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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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EASTER
    #14342753 - 04/24/11 09:39 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)




Easter by Jefferson Airplane

Golden velvet robes on Pope Paul, he's
talking--he's stalking devils of flesh. Rides
through the streets instead of walking. I think
his holy story is a mess. All I did last Easter
all I did was paint some eggs. It was a
resurrection holy day-- no more nails in the holy
legs. Only one true holy book in your hand.
Singing in latin nobody understands. Licking
wafers paper thin.

Ah, stupid christian isn't it grand? Is that your
reason for this day? Do you have a little
something holy you'd like to say? Something about
a magic, sacred, holy day. You look holy and
humble on your knees, but it looks funny when you
run that way. Pope Paul taking all your money for
turning your feet into clay (pigeon).


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: EASTER [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #14343157 - 04/24/11 11:35 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

A local church has a billboard with the message "Jesus beat hell out of death" on one side, and "salvation, free for the last 2k years" on the other. Makes me think of the old Maya stories about the warrior twins who defeated the underworld lords and made them change their tune, also returning then to the land of the living. Strange that this needs to keep happening in our psychological story about death :strokebeard:


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14343353 - 04/24/11 12:41 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Kickle said:
A local church has a billboard with the message "Jesus beat hell out of death" on one side, and "salvation, free for the last 2k years" on the other. Makes me think of the old Maya stories about the warrior twins who defeated the underworld lords and made them change their tune, also returning then to the land of the living. Strange that this needs to keep happening in our psychological story about death :strokebeard:




Well, although way too one-sided for my liking not to mention obsessional, Icelander's insistence on the ubiquitousness of death anxiety behind the machinations of religion is an important point. Just yesterday, when cleaning out my Lady's deceased mum's apartment, someone made the comment that "Aunty B. is finally gone." Also present was a friend of the deceased - a humble and kind woman from Appalachia, but uneducated - said, "What are you talking about; we'll see her in heaven." My Lady, being kind, simply smiled. The woman who made the comment - a materialist/atheist or agnostic at best simply frowned and was silent. So, this morning, easter Sunday, Rose and I discussed the intoxication from certain beliefs.

I remember attending huge Christian Charismatic Renewal meetings in the late 70s when I was trying to free myself from myself (especially from a 'bad' girl I was hopelessly in love with, yet dumped before she ruined my life). Many or most of those Catholic attendees also held to some fundamentalist literal misinterpretation of biblical narrative. It was a 'pie-in-the-sky-when-we-die' kinda thing, with nothing to fear here on Earth. Sadness perhaps at saying goodbye to those who die first, and when we are upon our own death beds, but no fear of Hell, or of annihilation. Many people had the elation caused by a reduction in their death anxiety, provided one didn't bore into their belief bubble with analytic thinking - even metaphysical thinking. People mostly harbored ideas like those depicted in that metaphysical film, What Dreams May Come, with Robin Williams. Most people equate their fantasies  plus their hopes with Reality. Most people have not tasted high Samadhis; states of ecstasy wherein all personal identity including one's memory, thought, name and identity have utterly vanished in formless radiance. These states approximate - to me at any rate - the Eternal Life that the Bible speaks of. Eternal Life is the Life of Eternity, of 'God' or the Ground of Being. It is certainly NOT the same as personal immortality, which is what most Christians seem to cling to in their imaginations. I recognize that there are heavens that people may go to for a while in Hindu thought, til good karma is exhausted, and then rebirth occurs, because even good karma is still karma, and the idea is to act without incurring any karma at all, good or bad. That is the ultimate goal of Moksha, Liberation. So maybe the fundies will have their Elysian Fields and Happy Hunting Grounds and such in one of the Brahmalokas or 'spiritual planets,' assuming Hindu metaphysics also describes what happens to Christians. For any and all of us who will not dissolve into the Clear Light, we too will reappear in the land of the living as newborns, but hopefully we'll rediscover the Gnosis of Liberation in following births until we're done. I'm aiming for this lifetime. The Vajrayana says 'Go for it!'


