109 ... Return Of course, the Nicene Creed is semantically at cross-purposes with its intent: it says [qualified non-dualism] other than what it means [non-dualism].

This fact gloating Arians gleefully indicated.

Clerical tradition promotes the saying, not the meaning. So, confusion is rampant and people disregard the Creed, saying and meaning, both.

There is wisdom in disregarding the Creed, but also, loss.

And this is not our subject ....

110 ... Return Non-dualism, which is erroneously described as monism or unity, is entered upon by means of this experience called Crucifixion. There is no other way to it.

This does not mean only Christians, who employ the word, can move towards The Goal. Clearly, practitioners of any religion can do that.

Crucifixion is a generic that means, cancellation of the operational capacity of the ego qua ego, or, crashing the sense of difference, distinction or uniqueness by cutting the ego clean across.

Christianity has supplied humanity with a potent icon for referencing this universal necessity of spiritual culture. That the icon is potent does not imply that the religion is the only one valid. The icon is universal, the property of humanity, just as the religion is.

The icon, Crucifixion, references humanity, not one of humanity's religions. It references an aspect of spiritual discipline (sadhana) that is fostered, under various names, by all the great religions, such as, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, etc.

111 ... Return The great religions all reflect the Glory of God, the only God. They all teach Love, the only Love. Really, there is no distinction between these religions. The religion one is born into is the religion one should practice.

God is not restricted by names, groups, places or times. He does not have to obey laws or conform to orders of logic [proof] or other devices of mundane manufacture.

He resides in the heart of every being, equally. He does not regard the distinctions some beings take for essential. He is all Love, pure Love, unconditional Love, non-obstructable Love.

Frequently, He is unrequited Love .... He feels the pain of separation, the hole in the heart, even more keenly than we do. Truly, as Heschel said, 'God is in search of man.'

112 ... Return Crucifixion is the sine qua non for entry into the realm of God meeting man, or, non- dualism. Intimacy with the Source is possible after ego is subdued, not before. Turning Godward starts one towards the Presence. Crucifixion lets one through the door .... It is the ticket to Bliss, deep, satisfying and permanent.

113 ... Return From an external point of view, from outside itself, Crucifixion appears as a major diminishment (Teilhard). From an internal point of view, from inside itself, it is not a diminishment but the opposite, an expansion, even though some pain may be experienced.

The old nurse at Good Shepherd talked about how people either fought death or were relaxed, and how it made such a difference in caring for them. Those who were relaxed were obviously much more saintly than those who fought.

There's ultimately no fighting it anyway. It's going to win. And people who understood that died in a manner that was pleasing, pleasing to those around them and monitory and helpful and instructive and comforting. They showed that this experience could be undergone in such a way as to be not internally painful.

It might look like a diminishment from the outside, but from the inside it was not at all. It was simply a transition.

114 ... Return There's much loose talk about crucifixion, including even in the Bible, with anachronistic statements such as, 'Take up your cross and follow Me.'

And then many people talk about crucifixion here and there, not having any experience of it, but talking about it and making all sorts of assumptions about what the experience really is.

There's a tendency to equate crucifixion with hardship or pain, and this is a very superficial view of it. We could list the various diminishments with which people equate crucifixion: pain, unpleasantness, hardship, defeat, persecution, psychological problems (psychoses, neuroses), even self-pity is regarded as crucifixion by some people. Death itself is regarded as a crucifixion. But it's just a diminishment.

You want it all, but when you get it, you won't want it all. When you get it, you won't want it. You say that you want it all. But you won't when you get it. At least half of all is what you positively won't want. But you won't know that until you get it. And then it'll be too late. Because you said you want it all, you're going to get it.

115 ... Return To get close to the good and great, you must be good and great. God is calm. To get close to God, you must be calm.

116 ... Return Crucifixion includes the phenomenon of losing more attachments to the world than were already lost during Turning Godward. More and deeper. The process of losing attachments also accelerates in speed.

There is, however, a typological difference between Crucifixion and Turning Godward. Crucifixion is to Turning Godward as Turning Godward is to Repentance, in the sense that, it has to be done.

Turning Godward doesn't amount to anything unless it moves through Crucifixion. It's not complete.

Instead of saying that Turning Godward is followed by Crucifixion, say that Turning Godward proceeds through Crucifixion. So you would say that Turning Godward is not complete until it moves through Crucifixion.

The fact that Crucifixion is necessary for a spiritual aspirant indicates that Turning Godward is insufficiently powerful to remove all attachments. It is insufficiently powerful to get one to The Goal. And, it is not of the proper logical type to get to The Goal.

117 ... Return The great lesson of the experience called Crucifixion is that all life is one. And one does not understand or feel or have that realization or feel that experience that all life is one until one has undergone Crucifixion. One can say it in words, but that doesn't mean that one experiences it.

One can experience the principle that all life is one, the fact that all life is one, only after the ego has undergone Crucifixion. The reason is that otherwise the ego is always saying that all life is many, namely, itself and others.

