Hmm. Now I'm getting a little bored with the arkive, and have the compulsion to come up with something new. Perhaps I have to face the fact that I'm just not that into me. But this really is new -- new information about mind parasites. Whenever I stumble upon anything pertaining to them, my ears naturally perk up, because it's always good to know that I'm not the only one who notices them.
It has to do with what happens to your mind parasites when you die. You'd think that this would be purely speculative, and perhaps it is, but it makes a great deal of sense to me, given what we know about them from our side of the veil. (Actually, the author in question is an Orthodox Christian who translated the Philokalia, so his credentials are pretty impeccable.)
There is a related aspect to all this (which I'll get to in a subsequent post), which has to do with how one's "mission" is carried over into the "next life" (which is obviously just this life "prolonged" in a different dimension).
Thus, one could say that one's mission and one's mind parasites are at antipodes of the psyche. Furthermore, mind parasites are specifically what interfere with one's mission, both here and hereafter. To put it another way, to discover and embark upon one's mission is to activate the mind parasites. This we know.
I came across this new info in chapter eight of Philip Sherard's Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition, entitled On Death and Dying: A Christian Approach. I read it last night before going to bed, so it may or may not make sense in the full obscurity of the day. I guess we'll find out.
I was just reading along, blah blah blah, when Sherard makes reference to quasi-autonomous entities within the soul (or to which the soul attaches itself): "then they develop according to a logic of their own. Such growth may go on, or retain its potential for going on, quite apart from our conscious knowledge, so long as the passions which prompted it are unassuaged or unpurified."
It was the next paragraph that caught my I: "We are always setting these sequences going, these 'parasitic vegetables' as Yeats called them, in our soul. Sometimes we act out the logic of their development in our lives, through an endless sequence of objects which they have suggested to us; and sometimes we cut their development short, forcing them back into the psyche but leaving them still with the full power to develop unless we have also freed the soul from the passion or passions which gave them birth."
It reminds me of Saddam's WMD program. Liberals foolishly believe that because relatively few have been found, he wasn't dangerous. But as the Duelfer report indicated, everything was in place to get the programs up and running within a matter of weeks. The point is, the only thing that could ensure our safety was removal of the parasite.
It's obviously the same way with Iran. Obama is delusional enough to think that "extending an open hand" to the Islamist parasites will convert them. This makes about as much sense as extending an open sore to the bubonic plague. Not only that, but the Iranian parasites understand better than American liberals that Obama is a liar and a fraud -- a parasite himself! Why would they ever trust such a man, when they know full well that Americans can't?
As it pertains to the individual, the point is that until such a time as he has mastered the passions that give birth to the mind parasites, "these thoughts or images will continue to haunt us, and will go on breeding these parasitic sequences in our soul until we are freed of them."
However, one of the tricks of the parasites is that they create their own world, so to speak. In other words, they conspire to bring about the world they require in order to "go on being." Imagine the drug addict, for example, who moves to a remote state in order to get away from the environment he has created, in which his parasites are constantly activated and tempted. You know what they say: lead us not into temptation BUT deliver us from evil. Thus, temptation and evil are obviously conjoined. Mind parasites create a world of temptation, and gravity takes care of the rest.
Sherard affirms what amounts to a truism in psychoanalysis, that the "mental images or apparitions to which our soul is attached -- these thoughts -- do in fact constitute for us what we call reality: they constitute our world." But in the very next sentence he affirms what is definitely not a truism in psychoanalysis, that "at our physical death.... we still inhabit, or imagine we inhabit, the same world that we inhabit before our physical death." In short, "the images that compose [our world] have as much power over us then as they do now."
Indeed, it seems that the mind parasites have even more power, since there is no longer the "friction" of matter to constrain them. As a result, several things happen. First of all, the veil that separates you from your mind parasites vanishes, so you can no longer fool yourself (much less imagine that you are fooling God). Thus, one's "true character is revealed."
In this regard he quotes the gospels, including Luke 12:2-3, where it is written that "There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; nothing hidden that shall not be made known..." You are naked, baby, without so much as a skeevy fig leaf of ego to conceal the dreary architecture your soul. You sink all the way to your rotten core, AKA hell.
Sherard says that a kind of body persists, except that now the body becomes a true mirror of our interior state. In this life, we can fool people, but somewhere in the attic is that ghastly picture of Dorian Gray or Michael Jackson that reveals the ugly truth. Conversely, think of Jesus revealing his transfigured body of light to the disciples.
The post-mortem body will "represent our true ruling disposition rather than any disposition which, like a mask, we have been able to adopt and to convince others is representative of our true self during this life." But of course, there are innumerable instances of saints who become a beautifully transparent body of light in this life. To be continued....
