Talking Ass wrote:A couple of things. One, when visiting a donkey, don't talk about ears. Ha ha, I thought that was clever. Two, if anyone has "ears to hear" it would certainly be me. Ha ha again. I thought that was sort of funny too.
Yes, many have ears to hear, but the key here again is to have a mind/heart that can deeply feel. A finely-formed mind/brain and sensory system. Intuitive mechanism, if you will. Which is either developed or destroyed in us in the early and critical formative years of life, and I'll address further further along.
Paul was a fine man. He experienced a revolutionary awakening/enlightenment experience on the road to Damascus, which rendered him blind and without thirst or appetite for three days. Which unfortunately he, like Christ, never thoroughly investigated, understood, and prioritized, as was the case with nearly all the heretofore 'masters'. Though the species still had a lot to learn and a lot more suffering to undergo yet back then. He also got far too hung up on the resurrection business and never quite had Christ rightly pegged. He was however surely courageous (and foolish) enough to preach to the multitudes. Though sooner or later he got thrown out of every church or town he spoke in. Yet he never quite got the message. That being that a 'saint' or a genuine self-overcomer is never welcomed in another man's church, town, or organization. Rather he should focus on building his own Ark, so to speak. One wherein the power of Truth alone runs the show and it also keeps its mind/focus pretty much on its own business. Though back then there wasn't enough truth and wisdom yet available for such a successful enterprise or undertaking. So sooner or later, and usually sooner, 'the gates of hell' sucessfully prevailed against all such attempts. Nor was there yet the necessary means of cleansing the planet of the huge multitude of the neurologically malformed.
It's not really a matter of 'movement in consciousness', as you say, but rather a shift in consciousness or mind/brain function. A shift back to an innate finely-formed (or potentially naturally functioning) mind/brain. One that was not malformed and thereby irreparably caught up in a self-protective or self-centered thought mode. But rather one that's capable of keen self-watchfulness/scrutinization or self-critical awareness. One that too has the capacity for rigorous honesty. One that is aware of its lies, deceitfulness, deviousness, self-centeredness, self-delusion, and shortcomings. M. Scott Peck was on to something in this regard in his book 'People of the Lie'. Though he never fully figured it out. Ludwig Feuerbach along this line rightly sensed there were fundamentally two kinds of beings. Which he called the 'men' and the 'brutes'. The men having a finely-formed and sensitive mind/brain/conscience, while the brutes are lacking this attribute. The latter, which comprises the many, thereby being eternal egoic self-seekers and mischief makers. The former, the relatively 'few', being caught up in the universal fraud with the many mischief-makers who are in command of things everywhere, from the bottom to the top. Hence the need for those few sensitive ones here and there to come to clearly see the grand universal human fraud, and their own participation in it, and hopefully come to a breakpoint (Luke 14:26 - or Nietzsche's hour of great 'self'-contempt) whereby a radical shift or transformation along with a stepping out of it (the dog-eat-dog scene) may take place in them. Which could also be called a complete and total or radical change of mind and heart and conscience. Which is then the beginning of the mind/body purification process, which must take place in action and relationship, and not solitude. Though I find considerable solitude is vital in the early stages of this process. Since in certain respects one must and will become like a little child again for a time. All of which could rightly be called the true rebirth process.
Funny thing, just today (5/13/09) while walking downtown, I happened upon a Watchtower publication (April 1, 2009) laying on a bench. As though it was there just for me. I picked it up and it's title and main focus was 'Born Again: What does it mean?' I brought it home and examined it pretty thoroughly and found nothing really new in it, as I previously researched the subject. Though reading it caused me to again ponder on the matter. Christ really never said all that much on the subject, nor did he seem to truly understand it either. Though his line that unless a man is born again he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven is definitely right on. The Kingdom of Heaven being right here - right now. And just as Nietzsche rightly said, it's a state of the heart - not something to come beyond the world or after death. And personally I know very well the experience of being in that Kingdom of Heaven. That new and wonderful manner of seeing, hearing, feeling, and experiencing things when the mind is still and the heart is pure ('like a little child'). Wherein the old world of fear, doubt, insecurity, anger, resentments, etc. falls away and a new world of Love, harmony, peace of mind, perfection, and right or conflict-free action comes into being. And this is the goal and the reward of a genuine rebirth. Actually I once pondered, since so little is actually revealed on the matter, and still do sometimes, whether John the Baptist seen a potentially pure soul in Christ and his baptism of him was a matter of him immersing him in the river Jordan to the point of nearly drowning him and then bringing him up again out of the water at the last minute. Making Christ's 'rebirth' more of a near death experience. Which would fit in with the generally held view that one must die fully to the known, the safe, the secure, in order to experience new being. I think here of Christ's line that whoever will save his life will lose it, but whoever shall lose his life for his sake (or the sake of the Kingdom) shall save it. Getting back to Nietzsche relative to Christianity and Christ, he once said that "the most serious Christians have always been well disposed towards me." But just as virtually no one understands Christ, or has the faith OF him, the same thing remains quite true of Nietzsche. Though certainly they both fully knew it. And as a result were both happy and eager to get to the other side or the recycle bin, if you will. Or at least away from the multitudes. Being highly sensitive and fully awake and aware amongst the wall-to-wall 'quick and the dead' isn't all that pleasant a thing, even with the Kingdom being close at hand.