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: EASTER [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #14343414 - 04/24/11 01:00 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

It still makes me wonder why it keeps coming up in the psyche of humanity. As a whole are we making zero progress? The Earth being a breeding ground for such a journey that cycles over and over? Why make such a journey in the first place? I think these sorts of questions are what got Icelander into the death denial arena. It takes too many assumptions to explain why this system would ever exist, and everyone explains it slightly differently. Even if we just assume that the Hindu's are describing a system that does exist, it makes not a lick of sense why it should exist. Born into suffering for the end goal of release? Why born at all? Past karma... why born into a system of karma that makes one suffer, initially?

The Maya describe a creation process designed for worship wherein several creations prior to our own "model" were trial and error to get a balance of intelligence/power to worshiping tendencies right. Even our own "model" is described as highly imperfect, needing to be "blinded" lest we become like the Gods themselves. Limited to seeing only slivers of time through our now blinded eyes.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14343809 - 04/24/11 02:47 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Kickle said:
It still makes me wonder why it keeps coming up in the psyche of humanity. As a whole are we making zero progress? The Earth being a breeding ground for such a journey that cycles over and over? Why make such a journey in the first place? I think these sorts of questions are what got Icelander into the death denial arena. It takes too many assumptions to explain why this system would ever exist, and everyone explains it slightly differently. Even if we just assume that the Hindu's are describing a system that does exist, it makes not a lick of sense why it should exist. Born into suffering for the end goal of release? Why born at all? Past karma... why born into a system of karma that makes one suffer, initially?

The Maya describe a creation process designed for worship wherein several creations prior to our own "model" were trial and error to get a balance of intelligence/power to worshiping tendencies right. Even our own "model" is described as highly imperfect, needing to be "blinded" lest we become like the Gods themselves. Limited to seeing only slivers of time through our now blinded eyes.




My first guess is that the suffering is concomitant with being finite creature not infinite Creator. Suffering is the most poignant difference in ontological status. If our human beinghood could, it would eliminate limitation. If we could assume omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence, we would be God. Those qualities seem to deal with sovereignty over creation, not self-knowledge of Deity. In fact, from Hegel onward, there has been the notion that God needs externalized creation (from God's uncreated reality) in order to attain self-realization. History (on this world as on all possible worlds) is 'His-Story.' So, unlike the Christian notion that God, like a benevolent father, created us so we could love each other; and that it was an act of loving freedom that God created, some think that creation is a matter of necessity. God cannot help but bring into existence from essence because God is Creator by nature. That being the case, God needs US! Not personally, mind you, but God needs to actualize His-Her potential on all possible worlds. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin thought that this process would eventually 'transubstantiate' the entire cosmos into God - the "Omega Point." There is a parallel thought of humans attaining to an Enlightenment which transforms the whole person, body included, into a new being - an eternal being. Not a new idea, this being Resurrection Day.

The Godhead creates, and it's like white light passing through a prism into a spectrum of colors, which are to be gathered by lenses into white light again. We get an idea, we apply ourselves to transforming the idea into physical creation. Oneness and separateness. The Oneness, The One, does not suffer, but needs suffering. Why? Masochistic Being? Who suffers? egos suffer. Embodied-consciousness of suffering suffers. Perhaps like the symbol of the cross, and the Passion Story, there is a deeper, metaphysical implication in the suffering of birth and death, and the various and sundry spectrum of suffering in life. The Gnostic, the Buddhist want out. The Qabalist, the alchemist want to transmute suffering into glory.

The Matrix films were mega-brilliant. I am still learning from them, unless I'm just projecting onto them. I didn't realize for quite a while that the human survivors in Zion were another "level of control." The demiurgic Architect (like William Blake's Nobodaddy) explains to Neo that Zion has already been destroyed 6 times. Only a virtual reality could be destroyed repeatedly. What is the game set up by the Real Creator to which we are subjected? That's what you're asking, and I cannot conceive of an answer. It is an aspect of Mystery. This is why Buddha would not talk about a Creator, he only sought Release from existence.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: EASTER [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #14343846 - 04/24/11 02:56 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

That's what you're asking, and I cannot conceive of an answer. It is an aspect of Mystery.

Same, same.
But I do side with Icelander that speculation's abound and that such speculations are the result of death anxiety. Seeking a way out is where I'm looking too, but if I weren't suffering in the first place, what would I care? Some people really enjoy existence, even if I suspect not outside of a self-imposed illusion. Soon as the illusion is gone, it's almost inevitable to wonder what the fuck we did to get stuck here.

Jesus was sent to Earth to save mankind, right? Why would we need saving if Earth isn't a form of hell already? Saving us from heaven? Nah.


