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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/17/2007 4:16 PM (GMT -6) |   | Here is what I feel is TRUE...but is the hardest thing for us to believe.
It is the deepest truth about reality.
But we don't believe it.
Here it is.
"I AM OF PERFECT LOVE"
We are in the IMAGE of PERFECT LOVE...to be made into the LIKENESS of PERFECT LOVE.
It is our destiny to be beings of PERFECT LOVE.
But we don't believe it.
We FEAR it.
We FEAR the power and responsibility of PERFECT LOVE.
We know love hurts.
And we are afraid.
But in time...PERFECT LOVE will drive away all the fear...
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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
a return to love - marianne williamson
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/18/2007 9:02 AM (GMT -6) | | Don:
Part of our problem is that we see the suffering of Jesus and back away. No one wants to be the outcast, so it's easier to go along instead of get going. Jesus suffering had little to do with death on a cross, just think about it... Jesus wept! Can I allow myself to really love?
This world HATES what we are to become, and they are perfectly content to hide in the darkness. Dang, I'm perfectly content to hide in the darkness. Why not just wait till I'm dead to deal with the pain. I've reached that place that says, "touch the hem of His garment", and backed away.
We think we're going to have to give up something of value to reach that place of PERFECT LOVE, but what is it if I gain the whole world but lose my soul.
Absolutely, Don. 
Jeff, my thoughts are respresented in what Don has said here. With great power comes great responsibility. When we have become beings of light, it is our joyous responsibility as STEWARDS of the True Light within us (Jesus) to "be" the light in whatever DARK situation God allows us to exist in. It would be IRRESPONSIBLE for me to consider existing in perfect love ONLY in terms of myself and what it does for me. Perfect love is pure POWER for transformation. And God wants this transformative power to ripple throughout this dark Matrix that we are in.
It doesn't help to be AFRAID of pain and suffering...because many times pain and suffering are EXACTLY what Perfect Love have to endure for the healing of others. But the suffering is a JOY when the perspective about it is transformed! It's like the grape that knows that it will be crushed...but for the purpose of providing others with beautiful wine. The grape can take joy in knowing what it's a part of.
For the JOY set before him...he endured the cross.
Jesus KNEW the power of perfect love...but he also knew the cost: He would be HATED by the judgement-filled, self-loathing world! But he also knew the RESPONSIBILITY that came with that power. He would not just keep the light of DIVINE FREEDOM to himself. No! He would shine that light at all costs for others...even unto his own death.
Beautiful Struggle.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 1/18/2007 10:26 AM (GMT -6) | | | Exousia: But the suffering is a JOY when the perspective about it is transformed!
AND...
Jesus KNEW the power of perfect love...
Jeff: I agree that knowledge is part of what constitutes responsibility. But how does that knowledge get apprehended? Is there a volitional aspect to the acquistion of this knowledge? And if so, how does the motivation unto that acquisition work?
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/18/2007 6:06 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom, what do you mean by "God is 'necessary?'"
TGB said...I don't see how knowledge (of actualities at least) can be volitional in God's case once we say God is necessary, sentient, perfect love. Tom
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 1/19/2007 8:13 AM (GMT -6) | | | Let me ask my question in terms of the atonement. If the atonement is sufficient to cover all past misrelation, what if I prefer to avoid the cost of perfect love in this life and then just "accept" forgiveness post-mortem? Granted, I would lose out on some sentient satisfaction, but I would lose out on some sentient dissatisfaction, too. So what if I figured, "Yeah, the reward makes the costs worth it by a long shot, but I really just don't want to pay the costs?" It seems to me that a lot of people will choose this scenario simply because they can't feel that a life of love is worth it. They might know it intellectually when they think about it honestly, but they have difficulty getting motivated.
Don said, "We think we're going to have to give up something of value to reach that place of PERFECT LOVE, but what is it if I gain the whole world but lose my soul." So I guess I'm thinking that if all it means to lose your own soul is to miss the joy associated with suffering for righteousness sake and a subsequent reward for it, many will deem a pre-mortem life without that suffering as just fine. It's easy to talk about perfect love. It's hard to do it. Christ himself sweated as drops of blood from the sheer stress of the discipline it required of him.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/19/2007 7:32:10 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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might-be-don
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 830
| Posted 1/19/2007 12:53 PM (GMT -6) | | I think that the redeeming isuue is the fact that we , (1) don't have to bear the pain alone, and (2) it usually presents itself in small chunks .
(1) Galatians 6:2 , "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.".
(2) 1 Corinthians 10:13, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
------- rant starts here --------
I'll take a moment to beat the dead horse... the church has FAILED.
