Wednesday, February 07, 2007

The Leftist Project of Mandatory Celestial Abortion

I may have met my match this morning -- one of those 48 hour GI viruses courtesy of Future Leader. Frankly, I don't know how I completed yesterday's post. I actually feel better today, but I slept too late, so I'm not even sure I can come up with a topic.

It's very interesting. It's moments like this that I realize that all of my writing comes from a certain interior "center," and that if for any reason I am ousted from that center, the writing could not happen. I've never thought of it this way before, but the "place" where the writing comes from is much more important than the actual content. My life increasingly revolves around trying to stay in that center, because nothing else makes up for its loss. So long as I am in that place, then the content takes care of itself. It's the difference between writing from the inside out vs. trying to do so from the outside in -- the latter being difficult as a result of those damn cherubim with flaming swords turned every way to guard the tree of life. Especially if the cherubim are contagious.

This is actually how the enigmatic Boris Mouravieff describes the nature of esotericism. It is not so much that one is dealing with an "oral tradition" of "secret knowledge" (i.e., not casually shared with just any grubbyone) that is "mysterious and hidden" from those who would misunderstand or degrade it -- although those things are all true. Rather, one is dealing with "inner knowledge" that comes directly from (or to, to be precise) the "inner man" and brings the letter to life. Information is to the externalizing ego what perennial Wisdom is to the Inner Man. The purpose of esotericism is to make this inner man known to himself:

"The final object of positive science is the same in principle, but the efforts are diametrically opposed. Starting from the center, positive science extends, specializes, and so diverges towards the periphery. At the limit each point forms a separate discipline. Esoteric science begins from the multiplicity and variety observed on the periphery accessible to our senses, and moves towards the center. It tends towards a more and more general synthesis" (Mouravieff). This is why the center is both interior and vertical. The one is a necessary consequence of the other.

A few days back we mentioned Sri Aurobindo's axiom that "within there is a soul and above there is a Grace. This is all you know or need to know." The turning point in one's spiritual development comes with the "second birth," which is the birth of the inner man, precisely (i.e., the "soul within"). This event goes by different names in different traditions, but one thing a Coon always asks in all situations is "by virtue of what principle?"

That is, we honor religious truth wherever we find it. But religious truth hardly implies something that violates everything else we know to be true. Rather, it will always reveal a meta-cosmic principle that is knowable to us. This is the difference between Western religions and, say, Islam, where everything Allah does is a "special case," the purpose of which is unknowable by humans.

For example, no Coon would waste a moment debating over the question of whether human beings may know truth. Why not? By virtue of the wider principle that the cosmos is infused with a logos that forms the basis of both the obvious intelligibility of the world and the intellect that may know it. Both mind and matter -- both the interior and exterior of the cosmos -- are permeated with same immanent logos, so naturally, by virtue of that principle, many implications follow. Among other things, no matter how deeply we dig, we will always find the logos, or "intelligent design." God's fingerprints -- which is to say truth and beauty -- are everywhere, from the submicro to the supermacro and everything in between.

The exterior man is an interior linked to the exterior. In short, you might say that he exteriorizes his interior in a manner that is hardly more subtle than an animal. But the Kingdom of Heaven is Within -- "within" not referring to a particular place, but to the mystery of withinness as such. Where else could it be? The Great Within is man's true birthright and true habitat, but how many human beings ever undergo the second birth and make a home there?

This is what makes a barbaric people such as the "Palestinians" so barbaric -- i.e., their completely externalizing consciousness that regards olive trees as more real than information. The Jews -- pound for pound, probably the most successful group in human history -- can thrive under the most adverse exterior circumstances because of hundreds of years of interior training, whereas Muslims can succeed nowhere because of hundreds of years of externalizing consciousness. Go back to 1948 and place the Israelis on the west bank and the Arabs in present day Israel. Today the former would be a little paradise amidst the squalor of Islam, while the latter would be an undeveloped hellhole ruled by hatred and envy.

Yesterday Ben asked, "In regards to Divine 'gifts' or 'abilities', which are unique in each of us, did we always have them, before they were revealed, or were they given to us as they are revealed?" Here I can only go by what it feels like, and it feels to me as if we are born with the gift, but that it becomes obscured precisely due to our exteriorizing consciousness, or "fallenness," as we become increasingly entangled with the world.

Remember, prior to our primordial calamity, Adam lived in intimacy with God, but afterwards he was driven from paradise and his consciousness became "horizontalized," so to speak. Before the fall, spirituality came naturally to him, whereas afterwards it was -- and is -- more of a struggle, to say the least. You might say that the rest of the Bible deals with man's struggle to reestablish the vertical link with God, culminating in (if you are a Christian) God's determination that man's efforts are futile, and that the only option available to him is to come down and personally reestablish the link himself.

