sirguessalot

please, no one respond to allan on this thread though i fear it may be too late thank you ... btw...thank you dmiller for the story about the bird my wife and i have long been interested in animal related therapies

i would...from my point of view its called friendship, Allan why the constant personal interrogations? i mean, what fruit of the spirit is that? where is the friendship in that? what if i kept asking what your motives/agendas are for the persistant accusations as to the motives of Clay and myself? and not just that, but why so persistant? why hang out and repeat yourself over and over again? (as if no one has aleady heard your belief on this) are you aware of your behaviour, here? do you care what others think about you? do you care what others believe? if not, what do you care about? what do you care about that keeps you coming back and making accusations? what do you care about that has you misquoting people and rewording their statements? do you realize how hard it is to chatter in the back room of the cafe when someone does this? do you realize how much energy is wasted trying to keep up with debunking false accusations? and finally...do you appreciate being interrogated about your personal motives and agendas?

thank you both for your responses and excitement and well wishes Shell, not sure where you live, but this center also offers these amazing courses in OH and elsewhere ...world class material and much worth travelling to complete with CEUs for counselors and with a strong respect for interfaith and cultural aspects of the work ...truly, a revolutionary continuation of Dame Cicely Saunder's vision :) feel free to email or pm me and ebn57...thank you that super nova is such an apt comparison of what it can be like reminds me of "the law of dissipative structures," as described by Ilya Priogene: "whenever any system in the universe breaks down, it always reorganizes into a higher order"

no dig, Goey, just a suggestion...honest cuz you seemed to reduce it as if your experience covered it and yeah, Clay come across the same way for the record, here is a brief def: mysticism sheesh, how do these dialogues disintegrate so fast? :blink: i will refer to the wisdom of Barney Fife... ...and suggest that we carry our bullets in our pockets, gents ---Albert Einstein

for the record.. there are many many kinds of mysticism and many many different schools of thought surrounding it and many many different voices on the subject...past and present i suggest you try not to reduce that subject too quickly, Goey btw...imo, when it comes to interpretation...all interpretive methods are valid and valuable ...and each has its limits...and accesses different points of leverage, if you will peace

Well, I thought i'd come out of the doctrinal dungeon to announce an apprenticeship program that i have been formally accepted into, and with the hope that some (especially those who work in the fields of nursing, hospice, chaplains and such) might be interested in hearing more about what i am doing, but also, if anyone is interested in any of the related programs (which are even open to people not in the healing arts) i would be happy to answer any questions about them and point towards related resources This apprenticeship is part of "The Anamcara Project" which is named and modelled after a very old Celtic tradition of healers and caregivers and is being provided by the Sacred Art of Living Center whose directors and faculty are world-renowned for their work with hospice, bereavement, life's transitions, and recovery from religious and spiritual abuse If you click on the Anamcara Project on the top left of the webpage and then go to the bottom of the page there is a PDF fact sheet on the apprenticeship which says it all better than i can The late Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement (which was based on a movement in Europe that lasted from 1000 to 1492 A.D.) was one of the primary mentors for this educational center one of the notable maxims of this art form is that "the dying are our teachers" ... also, something that is kind of exciting to me is how some of the world's greatest teachers and thinkers on these subjects are gathering around this project and considering it a sort of global center for this kind of work here is some of the faculty i am and will be learning from in the years to come: Richard and Mary Groves (main directors of the program) Ira Byock Thomas Golden Dolores Krieger Thomas Keating John O 'Donohue Parker Palmer Rabbi Zalman Schacter Shalomi Joan Borysenko others... ... Now, a naggin question, of course, is what is different than TWI's apprenticeships and programs? for starters...just about everything but most importantly, perhaps, is that this is not about getting the story pure and accurate but about doing the work also important, this is not an exclusive religious group but an inclusive educational center full of actual degrees and experience that is heavily overseen by more people than you can shake a stick at frankly, i am still kind of amazed at how they can pull it off with so many outsiders scrutinizing it and with people from so many different faith traditions participating most of my fellow students, so far, have been nurses, doctors, chaplains, priests, monks, pastors, ministers, and hospice workers and volunteers and i feel very lucky to be learning alongside all this amazing wisdom As many of you know, i am just an artist, and interested in the spiritual life but one of the big reasons i have decided to enter this kind of work is because 75% of my friends and family are between the ages of 50 and 90 (inclusing most all of my gsc friends) i can see no greater way to prepare myself to not only assist them in their passing but to harvest the great wisdom that comes with growing in the latter half of life i only wish more people my age saw the growing need for this kind of thing. so much incredible wisdom can be lost...and so much unresolved suffering will be passed down if we dont find better ways to age (and die) in the western world (which is fast becoming the way of the whole world) i have a feeling that my speciality will be along the lines of art and music therapy for the dying, as well as consciousness studies for the living anyway, i am looking forward to talking a little more about it though hoping we can keep things light cuz i am really only a tadpole of a student in all this and mostly just want to let yall know what i'm up to and see if anyone else is interested peace, +ODD

