Cleric's Responses to Mystical Metaphysics (or How to Make a Logical Argument)

[Eugene I]

No, we deceive ourselves through the creation. We don't deeply consider anything anymore, only pretend to be "experts" in this or that so our ego has a voice. We misrepresent positions on purpose so our own ego can feel like it has satisfactorily engaged with the material and dismissed it. We make up our mind to read something, to take some concrete action towards actual understanding, and then we back out immediately. It is not "many historical religions" which have recognized this fallen nature and need for redemption, but every single spiritual tradition which has ever existed. Christianity was the first to make clear what I say in the first sentence, among other things, and how we can only seek the redemption from this fallen nature within ourselves, not from external sources like abstract idea of "Divine" or from fantasized images like "Godel's candy store". Those are easy ways for the ego to ignore the hard work necessary for actually making a difference in our own lives and perhaps the life of others. These things will take many lifetimes to reach their complete fulfillment, but the redemptive arc of history is perfectly clear to anyone who will open their eyes, and it is available to be manifested in the desires, feelings, and thoughts right now of each individual soul who is willing to take hold of it. As Cleric eloquently put it on the other thread, "it is at a thought's distance. Just like in geometry, it takes only an infinitesimal step in a direction perpendicular to the flat surface, in order to know that a depth axis exists." The Divine is no abstract idea but a concrete reality living in each of us right now, and can be nourished if we just give it a little bit of thoughtful, loving attention.


“Some people want to look upon God with their eyes, as they look upon a cow, and want to love God as they love a cow. Thus they love God for the sake of external riches and of internal solace; but these people do not love God aright ... Foolish people deem that they should look upon God as though He stood there and they here. It is not thus. God and I are one in the act of knowing.” - Meister Eckhart

I guess there are two ways to look at it depending on interpretation, and these two ways can be traced in almost every tradition.

One ways is the escapist: life on Earth is fundamentally immersed in evil and is broken/fallen and unacceptable, and the only way to deal with it is to escape from it into some higher realms, or to completely transform it into something fundamentally different by Divine intervention. This can be seen in the original Buddha's teachings (yes, Buddha was a complete escapist, but later Mahayana Buddhism mostly abandoned his escapism), in Plato (cave), in Gnosticism, in monastic Christianity etc.

Another way to look at the life on Earth is as an evolving situation with certain problems which is a work in progress. There are problems that need to be addressed, resolved and fixed (primarily with human ego), and the help from higher realms and from the Divine is needed for that work. But we are not supposed to break the rules of the Earth realm, but transform and fix it within the framework of the rules. If completely opening the veil between the Earth and the astral domain and merging them together with full-blown intervention of the spiritual beings would be the right solution for the problems, it would be done long ago, but that is not how the life on Earth was intended to evolve. So, as usual, there needs to be the right balance between our work as humans on Earth and certain portions of intervention and help from higher realms. And we don't need to worry about the intervention part, they know what they are doing up there and know exactly what kind of help is needed. We just need to do our part of the job down here.

Fully agree with Eckhart

[AshvinP]

No, we deceive ourselves through the creation. We don't deeply consider anything anymore, only pretend to be "experts" in this or that so our ego has a voice. We misrepresent positions on purpose so our own ego can feel like it has satisfactorily engaged with the material and dismissed it. We make up our mind to read something, to take some concrete action towards actual understanding, and then we back out immediately. It is not "many historical religions" which have recognized this fallen nature and need for redemption, but every single spiritual tradition which has ever existed. Christianity was the first to make clear what I say in the first sentence, among other things, and how we can only seek the redemption from this fallen nature within ourselves, not from external sources like abstract idea of "Divine" or from fantasized images like "Godel's candy store". Those are easy ways for the ego to ignore the hard work necessary for actually making a difference in our own lives and perhaps the life of others. These things will take many lifetimes to reach their complete fulfillment, but the redemptive arc of history is perfectly clear to anyone who will open their eyes, and it is available to be manifested in the desires, feelings, and thoughts right now of each individual soul who is willing to take hold of it. As Cleric eloquently put it on the other thread, "it is at a thought's distance. Just like in geometry, it takes only an infinitesimal step in a direction perpendicular to the flat surface, in order to know that a depth axis exists." The Divine is no abstract idea but a concrete reality living in each of us right now, and can be nourished if we just give it a little bit of thoughtful, loving attention.


