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In the Beginning Was the Word....

Posted December 3rd, 2010 by Justin Manchester in Evolution

And the Word (logos) was with God and the Word was God....

The late Terrence McKenna, who was an advocate for the "responsible" use of psychedelics, remarked that "the world is made of language"; this was not merely a poetic analogy, but at least for him, an acutal "observation".

When one considers the manifold diversity of language, the implications of communication, understanding, and of course, misunderstanding become astounding!

The biblical narrative of the "tower of babel", with the revealed motivation of "God" being: "They are one people and have one language, and nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do"; so "God" said: "Come let us (interesting plural translation) go down and confound their speech" - and thus, the tower project was apparently, ultimately abandoned, due to the inability of those constructing it to communicate with one another, (sound familiar) and we are left to wonder, at least from the perspective of the biblical story teller; why "God" was so concerned with the possibility of human beings becoming united in purposeful pursuit of a "higher view" that would make them equal to their heavenly host(s)....

I say apparently, because in reality, this "tower project" seems to have remained both a conscious and unconscious primary motivation within the human psyche to this day....And in fact, seems to be embedded in the process we have called "evolution" itself....

Can we conceive of the "World" without the "Word"?

What, "say" you?

Justin

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They Couldn't Handle the Truth

Posted December 3rd, 2010 by Jennifer Grove

They weren't ready. Acts chapter 2 undid that ruling, btw, so as to open the road for a more evolved interior to communicate without obstacles.

This is in agreement (!) with my idea about agreement about Objects. Agreeing about Objects will not save us nor will it unite us in a salvific way all by itself. A transformed Interior - or Subject - must come first. Then the two combined will accomplish Glory. Mere agreement about Objects accomplishes Holocaust.

The impulse to gain a "higher view" has driven us to get a view on ourselves, by way of getting a view on one another: Judging, accusing, guessing, asking, being corrected and finally self-correction. The Tower represents a short cut to power without accountability of any kind; internal or external. Pentacost represents the bestowing of power upon those who have proven themselves accountable to both internal and external "I's".

"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148

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Root question...

Posted December 3rd, 2010 by Lincoln Merchant in response to They Couldn't Handle the Truth

What guides your reading and interpretation of Bible verses? I am trying to give God a new chance here lately, but am not getting very far.

Thank you.

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Roots

Posted December 4th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove in response to Root question...

Oooh. I'll answer your question if you tell me what prompts you to give God a chance and how this is difficult.

Years of study. Me and my plain ol' garden-variety Bible and my Strong's Concordance. Plus Churches who were getting it right and also getting it wrong. Plus a sense of direction that was aparently uncommon. Plus a dear friend that, between the two of us spurring one another onwards, shared my passion for understanding God as well as humanly possible. Bless her!

I see all memes represented in the Bible and the story of our collective interior evolution told in vivid form. I see Jesus' Vision as being deeply and highly evolved and enlightened and Him having little time to bring His fellows, not to mention future humans, up to speed.

I don't care about historical accuracy. I only care about how I am to live in the world now and in the future as a representative of His Vision. Fussing about historical truth seems like a waste of time and energy to me and occupies academics who would rather sit and debate all day in polished stone halls than do a minutes work for the poor or disabled. It's just as much a useless debate as how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. These issues did not concern The Master. Only the Interior Realities which the stories conveyed.

Neither do I care about literal vs. metaphoric debates. Same issue. This issue wasn't an issue in His day. People of his time were mainly concerned with the moral and philosophical lessons and sometimes the mystical realities. It's unfair and silly to impose a test upon the Bible which it never signed up to be measured for. The Bible is not a scientific report. That is not where its great value lies and I think KW is incorrect in his assessment about Christianity and the Church being in a state of arrested development because it won't embrace physical evolution. That's not it's job. I think that's a Level/Line confusion.

I do not care about the anthropomorphism either. The 2nd Face of God is useful and necessary for the small self sense. There is nothing wrong with this. This is part of what we are. As far as Gods go, this one is as good or enigmatic as any, and our evolution is marked by how many ways we see Him represented in Scripture. God evolves in the Bible. It's as plain as day for those who are looking for it and this tells us so much about ourselves.

I really loved KW's recent talk about The Fall and Eden and all that. This is a terrific addition to the hermeneutical repetoire. I need to listen to it about 6 more times.

And finally, I have studied other religious forms and they have clued me in to how human beings evolved and think and get traction on themselves using Deities. The developmental wealth of information in religious thot alone is prolly all we really need to completely understand the human being.

I intend to redeem the practice of religion for Integral. Not just spirituality. Let my people go.

