I read today some fine writing by two people I greatly admire, one an opinion that I personally share written by Squeak, and a response by a favorite read of mine, JVH. As is well known, my close friends Mondo and Jackie hold to versions of the mythic Christ / Jesus while my personal views are significantly different. It begs the question in some minds I'm sure, just how can we all be as close as we are with such different views? Isn't there supposed to be a schism among us, separating us as perhaps wheat ... and chaff?
I personally feel that I've generally been dismissed as having a "need" for Jesus and so I'm granted a little leeway in that regard. Sort of "let Davey have his security blanket, he'll eventually come around". After all, I'm an ok guy otherwise, grin (I really think I am, which may give some insight into the magnitude of my delusion ... lol). I must say though that from my point of view, I'm as comfortable with Jesus being a total fabrication as I am with Him as God on earth, savior of a lost mankind. I don't care either way, I simply desire as much truth as is possible regarding this question.
My understanding that has appeared slowly over time is that we are not held responsible for our "knowledge" (which incidentally is diametrically opposed to a gnostic viewpoint) but are held accountable to a degree (non-permanent) with how we respond to our heart. This is a sort of process that transcends cultures, time frames, "knowledge" and so on ... which would be expected from a truly beneficent Creator, or at least ... I think so. And so we have what appears to be a path of learning.
What is the real answer to the Jesus question? The answer lies in the heart, I'm convinced. We can sift through the scholars and otherwise, we can argue this point and that, we can examine possible corruption of texts, translation issues and discoveries of long lost texts but in the end, we are a few among billions who actually delve into this at any real depth, with the majority of those who have and will live not having a reasonable opportunity to even understand the argument. This simple fact, and it is a fact, tells me everything I personally need to know ... God is found well beyond the arguments and when we are comfortable, I think us all capable of putting aside the texts and opinions and stepping bravely inside to find a unique and surprising answer that has been with us all along ...
The mythical Jesus of the New Testament is the same symbol as were all previous 'Sun Gods", infant saviors born to a virgin. All are symbols for a new-born perception that's going to replace human perception.
The Eastern Masters say there is, not was, a flesh and blood Jesus of the Houe of David born to a woman who became pregnant through having sexual intercourse with her husband. The Masters say this Jesus is a Master and is in charge of bringing Christianity out of its stalled condition and into the light of reality. Some will believe the Masters, others won't.
Compared to infinity, what does any of it matter? If our Super Nova were to happen today we'd leave about as big a hole in space as we do by pulling our finger out of a glass of water. We are no where near as important as we have come to believe.
Blind faith could be an effect of entrainment. Those having stepped-up onto the next rung on Jacob's Ladder, therefore free of the accepted collective societal thoughtform, are considered by the 'still entrained' as odd, lost, doomed, atheist, sinners, and all the other niceties heaped upon the 'escapees' by the imprisoned.
As newly-borns we are utterly dependent on our instinct, information passed to us from our genes, to understand what is going on around us. We have only the primitive 'repression response' to protect us should we encounter a situation that our instinct cannot deal with.
When the repression response is activated, we do not fully experience an event, and the memory of it, along with any associated emotion is repressed. To keep this material repressed it is covered over with layers of anxiety.
When as children we first experience our parents conditioning us to make us into "civilised" human beings, the repression response is activated. This is because our instincts tell us our parents should love us unconditionally, not withhold affection in order to lead us away from our natural behaviour. The anxiety that covers over our first memory of not being loved is the fear that we cannot be loved, that we are innately unlovable. Yet, being loved is the very thing we desire most, over everything.(**)
Because this fear is not dealt with within our culture, it begins to cause us to alter our behaviour and thinking in order to avoid coming into contact with it. These alterations in thinking and behaviour are known as coping strategies. The most basic coping strategy is the use of a persona - a shield - behind which our true self can hide and carry out interactions with those around us. There are three important consequences of developing the persona.
Firstly, because we learn not to ask for what we truly want, but merely symbolic representations of our needs, we are never satisfied for long and find ourselves becoming almost addicted to obtaining material possessions, acquiring personal power, seeking sensual pleasures and craving adoration, i.e., worship - all simply substitutes for the unconditional love of our parents that was never ours. This is the root of the now universal problem of greed, for a person subconsciously driven to try and fill a hole with something that doesn't fill it up can never get enough.