--------------------
Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain


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OfflineI AM SWIM
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14343912 - 04/24/11 03:09 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)



--------------------


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OfflineForever White Belt
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14344017 - 04/24/11 03:39 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

John 20:10-18

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

  “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

  Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

  She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:

  “Though seeing, they do not see;
  though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

  14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

  “‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
  you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
  they hardly hear with their ears,
  and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
  hear with their ears,
  understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’[a]

  16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

===============================================================================

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:



Most people have not tasted high Samadhis; states of ecstasy wherein all personal identity including one's memory, thought, name and identity have utterly vanished in formless radiance. These states approximate - to me at any rate - the Eternal Life that the Bible speaks of. Eternal Life is the Life of Eternity, of 'God' or the Ground of Being. It is certainly NOT the same as personal immortality, which is what most Christians seem to cling to in their imaginations.






I asked for an answer of Jesus and the response was a state of Samadhi unlike any other. The pure felt experience of ananda and sukha (bliss and joy) were unbearable. I believe if there is a plane to exist on where we can stand in the presence and glory of God and Jesus this would be Heaven. IMO the only hell can be true understanding of the separation from God's love.


Quote:


That is the ultimate goal of Moksha, Liberation. So maybe the fundies will have their Elysian Fields and Happy Hunting Grounds and such in one of the Brahmalokas or 'spiritual planets,' assuming Hindu metaphysics also describes what happens to Christians. '




I kind of agree with you here. One of my brothers in kung fu used to tickle my young closed christian mind with thoughts like this-- which is the original reason I started taking in the Tao.


Quote:

Kickle said:
Even if we just assume that the Hindu's are describing a system that does exist, it makes not a lick of sense why it should exist. Born into suffering for the end goal of release? Why born at all? Past karma... why born into a system of karma that makes one suffer, initially?





These are questions I think you have to find the answer for yourself... If someone just explained it to you in just the words that you can understand it would lose its power of meaning for you.

Finding these answers is what makes life an adventure!!

Hey Kickle at least you care enough to ask!! Suffering draws people to Dharma!


--------------------
The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
      J. B. S. Haldane

The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: EASTER [Re: Forever White Belt]
    #14344074 - 04/24/11 03:53 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Finding these answers is what makes life an adventure!!

:lol:
Sure, sure...
making the best of what we're dealt. Painting it with golden words.

It seems an alchemical facade and doesn't tickle my fancy. It just reminds me that lead painted gold is still lead underneath. A struggle made adventure is still a struggle covered only by the fanciful descriptions of the mind. And the mind is wonderful at creating all sorts of purposes and goals. With the raw material is where I rest in peace, requiring nothing more of it. The lead painted gold is the same in the end to me as the lead that remains it's dull complexion. Appearances mean very little in the answers I have found.


--------------------
Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain


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Offlinethe bizzle
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14344181 - 04/24/11 04:16 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

And the mind is wonderful at creating all sorts of purposes and goals.




and yet you fail to grasp how everything is equal.


--------------------
MY HAIR IS A BIRD 
YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID



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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: EASTER [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #14344280 - 04/24/11 04:39 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Many of you probably associate Jesus' death and resurrection with the substitutionary view of atonement, not realizing that this is a medieval doctrine, not a Biblical one.  The more ancient view, and one which the Eastern Orthodox church still observes(as do a growing number of liberal denominations) is called "Christus Victor."

First, let's look at the substitutionary model of atonement.  It was formulated in the 11th century by Anselm of Canterbury.  Like all the medieval scholastics, he was concerned with making a rational case for Christianity.  He decided to formulate a theory for why the incarnation of God in the form of Jesus was necessary.  So he looked at the doctrine of original sin, formulated by St. Augustine, and said that because of original sin, God, being perfectly just, had to send us to hell.  Yet God, being also merciful, decided to send the perfect sacrifice to be killed in our place.

It's a very legalistic view, and if it sounds strange, it may be because it's largely based on the legal norms in Anselm's time.  The early church fathers believed in something very different.  The more crude version of their early belief is called the ransom theory, in which Christ's death was a ransom paid to Satan for the souls of mankind, but that hell could not hold his light, and with the resurrection he freed mankind from sin, death, and Satan.

