The Bible and Yi

[lloyd]

Always liked this one:
The third voice of life believes 'itself’ because it cannot mean, but is.
e.e. cummings

 

[meng]

A connection and comparison can be made in the same way the Bible and Yi are interpreted as literal or symbolic, or a cognitive mixture of each.

One Sunday morning I listened to a friend teach a class on the sovereignty of God. His eyesight had been seriously deteriorating, and he used this to illuminate his point, that it must have been God's will that he would lose his sight, and he loosely used the book of Job to punctuate his point. After the class I approached my friend, quietly pointing to Job 3:25 "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me." He thanked me for pointing it out, saying he never saw it that way before.

 

[sanderp]

I always found this one remarkable: "the number of the beast (a dragon!) is 666." But how the earth trigram is connected to a dragon, i am not really sure ; )

Sander

 

[pantherpanther]

Yeah, God's will is a super-can-o-worms. Everyone I know who believes they know and follow God's will is at war with someone who knows differently.

Panther, you probably know this already but for sake of discourse, new testament prophesy (grace doctrine) was the context of the 1Cr quote, not old testament prophets. The distinction is significant, as the OT emphasis is on the prophet and prophecy, while the NT emphasis is on the gift and manifestation of the holy spirit. The messages are considered transient and secondary, compared with OT prophecies, which are generally thought of as being literal and written in stone.

Meng,
In 1 Corinthians, Paul was counseling one community , the members of which were familiar with most of faculties mentioned in 12:8-10 . Such gifts and practices were part of the culture, which included various religions and cults . As an orthodox Jew, Paul accepted the traditional view of false prophets ('Off with their heads!'), and the authority of the Hebrew Prophets from Moses on. "Minor prophecy" was no big deal .
In his communities - here the Corinthinians - he had people who manifested many of these "gifts" as did many of their neighbors from other religions and cults. It was part of daily life. ( It's like having a bunch of channelers, "Jungians," spiritual healers, New Agers, diviners, I Ching and Tarot aficionados, speakers in tongues , evangelicals,fundamentalists et al. - a collection of often ordinary contemporary types - to deal with. ) He wisely suggests they contribute their gifts, but have the consensus of the community measure the value , case by case. He makes clear he may manifest some of the gifts, but he may be wrong sometimes, right others. He was not a disciple of Jesus and was not given the miraculous powers that the disciples were. He heard about it and received a call to teach others and to create a "church," which he approached with a background in Greek ideas.

The "heart" the Desert Fathers like Evagrius speak of above is what you might call the "conscious mind" that is being in a state of awareness that can listen to spirit, a finer intelligence or energy. They were working on an "advanced level" relative to ordinary people. When they speak of "spiritual warfare" they are dealing with the traditional inner struggle to conquer oneself, to convince the ego to will its own destruction. (The Taoists and Confucians describe this in their way.)

 

[meng]

Panther,

Major and minor prophets (and their prophecies) had nothing to do with 1Cr; separate subject altogether. All of Paul's writings to the church of Corinth were based on his idea of the 'new age' of grace, and prophecies were an exhibit of the holy spirit's active presence. However, I do agree on Paul's motive, to conduct congregational practice of the gifts in an orderly manner, particularly speaking in unknown tongues and prophecy, exercised by separate individuals: let one utter in tongues, and let the other interpret. Yes, many of the Corinth church flaunted the gifts in a loud and disorderly fashion, as though they were in a trance and no longer in control of themselves. Paul admonished them that "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets", not as though to be possessed and controlled by the spirit. These were and still are practiced as edification of the body of believers, not as predictions of the future, as were the OT prophets and prophecies. Apples and oranges.

 

[maremaria]

Yes, I can see the connection easily. In fact, that's a very astute call, because Pentecost (manifestation of spirit and its gifts) was as fire from heaven, and 14 is also fire over heaven. :bows:

Pentecost ! yes . It make sence. Never made that connection, thanks.

