Christianity Outside the Box

[taijasi]

The exchange with the robber on the cross would imply it can happen in a moment:

I think you're reading in your own interpretation here.

"... for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done no evil. And he said to Jesus: Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom. And Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee: This day thou shalt be with me in paradise." Luke 23:41-43
​

Christ Jesus did not tell this man that he would stay in paradise. St. John the Evangelist brings clarification in this case:

"He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more." Revelation 3:12
​

Alas, this robber, just as the rest of us, shall go out again.

So it would seem yes, it can be instant and immediate. In the Christian paradigm, this involves simply becoming one's true self and acknowledging the source of that self is outside of self, in Christ — this is the 'putting on the mind of Christ' — once the heart is open and receptive, then the Holy Spirit can get to work perfecting what has been wounded.

I would go on to say that "thinking outside of the box" on this one involves accepting that God's Creation, and every single being created, is precisely a Spark of God in and as this "true self" you mention. So we are not so much receiving something that is not already here, as learning about these more inward dimensions of ourselves, of God's Universe -- and of God.

God may hang on the wall, in a painting, or on the cross dead, or God may live within each and every one of us. This is the `putting on the mind of Christ' to which you refer, and where there is Christ-mind, the very Heart of God, also, may be entered ... or invited in. The latter makes possible the former.

So the interior conversion ... metanoia ... putting on the mind of Christ, can happen in an instant, and involves one's actual state of being.

Sure. Christ, the Buddhas, Great Masters all have this ability - to stimulate or awaken the Universal Spirit within us. This happened in ancient Egypt, in India, in Greece and in Israel.

I like to think it continues ... and the neat part about this is that we are invited to learn to develop, strengthen, and use this `mind of Christ' -- leading to what the disciple Jesus symbolized for us in the Birth at Bethlehem.To fail to recognize and understand the symbolism here is to miss the point entirely. Superstition follows, unless the Universal significance of Jesus' birth can be seen in proper relation to the birth of the man.

This birth of the Christ within the cave of the heart eventually produces a disciple who is ready to be Baptized with Fire and the Holy Spirit -- and not simply with the waters of symbolic purity (this purity of character being entirely necessary, of course, before another major Initiation can be taken). John the Baptizer's words to Jesus really don't make much sense to me, unless considered in this light ... at which point the pieces fit together precisely as they have been shaped. No rough edges, and nothing has to be forced. Christ descended upon His Initiate-disciple, Jesus, before John at Jordan -- though John speaks directly to Jesus in affirming the purity of the man, Jesus (already `Baptized' in precisely the manner which John has prophesied of the Christ).

A relatively High Initiate is one who has additionally undergone the Transfiguration of the entire personality/character (or `false ego' - whether we see this in light of Western mythology & psychology, or Eastern philosophy & religion). This, of course, is an exceptionally virtuous person of the noblest character and deepest commitment to altruistic service, with the mark of readiness to wrestle with the deepest challenges of incarnate human existence upon the planet.

If Christ Jesus was born - not Christed, but chrestos - the true meaning of this latter title referring to the candidate for Initiation in the Greek Mysteries ... then he was already a High Initiate, one Transfigured. Christ enacted for us the Birth, Baptism and Transfiguration Initiations, and to suggest this is no different fundamentally than the idea that Christ `became man in order to prove to us that his Love could - and does - truly reach us on every level of our being.' The emphasis on suffering, though perhaps an inevitable consequence, is unfortunate ... and has led to some of the greatest distortions regarding Christ's Purpose, Message and Method.

What was Christ's Method? If we are honest enough to allow ourselves to realize that we do not know Christ's Purpose as HE does, then our minds (and hearts) must remain open. If we confess our limitations when it comes to understanding the finer points of Christ's Message, as well, then once again, our hearts & minds remain open to further Inspiration, Guidance and Illumination.

The one area of Christ's great Example which I think should leave us the least doubt at all ... is His Method. To question just how to put into practice true Agape, the Unconditional Love which knows no limits, boundaries or qualifications ("Love gives us and asks nothing for Herself") ... is where the possibility (and also the guarantee) of our Salvation really lies. As long as we are asking how best we may serve as Christ's hands and heart within the world, we cannot fail to find the Guidance and the Strength that are made available.

The thieves crucified beside Christ may be understood symbolically as the past and the future, or even as any one of us. Either way, the scene reveals to us the Universality of the Christ -- present already within each of us as the Christ child (the thief of the past), the future consciousness of Christ in maturity ... or even Christ in a state so far beyond our present imaginings that He simply appears as -- another thief. "Behold, I come as a thief."

