Comment by Forrest Curo on 2nd mo. 14, 2014 at 3:40pm

I used to be annoyed by a friend's insistence that true religion was only about the "Now"; but then she explained how frightened she'd been by a series of unexplained (& rare) physical conditions, that she'd been not so much 'taking no thought for the morrow' as afraid to think about that morrow. One stance is open to God at work in all of it, the other is closed until, like Jacob we can say, "God was in this place, and I didn't know it."

Where you are is fine -- but what did God create this world for?

Comment by Keith Saylor on 2nd mo. 15, 2014 at 9:44am

Dear Forest,

You wrote:

“Where you are is fine -- but what did God create this world for?”

I deeply appreciate and am gratified by your kind words acknowledging the fineness of a consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by intuition.

Your question qualifying the fineness of where I am implies the fineness of where I am does not include the world. Such an implication is a misunderstanding and misrepresents a consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by intuition. It obfuscates the fineness of where I am. My concern is you’ve created a straw man (that where I am, rejects the world)  so as to undermine the fineness of where I am.

I preface the following by making you mindful that the world existed and was good before Adam and Eve consumed knowledge of good and evil which was a turning away from a consciousness anchored in and conscience informed by intuition toward a consciousness anchored in and informed by the outward reflection.

There is a common consciousness today that is anchored in and informed by reflections coming back to it in the form of outward objects, thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. This consciousness and conscience depend on these reflections. If the reflections in the mirrors are taking away, consciousness fades and conscience is no longer informed. This consciousness depends on the taste, touch, smell, hearing, sight, and the things sensed to sustain. This consciousness depends on the body to be. When the body dies, consciousness fades and conscience is no longer informed.

There is another consciousness and conscience not as common. This consciousness and conscience is anchored in and informed by the activity of observing and thinking (intuition) not the perceptions and thoughts that come through the activity. A consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by intuition does not fade or falter with the loss of the five senses when the body decomposes. Far from being a rejection of the world; a consciousness anchored and conscience informed by intuition re-cognizes life in the Garden of Eden, where human being is free from dependency on the created things to be. A consciousness anchored in and informed by intuition is human being candling in the world rather than human being candled by the world.

The world and life in the world is a brilliant gift and blessing. A consciousness anchored in and conscience informed by intuition shining in the observing and the thinking amongst the created things, is Eden regained. No, Forrest, a consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by intuition is human being celebrating the created things in the light of a pure consciousness and a pure conscience.    

A consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by intuition is not a rejection of the world, it is a re-turn to the Garden of Eden.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. Romans 8:19.

A consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by intuition is the sons of God revealed; which is the fulfillment of creation, not a rejection of it.

 

Comment by Forrest Curo on 2nd mo. 15, 2014 at 1:25pm

We can be nourished without food, but that's not normally the way God does it; and I would say there's a purpose to giving us such needs.

I myself want to be better grounded in what comes directly from God. I don't get snippy with you because I doubt that what you're describing is desirable -- and I'm sorry this keeps falling into debate mode! I think that part of the message in Christ taking bodily form is that we aren't supposed to detach too strongly from our grounding on our mental, emotional, physical footings, but to let God speak to us through all of it, use that intuition to know the meaning of each such Word.

Comment by Keith Saylor on 2nd mo. 16, 2014 at 10:13am

Dear Forrest,

I appreciate and acknowledge you doubt a consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by the immediacy of the Spirit of Christ is sufficient or "desirable." I also appreciate you have finally expressed yourself with transparency. I do not share your conscious or your conscience. It is not that I find your conscious and conscience undesirable, I just do not share it. I trust in and have faith in the sufficiency of a consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by the direct personal experience in the presence of Christ. This is not to demean your conscious or conscience.

This season of testing Wilbur's testimony (which I share through personal experience) of the sufficiency of the Spirit of Christ within through direct, immediate personal experience, in the context of modern Society of Friends online, reveals a general lack of faith in the sufficiency of the Spirit of Christ as the anchor of consciousness and informer of conscience. It is telling that the early Quaker experience of this sufficiency is the founding spirit that guided and strengthened their labors against protestantism and catholicism, and a government that forced itself over against their conscience (even though they did not always live up to this founding spirit).

