From my point of view there are two things at play here. Memory is associated with an individual experience, whilst energetic frequency can be attributed to the universal aspect of a common nature. In Christian esoterism memory can have a transcendental aspect.
That is all fascinating. Will have to mull it over. Energetic frequency, as I mean it, is not so much a common nature as a specific purpose and essence. I suppose I should break this down... it's out of my own mystical experience and so it might be a bit difficult to put into language, but I noted that you speak a lot of a song... and this is precisely what I have experienced. So I'll give it a shot.
There is our body. It disintegrates after this life and returns to the earth.
There is our soul- it has three parts (minimally) and potentially four (but perhaps not for everyone).
1. Our etheric soul or "animal" soul- the energy of life as an animal body. This also returns to the earth after this life, but it is separate from our body and can do various things our body can't do.
2. Our aura, or "talker" soul- the human soul and field of consciousness that surrounds us, takes in information of various kinds, and processes it. The part of us that communicates with others, both physically and psychically. I am not sure if this holds memory and survives or not, to be honest.
3. Our "god-soul" or divine soul- the part of us that has the potential to commune with God. This part of us survives, and its memory and cultivation of a relationship with God forms the basis for the afterlife. This is also our energetic essence, which I experience as sound. I had a vision at one point of disintegrating (I left my body entirely) and I was a sound in a great Song. I was a single, essential sound. This was the real me, and when I was this sound, I forgot all about all the things I thought were me. I was entirely consumed by the Song and my small part of it. And I felt an incredible sense of peace and love and freedom in being wholly consumed by this infinite, complex, eternally beautiful Song. This is how I see creation- God is the force and being that manifests all of these sounds (including me) and the underlying order that makes them so beautiful... if and when they are willing to be consumed by what they really are, and be wholly devoted to the Song itself.
4. Potentially, a fourth element of the soul, and perhaps not for everyone, is a broader field of consciousness that is both one being and many beings, that holds memory on its own as a sort of information storage device and to which individual beings within it can "plug in."
We would differ on the idea of 'new and improved' in the sense that the eternal nature of the soul is one, and perfect in its foundation. It is one vertically, in its union with God, and horizontally, in its union with all life.
I am not sure what you are saying about "new and improved." I think the soul either has three or four parts, or potentially, you might say the soul is only #3 above, and the other parts are something different. But in my own beliefs and practices, what I am going for is precisely what you are saying- oneness with God and oneness with all beings.
I would still argue however, that the song needs a singer. The choir is made up of numerous voices, that manifest in time and place, but the song is the same.
Well, yes. Each sound is an essence of an individual, and these beings- at least some of them like humans- can choose whether or not to sing their sound.
Quite, we say that is the soul. It arose in God, and its end is in God. The question is whether one absents oneself from the choir to pursue other interests. The soul has but one interest, and in itself is never absent from the choir, but one can be absent from one's soul, which is sensed as the absence of God.
That's a great way of putting it. I quite agree. You might be surprised that you and Feri witchcraft seem to have identical beliefs on the matter.
Basically, the way I see it- our essence, or soul, always longs after God. However, we have the capacity to forget our soul and our connection to God and to all other beings. It is in this forgetting and distancing that we become less than whole.
To push the analogy, the song is the Word, the singer is like a note that makes up the song. But in singing one's note, as it were, one is drawn in to the eternal song. Not all the choir is singing at once, and each note, and each silence, combines to make the song, which has an order, a rhythm ... it's not just white or meaningless noise, nor is it a cacophany.
Yep, I entirely agree. This is exactly what my mystical experience entailed.
We don't see it in the sense of preservation of the self, or the person, but the participation of the many in the One. Reincarnation speaks of 'n' number of lives towards the one perfect life, but then the individual life itself, it seems to me, loses its meaning and significance, its reality. Life is realised in the living of it ... and something has to live it.
Well, not exactly. At least not for my own beliefs and those of some Pagans. In general, we don't necessarily believe that the purpose of reincarnation is to work toward the perfect life. Rather, the purpose of life is to live, and to fulfill whatever one's individual purpose might be- which is to say, to sing one's unique note in the song. For me, every life has its significance in that I have a choice to serve God and love my fellow beings or not. I am not after perfection so much as consummation. Perfection implies a goal or destination that I don't think exists, at least for me. The point of living is to offer myself to God, and to be a vessel for God's love that I can pour out toward other beings. That is all, really. The rest is details that change life to life. You might say, in a Christian sense, the point is to live in heaven where ever and whenever one is. God is always available and calling us, will we listen? We can always learn, give, grow, love- are we willing?
God is the One that alone says I am, in creating life in His image, that life is able to say "I am" also. What God is, God gives to His creature, by its participation in what God is. In our view, if the person does not exist, then the world does not exist. Eckhart would go further, if I do not exist, then God does not exist.
God is. All beings are. That about sums it up for me. Not sure if I'm saying the same thing or not. As I see it, we "live, move, and have our being" in God. From Her all has manifested, and unto Her all will return. There is nothing outside Her reach, just beings that may have temporarily forgotten they are within it.
Each soul sees the whole world, the whole cosmos, beyond time and space, the same as every other soul, but from a different perspective.
And that is what makes the song beautiful... the diversity in the unity. The many in the One.
For us the essence of humanity is one thing, the "I am" is an instance, an individuation, of the essence, but not separate from it. It subsists, but it exists at the same time ... if it didn't, then the essence would not.
I am not sure I get what you're saying. Are you saying the soul is co-dependent, or co-arising, with the self (personality, genetics, etc.)?
