Reflection for March 23, 2017: Dreaming

Dreaming

Presenting preview and “sketches” of work in progress coming soon as a book “The Western Mysteries (White, Red & Green)” by me.

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In the month of Heshvan in the year 5413(1652) I dreamed of an enormous camel pursuing me. Fleeing it, I entered a room and closed the door with a double bolt. The animal broke through the door with a double bolt. The animal broke through the door, so I hid myself successively in many other rooms. In the last room there was a fragile light as transparent as a wave in which I wrapped myself. Having descended into the sea, I no longer feared the camel. There a young woman of great beauty came out to meet me, embracing me intimately and beseeching me not to forget that I was to be married to a queen who was, at present, hidden both by the sun and the moon. Much moved by this, I swore by her and believe I had relations with her. Immediately after, another young woman appeared, followed by the sun and the moon and I saw the resplendent queen who  apparently was my destiny. Full of terror, I awoke, stirred by that vision in which nothing in me was hidden. I went to Torah!

Abraham ha-Yakini (transl. by Jack Hirschman)

Abraham Yachini (Heb: אברהם יכיני ; also transliterated as Abraham Yakhini, or Abraham ha-Yakini) b. 1617 – d. 1682,^[1][2] was one of the chief agitators in the Sabbatean movement, the son of Pethahiah of Constantinople. He studied under Joseph Trani of Constantinople (died 1644), and under Mordecai, a German kabbalist. From the latter he probably derived the touch of mysticism which, combined with cunning and great intelligence, made him the most suitable representative of Sabbatai Zevi. Yachini persuaded Sabbatai Zevi, who at that time was convinced that he was the Messiah but was timid and fearful of proclaiming himself, boldly to declare his claims. It was in Constantinople, about 1653, that Sabbatai Zevi became acquainted with Yachini, who, on account of his learning and oratorical powers, enjoyed a great reputation in his native town.^[3] He is described by contemporaries as the best preacher of his day.

Yachini is said by some to have put into the hands of Sabbatai Zevi a spurious book in archaic characters, which, he assured him, contained the Scriptural proof of his Messianic origin. This fabrication, entitled The Great Wisdom of Solomon, began as follows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Yachini

“

I, Abraham, was confined in a cave for forty years, and I wondered greatly that the time of miracles did not arrive. Then was heard a voice, proclaiming, “A son will be born in the year 5386 [1626] to Mordecai Ẓebi and he will be called Sabbatai. He will humble the great dragon… he, the true Messiah, will sit upon My [God’s] throne.”

Queen Ragnhild’s dream Erik Werenskiold (1855-1938) – Snorre Sturlassons Kongesagaer

“Ragnhild, who was wise and intelligent, dreamt great dreams. She dreamt, for one, that she was standing out in her herb-garden, and she took a thorn out of her shift; but while she was holding the thorn in her hand it grew so that it became a great tree, one end of which struck itself down into the earth, and it became firmly rooted; and the other end of the tree raised itself so high in the air that she could scarcely see over it, and it became also wonderfully thick. The under part of the tree was red with blood, but the stem upwards was beautifully green and the branches white as snow. There were many and great limbs to the tree, some high up, others low down; and so vast were the tree’s branches that they seemed to her to cover all Norway, and even much more.”[15]

Heimskringla orThe Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Halfdan the Black Saga

….

Dreams could sometimes foretell the future. Their ability to do so went hand in hand with the Norse view that all events were directed by fate; as the Eddic poem The Song of Skirnir (Skírnismál) puts it, “My destiny was fashioned down to the last half-day, and all my life was determined.”[2] Since the future was preordained, it could be known in advance.

Take, for example, the famous dream of Queen Ragnhild, who reigned in southern Norway during the ninth century alongside King Halfdan the Black. One night, Ragnhild dreamed that she took a brooch off of her cloak and held it out in front of her. Roots immediately began trailing out of it and toward the ground, where they took hold. Branches then shot up from the brooch, and the tree soon grew so tall that Ragnhild was unable to see over it. The tree’s bowl was blood-red, its upper trunk green, and its branches snowy white. The branches spread out to cover all of Norway, and even extended into other lands as well.[3]

Years later, Ragnhild realized the significance of the dream. The tree symbolized her descendants. Her son, Harald Finehair, was to become the first ruler of all of Norway. The tree’s blood-red bowl symbolized the bloodshed that would occur while Harald was coming to power, the green upper trunk the vigor and glory of his reign, and the white branches his own descendants, from whom would come Norway’s rulers for many generations.[4]

The Viking Spirit by Daniel McCoy

References:

[1] Davidson, Hilda Roderick Ellis. 1988. Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions. p. 138-139.

[2] Turville-Petre, E.O.G. 1972. Nine Norse Studies. p. 32.

[3] Ibid. p. 30-31.

[4] Ibid

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Queen Ragnhild’s dream gives us a vision of White Green and Red. White above, Green in the middle and Red below. This traditional pattern we may find in the three realms. The White above, the Green in the middle and Red Below. This is the familiar pattern found in European myth. The White and the White and Red we see war of the roses, the Houses of York and Lancaster. In alchemy we see the marriage of Red King and White Queen.

