THE GREAT LEARNING: LEARNING TO TAP OUR INNER SPIRITUAL COMPONENT FOR CAUSATION BY IMAGINATION

Note:

Hi. I am not known for short notes, and if you have read my essays and blog postings (The Becoming God, www.imagicworldview.blogspot.com) you know that I write a lot about imagination and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, the name of God, the nature of reality, etc.

I have only one interest, though, and that is healing. That is the lodestone in my mind as I consider everything: where from this to healing? I keep reaching for, how should I put it? . . . a workable solution, something we can "put our hands on," so to speak, besides the laying on of hands.

That is why I have latched onto imagining. There is neither belief, nor faith, nor prayer, nor laying on of hands—nor love, nor empathy—without imagining. Life, neither. I know we have a big physical component, but I honestly believe that our imagination is the body's animating "spark" of the divine Most High, of the Ineffable Itself.

This, I believe, is what Moses discovered—that we can "put our hands on God" as our causer, because our imaginings are God's hands!

Healing for one might be rain, for another a physical healing, for yet another just the peace and confidence of God's presence within—whatever is your "Canaan." Imagining takes us there and puts faith in our hands. One thing I am convinced of is that there is no death in the sense of mortal stillness; on the morrow we are the same spark on another project learning what we are supposed to be learning here as his hands: how to be the Most High.

It is for that reason I usually speak of imagining and praying instead of imagination and prayer. The point of our connection, as it were, with the Most High is His action. We are His action. That is the great and tragic mistake in our understanding as Christians: 'God' is a verb, and we are that God—there isn't another one separately out there. We don't grab a sword in faith: we are the sword of faith. We swing, if you'll pardon the expression.

Take what I say with a grain of salt, of course, but if it strikes a chord, come out swinging.

 --Dan Steele



THE GREAT LEARNING: LEARNING TO TAP OUR INNER SPIRITUAL COMPONENT FOR CAUSATION BY IMAGINING

References:

http://classics.mit.edu/Confucius/learning.html

http://nichirenscoffeehouse.net/dharmajim/GreatLearning.html
http://www.humanistictexts.org/confucius.htm#_Toc483366188

http://ia311235.us.archive.org/3/items/YourFaithIsYourFortune/Neville_Your_Faith_Is_Your_Fortune.pdf

My lovely Chinese wife had my children and me read The Great Learning, a short treatise written by a student of Confucius. The "Great Learning," supposedly, is to improve oneself and community through a lot of study and the cultivation of one's character. My wife is real big on my improving myself.

I see in The Great Learning a method of tapping the spiritual component within ourselves, to change the world through imagining.

That cause is imagination may appear an odd doctrine. “The ultimate cause of everything is God, the eternal uncaused cause!” you might say, and that is exactly what I am saying: “God is imagination.” Not imaginary, not an imagination, but God the Creator is the very stuff that imagination is, the Ineffable, and that is you and I because there is no separation from the Original Mind. The Original Mind's Imagination is the spiritual component which links us all together.

I run the doctrine back to the Ineffable, the Most High, for the imagination of the Original Mind is the action of the Ineffable. The Most High is something far beyond our comprehension, certainly not a "stuff" nor a "thing," nor spirit nor being; not even "God." The Most High is some state above force, power, mind and thought, all of which come from the Most High and all of which we can know. The Ineffable is unknowable, unimaginable—an existence far beyond our highest comprehension, except that at some point . . .

. . . It imagined. Bingo: our imagination, our consciousness, our sense of being, "awareness" . . . is the Ineffable moving as mind, the point of the Ineffable we can know. Humble, little ol' you are THE GREATEST . . . inside. "Cultivation of character" is tapping the Infinite and Eternal inside for help making the outside more like it. Learning how to tap the divine, the Way, is the Great Learning. Sign me up.

