obyvatel
The Living Force
[quote author=Altair]
There is something I don't get. If God is Absolute and perfect in all aspects, how can divine names benefit from the fact that somebody offers a possibility to manifest their properties?
[/quote]
This is a big question. Volumes can be and has been written about this question.
One way of exploring it is to negate the assumption that there is a being God who is absolute and perfect in all respects. Considering this would be heresy in olden days - something serious enough for people to killed. On the positive side, considering God as absolute and perfect was a way of keeping human self-importance in check.
Starting with the assumption that God is not perfect, one can speculate that God needs creation as a means of manifesting his names. Gurdjieff developed this idea in his Beelzebub's Tales. In his allegory he mentioned that the dwelling place of God, the most holy Sun Absolute, was found to be diminishing in volume with the passage of the merciless Heropass (time). This necessitated a change in "laws" - from Autoegocrat (interpreted as I-hold-everything-in-my-control) to Trogoautoegocrat (interpreted as I-hold-together-by-reciprocal-feeding). This implies a feedback loop of mutual sustenance set up between God and creation.
As regards the mechanism of this reciprocal feeding, Gurdjieff introduced more special terms in Beelzebub's Tales. Here is an interpretation from JG Bennett, a student of G.
[quote author=JG Bennett in Talks on Beelzebub's Tales ]
When we undertake something that is to bring order, it requires effort and energy. This has to come from somewhere and something is transmitted to the task. To bring order deliberately, through an act of will, liberates conscious energy. When we undertake this, we give ourselves to the task and put ourselves under its demands. Part of the energy involved goes into the task . We can see that something has been achieved. What we do not see is that something has gone to serve a higher purpose.
......
Whenever we do conscious work, the energy divides into three. One part is the energy that goes into bringing about the visible result and this includes the material energies involved. The second part is liberated for some cosmic purpose. This is not like ordinary energy, it is energy that can be used by higher powers. The third part— connected with helkdonis— is that in which we come closer to our own source or to God. Something is added to our own being.
[/quote]
Bringing order through conscious effort can be called syntropy - the opposite of entropy. The noumenal realm, which is beyond space-time is where archetypes or the names of God exist. The names of God seek to express themselves in phenomenal world of space-time. Certain expressions happen regularly and do not need conscious agency. However, certain expressions need appropriate conscious agents for realization in the phenomenal world of space-time. If such conscious agents are available, then a transaction takes place between a particular name of God in the noumenal realm and the agent and the result of the transaction is an event in the space-time phenomenal world. And somehow this transaction leads to reciprocal feeding between the realms.
The material aspect of such transactions is the observable part - it is what is visible as a task completed, change in state etc.
What G called helkdonis - the part that adds to one's own being as a result of the transactional process - could correspond to what Ibn Al Arabi called "stations", the earnings of conscious labor. This is not strictly measurable but can be qualitatively felt and possibly shared as subjective experience.
We do not know what part goes back to the higher source but if G is correct, then that is the part which makes the divine names benefit from being manifested. Our sciences are still some way from fully understanding the non-material implications of such transactions.
<My speculations (warning: measures high on the out-on-a-limb meter)>
Borrowing some terms from the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics (TIQM), a transaction involves a virtual "offer wave" from an emitter and a virtual "confirmation wave" from a potential absorber. If the process proceeds, then the transaction is realized in space-time as a measurable exchange of energies. An analogy would be an e-bay transaction with a seller (emitter) sending out an offer wave. If there are responses and subsequent resolution from the bidding process, a confirmation wave is generated from a buyer (absorber). These transactions are taking place in the virtual realm since no real material exchange has taken place yet. If the deal is closed, only then a transaction can be actualized in the form of movement of material goods and money.
We can consider the names of God as emitters sending out virtual offer waves and us as potential absorbers capable of sending out confirmation waves, and there is a possibility of a transaction. The energetic implications of such transactions are far from being known - but we do know from mathematical treatment of quantum mechanics that to explain experimental observations, virtual particles which break known laws of physics are often inferred. It could be speculated that such inferred virtual particles which reside outside of our known space-time universe can perhaps be the agents transferring something into the noumenal realm in the process of transaction and thus playing a role in the "reciprocal feeding" principle between higher and lower realms as postulated by G.
fwiw
There is something I don't get. If God is Absolute and perfect in all aspects, how can divine names benefit from the fact that somebody offers a possibility to manifest their properties?