makes me wonder if adam and eve were like two halves of a single seed that was planted in the earth ...the inside and outside of the seed, perhaps in a sense, adam and eve did not have free will until after they first died once but in their spiritual death they were quickened though this conflicts directly with pfal's version of the garden, and vpws' own fear of death ...it is said that one must be a good jew before one can be a good christian ...which means to better understand the jewish versions of the story

yeah, this rings very true like how we already "die" daily...when we enter deep dreamless sleep or are put under for surgery according to the ancients...this deep state is the same as death, or as close to death as one can get while still alive and so, to practice staying awake as your body and mind goes to sleep is to experience your spiritual self without the body and mind (though not the only way..just a basic way) body is gone, thoughts are gone, even dreams themselves are done... ...great metaphorical insights come at times this reminds anyone of the confrontation of the sleeping dudes right before the betrayal? this is a classic mode of spiritual practice that dates back to at least abraham, practiced by folks (typically guys) who were very interested in the nature of awareness itself thank God Jesus taught them how to come back down from that cloud, as well

Sudo, how do you expect mt to answer if you use nothing but strawmen after strawman to reinforce your argument? i was referring to those who are being rational and to those in the religious world who are deeply troubled by what is going on in the name of religion ...and you refer to those who are a big part of the problem wft, dude? arent you a real smart scientific dentist kinda guy? btw...i AM troubled...and i never said i wasnt and troubled, not only by the crazy extremists in religion and the possibility of a worse kind of world war than ever before but by the extremists who ignorantly paint all religion with the same brush and what that kind of crap does to people when believed i am troubled by the way guys like you who reduce reduce reduce the problem to thought-stopping sound-bites...while denouncing religious idiots for doing the same and to be clear...i was addressing your alarmism towards all religion due to the lunatics if you cant see that...there is no way in hell you even read what i wrote and i am sorry as hell for even attempting to help the way you respond...you seem to have some pre-determined ideology and are not interested in hearing otherwise and so i hafta say, that i hope no one buys into your crass reductionism because there are some positive things trying to happen in the world within religious communities and by courageous folks who actually live in israel and the middle east and other parts of the world who are not as concerned about whether they get their beers on a sunday morning repeat after me...not all religion is radical fundamentalism not all religion is radical fundamentalism not all religion is radical fundamentalism

Sudo, i cant tell if you are really troubled by this stuff or if you simply enjoy complaining about it but i do hope you figure out someday that you cant logically reduce all religion down to that which troubles you yeah...the world is going mad in the name of religion and may even destroy it but that isnt the whole story science and industry have a lot to do with this, as well religion is NOT some monolithic thing that acts as one it is about as exotic as a jungle of critters as is its history and there are some highly rational, reasonable logical folks who are religious who i am quite sure are more troubled by what is going on in the name of religion than you are and are actually actively working night and day to help the world situation i dont think generalized alarmist reactions to things done in the name of a religion are a rational response...and really only make things worse curious...do you have an idea how you can better help society in this religious crisis? peace

