The Role of the Body

[Thomas]

Wanted to pop in this link for a view of the idea of 'Person':

IAV | Towards A Contemporary Anthropology of the Person by Kenneth Schmitz

Thomas

[China Cat Sunflower]

Thanks Thomas, I truly appreciate your efforts. I'm going to have to think about this for a while.

Chris

[cyberpi]

The Earth is like paper, the body is a pen, and the blood is the ink.

Paper can be burned into spirit, a pen can be broken to spill its ink, and ink can be used up on ramblings and fruitless pursuits, but for every moment in time the exact state of the paper, the pen, and the ink are being recorded... on the paper, by the pen, with the ink. There is a significant portion of the role of the body.

[Thomas]

Hi Wil –

Could be ego, but in truth the concept to me eliminates ego. It is more of an understanding of oneness with G-d and all creation. I am nothing, source is everything. That last line to me simply indicates the modem (Christ) is in me, that is my connection to all that is.

Gotcha.

+++++


Hi Jaiket –

The body as a 'mere' vehical is not an idea exclusive to religion or spirituality. In science, the body as the protective and responsive shield for the genes is an outlook championed by Dawkins, and some great biologists before him. Also I think the philosophical implications are arguably as large for such ideas as 'self' in the gene-centered view of life.

Yes ... that throws up a number of questions ... is not the 'sense of self' a result of the gene in relation to the environment ... or is it hardwired into the gene ... and who started it all off, anyway?

+++++

Prober asked:
So G-d becomes a man and is not a "walk-in" as I asserted elsewhere?
as in:
The way I see it...Jesus Christ was a walk-in of G-d into Jesus.

No, Christianity would reject that view.

Monophysitism says that the divine had either dissolved or taken the place of the human in the person of Christ – so the human person of Jesus ceased to exist.

Monothelitism says that in the one person of Jesus there were two natures, but only one will, the divine will.

In both cases then, the human plays no part, furthermore the principle established by this means that as we 'unite' with the Divine, we are erased.

+++++

Hi chakraman

i see the role of the body as follows - being part of nature it has all the properties associated with it; fire - digestion, humour etc; wind - breathing and movement etc; matter - pyhsical bodily substance, grounding; water - blood, lymph fluid etc. the spirit or soul must learn how these elements interplay and the body is like the classroom for this...

Yes, that was a view that shares Hellenic, Platonic, Gnostic elements, but it is essentially dualist, and not how the JudeoChristian heritage sees it.

For us, the soul does not find itself in a body, but rather the body is the means by which the soul makes itself present in the material world ... the body is to the soul what the particle is to the wave ... so the soul does not have to learn, the soul is not 'other than' the corporeal element ... the body is the soul in materiality ...

The Fathers saw that the 'human soul' encompasses the whole Kosmos within itself, mineral, vegetable, flora, fauna, intellect, spirit ... and nothing else does that ... that's why the creation of man, on the sixth day, was 'very good' according to Scripture, whereas the work of the previous days was just 'good'. When man was made, God had accomplished everything He set out to do ... humanity is (or should be) 'the icing on the Kosmic Kake'.

...i've sometimes wondered if we may all or some of us be destined to be planets and then solar systyems ... milky ways and so on ...
I would see that as a retrograde step ... (anyway, you've got milky ways inside you ...)

+++++

Hi Zagreus -

Thomas, Theosophists don't regard the Logos as "descending" or leaving its post,
We are in agreement on that.

but we do believe that the Logoi literally incarnate (via extension/reflection of their threefold spiritual Principles), just as man does.
I can agree with this, but I would draw a distinction between logoi or archetypes (multiplicity) and the Logos, in whom all logoi subsist ... here, the Logos in the Trinity, and the Christian view is into the heart of the Trinity, in which there is only one principle operative ... Love ... the essence, esse or Isness of the Trinity is Love, and the act that flows from this esse is Gift ...

... hence Creation ...

But back to the plot...

