Cells that act like unique, adaptable organisms...

[Simon Adams]

The spiritual evolutionary perspective is what allows us to see the reality of transubstantiation and the reality of Christ's victory over death. Both of those are made largely metaphorical by the static historical view in which our lives become about grinding out the days until we die to join Christ in "heaven" or Christ returns for "final judgment" of the world. What does it mean to partake in consuming Christ's flesh and blood, or to partake in his victory over evil and death?

So it’s a kind of spiritual construction, the building of a ‘kingdom’ and a ‘body’. I think I can see how this fits with your evolutionary perspective, but the collective subconscious belongs to all people alive as far as I’m aware. If so, you would expect one person having the eucharist is like the whole of mankind taking the eucharist, which is why I quoted from John earlier which suggests the process only affects those who do it?

PS - the verse which implies reincarnation seems pretty clear to me... how could a man sin before he was born blind otherwise?

Yes okay I misunderstood the context, will see if I can edit my reply before Cleric replies

Reincarnation is not dualist anymore than regular incarnation of soul-spirit into body is dualist (obviously the 'body' is not referring to material entity independent of mind).

It’s interesting you say that. In BK’s idealism, the body is purely the representation of the mind. So wouldn’t you expect a reincarnation of that mind to look the same? Or is the argument somehow that the forgetting of the old life resets all characteristics?

Also my understanding of the gnostic/ platonic idea of reincarnation is definitely something immaterial ‘trapped’ in a body, that is then ‘trapped’ into another body?

I’ve been thinking about this recently, not in terms of reincarnation but just in general. I don’t think the Aquinas metaphysics can be a complete description because it just doesn’t make sense to me in several ways, including out of body and near death experiences. It seems to me that maybe there is a form that comes from the dust (evolution) and a form that comes from ‘the breath’ (spirit), that are both woven together as a unified whole, and the whole is represented as the body. I’m still thinking about this, but it’s the best way I can explain the reality, and the fact it could be symbolised by a double helix makes it quite compelling

[AshvinP]

The spiritual evolutionary perspective is what allows us to see the reality of transubstantiation and the reality of Christ's victory over death. Both of those are made largely metaphorical by the static historical view in which our lives become about grinding out the days until we die to join Christ in "heaven" or Christ returns for "final judgment" of the world. What does it mean to partake in consuming Christ's flesh and blood, or to partake in his victory over evil and death?

So it’s a kind of spiritual construction, the building of a ‘kingdom’ and a ‘body’. I think I can see how this fits with your evolutionary perspective, but the collective subconscious belongs to all people alive as far as I’m aware. If so, you would expect one person having the eucharist is like the whole of mankind taking the eucharist, which is why I quoted from John earlier which suggests the process only affects those who do it?

Think of it like your individual development through life. You are carried along through maturation by archetypal forces, but there is plenty you can do to stunt your growth and veer in perilous directions.

Reincarnation is not dualist anymore than regular incarnation of soul-spirit into body is dualist (obviously the 'body' is not referring to material entity independent of mind).

It’s interesting you say that. In BK’s idealism, the body is purely the representation of the mind. So wouldn’t you expect a reincarnation of that mind to look the same? Or is the argument somehow that the forgetting of the old life resets all characteristics?

Also my understanding of the gnostic/ platonic idea of reincarnation is definitely something immaterial ‘trapped’ in a body, that is then ‘trapped’ into another body?

I’ve been thinking about this recently, not in terms of reincarnation but just in general. I don’t think the Aquinas metaphysics can be a complete description because it just doesn’t make sense to me in several ways, including out of body and near death experiences. It seems to me that maybe there is a form that comes from the dust (evolution) and a form that comes from ‘the breath’ (spirit), that are both woven together as a unified whole, and the whole is represented as the body. I’m still thinking about this, but it’s the best way I can explain the reality, and the fact it could be symbolised by a double helix makes it quite compelling

I'm sure Cleric can comment on this more helpfully from spiritual science perspective, but it seems natural to me that a person with more experience and different karmic 'balance sheet' would reincarnate with different appearance. As long as we keep in mind all esoteric frameworks are speaking of 'body', 'matter', etc. as representations of ideal process-content, it is really no different than the monist aspect of BK or any other idealist perspective.

[Lou Gold]

If time is unreal or Eternal, then reincarnation is an artifact of duality. And, from the East, Ramana denied reincarnation.

And what makes you think time is "unreal"? Time is a phenomenon like all other phenomenon - it is how the true relationships between one set of percepts-concepts and another set appear to us. Under idealism, appearances of the world cannot be "unreal", only misunderstood.

Probably a poor word choice. I was thinking of the assertion of no space/time as a way to describe the Eternal or Nondual. However, no need to go down that rabbit hole. It has always been especially attractive to me that Christ is both Son of Man and Son of God. In my non-conventional understanding, I associate Son of Man with duality and Son of God with non-duality and see the former as The Way and the latter as the Truth. I can unravel this in many ways including finding a union between the Western and Eastern religious approaches. It's an interesting contemplation.

[Shaibei]

Interesting. There's an ancient Jewish commentator named Rashi who interpreted it as follows. After Isaac asks Abraham where is the lamb for a burnt-offering, "Abraham said: 'God will provide Himself the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son", for this Rashi says the punctuation should be:
"'God will provide Himself the lamb, for a burnt-offering my son", so he did tell him he was the offering. Any way This is not the simple interpretation of the verse, since in the Hebrew source, though there is no punctuation, there are musical punctuations.
In any case, in a strange way it is these various ways of interpreting verses - with not only the direct meaning but also with allegoric, imaginative comparisons and "inner meanings", which turned the biblical text into something completely different - that gave rise to the ways of interpretation of psychoanalysis. Freud wouldn't' be to happy to be conscious about this

Interesting comment about “musical punctuation”. Is that in terms of the natural rhythm of the text, or in terms of actual singing of the texts?

These are ancient signs beneath and above the letters that are sung using a system similar to musical notes. They also serve to indicate where each sentence begins and ends, and guide the reader (in a Synagogue service) as to which syllable to emphasize and what intonation to use.