Book of Mercy #11-15

[Byron]

John 8:58

Jesus is saying that He was in existence before Abraham was born.

[mat james]

Jesus is saying that He was in existence before Abraham was born.

I know Byron: I was there too. I heard and saw it all. We all argued the point a bit, but in the end I am won; me included!
Thanks for the biblical "link".
Matj

[Byron]

One of the Greek philosophers believed that this life we are all in right now, is actually not the 'real' life that we live.
He explained it something like this...when we see something for the first time, that is beautiful, how do we know it is beautiful? What is it that determines our appreciation of the beauty? We've never seen it before but instantly realise it is beautiful.
The argument follows, that we all live in another existence where beauty is everywhere. We see everything of beauty in that existence. So that when we take 'time-out' and come into this world as screaming mucky babies, and grow into screaming mucky adults, we see what we have already seen in the 'real' existence. Our time at the moment is simply a break from our true existence. We exist forever in another dimension.



Time for another tablet. "Matron!!"

[lizzytysh]

I love this idea, Byron... how does the philosopher explain the cultural differences in perceptions of beauty? Or, was this theory formulated during a time when less was known of the rest of the world?

I do agree that this is a 'time out' existence... time in the time-out chair to learn our lessons ?


~ Lizzy

[Boss]

The Kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.

Verse 113
The Gospel of Thomas

[Byron]

'Twas postulated during the time of the ancient Greeks., or a couple of hours later. I'm not too sure what time it was, but they all wore clothes and ate fruit (and honey)

[Manna]

G-d gets offended when you pass by the color purple without noticing, remember?

I think everything in this world is beautiful, I think we just have to learn how to see it that way, and it will be so.

[lazariuk]

I was writing that our ancestors did not know some disparate heaven. They lived the day. You were there 734,000 years ago, Jack! You were there 3.5 billion years ago when those first cells started dividing. You were there, not in the brilliant awareness you know today, but you were there. You were there before the Big Bang and you are there after the end of the Universe. So was, is and will be Manna.

Thanks Adam for correcting how I had misunderstood you. And yes you are right. I was there although I don't think I can confirm all the dates you mentioned, but thanks for reminding me and placing me in such nice company. I am also not so sure about that brilliant awareness part.

It's this interconnectedness of all things, the four-dimensional dance of existence I'm impressing on you. Our prayer is limiting. We are more evolved than our forebears 1500, 2000, 3000 years ago. Prayer needs to be more relevant. And ritual definitely does too. What is our ritual today? Sport, ice, fucking? We are not connected in the now.

For the purpose of this conversation so that we can know what we are talking about I am going to tell you how I am going to use a specific word when I talk about prayer and ritual. The word is remembering. I am going to use it in the way that we remember when we waken each morning who we are. In the same way I'll let the word extend through death and say that we can awaken by being re - membered. Or rather we awaken to the fact that we have been re - membered (we lost the use of our members and then we got them back, that we are eternal or at least our experience can suggest that we are. We are summoning each other by re - membering each other. Nothing can get in the way of that.

Didn't Christ say: before Abraham was, I am? I think he got it.

I think so too which brings us to the central ritual of the Catholic church. Before Jesus died he gatherered twelve around him and shared some wine and bread and said "Do this in memory of Me" He wasn't asking very much for people to do to remember him. Just share some wine and bread and remember Him. I have no way of knowing how long remembering has been going on, maybe forever. There is also something very unique about Jesus. He was able to demonstrate what he was saying. There is a lot more about him that I don't really understand that I feel drawn to explore further. It has something to do with what makes me think of Leonard singing

Is this what you wanted?
To live in a house that is haunted
By the ghost of you and me"

and

If love be not in the house there is nothing.
Ezra Pound

Words are sometimes an impediment to the very thing that is being described. All I say is this: you are always

Yes I agree, we live in a world where words are used more to conceal than reveal. Concealing serves a purpose as well as I am learning recently.



peace
Jack

[Byron]

A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
–Leonard Cohen


Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.

Those who live in the Lord never see each other for the last time. German proverb.

[Manna]

Nah, my feet are too muddy to buy into it at that level. I existed before I was born only in the sense that the atoms that now comprise me were once used to comprise something else - they existed, I did not, I was only potential. I had no consciousness before my birth. I don't know when I got a soul, or if I have one today. Saying that I was there for things that happened before me goes too far; it's beyond my experience, one might say. There are some elements of this philosophy that I can see; many things are cyclical, but I don't think my existence counts that way.