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75 comments:
Today's post was, well...I'll let wv speak: "coonesse".
Seriously. Can't wait for the rest.
And I particularly love the title!
Today's post is sort of scary. I don't yet have much idea what it means otherwise...
Interesting post Bob. I've a big fan of sherrard's his "The Rape of Man and Nature.".
I would suggest that your acceptance of the face value of politics is also a kind of parasite of some kind. It tends to blind you to moving any further in that realm. It is particularly manifest in your inability to see leftism at work no matter where it originates.
My ears perk up too, Bob.
Incendiarily, and speaking of “watching the world burn”…
“Mind parasites create a world of temptation, and gravity takes care of the rest.”
Did you watch Dark Knight last night too? …because Lucifer, I mean, the Joker said, “Madness is just like gravity. All it needs is a little push.”
Back ta da post..
wv: shpawn (you don't shay?)
I am very fascinated by this topic and my antennae perk up as well whenever the topic of mind parasites is broached.
The older I get the more I see this is *the* topic that explains everything else i.e. in my life, in politics, in the world etc
Thank you!
Anonymous:
Since you're a big fan of Sherard, this is from the same chapter discussed in today's post:
"these evil dreams" are "objectified in the form of ideologies to which whole collectivities become enslaved.... One has only to think of the birth and growth of the progressive, liberal, scientific humanism of modern times...."
Also from the Dark Knight, the Joker’s “mask”, scars and constant, dry, lip-licking make him rather serpent-like. But I never noticed this before…in this one scene he grabs an old man. The old man tells him to his face, basically, “you’re just a thug, I’m not afraid of you”. Joker says, “You know, you remind me of my father. I HATE my father.”
This pricked up my ears as well, as this has been on my mind ->
The last line of my post today:
Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. ~Psalm 19:12
"Men perish with whispering sins", wrote John Donne, "nay with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience that they are sins, as often as with crying sins; and in hell there shall meet as many men that never thought what was sin, as that spent all their thoughts in
the compassing of sin."
Lord, correct my conscience.
I remember that well. My point is that you have accepted as valid a political dychotomy that is a mirage.
For example, when Bush advanced a leftist agenda-silence. Now that Obama is, and who could not have seen that coming, you can't stop critiquing. I simply suggest that you take a step back and see leftism and critique it no matter where it originates.
coonesse indeed!
""at our physical death.... we still inhabit, or imagine we inhabit, the same world that we inhabit before our physical death." In short, "the images that compose [our world] have as much power over us then as they do now." "
Immediately formed the following lines in mind, and reading them was almost a Deja-vu experience:
"Indeed, it seems that the mind parasites have even more power, since there is no longer the "friction" of matter to constrain them. As a result, several things happen. First of all, the veil that separates you from your mind parasites vanishes, so you can no longer fool yourself (much less imagine that you are fooling God). Thus, one's "true character is revealed.""
That's one heck of a powerful concept, a thought I think few will dare to tread.
my wv:ungloap
You'd better.
aninnymouse said "For example, when Bush advanced a leftist agenda-silence"
Apparently a new ninny.
Is there a salve or something for the mind parasites?
Van, either that or he’s committed his own crime by ignoring the numerous times when Bob has criticized Bush’s advancements of leftism.
I would never characterize Bush as "leftist", however he most certainly created some of the most heinous socialist legislation in years. As much as I admire Bush in many ways, he undoubtedly was "part of the problem" in certain areas. Of course the damage Bush inflicted is a flea-bite compared with the wholesale dismantling of America playing out before our eyes today.
I had been considering a new startup company last year. Not a chance in hell I would do that in North America or Europe today, unless I was planning to get in on the fraud gravy train and get rich off the backs of the US middle and lower classes along with the Democratic pigs at their trough.
In a bizarre historical twist, China will soon become a far better location than the US for genuine entrepreneurs. Got kids? Teach 'em Cantonese. (Also, Christianity is the fastest growing religion in China, or so I'm told).
lance said "Is there a salve or something for the mind parasites?"
Ummm... Oil of Oy vey!?
With regards to liberal denial of real evil in the world, a cautionary tale could be Ingmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring".
John Bolton sums up what I was trying to say re Bush:
That Obama's initial steps in several areas have much in common with Bush policies tells you more about the collapse of Bush's philosophy in his second term than about Obama's vision. Bush was, ironically, becoming more like Obama in advance, rather than the other way around.
Today's post comprises some very thought-provoking material.
