Day: March 19, 2017

Chapter IV. The Mind: – Its Two Faculties, Will and Understanding.

CONCERNING the “inmost” see Diagram III. Next below the inmost stands the mind which is composed of will and understanding B and C. They are above the spiritual body D, or within it, – above in successive order and within in simultaneous order.

The will is drawn in red because it is the receptacle and abode of love or good. The understanding is drawn in white because it is the receptacle and abode of wisdom or truth. See reason for this in “Colour in the Diagrams” page 11.

Below the mind stands the spiritual body D. This body being but a derivative ultimate and foundation of the mind, or in simultaneous order its envelop and containant, has a quality like that of the mind. The mind is both voluntary and intellectual, the voluntary is drawn in red, the intellectual in white. Hence the spiritual body (their complex in ultimates) is both red and white – red from the will and its affection, white from the understanding and thought. Hence also the rosy tint and lily white in the countenance of an angel, and the fire and light in the countenance and eyes of man. (DLW 369; CL 42, 384.)

The natural body E, the last in the series, is drawn in Colour moderately red and white for the same reason, and being an effect from the prior forms may be called the mind in its extreme organism. Hence the presence in the body of dual organs and parts, as two hemispheres of the brain, pairs of nerves, two eyes, two hands, two feet:- the right an ultimate of the will, the left of the understanding.

The spiritual body in form and quality is like the mind, being beautiful and lovely, and inwardly pure and orderly if the mind be so. So too the natural body has an inward quality or nature more or less like the mind and bespeaks its state.

With the adult sufficiently advanced in years the natural body becomes in quality more or less like the mind, pure in substance, orderly in texture and moral in tone with the regenerate, and the reverse with the wicked. (DLW 135 to 143, 420, 423; AC 6872, 5559, 5726.)

Were the natural body more plastic, as before the fall, and were it under no other spiritual influences than those of its own mind and the particular spirits conjunctively associated with that mind it would exhibit far more than now the state and features of the mind. Then the inward order and purity of the body of the good would well answer to the state of the will and understanding. This inward order and purity, however, might nor be observable, yet its external form and beauty would be manifest. It would be the same with the body of the evil, but opposite from an opposite state of the spirit.

Since the fall and especially in later ages the implasticity of the body impedes its full response.

But why are not the bodies of the wicked as much defiled and deformed with natural impurity and disease as their minds, with moral and spiritual impurity? Why are their bodies often beautiful and healthful? This is from a merciful provision for the security of Divine ends, one of which is that a general influx from heaven shall largely order and control the corporeals of man that they may not be controlled by an influx from the particular spirits attendant on him. Thus whatever of health or beauty appertains to the wicked, is due to a general heavenly influx directly into the exteriors of the natural body. We say exteriors of the body meaning its gross and solid parts, because in the case of the evil the vital fluids are always more or less defiled. (DLW 423.) Even when health and beauty are an inheritance they are maintained by this heavenly influx and were mostly of such origin in the ancestors. (AC 5862, 5990, 6192, 6211)

Concerning the hereditary state of the infantile body see Diagram XVIII.

The will and understanding are organic forms. (DLW 373.) Concerning these faculties in general, consult The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, 28 to 33.

Religion As God’s Evolutionary Strategy

 

Science is more concerned with the “how” of things rather than the “why.” If we are to have a constructive dialog between science and theology the answer to the “why” question will have to generate new knowledge about the world and actually change the direction of progressive research.

Emanuel Swedenborg, in his great theological work, Divine Providence, states that the purpose and goal of creation is to form a heaven from the human race. But WHY does God need to create anything at all, including humans?

Since the essence of spiritual love is sharing, God creates a universe as an object in which to direct and focus all that divine love. In other words, nature is the object of God’s love. Nature’s ceaseless drive towards order, self-organization and bio-complexity tells us that existence is relationship, and that all created things are self-representations of God’s nature (the essence of love is to unify).

But such a one-sided situation cannot fulfill love’s ultimate plan.

Love is not complete unless it is reciprocal. For spiritual love to be truly reciprocal, a creature must emerge in the physical world with a level of consciousness capable of acknowledging a Creator and loving God back. God seeks this ultimate relationship. (In religion this is called God’s covenant with humankind.)

