Visual Art as Contemplation

[Blair]

I don't know why, but Blair reminds me of the little kid in Family Guy...

[Sphere70]

Yes!

[David Quinn]

One of the reasons why I address (and emphasize) the issue of reasoning is because it is rarely brought up in the world. The world nearly always confines spirituality to the arts or to the generic religious industry, thereby divorcing it from reason and crippling it from the outset.

I can't see how you can say in all honesty that the use of reason is the (only) way back to the natural state (Enlightenment).

It is the only way because the barriers that prevents the mind from becoming conscious of the natural state are essentially conceptual in nature.

The mind is distracted from its natural state when it is unwittingly held captive to some particular conceptual framework and thus the cure involves knowing how to dissolve all conceptual frameworks, which can only be done by applying reason fearlessly.

It is a process of clearing everything away until there is nothing left but the Void. Once everything is cleared away, there is nowhere further to go. One is no longer dwelling in abstraction. Reality is nowhere to be found.

Reason being a process of logic with the tool of thought (basically talking to oneself) - which in its nature is dual and therefore limited in its outset.

Unlike normal thoughts, reason is more than just "talking to oneself". It is a spotlight which exposes falseness in all its forms. Reason is impersonal, unbiased, indiscriminate - it has no sensitivites, it operates without fear or favour. As such, reason, when fully unleashed, is actually a mortal enemy of the self.

This is why people the world over continually use all sorts of means, both consciously and unconsciously, to undermine reason. They do everything they can to suppress it, deride it, academically confine it, etc, etc. Everyone is subconsciously aware of the danger and takes steps accordingly. The anti-rational meme runs rampant in our society, particularly within the religious industry, and has been for centuries. And it has taken hold in you, it would seem.

Yes, reason is a duality, just as emotions, guru words and mystical experiences are, but it is the most dynamic of all the dualities. It is the most active part of ourselves. It is the one duality that can undermine all other dualities, including itself.

This is why I say to people that reason should be the last thing to discard, not the first. Let reason do its lethal work and then, once completed, it will disappear of its own accord. You don’t need to reject or suppress reason. Anyone who tells you that is pulling the wool over your eyes. They are fooling you, and fooling themselves.

The only way I can understand this is if you say that this is only for realizing that this tool is not the tool and that there is no other tool (a kind of 'hitting the wall') - it's then a very U.G. Krishnamurti'an way of speaking and of understanding the limits of thought in terms of the Tao in a much clearer way. Though I don't think this is what you're saying...

UG and I are very much on the same page, only I go a lot deeper. He put a leash on his reasoning for various reasons, which all boil down to the fact that he didn’t want to be too repulsive and dangerous. He liked his fan-made cushy lifestyle too much.

You need to stop fretting over the label "genius". It's an empty word that doesn't really mean anything. It is only meaningful (and irksome) to those who take themselves too seriously. :)

My bad, I thought that it was an important definition around here (being that you gave it the name of the forum, that it's discussed in numerous post and that you have a link somewhere with (many) quotes about it).

Alas, things are not always what they seem....

And that, essentially, is where all art springs from. From the violence of being divorced from one's own self (one's true nature).

That is where all seeking begins. The philosophers, the artist, the religious man: the seeker in all his forms.

True. What separates the spiritual philosopher from the rest is that he seeks his resolution in truth, rather than in emotion and fantasy.

The artist becomes great in that he perfects his ability to communicate, and when it is about that which is often felt as incommunicable then he becomes a Great artist (be it in visual art, the spoken art, music or literature). This is why the Tao Te Ching might be considered the best and clearest writing on life and enlightenment. It's truly a great work of art.

I agree with this. What makes the Tao Te Ching great is that it directly points to the nature of reality with the mininum of fuss, unlike most other art (which tends to be unfocused and limited in scope). It is a highly rational piece of work, and therefore very powerful and very deep.

-

[David Quinn]

This is an attempt to extract the various points you have made and set them out clearly.

• That self-knowledge, self-realization are extreme enterprises requiring extraordinary commitment and focus.
• 'Artists', which in this context does not so much mean artists or an artist but all humans in society, are cut off from their 'well-springs' or the true well-springs, so in fact, you could appropriate the passage from Jeremiah into your own kerygma: 'They have committed two evils, they have cut themselves off from my well-spring and have hewed out within themselves a containment vessel that is leaky'. The illustration is actually pretty profound no matter who is claiming it, and from the look of it, though you would invert my application of it, we yet seem to agree: there are 'real' well-springs, there is a process of 'cutting-off' from what is vital, living and 'real', and there is something like constructing a 'cistern' within oneself which represents a strategem as-againt the 'true' source of life, represented by the symbol 'water'.
• And we do seem to agree that something indeed 'stands between us'.
• You say that art ('essentially' which could also mean entirely or even 'absolutely') arises out of the division within the individual between the 'real' source of life and 'life-as-reliance-on-cistern', which means a false and private source. And again it seems you could employ my preferred language in your own preaching: all artists (all humankind) 'shear off' from their vital selves and art is some sort of false satisfaction, a sad consolation prize, but more than that it is something people cling to and rely on because they cannot get to that 'true' and vital source (the living well-spring).
• If I understand you correctly, art can only (apparently) 'soothe' some sort of longing or pain that results from the 'shearing off' from the real well-spring. But art in itself does nothing, can do nothing for the individual and by extension for humankind.
• A wise person does not seek anything outside of himself that would offer what you are calling 'resolution' (to trauma or the 'violence' from having sheared off from the 'well-spring' from which all life arises).
• The state of wisdom---if the metaphor of 'like a newborn baby' holds---is like a rebirth into a state of innocence and 'purity'. In that original state, there would be no attraction for any false palliative, such as art is according to your definitions. Art arises from the trauma of the rejection of the 'well-spring', is a violence against original nature, and when original nature is recovered (so to speak), there is no need of it.
• According to your view all (99% is pretty much all) that is in the human heart is 'sheer nonsense'. All this 'nonsense' is held in the highest esteem by our culture. But one must ask a question here (because it is not clear). Is it what is in the heart that must be seen as 'nonsense' or the 'heart' itself? (Whatever this means, and we have no definition for 'it'). You say that this 'stuff' in the heart is like the drug of an addict and that the function of the heart 'rarely rises above it'. Therefore, people are addicted to emotional 'drugs' and like addicts crave certain 'hearty stimulations'. This addiction-cycle locks them in to the need of false nourishment from those false cisterns and keep them from knowing, feeling the real 'well-spring'. (We are still uncertain what relationship the 'true well-spring' has to 'the human heart', if for example this heart were purged of the 99% of false, drug-like material).
• Having constructed this base, you go on to affirm that all art is, and all artists are, involved essentially in a false enterprise (again, this corresponds to 'they hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water'). You express it in this way: 'The addict can express his frustration and pain through art. He can sweat blood and tears in his endeavour to create highly-nuanced stories which depict his hells. Other addicts can then praise his work and call him a great artist, a deep man. And yet, despite all this grand endeavour and mutual back-slapping, the whole thing remains in the realm of nonsense.'
• Your summation is a repeating of what you believe is my meaning: 'To rise above drug-addiction isn't a violent act, as you so desperately want to depict. To be drug free isn't a case of being violently cutting off from human life or from one's humanity. Only a drug-addict could possibly see things in this way.'
• And finally, you invert another statement of mine, so that if I, in defense of art (as I have described it thus far), seem to value it, this is tantamount to being 'otherworldly' and 'lost in abstraction'.

