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 World Spirit
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 Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience  [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#1724115 - 07/17/03 05:53 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Deleted by admin
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 Malachi
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: CosmicJoke]
#1724312 - 07/17/03 09:01 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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to mark the gnostic-- don't you think that it's plausible that your certainty or intentionality might be unfounded?
"Consciousness is always intentional, no matter what it intends to be conscious of"
maybe the accruement of consciousness at large can be a intentional act, but not with the satori. hence koans to break you out of your particular fixation. likewise shrooms are the inexpected smack on the head.
"Tripping is a decision, a choice, a free-willed, existential expression and not rooted in my more determined nature"
well, I fail to understand how there can be this seperation between your determined and free willed natures. I do understand how it'd make a person feel more in control if said person where to draw such a line...
socratic ignorance is often the highest wisdom, especially with the shroomies.
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The ultimate meaning of our being can only be fulfilled in the paradoxical leap beyond the tragic-demonic frustration. It is a leap from our side, but it is the self-surrendering presence of the Ground of Being from the other side.
- Paul Tillich
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: World Spirit]
#1724448 - 07/17/03 10:16 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Just as the ancient Gnostics saw that people fall into 3 essential spiritual categories, I have come to see the same thing. There are the Hylics, who are so literal and so materially-oriented, that they only believe what their senses tell them.
Then there are the Psychics, those people who believe in powers, ghosts, spirits and who are basically superstitious. When they become Christians, their take on Christianity is colored completely by psychic or soulful considerations. Following rules and regs, mostly from Paul, Psychics believe just as observant Jews of the Old Covenant - adherence to very specific behaviors determines one's faith. They will maintain 'sola fide,' 'by faith alone,' as Paul said, while completely ignoring the fact that Paul had spiritual Experiences before he came to preach on faith. Psychic Christians therefore have little or no spiritual experiences which is Gnosis, and have been told by the author John's treatment of 'doubting Thomas,' that it is more blessed to believe without having seen. This takes us to the last category.
The Pneumatic [spiritual] Christians value direct spiritual experience. John wrote that whole passage that demeaned Thomas, who had to 'see' the Risen Christ before he believed. John said 'You have seen and thus believed - blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.' This was the attitude that won in Christianity because there are many Psychic Christians who have not seen the Resurrected Christ as Paul did, or as any of us have who came away from an experience with the conviction that resulted in our own conversions to Christ. But Pneumatic Christians have experiences of the Sacred - even of Christ. And Christ, dear friends, is not a bearded long-haired carpenter. Christ is the Logos - the aspect of God that 'interfaces' with human beings. The Logos, BY ANY OTHER NAME is still the Logos (which is why Neem Karolie Baba could speak of Christ. He was in Christ, in the Logos, in Sat Chit Ananda which is a philosophical description of being-in-God [Logos]). Being in Christ, in Reality, has little or nothing to do with saying that one is a Christian. ALL true holiness derives from the Logos, and so a Taoist, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Sikh all have different names for this ONE true God - and Gnosis makes this Realization possible. Psychic Christians just cannot bridge the gap between Jesus, and Christ.
Christ is Awareness of God, and Jesus is THE greatest example there is, in the eyes of Christians - but He is not the only example. To see that others have had Jesus's Experience of God, albeit in lesser degree, is Gnosis. Christianity, through John, insists that Jesus is not merely of a higher degree than other humans. John said that Jesus is of a different 'specie.' In other words, for John (unlike Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jesus is not first a human being. Jesus is first, Christ - the Logos clothed in human flesh. So the Gnostic Realization of the Universality of Christ - in people of other faiths, and without the Christian mythos, is just 'wrong view' - in a word - heresy. Oh well. What has Christian exclusivity done to increase brotherly love between faiths? NOTHING. Nothing but condemn others - including their Holy Men and Women.