“Some people want to look upon God with their eyes, as they look upon a cow, and want to love God as they love a cow. Thus they love God for the sake of external riches and of internal solace; but these people do not love God aright ... Foolish people deem that they should look upon God as though He stood there and they here. It is not thus. God and I are one in the act of knowing.” - Meister Eckhart

I guess there are two ways to look at it depending on interpretation, and these two ways can be traced in almost every tradition.

One ways is the escapist: life on Earth is fundamentally immersed in evil and is broken/fallen and unacceptable, and the only way to deal with it is to escape from it into some higher realms, or to completely transform it into something fundamentally different by Divine intervention. This can be seen in the original Buddha's teachings (yes, Buddha was a complete escapist, but later Mahayana Buddhism mostly abandoned his escapism), in Plato (cave), in Gnosticism, in monastic Christianity etc.

Another way to look at the life on Earth is as an evolving situation with certain problems which is a work in progress. There are problems that need to be addressed, resolved and fixed (primarily with human ego), and the help from higher realms and from the Divine is needed for that work. But we are not supposed to break the rules of the Earth realm, but transform and fix it within the framework of the rules. If completely opening the veil between the Earth and the astral domain and merging them together with full-blown intervention of the spiritual beings would be the right solution for the problems, it would be done long ago, but that is not how the life on Earth was intended to evolve. So, as usual, there needs to be the right balance between our work as humans on Earth and certain portions of intervention and help from higher realms. And we don't need to worry about the intervention part, they know what they are doing up there and know exactly what kind of help is needed. We just need to do our part of the job down here.

Fully agree with Eckhart

What you are calling the "escapist" way is the abstract intellectual way, which always lapses into dualism and views Reality (God) as separate from itself. You have been doing that throughout this thread when you refer to "Reality" as independent of how we "approach it" and how there exists an objective state of facts about Reality independent of our own ability to experience and know them. It is really the most obvious illustration of dualist thinking one could possibly imagine, short of straight up declaring "mind" to be separate from "matter". Until you confront this tendency that you yourself are adopting and employing in your own thinking, you will keep projecting it onto us or your preferred labels like "Platonism", "Gnosticism", and now even "Buddhism". This is exactly what Judeo-Christian scripture points to - we will start blaming 2500 year old spiritual traditions which we cannot possibly cognize with our current abstract intellect, rather than pointing the finger at the immanent reality of intellectual ego within ourselves. And then you write the 2nd paragraph above, which has no relevance to anything we have ever written or claimed. Why does that keep happening with you in every single post you write?? First look within!

"Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."

[Lou Gold]

At a much more basic level, anyone who reflects for awhile and is honest with what thoughts come back from that reflection will know intuitively that humanity-nature is "fallen" and needs redemption in some way. That is the basis of every single spiritual tradition which has ever existed, including all the Eastern ones, and it is plainly evident from the way we treat each other and the way we treat Nature. If the incarnation, death, reincarnation, et al. process was simply a circular wheel of experience as you appear to be describing it, without any sort of spiraling redemptive arc, then the anti-natalists would be the most wise among us, because it means physical Reality is a nightmarish place and it is better for no one to ever be born into it. This is truly the ego at its worst, dismissing millennia and aeons of cross-cultural Wisdom to substitute its own preferred spiritual reality that really was conjured up in the course of a few years of your single lifetime and on the basis of NDE accounts from other people. There really isn't anything left to add to that...

Yes, your bolded comments seem an accurate characterization of the axial religions/civilizations, which emerged in biomes that were transitioning from a fruitful natural abundance into scarcities brought about by population pressure, deforestation and climate change. The result was an adversarial conquest orientation that is still the dominant paradigm amongst the power driven modern heirs of axial times. But, NO, this is not the only way that the human condition has evolved. There are ways that human spiritual traditions have evolved with a focus on maintaining/renewing abundance through their prayers and practices. I've often cited the example of the Kogi people. And thankfully there's a growing awareness among at least some contemporary scientists of the need to embrace the wisdom traditions of indigenous peoples in modern ways.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, is a great read:
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (review by Elizabeth Gilbert).

