some theology on dualism, free life in God

[anti_nietzsche]

I think we all often desire one thing from God, which would be a lively and loving peace to dwell in. In the bibel this is sometimes given as a constant doing of the good, not betraying anyone or speaking falsehoods and hunting after peace. I think it is usually about mental and bodily exercise. The Greeks believed in man having to be mindful of both intellect and body equally.

In early Judaism, much was said about following laws closely and celebrating God with something I might call a musical (cultural) devotion to him. I often see that in yiddish music, specifically the german-yiddish music that now is only played by usually non-yiddish-german Jews and others. It's really the music of a perished world, and I go back to it frequently because the life of these Jews in the East of Europe and in Germany seems to display so much spiritual good for me.

In a simplified view, music can overcome dualism because the singer only has one voice. With dualism, what is meant is that there are dichotomies in life that cause unrest and dependency. For example, the knowledge of good and evil that we found in the garden of Eden sort of enslaved us. It changed our perception of the cosmos from a paradise to a world. I'm not of the view this change was necessary, as some would believe. It represents a conscious choice of our ancestors not to live in mystical freedom but instead in a freedom of human might. The view known as original sin has a bit to do with it, and perhaps it's in our genes already. For example, many people are utterly terrified of everything related to weakness and sickness. Many people spend lot's of money and time on health things.

We see this as wisdom, but it is not the wisdom of godliness but instead a wisdom of well-being confused with even a sense of immortality. My best friend who is an atheist (with some pantheistic thoughts) recently told me he wants to become 100 years old and works for that goal. While I am not against caring for health, having been sick sometimes and knowing that it can get difficult, I don't view long life as essential because we only have the life of a grain here on the world whereas the life of Heaven is the real life, the life we're meant to have one day and which we will be our eternity.

One could say our life here on Earth is tragical and overcomplicated while not being actually rich and complex. We are children of God but do not often have a life that would do justice to that in terms of freedom, love and beauty. I do not mean material riches. I do not mean strength and might. Because, we are treating these things as currencies by which we buy the rest, or we take the things of life and measure them with this currency and loose out on knowing what these things really mean without the monetary measurement we connect to it. The love of money is a root of all evil. I stumble over that frequently as I am rather poor, when I am out in the city without a dollar in my pocket nearly all I can do is walk around or sit on a park bench if it's not raining. Without my wallet I needn't go out. Everything costs something, from a movie in the cinema to something to eat to a coffee to some cigs to baths to toilets etc. Everything is measured with money and that money, in my understanding, serves as a barrier to the divine life being present to us at all times. And everything that is not based on money is considered worthless or uninteresting at least, that's how we are trained and taught by the life we have given ourselves.

Our being locked in the dualism of good and evil is rather simple when we were small. We don't need money then and in a way do not know what money means, because we do not have to exchange hard work for money. We live in a small paradise and do not eat from a sincere knowledge of good and evil but from a smalltime knowledge about danger, kindness, obedience, care, the pursuit of happiness, and such things. It's a life that all men have known. But at some point we are thrown into the world that does not give us the Love of God. Yes, we are told things about God, but we are very weakened in these things and usually have to compromise and we eat and do not get satiated.

I often compare Jesus to a gypsy man. When he speaks about freedom to Peter and others it is about a freedom that feels very practical. You have feet, you can walk. You are not under fealty to an interfering king who has more power over you than what is due. You are a child of the Spirit of the Cosmos, who is known as God. You know this God to mean everything and you live and eat from this God in Christ who gives words of life.

But this life becomes inaccessible if you're under the rule of the world, which is kept struggling and imprisoned by the rule of money and the dualism of good and evil that even permeates religion. Why would have Christ died on the cross if  not to release us from religious laws of sin and death? Isn't Christ's law of love enough? Isn't it the same as what you were taught by your mother? Does not God's law of the 10 commandments fitting perfectly to your conscience so you would not need much more than a bit of common sense and the help of other men to navigate life without much sin?

I believe that Jesus offers us a freedom that is deeper and better than the spoiled life of needing money for everything and being caught in the dualism of good and evil. Real evil like the Spirit identifies it is that which causes serious sin. It's when we gauge out our eyes for God and cut off our limbs for him, so as not to be thrown in hell, we are in hell, without God, self-punished, pitiful and ... stupid. Why then do we not see serious sin and evil in the love of money, in murder, in sexual violations of others, in hatred working through us rather than the free and gracious love of God?