This is a familiar pattern, the marriage of Sun and Moon, Gold and Silver. In Plato we see the red and white rivers of blood and stars. The World of the Sky we can see the Celestial realms full of the Angelic hosts and beings of the “sky.” The Gods of Thunder, Zeus, Taranis. The Wisdom of the Birds breathing breath from the heavens.

The Red shows us the blood of the earth or the deep fiery “blood” of the planet itself. This is not without significance, that we can see allusions to three “bowls”; or as tradition would have would be three cauldrons. Caitlin Matthew’s points to this as Knowledge, Vocation and Warming (Coire Sois, Emmae and Goirath: Three Cauldrons of Inspiration, Caitlin Matthews, from “Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom.”)

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In that Earth there are gardens, paradises, animals, minerals…

Everything that is to be found on that Earth,

absolutely everything, is alive and speaks, has a life analogous

to that of every living being endowed with thought and

speech. Endowed with thought and speech, the beings there

correspond to what they are here below, with the difference

that in that celestial earth, things are permanent, imperishable,

unchangeable; their universe does not die.

Ibn Arabi

….

For it is one of their Tenets that nothing perishes, but, as the

Sun and Year, everything goes in a Circle, Lesser or

Greater, and is renewed, and refreshed in its revolutions.

As it is another that Every Body in the Creation moves,

which is a sort of life, and that nothing moves but what has

another Animal moving on it, and so on, to the utmost

minute corpuscle that is capable to be a receptacle of life

Robert Kirk

…

Here is no water but only rock

Rock and no water and the sandy road

The road winding above among the mountains

Which are mountains of rock without water

If there were water we should stop and drink

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think

Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand

If there were only water amongst the rock

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit

Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit

There is not even silence in the mountains

But dry sterile thunder without rain

There is not even solitude in the mountains

But red sullen faces sneer and snarl

From doors of mudcracked houses

T.S. Eliot

Above image from secret symbols of the rosicrucians

Here we The Heavenly energies and the divine magnet, pouring down into the Prima Materia. From here we travel to the mysteries again of Red and White. The Red rose of Christ and the White Lily of the Virgin Mary. We can of course continue this pattern and discus Christ’s wounds and of course Red and White roses.

But what is the Green? In Green we see Venus and Aphrodite and Copper. It is from Copper Sulphate that is once source for traditional green pigment. In the Rosicrucian mysteries we see Venus as the Light within the Earth itself. She is the source, the Spirit trapped in amber, the Goddess of Matter itself. It is not without reason we see this green repeat within the Western mysteries. We see Green prominently in several places. The Emerald Tablet of course is a well known image. A green tablet of Wisdom, found deep within the Earth. The green skin of Osiris in some depictions.. In Queen Ragnhild’s vision we see Green as the trunk and “the Glory of her reign.” Perhaps this links to the well known Arthurian axiom “ The King and the Land are One.” Thus the Body of the Tree not only is the very Kingdom, or as we know Kingdom is all manifest reality in Qabalah, it is the very person sitting on the throne and their actions as they do. Signifying that the candidate is the very land they walk upon, as touched upon briefly in “The Rose Cross and The Goddess” (Gareth Knight).

The Tree of course like the Garden is an ideal form, a paradise or Pardes (Orchard, Garden, Paradise) image. Our image above from the Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians moves from our two flowers to the fons miraculorum. The tree, the garden and paradise. So here we begin to understand our Green circle. The intermediary between White and Red, and idealised paradisical world, the physical realm. In Dreams though we see something perhaps inherent in the human consciousness.

So the Green circle then become the doorway, gateway between the sky and land. In turn it is a doorway between the land and the paradise world and into the under realms of the Ocean (interior ocean) realms, or Chthonic.

‘From Ismarus we sailed, with heavy hearts for the loyal friends lost, though happy to have escaped death ourselves: nor would I let the curved ships leave till we had called three times in ritual to each of our luckless comrades, who died there on the plain, at the hands of the Cicones. But Zeus, the Cloud-Gatherer, stirred the north wind against our ships, in a blinding tempest, hiding the land and sea alike in cloud, while darkness swept from the sky. Headlong the ships were driven, sails torn to shreds by the force of the gale. In terror of death we lowered the masts on deck, and rowed the vessels wildly towards land.

There we stayed for two days and nights, troubled at heart with weariness and grief. But when Dawn of the lovely tresses gave birth to the third day, we upped masts, hoisted the white sails, and took our seats aboard, and the wind and helmsman kept us on course. Now I would have reached home safely, but as I was rounding Cape Malea, the north wind and waves and the ocean currents beat me away, off course, past Cythera.

