Esotericism: What It Is, Why It Matters, You Say You Want R E V O L U T I O N? Options

[painter]

I'm pinning this in "Alternative Theories" because of all the sub-forums in P4T, this, to me seems most appropriate. However, this thread will have nothing to do with the events of 9/11 directly other than to say that if you are not yet convinced that 9/11 was -- and continues to be -- a "black op," which is to say a clandestine psychological operation whose primary targets were not the destruction of the twin towers or the actuary within the Pentagon, but the minds of the people of the world, and of America in particular, then very likely, everything in this thread will seem irrelevant to you.

This thread is for those of us who understand that, as traumatic as 9/11 was to our body politic, it was, nevertheless, merely one act of many -- a bit more blatant perhaps than most -- stretching back through not only American history, but the history of humanity as a whole. From this perspective what we see is that there are the ruled and those who rule and there are layers upon layers of deception which separate the ruled from the real rulers. If statements like that seem obtuse or mysterious to you, then you aren't ready for what is to follow here. You need to concentrate your attention on convincing yourself that 9/11 was an 'inside job'; that "they" (whoever they are) did it and did it for nefarious reasons that are everywhere continuing to unfold around us. You need to dig into this further and convince yourself that there is much more going on here than 9/11 itself. You need to find out about how our system of political, economic and military power actually works and who it actually serves and protects. And then you need to discover who set up that system, the history of it, and how far back into time it goes.

None of that will be covered here.

This thread, and others like it that I may introduce in this "alternative theories" forum, has to do with an answer to the proverbial observation: "Well, if what you say is true, if we acknowledge that an inner circle of ruling elites controls the world’s most powerful military and intelligence system; controls the international banking system; controls the most effective and far-reaching propaganda network in history; controls all three branches of government in the world’s only superpower; and controls the technology that counts the people’s votes, then we obviously truly are fu*ked and one has to wonder what the hell are we going to do about it?"

MY answer to that is the same answer that David Ray Griffin gave in a talk in my home town about a year ago, in answer to the question quoted (more or less) above: "Well, we need a revolution," he said. And as remarkable as it is to hear someone say such a thing to an auditorium full of cheering people in America today is to note that he did not say it with great passion and an underlying threat of violence but with great calmness, clarity, rationality and conviction. The kind of conviction that can carry a man through great adversity to the end of his life. In other words, a conviction that is not superficial but which is resolved in every part of the man -- and which makes him, therefore, inwardly invincible.

It is this sort of thing, establishing this "inward invincibility" in the face of overwhelming adversity, that will be the primary focus of all I have to say.

Recently in OTHER | THREADS (for example), I've broached the subject of esotericism. I've done this because it is my conviction that only some familiarity with esoteric principles will enable us to "gird our loins" as the Bible puts it for the coming days ahead. You see, if it isn't clear to you yet it should be, gradually, becoming clear to you that what is taking place around us now is not merely the ascension of evil masquerading as neoconservatism or fascism, but something far more sinister and far older than either. For the most part I will attempt to refrain from references to Biblical (and other sacred text) prophecy regarding some actual or metaphorical "armageddons" or "battles for the world" or "struggles of the magicians." The fact is, however, such utterances can not be completely ignored. All the signs are there for any who wish to read them: It is not just America but the whole of humankind and, indeed, planet Earth itself, that is entering a time of grave crisis. As I've quoted repeatedly from Gurdjieff, I believe we are not merely approaching but are now in one of those "periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason and begin to destroy everything that has been created by centuries and millenniums of culture. Such periods of mass madness," Gurdjieff emphasizes, "often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climatic changes, and similar phenomena of a planetary character, release a very great quantity of the matter of knowledge." He is, of course, speaking here of esoteric knowledge, not mere information which is everywhere around us in overwhelming abundance already. "This, in its turn," he continues, "necessitates the work of collecting this matter of knowledge which would otherwise be lost. Thus the work of collecting scattered matter of knowledge frequently coincides with the beginning of the destruction and fall of cultures and civilizations."