I do have some things to say about this, naturally, but will let this sit for awhile.

A couple of points:

- Not all art falls into this category. For example, children being creative and artistic is very important for their overall development. And the art of deeply wise people - in the form of creating scripture - is also very important for the world. It's mainly the art in between these two extremes that I take issue with. Most of it is self-indulgent and vain, and has little connection to wisdom.

This is not to say that such art cannot be therapeutic, or help train the mind to experience life more richly. It certainly has its uses, but it is still a million miles away from wisdom.

- My point about you being "otherworldly" and "lost in abstraction" applies to every aspect of your life, as revealed through your every post. It doesn't just come from your views on art. It is evidenced, for example, in the way you compulsively need to break everything down into smaller and smaller categories - being "nuanced" as you call it. It's a way of making your abstract existence more fluid and thus more bearable.

-

[Alexis Jacobi]

If it isn't clear to anyone/everyone who reads here, the essential division between David and myself (and David and many other people, in my view) arises from core initial definitions: presuppositions. In the world I live in, conceive, seek to fathom, this plane of existence, this fact of existing, is (to put it in these terms) overseen by conscious intelligence(s). It is not at all that there is some god out there somewhere directing the show, ordaining things, but rather that a divinity understructures the very fact or possibility of existence. All that 'is occurring' is part-and-parcel of that. I have a feeling that David and I, at the bottom, share a similar tendency to notice, define, and respond to something deeply mysterious about nature or existence, but there is a vast and seemingly unbridgable gap in how we respond to these 'mysterious facts'. And as I have said, my purpose is to offer up alternatives to the rigid viewstructure on offer here, which seems to me to lead to fracturing and division of the individual, and pushes the individual toward what I think can ONLY be described as mental unbalance if not mental illness. I keep stressing that not as a gratuitous ad hominem but because it really does seem to be a principal underpinning to this whole 'place'---GF as a shared sphere of mental activity, of defining and affirming definitions and values.

I have noticed that even idea-structures that I feel are filled with numerous 'errors', and which resultingly lead to errors of apprehension and praxis, nevertheless still have cogent parts. If they didn't the idea-structure would appear utterly irrational and would not even be considerable, right from the start. So, parts of what David proposes seem to me 'reasonable' and I would also say 'rational' if I were to accept the basic premises that underlie them, that is if I shared them or had been convinced by them. David's conclusions and recommendations most definitely follow from his premises, of that there is no doubt. In fact (and this is true in my case as well) his premises and presuppositions drive his conclusions, determine them. Ideas always have consequences.

The principal area in which I would focus is that of the 'heart'. Simply put, David describes the heart as being 99% polluted. This provokes a question: What would a pure heart be like? If so much of the heart is filled with so much nonsense---and I think we all, even if we differ in so many ways and argue our different perspectives, concur that 'people' are driven by stupid and vain concerns, and cultures and industries arise that support that vanity---what would occur in a person and a society (more) free of that 'nonsense'? In this, I would suggest that this human heart is at the center of the whole question we deal with here. And it is very hard indeed to separate out a pure mental zone from the emotive zone within a human being. I know that GF stakes a great deal on doing just that, but I suggest it is impossible. The fact is that the heart and mind are quite interwoven and---effectively---cannot be separated. I would also suggest that when they are 'unnaturally separated', the schizm usually leads to bad results, and can lead (collectively) to social psychosis. One of the principal differences I have with the house philosophy of GF (and there most certainly is one) is how it relates to the 'heart' of man. This means of course how those who define and practice that philosophy relate to their own hearts. In the sense I mean, 'heart' means emotional self, core self, the self that has and lives within a body structure, and a self that from within this foundation or reality has social relations with all other beings in the world. Naturally, this also means family and certainly includes women (and 'woman') and also everything about women: reproduction, women as 'somatic' beings, and even the 'emotionalism' generally recognized in women. There is no one who is not intimately tied to any part of this, and indeed it is the structure, understructure and 'reality' in which we literally 'are occurring'. So, if we are going to talk about any of 'that', if we are going to propose anything about any of that, we have to include ourselves within it, and we cannot 'shear ourselves off' from 'it', which is to say this Reality, this place we occur.

