A little door.

You guys just want to get me out of my temple

@ Phemox: "Believing to be 'lost', either spiritual, morally or whatever other way people 'can' be lost."

The oracle says: NO. The whole procedure here is like this: find the living God for you. For some people God is a source of joy, others have a headache because of Him.
Some people fear Him, others love Him. Some people do both.
Someone believes in justice. Someone believes in love.
And it absolutely doesn´t matter, how you call it.
Someone can be a die-hard atheist and be very close to Him.

But I think, that you might need more imagination. For me it is almost a surprise, that people, who work with virtual reality and such stuff have so much trouble with the basics ...

Reality != Truth

A mythos, a fable can be more true, than 1000 pages of selected "hard facts" ...
And what is just "normal" reality in a particular time and space, can be a huge crime a few years later - think of fascism for example ...


@ Larry

I really love your comments. It´s good to have someone from Greece on board.
Knowledge is indeed one key aspect.

I love this one:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Sun Tzu, The art of war


For me everything is linked. God is spirit. A huge living spirit. You can´t define spirits. You can come to an idea, which seems logical, and contradiction-free, tested with your experience and scriptures, but not a full definition.
God is simply too big for this.

The temple, btw. stands for a project of mankind.

It´s not Robotronics private temple.

Most people underestimate the possibilities of the human mind, to imagine the whole. Maybe it was more simple in previous time: less information, more time for reflection or more time to work with the information. I do not need detail knowledge about everything, but a good idea. Anyway, it is not pure logic or philosophy ...

And about the keys, the seals, the number seven ...

Maybe it´s just an old habit? Only God knows such things

Another day, another key. And while the curious fishes look for the next key, each one realizes, that he already has a special key and found his key somewhere in the ocean, before he found the little door.

These two lines are identical:

Their keys have found them.
They found their key.

While the keys have different shapes and colours, they all have the same name: "opinion".

Every fish is now trying his key and there seems to be some progress with every fish and every attempt: the lock works like a clockwork. Finally the second seal breaks apart. The name of this seal is: "separation".

The spirit of separation is a child of the spirit of the world.

It is however important to know, that we start our lives as mystics: swimming in the little ocean in our mothers body, protected - someone takes care of us. There is no necessity to make a difference between us and everything else, because there is harmony.

____


Separation isn´t nice and the first encounter with this spirit is brutal: the moment, when we see the light of this world for the first time, when the umbilical cord is cut off.

But we realize it slowly and sometimes painfull over the years: we have to learn - if we like it or not - our first lessons of the "principle of reality" - the awareness, that our "Ego" is separated from others. These "others" are not always friendly ...

I remember a key experience, when I had just entered elementary school. Another kid asked me his favorite question: "Which side do you support: Bavaria or 60?" - Bavaria Munich and Munich 1860 are the two soccer teams of my hometown. I choose the wrong team (from the other kids perspective), he hit me and I learned, that it is a good idea to have an opinion about this issue - at least in this world. Since the schoolyard bullys were all Bavaria Munich fans I decided to fully agreed with them. This changed later, when I entered my socialist period, where one was expected to support the underdogs (Munich 1860). I have to admit, that football (soccer) only rarely played a big role in my life.

People have strong opinions about everything, from the preferred soccer team to the middle east conflict to ... well, everything.

How do we come to our opinions?
Can we trust them?
Should we take them serious?

Every human being developps ideas, opinions, attitudes, persons. The word "person" comes from latin and means "mask". We play our person, like actors on a stage.
Our opinions and attitudes are part of it. As kiddies we sometimes change our masks completely, some people remain players for their entire life, their role becomes such a perfect and successfull routine, that they do not even question it anymore.

For me Shakespeare expressed it very nice:

Life´s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

(Macbeth)

The funny thing is: we enjoy this whole carnival. We like to go to the battlefields with our opinions, defend them, attack others for the sake of its own or in order to find out weakness. And it is even more exciting, when we really believe in our persons, attitudes etc. And as long as it doesn´t hurt the inner logic of the constructed person / mask, there´s also no problem with spin, exaggeration, lies ...

Another funny thing: groups (like political parties, nations, faith systems) can act in a similar way, just like the individuals, who identify with them. They are like larger "bodys" with a mind, defense mechanisms etc. From time to time they even enjoy a little war with another group, which can - if the experience was strong enough - even lead to a longer peaceful period.

It is like a game: the goal is to be the winner, to be on top.

