Apech

A hermit explains to Lancelot the significance of his failure to see the Grail, and the meaning of the voice that called him "harder than stone, more bitter than wood, more barren and bare than the fig tree," p. 86 http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/sechard/344quest.htm ... why indeed? have to work it out!

I see human evolution as a much broader thing in that we will evolve in a Darwinian sense as a result of struggle and this can be quite unspiritual. The Christ lineage is a particular and to a degree a self selecting thing ... and sometimes runs counter to evolution as in survival because of course the Christ sacrifices himself. (Maybe some would see this as a higher evolution). I think we all have the potential to unlock this particular strand but most would not chose to ... even or perhaps especially church goers ... it has nothing to do, of course with the comforting side of dogma. I feel the true communion to be a secret/sacred and initiatory thing which needs to be unlocked, found, puzzles solved and so on ... hence the sense of hidden secrets which you get from the history of the Knights Templar and so on. Grail Knights (mostly) fail, even Sir Lancelot falls asleep and misses the vision. I don't mean this in an elitist sense but more in the 'many are called but few are chosen' sense. And ironically you can invert this saying ... many or in fact all are called by God to God but only the self selecting i.e. those who take up the difficult mantle of being 'true' are chosen ... or actually chose themselves. Just my thoughts of course.

Just to extend our meditations on the communion. I am seeing the transmission of the lineage occurring in two ways at once, hence the bread and the wine. Bread is of course an ancient type of offering ... which from the very beginnings of our settled life as arable farmers would be the staple food in Egypt and Mediterranean Europe. In Egyptian bread is 'T' which means the female and the substantial. So the bread offering is of body. Jesus was born of a virgin. So although his father is pure spirit his mother is human and of a genetic line. We know that all humans have a common ancestor (Mitochondrial Eve) from maybe 180,000 years ago and if we consider that this comprises the successful genetic code which we all share. Then the Christ is the product of generations of striving towards a kind of perfection ... as in 'be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect' ... that is the ability to perfectly reflect the divine but in flesh 'word made flesh'. So in eating Christ's body (the bread) we are saying that we too are partaking in this 'project' of the historical process of working towards union with God. I don't mean this as an abstract thing but as a real recognition of this drive within us. And the way in which this expresses itself is as Christ the King. That is the evolutionary journey is encapsulated in the story of those who lead ... those who take on the needs of the many and sacrifice themselves for the good of others ... their struggle and their suffering. This theme appears time and time again in western culture ... particularly in medieval literature ... the Grail Knights and Shakespeares plays on Kingship for instance, these are all meditations on what this process truly is. In ourselves it is also the struggle to self-rule ... In eating Christ's body we recognise and accept this as our lineage also. The wine is about the other lineage, that of the immediacy of the Holy Spirit, nothing to do with time or history or intent. But the eternal nowness of spirit, the epokhē or suspension of thought and judgement in the immediate but timeless recognition of the presence of Spirit. Being open and accepting of this and drinking Christs blood/spirit and being one with Him.

You are right of course and I am very glad that so many people's lives have been made better. I still don't think it should get a Nobel prize because as I understand it the criteria for such prizes is a little different.

I never understood forcing. And I agree its not good. But I suspect you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I learned the MCO after having meditated for a long time and being able to feel qi anyway (naturally). So when I was shown this technique it was introduced as simply resting your mind on a series of places in the body and relaxing into that. Later I learned abdominal breathing but again in a relaxed natural way such that you are allowing the body to do what it wants to do ... and this stimulates the qi. I don't do this practice regularly but on occasion when I feel blocked or stagnant qi I do it gently ... in the same way as you would stretch like a cat if you felt a bit tired or stiff. It works well. I have also noticed that if the MCO opens and the governing and conception channels are 'working' it frees up other meridians (arms, legs and belt) and some minor ailments like sore joints or whatever are cured quite quickly. Just my experience ... very little from books.

Excellent Jeff ... I was going to say that many mistake the 'blood' as meaning the blood line (as in genetics) but it is actually the spirit transmission because he says he will not drink of it again until in heaven.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23496-european-and-asian-languages-have-one-mother-tongue.html#.Ug3rA2TwJOh

Just to kick off .... what's it all about?

... or by being more in touch with nature. Also my experience is that increased wealth does not = increased spirituality.

@sonofthegods and fokusfyre ... there are no human races there is one human race ... as Marblehead pointed out we wiped out the other human species either 40,000 or 28,000 years ago depending on which evidence you go on. There are different groups of people who share characteristics - just as you look like other members of your family but that's as far as it goes.

Undoubtedly true Jeff and perhaps we could start be discussing what communion truly signifies in a mystical (or cultivation) sense ... but I am slightly scared you are going to go all Dzogchen on me

Thank you Donald and I hope you will be contributing. That's an interesting quote and I think it reflects that no matter what it is hard to shake the culture into which you are born. I know some Buddhists who seem to me very Catholic and others who are definitely Church of England. the other thing I note is the use of Buddhism to kind of reinvent Christianity or perhaps rediscover perhaps. I think this is because often Buddhism states directly what Christianity says through parable ... in other words you have to do a lot hermeneutics to get at some plain truths from Christianity.

There are groups of people who share superficial genetics traits such as eye colour, hair and skin colour but 'race' is a vague term which has no real application in the real world. The idea of some kind of spiritual connection to this is a fantasy. The 'races' mentioned in Theosophy by Blavatsky and other have nothing to do with human characteristics but are a spiritual hierarchy posited by her as part of her world view.

"According to the new insights of behavioral epigenetics, traumatic experiences in our past, or in our recent ancestors’ past, leave molecular scars adhering to our DNA. Jews whose great-grandparents were chased from their Russian shtetls; Chinese whose grandparents lived through the ravages of the Cultural Revolution; young immigrants from Africa whose parents survived massacres; adults of every ethnicity who grew up with alcoholic or abusive parents — all carry with them more than just memories. Like silt deposited on the cogs of a finely tuned machine after the seawater of a tsunami recedes, our experiences, and those of our forebears, are never gone, even if they have been forgotten. They become a part of us, a molecular residue holding fast to our genetic scaffolding. The DNA remains the same, but psychological and behavioral tendencies are inherited. You might have inherited not just your grandmother’s knobby knees, but also her predisposition toward depression caused by the neglect she suffered as a newborn. Or not. If your grandmother was adopted by nurturing parents, you might be enjoying the boost she received thanks to their love and support. The mechanisms of behavioral epigenetics underlie not only deficits and weaknesses but strengths and resiliencies, too. And for those unlucky enough to descend from miserable or withholding grandparents, emerging drug treatments could reset not just mood, but the epigenetic changes themselves. Like grandmother’s vintage dress, you could wear it or have it altered. The genome has long been known as the blueprint of life, but the epigenome is life’s Etch A Sketch: Shake it hard enough, and you can wipe clean the family curse." http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/13-grandmas-experiences-leave-epigenetic-mark-on-your-genes#.Ug3mFmTwJOg

Claro, esta bien.

Por favor explique lo que quiere decir.

I think it would help if you expanded this a little because I don't really understand what you are saying.

raining feta down these pavements awash with cheese from nature's dairy.

Captures all... at once. Mark's haiku are cast adrift Flotsam and jetsam.

Don't gang up on me.

Oh go on .. spoil sport!

"Electricity" I can switch from light to dark "Immediacy"

Maybe: peace at last. If we could then let ourselves be self forgiving.

But: A waterfall. But not: a dew soaked flower Maybe: peace at last.