(I suggest and have suggested (as have many others) that GF constructs itself on erroneous initial suppositions, a deliberately skewed group of definitions about nature and reality that can only lead to significant problems for the individual who practices this philosophy. The following must be noted: you can never succeed in convincing anyone who has internalized these presuppositions that they are in error. The very nature of the philosophical orientation (as a system) is that it has the ways and the means to defeat any opposition. In fact, doing that, coming forward and rehearsing defenses, seems to be a very important part of the internalization of the tenets. But, time and time again, in conversation after conversation, the so-called rationalistic base of the True Believers is outrightly defeated through more sound reasonings. No matter! The TBs have the will to overcome any opposition and to become even that much more aggressive in their declaration of the basic tenets of GFism. In this sense, 'it' functions like a cult mind-control system, and is reproducible (self-installing self-maintained) from person to person.)

The problem with GF, as I see it, is in its initial definition of man. This problem, obviously, stems from defintions about the nature of reality. Essentially, from what I have been able to discern, what we normally refer to as an existant human person, this somatic-conscious being we call a human, does not in fact 'exist' for the Gf crew. Through very odd (my view) but not completely 'irrational' means (that is, there is a rational process involved) they manage to define the human being out of existence. There is no 'self', there is no 'core'. So, effectively, there is no human being. Whatever 'is' there (and to even say this contradicts the basic assumption) is 'unreal' and 'insubstantial'. All of 'this' (whatever it 'is') dissolves into a 'god' that is (somehow) nature itself and also 'infinity' or infinitud. You have to become versed in these terms and you have to have internalized them in order for the idea-structure to settle in, but once you have done this you are essentially 'launched'. Then, you appear in conversations to perfect your discourse, engage with other TBs in shooting down opposition, which reinforces your internalized, or enforced, suppositions. One then carves out an 'existence' within these ideas which (as I say) is totally separate from the FACT of existence within a bodily frame, in a social matrix, etc. For if the 'whole man' were seen as substantial, relevant and existant, the whole praxis that flows out of this (skewed) philosophy would quite obviously be different. So, let us establish that the basic philsophy, and the practices that derive from it, stem from this intitial definition. It is a core axiom of the GF crowd. The non-existence or the false existence of the 'human self'.

I will let this sit before I try to express alternatives to this view structure while I also defend and explain man's creativity, his imagination, and a way it can be seen that he most certainly exists! and why it is crucial to see him and us as EXISTING! and why a philosophy that affirms life and aliveness is necessary to 'defeat' one that (let's face it?) is defining a sort of death.
______________________________________________________

Completely unrelated (except perhaps in David's mind! *wink, wink*) is this piece by Betty Carter: Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most. Fine singing. I wanted to put up a new rendition out by Karrin Allyson but the cd just came out 2 weeks ago and it isn't circulating. (This whole playlist is good I think but do yourself a favor and skip the corrupted version of Anita O'Day's Love Me Or Leave Me and listen only to this one).

[Pam Seeback]

Alex: 'For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water'. Jeremiah 2:13

To propose some sort of 'realization' that is in fact the cutting off from one's own self, and a shrinking away from a full and living expression of self, is I suggest absurd and tragic.

Being the fountain of living waters is being the image of the Father, which is the pattern of infinity. The broken cisterns that can hold no water (hold no reality) are the images projected by man of his finite attachment to the infinite Father, symbolized in the bible as the Lord God of the dust and the mist, the Lord God who appears in Genesis 2:4:

These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

The heavens and the earth: the infinite Father.

The earth and the heavens: the finite Lord God.

Art [dust, mist, sense attachment] is of the Lord God, not the Father.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Being the fountain of living waters is being the image of the Father, which is the pattern of infinity. The broken cisterns that can hold no water (hold no reality) are the images projected by man of his finite attachment to the infinite Father, symbolized in the bible as the Lord God of the dust and the mist, the Lord God who appears in Genesis 2:4.

MovingAlways offers two definitions:

• The heavens and the earth: the infinite Father. The earth and the heavens: the finite Lord God.

and

• Art [dust, mist, sense attachment] is of the Lord God, not the Father.

I appreciate your midrash, but I can't consider it a final one. And, I think it reinforces a somewhat artificial division between the infinite and the finite. Usually, out midrashim, our divinations, express our core orientation, and I would say that yours is somewhat close to David's. You seem attracted to and find use in these sorts of grand abstractions.

For me, a simpler and more down-home defintion of those 'cisterns' men construct is to imagine our private little worlds, with out private little nourishment-system (water) that we attempt to store up (invent, hold to), and that we do this to deny a greater source: the source that informs and undergirds the whole manifested Reality. So, it seems to me, if we are to sidestep the chauvinism in this voice of Yahway, we really have to have some sense of a definition of Living Water. In this, I suggest, David (and others here) state that they have, know and reveal such Living Water, but I say that they appear to me more like private cisterns that are cracked and leaking. Cracked and leaking can mean many things but with it I mean a poignant thing: some people here are right on the edge of madness. This madness is a result of 'shearing off' from self. And naturally, in my definition-set, from Living Water.

I categorically 'deny' that Art is somehow 'limited utterance' (dust, mist, sense attachement). Art is intimately linked to, wedded to, and expresses the very best of the very best of man. I do not accept these essential distinctions either: spirit and matter, the idea vs the sensory, infinite/finite, etc.) We trick ourselves and shortchange outselves by reverting to these old metaphysical terms (they are our graveyard).

David, with his more recent amendations, has trickily (but sensibly) allowed himself far greater wiggle-room than in his first declarative post. Now he says: 'Not all art falls into this category. For example, children being creative and artistic is very important for their overall development. And the art of deeply wise people - in the form of creating scripture - is also very important for the world. It's mainly the art in between these two extremes that I take issue with. Most of it is self-indulgent and vain, and has little connection to wisdom'. He also has opened a true can of worms by allowing art 'for children' and their development.

But I intend to get more into this stuff...when the moon goes into Scorpio. In the meantime: Lullaby of Birdland by Sarah Vaughn.

I've often wanted to post a link to Lui Collin's Baptism of Fire but it just hasn't been put up (yet). It has the line: The only way out is through. For now, Song of the Water.

[Pam Seeback]

I appreciate your midrash, but I can't consider it a final one. And, I think it reinforces a somewhat artificial division between the infinite and the finite. Usually, out midrashim, our divinations, express our core orientation, and I would say that yours is somewhat close to David's. You seem attracted to and find use in these sorts of grand abstractions.

