Posted by cav on December 17, 2004 at 05:57:41:
In Reply to: Two simpletons and a murdered child posted by PS on December 16, 2004 at 15:15:04:
: This is a Buddhist idea (at least that's where I learned it) that really holds some wisdom.
It is a very Buddhist idea, that's where I learned it too. But like you I depart from their construct when they move into the realm of self-achievement. They speak of "attaining" enlightenment, but it is not possible, I beleive. Of course in many cases, I think they recognize this as well, and it is at that point that they do obtain enlightenment...or in other words, they reah that state of inner peace where they are easily able to sense the loving power of a far greater force, nameless and unknowable as it is. Here I was overjoyed to discover the Christian Mystics in my journey of faith and destruction because they recognized this "enlightenment" as a gift from God and only possible through the grace of Jesus...
but most recently, I have found myself even departing from them and turning slowly back to the roots of my evangelical upbringing. While the mystics have given me the ability think about, and the structures to practice returning to the center and letting go of my false self, they fall short for me in that Jesus looses his body. Of course not in actuality of their lives, but in the writings, this is the sense. And here I find the early evangelicals, and those who still remain in the veins of the original movement speaking of demystification, and simple words syaing what they mean. To them, the truth is knowable, and expressable in the person of Jesus and the words of the Bible. This is extremely admirable...but to go back to our thought of passing through complexity, I was unable to see this value before finding the flaws and razing the structures the evangelical church had built in me. But in the ashes of that destruction, I am finding what didn't perish...now there's a thought...I wonder where I heard that before ;)