Space and Time: Looking Deeper

Does time exist within space or does space exist within time? Plato identified time with the period of motion of the heavenly bodies, and space as that in which things come to be. Aristotle defined time as the number of changes with respect to before and after, and the place of an object in space as the innermost motionless boundary of that which surrounds it. The Incas regarded space and time as a single concept and named it pacha. Preston Harold defines time as “heavens knows what” and describes it as veiling the eternal ‘now’ of the I AM.

Time may also allow for the expansion of the universe up to a point or “turning” which evokes a contraction, and this contraction is experienced in the now. The now, being “Absolutely Everywhere,” cannot be grasped by consciousness so that the turning point is hidden in time.

As for space, Harold explains:

Not what is in it, but space itself is the great mystery, as great a mystery as time. Eddington’s drawing shows twelve segments converging in the sphere of “here now” – or “I.” Thus, twelve “thrones” govern man in space-time, but there is room for many more segments, more “mansions” – and there must be many more space properties than man knows of today and some, like “Absolutely Elsewhere,” beyond that which consciousness can penetrate.

As for that in space which consciousness can observe, Jesus says, “Heaven and Earth will pass away…” As to how this passing will happen and when, man can know from Him only that the reign of God, the working of the law, is begun, that the Father knoweth the hour, that this passing away will not come as men expected it then. Today, as men observe the process of evolution, change, and decay that passes away the arrangement of celestial bodies and the matter which sustains life, they are committed to another concept of the end of things – but in saying that heaven and earth will pass away, Jesus also said that the creative force, the word, weak a force as it may seem, will not pass away. Thus, His cosmogony comes to rest upon the concept of constant creation or renewal, upon the precept that all things are made anew. His words allow for “becoming” within the universe, but not of the universe which now sustains life in many mansions, and is now operating under perfect and infallible law, in accord with one which is, mathematically speaking, self-sustaining.

Until next time, peace.

Does this Offend You?

I am that bread of life…This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world….Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat of the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you….As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eats of me, even he shall live by me… -John 6:48-57

 

Sounds like cannibalism, right? At this point is would be good to remember Harold’s earlier assertion that the earliest humans were probably cannibals, most likely feeding off the brains of their fellow humans. So Jesus here is tapping into something very primordial within mankind. Yet the idea of eating of a fellow human being offends us.

Jesus speaks these words, then asks, “Does this offend you? What and if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” Here, He makes plain that His strange words are not to be taken literally – that He is sacrament only in the sense that this word means token or symbol of the truth he tries to convey.

OK, so Jesus isn’t talking about literal cannibalism.  As Harold sees Jesus as the outward symbol of the inward I AM, it is best to read Jesus’ words as “The I AM is the bread of life…The I AM is the living bread which came down from heaven…He that eats of the I AM shall live by the I AM…”

Within the mystery of the I AM is the mystery of the sustenance of all of life:

The profound mystery of life, the mystery of sustaining it, is wrapped up in these words and in the sacramental, symbolic enactment of them a t the last supper: “Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

And although it may offend us, life feeds on life in order for existence to continue…

In the view of this study, Jesus spoke profound biological truth. To do so, He unlocked His unconscious and let the voice of life itself, “I,” speak freely through Him. His words did offend, still offend. But “does this offend you?” – life cannot exist without something that is extracted from living or once-living tissue.   That something is an enzyme.

Oh, this sounds like it’s going to be interesting! Can’t wait for the next post.

Until then, peace…

Two Sides of the Coin of Authority

Every coin has two sides, yet it remains one. What are the two sides of the “coin of authority?”

Jesus saw that a man who plays the role of absolute authority, or God, a priori, plays the same role as the man who plays Satan, for both roles veil a grasp for power. When accused by the Pharisees of casting out devils by the prince of devils, He does not deny this, but answers, “And if I by Be-el-ze-bub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out?” Then, having spoken of the house divided if Satan casts out Satan, He adds, “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.” Jesus says if. He will not admit to playing either the role of the devil or of God, saying on another occasion, “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.”

We as humans cannot condone anyone who makes a claim to Godhood; to absolute authority. Preston Harold continues…

Jesus recognized that both the Satanic and Messianic concepts conceal the will to express absolute power, and that the truth bearer who loses himself in his own revelation, believing himself to be or allowing himself to become deity, poses such threat as the sanity or logic associated with Satan could never pose. He showed in his drama that the man who allows himself to be called the Son of God, God in the flesh, or Messiah, will not be tolerated, that Judaism would not in truth tolerate any man’s fulfillment of prophecies regarding the Christ as these are set forth in the Scriptures. Judaism could not in Jesus’ day, nor can it now, tolerate its own Messianic concept, if actualized, any more than Christianity can tolerate the Pauline elaboration of it.

Yet Jesus revealed that we are all endowed with the very being of God, and that that being never allows us to truly be lost from sight:

Jesus refused to play either the role of God or of the devil. He was divinely human, and so must have been that first “gigantic one” who could not extricate himself from the role of God, intolerable, and thus was murdered only to return again and again, a promise and reminder in man’s mind, as parent truth in Homo sapiens led others to speak the same words, “Ani hu.”

