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Genesis, Time, Nihilism, and Logos

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
For the young toddler, the world is a place of enchantment and benevolence. It is the Garden of Eden. As the toddler explores the world, they will eventually bump up against chaos. This might be a hand on the hot fireplace glass or a strong reprimand after breaking something.

When this happens, the toddler splits. This splitting is represented in Genesis when Eve is created from Adam’s rib. Adam represents the mind and Eve represents the body. As the mind temporarily splits from the body, then the self momentarily splits from the environment. Before this, we can consider the child androgynous, non-dual, and completely engrossed in the environment.

As the child continues to explore the world and encounters chaos, this pattern of temporary splitting will repeat and eventually result in an incremental separation of mind from body (Adam from Eve) and self from environment. As the story goes in Genesis, Adam will inevitably eat the forbidden fruit, creating a separation between self and the paradise of childhood. He will naturally try to re-engross himself to the Garden of Eden, but he will gradually realize that he can’t lose his self like he used to. He has been exiled. This is the genesis story of every human being: the splitting of mind from body, of self from environment, and of our consciousness from the benevolent childhood story.

It is at this point that The Parable of the Bags of Gold becomes relevant (Matthew 25:14-30, NIV). As it goes in Genesis 3, after Adam is exiled from paradise, then he is sentenced to work. The servant who buries his bag of gold is the attempt that we all make to escape the responsibilities of the work assigned to us by the overbearing ruler and re-engross ourselves back into the childhood paradise story.

The thinking is if we can escape back into our childhood story, then we can escape from this story of work, responsibility, and punishment by a tyrannical ruler. This is our first approach since we have an evolutionary adapted impulse to expend the least amount of energy/resources in trying to solve problems. After getting thrown into the darkness of pain and judgment, we quickly realize that we probably need a new strategy which is going to require that we extend ourselves more than we have previously.
 

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
When we accept that there is no escaping from the responsibility of work expected of us from the ruler, then linear time, along with the anxiety associated with it, establishes itself in our life. In the childhood story, time only existed at most on the periphery. Now, we live in a timeline with pain and punishment nipping at our heels when we shirk our responsibilities. As long as we stay in front of the anxiety inducing, perceived threshold of expectation, then we can feel safe to ease up. At least for a short time, until we trigger our anxiety safeguards that wake us back up and back to work. This process shapes us to be more conscientious and we can call this the conscientiousness timeline.

The truth of all this is symbolized in Homer’s Odyssey when Odysseus requests that the other men bind him to the ship when they pass by the Sirens. The Sirens represent the call of the childhood paradise that seduces us into a sleep state due to our longing for it. Odysseus has learned that trying to return to that place is to neglect his duty which will eventually lead to punishment. In the same way, if we fall asleep and lose consciousness in an attempt to escape the conscientiousness timeline, then we will face unwanted consequences.

So how should we respond to the story that the parable speaks to? The obvious answer is to be like the other servants who return multiple bags of gold to the approval of the ruler. Why don’t the vast majority of human beings respond that way then? The easy, dismissive answer is to assign moral failure such as laziness, but it would be a mistake to stop at that simplistic conclusion.
 

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
Something tragic happens to us in relation to time. That’s the direction I was going with this. In our good faith effort to dig deep, aim high, and create distance between ourselves and the anxiety inducing pit of despair, we actually experience success and become euphorically hopeful. The ruler is pleased with our returns and elevates us in multiple ways.

But then, when it seems like our ascension is starting to become the new normal, something unexpected and terrifying disrupts everything. It is so inconvenient and confusing to us that we impulsively deny, suppress, deflect - whatever we can do to prevent ourselves from seeing that linear time has transformed into a circle.

The pit of despair that we were convinced was in the past is approaching once again, but this time not by catching us from the rear due to our ignorance or negligence; we are being led into it via conscientiousness, hope, meaning, and ascension. Our ascension was actually just the first half of a loop and we have reached the peak. All that is available to us at this point is descent in either direction.

The realization of this experience may not last more than a moment for most people, but the resulting nihilism, pessimism, cynicism, and fatalism endure even if mostly concealed. It trains us to keep our ambitions modest, to resign ourselves to coping as the frog in the gradually boiling water. The only way out of this is to rebel which requires that we change our relationship with nihilism, despair, and truth.
 

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
Rebellion, Conscience, and Nihilism

We can divide the conscience into two distinct sub consciences. One conscience operates more on the surface level and prioritizes immediate psycho-emotional order, and security, over truth. When we get captured by nihilism, we are told to escape ASAP. We can call this the social conscience.

The other conscience operates at a deeper level of our being. It prioritizes truth and indicates to us that nihilism is true. We can call this the “spirit of truth”.

The social conscience has the upper hand, so naturally, when we first encounter nihilism, we try to escape with no concern about its status in relation to truth. However, the spirit of truth has a defense against this: Each time we choose the social conscience over truth, the spirit of truth will produce a small amount of self hatred which is initially experienced as despair. The next time that we encounter nihilism we will intuitively associate the despair with our previous selection of the social conscience, and we will pause for a moment.

