What is this thread all about?
Just a place for general discussion. A place to unload whats on your mind and talk about anything - personal, health, help needed, achievements, daily highs and daily lows, theories, predictions and what have you.
Does not need to be Q related.
An important point.
I find myself .... gravitating, I think might be the best way of expressing it.... towards different sources over time. For a period, I enjoyed Peterson, and his biblical series in particular. But, as things flow on, I don't feel drawn to him at this juncture.
If I attempted to analyse this, I would say that the Holy Spirit, often via my intuition, moves me to be responsive to content that I need or will benefit from, and then the correspondence that emerges in different sources manifests as something like gravity, in that I am drawn to that source and engage with it.
When that sense of pull dissipates or winds down, I find myself moving on seeking out new sources, or remaining with those where the pull, the gravity remains relatively constant.
Disclaimer: I tend to rely on this mode of navigating a lot, rather than intellectually analysing whether the content is relevant or not, although a cognitive intellectual element is present, for certain.
<end unsolicited and potentially irrelevant extraneous wordism>
Actually, you articulated very well what I myself have found to be the unconscious way of learning all my life. I find something very interesting, spend a lot of time on it, and when I reach a certain level of understanding of that, I automatically gravitate to something else. This is especially true now with respect to sources in this truth-seeking.
According to Clif High and also a lot of eastern philosophers, all your past life experiences distilled into a single drop, put into the heart of consciousness, forms your intuition. This distillation is also the connection to the universal consciousness - hence the feeling that its guided by Holy Spirit.
Incidentally the terms "left" and "right' was not chosen at random to describe the political spectrum, it seems. Left tend to be left brained and tackle everything with purely logic and analytics, where as Right tends be right brained and rely on intuition.
I used to believe left brained thinking is superior to right brained thinking, but its a fallacy. Putting too much emphasis on analytics and logic rather than intuition leads you to all kinds of wrong conclusions. Infact a smart person can distort facts, logic and analytics to guide someone to the exact opposite path.
This is exactly how we have ended up with the point of post-birth abortion or, kids being put on hormone blockers.
Kekle.
Your description resonates. IMO, there is a wide spectrum of language and terminology that with some variance and nuances in emphasis, essentially describe the same things. And, just as the map is not the territory, it's valuable and relevant to not get too attached to particular 'maps' aka terminologies and the conceptual structures they seek the express. Rather, there is value is recognizing that the reality one seeks to describe exists beyond the cognitive framework. Personally speaking, I highly value fluidity in this area of expression and articulation.
(From a professional perspective too, my work involves being able to transcend such language-based outlines and connect to what lies beyond the language.)
Regarding left and right, there are multiple perspectives one might look at this. As far as I understand it, historically, in the political context, Left and Right stem from the two sides of the court in the National Assembly at the time of the French Revolution. The Left were the radicals, who wanted more change and who rejected the Monarchy, the Right upheld the Monarchy and wanted less dramatic change.
However, from a theological perspective, Left and Right can be seen in the central event of the crucifixion. The thief on the right affirmed Jesus innocence, and confessed his own sins. The thief on the left mocked Jesus, and accused Jesus instead of recognizing his own crimes.
in this case, the right is thus the God-affirming, and the left is the God-denying.
Despite popular theological interpretations, its a fact that the crucifixion resulted in a split. Spiritual salvation was accomplished, whereas physical salvation was not, and was postponed (until the conclusion of providence). This is symbolized by the tear in the curtain in the Temple separating the Holiest Place and the Holy of Holies.
Where does this dual [holies + holy of holies] structure come from? it comes from the design the Lord God imparted to the Israelites in the desert, in designing the tabernacle which was a portable, symbolic for of the Temple.
Interpretation: God created humans (like all things) with an internal aspect and an external aspect. We commonly refer to these as mind and body, or flesh and spirit.
Both flesh and spirit were claimed at the Fall, and thus God had no vessel to manifest in human life. The tabernacle, and the Temple after it, are a symbolic representation of Christ, the Messiah, who comes with restored spirit and flesh.
By worshipping in faith and attending to the tabernacle, and the Temple, the Israelites were to set a condition of attending the Messiah before he arrived. The intent was so that their foundation would stand them in good stead and they would receive and unite with him when he arrived.
In the tabernacle, and the temple, the holiest place represents the flesh/body, and the holiest of holies represented the spirit/mind. The flesh was created to be God's instrument in the material world, but the spirit was created to be God's dwelling place in the spiritual world. Thus, the flesh was to be a holy place, but the spirit, the holiest of holy places.
Due to their faithlessness, however, The Israelites lost their way. Despite all Jesus efforts, they rejected him, as a whole, and persecuted him. Thus, a price became necessary to forgive them and forgive humanity, whom they represented. The price was Christ's flesh. Thus, on the cross, the flesh was sacrificed in order to win the victory of the spirit. The curtain was torn, Christ rose above the barrier dividing spirit and flesh. Then standing in the center, the right side, representing the spirit, confessed to and affirmed God and Christ, while the left side rejected and mocked God and Christ.
Since that time, the spirit (of the faithful) comes under God's jurisdiction, and has been receptive to God (or the universal consciousness, if you prefer that term) but the flesh still struggles, because it still comes under satanic jurisdiction.
Thus, in the current universal context, Left represents the Flesh, and as the Flesh, is more susceptible to being corrupted and used by evil, while the Right represents the Spirit, and is less susceptible to being used by evil.