If we wish to focus on the promise of Christ to the thief, that he would join his Master that day in paradise, we must remember that Christ was sent by the Father ... and Christ in His human expression, even Christ expressing the 2nd Aspect, is not above the Father. Christ does not waive the laws when Tehuti (Thoth) begins to write to his Book upon our death. Our heart is either light as a feather, or we are subject to the same fate as other human beings.

A Christianity that teaches us we may purchase a `get-out-of-jail-free' card, is dangerous and misleading. If Christ's gift to us was the opening of a Royal Gate for us, it was the gateway that leads to Birth and Baptism for the masses -- for all of Humanity, and not just for some small, elect group somewhere. Nor do we have the power to snap our fingers, and skip fifty rungs of Jacob's Ladder, or even five -- much less five hundred.

We may feel like weeping when we finally face the lies, yet why become angry? Ignorance, which underlies all deception and wrong teaching, has only one antidote. And as the Buddha said, "Hate has never yet conquered hate. Only Love, conquers hate."

If Christ opened this Gate for us, our greatest gift to Christ might just be the setting of our spiritual compass upon the Ideal that Jesus gave his life for ... the Living Virtues which made Christ Christed, rather than simply human. Sometimes, we are all too ready to focus on an Individual who practiced these Virtues (and various Spiritual Powers which come only to the Virtuous) ... and we forget that it was intended for us each to walk in Christ's footsteps.

"Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" Ephesians 4:13
​

And folks, that ain't just whistlin' Dixie. So I hear, it's a lotta hard work.

Namaskar

 

[Nick_A]

Hi Thomas

As both Eckhart and Catherine would insist ... both of them challenged heterodoxy and error, Eckhart reformed monasteries throughout N Germany, whilst Catherine took Pope Gregory XI to task for long-overdue reforms to the clery and papal administration.

Pope John XXII conemned him while Pope Paul II voiced favorable opinion
If the depth of the church is to be respected it cannot demonstrate such hypocrisy.

Curiously Simone Weil is the latest such debate church officials don't want to touch. The book "Letter to a Priest" is really just her questions to Father Perrin as to her relationship with the Catholic teachings.

Amazon.com: Letter to a Priest: Simone Weil: Books

Simone Weil, the renowned French philosopher and political activist, originally wrote this letter to a priest in the autumn of 1942 while waiting in New York to join the Free French movement. The most accessable discussion that exists of her complicated ideas on religion and her lifelong spiritual struggle, Letter to a Priest outlines thirty-five key questions about Catholicism, its dogma and institutions, all of which had preoccupied Weil for years. Each point reveals Weil's simultaneous feelings of attraction and repulsion toward the Church as she contemplated its presence in her own life. In her letter, Weil asks the priest to reply categorically to each point she raises and to indicate whether her opinions will allow her to be received into the Church. Written just a year before she died at the age of thirty-four, it is believed that Weil never received a reply to this letter.

It dawned on me that if maybe 12 or fifteen deep thinking Catholic grad students affiliated with reputable Catholic colleges may want to respond to Simone in a way the church officials won't. The idea is to organize them into a book. That will promote a quality of thought too many church officials do not want.

Is Meister Eckhart acceptable to the Church? Could simone Weil be acceptable to the church in the context of her objections? This is poison to the politics of church officials but could become enticing to young minds that haven't as yet sold out.

We would reject 'evolution' as being too vague a term, or rather a term more common to a scientific linear view of the world ... We prefer the original term 'rebirth' ... even the terms 'salvation' and 'redemption' suggests the old continues, but made anew ... not that the old ceases to exist, and something different, some other person, some other soul, has taken its place.

After his epiphany, Saul or Tarsus was known as Paul, but he nor anyone else suggests that Paul was not the man who hunted down Christians just a year or two before ... even though many will shake their heads in amazement and say "He's a different person!"

Science still doesn't rightly differentiate between evolution and adaptation. When a quality of being adapts to environment, it is not evolution. Adaptation is linear and evolution is vertical.
As we know, there is a nine month span between conception and birth. Yet we think that metanoia as conception is the same as re-birth. I believe that there is a gradual transition between metanoia and re-birth just as in natural childbirth. Paul experienced metanoia from a direct experience with the Christ. His whole teaching and life afterwards was working towards re-birth which I believe to be the vertical evolution of his being rather than adapting to new ideas.. We have to agree to disagree on this one.

I read an interesting homily the other week, I forget where, by someone who said all of us, if asked by God, should answer 'my name is Legion' (cf Mark 5:9) because we all suffer this internal fragmentation or disorder ...
This is a hard idea to remember. We always feel ourselves as inner unity. Yet if we admit ourselves as a plurality it explains the dominance of our hypocrisy.

