I consider any witholding of "opinion" or injection of agnosticism into the vein of Christianity an affront to Our Lord, even in questions of metaphysics. I express my beliefs because I love Christ passionately. Nor have I fashioned these beliefs from intellect, experience or reading of any theological tract alone. They are the fruits of divine revelation, through scripture, filtered through the aforementioned.

At the risk of trying to resuscitate a dead dog, any reading of Christianity from an Eastern perspective is not a view from a mountain top but one from the murky depths. I have tried in the past to impose Christian theology on Hindu belief and found it not just futile but rather patronising. If we disagree, we disagree, I can live with that, but any attempt to synthesise Eastern belief and Western belief, with the emphasis heavily on one angle, is bound to dilute the other. They are as different as chalk and cheese, which is fine - I like chalk, I like cheese.

Maybe it would be helpful to note that there is a difference between revelation and metaphysics. For Christians, revelation is our primary source of truth about the meaning of life and even the nature of things. Through his life, teaching, death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus answers the two great religious questions: "What kind of a God is God?" and "What does God expect of human beings?" He also reveals something of human destiny; what happened to him was, from the beginning, thought to be the destiny of those who live in union with him.

For the Christian, these revealed truths are decisive and pivotal, informing everything, really, including spiritual practice. No "advanced states of consciousness" by Christian saints or mystics from other religions may have priority over revelation. Re-interpreting revelation to turn it into an endorsement of other religious and spiritual systems has always been a danger, and it has been addressed from the beginning in response to certain gnostic cults and other movements through the ages that came to be called heresies. The development of doctrine has been, in no small part, in the context of responding to these movements; it's purpose is not to provide a Christian head trip, but to help orient believers to what Christ has revealed that they may grow spiritually in the life he came to bless us with. There has been a gross misunderstanding of the importance of sound theology by some on this thread (ahem . . . no names ). Maybe this helps.

To be sure, there are metaphysical implications of Christian revelation. For example, revelation sheds light on the the relation between creation and God (made, not begotten), the nature of human beings, and the ultimate destiny of human beings. Working out these metaphysical implications in philosophies and theologies is no easy matter, however, as our friend Johnboy attests in many of his posts. E.g., there are all kinds of ways of understanding how God and creation interact--from deist to process possibilities. Revelation sheds its light more favorably on some than others, but even this can take time to discern. Same goes for metaphysical teachings about human nature. What are we, really? How are we put together? Are we a system of interpenetrating bodies as the Hindus maintain? A spiritual soul incorporating lower souls, as Thomas Aquinas taught? Are these two views compatible? Are there other ways of understanding what we are? What stays and what goes on with death? Again, revelation sheds light, but does not necessarily show us the best way to understand these issues. Some metaphysical philosophies are unquestionably more in line with revelation than others, but, in the end, there is no official Christian philosophy or metaphysics, and I hope there never is. As we continue to grow in our understanding of the world, mind, etc., we will need to constantly re-image our paradigm.

http://www.karaites-usa.org/St...al_or_singular_1.htm

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One"

ONE BIG EVERYTHING!!! omniscient omnipotent omnipresent
<*))))>< omnimagazine.com

Phil writes: Again, revelation sheds light, but does not necessarily show us the best way to understand these issues...As we continue to grow in our understanding of the world, mind, etc., we will need to constantly re-image our paradigm.

Yes, revelation is mercifully ambiguous. Hence we can have Origen, Tertullian, Aquinas, Bede Griffiths and Opus Dei all in the same church, all coming to radically different conclusions about the nature of reality.

Listening to the audiobook of Phillip Keller's
masterpiece A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. Keller was
a shepherd in east Africa for many years.

Sheep are continually doing things such as wandering of, falling over and not being able to get up, falling prey to wolf attacks, overgrazing their pastures, overeating, "head butting" each other over
power and control, and are rather helpless in general and require constant supervision and care.