For nine days I was driven by fierce winds over the teeming sea: but on the tenth we set foot on the shores of the Lotus-eaters, who eat its flowery food. On land we drew water, and my friends ate by the ships. Once we had tasted food and drink, I sent some of the men inland to discover what kind of human beings lived there: selecting two and sending a third as herald. They left at once and came upon the Lotus-eaters, who had no thought of killing my comrades, but gave them lotus to eat. Those who ate the honey-sweet lotus fruit no longer wished to bring back word to us, or sail for home. They wanted to stay with the Lotus-eaters, eating the lotus, forgetting all thoughts of return. I dragged those men back to the shore myself by force, while they wept, and bound them tight in the hollow ships, pushing them under the benches. Then I ordered my men to embark quickly on the fast craft, fearing that others would eat the lotus and forget their homes. They boarded swiftly and took their place on the benches then sitting in their rows struck the grey water with their oars.’

Homer, Odyssey, Book IX, 63-104

W. Heath Robinson – Stories from the Odyssey Told to the Children – Jeanie Lang

This image of a dreamer, laying on the ground is significant. We know Green shows us the earth, growth, regeneration within and on the land. Thus we can see in tradition the importance of the inner landscape and the Dreamers Within the land itself. The King and the Land are One is one Arthurian Axiom. Another well known Arthurian theme is that Arthur is not dead, but is asleep deep within the land itself. Traditionally under Glastonbury Tor or similar in the Celtic Anwynn or Avalon. Barinthus perhaps helped guide Arthur to Avalon after his final battle.

Who live in this idealised paradisical landscape? We can see this in several european traditions. Most notably we see the Celtic and often Norse traditions we see the “faery races.” Most notably these are detailed by the likes of Robert Kirk, William Sharpe and many others, Jim (1891-1945) and Michael (1876-1937) of County Sligo, Eire famously entered the Illuminated Landscape and thus into Faery Land. Unlike the trite images of Walt Disney though, these are more the proud races of Tolkien. Tall and majestic. But in reality we know they may be small or tall. Scottish tradition shows us short beings such as Brownies. As short as two or three feet or typically around six feet. In the writings of William Sharpe/Fiona Macleod (member of the Golden Dawn) we find the faery cities of Falias, Gorias, Finias and Murias; similar to those mentioned in poems such as the Arthurian Spoils of Anwynn.

Dreamers then besides King Arthur we know, the sacred King Sacrificed and placed into the earth for the Goddess. We see this in the Merlin Stories.At the end Merlin is taken to the Crystal cave by Vivienne/Nimue. The Faery crystal cave deep within the earth. In turn we can return to our axis mundi tree of Buddha, surrounded by “demons” points to the earth under the Bodhi tree. Of course this pattern in the early Merlin tales ends with Merlin in his Observatory of the Stars within the Forest (1) which is also significant. We see Merlin the King having faced trials, gone mad through the reality of war, eventually ends his days in contemplation. Contemplating The Land the Stars, the Goddess. For Merlin the Land is not only the King and the Land, but also the Land and the Stars. So we see from our above diagram from the Secret symbols, we see the fruits of the planet, the metals, which we can see are fruits below that reach to the fruits above.

Dreamers are found not only in the Land but in the stars, for the Crown is within the Kingdom as any Qabalist knows. Familiar dreamers of course are Sleeping Beauty and of course Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (Gnomes). It is not perhaps without merit that we see the returning motifs of the garden, the rose garden, paradise and sleepers. This we see in the Chemical wedding, Snow white and ancient stories such as Beauty and the beast (2). In the Islamic and Sufi traditions we of course see the faery races associated with trees. The rose garden in Islam is important. The gardens of figs, olives, dates and pomegranates surrounding a fountain, in which was a garden that Adam and Eve we commanded to grow roses. (3)

(1) The Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin) , Geoffrey of Monmouth.

(2) Now thought to be approx. 5000 years old

(3) PaRDeS: On the Symbolism of the Fountain & the Garden By Nigel Jackson, Sacred Web 38

Now as to Cuchulain it has to be related thus: He called upon Laeg to come to him; and “Do thou go, O Laeg!” said Cuchulain, “to the place where Emer is; and say to her that women of the fairies have come upon me, and that they have destroyed my strength; and say also to her that it goeth better with me from hour to hour, and bid her to come and seek me;” and the young man Laeg then spoke these words in order to hearten the mind of Cuchulain:

It fits not heroes lying

On sick-bed in a sickly sleep to dream:

Witches before thee flying

Of Trogach’s fiery Plain the dwellers seem:

They have beat down thy strength,

Made thee captive at length,

And in womanish folly away have they driven thee far.

Arise! no more be sickly!

Shake off the weakness by those fairies sent:

For from thee parteth quickly

Thy strength that for the chariot-chiefs was meant:

Thou crouchest, like a youth!

Art thou subdued, in truth?

Have they shaken thy prowess and deeds that were meet for the war?

Yet Labra’s power hath sent his message plain:

Rise, thou that crouchest: and be great again.