Just the opposite, Alex, the metaphor of the Father and the Lord God is purposed to remove the artificial division between the infinite and the finite. The Lord God is an emanation or extension of the Father, therefore, no division between the infinite "Guy" and the finite "guy." As for grand abstractions, it would seem that every man has need of these things as he learns to give them up, myself most certainly included. Check the length of your last post. :-) And, is not this doctrine that is percolating within your consciousness, not a "grand abstraction" from simply doing what is needed to be done, right here, right now? Why do we need a doctrine to tell us what needs to be done so that we can be moved of the infinite's silent and invisible intent and purpose? Where is your faith in God that you need to devise an alternate plan?

[Alexis Jacobi]

And, is not this doctrine that is percolating within your consciousness, not a "grand abstraction" from simply doing what is needed to be done, right here, right now? Why do we need a doctrine to tell us what needs to be done so that we can be moved of the infinite's silent and invisible intent and purpose? Where is your faith in God that you need to devise an alternate plan?

To me, an abstraction is more a reference to some abstract, outside thing. I certainly am enunciating a doctrine, no doubt about it, but it is not 'abstract' in the typical sense. Also, what 'needs to be done' is exactly what I am doing. I am a man of uncertain faith so I don't have any grand plan for myself. I have more questions about 'faith' than answers. And finally, I know little of 'the infinite' silent and invisible intent and purpose' and in fact am waiting for someone to clue me in. Help if you can!

Gone But Not Forgotten.

Just the opposite, Alex, the metaphor of the Father and the Lord God is purposed to remove the artificial division between the infinite and the finite. The Lord God is an emanation or extension of the Father, therefore, no division between the infinite "Guy" and the finite "guy."

If I misuderstood, I apologize. I think I do understand what you mean (basically) I just choose different lingo.

[Dennis Mahar]

Alex,

The problem with GF

The problem is you.
The way you are coming at it.
You ARE 'it's a scam'.
It suffuses you.
Your essential intelligence in the World, about the World has, from experience, the noticing about experience that traps are there. And they are.
And you ARE highly intelligent as a Being in the World trying to get through it as a survival machine.
There's a Care about not being trapped. About not being roped in.
It's a coming from as a coming towards, a trepidation about putting the 'toe in the water'.
The Gestalt has you 'looking from a distance' at whatever you are looking at.
So suffused in the ARE of you that 'it's a scam' the ARE has you automatically cynical as you look it over.

You ARE that GFers have taken a fatal plunge.
It suffuses you.

But you can see GF has possibility.
As David said you have to open to it.

It's the pattern in its arrangement that forestalls the possibility.

[Pam Seeback]

And finally, I know little of 'the infinite' silent and invisible intent and purpose' and in fact am waiting for someone to clue me in. Help if you can!

I don't know what its intent and purpose is either because I am living it/being lived by it every moment. I know I am living it/being lived by it, because no one but ME is guiding my life. I have friends and relations and have been married to my best friend for 36 years, but neither my friends or my relations or my husband influence me in any way as to how to be/live who I am. That is the Infinite's job and no one else's.

When your conscience is your guide, who needs a doctrine? Can you tell me what your doctrine can give me that the eternal Intelligence of my infinity cannot?

[Dennis Mahar]

Pam,
If you give this prick stick.
Like, get in his face,
like me and Blair,
all he's got is:

I'm not talking to you,
Why are you talking to me,
You must be nuts,
You're making a fool of yourself.

All he's ever got that looks anything like a credential is:

'frustrated writer'

hip, hip, hooray.

He doesn't know that he doesn't know,
existence as breathtaking,
existence as wonder,
existence as astonishment.

He strolls into David's house,
stretches out on the sofa,
announces his wish to be entertained,
and does his level best to impersonate a brick wall as a response.

Stultified.

Ya' gotta love him.

[Pam Seeback]

Alex, you read the bible or have read the bible, so I offer these four scriptures for your consideration. I would love to hear your reasoning of the wisdom that is being revealed:

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” ~ Matthew 6:22

“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God...“ ~ Philippians 2:6

“Before the mountains were made, before You had given birth to the earth and the world, before time was, and forever, You are God. “
~ Psalm 90:2

“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”
~ John 8:58

[Alexis Jacobi]

Any citation of the dialogue of Jesus from the Gospels is fraught with difficulty upon difficulty. Essentially, one cannot trust it. The application of modern critical tools to reading the Gospels leads to so many contradictions and additional questions---which the average faithful cannot undertake---that one almost has to retreat into silence so as not to offend. It is next to impossible to locate and 'explain' an historical Jesus, the actual personage, and every effort to do so fails. What one is left with are various 'Christs' and the christology that attends them. I suggest that your view is nearly entirely couched within a particular christology. In your case, you seem to combine your concept of Christ with eastern doctrines, or in any case with extremely personal ideas and interpretations. To me, the christology you define and express has certain strengths but also certain weaknesses. I sense nothing social about it. Your processes seem completely internalized and you seem solitary in it. You also seem to take it very seriously and you take it to the very core of yourself, and that can certainly be seen as a virtue. The way I understand Christianity (and there are really so many of them, or the complex of Christianity is an enormous cluster with so many different parts) is to locate it within a 'zone of concern' and that zone of concern is, as with Judaism, strictly the human person in a human context, within life that is seen, appreciated and declared as a gift. The focus of Judaism, and by extension Christianity, is strictly the social world. Generally, it is only when Judaism strays that it becomes something other than a religious processes in relation to a physically incarnated and socially related world.

Matthew 6:22. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

I am aware, as you seem to be aware, that yogis and other Eastern mystics have taken this to refer to the third eye, so that if one is focused internally in meditation on the 'single eye', one's whole person and being is nourished and filled with light and intelligence. Certainly makes some sense, and anyone who has meditated knows of the refreshing energy that comes to one through it. But I think there are other midrashim that we might apply. I could take it and employ it in my arguments against GF, against David (me Goliath, coming back to get even with that little momser David and his sling). If one's basic perceptive tool is sound, if one's apperceptive orientation is sound, if one sees life correctly, how one sees and how one defines these things filters back into the 'body'. But if one is 'unhealthy' and if one's eye does not work, one is going to be terribly limited and will essentially 'see' shadows. Doesn't it seem that it really depends on who is wielding (thanks Tomas) the parable?

