The Gift of Life

[Straw Dog]

Greetings,

So, as it turns out, I've been a Christian all along without realizing it. I've come full circle back to my home religion, but it doesn't look the same as when I left it. I realized that my own prejudice against perceived failings within the mainstream institutions has prevented me from seeing the diamonds among the dung. I forgot that religion was made for us rather than us being made for religion. It is amendable and evolves. My arrogant search to possess a perfect knowledge has also taken me far away from that which is.

I'm writing this thread as a means of re-introducing myself to the tradition and community, which I've unjustly alienated in the past, and opening a dialogue about my emerging approach to Christian teachings. I look forward to sharing my experience as well as receiving insight from others.

To begin with, I don't really believe in theological concepts. It is possible that I just don't understand the field however. Either way, I feel it is safer to approach God through the Spirit rather than through theology. I only use terms like "Spirit" for lack of a better word to express a certain experience that seems to transcend all categories and concepts. I've attempted to use more technical language, like calling it the "primordial potentiality", but what does this really convey? I don't know. I prefer not to speculate too much about metaphysics (if I can help it). I find metaphorical expression to be much more accessible.

I approach Jesus as a poet, a sage, and a teacher. It seems that imposing theology onto his teachings confuses the message and grasping desperately at a static abstract dogma kills the organic flow of his spiritual expression. His teachings illustrate a certain manner of transformation brought about through an excellent way of living. It is more akin to a form of art rather than a science.

The practice begins by accepting life as a gift of God. Not from God, but of it. God is empty of self-nature and gives away its Spirit freely. In contrast, we could also accept life as a curse, so it is a matter of perspective. However, life as a gift simply creates a more grateful and useful perspective. It's the same reason that optimism is more useful than pessimism. So life is a gift that we may deeply appreciate daily.

Many people accept the gift, but falsely believe that it is a possession belonging to ego. This creates the illusion of seperate souls. People seek to hoard the gift for themselves rather than sharing it openly. Since power naturally tends toward equilibrium, this tendency to possess creates adversarial relations among the total system. Satan is a metaphor for this destructive egocentrism. To repent means to turn away from egoic obsession back towards the primal Spirit.

Other people accept the gift and are deeply grateful for it, but then feel inadequate and an obligation to reciprocate back to the Source somehow. This takes many forms such as highly ritualized worship, strong feelings of guilt, seeking political and military power to push "God's agenda", and generally seeking to impose the "one true religion". It is impossible to adequately reciprocate the gift of life back to God. Fortunately, God doesn't desire reciprocation or compensation. God doesn't desire anything, but simply creates and gives of Itself generously.

Rather than seeking to hoard the gift or compensate for feelings of inadequacy, the middle way is to accept and appreciate the gift of life while sharing it openly with others and, ultimately, paying it forward. Aversion to ego can be just as destructive as attachment. We cannot overcome evil with evil. The ego just needs to get spaced and realigned with essential nature because, in the end, even Satan shall be forgiven.

To lose oneself means to find the true self. Jesus accomplished this by becoming empty of self-nature and cultivating the Christ within. He taught non-possessiveness and non-violence while living accordingly. In this manner, his life and teachings reveal the divine nature of God. Jesus never wanted to be worshipped in a cult of personality, but was constantly pointing directly to the Spirit within all. In the end, he paid everything forward.

This is merely my modest interpretation of the teachings. No doubt many will view this to be heretical, but what else is new? Personally, I find this way of life to be excellent while also being useful. It will probably be amended as I listen to the insight of others and continue cultivating the Christ within.

Are there any general, specific, or clarifying questions about this way of life?

Does anyone agree with it? Disagree? Why or why not?

Any advice will be accepted. Thank you.

 

[SageTree]

I enjoyed reading that and I can dig it.

Don't get stressed out if you get some flak.
Round here your bound to.

But you have a Friends around here, who concur.
I look forward to having you around these parts.

I myself have felt a 'coming back'.... although I wonder if I ever really left.
The more you change the more you stay the same, sort of feeling.

Mystic and Contemplative writings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, as well as other writings of the like really connected the language I understood, with the Heart of my heart.

 

[Straw Dog]

I myself have felt a 'coming back'.... although I wonder if I ever really left.
The more you change the more you stay the same, sort of feeling.

Mystic and Contemplative writings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, as well as other writings of the like really connected the language I understood, with the Heart of my heart.

I appreciate the support.

Yeah, it also has to do with realizing how similar all sages actually are. Sure, there are some variations among different teachings, but at a certain point it seems trivial to fixate on one tradition being superior to another. The Buddha may have put more emphasis on mindfulness while Yeshua might have focused more on expressing gratitude. I figure there's no good reason to become alienated from my tradition of birth since it's not a static construct.