Psychedelics is a word with a very Psychic overtone. It is obviously about the psyche, the soul, the mind. Entheogens (En=within, theo=God, gen=generated) - God-generated-within does not mean God is created within. The being of a person is changed so that God's Presence is known (Gnosis). It is like the person is a plain bar of iron, oriented North and South, and hammered repeatedly, that plain bar of iron is changed into a magnet with a very discernible magnetic field around it. Now we all exist within the Earth's magnetic field, but we can 'generate' a microcosmic field within the macrocosmic field about the planet, with new properties and powers. Likewise our being on Entheogens. We may Psychically believe that God is omnipresent, but then, with the Entheogen, God manifests in "a superabundance of Reality," which is "the irruption of the sacred into the world" (Mircea Eliade). We don't create the magnetic field, we use knowledge to align the structure of the iron to 'channel' an existing field in a 'superabundant' locus. The same with Entheogens. We don't create God, but we may "occasion" (Huston Smith) a mystical Experience wherein God manifests within our Heart Cave in a 'superabundant' degree.
So, the dictionaries have a new word to learn. My own Webster's Collegiate explains this using the term "acid head," which was a recent acquisition from the colloquial at the time that dictionary was printed. And while we're on the subject...just because the Gospel of Thomas is not in the canonical Bible, it is just ignorant to ignore its take on Who and What Christ is. Christ is not just for 'Christians.'
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: Malachi]
#1724545 - 07/17/03 10:56 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Aldous Huxley said this simply when he wrote that the human being was "amphibious." He meant that our essential nature, our 'Heart' can be both angel and animal, spiritual and physical. We need not be divided in ourselves, but can work in consonance and be genuinely one in our tripartite nature. The Heart must mediate between our lower and higher natures, bringing our mental and physical natures together in a spiritual whole - neither to become withdrawn from people and the world in emotionless realms of cold Intellectual Light (which would be Luciferian), or to act in the blind, dark, heat of Instinct - in violence and lust and power.
Instinct is determined, but Compassion and Wisdom are not. Instinct is Pre-personal, Impersonal, animal. The Higher Intellect, Wisdom, is Transpersonal, and the Mediating Heart is Personal. The Heart is suspended between Heaven and Earth, and draws from both realms into the specifically Human domain which it symbolizes. We are neither winged cherubic heads, nor centaurs and satyrs - but we are all animals from the belly down. I endeavor to be Heart-Centered at all times - even in the midst of instinctual behavior. Sometimes I must act or speak with authority (power), but I do not forsake Compassion. In the midst of high eroticism and sex, I do not lose my Love in pure lust, my Lady feels the difference and doesn't want to feel like a whore. Even if I was forced to defend myself, I would choose subduing rather than destroying (certainly not into punishing), yet if I had to kill to protect myself or loved ones, it would be the Compassionate thing to protect the innocent from the aggressive. This is what I mean.
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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trendal
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: World Spirit]
#1724558 - 07/17/03 11:05 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'm with Huxley on this one 
Why peer through the window when you can throw the door wide open?
Psychedelics are one of manny keys that fit in the lock we all build ourselves.
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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World Spirit
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 Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#1724655 - 07/17/03 12:00 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Deleted by admin
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Rhizoid
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: World Spirit]
#1724718 - 07/17/03 12:29 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
This (G)guy is not your average guy. He's not like anyone. No one else has ever or will ever share His equal identity. Not only because we are all individuals, but because He has something the rest of don't. He who has the anointing oil of God has the very energy of God to transmute and change all things and all people, for better or for worse. He is the Delegate of God, the Sole Representative of the Creator of the Universe whom no one shall ever see with eyes of flesh.
How can you be so sure that some other guy won't have this anointing oil also?