Hebrews 10:25, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."
The church abandoned, "exhorting one another" and turned to paid clergy to do the work for us.
Zager and Evans said it well...
In the year 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your sides
Your legs got nothing to do
Some machine, doing that for you
The support system that would make the burden easy and the yoke light has only weighed us down with endless pomp and circumstance. A few rays of hope exist, but very few.
-------- end of rant --------
We were not meant to bear the pain alone or all at once. Each day I can make choices that demonstrate PERFECT LOVE and reflect the love that God is.
In a live album Barry McGuire told of God being like the sun and us like the moon, reflecting the light of the sun. He ended the story by saying, "I want to be a FULL moon" .
peace, don
The world's perfect, wouldn't change a thing.
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PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/19/2007 11:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks.
That helps. It rules out the notion of God having to created, and nature as being an extension of God's nature.
Thanks again.
TGB said...I mean 'logical' necessity. It is not possible that God not exist, not possible that he not be sentient, and not possible that he not be loving relationality. Tom
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/20/2007 9:40 AM (GMT -6) | | Or not.
Creation is the corpus of contingent expressive form of God's necessary essential existence resulting from God's free decision to HAVE a corporeal contingent expressive form.
The "Essence/Energies" distinction is crucial here.
From what you already understand, Tom, doesn't that make sense?
Heh...you want to talk about going DEEEEEEP down the rabbit hole? Here's the discussion.
Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon's Colonnade. The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."
Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father's name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all ; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"
"We are not stoning you for any good work," they replied, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."
Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are "gods" '? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.
Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. Here he stayed and many people came to him. They said, "Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true." 4And in that place many believed in Jesus.
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We are "gods."
We are the Many who come from and are sustained by the One.
We are the Many who are actually derivative REFLECTIONS of the One.
Our "eschatological essences" (within which we can misrelate) ARE aesthetic subjective aims of the ONE GOD for particular contingent expression of divine reality.
In short, in God..."we live, move, and have our being!"
Will someone call me a "blasphemer" for saying that I am TRULY a REFLECTION of the Necessary, Triune God...and therefore I have innate DIVINITY [as CONTINGENT EXPRESSION] in that reflection?
Just like they tried to get crunk with Jesus for "claiming to be God"?
Can the Scripture be broken?
Hmmm...
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/20/2007 8:45:00 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/20/2007 9:50 AM (GMT -6) | | Vladimir Lossky's "The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church" has a wonderful chapter five titled "Created Being."
http://www.amazon.com/Mystical-Theology-Eastern-Church/dp/0913836311
TGB said...I don't think God created 'necessarily'. Right. But I dont' see how creation, should he create, could not be an extension of God's nature in some way. But it would take pages to get clear on what sense God is "extended" in creation. Tom
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/20/2007 9:55 AM (GMT -6) | | Is it true that, because of the Triune God's work in Christ, we are REALLY ONE with the Father?
Is it true that it is not any "I" or "egoic" way of living that occurs in me...but the dispositional reality of Christ constantly MANIFESTING HIMSELF in my being??
Is it true?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/20/2007 10:03 AM (GMT -6) | | This really isn't very hard once we think about it.
If our sense of being/becoming is GROUNDED in Necessary Existence...such that without Necessary Existence there would BE no being/becoming that we would see (and therefore no US)...then it stands reasonable that everything that we see being and becoming are CONTINGENT FORMS of that essential "being/becoming" tendency of reality.
It's almost like how all manifestions of energy, including matter, are really something like particular EXCITATIONS of a ground state of energy in a system (zero-point energy).
Does this help?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/20/2007 10:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Brahman is Atman. Atman is Brahman.
The One Logos is the many logoi, and the many logoi are the One Logos.
The Consequent Hypostasis of the One God "diffuses" the divine disposition of self-communication into DIVERGENT, CONTINGENT centers of dispositional reality which together comprise CONTINGENT EXPRESSIONS of the necessarily existent Consequent Hypostasis of the One God.
Do...you...see...it?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/20/2007 10:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Heh...
Y'all will love this...
Why are all of us...all of Creation...brothers and sisters (St. Francis)?
Because all of us are IN the Second (Consequent) Hypostasis.
We are ALL of DERIVATIVE EXISTENCE.
Only the Father is PRIMARY EXISTENCE.
Hence the Father and His Dispositional Reality being called the "Primordial Hypostasis"
We are all Sons and Daughters of God...
Because we have ALWAYS been in the Androgynous SON of God.
And Jesus just DEMONSTRATED what was always REAL about us!
That we are "GODS" of PERFECT LOVE just like our FATHER!
"It is finished..."
Do...you...see..it?
Open your eyes.
