I have many problems with Christianity. My biggest problem is the tacit and overt assumption by believers and theologians that Once Upon a Time we humans enjoyed perfection in some sort of Garden and then threw it all away thoughtlessly. I see nothing in history or pre-history that would serve as evidence for the truth of such an assumption. My historical viewpoint informs me that it's been a long, hard slog all the way for every single one of our ancestors and for us.
Yes I also reject the nostalgic and utopian elements. I see them as due to the narrative bias. I see nostalgia driven to extreme as fundamentalism and utopia driven to extreme as totalitarianism.
I would share this perspective. I don't think holding to a historical certainty in terms of the fall is helpful in any way, but rather is destructive to the Deep truth within. The nature of the textual history argues for these early stories to be fully symbolic. I agree with John, the nostalgia/utopia vision comes as a package and is deeply destructive, even evil.
@@johnvervaeke I've heard you say this several times but never so concisely. This is very well articulated. I observe that dogma tends to lend itself to nostalgia and ideology lends itself to Utopian views. So, can we then say dogmatic thinking (is nostalgia) and ideological thinking (is utopian)? If so, perhaps the former links to religion while the latter links to politics. ** side note, this brings up the question of the false authorities that are responsible for putting Jesus to death. He became the victim of nostalgia and Utopian thinking. ** Politics and religion have always been mixed together, so for us to then separate them is an interesting evolutional move. Can we distinguish dogma as nostalgia (and religious in nature)? In the same way, ideology is linked to political thought systems. The communists were not so much atheist as they were anti-nostalgia. In the earliest Sutra the Buddha was real big on our attachment to views and sensual desires. Our clinging to ideology or nostalgia is what the Buddha was identifying as a problem. We would do well to avoid both.
@@johnvervaeke Thanks for your wonderful answer. I grew up Presbyterian and now consider myself an agnostic (I don't believe we CAN know). I had believed when younger that the whole idea of Jesus's death was an answer to what supposedly happened with Adam and Eve. If, as it seems clear now, that that story was pure myth, what possible meaning could the death of Jesus have in a world in which we humans had emerged through biological and cultural evolutionary processes? If the Fall never happened, what would be redeemed by the death of Jesus? What could possibly be saved by the death of Jesus?
I can see why there is a guarding against the utopian-nostalgic framing as expressed in current (and probably historical) forms of (christian & other) fundamentalisms My query is more like why is this nostalgia or utopianism so powerful or attractive? It seems like we find ourselves in self-consciousness as separate and alienated from something 'bigger and realer than ourselves'. So in trying to make sense of this feeling of alienation/separation, we posit that we must have been in communion with this bigger thing in order for our sense of lack to make sense - in other words, to really feel lack, we must have known satiety right? So we consider ourselves as 'fallen' by default and strive to return to or remember this primordial state of union which would clear the way to our 'eventual redemption' which would be complete and eternal participation in the Real
As someone who’s slowing sliding back into Christianity, I’m really excited about what’s been bubbling up in this corner of the internet. Feels a bit like a Christian renaissance.
The logos never leaves us. It is an important part of shadow work. Gotta integrate it and hopefully a healthy understanding can remove much of the perversions which so many have either allowed or authored.
Yes. I feel it too but with a degree of caution as there appears also to be a lot of deception out there. One thing I know for sure is the need to pass the humility test in regard to authentic Christian Faith.
John, I love your thought process and your willingness to join someone’s journey in order to help them articulate it and think it through “with them” and not in opposition to. You are amazing and I thank you.
Ken’s description of his own integration of John’s terminology with his new perspective of Christianity is actually helping me move further into John’s work. I’m a Christian who walked into fundamentalism by choice at a young age in order to find stability and very gradually walked back out of it having found it toxic. Yet John‘s work sometimes baffles me. What I’m getting here is such a useful bridge into John’s work.
Ken's metanoia was an exemplar of participatory knowing. It seems to me what matters to him is the (moment to moment) participation in reality as the via regia to transformation or awakening from the meaning crisis. It exemplifies that the way to wisdom is not representational/semantic (knowledge of wisdom) per se, but a participation (in reality) to reach them. Participation is carried out by procedural practices (be it meditative practices or being mindful in day to day life). Thanks Ken and John. Refueled.
This conversation really took off as it went along. Very enlightening to hear you guys exploring the experience of these ideas as it resonated very deeply with my own. I've had the same question where I ask myself how to best be of service with or to this gift/awareness. I often feel it as being able to create a space for the logos to emerge and inviting others into it through my presence and detachment when we are spending time together. It sometimes feels as though I am able to create a conduit for others to safely enter and participate without fear of the light (the burdensome judgement of God as it is most often portrayed). But the experience is wholly their own, it's so fulfilling to see other people come to life in that way. Even if it is something as brief as small talk with a cashier, server or passerby in my day to day life. Thanks so much ! P.S. your meditation lessons have been an invaluable tool for myself over the past few years. Thank you again, John
The self can only be realized in relation to another self. Without relationship personhood cannot be realized. Ken is talking about Being as communion.
This was amazing! Not saying that theorist talks are not rewarding but seeing and hearing individual and personal stories of participation in the Logos just hits the spot
I'm just in 12:00 min. but I already love this talk, with all due respect to Ken, it's looking like a final exam on the university with the most brilliant and firendly professor. John amazingly and humbly guiding him through his argumentation on the fall. Thanks so much for this!
Just finished the video! This was an amazing mentoring from John! What a privilege for, this very relatable, Ken for having the opportunity to have this talk. You did an amazing job Ken, a lot of reasons for being nervous in your shoes, handled it like a champ xD, for sure a dream came true for a lot of us on this side of the screen. My respect for both of you from Argentina.
I am very grateful for this dialogue. The most valuable piece for me was the unpacking of the meaning of the resurrection, but the mycological metaphor is a new lens in my hermeneutic eyepiece.
"In order to understand who God is I need to understand who I am... " Also John Calvin. He made the same assertion in his Institutes. Knowing God and self is deeply connected. Can't have one without the other.