"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148

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This is not a face:

Posted December 4th, 2010 by Lincoln Merchant in response to Roots

. Anthropomorphism is one of the things I trip over when trying to move closer to God. If the nature of God is an inscrutable Mystery, than why not just face the Mystery. How could that Mystery be described as a Person, except through our projection? You say anthropomorphism is useful and necessary, and I can see the usefulness. A large part of our subconscious mental architecture is constantly searching for patterns and signs that would indicate intentionality and meaning. They've found the structures in the brain that are dedicated to recognizing and reading faces. These processes are so omnipresent that we can see a face in the headlights and bumper of a car or see Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich. I don't understand God or Deities outside of the context of their value as a more familiar interface (taking advantage of those subconscious processes) in dealing with powers and mysteries beyond ourselves, like how a graphical user interface for computers (like Windows) is more comfortable and natural to people than entering typed commands into DOS. All these ideas here make me feel like I'm pretending when I try to do a prayer or ritual.

I am giving God another chance because I respect the intelligence and depth of people on this board and in the Integral dialogues they post on this website who talk about God. These people are saying that I'm missing something, so I am trying to look where they are pointing.

If we had highlighters representing the all the colors in the SDi spectrum and then went through the Bible highlighting verses according to where we thought the authors of those verses were writing from, what percentage of verses would be from the different levels? (we could take into account that people at higher levels might be trying to write for a lower level audience, and that people at lower level might be describing higher level states that they experienced)

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"Face the Mystery"

Posted December 5th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove in response to This is not a face:

Why not, indeed.

But forget about God for the moment. The answer may be hidden in plain sight. Instead of starting from concepts and trying to put a face on them, why not look at faces and see what concepts arise for you. That's how the Brain actually works anyway. And it's doing that whether you know it or like it or not. You actually can't stop it from doing that. Not easily anyway. Sensing a Presence in a face and projecting various aspects into that Presence is what we do most effortlessly. What kinds of faces are you drawn to look at? Next time you catch yourself lingering over a face, ask yourself, "What am I imagining is in there?" This is different than asking, "What is in there?" That's just seeing other Subjects. By asking, "What am I imagining is in there?" You're actually seeing yourself seeing another Subject. This deepens the experience and the perspective.

Projection IS the process by which we see the interiors of other Subjects. That's pretty much Kamm's point. What/Who we think God is - or What we dare not allow ourselves to think we know about God - IS Projection. This is how we relate to the selves that we don't experience 1st Person yet. I'm not experiencing being you yet. But I can make some guesses about who I think you are and what you're like. This is a form of Intelligence. It's primitive, but it's still an Intelligence.

Our culture - esp. the self-improvement sub-culture - is pretty resistant to allowing this kind of Intelligence. In fact, we are used to both hearing and speaking some pretty nasty polemic against it. And because of this, we may have quarantined it inside our psyche like a computer virus awaiting disposal. Time to dig it out again and investigate. With attention and intention.

--oOo--

A few weeks ago I heard Temple Grandin talk about the Autistic Brain and how it is different than the Brain of a "Neuro-typical" person. She is a renowned teacher and lecturer and engineer of cattle management equipment. You may have heard of her. She is Autistic herself - the most severe form. And she's also a freaking genius. Anyhoo, she was saying that people with Autism are not only better at processing images, they can ONLY process images. She cannot understand something unless there are pictures to explain and describe it. This is why interiors are difficult if not impossible for people with Autism. Love is more than just a . And because of that, many people with Autism, herself included, just avoid the whole Lower Left altogether. But the way she described it was astouding because of her unique perspective at being on the other side. She says that the parts of the Brain that process images are covered up and obscured by the parts of the Brain that process words and language. Not just added on to, or integrated. But actually hidden.

She showed some pictures and told a story about a man who had Alzheimers. This guy had been a regular guy who worked with words and concepts his whole life. But when the parts of the Brain that had language died off, they uncovered the parts that processed images and he began to paint. He painted gorgeous and extremely realistic paintings for a few weeks or months, then the disease took those parts of the Brain too and he finally died. He had never previously shown any interest or skill at painting. It was amazing.

And she says that people with Autism are alot like that all the time. They see pictures and they can make pictures - sometimes with super-human skill. My b/f can look at a nut or a bolt and tell you what the thread pitch is and how it was made. If I describe a machine that doesn't yet exist to him and what I want it to do, an exploded drawing will arise in his head complete with the names and measurements of every single part and step-by-step instructions on how to put it all together. This will happen in a matter of seconds. But if I try and tell him why I love him, he doesn't understand a word I'm sayin'.

