more radical your thoughts and words and deeds and actions in general now are with this full-body-time in view.
If you're able to think this now it means you've already been through the motions of recurrence. All the development. The different experiences. The different identities within, or covering, the same person. The type fulfilling its mechanical fate while emerging and developing, a living kernel in essence, in the mechanical ride. Eventually overtaking the mechanical ride as something bigger than the law of fate. Will. Real will. Real consciousness, real understanding. A full body with the full armor of God; a full robe of righteousness (this gets into the Christian reality) which is the righteousness of Christ.
When we awaken now, in this mechanical point of linear time we awaken in all the time of our time body or our living time. Which means we also awaken in that interval between death and birth which I call Hades, because the Bible uses that word, and because Plato gave a pretty good - if not exactly close - description of it in the Myth of Er.
When we awaken in Hades it is very noticeable there. The forces of darkness and light exist there. When you awaken there - in Hades - it is like you are walking out of the camp of darkness into the camp of light, and there is friction and opposition to you at first when this process begins. Eventually you have the armor of God to protect you.
This friction and opposition to you in Hades also is mirrored in the now of this physical life. The world gives you friction and opposition. The reins the devil has on your internal being - your fallen nature - gives you friction and opposition. The devil overall gives you friction and opposition.
Think of how many little victories are attained over you when the process begins and commences. Because you are innocent to the fact that you are in a battle. Yet think also of how your victory is inevitable (seen from the rear-view mirror of having been regenerated by the Word and the Spirit).
People might have pleasant death experiences simply because they have no opposition or friction from the darkness because they are not swimming against the current of the darkness, or the Kingdom of Satan.
People who experience difficulty may be in in-between states of awakening and regeneration.
People who experience triumph have been fully regenerated by the Word and the Spirit and have awakened *and have already engaged in the spiritual battle here and now and also in the spiritual realm.* They are not innocent of it all. They are fully soldiers of Christ with experience of the battlefield.
It's clarifying to see this 'point' in time (in our so-called circle of time, which is like the first dimension of time, a linear dimension, making a 'circle') as a *mechanical* point. Mechanical in terms of our consciousness. Once we increase level of being and attain the third and fourth levels of consciousness we are no longer just mechanically moving around that line that forms a circle but we are moving inward from that line (which forms a plane) and we are moving upward from that plane (which forms a three-dimensional manifestation of time.
This solves the problem we have when we think: "Why am I only conscious here, at this age, now, at this point of my linear life-to-death experience?" The answer is: because when we are in a state of mechanical level 'consciousness' we are stuck in this 1st dimension of time, this line which to our perception forms a circle, and the fact that we are stuck in *a point* in this line (a point which moves like a train on this line) seems to be a mechanical law of existence. That's the answer though: it's *mechanical.* But when we begin to truly awaken we awaken in all of our time, and we begin to move - consciously (by degree) - in all dimensions of our living time. And that includes becoming awake in that interval between death and birth, where we are NOW just as we are here in this physical body and world now.
+ + +
If you want to really feel the power of this Work get the whole-time-perspective and feel that you carry with you. That you operate within the theater of. All that that means. The effect you have on others in your time, who are not just living alongside you now but who are no longer here, yet exist in all their time including in death. In that season in Hades. That interval. Where you exist now as well.
Think of the spiritual battle.
Think of how much more radical your thoughts and words and deeds and actions in general now are with this full-body-time in view.
If you're able to think this now it means you've already been through the motions of recurrence. All the development. The different experiences. The different identities within, or covering, the same person. The type fulfilling its mechanical fate while emerging and developing, a living kernel in essence, in the mechanical ride. Eventually overtaking the mechanical ride as something bigger than the law of fate. Will. Real will. Real consciousness, real understanding. A full body with the full armor of God; a full robe of righteousness (this gets into the Christian reality) which is the righteousness of Christ.
8.08.2010
Types, categories, patterns, the language of cosmoses
Here is some deep knowledge. If you can begin to see common or universal types, categories, and patterns (in everything) it changes you internally. It changes your relationship to people, places, things, events, ideas. It's a way of seeing that higher being has. There is more individuality higher up. Just like in works of literature or music, the higher the work the more unique and individual it is. The lower the work the more common and numerous it is. To put it colorfully: angels see humans as types. If you've broken down out of a type you will be more noticeable and unusual. Perhaps in an in-between state of development. Heading higher. Everything though, people, families, things we tend to think of as unique and different from each other, to higher perception fall into common types and categories and patterns. This perception takes the illusion out of what we see. It takes much of the everyday charm of life away from us as well. It gives greater understanding but diminishes our interest in everything. It also subdues our emotion regarding things and also gives us insights into recurrence. This subject would be a part of the language of cosmoses.