Secondly, because the persona is held in place with personal pride and self respect, we subconsciously develop a very powerful aversion to being ridiculed within our peer group. This has the overall result of greatly limiting our ability to question the taught versions of subjects like history, religion, science and so on. To challenge them seriously, no matter what the evidence, is to potentially provoke ridicule, and thus cause pain.
Thirdly, because we must maintain self respect to keep our shield in place, we must also challenge very strongly anything which infers we could have been negatively affected by our conditioning. Because we have experienced conditioning, we find it very difficult to recognise the true effect it has had upon us. Because we cannot comprehend the tragedy that has occurred in our lives, we can neither heal nor prevent ourselves from conditioning our own children. Life becomes a feed back loop: because we have been conditioned, we cannot face the notion we are conditioned; because we cannot face the notion we are conditioned, we cannot heal ourselves of the effects of our conditioning; we thus we go on conditioning others.
So, the process of being conditioned invokes natural defence responses we have and has the effect of turning us into emotionally vulnerable creatures, dependent on material desires, addicted to maintaining self-esteem, and highly resistant to natural self-healing.
As parents we attempt to 'civilise' our children in this way because the founders of our culture(s) created the conditions to compel us to do so. Religious and social beliefs were and are constantly manipulated to ensure that all parents do it or face social exclusion. Most cultures condition their children, in the West and westernized countries however, it is done with the specific (hidden) intention of creating people who will undertake the enslavement of the planet on behalf of the elite.
Here then, in plain sight, lie the secrets, available for perusal
(**)Our need for unconditional love is as deep as our need for shelter, nourishment etc. for without them we do not survive. Our need for unconditional love is often even stronger than our need to stay alive. This is indicated by people who did not experience much affection in childhood will allow themselves to die for a political or religious cause, or to 'save' another. The need to believe we could be loved, if necessary after our death as promised by doctrine, religious or otherwise, outweighs the need to remain alive.
The behavior of persons starts very early in childhood, probably even before toilet training. Different civilizations have different targets for their babies (angels? devils? geniuses? brats?) to achieve eventually, if possible. Warriors? Peacemakers? Billionaires? Civil rights activists? Doctors? Engineers? Computer gurus? etc. Blame the shapers for their eventual results?
Those who believe in pre-determination/pre-destination are, maybe, just tools in the "hands" of (who?). Some superior being using these believers just as a puppeteer operates the marionettes? Nothing they will do will influence the outcome that already has been determined. These believers will try to have as good a time as possible; they can never be sinners, and therefore they need not try to bribe God to forgive them any sins by giving donations to clergy.
Pre-determination would be alien to discovery. Pre-destination is a correct concept depending upon the time placement of this concept. What many in the West fail to comprehend is the concept of Fate Karma, essentially because we in the West fail to comprehend the concept of the Law of Karma that is extensively known in the East.
Ones Fate Karma is set [predestination] at the end a life and prior to ones stay in either some heaven or some hell as part of ones general growth process. Also at the end of ones life ones Soul and a "judge" evaluate ones life relative to how well one did in fulfilling ones Fate Karma for ones past life [that is, how well one did working though ones Karma]. With this as a bench mark, the judge and ones Soul design a new Fate Karma for ones next life.
To imagine that any direction of ones Soul reaches beyond a blueprint for a single life is to misconstrue the purpose of ones Fate Karma.
I think of predestination as only the final location being fixed in advance, while predetermination is not only the final location being fixed, but also exactly the path, and happenings on that path, to get there.
..... Different belief systems have various ways of describing what may (or may not?) happen to a person after physical death, and how behavior during a previous life (if any) may influence the current, or next, life.
Although Fate Karma is a pre-design for ones life as far as ones Karma is concerned, and it will manifest as part of ones plan, it also allows for spontaneous Karmic activity during ones life.
What is generally missing in the West is an understanding of the Law of Karma, what the purpose of Karma is, and how it operates to fulfill the Purpose of Life.