Incidentally, the way he experiences love with me is by talking incessantly, describing what our relationship looks like. "We're so cute!" he says sometimes. Or, "This is so neat how we're walking hand in hand down the street. I just love us." This sounds like many women's dream. And it's truly very sweet. But it's non-stop. As soon as he drinks his coffee in the morning and gets the cobwebs out of his head, he starts. And he doesn't stop until he's snoring. Srsly. LOL

He is deifying me in every moment. Projecting attributes and aspects into me that may or may not be there. And I have hated it the whole time and have begged and pleaded with him to stop. But I've finally resigned myself to the event that he can't do it any other way. If I don't let him do it, then he stops experiencing love and starts Projecting bad things into me and gets mad at me about attributes and aspects that may or may not be true about me. In an attempt to stop this whole cycle he has no choice but to stop experiencing me altogether.

And that is, I fear, what so many do when they attrophy the 2nd Person of God. In our race to know the True Truth about God, we have rejected all nice but misguided Projections, until nothing is left but the Face-shaped Black hole. Then we see the Lord of Devils there. And when we have finally pushed them all out, Neti-Neti style, there is no experience of God at all. Not for that important part of the Brain, at least. And it experiences being alone. And in the words of Thomas Merton, "That is altogether too much privacy."

"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148

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Not altogether bought into the 1st, 2nd, 3rd person thing...

Posted December 6th, 2010 by Lincoln Merchant in response to "Face the Mystery"

I'd have to believe that Existence, including transcendent Truth, arises in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person in order to accept that there is a 2nd person perspective on Truth, which is called God. If I believed that, than I could practice opening myself to that set of intelligences and start pushing them towards God and hopefully start a relationship. However, while I can kinda see that everything a human being can take a perspective on is conceptualized in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person, I am not willing to say that Truth IS that way. What a projection! Isn't that as bad as saying that everything revolves around the Earth?Maybe 1st,2nd,3rd person is just the way that we experience everything that arises because that's the way our capacity for language makes our minds work.

One night I was lying in bed thinking about the terrible and wondrous mystery of existence, when I was seized by the terror of it. The fear, the pain, the total lack of control, the bizarreness of existing in this absurd form, the utter dependence of my being on wholly unknown powers for my very existence from moment to moment, the ultimate aloneness, the fact of death. I was plunged, writhing and clawing, toward a black abyss. I struggled against it, but was drawn inexorably in. Right at the last moment, at the height of terror....there suddenly appeared Jesus Christ standing between myself and the void. Radiating light, arms outstretched as though nailed to the cross, but here triumphant, embracing and upholding my entire being.

What do you make of that?

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Right Brain

Posted December 6th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove in response to Not altogether bought into the 1st, 2nd, 3rd person...

I would interpret that dream to be your Right Brain trying to communicate to the rest of you that it is scared and wants to be protected and "saved". It is good that our totality is not that of the Right Brain, but it cannot be less than partial, either. It will always be with us.

At the moment, I am too sleepy to navigate this We-space (not you) skillfully. It seems filled with hostility to me. I've been mocked for my thots and feelings my whole life and I'm tired of it. Dead tired.

"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148

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Not a dream...

Posted December 6th, 2010 by Lincoln Merchant in response to Right Brain

It was a conscious experience like a vision or hallucination, not a dream. I'd usually interpreted it in a Nietzschean way (i.e. That I was getting close to a realization when i chickened out and called up the most powerful defense I was aware of to protect my scared, vain little self-sense. I think I was about to realize that I don't exist, but instead called upon a God that loves me personally and infinitely.)

i don't know how I'm coming off here, but I'm not so unbalanced between my hemispheres that my Right Brain should feel that level of isolation and terror. I trust my intuitions, make artwork when inspiration strikes, and trust my gut. I'm late to stuff all the time...

And don't worry about the hostility. You got a lot of people on here who pride themselves on their "enlightened" apostacy from their childhood Church and subsequent attendence at New Age Buddhist seminars. I appreciate that you are sticking with the old time religion. I am just more inclined to create a new cultural tradition than to work at evolution in the tradition of my ancestors.

I hope you get some good rest. Thank you for dialoguing here, you've given me lots to think about.

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Coming Off Just Beautifully

Posted December 6th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove in response to Not a dream...

"It was a conscious experience like a vision or hallucination, not a dream. "

Yes. That's another way of saying what I said. They are not two different things. The main difference is that I don't believe in the monolithic self (neither does Ouspensky/Gurdjieff).