The 'spiritual experience', as you say, ideally, upon genuine transformation, stops being an 'experience' and becomes a totally brand new way of living or being. Being fully directed and driven by the Holy Spirit, as you make mention of. One's greatest joy then is seeing others come to know joy. The geniune spiritual life is not a theory, an intellectual adventure, or a static accumulation of truth, knowledge, or wisdom; but rather a life that's filled with ACTION, action that's void of all inner conflict. Jung's idea, or obsession, of a 'collective unconscious' never really helped bring any appreciable light into the world, did it? Seems he too died feeling pretty much that his life's work was all in vain, as so many others have. Though I'm struck a bit by the title and some of the ideas of a book on him entitled 'The Aryan Christ' by Richard Noll.
That Christian 'energy' you mention (I have a book entitled "The Lost Radiance of the Christian Religion - 1924) is indeed simply the energy of the universal Holy Spirit that's made manifest if and when it finds a 'vacant' (self-void) vessel to operate through. And for certain it's not unique to Christianity. J. Krishnamurti, who's been my best mentor over the years, often spoke of that immense energy and intelligence that worked through his body for so many years. I personally understand what he's relating to here, as I experience it myself. Making it a real thing and not just some 'abstract force'.
The original purpose or mission of Christ was to show men how to live so that they could have life more abundantly. Then came Christianity along with all its organizational monkey-business. All attempts to organize the Truth sooner or later lead to corruption, control, and exploitation. Truth being a living thing, it can only be effectively disseminated by a living being who is a full living embodiment of it. The same thing being true regarding the awakening or enlightenment of others. And the awakening of others will be best done by the sharing of the personal experiences of one who has himself undergone a radical transformation or rebirth experience and has then gone on to grow in the likeness of his Creator (which is simply to attain to fullness of human being). Here again being where virtually all the 'masters' have failed.
To mention a few men that I've long and carefully studied: J. Krishnamurti, U. G. Krishnamurti, Osho, Eckhart Tolle, Franklin Jones, Bill Wilson, Nietzsche, and Gopi Krishna have all gone through radical transformative experiences that rendered them for a time quite dysfunctional (while often suffering various physical and emotional problems and difficulties much like Paul did) so far as normal daily living was concerned. My wife and I have also undergone similar experiences. And I think here of U. G. K.'s observation that when the shift from being primarily thought controlled and driven to becoming intuitively motivated and lead takes place in a person, the whole organism or 'metabolism' goes 'agog' for a time ("There was no will - I was practically insane"). Which lasted from a period of months to even years for all of them before they considered themselves sane, sound, and whole again. Yet there's no guarantee that such a shift in consciousness will render its beholder infallable or omniscient. Since an unending purification of the brain and senses must also take place. Without which one may retain the knowledge of the transformative experience, but will fall away from truly and continually living the experience. Or one might well say he'll be booted out of the Kingdom. Yet, none of the above, save for Gopi Krishna, placed any significance whatsoever on these experiences of radical change in their 'teachings'. And he got caught up largely in trying to scientificize or methodize the experience (in the kundalini tradition) with the wrong sort of people, causing him to be considerably ineffective in the awakening of others as were all of the rest of them. Of course many of them after their initial awakenings soon began to rest on their laurels and became self-satisfied and busy in the promoting of their discoveries and writing books etc., and as result thereby stopped looking inward in order to more and more perfectly understand themselves and continue to root out ALL remnants of the ego or the falsely-conditioned and thereby inauthentic self. Which is vital if right action and direction are to ever manifest. These men too, I find interestingly, all had exceptional childhoods in which they seemed to have had an exceptionally loving and caring parent or two, grandparent or two, or perhaps other family members similarly concerned about their well-being. Which I find is very vital for the development of the necessary finely-formed conscience and sensory system. And leads to the following findings and views of others that I'm fully in accord with. Though I don't believe the writers fully realize the depth, irreparability, and gravity of the situation.