... once we talk about logoi, multiplicity, I would say we are into emanationism, relativity, and cosmology.

This, I think, is a significant difference between Theosophy and Christianity, but allow me to quote from a foremost spokesman of the religio perennis, the Perennial Tradition, or the religio cordis, the Way of the Heart, to which I know you are aligned:

According to Schuon, spiritual path is essentially based on the discernment between the Real and the unreal (Atma/Maya), the concentration on the Real and the practice of virtues. Man must know the Truth. Knowing the Truth, he must will the Good and concentrate on it. These two aspects correspond to the metaphysical doctrine and the spiritual method. Knowing the Truth and willing the Good, he must finally love Beauty in his own soul through virtues, but also in Nature. In this respect, Schuon has insisted on the importance for the authentic spiritual seeker to be aware of what he called "the metaphysical transparency of phenomena."
Frithjof Schuon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Schuon wrote "The Transcendent Unity of Religions" of which T.S. Eliot wrote: "I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion." I warmly commend him to you. He is widely held as an esoterist without peer.

But back to the point, Christianity is precisely and absolutely a method of discernment, and more than anything else, a Way ... a discernment between the Real and the unreal, between Spirit and the letter. In Luke we read:
"And the Lord answering, said to her: Martha, Martha, thou art careful and art troubled about many things: But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her."

The 'many things' of Martha is Maya, and she had become too caught up in the 'metaphysical transparency of phenomena' even though it is real and true and beautiful in its own domain - she had become engaged or enamoured of the veils of appearance, rather than piercing them.

This is something the Greek Fathers understood, recognising a tendency very close to their hearts. In praise of Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzen said:
"Whoever has been permitted to escape by reason and contemplation from matter and this fleshly cloud or veil (whichever it should be called) and to hold communion with God, and be associated, as far as man's nature can attain, with the purest Light, blessed is he, both from his ascent from hence, and for his deification there, which is conferred by true philosophy, and by rising superior to the dualism of matter, through the unity which is perceived in the Trinity."

The whole Christian mystical tradition speaks of nothing less ...

+++

Cyberpi –

Nice analogy! I mean, on thinking about it ... profoundly nice ...

+++

whew! ...ttfn...

Thomas

[earl]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Hi Wil –

Could be ego, but in truth the concept to me eliminates ego. It is more of an understanding of oneness with G-d and all creation. I am nothing, source is everything. That last line to me simply indicates the modem (Christ) is in me, that is my connection to all that is.

Gotcha.

+++++


Hi Jaiket –

The body as a 'mere' vehical is not an idea exclusive to religion or spirituality. In science, the body as the protective and responsive shield for the genes is an outlook championed by Dawkins, and some great biologists before him. Also I think the philosophical implications are arguably as large for such ideas as 'self' in the gene-centered view of life.

Yes ... that throws up a number of questions ... is not the 'sense of self' a result of the gene in relation to the environment ... or is it hardwired into the gene ... and who started it all off, anyway?

+++++

Prober asked:
So G-d becomes a man and is not a "walk-in" as I asserted elsewhere?
as in:
The way I see it...Jesus Christ was a walk-in of G-d into Jesus.

No, Christianity would reject that view.

Monophysitism says that the divine had either dissolved or taken the place of the human in the person of Christ – so the human person of Jesus ceased to exist.

Monothelitism says that in the one person of Jesus there were two natures, but only one will, the divine will.

In both cases then, the human plays no part, furthermore the principle established by this means that as we 'unite' with the Divine, we are erased.

+++++

Hi chakraman

i see the role of the body as follows - being part of nature it has all the properties associated with it; fire - digestion, humour etc; wind - breathing and movement etc; matter - pyhsical bodily substance, grounding; water - blood, lymph fluid etc. the spirit or soul must learn how these elements interplay and the body is like the classroom for this...

Yes, that was a view that shares Hellenic, Platonic, Gnostic elements, but it is essentially dualist, and not how the JudeoChristian heritage sees it.

