Re: Theosophy: Can we agree that tormenting people for all time is wrong no matter w
andrewx said:
one cannot do either Good, or evil, without knowing the DIFFERENCE
wil said:
why? Couldn't good or evil be a perception of someone other than the doer? Isn't it often a different perception by different people?
Now we're getting somewhere, but in short, I would say
no, for that is complete subjectivism. Or rather, I would agree that
sometimes what is good for you, is bad for me, and what is good for me, is bad for another, but we cannot chase our tails
forever. Either there
is such a thing as
`God's Law(s),' or else we truly are
`Free' to make up our own rules. More below ...
Thomas said:
Thank you for raising that point — one that neo-gnostics often raise, as you probably know. Logically Adam and Eve understood what good/evil right/wrong etc., is, else they would not have understood the prohibition against eating the fruit in the first place, would they? The argument that they were somehow blameless and innocent in the affair because they didn't understand the prohibition is a facile one
Ahhh,
utterly incorrect (and fallacious logic, btw), and I care not that you are
ducking out, though I do wish you were around to answer
this one, Thomas ... for this is is
just the sort of thing that I was talking about, this
looking down your Catholic nose at those who do, in fact have something closer to `the true answer.' I will give my response below, once I gather up Nick's comments as well.
Nick said:
Yes, I agree, that does not make sense.
Well, Nick, you and I may be on a different page here ...
let's see.
Nick said:
This raises (again) the question of the value of learning good from bad. (I think we agree learning such a thing is good, right?) The idea that God sees the learning of good from bad as an essentially bad thing (and He issues punishment for achieving such knowledge) shows why I cannot put such idea into my belief system.
But that difference may be a matter of
detail, and not based on the typical Christian (or rather,
Roman Catholic) theology which is what Thomas is arguing. If he leaves, I would like to see what wil has to say about things ... yet even between the two of us (
hmmm, this is a thread on the Alt board, yes? 
), there is good room for discussion. Wil, however, is probably one of the most likely folks at C-R to be able to help
bridge between understandings of varying theologies, philosophies, and worldview ...
particularly the Christian in relation to the Eastern, New Age, esoteric/Theosphical, etc.
So, to get back to the discussion, it is my understanding that what Thomas has, yet again, so craftily attempted to
straw man, is
precisely what was the case ... or rather, what
IS the true state of affairs! In short, man
did not know the
DIFFERENCE between Good and Evil, and thus, what occurred in Genesis - is EXACTLY what Thomas suggest is
"a facile argument." Simple, yet, because
you theologians are always seeking to COMPLICATE matters ... you have tied your tail in a knot, as it were - and
if you ever DID have the correct tools for interpretation, they have been lost.
What we must do is strip this tale of its ridiculous DEAD-LETTER interpretation and oh-so-poetic but clearly
erroneous LITERAL visualization ... and RIGHTLY consider it through the lens of
ALLEGORY. I mean, yes, I know there are those who carry arround this baggage, consisting of
an unclothed woman, plus an unclothed man, plus a Tree of Sacred Fruit, as also a tempting Serpent, topped off (like chocolate syrup on vanilla ice cream) by that big booming Voice in the sky - shaking His finger at this lovely couple, first in simple Instruction & Warning, then later in Admonition, Blame and Wrath. Yet for all this imagery, which certainly VEILS the Truth, we forget to
use the Key (for solution to the Allegory) which we wear around our very neck!
Oh, oh, oh ... for the
simplicity of the childlike mind. From an innate,
God-given and universally-present innocence, mirroring that of our earliest ancestors - and even resembling that of
God on High, in terms of Divine Potential - we sink first into the smelly swamp of stagnant imagery, then become utterly confused as we enter the still-worse,
mucky morass of mind. "The mind is the great slayer of the Real," it is has been said, and we shall only understand the
SYMBOLISM of this Bible tale by accepting
first of all that it is precisely that.
