New Age Christianity

[Ciel]

Originally Posted by Thomas

I must go, but would like to pursue our common ground further ...

Thomas

As Shakespear might say - Me thinks already this mind play maze hath run it's course, this be the difference, for difference be not to wind in and out, but transcend into the ascendent.

Thomas thank you......

- c -

[Thomas]

My pleasure.

Good night.

Thomas

[ardenz]

Ciel - Nice story about the bishop and the egg timers.

Thomas wrote

does that sense of self include or allow a sense of God?

I think that there can be an impression that to look inside, look for the self, is a denial of a God, but from my belief/sense, the light inside is connected to the greater light source. By stepping back and being quiet in the world that you can gather the strength to be in the world, and try to be a better person. It can be so stressful and chaotic out there, that something constant is needed.

[wil]

Originally Posted by Thomas

There is no doubting the Trinity, and their actus, the problem is in man, especially when he thinks he knows what's best for himself ... seeking to be by his own light.

This would be no doubting for you, Thomas....not no doubting for the majority of the world that disagrees with you....they doubt.

[Ciel]

Ardenz,

It be a beautiful light house on that island of yours.

- c -

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by ardenz

I think that there can be an impression that to look inside, look for the self, is a denial of a God, but from my belief/sense, the light inside is connected to the greater light source. By stepping back and being quiet in the world that you can gather the strength to be in the world, and try to be a better person. It can be so stressful and chaotic out there, that something constant is needed.

Hi Ardenz —

I don't disagree at all, and that is how I see it ... but we are obliged to admit that is not the way the majority sees is, and the Church has to acknowledge that, otherwise is drifts into obscurantism and elitism.

Humanism, in all its forms, would seek the light with no requirement to consider God at all ... Then we get into monism and its various derivations, which see no difference between the spirit and the Spirit ...

My question to 'New Age Christianity' is, I suppose, what's being introduced that wasn't there before, and what is the foundation for its introduction.

Thomas

[Thomas]

Hi Wil —

Yes, you're right of course, I was speaking in a Christian context, or do NACs not believe in the Trinity?

The point I was making is the object of doubt is man himself ... when man says 'I know what's best for me' he's flying in the face of every evidence, empirical, spiritual, or otherwise ... if he did know what's best, then the world would be in a lot better shape than it is now ... he knows what he likes, but that's a different kettle altogether ... one's likes and one's needs rarely coincide.

I would have thought it's axiomatic by now that all too often man doesn not know what's best for himself.

Thomas

[AndrewX]

Man hath a spiritual nature, and he hath a human - or mortal nature. Now some call this former aspect of our being`God,' or the Divine Nature; it is the true Individual, the Actor who wears the mask. And thus the lesser self has been called the personality - from `persona,' the mask of the true Self.

The Hero of a thousand faces dwells within us all. This is the true God, more manifest in some, but present in all.

In speaking of the Christian Way, it is a fact that in seeking to be Christlike, we lose our self, and find our Self ... and in so doing, we enter into Peace.

This is not a new discovery, nor one that has only just become possible in the Piscean Era, or in the Aquarian Era, at the Golden Dawn. This is timeless Truth, and has been known to us throughout antiquity ... yet the knowledge of this Path has been lost, at times, and suppressed, during other times.

Today this knowledge comes again to the light of day, and is available for the masses - perhaps even on a wider scale than ever before, and in a form that everyone can practice. It is for this reason that some speak of it as New Era Revelation.

This is what New Age Christianity means to me ... not at all a traditional churchianity combined with chakras & crystals & astral projection & pendulum dowsing.

[Thomas]

Hi Andrew —

The difficulty I find with NAC is there is no common doctrine (as far as I know) — which would lead one to ask, philosophically, whether NAC addresses primordial and eternal truths (which it would appear not to do), or whether it addresses what one would like to be the case ... but that's probably a discussion for another day.

As you are of the TS persuasion, I am assuming your views reflect TS thought, rather than NAC thought as such.