Danny, if you havent already, a direction you may also want to look is towards the books of living and dying from all cultures and times... ...prehistoric, egyptian, celtic, tibetan, iberian, monastic, etc... there are sooo many similarities i believe much of the Bible are writings from this kind of tradition or rather, are stories about people who were teaching and living this tradition (because the actual meat of what was taught was oral and live, and is not in the texts at all) yeah, it really seems to point to the oft-extremely diverse and cosmopolitan nature of the biblical middle eastern and mediterranean world... ...even within a single generation of a cultural or religious or spiritual movement and how, for every text we find to study, there are a thousand that were destroyed

yes and no permit a tad rant...every word of which is dramatically incomplete according to ancient scriptures...one can wrestle with God and win according to others....God was described as being known, touched, tasted, handled, and seen but there is indeed a distinct end, which is also a new beginning and if we ask, we will find, as the scripture says if we stop asking, we will not find amazing how the questions, and not the answers, are the key and when we find that the ground of all is a clearing and we can rest in the witness of that invisible God and the fact there is no answer in the clearing is the great answer and we will be free from the great search when we can rest in this though we will also be free to keep searching for other things now, that is freedom, imo and a radical grace we will find comfort in mystery, and the enigmatic nature of things paradox and contradiction will no longer rattle us and we can let go of our death-grip on control and perfection and the world will cease being the frightening nasty wilderness because right here, right now, it will spring forth life eternal and we will realize that nothing has really changed, but ourselves..within

from "Denial of Death" by Pulitser Prise winner, Ernest Becker its amazing how many teachings of the Bible are parallel to many other ancient books of living and dying even Psalm 116 is a direct copy of a prayer to Ra in the Egyptian Book of the Dead

The notion of some sort of life after death and resurrection was common and diverse throughout every aboriginal and temple culture of human history i would go as far as to say that the notion of there NOT being such beliefs was the rare exception and...among the monastic disciplines of just about every culture, there was a common thread... ...how the arts of meditation and contemplation was how one tasted death prior to bodily death and how one prepared to die physically while wide awake but if we do not know how to "die before we die" then dying is enlightenment at gunpoint which is what the 1 thess record seems to be pointing to how "the coming of the lord" was considered the moment of death, as "the arrival of the inevitable" and so whether one was already spiritually awake at "the coming of the Lord" or still spiritually asleep..."the Lord" still comes to all yada yada the past 500 years, and especially the past 2 generations, has seen a dramatic shift away from these attitudes and our inability to deal with death is getting worse, not better both modern science and modern religion are in deep trouble in this regard