BUT, as we can see, both can be corrupted. Also, ultimately, both must be restored. HOWEVER, there is a correct order that must be preserved for them to find harmony. And that is that the Spirit, or the Right, is in the subject guiding position, and the Flesh, or the Left, is in the receptive responsive position. Centering on a common purpose, they should harmonize and cooperate.
The principles behind all these manifestations also pertain, I would say, to the Left brain Right brain dynamic. The Right brain should actually be in the driver's seat for many things, with the left brain responsive and serving. The point is not which is superior or indeed primary. The point is what the purpose at hand is. That said, the correct order of purpose is that the mind, or spiritual life, which is eternal, has priority and should be the subject position, while the flesh, aka material life, has a role to serve and facilitate the spiritual growth and life, and thus is in the object position. As a broad, universal principle.
The intellect can fall into the trap of thinking it knows everything. However, the intellect has its blind spots, spots it CANNOT know or see. Thus, the sense - the intuition or the Heart, which sense the whole and accepts the wholistic approach, is capable of overcoming the blind spots because it allows for self-transcendence. Thus, an intellect in service to the Heart is an intellect that finds and knows its true home. It is guided and when necessary, kept humble by the heart, the spirit, the intuition.
Despite all the above rigamarole, the point is to affirm your basic points in 3 4 and 5, but to ideally add some further expansion by alluding to other contexts and correlations in historical, scriptural, spiritual and cosmological ideas.
Very insightful post.
This is very interesting, something I have never come across. Can you point me to any resources that talk about the crucifixion resulting in split?
Hmmmm. That's a tough one. I don't really know of any off hand. Not easily accessible ones.
Also, it's possible that my choice of wording there was not as accurate or clear as it might be. However, on that particular topic, the best starting point is scripture itself, imo. (key sections here, but reading in the large context recommended for added sense)
Romans 7:23-25
Comment: Paul expresses the conflict between the spirit/mind, which through salvation is now object to God's influence while the body remains/is not.
Romans 8:22-23
Paul states clearly that despite having the FIRST fruits of the spirit, he (we) are waiting for the redemption of our bodies. Thus, the spirit has been 'saved' but the body, not yet.
It's notable that the process he describes as fulfilling the completion of 'saving the body' as being adopted as sons. What is adoption except being formally brought from one lineage and family into a different lineage and family. In many cultures, historically, adoption was conducted when there was no heir to the lineage, and the adopted son becomes the actual heir to the lineage in question.
Let's take another angle in addition, aka reason and logic, to augment our scriptural reading. We can understand that Jesus' body was crucified, and that following the death of his body, there was a 3-day process wherein Jesus fought and gained the victory spiritually. (On the third day he rose.)
Love is the source of both spirit and flesh. It is the core nature of the Creator and the universe. All things were created to be a manifestation of love. Thus, love, being the source of spirit and flesh, transcends spirit and flesh. Jesus, winning the victory of love, became able to transcend the barriers between spirit and flesh. As such, he was now able to appear fully to the disciples as the resurrected Jesus, tangible even to their touch.
However, if one considers what was required for God to bring Jesus to the earth - the process of preparing the foundation inside and outside the womb so that God could claim the womb and give birth to a son who, unlike all the descendents of Adam, had a flesh that was never of the fallen lineage - (that process is recorded in scripture even though it is not apparent to the casual reader) - then it was a tragedy that the Father had to sacrifice the Son's flesh in order to pay the price for the faithlessness of humanity, in the form of the faithlessness of the chosen ones, Israel.
Samuel 15:22
(Israel failed to offer obedience, and as a result, a sacrifice was required.)
Thus, the crucified Jesus no longer had any permanent presence in the material world. The material presence being then prophesied as the return, the second coming.
From that view, the disciples, and us, believers, are in a situation where our flesh is NOT redeemed yet, even though our spirit is thru salvation of the cross. If our flesh is not yet redeemed, who 'owns' it? Who holds the receipts? The title?
That's the devil. That is exactly why, even though Jesus was born and accomplished spiritual salvation 2000 years ago, to this day, evil has STILL ruled this material world.
Perhaps "resulted in a split" is over-simplistic, or maybe not. Prior to Jesus coming, "the title" to both spirit and flesh belonged to the devil. The only thing keeping the devil at bay was the laws of Moses. As long as the israelites adhered to that law, to that condition God gave them, they remained as the "chosen people" and belonged to God, even if their individual spirit and flesh were still the devil's property. (When they rejected Jesus, that protection was smashed.)
Through salvation of the cross, Jesus opened the way for our spirits to be redeemed through (our) faith, but the flesh, still not.
A final, reflective note: we can understand through the Q drops that the plan is not a fixed, rigid linear timeline, but rather, is responsive to developments, to wins and losses, all the while working inexorably towards the same, ultimate conclusion.
What if providential history is the same? What if, instead of being a completely rigid timeline that God has set and is unaffected by anything, God's unfolding providence is in fact a responsive PLAN, one that proceeds or unfolds in response to required developments on the side of humanity, while inexorably working towards the same, ultimate destination: complete salvation and the establishment of God's kingdom in both spirit and flesh, on earth and in heaven (everywhere)? Worth thinking about.
What if, instead of us being non-factors in the unfolding of God's work, God is actually waiting for us to accomplish or fulfill certain things before he can unroll the next stage? Hmmmm.