bluegreen17 | let it be

Q: What are you against?

A: Narrow-mindedness. I'm against people taking the Bible absolutely literally, rather than letting some of it be real fantasy, like Jonah. You know, the whole story of David is a novel.Faith is best expressed in story.

Q: If the Bible is not literally true, does that mean we don't need to take it seriously?

A: Oh no, you do, because it's truth, not fact, and you have to take truth seriously even when it expands beyond the facts.

-madeleine l'engle,quoted from an interview by

jenk in

charleswallace

it's nice to have time to put something in my lj. today i have the day off as my memorial day holiday,since monday was my regular day off. i love days off at home. i probably like being home TOO much,in a way. well,maybe not. maybe it's not so strange to not want to go to work.

so today all i'm doing is going to a therapy appointment,which i enjoy. frankly,i don't think my wonderful therapist (and i mean that sincerely,not sarcasticly) can help me much,because i don't think my problem is purely psychological. i think it's more spiritual. i really don't know where to get help for that (except maybe from the saints!) because i honestly don't know anyone who's facing spirituality from the particular angle i am right now. i just read jed mckenna's second book.he's fun to read,but what he's saying is something part of me doesn't want to hear (but obviously part of me does; otherwise i wouldn't be reading it.) he makes enlightenment positively,or rather,negatively,or maybe worse-neutrally uninviting. if he's enlightened,i don't want to be.

i feel like i'm only evolved enough to want to be happy. but part of me wants to find the truth,if there is any. well,anyhow,this allegedly enlightened guy considered osho to be enlightened,and osho's enlightenment is much more loving and happy. so i think i'll stick to reading his books right now. i'm reading some of the book of secrets. he talks about 112 meditation techniques,and he says there's one for everybody (oh,god,that sounds like the old 'there's a soulmate for everybody',which doesn't seem to be be true for little old lady me). well,hopefully there is. so i hope i fine one. zazen didn't work out too well,probably because my brain could drive me insane. actually,i think it already has,and i don't need to turn it up another notch! so i'm reading osho right now because he is making a lot of sense to me. many things resonate. he was really amazing. and one of his basic things is that he should not be followed--one should find out their own truth,but he's sharing what his experiences have been. he said he did that because when you're happy like he was,you just want to share. it's natural.

i'm also a few chapters into tom robbins' villa incognito.

and soon i think i'm going to do some research on 'spiritual emergence'. because i feel like i'm in this in-between place. i can't go back and believe in jesus the way i once did. i can barely believe in god as i once did. mostly i don't. but i think it's easier for me to believe in,as buckminster fuller called it 'universe'. not THE universe,but just universe. i guess the thing is i dont' believe in god as a being anymore,which could technically make me an atheist. but i do believe in god or universe or whatever it could be called. oh,and sometimes i just think god hates me. often these days,actually. but i'm thinking maybe i'm in the kiln,in the fire of despondency,and i'm going to turn out to be a very beautiful vase and hold flowers. or something like that.

for some strange reason,i still believe in saint anthony. he always helps me find things. he seems more reliable than god. but i don't think god or universe is just there to be reliable for me at this stage in my life,for whatever reason. and sometimes that really really sucks.
and mother mary...yeah,i still believe in mother mary. which is weird,because i don't really believe in the historical jesus. but then i don't believe in the historical mother or jesus,but more in the mother of us all. she's the same as the white tara,the female buddha,the divine mother. or quan yin,the goddess of compassion.

you can't say paul mccartney wasn't inspired when he wrote 'let it be'. i dont' even think he realizes what an amazing song that is. i think it just came through him,but at least he received it and shared it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I completely agree with the beginning quote. I believe the bible is a flexible piece of literature that in in today's society you can't take it literally or everyone would go to hell. ACK!! Bible rant!! ::runs away:: Great entry!

you can't take it literally or everyone would go to hell.

preach it,sister! yeah,it would be pretty empty in heaven,wouldn't it? plus it seems pretty silly for a god to say 'if you believe in me and my son,you can go to a nice place',but if you don't...how the hell can you force yourself to believe something? you can pretend to believe,but can you really fool god? and if i don't believe it,does that mean i'm evil or just intelligent? doesn't the devil believe in god and jesus? he wasn't sent to hell because he didn't believe. maybe he was sent to hell because god needed an opponent...heh. you got me on my own rant!

You bring up some great points. You have to believe with your heart and soul. I'm into slash fiction, does that mean I'm going to hell? I sure hope not. I don't consider enjoying someone else's love no matter what gender they are.

I just don't see how a forgiving god could let people go to hell for every infraction short of the ten commandments. It's just ridiculous how far people take it. I kind of made a statement in my bio about bible beaters. Twas proud of myslef. ^_^

Yes. I had a drama coach/professor who often said that there was no difference between myth and truth. That made so much sense to me. When I talk about the Christian mythology, or the Greek mythologies, or whatever, I'm not just writing them off as silly stories. I'm saying these are some good stories that tell parts of the greater truth out there - the parts that the people who created and spread those mythos could find and tell about. I think they understood that as they told their parts of the truth. Fundamentalists, of any kind, don't understand this.

i think that's a very appropriate thing for a drama coach to say!

Yea, he was a pretty interesting guy.

I read Jed's first book and really liked his take on separating an "acceptance of and presence to what is" state from the blissed out unity-consciousness state, and how he owned up to experiencing the first state and not the second. I think Osho goes for a variation on this, towards an "acceptance of, presence to and dance with what is" state that is an embodied bodhisattva, aka Zorba the Buddha. For me personally, I like my understanding of Osho's notions better than Jed's. :)

I was talking with a friend of mine the other night about her agonizing over seeing her guru again and she had a despairing comment that went something like "I'm fucked up and there are people who've been with him for 30 years and they're *still* fucked up." What really hit me in that moment is how there seems to be a point when the guru types quit *searching* and start doing something else - being maybe? - and folks like my friend and I still spend most of our time searching.

jonathan

thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.

right now i'm rereading a couple of books by satyam nadeen. have you heard of him? he's one of those folks who says he's enlightened,says there is nothing one can do to become enlightened (it will happen when it happens) and we have no free will. in a way,that can be very freeing. but i'm having a tough time with the concept of 'not doing'. i sort of understand it intellectually,but...

i was also reading a bit of a book called 'halfway up the mountain: premature claims of enlightenment'. in that book,they state that enlightenment is basically undesirable. (u.g. krishnamurti is always saying that,too). it's hard to know who/what to believe! i generally feel that the 'proof is in the pudding'. if something 'works',it works. but i haven't seen too much that 'works' consistently.

i'm not too clear here,but i think you can appreciate that it's not an easy thing to talk about.

i've slowly approached advaita and nonduality,but i'm not quite ready for it,especially 'direct path'. but i can't go back to just the pure bhakti of loving jesus,either. i feel like i know 'too much',in the sense that i wish i didn't 'know',but i'm not sure that i DO know. so perhaps it's better to say i wish i wasn't aware of so much,but i'm hoping in the long run,it won't be a bad thing. besides which,i hardly know anything at all,but i seem to know some things that very few other people know,at least in my day to day life. the folks on nonduality.com,of course,are another matter!

let it be

Yeah

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jed mckenna & osho

Re: jed mckenna & osho