This view also can rub some people the wrong way if taken at face value, particularly if, like many modern people, the concept of Satan bothers them(if taken literally, that is).  But we have to understand that this was not meant to be understood in rational, analytic terms.  No, this was not the scholastic sophistry of someone like Anselm.  Rather, it was meant to be understood mythopoetically.  It is less a rational explanation and more an epic saga of Christ's victory over sin.

This mythic understanding was dubbed "Christus Victor" by Gustaf Aulén in his 1931 book of the same name.  Though he coined the term, it has, as I already mentioned, been integral to the Eastern Orthodox understanding of the atonement since the beginning.

One thing to understand here is that there is a shift in the understanding of sin.  Rather than being something that makes us bad people who deserve to go to hell, the problem of sin in this understanding is that sin binds us and keeps us distant from God.  This is much closer to how most of us actually experience sin.  We beat ourselves up over it, and feel ashamed and haunted by it.  So rather than take our sins on for himself, what Christ does in the resurrection is offer us a new life in him.

The victory over death part can also be confusing.  Obviously people still die, even the most pious and upstanding people.  So how does the resurrection offer us victory over death?  In the Eastern Orthodox understanding, we do not have eternal souls as is understood in the West.  Rather, God alone is eternal.  But the resurrection offers us eternal life through what is known as "theosis," best summed up by St. Athanasius when he said, "God became man so that man could become divine."  That is, the resurrection offers us a way to experience union with God.  By dying unto ourselves and being reborn in Christ, we realize our divine nature which transcends death.  Thus, the death of our body is no death at all.

Victory over Satan probably pushes the most buttons for people, particularly because they think of Satan as an actual entity with horns and a pitchfork and such.  The word "Satan" comes from the Hebrew "Ha Shatan," meaning "the adversary."  Satan is also spoken of as "the accuser."  Basically, we can think of Satan as that which holds us back from God, tells us we're unworthy, and keeps us bound to the ways of the world.  It is both our internal bondage to sin, as well as external oppression.  Thus, victory over Satan means that God offers us liberation from these forces.

Orthodox icons of the resurrection do not depict what we think of when we picture the resurrection.  Instead, they depict Jesus unlocking the gates of Hell and freeing the people.  The "harrowing of Hell" is thought of in Western Christianity as something separate from the resurrection, but in the Eastern church, they are one and the same.  The resurrection is not an individual thing that Jesus underwent, but a collective act of liberation in which we all partake.

This "God as Liberator" theme speaks volumes to oppressed peoples today.  In the 20th century, it became a central theme for a movement known as liberation theology.  It does not mean that God will liberate people by himself.  Rather, He calls upon the faithful to fight for the oppressed against the oppressors.  And through the Christus Victor model, we see how this liberation is continuous with the message Jesus taught during his lifetime, with a radical inclusivism toward the outcasts of society.  In taking up our cross and following Christ, we are called to witness the dignity of all people, no matter how marginalized, and to manifest the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

In conclusion, we should not think of the resurrection so much as a historical event, but rather a present reality.  Christ is risen, and in the resurrection he calls upon us to a new way of life and a new relationship with God.  We ought to treat the resurrection not as a claim to be analyzed, but as a mystery to be lived.  It calls upon us to remember our eternal nature, and to live in God's Kingdom here and now.

Happy Easter, everyone!


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: EASTER [Re: the bizzle]
    #14344293 - 04/24/11 04:42 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

the bizzle said:
Quote:

And the mind is wonderful at creating all sorts of purposes and goals.




and yet you fail to grasp how everything is equal.




What suggests this to you?


--------------------
Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain


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OfflineSimulacra541
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Re: EASTER [Re: Silversoul]
    #14345442 - 04/24/11 08:35 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Thanks Silver that was some good stuff!

One of my good friends is a baptist who takes to a literal interpretation of the Bible. We've been close friends since my first mushroom trip, strangely enough on Easter 2 years ago. I wanted to talk to him because the experience I had, I described to myself as merging into God, and besides the Shroomery I didn't know any other spiritual seekers who could understand.

So we've dialoged back and forth and my views have shifted so much while his have stayed the relatively the same.  I tended to have really gnostic beliefs until last June when without psychedelics I experienced God in a really profound way. It happened when I really became convinced that I had been working for salvation and not accepting it through grace. At this point I was taking the standard Christian view of what a Gnostic was, now I have different feelings about that. (I wrote in a thread a while ago arguing against Markos and some other people that Gnosticism was contrary to the Gospel.)

