{Love and Sex (5) [continued (3)]}[3rd August 1989]

[Redbook6:191-192][19890803:0908f]{Love and Sex (5) [continued (3)]}[3rd August 1989]

19890803.0908

[continued]

These seven or eight loci* of registration of Love correspond closely to the seven Chakras** in Hindu thought; but I would place the lower three rather lower than I have seen them in Chakra representations (the lowest – penile erection – is really in a new spatial dimension – depth forward – and the highest potential noted, the eighth, is in a new non-corporeal dimension, above the head). Although it is tempting to give these a vertical polarity:

[Text extracted from ms diagram reproduced above:]

		C
		(Highest)
		– Crown --
	R~	– Face & Head –	S~
		– Throat & Neck –
G~		+		M~
		– Heart & Chest –
	J~	– Stomach –	U~
		– Bowels –
		Sex
		A~

– and in many ways this fits with archetypal characteristics in (for example) [2]; it is also tempting to apply C[ircles] A[nalysis &] S[ynthesis] descent and ascent:

[Text extracted from ms diagram reproduced above:]

				C
				|
				(Highest)
		R~				S~
			Sex		Crown
G~	–	Bowels		+		Face & Head	–	M~
			Stomach		Throat
		J~		→		U~
				Heart
				←
				A~

The reason why both of these have merit is because the first describes a particular kind of separation, the kind that gives rise to material (and, indirectly, I think, to evil); whereas the second describes the circles of disintegration and re-integration. I think I would explain the first as basically static, describing a state of being, and the second as basically dynamic, describing ways of becoming.

*[See last previous entry but one, final para]

**(They re, however, not based on those chakras, but (perhaps like the chakras) on actual personal experience.)

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{Love and Sex (5) [continued]}[3rd August 1989]

[Redbook6:191][19890803:0908e]{Love and Sex (5) [continued]}[3rd August 1989]

19890803.0908

[continued]

The lower* forms of Love are expressed not only for people but for things and events: this may be why new business plans are sometimes nowadays described by their participants as ‘sexy’, and why if I remember correctly some ancient (Greek?) art shows naked men going into battle with semi-erect or even erect penises: certainly, fear can produce not just a looseness in the bowels** but an excitement closely related to the registration of love in the bowels;** it can be habit-forming. The lower and even the higher forms of Love can be registered not just for persons (including God) but for abstract intellectual ideas.

Those assertions above which are not attributed to other evidence (and some of those which are), are based on my personal experience.

*[See last previous entry]

**back, middle & front

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{Love and Sex (5)}[3rd August 1989]

[Redbook6:190-193][19890803:0908d]{Love and Sex (5)}[3rd August 1989]

19890803.0908

[continued]

*In Gregory the Great’s letter* to John, Bishop of Constantinople (et al) on Christian leadership, he writes of ‘the bowels of loving kindness’: ‘he should be a near-neighbour to everyone in sympathy… to the end that through the bowels of loving kindness*** he may transfer the infirmities of others to himself.’

I do not think that this is an allegory or symbol: I think that Gregory is describing one of the many locations**** of physical sensation arising from the experience of Love. These range from the erect penis, at the lowest; to the head, the crown of the head, or even possibly above it, at the highest; and there are subsidiary sensations in the limbs.# The sensations are related, but differ according to the nature and/or height of the location: physical and moral height here appearing to be closely related.

The bowels, therefore, as a register of Love express a fairly primitive (but undoubtedly genuine and very warm, excited and affectionate) form of Love, which I guess our current inhibition about sex and defecation generally forbids us to recognise. The sensation is or may be felt in {any or all of}#* back, middle and front: ie in rectal area, lower stomach, and genitals (testicles and non-erect penis: from observation of the reactions of less inhibited girls I should guess that it can be felt also in sexually unstimulated#** female genitals). Penile erection is no more likely than in any other situation, ie depends on the concurrent or consequent existence of sexual stimulations, intended or accidental.

The next highest main physical registration centre for Love appears to be the central stomach; then the chest, or heart; then the neck, or throat; then the face and head; then the crown of the head, I think, and possibly above.