In the Christian model, which aims at all men and not just the ascetic or the intellectual, love cures all. Of course we don't know how when we start, but make a start, and then the Holy Spirit does the rest along the way ... the big problem is letting go of ourselves first ...

Sounds good but in reality is extremely difficult. When we recognize the living direction of the soul we lose our aim. This is sin or "missing the mark." We underestimate sin and even worse many people for some reason calling themselves Christian, justify sin in themselves as virtue.

"Nature abhors a vacuume" It is the same in human psychology. The natural tendency is to fill the inner void with imagination which denies the spirit. Remaining open, preserving the vacuume, is a conscious quality which is against nature.

We make a start but getting beyond first base requires a type of impartiality that only a few are capable of. With the majority IMO, religion is just replacing one fantasy with another.

 

[Thomas]

Hi Andrew:

I think you're reading in your own interpretation here.

No, that's standard Catholic doctrine.

St Luke — the Dear and Glorious Physician — has already laid the ground for the reception of this teaching ... the women who washed His feet with tears (7:36), the transformation of Zaccheus (19:8) and the parables of the prodigal son, the two debtors, and the publican...

Christ Jesus did not tell this man that he would stay in paradise.

Nor did He say that he would not — who's reading into the text now?

If one were to ask me, I would suggest the robber 'overcame' himself when he recognised Christ as his Salvation and Redeemer, and this act of repentance, of metanoia, is all that He asks.

+++

Joining you outside the box for a while, if man is divine by nature, and the divine is All-Good, All-Knowing, All-Perfect ... how can such a nature be ignorant of itself? That in itself is an imperfection ... so I keep coming back to this paradox ... that the Absolute is subject to the contingent, to change, to error and indeed to corruption.

If God is subject to corruption, then all is lost ... nothing can be known with certainty, and every doctrine we hold, yours, mine, anyone's ... is relative and could be rendered meaningless in a moment.

Christ descended upon His Initiate-disciple, Jesus,

Well that's your doctrine, so I'll respect that.

My 'out of the box' speculation would ask, if union with the Divine is possible, then such a possibility must exist eternally, that is must exist as an operative principle within the Absolute, in unmanifest and unconditioned form.

Union must be in the very nature of the Divine.

But how can the One be Unity in Itself without realising that Unity in Itself?

That brings me back to one of the Jewels in the Box ... the Doctrine of the Trinity. To my mind, nothing expresses the metaphysics, the theology, the philosophy better ... but then I'm waving from this bank of the Tiber, so what else would anyone expect?

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

Pope John XXII conemned him while Pope Paul II voiced favorable opinion ... If the depth of the church is to be respected it cannot demonstrate such hypocrisy.

Oh ... we can learn nothing in 700 years? If we correct an error, we are hypocrites?

With Eckhart, that his writings can be misunderstood is evident from the fact that scholars still debate his orthodoxy. Certainly the likes of Matthew Fox claim him as an inspiration, and Eckhart himself would, I think, rather burn all his works than see one soul head off in the wrong direction because of them.

Is Meister Eckhart acceptable to the Church?

Yes.

Could simone Weil be acceptable to the church in the context of her objections?

That is a question only she can answer ... The 'yes' is hers to make, not the Church's ... the Church turns no-one away.

Science still doesn't rightly differentiate between evolution and adaptation.

I'm talking theological science, not secular science.

With the majority IMO, religion is just replacing one fantasy with another.

Well that's your opinion ... I tend to see it otherwise.

As we know, there is a nine month span between conception and birth. Yet we think that metanoia as conception is the same as re-birth. I believe that there is a gradual transition between metanoia and re-birth just as in natural childbirth...

Well I think that's an inaccurate comparison — the same term but markedly different things ... the process is not at all the same.

But taken in the spirit of it ... yes, of course ... some take a moment, some take a lifetime, we go forward, fall back, go on again, some give up ... but there are plenty of reliable recorded instances of immediate and profound 'change of heart' – in religion, and in many things ... why, even the quote from Simone Weil talks of some order of epiphany ... and the number of scientists I've heard use just that term!

What is inspiration, if not that very moment.

Thomas

 

[Quahom1]

Rivers flow in channels. earl

They also have a tendency to "flood their banks" and go every which way...

 

[earl]

Hey Q, I'm actually in favor of channels. It's just mine are pretty wide. earl

 

[taijasi]

Joining you outside the box for a while, if man is divine by nature, and the divine is All-Good, All-Knowing, All-Perfect ... how can such a nature be ignorant of itself? That in itself is an imperfection ... so I keep coming back to this paradox ... that the Absolute is subject to the contingent, to change, to error and indeed to corruption.