In other words, they are just like us. Good thing we have a shepherd.

caritas,

mm <*)))))><

The story of Sadhu Sindhar Singh

Here's another Hindu who had a direct encounter with Jesus Christ. The rest of the story is quite different from Ramakrishna's, however. Check it out. Quite amazing.

Hi Phil,

Thank you for sharing this story. Iam very glad Jesus Christ came to Sadhu Sindhar that night. Christ saved him from what was a meaningless and purposeless life. But I was just surprised at the reaction of the Lama in Rasa, Nepal. I believe that no Lama (worthy of this title) would have treated him in that way. And the part about .."Realizing that Sundar was under the protection of a very powerful God, they became fearful of him and begged him to leave them." just make no sense to me. I'm tempted to say "Nonsense!" I AM a Hindu, by the way.

Welcome, Rupesh. I can't vouch either way for that story, but I can understand your reaction.

Yes, thank you for sharing that story. Who knows how God will manifest to an individual? I have no clue anymore and will not claim to say that Ramkrishna's way is necessary right/wrong. I can only follow my own guidance.

Deromanticizing eastern religions.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

Even Lamas are afflicted, it seems, with the human condition.

Sadhu Sindhar Singh is a rare case of Christian conversion, and I am encouraged by his example and would seek to emulate him. May his tribe increase

caritas,

mm <*)))))><

Good show, Michael. You'll note that in the story of Singh, he was being tortured by a Lama, who became frightened when he realized there were powers at work beyond his intent.

-----

Anyway . . . back to the delightful topic about enlightenment, cosmic consciousness, and whether there's really any individual survival in such a state (which I maintain there is). Here's a gem from John Heron, in his critique of Wilber.

4. Wilber's dominant view is that there is no personhood or self of any kind in the mystical end-state of nondual awareness. If there is no distinct centre of reference within the mystic who is in the nondual state of the absolute identity of emptiness and form, then the mystic's state is indistinguishable from the divine as such, from God as God is for God. This is the great problem of inflation for the no-personhood-of-any-kind-at-all-in-final-realization tradition of the nondual. And the nondual traditions have a repetitive problem with it. The inflation, I believe, is illusory. It rests on a denial of any individuation within the nondual state. This denial suffers, first, from a na�ve bias in favour of objective seamlessness. It allows that in the nondual mystic's perceptual field there are distinctions, e.g. between frog and pond, within the total seamlessness of the nondual state, but falls short of acknowledging that between the subjectivity of the perceiver and the objectivity of the perceived there is a subjective-objective unitive seamlessness. Second, the denial of any high level individuation also rests on a conflation of separateness and distinctness. When contracted, coiled up, alienated, fearful and separated personhood lets go and uncoils into divine presence, it doesn't just evaporate. Rather, it reveals a distinctness, a unique lustre within the seamless, unitive whole. Buddhists throw the distinct baby out with the separated bathwater. It is rather like saying that when a separate single note of music finds its apotheosis within the orchestral performance of a great symphony, it disappears and can't be heard. Whereas, in fact, the opposite is the case: it is remarkably audible in and through the whole.

Precisely!

And . . .

It speaks of a relatively permanent and well-established state of immediate participatory experience, of the dissolution of separate subject and object in a unitive field of awareness, as if it were an all-inclusive final identity of absolute consciousness with any and every manifest form: '�the final decentering of all manifest realms�I-I am the rise and fall of all worlds' (1995: 310). But this state, remarkable and profound though it is, is also relatively limited. The mystics who have claimed to be in it have never claimed, as far as I am aware, to have equal access, via their participatory field, whether sensory or extrasensory, to remote galaxies as to their immediate local environment. As Wilber likes to quote, the Zen symbol for this state is a wee poem about a frog jumping into a pond, not a poem about what is going on in the Pleiades. What apologists for this state do with it, is to inflate its relative permanence, as sahaj samadhi, to its total inclusiveness.

IOW, individual perceptual boundaries remain, as they must, for the soul is not God, but finite--a creature.

So what's going on, then?

