Utility versus Futility

[Soul_of_Shu]

What does conscience mean to you?

I'd suggest the intuitive gut feeling that what I'm doing is not going to be without karmic implications. Not sure how this relates to my attempt at irony regarding 'irrefutable knowledge'... is that a no-no?

[SanteriSatama]

What does conscience mean to you?

I'd suggest the intuitive gut feeling that what I'm doing is not going to be without karmic implications. Not sure how this relates to my attempt at irony regarding 'irrefutable knowledge'... is that a no-no?

If you have conscience in some embodied and sentient form, I'm inclined to go with conscience being "irrefutable knowledge". Of course, from knowing right and wrong it doesn't always follow that actions are according to conscience. E.g. I know it's wrong to kill flies, but I keep doing that, in the seemingly futile hope that I could sleep better, instead of being bothered by them.

Another question, do you think conscience exists in everybody, even if only as a potential that can wake up? Or is conscience ontologically somehow limited and rare?

[Soul_of_Shu]

If you have conscience in some embodied and sentient form, I'm inclined to go with conscience being "irrefutable knowledge". Of course, from knowing right and wrong it doesn't always follow that actions are according to conscience.

Not sure this conscience is so easy to abide by. Sometimes I've done things I thought were 'wrong' that turned out to be 'right.' Other times I've done things I thought were 'right' that turned out to be 'wrong.' I suppose karmic implications don't easily conform to notions of 'right' or 'wrong.'

Another question, do you think conscience exists in everybody, even if only as a potential that can wake up? Or is conscience ontologically somehow limited and rare?

I presume that it exists in everyone, since I don't think that I'm all that exceptional as humans go ... but I'm not sure.

[SanteriSatama]

I suppose karmic implications don't easily conform to notions of 'right' or 'wrong.'

Yeah. I've been thinking about origin and utility masks and ancient shamans. Like modern surgeons, who need to put a knife in you in order to help you, maybe curanderos through all times have wrestled with the dilemma of doing wrong in order to be able to do right. Wearing a mask and playing a role, somehow could make the wrongdoing less wrong, or right, when doing a complicated right?

BTW, do you know what the (in)famous moderator hat looks like? My first intuitive associatian is the white bakers hat, which seems weird.

I presume that it exists in everyone, since I don't think that I'm all that exceptional as humans go ... but I'm not sure.

Perhaps that's a matter of faith? Rather naive and hopeful than cynical "realist"?

[AshvinP]

It's not a historical fact, not even close. Basically it's a point you lifted from a Dan Brown novel without any serious contemplation of how scripture develops.

I remember discussing these issues a lot in the 80's when I was studying Greek Philology, and when my colleques were translating the Nag Hammadi library into Finnish. Way before Dan Brown. The definitive Canon and demoting "apocrypha" goes back to Athanasios of Alexandria, who was a main figure already in Council of Nicea, and spent his time in politics of the Empire and dogmatic schisms over litterary orthodoxy. Nag Hammadi library was hidden in ground during or shortly after the days of Athanasios, to save the texts from the biblical book burning to eradicate "heretical" texts, book burnings that went along with violent massacres between various dogmatic factions. Among the Nag Hammadi texts is the 'Gospel of Thomas', which also according to my little own dabbling in textual analysis is very old and closest available source to the Q-source, around which the earliest "historical" narratives of Jesus were fabulated. Gospel of Thomas and much of the other Nag Hammadi texts belong to the esoteric tradition. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to strongly reject the esoteric Christianity both in word and spirit?

Only modern "scholarship" abstracted so far away from the living essence of scripture that calling it a "book" and chalking it all up to "purposes of the Roman Empire" became an assertion that was not considered completely absurd and detached from reality.

The dogmatic scholarship of the religion of Roman Empire felt the need to engage in massive book burning and massacres to wipe out especially esoteric "herecy". If the Canon declared by Athanasios is the "living essence", instead of Love and Compassion, why the need to burn books and people considered "rivals" of religious orthodoxy?

Sometimes you just need to take responsibility for your own obvious errors and stop blaming everything on "toxic colonialism" or whatever and whomever you happen to be blaming on any given day.

Do you love me, Ashvin? Do you love yourself?

