Tonight I had the chance to attend Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where there was an event for MLK day, including a fundraiser for the new MLK monument in Washington. And there was a beautiful concert by the choirs of this church and another church from Queens, as well as performers from yet two other churches. It all brought back deep and moving memories of the profound connection I always felt with MLK since I was 11 or 12 years old, and read all of his books that were available in Dutch. It was he who led me first to Ghandi, and ultimately to become a conscientious objector, when I reached draft age in my native Holland. The truly heartwarming spirit of this service really swept me off my feet, and the occasion made it even more meaningful.
For me it also brought up the image of Dr. Helen Schucman--the scribe of A Course in Miracles--who, as a little girl, maybe at the same age as when I was studying MLK, went to baptist services with her family's maid, who was from Harlem. She kept a life-long fascination with churches, though she was ultimately to understand that Jesus's "church" was not a building, or an organization, but the loving dedication in human relationships which is the extension of his Love. More and more one realizes that it really does not matter how people find their way, or what their theologies and beliefs are. Whatever works for you is fine, and we all learn in different ways. The warmth and intensity of this gathering certainly spoke volumes, and if for me A Course in Miracles just happens to be the way, and I am not about to join a church, I can still enjoy the beautiful music, the atmosphere and relish the friendship, for that's really the only thing that means anything. The lady who invited me was the cousin of a former work colleague, and by the time it was all over and we walked to the bus, it was as if we had known each other for a lifetime, and she's regaling me with memories: "Now, child, you should'a been there when..."
And, judging by the success of the collection, that monument is going to get there, and at a very symbolic time in the history of this country.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Take Me To Truth
This book by Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Vieira offers some interesting practical insights, and you can find out more about it pretty easily through their website, which simply has the same name as the book, Take Me To Truth. It is also one of the books I consulted in the writing of my book, and so a review of it on this blog is overdue by now. Specifically why I'm doing it right now is also because I'm rereading the book in preparation for translating it into Dutch.
This book is primarily based on the experiences Nouk and Tomas have had in growing through the various phases in their own personal relationship, everything from falling in love, to having children, divorce, and becoming friends and co-authors, and they have developed their own unique vocabulary in the process. For some magical reason it seems to be hitting a nerve with people, and offer just the right balance of generally accessible presentation in their own words. As I've argued elsewhere before, in a way you could view this book as a commentary to the section on the development of trust in A Course in Miracles, and it provides an interesting diagrammatic rendering of that process, including how it sometimes malfunctions. It also has a discussion of the a lot of relationship related issues, for which again they delve into their own experience, and offer a host of very practical ways of identifying issues, and recognizing the need for change. They develop their own language for things which at times seems to borrow from the Course and other sources, but it is uniquely theirs, and unintimidating, and for the most part very intuitive. All in all this makes it very accessible, and where it might not be they included a small list of terms to clarify their usage. Nouk and Tomas are able in this book to share their own growth process, and help us to some clarity, as well as share some practical insights and tools from their experience, and they do so in a language that certainly does not require the reader to have read any of the source materials before they enjoy this book, which is a remarkable accomplishment in and of itself. The reader at the end simply has the option to pursue any of the various source materials or not, but none of them are mandatory to appreciate this book.
What makes the book unique certainly seems to be the very accessible language, as the sales prove. For the rest, there is an emphasis on the practical and the pragmatic, on living it, rather than talking about it, which reflect how Nouk and Tomas grew through their own relationship which started as a special one like everyone else's, and which later involved a pretty extensive extended family group. And then there is an emphasis on tools and practicality which really is the hallmark of this book. The authors suggest using the Enneagram for help in personality typing, just as a broad way of characterizing ourselves, and as a tool that can help propel us to a view from above the battlefield. But like with everything else, it's an option, not mandatory.
In terms of their strong emphasis on the development of trust, which is an oft-misunderstood section of the Course, this book again is very practical, and among other things offers an excellent graphical way of understanding what happens when we try to "skip steps" and have to go back to "Go" without collecting $200. Their example is a bypass from steps 2 to step 4, from "a period of sorting out," to "a period of rest" by skipping the intervening stage 2, "a period of relinquishment." This phenomenon is akin to the ego's tendency of wanting to help out the Holy Spirit doing his job, which is really not in its job description. The result is that people focus on one aspect of the journey and mistake it for the final destination, and it truly explains the phenomena of formation of cults and religions, including Christianity as it derives from Paul's conversion experience. People build a concession stand halfway up the mountain, and as a result they divert other travelers from going uphill, never mind stalling in their own growth. Being diverted like that results in nothing but painful delays, and in effect having to backtrack later on. The way Nouk and Tomas explain this phenomenon in illustrations is absolutely lucid, though I find that the text explanation is too crypto-Calvinistic in a New Age vein. The way the process is described there makes it all sound too mechanistic, like a precise progression, which is not at all the case in the experience of anyone I know, moreover is really contrary to the forgiveness process which A Course in Miracles advocates, which is by nature asymptotic in the way we experience it. So this is one clear area where the way this book describes the process completely diverges from the Course, which is not to say that some of the insights are not valuable.
Their workshops, of which I have hosted a few in New York City, are very lively, and have this same practical and experiential quality, and I can recommend the experience to anyone. In short this is an interesting book to read. It is a unique and very personal reflection of the experience of the authors, with their own insights, though it is not in the narrow sense e.g. a book about A Course in Miracles, except for liberally quoting from the Course. The Course remains one of the options for further study. Fortunately the authors use their own vocabulary, so that hopefully it will be clear to the reader that this is truly their own nomenclature, and not ACIM, although it does seem that way at times. To me the book is an on-ramp to a highway, which gives the reader options to proceed to any of the directions from which the authors took their inspiration, everything from A Course in Miracles, to Eckhart Tolle, to the Enneagram, and various other writers and traditions. The total framework of the book is more New Age than A Course in Miracles, in spite of the numerous quotes, but the treatment of evolution, energy, karma/reincarnation, and special and "unified" relationships have more to do with a variety of New Age teachings, which are also liberally quoted in the book. In particular the notion of the "unified relationship" in this book, while evidently inspired by the Course's notion of the holy relationship, is evidently not the same thing, since the book continues to frame this in the contexts of relationships between people, and therefore in a dualistic manner, such as there are multiple unified relationships, even though at some points the text seems to try to also embrace the notion of the holy relationship as being one, but it never reconciles these two concepts. In short, the book represents the authors' unique intersection of these various traditions, and quite evidently it is very accessible and speaks to a lot of people, and it's up to the reader where you want to go from there.