Do you see it?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/20/2007 9:51:00 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 1/20/2007 11:11 AM (GMT -6) | | Here's what I'm seeing so far. God, as a sentient being, is sentiently motivated--just like us. But God's sensibilities, as a relational being, are such that He is sentiently satisfied in the sentient satisfaction of others--as well as by the gratitude and adoration that is returned to Him by others. These two things alone make it probable to my mind that when the temporal end of Christ's temporal reign is complete, God will save all rather than annihilating them or leaving them in a state of unconscious death. Saving all just seems way more consistent with the kind of relational sensibilities God seems to have.
OK, but then what about the passage in John about being gods. Christ clearly distinguishes between his sheep and those who aren't. Those who are sheep will not perish. So it seems to me that there is a sense in which the sheep have extrinsic worth with respect to the END of Christ's glory/reign. Then there is another sense in which all humans have equal, potential worth with respect to the NON-eschatological essence we have as beings in God's image. If UR is true, then I'm thinking that it is the eschatological realm where all Christ's language about accountability, forgiveness, remittance, etc. apply. In the NON-eschatological aspect of our essence, these concepts may not be applicable.
If I'm on the wrong track, help clear me up. But I want to ask you guys this question. Do you think it was even possible for Christ to misrelate? If I remember correctly, Doc didn't think Christ could possibly misrelate.
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/20/2007 11:29 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
God, as a sentient being, is sentiently motivated--just like us. But God's sensibilities, as a relational being, are such that He is sentiently satisfied in the sentient satisfaction of others--as well as by the gratitude and adoration that is returned to Him by others. These two things alone make it probable to my mind that when the temporal end of Christ's temporal reign is complete, God will save all rather than annihilating them or leaving them in a state of unconscious death. Saving all just seems way more consistent with the kind of relational sensibilities God seems to have.
Sounds cool to me, Jeff. Perfect love multiplies itself. It's the "Blessed Virus"
********************************
Jeff:
OK, but then what about the passage in John about being gods. Christ clearly distinguishes between his sheep and those who aren't. Those who are sheep will not perish. So it seems to me that there is a sense in which the sheep have extrinsic worth with respect to the END of Christ's glory/reign. Then there is another sense in which all humans have equal, potential worth with respect to the NON-eschatological essence we have as beings in God's image. If UR is true, then I'm thinking that it is the eschatological realm where all Christ's language about accountability, forgiveness, remittance, etc. apply. In the NON-eschatological aspect of our essence, these concepts may not be applicable.
Excellent, Jeff.
God is a respector of PURPOSE, not PERSONS. (Hence, our conception of "election" )
If we could understand this, with the UR concept, we wouldn't have all of the confusion with Romans 9-11. 
********************************
Jeff:
Do you think it was even possible for Christ to misrelate? If I remember correctly, Doc didn't think Christ could possibly misrelate.
Here's the thing, Jeff.
It's was Jesus's "eschatological essence" as Messiah to SUBJECTIVELY EXPERIENCE MISRELATION and PAIN from that perceived MISRELATION, though he would NEVER actually MISRELATE.
Think Isaiah 53.
So, you end up having a perfectly loving human being who's calling is to LEAP INTO UNREALITY and experience "separation from God"!
And that's what it was...
A LEAP...just like Kierkegaard said.
What would it take for a perfectly loving human being who BELIEVED in a PERFECTLY LOVING GOD to say these words...
My God! My God! WHY have You FORSAKEN Me???
Do you SEE IT?
Do you SEE the DESPAIR??
For the first time, the PAIN OF MISRELATION enters the Heart of PERFECT RELATIONALITY!!
But wasn't this planned????
"It pleased Him to bruise him..."
"by His stripes, we are healed..."
DO YOU SEE IT?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/20/2007 11:36 AM (GMT -6) | | Hebrews 4:14-16
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
DO YOU SEE IT?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/20/2007 11:41 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
I'm thinking that Christ and God are free, but incapable of sinning. Not because they don't have the power to do what is a misrelation, but because their perspective is always so complete that they can't be SENTIENTLY MOTIVATED to misrelate. So God is free insomuch as He is a final cause. But He is not free to do what He can never feel motivated to do. For His actions, like ours, are nothing more than the intelligent directing of His NATURAL impulses to His own perfectly-apprehended, highest, sentient satisfaction.
God, in Jesus, CHOSE to empathize with our despair.
Complete Satisfaction chose to experience momentary Dissatisfaction.
God chose to experience the PAIN of feeling SEPARATION!
The INCARNATIONAL God.
The PERFECT EXPRESSION of PERFECT LOVE.
Nuff said.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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