The fleeing mystic is on an inward journey that has a compulsive overdetermined quality to it: the journey goes through inner psychic lights, archetypes and demiurge, the transcendence of all name and form in unmanifest consciousness, and then - a highly sublimated return of the repressed - the immediate Many reappear seamlessly with the One - a valid experience of the divine in one sense, yet overregarded and held in inflated stasis by the continued denial which generated the original flight. For Ramana even the pain returned in very literal form: as he groaned in public with the agony of terminal cancer, he remarked 'I feel the pain but I don't suffer' - denial to the bitter end. Profound mystic, unresolved human; One-pointed, Many-blunted.

Methinks he has a point!

I'm reading Hawkins' I: Reality and Subjectivity, the 3rd book in the trilogy.

He suggests that after reaching the outer range of normal human consciousness, which is calibrated at 600 on a scale of one to one thousand, an individual
no longer requires a savior. If that is the case, then I will not seek past that point, since it is more than I really wish for or could concieve wah to do with Unconditional love, which is calibrated at 540, is the teaching of Christ.

Wilber and Hawkins both seem rather enamored with
Ramana Maharshi whom Hawkins calibrates at 700.
Maharshi must have been chosen for such a state, since it seems to have taken him unawares.
I'm willing to settle for that modest level

caritas,

mm <*))))><

quote:

The Chinese Communists occupied Tibet in 1951, claiming suzerainty over that country. The 1951 treaty provided for ostensible self-government under the Dalai Lama's rule but gave China military control and exclusive right to conduct foreign relations. The Chinese were also granted a direct role in internal administration "to promote social reforms." At first, they moved slowly, relying mostly on persuasion in an attempt to effect change. Among the earliest reforms they wrought was to reduce usurious interest rates, and build a few hospitals and roads. "Contrary to popular belief in the West," writes one observer, the Chinese "took care to show respect for Tibetan culture and religion." No aristocratic or monastic property was confiscated, and feudal lords continued to reign over their hereditarily bound peasants.21

After reading the above, MM, I don't know what to believe. It smells too much like socialist propaganda.

quote:

Enter the Communists
Whatever wrongs and new oppressions introduced by the Chinese in Tibet, after 1959 they did abolish slavery and the serfdom system of unpaid labor, and put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a form of criminal punishment. They eliminated the many crushing taxes, started work projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and beggary. They established secular education, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries. And they constructed running water and electrical systems in Lhasa.28

Every report I've read is that the Chinese were severely brutal and twistedly sadistic in enforcing communist doctrine in Tibet. This does not conflict with their behavior elsewhere. I'd be VERY careful before accepting this article as fact. Michael Moore might be less biased.

Whatever the facts are, I've read enough about Buddhism and the writings of the Dalai Lama to sense that something is rotten in Denmark. If Tibet's history is as brutal as portrayed then those facts should be exposed. The sense I get (and I do trust these senses when they pulse so strongly) is that Buddhism was quickly hijacked and its best principles quickly lost in a sea of precepts which were meant more to keep order (and thus some people's power) than to transform people's lives for the better.

He suggests that after reaching the outer range of normal human consciousness, which is calibrated at 600 on a scale of one to one thousand, an individual
no longer requires a savior.

Maybe . . . as in such a one has been transformed by the savior through the relationship with the savior so as to live in union. But the way this is stated gives the wrong impression.

Wilber and Hawkins both seem rather enamored with
Ramana Maharshi whom Hawkins calibrates at 700.
Maharshi must have been chosen for such a state, since it seems to have taken him unawares.

Advaita/enlightenment. Yes, he did come to it unexpectedly, but in such a way as most can identify.
- I.e., our ordinary Ego consciousness, especially when under the sway of the false self conditioning, is superficial and miserable. But the Ego itself exists against a backdrop of a deeper, more generalized sea of consciousness--call it the True Self, I Am, whatever. To wake up at that level is liberating. Unquestionably.

