posted March 23, 2009 08:39 PM         

Divine Heresy:
shattering concepts of God
that limit the awareness of God

Heretical Faith:
shattering the awareness of God
that limits the concepts of God

Renowned Kabbalist, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook(yes, "kook"), saw the challenge which free-thinkers posed to various conceptions of God as a positive phase in the development of religion. The following words are translated from the rabbi's writings. The essential thrust is that any conception of God is, in some sense, heretical, and ideas concerning God easily calcify into rigid forms of idol worship. He believed that the athiests were, by attempting to tear down these concepts, accomplishing something which the faithful had lost the ability to do for themselves; which is, to see the lack of fluidity in their conceptions about God, and how these concepts actually hinder the connection to the true source of God's wisdom, which is intuitive. The Rabbi wrote: "As the Messiah approaches, insolence will increase." The word translated here as "insolence" is hutspa, which may also be translated as "nerve" or "audacity". As the forms become more rigid, their detractors become more audacious.

The following appears in "The Essential Kabbalah",
under the heading of "Heretical Faith":

“The essence of faith is an awareness of the vastness of Infinity. Whatever conception of it enters the mind is an absolutely negligible speck in comparison to what should be conceived, adn what should be conceived is no less negligible compared to what it really is... Every definition of God leads to heresy; definition is spiritual idolatry. Even attributing mind and will to God, even attributing divinity itself, and the name "God" -- these, too, are definitions. Were it not for the subtle awareness that all these are just sparkling flashes of that which transcends definition -- these, too, would engender heresy... The greatest impediment to the human spirit results from the fact that the conception of God is fixed in a particular form, due to childish habit and imagination. This is a spark of the defect of idolatry, of which we must beware.

All the troubles of the world, especially spiritual troubles such as impatience, hopelessness, and despair, derive from the failure to see the grandeur of God clearly. It is natural for each individual creature to be humble in the presence of God, to nullify itself in the presence of the the whole -- all the more so in the presence of the source of all being, which one senses as infinitely beyond the whole. There is no sadness or depression in this act, but rather delight and a feeling of being uplifted, a sense of inner power. But when is it natural? When the grandeur of God is well portrayed in the soul, with clear awareness, beyond any notion of divine essence.

We avoid studying the true nature of the divine, and as a result, the concept of God has dimmed. The innermost point of the awareness of God has become so faint that the essence of God is conceived only as a stern power from whom you cannot escape, to whom you must subjugate yourself. If you submit to the service of God on this empty basis, you gradually lose your radiance by constricting your consciousness. The divine splendour is plucked from your soul.

"Every sensitive spirit feels compelled to discard such a conception of God. This denial is the heresy that paves the way for the Messiah, when the knowledge of God runs dry throughout the world. The crude complacency of imagining God in words and letters alone puts humanity to shame. Heresy arises as a pained outcry to liberate us from this strange, narrow pit, to raise us from the darkness of letters and platitudes to the light of thought and feeling. Such heresy eventually takes its stand in the center of morality. It has a temporary legitimacy, for it must consume the filthy froth clingling to mindless faith. The real purpose of heresy is to remove the particular forms from the thought of the essence of all life, the root of every single thought... removing the dross that separates us from genuine divine light. On the desolate ruins wrought by heresy, the sublime knowledge of God will build her temple. Utter heresy arrises to purify the air of the wicked, insolent filth of thinking about the essence of divinity -- an act of peeping that leads to idolatry. In itself this heresy is no better than what it attacks, but it is absolutely opposed to it, and out of the clash of these two opposites, humanity is aided immensely in approaching an enlightened awareness of God, which draws it toward temporal and eternal bliss...

"Pure belief in the oneness of God has been blurred by corporeality. From time to time, this confusion is exposed. Whenever a corporeal aspect falls away, it seems as if faith itself has fallen, but afterward it turns out that, in fact, faith has been clarified. As the human spirit verges on complete clarity of faith, the final subtle shell of corporeality falls away -- attributing existence to God. For truly, existence, however we define it, is immeasurably remote from God. The silhouette of this denial resembes heresy but when clarified is actually the highest level of faith. Then the human spirit becomes aware that the divine emanates existence and is itself beyond existence. What appeared to be heresy, now purified, is restored to purest faith. But this denial of existence in God -- this return to the source of all being, to the essential vibrancy of all existence -- requires exquisite insight. Each day one must trace it back to its authentic purity.

The Infinite transcends every particular content of faith."

posted March 26, 2009 09:12 AM         

------------------
~
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted March 26, 2009 11:00 AM         

Believe it or not, he's just fine.

posted March 26, 2009 11:55 AM         

“Made beloved to me from your world are women and perfume, and the coolness of my eyes is in prayer.”