In light of which, and without falling out, perhaps I might highlight the difficulties I have with that view? I'm not trying to find fault, or disprove, but rather highlight areas where tradtional Christianity would be obliged either to say no, or refute its own beliefs...

Originally Posted by AndrewX

Man hath a spiritual nature, and he hath a human - or mortal nature.

Are you saying the human has two natures? This poses the question of what is the nature of that which unites two natures in itself?

Traditional Christianity asserts man, and all and every mode of being, as having 'a' nature would rather say 'human nature' is that which manifests the soul in the physical world — so rather than assert the traditional body/soul duality, traditional Christianity seeks a holistic view of the human as, to quote Boethius, 'an individual substance of a rational nature' which has spiritual and sensible faculties.

Originally Posted by AndrewX

Now some call this former aspect of our being`God,' or the Divine Nature;

I'm trying to understand ... but if man possesses two natures (?) then does that not imply that as a human nature, he does not possess a spiritual aspect to his being, but rather it is something added on, from without?

Originally Posted by AndrewX

[/i]it is the true Individual, the Actor who wears the mask. And thus the lesser self has been called the personality - from `persona,' the mask of the true Self.

This highlights the Latin origin of the term 'person', from the Etruscan, from the cult of the goddess Persephone, who spent part of the year above the ground and part under the earth. The word used for the mask in her cult was Phersu it both manifested the goddess in the daylight of her fecund power and hid her in the obscurity of her destiny.

The Greek, however, has a different etymology, the term prosopon places the emphasis on a direct face-to-face visual encounter (pro-, ops-, on: to see and be seen), so that the highly charged aspect of intimacy came to the fore (in the I-thou relation).

A third source was from Scripture. In the interplay of late Judaic and Hellenic cultures, appeal was made to the notion of personification in order to interpret passages in the bible, especially those referring to Sophia (prosographic exegesis). The Septuagint translators of the Hebrew bible into the Greek used the term prosopon, as the sounding mask through which the Lord spoke ("out of the mouth of the Lord,"). The Latin translators naturally enough rendered that word as persona, so that both the Greek and Latin usage converged to introduce the term respectively into the Eastern and Western European languages.

So, to highlight, the term 'person' in Christian metaphysics involves a significant development of the Etruscan — Christianity deals with 'the person' as a concrete reality, a real (albeit subsistent) being — not a chimera, not a mask, not something other.

The question I might ask is, where do you locate the 'I' who speaks?

Originally Posted by AndrewX

The Hero of a thousand faces dwells within us all. This is the true God, more manifest in some, but present in all.

The more you pursue this, it seems to me, the more the person becomes a non-entity? Who is this 'Hero' that underlies all human beings, or put another way, who or what is this Hero that humans are a meer chimera of?

If I follow, human nature then becomes rather meaningless. What is actual is this non-human 'Hero' who inhabits/possesses a human vehicle?

Again and again, I'm trying to locate the actuality of somewhat abstract statements.

Originally Posted by AndrewX

In speaking of the Christian Way, it is a fact that in seeking to be Christlike, we lose our self, and find our Self ... and in so doing, we enter into Peace.

But what has happened to the individual existing self ... was it ever there?

Originally Posted by AndrewX

Today this knowledge comes again to the light of day, and is available for the masses - perhaps even on a wider scale than ever before, and in a form that everyone can practice. It is for this reason that some speak of it as New Era Revelation.

I'm at a loss to see what's 'new' ... all that has been said is common, for the most part, to pre-Christian antiquity?

Thomas

[AndrewX]

Originally Posted by Thomas

In light of which, and without falling out, perhaps I might highlight the difficulties I have with that view? I'm not trying to find fault, or disprove, but rather highlight areas where tradtional Christianity would be obliged either to say no, or refute its own beliefs...

I'll respond as best I'm able ...

Originally Posted by Thomas

Are you saying the human has two natures? This poses the question of what is the nature of that which unites two natures in itself?

Perhaps it was the Gestalt psychologists who first said in modern times that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One of my Teachers used to say, "The Greater (always) includes the lesser."