If God is subject to corruption, then all is lost ... nothing can be known with certainty, and every doctrine we hold, yours, mine, anyone's ... is relative and could be rendered meaningless in a moment.

How can you and I be ignorant of what we did just last week, what we ate for lunch on a particular day? I mean, after all, it was just last week!

In one sense, we can say that God forgets ... long enough to experience the many worlds of God's Creation. Then again, these worlds weren't and aren't created at the snap of God's magical fingers. All worlds are evolving, even the higher ones -- or spiritual ones. Even Perfection is relative, when compared to the Absolute.

The mistake is in trying to make the Absolute the One Whom and which undergoes evolution via Cosmos. To put it in Christian terms, the Omni-this, -that & -t'other God certainly could not gain anything through cyclical evolution within Cosmos. Thinking of it like this, it is not for God's sake that the Cosmos is created. It is for ours. Perhaps there are also benefits for the Absolute -- yet these are, by definition, utterly unknowable to us.

The Greater Mysteries may tell us more of just exactly how, and where we began our evolutionary trek. They may also indicate to us something of the cycles of our distant future wherein we attain degrees of Oneness (or Unity) with God which now we cannot begin to dream of. But there are -- ah wait, I think Shakespeare said it best ... "more things under heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

So, God's got Mysteries right here that we really haven't even imagined or suspected.

But no, God - the Absolute - isn't subject to corruption, as you say. Nor are the Archons, the highest Dhyanis, or the Elohim. Not, at least, in their higher nature. Once, however, the Greater willingly submits to the putting on of meat (`incarnation') ... its higher nature, no matter how magnificent, becomes entangled within the lesser. This is true no matter where we look upon the scale -- along the Great Chain of Being.

Again, let us not drag down the Absolute and pretend that the unchangeable, unknowable and utterly Transcendent -- has somehow fallen from `His' high post. Might I recommend a viewing of Kevin Smith's movie DOGMA, for a very lighthearted examination of this, and similar notions. The opening and closing of that wonderful movie address this question [of the impossibility, or absurdity of God's literal incarnation] ...

My 'out of the box' speculation would ask, if union with the Divine is possible, then such a possibility must exist eternally, that is must exist as an operative principle within the Absolute, in unmanifest and unconditioned form.

Union must be in the very nature of the Divine.

But how can the One be Unity in Itself without realising that Unity in Itself?

That brings me back to one of the Jewels in the Box ... the Doctrine of the Trinity. To my mind, nothing expresses the metaphysics, the theology, the philosophy better ... but then I'm waving from this bank of the Tiber, so what else would anyone expect?

Thomas

Well, again, let's push the Absolute back where `It' belongs -- utterly beyond the manifest/created/emanated Cosmos. This doesn't change the very valid nature of the question ...

Might I recommend you actually pull that book off your bookshelf and blow the dust off? I mean, I think you did say, you own a copy of The Secret Doctrine, did you not?

Even the Abridgement, which I now hold in my hand, contains the Proem, in which this matter is satisfactorily addressed. I must admit, HPB winds her way hither and yon as she describes what is being shown to her, and within a few short paragraphs she manages to lose me completely. The only way it makes sense is after many years of study, and after having seen these ideas presented dozens, upon dozens of times.

It is not that HPB presents this more clearly than anyone else, certainly not that she was the first. But I do feel that she does so satisfactorily, because if you will re-read the PROEM again & again, underlining the key passages which squarely address this matter of how the One became a Two, a Three, a Seven and more ... I think you will find that there is nowhere a more sublime philosophy available in print.

Yes, you can go back and certainly see how the many world religions during the past several thousands (or tens of thousands) of years have copied and borrowed their Inspiration from the earliest Divine Wisdom Teachings. But even the Aryan Instructors (referred to in the Stanzas of Dzyan) did not originate God's Wisdom. Nor even did the Atlanteans, for it was during an earlier world period that the Sons of the Fire Mist brought this Wisdom to earth from -- another globe.

God's Wisdom -- beyond human formulation -- however, must surely predate our Solar System entirely ... and so the question remains, unless you have perused the PROEM by now and found something worth highlighting. I don't think this is the correct place to quote extensively in trying to show that this matter is addressed in HPB's summary of Buddhist and Brahmanical teachings that take us back thousands of years ... but I can at least try to say something in layman's terms about how I think this question can be answered:

In my own understanding and speaking in quasi-Christian terms, there is first of all `God the Absolute.' This is not an Aspect of God; this is God. And yet, relative to the entire Cosmos of periodic manifestation, emanation or Creation ... there is absolutely nothing we can say of this God-beyond-Cosmos. For this reason, the Absolute has sometimes been conceived of as a `void.'