Evolution, even when described in Darwinian terms, shows an obvious pattern towards increased intelligence and consciousness. However, evolutionary biology does not fully take into account that, unlike other creatures, the human species has found its niche in the world of information (as opposed to simply adapting their physical form to respond to the changing pressures of a natural environment). Humans seek out information in the same way other creatures forage for food.

Information is food and is much different than, let’s say, an apple. If you share half your apple with someone else, you are left with half an apple. If you share half your information with someone else you still possess all your knowledge. Information and knowledge are not under the same constraints of physical laws as an apple.

Knowledge and information do, however, come under the constraints of our personal values. What each of us seeks, intends, wishes and believes, shapes our attention and gives order and real organization to the ideas of our memory. In other words, it is in this non-physical niche of the mind and human spirit that evolution can still continue.

Religion deals with values.

In order for God to create a heaven from the human race, humans must be able to evolve beyond the physical world and adapt their lives to the laws of a distinct and more rarefied environment. Heaven is not a reward but is something we become. Obtaining heaven requires that the inner bio-organization of our spirit becomes responsive to, and adapted for, receiving God’s spiritual love and values.

When we adopt God’s tenets into our lives we are actually re-organizing the spiritual substances of our mind and spirit into new living structure. This process produces a spiritual body, which is the real embodiment of the spiritual principles and values we each choose and put into practice throughout our lives.

Nothing exists without form, neither in this world nor in the next. Our values and principles (whatever they may be) become the real fabric of our innermost being and involve real bio-structure. What we love molds our spiritual body exactly to our disposition. Under this system goodness is its own reward and evil is its own punishment.

So religion is God’s strategy to extend both bio-complexity and the biosphere into a non-temporal and non-spatial realm called heaven. This makes religion a “scientific” belief system with lawful intelligibility. True religion explains the laws of the heart and mind with the same systematic and rigorous methodology that science uses to explain the physical laws of the visible universe.

Do you believe that the mysteries of faith can come under the comprehension of human reasoning, as does science?

Posted on May 2, 2008by
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The cycle of life

winter seasonOnly when we get a ‘proper winter’ do we realise how harsh life can be and the news reporters delight in searching out the rural, remote and particularly exposed places where people have no choice but to get on with it and break the ice in animal drinking troughs or walk miles to fetch necessary items.

The cycle of the agricultural year dominated life for everyone even in industrialised countries until very recent periods of history. Our central heating rather than total reliance on open fires keeps us removed from worries about how much wood or coal is in store – instead we just switch on the gas or electricity to provide heat as we wish.

Yet we know that winter is only a season, a phase of the year and it will pass after a while.  The whole point of a cycle is that we know it will change and move on; we know we can rely on it changing again and again even if it takes far longer than we would like to move from one stage to another.

Just as there is the cycle of the seasons, so there is a cycle in personal life. It is always moving and adapting; our patience may be tried and tested at some times, our desires gratified and easily fulfilled in other situations. Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair, other times we know that things have happened in direct and proportionate response to the effort we have put into a situation.

But we can feel ‘sunny’ or ‘cold’ on the inside too – our disposition, our patience or our temper is something we have a better degree of control over than the weather.

Even when we feel like being miserable we have the capacity to smile, to appear a little more cheerful to other people than we may really be feeling. There are those times when we make an effort and feel rewarded through it – not because the situation miraculously changes but because we have helped our own feelings to change, we move on or begin to get out of the self-pitying state that can be so tempting to wallow in.

Trying to keep positive, optimistic and cheerful all the time is hard work; but there is a lot to be said for seeing harder times as cycles, as seasons or phases which need to be got through. Those people living hard rural lives are shown on TV reports as getting through, getting by – whatever phrase is used it isn’t about pity but about coping and making sure things keep going until the milder weather arrives.  This year is already bringing us many things to cope with or enjoy, hopefully we can find more of the good and less of the negative aspects of whatever situations we experience.

