Whirlpool's core/first motion

[AshvinP]

It's very difficult to overcome "prejudices" towards genocide, slavery, child sacrifice and the like. The orgy of blood depicted in Ezekiel 16 for example with the woman exposed before being cut into pieces to appease the wrath and jealousy of the divinity is fitting of the mind of the psychopath, not the mind infused with higher ideals.

I can appreciate the evolution of consciousness at large but the extreme means employed and depicted in some biblical texts to bring about ends depict a morality which at best is wildly vacillating and inconsistent in world evolution. There may well have been dark forces resisting the coming of Christ but resisting those with means that fly in the face of the sacrificial ethics of Christ is quite paradoxical to say the least.

By the way, a quick look at Ezekiel 16 shows that it is the prophet of God rebuking Israel for engaging in child sacrifice and other abominable acts with surrounding cultures - "You even took the sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to idols."

It is also clearly a figurative exposition of the laws of Karma - "Because you did not remember the days of your youth, but enraged Me with all these things, I will surely bring your deeds down upon your own head, declares the Lord GOD."

And, I hope it goes without saying, just because the text seems to anthropomorphize the highest Divinity, that doesn't mean we should to, especially if we now know better than to imagine our heavenly Father as a big bearded man in the sky with human desires, emotions, thoughts, etc.

[Anthony66]

With that said, I want to ask you whether you are open to viewing the Earth with all its kingdoms - humanity, animals, plant, mineral - as a living and evolving organism, and the cultural history of humanity, including its ethical history, as something which occurs entirely within that context? It is easy for us to discern the process of death, extinction, and renewal through the course of natural evolution, but when it comes to the course of cultural evolution we suddenly become Newtonians again. In that context, we can discern how our own ethical perspective is shaped through that evolution. For ex., your ethical perspective toward your child is going to be quite different when he is 5 years old compared to when he is 30 years old. If a group of people start bullying him emotionally and physically when he is 5, most parents are going to feel it is appropriate to use quite extreme measures in defense of their child. When the child becomes 30, however, it is expected he will have the independent agency to defend himself or avoid those situations altogether. Then it would be quite absurd for the parent to step in.

I'm comfortable with the evolution of ethics on extremely large timescales where we are talking about humans/beings with very different constitutions. But the Bronze Age people are a little too close for comfort for which atrocities committed against are felt as my own.

[Anthony66]

It's very difficult to overcome "prejudices" towards genocide, slavery, child sacrifice and the like. The orgy of blood depicted in Ezekiel 16 for example with the woman exposed before being cut into pieces to appease the wrath and jealousy of the divinity is fitting of the mind of the psychopath, not the mind infused with higher ideals.

I can appreciate the evolution of consciousness at large but the extreme means employed and depicted in some biblical texts to bring about ends depict a morality which at best is wildly vacillating and inconsistent in world evolution. There may well have been dark forces resisting the coming of Christ but resisting those with means that fly in the face of the sacrificial ethics of Christ is quite paradoxical to say the least.

By the way, a quick look at Ezekiel 16 shows that it is the prophet of God rebuking Israel for engaging in child sacrifice and other abominable acts with surrounding cultures - "You even took the sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to idols."

It is also clearly a figurative exposition of the laws of Karma - "Because you did not remember the days of your youth, but enraged Me with all these things, I will surely bring your deeds down upon your own head, declares the Lord GOD."

And, I hope it goes without saying, just because the text seems to anthropomorphize the highest Divinity, that doesn't mean we should to, especially if we now know better than to imagine our heavenly Father as a big bearded man in the sky with human desires, emotions, thoughts, etc.

Again if we think of these actions committed by an aggrieved husband who has been cheated on, cutting the wife into pieces in an orgy of rage is not the ethics any of us aspire to.

Can you explain what you mean by the laws of Karma here and how you do understand this passage.

