And as you watch him in his showy clothes, reveling in this nightclub, amid sexy dancers, etc., imagine, if you will, that this is the material world, at least for that “racy set.” This is a far cry from so-called traditional values of humility, family, hard work and the sacred work of mindful love and guiding the next generation—that is, does holding yourself out in a much less “glittery” manner automatically make you more "God fearing"?
Can looks be deceiving? Can there be repentance and faithful adherence to the God of Creation for this “dancing, prancing fool and his bevy of beauties”? Are striving families who attend church each Sunday and stick to the basics of relatively normative socio-cultural behavior really better than this “Gaye display”? Or is that old adage true: you can’t judge a book by its cover?
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What is text? Text = Words/ Titles/ Phrases/ Sentences/ Chapters/ Verses/ by authors—inspired (as in The Holy Bible)—or insipid (the mainstream media narrative comes to mind)...or somewhere-in-between (from a good novel to the world’s greatest literature).
Text gives information; it stimulates ideas, the imagination, thinking, study and research, devotion and adherence. It is the best friend of the egghead, the intellectual, both the educated fool and the true scholar.
Text allows the transmission from one individual to others without being there, physically, to speak the words as related on the printed page. Text is language specific. It depends upon whether its reader has the basics of a particular language in order to “grok” what is presented on the printed page. That means having a familiarity with a language’s vocabulary, with each word perhaps carrying an array of different meanings, depending upon the semantics and the grammar—its context—and the depth of understanding of those words by each reader thereof.
Then there is the meaning imparted by those words, that text. There was a magic time, a long time ago, when humans did not communicate with written words, but only with barely spoken words, perhaps mostly by “grunts.”
Over time, as grunts morphed into language we had the spoken word, giving rise to stories, often about mythic characters of some sort who performed heroic deeds. But the listening ear and the spoken word would soon give way to the written word.
These agreed-upon symbols, an alphabet, transcended the hearing ear and the speaking mouth as the organizing brain allowed for both through the medium of text. Yes, it was now the age of the seeing eye, scanning, reading, and by so doing, mentally processing that input into relational understanding (via the “inner hearing” of the words, as well as a “speaking out of those words” as they were being read to hearers, listeners.
As the words spewed forth their shared meaning coalesced thought among others. Yes, to have an alphabetic written culture is to have a society of thinkers with mental capabilities, each of whom interprets the meaning of those words through his or her own discernment.
Discernment depends upon being educated, being literate, as in knowing how to read and write oneself. But on a much more basic level, “discernment” grows out of one’s experiential foundations, viz., making sense of what’s around you via your five senses through which you build a sort of mental library. From this experiential library you draw what you need in order to make your way through the world, the planet upon which you must survive and thrive.
Within and among a certain
locale, a community, the neighborhood in which you grow up, there are agreed-upon
interpretive meanings that are spawned by text+. The “plus” here is the experiential
physical, mental and spiritual intermingling of those in your immediate
surroundings. This can be termed one’s “culture trance.”
It is from one’s home-grown culture trance that one derives and interprets text, plus the signs and symbols, emotions, body language, and daily linguistic intercourse of those in close proximity. And, depending how reliable the text is and how “successfully” it has been interpreted and understood clearly, will depend upon the how well each individual’s discernment in a given community will develop and mature.
That maturing of discernment is further refined through a more expanded, a more global or planetary realm—one which, by the consent of the many, worldwide, becomes the “consensual reality” of the whole. In other words, THE REALITY, together with The System meant to hold it all together.
This lifetime of being guided by your fellow man, his or her thoughts, feelings, customs, morality (or lack thereof), and the available experiences one undergoes helps to shape one’s growth and being as it lays down a framework for each individual’s free will, i.e., the freedom to choose whatever one wishes in his or her life; whatever path one will follow—whether or not an individual is a joiner of cliques (groups denominated into man-made institutions) or is more of a solitary, liberty-loving individualist.
And remember, it is the immortal soul that has this free will to choose. We might see a body choosing, doing and being something or other. But the prompt for mental and physical being and doing emanates from our God-given, natural right of directing our minds to choose a certain life way via one’s individual, soul-bound free will.