For us, the soul does not find itself in a body, but rather the body is the means by which the soul makes itself present in the material world ... the body is to the soul what the particle is to the wave ... so the soul does not have to learn, the soul is not 'other than' the corporeal element ... the body is the soul in materiality ...

The Fathers saw that the 'human soul' encompasses the whole Kosmos within itself, mineral, vegetable, flora, fauna, intellect, spirit ... and nothing else does that ... that's why the creation of man, on the sixth day, was 'very good' according to Scripture, whereas the work of the previous days was just 'good'. When man was made, God had accomplished everything He set out to do ... humanity is (or should be) 'the icing on the Kosmic Kake'.

...i've sometimes wondered if we may all or some of us be destined to be planets and then solar systyems ... milky ways and so on ...
I would see that as a retrograde step ... (anyway, you've got milky ways inside you ...)

+++++

Hi Zagreus -

Thomas, Theosophists don't regard the Logos as "descending" or leaving its post,
We are in agreement on that.

but we do believe that the Logoi literally incarnate (via extension/reflection of their threefold spiritual Principles), just as man does.
I can agree with this, but I would draw a distinction between logoi or archetypes (multiplicity) and the Logos, in whom all logoi subsist ... here, the Logos in the Trinity, and the Christian view is into the heart of the Trinity, in which there is only one principle operative ... Love ... the essence, esse or Isness of the Trinity is Love, and the act that flows from this esse is Gift ...

... hence Creation ...

But back to the plot...

... once we talk about logoi, multiplicity, I would say we are into emanationism, relativity, and cosmology.

This, I think, is a significant difference between Theosophy and Christianity, but allow me to quote from a foremost spokesman of the religio perennis, the Perennial Tradition, or the religio cordis, the Way of the Heart, to which I know you are aligned:

According to Schuon, spiritual path is essentially based on the discernment between the Real and the unreal (Atma/Maya), the concentration on the Real and the practice of virtues. Man must know the Truth. Knowing the Truth, he must will the Good and concentrate on it. These two aspects correspond to the metaphysical doctrine and the spiritual method. Knowing the Truth and willing the Good, he must finally love Beauty in his own soul through virtues, but also in Nature. In this respect, Schuon has insisted on the importance for the authentic spiritual seeker to be aware of what he called "the metaphysical transparency of phenomena."
Frithjof Schuon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Schuon wrote "The Transcendent Unity of Religions" of which T.S. Eliot wrote: "I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion." I warmly commend him to you. He is widely held as an esoterist without peer.

But back to the point, Christianity is precisely and absolutely a method of discernment, and more than anything else, a Way ... a discernment between the Real and the unreal, between Spirit and the letter. In Luke we read:
"And the Lord answering, said to her: Martha, Martha, thou art careful and art troubled about many things: But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her."

The 'many things' of Martha is Maya, and she had become too caught up in the 'metaphysical transparency of phenomena' even though it is real and true and beautiful in its own domain - she had become engaged or enamoured of the veils of appearance, rather than piercing them.

This is something the Greek Fathers understood, recognising a tendency very close to their hearts. In praise of Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzen said:
"Whoever has been permitted to escape by reason and contemplation from matter and this fleshly cloud or veil (whichever it should be called) and to hold communion with God, and be associated, as far as man's nature can attain, with the purest Light, blessed is he, both from his ascent from hence, and for his deification there, which is conferred by true philosophy, and by rising superior to the dualism of matter, through the unity which is perceived in the Trinity."

The whole Christian mystical tradition speaks of nothing less ...

+++

Cyberpi –

Nice analogy! I mean, on thinking about it ... profoundly nice ...

+++

whew! ...ttfn...

Thomas

Boy much in this I could agree with Thomas. At times I (almost) could become a traditionalist based on your contributions. At all times I appreciate the time you put into sharing & quality (& quantity at times) of what you've shared. Have a good one, earl