 

[pantherpanther]

Panther,

Major and minor prophets (and their prophecies) had nothing to do with 1Cr; separate subject altogether. All of Paul's writings to the church of Corinth were based on his idea of the 'new age' of grace, and prophecies were an exhibit of the holy spirit's active presence. However, I do agree on Paul's motive, to conduct congregational practice of the gifts in an orderly manner, particularly speaking in unknown tongues and prophecy, exercised by separate individuals: let one utter in tongues, and let the other interpret. Yes, many of the Corinth church flaunted the gifts in a loud and disorderly fashion, as though they were in a trance and no longer in control of themselves. Paul admonished them that "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets", not as though to be possessed and controlled by the spirit. These were and still are practiced as edification of the body of believers, not as predictions of the future, as were the OT prophets and prophecies. Apples and oranges.

meng,
You misread my reading of Paul's mindset. He felt everything had changed with the manifestation of Christ's mission. The Prophets were true in their time for him, "preparers" but now the work was to seek the "I AM" within. That Jesus' mission was to prepare for the increasing loss of a sense of relation to the spiritual world, an awareness still present in his time, was not Paul's "problem." He was not on the scale of the messenger: the preparation for increasing hardening into the body and matter and loss of vision - for the time when men would have to 'make bread from stones.' - was Jesus' mission. The Reign of Quantity (Guenon) some schools call it. Other schools see it as a necessary trial and preparation for creating a new man, with a new organ of perception from centuries' descent into matter. St. John's vision at Patmos was for the body corporate, the future humanity. The way down has taken time, and the way up will take time.

 

[meng]

John's vision at Patmos was for the body corporate, the future humanity.

This was an example of an NT/OT prophet having the last word. At least that was the "spirit" which John wrote it: something immortal and speaking for everyone. This was not among the gifts of the spirit which Paul taught.

But lest this degenerate into an old fashion bible argument, I'll thank you for the exchange and call it good.

 

[pantherpanther]

This was an example of an NT/OT prophet having the last word. At least that was the "spirit" which John wrote it: something immortal and speaking for everyone. This was not among the gifts of the spirit which Paul taught.

But lest this degenerate into an old fashion bible argument, I'll thank you for the exchange and call it good.

meng,

Peace, but what's the Bible to do with it? I meant John was a visionary. That is the indication given in the NT when the two Marys are present: the "vision" is given to John by Jesus on the cross - in code, if you wish, as much of the NT contains - like a transfer of a specific energy to be translated into a "book." John had to assimilate the energy and put it into words over years. That is traditionally how teachers East or West transmit. Paul, on the other hand , was neither a pupil nor a visionary : his work was to establish a church (in the West.) Inspired , I suppose.

The Bible is composed of fragments from different sources and cultures. I am familiar with the orthodox academic, historical and theological literature on the OT and NT . It generally follows "fashion" and "celebrity." One good thinker and many "followers" is the rule.

"The Christian church," said Gurdjieff, "the Christian form of worship, was not invented by the fathers of the church. It was all taken in ready-made form from Egypt, only not from the Egypt that we know but from one which we do not know. . . .This prehistoric Egypt was Christian many thousands of years before the birth of Christ, that is to say, that its religion was composed of the same principles and ideas that constitute true Christianity."
I suppose G was right - there is "code" in his speech- and what Egypt brought may have come from Tibet or elsewhere. As for Judaism, their Prophets, after Moses , clearly imported key ideas from Iranian religions into what became Judaism, their Torah.

Some of the oldest Jewish and Christian communities exist in Iran. The Church of Mary in NE Iran, near Afghanistan, is perhaps the second oldest Christian church - Bethlehem's being the oldest. It was renovated by a Chinese princess around the 6th century - there is a plaque on it to that effect today . India and China had churches in the 2nd century. The spiritual renewal with Islam in the 7th century followed a similar pattern as had Christianity among corrupt or degenerated civilizations, although on a larger scale. (Most were not converted to Islam by Arabs, rather by non-Arab missionaries. Persian saints or their disciples converted Indonesia , today the largest Islamic nation. ) The aim of Islam may have been to slow the decline that Jesus was preparing humanity to endure.