Based on material by Christine Bank

What was the mystical knowledge of Ancient Egypt?

meaning of mystical knowledgeThe Egyptian artist was never a literalist, but used symbols to represent inner concepts. He was free to combine human and animal parts, yet show the resulting image in a ‘seamless harmony’. A simple example of this is shown in Egyptian grammar. To write the single personal pronoun ‘I’ the writer would draw a human figure. But to express the reflexive ‘myself’, he would add a snake in front of the figure. The snake is a world-wide emblem which appears as something to be both feared and revered. Is this because it symbolises something of the deeper self, the roots of personality. If so, why?

The snake crawls along the whole length of its body. Its movements are sinuous, sensuous and so it can readily be seen to represent the lower levels of our experience, just as birds more fittingly represent higher levels of thought and detachment. Here are three examples from the Bible.

The cunning seducer in the Garden of Eden

This story (Genesis 3) is par excellence the moment which sets the serpent as enmity with mankind. Adam and Eve are thought to represent the innocence of mankind who lived in obedience. But the serpent begins to whisper that we can decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. This explanation means that Eve is not to be seen as the cause of ‘original sin’, but the feeling part of our nature. Our own desires are seduced by our senses into unwise behaviour. Eating from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil shows that people have decided what they themselves will call good or evil without reference to higher authority.

The staff of Moses becomes a serpent

Moses had been chosen by God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. God gives him a sign and asks him to cast the staff in his hand on the ground. There it becomes a serpent and Moses runs away in terror. The useful, reliable staff in the hand of Moses, once he lets go of it, can have a life of its own! He is commanded to take hold of it, and it becomes the familiar staff again (Exodus 3 & 7).

One way of understanding the meaning of this is to say it shows the orderly function of the senses in our life. Whatever we first learn after birth we absorb entirely through our senses. Our mind opens out to absorb, to enjoy these sensations and to realise our identity through them. When the Egyptian royal crown was adorned by a raised cobra, it showed the benevolent aspect of knowledge and power (our staff) which we gain through our senses. Only when our senses get out of control do they become dangerous. They have assumed a life of their own.

The words of Jesus to his disciples

Jesus told his followers that they should be ‘as wise as serpents and innocent as doves.’ (Matt 19:16) These words can be understood to mean that the serpent in us is our strength, our protection, circumspection, our sensation of all things beautiful; and our healing touch. Within it lies the very experience of our selfhood and these sensations will grow purer and more refined when they are linked with the higher wisdom and the kingly power which exercises self-control through the innocence of a dove.

The Tet Pillar

mystical knowledge of Egypt
Tet Pillar

The exact meaning of this symbol is not known, but it has been called the emblem of stability.

The four horizontal planes leave three openings and, if we look for other parallels, we are reminded of the three storeys in Noah’s Ark, and the three defined areas in the Tabernacle. Swedenborg tells us that these universally used patterns reveal that the human mind exists on three levels.

1. As we have seen, our life begins on the level of the senses. This enables us to develop our memory and from that we can accumulate knowledge.

2. When we have sufficient knowledge, then our thoughts can begin to be formed. Thought is quite a different function from memory!

3. The highest degree is the ability of judgment and reason.

These are the three separate storeys of the mind. In the truly mature individual the higher levels control the lower ones. The Tet pillar can be seen as a reassuring symbol of such stability.

The Magic Eye

meaning of mystical knowledgeOne of the marvels of the hieroglyphs is their stylised simplicity which nevertheless has strength and impact. The eye symbol really looks at you in a penetrating way. It is the all-seeing eye of God from whom nothing is hidden. In ancient Egypt it was known as Utchat.

The Psalmist says, “He who formed the eye, shall he not see?” (Psalm 94,9) If the eye of the all-seeing Providence is looking, then there can be no lack of purpose in a person’s life. Whilst the cynic may see in the Utchat mere superstition, the spiritually minded person knows that it is a representation of the reality of the Divine in human life.

The insight is that the human spirit is not separated from the body. They are in correspondence with each other. This why the knowledge of symbols is of practical value for all of us today. Those who deny the life of the spirit within themselves will naturally see no sense in this mystical knowledge, because it does not connect up with their own ‘reality’. It is like showing a musical score to a profoundly deaf person, or like describing colours to the blind. But as Helen Keller remarked, “None are as blind as those who will not see — those who shut the eyes to the spiritual vision.”

Based on material by Christopher Hasler first published by the Swedenborg Movement.