Indeed. This is the primary frame coming up as I continue to consider the words of Christ on the cross. It is a question of Divinity relating to humanity at the moment of climax. It seems to me the frames of human and divine are generally poorly formulated in the standard responses to the issue.
For me, I found my way back to Christ by begging God to get me out of a Western Hindu cult. He ‘met me’ in my brother’s ICU room and transferred me out of darkness into His Kingdom of Light! I am now Orthodox Christian and a former clinical psychologist of 25 years. Orthodox psychotherapy is healing me. We’ve built a healing center here in our 8000 square foot beeswax prayer candle factory and icon shop. We’ve got a 700 square foot ballroom for retreats and conferences, a huge library/ counseling room, a floatation therapy tank, two infrared saunas, soaking tub and we are next to the gorgeous Red Hills in central California where I found a prayer cave! Our next project is to build a small RV park here, Lord willing! Come and see!
I've only listened to the first 15 mins so far and have deep resonance with Ken's understanding of 'The Fall' as symbolic - Both as an Awakening for Ken personally, and the Bible story as a Christian mystic 'narrative guidebook' to Awakening. Thank you
This felt like an embodiment of my entire inner dialogue the last couple years, smashed into the most lovely and digestible conversation. I’m really looking forward to the next time you two talk. I’ve been super curious as to how a chat would go with the folks over at The Bible Project, I think they have some insights worth considering. (What I wouldn’t do to one day be worthy of conversationally sparring with John Vervaeke 😩)
The Question John asks around 33:12 on the profound sense of seperation that Jesus felt while on the cross to say "My God,My God why have you forsaken me." is a pivotal understanding to contend with in understanding the full humanness of Jesus while being fully divine. Henri Nouwen in his book The Return of the Prodigal Son addresses this: "That divine joy does not obliterate the divine sorrow. In our world, joy and sorrow exclude each other. Here below, joy means the absence of sorrow and sorrow the absence of joy. But such distinctions do not exit in God. Jesus, the Son of God, is the man of sorrows, but also the man of complete joy. We catch a glimpse of this when we realize that in the midst of his greatest suffering Jesus is never seprated from his Father. His union with God is never broken even when he "feels" abandoned by God. The joy of God belongs to his sonship, and this joy of Jesus and his Father is offered to me. " For someone in the depths of being lost, beleaguered, grieving, traumatized, depressed, doubting this knowledge of sonship while still sitting in the pigsty is what will stir him to get up and turn his face home if only to be the least in his Father's house. Oh the chesed that awaits him in the Father's embrace !
Initially, I wasn’t looking forward to this podcast but as it unfolded I became part of the fold. Thank you gentlemen. Looking forward to your next conversation.
This sorta metanoia happened to me or is still in the process of happening to me from February when the Canadian Ottawa truckers happened i felt a light and understanding change in me entirely. Only difference im having is i am completely insane and crazy to everyone around me cause I can’t share it with anyone and so im having trouble understanding how to navigate my profound understanding of reality now. Psilocybin mushrooms helped me with a few break throughs but that Ottawa convoy showed me a love and compassion of a country of multiple cultures coming together and forming a community together to stand in the freezing cold to protest freedom i jumped into a rabbit hole and dug into the theology of the different regions out there to find the biblical nature of the feeling i gained after 2 hopeless years of miserable life experiences. So this talk was very amazing to listen to.
I'm just 4 minutes in and already I'm like "why hasn't this ever been talked about before?" ... conventional Christianity is aspirational... it's motivating the individual to want something but the thing remains beyond the propositional level... That is a problem because faith (as it's being taught to you) never rises above the propositional level. Ironically, in order to have faith, one must leave the faith.
Isn’t Faith embodied in the doctrine of sanctification or conforming to the image of Christ as you “walk by faith” which is understood to “live” by faith? I’m genuinely curious and trying to understand. I’m slowly merging from a Calvinist background and I follow JBP, symbolic world, awakening from meaning crisis and this channel which all interest me and I fell in headed in the right direction but it’s still foggy to my and I’m still wrestling with some things.
If the individual is the „Arbiter of Reality“, how do human beings agree on a „Consensual Reality“ in the context of Christianity. I like the notion of „Awareness“ which connects the information we glean from the environment through our senses, to our database of knowledge, emotions, and meaning in the Conscious-brain. The ability to compile, synthesize, analyze, discriminate, refine, define, and filter incoming information in the brain permits humans to assign value, a story, or meaning to our version of reality. As an „enlightened, re-defined Christian“, I have defined God my way. Christianity is a mechanism in time and space to accept God, eg. through prayer.
“Not something you can have!l” Precisely! You cannot possess it, you reach for it and it is not graspable and yet in the reaching for it you conform to its image! ( this came to me because of John’s example of the cup being graspable) I realized then that this is how one is conformed to the image of Christ. ( in my case as a Christian)
I have been contemplating upon the importance of Christ as a mythical image over the common Christian approach of him as an historical figure, my sense and beginning hypothesis being the mythical persona is more easily inter grated into personal experience than the historical? Basically to me, by stressing the mythic aspects of Christ, I am more able to live as Christ, instead of the typical “ but you cannot expect to live as Christ, because Christ was God” I hope I’m expressing this understandably, My attempt is to live with the generosity, curiosity, and feeling of wonder and awe; not to live as if I can preform miracles ; to walk with not be.
Jesus said "deny thy self and follow me"... Under guilt there is the "wanting to want" (this is when you're stuck in the propositional level). Conversely, there is the participation which is the methanoia. No longer is it "wanting to want" (from the outside looking in) but now 'self-denial' becomes realized (i.e, the ideal and effortless experience ). This is more like a "wanting" from the inside out.. or "a flow state" of beauty, bliss, and belonging. This is metanoia. It is a change of mind from ego (Left Brian views) to Light shining forth (no attachment to views, desires, or fears). Correctly understood, this "self denial" (ego death) isn't our willpower at battle with our shadow material, is the shift from service-to-self, to service-to-virtue (ie, the love of wisdom). It isn't about holding the right theological beliefs, rather to be "born again" is to engage with life (as Adam did before the fall), as Jesus did. Metanoia is beyond belief and beyond any battle, it is simply Being.