But once again, we must always ask "by virtue of what principle" does this event and the transformation of consciousness that follows take place? In other words, it seems axiomatic -- a tautology, really -- that the Word becomes flesh because it is possible for the Word to do so. This is not to detract from it, but to rescue it from being confused with "magic" or some other such paganism. It is not through "magic" that the Word becomes flesh. Rather, it is "in the course of things." But to say it is not "magic" hardly means that it is not a glorious mystery, mystery being a mode of understanding, not a form of ignorance. It is no less wonderful that God has dropped a lifeline through the ever-present hole at the center of creation through which heaven and earth -- the horizontal and vertical -- may be reconciled.

According to Mouravieff, it is with the "second birth" that our latent faculties are actualized, as this coincides with the establishment of a link between the visible and invisible worlds -- between "word and flesh," so to speak. In so doing, we make the transition from "mechanical man" to a truly "living man" revivified by the "waters" from above. Coons are well aware of the fact that we are often discriminated against for our orientation -- which is to the "above" and the "within." This is why the Master made many perceptive and wise cracks to the effect that, "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, therefore the world hates you."

The horror of secular leftism is the horror of a race of inferior externalizing men engaged in the project of sealing the hole in creation and literally "reversing" the incarnation. In other words, they want to force all humans -- interior and exterior man alike! -- to live by the darkness of their absurd principles, which include the impossibility of any vertical inscape, any reconciliation of the celestial and earthly realms. This is to annihilate man as such, because it destroys the fulfillment of man at his inner reaches. It is nothing less than the institutionalization of forced celestial abortion so that no one may undergo the second birth.

Contemplating this is just making my nausea worse, so I'd better stop for now.

The fact that you don't feel a force does not prove that it is not there. The steam-engine does not feel a force moving it, but the force is there. A man is not a steam-engine? He is very little better, for he is conscious only of some bubbling on the surface which he calls himself and is absolutely unconscious of all the subconscient, subliminal, and superconscient forces moving in him...

Generally the soul wakes up, rubs its eyes and says "Hallo, where's that Grace?," and begins fumbling around for it and pulling at things in the hope that the Grace is at the other end of said things. Finally it pulls at something by accident and the Grace comes toppling down full tilt from God knows where. That's the usual style. But there are others.
-- Sri Aurobindo

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

(that's all i have to say about that...)

Anonymous said...

indeed.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone read anything by Peter Novak with his interpretations of the Nag Hammadi scriptures. These were saved from destruction by the Catholic Church, and found a few years ago.

I have been interested in the beliefs of the Gnostics for some time, and he has a lot of new concepts supported by the Nag Hammadi scriptures.

I am reading Original Christianity by Novak. It seems to have some bearing on the ideas expressed in recent blogs on One Cosmos.

Gagdad Bob said...

I can't say for sure, but it looks like Novak may be confusing Gnosticism with gnosis, two very differnent things, the former being an intrinsic heresy, the latter merely a general name for the soul's mode of perception.

Anonymous said...

Sorry you're ill, DL. Thanks for the post.

"...sealing the hole in creation and literally "reversing" the incarnation..."

Reading more in Ryszard Kapuscinski, Imperium, about the last days of the Soviet, it's clear that the leftist push to seal the Vertical Escape aperture consists both of clueless ridicule, and imposing environments that engender disgust, confusion, dispersed suspicion, hopelessness, and exhaustion.

Where plenty and liberty abound, I suspect we are seeing the seizure of the religious traditions by the rampant horizontal: Millenium Goals as worship content, enforced social "inclusiveness," anything to distract, demonize, and horizontalize the Vertical. The exoteric may not tell the whole story, but dismantling it poses the danger of eventually turning the esoteric into Gnosticized relativistic whim. It's cutting off the rungs of ladders.

The Father of Lies leaves certain footprints.

As to within-ness, in investigating as a personal coach "what's my mission in life?" with an array of people, it has been a big Aha to notice that it is about an attitude and a placement of attention, not about careers or particular content. That is, in general, when I am in a focus of reverence, wonder, joy, and humor it turns out I am in the right place at the right time with the right words and actions, in Good Company, if only in the grocery store. Big Righteous Enterprise, attitudes of importance, ambition, Fixing The World, not so much.

Anonymous said...