Phillipians 2. Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

I would fully agree that Christianity is defined by the Pauline view, and to try to extricate it from 'that' is almost impossible. But the message in that particular passage seems only to refer to the fact that 'God' became a man and as a man was subject to human conditions. This is a pretty important doctrine in Christianity: Kenosis. God's 'emptying' of Himself. I don't see, though, how one could take Pauline Christianity and separate it from a strict social doctrine. The service of Jesus Christ was to human flesh, to the social body. Phillipians only seems to stress that.

Psalm 90. Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.
Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3 You turn people back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered.

13 Relent, LORD! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
16 May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.

I find that Jewish doctrine and Christian doctrine do not always combine so well, though one of the meanings of Christianity is this forced wedding between them. Doing that, Christianity creates for itself many many contradictions that are hard to resolve, but Christianity as a 'deliberate misreading' of Judaism has also brought many new things to the table. But, still, I would take the part you fererred to as being a rather simple declaration of God as eternal being. The way I read the Psalm is as a statement about the terrible facts of human life, which are real and lamentable, but an expression of faith/hope that one (people, us, all of us) might face our lot with strength and determination and make the most of it. But the essential attitude is one of acceptance (or resignation) of having to live, and die, in time. Christians, in their way, have devised a psychological strategy around that, by belief in a greater life after death. This is both a strength and a weakness as I see it. Corinthians 15:55: 'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'

John. It's a twist on the meaning in Psalm 90, isn't it? But instead of the Eternal Father the Johannine Jesus has assumed that position. His 'voice' is now the sole and eternal voice, his message the sole and eternal message. It is a transposition of symbols. John is where one finds the most concrete christology and where one moves the farthest away from an historical and 'real' person. (One reason why David seems attracted to John and also Thomas). What John was originally was (some say) a 'sayings gospel' called the Book of Signs. Its purpose was to show certain scenes and present them to the reader so that he would recognize the 'signs' that were part and parcel of Jesus's appearance and mission. One could call it too a Book of Omens. It is a later document and can't be considered in the same genre as the other three gospels, which purport to be 'histories'. The purpose of John is to define a christology, a very special doctrine, and Jesus as person is irrelevant. Jesus becomes a giant 'sign' and the basis of Christian liturgy (where all the 'signs' are present on the altar, and the ritual an expression of the christological symbol). And it also must be said that one of the great and terrible 'signs' in John is a terrible condemnation of Jews, and possibly the most terrible one: 'You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies'. Can you imagine a Jesus actually saying such a thing? And if it could be seen that he said it, and if his followers believed it, just imagine what they would do with such a view? Really, no holds barred. It is, of course, one of those impossible to surmount or reconcile contradictions that plagues Christianity. Seen in a more positive light, it is also the point where a radical break is made (supposedly) with Judaism. Now, Christ can be anything. There is far less of a historical precedent so one can spin off in just about any direction one wants. Myself, for the obvious reasons, I piss in the face of John and cut off his ears before burying a knife deep in his guts and, like the Americans, shoving him overboard to sleep with the fishies, but I also have to say that I find the Gospel of John fascinating. Because I can read a little in Greek, even more so.

[Pam Seeback]

Any citation of the dialogue of Jesus from the Gospels is fraught with difficulty upon difficulty. Essentially, one cannot trust it. The application of modern critical tools to reading the Gospels leads to so many contradictions and additional questions---which the average faithful cannot undertake---that one almost has to retreat into silence so as not to offend. It is next to impossible to locate and 'explain' an historical Jesus, the actual personage, and every effort to do so fails. What one is left with are various 'Christs' and the christology that attends them. I suggest that your view is nearly entirely couched within a particular christology. In your case, you seem to combine your concept of Christ with eastern doctrines, or in any case with extremely personal ideas and interpretations. To me, the christology you define and express has certain strengths but also certain weaknesses. I sense nothing social about it. Your processes seem completely internalized and you seem solitary in it. You also seem to take it very seriously and you take it to the very core of yourself, and that can certainly be seen as a virtue. The way I understand Christianity (and there are really so many of them, or the complex of Christianity is an enormous cluster with so many different parts) is to locate it within a 'zone of concern' and that zone of concern is, as with Judaism, strictly the human person in a human context, within life that is seen, appreciated and declared as a gift. The focus of Judaism, and by extension Christianity, is strictly the social world. Generally, it is only when Judaism strays that it becomes something other than a religious processes in relation to a physically incarnated and socially related world.

Holding this view, you will not see that you already are the Life you currently, and ignorantly, are "declaring as a gift." From my experience of relating to where you stand right now, this worshiping or loving or longing for 'the arms of God' is a necessary part of the 'journey', but that all of these things are the very things keeping you from being folded into 'Its' arm.

Also, in relating to your thoughts above, accept or reject my words, that after the worshiping and loving and longing for God, comes the reasoning with God. The loving/longing is the pleasant part, which is why the mind stays 'there.' I have not read your doctrine, but I am going to step out on a limb and say that the writing of your doctrine is the beginning stages of your reasoning with God, which of course, is really You beyond all your loving for, and reasoning with, You.

Quote:
Matthew 6:22. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
I am aware, as you seem to be aware, that yogis and other Eastern mystics have taken this to refer to the third eye, so that if one is focused internally in meditation on the 'single eye', one's whole person and being is nourished and filled with light and intelligence. Certainly makes some sense, and anyone who has meditated knows of the refreshing energy that comes to one through it. But I think there are other midrashim that we might apply. I could take it and employ it in my arguments against GF, against David (me Goliath, coming back to get even with that little momser David and his sling). If one's basic perceptive tool is sound, if one's apperceptive orientation is sound, if one sees life correctly, how one sees and how one defines these things filters back into the 'body'. But if one is 'unhealthy' and if one's eye does not work, one is going to be terribly limited and will essentially 'see' shadows. Doesn't it seem that it really depends on who is weilding (thanks Tomas) the parable?

