Hans:

Thanks very much to Cathy for posting this here.

 

Yes I also believe very much that we are, or at least should be, following our own light and inner guidance, and that it is essential that we do so. You could make a long list of quotes by famous people who say that God is immanent in this dialectical world. Chris could make a long list of quotes by people who say the exact opposite. Where would that get us? Nowhere.

 

For one thing, who's to say who's enlightened and who isn't? None of us is able to judge. But even if we could judge, who's to say what exactly was meant by what these people said? One interpretation could be the exact opposite of another.

 

Even if we could find quotes from enlightened people, quotes which are totally unambiguous and clear, what would that prove? It would prove we were followers, sheep! In this group we want to discuss liberation, not blind faith in dogma.

 

I would like to put it to you that the question of whether the world we live in is divine or in a fallen state depends on our consciousness. I think it's a question of insight that we have earned by our past experiences. If we experience this world as divine, if we experience God as living in it, breathing His Life and Love into it, and touching our personality, then nothing anyone will say will convince us otherwise. Why should we try to persuade a person with such a consciousness to have a different point of view? There's no point.

 

Personally I experience this universe as undivine, not because Jan van Rijckenborgh says so, or anyone else, but because I feel it within my deepest soul-essence. My Lily is thirsty, and so my heart yearns for the Living Water as a hart pants for flowing streams. If all the Saints who've ever lived were to come down and testify that the world is divine I wouldn't believe them, because my heart tells me it isn't. My newly born soul, my Harry, Son of the Potter, suffers from neglect by the Dursleys when I turn my attention to the affairs of this world. He is not interested in anything offered by this world: music, art, the beauty of nature, adventure; all these things are like a desert for him. Just as John the Baptist wandered in the desert, preparing the way for his Lord, so I am experiencing this world as a desert, and I'm turning my back on it for Him. This is why Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. This is why the Jews symbolically spent 40 years in the desert to travel to the Promised Land. If we want to reach Liberation we have to travel through the desert, through life with the Dursleys, first.

 

So what's the point of anyone writing anything? What's the point of reading van Rijckenborgh's books? What's the point of the Bible, the teachings of the Buddha, or any teachings in fact?

 

The purpose of any teachings is to make people conscious of what they know or suspect unconsciously. Seekers usually don't know what they're looking for. But when they find it, it's a matter of recognition! I vividly remember the total sense of recognition when I read Jan's books.

 

When a seeker recognises certain teachings, and really ponders on them until he totally understands them, and accepts the consequences, he reaches a stage that Jan calls "Insight". In this case the insight we're discussing is the insight into the undivine state of this dualistic universe.

 

That insight causes a thirst in the heart where the divine spark resides. This thirst is a magnetic attraction for substance from which the divine spark itself is constructed. It is divine, and nothing but divine food can satisfy it. It's a question of vibration rate, as I have indicated in earlier posts. This divine food is not supplied by nature or by anything that is part of this world. It is supplied only by the Cosmic Christ, who is not part of this world, but pours out His blood for us as a sacrifice. The Holy Grail is not part of this world but is lowered from the heavens, as it were.

 

When the thirst is satisfied, i.e. when the seeker has drunk the Blood of Christ, a new soul is born. Jesus is born in the stable, or Harry has his bed in the cupboard under the stairs. The seeker now has to surrender his whole mortal, biological self to the New Soul. The stronger his longing, the stronger his self-surrender. And this self-surrender expresses itself as a wholly new mode of life. The seeker sees this whole world as a desert, and so he focuses his life on the Path. This includes helping others, as I have said in a previous post. And, as we know from Harry Potter, he becomes a very caring, compassionate person; not because he lives by rules, or because that will speed up his progress on the Path, but simply because that becomes his nature.

 

As the New Soul grows, the old, mortal personality learns more and more to keep his nose out of the affairs of his life, and leave as much as possible to the New Soul. And one day he knows his Harry will meet his Voldemort, and defeat him by self-sacrifice. He will die with Harry, and be resurrected in him.

 

Why am I telling you this? Not to persuade you to change your mind about anything, but to explain the point of view of the person who has reached a deadlock in this world, and sees nothing but a desert around him. Perhaps someone will recognise himself in that same situation. Then he can attain insight as the first step to Liberation.

 

Love from Hans