The Letter and the Spirit
01/04/2004 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaIzzie has been intending to post this story for a long long time. Lazy Iz had no luck googling it and was resigned to the tediousness of typing. But a sudden inspiration, new choice of key words and judicious use of the Imperius curse and Google came up with the goodies. Oh and anyone here ever heard of Mullah Nasruddin? He is another one of Izzie's favorites whom I became acquainted with through the evil influence of Antonius DeMellodore ;)
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Joy… What is it anyway? Where does it come from? What does it mean or is it even possible for us to live a joyful life? The following story, told by Anthony de Mello, sheds some light as to what joy is and what joy is not:
Among the Jews, the observance of the Sabbath, the day of the Lord, was originally a thing of joy.
But too many Rabbis kept issuing one injunction after another on how exactly it was to be observed, what sort of activity was allowed, until some people felt they could hardly move during the Sabbath for fear that some regulation or other might be transgressed.
The Baal Shem, son of Eliezer, gave much thought to this matter. One night he had a dream. An angel took him up to heaven and showed him two thrones placed far above all others.
“For whom are these reserved?” he asked.
“For you”—was the answer—“if you make use of your intelligence; and for a man whose name and address is now being written down and given to you.”
He was then taken to the deepest spot in hell and shown two vacant seats. “For whom are these prepared?” he asked.
“For you”—the answer came—“if you do not make use of your intelligence; and for the man whose name and address are being written down for you.”
In his dream Baal Shem visited the man who was to be his companion in paradise. He found him living among Gentiles, quite ignorant of Jewish customs; and, on the Sabbath, he would give a banquet at which there was a lot of merrymaking, and to which all his Gentile neighbours were invited. When Baal Shem asked him why he held this banquet, the man replied, “I recall that in my childhood my parents taught me that the Sabbath was a day of rest and for rejoicing; so on Saturdays my mother made the most succulent meals at which we sang and danced and made merry. I do the same today.”
Baal Shem attempted to instruct the man in the ways of his religion, for he had been born a Jew but was evidently quite ignorant of all the rabbinical prescriptions. But Baal Shem was struck dumb when he realised that the man’s joy in the Sabbath would be marred if he was made aware of his shortcomings.
Baal Shem, still in his dream, then went to the home of his companion in hell. He found the man to be a strict observer of the Law, always apprehensive lest his conduct should not be correct. The poor man spent each Sabbath day in a scrupulous tension as if he were sitting on hot coals. When Baal Shem attempted to upbraid him for his slavery to the Law, the power of speech was taken from him as he realised that the man would never understand that he could do wrong by fulfilling religious injunctions.
Thanks to this revelation given him in the form of a dream, the Baal Shem Tov evolved a new system of observance whereby God is worshipped in joy that comes from the heart.
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Joy… What is it anyway? Where does it come from? What does it mean or is it even possible for us to live a joyful life? The following story, told by Anthony de Mello, sheds some light as to what joy is and what joy is not:
Among the Jews, the observance of the Sabbath, the day of the Lord, was originally a thing of joy.
But too many Rabbis kept issuing one injunction after another on how exactly it was to be observed, what sort of activity was allowed, until some people felt they could hardly move during the Sabbath for fear that some regulation or other might be transgressed.
The Baal Shem, son of Eliezer, gave much thought to this matter. One night he had a dream. An angel took him up to heaven and showed him two thrones placed far above all others.
“For whom are these reserved?” he asked.
“For you”—was the answer—“if you make use of your intelligence; and for a man whose name and address is now being written down and given to you.”
He was then taken to the deepest spot in hell and shown two vacant seats. “For whom are these prepared?” he asked.
“For you”—the answer came—“if you do not make use of your intelligence; and for the man whose name and address are being written down for you.”
In his dream Baal Shem visited the man who was to be his companion in paradise. He found him living among Gentiles, quite ignorant of Jewish customs; and, on the Sabbath, he would give a banquet at which there was a lot of merrymaking, and to which all his Gentile neighbours were invited. When Baal Shem asked him why he held this banquet, the man replied, “I recall that in my childhood my parents taught me that the Sabbath was a day of rest and for rejoicing; so on Saturdays my mother made the most succulent meals at which we sang and danced and made merry. I do the same today.”