[AshvinP]

With that said, I want to ask you whether you are open to viewing the Earth with all its kingdoms - humanity, animals, plant, mineral - as a living and evolving organism, and the cultural history of humanity, including its ethical history, as something which occurs entirely within that context? It is easy for us to discern the process of death, extinction, and renewal through the course of natural evolution, but when it comes to the course of cultural evolution we suddenly become Newtonians again. In that context, we can discern how our own ethical perspective is shaped through that evolution. For ex., your ethical perspective toward your child is going to be quite different when he is 5 years old compared to when he is 30 years old. If a group of people start bullying him emotionally and physically when he is 5, most parents are going to feel it is appropriate to use quite extreme measures in defense of their child. When the child becomes 30, however, it is expected he will have the independent agency to defend himself or avoid those situations altogether. Then it would be quite absurd for the parent to step in.

I'm comfortable with the evolution of ethics on extremely large timescales where we are talking about humans/beings with very different constitutions. But the Bronze Age people are a little too close for comfort for which atrocities committed against are felt as my own.

Anthony,

Let me put the question another way. If there is a spiritual reality that we experience during sleep and between death-rebirth (and our ancestors from a few thousand years ago also experienced), that is actually the source of our moral intuition during waking life, do you see how we can't evaluate the ethics of human history without investigating what takes place during those dark periods of experience? In other words, we need to take spiritual reality as something living and indispensable to our holistic understanding of our individual and collective streams of development through the epochs. Our moral sentiments need to also be informed by Wisdom that provides an overarching context for what takes place during our waking experience. Do you agree with that?

Again if we think of these actions committed by an aggrieved husband who has been cheated on, cutting the wife into pieces in an orgy of rage is not the ethics any of us aspire to.

Can you explain what you mean by the laws of Karma here and how you do understand this passage.

It seems we are reading the context of this chapter entirely differently. Can you point to the part where God says any particular peson should be literally cut into pieces in an orgy of rage? I understand the passage as relating to Israel's repeated decisions to abandon faith and engage in acts of unspeakable cruelty with surrounding cultures, like sacrificing their children to idols. The prophet of God then relates that their own evil deeds will come back upon them, i.e. through the laws of karma that structure the waves of destiny. To understand how this works more precisely, we need to investigate the living laws of spiritual reality, as mentioned above. In a certain sense, the Karmic law is simply giving them over to what they already desired, except now they have the opportunity to experience the consequences of that desire consciously instead of in ignorance. And this is how reality works, whether we prefer it or not. We have all had and will continue to have the opportunity to experience the inner side of our Earthly deeds across the threshold, good and bad. That is the only way we learn and evolve towards Divine ideals.

[Anthony66]

With that said, I want to ask you whether you are open to viewing the Earth with all its kingdoms - humanity, animals, plant, mineral - as a living and evolving organism, and the cultural history of humanity, including its ethical history, as something which occurs entirely within that context? It is easy for us to discern the process of death, extinction, and renewal through the course of natural evolution, but when it comes to the course of cultural evolution we suddenly become Newtonians again. In that context, we can discern how our own ethical perspective is shaped through that evolution. For ex., your ethical perspective toward your child is going to be quite different when he is 5 years old compared to when he is 30 years old. If a group of people start bullying him emotionally and physically when he is 5, most parents are going to feel it is appropriate to use quite extreme measures in defense of their child. When the child becomes 30, however, it is expected he will have the independent agency to defend himself or avoid those situations altogether. Then it would be quite absurd for the parent to step in.

I'm comfortable with the evolution of ethics on extremely large timescales where we are talking about humans/beings with very different constitutions. But the Bronze Age people are a little too close for comfort for which atrocities committed against are felt as my own.

Anthony,

Let me put the question another way. If there is a spiritual reality that we experience during sleep and between death-rebirth (and our ancestors from a few thousand years ago also experienced), that is actually the source of our moral intuition during waking life, do you see how we can't evaluate the ethics of human history without investigating what takes place during those dark periods of experience? In other words, we need to take spiritual reality as something living and indispensable to our holistic understanding of our individual and collective streams of development through the epochs. Our moral sentiments need to also be informed by Wisdom that provides an overarching context for what takes place during our waking experience. Do you agree with that?

Again if we think of these actions committed by an aggrieved husband who has been cheated on, cutting the wife into pieces in an orgy of rage is not the ethics any of us aspire to.

Can you explain what you mean by the laws of Karma here and how you do understand this passage.