Actually it is complex, there are many groups, one can be a member of xyz associations and our general attitude is also influenced by instincts, DNA etc.

But there are always these little brief moments, when we are reminded, that something isn´t true, that it could be different. Such moments can come, when we identify with "others", when we understand, that the humiliated "enemy" might be us.

In a war it can happen, that - even if you identify with Team A - , when accidentally you read a little story somewhere about a killed human being from Team B - you start to cry.

You know, that killing is part of the game.

Strange incidents, that one can only avoid by closing at least one eye.

There are still five keys and five seals.

I'm confused. Is this guy a gnostic, or what?

Just a suggestion: The most superfluous reason to argue is usually arguing about the meaning of words.

Truth, reality, Mao Tse-Tung, and Jesus are all different things. The dictionary definition of truth is "agreement with fact or reality" (wikipedia). If you want to discuss, better first agree about what you're talking... and let Mao and Jesus rest in peace.

Phemox: for the phrase I told, it means we need memories to understand ourselves. Without a memory, you don't know yourself nor can seek for more, since you don't have the will to search, without memories. Memories are created by the flow of time. A second ago you thought this now you think that, you have memory of that thought or memorial vision of subject A.

By memories we create experience. By experience we move on.

Without past we won't have a future.

"Reality != Truth"
Reality is the packet of your 5 senses. Our sixth sense, or soul, or "inner eye" or whatever is our own truth as an addition. So we never can see the truth by using reality.

It is the third day and the little door is still there. Every fish now knows, that he has his very own "truth". Some fishes however love the truth so much, that they start to collect different pieces of truth - even from different times - and while they are playing around with two of them, they discover a set of keys.

The name of the first key is "logic".
The name of the second key is "history".

There is indeed an old complex lock in the door, where the keys seem to fit. The third seal is falling and the name of the seal is "justice" and it appears the spirit of ambivalence and he comes with words from a book:


"Most of us may not believe in the story of a Devil to whom one can sell one's soul, but those who must know something about the soul (considering that as clergymen, historians, and artists they draw a good income from it) all testify that the soul has been destroyed by mathematics and that mathematics is the source of an evil intelligence that while making man the lord of the earth has also made him the slave of his machines. The inner drought, the dreadful blend of acuity in matters of detail and indifference toward the whole, man's monstrous abandonment in a desert of details, his restlessness, malice, unsurpassed callousness, moneygrubbing, coldness, and violence, all so characteristic of our times, are by these accounts solely the consequence of damage done to the soul by keen logical thinking! Even back when Ulrich first turned to mathematics there were already those who predicted the collapse of European civilization because no human faith, no love, no simplicity, no goodness, dwelt any longer in man. These people had all, typically, been poor mathematicians as young people and at school. This later put them in a position to prove that mathematics, the mother of natural science and grandmother of technology, was also the primordial mother of the spirit that eventually gave rise to poison gas and warplanes.
The only people who actually lived in ignorance of these dangers were the mathematicians themselves and their disciples the scientists, whose souls were as unaffected by all this as if they were racing cyclists pedaling away for dear life, blind to everything in the world except the back wheel of the rider in front of them. But one thing, on the other hand, could safely be said about Ulrich: he loved mathematics because of the kind of people who could not endure it. He was in love with science not so much on scientific as on human grounds. He saw that in all the problems that come within its orbit, science thinks differently from the laity. If we translate "scientific outlook" into "view of life," "hypothesis" into "attempt," and "truth" into "action," then there would be no notable scientist or mathematician whose life's work, in courage and revolutionary impact, did not far outmatch the greatest deeds of history. The man has not yet been born who could say to his followers: "You may steal, kill, fornicate - our teaching is so strong that it will transform the cesspool of your sins into clear, sparkling mountain streams." But in science it happens every few years that something till then held to be in error suddenly revolutionizes the field, or that some dim and disdained idea becomes the ruler of a new realm of thought. Such events are not merely upheavals but lead us upward like a Jacob's ladder. The life of science is as strong and carefree and glorious as a fairy tale. And Ulrich felt: People simply don't realize it, they have no idea how much thinking can be done already; if they could be taught to think a new way, they would change their lives."