This is what makes a barbaric people such as the "Palestinians" so barbaric -- i.e., their completely externalizing consciousness that regards olive trees as more real than information. The Jews -- pound for pound, probably the most successful group in human history -- can thrive under the most adverse exterior circumstances because of hundreds of years of interior training, whereas Muslims can succeed nowhere because of hundreds of years of externalizing consciousness. Go back to 1948 and place the Israelis on the west bank and the Arabs in present day Israel. Today the former would be a little paradise amidst the squalor of Islam, while the latter would be an undeveloped hellhole ruled by hatred and envy.

It's the difference between Men and Orcs.

Anonymous said...

Interlocutor, nobody here particularly gives two f**** about your thoughts, so long as you think them elsewhere.

robinstarfish said...

wind does not feel wind
creation is : standing still
i am, not i am

Anonymous said...

“The horror of secular leftism is the horror of a race of inferior externalizing men engaged in the project of sealing the hole in creation and literally "reversing" the incarnation.”
“Contemplating this is just making my nausea worse, so I'd better stop for now.”

You too huh?

It makes me sick to think of what the race of inferior externalizing women are going to do with the "excess" profits seized from the oil companies and distributed as graft to their minions. Or what happens when the government gets a chokehold on the healthcare industry. Unintended (or maybe intended) consequences be damned. Chavez-world here we come.

Anonymous said...

That calls for another slice of peperoni, another Stella Artois and a Marlboro(shhhh, don't tell). I'd share with Cus' if only he wasn't so far away, looks like he may need it about now. Got a case of that "one nerve left and you're on it" going? Can only ask this, why do we regress? To wit, Cus, today. Yesterday, me, realizing I was addressing the "commenter's" in an exasperated tone, taking to task a GK gap NOT focusing on what was delivered. What is that? Why does it consume so readily? Nothing but counter productivity. Is it a good sign I checked up? Happens in NASCAR, you check up, spectacular wrecks at 190mph. One Cosmos, something else altogether I suppose.;~)



If your up for some rhythms of life - serious ones, check Dr. Barnett today. His Emily's Posts will speak to you.

Anonymous said...

While reading today's post, a box of grace from the top shelf of the Coon Closet of Communication fell on me.

The outside observance of the way spiritually true things really are, we express as, "as above, so below."

The interior observance and goal of spiritual truth is, "as above, so within". As an answer to the stubborn "do-be" question, we must actively seek to interiorize the truths we know to be true--- hmm, maybe better said, actively seek to allow the interior to be shaped from above. It is the ultimate integration of doing and being.

The Psalmist said he was, "like a green (young, alive) olive tree in the House of the Lord." Is there anything with more Cosmic Slack than a tree? Can you command a tree to bear fruit? It need only abide, and abide, and hopefully be tended to with Grace. Growth and maturity is a natural occurance for the tree. Indeed, we'd think it silly if it kept inspecting its roots, fretting about its daily processes, and generally being insecure about what it should be doing.

Bearing fruit is the destiny of most living things. Can't happen unless you abide, stay in that center.

Please, Bob, for everyone's sake, continue to slack. And get well soon.

NoMo said...

Whoa. Bob today again applying the principle, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." (II Cor 12:10) But, get well anyway.

Too much to even attempt comment at the moment -- suffice to say thank you.

Anonymous said...

Bob, you are the bomb. That was great.

Anonymous said...

"The horror of secular leftism is the horror of a race of inferior externalizing men [and one woman] engaged in the project of sealing the hole in creation and literally "reversing" the incarnation."

Anonymous said...

"The horror of secular leftism.....is nothing less than the institutionalization of forced celestial abortion so that no one may undergo the second birth."

That complete paragraph has been laser-etched into my mind. Amazing.

MikeZ said...

anonymous: The Catholic Church considers them heretical, but hardly tried to destroy them. Remeber, they were discovered only in 1945, and was long past time when the Church could order books burnt. Dan Brown may have said that, but it's just not true.

Van Harvey said...

Everything from "...we must always ask "by virtue of what principle" does this event and the transformation of consciousness that follows take place?"

To

"... It is nothing less than the institutionalization of forced celestial abortion so that no one may undergo the second birth."

Deserves better than day by day dissappearing html - lucky us for being here to see and imbibe fresh from the well.

Anonymous said...

What we see in this post is a drift towards a "cult" mentality. All cults require a dire threat from the outside in order to create an "us against them" atmosphere. Without the external threat, a sufficient level of internal cohesion cannot be created.

Bob has stuck out his neck and declared that leftists pose the threat of actually destroying mankind by blocking all people's access to God.

This is just flatly ridiculous on the face of it. Please don't buy in.

Anonymous said...

Oh, goody! A cult! When do we get the koolaid? Can we hitch a ride to the center on the next comet? Do we get to move to Bob's compound, isolate ourselves from the world, and give him all our money? And what about those group marriages?