From the perspective of my own book I connected of course specifically with the development in this book of the bypass in the stages of the development of trust, the skipping of steps in our process, specifically as it relates to the development of Paul and Chritianity, for it would seem that Paul is a perfect example of what happens when we do skip steps in our process, and the point is that we all do. What matters is to learn to recognize it for what it is, and keep going. We arrest our own development in this process whenever we think we know and we take over from the only teacher there is. And then when we slide on the ice (again) we have the option to start over, and over, and over, until we learn NOT to run the show. As far as A Course in Miracles is concerned, the whole point is not that we should not make mistakes, but rather that we learn to be honest about them and forgive ourselves. Just like the problem is not that we once chose the tiny mad idea, but rather that we are still choosing it minute by minute, and Jesus' counter in the form of the Course is that equally we can choose the miracle instead of murder minute by minute, and if we forget, we can always start again, and by forgiving ourselves in the process, we lose the need to repeat the exercise.
In a more general sense the book stands on its own entirely, and in the context of the Course it seems to want to propose that this book/method is a shortcut to the Course, as is explained in Nouk's bio in the back. It professes the motivation of saving others the challenges they experienced in their years with the Course, which sounds honorable enough, but it does not work. As the standard joke goes, the Course is the shortcut, and therefore, when you're cutting it short, you are needlessly extending suffering. Shortcuts to the Course become like the skipping steps in the development of trust - detours. And in terms of saving others pain, the only effective way of doing that is by living the Course, which the Course also calls teaching it, and which has nothing to do with teaching workshops, or God forbid, being a "Course teacher." Here, just like with the proselytizing tendency in early Christianity, it seems that the temtation to teach is part of the natural ego urges which tend to surface in our Course process, but it is in fact a trap, and even more so when it professes to offer shortcuts, which really abort the process of the work. There is no suffering to be saved anybody, since the pain we experience is only the ego's resistance, which won't be overcome unless we learn that it is not real and cannot rob us of the Peace of God, not by avoiding it, for that IS the lesson, and therein lies the Peace of God. What prolongs the suffering are the ego's avoidance manoeuvers.
This book is primarily based on the experiences Nouk and Tomas have had in growing through the various phases in their own personal relationship, everything from falling in love, to having children, divorce, and becoming friends and co-authors, and they have developed their own unique vocabulary in the process. For some magical reason it seems to be hitting a nerve with people, and offer just the right balance of generally accessible presentation in their own words. As I've argued elsewhere before, in a way you could view this book as a commentary to the section on the development of trust in A Course in Miracles, and it provides an interesting diagrammatic rendering of that process, including how it sometimes malfunctions. It also has a discussion of the a lot of relationship related issues, for which again they delve into their own experience, and offer a host of very practical ways of identifying issues, and recognizing the need for change. They develop their own language for things which at times seems to borrow from the Course and other sources, but it is uniquely theirs, and unintimidating, and for the most part very intuitive. All in all this makes it very accessible, and where it might not be they included a small list of terms to clarify their usage. Nouk and Tomas are able in this book to share their own growth process, and help us to some clarity, as well as share some practical insights and tools from their experience, and they do so in a language that certainly does not require the reader to have read any of the source materials before they enjoy this book, which is a remarkable accomplishment in and of itself. The reader at the end simply has the option to pursue any of the various source materials or not, but none of them are mandatory to appreciate this book.
What makes the book unique certainly seems to be the very accessible language, as the sales prove. For the rest, there is an emphasis on the practical and the pragmatic, on living it, rather than talking about it, which reflect how Nouk and Tomas grew through their own relationship which started as a special one like everyone else's, and which later involved a pretty extensive extended family group. And then there is an emphasis on tools and practicality which really is the hallmark of this book. The authors suggest using the Enneagram for help in personality typing, just as a broad way of characterizing ourselves, and as a tool that can help propel us to a view from above the battlefield. But like with everything else, it's an option, not mandatory.
In terms of their strong emphasis on the development of trust, which is an oft-misunderstood section of the Course, this book again is very practical, and among other things offers an excellent graphical way of understanding what happens when we try to "skip steps" and have to go back to "Go" without collecting $200. Their example is a bypass from steps 2 to step 4, from "a period of sorting out," to "a period of rest" by skipping the intervening stage 2, "a period of relinquishment." This phenomenon is akin to the ego's tendency of wanting to help out the Holy Spirit doing his job, which is really not in its job description. The result is that people focus on one aspect of the journey and mistake it for the final destination, and it truly explains the phenomena of formation of cults and religions, including Christianity as it derives from Paul's conversion experience. People build a concession stand halfway up the mountain, and as a result they divert other travelers from going uphill, never mind stalling in their own growth. Being diverted like that results in nothing but painful delays, and in effect having to backtrack later on. The way Nouk and Tomas explain this phenomenon in illustrations is absolutely lucid, though I find that the text explanation is too crypto-Calvinistic in a New Age vein. The way the process is described there makes it all sound too mechanistic, like a precise progression, which is not at all the case in the experience of anyone I know, moreover is really contrary to the forgiveness process which A Course in Miracles advocates, which is by nature asymptotic in the way we experience it. So this is one clear area where the way this book describes the process completely diverges from the Course, which is not to say that some of the insights are not valuable.