The prospect of an afterlife not free of the painful issues felt here fills me with alarm. I had counted on death to be like a warm bath after a cold march--relief, in other words.
I thought I'd fall into the arms of Jesus and be safe, no matter what my fallen state here.
However, what Bob wrote has a certain smack of truth or certainty about it. My 'true colors' will be what I'll wear after death. Those colors had better be the best I can make them starting now.
Have read in Aurobindo that our darkest stains indicate an opposite counterpoint in the being--for instance, the worst liar may have within the potential for the most impeccable honesty. The cruelest tyrant may become the most gentle and humble beggar.
The one quality indicates a capacity for its opposite at the extreme end of the spectacle.
This is not by accident. The darknes is there to show the way to the light.
Find and push on your darkest places, and you will push through to your brightest light.
Or so he wrote.
Yea, I'm not that much into you either bob, although the topic's interesting.
From my experience of dying through extensive regression to the point of being externalized from my body several times a week...for years...against my will, I would say that first of all, when the separation occurs, any wholeness that I had starts dissipating, and what I was becomes objectified and multiple; I become a rabble.
From the standpoint of a subjective wholeness, I am overcome by what appears to be external beings of shadow who rush in replacing the space that I occupied before, some being almost pure instantiations of inertia, as in dead, while others are endowed with intelligences reflecting whatever psychic level they originate from. Some may be infantile, while others clearly come from a mental realm beyond childhood.
Being externalized is a very physical experience; everything's tangible just like it is here. The difference is in physics: the body can float through the air as if being carried on a stream of energy; we can be caught in gravitational vortexes where we're swung around as if being sucked into a black hole...or flushed down a toilet. Many times, I found myself pressed against the wall of my room, upside down. In another related state, not so negative, I learned to fly through focus, for focus is a kind of anti-gravity; it takes us straight up.
Despite those negative things, I believe that what's essentially going on is a bifurcation of two densities, one light, and the other heavy. What belongs to heaven eventually goes to heaven, while what belongs to earth goes to earth. On the heavenly side, we are an expansive unity. On earth, all is multiplicity. The danger is when things are not properly themselves. If our relative selves' grab at the heavenly self enough at death, the heavenly self will not be able to properly return to the heavenly equipoise to rest; that self will remain karmicly bound to what I would assume are parasitic formations of substance left floating around in ether worlds on earth. Some of those formations dissolve into primal material, while others may have enough momentum to maintain a cohesion amidst the post-mortum physical chaos.
The questions that arise in my mind are: what happens to these ether formations in relation to firstly, the person that engendered them, and secondly, their affect on living people who did not. I mean this is a physical way. Do they just hang around like feed-back loops repeating thoughtless actions in limited ether worlds until recollected and brought into consonance by an intelligence beyond itself? What if that doesn't happen for a while? Do they parasitically attach themselves to those with weak psychic immune systems like babies, the diseased, or the traumatized. If that's so, even if the heavenly self were to come back to birth, the parasites that he left behind my not even belong to him anymore, at least not in the form that he left them. On earth nothing's personal, while heaven is most personal.
Anyway, I'm done thinking on this. It's probably not good for me. Ironic that I come around when parasites are the topic of discussion. It doesn't help to dwell on darkness too much, I've found.
--coonified
p.s. I'm getting better, btw. The breath held back by the muscular split in my throat (if anyone remembers) should reach the brain in the next 3 to 5 years at this rate, and beyond the brain in another 3 to 5. I should defiantly be properly incarnated by my mid-thirties, if I get there.
Re "The Virgin Spring"
...Meaning that the (freedom of the) US could be seen as the blessed young girl who unwittingly walks in on some snarling herdsmen and shares her lunch with them, oblivious to their drooling snarls. They "do what they do" which is to "thug" what comes in their path. She was foolish and vain to assume that her bounty was safe merely because it was rich and good. Her parents had a clean house, well-kept animals, she had a nice lunch, wanted to wear her best dress, was caught up in her own blessings - the fruit of her parents' labor. And it happens just on the cusp of discovering her own gifts. A harsh film but quite a brutal caution for the US. Something I thought of when I saw it for the first time last October.
Bob, in light of this passage:
"It was the next paragraph that caught my I: "We are always setting these sequences going, these 'parasitic vegetables' as Yeats called them, in our soul. Sometimes we act out the logic of their development in our lives, through an endless sequence of objects which they have suggested to us; and sometimes we cut their development short, forcing them back into the psyche but leaving them still with the full power to develop unless we have also freed the soul from the passion or passions which gave them birth."
Read Psalm 137:
...