I have been working on a project and idea of how to bring these ideas to the average person who may not have the time and energy to study as much. If you would ever want to have a talk on that idea I would really like that.
This is the one thing I really need around John's content. I am a lay person and have consumed most all of John's and others content. I study enough through that I can "keep up" with what's being said and can make connections with my own experience and spiritual intuitions. BUT, I am stuck with how to translate this into the religion thats not a religion, and how to really apply it to my own life. So yeah, that would be pretty dope.
@@kimuraarmlock Absolutely. I have people close to me who are very into this kind of stuff on a light level. And I would very much be able to bring the depth of these ideas down to a level where I can help them connect more dots.
I think of myself as still a Christian - though the fundamentalists I grew up with might not agree. For me the important chapter is 1Cor.12 - the body of Christ. Where the most fragile parts are the most paid attention to - the health of the parts contribute to the health of whole: in this organic metaphor there is no trade off of the individual against the communal or the whole against the part.
I do like the aspect of how his personal reinterpretation has revitalised his being-in-the-world, his relation to himself, others, etc., and how this has enabled him to, more or less, decouple himself from his egocentrism in order to participate more 'w-holly' in the co-creation of meaning. I don't know what the man looked like before but he clearly does at times look at peace with himself and full of joy so power to him. I just don't understand how anyone can feel they belong to any particular religion other than by saying it is their personal conduit to a greater reality that just happens to be revealed to them through their conformity with this particular mythos? Isn't that idolatrous? I may have misunderstood him and like him, I struggle to capture the experience and topic with language too.
I have lived a life of fending off guilt with man, welded through abusing their God given power, this kind of " christianity"; life and soul destroying. Then with God the Father, embracing guilt as it was made to be with Jesus. The release from guilt. What an astounding thing for our generations to totally miss.
Have you seen these lectures which posit something slightly similar? "The Bad Idea that Took Over the World" what they are emphasizing is that there was a shift occurring somewhere between Abraham and Jesus that shifted the emphasis from doing good works in this life to a concept of Heaven. It touches on many of the same points that you do, it is nearly an affine transformation of your points.
@@johnvervaeke It is only worth a superficial overview, it is simply a supported opinion and lacks the depth, breath or precision of your research, but it was odd to me that it could be taken to be very similar, both suppositions and evidence. Of course, as an assertion it can be seen to be a subset of your assertion. Thanks for the reply and for your work, my friends and I in the cognitive mindfulness and buddhist community have found the idea of a subtle literary spiritual evolution , really any time since 11k BC, quite useful and stimulating.
So enjoyed this content. I’d like to share some thoughts about the reason why I can’t shake my Christian roots. I resonate well with Jordan Peterson’s take on Jesus addressing suffering as optimal. But I also resonate with what has been discussed in this video about awareness in the more subjective understanding. There appears to be a clash but there doesn’t need to be because Jesus came to stop the suffering through His ultimate sacrifice. If this is accepted and there is a transformation, suffering ceases to exist but not fully until our own ultimate death as that is when we are set free from suffering in objective terms. Reincarnation, the mechanics by which suffering takes place, is cancelled by the cross but we need to accept the Sacrifice first. So Salvation in this sense is very much an objective event involving Divine intervention in history, but awareness of this reality is by nature subjective. So to be clear, my understanding at this point, is the reason why we’re here, again, in this reality we call matter, is because we need to embrace Grace. Our own nature ruled by will, is not enough to be set free from the cycle of physical reincarnation as we need to be born again spiritually. It is a free will choice. Btw the driving force is always love..
Thanks Nick for your comment. I know it is a controversial take but if you follow the symbolism carefully the entire Bible points to it e.g. Sabbath Rest etc.
Mat 13:20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Mat 13:21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. Eph_3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, The Participatory is analogous of rooting, where there is a growth from the integral within and not just an addition to the attributed map. One must keep in mind though, "because of the word" - logos.
My God why has though forsaken me”? Reminds me of God in the garden of Eden, when he says, where are you Adam? Somehow there was a rupture in Seeing? As Jesus takes on the sin of the world , he feels thoroughly, humanities sense of forsakenness, that God doesn’t see me. Psalm 22 however, shows how humans can feel forsaken and at the same time how God doesn’t forsake. Interesting chat. Thanks
Really wonderful talk, thank you! I always think hearing Advaita, Theravada and other Non-duality practitioners describe the self as not real, that you don't have to do that to be able to get to a vantage point from which you can find identity in being that is beyond the usual, ordinary ''shape'' of the phenomenological self. In other words, the model can completely be rendered opaque, reference-points, the process of identification can shift and transcend, the self can be seen through and understood as ultimately impermanent and ''just'' emergent and other btw really real properties, without it needing to be discarded. There is ultimately more epistemological confidence in experiencing my experience as pure experience or awareness than in understanding my experience as this and that, but that also doesn't make the arising world and self unreal.
And you can always speak from personality, care etc., you cannot really talk exclusive from that, but that also doesn't mean that you have to have ultimate identity with that, you are participating in that..i guess
If you were born into a Christian faith and culture, even though you learn about and ecounter real heartfelt experiences of God or higher self in other practices, then don't you still have some deep need to integrate those tools and experiences back into your original faith grounding?
Well it seems like I did just that if you read my recent comment about the part reincarnation plays in Christian salvation but that would be considered a top down approach by some I guess which I have no problem with personally.
John, the “My God, My God”……moment is the withdrawal of the Father. The Father must withdraw in order for the Son to be made real. God makes things real by withdrawing from them.
