The great beast

greymare

greymare

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So, tell me,, this is an open invitiation... what exactly is this great beast that particularly 2 posters often refer too.........
go on...
Im all ears........
Oh, and in simple terms if you please. :D
 
greymare said:
thank you s/g, but i need specifics as to what these posters are continually referring to.. (im a bit thick.. lol)
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Depends on who you're asking Tracy.
People interpret the same concept in
their own way. So the "specifics" will
be different.
 
revelations is a bit too flowery for me... i need to know what people are talking about, EXACTLY..
i mean i could say the great beast is...
anyone who doesnt agree with me,, but i want to know specifics as to why SOME people believe that it refers to certain groups etc...
 
greymare said:
thank you s/g, but i need specifics as to what these posters are continually referring to.. (im a bit thick.. lol)
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All I can give you is my own interpretation, which is open to change with new information and perspectives:

Basically, I see "worshiping the great beast" as striving to further ones status in a hierarchical structure, or to increase the power of a hierarchical structure, even to the point of going dirty deeds to accomplish this. (So-called honor killings, excusing those in authority from wrongdoing in order to preserve the hierarchy, and other "beastly acts" would be included in this.) Notice how the "beast" in Revelation is given "authority" by the dragon? In this way, people who "worship the beast" are showing that they love power and status more than they love Godly mercy.
 
greymare said:
oh, im open to all opinions... shoot !
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It is kinda like the idea of "anti-christ". Some people prefer to interpret this
idea literally, while others (like myself) take a metaphorical approach.
I don't like the term "the beast" or "anti-christ", so I just call it
The System, or "The Machine" like Spengler did.

Basically (in the words of Morpheus from The Matrix):

"It is the world that has been pulled over
your eyes to blind you from the Truth...
I can not show you what it is, you have
to see it for yourself"
 
I wrote this a while back for another site. Hope it helps.

Society is the "Great Beast." The image of the Great Beast is most valuable for describing what I believe to be the most severe challenge to the essence of religion and man's humanity we will face in this and future generations if we are to survive the dangers of technology in the hands of egotism..

Simone Weil described Plato's introduction of this image which occurs in Revelations as well and builds on the idea as illustrated in this collection of excerpts:

"The Great Beast is introduced in Book VI of The Republic. It represents the prejudices and passions of the masses. To please the Great Beast you call what it delights in Good, and what it dislikes Evil. In America this is called politics."
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"The Great Beast" is the only object of idolatry, the only eratz of God, the only imitation of something which is infinitely far from me and which is I myself."

If we could be egotistical it would be very pleasant. It would be a rest. but literally we cannot.

It is impossible for me to take myself as an end,or, in consequence my fellow man as an end since he is my fellow. Nor can I take any material thing, because matter is still less capable of having finality conferred upon it than human beings are.

Only one thing can be taken as an end, for in relation to the human person it possesses a kind of transcendence: this is the collective. The collective is the object of all idolatry, this is it which chains us to the earth. In the case of avarice: gold is the social order. Science and art are full of the social element also. And love? Love is more or less an exception: that is why we can go to God through love, not through avarice or ambition. Yet the social element is not absent from love (passions excited by the princes, celebrated people, all those who have prestige...} From Gravity and Grace, p.218.

"The power of the social element. Agreement between several men brings with it a feeling of reality. It brings with it also a sense of duty. divergence, where all this agreement is concerned, appears as sin. Hence all returns to the fold are possible. The state of conformity is an imitation of grace." Gravity and Grace, p..220

"The service of the false God (of the social Beast under whatever form it may be) purifies evil by eliminating its horror. Nothing seems evil to those who serve it, except failure in its service. The service of the true God on the other hand, allows the horror of evil to remain and even makes it more intense. while this evil horrifies us, we yet love it as emanating from the will of God." G&G,p.221.
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I know this last paragraph is rough to take but if you consider it in the context of Plato's conception of justice or the Eastern idea of karma, do we accomplish anything by hating justice or karma rather than being open to its reality and consider how we can profit from becoming aware of the human condition in the context of human evolutionary potential rather then justifying continuing cyclical expressions of human weakness through periodic condemnation?

If society as the Great Beast keeps us in chains in Plato's cave, how can we deal with it? Jacob Needleman explains his concerns in the preface to his book "Lost Christianity:"

"What is needed is either a new understanding of God or a new understanding of Man: an understanding of God that does not insult the scientific mind while offering bread, not a stone, to the deepest hunger of the heart; an understanding of Man that squarely faces the criminal weakness of our moral will while holding out to us the knowledge of how we can strive within ourselves to become the fully human being we were meant to be -- both for ourselves and as instruments of a higher purpose."
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Where the Beast strives to be idolized thus preserving its power, Prof Needleman suggests Man's purpose to be more than just serving the Beast. But of course suggesting this to representatives of the Beast can lead to disastrous consequences as Socrates describes in Plato's Cave analogy:

"[Socrates] And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death"
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According to Simone Weil, society can either serve as an idol or a sacrament. The Beast can either serve the development of human potential, conscious evolution, or cause Man to sacrifice its potential for the glory of the Beast and the prestige it offers.

Idolatry comes from the fact that, while thirsting for absolute good, we do not possess the power of supernatural attention and we have not the patience to allow it to develop. G&G, P. 53.
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Simone Weil wrote the book: "The Need for Roots" as she was dying as her recommendations for rebuilding France after Hitler's devastation. It includes much food for thought.