*{[[Redbook6:181-185][19890802:1734]{Love and Sex (4)}[2nd August 1989],] 181 →

**[Gregory the Great to John, Bishop of Constantinople [et al], on Christian leadership (in ‘Part III: The Christian Testament since the Bible’, Firethorn Press/Waterstone, London, 1985, p102)]

***{‘Loving-kindness’ – suggests love moving down towards expression in co-operation, ie love as ‘charity’.}

****[[Redbook6:288-294][19891004:1242]{Love and Sex (9)}[4^th October1989],] 289

#eg toes curling during lovemaking

#*<891004>

#**[ie not sexually aroused]

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Reason and Presumption}[3rd August 1989]

[Redbook6:189][19890803:0908c]{Reason and Presumption}[3rd August 1989]

19890803.0908

[continued]

It is, of course, true that all reason depends upon presumptions; but we are entitled to require* that the presumptions themselves should not be subject to reason.

*I think!

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{The Spirit of God in Man [continued]}[3rd August 1989]

[Redbook6:188-189][19890803:0908b]{The Spirit of God in Man [continued]}[3rd August 1989]

19890803.0908

[continued]

But* so far as the idea of the Spirit of God being within every Man (ie not just every Christian) is concerned, the problem is partly one of words. We talk about the World perceived through our bodily senses as external, probably because it does give the impression of being outside our centre of perception-awareness. We contrast this with mental experiences which are not perceptions through our bodily senses; thus we describe these as inner experiences.

I doubt whether any Jew or Christian would care to deny that our experience of God is an inner experience: even the sense of the numinous,** brought about by nature or art, is an inner reaction separate from our perception of the external item.*** I doubt, too, whether any Christian would deny that the Holy Spirit of God exists independently of each of us, and before each of us becomes directly (ie in an inner sense) aware of it.

It follows that when we talk, on the one hand, of the Holy Spirit descending on us through the Grace of Christ, eg at or after (but not before) Baptism (as the washing away of sins); or on the other hand, of the Spirit of God being within every Man but being veiled from the inner sense of many Men (eg by stains on the Soul) – then these are two ways of describing the same thing.

The point is that there are no dimensions of space within the Inner World: ‘in’ or ‘within’ and ‘descending’ are the best we have to describe senses of quality rather than direction, and we are left therefore only to argue about such matters as whether Baptism is the only key to Grace.

*[See last previous entry]

**[eg William Wordsworth,

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798’:

‘...And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

In nature and the language of the sense

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being….’

]

***[although it may not feel that way – see eg fn** above; & earlier Vol(s) []]

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{The Spirit of God in Man}[3rd August 1989]

[Redbook6:187-189][19890803:0908]{The Spirit of God in Man}[3rd August 1989]

19890803.0908

I remember being rather taken aback when a Fundamentalist Christian disagreed strongly with my view that the Spirit of God is within every Human (but veiled in some or most); and the E[ncyclopaedia] B[ritannica] says: ‘In the Christian view, men are creatures of God; thus, what is true of Creation is true of Man. Nothing in Man has emanated from God or becomes divine, nor is human reason a seed of the divine, as stoic philosophy supposed.’**

My view arises at least in part from the idea of separation, which is found at least in Christian thinkers although perhaps not in the Bible – Creation as a separation from (or out of) God. This description, perhaps more Greek than Judeo-Christian,*** is a reasonable attempt to answer the question which Judao-Christian Creation poses: How did he do it? It has the merit, so far as I can tell, of fitting in with everything Jesus is reported as saying in the Synoptic Gospels**** about the nature of the Kingdom of God, and how to get to it. Many of the parables# involve a period of separation of the controlling power from his subjects, followed by a reunification and judgement (or harvest).

*E[ncyclopaedia] B[ritannica] 16:337

(A surprisingly scientific view….)

**[That ‘supposed’ is fun.]

***[But cf:

‘Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.’

– Ecclesiastes 12:6-8 (Authorized (King James) Version)

]

****[Matthew, Mark, Luke]

#{eg the ‘Exclusion’ Parables}

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{The Colours of Priestly Vestments}[2nd August 1989]

[Redbook6:186-187][19890802:1959]{The Colours of Priestly Vestments}[2nd August 1989]

.1959

[Extracts from ‘Gregory the Great to John, Bishop of Constantinople [et al], on Christian leadership:]*

‘The divine law also decrees that the priestly vestment is to be made of gold, blue, purple, twice-dyed scarlet, and the finely twined linen (Exodus 28:8), that it may be shown by what great diversity of virtues the priest ought to be distinguished.