God, however, is not quite utterly unknowable ... since the entire manifested Cosmos is God's Creation (or emanation). It would be a mistake, however, to draw any inferences about the Absolute, based upon what we can observe thus far within and about the Cosmos of God's Creation. After all, to do so would be quite presumptuous, given our limited human intellects and insight into things. At best, we can have some knowledge of ourselves, others and the world we live in ... with hope that perhaps in time we might develop a deeper understanding.

How does the Absolute manifest? Well, according to early Christians there was a Father-Mother-Son relationship. These people, much like the followers of the Greek Mystery Traditions, and also like those of other Wisdom Traditions, actually believed that God's heart and mind might somehow be reflected even upon the obviously-imperfect and troubled Earth. They had the audacity to believe that despite our limitations, God had provided us with the potential to understand the very Cosmos itself, and part of what they believed was that the Heavens were literally mirrored right here upon planet Earth.

The amazing part is, these folks thought that God was just keen enough to have figured out how to show the Macrocosm in the microcosm ... not just in terms of observable, or mundane astronomy/astrology -- but even in terms of a hidden or interior cosmology/cosmogony. Why hidden? Because consciousness itself cannot be dissected upon a table, whether you're Andreas Vesalius or Sigmund Freud! Thus, for centuries and millennia before Christian theology ever matured or received seals of papal approval, early Christians spoke and discussed, speculated and explored -- what the relationship might be between God above & within ... and God's creatures below and without.

But the part I keep coming back to, is how there was a Father-Mother-SON/SUN relationship, and how this was present for the Mayans, for the Egyptians, for the Greeks, Romans and also the EARLY Christians ... yet how it somehow CHANGED & evolved -- into the present `Father, Son and Holy Spirit' of both Catholic and Protestant theology. No, I prefer to stay WELL outside the box on this one, because when I look up, my eyes may deceive me on all the particulars, but the warmth still reaches my skin ... and the Light still lights my way.

The same God that made stars, galaxies and a Cosmos beyond my wildest imaginings ... also made each & every one of us, and I'm pretty sure we have more than a stamp inside of us somewhere marked TM. The figurative signature of the Divine is most certainly present ... but there's much more to it than just "Kilroy was here."

Again, I haven't the slightest doubt that in our Higher Nature (`Buddha Nature' to some, `Christ consciousness' to others) ... we are much more in the Know regarding Who and what we really are. Also, as stated above, because we have descended into Generation or "gone out" (to use the terminology of the Apostle John) ... our knowledge & recollection of our Heavenly heritage has been compromised.

The best part of it all, however, is that God's John Hancock has really already been discovered, though there is certainly the much-expected pontification and debate over the matter. Once we have been able to accept that science has already demonstrated God's signature within each one of us (I think of things like the DNA helix, though obviously this is just on the physical level -- merely a vein in a leaf of the Yggdrasil) ... we might move on to asking serious questions about how consciousness works at non-physical levels. Oh but wait, we don't know for sure that these other levels of consciousness exist -- silly me!

A TRINITY can be found manifest throughout the entire COSMOS -- active within every single ATOM. Question me about this, and I will have to crack a book or two -- but even contemporary science has shown a basis for this. What I would relate has more to do with the behaviour of elementary particles, and not just their structure. But still, nucleus-protons-electrons ... already there is a triune relationship, right there. Oh, it does get better.

So also there is a Septenary nature, yet this doesn't seem to get as much airtime. Why is that? You will find it at the forefront of other world religions and mystical philosophies. Even Christianity if full of references to Seven this, Seven that. But somehow the Holy TRINITY gets all the airtime ... and as we know, it is NOT the same Trinity of the early Christians. On this one, I prefer to side with Christ and His Followers (as also with the followers of other Mystery Traditions), not with the decisions of all-male councils made several centuries after Christ had long since been murdered ... His Teachings adapted, adjusted, amended and grafted on, or onto.

Yes, I recommend going to the source -- yet I know that the human heart, beneath muscle and corpuscle, holds the answers. The mind is finite, flawed, subject to error. The emotions, more troubled still -- even when calm they do not reveal the depth of our being, or God's. There MUST be something Greater still -- and while some call this Faith, and thereby set it APART from rational investigation and reasonable discussion, others call this Intuition, and admit of a Faculty of Consciousness which can Know God. It CAN know God, they say, because God MADE IT THUS. God made it, THAT we might come to understand ... things Divine (or more Divine, than the worlds of the senses & finite mind).