This is a very small extract from a monumental book, written over a period of ca. twenty years between the two world wars: "The Man without Qualities".
Robert Musil, the author, born in Austria-Hungary described the overall mood of the society in 1913 - just one year before the first world war.
This was basically a period in history, which was revolutionized by the new discoveries in natural science (Freud, Darwin ...), a belief in progress and human cleverness, which was shaking the peoples belief in God - especially among the elites - like never before.
The people are searching for a (new) great and unifying idea in order to celebrate the birthday of the emperor Franz Josef. Of course everyone has a different opinion about this. For every opinion there is an opposing opinion. No agreement is possible.
The main character, a mathematician, realizes this, and - looking for perfection - he can´t take anybody serious and he refuses to take position.
The book ends unfinished (Musil died in 1942), the last chapters however describe a mystic experiment in love.
There is no clear "message", just some little hints, hidden in Musils unpublished works, fragments like:

"If the non-correct gets the upper hand: war." *)
or
"Everything happens."
or
"All lines are leading to war."

*) like Tolstoi in "War and Peace", Musil believed, that it is not so much the leaders, but the general mood of the peoples, that makes war almost inevitable.

I leave it open here. Well, this was an encounter with the terrible spirit of ambivalence.

@ Larry: Next message will be shorter

Four seals remain.

Phe: When you get into a situation you don't know what to do, your first reaction will be "what to do.. what to do.." then you go inside yourself try to remember similiar situation, whereareas you're seeking the past to find your way to the future.

Also when you don't have any past experience in any like, then you will seek the past in a way too. You try to mix your skills learned in the past to move on.

It´s okay to be spontaneous and if someone is short on experience, because he isn´t that old, making some mistakes is simply necessary. And it´s also fun. Who would like a life, where there is at every corner a policeman, who says: stop, you are going to make a serious mistake, that has been made a million times by others?

The other thing is: people have different forms of intelligence. Some people are very good at well defined, step-by-step logical thinking, but not so good, when it comes to making associative links.

For me this is something, that I trained over many years in my worldly job as an editor.
I get a huge amount of raw material: filmed life (sounds, moving images) in a chaotic form ... and I have to select, transform, and bring it down to stories, that make "sense", that have a beginning and an end. It´s like solving puzzles. There are almost no rules, but there are abstract established patterns, which can work for different situations too. I can edit a documentary film about an African drummer and apply a pattern from Coppolas "Apocalypse Now". There are theories about the dramatic structure.

Movies, stories, myths are often not just entertainment, they are patterns for our behaviour and patterns to help us understand, what´s going on. But the audience has to be able to apply them to his own slightly different reality.

Something similar does apply to history. I see it like a story, that helps me understand reality. There is however an old saying: "History is a language, one in which the dead talk to the deaf."

Life writes little stories into the human memory, and one can transform them into blueprints, in order to recognize a slightly different situation. There are general experiences (like birth ...) that everyone makes. Everyone has a desire for love.
Life - for me - is like a very old piece of theatre, with me as the main actor. At the beginning I think, I´m the first one and this piece has been written only for me. Because I´m fascinated by the effects, the colors, the outer appearances. The costumes, the stage setting, everything looks very modern and original. But the blueprints behind this are as old as mankind and our lifes are just a variation of this.

The fourth day is not very spectacular, the seal of emptiness fades away on its own initiative, no spirit appears and a spirit, that doesn´t really exist can say only nothing.


Three seals remain.

I would like to thank everyone, who has contributed to this thread, and I´m sorry, if it caused confusion, anger or sadness. Your answers were extremely helpful to me, I often wrote replies, but then I didn´t post them for different reasons. Maybe this was not a good idea. I know, that I am not a very experienced preacher ...

... and no, I´m not a member of the Roman-Catholic Inquisition.

Always keep in mind, that a word like God can mean very different stuff for different people. The same applies for words, such as "truth", "love", "justice" and so on ...

The meaning of these words for the individual human mind can be very deep and complex or very simple - like a boolean value - or something in-between.

And here it probably gets too confusing or frustrating and an Internet forum is maybe better suited for a more simple exchange of pro and contra type arguments.

But nevertheless I had a lot of fun with some answers.

As for the Musil statement: it´s only a tiny little piece from the whole mosaic, where he tries to find out, what led to a war. It´s from a book with many pages, and before I even try to explain this ...

... coming back to the first response by derOmega (nice coincidence!):

"Take the blue pill!"

____


@ Nitro: Thank you very much for your nice comments, some of them not so different from my own positions.
The inspiration to this thread came btw. from a nice encounter somewhere on an other forum. If you ever met a very nice Christian woman with the name Virginia (I imagine, she lives deep down in the south of the US), who is completely confused because of a book, called "The Man without Qualities" - you know, with whom she had contact ...