Their workshops, of which I have hosted a few in New York City, are very lively, and have this same practical and experiential quality, and I can recommend the experience to anyone. In short this is an interesting book to read. It is a unique and very personal reflection of the experience of the authors, with their own insights, though it is not in the narrow sense e.g. a book about A Course in Miracles, except for liberally quoting from the Course. The Course remains one of the options for further study. Fortunately the authors use their own vocabulary, so that hopefully it will be clear to the reader that this is truly their own nomenclature, and not ACIM, although it does seem that way at times. To me the book is an on-ramp to a highway, which gives the reader options to proceed to any of the directions from which the authors took their inspiration, everything from A Course in Miracles, to Eckhart Tolle, to the Enneagram, and various other writers and traditions. The total framework of the book is more New Age than A Course in Miracles, in spite of the numerous quotes, but the treatment of evolution, energy, karma/reincarnation, and special and "unified" relationships have more to do with a variety of New Age teachings, which are also liberally quoted in the book. In particular the notion of the "unified relationship" in this book, while evidently inspired by the Course's notion of the holy relationship, is evidently not the same thing, since the book continues to frame this in the contexts of relationships between people, and therefore in a dualistic manner, such as there are multiple unified relationships, even though at some points the text seems to try to also embrace the notion of the holy relationship as being one, but it never reconciles these two concepts. In short, the book represents the authors' unique intersection of these various traditions, and quite evidently it is very accessible and speaks to a lot of people, and it's up to the reader where you want to go from there.
From the perspective of my own book I connected of course specifically with the development in this book of the bypass in the stages of the development of trust, the skipping of steps in our process, specifically as it relates to the development of Paul and Chritianity, for it would seem that Paul is a perfect example of what happens when we do skip steps in our process, and the point is that we all do. What matters is to learn to recognize it for what it is, and keep going. We arrest our own development in this process whenever we think we know and we take over from the only teacher there is. And then when we slide on the ice (again) we have the option to start over, and over, and over, until we learn NOT to run the show. As far as A Course in Miracles is concerned, the whole point is not that we should not make mistakes, but rather that we learn to be honest about them and forgive ourselves. Just like the problem is not that we once chose the tiny mad idea, but rather that we are still choosing it minute by minute, and Jesus' counter in the form of the Course is that equally we can choose the miracle instead of murder minute by minute, and if we forget, we can always start again, and by forgiving ourselves in the process, we lose the need to repeat the exercise.
In a more general sense the book stands on its own entirely, and in the context of the Course it seems to want to propose that this book/method is a shortcut to the Course, as is explained in Nouk's bio in the back. It professes the motivation of saving others the challenges they experienced in their years with the Course, which sounds honorable enough, but it does not work. As the standard joke goes, the Course is the shortcut, and therefore, when you're cutting it short, you are needlessly extending suffering. Shortcuts to the Course become like the skipping steps in the development of trust - detours. And in terms of saving others pain, the only effective way of doing that is by living the Course, which the Course also calls teaching it, and which has nothing to do with teaching workshops, or God forbid, being a "Course teacher." Here, just like with the proselytizing tendency in early Christianity, it seems that the temtation to teach is part of the natural ego urges which tend to surface in our Course process, but it is in fact a trap, and even more so when it professes to offer shortcuts, which really abort the process of the work. There is no suffering to be saved anybody, since the pain we experience is only the ego's resistance, which won't be overcome unless we learn that it is not real and cannot rob us of the Peace of God, not by avoiding it, for that IS the lesson, and therein lies the Peace of God. What prolongs the suffering are the ego's avoidance manoeuvers.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
A Vast Illusion
The discussion of the holographic model of our experiential world, the "universe," in this context would not be complete without mentioning this book by Ken Wapnick, which is the most comprehensive summary of the things A Course in Miracles teaches about the phenomenal world of time and space, and is therefore also pertinent to a discussion of Gary Renard's work. As the case may be, the very lively dialog that makes up Gary's books actually covers the subject in a casual way, but nevertheless manages to be fairly comprehensive, the only problem being it's strewn all over the books. The problem is similar with the Course itself, because it has a symphonic structure, and if you want to explore this topic, in A Vast Illusion you find it all in one place.
The book dates from 1990 and is based on an original set of classes at the Foundation for A Course in Miracles, when it was still located in Crompond, NY, which at some time had been released as a tape set. In the introduction the book warns that it is not meant for students not familiar with the basic tenets of A Course In Miracles, its purpose being rather to assist the long term student in pulling together into one picture all of the materials about the metaphysics of time from across all three books. As best as possible I'll summarize here what the book covers. It really falls into three parts, I, The Origin and Nature of Time, II, The Plan of the Atonement - The Miracle, and III The End of Time.
This is one of those topics in the Course that makes you realize it was no accident when Helen Schucman, a super bright intellectual herself, said at the end of her dictation experience which produced the Course: " Finally God for intellectuals." The treatment of this particular topic definitely falls into that category. Yet somewhere along the way you also come to realize that your failure to understand these things is not a limitation of your intellect, but fear. For in the process the Course completely reframes all of what we thought we understood of ourselves, and more often than not do the things we seem to fail to grasp at first become clear in experiences we have based on actually practicing what the Course says. And therein ultimately lies the point of the teaching that: "No rules are idly set, and no demands are made of anyone or anything to twist and fit into the dream of fear. Instead, there is a wish to understand all things created as they really are. And it is recognized that all things must be first forgiven, and then understood." (ACIM:T-30.V.1: 4-6) In other words as long as we keep hanging on to the ego's narrow framework, we are our own biggest impediment to understanding anything at all. Yet when we do take the leap, suddenly everything appears crystal clear. So different from the ego's obfuscations--which "twist and fit things into the dream of fear"-- and where oftentimes the "mysteries of the faith" are cited to prevent us from questioning the exact points where the ego does not make sense, what is on offer here is a higher level of understanding that comes as we let go of those contorted answers that tried in vain to fit things " into the dreams of fear." The answers come as we let go of the narrow frame of reference that blocked our sight for too long already.