 

[SageTree]

You are right, it's not static, but there is also tradition.... sort of a baby/bathwater situation, no?

I've been able to express myself, in a language, I know, in the Anglican church,
but am also learning to use more language that people understand.

This must be what it's like to learn a second language, more to that country,
and then come back to the mother country and learn to use our first again.

There are ideas that are just captured too well to not hold onto them,
but it's fun to figure out how to say those things with enough bits that people still understand and accept.

You've settled into a Friends Meeting, no?

 

[Straw Dog]

You've settled into a Friends Meeting, no?

Yeah. Joining the community as well as refining my methods of practice has helped break down some walls. It helps that they're non-dogmatic and focus on Presence instead.

I have to say: Yin-Zen and Singularity Projection are some heavy duty mind-liberating techniques! In Quaker terms, I could call them Holy Spirit Meditation and Inner Light Projection. Same thing. I also started incorporating Contemplative Prayer.

 

[Vouthon]

Dear StrawDog :bow:

Thank you for posting this thread! I too enjoyed reading it and I sympathise with your point of view.

I forgot that religion was made for us rather than us being made for religion. It is amendable and evolves

Bravo :clapI think the word your looking for is development. Christianity is not a fossil but a living, breathing tradition; an infinite reservoir of rich treasures from which we find new gems as time goes on and history progresses.

This is what Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman taught:

"...If Christianity be a universal religion, suited not simply to one locality or period, but to all times and places, it cannot but vary in its relations and dealings towards the world around it, that is, it will develop. Principles require a very various application according as persons and circumstances vary, and must be thrown into new shapes according to the form of society which they are to influence. Hence all bodies of Christians, orthodox or not, develop the doctrines of Scripture...The whole Bible, not its prophetical portions only, is written on the principle of development. As the Revelation proceeds, it is ever new, yet ever old...Moreover, while it is certain that developments of Revelation proceeded all through the Old Dispensation {68} down to the very end of our Lord's ministry, on the other hand, if we turn our attention to the beginnings of Apostolical teaching after His ascension, we shall find ourselves unable to fix an historical point at which the growth of doctrine ceased, and the rule of faith was once for all settled. Not on the day of Pentecost, for St. Peter had still to learn at Joppa that he was to baptize Cornelius; not at Joppa and Cæsarea, for St. Paul had to write his Epistles; not on the death of the last Apostle, for St. Ignatius had to establish the doctrine of Episcopacy; not then, nor for centuries after, for the Canon of the New Testament was still undetermined. Not in the Creed, which is no collection of definitions, but a summary of certain credenda, an incomplete summary, and, like the Lord's Prayer or the Decalogue, a mere sample of divine truths, especially of the more elementary. No one doctrine can be named which starts complete at first, and gains nothing afterwards from the investigations of faith...[A great idea] in time enters upon strange territory; points of controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall around it; dangers and hopes appear in new relations; and the old principles appear in new forms. It changes with them in order to remain the same. In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often..."

- Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman, 1845 (Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine), Catholic theologian, mystic & prelate

The Tradition is "alive". It is still progressing, through the lives and experiences of defied saints, we have such a fusion of human knowledge with divine understanding, that mystical experiences can even pass into theolgical discourse and influence our understanding of the mysteries of faith.

Vatican II actually explained that it is in this manner that the Church develops "doctrine" and understanding of its teachings:

"The Tradition that comes from the Apostles makes progress in the Church. There is growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. The understanding of the things and words handed down grows, through the contemplation and study of believers, who compare these things in their heart (cf. Luc. 2, 19 and 51), and through their interior understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience. The Church, we may say, as the ages pass, tends continually towards the fullness of divine truth, till the words of God are consummated in her".


(Dei verbum, no. 8).

In this development, this evolution nothing is lost. The faith stays the same in essence, the same unchanging truths of revelation, yet our understanding progresses to higher and higher planes.

So yes we are not a static faith but a living faith.

 

[Vouthon]

Yeah. Joining the community as well as refining my methods of practice has helped break down some walls. It helps that they're non-dogmatic and focus on Presence instead.

I have to say: Yin-Zen and Singularity Projection are some heavy duty mind-liberating techniques! In Quaker terms, I could call them Holy Spirit Meditation and Inner Light Projection. Same thing. I also started incorporating Contemplative Prayer.