It seems we are reading the context of this chapter entirely differently. Can you point to the part where God says any particular peson should be literally cut into pieces in an orgy of rage? I understand the passage as relating to Israel's repeated decisions to abandon faith and engage in acts of unspeakable cruelty with surrounding cultures, like sacrificing their children to idols. The prophet of God then relates that their own evil deeds will come back upon them, i.e. through the laws of karma that structure the waves of destiny. To understand how this works more precisely, we need to investigate the living laws of spiritual reality, as mentioned above. In a certain sense, the Karmic law is simply giving them over to what they already desired, except now they have the opportunity to experience the consequences of that desire consciously instead of in ignorance. And this is how reality works, whether we prefer it or not. We have all had and will continue to have the opportunity to experience the inner side of our Earthly deeds across the threshold, good and bad. That is the only way we learn and evolve towards Divine ideals.

Ashvin,

I don't know the mechanism of how I've acquired my moral intuitions, be it by something happening in the darkness of sleep and between death-rebirth or by long eons of waking experience. One could throw in early childhood experience and conditioning and also the broader experiences of this life. I am certainly searching for the insight required to make sense of this dark side of the biblical narrative for it is quite a stumbling block for me.

Ezekiel 16 is an extended metaphor so there's not literal person(s) involved. It starts with YHWH noticing this young girl's breasts having formed and being old enough for love. So he extends his cloak over her (sexual euphemism). After the girl is subsequently accused of adultery, he strips her naked in front of all her lovers, has her cut into pieces with the sword psychological, physical and sexual violence which is pleasing to YHWH.

Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you poured out your lust and exposed your naked body in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see you stark naked. I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring on you the blood vengeance of my wrath and jealous anger. Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you stark naked. They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. Then my wrath against you will subside and my jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.

It is the deity who orchestrates this horror with his providential control of mob. This is not Karma inexorably playing out but rather the agency of deity.

[AshvinP]

I'm comfortable with the evolution of ethics on extremely large timescales where we are talking about humans/beings with very different constitutions. But the Bronze Age people are a little too close for comfort for which atrocities committed against are felt as my own.

Anthony,

Let me put the question another way. If there is a spiritual reality that we experience during sleep and between death-rebirth (and our ancestors from a few thousand years ago also experienced), that is actually the source of our moral intuition during waking life, do you see how we can't evaluate the ethics of human history without investigating what takes place during those dark periods of experience? In other words, we need to take spiritual reality as something living and indispensable to our holistic understanding of our individual and collective streams of development through the epochs. Our moral sentiments need to also be informed by Wisdom that provides an overarching context for what takes place during our waking experience. Do you agree with that?

Again if we think of these actions committed by an aggrieved husband who has been cheated on, cutting the wife into pieces in an orgy of rage is not the ethics any of us aspire to.

Can you explain what you mean by the laws of Karma here and how you do understand this passage.

It seems we are reading the context of this chapter entirely differently. Can you point to the part where God says any particular peson should be literally cut into pieces in an orgy of rage? I understand the passage as relating to Israel's repeated decisions to abandon faith and engage in acts of unspeakable cruelty with surrounding cultures, like sacrificing their children to idols. The prophet of God then relates that their own evil deeds will come back upon them, i.e. through the laws of karma that structure the waves of destiny. To understand how this works more precisely, we need to investigate the living laws of spiritual reality, as mentioned above. In a certain sense, the Karmic law is simply giving them over to what they already desired, except now they have the opportunity to experience the consequences of that desire consciously instead of in ignorance. And this is how reality works, whether we prefer it or not. We have all had and will continue to have the opportunity to experience the inner side of our Earthly deeds across the threshold, good and bad. That is the only way we learn and evolve towards Divine ideals.

Ashvin,

I don't know the mechanism of how I've acquired my moral intuitions, be it by something happening in the darkness of sleep and between death-rebirth or by long eons of waking experience. One could throw in early childhood experience and conditioning and also the broader experiences of this life. I am certainly searching for the insight required to make sense of this dark side of the biblical narrative for it is quite a stumbling block for me.

Ezekiel 16 is an extended metaphor so there's not literal person(s) involved. It starts with YHWH noticing this young girl's breasts having formed and being old enough for love. So he extends his cloak over her (sexual euphemism). After the girl is subsequently accused of adultery, he strips her naked in front of all her lovers, has her cut into pieces with the sword psychological, physical and sexual violence which is pleasing to YHWH.

Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you poured out your lust and exposed your naked body in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see you stark naked. I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring on you the blood vengeance of my wrath and jealous anger. Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you stark naked. They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. Then my wrath against you will subside and my jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.

It is the deity who orchestrates this horror with his providential control of mob. This is not Karma inexorably playing out but rather the agency of deity.

Alright, I have a better sense of where you are coming from with respect to that passage. You are certainly correct that it is an extended metaphor, so I think we need to keep that in mind. What is it a metaphor for? I am saying it is exactly a metaphor for how the processes of Karma unfold. These are not mechanical processes - there is no abstract machine algorithm in the spiritual world that takes karmic inputs and spits out outputs of physical destiny. Instead, the laws of Karma are the outer expression of living spiritual activity that proceeds from the Holy Trinity, namely the Father, and is impressed through the activity of the higher hierarchies before manifesting on the physical plane over various durations of time. There is an entire Cosmic symphony at work weaving the threads of Karmic destiny, including human individualities who were kings, priests, prophets, etc. (the latter situation has fundamentally shifted since the Christ events - now each human individual is progressively administering his/her own karma, with feedback from the higher hierarchies, between death-rebirth and during sleep).

Imagine you are trying to explain to your young kids how gifts end up under the Christmas tree (or coal in the stockings). Probably at first you are not going to relate the whole production and consumer streams of the World Economy, and how you, as the loving parent, work hard every day so you can save the money to buy the gifts and plan out all the events of Christmas day. Instead, you condense it all into an imaginative legend of Santa Clause or St. Nick, his elves, the reindeer, the list of nice and naughty kids, the cookies and milk, etc. Is this legend wrong or untruthful? Not really, because at the end of the day, the anthropomorphic symbols are pointing to real intentional agencies who are responsible for the process of manifesting those events, and the gifts or coals. If we can look at such legends with a fluid and imaginative consciousness, we can learn a lot about the aesthetic and moral impulses underlying them. After all, that is the entire purpose of our Karmic guidance - to gradually perfect our moral being over many incarnations.

Now there is a lot more that could be said here. We need to come to terms with the fact that all natural disasters and cultural atrocities, even in our own time, are related to Karmic waves of destiny at the scales of individuals, communities, nations, etc. There are no unintelligent, mechanical 'laws' of nature that take place outside the sphere of Divine morality i.e. Karma. The only difference is that now we can think more abstractly and more precisely about how the spheres of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth work into the physical domain of natural and cultural occurrences. If we can resist idolizing our own abstractions in that process, i.e. materialistic science, and thereby develop Imaginative thinking, then we rediscover the fundamentally spiritual/moral nature of all natural processes. We can also resist anthropomorphizing the spiritual karmic processes like the ancients did because now we have the capacity of lucid scientific consciousness (but again, that doesn't negate the fact of living spiritual beings behind all these processes). The first thing we really need to do is revisit what Cleric wrote here and take it seriously:

Time ago Ashvin wrote essays titled "How do "I" know?". This is a critical question anyone in our age should ask themselves. The descent into materialism serves a purpose. The isolation of the intellect, which made Kant develop his philosophy, makes us feel that we're alone with our mind and can only weigh facts, and eventually decide what to believe in.

Today this situation should make us feel real dread. The idea that in our thoughts we're isolated and can know something only by knowing our own thoughts about the true reality behind our conscious experience, should feel painful.
...
But how do we know what's the truth? The mystical state doesn't tell us anything in itself. It should cause us real dread if it is impossible to know. This is the healthy state for contemporary man. These things are supposed to cause us dread. Just like physical pain tells us that we have to do something, so this dread tells us that something must be done for our soul and spiritual life.

The only solution to such a dread could be if we find a way to know. Here to know doesn't imply intellectual curiosity, which would still be nothing but pictures on the wall. To know means to grow with our spirit into the Tree of Life. It implies going beyond ourselves, just like Joseph knows Mary. Our spirit breaks through the soul curtain and finds the states of being that correspond to that which we depict only symbolically with the line [or the concepts about Karmic laws].

