Mad, bad,or the Son of God

Actually I meant it in the sense that one must open up one's mind-heart to the changes that Jesus Christ might bring about in one. It is relatively easy to recite a set of beliefs but far more difficult to open one's being.:)
Isn't that the difference between having the Law written on tablets of stone vs having the law written in your heart?
But, yes, humility should indeed remind me that not only do I not bring such changes about, but I also cannot anticipate them nor be entirely certain what they ultimately mean. Earl
Indeed, here is where faith come in. (Do you trust a surgeon who is operating on you?)
 
Isn't that the difference between having the Law written on tablets of stone vs having the law written in your heart?

Indeed, here is where faith come in. (Do you trust a surgeon who is operating on you?)
So absolutely on the mark SL. The one "encounter" I had long so many years ago with "Jesus" was exactly this-I was a lad content to live by the stone tablet, certain in my view of things only to have a tablet-shattering experience that seemingly propeled me to live more fulyl and unguardedely from the fullness of the "heart." I'm now trying to reconnect with that again. I was not ready for that then but someday hope to be.:) Earl
 
What I now conjecture was that Jesus was neither of those 3 per se. Rather, he was a "doorway" to God. Perhaps he was someone who could literally induce in another a truly "mind-blowing" transformation of consciousness and heart which transported them out of their conventional ego-bound views of reality to what may be considered a more direct experience of Divine reality. Perhpas having that ability he represented a threat to the then entrenched religious authority structure which worked in consort with Roman occupation to maintain the socio-political order of the day. Perhaps that religious structure was threatened by someone who preached and supported others to have a direct personal connection to their Divine nature which may have both undermined the standard religious interpetations of that structure as well as the personal power of those leading that structure. Perhaps he truly was a bridge, doorway, "Way" to God in that sense. Perhaps he still is.:) Of course, even given that, "what" he is/was still essentially is sort of a Christian koan then. Earl
Before a certain "wing" of Christian follower gets in a tizzy, the experience I am referencing which I conjecture Jesus was able to induce in another did not necessarily mean a "kundalini" experience, though I suspect for that powerful of an experience one's subtle energy system would be lighting up like a Christimas tree. But the nearest analogy I can think of is what is referred to as shaktipat which is a term from the Hindu system which referred to the ability of a very spiritually advanced being to induce in another whether by touch or glance or no overtly observeable behavior at all an intense experience of transcendence. At any rate, got curious to see if any Christian scholar or practitioner had ever made even a passing reference of a similar nature and discovered this all too short piece by Cynthia Bourgeault, a contemporary teacher of Christian contemplation and mysticism:

http://www.contemplative.org/homily.pdf

Her passing comments do seem to hint at what I'm trying to put into words but stumbling to do. have a good one, Earl
 
I read through the pdf, which turned out to be only a couple of pages. Her definition of Christian Mysticism seems like progress to me. I certainly agreed in some measure. There are some language barriers between her and the fundamentalist. The term mystic, just as she says, is itself a barrier. There are many people who would agree on her overall approach but who would completely misunderstand what she means by 'Mystic', myself included. Its as if she chose that term because it was available, unclaimed, and unwanted. Here is a very powerful statement from her pdf file. It is powerful, yet I fail to see what the term 'Mystic' has to do with it at all:
In the early Christian Church, mysticism means something much more akin to unitive seeing. It's not so much "make me one with everything;" but that you see the unity underlying and holding all the diversity. Rather than getting lost in the forms of consciousness, you experience consciousness itself, directly, as reality.
I don't know! Some people can be talking the exact same thing as you and you'd never know it.
 
Yeah, Dream, tis true. Of course, what I think she's getting at is indeed the "fundamental heart" of Christianity.;) Earl
 
I read through the pdf, which turned out to be only a couple of pages. Her definition of Christian Mysticism seems like progress to me. I certainly agreed in some measure. There are some language barriers between her and the fundamentalist. The term mystic, just as she says, is itself a barrier. There are many people who would agree on her overall approach but who would completely misunderstand what she means by 'Mystic', myself included. Its as if she chose that term because it was available, unclaimed, and unwanted. Here is a very powerful statement from her pdf file. It is powerful, yet I fail to see what the term 'Mystic' has to do with it at all:
I don't know! Some people can be talking the exact same thing as you and you'd never know it.
Is this helpful to you Dream: mysticism is experienced subjectively. That is why it is so difficult to grasp, hold, and pin down.

Remember our exchange about the color green, and no matter how you describe it, we cannot describe the subjective experience of green? That's because objectivity cannot fully describe all there is to reality. We might not like that it is so, but that is our own hang-up that each of us must work through.
 
Remember our exchange about the color green, and no matter how you describe it, we cannot describe the subjective experience of green?
I was surprised to see how un-subjective measures of religious experience are. Interrater reliability (people evaluating subjects' open-ended responses about various aspects of religious experiences have been found to be very high (kappas > .85).

Internal consistency estimates for self-report measures have been found to be even higher - in the 90s - indicating a high degree of agreement among respondents about what these experiences are like and what they mean.

Interestingly, the notion of "cosmic consciousness" would suggests that mystical experience facilitates a transcendence of self and the usual subjective outlook on things and puts the person in touch with cosmic mind, which is an objective reality - the Really Real.

I suppose like any other experience you could call religious experience "subjective." However, it seems these experiences actually involve an increased accessibility of nonsubjective things when the person overcomes their usual epistemically deficient egoic way of relating to things (e.g., attachments/aversions, what I like and dont like, etc.).
 
Seattlegal said:
...Remember our exchange about the color green, and no matter how you describe it, we cannot describe the subjective experience of green?...
You mean the conversation that broke my heart? No, I cannot remember that!

Now then, it is interesting because what you call subjectivity appears in the first chapter of Language and Myth but is called 'Paronymia' or the ambiguity of words. That chapter also refers to the same process of overcoming subjectivity that Netti-Netti did, but instead of using the words 'overcomes their usual epistemically deficient ogoic way...' it refers to it as stepping out of one magick language circle into another.

Netti-netti said:
I suppose like any other experience you could call religious experience "subjective." However, it seems these experiences actually involve an increased accessibility of nonsubjective things when the person overcomes their usual epistemically deficient egoic way of relating to things (e.g., attachments/aversions, what I like and dont like, etc.).
 
You mean the conversation that broke my heart? No, I cannot remember that!

Now then, it is interesting because what you call subjectivity appears in the first chapter of Language and Myth but is called 'Paronymia' or the ambiguity of words. That chapter also refers to the same process of overcoming subjectivity that Netti-Netti did, but instead of using the words 'overcomes their usual epistemically deficient ogoic way...' it refers to it as stepping out of one magick language circle into another.
Interesting! I just might have to go out and look for that book. The ambiguity of words is where personal biases comes in. (One could wield such ambiguity in such a manner as to make it into a linguistic parable of few words.)
 
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