Author: JOHN
To: Steve, Bob listening
This responds to your last two, which ain't easy, since you tend to be sort of like Don Quixote, who "got on his horse and rode off in all directions."
I'll begin by responding to your good-natured dismissiveness of the very idea that anyone could learn anything from any of the consciousness-enhancing herbs that God has allowed to grow on this planet. I good-naturedly beg to differ. In fact, if it weren't for a certain illicit substance I imbibed in liberally during the age of Aquarius, I promise you I would not be involved in this dialog right now. But a better example: I think I mentioned Ram Dass. His born name was Richard Alpert, and he and Timothy Leary were professors at Harvard, I think, until Leary got int LSD and gave some to Alpert. Leary became (in y opinion) a crackpot) yes, that's also a possible outcome of using LSD), but Alpert went off to India and studied under a guru in ascetic conditions for many years, taking the name Ram Dass. Then he came back to the U.S., where he authored about ten books, all of which I read, on consciousness-raising (without drugs), and helped found one of the most amazingly effective philanthropic organizations in the world (SEVA), which provides free cataract operations of blind people. He is up there on my highest respect list, right next to Martin Luther King and John Spong. If I actually had to name one person who had the most influence on my beginning a spiritual journey, it was old LSD-riddled Richard Alpert/Ram Dass. Highly recommended reading: Grist for the Mill, The only Dance There Is, and Still Here.
Now I'll make a statement that I hope you won't find offensive: I can't help but detect a strong streak in you that I would compared to that of the American Puritans, with a god bit of Martin Luther and some other folks thrown in. To me, you seem to have an underlying attitude that man is bad (okay, "sinful"). Since you're asking us some questions, here's one for you: do you believe in original sin? I don't. But one of the things I do need to add to that draft credo that sort of started all this is the following: I very much accept the biblical assertion that man is made in the image of God. In fact, as I said before, I think our "souls" are little bits of God, playing a game of hide and seek with the Father.
What separates us from the animals is the God-like power of self-consciousness, which is both an immeasurable gift and the heaviest of burdens. The animals are wonderful creations, through which I think God enjoys the marvels of physical existence in ways that we cannot imagine (there are times when I am convinced this whole universe is pretty much just an entertainment for God). I often envy the animals in that it is obvious they live in the present moment and probably do not fear death. But in creating man (whether in an instant or through millions of years of evolution), it seems to me that God was upping the ante to a whole new level. The story of Eden is the perfect vehicle for us to understand ourselves if we only could. I think it means that God gave us the choice of free will and we took it, but in doing so we became aware of ourselves and of our physical death, and that changed everything.
But we are NOT born in sin. You have seen your three daughters born. You know that they were, and so remained for years, the absolutely perfect images of innocence. We have nothing to be ashamed of simply for being human. Now, as for the choices we make in this long, short journey -- yes, we have to take responsibility for those. And we make mistakes, sometimes really bad ones.
Now this is going to get personal, so hang on to your hat. I have to tell you that sometimes the things you say make me wonder if you made some huge mistake way back there somewhere before any of us knew you. Come clean, did you murder somebody? No kidding, where did you pick up all this guilt? Steve, I guarantee you that if your own scale of "sin" could be specified, and your life and my life were both measured against it, I would have to be judged a hundred times the "sinner" that you are. But I don't think I feel the innate "guilt" (call it recognition of sin, if you like) that you seem to. With the possible exception of my father, i can't think of anyone I know who tries to be a better person than you do. I hear you saying that forgiveness is a foundation of your beliefs. And yet it seems that you think you are constantly having to BE forgiven. What are you constantly having to be forgiven for? You and I might define "faith" very differently: in may definition I would include a trust that God has designed me right, and apart from some relatively minor infractions, for which I do deserve (and get) a slap on the metaphysical wrist, my life and the lives of most people I know are unfolding the way they should, and do not require constantly running to God for some kind of forgiveness. That's not my idea of what God "wants from us." Now there ARE a few folks out there (Hitler, Charles Manson, maybe our current Governor --just kidding) who do have a bit to worry about come :judgment day," but to respond to something you said, I don't think the sin of pride, for example, is in the same ballpark as sending a million Jews to the furnaces.