And Laeg, after that heartening, departed; and he went on until he came to the place where Emer was; and he told her of the state of Cuchulain: “Ill hath it been what thou hast done, O youth!” she said; “for although thou art known as one who dost wander in the lands where the fairies dwell; yet no virtue of healing hast thou found there and brought for the cure of thy lord. Shame upon the men of Ulster!” she said, “for they have not sought to do a great deed, and to heal him. Yet, had Conor thus been fettered; had it been Fergus who had lost his sleep, had it been Conall the Victorious to whom wounds had been dealt, Cuchulain would have saved them.” And she then sang a song, and in this fashion she sang it:

Laeg! who oft the fairy hill

Searchest, slack I find thee still;

Lovely Dechtire’s son shouldst thou

By thy zeal have healed ere now.

Ulster, though for bounties famed,

Foster-sire and friends are shamed:

None hath deemed Cuchulain worth

One full journey through the earth.

It fits not heroes lying

On sick-bed in a sickly sleep to dream:

Witches before thee flying

Of Trogach’s fiery Plain the dwellers seem:

They have beat down thy strength,

Made thee captive at length,

And in womanish folly away have they driven thee far.

Arise! no more be sickly!

Shake off the weakness by those fairies sent:

For from thee parteth quickly

Thy strength that for the chariot-chiefs was meant:

Thou crouchest, like a youth!

Art thou subdued, in truth?

Have they shaken thy prowess and deeds that were meet for the war?

Yet Labra’s power hath sent his message plain:

Rise, thou that crouchest: and be great again.

And Laeg, after that heartening, departed; and he went on until he came to the place where Emer was; and he told her of the state of Cuchulain: “Ill hath it been what thou hast done, O youth!” she said; “for although thou art known as one who dost wander in the lands where the fairies dwell; yet no virtue of healing hast thou found there and brought for the cure of thy lord. Shame upon the men of Ulster!” she said, “for they have not sought to do a great deed, and to heal him. Yet, had Conor thus been fettered; had it been Fergus who had lost his sleep, had it been Conall the Victorious to whom wounds had been dealt, Cuchulain would have saved them.” And she then sang a song, and in this fashion she sang it:

Laeg! who oft the fairy hill

Searchest, slack I find thee still;

Lovely Dechtire’s son shouldst thou

By thy zeal have healed ere now.

Ulster, though for bounties famed,

Foster-sire and friends are shamed:

None hath deemed Cuchulain worth

One full journey through the earth.

Yet, if sleep on Fergus fell,

Such that magic arts dispel,

Dechtire’s son had restless rode

Till a Druid raised that load.

Aye, had Conall come from wars,

Weak with wounds and recent scars;

All the world our Hound would scour

Till he found a healing power.

THE SICK-BED OF CUCHULAIN TRANSCRIBED FROM THE LOST YELLOW BOOK OF SLANE. By Maelmuiri mac Ceileachair into the Leabhar na h-Uidhri in the Eleventh Century.

PaRDeS, an acronym formed from the first letters of the four levels of Torah interpretation, means ‘orchard’ in Hebrew. (The English word Paradise (PaRaDiSe) is derived from the same Persian root).

http://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/1270231/jewish/Introduction.htm

	Peshat: often inaccurately translated as literal, it comes from the root which means simple, although peshat is sometimes anything but simple! Peshat correctly means the intended, explicit meaning.
	Remez: alluded meaning (reading between the lines). Remez in modern Hebrew means hint. Traditionally, remez referred to methods such as gezera shava (equivalent language implying equivalent meaning) and gematria (word-number values)
	Derash: Homiletical or interpretative meaning. The word ‘midrash‘ is from the same root. The drash is an interpretation that is not explicit in the text.
	Sod: (lit. secret). The mystical or esoteric meaning.

 

Reflection for October 10th, 2014: A projection of the human mind

Even if I walk in the light, I am not the light.

Even if I am a taut stringed lute, I am not the lute player

—Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

Seeing Michael Dowd give a discussion on his work to prevent the catastrophe of global climate change was interesting. He appeared at my local Unitarian Universalism church. Dowd outlined a “new” movement where people of all faiths are coming together with Science and scientists to discuss and hopefully combat climate change.

Religious naturalism is an approach to spirituality that is devoid of supernaturalism. The focus is on the religious attributes of the universe/nature, the understanding of it and our response to it (interpretive, spiritual and moral). These provide for the development of an eco-morality. Although it has an ancient heritage in many philosophical cultures, this modern movement is currently not well defined. Theistic or nontheistic religious naturalism is a basic theological perspective of liberal religion and religious humanism, according to some sources.

Religious naturalism is concerned about the meaning of life, but it is equally interested in living daily life in a rational, happy way. An alternative, more anthropocentric approach, is to look at it as answering the question: “What is the meaning of one’s life and does it have a purpose?” It is an approach to understanding the natural world in a religious way and does not offer a detailed system of beliefs or rituals. Religious naturalism also attempts to amalgamate the scientific examination of reality with the subjective sensory experiences of spirituality and aesthetics. As such, it is a combination of objectivity with religious emotional feelings and the aesthetic insights supplied by art, music and literature. It is a promising form of contemporary religious ethics and pluralism responding to the challenges of late modern religious transformations and ecological peril. In so doing, it is emerging as an increasingly plausible and potentially rewarding form of religious moral life consistent with the insights of the natural sciences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_naturalism

This is a very adimarable goal. I enjoyed Dowd’s talk, until he started discussing Humanism. Dowd himself and his wife, Connie Barlow, are partners and Co authors. Both have spent more than a decade on the road discussing their views, books and the problem of the scientific community in our modern lives.