They say you can't get something from nothing, but the Most High would beg to differ. From the No-thing's first movement, imagining, has come everything. Notice that I do not say everything else. There is no “else,” else there would be two, and there can only be one God, Ineffable included. The Most High cannot be one without also being you. If you do not think the Most High is worthy of honor and praise and glory and all your life, well, the whole point of the Book of Revelation is "Worthy is the Lamb." The Lamb is the Most High who has become you, Ineffable included.

Let's put these two ideas together: The Most High imagined, which was and is the cause of all things, and the Most High has become us. You and I, then, are the Most High imagining and causing everything that is. We all are. "Jesus Christ" is this ineffable power and wisdom—the quality of King—within us, which is the Most High's imagining. Therefore, we are causing the world. 

A friend asked me the other day, jokingly, "What was Jesus' last name?" An appropriate last name for Jesus would be Potter. The meaning of the Hebrew word for potter, yatsar/yetsar (Strong's 3334-3336), is imagination: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind (potter/imagination) is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee" (Isaiah 26: 3); "But Thou, O YHWH*, Thou art our Father, we are the clay, and Thou our Potter (imagination/mind); and we all are the work of Thy hand" (Isaiah 64: 8, parentheses mine to show interchangeability). Also, the "wheels" Ezekiel saw were potters' wheels—imagination. Not imaginary, but the divine imagining.

*YHWH is the pattern of the Ineffable becoming manifest. This nature of becoming is called God’s “name.” We are IN the pattern! The Most High's causation through imagination is universal in man, because the Most High is man (yes, God is and Christ is and you are man also). You do not need to be a Christian or a Jew or Muslim or Hindu or of any religion at all to be causing the world—but few of us know it.

We cannot get away from causing the world by imagining. This is a big problem because we are stupid and imagine stupid things, and today's imagining is the factory producing tomorrow's reality. If at the point of being us the Ineffable were a coin, it would be brilliant on one side and dumb as mud on the other (it is hard to believe, but this is by design; see Romans 8: 20). We are challenged to polish up our side of the coin to the brilliance of the other side—to more than when we first came here. Ask for God's/Jesus' help, friend, for they are the twain, the middle of the coin, if you will—the Original Mind's imagining consciousness which is the "bridge" between the Ineffable's will and our fact. Polishing ourselves has to do with attitudes and self-control.

The Most High's imagining is what all men are and are doing, and the mechanism is not hid by other than our ignorance (we forgot everything when we flipped from divine consciousness to human lack of conscience). It should not surprise us that the astute and perceptively superior among us should notice that we cause the world around us, and that they learn how to take advantage of this fact. This happened among the conscientious ancient Chinese.

I believe Confucius described as well as he could to his disciples the ancients' causation by imagining, i.e., a form of faith or intention that conformed to what he figured the Way, or "the Dao," is teaching, and this became The Great Learning. The Dao is pretty much everything we might attribute to the nature of God, the “Law.” Both the Law and the Dao are "the Way," really, what we are supposed to do. Doesn't the following paragraph from The Great Learning appear to be exactly the same meditation technique taught by Abdullah and Neville Goddard?

"The point where to rest being known, the object of pursuit is then determined; and, that being determined, a calm unperturbedness may be attained to. To that calmness there will succeed a tranquil repose. In that repose there may be careful deliberation, and that deliberation will be followed by the attainment of the desired end. Things have their root and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning. To know what is first and what is last will lead near to what is taught in the Great Learning" (The Great Learning, 2nd paragraph, James Legg translation).

This lesson could have been lifted right out of one of Neville's many lectures where he expressed the same idea and method of intentional causation. I realize, of course, that I am reading a meditation technique I am familiar with into the text. I speak and read very little Chinese, but I am well aware of the breadth of meaning possible in classic Chinese writings. Causation by imagination might never have occurred to the author of The Great Learning, either as a doctrine or subject for discussion or even as a practicable technique. Perhaps the author's intention was as innocuous as this translation from humanistictexts (website above, text below), and its correlation with any defined meditation technique is entirely coincidental:

"Once the true point of departure on this path is found, thought becomes clear. A calm imperturbability yields the tranquility needed for careful deliberation. That deliberation will achieve the desired goal."

