QuakerQuaker

Primitive Christianity Revived, Again

Salvation and The Way out of Identity with Politics and Religion.

Outward political and religious education and educators use outward forms, prescriptions, practices, ideologies (theologies), and institutions to gather people whose conscious is needful of being anchored in and whose conscience is needful of being informed by outward forms

A conscious anchored in and a conscience informed by outward forms, people, and institutions is the meaning of behind the words “Worldly,” “Carnal,” “Bodily,” or “Natural Reason or Faculties”. These terms illustrate further the nature of the phrase in italics.

In this political season, in the United States, there will be many professors, politicians, ministers, preachers, and priests (including the Pope), theologians, and ideologues, of outward political and religious forms competing with one another to gather people whose conscious is anchored in and whose conscience is informed by outward forms into their outward prescriptions. There is a competition to bring people into identity, meaning, purpose, with these outward prescriptions so that people will act in conformity and submission to outward political and religious platforms and empower those outward forms by establishing them as the ruling forms over the people in both political (governmental) and religious institutions.

Many of us affirm a different way. This way is of a conscious anchored in and a conscience informed by the immediate experience of inward Presence itself so that identity, meaning, and purpose is in and through this direct inward experience itself. In this experience, people gather together and have identity with the inward intuitive way which is not conditioned upon identity with outward forms. In this way, unity is established in the experience itself without respect to or conformity with any outward political and religious forms, persons, or institutions.

This way is the meaning behind to the words “Heaven,” Spiritual,” and “Intuitive.”These words illustrate further the nature of the experience and clarify the meaning and significance behind the underlined phrase.

To those who are weary of the outward way of faith in and identity with outward forms, people, and institutions, there is an inward way wherein people are gathered together directly under the inward experience of Presence itself and are of a faith in and identity with the inward experience of Infinite Being itself. In this experience, Presence itself guides and rules the actions of the individual and the gathering … inwardly and without reference to outward or representational similitudes, practices, traditions, forms, people, groups, and institutions.

There is no special practice or outward form to submit to or identify with to know this grace and promise of a life unhinged from a way of being or existence bond to outward forms and aligned with an existence illuminated inwardly by the power of inward Presence itself anchored in your conscious and informing your conscience. Just take a waiting posture while living your life.Just wait upon the unfolding of Presence itself in your mind and heart and grace will come upon you, through the power of Presence itself, and you will experience the falling away of the outward nature and submission to the outward political and religious forms people strive to impose upon other people. You will experience your conscious and conscience gathered into a way of existence, a way of being, that is of a new and different nature than that of those whose conscious is anchored in and whose conscience is informed by outward forms. You will come into eternity … that is, infinity itself. A new birth into a new life; a new way of existence that is not of those who profess outward prescriptions of peace and unity in this life and on this earth.

We commit and commend to everyone that the Word is born in your heart, and thereby you may be preserved from subjection to any thing outward.

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Comment by Kirby Urner on 12th mo. 10, 2015 at 1:48pm: Howdy Howard, thanks for bringing in IT as that is a lot on my mind these days. I have this "Internet radio show" (a class, shared audio + screen) for pay (I'm typical older middle class, in the red, so pay is good, kid in college etc.) where I need to talk four hours a night, two nights a week -- actually I'm allowed 3x 20 mins Lab and 3x 5 mins break -- still a lot of pressure to fill time. Tonight is the last session, until I start again on January 19.

I yak about Agile, Python-the-computer-language (that's the focus), Open Source, Richard Stallman [0], IT... and as of last night (Session 9) I introduced the "volunteer community service" I do for "Quakers, a business-oriented cult that peaked in the 1790s" (for the purposes of these Bay Area professionals).

We look at some of the code I'm soon to share on Github. I'm working with other Friends (e.g. Ron Braithwaite -- old Quaker name) on the age-old problem of how to track all that goes on in our Meetings, in terms of committee memberships, meeting memberships, marriages, shared households, mailings... and part of that is at least have a structure (a "schema" as database wonks say) that can handle the info, even if NPYM Quakers are not in practice all that overly zealous about their record-keeping (a separate though related issue). I've been blogging about that work on QuakerQuaker in fact, as record-keeping is primitive to Quakerism.

http://www.quakerquaker.org/profiles/blogs/group-theory

I'm not really an uber-IT guy though, like so many I've met, having concentrated on Wittgenstein's philosophy as my most "advanced" undergrad work (we had to write a thesis and everything at Princeton). Computers were just those fascinating science fiction beasts I could now finally get my hands on in a well-equipped university, given this was the 1970s and PCs were yet to be invented.