Christ speaks of this Faculty, and of an even Greater Faculty still. He admits of the former, in affirming the latter.

"And the peace of God, which passeth Understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus"
-- Philippians 4:7
​

In its passive state, or role in our spiritual constitution, the Intuition (or Buddhi as it has been known in the East for thousands of years) is that part of us which forms the Spiritual Soul, the very Heart of our Being. In this, it is - more than pure, it knows Union with God. Transcending this Understanding faculty is the Peace of the Philippians passage, and this too has its correspondence in the East. It is Atma, or the Nirvanic Principle. Buddhists speak of the Dharmakaya Vestiture, and this is superior to the former, or Sambhogakaya Vestiture. But to Christians, it makes sense to call it our Highest Spirit, which knows Christ's Peace.

Buddhi, meanwhile, has an active role, and this is the Christ mind (or `Christ Heart,' to be a bit more accurate) ... which we are all developing. This Faculty sleeps embryonic, in terms of outer manifestation, in all save the tiniest percentage of humanity ... but this percentage is increasing. The Buddhist who is developing Bodhichitta, is learning to access and express this Faculty. The Christian, Hindu or Muslim who earnestly practices prayer -- and especially those who practice some form of altruistic Service toward their fellow men (and creatures) -- are likewise developing it. It is the Temple "not made with human hands," thus we often speak of it in terms of an Awakening -- rather than in terms of construction.

Atma-Buddhi-Manas (Spirit -- World/Group Soul -- Individual Soul) ... here is the Higher Trinity of our Being, mirrored from God's. Lower mind -- emotions -- physical expression ... here is the lesser expression of our triune nature, again, mirrored from God's. There is a Highest Trinity, also, which itself forms the true, Father Aspect of our being - making three Trinities of Three.

So runs the Mystery Teaching, in covering the ABC of our human constitution ... the lesser mysteries of our being. May they be spread for all hearts and minds to learn and know -- and never again be silenced. In whatever form they appeal, by whatever path of approach we might choose, all beings deserve this Wisdom; all beings deserve and are worthy of Communion with God.

Namaskar

 

[Thomas]

Hi Andrew —

But no, God - the Absolute - isn't subject to corruption, as you say.

Thank you, that's all I'm trying to say ... and from that flows everything else I say.

It would be a mistake, however, to draw any inferences about the Absolute, based upon what we can observe thus far within and about the Cosmos of God's Creation. After all, to do so would be quite presumptuous, given our limited human intellects and insight into things. At best, we can have some knowledge of ourselves, others and the world we live in ... with hope that perhaps in time we might develop a deeper understanding.

I disagree ... and would point out that without the great philosophers there would be no concept of 'absolute' and 'transcendant' in the first place. If we dare not presume, then we dare not even think about or discuss ...

How does the Absolute manifest? Well, according to early Christians there was a Father-Mother-Son relationship.

You can demonstrate that, of course ... ?

Thomas

 

[taijasi]

You can demonstrate that, of course ... ?

That there was a Father-Mother-Son relationship, which later became the Father, Son & Holy Spirit of churchianity? You bet. I'm not about to waste my breath (or keystrokes and time), however, since I will prove nothing -- and only provide you with a target.

Might I recommend, for better practice, looking to the stars (SONS/Suns) above ... and pondering what Christianity might be like on planets where there are not two genders of human being, but only one? Or perhaps where there are three genders, and not just two? It might be worth your while.

Anthropomorphism. Creating God (and our understanding of God) ... in OUR own image. Inevitable? Or just a handy way, temporarily, to make sense out of things ... until we have some better information to go on. Hmmm

I didn't say that God was literally a male, that the 3rd Aspect was literally a female, with a male child as the offspring. I spoke of the mirroring of the heavens into the earthly -- and that means any heavens, all heavens, as well as any earth, all earths. If it takes science fiction or fantasy to understand how all of this becomes possible, then bully for those with the power to IMAGINE!

Imagination, after all, is the first step in getting outside the box!!!

 

[sonoman]

Speaking of Trinities, I'm seeing a makeover of the Egyptian Trinity of Osiris (Father), Horus (Son) Isis (Holy Spirit) in the conceptualization of the Christian Trinity.

And speaking of Brahmin ideology, I've learned recently of a ancient religious war between Iranian Brahmins and Hindu Brahmins with the Iranians being led by Asuras, to them positive "angels"(?) while the Hindus were spiritually led by Devas. The Devas became "devils" to the Iranian Brahmin, and that particular religious warfare is still being carried out through of all things, Christian fundamentalism. But this is what really interested me: Asura became the root for Assyria, Syria, Asur, Osir, Osiris..