118 ... Return Crucifixion is necessary because Turning Godward does not eliminate the ego. Crucifixion does that.

Between the experience called Turning Godward and the experience called Crucifixion, the ego takes much buffeting, softening, getting softened up, but it is never forced to relinquish absolutely its claim to be the self. So, Crucifixion is necessary to get the ego under control, to bring it under control. And the only way to do that is to cut it clean across. Literally, cut it from its supply line. Cross it out. The ego has to be crossed out, so that it is no longer a potent phenomenon in operations.

Ego is never made not to exist, but through the experience called Crucifixion, the potency of the ego is permanently crossed out, eliminated, removed as a factor in general operations of the personality.

119 ... Return Crucifixion makes the individual a useful tool for the Divine Will.

A potent ego always and in every case makes a person, unuseful for God, not a source of God. When ego is an operational factor in the personality, the personality cannot be a source for God. Such an individual is useless, worthless, to themselves and to society. The ego has to be eliminated in order for a personality to be useful, worthwhile, to themselves and to society.

This seems like a very strict condition. And it is. And it's also an actual one.

120 ... Return It is during the experience called Crucifixion that one realizes that the connection between actions and results has been broken, is snapped, or has been crossed out, has been eliminated, and that there is no hope, ever, of reestablishing that bond. So that one's life is totally, now, 'in the Hands of God.' One has moved Godward to the point that one is not much more than a basket-case in God's Hands.

And one is aware of that. In other words, one has a feeling of real impotence about the former ways of feeling that one could control the world and make a life and do this and that.

121 ... Return On the other hand, one has a feeling of potence, of power, as one feels acting on behalf of Dharma. So there is a kind of a trade-off there. One feels the powerlessness of the self and the power of God. One feels it, you can experience it and you can see how it takes effect.

It's not so much 'relying on the Power of God,' as you're told to, as just understanding that there isn't really anything else to rely on. You've got a choice of one, and it's not even a choice. You have to do it.

It's really a pleasurable sort of restriction to have, to be living in, but it's a restriction only from one point of view. Again, you've got the phenomenon of the two points of view, from within and from without. From within, it's not restrictive at all. It's liberating. From without, it's restrictive.

A main theme of this section on Crucifixion seems to be, The Point of View. Point of view is determinative.

An old name for the sadhana (spiritual discipline) of Crucifixion was, mortification of the flesh. Flesh is a word for ego or desire or the assertion of I, the sense of I-ness, or, I-Me- Mine.

122 ... Return The essence of the experience called Crucifixion is the awareness that all life is one. Crucifixion is undergone so the personality may be aware and learn that all life is one. That is the reason for that experience. That is the goal of that experience. It's the goal of experiencing the oneness of life.

And correlatively, the oneness of life cannot be experienced until Crucifixion has been undergone. As long as ego is in there saying, I, I, I, the oneness of life cannot be experienced at all. When the ego is crossed out, then the experience of oneness, which is Truth, and is therefore natural to a person, comes forth and is relished.

123 ... Return Again, it's a via negativa. You don't add the experience of oneness to the personality. You take away what is in the personality that prevents the experience of oneness from being had.

Spiritual life is not a matter of adding something to the personality. It's a matter of getting rid of the garbage, what doesn't belong there. It's a getting rid of something foreign, of foreign matter, or at least, of effluent.

Spiritual life is not an adding of something new.

124 ... Return If you wanted to be very discriminating, you could say that foreign matter, the effluent, the garbage, is produced by the process of sadhana (spiritual discipline), itself, just as any manufacturing process produces effluent. But also, garbage is simply taken in and acquired from outside sources, as one goes along.

So, there are two types of garbage a personality has to slough: the type acquired from outside sources and the type that is generated naturally during the process of sadhana (spiritual discipline).

125 ... Return Sadhana (spiritual discipline) is always a cleansing operation. You should remember that point.

There are several kinds of sadhana (spiritual discipline). They have different effects, and they're used for different cleansing operations. One is wiping off or rubbing off, one is burning away, and then there is the one of Crucifixion, which is an actual crossing out.

Crucifixion is akin to a flat-out denial of the existence of something that insists it exists. But it's not really a denial of that thing's existence. It's a denial of its claim of nature. Ego claims to be of one nature but really it is something else, not what it claims to be. Crucifixion crosses out ego's claim of nature and this has the effect of crossing out ego, itself.

Ego claims to be Truth. That claim is false. It has to be denied in the sense of crossed out, refused acceptance as truth. Crucifixion does not make ego not exist. It mutes ego's operational capacity, it's capacity to delude, rendering ego harmless.

126 ... Return It's an interesting phenomenon. It's not the same as wiping away something or burning away something. It's an actual denying of something, denying the assertion of nature that a thing makes, denying its stochastic structure.

And really, ego is the only aspect that requires this particular cleansing sadhana (spiritual discipline) of Crucifixion. The other aspects, which are aspects of ego, require the burning and the washing and the wiping away and the throwing out of garbage. But this ego one is one that requires Crucifixion.