However . . . to conclude that that is the ultimate state, the real goal of the human journey, that the Ego is an illusion, etc. . . very wrong, imo! It is a deep, non-dual perspective on reality, from the vantage point of the deep human Self, which is the image of the unseen, transcendent God, who is anOther Being. Developing an inter-subjective relationship with God never happens for Ramana (nor Guatama, for that matter), and neither does any kind of individuation in the context of the deep Self.

Thanx MM for the article, it was a big for me, but Brad has a point too.

Phil, I've read alot of from Paul Brunton while growing up. His views on enlightenment seem to be in accord with yours...

"It is a fallacy to think that this displacement of the lower self brings about its complete substitution by the infinite and absolute Deity. This fallacy is an ancient and common one in mystical circles and leads to fantastic declarations of self-deification. If the lower self is displaced, it is not destroyed. It lives on but in strict subordination to the higher one, the Overself, the divine soul of man; and it is the latter, not the divine world principle, which is the true displacing element."

And...

"There is some kind of a distinction between his higher individuality and the Universal Infinite out of which it is rayed, whatever the Vedantins may say. And this distinction remains in his highest mystical state, which is not one of total absorption and utter destruction of this individuality but the mergence of its own will in the univeral will, the closest intimacy of its own being with the universal being." -Enlightened Mind, Divine Mind.

Cheerio,

Phil said: "- I.e., our ordinary Ego consciousness, especially when under the sway of the false self conditioning, is superficial and miserable. But the Ego itself exists against a backdrop of a deeper, more generalized sea of consciousness--call it the True Self, I Am, whatever. To wake up at that level is liberating. Unquestionably."

First off, Maharshi never said, "I feel the pain but I don't suffer," as Heron misquotes. He said "there is pain." There's a radical difference between the two (which would probably better substantiate his views!)

Second, in you quote above you misappropriate the no-self with "I am." I think BR uses the apt phrase "That Which Is" to describe the No Self. This seems to concur with the particulars of Maharshi's initial death experience. Here's a look at the difference between the two states that may interest some people. It's written by Aziz Kristoff, someone who studied in many different traditions. In his map of consciousness Presence=I Am and Absolute=That Which Is.

"How does the Presence, which is touched by time, reach the timeless? It is a mystery. There is a realization which encompasses the knowing of consciousness and the not-knowing of the Unmanifested: the experience of being present and the absence of presence. This realization is truly beyond all that we know. The Absolute can be compared to the sun, while Witnessing to its rays. The realization takes place at their meeting point; before the sun becomes its rays there is a secret gap where the knowing of the Absolute is born. The only way to reach the Absolute is surrender. One must drop the centre of Presence into the non-centre of non-presence.

We call it de-centralization. Moving through different layers of consciousness, we see more and more clearly that it cannot rest. It cannot rest even at the point of Presence, for it has a constant creative impulse -- a will to move, to become... No wonder it is the essence of time. Only that which is not of time can be at complete rest. The Absolute is the Rest itself."

This point of view concurs with Robert's view of the unitive state and her encounter with archytypal energies.

Heron's accessment of "no self" is burderned with his own presumptions and I find little in it that I can concur with. But I'm glad it helps people.

I haven't explored (either personally or through reading or communication with others) many of the states that have been discussed above. All I have experience wise is my salvation in Christ and an activated Kundalini which has thrown me into various shifts in consciousness and energy. There seems to be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between so-called expert opinion and argument. I know the discussion started off with a bit of shared experience and I actually find that more helpful than the second hand dialectical trade offs that have ensued.

I'm wondering about the notion of time in the various aforementioned states. It seems to me that if a person has an awareness of past, present and future and if those developed states of no self and what have you are at all subject to the vagaries of the time (in that they can be temporary - or can they?) then their value is diminished and even questionable. If they are, however, permanent, then what happens to the will, how can decisions be made - is there just a leading into, a guidance towards the correct, the appropriate action? Does it happen automatically?