Dowd himself admits he is a preacher, an ordained minister. Connie is described as an author of “popular science” books. Popular science books, the term doesn’t bode well.

Dowd outlined the need to view reality with reverence and the physical as sacred.

…….

The outer world of earthly existence corresponds in all its details to the inner world of man’s soul, and there is a similar correspondence between the Garden of the Heart and the Garden of the Soul, but these are only two particular  instances of the general truth that all the different domains in the Universe correspond to each other in that each is an image of the Universe itself. 

–Martin Lings, THE SYMBOL

QVOD SVPERIVS EST EST EST SICVT ID QVOD INFERIVS
(“The top is like the below”)

MACROPROSOPVS – Macrocosm

MICROPROSOPVS – Microcosm

Now, this is great. Of course reality is sacred as is the very ground beneath my feet. Dowd admirably preaches and teaches a philosophy of reality as sacred. Hardly news to me or anyone with an ounce of sanity, in my opinion.

For Dowd, reality, or God as he interchangeably calls or labels things, is sacred and must be treated as such. Reverence for all, in order to prevent climate change… Dowd outlines this by dismissing God, destroying any notion of the supernatural and proposes that observation is our savior and will enable the unification of science and religion. Of course this is overly simplistic and not something I could get behind.

Not that scientific and aesthetic understanding is not necessary –but it should do its work faithfully and immerse itself and disappear in the truth of the relation which surpasses understanding and embraces what is understandable.

–Martin Buber (I And Thou)

By discarding the divine for:

“reality” is divine, but only that which is
” observable” we are being dishonest. By dishonest that is, to me it is dishonest.

Observation only works due to assumptions.

Assumptions include a shared language, for example if we are discussing chickens it is assumed we are discussing chickens that all have two legs and two wings, in reality what if the chicken is deformed? In a real sense this means we are assuming like and like. We are assuming that 1 (chicken) plus 1 (chicken) is 2 (chickens)…. Assuming that both chickens are equal. Which in the real world they would not be.

Observation only works due to an agreed upon yardstick. To quote Dowd

“You don’t have to believe in the sea, it’s just there.”
No, you are wrong Mr Dowd. The sea is only the sea because we agree it is the sea. If we measured using an electromagnetic measuring device, for example, we may have problems separating the sea from nearby rivers. In turn, if we change our yard stick a drop of rainwater is the sea. Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrates this in his essay on the coastline of Britain, demonstrating it is of infinite length, measuring from rocks, stones, sand… atoms etc.

The work of Werner Karl Heisenberg famously explored the problem of light being a particle and a wave, though I understand to some modern physicists the solution is that it’s a wave. At the subatomic level we can only measure where something is or its velocity, not both. To summarize Heisenberg we can simply say the
“observed and observer are inseparable ”

This means any observation is a compromise as it is fully changed by being observed. People may counter this by saying this is only at the subatomic level. Again though, it depends on our yard stick. There are numerous ways and means that demonstrate this phenomenon of the inseparable nature of observation. In the end, it is just a complex way if stating observation is dependent upon perspective and perception. For example if we only studied the sky at night we could learn many things, during the day, yet other things, at both times we observe the sky.

Every experiment destroys some of the knowledge of the system

which was obtained by previous experiments.

“Critique of the Physical Concepts of the Corpuscular Theory” in The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (1930) as translated by Carl Eckhart and Frank C. Hoyt, p. 20; also in “The Uncertainty Principle” in The World of Mathematics : A Small Library of the Literature of Mathematics (1956) by James Roy Newman, p. 105

This isnt to mention other things like Godel’s incompleteness theorem, that demonstrates that the only logical conclusion of logic is that logic doesn’t work.

A statement sometimes known as Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem states that if number theory is consistent, then a proof of this fact does not exist using the methods of first-order predicate calculus. Stated more colloquially, any formal system that is interesting enough to formulate its own consistency can prove its own consistency iff it is inconsistent.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoedelsIncompletenessTheorem.html

At a basic level, if we started to discuss Star Wars with a dog, the dog would not understand who Darth Vader is…. sadly humanists are assuming that through observation we can understand reality, just as a dog can one day discuss Luke Skywalker. Uh, no….

But the cult of the intellect knows no bounds.

The point where we seperate from our origins…or the divine/God.

It is this type of world along with its overriding orientation and pursuits which we have destroyed. Our society is man-made, not a divine order. It is one in fact which represents a projection of the human mind that has cut its links with the divine and with the earth; and in so far that it has any ideals these are purely temporal and finite and concern only the terrestrial welfare of its members.

–Philip Sherrard, MODERN SCIENCE AND THE DEHUMANIZATION OF MAN.

To a humanist mindset and many other similar groups (notably modern scientific pantheists for example) throwing out the divine makes perfect sense. If logic, observation, bar charts and other intellectual tools won’t cover reality then anything else is garbage, to the humanist (collectively humanists but each and every group with this mindset).

