Comment by Howard Brod on 11th mo. 11, 2016 at 10:57pm

Forrest said,

"Our existence as worldly beings makes little sense if we were intended to live as pure spirit. To explain our existence, I have to conclude we were created as a sort of 'amphibious' interface between Spirit and other modes of experience."

Not sure if you've ever read A Course in Miracles, quite a long book that requires slow reading to fully absorb it.  It provides an experiential explanation to your pondering.  It would answer, "We are pure Spirit,  You just don't realize it."

Comment by Forrest Curo on 11th mo. 11, 2016 at 11:10pm

Well, everything is.

The point is, why does some of that spirit behave (usually) in a matter-like way, & etc with other modes of existence?

Putting out the question this evening, the best answer I could get was that it has something to do with our need for obstacles. (It can remain an open question, for now, whether that's a temporary need or intrinsic to the sort of beings we are. If we ever find ourselves without obstacles to struggle with, that's soon enough to settle the matter; for now we've got them -- and wouldn't have them if they didn't serve some purpose.)

Comment by Kirby Urner on 11th mo. 12, 2016 at 12:07am

I think you're struggling with the question "why outward forms in the first place?" if the whole idea is to get over them somehow, as Keith suggests, by shifting over to a Presence (I may be influenced by other lineages in my choice of words).

We're often told at a tender age that the big open questions have this form "Why?" and I suppose there's something to that rumor. Certainly Quakers have their open ended asking of queries with expectant waiting attendant thereon.

However it could be that the inner light within is not itself a source of questions, nor answers (these come in pairs).  That might sound like a teaching against curiosity but I don't mean to be relaying some teaching, am more pointing out a sense of no longer feeling "owed" (e.g. "an answer" or "an explanation") might be part of what ego extinguishment -- much extolled as rapturous by those most rhapsodic about it -- is all about.  I'd say an ethical choice is to keep raging as an ego, demanding more sense.  God loves it when we do that.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 11th mo. 12, 2016 at 12:47am

Some yogis say we're always semi-conscious of the presence of that Presence, which feels like how ItAll  is &  gots-to-be.

How explicitly people recognize that and how they think of it, well -- That varies.

Demanding an Explanation... Well, yeah, God probably thinks we look cute when we do that. But what we're asking may be harder than telling a 2-year-old about a college-level subject. Ask, then wait as necessary.

Are you sure that questions and answers come in pairs? They don't need to reproduce, do they?

Comment by Kirby Urner on 11th mo. 12, 2016 at 10:52am

Are you sure that questions and answers come in pairs? They don't need to reproduce, do they?

Consider a contrasting grammar or language game, say that of "wonderment". When we marvel or wonder at a vista or work of art, that's more a full stop, a terminus, than asking a question, which ushers in thoughts of a future wherein said question gets answered, or doesn't. 

Either way, "to question" is less of a terminus than "to wonder" (in the sense of "marvel" -- "wonder" also means to speculate and ask questions about, so it's really difficult to fully escape those connotations).

I'd ask Keith what it means "to pray" in his vocabulary (I can't channel or speak for Keith), where for me it's a kind of statement of intent, desire or want (we "pray for [ ]") and therefore of mini-creation. We're each "that of God" in that we're each creators (attentive intenders) and cannot help but be so ("in His image" comes with a prepaid plan, a sense of destiny).

Our most sincere prayers are probably the surest indicator as to what makes each of us tick, but sometimes prayers run so deep we're barely conscious of them. One purpose of church, if not meeting (though I'd say likewise of meeting) is to bring prayers to the surface where we might publicly examine and compare them. 

Pastors and other spiritual leaders tend to be those among us who take it upon themselves to give public expression to some model inner life, like a model home or car, showcasing what the "ideal" would or could be.  "Oh Lord..." a pastor will say with bowed head.  "So that's how it's done" think the pastor's followers.

There's a subjunctive flavor to it all, in that each model has a "what if" or "could be" flavor, next to what's so, which so-ness seems bigger than what mere mortal humans might model, shoes too big to really fill really.

What surprises me sometimes is how long I'll take to appreciate when a prayer has been answered already.  I'll have preconceptions of what "an answer" might look like, often incorporating some computation wherein my role, level of merit, degree of culpability, is a concern.

Because of this focus on my person ("what it means to me"), it may escape my notice that I already have what I asked for, just not in a form that feeds my personal narrative as expected, in terms of my role, which may leave me a bystander who did nothing really, except pray. I'm sometimes blind to the miracle of answered prayers.

To give a concrete example, I used to write and talk about a "database of short video clips I might retrieve on demand to share during lectures or storytelling".  I even had a name for it, The Videogrammatron. I'd try to "make it happen" (Childrens Television Workshop? -- Sesame Street was an influence) but as some loner biped of finite means, on some 28th floor in Manhattan (back then), how does one even begin? 

As it turns out, apparently enough others had the same prayer to where now we have Youtube and other similar services.  What I asked for emerged. I don't pray for my "videogrammatron" anymore, because those prayers have been answered.  But for awhile there, I didn't see that they had been. 

That's one of many example, of prayers already answered but with the "asker" still waiting, clinging to preconceptions of what an answer must look like.