So our discussions always comes down to the same point, he asserts that unless you believe that Christ actually existed in the flesh and was fully God and fully man you cannot be saved. I just feel confused by this and wish I could understand it his way. I  could never know what happened 2,000 years ago, if it happened then it happened and my belief one way or another isn't going to affect it. The most I can do is be humble about it and know by not knowing. I can only understand it in a pseudo-literal/allegorical way, the Gospel essentially being the most explicit example of God and His self giving nature.

The Hebrew idea of God being a person is confusing to me also, what do they mean by that? God has a self-conscious mind? A body? feelings? all of them? Someone was explaining Hebrew thought to me, I guess there is no Hebrew word for spiritual, so there isn't this literal/metaphorical dichotomy. And when I get blamed for being the one who is trying to understand it metaphorical, the literalist seems to only look at it one way too.


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OfflineForever White Belt
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14348825 - 04/25/11 12:20 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Kickle said:
Finding these answers is what makes life an adventure!!

:lol:
Sure, sure...
making the best of what we're dealt. Painting it with golden words.

It seems an alchemical facade and doesn't tickle my fancy. It just reminds me that lead painted gold is still lead underneath. A struggle made adventure is still a struggle covered only by the fanciful descriptions of the mind. And the mind is wonderful at creating all sorts of purposes and goals. With the raw material is where I rest in peace, requiring nothing more of it. The lead painted gold is the same in the end to me as the lead that remains it's dull complexion. Appearances mean very little in the answers I have found.




forgive me if I am misunderstanding but are you accusing me of living a fantasy? What you would struggle through another might persevere

I don't put lipstick on pigs! It all boils down to how you perceive the moments that are happening.

example-- I was born with asthma, I almost died a few times from my lungs collapsing from lack of o2... Now instead of crying about all the suffering I have gone through I have learned the art of Breathing and transformed my "lead lungs" into the purest metal. Is this in my mind?? Am I painting a pretty picture for myself? Is my mind covering up the sickness with fanciful descriptions? No I have not touched an inhaler since I started Breathing. You remind me of my doctors as a kid saying I would live with Asthma my whole life... If I believed them I would be lying to myself. I did not just make the best of what I was dealt. I changed the hand that was dealt to me.

Quote:

With the raw material is where I rest in peace, requiring nothing more of it.




What raw material are you talking about??


I was born with a lead body sick and dying. I have transmuted the poor metal from the inside out not through Puffery, but through long hours of hard Work, concentrated effort and steady practice.


--------------------
The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
      J. B. S. Haldane

The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington


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InvisibleCups
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Re: EASTER [Re: Forever White Belt]
    #14349007 - 04/25/11 01:14 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

^^^Yeah?  And to what end?


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What's up everybody?!


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InvisibleCups
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14349154 - 04/25/11 01:49 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Kickle said:
As a whole are we making zero progress?...I think these sorts of questions are what got Icelander into the death denial arena. It takes too many assumptions to explain why this system would ever exist, and everyone explains it slightly differently.





You're going to moderating next door before you know it. :wink:

One thing he talked about a lot, but which flew past most people is that...once you look at history with enough perspective you find a complete lack of novelty.  It's just the same thing over and over and over again.


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What's up everybody?!


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: EASTER [Re: Silversoul]
    #14349485 - 04/25/11 02:53 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Nicely written!


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: EASTER [Re: Simulacra541]
    #14349661 - 04/25/11 03:23 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Simulacra541 said:
Thanks Silver that was some good stuff!

One of my good friends is a baptist who takes to a literal interpretation of the Bible. We've been close friends since my first mushroom trip, strangely enough on Easter 2 years ago. I wanted to talk to him because the experience I had, I described to myself as merging into God, and besides the Shroomery I didn't know any other spiritual seekers who could understand.

So we've dialoged back and forth and my views have shifted so much while his have stayed the relatively the same.  I tended to have really gnostic beliefs until last June when without psychedelics I experienced God in a really profound way. It happened when I really became convinced that I had been working for salvation and not accepting it through grace. At this point I was taking the standard Christian view of what a Gnostic was, now I have different feelings about that. (I wrote in a thread a while ago arguing against Markos and some other people that Gnosticism was contrary to the Gospel.)

