Thanks, David!
I would like to write something in these lines but I guess it'll be at some future time.David_Sundaram wrote: ↑Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:23 pm all that the world is and all that transpires within it is the cumulative result of what has, from moment to moment since time began, been attitudinally entertained and intentionally purposed
I'm not sure what exactly you're asking. You mean if the Christ could have incorporated in any random human being?
And here's the point where mysticism stops while Esoteric Christianity continues further.
That's correct. And as we have already spoken few times elsewhere, the experience of pure awareness is perfectly attainable. As a matter of fact at the time of Buddha it was really the highest possible experience within the body. What we're speaking about is not that Buddha was wrong. He actually did the highest possible at that time of history. But the Spiral of evolution continues to unfold. After the Christ event, human consciousness can go further than pure awareness (detachment from the sensory self) - man can live in full self-consciousness within the processes and beings of the Spiritual World. And there we find the Sun not simply as a symbol for something but as real colony of spiritual beings that support the matrix of the whole Solar system (to use some fancy wording). The physical Sun is only the shadow of a whole creative world.
I'm not saying the above with the intention to sound convincing but only to point out where mysticism and Christian esoterism differ. For all forms of spirituality that focus on the pure awareness, the true Self, etc. we are left with the feeling that that's it! Once one gets to this experience, everything is resolved. All questions such as "why there's a Sun and planets?", "Why there are mineral, plant and animal kingdoms?", "Why we have will, feelings and thoughts?", "Why the body has the form it has?" and so on, are simply irrelevant for the enlightened mystic. They have no answer within the intellectual world and as such there's no point to ask. The most we get is something in the form of "The Sun and not-Sun are One and as such, the Sun doesn't exist as something real" And in certain sense this has been the proper attitude in ancient times. But now these questions can be asked and answers can be found. Every single detail in the sensory world can be traced to its origins in the doings of spiritual beings. That's why, from our human perspective, the Spiritual World is not only as complicated as the sensory (since it contains the causes of everything sensory) but is even more complicated because it contains many other processes that are not clearly projected as concrete sensory objects and events but are spread out everywhere.
Here lies the root cause for the differences. Unless this is grasped, talks like Buddha vs. Christ will always be fruitless and even damaging.
The Christian Initiate says: "I fully acknowledge that Buddha has pushed further human development through his teachings. He added a new and fresh impulse to the evolution of humanity which will continue to be active for millennia. With the Christ event another important impulse has been added. It in no way negates the deeds of Buddha but continues the stream of evolution further. Buddhism becomes one-sided if it doesn't recognize what has been added to evolving humanity through the Christ. In the same sense eXoteric Christianity is also one-sided because it takes the Christ just as any other God to be worshipped. The Christian Initiate fully understands the Buddhist method because in his meditations he makes use of this state. But he also connects with the powers of the Sun Spirit and through them he gains self-consciousness within the Spiritual World. This the Buddhist of today doesn't do. He doesn't admit that this possibility has been added to evolving humanity. Where the Buddhist experiences only void, the Christian Initiate recognizes a whole active world."
So, Lou, the root cause for the inability of understanding is the idea that humans are always the same in all ages of history. This gives the impression that all forms of spirituality are simply different paths towards the same ground Truth, which has always been available to humanity in the same ultimate form. Things begin to look differently when we recognize that humanity goes not only through technological evolution but more importantly through spiritual. There are certain things that happen in specific points of history and make possible something which wasn't previously. Even in the ordinary human development we can see this - the child can't reproduce until it reaches puberty. If this is comprehended on macrocosmic scale we come to understand that the human being is continually transformed. If we take the ancient teachings and apply them today in the same form, we are missing something. These teaching didn't speak of the things that are on today's agenda. In the same sense, what we are today talking here won't be relevant in the exact same way two thousand years from now.
So this is the challenge - the static, unchanging human being or the human being within the stream of evolution that raises him to higher stages of consciousness, which reveal the causes behind himself and the sensory world.