I think of eternal life as not just everlasting life, but a state of awareness and insight into God - "eternal life is to know God" etc.(John's gospel). This is fulfilled in the afterlife but has possiblities in the present. True knowledge of God would seem to me to involve a shedding of temporal awareness and a subsequent immersion in God's eternal nature. While we are earthbound this awareness is limited and therefore any gleaning of eternal life here is simply a peaking behind the curtain of eternity - our life is "hid with Christ"(Colossians). Does the same not apply to conditions of no self?

And what about decision making. Are decisions made unconsciously, in line with some higher cosmic order? Synchronicity etc? Is there an "I" to make a decision. The practicalities of no self and its experience of time bamboozle me a litte. Can anyone enlighten me?

The desire of the Christian is to be in the will of God and I believe when this is achieved the Holy Spirit prompts our actions in line with the Father's will. But this is not always possible. There isn't always a right or wrong course. This affords us trials and tests which are part of our development in faith. Is there some sort of equivalent on the road to enlightenment?

I hope all this makes sense.

RSVP, especially if experience can do the talking.

Asher, since you continue to cite Bernadette Roberts, you really ought to know what she actually wrote: ... But when the self disappears forever into this Great Silence, we come upon the Buddhist discovery of no-self..." (p. 109) "Then finally, we come upon the peak of Hindu discovery, namely: "that" which remains when there is no self is identical with "that" which Is, the one Existent that is all that Is."(p. 109) I corresponded at length with BR and she spent a week in Wichita presenting workshops in 1991 at the retreat center where I worked; during that time, Jim Arraj and I had many conversations with her and during the course of her workshops, there were many questions asking for clarification. So what Bernadette calls no-self is but transitional to a next level of development, the emergence of which she likens to the Hindu realization of Atman (a definite "I am" state). Because she is a Christian, however, she later tried to relate her experience to the life of Christ and thus interpreted the falling away of self as the crucifixion, then there's an ascension stage, where something of an ethereal self endures, then an enduring presence of Christ as Eucharist--which Ms. Roberts believes to be her current situation (I know . . . don't get me started! ). I pointed out to her that she'd written that her experience culminated in something like a Hindu enlightenment, and she denied having written any such thing. I had to show her in her own book what she'd written; she had nothing to say in response, as she'd moved on in her thinking to relating it to resurrection, ascension, Eucharist.

There was a telling exchange between Bernadette and I in one of her workshops, where she was going on about how with the crucifixion, Jesus' unitive connection with the Father fell away and he entered the no-self experience. She maintained that henceforth, Jesus no longer had anything like a personal self. I asked about Jesus resurrection experiences, where he related to the Apostles as Jesus, interacted with them, etc.; I also mentioned the appearance of the ascended Jesus to Paul on the road to Tarsus, during which he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." She quickly dismissed both, stating that what is significant is the "I am" statements Jesus is making. I dropped it, seeing the futility of stating the obvious.

As for BR's encounter with archetypal energies, I don't know what you mean. She places absolutely no spiritual significance in that sort of thing, but would consider them part and parcel of what she calls self.

------

So, here we go again.
1. BR is not a good representative of the Christian tradition.
2. BR is nontheless a very interesting study, inasmuch as she seems to have come upon enlightenment as a Christian and tries to give an accounting of it using the limited theological and philosophical understanding she has (developing her own idiosyncratic definitions and meanings to make up for what she lacks).
3. BR's experience, at any rate, does not trump what Jesus Christ revealed about God and human destiny, nor does her experience clarify what that means.
4. The Hebrew-Christian experience of God is not only a "That" but a "Who" and this is communicated from God's side by grace. IOW, we do not access that kind of knowledge of God through "de-centralization. Moving through different layers of consciousness . . ." That's going down into the consciousness of the soul, not God.
5. You also cite a rather typical emanantist view of God and creation: The Absolute can be compared to the sun, while Witnessing to its rays. The realization takes place at their meeting point; before the sun becomes its rays there is a secret gap where the knowing of the Absolute is born. . . That's not the view of creation held by Christians, as I tried to say earlier in my contrasts between emanantism and creationism.