So our discussions always comes down to the same point, he asserts that unless you believe that Christ actually existed in the flesh and was fully God and fully man you cannot be saved. I just feel confused by this and wish I could understand it his way. I  could never know what happened 2,000 years ago, if it happened then it happened and my belief one way or another isn't going to affect it. The most I can do is be humble about it and know by not knowing. I can only understand it in a pseudo-literal/allegorical way, the Gospel essentially being the most explicit example of God and His self giving nature.

The Hebrew idea of God being a person is confusing to me also, what do they mean by that? God has a self-conscious mind? A body? feelings? all of them? Someone was explaining Hebrew thought to me, I guess there is no Hebrew word for spiritual, so there isn't this literal/metaphorical dichotomy. And when I get blamed for being the one who is trying to understand it metaphorical, the literalist seems to only look at it one way too.




Ruach is spirit in Hebrew. It is one aspect of a human soul, the other aspects below and above are Nephesh and Neshemah.
Fully God, fully man, has been from the beginning pf the Patristic thinkers, attempts to Christanize that which has always belonged to greek mythology. In myt, God/Zeus/Deus impregnated mortal women through a variety of deceptions and rapes. The results were demigods, like Heracles (Hercules) offspring of God and a mortal woman, partaking of both natures. Same with Dionysus and his mortal mother Semele, who was promised anything by Zeus, and she asked to see his True Nature. She was annihilated by the Light of the Godhead. Baby Dionysus (the god of Nysus) remined, and Zeus sewed him up inside his thigh until he was ready to be born. Seem actual to you? No? Well neither does the virgin called Miriam (Mary) who was 'overshadowed' by the Holy Spirit, or 'heard' the 'word of God,' and, without HER consent, became pregnant by the God-man, Iesous. Sound actual to you? Not to me. In fact Matthew mistranslated from the Greek (Septuigint) version of the Tenach when he wrote his gospel. Hebrew has two words - bethula which means virgin, almah means young woman. The original Isaiah (7:14) prophesy about a 'young woman giving birth to the Messiah in Bethlehem,' reads almah, not bethula ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almah ). In Greek, however, there was only one word for both - parthenos. It could mean young woman, who was usually but not always virginal, and almah which does mean virgin. Virgins do not give birth in ancient Hebrew thought. Period. This is Greek mythological ideas forced in a Hebrew context, as so much of the NT is.

Iesous would have had nothing to do with these ideas about himself as a God-man. This is strictly Johannine thought. The Synoptic gospels refer to Iesous as 'a man anointed by God,' not, as John suggested, 'God clothed with flesh.' This is just Greek mythology, and centuries of Christology has been about rationally describing the percentages of God and man in the demigod. I found it all terribly fascinating for years. Then I woke up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christology


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14349724 - 04/25/11 03:35 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Kickle said:
That's what you're asking, and I cannot conceive of an answer. It is an aspect of Mystery.

Same, same.
But I do side with Icelander that speculation's abound and that such speculations are the result of death anxiety. Seeking a way out is where I'm looking too, but if I weren't suffering in the first place, what would I care? Some people really enjoy existence, even if I suspect not outside of a self-imposed illusion. Soon as the illusion is gone, it's almost inevitable to wonder what the fuck we did to get stuck here.

Jesus was sent to Earth to save mankind, right? Why would we need saving if Earth isn't a form of hell already? Saving us from heaven? Nah.




Right. And that is a Gnostic notion as well. We have been separated from the Ogdoad, the Pleroma, and isolated on 'this island Earth,' for reasons that are none too clear. Salvation is through Gnosis thatoften contrasted with faith (Sola Fide), but most people never truly Realize faith. Faith in the outward myths of Christianity is what makes a 'Psychichoi,' or 'Psychic Christian' - based in a mental belief, which remains intellectual and somewhat peripheral to total being. The Pneumatic or Spiritual Christian had been transformed, enlightened. As Jung said in his interview with John Freeman in 1960 when asked if he believed in God,"I don't need to believe - I Know [God]."


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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OfflineTony
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14350047 - 04/25/11 04:33 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Kickle said:
It still makes me wonder why it keeps coming up in the psyche of humanity. As a whole are we making zero progress? The Earth being a breeding ground for such a journey that cycles over and over? Why make such a journey in the first place?