Hey, just want to say I dig the reply and this corresponds to something that John has talked about in the past. He talks about wisdom and describes it as withdrawing so that we can follow... so I'm sure John is going to get this once he reads it. Well done. Thank you. Then there is "the being made real" aspect. In other words, to realize in both senses of the word. To be human means to experience separation from God, even if that is an illusion... nevertheless, Christ had to experience it... to realize it, and sit with it for three days (in death) and then cast it off. Can there be any doubt, this was "the secret" meaning that the Gospel writers had in mind when they crafted their narrative gospel myth: to realize Christ within is nascent life. Amen.
@@weepingprophetdjjesus yes it’s kind of hidden in plain sight really, this idea of withdrawal. Pageau also talks about the centrifugal and centripetal force of God, symbolically represented as the right and left hand of God. The right hand draws us in and the left hand pushes us out. Very simply put, it is what a parent would do for their child. They must be “pushed out” into the world in order to become “real”. Of course this takes one down a number of rabbit holes! Especially if you start in Genesis……
I imagine the myth of Cain and Abel is a metaphor for two parts of ourselves that are in conflict. You might call it the believer side and the skeptic side, but it is two sides of the same coin. We have to rise up and become "the mystic" by living on the edge, the trouble is we don't know how. We don't even know that's an option. And without theosis the adjacent possible (while ever present), remains popetually occulted. In this story God speaks to Cain and says, "sin is crouching at your door and you must master it." In this case, we could understand sin to be our shadow material... that it is the repressed ego which we don't want to look at. As long as we're in a bipolar disorder between belief and skepticism, we never truly master sin or overcome our shadow. We want to kill our brother but we don't really know why. It is through this process of metanoia (beautifully explained in this video) we become able to be Abel. We might say that Abel was the first Christian... in the beginning of this video Ken said he didn't know what a Christian was. Well, look at the man murdered by his brother (the man named Abel) there you have a Christian. In Able we have an example right there of a Christian witness/martyr and mystic, someone in harmony with the Divine Being. God is saying to Cain, "You have a choice in life. You can either become Able--the very thing that you hated or you can continue as you are, in which case sin will destroy you."
John I think you should take a look at the book of Mikeal C. Parsons "Body and Character in Luke and Acts: The Subversion of Physiognomy in Early Christianity". Very academic and very eye opening book. I grew up in a catholic household, and I never liked (what you describe as) "two world mythologies" that is very present in todays "collective unconscious" of christianity. To me that book was a bridge between physicalism of our reality and spirituality of the Gospel. I mean the book itself doesn't bridge that gap (and that wasn't what the author's goal was to begin with), but it added valuable piece for me to bridge that gap
Hi John, have you ever studied electric universe theories? After a lot of contemplation I have found a lot of Harmonies between Electric Universe theories and the theology of Christianity. I would love to get a chance to crack some of these ideas on you. But I don't know how much of a fool I would make of myself lol... My theology starts from a premise that Science and True spirituality will have a common foothold, even at the highest levels. I would like to see what parallels you would draw between some of ideas I have on this subject. I can give a few examples but when I try to write it I just dont think I do as much justice as I would if I was speaking it. It would be great to see what you think on some of the ideas though so please let me know if you are interested!
@@michaelquinn4761 So particulalry I've studied David Lapoints presentation he calls the primer fields its all on youtube like a 4 part series up to 6 hours long
Praps the "my God, my God...' bit is evidence that Jesus and 'fully human' isn't about perfection, it's about Love...Ruth Burrows reminds us that there,s nothing heroic abou Jesus writhing on the ground in agony at Gethsemane, terrified of death.. But that was no problem for the Loving Whole which/who simply seeks to incorporate. Maybe. Lovely chat.
Once you taste Hesychia (stillness) and have possibly seen the Uncreated Light (a glimpse) in your own actual experience in the NOW (present moment) you won’t worry so much about the dogmatic things or even the whole narrative structure of the Bible. Praxis in the ascetic struggle in Orthodoxy replaces the dominance of the rational stuff which can never bring you into contact with God…. I’m not explaining it well but there is meditation in Ortho Praxis in the sense of sitting quietly with the Jesus Prayer which can lead to all kinds of experiences that are indescribable in words.. With ongoing purification One enters The Other World and “understandings” of things come into the mind (nous)… the information feels like it’s “down loaded” and obviously not from the person experiencing it… I think it’s called theoria Not just for monks! 🙏🏻☦️🙏🏻 Thank you
I see people still need proof of a fall of man in the framing of a need for a savior. Maybe work backwards and start with the work of Jesus’ selfless act which would undo our selfishness and ask yourself “when did we become selfish to the point of covering ourselves and hiding?”
I have many problems with Christianity. My biggest problem is the tacit and overt assumption by believers and theologians that Once Upon a Time we humans enjoyed perfection in some sort of Garden and then threw it all away thoughtlessly. I see nothing in history or pre-history that would serve as evidence for the truth of such an assumption. My historical viewpoint informs me that it's been a long, hard slog all the way for every single one of our ancestors and for us.
Yes I also reject the nostalgic and utopian elements. I see them as due to the narrative bias. I see nostalgia driven to extreme as fundamentalism and utopia driven to extreme as totalitarianism.
I would share this perspective. I don't think holding to a historical certainty in terms of the fall is helpful in any way, but rather is destructive to the Deep truth within. The nature of the textual history argues for these early stories to be fully symbolic. I agree with John, the nostalgia/utopia vision comes as a package and is deeply destructive, even evil.
@@johnvervaeke I've heard you say this several times but never so concisely. This is very well articulated.
I observe that dogma tends to lend itself to nostalgia and ideology lends itself to Utopian views. So, can we then say dogmatic thinking (is nostalgia) and ideological thinking (is utopian)? If so, perhaps the former links to religion while the latter links to politics.
** side note, this brings up the question of the false authorities that are responsible for putting Jesus to death. He became the victim of nostalgia and Utopian thinking. **
Politics and religion have always been mixed together, so for us to then separate them is an interesting evolutional move. Can we distinguish dogma as nostalgia (and religious in nature)? In the same way, ideology is linked to political thought systems. The communists were not so much atheist as they were anti-nostalgia.