This is where we are and this is what this thread is all about because what is at stake here is not merely whether or not 9/11 truth prevails -- which it will, I have no doubt -- but whether or not we and those who come after us will be able to re-establish a world of genuine values -- such as truth and justice -- after what is now becoming increasingly apparent to many of us as a great age of deception and criminality in which we have all played our parts.

To be continued . . .

[painter]

 

What Is Consciousness?

I realize that our task would be much easier if from now on we could be working with a precise definition of the word "consciousness." But it is important to stay flexible toward this question of the nature of consciousness. The word is used these days in so many different ways that out of sheer impatience one is tempted to single out one or another aspect of consciousness as its primary characteristic. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that our attitude toward knowledge of ourselves is like our attitude toward new discoveries about the external world. We so easily lose our balance when something extraordinary is discovered in science or when we come upon a new explanatory concept: Immediately the whole machinery of systematizing thought comes into play, Enthusiasm sets in, accompanied by a proliferation of utilitarian explanations, which then stand in the way of direct experiential encounters with surrounding life.

In a like manner, a new experience of one's self tempts us to believe we have discovered the sole direction for the development of consciousness, aliveness or--as it is sometimes called --presence. The same machinery of explanatory thought comes into play accompanied by pragmatic programs for "action." It is not only followers of the new religions who are victims of this tendency, taking fragments of traditional teachings which have led them to a new experience of themselves and building a subjective and missionary religion around them. This tendency in ourselves also accounts, as we shall see later, for much of the fragmentation of Modern psychology, just as it accounts for the fragmentation in the natural sciences.

In order to warn us about this tendency in ourselves, the traditional teachings--as expressed in the Bhagavad-Gita, for example--make a fundamental distinction between consciousness on the one hand and the contents of consciousness such as our perceptions of things, our sense of personal identity, our emotions and our thoughts in all their color and gradations on the other hand.

This ancient distinction has two crucial messages for us. On the one hand, it tell us that what we feel to be the best of ourselves as human beings is only part of a total structure containing layers of mind, feeling and sensation far more active, subtle and encompassing (like the cosmic spheres) than what we have settled for as our best. These lawyers are very numerous and need to be peeled back, as it were, or broken through one by one along the path of inner growth, until an individual touches in himself the fundamental intelligent forces in the cosmos.

At the same time, this distinction also communicates that the search for consciousness is a constant necessity for man. It is telling us that anything in ourselves, no matter how fine, subtle or intelligent, no matter how virtuous or close to reality, no matter how still or violent--any action, any thought, any intuition or experience--immediately absorbs all our attention and automatically becomes transformed into contents around which gather all the opinions, feelings and distorted sensations that are the supports of our secondhand sense of identity. In short, we are told that the evolution of consciousness is always "vertical" to the constant (horizontal or time bound) stream of mental, emotional and sensory associations within the human organism, and comprehensive of them (somewhat like a "fourth dimension"). And, seen in this light, it is not really a question of concentric layers of awareness embedded like the skins of an onion within the self, but only one skin, one veil, that constantly forms regardless of the quality or intensity of the psychic field at any given moment.

Thus, in order to understand the nature of consciousness, I must here and now in this present moment be searching for a better state of consciousness. All definitions, no matter how profound, are secondary. Even the formulations of ancient masters on this subject can be a diversion if I take them in a way that does not support the immediate personal effort to be aware of what is taking place in myself in the present moment.

In all that follows in this book, we shall continue to speak about levels of consciousness and intelligence within man and within the universe, for this idea is crucial in any attempt to reach a new understanding of science. But I wish, for the reader and for myself, that this more inner, personal meaning of the idea be constantly kept in mind.

~ Jacob Needleman, A Sense of the Cosmos, pp 20 - 22.

To be continued . . .