Liquid modernity is a bourgeois brave new world of limitless material, cultural and spiritual consumerism justified and sustained by an illusory transhumanist progressivism.

Surely this also is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Ecclesiastes 4:16

All is One.

There is One God.

God is All.

o

But what about us?

And what about the ten thousand things?

How can we reconcile the One with the Many?

o

If there is only Self there is no Other;

if there is only One without a Second

there is no Universe.

o

If we insist that All is One,

we may conclude that appearances can be deceptive

and that the Many is actually just an illusion.

o

This is the claim of Advaita Vedanta:

the world of appearance is Maya,

the dream of Brahma.

o

If we hold to the One,

either the phenomenal world is an illusion

or consciousness is an illusion.

o

If Monism holds,

either immaterialism is true

or eliminativism is true.

o

Alternatively, we can give up on Unity

and say that there is Duality.

This is traditional Theism:

o

If the Universe is real,

there must be a Creator and a Creation,

God and not-God.

o

In traditional Theism

to say that you are God

is the highest sacrilege.

o

You are not God.

You are a Creature

created by God.

o

Traditional Theism is dualistic:

God is One,

but God and not-God is Two.

o

However, Two logically entails Three.

If there is God and not-God,

we have God, not-God and “God plus not-God”.

o

In the Chinese Yin/Yang symbol

we have the black half, the white half

and the circle uniting them.

o

In Vedanta,

we have sat, chitta

and ananda.

o

In the Hegelian dialectic

we have thesis, antithesis

and synthesis.

o

In Gurdjieff’s system

we have active, passive

and neutral.

o

In the Indian guna system

we have tamas, rajas

and sattwa.

o

In Trika Shaivism

we have Parashiva, Shiva

and Shakti.

o

In Christianity

we have Father, Son

and Holy Spirit.

o

The simplest geometrical three dimensional shape,

the basic building block of reality,

is the tetrahedron.

o

In fact, the very possibility of a dynamic, relational universe

of multiplicity and diversity

depends on the Law of Three.

o

One is static.

Two is unstable.

Three is infinitely creative.

o

Hence the Trinity:

God is One

and God is Three-in-One.

Shamanic consciousness is soul consciousness.

Master shamans don’t do psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy;

they do soul retrieval and character building.

o

Mind and body are contained within soul,

therefore physical and psychological healing are natural side-effects;

but the focus is spiritual.

o

The sacramental use of plant medicines is a spiritual practice, not a therapy.

It is about creating great souls,

not psychologically well-adjusted egos.

o

Great souls are beyond self-concern,

personal needs,

personal problems.

o

They are not fragile; they are antifragile.

And this is not “spiritual bypassing” –

it’s spiritual training.

o

The Master leads by emptying people’s minds

and strengthening their cores.

Lao Tzu

I AM

ONE

GOD

JAH

TAO

ZEN

AUM

Today is Palm Sunday.

Traditionally, on Palm Sunday you are given a “palm”, a slender reed which you can fold into the shape of the a cross.

The symbolism, in reference to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and his impending crucifixion is obvious.

But is there a deeper, more esoteric meaning?

With the long reed placed before us, we can imagine that it represents time.

The left end of the reed is the beginning and the right end is the end of linear time.

The beginning is described in the first book of the Bible:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

The end is is described in the last book:

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away”. (Revelation 21:1)

What is before the beginning and after the end of time?

God.

What is eternally present in the invisible cleft of the here and now?

God.

What is beyond the far and near horizons of your world?

God.

So what happens when you fold the reed into a cross?

What happens when you fold this universe of spacetime in upon itself?

“When the tongues of fire are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one”

“In my beginning is my end”

“at the still point of the turning world.” (T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets)

The Biblical story is about the life of Jesus and the history of the Jews and the whole of Creation from beginning to end.

Fold it in on itself and beginning and end meet at the intersection of eternity and time, the vertical and horizontal, at the centre of the cross of Christ, who says,

“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” (Revelation 22:13)

So what happens when time folds in on itself like this,

esoterically symbolised in the folding of the palm reed cross on Palm Sunday?

Eternal life.

Conventional Christianity is dualistic:

there is God and there is Creation;

there is Heaven and there is Earth.

o

Esoteric Christianity is nondual:

there is One God;

and that’s it.

o

Nothing exists outside God.

But how can this be?

Because of the Trinity.

o

God is Three-in-One:

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

or Parashiva, Shiva, Shakti.

o

Metaphysically speaking,

this is panentheism:

God is immanent, transcendent and phenomenal.

o

The phenomenal (Shakti)

is the world of your experience,

which is the only world you can know.

o

The immanent (Shiva)

is the conscious subjectivity

which makes experience possible.

o

The transcendent (Parashiva)

is the absolute consciousness

which grounds and sustains the conscious world of Shiva-Shakti.

o

Parashiva is the Father;

Shiva is the Son;

Shakti is the Holy Spirit.

o

In nondual Christianity,

the Holy Spirit is not just a subtle spiritual influencer

or an inward rush of pranic energy, but the entire cosmos.

o

Shiva is mind; Shakti is cosmos.

Shiva-Shakti is mind and cosmos;

Parashiva is sustaining absolute consciousness.

o

All is One;

All is Three-in-One;

God is All.

The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.

And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;

And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:

Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:

And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.

And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:

But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.

Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?

He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:

For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.

For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.

When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.

But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;

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.

He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.

But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

Matthew 13: 1-23

When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.

And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.

Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

Luke 11: 24-26

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

Matthew 23:13

The two Babylons are 1984 and Brave New World.

Each lives in the shadow of the other.

Brave New World says “beware 1984”

and 1984 says “beware Brave New World”.

1984 is the justification for Brave New World

and Brave New World is the justification for 1984.

The Cold War between the two Babylons

did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Perhaps it will never end.

But the real choice is not between 1984 and Brave New World.

It is between God and Babylon.

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

Mark 8:36