The first section of the book basically pulls together the underpinnings of the metaphysics of time and space, as they are presented in the Course. The resulting model is a holographic representation which aligns closely with the models of the experiential world that have emerged from quantum mechanics, with one important additional step: the big bang in fact is the physical manifestation of the projection of guilt from the mind, and the practical expression of the separation thought. This may seem baffling at first, when you read it like this, but actually giving it a try and practicing forgiveness as the Course suggests it, can put us in touch with a growing awareness that this whole concept makes sense, and is validated in those experiences.
This automatically brings us to the 2nd part of the book, the Plan of the Atonement, or the forgiveness process as taught by the Course, which is the "plan" of the Holy Spirit to help us let go of the sin, guilt, and fear, which we think define our existence, since after all we think we are really here. To put it differently, the ego thought, the thought of separation culminates in a feeling of loneliness in a bodily identity, combined with a profound existential guilt, that is ultimately grounded in the sense that we "threw it all away," and so we are caught in the Catch-22 of wanting to reaffirm the reality of who we are not (i.e. the role we play in the dream that is this life), spending all our energy on the persistent temper tantrum to prove that we're here and important, all of which reinforces the feeling of guilt about the separation. The only way out must come from outside that self-reinforcing delusional system, and this is represented in the Course as the Holy Spirit, our memory of Heaven, and Jesus as the manifestation thereof, by virtue of the fact that he has fully identified with the Holy Spirit in remembering who he is in truth, and showing us how we can regain that memory too, by following him in the daily practice of living and the constant application of forgiveness, thus choosing incrementally to return to the original moment of the cosmic choice for the " tiny mad idea" of the separation, and to make the other choice, for forgiveness, Love and the Holy Spirit, thus undoing the ego's belief system and the world of separation upheld by it.
And part III then covers the culmination of this whole process within the dream in what the Course calls the Real World, i.e. the experience of living in the knowledge of the Atonement, that nothing really happened, and all is forgiven. This also implies living in the full awareness of the primacy of spirit, and according no reality to the physical universe other than as a conduit for teaching, and helping our brothers. The final end of the process is what the Course calls God's Last Step, or the complete return to the oneness of the Father and the Son.
The end result of this whole presentation is a very complete and crystal clear metaphysics, in which it is seen that the entire experience of time and space, is nothing but an occurrence within the mind, which gives expression to the thought of separation, but is never real, only an illusion, upheld only by the strenuous efforts of our ego's to justify it, which we do by continuing to project the cause for the mess of our lives onto other people, starting with our parents, and continuing with all those who are nearest and dearest to us, or if the need arises our enemies, which can justify anything and everything. This illusion seems vast to us, but Jesus in the Course pokes fun at us and our self-importance by referring to the separation idea, as nothing but a "tiny, mad idea." (ACIM:T-19.IV.C.5:6)
The book dates from 1990 and is based on an original set of classes at the Foundation for A Course in Miracles, when it was still located in Crompond, NY, which at some time had been released as a tape set. In the introduction the book warns that it is not meant for students not familiar with the basic tenets of A Course In Miracles, its purpose being rather to assist the long term student in pulling together into one picture all of the materials about the metaphysics of time from across all three books. As best as possible I'll summarize here what the book covers. It really falls into three parts, I, The Origin and Nature of Time, II, The Plan of the Atonement - The Miracle, and III The End of Time.
This is one of those topics in the Course that makes you realize it was no accident when Helen Schucman, a super bright intellectual herself, said at the end of her dictation experience which produced the Course: " Finally God for intellectuals." The treatment of this particular topic definitely falls into that category. Yet somewhere along the way you also come to realize that your failure to understand these things is not a limitation of your intellect, but fear. For in the process the Course completely reframes all of what we thought we understood of ourselves, and more often than not do the things we seem to fail to grasp at first become clear in experiences we have based on actually practicing what the Course says. And therein ultimately lies the point of the teaching that: "No rules are idly set, and no demands are made of anyone or anything to twist and fit into the dream of fear. Instead, there is a wish to understand all things created as they really are. And it is recognized that all things must be first forgiven, and then understood." (ACIM:T-30.V.1: 4-6) In other words as long as we keep hanging on to the ego's narrow framework, we are our own biggest impediment to understanding anything at all. Yet when we do take the leap, suddenly everything appears crystal clear. So different from the ego's obfuscations--which "twist and fit things into the dream of fear"-- and where oftentimes the "mysteries of the faith" are cited to prevent us from questioning the exact points where the ego does not make sense, what is on offer here is a higher level of understanding that comes as we let go of those contorted answers that tried in vain to fit things " into the dreams of fear." The answers come as we let go of the narrow frame of reference that blocked our sight for too long already.
The first section of the book basically pulls together the underpinnings of the metaphysics of time and space, as they are presented in the Course. The resulting model is a holographic representation which aligns closely with the models of the experiential world that have emerged from quantum mechanics, with one important additional step: the big bang in fact is the physical manifestation of the projection of guilt from the mind, and the practical expression of the separation thought. This may seem baffling at first, when you read it like this, but actually giving it a try and practicing forgiveness as the Course suggests it, can put us in touch with a growing awareness that this whole concept makes sense, and is validated in those experiences.