My point is simple, Ashvin: If one focuses on the spiritual traditions (paradigms) of the power-seeking fallen (and falling) peoples, one will arrive at fallen results. There are other human ways. They do not view nature as "red in tooth and claw" but as a gift-bestowing reciprocity. For some, "higher wisdom" involves being down-to-earth.

[AshvinP]

At a much more basic level, anyone who reflects for awhile and is honest with what thoughts come back from that reflection will know intuitively that humanity-nature is "fallen" and needs redemption in some way. That is the basis of every single spiritual tradition which has ever existed, including all the Eastern ones, and it is plainly evident from the way we treat each other and the way we treat Nature. If the incarnation, death, reincarnation, et al. process was simply a circular wheel of experience as you appear to be describing it, without any sort of spiraling redemptive arc, then the anti-natalists would be the most wise among us, because it means physical Reality is a nightmarish place and it is better for no one to ever be born into it. This is truly the ego at its worst, dismissing millennia and aeons of cross-cultural Wisdom to substitute its own preferred spiritual reality that really was conjured up in the course of a few years of your single lifetime and on the basis of NDE accounts from other people. There really isn't anything left to add to that...

Yes, your bolded comments seem an accurate characterization of the axial religions/civilizations, which emerged in biomes that were transitioning from a fruitful natural abundance into scarcities brought about by population pressure, deforestation and climate change. The result was an adversarial conquest orientation that is still the dominant paradigm amongst the power driven modern heirs of axial times. But, NO, this is not the only way that the human condition has evolved. There are ways that human spiritual traditions have evolved with a focus on maintaining/renewing abundance through their prayers and practices. I've often cited the example of the Kogi people. And thankfully there's a growing awareness among at least some contemporary scientists of the need to embrace the wisdom traditions of indigenous peoples in modern ways.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, is a great read:
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (review by Elizabeth Gilbert).

My point is simple, Ashvin: If one focuses on the spiritual traditions (paradigms) of the power-seeking fallen (and falling) peoples, one will arrive at fallen results. There are other human ways. They do not view nature as "red in tooth and claw" but as a gift-bestowing reciprocity. For some, "higher wisdom" involves being down-to-earth.

Lou,

This is simply incorrect. You are projecting a Utopian state of existence onto the Kogi and other indigenous populations. Their relationship to the surrounding environment may have been much better, but it's not as if they somehow avoided the general human suffering and malevolence that every civilization and every individual has to deal with in the evolutionary course of life. No human culture has "solved" this problem simply by structuring their society one way or another. That is the rationalist and materialist bias creeping into our thinking, which convinces us that these deep spiritual problems, which emanate from the spiritual realms, can be addressed by cosmetic rearrangements of socioeconomic and political orientations on the Earthly plane. The "fallen" nature is first and foremost a failure of each individual human soul, so that is the level at which it needs to be addressed.

[Lou Gold]

At a much more basic level, anyone who reflects for awhile and is honest with what thoughts come back from that reflection will know intuitively that humanity-nature is "fallen" and needs redemption in some way. That is the basis of every single spiritual tradition which has ever existed, including all the Eastern ones, and it is plainly evident from the way we treat each other and the way we treat Nature. If the incarnation, death, reincarnation, et al. process was simply a circular wheel of experience as you appear to be describing it, without any sort of spiraling redemptive arc, then the anti-natalists would be the most wise among us, because it means physical Reality is a nightmarish place and it is better for no one to ever be born into it. This is truly the ego at its worst, dismissing millennia and aeons of cross-cultural Wisdom to substitute its own preferred spiritual reality that really was conjured up in the course of a few years of your single lifetime and on the basis of NDE accounts from other people. There really isn't anything left to add to that...