I am reminded by the recent book/TV show where Stephen Hawkins disproves God. All these groups seem to have one thing in common, an overly simplified verging on puerile understanding or concept of God. The science may or may not be remarkable, advanced and inspiring, but the understanding of the sacred is childlike at best. Hawkins demonstrated this very adequately in his television appearance, in his defense I have not, nor do I intend to read his book.

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up til he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.

–William Blake (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell)

Dowd, like Hawkins touches upon God, largely only in a puerile simplistic manner, the sky daddy playing chess. This overly simplistic image betrays a lack of perspective or genuine lack of investigation into the nature of God. As such, there is no place beyond the observable, the logical or even beyond the physical. As such we, to this modernist mindset, are merely dogs learning about Star Wars, one day able through language and concept to discuss the finer points of Star Wars.

Of course the talk was only an hour or so long, and I have not actually read his books, so my understanding may be limited.

Language of course fails us every time. Modernists use mathematics to overcome this.

The problem with secular liberals, as distinct from traditionalist liberals and traditionalist conservatives, is that they insist on inventing reality by denying any higher truth than themselves. They deny the natural law of holistic education, including the metalaw of holistic haqq, which is to be sought heuristic ally and holistically not created by human fiat.

By claiming the source of truth they deny the essence of anything and anything, because without essence everything is relative and truth cannot exist. If everything is relavistic, there is no purpose, then the practice of human responsibilities and the corresponding and resulting human rights has no logical basis.

The denial of any reality beyond the power of personal preference is the source of all totalitarian ideologies, beginning with the liberal logic of the French Revolution, which produced Communism, Fascism, and both Zionist and Muslim Statism today, where the sovereign state or global caliphate claims divinity based on top-down political process of might makes right.

 The Metalaw of Holistic Haqq: Toward a Just Third Way beyond Capitalism and Socialism in the Holy Land
by Robert Dickson Crane

….

In conclusion, Dowd and other humanists make giant compromises. Dowd does however stress the urgency of climate change. His concepts work for the ignorant i.e. those expecting the rapture, denying evolution, biblical aging of the planet and other ridiculous literalisms that demonstrate once again observer and observed change things; as literalisms as found in modern times, never existed in the ancient world. However, Dowd is educating the small of understanding, the ones that arguably need to be spoon fed understanding. His goals are also good ones. However, I don’t agree with all his political leanings. Sadly, I think Dowd’s allusions fit well at my church amongst the right people (which may or may not be a good thing depending on your perspective). I enjoyed his conclusions i.e. live in harmony with the earth or die, it is not all doom and gloom, we may do better in regards to combating climate change.

                       .

…

 

Reflection for January 2nd, 2014:Brown Nosing into the new year

Lord, who made the lion and the lamb,
You decreed I should be what I am;
Would it spoil some vast eternal plan,
If I were a wealthy man?

……..

Permission is given to every human being. If one chooses to incline himself to a path of goodness and be righteous, the right is in his hands. If one chooses to incline himself to a path of evil and be wicked, the right is in his hands.

—Mishneh Torah by Moses Maimonides

The gift of giving this holiday is to give. When we give, we give of ourselves, we give our very selves. Money is ultimately not that important it is the thought behind it. When loved ones around you… repeatedly give for the sake of reward, they are brown nosing. Giving is about intention, consideration. To give is to seek no reward, you are telling another that you love them. Brown nosing is for the spiteful, shallow and contemptible.
It’s a real shame when loved ones act like brown nosers, they only show their own inner lack, their inner childishness and perhaps their inner ugliness. Brown nosers are often totally oblivious that life exists or can happen any other way. Be glad if you know only one or two brown nosers. Much better to surround yourself with people that actually consider each other….. You know? That silly thing, called love….
……………………………………………………………………….
Life is a journey in consciousness. In truth, God is always one and we are always one with God and with each other. The problem is that we don’t know that truth. This is a critical point. We are always one with the ultimate—our work is to achieve an awareness of that truth. This awareness is the ecstatic experience of ultimate love.
This helps us understand the true meaning of the command¬ment “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).
How can we be commanded to have feelings of love toward another person? What if we simply have nothing in common? What if we seriously disagree over many political and social is¬sues? How can we be expected to love people who are so different from ourselves?
The commandment is actually telling us that in reality we are already one, and we can definitely experience that to be true and feel the love. However, to achieve this realization we must act in ways that express and reveal that truth. This is the theme of all the commandments dealing with interpersonal relationships.
This is the same dynamic behind the commandment to love God. We are already one with God. But we need to acknowledge that in what we think, say, and do. Then we will feel it. This is the theme of all the commandments dealing with our relationship to God.

–David Aaron (The Secret Life of God: Discovering the Divine within You)

 

Reflection for August 7th, 2013: The greater must reveal itself to the lesser

If this metaphysical space is to be known,

such knowledge can be attained only by faith and grace,

not by ‘entering’ but by ‘being entered’

-this is so because the greater must reveal itself to the lesser.