Baal Shem attempted to instruct the man in the ways of his religion, for he had been born a Jew but was evidently quite ignorant of all the rabbinical prescriptions. But Baal Shem was struck dumb when he realised that the man’s joy in the Sabbath would be marred if he was made aware of his shortcomings.
Baal Shem, still in his dream, then went to the home of his companion in hell. He found the man to be a strict observer of the Law, always apprehensive lest his conduct should not be correct. The poor man spent each Sabbath day in a scrupulous tension as if he were sitting on hot coals. When Baal Shem attempted to upbraid him for his slavery to the Law, the power of speech was taken from him as he realised that the man would never understand that he could do wrong by fulfilling religious injunctions.
Thanks to this revelation given him in the form of a dream, the Baal Shem Tov evolved a new system of observance whereby God is worshipped in joy that comes from the heart.
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
my thoughts exactly :)
Date: 2004-04-01 05:22 am (UTC)Let's imagine that once the aliens came to Earth to arrange a big experiment. They created a new race of creatures and were monitoring their progress, trying out different ways to stimulate the development of the mind and civilization. One of the main tools in this experiment was a huge computer which collected the information from all the monitoring devices and processed it.
The life span of the aliens was much much longer than the humans. This, and the other features, such as being apparently all-powerful and all-knowledgeable, inevitably caused humans to consider aliens as Gods. The aliens accepted it because it was easy - and after all, it was true...
One day the aliens received the transmission from their home planet - it was under attack of another alien race and all the scientific expeditions were ordered to return home and to participate in the fight against the invaders. Every single ship counted !
But they didn't want to completely abandon the experiment, after spending such a lot of efforts on it. So they left the monitoring equipment and the computer, and wrote a detailed document, explaining how to care for it, in a language easy for the primitive people to understand. They tried to impress on the humans the importance of following every single detail. The document was passed into the hands of the most prominent shamans whose duty was to organize and supervise all the maintenance procedures.
One of the important procedures was to clean the equipment once a week with a special ethanol-containing substance. The aliens had teached the natives a while ago how to produce this substance, because the equipment required a lot of it, and it was cheaper to produce it on the planet than to synthesize in the spaceship's lab.
At first, the instructions were strictly followed - after all, the documentation was the Word of Gods ! But while the time passed and the memories of gods walking among humans started to fade, people started to look at the documentation critically - thinking that it's outdated and it's time to interpret it in the modern way.
Of course they didn't understand anything about the computer and how it works. (Nor they were supposed to) They thought that it is the Gods' creature which has to be fed. They decided it doesn't make sense to feed it the cheap wine, when there's such a lot of better food and drinks (which didn't exist when the civilization was in its primitive stage).
So they started to bring milk, beer, juice, cocktails, Coca-Cola and everything they could think of, and poured it onto all the computer's parts. On every holiday they sacrificed a virgin and poured her blood all over the computer and stuck her flesh in the disk drives, fans and other openings, so the God's creature will eat and be healthy.
When the aliens defeated the invaders and returned back to the Earth, they were really pissed off ! The equipment was a mass of rusty junk - totally unusable, the data non-recoverable. Besides, it stank like hell.
It was decided to abandon the experiment and to move on to another planet. In the fit of frustration, the chief programmer destroyed all the natives and burned down the Earth' surface to ashes. For this childish and irresponsible act, he was fined an amount of a year's salary and his rank in the next expedition was lowered to ensign.
Bring it on!
Ethanol truly is the food of the Gods. But Iz asks herself - with such an evil imagination - ever so surprised that the Wise Cocytusian Cat has not started up her own religion.
Funny you know - seems sort of reminiscent of Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy which as far as Iz is concerned offers the most plausible creation story that she has ever seen anywhere - and that includes all the sacred texts too.
And it's funny - A de Mello even has a sort of low tech version of this story - but in reverse. Izzie calls on the invincible powers of the Oracle.....