I like to dabble, to browse. In fact, I'm such an inveterate browser that I was already seriously fantasizing about "hypertext" in early pre-web 1980s, when I became a high school math / history teacher in a Catholic (Dominican) school for young ladies. "Someday you'll just click on a word and..." students would glaze over or look at me cross-eyed. Ted Nelson's Computer Lib / Dream Machine was a big influence.
The thing about the electronic (literally -- atoms are electrical) "TV show scenario" (Big Dream) we call "life" is we develop attachments. Our own corporeal form (avatar, piece on the game board), our loved ones, people, pets, projects.... it's hard to leave all that, even if only for another go-around (what some of us believe -- but who is the one going around and around at the end of the day?).

Adding God or the divine as a dimension helps give the TV show direction and purpose in that I feel "voltage pressure" (Bucky's term [1]), what others call "the fury of Being" (with "fury" more about the awesome inertia of it all -- fighting it just makes it worse).

To answer your question, yes one may find awareness of the eternal / divine makes for less suffering at the prospect and reality of loss. My dad was killed in a car crash in South Africa, mom a passenger and not expected to recover. I am grateful for our having talked together, as a family, in this same car (a Kia Sportage), on other trips, about the fleetingness of life, acceptance of death, the willingness to go along and make it work better in some ways. Both my parents (mom recovered, uses a walker because of the injuries) were serious about working in the world, dad a planner, mom to this day at 86 a serious anti-nuke activist.

Mom draws greats sustenance from her mystical side. Dad was more quietly a gentle and deep thinking guy, but not as tied to outward expressions of a religious nature (he did go to Meeting -- we met in homes mostly, our family growing up in Rome). Both were Quakers. Growing up with all that equipped me to roll up my sleeves and jump in.

Then later my wife died of cancer, a process of some years. She was a spiritual seeker all her life and went deeply into her spiritual practice in the face of certain death in the near term. Her courage and grace while on the "death row" of invasive breast cancer also showed me what it means to attend to the divine. She died in 2007, so eight years ago by now. She was a bookkeeper mostly for non-profits while we were married. We were also a business and served a lot of the same clients (she did books, I did applications).

So yeah, I'm all for taking solace in one's religion, which is supposed to be a source of strength in the face of adversity. Religion is also supposed to help move us to wade in and do work in the world, be that as a cave-hermit (like a lot of IT roles) or as an investment banker (my friend "Yago" became one of those -- so wild and crazy as a youth :-D).

I do see Quakerism in particular as "business oriented" thanks to its pedigree in England, how it got absorbed into the culture right at the very time of the industrial revolution. Three hundred years later, the Liberal Friends I know are more likely school teachers or social workers than bankers or steel makers, but I'm not about to circle the wagons and suggest we're a closed circle. I don't proselytize per se, but I do want to keep the door open, to geeks especially [2]. Quakerism could rise again in prominence, precisely thanks to its IT prowess. We could brand around IT to some level. That's something I'm working on. This new book Quakernomics was a boost in that regard.[3]

[1] http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/SynergeticsDictionary/SDCards.php?cn=...

[2] the term "geek" comes from traveling carnival life, where "the geek" was someone so down on his luck as to bite the heads of live chickens as a road show side show, before the gawking public. To this day I often refer to the alcoholic drink "Bloody Mary" as a "headless chicken" instead.

[3] http://www.anthempress.com/quakernomics

Comment by Kirby Urner on 12th mo. 10, 2015 at 1:50pm: Forgot my footnote [0]:

http://www.revolution-os.com/ (lots about Richard Stallman, whom I'm mentioned on QuakerQuaker before as my idea of a contemporary prophet, along with Albert Einstein)

Comment by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 10, 2015 at 1:55pm: Um, aside from its ultimate context as part of a spiritual Creation, Howard, everything in your example lacks precisely what Keith is talking about: no experiencer, no experiencing, nobody home.

Comment by Keith Saylor on 12th mo. 10, 2015 at 1:57pm: Hello Forrest,

Some of what you’ve written I agree with. The statements below concern me.