This automatically brings us to the 2nd part of the book, the Plan of the Atonement, or the forgiveness process as taught by the Course, which is the "plan" of the Holy Spirit to help us let go of the sin, guilt, and fear, which we think define our existence, since after all we think we are really here. To put it differently, the ego thought, the thought of separation culminates in a feeling of loneliness in a bodily identity, combined with a profound existential guilt, that is ultimately grounded in the sense that we "threw it all away," and so we are caught in the Catch-22 of wanting to reaffirm the reality of who we are not (i.e. the role we play in the dream that is this life), spending all our energy on the persistent temper tantrum to prove that we're here and important, all of which reinforces the feeling of guilt about the separation. The only way out must come from outside that self-reinforcing delusional system, and this is represented in the Course as the Holy Spirit, our memory of Heaven, and Jesus as the manifestation thereof, by virtue of the fact that he has fully identified with the Holy Spirit in remembering who he is in truth, and showing us how we can regain that memory too, by following him in the daily practice of living and the constant application of forgiveness, thus choosing incrementally to return to the original moment of the cosmic choice for the " tiny mad idea" of the separation, and to make the other choice, for forgiveness, Love and the Holy Spirit, thus undoing the ego's belief system and the world of separation upheld by it.
And part III then covers the culmination of this whole process within the dream in what the Course calls the Real World, i.e. the experience of living in the knowledge of the Atonement, that nothing really happened, and all is forgiven. This also implies living in the full awareness of the primacy of spirit, and according no reality to the physical universe other than as a conduit for teaching, and helping our brothers. The final end of the process is what the Course calls God's Last Step, or the complete return to the oneness of the Father and the Son.
The end result of this whole presentation is a very complete and crystal clear metaphysics, in which it is seen that the entire experience of time and space, is nothing but an occurrence within the mind, which gives expression to the thought of separation, but is never real, only an illusion, upheld only by the strenuous efforts of our ego's to justify it, which we do by continuing to project the cause for the mess of our lives onto other people, starting with our parents, and continuing with all those who are nearest and dearest to us, or if the need arises our enemies, which can justify anything and everything. This illusion seems vast to us, but Jesus in the Course pokes fun at us and our self-importance by referring to the separation idea, as nothing but a "tiny, mad idea." (ACIM:T-19.IV.C.5:6)
Navigating by Past Life Recall
As I have argued in the prior post, "reincarnation" may be a useful way of looking at certain aspects of our experience, even if in the abstract it may not be any more "true" than the more common Western linear view of time, which really implies Newtonian physics, and is long since obsolete for that reason alone. The notion of the holographic universe is certainly not easy to grasp. Meanwhile however, the kneejerk rejection of past life recall and reincarnation that is so common in certain quarters is also obviously meaningless. I've gotten some of that in commentaries to prior posts about Pursah's Gospel of Thomas, because it is based on her memory of her lifetime as Thomas.
To take an extreme example, General George S. Patton chose his strategy in France, guided rather strongly by past life recall of a lifetime in which he was a Roman soldier and marched with Caesar, and his intuition was to avoid all man made bridges which were built after that time, guessing correctly that the Germans would or at least were likely to, destroy them. So he planned his route based on the natural terrain, and where it would be easy to cross rivers and other obstacles. In his case, his past life recall was so vivid that in his own words, he could still smell the piss and sweat of the Roman soldiers he had been with in that terrain, and frequently he could recall features of the terrain. He experienced the same with the battle field of Gettysburg in the US, and many other historical battlefields. Nobody doubts his success. For anybody interested the full details I recommend Carlo d'Este's biography. I have also previously blogged about Patton elsewhere, particularly on his experience on the battlefield of St. Mihiel in World War I.
In short, as Shakespeare reminded us, there is more in this world than is dreamt of in our philosophy, and we are well advised to keep an open mind, and be duly sceptical about the would be obviousness of what our senses would seem to tell us. It is with this in mind that in my book I have addressed the provenance of Pursah's Gospel of Thomas as a putative kernel of the Thomas Gospel, which she feels is authentic based on her recall, but aside from that I have also validated het selection based purely on my own common sense. The combined result is what gave me the confidence to go forward. Here really lies the essence of the difference--quite in the spirit of William James' Varieties of Religious Experience-- beween formal religion and personal religion, or today we would probably simply say between religion and spirituality. Learning to have a healthy relationship with that inner guide, which we all do have, but which we have buried under rationalizations, is definitely part of waking up to who we truly are. It can also become a distraction, if we become too enamored of it, and give it more importance than it really has. The fact remains however that we all have this ability, and can generally learn to live with more ease as we learn to trust it more. This is quite independent of whatever conscious awareness we may or may not have regarding past life memories or déja vu.
To take an extreme example, General George S. Patton chose his strategy in France, guided rather strongly by past life recall of a lifetime in which he was a Roman soldier and marched with Caesar, and his intuition was to avoid all man made bridges which were built after that time, guessing correctly that the Germans would or at least were likely to, destroy them. So he planned his route based on the natural terrain, and where it would be easy to cross rivers and other obstacles. In his case, his past life recall was so vivid that in his own words, he could still smell the piss and sweat of the Roman soldiers he had been with in that terrain, and frequently he could recall features of the terrain. He experienced the same with the battle field of Gettysburg in the US, and many other historical battlefields. Nobody doubts his success. For anybody interested the full details I recommend Carlo d'Este's biography. I have also previously blogged about Patton elsewhere, particularly on his experience on the battlefield of St. Mihiel in World War I.
In short, as Shakespeare reminded us, there is more in this world than is dreamt of in our philosophy, and we are well advised to keep an open mind, and be duly sceptical about the would be obviousness of what our senses would seem to tell us. It is with this in mind that in my book I have addressed the provenance of Pursah's Gospel of Thomas as a putative kernel of the Thomas Gospel, which she feels is authentic based on her recall, but aside from that I have also validated het selection based purely on my own common sense. The combined result is what gave me the confidence to go forward. Here really lies the essence of the difference--quite in the spirit of William James' Varieties of Religious Experience-- beween formal religion and personal religion, or today we would probably simply say between religion and spirituality. Learning to have a healthy relationship with that inner guide, which we all do have, but which we have buried under rationalizations, is definitely part of waking up to who we truly are. It can also become a distraction, if we become too enamored of it, and give it more importance than it really has. The fact remains however that we all have this ability, and can generally learn to live with more ease as we learn to trust it more. This is quite independent of whatever conscious awareness we may or may not have regarding past life memories or déja vu.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
The Time Has Come
The time has come for me to address the issue of reincarnation and past life memories here, and I'm guessing it won't be the only time. I had been thinking about this all week long, and then today AlterEgo909 posted some musings on déja vu experiences, surmising that they could be past life memories. So I took that as a sign that it was time to stop thinking about it and start writing.