We do not receive because we do not ask. We do not ask in the truth because we ask for money, not for a way to live apart of the money things. I wanted to say the following to that, when I was a kid sometimes I got a 20 or 50 Deutsch Mark bill by my dad. Sometimes as a reward for some work I did for him, sometimes as a free gift. This money that I got from dad felt like he would drive me around, like he would accompany me to the discotheque where I spent many Friday nights, like he would have given me the moped I liked so much when I was a youth and used to drive around in it in the school holidays. It was not much money. While others had 30 bucks per disco visit I only had 10 or so. 3 bucks entry fee, 5 bucks a pack of cigs, 2 bucks a big simple beer. But it was all I needed and while I had little to consume I had thoughts. I talked with the others, not just smalltalk but real substantial stuff. The others had money and many beers and lot's of hashish and such. But they did not have thoughts. I still do not know how some people manage to live like that. They work off their hide during the week and need the weekend to just relax from that. Intellect doesn't draw them. God means little to nothing to them. They know a bit about freedom, but they have no dream of real freedom.

When I let go and embraces Jesus' freedom once for a week in the city, I took little money with me. I had a sleeping bag and some extra clothing. I slept in doorways, under a big table in an abandoned garden, under a boat that had been put up turned around in a place, in a dark and overgrown spot in the park. I have deep memories of this, and I knew I had come into the Heavenly Kingdom like probably Jesus and his disciples knew it. And all the time, even when I had little money, I had rich life. It did not consist of working something mindless somewhere and then sitting before the TV and letting actors and actresses live life for me. While I had nothing, I had everything. I did not sleep around but met many women and when we talked with each other (I approached many people for talks.) they were all positively surprised and were very kind and open to me. It was what I would call spiritual and agape free love. You have your difficulties, like having no warm refuge, not your own nest, you must be careful of rain and frost, you depend on the kindness of others sometimes. But you are free, and not free like the others call it, the freedom to spend your money like they plan it in the advertisement industry. You can be yourself and your life, like it belongs to God, it also belongs to you, and love means something else too because when you live apart of the monetary and good and evil based worldly life, you live from love. You see the other human and he does not carry a label and an exercise for you, he is not your co-worker or buying and selling agent, your friend on the basis of 1 hour together in some activity.

Instead every human is a kindness from God and an invitation to eat with God, because there is work to be done and this work is like food from God. Christ is more real then than a preacher who talks from the pulpit. You don't learn religious systems anymore, you live by the Spirit instead. You have difficulties, but you can rest in God. I experienced really strange graces in that time. From a pigeon that dropped a cookie in my path to strangers giving me money in the morning when I climbed out of the boat I had been sleeping in. I would even include the hardships I had, because they set in motion other things which are not hardships. For example, I was wanting to sleep in a bed in a station of the deaconry like they had told me on the street. But they did not let me in because I was not a "registrated homeless" person. So I had to leave. But then I found a park in the city near a school, and I sat down and spend the whole night writing on my little netbook, and I wrote what became some really good poems and lyrics.

This free life is not seen by many people. And I also know that it was more of a visit for me and not quite a stay because if you're really homeless then life is much tougher than that. But there is a trend in Germany to think about this now. There are people who live from supermarket trash and have tents and such. And others who live in free communities, people who live from 200 or so bucks per month that they earn in a few hours of work and the rest of the time they're free as birds. Freedom is about being in the world. I do not mean the world of money and evil, I mean the cosmos. You can get close to it as a vagabond, and it's like paradise is there again. You will find your friends. You will find warmth, not always but very often actually. The world may hunt after other things, but you don't see that in other people so much and don't think about it when you deal with them. The freedom and the living in the true world of God entails seeing people with love, seeing them as brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers.

Okay, that's all for today. Hope you liked my little essay. Ask if you have any questions and I wish you sincerely much life and blessings of God!

[rosered]

Hello   


Here is a good Word to take with us where ever we go  anti-nietzsche....

  What   do you think of Love being described this way ?

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NASB)

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,


6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

[Dandelion]

Hi anti-nietzsche,

I think you are on to something, here.

Matthew 6:

25Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns—and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his lifespan?c

28And why do you worry about clothes? Consider how the lilies of the field grow: They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans pursue all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.

and:

Luke 10:

38As they traveled along, Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. 39She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet, listening to His message. 40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations to be made. She came to Jesus and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me!"

