Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Mooney
"Truth seeking" in the spiritual sense requires a radically honest willingness to surrender the illusions of "personal identity and allow Truth speakers ((Teachers in the spiritual sense) to "hold the illusory identity to the fire of purification" ( a common concept in Eastern spirituality.)
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This is the West. Western mysticism teaches that unity with all comes from inside. The only purification is in "The Dark Night Of the Soul," the fourth of the five stages. This also comes from inside, as do all lessons in life.
Existentialism also teaches us that the choices we make are our own. It teaches us to reject outside influences and turn inward, where we can, without being lectured by someone pretending to be a superior being, make those choices that represent what is moral despite the impossibility of truly moral consequences. And we can also find that peace and unity of spirit, conscience, and social responsibility that is a truly unfettered soul.
I don't see how your philosophy is consistent with your actions. I recognize all the words you use. They've been familiar to me for a long time. The thought processes and belief systems they represent have been a part of me all my life. I recognize the words, but I don't recognize their juxtapositions. If you approach the ineffability of mysticism and the discipline of existentialism from the outside, they can seem very superficial and requiring of external force (putting a round peg into a square hole). If you approach them from the inside, they are on the one hand a breathtakingly familiar and comfortable place, and on the other hand a compelling reason to act in the absence of reason.
In both cases, the most you can do is gently lead people to those places. You (and I mean the specific you) must first find those places for yourself to be able to lead others to them. In those places, your IQ, your education, and your excellent qualifications are as meaningless as they would be to a grain of sand in the desert, which is the approximate size of each us alone.
It is only the quality of your character that really matters. Please let us see that.
--lemit
