--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Carlsen" <maskedzebra@...> wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@> > wrote: >> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Carlsen" <maskedzebra@> wrote: >> >> I thought you had left Catholic philosophy behind Robin. But then you seem >> to be bent on destroying the oneness of God in your experience. This is >> needlessly complex, but it is quite intriguing. Hopkins, or a commentator >> thereupon? >> >> Statements such as 'it is within God's power to determine the creature to >> choose, and freely choose, according to his will' are not logical, whereas >> if you wrote it this way, 'it is within God's power to determine the >> creature to choose, according to His (God's) will' would make more sense. >> >> Perhaps Judy can explain this to me, for I am sure your commentary would >> pass me by. > > Dear Xeno, > > You should rewrite his poems too.
I am afraid that my rewriting poetry would not be in the best interests of the poem. > In order to understand what Hopkins is saying here (you were right about the > author; that's good), you need to read my favourite passage of all-time. > Where in effect (without explicating it) Hopkins is defining the importance > of first-person ontology. But in reading over what you have written here, I > found [before I give you that quotation again] a remark germane to all of > what divides us in our understanding of and belief about metaphysical > ultimates: > > "For in fulfilling his own individuality, he is a living temple of God, he is > another Christ, who is most himself 'when the member is in all things > conformed to Christ. This too best brings out the nature of the man himself, > as the lettering on a sail or device upon a flag are best seen when it > fills.' For the self, that about the individual 'which is more distinctive > than the taste of ale or alum, more distinctive than the smell of walnutleaf > or camphor' is not annihilated by Christ's presence, but rather brought to > its most perfect stress of pitch, to the actualizing of its fullest human > potentiality. For since the self is the individuating existence of a nature, > God's presence, which is existence itself, can hold that self *at its highest > quivering stress without absorbing it*." > > Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: > Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; > Selves--goes itself; *myself* it speaks and spells, > Crying *What I do is me: for that I came*. > > Do you see, Xeno how antithetical Hopkins's philosophy (and insight) is to > the philosophy that is the priori here on FFL? Of course they appear to be opposed. You have on the one hand a philosophy that seeks to erase the division between the individual and the rest of existence, which if you like, includes the concept of god. The other seeks to raise the individual to the peak of perfection within the rest of existence, while acknowledging that division as real. It is just that experientially that division is conceptual, and that conception can be transcended. Hopkins, as you, does not want to step over that line. That is a no no I suppose for Christians. 'I and my Father are one' would be a special reservation, off limits as it were. > And you, evidently, are *embodying* this anti-Hopkins philosophy. I can see how this applies, I am not against Hopkins; it is simply I have no use for it in the sense tha tyou do. It is beautiful the way he expresses himself. I have to incorporate that in the whole. If I am anti-Hopkins, the words are yours. That characterisation never occurred to me. Shakespeare also holds that degree of separation when he is on the edge of dissolving. Referring to his poem (Sonnet 107): 'And thou in this shall find thy monument, when tyrants crests and tombs of brass are spent.' While there were some Christian influences in my life, I always had the feeling everything was connected in some mysterious way. Trying to get that to happen was another matter. If I cross the line, what Hopkins says is not reduced to nothing, it becomes a value in the whole. The divisions others might have tried to impress on my 'personal ontology' did not turn out to be my working model for the universe. I have an individuality; it has not gone away. The sentence 'For since the self is the individuating existence of a nature, God's presence, which is existence itself, can hold that self *at its highest quivering stress without absorbing it' seems to not be punctuated clearly. I would write 'For since the self is the individuating existence of a nature; God's presence, which is existence itself, can hold that self *at its highest quivering stress without absorbing it.' I think that semicolon makes it less ambiguous. Though I hear the word 'god' frequently, I normally do not use it myself. It is redundant. That does not mean that my individual ontology has any control of the universe, or that I equate the location where experience comes to a focus as some kind of domain where I am lord and master of the universe. Why even Shankara said that was reserved for the lord alone. > > But either Hopkins is right, or Xeno is right. I believe I get more of the > instress of reality inside Hopkins than I do inside your words. That is obviously true, about what you feel and think, that is. It is simply where and to what degree of focus one's attention is put, which one seems right. A drunk lying on the sidewalk seeing a third-full bottle of whiskey sees heaven as that glass container lying flat on the concrete. For him, that seems right. To me the 'highest quivering stress without being absorbed' sounds like spiritual masochism; no experience is sustainable (though death seems like a good bet to refute that statement), at some point that high level of pitch, like a soprano singing a high C, is going to cave in, to relax. And then the dividing line between self and eternity erases. But how that