8.06.2010
A good-natured, laughter of the Gods pursuit of C Influence is in order
email
I've let you guys down by adopting this lame "everything sucks now" line. Talking about myself is not a good idea. Not productive. The fact is, I havn't even opened a Work book in many, many years. The biblical doctrine I have understanding of now I had understanding of many years ago too. I'm being almost lunatic repetitive, revealing perhaps a bit of a compulsive, obsessive disorder. A trace. Also, a shut-in mentality. Nothing unusual, mind you, when you've actively pursued and devoured every higher influence that exists, pretty much. Every category and level anyway. Without becoming an Olympic athlete or playing at Carnegie Hall or publishing the great American novel. You don't have to. You don't have to be Casanova to get the measure of flesh. Again, repeating myself (I was writing on this theme back in the early years of this decade, if it's still this decade and not the next decade). It's like, I've used up all my water, and I'm only half way across the desert (water being influences and desert being life span). Yet there is C Influence.
There *is* more.
Laziness is a disorder with me too. (Realizing this, actually writing it down, perhaps the subject was now coming out of the pit that was the stumblingblock. Rising up, yes, blinking at the sun...)
A good-natured, laughter of the Gods pursuit of C Influence is in order. The Work, Homer, and the Bible are the foundation for that. The Faith being everything, of course, but the Work and Homer being some sort of 'sight line' keeping to the straight and narrow... - C.
7.24.2010
A list of higher world things, just like lower world things
You have to find, or connect with, the people, places, things, events, and ideas (or language) of the higher world.
7.22.2010
Something about historical time and eschatology
I'd had some left-over difficulty (mainly due to not pondering and meditating upon it but letting it hang there) in trying to see the history of redemption in a temporal context. It *is* temporal, but then it becomes non-temporal. Sort of leaves time. Shoots upward, eschatologically.
It's like this: Adam in the Garden; then the fall of man and creation (still in historical time here); then (leaving historical time) individual regeneration by the Word and the Spirit; then (the end of time) glorification.
Of course when we are regenerated we are still alive in historical time, but of those four states - innocence in the garden, corruption after the fall, regeneration by the Word and Spirit, glorification after physical death - it's difficult to place individual regeneration in a historical 'time-line'. Regeneration is also, meaningfully in this context, when an individual is separated out from the world and becomes a stranger in this world; in this world not of this world. And a bit more timeless. Out of recurrence, even, it can be argued.
(In this sense the Work teaching is the unavoidable 'making-more-complicated' by 'pressing' into it intellectually - pressing into the Truth - of which the Bible and the simple-yet-profound and probably rare experience of regeneration actually IS.)
I'm not discounting the Work teaching at all in the above, simply stating that much of the experience described is contained in the experience of regeneration; and really what the above refers to is the 'Work person' who does not *have* regeneration by the Word and the Spirit. This is the 'making it complicated and intellectual' referred to, really. I had regeneration prior to connecting with the Work teaching. Prior to that I'd come into contact with it, but couldn't - or refused to - connect. It's a big difference we can forget: having the Spirit *and* Work understanding vs. not having the Spirit and merely having Work books and the attendant babble that usually accompanies it all.
In God's plan He is *gathering* his elect (believers, his people). The analogy of fishing is used in the Bible. Once a fish is 'hooked' and pulled up out of the water it is no longer in its world. When you are regenerated - gathered into the Kingdom of God - you are pulled up out of the world and out of time. Then you say: "Gentlemen, this world of ours is a bore!" or many similar things. (It's murky, it's cold, there's a lot of horror of fish eating other fish...)
It's like this: Adam in the Garden; then the fall of man and creation (still in historical time here); then (leaving historical time) individual regeneration by the Word and the Spirit; then (the end of time) glorification.
Of course when we are regenerated we are still alive in historical time, but of those four states - innocence in the garden, corruption after the fall, regeneration by the Word and Spirit, glorification after physical death - it's difficult to place individual regeneration in a historical 'time-line'. Regeneration is also, meaningfully in this context, when an individual is separated out from the world and becomes a stranger in this world; in this world not of this world. And a bit more timeless. Out of recurrence, even, it can be argued.