~ Mohammed (Ahmad and An-Nasa ‘i)

posted March 26, 2009 11:57 AM         

I assume it is chauvinistic.

posted March 26, 2009 11:59 AM         

why do you think your honesty ticks people off so feverishly?

i mean mine does too at times. i have to think because people like nice, pretty, easy, uplifting at all times, i know many people like that. well life isn't that way. easy target one who doesn't bother to hide faults and flaws and yet how very human and dear to my heart.
you know the bible, david dancing naked before the lord with all of his might, embarrassing his wife. his very wife who he had her husband sent to the front line to die in war, so he could take her for a bride himself. selfish, unashamed to be himself, it says god loved david and he had favor with him in his heart above other men. saul hated him. his brothers mocked him, his wife mocked him, and god favored him.

they scream - hide your darkness- we can't look at it. it is ugly. it is not in us. they lie. it is in all of us, some can not face it or bear to look on it but it is there none the less.

you get upset because of your extreme sensitivity. you think too much about too many deep deep things, and therefore maybe weed gives your mind a bit of a reprieve, as in maybe you couldn't shut things off sometimes or slow it down , or your brain will make you nutty. whatever, i am saying way too much and not the right things, so whatever, maybe you get what i say, maybe not. i mean it isn't like you can shut off your thoughts now can you? you can redirect your thoughtto conform until you brainwash yourself and maybe thats what people want, but that isn't you.

kind of reminds me of a poem:

she stands alone
on a dune of sand
in black and white
only shadows
some would cover her
some look away
her softness
her beauty
her flaws
her scars
her ability to stand there and face her maker
with nothing to hide behind
nor does she try
not looking back to see where she had been
she knows where she is going
and moves not to cover herself
to make others more comfortable
the ones who matter
love all of her
those who look away
at her nakedness
will never understand her beauty
nor possess her great strength
will never have what she owns
will never love her
I have to love her I have no choice
I have to own her, she is mine
I often wonder as I look at her
Why must she always stand alone
And yet I admire her like no other
She is so brave
So beautiful
So proud
She is all I have been
And in the stillness of the dunes
she stands

posted March 26, 2009 12:03 PM         

Other people's honesty ticks me off,
at least as much as mine ticks them off.

posted March 26, 2009 12:26 PM         

I'm too impulsive to wait to reply...

First, I want to say that I wish you were fifteen years younger.

Okay,

I've had all those thoughts and others.
I honestly do not know what the reality is.

I often do admire TINK and juni in certain ways,
and wonder if they deserve more of my admiration.
I can say the same thing about many people on this site.

There are numerous indications of nervous mental energy in my natal chart.
I'm pretty sure that this lifetime, for me, is all about thinking. And that's okay.

Yes, it is impossible, or near-impossible,
to check or direct the flow of my thoughts.
There are indications that I may be susceptible
to a nervous breakdown at some point in my life, if I cant find outlets.
For me, the outlet is to keep writing and sharing and purging my mind.
I think, for the most part, what I am thinking about is good.
And even if none of my thoughts are proper ends in themselves,
it is my faith that they have value in "quickening" the journey.

Yes, marijuana is the only thing I have found that works,
and is within my ability to acquire cheaply and easily --
the effort to find other outlets is often beyond me,
and the times I've made that effort have failed to bring relief.
For me, staying healthy is a full-time job, with no vacations.
Although this may look like a good deal to some people,
I would have to trade everything I am for that,
and, for me, that is way too much to ask of me right now.

Pot gives me a brief respite, relaxes my eternally clenched nerves a bit,
and allows me to feel the relative peace that so many people take for granted.

I think that's all I have to say right now.
I like what you wrote, and can't add to it, really.
I just think there are so many things going on,
and to try to fit me or others, or our relations
into a simple framework seems like it might be a big mistake.

LTT posted a link the other day to a very interesting NDE, --
or what claims to be an NDE; I need to look deeper into the source of the article.
One thing that was said was that nothing has done so much
to bring the world together than the explosion of the atomic bomb.

Stuff like that has got to make you think.

And thoughts like that have got to scare some people.

okay, now the poem...

posted March 26, 2009 12:36 PM         

It would be nice if TINK or Juni would start a thread someday.
Mind you, I'm not saying I'd jump at the opportunity to critique it.
But it would be nice to hear them risk saying something for once
(preferably something that they didnt just read in a book somewhere),
rather than always goading and teasing others for what they have to say.

posted March 26, 2009 12:39 PM         

Your experience sounds very similar to my own.