Well spoken Sir. Your words reflect both my own approach and my appreciation of this forum and the people on it. The only thing I would add is that this type of speculation helps one to avoid getting 'in the box' in the first place; I try to keep my ideas plastic )some would say 'half-baked' - it's a thin line).Said speculation also aids in ironing-out any inconsistences or contradictions in one's ideas. Thank you.Arc-us wrote June 17th, 2007.
"As to relevance, it should be taken as pure speculation, no more than thought-play. As I implied in the 'piece,' it should not be taken seriously. I am very sincere in what I stated there, but I am not serious about it. To me, it's another irrelevance whether or not it is fodder for skeptical ridicule, disdain, or disbelief. I'm not here for agreement. Nor do I have an agenda or mission to propagate any specific theory, not even EU should it develop into just another insular, exclusive dogma touting its own virtues of elitism.
.......I'm as clueless as the next fellow. As flattering as that may be to ego, courage certainly
has nothing to do with it, pat. It's just gab. As amongst a community of like-minded "seekers." I liked what I found here, the spirit of inquiry and the willingness of the people here to think outside the square (as Dave S. points out in his sig). Amidst an atmosphere of courtesy, humor, and respect for others' viewpoints. So I'm just flapping my jaw here. I have nothing to prove, no inside knowledge to impart, certainly no enlightenment to share".
Okay, so here's my guess. (Again, think density - the subtle to the gross).Arc-us from same post:
"Granting the existence of something that corresponds to what many of us might term a soul - and if you deny the idea, that's fine, and the discussion is over, no hard feelings - but if disbelief is suspended for at least a moment, then what would comprise a soul. I have no idea
about that either other than my opinion is that it would likely be some sort of integral vibration. A frequency, in other words, somewhere off the top of the charts of the *known* EM spectrum. And that frequency would be capable of some kind of harmonic movement, crystallizing "downstream" as it were some *where* specific in the entirety of the sea of all extant vibration available as the known universe of materialization.
How does that work? Hell, how should I know? Your guess would be as good as mine."
1. THE ALL, the Unmoved Mover, The One, The First Cause, call it what you will.
This is all there is, it is beyond infinite, beyond eternal etc; it is ineffable. Everything subsequent to this takes place 'within' it.
2. The Absolute Universe. This is the realm of God, gods and souls - there is no essential difference between these. This is like a womb. This is the realm of 'collective consciousness' and existence. This is the immortal realm. There is no time and space here (or at least not as we know it Jim).
3. The Relative Universe. Our current domicile, the 'physical' world. This is like an egg inside
the womb. This the realm of individuated consciousness and being. This is the mortal realm. This is time and space.
Between (2) and (3) lies the firmament. This is the shell of the egg. This is what (IMHO) the Bible is talking about when it says that God separated the waters of the heavens from the waters of the Earth. We did not Fall we descended.
Now, in certain esoteric writings (Alchemy, Hermeticism) when the soul descends from (2) to (3) it enters (3) via the rings of Saturn and passing through Saturn and the other planets (including the Sun and Moon) it takes on the characteristics associated with the planet, e.g. Mars: aggression, bloodlust, courage etc (all planets have pos and neg characteristics). In this way the soul becomes denser. Or put another way, its vibratory frequency becomes slower. Upon reaching Earth it incarnates in a body. 'I am a child of Earth and the Starry Heaven; my home is on Earth but my race is of Heaven' as the Orphic hymn has it. Upon 'death' the soul does the same journey in reverse, casting off these characteristics. As Plato puts it the body lives the death of the soul. In his Cratylus he makes the pun with 'soma' (body) and 'sema' (tomb).
This is the story of Jacob's Ladder, the ladder in the murals of Mithraic temples, and Inanna's
descent into the Underworld. Seven rungs or steps. This is the Underworld - it is the world under the Heavens.
Here's a little curiosity for you to ponder: we all know that there are seven planets (5 + 2
luminaries) and seven chakras. Ignore the 2 luminaries and we have 5 planets plus Neptune and Uranus. The 2 top chakras are the most difficult to activate. This, in both cases leaves us with 5 actual and 2 potential. We have 5 senses - plus 2 potential?'Junk' DNA? (That's just my mind going off at a tangent).
In Buddhism at least as I understand things (which is to say not a lot), achieving Nirvana gets
you from here (3) to (1), i.e. re-absortion into the godhead without having to do more stops at (2). The Bodhisattvas who have taken the vow to forego Nirvana and remain to help others, inhabit (2) and meditate, vibrate?, focus? upon (3).
Why do we talk of Enlightenment, of illumined ones? Why do Christian and Buddhist 'saints' have haloes? Why is the bible full of angels etc who dazzle those they come to?
Greek gods and Egyptian Neters etc, essentially fill the same role as the Bodhisattvas in that
they are 'responsible'? for certain aspects of of this relative universe. They are the lighting crew, the sound engineers, wardrobe etc. All the world's a stage....
Consider, if you will, Disney's Pinocchio. The cast:
Gepetto as the Creator/Demiurge (this is the head of (2) above not (1).
Pinocchio as Everyman (made of wood = Earthly matter)
Blue Fairy as the soul (it is the Blue Fairy who gives 'life' to Pinocchio)
Jiminy Cricket as the conscience (the inner voice)
Cleo the cat as unconditional love (you love a pet for what it is, not expecting anything in return).
The gang of boys as the masses, the herd. (They are slaves to their senses and animal appetites and ultimately become beasts - donkeys).
Monstro as death? Perhaps, but it is dark inside a the whale. Darkness and water - Dao?. Jonah did a whale, Jesus, Mohammed and Zoroaster did caves - same thing, same symbology - dark, within, away from the world of the senses.
Consider the stories of Theseus and the Minotaur, Perseus and Andromeda, Perseus and the Gorgon.
In the Greek stories the hero is generally helped by Athena who is associated with mind and
intelligence (nous). Their reward is a place in the heavens, a constellation, i.e. on the other
side of the firmament.
In symbolgy the feminine generally (not always) represents potential and the masculine
realisation of potential. This is one of the reasons that the likes of Ariadne and Andromeda are maidens or virgins, untapped potential.
There is a Jewish prayer which states: 'My God, the soul you have placed within me, she is pure'. Which brings us to Arc-us's Qabala extract (Jun 23, 2007).
I've only scratched the surface of Qabala but I intend to give it some serious study time soon. I don't buy this experiment gone badly wrong interpretation of Luria's. Philosophically speaking, how can you get imperfection from Perfection? Some of the Gnostics had a similar view of the God of the OT - the Demiurge. They viewed Him as an incompentent psychopath (literally - that's not me exaggerating).
A more optimistic and positive take on this which I have read goes that the Creator 'stills' a
part of Itself to form a sort of black mirror. It then 'gazes' into the mirror. The mirror then
contains the reflection of the Infinite; the mirror is then 'shattered' into an infinity of pieces. We are each a piece of the mirror. Much nicer and on that happy ending I will leave it.
And they all lived happily in the hereafter.