It is not that the Greater [Nature] is separate from the lesser at all. Yet - quite in line with the teachings of the Perennial Wisdom (as found in the Code of Manu, the Zohar, etc.) - the lesser nature is allowed to develop in order that it might: first, know itself (experience itself) as a seemingly-separate `self' ... including its distinction both from other seemingly-separated lives and from its own Greater Nature; and second, that the lesser self might once again come to re-unite with the Greater, eventually including all lesser lives.

This is about as plain-English as I can imagine trying to render it, and it may be an over-simplification, but at least it provides a key for interpreting such statements as the Christ's, "I and the Father are ONE." Here is the basis for Mystical Union, and I find that this is as direct an address of the Primordial and Eternal Truth of our Oneness in Spirit as anyone will get out of contemporary Christianity - whatever flavor one prefers. [Note that I am still speaking of plain-English explanations, and not what may or may not exist somewhere, dust-enshrouded, in the Vatican Library.]

Theosophy will examine in much greater detail just how it is that the `Monad' is able to exist distinct from yet also never-apart-from its Parent Monad (the Divine Monad) ... and will emphasize that the Greater [Self] which seems to "forget" and seems to descend into incarnation, doesn't actually possess the Ahamkaric (Manasic) spark of Individuality until after (or during) its series of human incarnations. Therefore the objection that the entire process is pointless because "nothing is gained that was not already present at the outset," can be dismissed. But methinks this gets into too much detail at this point!

Originally Posted by Thomas

I'm trying to understand ... but if man possesses two natures (?) then does that not imply that as a human nature, he does not possess a spiritual aspect to his being, but rather it is something added on, from without?

No. As suggested above, the human nature (as also the animal, vegetable, and mineral natures) simply correspond to what Aristotle calls the rational, animal, vegetable `soul.' Rather than reify the idea of `soul' into something, I would suggest that it is the nature - or tendency - of a thing, to behave in thus & such a way, which is its soul.

In the case of a human being, then, let's apply this, but also not forget that the greater always includes the lesser. Aristotle provided the idea of the rational soul as something which sets human beings apart from the earlier kingdoms ... which just means, Theosophically, and in line with the Kabbalistic and the Hindu teaching, that we are more evolved than the earlier kingdoms, because we can think.

Yet human beings also possess an animal nature - most certainly! For is this not what we see often manifest, even more greatly than our rational nature?

Do we not also tend to grow, and procreate, as the vegetables ... in that we have a vital, vegetable nature?

The mineral nature refers to our bodies of flesh & blood, minerals and all ...

But the Spiritual, in all this, is not, as I have come to understand, something grafted on. It was present from the very beginning - for it is not different than that part of Christ's Being which allowed Him to utter, "Before Abraham, I AM."

The only difference here, is that Christ has made manifest what for the rest of us, remains yet a latent potential. It is no less present in our Spiritual, or Greater Being ... yet it must become manifest, outwardly, superseding our rational, animal, vegetable and mineral natures - before we too, can say, "I and the Father are ONE."

Before we have reached the goal as set forth in Ephesians 4:13, we can affirm what it is that God has Planned for all of Humanity, and we can certainly SAY, "I and the Father are ONE."

Affirmation, as Prayer and Invocation, can be a valid part of our religious practice. The only quibble I would have with a "New Age Christian" would be if someone insisted that merely by affirming a thing, such a thing instantly becomes manifest. This, we will find, is a new definition given to the word "fiat," by certain figures within the "I AM" Movement ... but I hardly see how this has anything to do, either with Theosophy, with Esoteric Christianity, or with `New Age Christianity.'

Originally Posted by Thomas

The question I might ask is, where do you locate the 'I' who speaks?

Well, there are several ways to approach this.

In accord with what has been said above, the "I" Consciousness, which is Itself a temporary aspect of the Manasic (Mental) Consciousness, resides within the HIGHER Mind. In fact, this aspect of our Greater Being has been the focus of SO much careful, precise investigation, and the subject of SO much lengthy discourse over many thousands of years, that in the East a specific term refers EXACTLY to what we mean by "I."

