# ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote :
The Old Meditator: “No one attains to truth by himself; only by laying stone on stone with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our forefathers to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a worthy dwelling place of the Great Unified Field Transcendent” said the transcendentalist and closed his eyes. “I ought to tell you that I don't believe, don't ...believe in the Unified Field,” said the non-meditator regretfully and with effort, feeling it essential to speak the whole truth. The transcendentalist looked intently at the non-meditator and smiled as a rich man, holding millions in his hands, might smile to a poor wretch, who should say to him that he, the poor man, has not five rubles that would secure his happiness. “Yes, you do not know It, sir,” said the transcendentalist. “You cannot know It. You know not It, that is why you are unhappy.” Yes, yes, I am unhappy,” the non-meditator assented; “but what am I to do?” “You know not It, but It is here, It is here, It is within me, It is in my words, It is in thee, and even in these scoffing words that thou hast just uttered,” Said the transcendentalist in a stern, vibrating voice. The non-meditator paused and sighed, evidently trying to be calm. “If It were not,” the transcendentalist said softly, “we should not be speaking of It, sir. Of what, of whom were we speaking? Whom dost thou deny?” he said all at once, with enthusiastic austerity and authority in his voice. “Who invented It, if It be not? How came there within thee the conception that there is such an incomprehensible Field? How comes it that thou and all the world have assumed the existence of such an inconceivable Field, a Field all powerful, eternal and infinite in all qualities?...” the transcendentalist stopped and made a long pause. The non-meditator could not and would not interrupt his silence. “It exists, but to comprehend It is hard,” the transcendentalist began again, not looking into the non-meditator's face, but straight before him, while his old hands, which could not keep still for an inward emotion, turned the leaves of the book in his hands. “If it had been a man of whose existence thou hadst doubts, I could have brought thee the man, taken him by the hand, and shown him thee. But how am I, an insignificant mortal, to show all the power,, all the eternity, all the blessedness of It to one who is blind, or to one who shuts his eyes that he may not see, may not understand It, and may not see, and not understand all his own vileness and viciousness.” He paused. “Who art thou? Thou dreamest that thou art wise because you utter those scoffing words,” he said, with scornful irony, “while you art more foolish and artless than a little babe, who, playing with the parts of a cunningly fashioned watch, should rashly say that because he understands not the use of that watch, he does not believe in the maker who fashioned it. To know It is a hard matter. For ages, from our first father Adam to our day, have we been striving for this knowledge, and are infinitely far from the attainment of our aim; but in our lack of understanding we see only our own weakness and Its greatness...” The non-meditator gazed with shining eyes into the transcendentalist's face, listening with a thrill at his heart to his words; he did not interrupt him, nor ask question, but with all his soul he believed what this strange man was telling him. Whether he believed on the rational grounds put before him by the transcendentalist, or believed, as children do, through the intonations, the conviction, and the earnestness, of the transcendentalist's words, the quiver in his voice that sometimes almost broke its utterance, or the gleaming old eyes that had grown old in that conviction, or the calm, the resolution, and the certainty of his destination, which were conspicuous in the whole personality of the old man, and struck the non-meditator with particular force, besides his own abjectness and hopelessness,-any way, with his whole soul he longed to believe, and believed and felt a joyful sense of soothing, of renewal, and of return to life. “It is not by the reason, but by the heart of experience,” said the transcendentalist. “I don't understand,” said Pierre the non-meditator, feeling with dismay that doubt was stirring within him. The non-meditator dreaded obscurity and feebleness in the transcendentalist's argument, he dreaded being unable to believe in him. “I don't understand,” he said, “in what way human reason cannot attain that knowledge of which you speak.” The transcendentalist smiled a mild, fatherly smile. “The highest wisdom and truth is like the purest dew, which we try to hold within us,” said he. “Can I hold in an impure vessel that pure dew and judge of its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself can I bring that dew contained within me to some degree of purity.” “Yes, yes; that's so,” Pierre said joyfully. “The highest wisdom is founded not on reason only, not on those worldly science, of physics, history, chemistry, etc., into which knowledge of the intellect is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The highest wisdom knows but one science -the science of the one, the science that explains the whole creation and the place of man in it. To instill this science into one's soul, it is needful to purify and renew one's inner man, and so, before one can know, one must believe and be made perfect. And for the attainment of these aims there has been put into our souls the light of the Unified Field, called the conscience.” “Yes, yes,” the non-meditator assented. “Look with the spiritual eye into thy inner man, and ask of thyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained with the guidance of the intellect alone? What art thou? You are young, you are wealthy, you are cultured, sir. What have you made of all the blessings vouchsafed you? Are you satisfied with yourself and your life?” “No, I hate my life,” said Pierre the non-meditator, frowning. “Thou hatest it; then change it, purify thyself, and as thou art purified, thou wilt come to know wisdom. Look at your life, sir. How have you been spending it? In riotous orgies and debauchery, taking everything from society and giving nothing in return. You have received wealth of life. How have you used it? ...There is no wisdom in all that, sir.” After these words the transcendentalist leaned on his elbow on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes, as though weary of prolonged talking. Pierre gazed at that stern, immovable, old, almost death-like face, and moved his lips without uttering a sound. He wanted to say, “Yes, a vile, idle, vicious life,” and he dared not break the silence. The transcendentalist cleared his throat huskily, as old men do, Pierre getting up with downcast head, beginning to walk up and down the room, casting a glance from time to time at the transcendentalist. “Yes, I had thought of it, but I have led a contemptible, dissolute life, but I did not