In the earliest Sutra the Buddha was real big on our attachment to views and sensual desires. Our clinging to ideology or nostalgia is what the Buddha was identifying as a problem. We would do well to avoid both.
@@johnvervaeke Thanks for your wonderful answer.
I grew up Presbyterian and now consider myself an agnostic (I don't believe we CAN know).
I had believed when younger that the whole idea of Jesus's death was an answer to what supposedly happened with Adam and Eve. If, as it seems clear now, that that story was pure myth, what possible meaning could the death of Jesus have in a world in which we humans had emerged through biological and cultural evolutionary processes?
If the Fall never happened, what would be redeemed by the death of Jesus? What could possibly be saved by the death of Jesus?
I can see why there is a guarding against the utopian-nostalgic framing as expressed in current (and probably historical) forms of (christian & other) fundamentalisms
My query is more like why is this nostalgia or utopianism so powerful or attractive?
It seems like we find ourselves in self-consciousness as separate and alienated from something 'bigger and realer than ourselves'. So in trying to make sense of this feeling of alienation/separation, we posit that we must have been in communion with this bigger thing in order for our sense of lack to make sense - in other words, to really feel lack, we must have known satiety right?
So we consider ourselves as 'fallen' by default and strive to return to or remember this primordial state of union which would clear the way to our 'eventual redemption' which would be complete and eternal participation in the Real
As someone who’s slowing sliding back into Christianity, I’m really excited about what’s been bubbling up in this corner of the internet. Feels a bit like a Christian renaissance.
Same. Lots of Orthodox new comers are saying something strange is happening.
The logos never leaves us. It is an important part of shadow work. Gotta integrate it and hopefully a healthy understanding can remove much of the perversions which so many have either allowed or authored.
Yes. I feel it too but with a degree of caution as there appears also to be a lot of deception out there. One thing I know for sure is the need to pass the humility test in regard to authentic Christian Faith.
I love ❤ it
"You can only participate in truth, you can't hold it as propositions" Love this quote
48:05 “I no longer had any fear about it I was ‘right’ about something any longer.”
Amen.
John, I love your thought process and your willingness to join someone’s journey in order to help them articulate it and think it through “with them” and not in opposition to. You are amazing and I thank you.
Now you live Ken. As Rilke said, “The point is to live everything “. This is the abundant life Christ speaks of! Live Ken!
this is super relatable and helpful. I would love to see more talks like this.
Look forward to the next conversation! Can’t wait. I’ve been on this same journey.
Ken’s description of his own integration of John’s terminology with his new perspective of Christianity is actually helping me move further into John’s work. I’m a Christian who walked into fundamentalism by choice at a young age in order to find stability and very gradually walked back out of it having found it toxic. Yet John‘s work sometimes baffles me. What I’m getting here is such a useful bridge into John’s work.
I think this guy just preperly tied Vervaeke and Pageau together, jumping easily back and forth between both of their language.
John, thank you!!
Thank you! This is the territory I feel, i appreciate hearing that it was received!
Ken's metanoia was an exemplar of participatory knowing. It seems to me what matters to him is the (moment to moment) participation in reality as the via regia to transformation or awakening from the meaning crisis. It exemplifies that the way to wisdom is not representational/semantic (knowledge of wisdom) per se, but a participation (in reality) to reach them. Participation is carried out by procedural practices (be it meditative practices or being mindful in day to day life). Thanks Ken and John. Refueled.
This conversation really took off as it went along. Very enlightening to hear you guys exploring the experience of these ideas as it resonated very deeply with my own.
I've had the same question where I ask myself how to best be of service with or to this gift/awareness.
I often feel it as being able to create a space for the logos to emerge and inviting others into it through my presence and detachment when we are spending time together. It sometimes feels as though I am able to create a conduit for others to safely enter and participate without fear of the light (the burdensome judgement of God as it is most often portrayed). But the experience is wholly their own, it's so fulfilling to see other people come to life in that way. Even if it is something as brief as small talk with a cashier, server or passerby in my day to day life.
Thanks so much !
P.S. your meditation lessons have been an invaluable tool for myself over the past few years. Thank you again, John
I had a big edit to my comment. Still digesting everything haha
The self can only be realized in relation to another self. Without relationship personhood cannot be realized. Ken is talking about Being as communion.
This was amazing! Not saying that theorist talks are not rewarding but seeing and hearing individual and personal stories of participation in the Logos just hits the spot
I'm just in 12:00 min. but I already love this talk, with all due respect to Ken, it's looking like a final exam on the university with the most brilliant and firendly professor. John amazingly and humbly guiding him through his argumentation on the fall.
Thanks so much for this!
Just finished the video! This was an amazing mentoring from John! What a privilege for, this very relatable, Ken for having the opportunity to have this talk. You did an amazing job Ken, a lot of reasons for being nervous in your shoes, handled it like a champ xD, for sure a dream came true for a lot of us on this side of the screen.
My respect for both of you from Argentina.
I am very grateful for this dialogue. The most valuable piece for me was the unpacking of the meaning of the resurrection, but the mycological metaphor is a new lens in my hermeneutic eyepiece.
"In order to understand who God is I need to understand who I am... " Also John Calvin. He made the same assertion in his Institutes. Knowing God and self is deeply connected. Can't have one without the other.
Indeed. This is the primary frame coming up as I continue to consider the words of Christ on the cross. It is a question of Divinity relating to humanity at the moment of climax. It seems to me the frames of human and divine are generally poorly formulated in the standard responses to the issue.
For me, I found my way back to Christ by begging God to get me out of a Western Hindu cult. He ‘met me’ in my brother’s ICU room and transferred me out of darkness into His Kingdom of Light! I am now Orthodox Christian and a former clinical psychologist of 25 years. Orthodox psychotherapy is healing me. We’ve built a healing center here in our 8000 square foot beeswax prayer candle factory and icon shop. We’ve got a 700 square foot ballroom for retreats and conferences, a huge library/ counseling room, a floatation therapy tank, two infrared saunas, soaking tub and we are next to the gorgeous Red Hills in central California where I found a prayer cave! Our next project is to build a small RV park here, Lord willing! Come and see!