Certainly in the West we have the contributions of modern psychology, and I would suggest that in time, as a New Psychology continues to emerge which is increasingly capable of examing our transcendental (Greater) Self, we too will have more precisely terminology for treating these aspects of our Divine, or `Higher Self,' as it is referred to among New Agers.

In the East, the "I" consciousness is the AHAMKAR I have already mentioned. It means "I-maker," because this is the aspect of our Greater Conscious Being which allows us to look UPON ourself, become conscious OF a portion of our self (greater or lesser, more or less accurately) ... and say, "THIS is Who/what I AM."

This, I have found, is one of the most difficult studies of any in the Ageless Wisdom that I have undertaken. Immediately part of the problem, I have found, is simply that here in the West, we just do not have the same kind of terminology, evolved precisely for the present circumstances and purposes - those of discussing the subtleties of our Spiritual Nature - as have long existed in the East.


If I am mistaken, then please, by all means, point me to the exact correspondences with Atma, Buddhi and Manas. Do, please, show me where I can find, in the Christian Canons, something that most, or even many, practitioners understand as equivalent to the following clarification regarding the above:

In Sankhya philosophy ahamkara is the third emanation: from prakriti (primal nature or substance) issues mahat (the great), standing for universal mind, which in turn produces ahamkara, selfhood, individuality; from ahamkara come forth the five tanmatras, the subtle forms of the elements or principles and "the two series of sense organs" (Samkhya-Sutra 1:61).

In the Bhagavad-Gita (7:4), prakriti manifests in eight portions -- "earth, water, fire, air, ether [space: kham-akasa], mind [manas], understanding [buddhi] and egoity, self-sense [ahamkara]" -- all of which relate to the object side, which gives an erroneous sense of identity or egoity.

As universal self-consciousness, ahamkara has "a triple aspect, as also Manas. For this conception of 'I,' or one's Ego, is either sattwa, 'pure quietude,' or appears as rajas, 'active,' or remains tamas, 'stagnant,' in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and Earth, and assumes the properties of either" (SD 1:335n).

You see? It is not that I will absolutely deny that such teachings exist in the West. I believe they do exist. I simply await someone who is familiar enough with both the Eastern and the Western Wisdom, to properly synthesize the two - or at least to show the students of the Ageless Wisdom where the correspondencies can be seen.

So far, the only qualified Teachers Who have been capable of this, are the Elder Brothers, and a handful of Their Living Representatives - or Prophets, and lesser avatars. Today, fortunately, students such as myself (many of whom are a good bit more adherent to the straight and narrow) number in the many, many thousands.

Not all identify with Esoteric Christianity, or New Age Christianity, nor do other students choose to answer your questions on this thread in the way I have, Thomas. I'm just doing the best I can, with what I have ...

Originally Posted by Thomas

Again and again, I'm trying to locate the actuality of somewhat abstract statements.

Yes, now we're getting somewhere. This is indeed the difficulty! It's why, in every tradition I've ever studied, the Road to Enlightenment takes many, many lifetimes - not just one brief lifetime of miraculous, sudden Awakening. Only in the exoteric accounts of the Buddha do we find an emphasis on "this very lifetime."

The problem which I think you are highlighting, Thomas, is that we have a tendency in the West to want to nail things down - and find a way to FIX them fast, so that we (think we) understand exactly how things are. Or perhaps we are determined to tack things up, as our images, or understanding of the Divine ... so we may know precisely Whom or what to worship.

This, however, is part of the Mystery. We don't know. And those who claim they do, anyone short of a High Initiate (even this can be qualified by a significant quote from a Master!), is living in self-deceit, regardless of whether anyone else takes him or her seriously.

In the East, they try to avoid this false sense of certainty that creeps in ... by saying, "Neti Neti." - Not this, not this."

I can explain my own understanding of "the I Consciousness," the Ahamkar, fairly easily. I mean, it's a lengthy post, and it's only a surface, intellectual treatment, but the whole point is that - the "I" that THINKS it's the boss, IS NOT THE BOSS!