(In this sense the Work teaching is the unavoidable 'making-more-complicated' by 'pressing' into it intellectually - pressing into the Truth - of which the Bible and the simple-yet-profound and probably rare experience of regeneration actually IS.)
I'm not discounting the Work teaching at all in the above, simply stating that much of the experience described is contained in the experience of regeneration; and really what the above refers to is the 'Work person' who does not *have* regeneration by the Word and the Spirit. This is the 'making it complicated and intellectual' referred to, really. I had regeneration prior to connecting with the Work teaching. Prior to that I'd come into contact with it, but couldn't - or refused to - connect. It's a big difference we can forget: having the Spirit *and* Work understanding vs. not having the Spirit and merely having Work books and the attendant babble that usually accompanies it all.
In God's plan He is *gathering* his elect (believers, his people). The analogy of fishing is used in the Bible. Once a fish is 'hooked' and pulled up out of the water it is no longer in its world. When you are regenerated - gathered into the Kingdom of God - you are pulled up out of the world and out of time. Then you say: "Gentlemen, this world of ours is a bore!" or many similar things. (It's murky, it's cold, there's a lot of horror of fish eating other fish...)
5.28.2010
Some thoughts upon wandering through Work forums on the internet
I've recently been going around the 'net to various Fourth Way sites and forums and reading bits here and there. It causes unique reactions for me. I mean feelings, thoughts. Much of what I find on the 'net doing this comes across as helter skelter, almost hellish in a sense. And you find the usual forum nonsense. The control, banning (not me, I havn't been participating, but of people who are not conforming to the moderator's program, all that). The usual nonsense.
The usual scent of cult activity and personalities not far away, if not directly present (though that seems rare on the internet).
It also makes me question my own relationship with the Work. I saw one comment that referred to "B Influence junkies" and wondered if I'd fallen and rested comfortably a bit into that characterization.
But more deeply questions of connection come to the fore; that vertical connection that was once so real.
It seems that when I was in that connection I didn't realize how I was viewed by the world (and really didn't care). But I know now.
I think what my parents must have thought (but strangely I seemed to in some way have brought them along with it, evidence being my father's talking of recurrence on his death bed). In their old age they were kind of living in a timeless realm anyway at that point. Their past life, and eras of their lives were pretty far away at that point, and they were static, in the same house at the end for years, same chairs, same routine.
The fact is, you're going to effect your entire family when you truly change internally and develop to some real degree. Without realizing it of course because that is not part of your motive or anything you are aware of at the time.
I think prayer to the Holy Spirit for guidance here is in order. At this stage. We rarely think of praying directly to God the Holy Spirit, yet He it is that guides us in our sanctification after regenerating us and after our conversion.
That's really what is going on, perhaps. A larger stage (as in theatre) is reached. (I always seem to want to spell theatre the English way when I use the word like that.)
Just as in the past when I had a real connection I wasn't aware of it being real spiritual warfare, at least not directly, yet then that aspect comes to the fore in a big way. A bigger stage. Less innocence.
Before I didn't have the armor of God, let alone the full armor of God. Now I am conscious of needing the full armor of God.
The Holy Spirit doesn't abandon us, yet graduation seems real regarding stages of the Work. That can't be denied.
I can walk down the same roads, metaphorically speaking, as I did back then, doing the Work, yet the difference I have to recognize is the spiritual warfare nature of it. I've sort of recognized that in the last several years, yet I've not been walking those old roads like of old. I've just been recognizing spiritual warfare in everyday life experiences, including more rare experiences.
Two things: prayer for guidance to the Holy Spirit, and also a recognizing of that hardcore Work practice of being present for duration, depth, and frequency. Both are needed. The latter doesn't become beneath us. It is what leads to true change and true new realms. The former, all of the faith, is the foundation and guidance and everything too. But that true effort of self-remembering, non-identifying for real duration, uncomfortable, and then dealing with the backlash, and everything else, is what makes your connection real or not.
The usual scent of cult activity and personalities not far away, if not directly present (though that seems rare on the internet).
It also makes me question my own relationship with the Work. I saw one comment that referred to "B Influence junkies" and wondered if I'd fallen and rested comfortably a bit into that characterization.
But more deeply questions of connection come to the fore; that vertical connection that was once so real.
It seems that when I was in that connection I didn't realize how I was viewed by the world (and really didn't care). But I know now.