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World Spirit
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: Rhizoid]
#1724804 - 07/17/03 01:03 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Deleted by admin
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: World Spirit]
#1724842 - 07/17/03 01:16 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Yes, yes...the Gospel of John...the Logos Incarnate. I said all of that. Jesus was a man according to Mark, Matthew and Luke, Who (and I usually capitalize pronouns re: Christ for respect and reverence) was the Messiah or Christ that Scriptures prophesied. HOWEVER - the Messiah - the Representative of God was NOT THE SAME THING as the Logos Incarnate. These are of two completely different orders of magnitude. To be Annointed was an act that pointed out the Divine Right of Kingship. ALL of the Kings in the OT were referred to as SONS OF GOD. This was NOT a unique title for Jesus of Nazareth. Kings were Kings because they were chosen by God - not because they were elected. Usually a victory over the enemy served to prove the 'might-makes-right' philosophy.
Messiah or Christ is one thing. A Heavenly Being, uniquely 'composed' of God and man, 1) harkens to Hellenistic thought in which God (as Zeus) sometimes impregnated a mortal woman and produced a demigod (Divine and human), so this was NOT an original idea, any more than Son of God was an original idea (these are only seemingly original to Gentiles who know nothing about the OT), and 2) is not a Hebrew idea at all. John was a Hellenized Jew, who combined both Greek ideas and Hebrew ideas. God was YHVH, not Zeus, and Jesus was a mortal, born of a mortal. Of course, the misreading of the word "virgin" which in the original Hebrew that Isaiah wrote was "young woman," only served to reinforce pretty standard mythological themes. And, giving Jesus a miraculous-mythological birth can be found in birth narratives of the historical Buddha as well as other, perhaps more questionably historical people.
By making Jesus the Logos Incarnate, He was categorically removed from all other human beings for ever after. People eventually even came to say of the later tomb narratives that 'Jesus rose from the dead,' which is theologically WRONG. Jesus 'was raised from the dead' by God. Moreover Jesus in NOT God - as evidenced in places ('Why call ye me good? Only God is good.') Rather, 'God was in Christ,' is the correct formulation. It is the words that came from this man Jesus that most defined Him. More than the alleged healings or the alleged miracles (all, I believe are typical embellishments or Hebrew midrash, to bring attention to this man), are the words. So much so, that John called Jesus the Christ THE WORD (another meaning for Logos - the creative energy that proceeds from God, through which non-God, or creation comes about. For centuries different theologians speculated on the composite structure of Jesus's nature, and eventually came up with 'fully God, fully man.' Either that is 200% of something, or it is a paradox - like a koan - which does not have a rational explanation.
No one becomes Jesus, but then no one becomes anyone but who they are. We can be in Christ, but no one who is sane is gonna claim to 'be Christ,' because Christ will always be the title for Jesus of Nazareth. Only the so-called AntiChrist will fool people into believing that he is Christ returned.
Being-in-Christ is basic Pauline theology. If one listens to the words of Paul with belief, then one believes that believers are 'in Christ,' and collectively, everyone in Christ forms 'the Mystical Body of Christ.' It is tough to talk about this without recourse to Trinitarian theology, but this is not fair because Trinitarian though is a 2nd century invention by Tertullian, who later became a Montanist Christian and was himself condemned as a heretic. To be really real, one must abandon Trinitarian theology because it is a late invention, and neither Jesus or his friends ever heard of such a thing. Neither would Jesus ever have told miraculous birth narratives about His mother Miriam (His brother James, for example, already had difficulty with his older brother being called Messiah. Saying that He was born of a virgin would have meant that Mom probably liked Him better). John has SO influenced, nay, brainwashed so many uncritical readers of the Bible, that no growth has taken place within the established doctrine. Nor could it! Any growth would mean change from dogma - and that would be heretical.
Putting Jesus on a pedestal is what most people do. They aren't interested in 'Being in Christ,' they just point to spiritual perfection outside of themselves, and never ask how that is gonna change them any. But, of course, most people don't want to change interiorly. It's not hip[hop], or sexy, or worldly to 'become as little children.' It's not cool to be warm, it's cool to be cold, to be violent, to be a pimp, to flaunt wealth for frivolous and stupid motives. So, if you want to keep putting Jesus the Christ in an ontological status that is SO different from us monkeys - you're gonna be hard-pressed to Experience His Presence within yourself. Keep pointing to the Man, the carpenter, out there in ancient history, long gone, and you're not gonna Experience the Eternal Christ here and Now - where it counts for you and me.