We cannot love someone without making an effort to understand them, so by that standard, yes I love you a lot more than you do me. As I remarked in last essay, one of the worst insults is to tell someone you "don't care what they think" because you are alienating them from the one spiritual activity they can clearly identify as their own. Your comments to me are mostly one long insult, "I don't care what you think". So much so that, after all this time, you still don't have the slightest clue what my position on these issues is. I now know you have not read any of my essays which lay out those positions very clearly. Hymn of the pearl from the Gospel of Thomas was the central feature of TMT part 3 essay. Barfield and Steiner feature in every essay, and most of my forum comments too. What do you call Anthroposophy if not "esoteric Christianity"?

That tradition of Christianity knows full well how the scriptures, from OT to NT gospels and apocalypse and gnostic/apocryphal texts, evolved from the ancient mysteries with complete continuity, so in no sense can they be chalked up to council decrees in the first few centuries AD. That is simply modern mechanistic thinking projected back onto human history. Politics of that "House of Cards" sort was not always as dominating of people's spiritual lives as it has become now. I suggest you abandon the psycho-linguistic-mathematical analysis of my comments and focus on truly understanding the meaning of what I am writing, so that I can feel at least a little loved by you in return

[Martin_]

Martin wrote:
I'm sorry, but I thought it was exactly the passionate attempts of specific humans of working out the answers which led to the revealed wisdom in the Bible.

That is what people commonly believe.
But, given that the Bible was written in two languages over millennia, and yet has a consistent development of its thread, it is more likely that it comes from a single source. (There are more reasons than this, as well.)

One either accepts or rejects that, and lives (or dies) with the consequence.
Fortunately, even there, God leads, guides and directs us toward the truth.
We cooperate, or resist, according to our decision.
-

Ok let me rephrase that.
"The Bible was written / transcribed by humans who listened to / for God".

If you agree with that statement; Then I'd say that it wouldn't be too far-fetched to conclude that without Truth-seeking individuals, there would be no Bible.

[SanteriSatama]

We cannot love someone without making an effort to understand them, so by that standard, yes I love you a lot more than you do me. As I remarked in last essay, one of the worst insults is to tell someone you "don't care what they think" because you are alienating them from the one spiritual activity they can clearly identify as their own. Your comments to me are mostly one long insult, "I don't care what you think". So much so that, after all this time, you still don't have the slightest clue what my position on these issues is. I now know you have not read any of my essays which lay out those positions very clearly. Hymn of the pearl from the Gospel of Thomas was the central feature of TMT part 3 essay. Barfield and Steiner feature in every essay, and most of my forum comments too. What do you call Anthroposophy if not "esoteric Christianity"?

That tradition of Christianity knows full well how the scriptures, from OT to NT gospels and apocalypse and gnostic/apocryphal texts, evolved from the ancient mysteries with complete continuity, so in no sense can they be chalked up to council decrees in the first few centuries AD. That is simply modern mechanistic thinking projected back onto human history. Politics of that "House of Cards" sort was not always as dominating of people's spiritual lives as it has become now. I suggest you abandon the psycho-linguistic-mathematical analysis of my comments and focus on truly understanding the meaning of what I am writing, so that I can feel at least a little loved by you in return

I'm sorry, but my love and attention is of the kind that does not only stand under the what is being thought and said, but looks and feels also the how and why thinking reacts as it does, in the trinity of action, emotion and thinking, in the embodied guts, heart and mind.

I read and feel a deeply conflicted man (in the good way!) engaged in fascinating spiritual journey, and I'm grateful that you want to share aspects of your journey with us, and as I assume, test your findings with fellow travelers. Not only on the level of intellectual discussion, which we all love here, but also on the more holistic spiritual level. Am I wrong to assume so?

I have memories of my own phase when I was thinking very heavily the theory of spirituality, and the world in the form of all the teachers I've been blessed with kept on going: "Don't just theorize, actualize!!!". I remember how frustrating that felt, as I was in love with my ability to think fairly skillfully, and the demands felt like rejection. The initiations and transformations I have received - which, to be honest, involved also a great deal of loss and sadness - did not take away my love for thinking and doing my best to keep on learning to think better and better. Learning to actualize better is also an incomplete process, supported by thinking. But gradually my main focus of thinking shifted from more general spiritual theory to the fascinating challenge of spiritual theory of foundational mathematics. Utility and/or futility of which remains to be tested.