Also, the Pyramids when they were first made were covered with gleaming white stones. In their day they must have utterly astounded foreigners as "mountains in the desert", perhaps a spiritual memory going all the way back to the mountains of northern India where an Ancient Wisdom was learned and embedded within the Vedic/Brahmic/Kemetic/Abrahamic traditions which I believe Jesus found while in Egypt because Jewish religious authority didn't know it.

 

[Thomas]

That there was a Father-Mother-Son relationship, which later became the Father, Son & Holy Spirit of churchianity? You bet. I'm not about to waste my breath

No, Andrew, I'm calling your bluff on this one — I don't think you can, and you know it.

Might I recommend, for better practice...

No, actually let's not avoid the issue.

Imagination, after all, is the first step in getting outside the box!!!

And so is fantasy.

And, please, I would rather you not resort to insult with regard to me or my religion as intended by the epithet 'churchianity' ... thank you.

Thomas

 

[Francis king]

people are the same everywhere... sure, they profess to believe different things, but they are much the same everywhere... why should a forum be any different?

 

[taijasi]

No, Andrew, I'm calling your bluff on this one — I don't think you can, and you know it.

Thomas, for starters -- I don't need to. sonoman has already done the work for me. Read his post, immediately following your post.

What I know, is that you would argue with a signpost ... and still go the wrong way.

No, actually let's not avoid the issue.

I take issue with your making TARGET PRACTICE out of everything that does not agree with your Catholic dogma. I will gladly avoid this ongoing issue when possible, and in this case, sonoman's post makes this an especially sound and sensible choice.

And so is fantasy.

I'm sorry you forgot how to imagine ... yet can remember how to quote dogma so frequently, so persistently. I'm sorry you forgot the valuable role that imagination plays for us -- and yes, fantasy too.

And, please, I would rather you not resort to insult with regard to me or my religion as intended by the epithet 'churchianity' ... thank you.

Since this is exactly what Catholicism has done with Christ's teachings and example, I will NOT so refrain. I will not go to the Christianity board and insult you, insult Christians, or make an uproar about the ATROCITIES that your Church has committed -- throughout the centuries AND IN THIS ONE -- "in Christ's name."

On this board, however, I will GLADLY speak out in favor of "Christianity outside the box," and what better way than to clarify that all too often, the efforts of Catholics (ESPECIALLY such as yourself) to KEEP people's thoughts, imaginations and practices INSIDE the box -- amounts to `churchianity.'

How DARE you try and stuff my thoughts, my perspective and MY opinions -- back inside your neatly prepared, neatly decorated, neatly arranged little box(es). "Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky-tacky ..."

If the truth is too much for you, go moderate where you DO have the rights to ... and let freethinking people do their FREE THINKING. After all the invective and insults, all the slandering and badmouthing, all the TRASH-TALKING that you have done against ALL THINGS and ALL PEOPLE Theosophical over the years, you DARE to ride my ass because I show your sham for the sham that it is???

GO FISH

 

[taijasi]

And, please, I would rather you not resort to insult with regard to me or my religion as intended by the epithet 'churchianity' ... thank you.

Thomas

Perhaps I struck a nerve, Thomas? Something a little too close to home?

 

[Thomas]

Hi Andrew —

Thomas, for starters -- I don't need to, sonoman has already done the work for me. Read his post, immediately following your post.

Actually sonoman asserts something quite different — that Christianity borrowed the idea from Egypt. A modicum of knowledge on the origins of Christian doctrine would suffice to dispose of that assumption.

But at present, the issue is with your assertion that:

Well, according to early Christians there was a Father-Mother-Son relationship.

And I am asking you to validate that statement with evidence.

Perhaps I struck a nerve, Thomas? Something a little too close to home.

No, I rather think you're trying to deflect the question you cannot answer by by hurling insults in my direction, or is it that you just cannot help yourself?

Thomas

 

[taijasi]

Actually sonoman asserts something quite different — that Christianity borrowed the idea from Egypt. A modicum of knowledge on the origins of Christian doctrine would suffice to dispose of that assumption.

But at present, the issue is with your assertion that:

And I am asking you to validate that statement with evidence.

I have my own; I can produce none for you. I have been able to verify my own beliefs -- but I cannot do that to your satisfaction. I cannot give you a better reason for believing as you do.

What I can do, is tell who about why I believe, what I believe ... as I believe

You want to sit down at a table and argue theology. Your friends here have provided for that.

I want to go walking through antiquity, and for that, I do not need your armchair. Or your library ... not mine, or anyone's. {Okay, okay, there is a `Book' ...}

Plato did not have to remain within the walls of his Academy in order to remain a teacher. And he did not have to tow a donkey laden with holy writings.