41"Martha, Martha," the Lord replied, "you are worried and upset about many things. 42But only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, and it will not be taken away from her."

We are to put God's kingdom first.....then all things will be given to us.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Matthew 6:33

How about this one:

Matthew 6:21

21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

D.                                       :dsunny:

[anti_nietzsche]

@rosered, I think these are wonderful verses and describe Paul getting really through finally with phariseical law worship to christlike love worship, and accordingly he calls it the "better way". Sometimes I felt too weak for love and just wanted to hole up somewhere, but whenever I really went out to love humans and be with them in a spiritually positive way I found help and felt like a human again and I think was realizing an important part of our purpose on this world.

@dandelion,

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Matthew 6:33

Very true, but notice that it is God's righteousness, not something we must produce. We clothe ourselves in Christ and live in his footprints and that will deliver us. There is of course also a way of following Christ when we are settled. I think it means developing a christ self in us, an anointed self that has passed from the fear of God to the love of God, from judgment to mercy and from darkness to light.

In modern psychology we often use terms like self, ego etc, but really what we are talking about when it comes to our inside we need to learn we have spirit and soul, and by having spirit we have God in us. And when the Holy Spirit also is in us, what can go wrong? But do not compare the Holy Spirit to the Law-of-Moses-Holiness, which was a different thing in the book.

Blessings,

Daniel

[rosered]

I agree with you Daniel

@rosered, I think these are wonderful verses and describe Paul getting really through finally with phariseical law worship to christlike love worship, and accordingly he calls it the "better way". Sometimes I felt too weak for love and just wanted to hole up somewhere, but whenever I really went out to love humans and be with them in a spiritually positive way I found help and felt like a human again and I think was realizing an important part of our purpose on this world.

  I do believe   you have  some great insights   here ,

  I have also considered   ,  when we are duel  natured , knowing the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak  ,   the Spirit of Christ in you working is    that  duel   or both
  the Son of Man , the human side and the Son of God the spiritual side   causing them to  come together  and fix the  gap  that is  so far between the  two by the Love of God expressed  openly   what was hidden  by the outward  appearance  in mankind  , and the heart was not perfect  yet , because it did not know how to please God

I say this because He looked and   found none , and said I will send my   one of a kind Son    to dwell   in the earth  in a body I will make for Him   , and after   He dies[laying His life down  only to take it back up again and again and again   making the resurrection always  ] I will send His   Spirit out into all bodies   along with  Mine   and this will be the   new and better way   and a covenant  between God and mankind    that has no death or ending in it  because it stays  and never leaves us  ever . 

That  gives us  a relations ship  with GOD THE FATHER ...  where mankind lacked  in ability  , JESUS COME to show us  and make us something new   and Love is the  very reason    it happens  .

  Blessings in Christ,  Rose ..

[anti_nietzsche]

Yes, Rosered, very true, I had forgotten the Spirit of Christ, "the last adam who became a life giving Spirit" and I remember a bit Paul wrote that when Christ died he went not only back to Heaven but also went everywhere. Where there is Abba there is also Jesus Christ, like always. There is much that can be said about God's immanence in the Cosmos. The Cosmos is so huge and manifold and diverse, and yet Abba does not run out of ideas what to make and Jesus the builder does not run out of ideas of how to build it. And the Holy Spirit makes sure that love's flame in Abba and his holiness will never stop. The trinity loves each other and we humans are included in this love, as is the whole cosmos that grieves and is afraid together with us, because so long we've been treading in transience and being unperfected. Hermann Hesse wrote a good poem about this:

STEPS

As every blossom fades
and all youth sinks into old age,
so every life's design, each flower of wisdom,
attains its prime and cannot last forever.
The heart must submit itself courageously
to life's call without a hint of grief,
A magic dwells in each beginning,
protecting us, telling us how to live.

High purposed we shall traverse realm on realm,
cleaving to none as to a home,
the world of spirit wishes not to fetter us
but raise us higher, step by step.
Scarce in some safe accustomed sphere of life
have we establish a house, then we grow lax;
only he who is ready to journey forth
can throw old habits off.

Maybe death's hour too will send us out new-born
towards undreamed-lands,
maybe life's call to us will never find an end
Courage my heart, take leave and fare thee well.