What Rome/West calls Christianity doesn't apply for a lot of people, I would not be surprised if China, in this century, doesn't have the largest Muslim and Christian populations of any nation. China has nearly 40 provinces and many Christians, Buddhists, Muslims et al.

A monastery in the 9th century in the Middle East or Asia may have had Buddhists, Magians, Muslims, Christians, Jews et al. working together. Teachers had special knowledge of medicine, dance, astronomy , whatever. It took a thousand years to rediscover how the blood circuletes? Perhaps 100,000 people supporting a monastery as if one community. There are always some form of esoteric schools. They may not be publically recognized as such. Chartres had one.

What was or is going on in "history" is something we know too little about. Religions were practiced 200,000 years ago, it seems from archaeological work in Spain. Many other discoveries since the cave painitngs in France, from perhaps 20-60 thousand years ago.

The visiting of sacred sites - often Christian ones built over ancient sites - in the UK has become something ordinary people wish to do . This is complementary to the interest in visiting sacred sites throughout the world by tourists. And the fascination with "end times" and 2012.

-pp

PS - I was reading today of a present exhibit in NY on the Cucuteni . 'Before the first cities of Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, in the Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills people who were ahead of their time in art, technology and long-distance trade. For 1,500 years, starting earlier than 5000 B.C., they farmed and built sizable towns, a few with as many as 2,000 dwellings. They mastered large-scale copper smelting.Their graves held an impressive array of exquisite headdresses and necklaces and, in one cemetery, the earliest major assemblage of gold artifacts to be found anywhere in the world. The striking designs of their pottery speak of the refinement of the culture’s visual language.'

 

[meng]

John was a visionary.

Lennon?

One can only interpret legends according to the input they've accepted or created. No one alive presently knows what John was. Some choose to believe his visions are facts, which have not all happened yet. Self fulfilling prophecies? Some think so. Believe it enough and voila! There it is. There's kazillion philosophies and explanations about it; religions have grown off it, like barnacles on a whale.

 

[pantherpanther]

Lennon?

One can only interpret legends according to the input they've accepted or created. No one alive presently knows what John was. Some choose to believe his visions are facts, which have not all happened yet. Self fulfilling prophecies? Some think so. Believe it enough and voila! There it is. There's kazillion philosophies and explanations about it; religions have grown off it, like barnacles on a whale.

The traditional classifying of the states of consciousness that a teacher accessed in any tradition is based on the same principles although the symbology and terms differ. The Asian traditions have preserved more texts than the monotheistic ones on states of consciousness. The Bible, Quran, Torah and Zoroastrian teaching contain the cosmological and anthropological teachings.

To interpret the meaning of any teaching, whether contained in a text, a work of art etc is another matter. Every age finds different meanings.

 

[meng]

...classifying states of consciousness... that a teacher accessed in any tradition, is based on the same principles although the symbology and terms differ.

Sorry, man, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Who does the measuring of states of consciousness? Who determines the mean from which plus or minus may be determined? If the teacher, then who or what measures the teacher? From where does his or her standard arise? From another's standard, that's where. So what now? We have books of standards from which to judge our state of consciousness?

 

[pantherpanther]

...classifying states of consciousness... that a teacher accessed in any tradition, is based on the same principles although the symbology and terms differ.

Sorry, man, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Who does the measuring of states of consciousness? Who determines the mean from which plus or minus may be determined? If the teacher, then who or what measures the teacher? From where does his or her standard arise? From another's standard, that's where. So what now? We have books of standards from which to judge our state of consciousness?

I thought I had been clear in this exchange. To recapitulate a bit, all traditions depict the human intersection with the the planes of the universe (which resembles the modern conception of the "multiverse") This includes aspects of human consciousness on higher planes. There is a hierarchy of degrees of existence. The human intersection can occur at any point on the vertical axis of creation.

