To: K-list
Recieved: 2003/01/31 16:21
Subject: [k-list] Gnosticism and Christianity
From: felix
On 2003/01/31 16:21, felix posted thus to the K-list:
The subject of Christianity has been everpresent in my life.
I was raised in a Christian society, basically Protestant,
and it was what I rebelled against as a youngster, but since
it was such a large part of my childhood, rejecting it seems
like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I still get a
little perturbed when exposed to the ranting of
fundamentalists of any source, but not nearly so much as I
used to, and my present situation seems very far away from
the views of most religions.
Elaine Pagels book about the Gnostics seem to have the
effect of allowing that there may be more to Christianity
and the Christos than I was exposed to as a kid.
Another, more recent book, Why God Won't Go Away, has had a
profound effect on me. That, plus the direction my
meditations have taken me, have me thinking about oneness
and the religious/spiritual scenario from a more workable
viewpoint.
Newberg's descriptions of how the achievement of oneness
with a higher presence because of the malfunction of a specific brain activity appears spot on to me. He offered a
metaphor on how religion developed as a reaction to that
malfunctioning made a lotta sense. and it was easy for me to
picture the resulting conclusions actually happening in the
way he presented the metaphor.
Basically, his premise is that there is a part of the brain
that categorizes sensory-perceived material in two ways.
One of those ways concerns itself with local events, and the
other concerns itself with global events. When this dual
view gets shorted out by illogical situations created by
things like meditation, sports, zen koans, sufi dancing,
acupuncture or life threatening situations like Near Death
Experiences, the part that concerns itself with local events
shorts out and one is left with no barriers between what one
perceives in a global sense, and everything appears as One.
My experiencing of kundalini rising came about a month after
being possessed by an experience of this order, and I
experience this in my meditation sessions to a less
spectacular degree fairly regularly now. It's something that
can be caused by deliberate effort or by accidents or
serendipitous, seemingly haphazard life situations.
That this unitization of duality can come about from a myriad of source experiences sorta leaves the concept of one's
moral conduct and the notion of experiencing oneness as a
reward for being a good person up in the air, and only
perchance by the goodness of a creator or heavenly host. The
effect of that for me is that it questions spirituality
as I have come to understand it, and puts some of the
behavior I have attributed to religion and spirituality more
in the category of socio-political expediency. Just where it
belongs... I reckon. ;-)
Of course, this pov does go along with the Gospel of Thomas saying about rendering unto God, Caesar, and to me wot is
mine. As far as the Triparte God thing, and the three
Gnostic types of hylic, psychic, and pneumic, that just fits
in with the triune brain stuff that has come out in the last
coupla decades that we have three basic brains, the
reptilian, horse, and human. I go even further and concur with others that we have many brain-like centers in various parts
of our bodies wherever nerves gather together to sing the
Lord's blessings. LOL!
To study ancient documents and contemplate their possible
me-and-thee-ings in light of the development of these lines
of thought during the interim of now and then, especially
when those documents only exist in scraps and pieces and
have undergone constant redacting and multiple translations of dubious consideration for whatever regime wanted
to change the world view to their political regimen seems a
little odd to me presently. We can Google that and any current
research up in less time it takes to skin a cat.
While ancient manuscripts do seem to contain some basic
elements about the nature of mankind that may never change...
many, many things have come to light since they were written
that displays those basics in a completely different
perspective, and especially in regard to how they apply to
contemporary life in the world we live in presently.
I seem to favor eating wot is sot before me now, rather than
wot was sot before them then. ;-)
felix
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