Do you think I must do either, in order to remain a student? It seems you must think this about yourself.

Are the stars and the sky any less than your paintings on the ceilings of chapels? Or are the latter not expressed in the appreciation of Creation?

No, I rather think you're trying to deflect the question you cannot answer by by hurling insults in my direction, or is it that you just cannot help yourself?

Thomas

I do know that early Christians, like all people who have received the Wisdom Teachings, had many motifs for understanding Cosmology, and what we might call psychology, or philosophy of self. In asking about our true nature, and its relationship with God's - many Natures (or expression of One Nature through many, lesser sub-natures) - I also know that early Christians employed the idea of Father - Mother - Son, just as they found situations in which it was necessary, and far more helpful, to contemplate the workings in Heaven as [they can be] upon Earth via the notion of a COUNCIL.

If Humanity has yet to produce an externalized Council of Elders, wise men ... be they statesmen, clergymen, scientists or philosphers ... who can sit down together and assume full & proper rulership of this planet, and if you know the reason that this is so as well as I do, then what makes you so confident that a Vatican Council -- or early meething of Church elders, was capable of even arriving at, much less preserving the actual "Gospel" of Christ?

You want me to PROVE to you something which I intuitively know, and for a man of so much blustery profession of FAITH, you cannot seem to grasp, much less take it on -- ... that perhaps something not between the pages of Matthew and John might also have the ring of Truth about it. {Feel free to explain the lesser mystery by which the Gospels do contain all of Truth, if you like }

You seem quite proud of what Faith can do for us, or at least for what it has done for you ... so I'll admit this much, I have no specific memory in mind when I say what I say about an early Trinity of Father - Mother - Son within Christianity. What I find incredible, however, is that you cannot see it also, Thomas -- since you have eyes and ears, and the same potential for imagination as surely I have, as well as the same (or greater) intellect. Perhaps there's more to it, or would you say that the spiritual nature has simply become so corrupt, that nothing within us yet resonates to the Chord of christos ... ?

The Mother, the very Bosom of the Heavens, Whose Partner brought us the Child Cosmos ... the Lady, Who walks beside the Lord,
She teaches, guides, protects us, She is the Peace and co-wields a --
​

 

[taijasi]

And I am asking you to validate that statement with evidence.

Thomas

I do take away from this that it might be more helpful if I could keep my feet firmly planted in the world of the observable. That much, I give you. Apologies for making free use of powers of observation outdoors, Thomas. Sorry the world isn't just so thoroughly masculine for me that I cannot understand God as any way other than MAN, MAN and nebulous - but certainly not truly FEMeNINE ... "spirit."

Want a real opportunity to shine here, my friend? Go for --

WOMAN, WOMAN and vague - yet close-but-not-quite MASCULINE ... and I'll sell you some beachfront property in Wyoming. If you manage it, I'll MAKE that ocean appear.

But for extra credit, answer, "And why must our sublime doctrine of the Trinity thus make the most sense, only if we understand God in this Woman-Woman-not quite masculine context?"

Please, no Walter Cronkite quotes. Do not patronize me.

 

[taijasi]

Forgive me if I expose your rigidity here Thomas. One little idea ... think outside the box, and I say "Father-Mother-Son." Notice, in your mirror of Truth (not all of them distort as badly) ... how much resistance, how much fight.

You're right. A place for those of scholarly bent to shine should definitely exist. The Intellect is crowned, not by man, but by God. If there were no Divine Intellect, there would be no human intellect.

I just wonder where you do think that the imagination fits into it all.

Still, I finally see you say even something so enlightened as "Christianity borrowed," regardless as to what that might be, when it might be, how it might be, or even why it might be. That is enough. In one million and one conversations with a professed Theosophist you would not, would NEVER admit that -- and finally it takes a co-dogmatist to make you tip or nod your cap.

and a good day to you, too -- yes, we too, exit.

Namaskar

 

[Nick_A]

Why does it seem so surprising that The essence of Christianity existed long before Jesus' birth? Objective truth is not a subjective truth that appears as an interpretation.. The meaning and purpose of Christianity as an objective truth always was. Jesus actualized it.

To conclude, the great Christian theologian, Saint Augustine in his Retractiones, wrote “The very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients also, nor was it wanting from the inception of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, at which point the true religion, which was already in existence, began to be called Christian.”

 

[Thomas]

I have my own; I can produce none for you.

Thank you, Andrew, that's all I required. If you cannot substantiate your claim, then the claim has no substance.

Thomas