The predestination idea is much to rigid to allow for the fluidity of how Karma actually works. I suspect the "idea" as represented by the term predestination is too linear, as in thinking. The reality in operation is much more fluid but is also precise in its result. Something thinking or ones brain may not be able to imagine.
There are many speculations about life or lives; what happened before we were born, and what happens after we die. I tend to think that we should make the best we can of the interval between birth and death, like being on a stage during one (and the only one?) performance. Wanna invent your own speculation(s)?
"Secondly, because the persona is held in place with personal pride and self respect, we subconsciously develop a very powerful aversion to being ridiculed within our peer group. This has the overall result of greatly limiting our ability to question the taught versions of subjects like history, religion, science and so on. To challenge them seriously, no matter what the evidence, is to potentially provoke ridicule, and thus cause pain."
I think many of us react negatively to unfounded criticism. I know if I'm provoked to respond emotionally, I'm more inclined to further dig in to resist the new thoughts.
Would it not depend upon who is judging faith? The Left-Hemisphere dominant individual who has no awareness of the subtle Spiritual nudging that subtly moves people to experience a trust that is often referred to as "faith" would interpret this as "blind" meaning a faith not based on criteria of importance to such a person.
The psychosis based faith would be as an ideation to mask or cover a fear that one has no faith. This is more intellectual and of a "feeling" category than of an honest conviction.
I would personally use the term "Know" or "Knowing" rather than faith, simply to fully remove the experience from the realm of the brain.
Just keep insisting that an outdoor passion play, an annual celebration in which the cycle of life is symbolically being acted out, is/was not an symbolic act, but a real life event, and eventually, with or without force, that idea will sink in and before you know it the tale is no longer a tale but has become, exactly as intended, utter reality, but only in the mind.
That's why we dó have second, third, fourth hand accounts etc, about this Jesus character, but no first hand accounts, because first hand accounts would tell us about a symbolic representation, not about a real life event as portrayed by the Bible.
Back Engineering
Yet, we do have first hand accounts. It's just that they do not involve this Jesus character, they involve other "sons of god" who were born, walked, performed, suffered, died and came back to life prior to the Jesus character and all of them are symbolic representations; personifications relating the story of the "birth", "death" and "rebirth" of the universe. They all tell us the exact same story of the creation of the universe, of life, and of mankind. The Jesus tale is not the first, but one of the last in a long tradition of tales of personification conveying the ever ongoing cycle of life itself.
Proverbs 29:18: "Where there is no vision the people perish." If those so desperately needing to hold on to the vision, fetish, crutch Jesus would confine this vision to their churches, homes, private schools, and out of politics, politics which affects those neither needing nor wanting their fetish, they would not continually hear all this reality reference their vision. On the other hand, it just might be what jolts them out of being bogged-down in their mental ditch and onto the subjective evolutionary roadway. How far behind will the Hares get? I guess a good way of identifying them is by their singing "Give me that old time religion."
That one would not allow that a man named Jesus was also a Soul that, upon receiving initiation from John the Baptist, became Christ, the God-realized Soul, means that one is unfamiliar with the lives and stories of many Saints throughout history.
There is a basic empty space of reality that does not lend itself to "thinking about" that those who think their way to understanding are unable to participate in. As a consequence, thinkers tend to jump from cognitive stone to cognitive stone... not "seeing" the Esoteric stones spaced between these cognitive stones. This makes discussion of the Esoteric stones somewhat difficult.
I believe I understand your distinction between gnostic awareness and "knowledge"? In my writings I have taken to capitalizing Knowledge when I am speaking of intuition, for instance, since I believe intuition is a faculty of the Spiritual realm within Man.
I usually use the word "information" when speaking of what we know of the brain.
And gnostic awareness is more akin [for me] to a blush of awareness of a "concept" rather than an idea in linear [thinking]form. That is, like intuition which I experience as a complete understanding containing a number of related elements which support, explain, and define the whole concept. But these are not linear, or thought of one after another, but all known at once.
Communication is difficult relative to a desire to actually comprehend what another is saying without understanding how the other intends certain words to be defined. That is, I suspect, the reason I much prefer discussion in person, where one may intuit subtle differences in meaning another holds for certain words, or one may interrupt to ascertain the precise meaning another intends with a specific word.