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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gnrm23
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#1724919 - 07/17/03 01:59 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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if we try to examine the jewish massiach, and the christian christos, in light of other mythological manifestations of divinity, and sources of mystery, and the incarnation of god into man, and the dying and resurrected savior-figure, the crucified redeemer god/man...
we will quite possibly see that this story has been told time and again throughout the histroy of mankind (and quite probably pre-history as well...)
of course if mainstream christians are even willing to acknowledge that this story has been told before, they will say at best these "pagan" myths are at best pre-shadowings of jesus' true gospel, and at worst snares for the unwary set by satan...
again, it is possible to see christianity as a way (perhaps for many, the best way) to realize the presence of god, but not the way (the one and only way) for everyone on this world of seeking humans...
ymmv...
~
shalom
~
~
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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World Spirit
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#1724924 - 07/17/03 02:02 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Deleted by admin
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fireworks_god
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 Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: World Spirit]
#1724999 - 07/17/03 02:40 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Enter said:
Jesus was careful NOT to call Himself God or Christ for a reason. Not only does it add style to His already awesome presence, it kept Him in double overtime from getting killed.
It adds style to his presence? I think that Christ wouldn't be concerned with his style.... and, as far as I remember from Sunday School, Chuch, and Confirmation, didn't Jesus get killed in double overtime?
Quote:
Enter said:
What do we presently have to work with when conversing about this subject? Really only two things: Personal experience (which is ineffable for the most part), and other people's words throughout history.
Okay, so we can't use personal experience, becuase it is ineffable for the most part. However, that leaves us with the only option of using other people's personal experience? Um, other people's words are validated because we read them? Because that is what you are saying, right there. Tell me that that is not what you are saying, because it is. What else do you mean? I mean, I guess I can't trust myself, because there is personal experience involved, and that is ineffable. Tell me what you mean by what you said, and publish it in a book. That way, fifty years from now, someone can read your book, and now that it is the Validated Truth; that they know they can't trust their own judgement based on personal experience, because it is ineffable, but they can trust your judgement, because it was recorded some previous time in history.
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If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
  
 
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: World Spirit]
#1725411 - 07/17/03 04:27 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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The rich man may well have recognized the Truth of what Jesus was saying to him, but he did not have the faith to give away all of his possessions. Those insertions about 'who do you say I am,' are probably insertions by the Gospel authors, firstly, because it is decidedly unclear to what extent Jesus thought about his identity. Greek icons paint baby Jesus's with adult facial expressions to symbolize the Self-Conscious identity of Christ even from the womb. Of course, the Johannine Christians maintain that Jesus is the Logos-clothed-in-flesh rather than just the promised Messiah, as in the synoptic Gospels. Parallels have been drawn between Jesus and a contempoary teacher - Hillel. Jesus, being a real human being, was to some extent knowledgable about the 3 main Jewish sects: Pharisees, Saducees and Essenes, and was influenced by them. This is not mere speculation. He wasn't born with knowledge, he learned. What history and the Gospel writers have made him out to be is what you and most other Christians take for granted. It was Irenaeus who pretty much single-handedly decided that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John should be the four pillars of the Gospel BECAUSE (he wrote) there are 4 corners of the world, and 4 winds upon the Earth!!!
Imagine if you and me and all Christians have to question what Irenaeus's whole agenda was. I'm reading Elaine Pagels now, and she is explaining exactly what we know from his writings WHY the NT was selected in its canonical form. Going back even further, J.S. Spong gives very very reasonable descriptions and explanations about how the writngs were composed originally to correspond with the Jewish calendar of holidays; that the Gospels were essentially written to both parallel the OT with new characters, and just as importantly, to fill in all those little detailed events, say, from the suffering servant literature of Isaiah 53 that talks of being striped for our iniquities, but no bones broken. Or the virgin from Bethlehem that most scholars realize was misinterpreted - YES - misinterpreted by Matthew, from the Septuigint (Greek OT) instead of going back to the Hebrew original which said 'almah' (young woman) not 'bertolah' (virgin) - and which the Greek language had only one word - parthenos - which meant both. Two millennia of virgin birth, virginity as a way of life - celibacy, nuns, monks, monasticism (monos=alone).