After going through this cycle enough times, the pauses will incrementally increase to the point that we begin to recognize the truth of nihilism. Still, the despair in combination with the idea of a meaningless existence is borderline unbearable and makes us fatalistic, so we will continue to seek escape through the social conscience. This results in more layers of despair and self hatred being produced, and we eventually begin to sense that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

However, there is a move that we can make to free ourselves from this dilemma. The next time we find ourselves in nihilism, we should hold onto the despair at the sense-experience level while also blinding ourselves to the fatalistic and nihilistic words at the thought level. As long as we are in touch with the feeling of despair, then the spirit of truth will no longer produce more despair. And blinding ourselves to the dialogue in our heads will allow us to move forward.
 

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
Logos and a New Language of Truth

The beginning of the Gospel of John goes

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

“The Word” is translated from “Logos”. However, it is incorrect to assume a perfect translation. The Logos is the Messianic Male, which can be thought of as an elevated level of consciousness.

The spoken word, like its ideal (Logos), differentiates order out of chaos but there is a ceiling that it can’t go beyond. It is only an approximation of elevated consciousness (Logos). It trades full actualization for simplicity. It can be thought of as an introductory course. To get unstuck, we will have to transcend the word and access the full Logos, which is the Messianic Male or elevated consciousness.

This will be reflected in how we engage sacred texts like the Bible. Instead of focusing on words and clinging to the idea of it being an inerrant text, we will be better served relating it directly to our consciousness as we develop. Stories and ideas that raise our consciousness will be seen as truthful in this framework. Patterns will begin to emerge from the fog as we become more precise and sensitive to our consciousness and to the spirit of truth.

Beginning in early childhood, our world is differentiated, and therefore created, by the word. But to get to the Kingdom, we have to blind ourselves to thoughts and words, and become born again in a new, undifferentiated world where we must rely on the real Logos.
 

MNoBody

Well-Known Member
only strangers [includes servants] are required to pay the tax..
do you require a tax from your children?
Why would the overarching paternal figure require it then?
 

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
only strangers [includes servants] are required to pay the tax..
do you require a tax from your children?
Why would the overarching paternal figure require it then?
You are repeating lyrics from that sweet, sweet song of the Sirens. It’s so irresistible isn’t it? It speaks to our desire for the paradise that we are entitled to, the paradise we thought we had in childhood. If we try hard enough maybe we can recover it, right?
 

MNoBody

Well-Known Member
You are repeating lyrics from that sweet, sweet song of the Sirens. It’s so irresistible isn’t it? It speaks to our desire for the paradise that we are entitled to, the paradise we thought we had in childhood. If we try hard enough maybe we can recover it, right?
 

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
only strangers [includes servants] are required to pay the tax..
do you require a tax from your children?
Why would the overarching paternal figure require it then?
This version of God is at the foundation of Western civilization. I support and understand the necessity of this God.

However, I am speaking to the universal, first person experience in this thread. To escape from that into the third person perspective so as to preserve the socially reinforced God that is at the foundation of Western society — while that is an understandable impulse — is not compatible with what I am doing in this thread.

I am not speaking to what makes sense to you or to what you want to be true but rather what you experience directly.
 

Straw Dog

Well-Known Member
For the young toddler, the world is a place of enchantment and benevolence. It is the Garden of Eden. As the toddler explores the world, they will eventually bump up against chaos. This might be a hand on the hot fireplace glass or a strong reprimand after breaking something.

When this happens, the toddler splits. This splitting is represented in Genesis when Eve is created from Adam’s rib. Adam represents the mind and Eve represents the body. As the mind temporarily splits from the body, then the self momentarily splits from the environment. Before this, we can consider the child androgynous, non-dual, and completely engrossed in the environment.

As the child continues to explore the world and encounters chaos, this pattern of temporary splitting will repeat and eventually result in an incremental separation of mind from body (Adam from Eve) and self from environment. As the story goes in Genesis, Adam will inevitably eat the forbidden fruit, creating a separation between self and the paradise of childhood. He will naturally try to re-engross himself to the Garden of Eden, but he will gradually realize that he can’t lose his self like he used to. He has been exiled. This is the genesis story of every human being: the splitting of mind from body, of self from environment, and of our consciousness from the benevolent childhood story.

It is at this point that The Parable of the Bags of Gold becomes relevant (Matthew 25:14-30, NIV). As it goes in Genesis 3, after Adam is exiled from paradise, then he is sentenced to work. The servant who buries his bag of gold is the attempt that we all make to escape the responsibilities of the work assigned to us by the overbearing ruler and re-engross ourselves back into the childhood paradise story.