is then is a tale that cannot really be told; it is all metaphor and supposition to describe; indirection. > > I say more: the just man justices; > Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces; > Acts in God's eyes what in God's eye he is-- > Christ > > and: > > Christ plays in ten thousand places, > Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his > To the Father through the features of men's faces, > > And here is what LSD, TM, Maharishi, Unity, the East more or less denied--but > this truth drives my life, Xeno, the truth held inside this claim of Hopkins. > It is the most beautiful and important truth I know. Much love to you as you > read it again: > > "I find myself both as man and as myself something most determined and > distinctive, at pitch, more distinctive and higher pitched than anything else > I see; I find myself with my pleasures and pains, my powers and my > experiences, my deserts and guilt, my shame and sense of beauty, my dangers, > hopes, fears, and all my fate, more important to myself than anything I see. > And when I ask where does all this throng and stack of being, so rich, so > distinctive, so important, come from / nothing I see can answer me. And this > whether I speak of human nature or of my individuality, my selfbeing. For > human nature, being more highly pitched, selved, and distinctive than > anything in the world, can have been developed, evolved, condensed, from the > vastness of the world not anyhow or by the working of common powers but only > by one of finer or higher pitch and determination than itself and certainly > than any that elsewhere we see, for this power had to force forward the > starting or stubborn elements to the one pitch required. And this is much > more true when we consider the mind; when I consider my selfbeing, my > consciousness and feeling of myself, that taste of myself, of *I* and *me* > above and in all things, which is more distinctive than the taste of ale or > alum, more distinctive than the smell of walnutleaf or camphor, and is > incommunicable by any means to another man (as when I was a child I used to > ask myself: What must it be to be someone else?). Nothing else in nature > comes near this unspeakable stress of pitch, distinctiveness, and selving, > this selfbeing of my own. Nothing explains it or resembles it, except so far > as this, that other men themselves have the same feeling. But this only > multiplies the phenomena to be explained so far as the cases are like and do > resemble. But to me there is no resemblance: searching nature I taste *self* > but at one tankard, that of my own being. The development, refinement, > condensation of nothing shews any sign of being able to match this to me or > give me another taste of it, a taste even resembling it." > > What Hopkins has said here, Xeno, it defines you (objectively in what you > really are seen sub specie aeternatatis) so much more than the veridicality > of your enlightenment. In everything I do and believe, this first-person > ontological truth is that which is highest--and, I believe, will be proven to > be so at our death. What could possibly motivate us to extinguish that about > us which brings us nearest to the experience and reality of what it is like > to be God? God, who has an experience of his distinctiveness (imagine his > most perfect stress of pitch!) wishes us to have that same experience: this > for me is what it means to be made in the image of God. > > Robin We are not dead yet, are we? This puts the difference between the two philosophies, one you must wait and in your imagination visualise the resolution to come at the end, believe it without realising it the rest of your life; the other you can die before death. 'And it came to pass, as they walked in the way, that a certain man said to him: I will follow thee withersoever thou goest. Jesus said to him: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. But he said to another: Follow me. And he said: Lord, suffer me first to go, and to bury my father. And Jesus said to him: Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou, and preach the kingdom of God.' Jesus is referring to the living, but spiritually undeveloped, as 'dead'. And in that anonymous book, later tagged KATA IOANNON (the Gospel of John) where it speaks of John the Baptist describing the coming of Christ 'He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world...But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.' So, why are you waiting, dancing this dance of individuality, of personal ontology when you can be born of something greater? The individuality will not vanish, it will be incorporated in a larger whole. What becomes subdued is the sense of ego, that bundle of impressions and concepts that we call ourselves - 'me'. Hopkins fell short, but expressed beautifully that reach for the infinite. 'For this corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruptibility, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the word written: Death has been swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.' 'Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.' You do not have to wait to die, physically, objectively, for this to happen. Here is ta portion of a poem by Steven Gray, AKA Adyashanti, a former Zen student who seems to have stepped out of the tradition. The poem is set in a gambling environment; this is the first and last stanza (and this is what it really means to be a martyr for what you believe in): Time to cash in your chips put your ideas and beliefs on the table. See who has the bigger hand you or the Mystery that pervades you... Go ahead, climb onto the velvet top Of the highest stakes table. Place yourself as the bet. Look God in the eyes and finally for once in your life lose. [The Bible quotes were from the Douay-Rheims translation except for the last which is from the King James Version.] >>> <snip post #317558>