Below is another translation of the same paragraph by Chinese scholar Wing-Tsit Chan (contributed by Jim Wilson at nichirenscoffeehouse.net):

"Only after knowing what to abide in can one be calm. Only after having been calm can one be tranquil. Only after having achieved tranquility can one have peaceful repose. Only after having peaceful repose can one begin to deliberate. Only after deliberation can the end be attained. Things have their roots and branches. Affairs have their beginnings and their ends. To know what is first and what is last will lead one near the Way."

What on earth has all this resting—calm, tranquil, peaceful repose—to do with learning? It is what the Dao is teaching: causation by imagining: this is the technique for that. It is not hidden; it just is not recognized for what it is. Notice the second to the last sentence: "Affairs have their beginnings and their ends." Because Chan (or Jim Wilson, who published this version on http://nichirenscoffeehouse.net/dharmajim/GreatLearning.html) was oblivious to the metaphysical order of creation (as most people are), he reversed the order. In truth, affairs first have their end and then their beginning. The desired end has to be imagined first, as we did in Genesis chapter one, and then the "affair" begins.

I believe that the ancient Chinese intentionally used this technique as "principles inherent within the reality of the Dao," but they did not publish it the way the Jews did. The only reason we have a Bible is Moses recognized this same Law to be practicable, a reality inherent in man's condition that can be used for intentional causation, and that it is a technique for spiritual ascension. The ancient Chinese created a paradise kingdom. Moses was a priest and interested in a higher, inner Kingdom. 'God' is our verb; Godding is what we are supposed to do, and imagining in the inner man, our spiritual component, "Jesus Christ," is the method given to us. THAT is what this is all about.

Let's analyze this paragraph from The Great Learning in the biblical style: last thing first; first thing last:

1) "To know what is first and what is last will lead one near the Way." The Way is the Dao (Tao) or the Law of God, the underlying order of reality. "God" is what we left and are ascending to in the freedom we are here to learn. The basic idea of the Law is right, as in righteousness. Our lives are screwed up with "sin," which is variance from right due to our ignorance (the "death" of forgetting from the flip into human consciousness), and we want to be as close to right—sinlessness—as God would have us. Our knowing what occurs first in intentional causation, the determining of a desired end, will lead us near to fulfilling the Law, our salvation from what is wrong in the present.

2) "Affairs have their beginnings and their ends." No, they do not. The ancients had it right: "Affairs have their end and their beginning." The "affair" of an oak tree does not begin without its end first determined by the acorn seed. "Things go better with a plan" is a wise axiom: we must first create the ends we desire in imagination, or they won't go at all! If your life is wishy-washy, you have poorly defined goals. Determine the ends you want, and look out! We are in training more thorough and tougher than any military's. The end of this process is us out-flowing as the Ineffable. This is as serious as warfare; there will not be anything missed in Its generation, for It is Its plan!

3) "Things have their roots and branches." Genesis chapter one describes the root, the founding of the earth. It is the earth's planned end. And please note that the end is ongoing. Everything up until now is that root plan branching toward its end. Have faith—we will reach the end that we as God determined before the beginning: Christ risen from the dead—all of us life-giving spirit individuals of the Most High.

4) "Only after deliberation can the end be attained." We attain a lot of unwanted ends without intentional deliberation, but that is precisely the problem: because we do not know we are deliberating when we imagine and imagine things that really suck, we get really sucky lives. It is our fault for not learning to intentionally deliberate on what we actually do want. Our imaginations create because ALL IMAGINATION IS GOD. Therefore, imagine the concrete, experiential state you want over and over and over again, "until it takes on all the tones of reality."

