|
Docta Ignorantia XXII Ritual Formulae What do you feel are the significant ritual formulae from the Bible -- and from Sages, such as Paul Tillich, Teilhard de Chardin, Buckminster Fuller and Mary Baker Eddy -- that comprise the primal communication links between Divinity, Humanity and all other Essentiality? The relationship between MS Windows and MS DOS may be compared with the relationship between Christianity and Sanathana Dharma. Christianity is a user-friendly interface for the very ancient and universal religion of the cosmos, the religion called Sanathana Dharma. Indeed, each of our so-called world religions is such a user-friendly entrée to the world's primal operating system, Sanathana Dharma. The comparison may be drawn out further. For example, Windows is a user friendly interface for operating DOS, but DOS also operates Windows. DOS can work on its own whereas Windows cannot. In the same way, Christianity connects with and operates Sanathana Dharma, but it is always being operated by Sanathana Dharma. Christianity cannot stand on its own, as Sanathana Dharma does. And again, DOS is an enormous and puissant reality operating constantly behind Windows, out of sight. And similarly, there is a vast goings on behind Christianity all the while it is being practiced. Wherever and whenever we have Christianity, Sanathana Dharma is at play as the inconspicuous scenery, the stage set. The purpose of this writing is to explore that scenery, that vast goings on which is occurring behind Christianity. What is it and what is happening to and by it when Christianity is being practiced? This is our concern here. Sanathana Dharma is not really a religion. It is Life, the way of living as laid down for all creatures at the moment of creation. It includes all and excludes none. It is the structure (essence) and the power (existence) that is Life. Sanathana Dharma is the way everyone and everything is meant to behave, to get along, to exist together in peace, prosperity and happiness. Sanathana Dharma is Eternal Propriety. There are words that are always going on silently in the mind. There are also words that are going on silently in the mind in the Hebrew sense which is the heart (spiritual heart). Operationally, these are the same words going on silently. THESE words are Das Wort, Logos. They are, furthermore, the primal operating commands and parameters (commands = parameters) of the universe. Ultimately, they are one Word or Logos, which can be expressed in several ways, including the number, One. Also, OM. It is the proper orderliness of these words which produces the spiritual blessings (peace, happiness, prosperity, etc.), or, in the Hebrew, mishpat. These words (Logos) are the stuff of religious inquiry, worship and piety. I have been asking you which of these words are important in your estimate. This question is scholarly on one level and pastoral/pietistical on another. Both levels are important to me as they are to you. You are always welcome to agree or disagree, as you wish. I do not value either one. Inquiry and reconstitution is my only aim. Your notes with Christian Science statements help because they are what Christian Science consider formulaic formulations, meaning, primal operators in piety and Universe itself. Anything one does repeatedly is a ritual. I am astonished that you don't want to admit this. The Christian Science ritual formulations are exceptional and fine. MBE spent her life making these things, so they would work. She was not given to idle chatter. The ritual formulae are comparable to DOS commands for the universe. I don't know if there is anything comparable in MAC operating procedure, but in DOS/Windows one can play around with the user-friendly interface (Windows) and then drop down into the arcane basic commands (DOS) the interface is operating behind the scenes if one wants to. Windows, however, both operates DOS and is operated by DOS. In the same way, the ritual formulae that are truly primal both operate universe and are operated on by universe or reality or Truth, as you wish to call the Actuality. So with the Christian Science ritual formulae. They operate Truth and they are operated on by Truth. They are Truth in themselves, since Truth has no second. The religions (Christian, Islam, Hindu, etc.) are all user-friendly interfaces. They are all operating a basic universal operating system, called Sanathana Dharma in Vedas, which one can drop down into from any religion via the ritual formulae. Using the ritual formulae is dropping down from the religion -- which is a particular and has the failings of particularity -- into the Universal, which is expansive. Christian Science does this as much as any other Christian denomination. The distinction you keep trying to make between spiritual and material does not make sense to me. You are reaching for a logical distinction without there being an experiential ground for making it. It's phoney. Ultimately, even MBE would say the distinction is phoney. If it weren't phoney, she wouldn't bother with healing. The healing is important only because there is no distinction between spiritual and material. They are the same thing. This is why she is healing. You are not subtle enough in your intellect. You don't take care between a thing and an appearance of a thing. Is and seeming you don't separate enough. You're heavy-handed and this is a failing. You must be light and relaxed to grasp the meaning of Christian Science. You're ponderous. On the other hand, your exegesis is light and relaxed, not ponderous. Men and women are two different things. Granted most men today are horrible brutes. But should women become like them and claim two wrongs make a right? Men need women and women need men. That's the way things are designed. They are designed to get along. If a woman will make her heart and house clean, if a man will make his heart and house clean .... They will find one another in time. But the heart and house have to be very clean. Spotless. There can be no craving for revenge, no itch for acclaim, no bathos of politics, no whiff of greed. If a person will spend time removing these bits of dross from the heart and the home, there will be no time or need for repining about things past or hoping for things to come. Christian Science is heavily and rightly involved in ritual formulae, has been from the start. This is appropriate.
Adwaitha Hermitage
|