Okay, now on to one of your questions: What (or where) is the "there" to which we seem to be journeying? I think in the largest sense, It is a journey (back) to God. here is my personal theory, and it of course IS just a theory, and I hope it isn't too abstract to be taken at least somewhat seriously. By definition God knows all, sees all, and (my personal addition) experiences all. (Bob, I fear, will disagree somewhat with that, but what does he know -- he went to Harvard and still has ivy in his eyes.) Anyway, for God to truly know ALL, he has to know what it is NOT t know all. That's where we come in. We are where God hides from Himself, so that he can truly know all. (There is a parallel here with the moment on the cross where Jesus feels that God has deserted him.) Our souls are little bits of God who has been caused, by God, to enter a material world and forget their true nature, which is God. And there are billions of us, so that we can explore every possible facet of our own ignorance, but hopefully slowly building up both our aggregate and individual knowledge (make that wisdom) to the point of re-knowing ourselves as God.
I think that the biblical injunctions about the way we should treat our "neighbor" and about that neighbor's relation to God are literally true: Jesus says in several places and ways that we are meeting God in our fellow human beings. Even the old testament says that we should lover our neighbor as ourselves. Because at some level he IS us. We are all a part of God, in pretty much the same sense that my hand is me, or a cell of my skin is me.
I agree with Ram Dass that creativity is a function of the soul. I am not changing the subject. If God is the Creator, and we are made in His image, then when we look at the forms and products of our own creativity, we are seeing something that is analogous (at a lower level, of course) to God's creativity. My favorite form of creativity, at least for most of my life, has been writing. When I look at the work of a Shakespeare, a Jame Joyce, or a T.S. Eliot, I see whole worlds created out of ink and paper. These things perhaps pale in comparison to what God has created, but they aren't too shabby, either. In particular, when I look at a great novel, with its characters and setting and sequence of events, I see a little world that a man (or woman, not meaning to be gender specific) has created, and I believe this human creation is a perfect example of the desire and striving in us to know and become one with our Creator.
And that creativity exists in all of us to some degree or other. And in a hundred different genres: music, painting, fiction, drama, poetry, sculpture, movies, cartoons, crafts, woodworking, sewing, flower arranging, interior design, computer programming, engineering, medicine, architecture, athletics, and on and on. Take one recent and humble example: I am pretty impressed with 3-D computer animation. Even some of the Saturday morning cartoons shows are absolute miracles of hard work and creativity (we will skip the stupid and sometimes violent plots for now) that no one could have even imagine just a couple decades ago. When you go to see a fine animated movie like "Toy Story," I think you are seeing the god in us asserting itself and trying to create, albeit at a necessarily lower level, as God creates.
Let me take it one step further, and wrap this too long thing up. I want to use the analogy, because I think in this life,k and understanding of God can only be approached through analogy and parable. When I see Hamlet on stage, I am watching the actors "create" their characters, and for the duration of the play at least, they pretty much ARE those characters. I think that for the duration of this life, we stand in relation to our to our souls as the characters in a play stand to the actors who act them. And the actors are to Shakespeare as our souls are to God. I think that as we grow out of infancy, we slowly create our characters (or call them our egos) and become completely lost in these interesting, but temporary, shadows of our true selves. Now, I can't push this analogy but so far, because our lives are not scripted. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it is an ongoing, improvisational performance, a la Saturday Nite Live, or maybe Whose Line Is It Anyway, where each of us is constantly changing and experimenting with our character, but still prone to identifying ourself wholly with it. ("Ourself" -- now there is an interesting term!)
Shakespeare acted in his own plays, and sat and watched them, too. I think that now and again a special actor enters the play, who maintains more of his true soul perspective and does not become so wrapped up i his character or ego that he loses contact with his true nature. I think Jesus was one of those, as were the Buddha and various other prophets and wise men of the ages. When one of these takes the stage, look out! The whole nature of the play changes.
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