So, we both read Sartre as teens, but I liked Camus
better. I started reading these dudes when I was
fourteen and attending a boarding school right outside
of Paris, France. Where were you?
On the whole, I agree with your assessment. Like you,
Blake thought of the ego (he called it "the selfhood")
as "Satan." "I in my very selfhood am that evil one."
And God, for him, was the "human imagination" itself,
in its ground state, a term he did not use, but it is
everywhere implicit. It included what you are calling
"all there is."
But there is a lot more to Satan than the ego,
because the ego, though small and a mere fiction, is
also as large as the manifest universe in its effects
and tenacious as hell.
Like God, Satan is a term that has suffered an influx
of much silliness-- in the last three hundred years
especially. To be a viable term, rather than denoting
the familiar figure we inherited from folk tales and
then made into something literal, Satan has to be
understood as myth in the fullest literary sense of
that term. Myth in that sense is a necessary
organizing principle for the mind, including and
especially the collective mind (if there is to be
social cohesion), a principle which is designed to
function as a counter balance for the reasoning
intellect. The understanding and the imagination
(working as one) that creates such myth does so from
a vantage point which has direct apprehension of the
underlying mechanics of nature together with its laws
of form.
Obviously, such writing is not fully understood by
anyone who cannot also achieve the point of view of
the visionary who sees "the underlying mechanics of
nature." In addition, he must be schooled in reading
the language of myth, which is NOT to be read the same
way we read the newspaper or a scientific report, but
hardly anyone these days has the training to realize
this.
If you've been following me, then you understand that
there always has been and continues to be a tradition
of yogic praxis in the West, it just takes someone
with a little practice in Comparative Studies to see
that. It doesn't look like what India calls such
praxis, and because it uses a different vocabulary,
folks like willietex who are fooled by appearances are
not in a position to see it.
But back to Satan. Because our age is a
fundamentalist age, its reading of the Bible is
woefully so woefully insufficient to the demands of
reading myth that it confuses God with Satan, which is
what happens especially in the Book of Job. At the
end of the book, what most people take to be God is
speaking about how he created the world. Really,
however, it is Satan bragging about having done it.
I don't have time to show you, nor do you prolly have
the inclination to read my demonstration, but the
point is that Satan is more than just ego--he is also
the first impulse of consciousness that manifests the
physical universe.
This goes to the heart of the discussion of Jim's
claim that he creates what he perceives and everyone's
objection to him by telling him to do impossible
things like walk through walls and prevent the next
war. It was a hopelessly shallow discussion from my
perspective .
--- Bhairitu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I guess if you're going to look at "God" as a
> "personal" deity then your
> blog makes some sense. But you're forgetting that
> MMY and the Shankara
> tradition taught "God" as the impersonal. I always
> got a charge out of
> reading the free books ISKON was handing out,
> especially their Srimad
> Bhagavatam where Prabupad would go on a rant against
> the impersonal and
> he, of course, was ranting against the competition
> of the time. :)
>
> "Laws of Nature" is still a pretty good secular
> notion to explain what
> many call "God" especially in abstract terms rather
> than some being that
> micromanages your life. If you don't believe in the
> laws of nature then
> turn on your webcam so we can see you walk through
> that wall next to
> you. :)
>
> I was not raised in a religious family. I only went
> to church to get a
> scout badge and after that I was through with it.
> To me, even at that
> age it was pretty lame. As a teenager I was a big
> fan of the
> existentialist movement (particularly reading a lot
> of Sarte) and
> considered myself an atheist. I now think that
> becoming an atheist is
> the last stage before one treads the true path of
> "God" realization.
> Note I put "God" in quotes. I think it was Bucky
> Fuller who gave a talk
> (maybe with MMY) that "God" was concept and you
> could name that concept
> whatever you want. The three letter word tends to
> be a little lacking
> though.
>
> Now, I "believe" or "experience" "God" as the
> totality of everything
> that is, has ever been or will ever be. I also like
> to think of the
> analogy of "God" in terms of sound physics. It's
> like a string on a
> guitar or bass. "God" is the fundamental tone and
> the rest of the
> universe is the overtone series. That explains the
> expansion and
> energy which is creation. It also allows me to
> explain pre-destiny
> which cannot be disproved any more than free will
> can. Under this
> analogy we would be nothing more than a vibration
> whose destiny was
> created when the "string" was plucked. Everything
> you have though, now
> think and will be thinking is an overtone of that.
>
> What one should be experiencing in meditation is the
> absolute stillness
> from which all things spring. If you have that
> experience then it is
> pretty undeniable and a good platform to understand
> all of creation and
> its logic. To the religious, who believe there is a
> "Satan" then I like
> to suggest that "Satan" is the "ego" which blinds
> you from having this
> knowledge because to experience it the "ego" must
> fall away. To the
> religious I also like to suggest that Jesus was one
> of many teachers who
> taught this (though their teachings were perverted
> with time).
>
>
> TurquoiseB wrote:
> > Recent discussions about "becoming in tune with
> the laws
> > of nature" have pointed out that Maharishi clearly
> was
> > using "laws of nature" and "the will of nature" as
>
> > euphemisms for "God" and "God's will" all along.
> As
> > would be expected, considering that his teacher
> Guru
> > Dev clearly thought in those terms.
> >
> > However (and assuming for the purposes of this
> discussion
> > the existence of a sentient God who could actually
> *have*
> > a "will"), I think it's time to step back and
> spend a
> > little time pondering whether it's a good *idea*
> to want
> > to become "in tune with God's will."
> >
> > I mean, wouldn't that kinda be backing a loser?
> >
> >
>
>
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