"(i.e. That I was getting close to a realization when i chickened out and called up the most powerful defense I was aware of to protect my scared, vain little self-sense. I think I was about to realize that I don't exist, but instead called upon a God that loves me personally and infinitely.)"

How many different agendas are in there? I count at least 3. Maybe 4. That is not a single I. When I say "your Right Brain" I'm actually referring to one of your "I's". Primarily the one you are verbally abusing here. They are felt as distinct in the sleeping Dream state more, and while you are "awake" (in the lowest sense) there is an "I" who identifies with each passing and conflicting agenda without conscious awareness of doing so or awakening to doing so (in the highest sense). This is sometimes referred to by consciousness experts as the awake Dream state.

The thing about the 2nd Face of God is that it does not commit this abuse to the separate self-sence. It nurtures it. That nurturing only appears as coddling if one hasn't passed all the way thru the phase of separation from the Believing Self. Once your Believing Self is looked at as "Not Self" instead of looked out from, then all stories become equally useful for specific contexts. I often quote Chaos Magician Robert Anton Wilson here: "Chaoists usually accept the meta-belief that belief is a tool for achieving effects; it is not an end in itself."

When the Believing Self is still part of the self-sence, the need to discern Truth from Fiction is a matter of survival. Being decieved is a traumatic event for the self-sence and it will do whatever is necessary to prevent that from happening - even if it nullifies and discards every good and caring idea that would nurture the Believing Self. It would rather starve than be fed poison. Nevertheless, the Believing Self is hungry. And it will forage for whatever it can find, with or without the knowledge or permission of the self-sence. And quite often, it will snarl and bite at anyone with a conflicting belief.

But when the Believing Self is no longer identified AS the self-sence, caring for and feeding your Believing Self is integral to a healthy psyche and all stories are equally intriguing and useful.

This is COMPLETELY trans-rational.

--oOo--

Thank you so much for your support.

"I am just more inclined to create a new cultural tradition than to work at evolution in the tradition of my ancestors."

Actually I'm attempting both. Since it is something that I don't seem to be able to NOT do, I think this is, for me, what Robb Smith was referring to in his recent comment:

"...one path that cultivates their own uniqueness through submission to a form and application in a deep real-world setting."

...and which I eventually rewrote as basically a suicide mission.

"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148

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Oh, Yeah!

Posted December 5th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove in response to This is not a face:

I forgot to mention that I did that trick you mentioned at the end with the hi-lighters in the Bible. Years ago, before I'd ever heard of Integral or SD, I invented my own System of Stages and they had colors. There were 7:

Be
Trust
Want
Know
Do
Love
Make

If boiled down to one word, this matches the other systems pretty closely. Esp. if I describe what I mean by those words. Anyhoo, I used my hi-lighters to go thru my Brand-new NIV Bible and discovered that some verses were more than one color. And that sentences had individual colors while the whole paragraph had another. Plus, I would see a verse as one color one day and another the next day (meaning the Stages were in the Subject at least as much as they were in the Object). So, it didn't work very well. But I tried! LOL

"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148

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Bible Time!

Posted December 6th, 2010 by Lincoln Merchant in response to Oh, Yeah!

I only used 4 colors when I went thru my Harper Collins Study Bible (NRSV), but I was looking for specific things of interest to me at the time I did it, which was about a decade ago. I noted:

1) verses I found morally appalling

2) verses pertaining to questions I had about free will

3) verses that had good Joseph Campbell-type value as myths

4) verses I found to be world class wisdom or literature.

I guess my issue (in general, not with you) is that if people believe the book is inspired by God than they are going to interpret every verse in terms of the most transcendent heights they can conceive. Even a skeptic like me can see that yes, there is wisdom and truth in the Bible that goes past my level, but it is rare and buried amongst tons of lower level stuff. It rubs me the wrong way when people basically go thru the Bible with a highlighter and a Sharpie, highlighting the verses they like and blacking out the verses they don't, but then still call themselves Christians. It seems like cheating to me to enjoy the benefits of a religion without accepting the burden of the tradition. Let's wake up from history, stand on our own two feet, and build a new culture together.

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questioning the storytellers and the story told

Posted December 6th, 2010 by steven martini in response to Bible Time!