Oh I love this !
@@suburbangothic_sublimedivine me too!
I've only listened to the first 15 mins so far and have deep resonance with Ken's understanding of 'The Fall' as symbolic -
Both as an Awakening for Ken personally, and the Bible story as a Christian mystic 'narrative guidebook' to Awakening.
Thank you
This felt like an embodiment of my entire inner dialogue the last couple years, smashed into the most lovely and digestible conversation. I’m really looking forward to the next time you two talk. I’ve been super curious as to how a chat would go with the folks over at The Bible Project, I think they have some insights worth considering.
(What I wouldn’t do to one day be worthy of conversationally sparring with John Vervaeke 😩)
The Question John asks around 33:12 on the profound sense of seperation that Jesus felt while on the cross to say "My God,My God why have you forsaken me." is a pivotal understanding to contend with in understanding the full humanness of Jesus while being fully divine.
Henri Nouwen in his book The Return of the Prodigal Son addresses this:
"That divine joy does not obliterate the divine sorrow. In our world, joy and sorrow exclude each other. Here below, joy means the absence of sorrow and sorrow the absence of joy. But such distinctions do not exit in God.
Jesus, the Son of God, is the man of sorrows, but also the man of complete joy.
We catch a glimpse of this when we realize that in the midst of his greatest suffering Jesus is never seprated from his Father. His union with God is never broken even when he "feels" abandoned by God. The joy of God belongs to his sonship, and this joy of Jesus and his Father is offered to me. "
For someone in the depths of being lost, beleaguered, grieving, traumatized, depressed, doubting this knowledge of sonship while still sitting in the pigsty is what will stir him to get up and turn his face home if only to be the least in his Father's house. Oh the chesed that awaits him in the Father's embrace !
Thanks Ken and John!
Thanks Lee
Initially, I wasn’t looking forward to this podcast but as it unfolded I became part of the fold. Thank you gentlemen. Looking forward to your next conversation.
This sorta metanoia happened to me or is still in the process of happening to me from February when the Canadian Ottawa truckers happened i felt a light and understanding change in me entirely. Only difference im having is i am completely insane and crazy to everyone around me cause I can’t share it with anyone and so im having trouble understanding how to navigate my profound understanding of reality now. Psilocybin mushrooms helped me with a few break throughs but that Ottawa convoy showed me a love and compassion of a country of multiple cultures coming together and forming a community together to stand in the freezing cold to protest freedom i jumped into a rabbit hole and dug into the theology of the different regions out there to find the biblical nature of the feeling i gained after 2 hopeless years of miserable life experiences. So this talk was very amazing to listen to.
Hey this sounds interesting. Thanks John! Can't wait to hear it
I'm just 4 minutes in and already I'm like "why hasn't this ever been talked about before?" ... conventional Christianity is aspirational... it's motivating the individual to want something but the thing remains beyond the propositional level... That is a problem because faith (as it's being taught to you) never rises above the propositional level. Ironically, in order to have faith, one must leave the faith.
Yes, faith must be embodied, it cannot be had by transference
Isn’t Faith embodied in the doctrine of sanctification or conforming to the image of Christ as you “walk by faith” which is understood to “live” by faith? I’m genuinely curious and trying to understand. I’m slowly merging from a Calvinist background and I follow JBP, symbolic world, awakening from meaning crisis and this channel which all interest me and I fell in headed in the right direction but it’s still foggy to my and I’m still wrestling with some things.
Is understanding theosis what I’m missing?
Wow great! Can’t wait for the next episode and more!
If the individual is the „Arbiter of Reality“, how do human beings agree on a „Consensual Reality“ in the context of Christianity. I like the notion of „Awareness“ which connects the information we glean from the environment through our senses, to our database of knowledge, emotions, and meaning in the Conscious-brain. The ability to compile, synthesize, analyze, discriminate, refine, define, and filter incoming information in the brain permits humans to assign value, a story, or meaning to our version of reality. As an „enlightened, re-defined Christian“, I have defined God my way. Christianity is a mechanism in time and space to accept God, eg. through prayer.
Great job opening up some new interpretive avenues to Christianity!
Thank you!
awesome! looking forward to this.
Love these conversations.
“Not something you can have!l” Precisely! You cannot possess it, you reach for it and it is not graspable and yet in the reaching for it you conform to its image! ( this came to me because of John’s example of the cup being graspable) I realized then that this is how one is conformed to the image of Christ. ( in my case as a Christian)
I have been contemplating upon the importance of Christ as a mythical image over the common Christian approach of him as an historical figure, my sense and beginning hypothesis being the mythical persona is more easily inter grated into personal experience than the historical? Basically to me, by stressing the mythic aspects of Christ, I am more able to live as Christ, instead of the typical “ but you cannot expect to live as Christ, because Christ was God”
I hope I’m expressing this understandably, My attempt is to live with the generosity, curiosity, and feeling of wonder and awe; not to live as if I can preform miracles ; to walk with not be.
You had me at "Metanoia."
Jesus said "deny thy self and follow me"... Under guilt there is the "wanting to want" (this is when you're stuck in the propositional level). Conversely, there is the participation which is the methanoia. No longer is it "wanting to want" (from the outside looking in) but now 'self-denial' becomes realized (i.e, the ideal and effortless experience ).
This is more like a "wanting" from the inside out.. or "a flow state" of beauty, bliss, and belonging. This is metanoia. It is a change of mind from ego (Left Brian views) to Light shining forth (no attachment to views, desires, or fears).
Correctly understood, this "self denial" (ego death) isn't our willpower at battle with our shadow material, is the shift from service-to-self, to service-to-virtue (ie, the love of wisdom).