I think what my parents must have thought (but strangely I seemed to in some way have brought them along with it, evidence being my father's talking of recurrence on his death bed). In their old age they were kind of living in a timeless realm anyway at that point. Their past life, and eras of their lives were pretty far away at that point, and they were static, in the same house at the end for years, same chairs, same routine.
The fact is, you're going to effect your entire family when you truly change internally and develop to some real degree. Without realizing it of course because that is not part of your motive or anything you are aware of at the time.
I think prayer to the Holy Spirit for guidance here is in order. At this stage. We rarely think of praying directly to God the Holy Spirit, yet He it is that guides us in our sanctification after regenerating us and after our conversion.
That's really what is going on, perhaps. A larger stage (as in theatre) is reached. (I always seem to want to spell theatre the English way when I use the word like that.)
Just as in the past when I had a real connection I wasn't aware of it being real spiritual warfare, at least not directly, yet then that aspect comes to the fore in a big way. A bigger stage. Less innocence.
Before I didn't have the armor of God, let alone the full armor of God. Now I am conscious of needing the full armor of God.
The Holy Spirit doesn't abandon us, yet graduation seems real regarding stages of the Work. That can't be denied.
I can walk down the same roads, metaphorically speaking, as I did back then, doing the Work, yet the difference I have to recognize is the spiritual warfare nature of it. I've sort of recognized that in the last several years, yet I've not been walking those old roads like of old. I've just been recognizing spiritual warfare in everyday life experiences, including more rare experiences.
Two things: prayer for guidance to the Holy Spirit, and also a recognizing of that hardcore Work practice of being present for duration, depth, and frequency. Both are needed. The latter doesn't become beneath us. It is what leads to true change and true new realms. The former, all of the faith, is the foundation and guidance and everything too. But that true effort of self-remembering, non-identifying for real duration, uncomfortable, and then dealing with the backlash, and everything else, is what makes your connection real or not.
5.25.2010
Big perspective post (dead on a gurney II)
With my uncharming 'dead on a gurney' post I was trying to do something I'll try again here.
It is necessary to look at humankind and history and individual lives and ask what is the most important thing that could happen with an individual in an individual life?
Making millions? No. Being famous, even for impressive reasons like discovering or inventing something? No, again. Obviously those are good things and worthwhile, but they are not the most rare, unique things that can happen within an individual in an individual life.
Developing Magnetic Center, regeneration by the Word and the Spirit, true awakening, getting out from under the tyranny of vanity and worldly pride and self-will, becoming God centered rather than man-centered, having saving faith, these and similar things are the rare and unique things that can happen to an individual in an individual life.
They involve higher influences (B and C influence), they involve the Word of God and the call that becomes effectual internally, they involve painful separation from the world (the General Law, the world of sex, all that) including the pain of being forced to see our own nothingness, and in that they involve the breaking down of personality and the developing of essence.
The Work language gives us understanding of these ultimate things. Biblical language and doctrine does as well in a different way.
Roles are played in life, in history, influences are created, God's providence puts all beings in their place, where they need to be. I say this to say we can't put down the world or make null all parts and forces and directions of life in the world. Yet when we look at individual lives, in history, we can see what is most unusual and rare and unique.
So when we make contact with such things...realize it! *Continually.*
We have to continually get perspective.
Much of all this development requires unusual *self-motivation* (or inwardly motivated action) or internal (conscious) shocks rather than the usual external shocks mechanical life is excited and controlled by. It's unusual for us. We're use to things just 'happening.' We have to formulate aims. Engage in active reasoning. Live from the Work rather than from life.
It is necessary to look at humankind and history and individual lives and ask what is the most important thing that could happen with an individual in an individual life?
Making millions? No. Being famous, even for impressive reasons like discovering or inventing something? No, again. Obviously those are good things and worthwhile, but they are not the most rare, unique things that can happen within an individual in an individual life.
Developing Magnetic Center, regeneration by the Word and the Spirit, true awakening, getting out from under the tyranny of vanity and worldly pride and self-will, becoming God centered rather than man-centered, having saving faith, these and similar things are the rare and unique things that can happen to an individual in an individual life.
They involve higher influences (B and C influence), they involve the Word of God and the call that becomes effectual internally, they involve painful separation from the world (the General Law, the world of sex, all that) including the pain of being forced to see our own nothingness, and in that they involve the breaking down of personality and the developing of essence.