 

[meng]

There are human ideas about such things. But where is it said elsewhere? Nature doesn't say it. Where does this hierarchy come from? Who created it? Man? God? Charly the lizard?

Where is the hierarchy in an onion? Or say in tree rings? Is it higher the further in you go, or the further out? Where is the hierarchy in an ocean? Shallow or deep, it's the same ocean. Who is more aware, a new baby looking at giant eyes and noses gawking with big teeth, or the holy sage who sees the world likewise?

 

[jesed]

Where does this hierarchy come from? Who created it? Man? God? Charly the lizard?

I'll go ALL-IN with the third option

 

[lindsay]

Bruce, I like what you say. My favorite new word is "apophasis". I believe I've spent a lifetime investigating human ideas that are not true. Not false, either - but insufficient, inadequate, short, empty. At least I've narrowed down the field a bit.

 

[pantherpanther]

The notion that what is corporeal is "factual," as in "scientism," is a very recent superstition. A brief moment in history. Traditional cosmological and scientific systems may use different methodologies and languages but remain the same in essence and principle.

 

[meng]

My favorite new word is "apophasis".

You mean like, "it's a good thing I'm not the kind of guy to say I told you so" ?

Yeah, I don't know, maybe there is a hierarchy. If I flip the argument, I could say something like: nature most certainly does have a hierarchy. It's continually being tested and it's called evolution, and it is measured foremost by its survival. In which case, it can be said that the meek cockroaches will inherit the earth. Jesus and science agree.

Now, all who want to be cockroaches please step forward.

No, we need a better measuring thingy than that. Virtue is a good one. But again, who is defining virtue? Who is measuring, and by what rules? Where did those rules comes from? and on and on. And, why are there anomalies in those rules? Where do those anomalies comes from?

This whale seems to be swimming in a bigger ocean.

 

[Sparhawk]

I'll go ALL-IN with the third option

I'll second that!

​

 

[my_key]

Bruce, I like what you say. My favorite new word is "apophasis". I believe I've spent a lifetime investigating human ideas that are not true. Not false, either - but insufficient, inadequate, short, empty. At least I've narrowed down the field a bit.

Hi Lindsay
I was reading a Terry Pratchett book a few weeks ago " The Science of Discworld" where he brought up the phrase "lies to children" in respect of the level of information that is given at any one time. It may be enough to satisfy the want to know but are not the full picture.

Like
Little Johnny - "What's a rainbow, Mummy?"
Mummy - " It's God smiling after the rain has come down"
Not false in the eyes of the child especially as we believe everything Mummy tells us. Maybe inadequate and short, however what a magical picture to have until when Johnny gets older he may want to tune into wikipedia for a more in depth view and get http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow.

I'm not sure which one is empty

Mike

 

[lindsay]

No, we need a better measuring thingy than that. Virtue is a good one...This whale seems to be swimming in a bigger ocean.

Perhaps you are not swimming alone. Confucius suggested using the junzi - the best kind of person - as a yardstick. I wonder where he got that idea?

 

[meng]

Perhaps you are not swimming alone. Confucius suggested using the junzi - the best kind of person - as a yardstick. I wonder where he got that idea?

The hungry youngster, lol.

"This whale" was referring to our universe as we know it, swimming through an ocean we're not yet conscious of.

 

[meng]

Positions change, you know?
Believe me, I know.
Heroes and villains
are joined at the hip,
yeah, and winners and losers
playing the part of each other.

 

[jesed]

I'll second that!

Seems like God has folded his hand (pun intended) :bag:

 

[meng]

Charly's hibernating, probably dug into the agave roots against the house. When the goin' gets tough, the tough get outa town. chuckle

 

[heylise]

Little Johnny - "What's a rainbow, Mummy?"
Mummy - " It's God smiling after the rain has come down"
Not false in the eyes of the child especially as we believe everything Mummy tells us. Maybe inadequate and short, however what a magical picture to have until when Johnny gets older he may want to tune into wikipedia for a more in depth view and get http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow.

