As I get older, my time becomes more important to me
due to the fact that I have less of whatever remains as each day, each hour,
passes. I am quite aware of this and would like to be able to get at that which
I seek to understand about life and particularly myself in it, as part of it. I
waste far too much of my time in various distractions. Life itself is a
distraction; survival requires much focus and energy. But it is a distraction
from which we may glean not meaning but reality, for which meaning is a poor
substitute. Suffice it to say that people tend to believe that if they have
proper meaning, be it God or flag or money or things or even self-discipline, they
have grasped reality. I am using a word, “reality,” here that is simply just
one more concept, one more meaning. Words and their meaning definitely veil
that which underlies, that which precedes meaning or interpretive thought. I
see that this is leading in a cosmological or theological direction. I do have
views of my own acquired somewhat from experience but obviously interpreted
experience, and also from my own sense or logic, which I think, often quite
erroneously, that others must possess as well and as similarly.
I intend to pursue this course in which I address
various issues and questionings present in my “search for understanding,” which
is, perhaps more accurately, my “search for greater context.” It is thus an
expansive search as the concentric circles move out from the center, while,
simultaneously, move in towards the center, as in the proverbial onion layers. “In
is out and out is in.” I don’t tend to confuse myself but such a direction can
often appear to be either directionless or seemingly moving in the wrong
direction. When passed by another train, one feels like one is moving backward.
Or, my joke about moving “two steps backward for every one forward,” one
finally reaches one’s destination by having moved in the “wrong” direction. Alice
in Wonderland-ish.
I have pursued this course alone, for the most part,
though writing some in my blogs (the latest being metaphysicalforcesinplay.blogspot.com) over the years and also
sharing some now and then with my Pacifica Graduate Institute graduating class
and the Monterey Bay Friends of Jung. At this point I will publish to all three
on a regular basis. My friend, prior classmate, and deep philosopher, Norland,
noted that he reads my communications to the group, and it is encouraging to
hear that at least one person reads what I’m saying. An audience of just one is
sufficient. The truth is that I write for myself as if I were writing for all
my selves and vice-versa. If I am able to hear myself, that is enough. Anyone
else is “icing on the cake.”
In my life, I have had many multi-dimensional,
multi-temporal, and otherwise “other-worldly” experiences which have led me to
experience and interpret events differently than in a “normal” way. It may be
that I have a different context, and consequently a different way of seeing and
interpreting. I will mention my various experiences as time goes on but not
now. I would rather focus on issues and questions important to me, though my “back-story”
is sometimes relevant in presenting the issues.
For the last few years, I have been very interested in
the actual place of Christianity in history, which is to say, how it came about
and together, from whence it came, and what, if anything, is original about it.
For many years I practiced Zen Buddhism diligently, and, before that,
Theosophy, and mixed in at various times, Roman Catholicism (in which I was indoctrinated
from childhood through adolescence). I have also been and still am a serious
student of Daoism. Obviously, the whole notion of “God” and what that term
means is central to my comprehension of context. While I don’t believe in “God”
as the concept is presented in mainstream Christianity, I do understand “something
that is referred to as ‘God.’” I am not disturbed by the use of the term and
understand what people mean by it, even though most have no idea of what they
mean. What is called “Gnosticism” has also been quite central in my studies.
There are notions in Gnosticism, quite in opposition with Christian belief and
doctrine, that I find to be most fascinating from a deeply logical perspective.
(“Christianity itself may be ‘only an episode—though a very important episode—in
the history of Gnosticism’” [Forerunners
and Rivals of Christianity: From 330BC to 330AD, Legge, University Books,
1964, p. 111]). Then there is the presence of “magic,” as it exists in
religion, the Bible, with its positive “white magic,” negative “black magic,”
and scientific aspects. Magic is so prevalent in Christianity as an instrument of
power, of miracle-making, including literal destruction. There are evil Hindu
demigods, such as Ravenna (if I recall correctly), who compel obedience of the “good
gods” due to the performance of purificatory rites and disciplines. I prefer
the “truth” of the Buddhist notion of “what is” as the purer order of existence
or being, or the wuwei (“noncoercive
action”) of Daoism (which itself fell into the practice of magic as the norm
within its long history).
These are some of the issues which I intend to explore
and develop in future publications.
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