That's about the best I think I can "do" - as Line of Inquiry. It sure is nice to have a room full of storytellers asking questions to each other. Sometimes I feel electronic whurrs of Love buzzing when connecting to the internet - and pondering if it is feeling it-selves feeling us communicating here. I wonder if the stories that evolve from that are palpabe living moments of not-two+Oness equaling 5ing, the moments that become linked in sharing the ride along a new sphere of the planet - maybe along the tectonic levels of interior relationship between movement and stillness Pre Copernican and Trans Copernican and all the other sounds of interaction that occur along the trenches of these whole Holon things. Othertimes I toss it away like an old crumpled up map in my pocket and feel around the world with my eyes open with a few useful lids to filter and shade to maintain optimal tetra-hydra perception. I bump into alot of things and move slowly but would prefer interwoven depth surface stillness service preferably sitting comfortably somewhere in some world with someone else under a tree 2 - and then something happens someone else comes some snake ahhh!!!!! Thats where my storytelling engine stops and a new engine takes over, hopefully you know how to ride it>>>...

∞ 1 2 3 4 3 2 1 ∞

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Interesting Interpretation....

Posted December 7th, 2010 by Justin Manchester in response to They Couldn't Handle the Truth

Hi Jennifer,

You provided a very intersting interpretation, but I am curious as to how you "justify" the following from a "Christian" doctrinal perspective - as in "grace rather than works"....

...."The Tower represents a short cut to power without accountability of any kind; internal or external. Pentacost represents the bestowing of power upon those who have proven themselves accountable to both internal and external "I's"."

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Ooops.

Posted December 9th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove in response to Interesting Interpretation....

I didn't see this comment until just now. Sorry 'bout that. I've been pretty busy on a conversation about Wikileaks for a few days.

I'm not sure what your question is, exactly. I'm guessing from your use of the word, "Justify" that you want me to orient my statment with a dogma that you've heard before. I may or may not be able to do that. Christian Dogma is so diverse that I could try it 6 ways and hit 6 different sets - none of which you may have heard of.

Let me frame this by saying that I am not, nor have I ever been a member of the Catholic Church. I don't "do" Catholic. I respect the Tradition, but I came up thru the Protestant side. Evangelical, to be precise. For most, that's even more horrifying.

After my husband took the kids and left me, the Evangelical Church I had been a member of for about 9 years ignored me and treated me worse than a leper so I stopped attending. God and I broke up for a while too because I had been counting on Him to give me my basic needs if I did the best I could to be a good person. So, I just stopped speaking to Him. He never really moved out or anything. And I knew He would be there no matter what. He just waited for me to go thru whatever I needed to go thru. When it was time for me to yell at Him and cuss Him out, He sat eagerly thru it. When I told Him I didn't need the Story anymore and if He wanted to be with me, we'd have to base the relationship on something else, He was relieved. There were so many more important things on His mind...

After reading some books on Postmodernity and Christian Thot, I realized that I could no longer be an Evangelical any longer and I bravely spoke my denunciations to people who were predictably mortified. I started going to a Lutheran Church because the Pastor was intelligent enuf to understand my questions and accept my answers to his. It had nothing to do with "Lutheranism". When he left that Church, I did too and I haven't been back since.

--oOo--

I saw several things being given to human beings in the work of Jesus:

Saving Love: to soften the self-sence's fear-based grip on life.
Presence: to Live us in the world in a more evolved way.
Power: to be used in service of an evolved Presence in the world.

All of that was accomplished for me without State training. The State which many Teachers wish to cultivate in their Students by meditation can be accomplished in a We-space relationship much like that of a Guru and Disciple. If the Student spends enuf time in The Presence, it becomes contageous. The Love just floods and floats all the fear up and away. But it takes alot of isolated time with The Master to have that kind of Presence.

The Tower, of course, was not built in Jesus' day. It was alot earlier - according to the Story. It was also before Moses and the Temple. There was no formal and sustained Presence of God in the world at that time. The Presence was said to reside in Eden, while the humans had been evicted. They were living a fear-based existance without God's Presence and there was nothing to help them evolve or bring an end to the fear.

The Tower could have been an attempt to gain perspective on their lives so as to reduce fear. A simple rise in height can cause the observer to see systems where before they could only see isolated events. They may have climbed a tree and realized that they had advantages over others in some very practical ways. Then decided to try and build some kind of tall thing that they could climb on (without falling off) and gain even more advantages. They may have started building and when they realized how sturdy they could make it, just kept going "Sarah Winchester" Style.

Anyone who's ridden in an airplane understands this experience. It's thrilling and it makes you feel powerful like Robb described in the first item on his list of integral pitfalls. Imagine gaining huge advantage over people without gaining any real moral character. Gosh, that's so difficult to imagine isn't it? How archaic! The fear might be reduced for those with the advantage, but it was not being pushed out by Love. It only created more fear for those without the advantage. The impulse to crash this party is not that difficult to understand. Unless you're Robb and you call the party crasher a "terrorist" because He's disrupting vital defense strategies and causing the deaths of innocent people. j/k. Sorta.