The "I am" of the personal self is FALSE EGO ... because it will always insist that IT is the real self. Even as we seek to practice humility, we must always be on guard. But just what is IT, that we're guarding against?

I mean, there are the appetites of the vegetable and animal natures which WANT ("desire") to be FED - always fed something external to self, which must always be renewed ... more - more - more ... never with the possibility of satiety. Or there's the mind nature itself (the `mental elemental'), voracious for knowledge, hungry in its own right - even for argument just for argument's sake ... yet THIS is not our True Being.


It is not that we are grafting on something to our lesser, "human nature" ... but rather, we are daring to peek behind the Veil, and learn something of our Greater, Spiritual Nature. `Spiritual' because it is that pole of our Being which is closer to God (in the Transcendent sense - I have never denied that such exists) than the flesh & blood, the material ... and Greater because it is from our Divine Being that the extension, or projection into the world(s) of matter, originated/originates/continues:

"Having pervaded this whole Universe with one fragment of Myself, I REMAIN." (Sri Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita)

Originally Posted by Thomas

But what has happened to the individual existing self ... was it ever there?

Yes and no. The Ahamkaric principle, a necessary PART of our being at this stage, is literally destroyed (Siva, the "Father Aspect" or 1st Person of the Trimurti is the LIBERATOR, only because `He' is The Destroyer). We become increasingly able to transcend the "limitation of the separated self" (or concept thereof), this being a necessary MODE of being, but not representing our Higher, Spiritual (GREATER) Nature - much less the ULTIMATE Mode (or Nature, Aspect) of Being.

Originally Posted by Thomas

I'm at a loss to see what's 'new' ... all that has been said is common, for the most part, to pre-Christian antiquity?

Dunno. I think the idea of Christ as the centre of ALL Being, a la Teilhard de Chardin, is something more Universal than any Christianity I've ever encountered. We should also consider Blaise Pascal's reminder that - "The Universe is a circle whose center is everywhere and the periphery nowhere."

True, this doesn't give God a face, much less a personality, be it that of Zeus, Kronos or Ormazd. But it does help, ever so slightly, to move beyond the notion that Jesus alone embodied, or Actualized, the "Christ potential."

That the latter exists within us all, is what I like most about the New Age Christian presentation. For that reason, even if I'm not for crystals and ouija boards, I'm more comfortable with those who can speak of `Higher Self' and auras - than those who want to tell me all about Jesus, and quote scripture, chapter & verse, from memory.

[Ciel]

Thomas and Andrew,

Not to smite, but..........turning the egg timer, in appreciation.

Tending to view a post as one peice of whole matter........

You know, I can't help but feel how alike you both are...........

peace - c -

[ardenz]

Originally Posted by Ciel

Ardenz,
It be a beautiful light house on that island of yours.

It can be difficult to keep the mirror clean and the lightbulbs can lose power sometimes.


(Actually the photo for my avatar is of Skellig Michael, an Island off the west of Ireland. I went out there last summer. It is the site of a monastery dating from the 6th century) Sacred Sites: Skellig Michael
Skellig Michael - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Ciel]

Originally Posted by ardenz

(Actually the photo for my avatar is of Skellig Michael, an Island off the west of Ireland. I went out there last summer. It is the site of a monastery dating from the 6th century) Sacred Sites: Skellig Michael
Skellig Michael - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ardenz, thank you,

It was indeed the light of Michael I saw shining through.

- c -

[AndrewX]

Originally Posted by Ardenz

It can be difficult to keep the mirror clean and the lightbulbs can lose power sometimes.

Wow, Ciel and Ardenz - that is uncanny. You must tell me your secret!

I had just sat down to view this thread, and saw your post, Ciel, mentioning egg timers again - and no sooner did I read the words "lightbulbs can lose power sometimes," from your post, Ardenz, than my computer instantly shut down.

Yeah, that was weird. I mean, sure I moved it to this room a week ago, but this was so darn spontaneous - strangely synchronous - that I have to wonder!

Perhaps the connection has something to do with Michael, as you mentioned, Ciel.