heerz my take... the subject leading up to the verse seems like general reminders of a lot of different things were taught in person...the bulk of which were most likely delivered live, via oral tradition seems like a lot about personal responsibility, discipline, love and not to stick your nose in other people's personal spiritual business which to me, says a lot about that the high value placed on interior awareness that was such a hallmark of early christian discipline...and a shift from earlier religious forms (of conquering the infidels and human slavery and whatnot...all of which are exterior egoic grasping) 4:1-10 Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit. But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more; And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; and then the verse before the one in question... 4:12 That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. its when our highest priority is inward, that we can walk honestly to those who are only outward i think it's interesting how the word "without" means "outside" or "outward" which to me, speaks to those who are somehow not aware or numb to their own inward condition which is to say "full of darkness," or to simply be unaware of one's own deeper motives due to the fixation on a solely exterior search for Christ and God and happiness and such (which includes any and every book) then... 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. if we go with asleep being somehow "spiritually unconscious" or "dead/numb to the inward man" and that the "new birth" and "coming of the lord" are other ways of saying "to wake from the dead"... ...the rest of the chapter and the book seems to be telling them to be patient and loving towards those who are "asleep," because eventually everyone is going to "wake up" some way or another on their own time, in their own season, in their own God-given cycle its not our calling to be more concerned with making others "wake from the dead" than we are with our own spiritual birthing process our new calling in Christ is first and forement to go within ourselves and find the door that has always already been wide open and this would be comforting advice to those who live in a world where unconscious behaviour and lack of self-awareness dominates and manifests into a violent and crazy world 4:14-18 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. is it possible that these passages have more to do with the arrival and awakening of Christ within than salvation from without? it is not hard to also read it as if it is speaking of immediate future possibility for any individual ...rather than some remote future event for everyone at once 5:1-3 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. again...see the parallel between birth and spiritual awakening from the dead? not everyone asks to be awakened to the inward man, sometimes events in life comes out of nowhere and wake you up against your will 5:4-10 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. we are not appointed to be wrathful towards those who are asleep we need to look within first, clean our own cups on the inside, etc... ... now...if it seems far from what twi and most of modern christianity teaches that's because it is they are so radically divergent...that there is no easy bridge between the two theologies one is mostly exterior based, trying to find something outside to get inside of us and the other is not. it works on gestating and working out that which has already always been there (from the beginning, as even scriptures seem to say so often) i would hope that those who have a negative or angry or fearful reaction to this very different opinion and think i am somehow deluded would simply heed the scriptures in question and please walk honestly and kindly toward me if i am wrong, i will wake up in my own due time what i am saying is...i am open to be questioned about my opinion but in an honest and direct and logical and reasonable way in the spirit of peace yada yada yada

well, i gratefully accept...and i dont even care which half...hehe

oh how cool, Dot ...long time to see, btw i have studied the heck out of "Color for Men" in years past (same author, I recall) and am a "dramatic summer" cracks people up at times how a straight mostly withdrawn guy like me can walk into a clothing store and suddenly get all "queer eye" i have family and friends who ask me advice now but then it gets "worse" considering my work in the arts, decorative arts and healing arts...and the way different seasons and combinations of colors affect us not that i take it all too seriously, but i sure do like to have fun with the possibilities LOL

allan, please check your private topics

yeah...mmm..thank you, Bliss that says it well, i think if i may add... yes...its very hard to imagine how our deepest and most precious gifts are all wrapped up in our actual brokenness how the very texture of our messy lives is all we really have and to lean into the pain is the only way through it its as if each of us arises from a unique "wound" in creation, which is our true name and the foundation of our life's work is to repent, turn inward to Christ, and illuminate this truth the darkness goes away, but the shape remains and so comes out like the purest gold but shame is the killer of such interior light...taboo, prejudice but to return to the nakedness of eden is to shed light on our naked interior without shame but we gotta make it through those flaming swords...that baptism of fire we have got to do the craziest thing and actually seek out where there is darkness within ourselves on order to make it through man o man, that message had to be something new to the biblical world...at once both frightening and promising for someone to come along and tell people that they can, on their own, without a priest or a temple, turn within and recover their own divine gifts from among the very wreckage of their brokenness... but yeah...there is a deep sorrow in this interior liberation with moments of divine humilation that we cannot ignore...or forget tears of blood tears of joy and to face such things prior to death is how we wake up in life but to avoid such things throughout our life is to die without hope

hi Bliss...thanks for the spanking, btw :) i can be such a spaz at times apologies if my response seems heavy im never quite sure how else to be with all this yeah...i like to call it "the blood red path of the lamb""no wusses beyond this point" though amazingly, most women are already more familiar with processing pain its the guys who have a harder time with the message cuz the only way to shine light in new places is to enter the darkness with candle held high and this simply hurts...there are no two ways about it and the first darkness we should face, is the darkness within or else our own darkness blinds us to that which is without we truly are dead asleep to our own sins, to whatever degree no, this is not an easy truth and yeah, if we are alseep, we will think we are innocent and blame others when we are willfully ignorant of our own interior shadows and refuse to die to them our behaviour comes from a "darkened heart" not an evil heart, just one that is closed and hidden in the darkness of our selves like seed that has not yet died and opened and sprouted, to whatever degree this is not an easy truth either i think it was vpw who said that Jesus said things like "follow me" and so he went within himself and faced the darkness which showed them how to go within themselves and face the darkness (among many other things) he showed them how to "die before they died" so that they can be reborn within and serve he showed them how to repent, and turn completely around from exterior fixations to interior responsibility... ...and not just for our own sake, but for the world's prior to Jesus showing us the most direct way to God most of the world was fumbling with much larger and cruder systems for processing the interior darkness and i think that in this sense, he did fulfill and complete the great work that the great tribal and temple rituals and laws were honestly trying to do about our inward broken nature he simply showed the more direct and efficient route...and finally put it into our own hands