Unlike you, I embrace debate. It fleshes things out, if patiently engaged, as it has done between you and me. I'm learning through these labors with those (like you) who do not have faith in the sufficiency of a consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by immediacy. The Presence is strong with me and I see more and more clearly the distinguishing "marks," as Penington often writes. I’m also learning to hold those distinctions in consciousness without demonizing. In the immediacy of the Presence, consciousness and conscience are not threatened by those who lack faith in and obfuscate a consciousness and a conscience in immediacy. It is such a transparent experience.

When I write “those who lack faith in a consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by the the immediacy of Presence,” I am not being judgemental, as in demonizing or dismissing. It is just a statement of fact there many people do not a faith in a consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by the immediacy of the Presence. Just a caveat, there are many more who know the experience of the sufficiency of immediacy, who have not giving themselves over to it in all things, but are on the path.

The anger, demonization, and obfuscation that manifested in John Wilbur’s labor against people like Gurney and Ash, who professed a lack of faith in the sufficiency of a consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by the Presence was unfortunate. Wilbur’s anger was outside the Life he witnessed to and it weakened his message.

I embrace with gratitude, thankfulness, and love the clarity our debate has manifested.

With deep love and respect.

Keith

 

Comment by Olivia on 2nd mo. 16, 2014 at 11:04am

Hello Keith,

I too share a conviction that your life is not as simple and of the Light as what you are presenting and advocating for. It's not that I am seeing you in some faulty way, or being cynical because I don't know the Light you do.  I'm simply seeing that you only want to be seen as a channel and that Keith is a person who is struggling and you would rather not be.

This is very clear from your writing. You don't mean for it to be, and you don't see it that way, but what you are actually conveying is I know everything as long as I don't be Keith in my own body and keep trying to rise above that.  You are trying to be grace while being disembodied, in a sense.  And the painful thing about life is it just doesn't work that way. 

I encourage you to just sit and be Keith in all your limitations without answers. Eventually AFTER you go through enough of that, I think your words will hold more power for the rest of us.

I find them to be mildly inspring but missing the struggling human being underneath. I don't want you to feel vulnerable in expressing that on this platform, however I am simply aware that your intent to not be fully rooted in the physical guy Keith and the emotions that you own and the spirit that is struggling physically, and the plain speaking and the regular emotions, etc.    Your intent to be just "Spirit, Spirit, Spirit" comes across and fails to communicate the great stuff you correctly intuit.  Instead it conveys that this person is struggling, is clinging obsessively to Spirit in the abstract so that he doesn't have to "go there" in the particular, and that he's wise and deserves better than he's giving himself.    

You are going to have to now integrate all that into your body. Life is a learning experience, I'm sorry to say.   You want to look like you've got there and have something to teach us, but you're not living it in body-based (present-to-Keith-enough) ways to readily convey what you are hoping to convey to us.  The journey doesn't always turn out to look like we wanted to to (and usually doesn't turn out to look like what we think right now).  

in peace,
Olivia

Comment by Forrest Curo on 2nd mo. 16, 2014 at 11:33am

The trouble with "debate" mode is not that "Debate is bad"; it has the advantage of helping people sharpen their statements of what they mean. Your statement: "I also appreciate you have finally expressed yourself with transparency" shows how big a gap can exist between striving to say something and having it say what you mean to another person.

The reason I said "fallen into debate mode" is that this isn't quite the same thing as a spirit of mutual illumination, which I prefer. Any light in us is from God, so it isn't 'just us' doing the illuminating, but as I see matters, we are made to give and receive his light from each other. But where could we ever get that from, or see it,  if we weren't in fact 'anchored in God within us'?

Comment by Keith Saylor on 2nd mo. 17, 2014 at 7:41am

Dear Olivia,

Giving your words over to the Presence manifested them cordially within my conscience. Although, not in the way you intended. A spirit of defensiveness manifested within me in the reading of your words of opposition threatening to fill consciousness and conscience and dim the inner Light. In the Quiet, I deepened down and felt for the immediate Presence and a beautiful miracle happened. Your words of opposition were taken up into the Light and transformed into a testimony of and witness for the presence of Christ within me. Not Keith, but Christ in Keith.

I read:
“ I'm simply seeing that you only want to be seen as a channel and that Keith is a person who is struggling and you would rather not be.”
I responded:
Yes, I am a vessel receiving the Presence. And yes, I do struggle with outward things that the make up the Keith identity as I further embrace and anchor in the immediacy of Christ.