All of the things a person reads about the way, including things such as the "third eye" are really the mind trying to make sense of the silence and stillness that greets it when it goes within to find its source, or cause. The truth is that the "third eye" cannot enter the silence and stillness, so all that it says about the silence and the stillness, is a lie. There is no third eye in You, Alex. Do you understand why I have capitalized "You?"

Any third eye or filters you perceive is the metaphorical serpent in the garden. Which must be stomped upon and killed.

Quote:
Phillipians 2. The service of Jesus Christ was to human flesh, to the social body. Phillipians only seems to stress that.

Jesus was aware of the social body, this is true, but I find no scripture anyway where it states he came to serve the social body. Check out his words and see if you in them, any trace of attachment to humanism, the collective social structure of man.

As for the idea that God became man, I put to you that this is only partly true. What I read into your words, and correct me if I have missed the mark, is that you envision God fully becoming man, making himself wholly and eternally a finite being or thing. Reason this out, and you will discover that this is not possible. Should God fully and eternally become man, God would be eternally divided of himself, ever seeking himself as man now seeks God. This would mean that He would never find rest - he would long for Himself as you now long for Him without any way to be quenched of his longing. Is this not condemning God to hell, with no way to exit?

What I suggest to you is a different way of viewing God in flesh. That God does not become man, that instead, man is an expression or thought of God. Which includes every part of man: the seeking, the loving, the reasoning, and then, the letting go of all of these things. To become what? A perfect instrument of God's will. I am hungry. I eat. I am thirsty. I drink. I borrow money from my brother. I pay my brother back his money.

The self of longing wants more than this simplicity of Thy Will be Done, it wants reasons and causes for doing what needs to be done. This is why the mind or self interprets life as a gift and/or a curse.

Code: Select all

Quote:
Psalm 90. Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.
Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3 You turn people back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered.

13 Relent, LORD! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
16 May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.

I find that Jewish doctrine and Christian doctrine do not always combine so well, though one of the meanings of Christianity is this forced wedding between them. Doing that, Christianity creates for itself many many contradictions that are hard to resolve, but Christianity as a 'deliberate misreading' of Judaism has also brought many new things to the table. But, still, I would take the part you fererred to as being a rather simple declaration of God as eternal being. The way I read the Psalm is as a statement about the terrible facts of human life, which are real and lamentable, but an expression of faith/hope that one (people, us, all of us) might face our lot with strength and determination and make the most of it. But the essential attitude is one of acceptance (or resignation) of having to live, and die, in time. Christians, in their way, have devised a psychological strategy around that, by belief in a greater life after death. This is both a strength and a weakness as I see it. Corinthians 15:55: 'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'

You did not interpret the scripture I gave you, instead, you provided your own and interpreted that. I suggest this happened because you do not yet realize that Life is who you are. The whole she-bang of you: the infinite You, and the you that interprets you as being finite.. This was the message of the original scripture I gave you.

I do not interpret the bible either from a Jewish or a Christian perspective. Rather, as an unfolding 'story' of my questioning the things of God, of life, the very questioning that, ironically and paradoxically, is the consuming fire of my questioning. Purposed to empty me, not God, of my arrogance and pride of believing that I can know the things of the movement of life, when it moves not for my pleasure [self righteousness], but for Its own pleasure [righteousness].

John. It's a twist on the meaning in Psalm 90, isn't it? But instead of the Eternal Father the Johannine Jesus has assumed that position. His 'voice' is now the sole and eternal voice, his message the sole and eternal message. It is a transposition of symbols. John is where one finds the most concrete christology and where one moves the farthest away from an historical and 'real' person. (One reason why David seems attracted to John and also Thomas). What John was originally was (some say) a 'sayings gospel' called the Book of Signs. Its purpose was to show certain scenes and present them to the reader so that he would recognize the 'signs' that were part and parcel of Jesus's appearance and mission. One could call it too a Book of Omens. It is a later document and can't be considered in the same genre as the other three gospels, which purport to be 'histories'. The purpose of John is to define a christology, a very special doctrine, and Jesus as person is irrelevant. Jesus becomes a giant 'sign' and the basis of Christian liturgy (where all the 'signs' are present on the altar, and the ritual an expression of the christological symbol). And it also must be said that one of the great and terrible 'signs' in John is a terrible condemnation of Jews, and possibly the most terrible one: 'You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies'. Can you imagine a Jesus actually saying such a thing? And if it could be seen that he said it, and if his followers believed it, just imagine what they would do with such a view? Really, no holds barred. It is, of course, one of those impossible to surmount or reconcile contradictions that plagues Christianity. Seen in a more positive light, it is also the point where a radical break is made (supposedly) with Judaism. Now, Christ can be anything. There is far less of a historical precedent so one can spin off in just about any direction one wants. Myself, for the obvious reasons, I piss in the face of John and cut off his ears before burying a knife deep in his guts and, like the Americans, shoving him overboard to sleep with the fishies, but I also have to say that I find the Gospel of John fascinating. Because I can read a little in Greek, even more so.

"Before Abraham was, I am" is the wake up call of Jesus to all who could hear, that before you called yourself Alex, or I called myself Pam, you ARE, I AM. It is this formless "am" that gets the mind of attachment to form all in a tizzy, thinking it will go insane if "stays there", causing it to return, again and again, to its attachment to "Abraham's" world of questioning God.

An example of I AM: I am aware of hunger. I eat. The I is silent, simply a way of understanding the singular point of awareness of hunger and of eating. The I of Alex or Pam is not aware of hunger, Alex or Pam do not eat. These were names and personalities formed after the law or principle of hunger and of eating existed, therefore, as reference points, they are a hindrance to the free flowing movement of I Am.

Alex, I believe you are confusing the map with the territory. Words are but handy-dandy things so that we can communicate in the world of flesh [awareness of hunger], they are the map. They are not the territory, which is the hunger and the eating.