I didn't get that brochure!

It is a strange cult, oh Voice of Reason, that encourages its members to be in the world and part of it, while maintaining a connection with (insert your favorite name for "O" here). Because, of course, we all think exactly alike and are pretty sure that the rest of the world is doomed to eternal damnation - that's why we're all trying to find our own place in this life, and generally concluding that the best course of action is finding the joy of being who we are, where we are, and knowing that we are part of something far greater than our humble selves. And if we are very fortunate, and can manage to hush our inner voices long enough to just listen, we might feel a connection to that of which we are all a part. (oddly, none of this involves paying homage to DL. Perhaps he overlooked that part in the cult-formation handbook?)

Look, if that's really what you think perhaps you should run, run while you still can, before the groupthink mind control rays take over and you find yourself muttering about raccoons and begging for the mercy of Yottle.

Clearly, whatever this "cult" has to offer holds no value for you.

Van Harvey said...

During some post-burnout, pre-unemployed ramblings this evening, I was just thinking of the recent question "Petey, If God is always already all, then why the elaborate process of involution and evolutionary return?" together with one of USS Ben's comments from yesterday about dialoging with the mystery "...Is this some kind of joke?(Always, ha ha!) You're enjoying this aren't you?(Immensely! You should of seen your face! Ha! Ha!)"...

Well the thought popped into my head, and I'm sure that I'm anthropomorphizing this more than a bit, but with all the universe as a direct expression of God, it of course follows that God knows all of the universe, as we know all of our bodies, only more so. So... if you knew all, was all, were all - if there was nothing mysterious in all of the universe to you, nothing hidden, all wise, all knowing - how would you feel?

Me? I'd be bored to tears.

On the other hand, with Life, and more so with consciousness and even more so with a consciousness powered by Free WIll, these present the universe with things which by their very nature are what can't be known, not even by the all seeing, all being everything. They can be predicted (41?) with great accuracy, but that's not the same thing as being known.

We are the only way for the universe to experience something new. Now while it may be true that there is nothing new under the sun - in general perhaps, but in specifics? everything, every thought and every experience is newly discovered and experienced through each moment of each life. And that for an all knowing gnosisall, would have to be - Fun!

Lisa said...

Are you the voice of a reason for stupid statements? Spare us all, puhleease!

Van Harvey said...

voice of reason,
Wow. Insightful. Jeepers, what grasp of philosophical & psychological depths & breadths, to synthesize it all so crisply and clearly. Wow. Thank you for saving us from zOMbie-ville.

Well... thanks ever so much for stopping by and sharing the 'ol wisdom. You just trot on now, and save some other unaware-culti types... perhaps those Kos folks could benefit from your services....

Right, well then, tootle-loo....

NoMo said...

Hey! Just returned from experiencing Blue Man Group "How to Be A Megastar Tour 2.0". An engaging exercise in horizontal verticality. Very entertaining. They did a respectful and even moving tribute to 9/11. Well worth a dollar (or seventy).

"Let's shave ourselves bald, paint ourselves blue, and do stuff."

Anonymous said...

"Bob has stuck out his neck and declared that leftists pose the threat of actually destroying mankind by blocking all people's access to God."

"This is just flatly ridiculous on the face of it."

Voice,
Ever heard of Mother Russia?
Why don't you go talk to some of the inhabitants who lived through the absolute hell brought on by leftist atheists implementing Marxist policies. They're still digging out from the soul rot created by the leftist social policies which so many politicians seem so eager to implement in this country.
Granted, not all people knuckled under but tell me how easy is it to live or worship as you wish, under fear of imprisonment or even death?
When a man's incentive to better himself is taken away or when a persons creativity is channeled by the State into what it deems fit or when the fruit of a persons labor is confiscated and given over to inefficiency and mediocrity, how does that serve something higher? And what type of society will result? Take a trip and find out.
It's not that bad here? Just give it time. It starts (continues) with State confiscation of "excess" profits of a legitimate business and Nationalizing healthcare. Picture the DMV running everything.
When a leftist State steals a persons incentive, hope, freedom and self respect, it does steal God.

And as far as the "internal cohesion" on this blog is concerned, give me a break. Bob gets 1000 hits here a day. Is it conceivable that 10 or 20 of those might agree with him and post that agreement?
Drift towards a cult? You're obviously unable to discern between weak, easily led minds and sovreign minds who happen to agree.

Anonymous said...

Voice of reason huh? Who anointed you our savior? Shoot we don't even know each other's real names or addresses. Hard to be a cult if I couldn't recognize one other member if I were in the same room.

Anonymous said...

NOMO:

They played "Exhibit 13" again? That's one of my favorites.

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