Comment by Keith Saylor on 11th mo. 12, 2016 at 12:05pm

Hello Kirby,

At this time it is difficult for me to give the serious and considered response to your multiple questions because my priorities outside of work are transcribing William Rogers treatise and fulfilling a volunteer committment to build a native plant nursery that will be used by my wife to grow plants native to the Oregon coast and use them in her work to restore and manage natural systems along Oregon South Coast. I also hope for time to take the message of the sufficiency of immanent Presence itself in itself to both those who are saddened by the current election results and those who are elated. I really wish I were in Portland right now.

Here is a very truncated response to your question on Prayer. As the experience of my measure of immanent Presence has increased, relatively speaking, over my lifetime I have come into prayer as an experience. Immanent Presence is Prayer in the same way as immanent Presence is Grace. I am prayerful in all things and events as I am in worship in all things and events. Prayer is an experience; it is what I do even in the fashioning of a native plant nursery. There is no need for a priest, pastor, or building in my experience of prayer. I hope this gives an experiential hint or savor of my experience without regard for the vocabulary.

Comment by Keith Saylor on 12th mo. 7, 2016 at 3:14pm

Hello Kirby,

It is now on me to give reply to your questions.

First, by way of preface, Here is a sense of my testimony that first manifested when I was 25 years old, some 29? years ago. I am now 54. One day, while out bird watching in a feral ag. field populated mostly with small hawthorn and aspen trees, I had a mind altering experience. The day was bright and the sun was at high noon in July. I was taking a break from re-modeling I was doing on an old farm house in Brownstown Township, in southern Michigan. I was admiring an hawthorn tree when a male scarlet tanager landed in the tree. Scarlet Tanager plumage is predominately red with midnight black wings. The bird's plumage took on an almost translucent quality without taking away from the wonder of its coloring. I have always been one to rest deep into moments in life without reflection. Not any particular moment just normal daily activities. It has literally been a part of who I am to just live in the experience of the moment in such a way that I was alive in the activity of observing the moment in the very moment. Interestingly though, throughout my youth I, was not particularly aware of it. For example, girls that I dated would often express frustration that, while I was "acting" completely engaged in conversation my "eyes" suggested I was somewhere else. At the time, I was at a loss to explain, because I was completely engaged and excited to be spending time with them. Any way, while living in this moment with the tanager, it happened that I filled into the activity of observing the moment. I was no longer conscious in relation to those things I was experiencing around me. Conscious happened in the observing. I used to say the sun was my eye. That I was seeing or aware through the sun. The experience was one of who I was was no longer in relationship to my body or the things my body reflects. I would say, "I am not that hand I am looking at, I am not those feelings or thoughts that approach me through the working of my body." None of these make up who I am. In essence, I showed up in the activity of observing and thinking and no longer lived in the things that were reflected through the five senses, thoughts, feelings, etc. In this experience I would tell people there is a better way to live. "Don't get caught up in your ideas and feelings about things, there is another way that transcends these things and attachment to the sensations of the body." "You are not your body or the reflections of the body!" "You can know being or life that is not dependent on the reflections of the body." This was the some of the stuff of my testimony.

One day, my minister in the Baptist Church I attended, asked me whether I had read George Fox. I had not. He gave me an anthology of Quaker authors. That is how I became aware of Quakerism.

You asked, "I'm wondering if you see yourself as a part of a lineage or tradition."

No, absolutely not. If by lineage or tradition you mean particular teachers or institutions. However, yes, If you mean immanent experience. My lineage is immanent experience in itself. I am not able to answer your question on whether it is exclusively Christian. I do not know at this time.

You asked: "Would it be possible to share your message using a different vocabulary?" Relatively speaking ... yes, I assume so.

You asked: "How identified are you with the specific outward form of your own expressions of faith?" I am not identified with the particulars words I use to express the experience of not being identified with outward forms. My identity is in immanent experience.

You asked: "Do you have a list of teachers you'd acknowledge as "teaching the same thing?" Teaching the exact same thing? No. There is something very particular and specific to the testimony of that which I witness. I am speaking to the inadequacy of the process of identifying with outward political, religious, and economic ideas, feelings, sensations, and institutions to rule and regulate and manage human being and relationships. That this process is in itself the source social disfunction. I speak to the complete adequacy of immanent experience itself to rule and regulate and manage human being and relationships.

However, there are books I spend time in. For example, I love reading George Fox and Issac Penington. Rudolf Steiner's "Riddles of Philosophy" was captivating after the experience. I can upon the book completely by accident. Recently I am immersed in Williams Rogers "The Christian Quaker ..." however, even though he came out against the outward institutional forms Fox and others came to impose on the Quaker gathering, it would be a huge stretch to suggest he would be in complete agreement with my testimony. The one book that I have read and turned to more than any other, even the Bible, is Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene." I first read it to completion in 8th grade. It has been a life-long companion. None of this is to suggest their are not those who have and do express the exact same thing.

I have not read the authors you point to and suggest "reasonate" with my testimony. However, Maurice Nicoll is interesting.

I hope this contributions positively to your queries.

Comment by Kirby Urner on 12th mo. 8, 2016 at 10:20pm

Thank you Keith, your reply was informative and interesting.

Kirby

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