When you say, "I don't know the mechanism of how I've acquired my moral intuitions", this should really cause you to stop in your tracks and ask by what power you are then analyzing the verses of scripture and pronouncing judgments on the Divinity therein revealed? This is really the main point. It's not about pitting some skeptical or cynical interpretation of OT scripture against that of a 'believer'. It's about participating in the very process that all revealed Wisdom, of all faiths, has been preparing our souls for over many incarnations. If we sacrifice the need to intellectually verify, prove, or otherwise grasp all of these 'paradoxical' stumbling blocks, then eventually we will rediscover their essential meaning in a higher, unsuspected Light.

[Cleric K]

Ezekiel 16 is an extended metaphor so there's not literal person(s) involved. It starts with YHWH noticing this young girl's breasts having formed and being old enough for love. So he extends his cloak over her (sexual euphemism). After the girl is subsequently accused of adultery, he strips her naked in front of all her lovers, has her cut into pieces with the sword psychological, physical and sexual violence which is pleasing to YHWH.

Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you poured out your lust and exposed your naked body in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see you stark naked. I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring on you the blood vengeance of my wrath and jealous anger. Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you stark naked. They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. Then my wrath against you will subside and my jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.

It is the deity who orchestrates this horror with his providential control of mob. This is not Karma inexorably playing out but rather the agency of deity.

Anthony, as we have often spoken, the scriptures will be revisited more and more with a quite different understanding. But to do this we dearly need to acquire new ways of conceiving of reality. As long as we remain with our Earth-bound conceptions and we see spiritual reality as spiritual vacuum within which soul-orbs float, some happening to be more powerful and called gods, it is inevitable that we'll snap back to the corporate power hierarchy picture that disgusts so many today. It is quite impossible to conceive of God in the above text in any other way but as an orb that violates another orb, then rips it to shred for its enjoyment.

To approach these new ways of conceiving reality we have to move towards Macrocosmic conceptions, where hierarchies are not unjust corporate relations among peer orbs but the Cosmic depth structure of man.

Here I can present only a hint. I won't pretend that I understand the OT in all (or even a few) of its aspects. There are so many things which are still complete mysteries to me. For example, I have no clue why circumcision has become a paramount aspect of the Covenant. It seems to me like a grotesque request for a God to make to its people. But so far I have no reason to doubt that these things will find their logical explanation when the corresponding depth is reached.

The chapter above becomes more comprehensible if we try to understand Yahve as the Cosmic head organism, the spiritual part, and Jerusalem and the people of Israel as the body and soul. Here we're dealing with Macrocosmic relations. Yahve contemplates the corrupt state of the soul-body and sees that even though in a sorry state, the needed maturity has been reached such that the Spirit can begin to incarnate. This is an actual process of fertilization by the Spirit, thus the sexual symbolism in question. All the adornments, clothes and so on are images for the riches and blessings that the Spirit introduces into the collective soul-body. In human terms, these riches would manifest as progressive social and economic relations, arts, science and spiritual life. It would be like what we imagine for a Golden Age to be, where there's progress and thriving in all aspects of life.

Alas, the corrupt forces are still very strong and they continue to degrade the soul-body such that the riches are wasted. They are diverted into dark enterprises. We can imagine this vividly through microcosmic analogy. It's like we make up our mind in the head, to improve our life style. We begin to fertilize our organism with fruitful ideas and habits, we begin to work out, to eat healthy, to educate ourselves, to do arts, to help others, pray, meditate and so on. At the same time, from below, our organism is corrupted by lustful desires and even physical parasites and diseases that take advantage of all the riches, health and prosperity we introduce from above and divert them to disgusting goals.

This is the basic mood that we should try to translate to Macrocosmic realities. The Head tries to heal and enrich the body such that the Divine Life can flow unimpeded. The lower world however resists with its corrupted ways. The anger of God is always a symbol for the Divine purging. Think about it. If your body is infested with parasites and you still have clarity in your head, wouldn't you try to purge them for the benefit of a greater good? Everything that is so graphically depicted in the chapter is really the image of God's attempt purge the soul-body from the parasitic forces, expose them and rip them apart.

The reason we need spiritual scientific conception of reality in our age is because it is crucial to understand how each one of us exists within these Macrocosmic realities, how we're a 'slice' of them, so to speak. Thus all these Macrocosmic processes also have their microcosmic analogues in our soul and bodily life.