The Society of Friends is a good place to be IMHO. George Fox was a great mystic. Whenever I take the beliefnet quiz "Orthodox Quaker" always comes second or third (once top!) on my list of religions. I am reminded of the Quaker teaching of the "Inner Light", as its founder George Fox explained:

"...Every Man is enlightened by the Divine Light of Christ, and I saw it shine through all..."
- George Fox (1624 – 1691), Founder of Quakerism

The Quaker insistence on finding the "Inner Light of God", and of quietness and stillness, deeply appeals to my sensibilities. And yet John Woolman, that God-intoxicated, selfless Quaker mystic was also a social activist and opponent of slavery. Quakers have this wonderful balance between action & contemplation.

They are the contemplative-in-action par excellence. :bow:

 

[Vouthon]

I appreciate the support.

Yeah, it also has to do with realizing how similar all sages actually are. Sure, there are some variations among different teachings, but at a certain point it seems trivial to fixate on one tradition being superior to another.

I think this is something close to what the Anglican/Protestant mystic William Law was getting at. Read this I think that, although it is long, it will strike a chord with you:

"...Selfishness and partiality are very inhuman and base qualities even in the things of this world ; but in the doctrines of religion they are of a baser nature. Now, this is the greatest evil that the division of the church has brought forth; it raises in every communion a selfish, partial orthodoxy, which consists in courageously defending all that it has, and condemning all that it has not. And thus every champion is trained up in defence of their own truth, their own learning and their own church, and he has the most merit, the most honour, who likes everything, defends everything, among themselves, and leaves nothing uncensored in those that are of a different communion. Now, how can truth and goodness and union and religion be more struck at than by such defenders of it?...If, therefore, it should be said that churches are divided, estranged and made unfriendly to one another by a learning, a logic, a history, a criticism in the hands of partiality, it would be saying that which each particular church too much proves to be true. Ask why even the best amongst the Catholics are very shy of owning the validity of the orders of our Church; it is because they are afraid of removing any odium from the Reformation. Ask why no Protestants anywhere touch upon the benefit or necessity of celibacy in those who are separated from worldly business to preach the gospel ; it is because that would be seeming to lessen the Roman error of not suffering marriage in her clergy. Ask why even the most worthy and pious among the clergy of the Established Church are afraid to assert the sufficiency of the Divine Light, the necessity of seeking only the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; it is because the Quakers, who have broke off from the church, have made this doctrine their corner-stone. If we loved truth as such, if we sought for it for its own sake, if we loved our neighbour as ourselves, if we desired nothing by our religion but to be acceptable to God, if we equally desired the salvation of all men, if we were afraid of error only because of its harmful nature to us and our fellow-creatures, then nothing of this spirit could have any place in us.

There is therefore a catholic spirit, a communion of saints in the love of God and all goodness, which no one can learn from that which is called orthodoxy in particular churches, but is only to be had by a total dying to all worldly views, by a pure love of God, and by such an unction from above as delivers the mind from all selfishness and makes it love truth and goodness with an equality of affection in every man, whether he is Christian, Jew or Gentile. He that would obtain this divine and catholic spirit in this disordered, divided state of things, and live in a divided part of the church without partaking of its division, must have these three truths deeply fixed in his mind. First, that universal love, which gives the whole strength of the heart to God, and makes us love every man as we love ourselves, is the noblest, the most divine, the Godlike state of the soul, and is the utmost perfection to which the most perfect religion can raise us; and that no religion does any man any good but so far as it brings this perfection of love into him. This truth will show us that true orthodoxy can nowhere be found but in a pure disinterested love of God and our neighbour. Second, that in this present divided state of the church, truth itself is torn and divided asunder; and that, therefore, he can be the only true catholic who has more of truth and less of error than is hedged in by any divided part. This truth will enable us to live in a divided part unhurt by its division, and keep us in a true liberty and fitness to be edified and assisted by all the good that we hear or see in any other part of the church. . . Thirdly, he must always have in mind this great truth, that it is the glory of the Divine Justice to have no respect of parties or persons, but to stand equally disposed to that which is right and wrong as well in the Jew as in the Gentile. He therefore that would like as God likes, and condemn as God condemns, must have neither the eyes of the Papist nor the Protestant; he must like no truth the less because Ignatius Loyola or John Bunyan were very zealous for it, nor have the less aversion to any error, or George Fox had brought it forth..."

- William Law (1686 – 9 April 1761), Anglican priest & mystic

 

[SageTree]

:namaste

Nice posts as well Vouthon.

 

[Straw Dog]

I think this is something close to what the Anglican/Protestant mystic William Law was getting at. Read this I think that, although it is long, it will strike a chord with you:

Very insightful. Thank you.