The Work language gives us understanding of these ultimate things. Biblical language and doctrine does as well in a different way.
Roles are played in life, in history, influences are created, God's providence puts all beings in their place, where they need to be. I say this to say we can't put down the world or make null all parts and forces and directions of life in the world. Yet when we look at individual lives, in history, we can see what is most unusual and rare and unique.
So when we make contact with such things...realize it! *Continually.*
We have to continually get perspective.
Much of all this development requires unusual *self-motivation* (or inwardly motivated action) or internal (conscious) shocks rather than the usual external shocks mechanical life is excited and controlled by. It's unusual for us. We're use to things just 'happening.' We have to formulate aims. Engage in active reasoning. Live from the Work rather than from life.
5.23.2010
Pool reading
Ignore the title of this post. It's just free association for now.
I've always been on to the need to have a basic list of books that are balanced and ultimate influences for you. Yet I've never really married to that the advantage (or necessity and need) to re-read certain influences to really make them our own. Not all books (influences) are worth re-reading, or need to be re-read, of course, but a handful are worth it.
Along the lines of Luther's (and many other peoples') comment that it's better to know a handful of books well than to know many books to a shallow degree.
When you come to a point where you've read basically everything (every level and category or genre of book) you are always wondering what to read now. Rarely do you think of going back and re-reading a great influence.
So beyond a rock like list of basic books one needs also to engage in pool reading. By that I mean having a basic pool of influences that one gets to know really well. The notion of pool here means not just the particular books that make up your definitive list itself, but all secondary works on the subject of those books, or critical essays on each one, or similar works in their category, if that applies, etc.
For the Bible and Federal Theology this is obvious.
Wealth of Nations and On War less so, though it applies.
I guess the main point is to get to know a handful of influences really well. When we begin with influences we can't know what are worthwhile in this sense, but as we get understanding of the entire field, so to speak, and can discern the handful worth knowing really well, then all this applies.
I don't know if I'd ever get much from reading a work of fiction more than once. Perhaps so in some cases, if a lot of time has elapsed, just to see how one's understanding has developed over time. Liker reading an old journal or diary.
Homer definitely. Very little worthwhile secondary literature on Homer though. You have to write your own. Which I have. Here and there.
Shakespeare is most likely a main candidate. The first time we course through Shakespeare we are a bit fazed by it all. And wondering if it's really as great as it's reputation. So to struggle with that (and assuming it is, since it's hard to go up against a vetter like Time) we have to go at it multiple times over time. A worthwhile influence for that.
I just know I've been delinquent in re-reading great influences, other than the Bible and Homer and Reformed Theology and the Work. You shouldn't really just read Herodotus *once*, for instance. Or Thucydides. Works might suffer upon second readings, but so what. You learn something.
I've always been on to the need to have a basic list of books that are balanced and ultimate influences for you. Yet I've never really married to that the advantage (or necessity and need) to re-read certain influences to really make them our own. Not all books (influences) are worth re-reading, or need to be re-read, of course, but a handful are worth it.
Along the lines of Luther's (and many other peoples') comment that it's better to know a handful of books well than to know many books to a shallow degree.
When you come to a point where you've read basically everything (every level and category or genre of book) you are always wondering what to read now. Rarely do you think of going back and re-reading a great influence.
So beyond a rock like list of basic books one needs also to engage in pool reading. By that I mean having a basic pool of influences that one gets to know really well. The notion of pool here means not just the particular books that make up your definitive list itself, but all secondary works on the subject of those books, or critical essays on each one, or similar works in their category, if that applies, etc.
For the Bible and Federal Theology this is obvious.
Wealth of Nations and On War less so, though it applies.
I guess the main point is to get to know a handful of influences really well. When we begin with influences we can't know what are worthwhile in this sense, but as we get understanding of the entire field, so to speak, and can discern the handful worth knowing really well, then all this applies.
I don't know if I'd ever get much from reading a work of fiction more than once. Perhaps so in some cases, if a lot of time has elapsed, just to see how one's understanding has developed over time. Liker reading an old journal or diary.
Homer definitely. Very little worthwhile secondary literature on Homer though. You have to write your own. Which I have. Here and there.
Shakespeare is most likely a main candidate. The first time we course through Shakespeare we are a bit fazed by it all. And wondering if it's really as great as it's reputation. So to struggle with that (and assuming it is, since it's hard to go up against a vetter like Time) we have to go at it multiple times over time. A worthwhile influence for that.