[rosered]

Amen ,
I do believe   we all rise up into the life   realm and fall  back down into the earthly death realm ,  on the SON OF MAN /SON OF GOD  /  The WORD/  our witness ,  until we are risen in power  and complete in Christ by the HOLY SPIRIT    witness  and what was   set in mankind from  the beginning to the end ...

Just some  considered thoughts  here about  it .

[marie glen]

Sometimes I like to imagine life (the world) as having no advertising.. none, whatsoever.. It's one reason I believe the harlot of Revelation, $ity babylon (not Jezebel of the church or the beast of yesteryear) is man's final money/riches based system, currrently going global - the kings of the earth (politicians) are in bed with her.. indeed she rides the beast (human governance)..

Then to add to a world and life of no advertising.. a world of no monthly bills :banana: Of course on this side of things.. there's still the sweat of the brow to have food to eat.. But even now, it could be a lot simpler than most realize.. or think about.. A simple life, is the best life.. Many that are first will be last..

I agree the verses Dandelion quoted are excellent.. some of my favorites! "See the flowers of the field, they neither spin, nor toil.. if God so clothes the flower, which tomorrow withers.."

And I agree "every human is a kindness from God" - His law is love.. the law is summed up in one.. love. "Love works no ill" harms nor hurts no one.. treat others as we would be treated..

The only 'dualism' idea i don't like is the old gnostic (pagan) idea that matter is evil. I believe God when He said, about creation "behold it's all good". The gnostic (pagan) idea was not that we needed to be set free from one's own carnal, imperfect nature and tendencies, but from God's beautiful and glorious creation! What an insult to Him! Rev 21:3 - "He will tent with man upon earth" made new, in a universe made new.. Jesus in His new body.. ate.. This is why the gnostics (of New Testament days) were either very strict law followers or, they were just the opposite, being Jezebels, etc, because if all matter and the body was the evil.. what the hey.. This is what most of the New Testament warnings and stern admonishments were about! To live in the simplicity of faith and love, and thus peace with all versus the beliefs of this sect called gnosticism, which was a loose collection of the world/pagan 'esoteric' ideas, which became attracted to the up and rising new Christian faith which was exploding in growth and also in miracles..

This is what "the flesh" represents to me.. the lower, carnal and imperfect nature that tends toward those things which do not tend toward Life but reaps corruption.. It's not that I need to be set free from being a flesh creature, but I need to be set free from my own flaws and faults inherent in my own lower, carnal nature. And before being born again and begotten of God (adopted, taken in by, embraced by God) human flaws can be quite terrible, which human history proves over and over. The ten commandments and Leviticus 18 are perfect instructions for the fallen and carnal nature of mankind.. "a tutor (babysitter) until Christ" (is within, which surpasses the law). It's not like we tell our little unknowing children, I love you so go ahead and play in the road if you want..

The pharisees added to God's law.. making a loNg list of their own laws people needed to adhere to.. like the washing of cups, etc.. or not healing on the sabbath, or not rubbing a wheat sheaf in your palms to eat the wheat kernal.. or even picking up your mat.. but it was okay to help your ox out of a ditch (this affected the market - $).. Pharisaic laws.. But they (paharisees) were "like white washed graves".. which their actions proved..

Instead we follow that Jesus is the vine.. we are the branches. (John 15) If we abide in the vine, as a branch, we will bear good, luscious fruit.. If not we (branch) will wither, and may find ourselves being gathered to whatever evil the world has in mind.. The Spirit in many ways is like that sap in the vine.. the Life.. Which produces more life.. And abundant life, as in overflowing life.. Yes, we yearn to give Jesus away.. to everyone.. And we do it in whatever ways we can..
   :gsmile:

[sheila]

 I see our flesh[which counts for nothing] as of the TOKOGAE.....even sin in the flesh condemned. I see man's spirit quickened

as of the TOL.  Just as the TOKOGAE has it's 'root" and planting in our flesh....and will be uprooted...so,too, the TOL has it's

root in man's body[unless a kernal of wheat fall to the earth and die/rooted/sown in weakness/corruption it remains alone

to bear fruit above is worship in spirit form and truth.....

   In Enoch God said..He made man from both visible[flesh/tokogae] and invisible nature[tol/spirit] of both is his death and life.

one is a mortal corruptible image[flesh tokogae] and one is immortal incorruptible...thus all things are ours..both life and death.

    this dualism of man..shall come to an end...the old man shall perish/return to dust...and the new creature come forth/return

  unto the Father.  we are fearfully and wonderfully made....and we did not come of ourselves.