Personally I do not "believe in reincarnation" in an explicit sense, but I do believe that it is a practical way to understand certain phenomena in our experience. The whole thing really becomes much more manageable in the context of a holographic conception of the universe, which is where quantum physics is leading us. There was an interesting article in the Scientific American in July of 2003, titled "Information in the Holographic Universe" and there are any number of other sources where these ideas have been put forth in understandable terms, which give us a framework for understanding that it is our linear experience of time which is really illusory, and just a function of our ability to perceive, but that just like in a movie, the beginning and the ending already exist, but right now I'm watching the scene that's on the screen for a split second, and that to me is "now" and I'm not even thinking about the fact that the beginning and the ending of the tape (film), are already in existence, and are really available simultaneously. Our experience of ourselves is similar. We see ourselves as specific to a time and a place. But some of our experiences can suggest otherwise.
Clearly Gary Renard's experiences -- and my book is after all based on his work -- are no doubt exceptional. Few people have ever had such clear experiences as he did with the visits of Arten and Pursah, who were the apostles Thaddeus and Thomas respectively, with the additional wrinkle that Pursah (a woman) represents Gary's identity in his next lifetime. As I've written repeatedly, in my book and on this blog and elsewhere, it is purely a personal decision for me to accept as authoritative Pursah's selection of an edited "kernel" of the Thomas gospel. I do so only because Gary's experience seems credible and cogent to me, and I find Pursah's edits of the text, which are mostly minor, highly credible, resulting as they do in a collection of 70 sayings which seems highly coherent to me, avoiding some internal contradictions that seem to be present in the historical text. Thus if you are from the school that linear time is reality, which is really a Newtonian conception of the universe, then none of this makes any sense. However, if you suspect that there may be something to the holographic model, then the experience of "memories" of other lifetimes, either past or future seems possible, and can be explained. The temptation always is to make such experiences special, because many people don't seem to have them or at least not be aware of them, but clearly in cultures where reincarnation is part of the common cultural tradition, there is nothing special about this. The problem, if any, comes again if those perceptions are taken as "reality," rather than as simply a way of looking at the world, given my experience of it.
As a young man, in my twenties, I was once askes by a gentleman who I regarded as my spiritual teacher for some twenty-five years, what I thought about reincarnation, and much to my own surprise, I answered that I found it plausible but not necessary, and he responded that he thought I was right. At this time I had already had extensive exposure to cultures where the belief in reincarnation was completely normal and natural, such as Tibetan Buddhism, among others because in the early sixties through friends of my father's, a student from the company of the Dalai Lama came to Holland to study from their exile in Switserland. I still remember the consternation at the dinner table, when he asked us how long it was on horseback from Rotterdam, Holland to Basel, Switserland - horseback riding being still the dominant mode of travel for him. Many years later I found A Course in Miracles, and its position on reincarnation mirrors my own, and overall its model of our experiential universe really matches up nicely with the holograhpic notions suggested by quantum mechanics, including the basic metaphysics of forgiveness, which entails that it is really always in truth ourselves we are forgiving, since the mind is one, and our belief in our personal identity, which we mistake for reality, is what prevents us from seeing that, so that by letting go of that belief we open ourselves up to a more universal experience. Here is what the Course says:
In the ultimate sense, reincarnation is impossible. There is no past or future, and the idea of birth into a body has no meaning either once or many times. Reincarnation cannot, then, be true in any real sense. Our only question should be, "Is the concept helpful?" And that depends, of course, on what it is used for. If it is used to strengthen the recognition of the eternal nature of life, it is helpful indeed. Is any other question about it really useful in lighting up the way? Like many other beliefs, it can be bitterly misused. At least, such misuse offers preoccupation and perhaps pride in the past. At worst, it induces inertia in the present. In between, many kinds of folly are possible.
Personally I do not "believe in reincarnation" in an explicit sense, but I do believe that it is a practical way to understand certain phenomena in our experience. The whole thing really becomes much more manageable in the context of a holographic conception of the universe, which is where quantum physics is leading us. There was an interesting article in the Scientific American in July of 2003, titled "Information in the Holographic Universe" and there are any number of other sources where these ideas have been put forth in understandable terms, which give us a framework for understanding that it is our linear experience of time which is really illusory, and just a function of our ability to perceive, but that just like in a movie, the beginning and the ending already exist, but right now I'm watching the scene that's on the screen for a split second, and that to me is "now" and I'm not even thinking about the fact that the beginning and the ending of the tape (film), are already in existence, and are really available simultaneously. Our experience of ourselves is similar. We see ourselves as specific to a time and a place. But some of our experiences can suggest otherwise.
Clearly Gary Renard's experiences -- and my book is after all based on his work -- are no doubt exceptional. Few people have ever had such clear experiences as he did with the visits of Arten and Pursah, who were the apostles Thaddeus and Thomas respectively, with the additional wrinkle that Pursah (a woman) represents Gary's identity in his next lifetime. As I've written repeatedly, in my book and on this blog and elsewhere, it is purely a personal decision for me to accept as authoritative Pursah's selection of an edited "kernel" of the Thomas gospel. I do so only because Gary's experience seems credible and cogent to me, and I find Pursah's edits of the text, which are mostly minor, highly credible, resulting as they do in a collection of 70 sayings which seems highly coherent to me, avoiding some internal contradictions that seem to be present in the historical text. Thus if you are from the school that linear time is reality, which is really a Newtonian conception of the universe, then none of this makes any sense. However, if you suspect that there may be something to the holographic model, then the experience of "memories" of other lifetimes, either past or future seems possible, and can be explained. The temptation always is to make such experiences special, because many people don't seem to have them or at least not be aware of them, but clearly in cultures where reincarnation is part of the common cultural tradition, there is nothing special about this. The problem, if any, comes again if those perceptions are taken as "reality," rather than as simply a way of looking at the world, given my experience of it.