[Robert Arvay]

Santeri wrote:
Are you really that sure that you are uncapable to feel genuine love and compassion, and instead of a modicum of self-confidence, need to rely on a book that was put together by the command of the Roman Emperor, for the purposes of Roman Empire?

If you trust a book more than you love your neighbor, how and why could your neighbor trust you?

Wow. Talk about loaded questions.
Have you stopped beating your spouse?
LOL

[AshvinP]

We cannot love someone without making an effort to understand them, so by that standard, yes I love you a lot more than you do me. As I remarked in last essay, one of the worst insults is to tell someone you "don't care what they think" because you are alienating them from the one spiritual activity they can clearly identify as their own. Your comments to me are mostly one long insult, "I don't care what you think". So much so that, after all this time, you still don't have the slightest clue what my position on these issues is. I now know you have not read any of my essays which lay out those positions very clearly. Hymn of the pearl from the Gospel of Thomas was the central feature of TMT part 3 essay. Barfield and Steiner feature in every essay, and most of my forum comments too. What do you call Anthroposophy if not "esoteric Christianity"?

That tradition of Christianity knows full well how the scriptures, from OT to NT gospels and apocalypse and gnostic/apocryphal texts, evolved from the ancient mysteries with complete continuity, so in no sense can they be chalked up to council decrees in the first few centuries AD. That is simply modern mechanistic thinking projected back onto human history. Politics of that "House of Cards" sort was not always as dominating of people's spiritual lives as it has become now. I suggest you abandon the psycho-linguistic-mathematical analysis of my comments and focus on truly understanding the meaning of what I am writing, so that I can feel at least a little loved by you in return

I'm sorry, but my love and attention is of the kind that does not only stand under the what is being thought and said, but looks and feels also the how and why thinking reacts as it does, in the trinity of action, emotion and thinking, in the embodied guts, heart and mind.

I read and feel a deeply conflicted man (in the good way!) engaged in fascinating spiritual journey, and I'm grateful that you want to share aspects of your journey with us, and as I assume, test your findings with fellow travelers. Not only on the level of intellectual discussion, which we all love here, but also on the more holistic spiritual level. Am I wrong to assume so?

I have memories of my own phase when I was thinking very heavily the theory of spirituality, and the world in the form of all the teachers I've been blessed with kept on going: "Don't just theorize, actualize!!!". I remember how frustrating that felt, as I was in love with my ability to think fairly skillfully, and the demands felt like rejection. The initiations and transformations I have received - which, to be honest, involved also a great deal of loss and sadness - did not take away my love for thinking and doing my best to keep on learning to think better and better. Learning to actualize better is also an incomplete process, supported by thinking. But gradually my main focus of thinking shifted from more general spiritual theory to the fascinating challenge of spiritual theory of foundational mathematics. Utility and/or futility of which remains to be tested.

And that's where you go astray every time in these discussions - when you start assuming you have almost God-like perspective on "how and why thinking reacts as it does". That would be a terribly arrogant assumption in live interactions with people, let alone from posts typed on an online forum. I do believe there are spiritual adepts who can intuit and visualize soul-moods and soul-qualities when interacting with people, but those are exactly the sorts of people who would never mention it or explicitly employ it as some sort of intellectual critique of a philosophical argument. From my interactions with you, there is no possibility I could consider you such a spiritual adept. Of course I am not either, but the difference is apparently that I realize this about myself and you do not.

Yes, testing of all these things is necessary through ascent into higher worlds of experience-knowledge. That does not come from rituals or psychedelics or any combination of the two. It comes from great patience, discipline, preparation, training, and thoughtful effort. It comes from an immersion into the material world around us with curiosity and genuine desire to unlock its spiritual secrets. You seem to think that this Thinking-through of all things with devotion and care is different from "actualizing" the spiritual theory, but I suggest that is simply a habit of mind inherited from the modern age which demoted Reason to an unwarranted secondary or even illusory role.

If you want to "think better and better" about these issues, you must confront the meaning of their terms, principles, laws, etc. and nothing else. That should be done with humility and heart, but also with laser-like focus. That is a metamorphic tool we have gained from the modern age and it is there to serve a purpose. Different people can employ it differently to the best of their ability and take unique approaches, but it can't simply be supplanted by mystical practices. We gain nothing from psycho-linguistic analysis of people's comments here, thinking we can unravel their soul essence and lay it before us for examination. That is egoism, not actualization.

[SanteriSatama]

1 Corinthians 13.