I'm not sure which one is empty

Mike

This is the kind of answer I got when I asked why my friend did not get little brothers like I did. Her father was far away.
"Little brothers get born when daddy and mummy are very close together and love each other a lot".
Very true. And still true for me to this day. The magic of love, creating a little living thingy in mummy.

 

[solun]

The index of light refraction which creates a rainbow in our atmosphere at times is not necessarily a negation of 'God smiling at the end of a rainstorm'.
I remember a hike one afternoon with a former biology teacher friend of mine. I saw a moth which camouflaged perfectly with the tree trunk it was on. She instantly pointed out that it was engaged in a form of mimicry to protect itself from predators.
How simple for us to assume that all of life and evolution is engaged in the same bloody battles we assume.
I maintain that the moth could just as well, and in addition, have been practicing oneness with the tree! - rather than merely avoiding oneness with the gullet of a bird!

++++++++++++++++


The OT/NT relationship is one of prophesy concealed/prophesy revealed or realised.
John (the Baptist) taught or preached the necessity of preparing oneself through repentance (symbolised by baptism, or immersion in the waters of a new life). It was only through this act prior to accepting the grace and favor of forgiveness that could we gain forgiveness of our transgressions. Without a change in our character or mindset, what hope could there be for a new life? It was the dispensation of Grace, and the beginning of a nullification of being justified, or atoned for by following the old laws. It isn't that the laws were themselves nullified, just that one could not hope to live entirely perfectly in accord with them all. For that was the way, formerly, someone could be justified in God's sight. But even in the old testament, personages like Abraham were justified by faith.



I thought this opening of Hebrews was interesting:

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, ..."
how much license can we take here? We clearly need more research and to use our reason as well as our faith. I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive

 

[solun]

referring to 'the whale' or waters' -

I found this long ago at www.inner.org
I am not Jewish, but I do study gematria some
the letter nun is featured in these paragraphs ( among others)
I believe it was a Rabbi Ginsburgh who wrote it:

"In Aramaic nun means "fish". The mem, the waters of the sea, is the medium of nun, fish. The nun "swims" in the mem, covered by the waters of the "hidden world." Creatures of the "hidden world" lack self-consciousness. Unlike fish, land animals, revealed on the face of the earth, possess self-consciousness.
"The souls of Israel divide into two general categories, symbolized by fish and land animals. The two prototypes of these categories are the leviathan and the behemot. In the present, these two categories of souls correspond to two innate tendencies and attractions of the soul, to either the concealed and secret or revealed and legal dimensions of the Torah. In the future, the two prototypes, leviathan and behemot, will unite in battle, each "killing" the "ego" of the other, thereafter to blend together in true union. Their "meat" will then be served as the feast for the tzadikim in the World to Come. The souls of the tzadikim will actually consume the very root of consciousness of our present level of soul, in order to integrate ("digest") it into a totally new and higher level of consciousness."

Kind of puts a new spin on some of the Book of Revelation imagery.

 

[jesed]

I maintain that the moth could just as well, and in addition, have been practicing oneness with the tree! - rather than merely avoiding oneness with the gullet of a bird!

Hope no te be rude, but "practicing oneness" seems more a human projection than "protective mimicry". Even "avoiding oneness" seems more a human projection than "protective mimicry"

Because both practicing or avoiding oneness imply consciousness, not allowed to the level of evolution of moth's brain

Best

 

[solun]

Well, let's just dismiss the consciousness of rude altogether then!
If it seems to you that consciousness is implied moreso in one than in the other, fine.
I maintain that a union of consciousnesses exists.
You could read my post which immediately precedes yours, you might find it interesting.
But I think your objections are based on an unconsciousness of semantics! lol!
btw, the moth might not appreciate the human perspective on the allowances of evolutionary consciousness.
If it were practising mimicry to avoid being eaten, what's the difference? Some level of consciousness is present within the organism to avoid predation .... obviously, unless you think it is just a machine ...