That connectedness with all people, all living things, and even all non-living things (for who am I to decide what is living and not?), I can go along with that. I have to get to a certain mental place before I feel it, but I know it's there because I have experienced that connected feeling. I think some people feel it more easily than I do, and maybe these are the same ones that are saying, "Always, I am." I don't know.

[Boss]

For the purpose of this conversation so that we can know what we are talking about I am going to tell you how I am going to use a specific word when I talk about prayer and ritual. The word is remembering. I am going to use it in the way that we remember when we waken each morning who we are. In the same way I'll let the word extend through death and say that we can awaken by being re - membered. Or rather we awaken to the fact that we have been re - membered (we lost the use of our members and then we got them back, that we are eternal or at least our experience can suggest that we are. We are summoning each other by re - membering each other. Nothing can get in the way of that.

Yes it can, Jack. Remembering our progenitors is properly Human, I do it on Fridays. But what am I remembering? So often our prayer and ritual is not relevant to everyday. We have to know the 'sacred'. In today. I have been to synagogue, I have been to church and I ask you, what does a twelve year old make of promised lands and resurrections? Shouldn't we be celebrating our thermo-nuclear sun, the living beings at the oceans depths, the sanctity of marriage in our modern day? These are sacred. G-d is here, and always was.

Lewis Mumford said:

Karl Marx once said of himself that he was not a Marxist; and of Jesus one may say without irreverence, that he was not a Christian. For little men, who guarded Jesus' memory, took him, drained off the precious lifeblood of his spirit, mummified his body, and wrapped what was left in many foreign wrappings; over these remains they proceeded to erect a gigantic tomb. That tomb was the Christian Church

And so it is true of much religion. I remember. But I also envisage. And I am One in the numinous day. I pray to that which is alive, I dance in ritual to contemporary music, I am enthused by our unbelievable advances, and I await a new day. I do it all now. And I am relentless.

See you

[lazariuk]

I am enthused by our unbelievable advances

Hi Adam
There are some things about this that stand out for me. Would you like to say more?

Jack

[lazariuk]

I think some people feel it more easily than I do, and maybe these are the same ones that are saying, "Always, I am." I don't know.

Getting comfortable with saying "I don't know" is easy enough with one life. But maybe some of us need more than one life to do it but all we get is that much more to not know about. Seeing someone trusting their own experience rather than what they are told from people who can have no experiential knowledge of what they are telling is like watching the moon in the sky. It can be very beautiful.

[Boss]

I am enthused by our unbelievable advances

Hi Adam
There are some things about this that stand out for me. Would you like to say more?

Jack

I don't want to say anymore.

[mat james]

But what am I remembering? So often our prayer and ritual is not relevant to everyday......Adam/Boss

I would like to elaborate on this "remembering" and "awaking".

In my poem "Presciently Pissed" on the poetry thread I explore this concept of "I Am", using the analogy of Vodka and Whisky. The "I Am" perspective that is common to Mystics, of all religions, exists outside the "Vat of space time" while the "individual life", the Whiskey, abides inside the "vat", along with the rest of time/space existence. Even evolution, over billions of years exists inside the vat. Matj"s vodka/spirit may take many forms and evolve through many existences inside the vat
However "outside the vat" the original Spirit (Vodka) ever-presently exists and is the basis of the Whiskey(and all varieties of whisky!) inside the vat as well.
The interesting thing/perspective here, outside the vat, is that "Vodka" (Spirit beyond space-time) does not have the time/space perspectives/flavours, and can only be singular/undifferentiated "is-ness". (Vodka), great stuff but underdeveloped and never "aged".
This, I think, is what Adam ben Boss means by "Now".
This godly perspective is the universal mystic vision.
It is difficult to understand and define from "inside the vat" because it is experienced "outside the vat" of differentiation, the World of the Opposites.

One can only guess at how difficult it is for the Spirit outside the vat to take too seriously the turmoil happening inside the vat. Because this contemplation that ends in understanding takes place in time, which only exists "inside the vat".
It could be said that a "visitor" from the "vat" (you or me or Jesus or Blake or Rumi or Buddha etc) can only awaken into immediacy of being/knowing/awareness, because all is undifferentiated outside the vat.

This is what I would call "having two views". (I think the Toists also call it "having two views", so I probably stole the label from them!)
View One: a place in space/time.
View Two: I am Who am.

Matj