In other words, Crucifixion is the only way to accomplish what needs to be accomplished concerning that aspect, ego. With other things, which are themselves aspects of ego -- less fundamental things -- like anger, fear, hatred and whatnot -- these things can be dealt with by other means, including the burning and the washing and wiping -- and not by Crucifixion.

127 ... Return Eternal Life is life after Crucifixion, without a hole in the heart. It is life without a loose-cannon ego.

	Eternal Life is life:

		based on self-confidence,

				which is produced by Turning Godward,

		composed of ever-increasing self-satisfaction,

				which is produced by Crucifixion,

		and looking forward to self-sacrifice,

				which is produced by Emergence in the Absolute.

What a person experiences after they have undergone Crucifixion of the ego Johannine literature calls Eternal Life.

Heaven and Hell are something else again. Both are here on earth and not our subject ....

128 ... Return Self-satisfaction is possible, it is what is, after ego has been cut clean cross. It is not possible before that occurrence.

129 ... Return

Conversion/Repentance results in allegiance to the principle,

Sola Scriptura.


Turning Godward results in allegiance to the principle,

Sola Cordia.


Crucifixion results in allegiance to the principle,

Solum Silentium.


Emergence in the Absolute results in embodiment of the principle,

Solus Lux.

130 ... Return The foregoing indications refer to operations occurring simultaneously in five dimensions. Anyone who understands that ... Salute!

131 ... Return There are five questions:

					Who?
					Why?
					What?
					Where?
					When?

Scientists ask:							Sola Scriptura
					What?
					Where?
					When?
							
Philosophers ask:						Sola Cordia
					Why?
					What?
		
Sages ask:							Solum Silentium
					Who?	

Avathars do not ask.						Solus Lux

132 ... Return Turning Godward and Crucifixion are externally induced and internally produced. Emerging in the Absolute is internally induced and externally produced.

The internal that induces Emergence in the Absolute is the finished actions of Turning Godward and Crucifixion. The first two primal experiences (passages) induce the third.

133 ... Return For a person who is at the point of beginning the experience called Emergence in the Absolute, the distinction between internal and external is almost non-existent. But it is not absolutely so. The person is not absolutely clean, as they must be.

The reason for the third primal experience (passage) [the reason beside the real one, which is that God needs ways to pass His time] is: the last vestige of the sense of distinction between internal and external has to be eliminated. The third primal passage is necessary because a trace of ignorance inheres in the personality.

This trace of ignorance is what permits one to say that there is an element of external production in the [otherwise operationally non-dualistic] phenomenon called Emergence in the Absolute. If that trace of ignorance was not in the personality, in effect, polluting the purity of non-dualistic experience, we could not say that there is an element of external production in the phenomenon called Emergence in the Absolute. Nor would the primal experience (passage) of that name be necessary.

But, the experience of Sages is that even at the deepest levels of non-dualistic experience there is a trace of the sense of distinction, a whiff of ignorance. So, the third primal experience (passage), Emergence in the Absolute, is required in order for The Goal to be reached.

The third passage eliminates the last vestige of ignorance. After it is undergone, a person is entirely clean.

134 ... Return The third primal experience (passage) is called Emergence in the Absolute. It is an indescribable moment for a life. It happens once. It is internally induced by the inherent power of purity, itself, and externally produced by God.

There are few references to this experience. Stories of St. Francis' Vision on Alverno, during which he received the Stigmata, indicate but do not describe it. The experience is incomparable and indescribable.

The writer is qualified to speak about this experience only such things as he has heard from a reliable source. He cannot speak from direct experience.

135 ... Return The third primal experience (passage) is a seeing, a vision.

136 ... Return The human frame, the instrument expressly and exclusively designed to be used for undergoing this third passage, can survive it by, at most, twenty one days. The instrument is consumed by the experience it is designed to afford, just as a moth is consumed by the flame that attracts it.

In addition, the human frame, body, mind and intellect, is the only instrument that can be used to reach The Goal. Dæmonic and sub-human frames cannot be used to this end.

137 ... Return Emergence in the Absolute is the one primal experience that is not produced internally, not done by a person. However, neither is it done to a person, as for example, predestination, fate, is.

Emergence in the Absolute is done for a person by God. He carries them over .... A person cannot go over or get there under their own steam. The final step occurs in a passive mode.

Ultimately, therefore, we are each and all basket-cases! Ultimately, life is a gift, not a gain.

138 ... Return Opportunity to meet a person who has this experience almost does not exist. This is true not because there are few having the experience but because there are few wanting to meet those who are.

In this Iron Age, when lascivious living and egoistic pursuits are valued above every other consideration, Saints and Sages are not popular tourist destinations. This does not mean there are no Saints and Sages. It means there are few maps and tracks to their abodes.

Now, there is your spiritual morphology. Mark it well, and end confusion.