Thomas will need to revisit the obvious, and think more clearly. If Adam & Eve
did in fact ALREADY KNOW that eating of the
Sacred Fruit was
wrong, then clearly,
God would not NEED to tell them! For it to be necessary to warn them against such a no-no, it is clear
that they DID NOT understand. Now
obviously they did not understand Good & Evil, so God was required to
instruct them, if He actually wished for them to ever LEARN anything - that is, to PROGRESS, in all the ways that
Beings progress, rather than to simply SIT THERE, like bumps on a pickle, and stare blankly back at God, or at each other.
I would only mention that
caveat that I am being melodramatic, and that in fact,
we do know of an entire
ORDER of Beings (or rather, about 10 Orders), which DO NOT exercise what
we have come to understand as FREE WILL. Those are the Angels, as Christians call them, and at this early stage of
Human Creation, we are as yet - NO DIFFERENT than the Angels. Thus, what the
Garden story is all about, is one PART of the process of Humanity's past evolution - the
specific part wherein we
Fall into Generation, as it is esoterically called.
And just HOW did God accomplish this? How to get beings (Adam & Eve as representational of
HUMANITY at this early stage,
minus the distinguishing faculty of MIND ...
which also gives us FREE WILL, as the Christian understands it) to LEARN Good & Evil?
In the symbolism, the Garden is considered a
place, yet more properly it refers to
a STATE of Being. Not a state of mind, or of consciousness
per se, but simply a sphere of existence, better thought of as
Being at-Peace with God ... yet also a condition of
KNOWING NO DISTINCTION between God and Self, Self and Other, or in fact, GOD/SELF and Other/Anything. It would also not be entirely inaccurate to say that this condition of
awareness was something like
SLEEP or utter
unconsciousness.
The problem is, the Christian theologian - and
therefore us, no thanks to the poor explanations we've all been getting ... yet also due largely to the complexities of the situation itself, the CONUNDRUM involved,
the CATCH-22 - the Christian theologian forgets (if he indeed realizes) that the
Garden story is meant to symbolize the earliest stages of Humanity's Spiritual Development,
when Mind as a Faculty of Consciousness WAS NOT. All that was present within our Spiritual constitution, was the
latent, dormant POTENTIAL to Think, and to make decisions, and indeed - to DISCRIMINATE between Good & Evil. Just think, in the East, they understand this very DISTINCTION, and the fact that this is what
GOD intended for us to develop - each & every one of us ... they understand it
so well, that they have a word for it. They call it
vivekha (or viveka). And you can do the research yourself.
Our difficulty will always remain, so long as we attempt to CONCRETIZE the imagery, and to render the
Allegory as somehow LITERALLY referring to
actual events. Actual events THERE WERE, but they did not take place between
one man, and
one woman, with
one tree, and
one serpent, and
one, great big man, with that big shaking finger, and the nice pleasant demeanor ... gradually giving way to booming wrath and admonition, banishment, and punishment. OH BROTHER
So ... early Humanity, devoid of Mind, and minus the
ability to discriminate between Good & Evil, needed to DEVELOP this ability. And do you think that this is something which we gain,
overnight, in one fell swoop? Indeed, is
this ability all that really matters - for you and for me - in our day to day lives?
In one sense, YES. In one sense, this sums up
the entire Goal of the Spiritual Evolutionary experience here upon this planet, and for our Earth Humanity. We ARE learning
this ability, but the REST of the equation is that we MUST HAVE A LABORATORY in which to
TEST our formula. We must have a
field, of sowing and reaping, wherein we may
try out the gradually developing
powers of discrimination. In short, we must LABOR, and we must experience the
FRUIT of our labors.
The tree, bearing the
Sacred Fruit, is not simply
KNOWLEDGE itself, or
this Ability to Discriminate ... it represents
GENERATION itself, or
immersion in the material worlds - Descent, through repeated (because NECESSARILY repeated) INCARNATION. The
taking on of MEAT.
From purely ethereal, and more
Spiritual conditions, we HAD TO DESCEND. It does not occur to the theologian (or to many of us), it would seem, that one can actually EXIST in an
ethereal, Spiritual condition, and yet have utterly NO AWARENESS than one even exists -
BECAUSE, without the development of CONSCIOUSNESS, such
awareness is impossible!
What good is it, to be
next to God, and to be
utterly pure, free of all evil, existing in what would be eternal and unconditioned BLISS ... IF YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU'RE THERE!?!