Yes, your bolded comments seem an accurate characterization of the axial religions/civilizations, which emerged in biomes that were transitioning from a fruitful natural abundance into scarcities brought about by population pressure, deforestation and climate change. The result was an adversarial conquest orientation that is still the dominant paradigm amongst the power driven modern heirs of axial times. But, NO, this is not the only way that the human condition has evolved. There are ways that human spiritual traditions have evolved with a focus on maintaining/renewing abundance through their prayers and practices. I've often cited the example of the Kogi people. And thankfully there's a growing awareness among at least some contemporary scientists of the need to embrace the wisdom traditions of indigenous peoples in modern ways.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, is a great read:
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (review by Elizabeth Gilbert).

My point is simple, Ashvin: If one focuses on the spiritual traditions (paradigms) of the power-seeking fallen (and falling) peoples, one will arrive at fallen results. There are other human ways. They do not view nature as "red in tooth and claw" but as a gift-bestowing reciprocity. For some, "higher wisdom" involves being down-to-earth.

Lou,

This is simply incorrect. You are projecting a Utopian state of existence onto the Kogi and other indigenous populations. Their relationship to the surrounding environment may have been much better, but it's not as if they somehow avoided the general human suffering and malevolence that every civilization and every individual has to deal with in the evolutionary course of life. No human culture has "solved" this problem simply by structuring their society one way or another. That is the rationalist and materialist bias creeping into our thinking, which convinces us that these deep spiritual problems, which emanate from the spiritual realms, can be addressed by cosmetic rearrangements of socioeconomic and political orientations on the Earthly plane. The "fallen" nature is first and foremost a failure of each individual human soul, so that is the level at which it needs to be addressed.

Interesting that you see down-to-earth as an Utopian projection. With respect, I confess that a view that rejects the possibility of an abundant reciprocity seems as a rather dismal science to me. But, yes, indigenous peoples also know the likely failures at the level of the individual soul, which is precisely why they put a lot of energy into teaching better ways.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Seems as is often the case there is a convergence of themes from different threads. If I may be forgiven this paraphrasing once more, what might we make of this insight: Before having 'fallen' into exclusive identification—e.g. Abraham— I am.

[Lou Gold]

Seems as is often the case there is a convergence of themes from different threads. If I may be forgiven this paraphrasing once more, what might we make of this insight: Before having 'fallen' into exclusive identification—e.g. Abraham— I am.

Reconnect with the Source that is already within. Viewed through a Jewish lens, the instruction would be tikkun olam, which means "repair the world" and this requires no longer seeing the world as exclusively "out there."

Among the Kogi a priest-in-training is chosen as a young child and put through an 18 year mentoring in a dimly lit cave before being introduced to a sunrise over the external world with the mentor saying, "See, it is exactly as I told you."

[Soul_of_Shu]

Reconnect with the Source that is already within. Viewed through a Jewish lens, the instruction would be tikkun olam, which means "repair the world" and this requires no longer seeing the world as exclusively "out there."

Uh -huh ... And having fallen into SIN—segregated identity notion—and relocating Source without, makes reconnecting within a very long and tortuous, indeed impossible, endeavour ... or so it seems.

[Lou Gold]

Seems as is often the case there is a convergence of themes from different threads.

Yup. In my view it can feel as if one is caught in Eliot's Prufrock poem:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.


The map is never the territory and one may conclude along with Rumi that

Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.

If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.

I confess to preferring poetry simply because it makes it so much easier for me to lovingly embrace the Great Mysteriousness. For each, there's a way. May all find happy trails.

[Lou Gold]

Reconnect with the Source that is already within. Viewed through a Jewish lens, the instruction would be tikkun olam, which means "repair the world" and this requires no longer seeing the world as exclusively "out there."

Uh -huh ... And having fallen into SIN—segregated identity notion—and relocating Source without, makes reconnecting within a very long and tortuous, indeed impossible, endeavour ... or so it seems.

It is quite possible to rejoice in a non-exclusive both/and (neither exclusively within or without) by focusing on the here-and-now challenges of finding an ongoing middle way of best balance. It's a process leading nowhere but to the now-here. There are roses and thorns along the way, even dragons but that's how great stories are built.