In theory, one person could reincarnate in each generation towards the perfect person, all the rest are disposable ... billions are disposed of along the way, to produce one end product ...
Why would you think there is an end product? There is no point, in my own belief, to reincarnation... except that some beings may have something they are to learn, or to give and teach, or simply... some beings may like being incarnated. Perhaps some beings were manifested/created to incarnate continuously- this is part of their purpose and nature. I don't think there is a single goal, an end product, or one purpose to reincarnation.
So far as I understand it in my own experience and belief, I reincarnate because that's what I'm meant to do. It's part of my little note in the song. Whether or not others do- I haven't a clue. I don't think everyone sings the same note. So maybe a lot of folks live one life and go to heaven. I don't know. I can only speak for what seems to be my own experience and a belief that fits with it. And I can only say that while the idea of heaven was lovely, God asked me to give it up and to accept whatever God's will is for me, however long it is that I am called to incarnate. So I pretty much did, and am content with being in relationship with God and learning to serve other beings, and whatever comes after I die, I will try to meet with the same willingness to go where God puts me.
That's the way I see it, anyway ... in the Greek tradition, theosis is not the unification of the person with God, but all humanity ... if humanity is one thing, in many instances, then the many instances have to be included, because the idea of 'person' is not individual, every individual human being participate in person-ness, so the theosis of the person requires the theosis of all human beings to be a complete and perfect state.
If I understand you correctly, no one has ever achieved theosis, because humanity has never been in a state of theosis as a whole. I disagree, but then, I am not only concerned with humanity. I have a more ecological view and am really concerned with all beings- on earth and beyond. I think there are countless beings out there, and if unity with God is dependent on all of them reaching theosis, it seems that we have a difficult situation- because without unity with God in some beings, the drive to change their overall consciousness (what Jung would refer to as the collective unconscious) is absent. The change has to come from somewhere.
I would say that is the particular in relation to the universal ... but I'm getting into deep waters here ... we say "Where Christ is, there the Church is", I am in the Church, but I am in Christ, so I am the Church — I am not the whole Church in the I am of me, because the Church is a unity, not an individuality ... we're into the Mystical Body now ...
Is this somewhat like the collective consciousness of those awakened to God? I'm trying to relate in more general terms. I get what you're saying in Christianity, but trying to see how this would translate to religions where there is no "church" but there is a sense of a group of people doing the Great Work of transformation of self and humanity.
Without me, God is only what He imagines Himself to be. With me, God can know Himself as He is. I am 'real' because what is in the mind of God is real; God is real, and perfect in His self-knowing, because He suffers no illusion, which is an imperfection.
I can understand (I think) what you're getting at. I'd say it this way- let me know if you think it is similar: without manifestation (including me), God Herself existed as only a singularity, as latent power and potential. God Herself began to know and love Herself (and all in Her) when she began to manifest beings. I am real because what is held in Her embrace is real; She is real, and perfect in Her self-knowing, because She has no limitations and suffers no illusions about Herself or any of manifest reality.
In one way, to deny the reality of me is to suggest that God cannot realise what He knows, cannot realise what He is. The contra argument is that He has no need to, which we also assert. He has no need to, but He chooses to.
I don't deny the reality of myself. Rather, I see myself as not knowing myself fully, and so the "me" I think I know isn't the "me" I really am. The "me" I really am is an essential core, a sound of my soul, that at first is so foreign that the ordinary "self" (my personality and whatnot) is fearful to become it. It is in dying to this "self" that I am able to live in the state I really am- the real me.
And I agree- God Herself had no need to manifest reality, but She did. Whether that is a "choice" or simply part of Her nature is to me, an unknowable and immaterial question. But there was no need- manifesting reality was out of love within Herself. You might say, God loved Herself, so manifest reality came into existence.
And shaped by lived experience, if if they cannot put it into words. Many dispute the mystics on the basis that their experience is shaped by their carnal experience. They have to put that experience into words, into forms, and then they can only use the forms they know, experientially ... God is beyond forms, and beyond words, so they can either remain silent, or try to put it into words. As soon as they deploy words, you're into linguistics ...
It really is difficult, isn't it? Especially in this sort of writing. Mostly, I write poetry and create art to express mystical experience. In trying to write about it this way (and in the book I'm currently working on), it's incredibly difficult, and often loses its meaning. I really think mysticism is something that can be shared between mystics- but the more poetic and the less dependent the sharing is on words... the better.
In a sense one goes one's own way and settles for less out of a sense of frustration with one's neighbour.
If you find a solution, btw, let us know, we've been trying for years ...
Oh, on this note, I don't think anyone is much closer. Basic glitch in human nature- whether one calls it original sin or problems with human evolution- the result is the same. There are certain attributes of humans that disrupt the soul's work and must be dealt with somehow.
The struggle for me is that I want a community that really practices what it preaches, and I want it to be primarily focused on serving other beings. And this is very, very hard to find. It just isn't what most groups are primarily cut out to do, it seems.
By the way... the more I have learned of Catholicism, particularly as it is practiced and the diversity inherent in it, the more I have been able to see it as a universal sort of religion. There is quite a bit about that doesn't fit with my beliefs, practices, or needs, but I appreciate it a lot. There's a depth of history there, and while it has had lots of problems and injustices and causes of suffering to humanity, it also has a lot of beauty and wisdom. Two of my co-workers are Catholic and we've had some interesting conversations. I suppose what I am appreciating is the open-mindedness, the tolerance, and the thoughtfulness behind beliefs. Makes life interesting and happy.