The whole Bible story up to Jesus is a series of short vignets about where God's Presence is and what are we doing with it. Were we being transformed by His saving Love and acting out His will in the world in a way that Blesses others? Time after time the answer was no. Time after time, His Presence was somewhere in the environment, somewhere nearby. But never within them. After much trial and error and sorrow, He finally announced that His plan was to put His Spirit inside the people and they would live out His impulses without external prompting.

[this is where Gafni's Tradition breaks away and takes a different route, but the goal is basically the same, and I totally honor it. It's "gorgeous".]

When Jesus finally arrived, it was time to put the plan into action.

The Disciples are on record for not understanding the big picture. They thot Jesus was going to bring basically another "Tower". Another way to gain advantage over their enemies so they could live without fear. It took Him 3 years to make them understand the plan, and they mostly didn't get it until He was dead. Pentacost was when they started to really get it and the Love transformation was so overwhelming and powerful that they mysteriously and temporarilly lost the inability to understand foreign language - as the Story is told. Everything got out of the way for that Love to sweep thru the land and let everyone know that it was all different now.

The "doctrine" of grace rather than works is related in a sideways way. Works is the result of doing what the external authority says is the Good thing to do. Grace is the result of that authority residing inside the individual so that Goodness is what comes out of you as naturally as breathing.

Do you want Scripture references? I can do that if you want, but it's gonna be pretty tedious reading for you and others.

"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148

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One Language.....Music?

Posted December 3rd, 2010 by peacepilgrim

* They are one people and have one language, and nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do. **

And if it would have been a tone, may be OM, in the beginning instead of a word?

Avalokitesvara (Sanskrit ** Lord who looks down**) is a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. He is one of the more widely revered bodhisattvas in mainstream Mahayana Buddhism.

The original name for this bodhisattva was Avalokitasvara. The Chinese name for Avalokitasvara is Guanshìyn Púsà (觀世音菩薩), which is a translation of the earlier name ** Avalokitasvara Bodhisattva.** This bodhisattva is variably depicted as male or female, and may also be referred to simply as Guanshìyn in certain contexts.

In Sanskrit, Avalokitesvara is also referred to as Padmapani (** Holder of the Lotus **) or Lokesvara (** Lord of the World **). In Tibetan, Avalokitesvara is known as Chenrezig and is said to be incarnated in the Dalai Lama,[1] the Karmapa[2][3] and other high lamas.

.........However, according to recent research, the original form was indeed Avalokitasvara with the ending a-svara (** sound, noise **), which means ** sound perceiver **, literally ** he who looks down upon sound **(i.e., the cries of sentient beings who need his help; a-svara can be glossed as ahr-svara, ** sound of lamentation *).[5] This is the exact equivalent of the Chinese translation Guanyin.

Guanyin is the bodhisattva associated with compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists, usually as a female. The name Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin which means "Observing the Sounds (or Cries) of the World". She is also sometimes referred to as Guanyin Pusa (simplified Chinese: 观音菩萨; pinyin: Guānyīn Púsà; Wade–Giles: Kuan-yin Pu-sah; literally "Bodhisattva Guanyin").[1] Some Buddhists believe that when one of their adherents departs from this world, they are placed by Guanyin in the heart of a lotus then sent home to the Western Paradise.[2]

Googled....

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Vipassana

Posted December 4th, 2010 by steven martini

The silent gaps in meditation give us glimpses of what a wordless world would be like. I've had some lucky longer stretches in Vipassana of seeing things 'as they are' - prior to the labeling of language. In thinking of Babel I wonder why the storytellers did not let the characters breathe a little at first and re-adjust to their newfound condition...

...I can imagine them eventually picking back up their tools and continuing their work building further upwards with a few simple silent gestures - like early humans would communicate, using some mime and mimicry, maybe even some music (whistle while you work)...

But the writers of the Bible instead paint God(s) behavior in this story as bullying the flood survivors the way children might burn ants with a magnifying glass...separating and scattering whatever order the mythic humans could muster...

I recently heard a podcast on a similar subject of a wordless world... RADIOLAB did a great program on it HERE...

Terence Mckenna also has some amazing talks online with Rupert Sheldrake. Very inspiring and illuminating. Thanks for posting this Justin, great topic!