btw, again...this is not meant to downplay anyone's actual experience of God, or spirit or any such new found freedoms found in life that come without such "dying" as i am getting at there are plenty of these, too, imo i am overjoyed whenever i hear someone declare a new level of liberation (except when in those cases when this "new freedom" also include things like lynch mobs and suicide bombs) but i am pointing to even greater depth to which the writers of scripture delved because for every rung we reach there is always another above and another below thank God the mystery never ends and though we may pause between them and spread our wings on that plane there is always room to grow for those who are ready (and yes...there are times in life when are ready to grow and times when we are not...who else can say when this is but us)

well..heerz something, too along the lines of actual practical ways of "waking from death" to address the demands for actual believable evidence can you imagine spending 9 whole days doing nothing but sitting, fasting and praying? or 40 whole days in nature fasting and praying? and by praying, i mean a specific and very focused mental routine involving holding awarenes of one's body, soul, mind, heart, spirit...everything try it, and see if you do not experience a profound and unmistakable inward death and as you try it, try and control your breath according to some ancient jewish art form, and try and stay awake and examine all the various altered states of consciousness you go through each day...stay awake throughout the variety of dream states and dreamless states, and take good notes to share with your fellowship of disciples not to sound harsh...but honestly, go off in the woods by yourself for a month or in the upper rooms of a temple and sit for 9 days straight heck, lock yourself in your house for a week and practice escaping your very mind and opening your very heart and tell me what happens inside of you tell me what change take place in the actual substance of your thoughts, dreams, and bodily feelings holy cow...talk about actual demonstration of the revelation of inward man... and as harsh as it may sound...if you dont somehow learn how to do these kinds of things, you cannot see the nature of what the writers of scripture saw (except in cases where one is konked over the head with a shovel, for example, or experiences other severe trauma...such as being in a coma, near death, serious illnes, a severe heroin withdrawal, etc... even though these are not stable practices...they touch the same interior and exterior places) in actual living practical terms...what i think most christians tend to completely miss regarding the new testament scriptual accounts of "sleeping and dying" is how they were written by devoted monastics whose lives were devoted to long days, weeks, months and even years of "entering into their closet" it was precisely these kinds of actual spiritual practices that served as the ground for their death, rebirth and transformation yet we refuse to do such things ourselves when, the hard truth is...if one doesn't somehow learn how to do these kinds of things, one will get no evidence, except what is written in a book, or told in a story if one doesn't somehow even want to look into these things...one has little to no basis for denying the validity of that which they have not looked into and even if you or i were to go off in the woods for a month, fasting and dreaming and praying and we experience some sort of profound inward shift in awareness... ...it would still be considered a mere taste, according to traditional standards cuz these folks didnt do such things once ...it was their ongoing lifestyle and it such practices served as a comforter up to and during the actual moments of physical dying i mean, they were disciples of a path that actually seeks living awareness of "life beyond death," for God's sake disciplined in actual transformative spiritual practices what else would it look like? a BBQ? a study session? a festival? and they had a habit of comparing results peer-to-peer sharing of spiritual experiences not empty religious ritual, but an actual science of body and mind and soul in the forms of prescriptive behaviour as prescribed by the greatest rabbi of all time and spiritual dying was the highest art form and the foundational preparation for being able to help the sick and dying prayer was not a 5 minute ritual before bed or something you do in church before a sermon or something you do just before you go in for the job interview so yeah....in a sense, these guys were deeply esoteric extremists go ahead...read the gospels again, and compare their lives to ours their spirituallity was not limited to simply finding a church that they enjoy and heck, if someone doesnt like the notion of esoteric...then don't read the old testament saints either back before the Kid came and showed them less-crude and cumbersome ways of "dying" what i am NOT saying is that one has to go off in the woods for a month to be a good or spiritual person but what i AM saying is that the guys who wrote scripture DID what i am NOT saying is that prayer and fasting is all that they did what i AM saying is that they did it, and it was the spiritual milk and groundwork for all the other things now, how this plays out in modern life is a whole new game, in a sense but not entirely new, because the human body, soul and spirit has not changed that much at all and so the process by which it is as radically transformed as it was in those days is the same its just that our hyper go go go culture seem to make it more difficult than ever before must be a sign of the times, as they say ... and if so... exactly how does one raise this subject without sounding harsh? how does one raise this subject without causing fear and anxiety and anger? how does one raise this subject without pointing to something that is severely lacking?