Man's
descent into incarnation, our
Fall into Generation, is required - as the Three Fundamental Propositions of
The Secret Doctrine indicate
(please see prior post), because this is the method of evolution of ALL BEING(s). God Himself, even
the Highest, operates in this manner. Christian theology, so long as it insists on
absurd and facile statements such as "[My] God can do anything," will - I'm afraid - NEVER understand. And this is because
at once you utter such an absurdity, you SEAL your own ability to grasp certain basics.
This UNIVERSE, indeed, this COSMOS is founded upon
ORDER. It emerges
from Chaos, and proceeds ACCORDING TO (a) PLAN, a Divine Blueprint, as it works towards Absolute ORDER. Along the way, EVERY BEING learns to Cooperate with and
Come To God, first by understanding, cooperating with and Mastering its
environment, and then,
by also understanding, cooperating with and Mastering Self and Other. The
`other' is never violated in terms of
Free Will, because by the time we have Mastered self and environment, we have
transcended the distinctions - even those we have spent
aeons learning to DEFINE -
between self and other.
But alas, the Western mind does not always grasp what this kind of
Unity is like, and it ever seeks to cry
FOUL when it feels something is being
taken from it. Rather than ponder that perhaps
Christ's Sacrifice was precisely some of those
things which seem to matter MOST to us (like, hmmm,
our very consciousness, or PERCEPTION - intellectually considered - of SELF vs. Other) ... we prefer to focus on the
greatest illusion of all, pure MAYA - and cling to
Individuality like there was no tomorrow. Thus we hear the
would-be philosopher insist, "I
must have my Individuality. I only want to be
near God, but NEVER would I submit to
BLISSFUL non-duality."
Well, let us nevermind these subtleties, because
we do not have to take the argument that far. It is enough to see, that while
in the Garden of Eden, our condition was
pure and Spiritual, but LACKING a material expression ... or rather,
to be technical, lacking the INTELLECTUAL componet of our Nature. The
latent, dormant powers (ability) of Discrimination, along with all else that we understand
Mind to be, had to be
Awakened ...
yes, even as Buddhas Awaken (and as Christs are Annointed) - through the SAME process ... via INCARNATION, Generation, Experience in the material worlds, and gradual DEVELOPMENT of Humanity.
One can discover, easily enough, the
Symbolism of the Serpent, if we remember that in these early, Spiritual and
PURE conditions, EVERYTHING in fact, is
`Good.' Evil, though present in a sense,
is purely relative. Otherwise, what point in needing to learn the
difference, after all!
Thomas would love to say here,
exactly - what point! We were already AT PEACE, content, with our Maker. But in doing so, he only (would) evidence that he misses the subtler points
completely. He has not considered, I'm afraid, that it is possible to exist
ALONGSIDE God, with God, in God's very Presence ... and yet KNOW IT NOT. And so I repeat,
WHAT IS THE POINT ... of BEING with God, if you have no awareness of it?
Who said we didn't have awareness? Oh dear. Crack those books, Thomas. It won't hurt you. Somewhere in between your Julian of Norwich and your St. Augustine, try seeking out one of the
INITIATED Church Fathers, who at least KNEW something of the Secrets. Try taking
a wee bit seriously those Eastern folks and their strange, oriental (SIC) religions ...
when they speak of `the Serpent-Power.' Give a moment's thought to the true SIGNIFICANCE of their
DRAGONS, and to the sleeping power within MANKIND.
No proper understanding of Genesis, and the
Garden of Eden allegory will be complete, without at least learning
something of Kundalini. And if you think the Lord God put a
Fiery Energy within you,
just for it to be ignored (at the right and proper time), I'd say you need to go back and read your Bible. That book is
FULL of references, descriptions, allegories, accounts and tales -
of the Serpent Fire.
I am slightly out of sorts, so I apologize for the extra sarcasm ... but I hope something of the
allegory makes more sense.
Being with God,
and being completely, utterly, UNCONCSIOUS. Hmmm ....
But it doesn't
have to be that way. And indeed, it won't. Thank God for that!