She compares a human being to a plant. Where the roots are planted in the ground, the culture, receiving one quality of nourishment, the leaves receive the nourishment of the light: grace." Our lower selves can be healed or "balanced" through cultural values that encourage our higher selves to become more open to grace. Of course this is far easier said than done and in fact may now be impossible.

Where the beast now denies grace by keeping man dominated by imagination, it would be possible for its values to emphasize, including in its educational institutions, the means for receiving the light at the expense of imagination. The society would then serve the development of true individuality that is now sacrificed to the Beast in exchange for prestige and perceived security. She examines these values and I could post them if there is interest.

Could the collective become open to such ideas? I hope so. Men like Prof. Needleman try so hard to open us to them. Simone gave her life in pursuit of the truth so can we really just ignore them as is usual in the quickness of a modern technological life or is there a way to begin to change the beast from an idol to a sacrament by beginning with ourselves? Any ideas?
 
Nick_A said:
I wrote this a while back for another site. Hope it helps.
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Hmmmm... one might say you merely "quoted" it.

Had Simone Weil never existed, would Nick_A disappear from the face of the Earth as well?
 
wil said:
the material ego...
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hmmm like money it isn't money that is the issue, but the love of money...it isn't the ego that is the issue, but the love of the ego, and allowing the material ego control.

1st commandment?? Love the lord thy G!d with ALL, ALL, ALL...no room for the beast...

where was the beast?? in the inn...

no room in the inn...there was no room in our consciousness for the christ child...

get rid of those negative thoughts...open the blinds....let love in...
 
wil said:
hmmm like money it isn't money that is the issue, but the love of money...it isn't the ego that is the issue, but the love of the ego, and allowing the material ego control.

1st commandment?? Love the lord thy G!d with ALL, ALL, ALL...no room for the beast...

where was the beast?? in the inn...

no room in the inn...there was no room in our consciousness for the christ child...

get rid of those negative thoughts...open the blinds....let love in...
Click to expand...

Jesus was born with the animals. No one thought of kicking them out or killing them. The Christ doesn't kill the beast. It's only crime is that it isn't conscious and like any beast, just a creature of reaction. It isn't a matter of excluding the beast but in acquiring the consciousness that puts the beast, the human condition, into the perspective where it can be healed by separating the wheat from the tares, the real from the unreal within our collective presence. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The idea is to spiritually/consciously nourish the beast by forming this connection. It needs it and can profit from it but is blocked from it by imagination.

In Christianity the world is the beast and as Jesus said the world must hate the teaching. It must because the Beast is dominated by imagination creating this collective corrupt ego.

The world is represented by the town as you suggest with no room in the INN. The manger refers to ourselves, our own being. We have an animal nature that when not corrupted accepts the Christ without knowing why but through receiving love from above.

The World in which the INN functions, the Great Beast," draws its meaning from society. The Christ enters our inner world healing the heart and helping our animal nature to feel the good sense in supporting the Christ. It is poison to the dominance of the Beast yet what leads to conscious inner freedom and awakening to human meaning and purpose.
 
greymare said:
so....the great beast is.............
money
power
antichrist
society
material ego
beastly acts
the world

ok...go on...
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The thing is Grey, the beast has no real power because it is merely an intersubjective construct. In other words it is something we experience within ourselves but doesn't really exist in an objective sense.
Like most ideas it only has the power we give it.
 
greymare said:
so....the great beast is.............
money
power
antichrist
society
material ego
beastly acts
the world

ok...go on...
Click to expand...

No, the Great Beast is society which consists of the collective unconscious reactions of fallen unbalanced humanity in response to cyclical external natural influnces. It is not what we do but what we are. This is why it is simultanously capable of the greatest compassion and atrocities. The collective is not conscious so cannot recognize and admit to its nature and hypocrisy.

Consciousness is a potential for individuals. Conscious life is a level above our lives as part of the beast. We experience indications of it but as part of the beast, As a whole we cannot actualize it. Only a minority are willing to make the necessary efforts since society struggles agaionst these efforts. All the great traditions refer to awakening and part of awakening is freedom from our psychological limitations from being a cell of the "Great Beast" so as to become a balanced person which then can receive conscious help from above. Higher levels of consciousness from beyond the world seek to help lower levels within but not part of the world. It is part of evolution that begins when mechanical or animal evolution ends as it has with man.
 
Nick_A said:
No, the Great Beast is society which consists of the collective unconscious reactions of fallen unbalanced humanity in response to cyclical external natural influnces. It is not what we do but what we are. This is why it is simultanously capable of the greatest compassion and atrocities. The collective is not conscious so cannot recognize and admit to its nature and hypocrisy.

Consciousness is a potential for individuals. Conscious life is a level above our lives as part of the beast. We experience indications of it but as part of the beast, As a whole we cannot actualize it. Only a minority are willing to make the necessary efforts since society struggles agaionst these efforts. All the great traditions refer to awakening and part of awakening is freedom from our psychological limitations from being a cell of the "Great Beast" so as to become a balanced person which then can receive conscious help from above. Higher levels of consciousness from beyond the world seek to help lower levels within but not part of the world. It is part of evolution that begins when mechanical or animal evolution ends as it has with man.
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ok,,, so who are the "minority willing to make the necessary efforts..?"
and how do we tell them from everyone else who thinks that they are "making the necessary efforts??"
 
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