I read:
“You don't mean for it to be, and you don't see it that way, but what you are actually conveying is I know everything as long as I don't be Keith in my own body and keep trying to rise above that. You are trying to be grace while being disembodied, in a sense.”
I respond:
Yes Olivia, Yes! I do mean it to be and I do see it that way. I cry out loud YES, dear Olivia … I experience disembodied Grace in every moment and in every activity. Wow, what glory and peace.

I read:
“And the painful thing about life is it just doesn't work that way.”
I respond:
Thanks to the immediacy of the Presence within me, I affirm to you, while life doesn’t work that way for many people, it does work that way for many others … including me.

I read:
“I encourage you to just sit and be Keith in all your limitations without answers”
I respond: Yes! The Presence informs my conscience of all my limitations as I deepen down and feel for the foundation in the Quiet. There, in the Presence, are no specific answers, there is the direct knowledge and experience of the workings the the Spirit within toward a conscience informed by immediacy.

I read: “I find them to be mildly inspiring but missing the struggling human being underneath.” and … “ I am simply aware that your intent to not be fully rooted in the physical guy Keith and the emotions that you own and the spirit that is struggling physically, and the plain speaking and the regular emotions, etc.”
I respond: Yes, in the Presence consciousness and conscience are no longer rooted in the physical Keith. Yes, Olivia I affirmed it with joy and gratitude and it is a physical struggle that I embrace!

I read:
“ Your intent to be just "Spirit, Spirit, Spirit …”
I respond: Yes, and it is a beautiful struggle. Far from being abstract it is direct experience and the Presence I am there in the particular. In the Spirit is the Life. Not Keith but Christ within Keith.

I read:
“You want to look like you've got there and have something to teach us ...”
I respond: To the extent that I have reflected a want to teach anyone, I have failed. It is mine to witness to the sufficency of the Presence within. It is not mine to teach … that I leave to the workings of the Spirit of Christ within each individual. Yes Olivia, I have long way to go in expressing the witness within me.
Yes, Olivia, I have embraced the power of the sufficiency of the Presence within me, and know it strong upon me in all things and in all ways. Not Keith, but presence of Christ within Keith.

I read:
“The journey doesn't always turn out to look like we wanted to to (and usually doesn't turn out to look like what we think right now).”
I respond: I have no expectation of where the Journey will lead, I love and embrace the Journey.

Olivia, as I deepened down feeling for the Presence, it occurred to me that you had set out to tell me how I think, why I think what I think, what I should think, and how I will think in the future. You wished to place your conscience over against mine. In the Presence, your words of opposition were were transformed into words of affirmation and a cordial blessing to my mind because they strengthened consciousness anchored in and conscience informed by the immediacy of the Spirit.

In the Presence, your words also convicted me of a reflecting a teaching spirit, and thereby agenda based, which is not my intent. I thank you for bringing that to my attention and I’m thankful for the power of the Spirit of Christ within me opening me to conviction.

I have no agenda. I embrace the Life for the sake of the Life. Not to manifest any outward goal or realize any expectation of how things should be. To the extent I have projected an agenda, sadness approaches me. It is mine to witness to the truth of the immediacy and sufficiency of Christ within. That is all. Whether an individual and individuals find this witness cordial to their mind is not up to me. It is not my wish to impose a consciousness and conscience over against anyone .. only to give witness to a different way. I know and accept there are many people who do not have faith in the sufficiency and immediacy of the Presence within. I also know and accept there are many who do.

Giving glory to and affirming the mystery of faith in a pure conscience … the Life. Not Keith but Christ in Keith.

Comment by Keith Saylor on 2nd mo. 17, 2014 at 7:53am

Dear Forrest,

You and I do not share consciences and it is okay. Be well friend.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 2nd mo. 17, 2014 at 11:49am

Okay, friend, if you like your cloak keep wearing it!

My take for whatever it is or isn't worth: [I don't doubt that you've found a real connection, but the Kingdom of God needs to come all the way down to embodiment in everybody, not just rule a person like a colony!]

Comment by Keith Saylor on 2nd mo. 17, 2014 at 1:17pm

Thank you Forrest. Amen friend. 

Comment

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page