As a young man, in my twenties, I was once askes by a gentleman who I regarded as my spiritual teacher for some twenty-five years, what I thought about reincarnation, and much to my own surprise, I answered that I found it plausible but not necessary, and he responded that he thought I was right. At this time I had already had extensive exposure to cultures where the belief in reincarnation was completely normal and natural, such as Tibetan Buddhism, among others because in the early sixties through friends of my father's, a student from the company of the Dalai Lama came to Holland to study from their exile in Switserland. I still remember the consternation at the dinner table, when he asked us how long it was on horseback from Rotterdam, Holland to Basel, Switserland - horseback riding being still the dominant mode of travel for him. Many years later I found A Course in Miracles, and its position on reincarnation mirrors my own, and overall its model of our experiential universe really matches up nicely with the holograhpic notions suggested by quantum mechanics, including the basic metaphysics of forgiveness, which entails that it is really always in truth ourselves we are forgiving, since the mind is one, and our belief in our personal identity, which we mistake for reality, is what prevents us from seeing that, so that by letting go of that belief we open ourselves up to a more universal experience. Here is what the Course says:
In the ultimate sense, reincarnation is impossible. There is no past or future, and the idea of birth into a body has no meaning either once or many times. Reincarnation cannot, then, be true in any real sense. Our only question should be, "Is the concept helpful?" And that depends, of course, on what it is used for. If it is used to strengthen the recognition of the eternal nature of life, it is helpful indeed. Is any other question about it really useful in lighting up the way? Like many other beliefs, it can be bitterly misused. At least, such misuse offers preoccupation and perhaps pride in the past. At worst, it induces inertia in the present. In between, many kinds of folly are possible.
Reincarnation would not, under any circumstances, be the problem to be dealt with now. If it were responsible for some of the difficulties the individual faces now, his task would still be only to escape from them now. If he is laying the groundwork for a future life, he can still work out his salvation only now. To some, there may be comfort in the concept, and if it heartens them its value is self-evident. It is certain, however, that the way to salvation can be found by those who believe in reincarnation and by those who do not. The idea cannot, therefore, be regarded as essential to the curriculum. There is always some risk in seeing the present in terms of the past. There is always some good in any thought which strengthens the idea that life and the body are not the same.
For our purposes, it would not be helpful to take any definite stand on reincarnation. A teacher of God should be as helpful to those who believe in it as to those who do not. If a definite stand were required of him, it would merely limit his usefulness, as well as his own decision making. Our course is not concerned with any concept that is not acceptable to anyone, regardless of his formal beliefs. (ACIM-M-24.1-3:4)
For our purposes, it would not be helpful to take any definite stand on reincarnation. A teacher of God should be as helpful to those who believe in it as to those who do not. If a definite stand were required of him, it would merely limit his usefulness, as well as his own decision making. Our course is not concerned with any concept that is not acceptable to anyone, regardless of his formal beliefs. (ACIM-M-24.1-3:4)
Thomas Jefferson IV
As a coda to my reading experience of The Hemingses of Monticello which of course is the corollary to the public life of Thomas Jefferson, the story we never heard, I want to add a few more observations. For as much as I've said at an earlier time how the inner contradictions of his life were bizarre, in some ways it got more bizarre as he got older, and withdrew to Monticello. For me it is a larger than life demonstration of the ego system being foolproof but not God proof, as the Course famously puts it. (ACIM:T5.VI.10:6) In short, hypocrisy, inner contradiction, etc. is part of the human condition, because it is innate to the ego system, which is the opposite of wholeness by its very nature, so our living arrangements never ever add up. And sometimes other people or historical figures can hold up the mirror very nicely. For Jefferson it was certainly an interesting evolution of how he embraced the rights of man, spoke out publicly for emancipation and against slavery, while harboring two slaves (under american law), but then gradually abandons that rhetoric back in Virginia, no doubt in part because of the political realities, but also because he himself was totally dependent on the system. He could not live with it, and he could not live without it, and the apparent compromises are just fascinating human drama, even if much must be guessed at for want of evidence.
The final denouement was something to behold, for all his seeming wealth more or less imploded pursuant to his death, collapsing under his massive debts, to the point that he almost posthumously became a symbol of a system that was broke, but that would not be deconstructed till afterwards. His wealth really came from his wife, but by the time he passed away it was all gone. Meanwhile it seems as if he lived quite contentedly on his estate, except for periodically fleeing from the many visitors, and enjoyed his private life with Sally, happily ignoring the fact that it was frowned upon by contemporary society. And she apparently got out of it what she wanted: freedom for her offspring.