"A human nurtured instead of shamed, and loved instead of driven by fear, develops a different kind of brain and therefore a different mind. He will not act against the well-being of another nor against his larger body, the living earth. (Joseph Chilton Pearce)
"An unloved child has a different kind of brain than a loved child. The damage is not simply psychological. It is neurological and therefore physical. Ultimately it is the lack of love that does us in before our time, (Arthur) Janov writes. He believes that early trauma causes a reduction of functioning brain synapses (connections)."
"The sensory deprivation of pleasure results in the failure of certain neural pathways to develop and develop properly. Sensory stimulation acts like a nutrient for brain growth and development. The richer the networks, the greater the interconnectivity and neural integhration of the brain.....A rich array of sensory stimul, of all the senses, maximizes development of the brain. If we do not get the sensory stimulation we equate with love, bonding, and intimacy during the formative period of brain development, we're going to be impared, if not crippled, in our ability to experience and express the 'language of love' later in life." (James Prescott).
"From the moment of birth, when the stone-age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father have been, and their parents and their parents before them. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities. This enterprise is on the whole successful." (R. D. Laing)
"The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with this rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt--and there is the story of mankind." (John Steinbeck)
"Most of us are no longer really human, we have been deprived of our humanity. We have been dehumanized by the processes of our conditioning, upbringing and socialization. We are no longer the organized authentic self which we were once capable of being...What we are born for is to live as if to live and love were one. Unless we learn that lesson 'the goose is cooked' as it were." (Ashley Montagu)
"The violence and wickedness of our time, when viewed collectively, are the work of loveless men and women: impotent men and women who lust after sadistic power to conceal their failure to be warm, decent, honest, loving, and compassionate human beings: repressed and frustrated men and women, lamed by unloving parents and seeking revenge by taking refuge in a system of thought or mode of life into which love and goodness cannot intrude: at best, people whose erotic impulses have been cut off from the rhythms of life, self-enclosed atoms of erotic exploit, incapable of assuming the manifold responsibilities of lovers and parents through all stages of life." (A. U.)
" It is not only in our nightmares that we have seen these empty faces and ridgid forms before: we have seen them on the street, in broad daylight, as faces in the crowd, strangers on the bus, anonymous figures in the background of the cityscape. They exist in fact, they are really out there; but in their lifelessness, their absence of affect and their vacancy of expression they assume the air of unreality, like manikins or marionettes. The illusion of their being the 'living dead' is not pure fantasy; they correspond in actuality to our deepest human intuition of their nature and their portent. Thus Stanford Lyman, referring to the proliferation in our midst of 'asocial formations of strangers, marginal men, disaffiliated persons, lonely crowds, and uprooted masses' who share an attenuation of the normal human capacity for FEELING, observes:
These people are not dead in the conventional sense, nor indeed are they very likely to kill themselves in acts of release from a dreadful ennui. However, they might form corps of living corpses, legions of zombies, who, because of their defection from living, prey upon those who have not yet fallen into the cavern of contemporary despair." (From 'The Dehumanization of Man' by Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson)
Speaking of J. C. Pearce, his latest book I find has an interesting title which fits our discussion, 'The Death of Religion and the Rebirth of Spirit'.
Lastly, as it's long and often been said universally, God is Love, I find that it is Love (which to be love must contain truth or honesty) that must be born-again in us. That is in those among us in whom its seed has been firmly planted into in the early years by our parents or guardians. They being our first 'gods'. So while religions have long been dead, mankind continues to await the grand rebirth of the Spirit, Love, and Truth. We could also conclude here that rather than being called by the grace of God (or from 'above') to conversion, we are instead called to conversion by the indwelling seed or grace of Love. Human Love which is as rare as it may be 'divine'.
And finally, Bill Wilson (co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous) never doubted that his 'hot flash', as he referred to it, spiritual awakening experience gave him a glimpse of the Divine; but the further he was away from it, the more he learned towards a psychological explanation of the phenomenon. Which is essentially what I have done. Though he, like so many others have, got far too busy with his organization or fellowship, stopped observing and questioning, and as a result never really came to grasp the full picture in this regard. Though he felt, like myself, that any nation obsessed with the pursuit of power, greed, and prestige, and which dominated virtually everyone's behavior, was doomed to collapse, and that a total nuclear conflagration was a very real possibility.
"Love and do as you will, and there will be right action." (J. Krishnamurti)
"The greatest gift that can come to anybody is a spiritual awakening." (Bill W.)
"A genius is one whose nervous power or 'sensitiveness' is largely in excess." (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Bob M.