I could go on, but I wonder if you're really hearing me. I don't understand this desire to somehow subsume Christianity into the Hindu system, but that seems to be typical for Hinduism. It's kind of arrogant, quite frankly, and shows an inability to listen to and respect the unique witness that other religions offer concerning God.

"I could go on, but I wonder if you're really hearing me. I don't understand this desire to somehow subsume Christianity into the Hindu system, but that seems to be typical for Hinduism. It's kind of arrogant, quite frankly, and shows an inability to listen to and respect the unique witness that other religions offer concerning God."

I'm simply trying to understand the similarities, not to subsume C into a H system. Frankly, I was angry at someone who suggested that Sufism is simply Moslem Vedanta. I'm only trying to locate the common landmarks on each path.

The initial experience I described on this thread is shaping my life and my sadhana and something in me gave that experience importance, perhaps too much importance. The memory of it awakens a non-localized point of being that is completely apart from this "I." When this point puts "I" in focus, the energies of the body begin to move, and balance on their own. There is almost a reversal of gravity, in the sense that the bodies energies become polarized in the crown of the head--and attention spontaneously moves back as if to reach that point.

At any rate, the only reason why I argue is b/c I don't understand this experience and all I can relate it to is something advaitic. When I read advaita texts it also awakens this.

OK no need to argue anymore. I have to pack my stuff and get ready to go to university.

Good deal, Asher. Enjoy your classes.

- - -

Stephen wrote: And what about decision making. Are decisions made unconsciously, in line with some higher cosmic order? Synchronicity etc? Is there an "I" to make a decision. The practicalities of no self and its experience of time bamboozle me a litte. Can anyone enlighten me?

Maybe it would help for me to note that Christianity affirms the reality of our human creaturehood; let's say this means we are constituted as individuals endowed with a body, mind, and spirit (will, awareness). That's a fairly biblical view and a good way of describing what an individual is, I believe. These three levels all open to larger ones -- as the body to the biosphere, the mind to the psychosphere, the spirit to the spirit realm . . . nevertheless, a unique individual "resides," as it were in these larger contexts, and is responsible for developing its potentialities.

No need to go into how the power of sin has corrupted body, mind, and spirit (see our Christian Mysteries forum), let's think, instead, of what light Christian revelation sheds on our ultimate destiny. We note that with Christ, his body is still there, and so is his mind and spirit. These three aspects of his humanity that belonged to him (as to each of us) in a very unique were transformed with his resurrection, but not destroyed. They have become, in Christ, a new, sacred humanity--a means through which God's grace is mediated to the biosphere, psychosphere, and spiritual realms through the person of Jesus.

Through our union with Christ, we begin even in this life to be transformed into a likeness of him. The early Christian teachers called this divinization; even Paul noted that we have something of the Mind of Christ working in is. We still have our individual body, mind, and spirit and a sense of individuality, but it lives increasingly freed from the power of sin and open to deepening relationship with God, one another, and the whole cosmos. When the work of transformation is all done and we are raised up on the last day, we will still be unique individuals, but we will have an individuality that is fundamentally oriented toward God in Christ.

Does this mean that we no longer exercise our minds and wills--that we are but passive instruments of God's grace? I don't think so, for that isn't what we experience on the spiritual journey. So long as we don't move toward sin, we can exercise our minds and wills however we wish, and it seems to please God enormously that we enjoy this growing freedom. If God has a specific inspiration or mission for us, God makes it known and we are pleased to fulfill it. Even when this isn't happening, however, we manifest something of God's presence and goodness in all that we do.

I think it's that way with the Saints in heaven, and with our Blessed Mother, who alone, with Christ, has experienced resurrection. She is still very much herSelf, radiating the beauty and love that is uniquely hers in Christ. She converses, instructs, comes and goes, and probably does much of this without being explicitly directed to do so by God. Remember, God only forbids sin--nothing else! Consider the wide range of action that is available to us without sin--much more than when we are ensnared in the dark power.

Our bodies, minds and spirits (embodied souls) are not illusions, nor are they emanations of God in the sense that Hindus believe. We really do exist, and our human selves are really good and holy things. We are not illusions, nor is our birth a fall from paradise, as many New Agers maintain. Our minds can really understand truth and our spirits can find freedom and and meaning in God.