The final denouement was something to behold, for all his seeming wealth more or less imploded pursuant to his death, collapsing under his massive debts, to the point that he almost posthumously became a symbol of a system that was broke, but that would not be deconstructed till afterwards. His wealth really came from his wife, but by the time he passed away it was all gone. Meanwhile it seems as if he lived quite contentedly on his estate, except for periodically fleeing from the many visitors, and enjoyed his private life with Sally, happily ignoring the fact that it was frowned upon by contemporary society. And she apparently got out of it what she wanted: freedom for her offspring.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Your Immortal Reality
The full title of the book is: Your Immortal Reality: How to Break the Cycle of Birth and Death, and for reference purposes on the Yahoo! group on Gary's work, it was promptly abbreviated to YIR. Within the work of Gary Renard, this book is the most important one with respect to the Thomas Gospel specifically, for it is here that Pursah gives us her version of the text, which comes in Chapter 7. Her presentation lines up well with history. While the Nag Hammadi library was clearly buried around the time that Bischop Athanasius was propounding the Canon of the New Testament, and would-be Christians were turning violent against any books that disagreed with the accepted positions, and therefore around 375 CE. We know from the correspondence with the fragments of Greek Text which we have from a find dating back to the end of the 19th century that the text of the Thomas Gospel existed in similar form in Greek, which would have been the original language, in ca. 140 CE. And circumstantially it is now clear that the Thomas Gospel must have existed as an identifiable collection ca. 50 CE, or within the first 20 years after Jesus's death.
Pursah's proposition is that she is reducing the collection of 114 sayings to a presumed kernel of 70 sayings, corresponding to 71 in the Nag Hammadi collection because of the contraction of Logia 6 &14. Her edits are mostly fairly cosmetic, but for a few cases. In all cases her edits produce a crisper statement, without any compromise, usually leaving off stuff that feels like it could very reasonably be suspect. Her proposed contraction, discussed on page 161 of the book, of 6 & 14 into one statement makes so much sense, that one wonders why we did not think of it ourselves. In short her edited version is very convincing, and leaves off about 1/3 of the collection, of which Pursah says they were generally added later and subject to some amount of correction, and in the process some inner contradictions are removed. In short she proposes, based on her recollection, that these 70 sayings she selects are the ones she can vouch for were very close to the original, going sofar as to say that if you rendered these in Aramaic, you would have just about the words Jesus spoke back then. As I've argued in my book, Closing the Circle, the rest is a personal decision, quite along the lines of the distinction William James made between formal and personal religion: we have only our own inner compass to go by if we want to rely on Pursah's version. I did, and I even wrote a book about it. So for me it's a done deal. One important comment Pursah makes, which should be obvious, but merits mention here, is that quite evidently the Thomas Gospel is not a complete presentation of Jesus's thought system. The quotes are a bunch of pearls on a string, however in the treatment in both DU and YIR, it becomes evident that the string is the thought system of the Holy Spirit of which we do have a very profound and complete presentation in the form of A Course In Miracles.
The book as a whole is a continuation of Gary's deeply inspiring personal learning experience of the Course, as guided by Arten and Pursah. And in spite of all the clowning around he does, giving us so many ways to recognize ourselves in his exploits, he remains thoroughly humble in his overall presentation, presenting himself as just another Course student, but sharing with us just exactly how much it is all in the application, not in the theory. If Gary could learn it, we could too. We may not have the experiences he has, but we can still learn from his experiences, and the implicit promise is that to us all experience will come along the way in forms that we can understand. So it is never about imitating the form, as was the old Christian misunderstandig about the Imitatio Christi, which was the early Christian belief that if we only let ourselves be crucified for our tenaciously held beliefs we would go to heaven. Of course that was never what Jesus meant to teach, and he firmly disabuses us of that notion in the Course. It is always about learning to walk the talk, and Gary's sharing his own struggles with us via these books remains a powerful encouragement that we can do the Course, for we all can identify with him, since we've all done what he's done, and sometimes worse, or at least different variations. But in the process he really works through all the issues we all have with learning the Course.
Pursah's proposition is that she is reducing the collection of 114 sayings to a presumed kernel of 70 sayings, corresponding to 71 in the Nag Hammadi collection because of the contraction of Logia 6 &14. Her edits are mostly fairly cosmetic, but for a few cases. In all cases her edits produce a crisper statement, without any compromise, usually leaving off stuff that feels like it could very reasonably be suspect. Her proposed contraction, discussed on page 161 of the book, of 6 & 14 into one statement makes so much sense, that one wonders why we did not think of it ourselves. In short her edited version is very convincing, and leaves off about 1/3 of the collection, of which Pursah says they were generally added later and subject to some amount of correction, and in the process some inner contradictions are removed. In short she proposes, based on her recollection, that these 70 sayings she selects are the ones she can vouch for were very close to the original, going sofar as to say that if you rendered these in Aramaic, you would have just about the words Jesus spoke back then. As I've argued in my book, Closing the Circle, the rest is a personal decision, quite along the lines of the distinction William James made between formal and personal religion: we have only our own inner compass to go by if we want to rely on Pursah's version. I did, and I even wrote a book about it. So for me it's a done deal. One important comment Pursah makes, which should be obvious, but merits mention here, is that quite evidently the Thomas Gospel is not a complete presentation of Jesus's thought system. The quotes are a bunch of pearls on a string, however in the treatment in both DU and YIR, it becomes evident that the string is the thought system of the Holy Spirit of which we do have a very profound and complete presentation in the form of A Course In Miracles.
The book as a whole is a continuation of Gary's deeply inspiring personal learning experience of the Course, as guided by Arten and Pursah. And in spite of all the clowning around he does, giving us so many ways to recognize ourselves in his exploits, he remains thoroughly humble in his overall presentation, presenting himself as just another Course student, but sharing with us just exactly how much it is all in the application, not in the theory. If Gary could learn it, we could too. We may not have the experiences he has, but we can still learn from his experiences, and the implicit promise is that to us all experience will come along the way in forms that we can understand. So it is never about imitating the form, as was the old Christian misunderstandig about the Imitatio Christi, which was the early Christian belief that if we only let ourselves be crucified for our tenaciously held beliefs we would go to heaven. Of course that was never what Jesus meant to teach, and he firmly disabuses us of that notion in the Course. It is always about learning to walk the talk, and Gary's sharing his own struggles with us via these books remains a powerful encouragement that we can do the Course, for we all can identify with him, since we've all done what he's done, and sometimes worse, or at least different variations. But in the process he really works through all the issues we all have with learning the Course.
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