“You're talking about a real 'Some-Something'. It's impossible to be conscious at all without experiencing that reality in some form; but not everybody will experience it the same way, have the same ideas about it, believe that they do-or-don't need special practices to better focus on that…”

When you write “it is impossible to be conscious at all without experiencing that reality in some form;” it depends on what you mean by the word form. If you mean to say it is impossible to be conscious without experiencing that reality in some outward form, you and I are not in agreement even though I concede that many people need (by their own admission) outward forms to approach that reality. It is not impossible to be conscious at all without outward forms. There are many people who are conscious in the direct and unmediated experience of that reality itself without regard or reference to any outward form whatsoever.

Your words quoted below further illustrate my concern that you and I are not in agreement.

“No matter how direct the connection -- or how divinely-aided the communication thereof -- it's still coming through filtered by human personality, human idea-making, human language.”

This may be the core or essence of our difference. The direct and unmediated experience of that self-evident reality is, by its very nature not filtered, it is not represented or mediated through outward forms. People can know experientially and directly that self-evidence Presence unfiltered and without reference or regard to any outward forms, ideas, language, etc. In other words, we participate in Christ directly when our conscious is anchored in and our conscience is informed by his immediate Presence itself without regard to reflective notions, languages, ideologies, theologies, etc.

Your write:

“What I keep trying to get across: The fact that people experience God in different ways and forms can't be contrary to God's intention.”

Those whose conscious is anchored in and whose conscience is informed by outward forms can and do, by their own testimony, come into participation with God through different forms and practices. Now, and here again this may prove to be another essential difference, people whose conscious is anchored in and whose conscience is informed by unfiltered inward experience of Presence itself do not partake of outward forms. They are not of the nature of those whose conscious is anchored in and whose conscience is informed by outward forms. There is no different way based on outward forms and practice. There is no outward form or practice to differentiate. Their experience is direct and, by its very nature, unfiltered through mediated forms. So, there are two ways; the way of a conscious anchored in and a conscience informed by outward forms and a conscious anchored in and a conscience informed by direct unfiltered experience of Presence itself. There are many sub-ways and practices in the former way. There is one way in the latter. The brings us to your contention that many people experience God in different ways and forms “can’t be contrary to God’s intention” ………………. While that may be true, I am not convinced.

Thank you for talking this through with me. I hope we can keep at it.

Comment by Keith Saylor on 12th mo. 10, 2015 at 2:12pm: Forrest. These words completely mis-represent my experience.

"Um, aside from its ultimate context as part of a spiritual Creation, Howard, everything in your example lacks precisely what Keith is talking about: no experiencer, no experiencing, nobody home.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 10, 2015 at 2:36pm: The essence of it is in the experience of experiencing... but the content of everything being experienced enters into it.

The form that experience takes: not one of your "_external_ forms" as opposed to an internal one --

but whether a person will think of what's happening as an epiphany, a visitation of Jesus, a channeling of... or as what's called 'Enlightenment' in Buddhist conceptions -- is going to be largely determined by what they've learned beforehand, though it can certainly overwhelm all that.

It has to be constantly "here" or we'd all be as dead as Howard's circuitry and the electricity running around in it -- We'd be virtual personalities with no one inside.

Whether people unconsciously resist the experience of God -- or simply keep too busy experiencing other things, as in Jesus' parable of the no-show dinner guests; I couldn't say.

I do say that if someone is "not as he should be", ie is doing or contemplating wrongdoing and inequity of some sort -- that experience would not be a happy one. Hence, God keeps the voltage down out of a sort of mercy, until a person can sort themselves out better. Still, it's there in the background, unnoticed.

We are certainly agreed that ~You can't get there by doing "x", 'x' being any practice whatever. But somehow the things we do and are happened-to by in our lives eventually do lead there.

A person who is led to do 'practice "x"' is not doing anything necessary to anyone else -- nor necessarily necessary [Wow! Such a phrase!] to them either -- but it will eventually prove to be a step on their way.

Comment by Keith Saylor on 12th mo. 10, 2015 at 2:58pm: Hello Kirby,

Thank you for your consideration and thoughts.