The thinking is if we can escape back into our childhood story, then we can escape from this story of work, responsibility, and punishment by a tyrannical ruler. This is our first approach since we have an evolutionary adapted impulse to expend the least amount of energy/resources in trying to solve problems. After getting thrown into the darkness of pain and judgment, we quickly realize that we probably need a new strategy which is going to require that we extend ourselves more than we have previously.

A dominant motif is the lamentation over the loss of innocence and ignorance. Perhaps of equal or even greater value is the celebration of the loss of original innocence. Nostalgia isn’t necessarily bad, but it can become like a highlight reel. Despite the loss of my innocence, I can still find the spirit of play in work.
 

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
A dominant motif is the lamentation over the loss of innocence and ignorance. Perhaps of equal or even greater value is the celebration of the loss of original innocence. Nostalgia isn’t necessarily bad, but it can become like a highlight reel. Despite the loss of my innocence, I can still find the spirit of play in work.
Yes, the grieving process is part of this. Thanks for reminding me.

The question comes down to: do we want to sacrifice our future potential for those comforting feelings associated with childhood or are we willing to detach and trust that something more meaningful and fulfilling awaits?
 

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
only strangers [includes servants] are required to pay the tax..
do you require a tax from your children?
Why would the overarching paternal figure require it then?
Going back to this once again. If we can no longer see the ruler/tyrant figure from the parable as God, then it’s important to realize that meaning follows to wherever the enemy is located. If we want meaning, which we all do, then we will have to continue to interact with the tyrant.
 

Straw Dog

Well-Known Member
Yes, the grieving process is part of this. Thanks for reminding me.

The question comes down to: do we want to sacrifice our future potential for those comforting feelings associated with childhood or are we willing to detach and trust that something more meaningful and fulfilling awaits?

I don’t know that it’s such a binary choice. We also don’t really understand our future potential until it’s upon the cusp of realization. Some degree of escapism seems human and I don’t think that a selective nostalgia is the worst form. We don’t need to completely detach from our past in order to pursue a meaningful future. It is interesting that a degree of faith is needed to trust that something more meaningful awaits though.
 

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
I don’t know that it’s such a binary choice. We also don’t really understand our future potential until it’s upon the cusp of realization. Some degree of escapism seems human and I don’t think that a selective nostalgia is the worst form. We don’t need to completely detach from our past in order to pursue a meaningful future. It is interesting that a degree of faith is needed to trust that something more meaningful awaits though.
There is no doubt that we will try various strategies to not make it a binary choice. We will try to recreate meaning and project it onto the known and familiar, but that’s not the meaning that we desire and not the meaning that I am talking about.

It’s very important that we are truthful about meaning. We have an instinct for it, and for its absence, but that instinct needs to be protected from distortion by our own doing.
 

Straw Dog

Well-Known Member
There is no doubt that we will try various strategies to not make it a binary choice. We will try to recreate meaning and project it onto the known and familiar, but that’s not the meaning that we desire and not the meaning that I am talking about.

It’s very important that we are truthful about meaning. We have an instinct for it, and for its absence, but that instinct needs to be protected from distortion by our own doing.

Well, I hope you find new meaning on your birthday.

I disagree that instinct needs meaning. It’ll seek to act without context. Meaning is a conscious project.

What meaning are you talking about?
 

Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
Well, I hope you find new meaning on your birthday.

I disagree that instinct needs meaning. It’ll seek to act without context. Meaning is a conscious project.

What meaning are you talking about?
Meaning in its fullest form I would describe as the sustained feeling of perfection along with complete union with God, or complete union with ultimate reality if you prefer.
 

Straw Dog

Well-Known Member
Meaning in its fullest form I would describe as the sustained feeling of perfection along with complete union with God, or complete union with ultimate reality if you prefer.

That sounds kind of nostalgic for the union with our biological mother and an original sense of security. These patterns follow us throughout life. Do you ever sleep in the fetal position?
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
It is at this point that The Parable of the ..
I do not like parables and similes. Many a times they confuse, do not fit exactly and lead astray. I like straight talk. Sure, they are interesting.

See the silliness here in this simile:
"Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury."
And what if he would have suffered a loss and lost the one talent. Then the master would have blamed the servant for doing something that he had not said. How could the servant take liberties with money which was not his own?
 
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Treasure Hunter

Well-Known Member
That sounds kind of nostalgic for the union with our biological mother and an original sense of security. These patterns follow us throughout life. Do you ever sleep in the fetal position?
But that meaning from childhood didn’t sustain, so it’s not the real thing. That is why there is only looking ahead if we are to be meaning loyal. This thread stacks on top of that realization.
 

Straw Dog

Well-Known Member
But that meaning from childhood didn’t sustain, so it’s not the real thing. That is why there is only looking ahead if we are to be meaning loyal. This thread stacks on top of that realization.

For the child, it’s just instinct. It doesn’t need to be consciously meaningful. I just don’t know that the answer is forced unification rather than advanced individuation. Do we appreciate people for being the same or for being different?
 
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