WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE....?
There are a number of themes on this thread, such as:
-- Frederick's Jesus + Numerology + Swedenborg confessions
-- my advocating of Adi Da's Teaching
-- Bill's recommendation of Walsch's Communications
-- a number of differing metaphysical speculations
-- various people categorizing some of the above as BS
and so on.
It certainly tends to prove the notion that there are many different views out there!
Here's some material from Adi Da relative to the subject of
"man's natural state is evil" (a point of view definitely NOT what Adi Da has to say) and the Sacred versus the secular. It is from a discourse entitled:
MY CALL FOR THE UNIVERSAL RESTORATION OF THE SACRED (OR CENTRAL)DOMAIN OF HUMAN LIFE"
"Religion is about the disposition to transcend, or exceed, the confinement of mortality. Human beings inherently want to become enlarged beyond the confinement, or fault, of mortality. That fundamental human impulse is the domain of sacred culture.
In human societies, there is always a play (and even a competitive tension) betweeen (on the one hand) the secular (or exoteric) necessity of bringing order to collective society, and (on the other hand) the sacred (or esoteric) necessity of allowing for the profound religious and Spiritual enterprise that human beings have (spontaneously, and inherently) always wanted to be involved in. The sacred (or esoteric) domain should be the center of life --the Pleasure-Dome core of life--in relation to which everything secular is simply the "business outside the gates". However, in this "late time" (or "dark" epoch), human culture is developing in such a manner that the sacred domain is tending to be eliminated. When the sacred domain is suppressed, ignored or forgotten, human culture produces nothing but a "stage-play" that goes on and on and on, even while all the "players" keep dying. In that case, human life has no purpose greater than mere reproduction, simply for the purpose of ensuring that the "play" can go on.
Such is merely a mortal drama--and it is not satisfactory enough for the human heart. Human beings are heart-urged to Find What Is GREATER than that, to Find a connectedness to What is Greater than that, to participate in the REAL transcending of mortality. Therefore, a culture of human beings that is balanced and sane--accommodating all the fundamental aspects of reality that need to be accommodated for the sake of rightly oriented human existence--must include BOTH a sacred domain and a secular domain.
The urge to contemplate is apparent in all conditionally manifested forms. The urge to CONTEMPLATE--not merely the urge to relax. In other words, the urge to be entered into, or to be combined with, or to discover and be in real association with, That Which Is Greater Than your mortality, and which Supports your existence in the form in which you are now appearing, while also Giving you an existence exceeding your mortal limits. This fundamental urge can be --and in the history of the Great Tradition of humanknd, has been--described in many different ways. I am simply Giving a generalized description here).
The urge to contemplate, to be associated with What Is Great, is an inherent aspect of the human being--and it is inevitably demonstrated by human beings, unless it is suppressed. Traditional cultures accommodated both aspects (sacred and secular) of the human requirement, but the world-culure of this "late-time" (or "dark" epoch) is largely impulsed to suppress the urge to profundity upon which the sacred domain is founded. Human beings must understand that the transcending of mortality is what they are purposed for, what they are LIVING for. Human beings are not alive on Earth merely to be cogs in the machine of hoped-for progress toward utopia--merely to sing their "cricket song", make a baby or two, and then drop dead. No. There is also the impulse based on the knowledge that this human birth is a mortal condition. It is the urge to Find What Is Greater, and to be INCLUDED in That."
(and from further on in the same essay):
"Everything in the sacred domain is about ecstasy. Everything in the social (or secular domain is about the control of ecstasy and using the human faculties (of body, emotion, mind, and breath) for other (generally, non-ecstatic--or ego-based) business in the moment. The basic taboos of the secular social domain are against sex (or bodily pleasure altogether), laughter (or genuine humor, and mental freedom), and Real-God-Realization (or Ecstatic Identification with the Divine Reality). From the point of view of the secular social domain, sex, laughter, and Real-God-Realization must be controlled, because they are forms of ecstasy--and because the social-personality world feels threatened by the lack of social self-control implicit in ecstasy. Within the context of the secular social domain, such self-control is appropriate, and even necessary, for the purposes of conducting ordinary human business. There SHOULD be certain forms of self-control (or social self-discipline) in that domain of practical interaction between people. It is just that the world of human activity and experience must not be reduced to being ONLY that practical (or secular) domain.
Sex, laughter and Real-God-Realization have their place in the SACRED domain, at the CENTER of life. The secular (or public) dimension of human existence should be economized, kept in its proper place, not allowed to take over the entirety of your life. There must be a sacred core of life, a CULTURE at that core. And everything that has to do with ecstasy should be in THAT sphere, not in the secular (or public sphere).
The sacred domain is about the expression of ecstasy--in all its forms. Therefore, all the arts--and indeed, all forms of creativity--are, basically, about the sacred domain. Everything about the religious life (including meditation, worship, prayers, and so on, is in the sacred domain. The sacred domain is even the primary place of food-taking. The sacred domain is the place of emotional-sexual intimacy, the place of friendship and human intimacy altogether. The sacred domain is the place where the truly human (and humanizing) culture of ecstasy is truly practiced, in the truest sense, assisted by the cooperative association between people."
(the essay continues on from there)
You can see from this that Adi Da is NOT suggesting that man's natural state is evil, but rather the sacred must be the CENTRAL part of life, rather than being peripheral to
or excluded from , ordinary life.
I would be interested to have Solon, Cosmic, Bill and Frederick (and any other interested party) contrast their views to what Adi Da presents here.
Namaste!
Jim |