[Thomas]

Hi Andrew ... thanks for the considered reply.

... and hope you didn't lose anything in the crash ... I composed a reply, closed the edit file, and then found I had neither copied nor saved it ...

+++

The core of possible contention between us lies in the Abrahamic view of man, and by extension creation as a whole, as being an ordained reality — a cosmos, a world, and a man is 'real' in the sense that it is willed by God, and it is good — and hence has its place in the scheme of things, and is capable of the beatitific vision. This opposes for example, the dualist traditions of the Middle East which separate the spiritual and the material to such extreme as to render the material realm of no intrinsic value, but merely serves as a stepping stone to a higher plane (and in the worst case scenarios the material realm is considered an evil, albeit a necessary one, or the abortive creation of the demiurge).

In such view the physical body is purely a vehicle for the spirtit or spark, and plays no further part — the Cosmos is not a theophany — and by extension all description of Mystical Experience is fantasy, as the sensible has no place in Heaven.

Likewise the Abrahamic refutes any mode of monism — pantheism, panentheism, etc., — which implies a degree of relativeness or contingency in the Divine.

+++

The above differences come to bear, I think, on the idea of 'the person'.

In Christian metaphysics, all being is subsistent, be it manifest or unmanifest, gross or subtle. Being (other than God) is not self-generative nor self-causative, but willed of God, but is not God as such. God is, He does not will His own is-ness ... His is-ness simply is.

A 'person' then, is an instance of being that, as Boethius says, is "an individual substance of a rational nature" and the core or ground of this being is its soul. For Christianity this is irreducable — the 'dialogue' of Christianity is between the Absolute and man, with no intermediate or provisional stages. If and when the soul is extinguished, then the person, and every aspect of him/her, as an entity, ceases to exist.

This understanding surpasses the Etruscan idea of the Phersu, the Mask, and is closer to the Greek idea of the prosopon, 'the one who speaks' ...

The fact that the soul subsists does not detract from its reality, but rather locates it in time and space. The first quality of the soul is its being-ness, its is-ness, its esse as the scholastics say. St Maximus taught that the entire creation comes to its apex in man, the nature of whom encompasses the mineral, vegetable, animal and spiritual. This hierarchy of the soul in the Abrahamic tradition is marked, at its most basic, by the nefesh-ruach-neshamah triad — but the spiritualised soul does not render the vegetative soul non-existent or unreal — nor other-than-itself.

There are other states of the soul, in Rabinnic and Kaballistic terms, that are superadded — Ruach HaKodesh, Neshamah Yeseira, Neshamah Kedosha ... but these only further support the argument.

The individual soul may engage with and join with the Divine, but this does not diminish the fact of its esse, the soul does not cease to exist in the union — does not render the soul 'less real' (although the sensible world might appear so), nor does the soul then assume the nature of that with which it identifies — especially when it is Higher, as it is axiomatic that the lower cannot contain the Higher — man does not become God ... but man can experience the Divine within himself, as the Immaculata says, in the Magnificat:

"My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."
Luke 1:46-47

This cannot mean that God is increased by the soul — quite the opposite — the soul is glorified by entering the Glory that is God, but that does not mean that the individual soul and God are one in essence and substance but one in relation ... one in the Unity of all ... this is why the Orthodox hold that theosis is not a doctrine of individual deification, but the deification of man as such.

+++

The Way of understanding the Christian Revelation is not to look at things, but the relation of things ... that's what everyone misses about Christian Trinitarian doctrine, its not about cosmologies or cosmogonies, its about relation within the Isness of the Deity ... that's why I will always say the Trinity is something utterly beyond the triunes of Egypt, Asia, etc.

The Christian Trinity is Three Persons, one Substance ... and the substantial being of man, the soul, is not of the Divine Substance, were it so, it would be omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, absolute, infinite, etc. although the Ground of the Soul is a 'mystery' when one wonders why should God ever have wanted to create a particular instance of being that I reference as me?

It is for this reason that reincarnation, for example, is incompatible with Christian metaphysics — it renders the 'person', the individual soul, as ephemeral.

Thomas