O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
Also:
St Dorotheos of Gaza on 'Dash thine infants against the Rock'
appy the man who seized the things generated from you, ‘the enemy’, i.e. the evil thoughts [logismoi], not giving them a chance to grow strong in him and constrain him to evil deeds, but immediately, while they are still in their infancy, before they are fed and grow strong against him, flings them down on the rock, which is Christ. In other words he utterly destroys them by taking refuge in Christ.
Good stuff. There's also some stories about the soul after death; i.e, that for instance we should not think of such a thing as a 'disembodied soul'...
Anyway, back to lurksburg.
(If you want a good Psalter, like one to use for prayer, check this one out.)
Given that the whole creation groans from the pestilence of sin, and will until the new heavens and new earth arrive, no religion actually kills bugs dead. However...there is a foolproof, longlasting repellent. And, once applied, it never stops working.
And, best of all, its free!
River! Nice to see you uncloak.
Yep, ain't no disembodied souls...
"...the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." Phil 3:21
Oh, yeah. Whatever the heck that means exactly, it can't be bad.
While reading today's post I flashed on the movie "Jacob's Ladder", which may be about mind parasites. I watched it at home alone one evening years ago and was very disturbed by it; had to play music that sounded like sunlight to combat the sense of haunting that had come over me.
Also reminded of Seraphim Rose's "The Soul After Death".
This post is pregnant, touching on that big something we maybe would rather not pay any attention to...
Yes, this topic is pregnant with something so very big -- but important -- that we better not be afraid to look at it. . .
I have no choice but live it every day / night . And yes, it is spot on the fact that human's shove their parasitic thoughforms into the darkest recesses, for if fully exposed the evilones would scare the living lights of most ppl.
It is especially evident to me that when 'provoked' (and I do it on purpose) the hiding behind the mask of righteusness he/she will unleash its rage-filled arsenal of (even murderous) thoughforms. . .
Not looking in anyones direction now but will mention that few ppl. here exposed their true colors. The male energy is more agressive and intents to do harm. . . All I needed to do is make a decision to escape its deathly clutch (when trapped) to float-rise out of the situation.
From a perspective of an energy worker that blasting arsenal of hate is a release of pent up enrgy from that persons psyche, which is a good thing.
The female parasitic energy I delt with, its enegetic content was painfully raging-loud. My hand almost flew to the top of my head to shield it from this painful assult during its furious discharging.
If I get blasted for saying this then so be it.
And for those who are curious, can read my blog where I speak of things even weirder than this.
spiritspeaks-theofilia.blogspo.com
T
Excellent photoshop shows up on Iowahawk
NB said, "I would never characterize Bush as a leftist, but..."
Making my point exactly.
Anon,
I thought your point was that Bob doesn’t “take a step back and see leftism and critique it no matter where it originates” because he was silent when Bush advanced leftism.
No 1) that’s a mischaracterization and, 2) how is what NB said also not “tak[ing] a step back and see[ing] leftism and critique it no matter where it originates”.
How you can see these two statements as being of the same point is beyond me.
aninnymouse said "Making my point exactly."
Yeah... riiight... as if you had one.
Ricky said "How you can see these two statements as being of the same point is beyond me."
I'm betting it's beyond she/he/it too, Ricky. aninny probably didn't have a point, just likes to strike a sober sounding pose from which to take pot shots (between pot tokes, no doubt) at anyone or anything still retaining even a semblance of respect.
"I simply suggest that you take a step back and see leftism and critique it no matter where it originates."
If you want to find where it originates, try the mirror. Which is it ninny, moonbat or anarcho-syndicalist? Either way, same source.
Theo said,
"Not looking in anyones direction now but will mention that few ppl. here exposed their true colors."
>>"There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; nothing hidden that shall not be made known..." You are naked, baby, without so much as a skeevy fig leaf of ego to conceal the dreary architecture your soul. You sink all the way to your rotten core, AKA hell<<
Sink right down to purgatory, at any rate, and that'll seem like hell, being timeless as it is. Like a dream is timeless. But I think the idea is that the purgatorial fires must exhaust the earthly passions and then the soul graduates to a higher plane and perhaps a new incarnation on earth. Even many of the saints seem to have thought they'd have to do a little time in the purgatorial caverns before they ascended into the Light.
As for the Light - I think that as a courage-inspiring consolation, the newly departed soul is given a glimpse, a true taste of Devachan before having to undergo the purgatorial fire. Thus we hear stories about people seeing the Light and the tunnel and so forth just before they slip the surly bonds of earth.
As for hell - well, I like to think that very few end up there. Hell is for those who have not a scrap of divine conscience left to them. No purgatorial suffering for them, just as endless descent into darkness and exile, which is what they have come to desire.
"Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think . . and think . . while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time
before death.
If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten -
That is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City
of Death." - (Kabir)
wv: "bombs"
Cool.
This dry spell lasted about as long as any previously.
w.v haweac
Just needed to expectorate a phlegm.
Of course it is pointless to critique Bush now. Bob made tiny critiques along the way, but nothing significant, and always with a hushed reverence regarding Bush.
Ricky,
It's simple, really. If someone in political power, no matter who they are advances leftism, then they are a leftist. And that's my point.
For some unknown reason, though, Bush can't be referred to as a leftist?
Van,
Whence comes the violence? I'm afraid I am none of the things you claim I am, just a religious man searching for truth. It seems here, though, is a forum for those already in full possession.
Fred
boo sell said "Not looking in anyones direction now but will mention that few ppl. here exposed their true colors."
Mine are right out in front, the
Stars & Stripes,
the 'Don't Tread On Me' and the 'F.U!' flag,
are all flying high here. And one of the useful side effects of being longwinded, is there's plenty of breeze to keep them streaming out in full glory.
Fred, sorry, but if you post under anonymous, their face is the one seen and whose history is being responded to.
Use Fred... It's a good name.
Wow!
Van,
Using an iphone leads me to parsimony.
Fred
Oh no! Van did read my post after all that swearing up and down he wouldn't:)
and if truth be known, you were not on the list . . .
I know you are a good-hearted man with mucho love for your wife and children. Heck, you were the firstone here who responded when I shared my story about my 4 days old granbaby's loud giggling, and shared your story about what happened when your precious son was born:)
I also know you wear your American Passion Colors well. . .
I remember well my once upon angry "I RAISE MY FIST AGAINST ALL INJUSTICE...."
As for response to you Do Tell? Not gona happen because it is confidential.
Besides, on an energy level all boundries blur. . .
Years ago I was hovering above earths panorama exclaiming "all that is me also!"
Theofilia
I am reminded that Jesus either compared or outright identified death with sleep, in the case of Lazarus. If we are to believe that Lazarus was as dead as any of us is going to be after a few days, this is bound to be an important information.
Most of us, luckily, don't go to hell during our sleep. But we do fall into the imaginary worlds, either of our mind parasites or occasionally our higher aspiration. Contrary to our belief at the time, we no longer have any part in what goes on under the sun. We know nothing, and can do nothing, but this is only apparent to those still awake. In this respect, Jesus' phrasing is consistent with the teaching of the "old Testament".
OK, this is probably not going to help readers with insomnia. To do that one must also believe in the resurrection, I suppose.
Theo,
Sorry, but Van read my post.
You gonna come clean? Clear up old resentments?
w.v. outplato
Yeah, that.
Van,
I think you have a new fan.
w.v. teramics
Dirt pottery?
Wo, I didn't even notice that Van 3:24 called me (Theofilia) "boo sell" before quoting me. Guess, I'm always are ready to give ppl. more credit then they deserve. My baaad.
How quiant Van, passive agression is sooo unbecoming.
Theofilia
Thanks Do Tell for making me take a double take on Van's post. I truly didn't see what he called me.
Theofilia
Thanks NoMo, for posting what I was thinking! And I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought of 'Til We Have Faces while reading this one...
My current favorite book by Sherrard is The Greek East and the Latin West. It's an analysis of the split between eastern and western Christianity that started in the middle with our minds and went up and down to split us spiritually and in the physical manifestation of the Church.
A key point is that the western Church's emphasis of aristotle over plato turned over the west to be attacked on secular materialism's home turf - and we get stuff like what is happening today: adoration of MJ and ignorance of the most heinous piece of legislation ever passed in the US (It takes us well to the left of the EU and Canada). The western view also makes it easier for us to ignore our mind parasites because we don't think there is anything above our rational thinking mind and mistake activity in the rational mind (driven by parasites) for us being in control of ourselves.
Today was the first day that I have questioned my move to the US (and the sweat and tears it took to get on the citizenship path).
I will do whatever I can to help defeat those on the left in this beautiful country.
Re: today: we are being governed by malicious con artists. They know good and well what this is going to do to the average American in an already stressed economy. They relish the idea of European-level energy costs. Make no mistake, their motivation is purely misanthropic, and they are flat-out lying through their teeth: "green industry" and blah blah blah. They know they are setting out to punish us, and only the foolish willingly blind themselves.
Theofilia said "Thanks Do Tell for making me take a double take on Van's post. I truly didn't see what he called me."
What the...(? ) scrolls up,
"Van 3:24 called me (Theofilia) "boo sell" before quoting me"
wharuh?
