Thursday, December 12, 2024
9 a.m. Perhaps we can continue from where we left off yesterday. So, sin as opportunity?
We smile. Yes, but not yes to everything that phrase may suggest. In this discussion we are going to have to stick closely to the main line of thought, and resist diversions, which will present themselves at every turn.
Something says, call Jon, to help provide that focus.
Yes. Thank you. The subject is huge, and it could be approached from so many angles – and it hares off into so many interesting connections to other thoughts – that this will indeed require vigorous pruning as we go along.
I am assuming that you are doing fine and would ask for help if you needed it.
I would – and it is a good thing that you remind people that 3D/non-3D interaction is a two-way street, just as you were told from the beginning. Each “side” of the great divide can help the other, and can be helped.
So let’s talk about sin. In what way could it be described as an opportunity?
You understand, I come at this from a certain point of view: I was Jewish – that is, not Christian with a Christian’s burden of belief – and a trained psychiatrist, and a Jungian in outlook, and a convinced experiencer while in 3D of the continued 3D/non-3D interaction. This is our angle of approach. A Catholic psychiatrist, or a Catholic counsellor who was not a psychiatrist nor even a psychologist perhaps, would see things differently – which means, would see some things I can’t, and would be unable to see some things that I see. And of course the examples could expand in all directions, according to people’s differences. The specific point here is that you and I share certain aspects, and it is these shared approaches that can be conveyed. This is what you mean (though you don’t think of it this way) when you say you “resonate” with someone or something. To say that something resonates is to say that you and it have something in common that facilitates direct connection.
Jews knew the concept of sin very well; that doesn’t mean they see it exactly the same way that Christians do, or Muslims. For our purposes, we will stick to the definition you like, as “missing the mark,” stripping away connotations of offending God or choosing evil. If you wish, later we can look at those (or other) aspects of the question, for remember, anything people have believed is worthy of examination.
Want to do this in bullets?
As an initial ordering device, yes, that will probably be useful.
- What you are in 3D – what you are calling the avatar-level of consciousness – is a particular blend of characteristics, traits, impulses, predilections, etc. as allowed in at your time and place of birth, as filtered through your parents’ physical heredity.
- That mixture is not uniform, and is not meant to be. It contains internal contradictions, unknown passions, traits that become weaknesses in certain circumstances or combinations.
- Your life you are given is the puzzle you set out to solve. It is the raw material for the artwork you are to create.
- It is also, unavoidably, something far beyond the personal, for you as individual are also you as threads extending in all directions, and some of those extensions may hate each other.
- These extensions are actively living in you and through you. They are also actively living in and through everything else they connect with. Can you see the complexity, the potential for conflict and cooperation, the potential for struggle and surprise?
- But you as avatar have to live your life in its own context. You may easily be unaware of these extensions; all you know, maybe, is that you are strongly impelled to do this or that, to be this or that. You don’t know why, but you do recognize compulsion when you experience it.
- I say “compulsion.” It may feel like it is externally imposed, and in a way that is correct. But – is anything really external? At most it is external to your
- And that gives you the clue for how to broaden your control over life. Widen your consciousness, extend your awareness, and your mastery of circumstance grows.
- And what prevents, or hinders, such growth of consciousness? Seven major tendencies have been called the seven deadly sins.
- You understand, as you and I are seeing it, these have nothing to do with “wrong because forbidden.” Just the opposite: They are forbidden because they are wrong.
- But – “wrong”? does that mean there really is God-the-judge-and-jury? Obviously you don’t think that, and neither do I. It means – at least to us – wrong because destructive and obstructive.
- The seven tendencies are, as noted, habits, or let’s say temptations. I know that usually “temptations” means temptation to sin; I am saying here that sin itself is temptation to underrate oneself, to shrink the productive work that can lead to freedom.
Very nice. I’d think some examples would help.
Well, nobody has to look very far to find examples! The person who has not sinned is like the house in the fable that has never known sorrow: Good luck finding one.
Let’s start with lust.
Understand, the sin of it has nothing to do with the act. When Jesus said the men who looks with lust in his heart has already committed fornication, he was trying to get people to realize that thoughts are things, that just because something isn’t expressed externally, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and doesn’t have consequences.
But, someone might say, “What’s so wrong with lust? We even have a word – lusty – meaning whole-hearted appreciation.
The point is always, not what does this do externally, but what does it do to the person experiencing it?
Well, what?
All the sins have as common denominator a lowering of consciousness. What confuses the issue is that they often are associated with heightened energy. But sexual excitement, or the high-pressure intensity of anger, or the cocksureness of pride, may feel pleasurable (indeed, you could almost say they wouldn’t be indulged if they didn’t), but they are not you in your own fragile precarious consciousness. If anything, they are opposed to that consciousness, wanting to carry you along.
Like mob psychology.
Very much like that. It is well known that mobs will do what the individuals themselves would never do – and perhaps will be appalled, after regaining individual consciousness, to see that they have done. So with the individual and sin. The mob psychology, while it lasts, may carry you “beside yourself,” but when it ebbs, you rue the result.
I have thought that the difference between venial sin and mortal sin may be that the first sort of happens and the second is intentionally chosen. I don’t know if that’s what theologians mean, of course.
Can you see where this centers?
The more robots we have, the less conscious we are – and sins are habits rooted in robots.
Also you could say, creating or at least encouraging robots.
Tired now.
Yes, and this is not a bad place to stop.
I enjoyed it. Looking forward to more another time. Thanks.