No, it is most certainly not an oxymoron to know the direct inward presence of Christ illuminating the conscious and informing the conscience and participation in the World. Of course what you mean by “world” can be the rub. If by the word world you mean “a way of existence” it is possible that what you mean by a way of existence is not the same as what I mean. When I say I am not of this World, I mean to say, I am not of this normal way of existence. The normal way of existence being, for example, a conscious anchored in and a conscience informed by outward political, religious, and civic ideological, institutional, and practiced forms. However, I am of a way of existence (world) on this earth that knows a conscious anchored in and a conscience informed by direct intuitive experience of Presence itself without regard to outward political or religious forms and practices. I do “wade” into the affairs of those whose conscious is anchored in and whose conscience is informed by outward political and religious forms by sharing with them that there is another way of existence on this earth. This different way is one of a conscious anchored in and a conscience informed by direct experience of Presence itself that that we are guided not by outward political and religious forms. In sharing that, I do not have the expectation that they will accept or wish to participate this different way of existence on this earth. I am called to speak that way of existence and that is all.

I do not know anything about sitting in a lotus position. That is an outward practice I do not participate in. I will say this. There was a gathering of people that called themselves the Children of Light who did lived a way of existence wherein they had no outward temples to manage. They practiced no indispensable outward religious forms. They even, for a while, did not even establish set times to meet together; but rather deferred to the direct guidance of the inward Light itself when and how often and where they would meet. These people were called Quakers by those whose did not agree with there way of existence. It then happened that some people among those gathered in the Light wish to introduce outward forms into the gathering of the Children of Light. There were those who would not conform to the established outward forms. So those who sought to establish outward forms set out to impose their forms through institutional censure leading to excommunication. Those who would not conform to the establishment rules did not even argue that those who wished to establish outward forms should stop. They merely did not wish the outward forms of the establishment forces to be imposed on them. Of course, that was not good enough for the establishment forces … they would have conformity to their outward rules or else.

Mine is to express a way of existence that is different. And, while I have no doubt that the way of existence wherein a conscious is anchored in and a conscience is informed by the direct guidance and rule of Presence itself is heaven (a way of existence) on this earth, I do not have the expectation the people will embrace it. It is only mine to express it. I am perfectly fine that there are those whose live a way of existence wherein their conscious is anchored in and their conscience of informed by outward political and religious forms and institutions. That does not mean I will stop sharing a different way with them and leave it to them to work it out from there.

Thanks again, and please feel free to comment further. I really enjoy these discussions

Comment by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 10, 2015 at 3:26pm: Keith, I don't mean to "misrepresent" your ideas concerning what it is you experience that "isn't anchored in outward forms." I do observe that you seem uncommonly attached to those ideas.

It's likely to prove unwieldy to try to discuss any experience or way of experiencing whatsoever -- without reference to ideas. That's the medium in which discussion manifests, after all.

I agree that your experience is not "anchored in" those ideas, but that it's an experience of something more actual than everything that is readily talked- _about_. That no particular formalities nor methods are necessary to 'knock on that door'.

I may get a little pushy with my own ideas as to what there is 'in there' that's truly 'in there' -- that isn't not merely another concept-of.

What we're "anchored in," who can say. But there's something in, out & all about -- that anchors us.

Comment by Howard Brod on 12th mo. 10, 2015 at 3:41pm: Yes, Forrest: You are correct that the metaphor is indeed a metaphor because, as you point out, "no experiencer, no experiencing, nobody home" in the metaphor - as opposed to the spiritual experience.

Comment by Kirby Urner on 12th mo. 10, 2015 at 4:49pm: Hi Keith. I'm really glad you're gifting QuakerQuaker with your deep dive into early Quakerism and making it so convenient for idle browsers like me to sponge up more savvy about that walk I profess to talk about, on my "Internet radio show" or whatever.

Given my doing 40 hours live screen-sharing with audio, with headphones, I feel like one of those pundit people I've sometimes commented upon disparagingly. With an ironic tone, I've taken to calling myself "the Rush Limbaugh of Python" just for grins. Looking back, people may say God was preparing me for my Quaker radio ministry, but of course we'd have no way of knowing that in 2015. Imagine me as 96.3 on your radio FM dial (outward forms, electrons jiggling), in actuality KWLZ in my neck of the woods (just my generation's music, no commercials).

"Rush Limbaugh really likes his new jet" was in internal memo at Gulfstream (General Dynamics) that one day in Savannah Georgia, and a Southern-Baptist-educated, conservative, former Limbaugh fan, but newly checking out Chomsky, felt the urge to quit in the pit of her stomach. She was making a comfortable $80K as a brilliant whiz kid college dropout, now in IT. This job was killing her though. She wanted (needed) to be some kind of rock star revolutionary and make the world a better place. She was driven by real suffering not just some Miss America wish to win brownie / karma points as a good doobie. Her family would not understand. This was not about making her Archie Bunker daddy proud.