Put differently, that which is immanently ‘Spirit’ can only be known receptively,

through its own intellective vision, and not any derivative faculty such as reason,

feeling or sensation. Reason can only discern conceptually,

at best reducing reality to a dualism of subject and object

(as in the case of Descartes) or catagorical postulate

(as in the case of Kant) or dialectic process

(as in the case of Hegel) – its ‘telos’ will tend to be utopian(as in the case of Marx),

fundamentalist( as in the cases of religious, political or secular dogmatism)

or anthropocentrically consencual (as in the case of Rousseau’s social contract);

while sensation or feeling even where elevated to

the level of empirical ‘science,’ can only discern reality as matter or as psyche,

quantitatively, thereby cutting it off from its transcendent

and qualitative roots, leading to an emphasis on hypertrophic subjectivism

(as in the case of Nietzsche), Psychologism(as in the case of Freud),

or reductive positivism(as in the cases of philosophical positivism and of scientism).

That which transcends us cannot be known reductively

but only by that transcendent faculty which is immanent in us-which in

Tradition is termed the ‘Intellect’

or the Self-knowing Spirit. To know is to discern BEING.

We must empty ourselves or our ‘self’ in order to know who we ARE.

We must return to the sacred emptiness of the space that is our

ontological core in order to know that which truly IS.

–M Ali Lakhani (the Distance between us, found in Sacred Web issue 31)

 

Reflection for August 5, 2013: Credo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewton_Mendip
Church of St Mary Magdalene, Chewton Mendip

In the Western world, a strong belief in the objective truths of religion, which are viewed as incontrovertible, demonstrable facts, is regarded as essential to the life of faith. When asking if somebody is religious, peo- ple often inquire: “Does he or she believe?” as though accepting certain credal propositions was the prime religious activity. Indeed, faith is equated with belief, but this equation is of recent provenance. Origi- nally the meaning of the word faith was akin to trust, as when we say that we have faith in a friend or an ideal. Faith was not an intellectual position but a virtue: it was the careful cultivation, by means of the ritu- als and myths of religion, of the conviction that, despite all the dispirit- ing evidence to the contrary, life had some ultimate meaning and value. The Latin word credo (translated now as “I believe”) seems to have de- rived from the phrase cor dare: to give one’s heart. The Middle English word beleven meant to love. When Christians proclaimed: credo in unum Deum , they were not so much affirming their belief in the existence of a single deity as committing their lives to God. When St. Anselm of Can- terbury prayed in the eleventh century: credo ut intellagam (“I have faith in order that I may understand”), he was not blindly submitting to the doctrines of religion in the hope that one day these incredible asser- tions would make sense today, if he abdicated his critical intelligence. His prayer should really be translated: “I commit myself in order that I may understand.” The meaning of dogma would only be revealed when he lived a fully Christian life, embracing its mythology and rituals whole- heartedly. This attitude is foreign to modernity. Today people feel that before they live a religious life, they must first satisfy themselves intel- lectually of its metaphysical claims. This is sound scientific practice: first you must establish a principle before you can apply it. But it is not the way that religion has traditionally worked.

http://www.sacredweb.com/online_articles/sw4_armstrong.pdf
Karen ARmstrong (Faith an Modernity)

 

Reflection for May 30, 2013: At the borders of speech

It is precisely the challenge involved

in using inadequate words

that drives the mind

beyond all words…

At the borders of speech

we open ourselves

to the positive value of silence….

Literary reading,

through its complexity, its music,

its suggestiveness, points to a fuller realm of being.

–Edward k Kaplan (citing Abraham Joshua Heschel)

 

Reflection for May 25, 2013: …like moles

Revelation is a cloudburst, a downpour,

yet most of us are like moles, burrowing,

and whatever stream we meet is underground

–Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

Reflection for February 24th 2013:THE universe is God’s book

Zen emptiness is not the emptiness of nothingness, but the emptiness of fullness in which this equation takes place: zero=infinity. The Godhead is no other than this equation. In other words when God as Creator came out of the Godhead he did not leave the Godhead behind. He has the Godhead with him all along while engaging in the work of creation. Creation is continuous, going on till the end of time, which really has no ending and therefore no beginning. For creation is out of inexhaustible nothingness.

 

–Thomas Merton

 

………………………..

THE universe is God’s book,
And he to whom the vision of the Divine
Has been vouchsafed
Reads therein and understands.
Substance is its consonants and accidents its vowels,
And different creatures are its signs and pauses.
The first verse is “Universal Reason,”
The second “Universal Soul,” the “verse of light,”
And this is as a brightly shining lamp.
The third is the “Highest heavens,
The fourth “The Throne.”
After there are seven transcendent spheres,
The “chapter of the seven limbs,”
And forms of the four elements,
Then Nature’s three kingdoms
Whose verses none can count.
And last of all came down the soul of man

http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/srg/srg00.htm

………………………………………………….

 

“The world was created with ten utterances.

But could God not have created her with a single utterance?

