JEK@NIHCU (James Kiefer) (02/09/90)
Fellow listmembers, before trying to answer Peter Capell's letters, it is important to understand what he is saying. He writes: > Additionally, the reason why I cannot call myself a Christian, > is because Christianity provides no means to tap what God gave > all of us to tune in *directly* to His word -- our own brains > and bodies. Despite your insistence that meditation is on > one's own self, the opposite is true. The central idea, behind > the meditation that I practice is to eliminate one's own tiny, > problematic, intellect, ego, psyche, whatever... and open the > brain and body for their real purpose in the world -- to become > attuned to the ``God Station,'' the radio station that plays > 24-hours a day, 365 days a year, and throughout all time. > Without this practice, you haven't a snowball's chance in, > ahem, Hades, to understand a single word of the scriptures you > so deftly sling into my face. To read scripture without this > direct connection to God's Being, which is all around all of us > at this very moment, is to be blind and unknowing. It is the > worst of sins. > You cannot possibly understand the meaning of the word, > "Christ," nor can you understand Jesus, because you are reading > the words of scripture through a narrow human filter called the > intellect. > ... one gains greater access to the Spirit by supressing the > heartbeat. One supresses the heartbeat by slowing the > breathing. This is exactly the intent of all yogic practice > for the past 4000 years. This seems fairly straightforward. He says: The intellect, the reason, will not enable you to understand God or the Bible. You have to establish a direct line of communication with God, and the way to do that is through yoga, through the spiritual training developed in India and taught by the group I belong to, beginning with breathing exercises. Until you have tuned in to God by the methods of my group, you cannot hope to understand God or the Bible. I have inside information that you do not have. This seems to me to rule out any kind of approach to him, whether by logic or by Scripture or by anything else. You can (1) take his word for it that he has a channel to God, and believe everything he tells you, or you can (2) decide that he has no such channel, and turn your attention to other matters, or you can (3) check his claims first hand by joining his group or a similar one and practicing breathing exercises to see what happens. But there is no use in trying to tell him anything. He will simply reply: "How could you possibly know what you are talking about? You are not one of the spritually aware. You do not even know how to breathe properly." Yours, James Kiefer
pc1y+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Peter Capell) (02/10/90)
James,
You are exactly, precisely correct. You should also note, that your
position is a mirror image, except that you use your belief that you
fully understand what the scriptures are saying as your own "knowledge
claim."
The only disagreement I have with your post is the subtley incendiary
nature of the title, which implies that *I* claim special knowledge. I
am working daily to remove the I, or more precisely, the "i" and replace
it with a singular perception of Christ. I say that there is no
Christian practice, to date, to accomplish this, but this is my own
opinion, and it doesn't really matter to me if I'm wrong. You at least,
have nothing superior to the practice that I have learned, and that's
all that counts to me.
Peter