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I don't think so

Posted December 5th, 2010 by Ambo Suno

Hi Justin - I'm smiling right now because of my introductory line and because I finally get to articulate what has always been my reaction to hearing that phrase alone.Your comments and those in response already are more sophisticated in their interpreting of phrase than I am going to be. I don't know the book well enough to follow and participate in the discourse, argumentation and nuances of that collection of commentaries called "The Holy Bible".

Really, on it's face, as actual reality, it sounds absurd to me - as though the world/kosmos started with the human word. Those few words placed in that phrase can be misleading to many of us, and if we assume and presume, if we accept the authority of The Good Book's pronouncement in a literal simple way, we skew our understanding of so much in just more of the same way that we skew so much us else. It sounds like a very weird starting point of a story for us to consider time/space/knowing about kosmos and our world.

If I take the time to imagine what tricky thought forms we can conjure in order for us to allow those words great prominence, sure, I can think about metaphor, and inclusions through more comprehensive explanation or acceptance of paradox in further biblical elucidations, or try to stand at some hypothetical-for-me elevation of mental/spiritual development where all is resolved as vibration, which is related to the word "word", or some such.

In everyday parlance we know what a word is and I don't believe that God brought kosmos into being by uttering a word or bestowing the gift of word upon us. Stories like that seem simplistic and even trite to me.

Wouldn't it be beautifully correct and good to say that "In the beginning we can not accurately conceive all that was transpiring." "We are not even sure most generally or specifically when was the beginning or quite what the beginning means."

I understand that this phrase and all its conversation has been important culturally and literally to much of humanity and I understand that if you step into it as a question is certain way it makes for an interesting puzzle. I get that it can seem to add to the mystery of a specific religious conjuring of God and related imagery. I get that at different speculated or experienced developmental levels there may be an understood truth to this. But I am not there, apparently, and I don't step into the human story or the kosmic story that way.

Justin, this onslaught of potentially felt disrespect for the prominence of this biblical phrase in our discourse is certainly not personal, good man! I like the way you raise topics. It seems I just find myself wanting to take this opportunity to attach my angry charge towards the absurd-to-me reverence to aspects of messy documents called "The Holy Bible" that invite so much word magic and broader disorienting spins in its evident attempt to orient man.

So the initial smile was a head-fake on me - other emotions speak my wonky truth.

Unknown, as to words and as to beginnings, and to a lot more. Please excuse this riff, those of you who might be offended.

ambo

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I'm Smiling Too....

Posted December 5th, 2010 by Justin Manchester in response to I don't think so

Hi Ambo,

It's "all good"....As I said in another recent post, I have been "meditating" recently on language and the words, and thus meaning(s) inherent in all human communications, this quite spontaneous post arose out of those considerations, and since I do operate from multiple perspectives, which to me can be equated with paradox itself, it is inevitable that I will not be "fully" understood from time to time, but that's what makes posting and the attempt to communicate interesting to me, and reveals the many perspectives available though all the "unique selves" present on this site....

I am not a Christian and I do not identify with the Bible, in fact I find much of the "conventional" wisdom and many of the stories and myths recorded in the Bible, to belong to the childhood of humanity, albeit that "childhood" remains a pernicious and self-evident spectacle of the present world stage of development.... and "stages" as we all know are quite real and thus "observable"; so "in the beginning", could as well have been "once upon a time" - but I won't go off on that rant now....

All of your comments and all of the comments posted by everyone else regarding my post are completely understandable and acceptable to me - they are perspectives that are indeed individual and unique - even though apparent similarities exist, including the more "esoteric" rather than "exoteric" interpretations provided for the biblical stories and recorded teachings of Jesus.... I simply used a biblical reference for no other reason than it spontaneously occurred to me that this mythological story still has relevance today, since human beings are still trying to reach "God", even though they are swimming in "God"; what else could all of this possibly be, if one posits the usual attributes of "God"?....

Regardless, I was also pointing to the very obvious and practical observation that the essence of all the technological growth we have witnessed in the evolutionary history of humanity has arisen and is supported by "language", whether that language be mathematics, or the written and spoken word, we have now essentially completed the "tower", and it may be viewed as the internet!

At least, potentially we "all" have access to the accumulated history of the knowledge quest of humanity and that knowledge is accessed though "language".... If "evolution" is becoming conscious of itself, will it be "Us" this time that "comes down and destroys the tower"?

I have more to contribute, but need to run for now....

Thanks Ambo,

Justin

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yes

Posted December 5th, 2010 by Ambo Suno in response to I'm Smiling Too....

sure, we all are trying on stuff, exploring, learning, being creative. In the beginning (of this thread) there was the word. Adios.

ambo

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Swimming Meditation

Posted December 6th, 2010 by peacepilgrim in response to I'm Smiling Too....