Rather, it is to teach you how precious the earth is,

and how much reward for those who cherish her and how great the consequences for those who abuse her”

 

— Babylonian Talmud, Avot 5:1

 

………………………..

 

 

Sometimes you really feel the presence of God in the world, and in your life, And sometimes, you have trouble accessing that sense of Divine Presence. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi calls God “The Great Cosmic Flasher.” More ancient rabbis put it this way: “The Sacred Wellspring (God) is both revealed and concealed. “God is always present, and at times that presence is conspicuous, and at times mysterious. But never absent.

-Sefer Ha’Zohar, (Vol 1, f39b)

 

 

When you train yourself to hear the voice of God in everything, you attain the quintessence of the human spirit. Usually the mind conceals the divine thoroughly by imagining that there is a separate mental power that constructs the mental images. But by training yourself to hear the voice of God in everything, the voice reveals itself to your mind as well. Then the right in mind, you discover revelation.

–Daniel C Matt: The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism

 

 

 

To find the Tao, there is nowhere you need to search.

If it is nit inside you, it is not the Tao

–Confucius

 

 

Reflection for March 2, 2012: What is the use of Gnosis?

“As men’s Prayers are a Disease of the Will, so are their Creeds a disease of the Intellect.”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is the use of gnosis, if it is so forbiddingly elitist? Since the alternatives are diseases of the will and of the intellect, why invoke the criterion of usefulness? Prayers are a more interesting literary form than creeds, but even the most impressive of prayers will not change us, let alone change God. And nearly all prayers are directed anyway to the archons, the angels who made and marred this world, and whom we worship, William Blake warned, as Jesus and Jehovah, Divine Names misapplied to our prison warders. The Accusers who are the gods of this world have won all of the victories, and they will go on triumphing over us. History is always on their side, for they are history. Everyone who would return us to history always performs the work of the Accusers. Most scholars worship history, the Composite God who rewards their labors by granting them their illusion of value. Emerson remarked that there was no history, only biography, which is another Gnostic recognition.

Do not pray, do not believe; only know and be known. Many among us know without knowing that we know; Bentley Layton catches this when he suggests that gnosis should be translated as ‘acquaintance’ rather than as ‘knowing.’ Acquaintance with your own deepest self will not come often or easily, but it is unmistakable when (and if ) it comes. Neither the will nor the intellect spurs such acquaintance, but both come into play once it is achieved. To be acquainted with what is best and oldest in yourself, is to know yourself as you were, before the world was made, before you emerged into time.

–Harold Bloom (from “Alone with the Alone” by Henry Corbin)

 

 

Reflection for January 12, 2011 “The one saving truth”

After extinction I came out, and I

Eternal now am, though not as I.

And who am I, O I, but I

–Ali Shushtari

 

As we travel upon this road of self-knowledge with the help of the means

provided by tradition—means without which such a journey is in fact impossible—we

gain a new perspective concerning every kind of reality with which we had

identified at the beginning of our journey. We come to realize that although we

are male or female, that attribute does not really define us. There is a deeper

reality, one might say an androgynic reality, transcending the male-female

dichotomy so that our identity is not determined simply by our gender. Nor are

we simply our body and the senses although we often identify ourselves with

them. As we travel upon the Sufi path, it also becomes more and more evident

that what we call ” I ” has its existence independent of sense perceptions and

the body as a whole although the soul continues to

have a consciousness of the body while being also aware through spiritual

practice of t h e possibility of leaving it for higher realms.

Likewise, although we have emotions and psychological states with which

we often identify, the spiritual path teaches us that they do not

define and determine our identity in the deepest sense. In fact, often we

say, “I must control my temper,” which demonstrates clearly that

there is more than one psychological agent within human beings. As St. Thomas

said, confirming Sufi teachings, “Duo

sunt in homine” (“There

are two in man”). The part of u s that seeks to control our temper

must be distinct and not determined by the part of o u r soul that is angry and

needs to be controlled. Yes, we do experience emotions, but we need not be

defined by them. In the same manner, we have an imaginative faculty able to

create images, and most of t he time ordinary people live in the lower reaches

of that world of imaginal forms. Again, we are not determined by those forms,

and j o u r n e y i n g upon the spiritual path is especially effective in

transforming our inner imaginal landscape. As for the power of memory, it is

for the most part the repository of images and forms related to earlier

experiences of life. Metaphysically speaking, however, it is also related to

our atemporal relation to our Source of Being and the intelligible world to

which we belonged before our descent here to earth. That is why true knowledge

according to Plato is recollection, and in Sufism the steps of t h e path are

identified with stages of the remembrance of t h e Friend. Most people,

however, consider these everyday remembered experiences as a major part of

their identity. Yet again, the center of our consciousness, our I,  cannot be

identified with our ordinary memory.

We can forget many things and remain the same human being. The spiritual life

may in fact be defined as the practice of techniques that enable us to forget

all that we remember about the world of separation and dispersion and to

remember the most important thing, which this world has caused us to forget,

namely, the one “saving Truth,” which is also our inner reality.

The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam’s Mystical Tradition