[Dennis Mahar]

Alex, I believe you are confusing the map with the territory

The old tried and true:

Monkey gets banana (reason)
If monkey don't grow.
Monkey gets stick.
Monkey inside boundary (duality)
carrot, stick, carrot, stick, carrot, stick, carrot, stick.
Monkey wise up.
Boundary go.
Seamless intimacy of experience.
Non-duality.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I personally do not understand a thinking about the Bible (or any other scripture) from a position outside of it. And I would relate this sense to something you said about language and words: the words we use, either a specific language or a philosphical system (i.e. occidental) that is expressed through a given language, is both a trap and a freedom. Also, there can be no reasoning of any sort if there is not some sort of linguistic system that provides the structure and foundation for the expression of meaning. I cite as an example feral human children (Pye, who no longer posts here, first mentioned this and I looked into it a bit). A feral child, if it does not get trained up in language use (introduced into the whole mental system of using language, where perception and language are intimately tied together, inseperable), grows up to be a being that cannot enter into meaning. Our language-system is central to everything we are and do.

Alex, I believe you are confusing the map with the territory. Words are but handy-dandy things so that we can communicate in the world of flesh [awareness of hunger], they are the map. They are not the territory, which is the hunger and the eating.

I believe that you would have to reexamine this statement. Words are in fact essential 'things' that cannot be separated from our consciousness. Yet it is true that we have experiences that 'transcend words', and much of mystical experience is such transcendent experience (or so it would appear). But, myself, I am not here to write about (my own) transcendent experience, but more what transcendent experience directs me or inspires me to do: in this time-frame, in a body, here on this earth with all you fine fellows.

Nevertheless, I stick most adamantly to my guns. The Jewish tradition, this experience-revelation, this historical- revelation, the praxis-application of this specific system, defines the field of divine activity to be that of the human world. It echews mysticism, and if it entertains it it must do so with a demonstratable link to human society and human welfare. Christianity arises from that matrix and relies on the same revelation from which it defines and derives meaning. In my view, any Christ or christology that deviates from this is to be recognized as 'false'. The Christian vision of approaching hell on earth is one in which the human disappears and is overpowered by a demonic-mechanical force that is the antithesis of human, humanistic, the human heart in a divine sense (connected with Living Water and not a separate 'cistern').

The Christian presentation of facts: that with Christ on the cross God himself broke a covenant with the Jews and established a New Covenant---and this is the core and basic idea or fact that makes Christianity Christianity---is a distorted idea. (I won't go into this right now). Now, the simplest thing to do is to toss out the whole problem, and to extricate oneself from history. I suggest that in some way this is your strategy and the reason why you can say you approach the Bible from neither a Christian or a Jewish perspective. You are absolutely free to do this! You can do anything you want. Yet, to 'understand' Judiasm and Christianity in a 'realer' sense, I believe you have to stay within the system, which is to say context.

I once lived with a fairly remote Indian community in the Mazateca Mountains of Central Mexico. Do you know what 'the Jews' meant to them? how they interpreted what a Jew was and is? I'll tell you. In their existential mythology, there are mischevious little beings, perhaps something like gnomes or trolls, who live in remote areas of the forest. They can cause problems if you enter into their territory. Once, I took a walk with the Austrian guy who had accompanied me to this villiage (but who later left), and we explored a mountainside that was impenetrable and dense a mile or so from the village. We got lost and wound up some miles away on the other side of the village and didn't get back until nightfall, causing a stir. When we told our story it was explained to us that it was 'the Jews' who did it. In order to understand a thinking-system, you have to enter into it and operate from within it.

but I am going to step out on a limb and say that the writing of your doctrine is the beginning stages of your reasoning with God, which of course, is really You beyond all your loving for, and reasoning with, You.

I think you have the right to organize it in any way you wish. Diebert likes to speak in terms of 'beginners' and more 'advanced'. I can only assume that David considers himself more advanced when he dwells painfully on my 'contextual shortcomings'. Your phrasing, to me, I cannot fathom, but I make no claims to be either more advanced or less advanced. In this forum-context, ideas are expressed and, I assume, people think about what it all means. That is all I am striving for: a wider conversation.

Holding this view, you will not see that you already are the Life you currently, and ignorantly, are "declaring as a gift."

I disagree with that, if only because, in my case, my 'praxis' and chosen activity is directly tied to and expresses my own 'mystical vision'. But if it helps you to see it hierarchically situated in relation to your own understanding or view, you are more than welcome.

The truth is that the "third eye" cannot enter the silence and stillness, so all that it says about the silence and the stillness, is a lie.

This stillness is your domain, not mine, and I don't profess to 'know' anything about it, nor is it part of my discourse. I do have a feeling though that if 'stillness' is your domain, the only activity you have available to you is...silence. By why would you appear on a writing forum, an idea forum, to be silent? Silence is what one does when one is by themselves.

Any third eye or filters you perceive is the metaphorical serpent in the garden. Which must be stomped upon and killed.

Naw, I don't kill snakes. No stomping either. The serpent, in the Bible, is only ever a symbol for certain traits in men: the unnecessary, unexpected, venemous strike. ;-) (I am aware of its other symbolism).

Jesus was aware of the social body, this is true, but I find no scripture anyway where it states he came to serve the social body.

Look again with this perspective in mind. I suggest there is no other 'body' to serve. What 'body' could there be, other? The meaning of the Resurrection---if one can entertain such a thing---is that it occurred in a body, in the body. The field of all revelation and all activity of revelation is---absolutely---the body. See here: σάρξ (sarz). This notion of the flesh is absolutely fundamental to both Judaism and Christianity. It is true that Christianity defines 'spiritual existence' but in our lives it is spiritual existence within the σάρξ and in a σάρξ in the σῶμα (soma, body, form, see σῶμα).

[Dennis Mahar]

What's the point of throwing interpretive bible quotes at each other?
entertainment?

Like tennis players hitting a ball across a net.
back and forth, back and forth.

What's the score?

Nil all by the look of it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

What's the score?