It isn't about holding the right theological beliefs, rather to be "born again" is to engage with life (as Adam did before the fall), as Jesus did. Metanoia is beyond belief and beyond any battle, it is simply Being.
I have been working on a project and idea of how to bring these ideas to the average person who may not have the time and energy to study as much. If you would ever want to have a talk on that idea I would really like that.
This is the one thing I really need around John's content. I am a lay person and have consumed most all of John's and others content. I study enough through that I can "keep up" with what's being said and can make connections with my own experience and spiritual intuitions. BUT, I am stuck with how to translate this into the religion thats not a religion, and how to really apply it to my own life.
So yeah, that would be pretty dope.
@@captiantoastytm6436 yea and then trying to connect that with people around you who aren't familiar at all. That is what I'm trying to work on.
@@kimuraarmlock Absolutely.
I have people close to me who are very into this kind of stuff on a light level. And I would very much be able to bring the depth of these ideas down to a level where I can help them connect more dots.
This conversation was bouth helpfull and full of meaning. Thanks a lot :)
Oooooh! I love that! “Trapped in their bodies….if their body dies, their construct dies!”
Suffering is not the epitome of virtue, nor is mindfulness. Love is the epitome of virtue, it is no coincidence that "God Is Love."
41:00 - 41:15 I call this iconic *thinking*. It’s a way to save the representations & the appearances of the eternal (most real) things.
Absolutely brilliant conversation gents! Ken your experience sounds very familiar 🙏
Thank you brothers!
I think of myself as still a Christian - though the fundamentalists I grew up with might not agree. For me the important chapter is 1Cor.12 - the body of Christ. Where the most fragile parts are the most paid attention to - the health of the parts contribute to the health of whole: in this organic metaphor there is no trade off of the individual against the communal or the whole against the part.
I do like the aspect of how his personal reinterpretation has revitalised his being-in-the-world, his relation to himself, others, etc., and how this has enabled him to, more or less, decouple himself from his egocentrism in order to participate more 'w-holly' in the co-creation of meaning. I don't know what the man looked like before but he clearly does at times look at peace with himself and full of joy so power to him. I just don't understand how anyone can feel they belong to any particular religion other than by saying it is their personal conduit to a greater reality that just happens to be revealed to them through their conformity with this particular mythos? Isn't that idolatrous? I may have misunderstood him and like him, I struggle to capture the experience and topic with language too.
55:58 “let it be”
I have lived a life of fending off guilt with man, welded through abusing their God given power, this kind of " christianity"; life and soul destroying. Then with God the Father, embracing guilt as it was made to be with Jesus. The release from guilt. What an astounding thing for our generations to totally miss.
Have you seen these lectures which posit something slightly similar?
"The Bad Idea that Took Over the World"
what they are emphasizing is that there was a shift occurring somewhere between Abraham and Jesus that shifted the emphasis from doing good works in this life to a concept of Heaven.
It touches on many of the same points that you do, it is nearly an affine transformation of your points.
I will check it out. Thx.
@@johnvervaeke It is only worth a superficial overview, it is simply a supported opinion and lacks the depth, breath or precision of your research, but it was odd to me that it could be taken to be very similar, both suppositions and evidence. Of course, as an assertion it can be seen to be a subset of your assertion. Thanks for the reply and for your work, my friends and I in the cognitive mindfulness and buddhist community have found the idea of a subtle literary spiritual evolution , really any time since 11k BC, quite useful and stimulating.
So enjoyed this content. I’d like to share some thoughts about the reason why I can’t shake my Christian roots. I resonate well with Jordan Peterson’s take on Jesus addressing suffering as optimal. But I also resonate with what has been discussed in this video about awareness in the more subjective understanding. There appears to be a clash but there doesn’t need to be because Jesus came to stop the suffering through His ultimate sacrifice. If this is accepted and there is a transformation, suffering ceases to exist but not fully until our own ultimate death as that is when we are set free from suffering in objective terms. Reincarnation, the mechanics by which suffering takes place, is cancelled by the cross but we need to accept the Sacrifice first. So Salvation in this sense is very much an objective event involving Divine intervention in history, but awareness of this reality is by nature subjective. So to be clear, my understanding at this point, is the reason why we’re here, again, in this reality we call matter, is because we need to embrace Grace. Our own nature ruled by will, is not enough to be set free from the cycle of physical reincarnation as we need to be born again spiritually. It is a free will choice. Btw the driving force is always love..
Thanks for sharing. Enjoyed reading these thoughts
Thanks Nick for your comment. I know it is a controversial take but if you follow the symbolism carefully the entire Bible points to it e.g. Sabbath Rest etc.
Mat 13:20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
Mat 13:21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
Eph_3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
The Participatory is analogous of rooting, where there is a growth from the integral within and not just an addition to the attributed map.
One must keep in mind though, "because of the word" - logos.
My God why has though forsaken me”? Reminds me of God in the garden of Eden, when he says, where are you Adam? Somehow there was a rupture in Seeing? As Jesus takes on the sin of the world , he feels thoroughly, humanities sense of forsakenness, that God doesn’t see me. Psalm 22 however, shows how humans can feel forsaken and at the same time how God doesn’t forsake. Interesting chat. Thanks
Possession leads to reciprocal narrowing. Choosing serves the purpose of possession.
Really wonderful talk, thank you!
I always think hearing Advaita, Theravada and other Non-duality practitioners describe the self as not real, that you don't have to do that to be able to get to a vantage point from which you can find identity in being that is beyond the usual, ordinary ''shape'' of the phenomenological self.
In other words, the model can completely be rendered opaque, reference-points, the process of identification can shift and transcend, the self can be seen through and understood as ultimately impermanent and ''just'' emergent and other btw really real properties, without it needing to be discarded.
There is ultimately more epistemological confidence in experiencing my experience as pure experience or awareness than in understanding my experience as this and that, but that also doesn't make the arising world and self unreal.
What I am, ontologically, ultimately, is being that is participating in self and world which are not totally solid and fixed, but real.