like it, and if he liked he could reveal It to me.” Pierre wanted to say this to the old transcendentalist but dared not. After packing his things with his practised old hands, the traveller buttoned up his sheepskin. On finishing these preparations, he turned to Pierre, and in a polite, indifferent tone, said to him: “Where you going now, sir?” ..answered Pierre in a tone of childish indecision, “I thank you. I agree with you in everything. But do not suppose that I have been so bad. With all my soul I have desired to be what you would wish me to be; But I have never met with help from any one . . . Though I was myself most to blame for everything. Help me, instruct me, and perhaps I shall be able . . .” Pierre could not say more; his voice broke and he turned away. The transcendentalist was silent, obviously pondering something. “Help comes only from the Unified Field,” he said, “but such measure of aid as it is in the power of our movement to give you, it will give you, sir. You go to this lecture and give them this” (he took out of his notebook and wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in to four). “One piece of advice let me give you. Devote your time first to meditation, solitude and self-examination, and do not return to your old manner of life. Therewith I wish you a good journey, sir, and all success . . .” The stranger was a transcending meditation teacher as Pierre found later and had been one of the most well known transcendentalist of that time. For a long time after the transcendentalist had left Pierre walked about the room. He reviewed his vicious past, and with an ecstatic sense of beginning anew, pictured to himself a blissful, irreproachably virtuous future, which seemed to him easy of attainment. It seemed to him that he had been vicious simply because he had accidentally forgotten how good it was to be virtuous. Unified Field Tolstoy: Tolstoy's War and Peace, Book V: 1806 - 07 Paraphrased Transcendental Tolstoy. Dear Feste, It gets better or worst. Forgive me if I sin as doing more in this paraphrase: >Feste37> wrote: >Oh, Buck, "Paraphrasing" the Bible is OK, but doing the same to Tolstoy is >sacreligeous! "are you a Meditator?" In the War and Peace script, Unified Field Masonry: Tolstoy's War and Peace, Book V: 1806 - 07 Paraphrased: Pierre the non-meditator asking: "Allow me to ask," he said, "are you a Meditator?" Bazdeev the old meditator answering: "Yes, I belong to the movement of the transcendental meditators," said the stranger, looking deeper and deeper into the non-meditator's eyes. "And in their name and my own I hold out a brotherly hand to you." "I am afraid," said the non-meditator, smiling, and wavering between the confidence the personality of the transcendental meditator inspired in him and his own habit of ridiculing the meditator beliefs--"I am afraid I am very far from understanding--how am I to put it?--I am afraid my way of looking at the world is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one another." “Yes, well we know the outlook,and the view of life you mention”, said the transcendentalist, “and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts, is the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me but if I had not known it I should not have addressed this here. Your view of life is a regrettable delusion and a melancholy error.” Yes, and the Transcendental Masons. Dear RJ Das, that is a very good observation you make here. This being winter and a storm upon us now these are my favorite days to Be holed-up inside watching Tolstoy's War and Peace. The recently BBC remastered DVD has a lot more scenes edited in that make an even better telling of Tolstoy's War and Peace. A favorite part is the conversation while at a stage stop of the spiritual iconoclast seeker as Pierre talking with the old transcendentalist there that is given in voice as a Mason. That mysticism is quite a lot like old Quakerism and TM transcendentalism also. -Buck in the Dome http://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-BBC-Production-Box/dp/6304246579 http://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-BBC-Production-Box/dp/6304246579 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote: > Just to offer a contrast, "Buck," my father was raised in a > Quaker household, too. But he lived his entire life without > ever saying a word about it to any of his kids. It wasn't > that it didn't mean anything to him. Quite the contrary. It > meant enough to him that he kept it to himself and never > talked about what he thought or what he believed to anyone > else. What they believed was their business, and what he > believed was his business. Now *that* is doing Quakerism > justice. > Anyone is a "quaker" if they call themselves a quaker. But, if you don't call yourself a quaker then you're probably not a Quaker. Being a Quaker isn't about keeping secrets from your family. There are no hidden or closet Quakers - there is no esoteric meaning to being a Quaker. So, it sounds like your father might have been a Mason - I don't know. There are a lot of secrets with the Masons. One of the rules of Mason is to never talk about being a Mason. They admit to being Masons, but they never talk about the Masonry. They keep all the masonic secrets to themselves. Go figure. Local Masonry in San Antonio On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 7:36 AM, TurquoiseB <turquoiseb@... mailto:turquoiseb@...> wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote: > > No brag just fact. I'm pointing out that the "fact" you're so proud of is something that most people worth knowing got over a long time ago -- being "deadly serious" about something as silly as religion. Just to offer a contrast, "Buck," my father was raised in a Quaker household, too. But he lived his entire life without ever saying a word about it to any of his kids. It wasn't that it didn't mean anything to him. Quite the contrary. It meant enough to him that he kept it to himself and never talked about what he thought or what he believed to anyone else. What they believed was their business, and what he believed was his business. Now *that* is doing Quakerism justice. Trying to sound more holy or more evolved or more *anything* because of some shit you do that you call religion? That's just posturing and ego-masturbation and embarrassing. Being "deadly serious" about it? Even more embarrassing. > ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, > turquoiseb@ wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, > wrote: > > > > Turqb, my people are old Quaker and I too am Quaker and by experience I > > take that very seriously and even deadly seriously, which is why I am in > > Fairfield, Iowa as an attender of the large group meditations in the Golden > > Domes of the Fairfield meditating community. > > Well, if you want to brag about something (being serious) that many people > would perceive as a weakness or a failing, that's your business. > > "Seriousness is not a virtue." - G.K. Chesterton > Om Om Om . . .