Google's got the goodies
"In a desert country, trees were scarce and fruit was hard to come by. It was said that God wanted to make sure there was enough for everyone, so He appeared to a prophet and said, "This is my commandment to the whole people for now and for future generations: no one shall eat more than one fruit a day. Record this in the Holy Book. Anyone who transgresses this law will be considered to have sinned against God and against humanity."
The law was faithfully observed for centuries until scientists discovered a means for turning the desert into green land. The country became rich in grain and livestock. And the trees bent down with the weight of unplucked fruit. But the fruit law continued to be enforced by the civil and religious authorities of the land.
Anyone who pointed to the sin against humanity involved in allowing fruit to rot on the ground was dubbed a blasphemer and an enemy of morality. These people who questioned the wisdom of God's Holy Word, it was said, were not being guided by the proud spirit of faith and submission whereby alone the Truth can be received.
In the churches sermons were frequently delivered in which those who broke the law were shown to have come to a bad end. Never once was mention made of the equal number of those who came to a bad end even though they faithfully kept the law, or of the vast number of those who prospered even though they broke it.
Nothing could be done to change the law because the prophet who had claimed to have received it from God was long since dead. He might have had the courage and the sense to change the law as circumstances changed, for he had taken God's Word, not as something to be revered, but as something to be used for the welfare of the people.
As a result, some people openly scoffed at the law and at God and religion. Others broke it secretly, and always with a sense of wrongdoing. The vast majority adhered rigorously to it and came to think of themselves as holy merely because they held on to a senseless and outdated custom they were too frightened to jettison. "
Page 114-115 "The Prayer of the Frog" 1993 A de Mello
Re: Bring it on!
Date: 2004-04-01 03:14 pm (UTC)Your 2nd story is actually the same kind as the ashram's cat story - a custom which once was practical and eventually became outdated... At the end it all boils down to the question what the Bible really contains - is it a collection of practical advice (some still valid, some needs to be modernized) - or a history book - or esoteric instructions which people are not ready to understand - or a textbook designed to develop a person's mind - ... ?
I'm thinking how people could base their religion on misinterpreted school textbooks (from an ancient civilization or else). For example, an innocent problem : "Harry had 5 apples. He gave 1 apple to Ron and 1 apple to Hermione. How many apples were left ?" From this story about our esteemed ancestors, we can understand that one must always share their property (especially food) with their neighbours. The holy book apparently contains elaborate rules to figure out in what case one may leave most of the property to himself, and in what case it's appropriate to give away the largest part, as it follows from another story : "Severus had 6 bananas. He gave 2 to Minerva, 1 to Sybil and 2 to Pansy. How many bananas were left ?"
Re: Bring it on!
Date: 2004-04-01 06:26 pm (UTC)But then there's always Serpentology
Those school text books offer realms of possibilities....Potions class could be fun. Alchemy has always offered infinite possibilities of interpretation.
Izzie still prefers stories with layers and layers of possible meanings - but then again if you try hard enough you can find meaning in anything. (Even subliminal messages in innocent looking LJ comments) I guess us humans are just hard wired that way.
Re: Bring it on!
Date: 2004-04-02 01:08 am (UTC)Re: Bring it on!
Date: 2004-04-02 02:36 am (UTC)The 4 versions of the New Testament... maybe it's what was left from the fanfiction around the most successful psychological drama of the ancient times ?
oh and *blink* *blink* WHAT subliminal messages ??? :P :P
Re: Bring it on!
Re: Bring it on!
Date: 2004-04-02 08:03 pm (UTC)As it turns out it just so happens to be a 'sacred text' for this particular serpent. There is stuff in the 'four fanfics' of it's predecessor that Iz just did not 'get' until she seen similar concepts - old wine in new bottles so to say ;) appearing in the Potter books.
Do be an evil cat and toss those ideas you had in the last few posts over at Ladystained's Creativity workshop. Iz was ever so impressed with the wicked wine that took on a life of its own. Using wine and blood as metaphors is a pretty common concept but Iz has never seen anyone before extend it to give the gluggy yummy stuff a life of its' own. But you'll have to try harder than that to scare Iz away from her bottlies.