Until next time, peace…

Ears to Hear

In his “Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning,” Thomas Troward wrote that Jesus came:

“…not to proclaim Himself, but Man; not to tell us of His Own Divinity separating Him from the race and making Him the Great Exception, but to tell us of our Divinity and to show in Himself the Great Example of the I AM reaching its full personal expression in Man.”

Why do we not want to believe this? Why does the Church proclaim a Jesus who is ontologically different from the rest of humanity? Why is He proclaimed as “the Great Exception?” Is it because He followed all the rules? We all know he certainly did not do that! Is it because he loved perfectly? Ah, now maybe we’re getting somewhere. But in spite of His perfect love, why would he waste His time with all he taught and lived if he didn’t think we were equal to the task? Of course through His death and resurrection He “made a way” for humanity into life eternal. But there’s the rub. That one word. DEATH. Don’t like it. Don’t want to go there. Let’s let Jesus be the only one who has to die, worship Him, and that will be what saves us. But the only way our I AM fully flowers is through death. It’s a narrow path most definitely. Many are called but few are chosen and all that.  This truth terrifies our egos. And as Preston Harold explains to us that Jesus came to put the “Messiah outside of us” idea to death, we continue to not have “ears to hear…”

…true Messiah must restore to man himself the power and glory of life, freeing him in the last reaches of being from the authority of priesthood, parent, or sovereign – from all save self- governing law and the necessity to seek truth within himself…And [Jesus} allowed it that through His death drama He could reveal again a truth seen in humanity’s legends: the King’s image coinciding with the Messianic concept men hold must be destroyed in order that the image of man, each monarch of a realm of his own, may rise. This is to say, as long as man fastens his mind upon any authoritarian concept, even Babel Tower building, seeing such as this to be saving grace, he will fail to seek the governing authority within himself….The concept of Messiah as absolute authority in the social realm, be it an earthly or heavenly society Messiah masters, was destroyed by Jesus.

Let those who have ears to hear, hear! Until next time, peace…

The Tower of Babel and the Mystery of Language: Part I

Preston Harold tells us something very important concerning the story of Jesus’ life:

Jesus’ legend reveals the genesis of human power: the word man speaks that sets each one apart and identifies him in the name of God, “I.” In broadest sense, it is a continuation of the legend of the Tower of Babel, which presents the mystery of language.

Of course one’s mind here could understandably veer to the thought of the prologue of John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word…,” which marries Harold’s thoughts of the beginning, God, and language. But for now let’s focus on the Tower of Babel and what this legend is trying to tell us:

One has only to read C.W. Ceram’s Gods, Graves, and Scholars to see how often in human history the drama of building a Tower of Babel has been repeated. Thus, the Biblical legend must enfold many tellings of such an endeavor as it points also to the rise and fall of languages and civilizations committed to a ziggurat concept that, whatever its nature, robs one of his individuality, substituting for his God-given name, “I,” a Group-ego label that “us,” his personality must wear as a ball and chain upon the human soul:

…let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name…

Building a tower whose top may reach unto heaven indicates a reaching beyond consciousness to the subconscious in an attempt to control man so that he will obey the dictates of his conditioners and accept their label…

Ah, mind control! Emotional manipulation. Can you say “Madison Avenue?” Here’s a great introductory video on the psychology of advertising. Don’t forget that these are the same techniques used by politicians as they try to convince us to elect them:

 

Feelings, nothing more than feelings…

But there is a remedy to all this constant manipulation going on around us. Picking up where we left off, Harold continues…

…but those who seek through this means to build a totalitarian, utopian structure overlook the Monarch of each one’s inner world, jealously guarding one’s very life, utterly concerned with one’s every breath. This inner Authority prevails – or so the Babel legend says: “Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Therefore let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” And in the ensuing confusion, the builders disperse, the ziggurat is abandoned. What happens, psychologically speaking, to thwart this mighty effort?

This we will explore in part two of this post. Until then, peace…

 

I’d like to know the Id

Now we begin to move from the ego to the id and superego.  Developmentally, the id precedes the ego.  Here is a description from Wikipedia:

The id is the unorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human’s basic, instinctual drives. Id is the only component of personality that is present from birth.^[3] The id is the part of the mind containing the drives present at birth; it is the source of our bodily needs, wants, desires, and impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates according to the pleasure principle, the psychic force that motivates the tendency to seek immediate gratification of any impulse.^[4] The id contains the libido, which is the primary source of instinctual force that is unresponsive to the demands of reality.^[5] The id acts according to the “pleasure principle“, seeking to avoid pain or unpleasure (not ‘displeasure’) aroused by increases in instinctual tension.^[6] If the mind was solely guided by the id, individuals would find it difficult to wait patiently at a restaurant, while feeling hungry, and would most likely grab food off of neighbouring tables^[7]