I just know I've been delinquent in re-reading great influences, other than the Bible and Homer and Reformed Theology and the Work. You shouldn't really just read Herodotus *once*, for instance. Or Thucydides. Works might suffer upon second readings, but so what. You learn something.
5.17.2010
Dead on a gurney
Picture yourself lying dead on a gurney. Look at your lifeless face. See others looking down on you. Professional people who see corpses often. Another dead human.
Now think of what you did in your life that had any real meaning. You read a lot of books, but did any of them produce any real change? Your effect on other people, etc.
Here is how I see the real positive change: did you awaken in a real way during your life? In the way that language such as becoming God-centered rather than man-centered suggests?
Did you really get above the dark and silent internal tyranny of your vanity and pride and become able to recognize anything higher than you? Did you recognize your Creator? That is a real development. That is real change. Looking down on that dead face on the gurney one could say something really happened for that person in their life. A real change.
Such things as recognize original sin in oneself. And active sin. The need for a mediator between yourself and God. It is not 'normal' to be able to recognize such things.
Let alone did you come to where you could discern and value the difference between self-will and Real Will (or God's will in you)?
At this point the corpse has a half smile.
Now think of what you did in your life that had any real meaning. You read a lot of books, but did any of them produce any real change? Your effect on other people, etc.
Here is how I see the real positive change: did you awaken in a real way during your life? In the way that language such as becoming God-centered rather than man-centered suggests?
Did you really get above the dark and silent internal tyranny of your vanity and pride and become able to recognize anything higher than you? Did you recognize your Creator? That is a real development. That is real change. Looking down on that dead face on the gurney one could say something really happened for that person in their life. A real change.
Such things as recognize original sin in oneself. And active sin. The need for a mediator between yourself and God. It is not 'normal' to be able to recognize such things.
Let alone did you come to where you could discern and value the difference between self-will and Real Will (or God's will in you)?
At this point the corpse has a half smile.
5.14.2010
A final word on 'sacraments'
I think the best way to understand the 'sacraments' is this: prior to being regenerated by the Word and the Spirit ritual sacraments (baptism and the Lord's Supper) provide for the currently unregenerate a visual parable to teach them and keep them drawn towards Scripture (ideally).
After regeneration though ritual sacraments become vain matter. Regeneration itself is baptism of the Holy Spirit. What the Lord's Supper symbolizes is union with Christ which a regenerated Christian has in reality.
The unregenerate in the church (especially leadership) never want to think anybody is regenerate. So the regenerate Christians have to just silently grin and have understanding for them. While at the same time not allowing themselves to be drawn into dead ritual or an experience of the faith that is beneath them. (Intentionally chosen words there.)
Fear God, not man. Don't ever exalt man and ritual above the Word and the Spirit. (Man being cleric or scholar or anything else.) And don't succumb to those who demand that man and ritual be exalted over the Word and the Spirit. That is a point of difference that defines the battle-line in the spiritual world. A soldier of Christ - a true spiritual warrior - does not concede or play such games for *any* reason or justification or demand on the part of the currently unregenerate.
After regeneration though ritual sacraments become vain matter. Regeneration itself is baptism of the Holy Spirit. What the Lord's Supper symbolizes is union with Christ which a regenerated Christian has in reality.
The unregenerate in the church (especially leadership) never want to think anybody is regenerate. So the regenerate Christians have to just silently grin and have understanding for them. While at the same time not allowing themselves to be drawn into dead ritual or an experience of the faith that is beneath them. (Intentionally chosen words there.)
Fear God, not man. Don't ever exalt man and ritual above the Word and the Spirit. (Man being cleric or scholar or anything else.) And don't succumb to those who demand that man and ritual be exalted over the Word and the Spirit. That is a point of difference that defines the battle-line in the spiritual world. A soldier of Christ - a true spiritual warrior - does not concede or play such games for *any* reason or justification or demand on the part of the currently unregenerate.
5.12.2010
Faith, hope, charity
Came across something recently. This verse:
1Co 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
means this: faith and hope are still forward looking (or are in things still yet unseen), yet love now is the beginning of the same love that will exist beyond the veil.
1Co 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
means this: faith and hope are still forward looking (or are in things still yet unseen), yet love now is the beginning of the same love that will exist beyond the veil.
5.09.2010
Dostoevsky, interesting
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.
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.
5.05.2010
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.]
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