"Van did read my post after all that swearing up and down he wouldn't"
groans... rubs eyes and shakes head.
... sheesh... thumps forehead on table a couple o' times....
Sigh. Ok, at the risk of going against my better judgment, and since crossed wires have gone and given the impression that I already had (though I hadn't), I'll respond.
1. I didn't reply to you, I was replying to 'do tell'.
2. I didn't call you a name at all, 'boo sell' was my playing with 'do tell's nic; an amusement of mine for the oddly named or no named passersby who make off topic, goofy, obtuse, churlish or down right rude comments.
3. "passive agression is sooo unbecoming" perhaps so, but it's kinda hard to be passive aggressive towards you when I was not referring to you or your comments at all.
4. As I've said before, nothing personal, but your comments in general don't much interest me... but if they don't bother the host of the house, who am I to say anything more about it? Like a person who (wisely) doesn't have an interest in soccer (sorry Ximeze, couldn't resist), when at a gathering in someone elses house there is someone you don't know that's talking about soccer, rather than pretending interest, or telling them how uninteresting you think their 'sport' is, you just... mingle on down the room. That's all I'm doing.
I can generally tell within the first line or two of your comments that they are your comments... and not because it is you, but because of the nature of the comments themselves, which just don't intrigue me, and since I've certainly no interest in telling someone that they shouldn't be interested in what they're interested in, I prefer to just ... click on by.
Nothing more to it than that.
Fred said "Using an iphone leads me to parsimony."
Shouldn't have taken a bite of that apple....
;-)
Alan,
I agree it's heinous, though not yet passed (assuming you are referring to the climate change laws). You might check out the legislation that created the federal reserve and the income tax--I the same year. It's been a downhill run ever since.
Alan said "A key point is that the western Church's emphasis of aristotle over plato turned over the west to be attacked on secular materialism's home turf ..."
Along with Thomas Aquinas, I'll respectfully disagree.
"The western view also makes it easier for us to ignore our mind parasites because we don't think there is anything above our rational thinking mind and mistake activity in the rational mind..."
The loony western materialists didn't come from Aristotle's influence, in fact they grew out of a reaction against Aristotle (more a reaction to several generations of sloppy commentary on Aristotle, but that's another topic), and their deductive rationalism is far more a corruption of Plato's, than anything Aristotle influenced. Prior to the rise of Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, etc (who are the real forces behind the modernistic west), the more materialistic commentators were dismissed on Aristotelian grounds, as people of shallow understanding, and as people who foolishly took appearances as completely sufficient and self contained causes.
Aristotelian's, through a heavier reliance on inference, logic, and a far deeper concept of causation, knew how to spot a posturing lightweight, and dismiss him. Those who took a pinch of Plato, and combined it with an easy cynical skepticism, could, did and do, line up a feeble chain of their deductive rationalizations (which an Aristotelian could, did and do, fully fisk, expose and discard), and then proceed to draw, or dismiss, any and all manner of meaning they wish.
I haven't read any of Sherrard so I've nothing to say on his ideas one way or another, but this one, or its interpretation, I for one strongly disagree with.
"Today was the first day that I have questioned my move to the US (and the sweat and tears it took to get on the citizenship path)."
I so wish I could argue with that.
"I will do whatever I can to help defeat those on the left in this beautiful country. "
My deepest thanks for that.
Anonymous said "You might check out the legislation that created the federal reserve and the income tax--I the same year. It's been a downhill run ever since."
Oh, sooo true.
Van,You're on the list.
Theofilia
A friend just reminded me of this Cartoon from 1948... heartbreaking how prophetic it was and is... except now it's taking a lot more effort to wake them from the bad dream and beat the living daylights out of the spinster meisters.
Please God, helps us to wake us up.
Lance said...
Is there a salve or something for the mind parasites?
What we really need is not salve but rather "see for," to deal with mind parasites.
Make gno mistake: it's kill or be killed when it comes to mind parasites. They will stop at nothing to exert their dominance over your true will.
The main problems are identifying them and freely choosing to exert your will over them while accepting God's grace, and sacrifice for you.
Not. An. Easy. Task. 'Cause you can't outsmart them, and you can't overcome them by your own power.
Van said...
lance said "Is there a salve or something for the mind parasites?"
Ummm... Oil of Oy vey!?
LOL! Ho! Well said, sir, well said! :^)
Bob F said:
"This post is pregnant, touching on that big something we maybe would rather not pay any attention to..."
And all the more reason to touch on it, 'cause that's what Racoons do. Why? 'Cause it's there. And I don't say that lightly, 'cause I gno...Aye! I gno it's gonna hurt,
and yet, it's more than worth it.