Potent question. Aside from the ultimate answer - relative progress perhaps? The theory is that as humanity matures more and more people will be operating from a more integral space, aware of impermanence but still functional(instead of being total lolwuts :grin:). The whole gauntlet run through the various stages of denial will still exist, but the demographics will shift more towards the more advanced states of consciousness, with the majority no longer crying after lost love and misery and boredom. Factors like internet, freedom of speech and longer life span could help dramatically shift the global consciousness in that direction.

But first there has to be a period of apparent separation for every individual, a mental differentiation of dualities in order for experience to be understood in relative terms. In other words the differentiation of morals, scientific rationalism and aesthetics has to take place, as these are the big modes of knowing that seem to contradict each other. Differentiated awareness of these dimensions of experience did not exist in pre-modern and less so in earlier individuals and this contributed to an oppressive social environment where the most dominant group could impose its rule on all ways of life (even more so than today!) So, mental differentiation of reality is actually contributing to our relative well-being, and it is pretty novel shit (at least in this corner of this universe).

So, it's like we're moving to a bigger and better party on every step of evolution. Emptiness is showing just how much depth it can muster out of nothingness. (DNA? Internet? All out of nothing? OMG! etc...) What I guess is even more auspicious in the coming post-modern age (as opposed to increasing diversity/knowledge of things, which is happening during this age) is that what is socially recognized as supreme is no longer a perishable object or idea or even feeling. The truly post-modern stages are actually stages where this kind of emotional clinging has been overcome. This is because the knowledge that everything is one and eternal is what completes the reintegration of the mentally differentiated reality, and that is the quantum leap. It is what defines the shift to authentic post-modern levels of consciousness: mentally differentiated and spiritually reintegrated reality.

There is literally no other way forward once you've developed your intellect to the level that it can differentiate reality as much as the currently available level of knowing allows. In other words, there is nowhere else to go when everything you see on the TV is more or less the same shit, the stuff in the great intellectual books not so great, games not so interesting, etc. One HAS to turn to spirituality. Or one can temporarily go stupid or crazy or cynical, but these aren't very stable states of consciousness as they are not comfortable. So something has to change in the most radical way possible, preferably without blood-spill or hard drugs because we all know how that goes.

...


Blody hell I went on there. Well, I bolded the parts I thought worth bolding. It seems like many threads around here are about reintegrating science and religion/finding meaning in an apparently flat materialistic universe, and I'm currently reading Wilber's Marriage of Sense of Soul, so I'm somehow mentally tuned into this mess right now and can't help regurgitating some of it, with the caveat that I'm still a noob to all this. :grin:


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: EASTER [Re: Forever White Belt]
    #14350097 - 04/25/11 04:41 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Forever White Belt said:
Quote:

Kickle said:
Finding these answers is what makes life an adventure!!

:lol:
Sure, sure...
making the best of what we're dealt. Painting it with golden words.

It seems an alchemical facade and doesn't tickle my fancy. It just reminds me that lead painted gold is still lead underneath. A struggle made adventure is still a struggle covered only by the fanciful descriptions of the mind. And the mind is wonderful at creating all sorts of purposes and goals. With the raw material is where I rest in peace, requiring nothing more of it. The lead painted gold is the same in the end to me as the lead that remains it's dull complexion. Appearances mean very little in the answers I have found.




forgive me if I am misunderstanding but are you accusing me of living a fantasy? What you would struggle through another might persevere

I don't put lipstick on pigs! It all boils down to how you perceive the moments that are happening.

example-- I was born with asthma, I almost died a few times from my lungs collapsing from lack of o2... Now instead of crying about all the suffering I have gone through I have learned the art of Breathing and transformed my "lead lungs" into the purest metal. Is this in my mind?? Am I painting a pretty picture for myself? Is my mind covering up the sickness with fanciful descriptions? No I have not touched an inhaler since I started Breathing. You remind me of my doctors as a kid saying I would live with Asthma my whole life... If I believed them I would be lying to myself. I did not just make the best of what I was dealt. I changed the hand that was dealt to me.

Quote:

With the raw material is where I rest in peace, requiring nothing more of it.




What raw material are you talking about??


I was born with a lead body sick and dying. I have transmuted the poor metal from the inside out not through Puffery, but through long hours of hard Work, concentrated effort and steady practice.