Looking back, we would say God was preparing her (and her cat) to make a bee-line to Kirby's basement (by way of Asylum District touchstones, such as Linus Pauling House), as a multi-year house guest and out lesbian, no longer corporate, no longer even Christian. She was in full on rebellion against the Florida of her childhood and an America that eats its children.

I could empathize. I've lived in Florida. I got the car as a form of rent, and let her help me live hand to mouth and learn about Portland's music / bar seen (we're talking about a gray haired Quaker schlepping keyboard and sound equipment to night clubs, also to the local radical bookstore, nothing like it in Portlandia quite, and since closed (Laughing Horse Books)).

Pretty soon though, it was no longer ethical for her to ride in cars, because of Peak Oil. She really took it to heart we were half empty already, having burned through that much of our proven reserves (now tapering off) in but a few decades. Bucky called it "starter fluid". We'd get it right during this flash-in-the-pan period or "flunk out" (fail God's tests). Lindsey felt that, urgently. She canceled appearances because they encouraged driving. When Occupy happened, she was the first one there with a tent (literally, Food Not Bombs was providing core logistics and took the park for our protest that day, well documented by yours truly, though I took a break to visit Ikea with my kid [0]).

From there she would grow in the life of our "Buddhist ghetto" that is this area of town (Food Not Bombs, Newar Temple...), and by now she's in Nepal (she lived through the earthquakes) a student of Newar dance, an esoteric form of Buddhist dharma transmission, and a student at OSU c/o Rotary Club. Wow, what a change. God had a plan. [1]

We say "with the benefit of hindsight" we can see all these things. God's omniscience must be in His infinite hindsight. He's the future, remember, according to Jesuitical lore. You may not buy in to that Catholic Omega stuff, but I think our respect for a "higher power" (as some call IT) is manifest in our view of life in the rear view mirror. We see destiny at work.

We also see major mistakes and suffer regrets, which rekindles our wish to learn, and not so suffer again in the future. The problem with calling it all "TV" is it really is much bigger than anything idolatrous we could point at. It's not a "Book" either.

Wittgenstein called his "view from here" (not of this World) "sub specie aternitatis" -- a spirit that permeates both philosophies (some say he recanted, others say he changed tack). http://bit.ly/1NeGOGU (<-- vastly shortened dive into the literature, c/o Google Books).

I think someone with your high level of God-consciousness (awareness of matters eternal) might nevertheless participate in Business, as might your spiritual peers, e.g. William Rogers. Some are led to build institutions, like the Catholic Church, whereas others a led to tear them down (good riddance in many cases). Many do both.

We could say God is on all sides, engaged in the struggle. That seems devilish to us sometimes, like when Jesus would consort with the Romans and tax collectors, drinking wine with them, partying. "For this we'd give our lives?" -- some wannabe disciples just wanted to fight Rome and win more freedom for this oppressed state they were in. In retrospect, we might feel superior and suggest they were shallow, for being right there with the Son of God (what an opportunity!) yet saying mean things behind his back about his relationships with our enemies, whom he seemed to love as much as himself. How could God so love a Son who loved the cruel Romans? Christians don't really see that as a problem today, but lets admit: over two thousand years have passed. Jesus certainly suffered c/o Rome.

I suppose on Eternity TV, humanity itself is but a blip on the screen in geological time. God is not going to lose any sleep over it, if we decide to pull out those WMSs (weapons of mass suicide, submarine-based a lot of 'em) and "take care" of ourselves. That's how He operates: when it's time for a species to go, they're consumed with a wish to die, no need to send in the Aliens (aka Angels) at faster than light speeds.

I'm not saying we're to that point as a species, just that I understand what some people are saying when they say what they think Jesus meant by "hate the world" (John 12:25). He wasn't as attached to it, we might say in a Buddhist sense, as someone with no access to a more eternally informed point of view. That made him more effective, not less, as an activist.

Kirby

[1] picture of Lindsey 'n me in front of the Pauling House:

https://flic.kr/p/wFdtH7

[2] picture of Lindsey's all time favorite girlfriend (hey, I love her too) -- they've gone their separate ways, per God's plan:

https://flic.kr/p/yR2Emj

Another picture (magazine cover) I like, apropos of nothing / everything:
Buddhists on a Roller Coaster: https://flic.kr/p/wBuYgf

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