Tiffany Dawn Smith: August 2022

Thursday, August 11, 2022

A few thoughts on this conversation

Click to listen to the debate

I think that both of the men in this debate have common ground in that they are hopefully seeking truth and purity, and I wish only the best for both of them. These are just some thoughts I had while listening.

Isn't man being under illusion also akin to the Orthodox perspective of man being now fallen? So if we are going to pick apart how one can know something while in a state of Maya, or illusion, mustn't we ask the same about how fallen man can come to Truth? If the response would be "by the word of God we can know Truth, despite our fallen state" then the Bible is no different from, say, the Vedic canon in that regard, in that they're both the proclaimed Highest Wisdom.

But, I don't translate being in a state of Maya to mean Truth is thereby unknowable. Through wisdom accumulation, prayer, devotion, self-awareness and awareness of the illusory state I do believe we can pierce through the veil, at least periodically. This is important because it was the primary hang-up Jay seemed to have. I'm not sure why Aarvoll didn't address this in a straightforward way.

To say that the Perennialist view of God is an impersonal one isn't correct- both Islam and [keyword] authentic Sanatana Dharma, for example, believe in a personal God and are both spiritual traditions that a Perennialist might choose to commit to, since it's usually believed that despite accepting that most religions seem to have key beliefs in common one should still select and adhere specifically to the practices of one.

I think it's important that a worthy text be arranged and compiled which aims to explicitly outline the perennialist views; what are those core truths that religions have in common throughout time?

***

Either way, we shouldn't get too caught up in the debate of it all. For the past month or two, I have allowed that intellectual part of myself who is so hungry for gathering wisdom to rest, and instead I've simply focused on thinking of God, prayer, meditation, all through the day, loving others, treating everyone with respect, lifting them up, and being a living example in my daily interactions with others rather than finding the morsel of what's incorrect to swoop in and refute. And this approach has brought me closer to the Ultimate Good, I am sure.

“Nonadaptation” by Czeslaw Milosz

"I was not made to live anywhere except in paradise.
Such, simply, was my genetic inadaptation.
Here on earth every prick of a rose-thorn changed into a wound.
Whenever the sun hid behind a cloud, I grieved.
I pretended to work like others from morning to evening,
but I was absent, dedicated to invisible countries
For solace I escaped to city parks, there to observe
and faithfully describe flowers and trees, but they changed,
under my hand, into the gardens of Paradise.
I have not loved a woman with my five senses.
I only wanted from her my sister, from before the banishment.
And I respected religion, for on this earth of pain
it was a funereal and a propitiatory song."

"On Urge to Withdraw" by Naida Muslic

"The withdrawal from the world - into forests as a mad mystic who plays lute to birds and visits the towns only to scandalise and scare people who were too adapted to the world and its ways, seemed the only way to exit the wheel of samsara. I felt aged - like I've already seen it all, had hundreds of children and husbands and wives, like I've been a criminal, a priest, a queen, a prostitute, and there was nothing left for me to be anymore. All the roles seemed too familiar and already explored and lived. It wasn't nihilism that was behind the urge to withdraw - it was inability to see any evidence of my belief that there had to be more to life than dying with a stomach more full than you started with."