5) "Only after knowing what to abide in can one be calm. Only after having been calm can one be tranquil. Only after having achieved tranquility can one have peaceful repose. Only after having peaceful repose can one begin to deliberate." It isn't that the ancients were a bunch of really "laid back" guys; these four points are where the rubber meets the road, the practice of causation. Though the ancients might have discovered this causation technique through coincidence, their verdict was that it works!

a) "Only after having peaceful repose can one begin to deliberate." Peaceful repose is the key to creation. "What the heck is 'peaceful repose?'" you ask. It is the inner man in unconditioned awareness: aware of being, but not aware of being any "thing" at all. It is the state of being free of any definition. Cancel who you think you are and just "be." Put up your boots and just float, enjoy the silence and divine love at the top of the YHWH pattern "from whence all blessings flow." It is from there you will imagine the eternal existence of what is right (your provision, healing, forgiveness, etc.) as your treading, and "every place that the sole of your foot (your unconditioned awareness) shall tread upon, that I have given unto you" (Joshua 1: 3)—the promise of the Ineffable to you.

b) "Only after having achieved tranquility can one have peaceful repose." To get to the peaceful repose of unconditioned being, you have to first achieve tranquility, which is the state approaching sleep, yet still awake, aware and in control. At this point of tranquility you can float off into the "peaceful repose." If this isn't meditation, I don't know what is.

c) "Only after having been calm can one be tranquil." Sit where you can relax. Get comfortable, relax, "Be still, and know that 'I am God.'" You are the inner man doing what you are supposed to do, a mission for good functioning as YHWH, which is not "I AM" but code for "LIFE COMING FORTH BY IMAGINING INTO MANIFESTATION."

d) "Only after knowing what to abide in can one be calm." Yep, this is the beginning: you have to know exactly what you want before you begin. You cannot calmly abide in your desired end as though it were already possessed without first knowing what your desired end is! First identify the objective you will "believe ye receive," then you can get calm in that big ol' easy chair and start really praying—causing your world by imagining.

Now, run the technique/method given by Confucius forward:

A) You have to know exactly what you want before you begin. Author a scene that implies that what you want HAS BEEN RECEIVED. You are going to abide in this scene until it becomes real to you.

B) Sit back or recline or fold your legs and get calm.

C) Approach tranquility as though you were going to fall asleep, but don't go all the way—stay in control of your mind.

D) Neville talks about watching the blue light that often forms behind closed eyelids, like the lively blue flame that dances above burning alcohol. Abandoning all self-definition and "conditioning" (erase everything about your outer man and let only the inner man remain), let yourself float peacefully reposed as unconditioned existence, the inner man who is your spiritual component . . . aware only of being.

E) In this peaceful repose, deliberate the scene you have authored that implies the desired end has come to pass. In Genesis chapter one we saw the beautiful earth that shall be as though it were. Picture what you want as possessed. Hear the words your friends and loved ones say as they congratulate you, touch the concrete things that you have and that you own, smell and taste what you would smell and taste if you were really, presently there. Be "there and then" as if all had already come to pass. Feel the emotions as they will really exist—joy, relief, sweet sorrow or whatever combination of feelings you would feel. Imagine the event "there" as though it were the real present over and over and over until it takes on "all the tones of reality." Be at that time and place and, from there, see the here-and-now as a two-dimensional distant memory. 

F) If you can, fall asleep there, in that reality. 

If I am reading The Great Learning correctly, this has been forming the DNA and planting the seed that will become the root which branches and blossoms into your harvest in due time. When the fruit comes, remember your sowing, BECAUSE IF HARVEST COMES FROM IMAGINING, YOU HAVE FOUND GOD (AND IF GOD, THEN THE INEFFABLE) TO BE YOUR IMAGINING! And if you have proven your Godhood real to yourself, you had better get serious about him and learn his intents and purposes and expectations for you. The Kingdom of God has to do with attitudes, and he will not accept the attitudes of fearful and forced respect and reverence but of grateful love, trust and adoration. He loved you enough to become you and to raise you up to be him—say "Hi," and "Thanks" and embrace your inner man and God—your wonderful human imagination.