And you can always speak from personality, care etc., you cannot really talk exclusive from that, but that also doesn't mean that you have to have ultimate identity with that, you are participating in that..i guess
If you were born into a Christian faith and culture, even though you learn about and ecounter real heartfelt experiences of God or higher self in other practices, then don't you still have some deep need to integrate those tools and experiences back into your original faith grounding?
Well it seems like I did just that if you read my recent comment about the part reincarnation plays in Christian salvation but that would be considered a top down approach by some I guess which I have no problem with personally.
John, the “My God, My God”……moment is the withdrawal of the Father. The Father must withdraw in order for the Son to be made real. God makes things real by withdrawing from them.
Hey, just want to say I dig the reply and this corresponds to something that John has talked about in the past. He talks about wisdom and describes it as withdrawing so that we can follow... so I'm sure John is going to get this once he reads it. Well done. Thank you.
Then there is "the being made real" aspect. In other words, to realize in both senses of the word. To be human means to experience separation from God, even if that is an illusion... nevertheless, Christ had to experience it... to realize it, and sit with it for three days (in death) and then cast it off. Can there be any doubt, this was "the secret" meaning that the Gospel writers had in mind when they crafted their narrative gospel myth: to realize Christ within is nascent life. Amen.
@@weepingprophetdjjesus yes it’s kind of hidden in plain sight really, this idea of withdrawal. Pageau also talks about the centrifugal and centripetal force of God, symbolically represented as the right and left hand of God. The right hand draws us in and the left hand pushes us out. Very simply put, it is what a parent would do for their child. They must be “pushed out” into the world in order to become “real”. Of course this takes one down a number of rabbit holes! Especially if you start in Genesis……
Ken never got to the story of Vain and Abel, (oops, I mean Cain and Abel).
I imagine the myth of Cain and Abel is a metaphor for two parts of ourselves that are in conflict. You might call it the believer side and the skeptic side, but it is two sides of the same coin. We have to rise up and become "the mystic" by living on the edge, the trouble is we don't know how. We don't even know that's an option. And without theosis the adjacent possible (while ever present), remains popetually occulted.
In this story God speaks to Cain and says, "sin is crouching at your door and you must master it." In this case, we could understand sin to be our shadow material... that it is the repressed ego which we don't want to look at. As long as we're in a bipolar disorder between belief and skepticism, we never truly master sin or overcome our shadow.
We want to kill our brother but we don't really know why. It is through this process of metanoia (beautifully explained in this video) we become able to be Abel. We might say that Abel was the first Christian... in the beginning of this video Ken said he didn't know what a Christian was. Well, look at the man murdered by his brother (the man named Abel) there you have a Christian.
In Able we have an example right there of a Christian witness/martyr and mystic, someone in harmony with the Divine Being. God is saying to Cain, "You have a choice in life. You can either become Able--the very thing that you hated or you can continue as you are, in which case sin will destroy you."
Smart men! Huge thanks.
John I think you should take a look at the book of Mikeal C. Parsons "Body and Character in Luke and Acts: The Subversion of Physiognomy in Early Christianity". Very academic and very eye opening book. I grew up in a catholic household, and I never liked (what you describe as) "two world mythologies" that is very present in todays "collective unconscious" of christianity. To me that book was a bridge between physicalism of our reality and spirituality of the Gospel. I mean the book itself doesn't bridge that gap (and that wasn't what the author's goal was to begin with), but it added valuable piece for me to bridge that gap
I think that when you use the word “attached” you may be better served by the term “wielding”.
Hi John, have you ever studied electric universe theories? After a lot of contemplation I have found a lot of Harmonies between Electric Universe theories and the theology of Christianity. I would love to get a chance to crack some of these ideas on you. But I don't know how much of a fool I would make of myself lol... My theology starts from a premise that Science and True spirituality will have a common foothold, even at the highest levels. I would like to see what parallels you would draw between some of ideas I have on this subject. I can give a few examples but when I try to write it I just dont think I do as much justice as I would if I was speaking it. It would be great to see what you think on some of the ideas though so please let me know if you are interested!
I’m very interested in this. Are there specific books you’ve read or recommend?
@@michaelquinn4761 So particulalry I've studied David Lapoints presentation he calls the primer fields its all on youtube like a 4 part series up to 6 hours long
@@Mdynan the Internet is a amazing🙏🏻 thanks killendel, much appreciated.
Praps the "my God, my God...' bit is evidence that Jesus and 'fully human' isn't about perfection, it's about Love...Ruth Burrows reminds us that there,s nothing heroic abou Jesus writhing on the ground in agony at Gethsemane, terrified of death.. But that was no problem for the Loving Whole which/who simply seeks to incorporate. Maybe.
Lovely chat.
I want to talk to you Ken!
Once you taste Hesychia (stillness) and have possibly seen the Uncreated Light (a glimpse) in your own actual experience in the NOW (present moment) you won’t worry so much about the dogmatic things or even the whole narrative structure of the Bible.
Praxis in the ascetic struggle in Orthodoxy replaces the dominance of the rational stuff which can never bring you into contact with God….
I’m not explaining it well but there is meditation in Ortho Praxis in the sense of sitting quietly with the Jesus Prayer which can lead to all kinds of experiences that are indescribable in words..
With ongoing purification One enters The Other World and “understandings” of things come into the mind (nous)… the information feels like it’s “down loaded” and obviously not from the person experiencing it… I think it’s called theoria
Not just for monks! 🙏🏻☦️🙏🏻
Thank you
Christ is the last Adam… Does that mean the Being of Adam has reincarnated repeatedly until he was Jesus?
All of us are Adam reincarnate from a certain viewpoint i think, just shades
I see people still need proof of a fall of man in the framing of a need for a savior.
Maybe work backwards and start with the work of Jesus’ selfless act which would undo our selfishness and ask yourself “when did we become selfish to the point of covering ourselves and hiding?”
John you can’t hold it because it’s not graspable, therefore cannot be possessed yet possesses you.
The Ego as the false self! 😁😁😁
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This is Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
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