Strangely perhaps, those free
will choices run with the soul, remain there, as does our accumulated knowledge, however it
is acquired or gleaned here during each soul’s incarnation/reincarnation on planet
Earth.
§ü§
And so what do I mean by “textual healing”?
Texts, all texts, are materials we use for learning, for faith, belief, and guidance. That’s BIG, or can be, but that’s ALL texts are. We use them at our own risk. We can over-invest in them and over-rely upon our understanding, belief and the guidance that they impart—OR we can use them as the “signposts” that they are by contemplating what they impart, whether it is Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenin or Fyodor Dostoevski’s The Brothers Karamazov; Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching or the Holy Bible; Mark Twain’s Adventure of Huckleberry Finn or Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
Even as the seeing eye of mental consciousness has moved from the printed page to moving images on the movie screen, on TV or on your computer and cell phone, it is still the same organizing process that feeds our growing and (hopefully) improving discernment, through a continual parsing-out of what is rejected and refined as we mature.
This process of purging and renewal is forever affected by what comes across the windscreen of the mind, impinging as well upon the intuition of the heart and the soul. And essential to that maturation of discernment is knowing that when wrong choices are made, then repentance needs to follow so as to cleanse the accumulating knowledge in the mind and soul and to purify itself of sin, ignorance, and evil. In other words, it's a continual process of "righting oneself."
“Textual healing” recognizes that text is part of the visible physical world; healing from its over-immersion and over-dependence is as necessary as weaning ourselves off of, say, “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll”—anything that has the capacity to stunt our growth as human beings reaching for the optimal potential to be as God created us to be: At One with Godç Nothing short of an ongoing “atonement” in perpitude; an evolution of the soul as it merges into the Godhead.
Go forth, oh reader—heal yourself of drinking and drugging, whoring and hell raising, slothfulness, envy, lust, and gluttony—move as you can, away from the entertainment to be found in “the world” to the joy and contentment of finding out who you really are and what your mission in this present lifetime is all about: find that God which is Within You Without You.
Through prayer and fasting, vigilance, diligence—find your way, Pilgrim. Through movement, action—also moderated by quieting the mind from its normal beta waves down to the more sublime theta waves (https://www.mind-your-reality.com/brainwaves.html) train yourself to break free of normative, exoteric patterns of living. Instead, ascend and begin to become more sensitive to energy, vibration and frequency; and accept what the planet offers us; ground your bare feet onto the Earth by “earthing” yourself[1], or as some enlightened fellow once said “Be here now.” In other words, stay grounded as you “reach for the stars.”
There have been wise and holy role models to help us along, the most recent one being Jesus (Yeshua) Christ; and there is that esoteric side-kick as well: the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit). The All and Everything, Almighty God, awaits your coming into Creation as intended. That isn’t merely the natural world nor the man-made world—yet, as is said of sufism, it is that and much more: it is the unseen world beyond that visible world: the many dimensions beyond three-dimensional materiality, even beyond time and space.
Go forth as you hone your discernment into the multiverse that is God’s real and true Creation. Earth, since your birth and up until now, is your starting point. Tread wisely, all you Pilgrims, as you discern and proceed upon your Magical Mystery Tour!
Whether you follow the music of Marvin Gaye or The Beatles or the beat of your own band and drum, you will find the journey takes you back to yourself and to the God who created you by breathing your soul into being, into your being. Finally discover, through esoteric practice and inner meanings who and what you are and where you are going. The dead end of the exoteric, of the limited outer meaning of life, will simply NOT GET YOU THERE (9 times out of 10).
What say you: reader...Pilgrim...peacekeeper and soul warrior? What do you think and where do you stand? Incorporate more esoteric pursuits into you life and you won't be sorry. You can't go wrong, as you nurse your discernment along, cultivating its wondrous realms as a deep and meaningful part of you, yourself and I.
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[1] Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever, by Clinton Ober, Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., and Martin Zucker (2nd Ed., 2014)