omg...wow ok, well...i'm truly glad for your wife's niece, allan and for whatever other miracles and healings and signs you have experienced in your life as for all the other stuff you said...i am kinda speechless as to how incredibly wrong you dont realize you are about me you really are one mean ole willfully ignorant cuss, arent ya? and flaming proud of it...wow and dang...i wouldnt dare share anything about my life with you...because even if you are dead wrong ....i would still always lose you are obviously a scrapper...and love to fight dirty thats cool, i grew up on the street so...lemme ask, while weer at it...what it is that has got you so fixated on this thread? that you cant stop posting your same ole opinion over and over again i mean, if something does not do it for you (i.e. "esotericism"...whatever)...great! ...but who the heck cares but you, and those who care about you? talk about self-serving?!? by your own admission...your interests really do seem to be of primary concern here, no? i mean, even scripturally....how do you justify this? btw...you arent gonna stalk me around the gsc are ya? cuz that would suck for both of us, i'm sure ive seen you do it with others and its kinda creepy

i'm kinda sorry you feel that way, Oak but i can surely understand why you might what if other levels of inner understanding only seem special but are actually native (divine, inherent) human capacities we are simply unaware of? but when we do become aware of them yes, our understanding changes to some degree or other...perhaps even radically at times curious...does it bother you because someone else says that their inner awareness has changed in some intense way that has effected their relationship to scripture? and you don't think yours has? or do you not think that there is such a thing as inner understanding in the first place? i mean, do you not right now have an inside as well as an outside, both of which you can understand? doesn't your own understanding have many layers and complex moving parts, both inside and outside? and haven't you discovered more and more parts and pieces and ways of it as the years go by? btw...truly sorry if it comes across condescending....just trying to help you see the actual ease of the notion and i am trying to learn not to be afraid to do so perhaps it helps see how it might apply to our inner awareness of the possible deathlike-states that already exist in us now i think it really gets interesting when you get into deep dreamless sleep which is the kind of stuff the ancients and scripture writers were very interested in as well well said Danny...well saidstuck in conceptual wonderland of mental constructs but lacking the will to actually embody what it is they think they see

i wonder... how deep do we go? how deep have we gone? i mean...how deep are we already? is there even a bottom to us? if so, what do we call this? and if not, what do we call this? has anyone found the bottom of their well? how far have you taken your candle into that inward darkness? and with all the scriptural references to the inward life why does it seem that so much of modern Christianity gives only a shallow nod towards such things? as if God can be in us, and the Holy Spirit can be in us, and Christ can be in us ...but we are not allowed to go very far ourselves so i would like to dedicate this thread to scriptures regarding the inner path as well as personal reflections and sacred questions regarding such things this is not intended as a place for doctrinal disputes but a place of sanctuary from such things may we find that palace of inner peace where the prince of peace is said to live grace and peace Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly. Psalms 18:28 For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness. (oops, i meant to post this in doctrinal )