‘Thus in the priest’s robe before all things gold glitters, to show that he should shine forth principally in the understanding of wisdom.

‘And with it blue, which is resplendent with aerial colour, is conjoined, to show that through all that he penetrates with his understanding he should rise above earthly favours to the love of celestial things; lest, while caught unawares by his own praises, he is emptied of his very understanding of the truth.

‘With gold and blue, purple is also mingled: which means that the priest’s heart, while hoping for the high things which he preaches, should repress in itself even the suggestions of vice, and, as it were, by virtue of a royal power, rebut them, in that he has regard ever to the nobility of inward regeneration, and by his manners guards his right to the robe of the heavenly kingdom….

‘But with gold, blue, and purple, twice-dyed scarlet is conjoined, to show that all excellences of virtue should be adorned with charity in the eyes of the judge within; and that whatever glitters before men may be lighted up in sight of the hidden arbiter with the flame is [sic] inward love. And further, this charity, since it consists in love at once of God and of our neighbour, has, as it were, the lustre of a double dye….

‘Hence, with twice-dyed scarlet fine twined linen is conjoined. For fine linen springs from the earth with glittering show, and what is designated by fine linen but bodily chastity shining white in the comeliness of purity? And it is also twisted for being interwoven into the beauty of the vestment, since the habit of chastity then attains the perfect whiteness of purity….’

[Text extracted from ms image reproduced above:]

				C
				Holiness Innocence
				|	(Lucifer	Point)
			Wisdom	White		Air
			Gold
					Blue
G~	Charity	–	Scarlet (x2)	+		–		M~
				Purple
			(Empress)	(Mauve?)	(Emperor)
				|
				Distraction
				A~

(The N[ew] J[erusalem] B[ible] translates the colours slightly differently;** but that is not the point.)

The remarkable thing about this is that, as can be seen from earlier C[ircles] A[nalysis &] S[ynthesis] exercises on Gifts, Vices, Virtues, Elements, Colours etc.,*** every one of Gregory the Great’s attributions of properties as symbols of colours**** matches those arrived at, almost mechanically, using C[ircles] A[nalysis &] S[ynthesis].

*‘Gregory the Great to John, Bishop of Constatinople [et al], on Christian leadership (in ‘Part III: The Christian Testament since the Bible’, Firethorn Press/Waterstone, London, 1985)

**[ie in Exodus 28:8]

***[eg [Redbook4:144-145][19871020:2058b]{Angelic Hierarchies [continued (20)]}[20th October 1987]]

****[or vv – colours as symbols of properties?]

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{Love and Sex (4) [continued (5)]}[2nd August 1989]

[Redbook6:185][19890802:1734e]{Love and Sex (4) [continued (5)]}[2nd August 1989]

.1734

[continued]

In such a community,* the height of spiritual Love achieved verges on extra-sensory perception: the near-perfect communication by identity of thought between those present who love one another enough to identify with each other. The next stage, explicable only in terms of the un-bounded unconscious meeting in the Spirit, is similar communication between loved ones who are not present to each other; and in the end, potential open-ness to any state or event in Creation.

But we are, of course, a long way from even the early stages of such a Kingdom of God on Earth, in which (to bring it back to the theme of this item)** even the teenagers would be spiritually advanced enough to internalise*** their sexual impulses without inhibition or repression, as very few of us can now do at least until we are a great deal older.

Spiritual teaching is the key: which like all to do with the Spirit must be honest and un-repressive.

*[See last previous entry]

**[ie this series of journal entries from [Redbook6:181-185][19890802:1734]{Love and Sex (4)}[2nd August 1989] ff]

***[See last previous entry, fn***:‘Internalised’ is not quite the word I want…. Perhaps ‘inner-generated’ would better convey my meaning....]

{→ [[Redbook6:190-19319890803:0908b]{Love and Sex (5)]}[3rd August 1989]] 190}

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