"I will do whatever I can to help defeat those on the left in this beautiful country."
Thanks, Alan!
I'm glad you are a US citizen now and can vote! :^)
Will said-
"Even many of the saints seem to have thought they'd have to do a little time in the purgatorial caverns before they ascended into the Light."
Well, it may seem like hell, but it's a helluva...I mean, it's infinitely better than hell.
Personally, that's the best I'm thinkin' I'll end up at, with the hope of Heaven after the purge.
Good points, Will. :^)
Outstanding post, Bob!
I eagerly await the sequel(s).
It's heartening to see such good responses to this post, by most of my fellow commenters (brothers n' sisters under the pelt).
Bravo Zulu, Bob!
It's also funny how a post like this attracts parasites and charletans. They ain't bringin' their A game though. I'm thinkin' Bob's post has unconciously disturbed them (more than they are already disturbed, that is).
I reckon attention ho's have that in common.
Hoooos!
"It was the next paragraph that caught my I:"
Sure as hell caught my aye! Da-amn!
Van said:
"That's one heck of a powerful concept, a thought I think few will dare to tread."
And yet, here we are. The few who actually seek out this stuff that burns like hell.
Without pay, I might add. But the benefits are outta this world! :^)
Coonified said:
"It doesn't help to dwell on darkness too much, I've found."
That's true. Better to dwell on the Truth of Light, and how to do our part along with it to disperse the darkness within us.
IOW's, I don't see this post as darkness, but rather an excellent tool, along with most of Bob's posts, to reveal the darkness and expose it to the Light of God.
But first, we must recognize and realize it. Don't mistake the pain that causes with dwelling on darkness. This is actually a joyous occasion, even if it don't feel like it.
Getting in way late on this cooversation, but so be it.
I say pay the little boogers some Mind and be done with 'em. They are nothing more than emanations of nothingness, anyway. Once you let go of the ego and become alright with being nothing yourself you come into the Light and all else is a wizardly game. Be at peace with where you lay while paying Mind to the Big Guy in the Sky (that is His official title) and the Holy Ghost down below (She loves to give a squeeze to all of her children, even if they are having a bad dream) and Everything will be All-right.
Oh, one more thing. Purgatory is nothing but a veil. It has nothing to do with you. Don't take it personally and you'll sail right on through. Trust in the Lord's Love and you'll be lifting way up before you can say scama-fama-shoo-man-do.
Word, peoples.
Van: Thanks for the response. I'm not good enough to do Sherrard or his arguments justice but I think his argument would be more in agreement with what you are saying - sloppy philosophy is the cause. However I believe he was saying that the shift in playing ground led by the scholastics gave an opening that was easy for sloppy philosophy to enter into the battle and its crude weapons were easier to understand for the average person... and hence gradually won.
Ben and Van: Thanks!
Alan: The filioque is characteristic of the split. it seems so insignificant, given Crusades, and whatever else numbers you can throw out of people harmed either in the body, soul or spirit because of errors, but the filioque kind of is a focal point for this disagreement.
The filioque encapsulates the idea of 'how far does our human reason go'? In the west, it investigates and knows the origin of God, that is, not the Father, but Christ as God of God and Spirit as God of God. It implies that it is able to make judgments about what makes sense for their origins - and in this case has come to the conclusion that it makes more sense that the Spirit proceeds from both, and not just from the Father.
The east says that no, the reason cannot scry out the origins of God, even that of the Word and Spirit. So we should not go blaming say, Aquinas, who does fully understand the limits of human reason, but in a real sense has been taught that the human reason can know things (and handed down those things it allegedly knows) that it really cannot.
On some level, the filioque is oriented around this notion that in a sense the origins of the Trinity don't matter so much, or that they are what we need them to be at a given moment. There is a humanistic strain coming from the Carolingians, perhaps, that infects theology with these words, a supposed rebuke to the Arians. From this attitude which generated the clause comes a whole host of evils, which in many hundreds of years brought forth the humanists, then modernists (dualists) then subjectivists or relativists.
Granted, this does not do the whole problem justice. We are told that the simple model (two single processions) makes the Father 'fountainhead' and subordinates the Son; but whether these arguments were why there is a clause in the west or were made post facto I cannot say.
Anyway, the real point I'm trying to get at is that the filioque represents a problem that the West has been handed down - not knowing the proper limits of man's reason. It's right there for all to see, and with every Dawkins it knocks on our door again.
In total the problem is more complex - for instance, what role does the reason play in analyzing revelation? To some extent we are all at the mercy of our interpretative traditions, whether they be religious, philosophical or simply practical.