Hi Justin,

yes we are swimming in God and obviously we can come closer to God too through meditation, however...... prayer, singing, walking meditation, swimming meditation :) ..........don * t you think so?

Gisela

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swooping upwards

Posted December 6th, 2010 by steven martini in response to I'm Smiling Too....

That's a fascinating notion of 'Us' being the God(s) coming "down" and destroying the tower - although in Integral language wouldn't the 'Us' be not a greater or higher Deity swooping down but our own lower levels of self/culture not being able, or not wanting, to continue supporting the higher floors of the tower....?

Perhaps fearing the altitude, the span chooses not to expose it-selves to any more depth...?

I quickly find limits in my abilities to language and conceive of 'what' is 'really' going on with life here this world, I see those same limitations as what the Babel story was written to explore, human reach exceeding human grasp... at least in the exterior...

In the interior I sense the 'depth' of the soul and spirit and witness is also limited at least in that it seems to curve in on itself at some point or vector or whatever...and then the part of self that senses 'infinity' goes on to lose its sense of self in infinity...

The thing I used to consider 'soul' the memories, the beliefs, the values, the choices, the stuff that loves to sticks in the subtle body, the tower of the identifiable 'self' i thought I was, has progressively lost so much of it's traction that I can say I've felt what it feels like to 'lose soul'... the feeling is as if there is only so much this human self sense can accumulate before being swept away...

It also feels like there's only so much that can be said about the tides in the ocean (they come, they go, they're low, they're high, ect.) but it can be said over and over... and there's plenty more we can say about the sand castles on the shore, if we can live in them in full residence, embodying the continual re-shaping and re-building... Again, more metaphors on top of metaphors....But I Love Holons as metaphors...Thank U all for this great conversation...

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Love This Line!

Posted December 7th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove in response to I'm Smiling Too....

" If "evolution" is becoming conscious of itself, will it be "Us" this time that "comes down and destroys the tower"?"

But the story doesn't say that God destroyed the Tower. He just confused the languages. The Tower sat unfinished.

If you think about it, we are on the verge of doing just that to ourselves, but not our higher self confusing the lower self. The corrupt powers that be are close to shutting us down as if to say that we're not ready to govern ourselves, therefore we must not be allowed to reach agreement with one another or grow to respect one another. Yeah, that would suck.

In my studies, there have been many "Towers" since then. Many times humanity has attempted to force agreement and compliance to a single vision. I've called this the Spirit of Babylon. Paul also mentions the Principalities and Powers in the NT. And when the LOTR films were being made, the cast became highly sensitized to and aware of this impulse in the world and called it "The Ring".

But something is changing. I believe soon it will not be necessary to form an external vision with which to inject the population. A vision is emerging that will contain all visions and no force will stop it from ejecting out from inside of every individual. Not even language. Then, perhaps the Tower can be completed.

"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148

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The Beta Virus!

Posted December 5th, 2010 by vernpeace

hi Justin, its...all...in...the...waves

...of...opinions...and...have...you

...ever...considered...the...begin...

ing...of...what...if...it...referered

...to...the...begin...ing...of...some

...thing...that...began...after...the...

thing...we...assume...it...referes...to.

peace&love...vern

p.s...Aplha...is...our...natual...state...Beta

...is...a...virus...that...came...along...much...

much...later!

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Beta! What!?

Posted December 6th, 2010 by steven martini in response to The Beta Virus!

VernPeace-

Could Beta better, like 2.0?

Or do the cave walls only contain a limited amount of growth for one container to Conceive and operate at an optimal level....!?

Sometimes all freaks me out to a contracted core that I simply must accept

because any denial falls short of it's potential ability to strengthen my core....

Which after some personal creative exploration I discovered a pretty much mandatory surrendering to source....

And it turns out Source connection is the most fascinating condition to be in or not in......!

I share this with you as a reaching out - I am spelunking this wespace out to converse with these concepts and languages because it is how I find myself experiencing things

>in ways that seem to be outside my Jurisdiction for constructing a habitable life mind body....

....Some times I feel like an empty booth at the tabula rasa resort hotel and casino...Some times I feel the empty bar of a not two-bit night club act...

Sometimes I weep in surrender to something other and Greater! And in this immersion I find Love! This is my favorite part...!

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See.... What.... You....Have....Done....To....Me....Vern....

Posted December 7th, 2010 by Justin Manchester in response to The Beta Virus!

Yes....I....have...considered....

Is....there....a....cure....for....this....virus?

Peace&Love to you too, Vern....

Justin

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