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Journey Of The Mind Into God
Below are the 25 most recent journal entries.
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2005.02.16 04.58
A Word to the Wise
Professor Biondi, I had the pleasure of listening to your presentation regarding the two interpretations that can be given to Aristotle's conception of substance and I write in regard to your preference for, and understand of, the metaphysical interpretation.
Let me indicate beforehand that my familiarity with Aristotle is indirect. In fact, your presentation alone provides me with my conception of Aristotelian thought. However, in the course of studying Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit as carefully and reverently as possible, I seem to have come to an accidental understanding of the problems faced by Aristotle.
Your interpretation, as well as I can recall, went something like this: The Divine Intellect is immaterial, i.e. formless, substance; it is the form-giving principle that interacts or involves itself with the material principle in varying degrees, producing greater depths, that is, higher or more evolved states of consciousness, in those organisms whose complexity both includes and transcends (to use the language of Ken Wilber momentarily) the lower rungs of the ladder, to use a deceptive analogy. Plant life, therefore, includes the mineral principle but transcends it, displaying a greater complexity and, as a result, or as a correlated phenomenon, a great degree of conscious awareness, response, and freedom. Humanity, in this respect, is "informed" by Divine Intellect more than any of the other Kingdoms, to the extent that Divine Intellect may be said to reach Self-Consciousness in Man's speculative activity. I've taken some liberty with my interpretation of your own. This reading suggests a number of problems to my mind. First, whither arises the need to separate inorganic from organic matter? That Primordial Substance, or Hyle, ought to be admitted, I do not contest. But from that point on, cannot everything be regarded as a manifestation of the Divine Intellect-Hyle interplay, expressing the full spectrum of possible "states of consciousness", from the reaction to heat exhibited by stones (completely unformed in your reading, as I understand it; formed minimally in the reading I am presenting) to the Self-Conscious realization of the Divine Intellect in and through the Speculative Philosopher?? Secondly, it would seem that Nature is best viewed, necessarily viewed, to be precise, as an organic unity in itself. If we accept or prove this position, it would follow that Nature is both Substance and Form, Body and Soul, let's say: One body, One soul; like Man.
Nature as an organic unity then necessitates the postulation of a Nature-Soul, or that which gives Life to the Great Body that would otherwise lack the creative principle, the flux and fluidity that characterizes the Becoming of what IS, not unlike the fact that "death" renders the physical vehicle of the human unessential. We cannot simply affirm that the Divine Intellect informs the World without recognizing two distinct aspects: the Divine Intellect as such (in-itself, to use the Hegelian term), and the Divine Intellect as involved with the totality of Matter as such (or for-itself).
Because we recognize an infinite distinction within the World Itself (from what you termed inorganic life on through the various stages, culminating in Man, as suggested above), a distinction which nevertheless evolves ever onwards (from charcoal to diamond, wheatgrass to roses, tapeworm to peacock, lion and eagle, barbarian to philosopher, mystic and sage, from sage to ....???...god?), we can, as you noted, entertain the idea that the very driving principle behind all that is, is a grand, cosmic evolution, from involuted consciousness (ie. Divine Intellect as embodied by and trapped in the material principle) to evolved, awakened, enlightened consciousness, or the Self-Realization of the God in and through Himself. Thus the notion of the philosopher as an Oracle for the Spirit: in Self-Consciousness, God knows Himself.
Let me clarify what the term God denotes here, since I've brought it in somewhat awkwardly. Without getting too deep too soon, it will suffice to point out that Divine Intellect and Prima Materia may also be seen as a unity-in-distinction, with certain "moments", as Hegel calls them, that, though not distinguishable in spatio-temporal terms (for obvious reasons) are nevertheless necessary from a logical (ie. dialectical; speculative) point of view. That is, we would expect to find a necessary sequence between the emergence of prima materia from the utter ineffability, followed by the emanation of that ineffable Divine Intellect into and through the Material Principle, and tending towards the full manifestation of Divine Glory, ie. the perfect realization of Self-Consciousness, the awakening and perfection of the WORLD SOUL, (effected, of course, by the perfection of the elements of what we have postulated as an organic-unity). This latter may be understood as the Return of the Prodigal Son, if it helps us to conceive the idea properly.
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2004.04.24 11.57
The Father is All-Potential Power,
The Son is All-Actual Manifestation,
Sophia is The Holy Alchemist.
These 3 are 1.
They are the Vision.
The Vision appears, disappears and reappears;
The End is the Beginning.
Sophia is the Chisel and the Stone;
Where She Is, There Is Love.
The Vision belongs to the Prophet.