In Christianity, God is an-Other-- a Supernatural Being who is Personal (possesses intelligence and will), and mysterious. Because this is God's nature (as revealed by Christ) we can relate to God as "Abba" even while acknowledging that God's nature is beyond our full grasp. Because God is so magnificent and mysterious, we can go on relating, knowing, and loving God through all eternity without ever exhausting God's richness. As we do so, we become even more individuated, but in the context of the profoundly intimate community of others who also love God and live in heaven. The God of Christianity is a tri-Personal God of love, not an impersonal entity that we dissolve into at death. No other religion has this understanding. I think you can see how this all has implications for moral and spiritual practice.

Here's an interesting link by Jean Vanier and it answers the question about why Christians turn to the East when their own tradition is rich.


http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/jvanier.htm

I realize not everyone may know what's on this web site, so I'm posting, here, a link to a page describing my own experiences with enlightenment/contemplation. It's entitled On Christian Enlightenment and was written in 1996. I use the term "cosmic consciousness," which may be misleading, but that's how I was describing things at the time.

I quickly note, Phil, that the whole of creation groans awaiting the manifestation of the sons of God(Romans).

I like your summary above and also want to emphasise our identity and individuality as "sons of God", which status and condition contrast mightily with a dissolving into impersonal force.

Asher, your take?

Scripture talks about us receiving a "crown of life", which I believe to be a metaphysical, spiritual, real object, life inducing, connecting us to God. I also wonder about it in relation to the crown chakras(any connection? perhaps not) and the experience Asher describes above.

A big problem with so much teaching is the failure to distinguish between Ego and the false self. Hence, for Andrew Cohen, the only alternative to Ego is enlightenment (click here for the article.) That's to be expected from the editor of "What is Enlightenment?" but it's not really helpful. The more we become freed from false self conditioning, the more we realize our true Ego, or spiritual Ego, which is our true individual self, known not simply as an object of reflection, but as the subject of attention and volition. It seems there's no validation of this in Cohen's or many Eastern teachings.

I like the way Robert Longman, Jr. describes this reality on his website: http://www.spirithome.com/ He uses the word "self," but it is the same thing that I mean by spiritual Ego.

self : the whole of what makes up the entity called 'me'. There are many ways to describe it so we can make some sort of sense of its inner workings (for instance, the Greek body/soul distinction). But to a Christian, these ways of speaking are just that; they have a function, but the core truth and mystery is that the self is one whole thing, which is a body/soul/spirit/whatever all in one. Beyond that, Christians believe that the self is not a fully separate entity. Each 'self' is a part of God's creation, and each baptized believer is a part of the larger social organism known as the Body of Christ (the church universal). Like it or not, the bounds are so fuzzed and the links are so plentiful that all 'solo' concepts like 'individuality' and 'privacy' and 'self-esteem' can't even approach being absolute. This doesn't mean you are not yourself or that you are not responsible for yourself or that we're all to be blanded off into some sort of "I'm in you" mushy oneness. There really is a you. It just means that you are not (and cannot be, and should not be, and must not be) the center of your own universe. Others are really 'other', but not in a way that their good doesn't matter to you. We're not identical, but connected by way of relationship.

This has been a good exchange. Thank you Phil, Asher, Dave, mysticmichael and Stephen (if I left someone out, thanks.). I've been interested in this topic for many years now and this thread has been clarifying.

I guess in the end it all boils down to whether or not one believes Jesus is Lord, or the decisive revelation of God. Christians will use his revelation as a light to inform their thinking and spiritual practice and even to discern what's good in other religions. Non-Christians will look to their religion for the same. People shopping around for experiences will run to one spiritual jock after another and will just view Jesus as one of many great spiritual leaders but no one more important than their favorite jock du jour. As for me and my house, we'll go with Jesus and if I'm missing out on some "cool" Eastern states of consciousness, I can live with that.