Ah, evening time of yet another day. What shall I write about?
I finished reading After the Absolute: The Inner Teachings of Richard Rose by David Gold, and Bart Marshall. It is thought-provoking, but in a ``here's a negative example'' sense. Did Gold achieve the enlightened state that was indicated in the early chapters when he first met Rose? Close, but not quite---he did receive hints about what the Absolute might look like, but either through being unready or unable to express it in words, it comes out as being incomplete. More importantly, while the book is subtitled ``The Inner Teachings of Richard Rose'', it must be understood in context that it is one person's understanding of what Rose was trying to tell him. The book references The Albigen Papers by Richard Rose, which is the first set of papers published by Rose about his philosophical findings, which as a primary source may be better for understanding purposes than the secondary one that is After the Absolute.
It did get me thinking though, in a good way. Gold in the book is very similar to MT in the flesh in terms of an internal struggle between finding meaning in life, and having skills that society may find useful that can offer an attractive pay-off. What is different is that Gold in the book is using esoteric practices from a mystic to seemingly find his way to spirituality, but MT is relying on the more mainstream-y teachings of the Christ and His disciples to find his way. Third person naming nonsense aside, I believe and think that there are many important lessons that can be learnt from the Bible, and considering that it has many adherents, has a slightly lower chance of ``going off the rails'' as compared to a truly esoteric system. In addition, the basic premise behind Christ's teachings guarantees strongly that faith in [the Triune] God alone was sufficient for the salvation of the soul, which means that soul-death is averted. What remains then is how one nurtures the soul (ours, as well as other believers') through the mortal living that we all must go through.
That said though, despite there being ``one'' Bible (the one is loose here because some might argue that the different translations ought to be counted differently for a variety of reasons), somehow there are seemingly many different interpretations of it all by large enough groups of people to splinter off into their own sects and denominations. It's a little... confusing, to put it mildly. However, having the source texts available makes it much easier for one to discover the truth for oneself---ironically, the Bible can be considered as the original ``open source'' movement. Sure, there can be many forks (translations) to suit different purposes, but with modern communication technology, it is possible to quickly cross-reference among the versions with application of textual analysis in context to figure out what the true meaning is.
This differs greatly from esoteric systems, since most of those systems feature writings/teachings that are secret in nature. The problem with secrecy is that there is no way of ensuring that the transmission of said knowledge has not been corrupted over the generations, or if they were even coherent/correct in the first place. Esoteric systems are also very personality tied, with their survival and propagation strongly correlating to the individual person's charisma alone. To be fair, Jesus Christ Himself is also a pretty charismatic dude, but His teachings were not really hidden away like some kind of secret---one of the tenets of the Great Commission from Him is to spread the good news to people, to let them know that salvation of their souls from death is already at hand, as the Messiah has already come and died for their sins, and will return again, as long as they believe that Jesus is their personal saviour.
Again, open source principles at play here.
Anyway, getting back to After the Absolute. I would say that it is an interesting book on one person's journey of learning how to see reality beyond what I have been calling the shared hallucination of value within the material world. I might want to read The Albigen Papers just to put whatever Gold wrote into perspective, and possibly carry out some kind of comparison against the Bible in terms of the lessons found (considering that God is Creator of all, I expect Rose's words to be a different projection of the same reality that the Bible is trying to express and teach).
It's really funny how the old B3 grade from my `O'-Level English Literature becomes relevant in my life again. Coincidence, or providence?
You decide.
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