Ultimately, we are all forced to rely on the Word in Spirit, rather than the Word in letter, because the writings are not reliable. I have seen things YOUR way, so do not trouble yourself to convince me. I was surrounded by theology and Bible professors for 2 solid years about the time you were being born. My faith has not fallen away, it has, like me, matured. The miracles used to be like dessert, if I finished all the dry tasteless stuff. Now, I do not need miracle stories to keep me interested. The Reality of God runs through my entire waking/dreaming existence. It is ALL tastey because I require the Truth more than ever, and midrashic fairytales, floating ascensions, levitating, walking-on-water, materializations out of thin air - all midrashic indicators of 'specialness' have done their job. I noticed and believed in His Words. Now His Words are in me and part of me. I could no sooner ignore them, than ignore my conscience, my values and my behaviors.
Am I gonna regress to an earlier, less mature point of view? No. If anyone is gonna change, it's gonna be YOU, as you mature - as you talk about it less, and BE it more, you get closer to It. Remember the wind and the sun competing to see which one could get a man to take his coat off more quickly? The wind blew and blew and blew and the man simply clutched his coat tighter and tighter to himself. The sun took his turn, and simply glowed brightly, quietly, constantly. The man became warmer and warmer and removed his covering all by himself.
Let us shine on.
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Rhizoid
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: World Spirit]
#1726785 - 07/18/03 01:05 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Notice too please that His believers did not say "we have all become Christ" but instead said to Jesus, "You are the Christ." Some disciples took longer than others to finally confess.
Notice also that none of the gospels claim that there can only be one Son of God. John is the only one who uses the phrase "only begotten Son", but even John seems to have no problem with the existence of multiple sons of God:
John 1:12
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name;
And in the gospel of Luke it is stated by Jesus that dead people are the children of God:
Luke 20:36
Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.
Luke also explicitly mentions another Son of God who is not Jesus:
Luke 3:38
Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
Since the doctrine of exclusiveness has caused so much death and pain over the years, I find it hard to believe that Jesus would have approved of it. It's so out of character.
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Dass, LSD, Omniscience, Truth, Experience [Re: Rhizoid]
#1727194 - 07/18/03 08:26 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Bad Boy Rhizoid ! How dare you point out difficult inconsistencies in common Christian 'thought,' er, 'doctrine,' er, um, indoctrination !!! You are suggesting that we monkeys actually, ACTUALLY and REALLY have a God-given right to think of ourselves as Children of God! Now THAT is a spiritual responsibility - to remain in remembrance of this continually, I mean. Well, I can handle being a Son [male child] of God, but I'm glad that I'm not THE Son of God. I rather like it that Jesus has that designation. I believe that He was an infinitely better choice than I would have been.
And yes, I agree with you. Jesus emptied himself of any self-consciousness that He was THE Son of God (His exclusiveness). A person can't be walking around thinking, 'Hey...I created this whole flat world, and the dome of Heaven, and Sheol. I wonder why I can't remember how or why.' Of course, that would be talking about Jesus's ego, not His Eternal Godhead ('I AM'), and that would be saying that the Creator (the 'Father') was walking around, like in Genesis.
It's just poignant that humans are compelled to attempt to comprehend rationally, objects of thought that will forever remain incomprehensible and Mysteries. Elaborate theologies, many of which I have read, have been carefully constructed to EXPLAIN That which is inexplicable because it is Transcendental and Transrational - transcending the rational mind. The ONLY thing believers are to do is to Love. This act alone demonstrates faith AND true gnosis.
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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