A body builder who spends his entire life training to win the Mr Universe competition will only be a larger meal for the maggots in the end. I think it's wonderful that you've made a better life for yourself, I really do. But IMO the fact that you had to spend all that effort to combat what you were born with, and will eventually return to, is the struggle I was referring to. One can call that a journey, a quest, an adventure but to me it's just life trying to be alive against the pressures of death.

A gold paint will start to wear with time and the lead that has always been underneath will show through. If that isn't the case for you, congratulations.


--------------------
Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14351849 - 04/25/11 09:27 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Kickle said:
Quote:

Forever White Belt said:
Quote:

Kickle said:
Finding these answers is what makes life an adventure!!

:lol:
Sure, sure...
making the best of what we're dealt. Painting it with golden words.

It seems an alchemical facade and doesn't tickle my fancy. It just reminds me that lead painted gold is still lead underneath. A struggle made adventure is still a struggle covered only by the fanciful descriptions of the mind. And the mind is wonderful at creating all sorts of purposes and goals. With the raw material is where I rest in peace, requiring nothing more of it. The lead painted gold is the same in the end to me as the lead that remains it's dull complexion. Appearances mean very little in the answers I have found.




forgive me if I am misunderstanding but are you accusing me of living a fantasy? What you would struggle through another might persevere

I don't put lipstick on pigs! It all boils down to how you perceive the moments that are happening.

example-- I was born with asthma, I almost died a few times from my lungs collapsing from lack of o2... Now instead of crying about all the suffering I have gone through I have learned the art of Breathing and transformed my "lead lungs" into the purest metal. Is this in my mind?? Am I painting a pretty picture for myself? Is my mind covering up the sickness with fanciful descriptions? No I have not touched an inhaler since I started Breathing. You remind me of my doctors as a kid saying I would live with Asthma my whole life... If I believed them I would be lying to myself. I did not just make the best of what I was dealt. I changed the hand that was dealt to me.

Quote:

With the raw material is where I rest in peace, requiring nothing more of it.




What raw material are you talking about??


I was born with a lead body sick and dying. I have transmuted the poor metal from the inside out not through Puffery, but through long hours of hard Work, concentrated effort and steady practice.





A body builder who spends his entire life training to win the Mr Universe competition will only be a larger meal for the maggots in the end. I think it's wonderful that you've made a better life for yourself, I really do. But IMO the fact that you had to spend all that effort to combat what you were born with, and will eventually return to, is the struggle I was referring to. One can call that a journey, a quest, an adventure but to me it's just life trying to be alive against the pressures of death.

A gold paint will start to wear with time and the lead that has always been underneath will show through. If that isn't the case for you, congratulations.




Awfully existential, awfully materialistically one-sided, awfully cynical, awfully sad.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: EASTER [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #14351999 - 04/25/11 09:47 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

it's definitely not for everyone but I find comfort in it not sadness. And material qualities are fitting for material things IMO


--------------------
Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain


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OfflineForever White Belt
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle]
    #14361776 - 04/27/11 03:39 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Kickle said:

A body builder who spends his entire life training to win the Mr Universe competition will only be a larger meal for the maggots in the end. I think it's wonderful that you've made a better life for yourself, I really do. But IMO the fact that you had to spend all that effort to combat what you were born with, and will eventually return to, is the struggle I was referring to. One can call that a journey, a quest, an adventure but to me it's just life trying to be alive against the pressures of death.

A gold paint will start to wear with time and the lead that has always been underneath will show through. If that isn't the case for you, congratulations.




So your plan is to what?? Sit on your hands until your body wastes away on its own? Wasted talent is a very sad thing.

I think that death is just as much a part of life as anything else.

without death there would be no room for life so how does death pressure us??

all things happen in their own time...


--------------------
The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
      J. B. S. Haldane

The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: EASTER [Re: Forever White Belt]
    #14368927 - 04/28/11 07:25 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Forever White Belt said:
So your plan is to what?? Sit on your hands until your body wastes away on its own? Wasted talent is a very sad thing.





My plan is to continue exploring the psyche, whether I be sitting on my hands or rowing a boat.


--------------------
Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain


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OfflineTony
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Re: EASTER [Re: Kickle] * 1
    #14369776 - 04/28/11 09:46 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Row row row yer boat, gently down the stream... if you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream...


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