According to Freud the id is unconscious by definition:

“It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learned from our study of the Dreamwork and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of that is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations…. It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle.”^[8]

 

Preston Harold says:

 

Psychologists agree that primary instincts start in the id, it is the older, and ego develops out of it through the influence of the outer world.  In the end, Freud came to say, “What had been id must become ‘I’…”  In the words “kingdom within,” Jesus enfolds man’s unrealized potentials; today this kingdom is called id and UNCONSCIOUS.  He presented “I” as the older or true Ego emerging from the fundamental mass of life tendencies – “Before Abraham was, I am…” and He said, “I am the way…”  Psychologists see the id, the UNCONSCIOUS, as a ‘special realm, with its own desires and modes of expression and peculiar mental mechanisms not elsewhere operative.”  Throughout His ministry, Jesus stresses this – the “kingdom within” is a special realm apart.

 

In other words, the id, the unconscious, is the “earth, formless and void” as testified to in Genesis 1.  It is our I AM, our God, that speaks within our ids and speaks light into our darkness.  It is our I AM that creates form out of our chaos.  This creation is happening continuously and Jesus describes His role in this process…

Psychologists agree that what the personality represses and rejects belongs to the id and obeys its mechanism, but the repressed and rejected is not born of the id, it is from the province of personality.  Jesus, as Authority in the id, opens the kingdom to all who are dispirited, hopeless, maimed, rejected, repressed, and oppressed, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden…”

Psychologists agree that repressions, latent in the id, reverse themselves, and, disguised, may return to consciousness with a compulsiveness that overpowers logical thinking.  Jesus says to the heavy laden, “I will give you rest…” and “…you will find your souls refreshed.”  Thus, He indicates that repressions are transformed and strengthened in the domain He reveals.

Psychologists agree that the unconscious process in the id can be raised to a conscious level just as conscious processes can travel back into the id.  There is constant interplay between the psychic divisions.  Jesus says, “…seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.”  He speaks of “you in me” and of “I in you.”

 

Now that we understand a bit more about the id, it’s time to move on to the superego.  But before we do, we’ll have to backtrack a bit and make sure we understand our ego.  We’ll do that in the next post.  Until then, peace…

 

 

 

The Name of God

Picking back up where we left off in Chapter 2, Harold tells us that “Jesus speaks not of himself as person, but of living truth, Father of being, to be identified by the same word in all mankind.  He says:

“If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.  My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.  He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me… the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.  For I have not spoken of myself…” (John 5:31, 7:16, 8:14, 12:44-48)

Harold asks:

And what is the WORD, the SAME?  On another occasion Jesus has said, “…have you not read what was said to you by God, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?”  [Ethelbert] Stauffer writes, “God says to Abraham: ‘Seekest thou the God of Gods?… I am He.  …I am before the days were’….”  and in another passage he speaks of the emphatic “I’s” that appear in ancient Hebrew literature: “I and not an angel; I and not a seraph; I and not the envoy; I, the Lord, I am he and no other.”  The WORD, the SAME, the NAME of God appears to be “I.”

A particularly helpful way to understand this concept is to put the words “the” and “is” on either side of all “I AM” statements in the Bible.  For example, the above quotes would then read:

The I AM is the God of Abraham…  The I AM is he… The I AM is before the days were. 

Transferring this concept to the sayings of Jesus would result in:

The I AM is the way, the truth, and the life…  The I AM is the gate…  Before Abraham was, the I AM is… etc…

Harold continues…

“I” appears to be the name of God declared to men by Jesus, proclaimed again just before He goes out out the Garden of Gethsemane, that men might know themselves to be “I.” (John 12:28, 14:6-10, 17:26) But as one tries to explain that only through “I-being” in man can man reach the truth of his and all other men’s being, he becomes object or pretender to diety, all of whom speak in terms of “I,” for they can speak the truth in no other terms as they try to share it with their fellowmen.  Lord Krishna says:

There is no past when I was not,

Nor you, nor these; and we

Shall – none and never – cease to live

Throughout the long to-be.

At this point I am reminded of the Book of Revelation.  In chapters 2 and 19 references are made to a name given by the Son of Man and to the name of the Son of Man himself…

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.” 2:17

His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself. 19:12

And what is the name that only the one who has it knows?  What is the name only the person who has it can call him or herself?  It’s “I!”  I cannot call you, the reader, “I.”  I don’t know you as “I.” I cannot call anyone else in the entire world “I,” except I myself.  “I” is the eternal subjective, infinite, self-referential name – the name of GOD.

Our author concludes the subject of God’s name:

The name of God in man, “I,” is deeply buried in the human “tell.”  Jesus sought to clarify the concept, but to begin to understand His revelation one must observe that His words describing the inner kingdom parallel psychology’s description of the UNCONSCIOUS, although they also reach beyond psychology’s present concepts.

In my next post we’ll dive in and begin to explore the unconscious in the human being.  Yes, we’ll be swimming in some deep waters!  See you at the pool!  Until then, peace…