A Vision...
I had a vision of Eternity today. A three dimensional visual "timeslice" of a much higher dimensional reality is how I conceive of it.
In it there are countless threads or vines winding, through a crystalline matrix, exploding here and there with "blossoms" of fantastic beauty. The vines intertwine and intermingle coming together and growing apart. Sometimes paralleling sometime intersecting only rarely.
All are radiating from/to a brilliant "core" to/from a hazier, dim perimeter.
I see that we, humans, consciousness, are these vines growing across physical time and space, the blossoms are lifetimes, the colors are learning and the expanding awareness of who/what we are in the long dance toward the core.
The blossoms sometimes cast "pollen" that finds it way to other blossoms, aiding their expansion.
Don't mistake this metaphor for some kind of New Agey kumbaya, the blossoms don't grow only because of "sweetness and light", growth often hurts, and sometimes the pollen is poisonous. Vines grow together in clumps for love and for war. The long arc of Eternity has room for both.
Yes love, but be careful, recall what your favorite author said about sin.
That would be Tanith Lee. She said something like: at the spiritual level, harming another doesn't really hurt the other person; but for oneself it is like taking filth and smearing your own shining robes with it. Kind of like the AA statement about holding on to anger being like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Yes.
So Aleister Crowley was wrong ("Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law")?
No, there are no LAWS in the cosmic sense, only consequences. Sometimes those can be avoided or averted (at least temporarily). But those cosmic chickens have a strange and miraculous habit of coming home to roost at inconvenient times if you push things too far and never forever. And people get cocky and forget that there's debts to be paid when the incarnation is over.
Karma?
It's been called that. Probably the most cogent formulation in current philosophical use on Planet Earth right now.
So there's punishment?
Not as such, there's no externally enforced retribution if that's what you mean. But, the realization of the personal blindness that led to heinous behaviors while incarnated often leads to some pretty dramatic acts of contrition.
Are acts of contrition sufficient?
How much suffering is enough?
For what?
Take your pick. The merest pinch to the gravest injury. The killing of one or the death of one hundred. The murder of a thousand or a million.
Does intent matter? Or outcomes? Does guilt or remorse?
Is Eternal punishment for any Finite amount of behavior justifiable? What sort? And who gets to judge?
So there's nothing? We get off scot free for all our misdeeds?
No, I promise you no one who performs evil in the field of time comes through unscathed, just the way it plays out isn't at all what anybody alive on Planet Earth right now thinks.
Can you explain it to me?
I've tried. Like I said, it's more like realizing you made a terrible, awful mistake and wanting to do everything in your power to make up for it. But realize also there's a heroism of sorts in those who go into dark and fearsome places to place signposts warning of the danger.
I just had the thought: If we have the option to relive lives, and try out different paths. Even live as different people. Who'd want to live as a Hitler or a Stalin? Are those the dark places you speak of? Is living that sort of life (or living life as someone under that sort of rule) a "punishment" someone might undertake for a lifetime?
Don't get too caught up in thinking about this linearly, Time isn't what you think it is and I really can't explain it to you while you're embedded in it. You'll just have to wait and see, love. But, you're not completely off the mark.
OK, thanks, babe.
Any time, sweet man ;-) xoxoxoxoxoxoxxo
In it there are countless threads or vines winding, through a crystalline matrix, exploding here and there with "blossoms" of fantastic beauty. The vines intertwine and intermingle coming together and growing apart. Sometimes paralleling sometime intersecting only rarely.
All are radiating from/to a brilliant "core" to/from a hazier, dim perimeter.
I see that we, humans, consciousness, are these vines growing across physical time and space, the blossoms are lifetimes, the colors are learning and the expanding awareness of who/what we are in the long dance toward the core.
The blossoms sometimes cast "pollen" that finds it way to other blossoms, aiding their expansion.
Don't mistake this metaphor for some kind of New Agey kumbaya, the blossoms don't grow only because of "sweetness and light", growth often hurts, and sometimes the pollen is poisonous. Vines grow together in clumps for love and for war. The long arc of Eternity has room for both.
Yes love, but be careful, recall what your favorite author said about sin.
That would be Tanith Lee. She said something like: at the spiritual level, harming another doesn't really hurt the other person; but for oneself it is like taking filth and smearing your own shining robes with it. Kind of like the AA statement about holding on to anger being like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Yes.
So Aleister Crowley was wrong ("Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law")?
No, there are no LAWS in the cosmic sense, only consequences. Sometimes those can be avoided or averted (at least temporarily). But those cosmic chickens have a strange and miraculous habit of coming home to roost at inconvenient times if you push things too far and never forever. And people get cocky and forget that there's debts to be paid when the incarnation is over.
Karma?
It's been called that. Probably the most cogent formulation in current philosophical use on Planet Earth right now.
So there's punishment?
Not as such, there's no externally enforced retribution if that's what you mean. But, the realization of the personal blindness that led to heinous behaviors while incarnated often leads to some pretty dramatic acts of contrition.
Are acts of contrition sufficient?
How much suffering is enough?
For what?
Take your pick. The merest pinch to the gravest injury. The killing of one or the death of one hundred. The murder of a thousand or a million.
Does intent matter? Or outcomes? Does guilt or remorse?
Is Eternal punishment for any Finite amount of behavior justifiable? What sort? And who gets to judge?
So there's nothing? We get off scot free for all our misdeeds?
No, I promise you no one who performs evil in the field of time comes through unscathed, just the way it plays out isn't at all what anybody alive on Planet Earth right now thinks.
Can you explain it to me?
I've tried. Like I said, it's more like realizing you made a terrible, awful mistake and wanting to do everything in your power to make up for it. But realize also there's a heroism of sorts in those who go into dark and fearsome places to place signposts warning of the danger.
I just had the thought: If we have the option to relive lives, and try out different paths. Even live as different people. Who'd want to live as a Hitler or a Stalin? Are those the dark places you speak of? Is living that sort of life (or living life as someone under that sort of rule) a "punishment" someone might undertake for a lifetime?
Don't get too caught up in thinking about this linearly, Time isn't what you think it is and I really can't explain it to you while you're embedded in it. You'll just have to wait and see, love. But, you're not completely off the mark.
OK, thanks, babe.
Any time, sweet man ;-) xoxoxoxoxoxoxxo
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