Twelve Disciples are Lost and Found.
In the Vision, the Disciples are the Prophet.
These 12 are 1.
Once 12=12=1, the Prophet awakens.
In a Heartbeat, 1=2 and the Prophet sleeps.
The Prophet is born is Sophia's Womb,
The Prophet dies in Sophia's Arms.
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2004.04.20 11.24
All things, bodily forms, sensations, perceptions, concepts, subjective differentiation, mind, or consciousness, in their sangsaric aspects are unreal in the sense that they are merely illusive reflections of Reality, as the One in the Many.( Read more... )
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2004.04.20 10.10
From Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation
Discipline and self-control of mind and body must never be abandoned. The yogin's aim should be to increase, day by day, life by life, their efficiency, until all dualities disappear from his mental vision of the world. ( Read more... )
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2004.04.20 10.08
Sri Ramana Maharsh
All scriptures, with one voice, declare that control of the mind is absolutely necessary for the attainment of salvation. Hence, control of the mind is the goal to be aimed at.
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2004.04.19 19.55
Rumi
The religion of love is apart from all religions.( Read more... )
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2004.04.19 19.55
Plotinus
These are but figures, by which the wise prophets indicate how we may see this God. But the wise priest, understanding the symbol, may enter the sanctuary and make the vision real.( Read more... )
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2004.04.19 19.52
Edmund Husserl
Temporal objectivity is produced in the subjective temporal flow, and it is essential to temporal objectivity that it be identifiable in recollections and as such be the subject of temporal predicates. Nothing is ever wholly lost to consciousness...( Read more... )
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2004.04.19 11.51
Plotinus (I. vi. 6)
To attain the Good, we must ascend to the highest state, and, fixing our gaze thereon, lay aside the garments we donned when descending here below; just as, in the Mysteries, those who are admitted to penetrate into the inner recesses of the sanctuary, after having purified themselves, lay aside every garment, and advance stark naked.
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2004.04.19 11.42
Tibetan Book of The Great Liberation (Intro)
(From introduction by Dr.Jung:)
The development of Western philosophy during the last two centuries has succeeded in isolating the mind in its own sphere and in severing it from its primordial oneness with the universe. ( Read more... )
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2004.04.19 10.19
St.Athanasius
Anyone who wishes to understand the mind of the sacred writers must first cleanse his own life, and approach the saints by copying their deeds. Thus united to them in the fellowship of life, he will both understand the things revealed to them by God and, thenceforth escaping the peril that threatens sinners in the judgement, will receive that which is laid up for the saints in the Kingdom of Heaven.
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2004.04.19 10.18
St. Athanasius
By man death has gained its power over men; by the Word made Man death has been destroyed and life raised up anew.
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2004.04.19 10.16
St. Athanasius
The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore, when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with itl for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good. By nature, of course, man is mortal, since he was made from nothing; but he bears also the Likeness of Him Who is, and if he preserves that Likeness through constant contemplation, then his nature is deprived of its power and he remains incorrupt. So it is affirmed in Wisdom: "The keeping of His laws is the assurance of incorruption." (vi.18) And being incorrupt, he would be henceforth as God, as Holy Scripture says, "I have said, ye are gods and sons of the Highest all of you: but ye die as men and fall as one of the princes." (Psalm lxxxii. 6f)
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2004.04.18 15.28
V.Soloviev
White lily with red rose
We marry,
And with secret, prophetic dream
We attain eternal Truth.
Speak the prophetic word!
Quickly cast your pearls into the cup;
Now bind our Dove
With new coils of the old Serpent.
The free heart hurts not!
Should the Dove fear Prometheus' fire?
The pure Dove is calm
In the flaming coils of the mighty
Serpent.
Sing about violent tempests!
In violent tempests we find repose;
For white lily with red rose
We marry.
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2004.04.18 15.28
H.P.Blavatsky
We distinguish between the simple fact of self-consciousness, the simple feeling that 'I am I', and the complex thought that 'I am Mr.Smith or Mrs.Brown.' Believing as we do in a series of births for the same Ego, or re-incarnation, this distinction is the fundamental pivot of the whole idea. ( Read more... )
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2004.04.18 15.27
Max Muller
If we ask what was the higest purpose of the teachings of the Upanishads we can state it in three words as it has been stated by the greatest Vedanta teachers themselves, namely, Tat Tvam Asi. ( Read more... )
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2004.04.18 15.26
Baha'u'llah
O ye beloved of the Lord! Strive to become the manifestations of the Love of God, the lamps of Divine guidance shining amongst the kindreds of the earth with the light of love and concord.
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