The score is: Alexis 4582, MovingAlways, 6. However: Before Abraham and Alexis, Movingalways was (and won). So, in fact, I'm doomed. And since you dog all my steps, I am further doomed! Such is life in the Hell Realms.

[Blair]

[Alexis Jacobi]

Blair, you have come up in esteem a full 40%. That was actually FUNNY, damned funny! Can you teach any of that to he-who-will-not-be-named?

[Talking Ass]

I cannot go on like this. Like that I mean. To fully and truthfully participate on the Genius Forum I MUST assume the body (soma, σῶμα) of the one I really and truly am. Ramana Maharshi recommended repeating the question Who am I? and following it back until until the truth became evident. And one was only ever one's True Self, unalloyed, pure, gorgus. Some will think this is just Alex being ironical and difficult and ridiculing (and stupid). No. Here, in these conversations, this is the face I shall have, the only one really suited to me. And look: will you disagree and say it is 'inappropriate' or 'wrong'? It was true then, and it is true now. But, in fairness, my signature line indicates who I was, this shadow-person I have shed as I (I too!) proceed toward my Enlightenment. An Enlightened Ass---a sight to behold! (I can become enlightened, I can become enlightened, I can become enlightened! shall be my mantra). Ecce Asinus! Ιδού ο γάιδαρος! But artistically! and non-psychotically!

[cousinbasil]

I don't know why, but Blair reminds me of the little kid in Family Guy...

Hey Blair! Is that really your picture? (The bottom one?) Who could possibly have known you were actually handsome???

[Sphere70]

The mind is distracted from its natural state when it is unwittingly held captive to some particular conceptual framework and thus the cure involves knowing how to dissolve all conceptual frameworks, which can only be done by applying reason fearlessly.

It is a process of clearing everything away until there is nothing left but the Void. Once everything is cleared away, there is nowhere further to go. One is no longer dwelling in abstraction. Reality is nowhere to be found.

Ok, I agree that captivation by an abstraction (to simplify; thought as constant master instead of useful, temporary, servant) is the problem and surely, at most times, another concept is what reminds us where to look again. But this line of reasoning is very simple, but indeed strong - that the sense of being which thoughts and emotions relate to (the being which in its joy for the game identifies itself with it all and forgets itself as a way to make it more interesting) is the key. And surely - this being is there for all at all times - it is the spark that calls itself alive. But I say, and I think we might differ here: to return and delve into this most subjective point is not (only) a matter done with the intellect and its sharpest tool defined as 'thoughts of reason and logic'. I say that it is much more of a feeling (best maybe related to a sense of gravity - a leaning back into it); a feeling that is neither emotional nor infused with thoughts. But it is my faith that everybody, with the right reminder (concept), knows this "feeling" within themselves and understands its nature to one degree or another.
And again, this returning to ones most subjective being seems very healthy and natural, and what happens in the process seems to be a more autonomous reducing of the unnecessary - and consequently a light, non-attached, relationship to thoughts and emotions - to creation, relationships and reason.

This is why people the world over continually use all sorts of means, both consciously and unconsciously, to undermine reason. They do everything they can to suppress it, deride it, academically confine it, etc, etc. Everyone is subconsciously aware of the danger and takes steps accordingly. The anti-rational meme runs rampant in our society, particularly within the religious industry, and has been for centuries. And it has taken hold in you, it would seem.

I have no intent to undermine anything. I just want to get the concepts straight for my own benefit. And sometimes I feel that the concept 'Reason' around here is very vague and loose, but indeed heightened as a way, so some sharp examples or other pointers about your intent of the tool could be good when you bring it up in posts. But I have understood that it is your path of returning to what always is, so that is good.

[Sphere70]

great words from the unknown sage/mystic/philosopher Robert Adams (1928 - 1997):

Boundless Space

It is when you begin to feel in your heart that you are boundless space, that something begins to happen. As you feel yourself as boundless space, all your stuff begins to drop away. Yet you do not affirm to yourself that you are bound-less space. You merely observe, you watch, you become the witness. You look out at the world and you see that the trees, the mountains, the planets, are all hanging in space. And you begin to consider that your body, what appears to be your body, is like the trees, and the moon, and the sun. It seems to be a thing of itself, and it is also hanging in boundless space.

Because you are able to observe this and see this and feel this, the realization will come to you that you must be this boundless space, which your body and your mind and the rest of the things of this world are attached to. As you begin to consider this, the mind becomes quieter and quieter and quieter, until the day comes when it falls away completely. Then you become bound-less space. And yet you appear to be a body also. This is a paradox. This is why it's better to sit in the silence and not talk at all.

It's All A Dream

You are real. What you appear to be is false. Identify with the real, not with the false. Do not accept anything you see as reality. The only freedom you've got is to turn within. One day you will awaken from this dream, for this is also a dream, and you will be free.

There is no such thing as birth, and there is no such thing as death. Nobody is born, no one dies, and no one prevails in between. Nothing that appears exists. Only the Self exists. All this is the Self, and "I am That".

You are absolute reality, ultimate oneness. You are consciousness, emptiness, sat chit ananda. That is your true nature. Why not abide in it and be free?

Empty your mind. Become still, and every-thing will happen of its own accord. There is really nothing you have to do. Just be still. "Be still and know that I am God." I am as the Self! Accept that and be free.

Why do you think of other things? Why concern yourself with the body? Or your mind? Or the world? Quit trying to solve problems. This doesn't mean that you are going to do nothing. Your body is going to perform the acts it came here to do. If you are meant to be an accountant, you are going to be an accountant. If you are meant to be a preacher, you'll be a preacher. If you are meant to be a homeless person, you will be a homeless person. You have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Allow your mind to say and think the way it will, only don't identify with it. Allow your body to do what it must, but do not react to it. Everything will happen of its own accord. When you allow your mind to think of its own accord, the thoughts begin to dissipate, and soon you have empty mind. Empty mind is consciousness, realisation.

As soon as you begin to identify with reality, with consciousness, all fear leaves you, all doubt leaves you, all false thinking leaves you, and you become free.