The best attitude I have found is the one of not-knowing, that is, not assuming one knows or will be able to completely surely know the answer. That takes trust in God, that he is Love despite all of the weird stuff one runs into. Self-esteem is a deadly trap, beyond caring for the body and soul properly, any self-esteem is wickedness.
Or as WV says, "belly" - what a source of evils it can be!
Fred,
My point, simple really if both of us pay attention to what you said the first time, was that you were suggesting that Bob critique leftism wherever it originates, inferring that he doesn’t and therefore, I say, your accusation is false.
In defense of President Bush, and I think Bob will agree, he got his first and most important job right – strong national defense after our country was attacked on 9/11 by our bloodthirsty enemies. And then he chased them around the globe and into holes, and didn’t stop until his term of service came to an end. We survived thanks to him. I can say the real leftists in the white house aren’t doing that and worse. President Bush gets extra big points for 8 years of strength in the face of our enemies, including the left, who tried to undermine him at any and every “opportunity”. I’ll never forget any of that. I don’t like the leftist-type tendencies of Bush but attribute them to the extreme social pressure from the Washington machine. After 8 years hard labor he withstood for the most part against it coming from all directions. Tomberg may agree that they are to Bush, to paraphrase, “fissures on a mountain”.
Actually, it may have been Schuon I was paraphrasing.
Gazriel said . . ."Once you let go of the ego and become alright with being nothing yourself you come into the Light and all else is a wizardly game."
Letting go of the ego = yah, that's the clincher. Easier said than done when the ego's job is to at all cost protect itself to the very bitter end. Any whatsoever threat to its survival is perceived as if a dagger was about to enter the heart. The ego-person will match-discharge any and all such 'dagger' threats -- its energy -- towards one who is perceived as a threat, because it is what keeps it going.
I've been working with energy for a long time and know how this works first hand. And it's a hellava thing. So much existential pain and fear. I belive that some of it, if not most is karmic 'carry over'.
I don't know about you Gazriel, but in my early years of of Soul-training was about overcoming fear and trusting God's might to be on my side.
Once I found myself face to face in the hells halls with one who reminded me of the Darth Vader's boss from Star Wars -- the hooded one. I had no time to think and I knew of his deadly intentions. . . With the speed of a lighning zap, I raised my right hand (palms out) and watched bolts of lightning zip towards the darkone. Nothing this evil can survive.
To believe that the LORDS power cowers before something like that, is not to belive that God IS, let alone a loving God.
Theofilia
Theofilia said, "To believe that the LORDS power cowers before something like that, is not to belive that God IS, let alone a loving God."
Did I say something about the one and only Creator cowering before the Sith Lord? I don't think so...
Lettng go of- or disidentifying with- ego is not hard at all. Actually it is very siimple. One just must be willing to die, which, when you realize that in actuality death is a lovely thing, at least, as lovely as what we are experiencing RIGHT NOW, is a walk in the park.
We are always in a bardo realm, always forming and dissipating within the Eye of Spirit. Of course there are levels of form, from the sweet fleshy substance of this here planet to the etheric majestry of subtle bliss to the single drop of Blue Wetness that lingers in the Vast Expanse like a drop of dew on a piece of grass. Regardless, it is a matter of Recognizing That Which Is Beyond All Forms, and humbling one's individual sense of I-ness before the Purty of Foreverness.
Gazriel, you missunderstood, I didn't at all challanged anything you said, I just shared what I know to be true.
You say that dying to one's ego is as easy as a walk in the park?
Sure thing, as long as he/she is ready to trust and let go. The next step would be to invite Grace to step in and guide ones thoughts and actions. And it's quite easy, even this step, because then one has no excuse not to live from that surrendered place. No?
River: Well explained re: filioque.
Thank you.
Theofilia,
I absolutley agree with you. When one lets go of the mental-emotional construct of ego and rests as witnessing awareness, truly surrendering to the ever-present Love of God, then the Holy spirit may Grace the vessel, transforming it into an agent of Love, Purity, Bliss, Delight, and Fullness, all for the purpose of walking the earh as a beacon of Light.
Oh, and I did not think you were challenging me, that was my failed attempt at a joke.
Blessings!
"salve?" He's the Balm of Gilead.
lance said... Is there a salve or something for the mind parasites?
You wouldn't want the mind parasites to be "salved", you'd want them to be uprooted, rejected, annihilated, rebuked, eradicated; (the person) to become free(d) from them.
Maybe you mean antidote? Light, truth are effective disinfectants.
There's also a healing effect/property/aspect of the truth.
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