[/quote]
This is a big question. Volumes can be and has been written about this question.
One way of exploring it is to negate the assumption that there is a being God who is absolute and perfect in all respects. Considering this would be heresy in olden days - something serious enough for people to killed. On the positive side, considering God as absolute and perfect was a way of keeping human self-importance in check.
Starting with the assumption that God is not perfect, one can speculate that God needs creation as a means of manifesting his names. Gurdjieff developed this idea in his Beelzebub's Tales. In his allegory he mentioned that the dwelling place of God, the most holy Sun Absolute, was found to be diminishing in volume with the passage of the merciless Heropass (time). This necessitated a change in "laws" - from Autoegocrat (interpreted as I-hold-everything-in-my-control) to Trogoautoegocrat (interpreted as I-hold-together-by-reciprocal-feeding). This implies a feedback loop of mutual sustenance set up between God and creation.
As regards the mechanism of this reciprocal feeding, Gurdjieff introduced more special terms in Beelzebub's Tales. Here is an interpretation from JG Bennett, a student of G.
[quote author=JG Bennett in Talks on Beelzebub's Tales ]
When we undertake something that is to bring order, it requires effort and energy. This has to come from somewhere and something is transmitted to the task. To bring order deliberately, through an act of will, liberates conscious energy. When we undertake this, we give ourselves to the task and put ourselves under its demands. Part of the energy involved goes into the task . We can see that something has been achieved. What we do not see is that something has gone to serve a higher purpose.
......
Whenever we do conscious work, the energy divides into three. One part is the energy that goes into bringing about the visible result and this includes the material energies involved. The second part is liberated for some cosmic purpose. This is not like ordinary energy, it is energy that can be used by higher powers. The third part— connected with helkdonis— is that in which we come closer to our own source or to God. Something is added to our own being.
[/quote]
Bringing order through conscious effort can be called syntropy - the opposite of entropy. The noumenal realm, which is beyond space-time is where archetypes or the names of God exist. The names of God seek to express themselves in phenomenal world of space-time. Certain expressions happen regularly and do not need conscious agency. However, certain expressions need appropriate conscious agents for realization in the phenomenal world of space-time. If such conscious agents are available, then a transaction takes place between a particular name of God in the noumenal realm and the agent and the result of the transaction is an event in the space-time phenomenal world. And somehow this transaction leads to reciprocal feeding between the realms.
The material aspect of such transactions is the observable part - it is what is visible as a task completed, change in state etc.
What G called helkdonis - the part that adds to one's own being as a result of the transactional process - could correspond to what Ibn Al Arabi called "stations", the earnings of conscious labor. This is not strictly measurable but can be qualitatively felt and possibly shared as subjective experience.
We do not know what part goes back to the higher source but if G is correct, then that is the part which makes the divine names benefit from being manifested. Our sciences are still some way from fully understanding the non-material implications of such transactions.
<My speculations (warning: measures high on the out-on-a-limb meter)>
Borrowing some terms from the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics (TIQM), a transaction involves a virtual "offer wave" from an emitter and a virtual "confirmation wave" from a potential absorber. If the process proceeds, then the transaction is realized in space-time as a measurable exchange of energies. An analogy would be an e-bay transaction with a seller (emitter) sending out an offer wave. If there are responses and subsequent resolution from the bidding process, a confirmation wave is generated from a buyer (absorber). These transactions are taking place in the virtual realm since no real material exchange has taken place yet. If the deal is closed, only then a transaction can be actualized in the form of movement of material goods and money.
We can consider the names of God as emitters sending out virtual offer waves and us as potential absorbers capable of sending out confirmation waves, and there is a possibility of a transaction. The energetic implications of such transactions are far from being known - but we do know from mathematical treatment of quantum mechanics that to explain experimental observations, virtual particles which break known laws of physics are often inferred. It could be speculated that such inferred virtual particles which reside outside of our known space-time universe can perhaps be the agents transferring something into the noumenal realm in the process of transaction and thus playing a role in the "reciprocal feeding" principle between higher and lower realms as postulated by G.
fwiw