01-03-2008, 12:00 AM
"I've come to think of a hierarchy of spiritual experiences like this as something uniquely Vedic."
It is also in both the Bible and Qabala. They are really one system of knowledge.
"I don't know that seeing the world as a grain of sand in an ocean of energy is really better than chopping wood. Chopping wood is a fine experience."
I tend to look at this phrase as pointing to not only the awareness that all that is is made up of energy, but also the comparative insignificance of "all that is manifest" or the earth and what lies normally hidden behind it.
"Not that you have or haven't, it's just that the idea that a certain experience is somehow "higher" than another, seems arbitrary."
I think "closer to the Source" or the "All" might be a better way of putting it.
"Is it correct that all you have to do is glow at a certain frequency, and you're done?"
I'm not sure what you mean.
"Is there an experience that is somehow more holy than another?"
In the study of the Qabala there is a thought that if you become "one with" one of the ten Sephiroth or "emanations", what you think of in mind becomes manifest as matter. But, if you become one with the first Sephirah, Kether, you will unmanifest.
As an example of this the old Testament character Enoch is used. "Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him."
Some traditions hold that he became Metatron the archangel.
This would be a "permanent condition", so to speak.
This same unmanifesting, but apparently a temporary example is shown when Philip baptised the eunuch from Ethiopia. When the eunuch came up out of the water Philip was gone and was found in another place going about his business.
"What is the bigest leap we can possibly take?"
I would say what I described above.
But, I don't try to catagorise things from higher to lower.
I have had some spiritual experiences, visions etc., and have found that my understanding of them changes as time goes on. I keep learning more from them.
Just last year I read something in the Nag Hammadi scrolls, in the writings of a man of the first century named Valentinius, that I had experienced 20 years ago.
I had never before seen anything like it in print before and had never known of anything like it happening to anyone else. Furthermore, as far as I know, the Nag Hammadi scrolls had not been available to the public 20 years ago.
Valentinius was among those called Gnostics and was an "enemy" of a certain bishop who wanted the Gnostics done away with. His writing, of course were not included in the Bible.
The Gnostics believed men were supposed to have real experiential knowledge of spiritual things. And they pursued that.
Men who were striving to get the many factions of the church all "on the same page", so to speak, could not allow what they could not control. They could not control what they could not understand.
That mentality led to what we call the Catholic church to come to power and also led to so called "secret societies" to become necessary.
But, I am getting off the subject so I'll stop.
At a second glance, I actually have somehow gotten back ON the subject of Secrecy and Silence.Bob
It is also in both the Bible and Qabala. They are really one system of knowledge.
"I don't know that seeing the world as a grain of sand in an ocean of energy is really better than chopping wood. Chopping wood is a fine experience."
I tend to look at this phrase as pointing to not only the awareness that all that is is made up of energy, but also the comparative insignificance of "all that is manifest" or the earth and what lies normally hidden behind it.
"Not that you have or haven't, it's just that the idea that a certain experience is somehow "higher" than another, seems arbitrary."
I think "closer to the Source" or the "All" might be a better way of putting it.
"Is it correct that all you have to do is glow at a certain frequency, and you're done?"
I'm not sure what you mean.
"Is there an experience that is somehow more holy than another?"
In the study of the Qabala there is a thought that if you become "one with" one of the ten Sephiroth or "emanations", what you think of in mind becomes manifest as matter. But, if you become one with the first Sephirah, Kether, you will unmanifest.
As an example of this the old Testament character Enoch is used. "Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him."
Some traditions hold that he became Metatron the archangel.
This would be a "permanent condition", so to speak.
This same unmanifesting, but apparently a temporary example is shown when Philip baptised the eunuch from Ethiopia. When the eunuch came up out of the water Philip was gone and was found in another place going about his business.
"What is the bigest leap we can possibly take?"
I would say what I described above.
But, I don't try to catagorise things from higher to lower.
I have had some spiritual experiences, visions etc., and have found that my understanding of them changes as time goes on. I keep learning more from them.
Just last year I read something in the Nag Hammadi scrolls, in the writings of a man of the first century named Valentinius, that I had experienced 20 years ago.
I had never before seen anything like it in print before and had never known of anything like it happening to anyone else. Furthermore, as far as I know, the Nag Hammadi scrolls had not been available to the public 20 years ago.
Valentinius was among those called Gnostics and was an "enemy" of a certain bishop who wanted the Gnostics done away with. His writing, of course were not included in the Bible.
The Gnostics believed men were supposed to have real experiential knowledge of spiritual things. And they pursued that.
Men who were striving to get the many factions of the church all "on the same page", so to speak, could not allow what they could not control. They could not control what they could not understand.
That mentality led to what we call the Catholic church to come to power and also led to so called "secret societies" to become necessary.
But, I am getting off the subject so I'll stop.
At a second glance, I actually have somehow gotten back ON the subject of Secrecy and Silence.Bob