Written Not With Ink....

I am reading through ANE again....slowly because I am reading a lot of other stuff too....stuff I've printed from online, scripture etc. And I am taking notes, copying down quotes from the book that strike me (and there are a LOT of things that strike me). And as was the case the last time I read it, so much of what he has to say brings scripture to mind. Something struck me last night when I read the following quote from Eckhart...which is on page 72ish.

When you are in touch with that dimension within yourself - and being in touch with it is your natural state, not some miraculous achievement - all your actions and relationships will reflect the oneness with all life that you sense deep within. This is love. Laws, commandments, rules, and regulations are necessary for those who are cut off from who they are, the Truth within. They prevent the worst excesses of the ego, and often they don't even do that. "Love and do what you will," said St. Augustine.

It reminded me that the Law was referred to as a schoolmaster or tutor to "bring us into Christ" and that the Law was "only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of them." In Jeremiah God promises to write his Laws on our hearts....and in 2 Corinthians it refers to us as a "letter of Chrst written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tables of stone but on tablets of human hearts" Isn't that the gist of what Eckhart is saying? Doesn't it say the same thing?

It reminded me, too, of something that Keith has pointed out many times and that is that the Ten Commandments are actually promises....things that will naturally occur when we live out of our christ nature. Thou shalt not kill...thou shalt not steal. If we are living out of the christ within (or as Eckhart refers to it on page 71, the indwelling God) we will not need laws that tell us not to kill because it will be totally against our nature. Jesus summed the Law up into two commands....love the Lord God with all your heart, strength, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. If you love your neighbor as yourself it pretty much eliminates the temptation to steal from him, run around with his wife, kill him....bear false witness against him. So the 10 commandments state first of all "thou shalt have no other Gods before me" Doesn't the egoic mind set itself up as "god" convincing us that is who we really are....and seems to me to be reflected scripturally in the following verse:

Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. 2 Thes. 2:3-4

Hmmmm....who is the man of lawlessness? The egoic mind? The Painbody?

Where is God's temple?

Don't you know that your body is a temple that belongs to the Holy Spirit 1 Corinthians 6:19).

So in total unconsciousness, we allow the egoic mind to take over our temples...and depending on how unconscious we are, we might not have a clue we are not the thoughts and attachments and roles rattling around in our heads. The apostle Paul referred to the indwelling God as a MYSTERY...the mystery of "the Christ in you, the hope of Glory" and reiterates in 2 Corinthians 13:5 when he says...."do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?"

I want to add that a lot of the understanding I am coming to now is based, in many ways, on the things Keith has tried to teach me for years. I did not want to hear about the adamic/carnal man vs the christman. It made no sense. In fact, it sounded as if God was trying to kill me off...and I wanted no part of that. Keith used to say that "adam doesn't want to die" and that used to really piss me off. It was the egoic (carnal/adamic/earthly) Cindi that was getting miffed because...well, the egoic mind does not want to die. I should also add that Keith is not interested in Eckhart's teachings at this point and that most of the opinions expressed on this blog do not represent his opinions or his beliefs. The irony is that his teachings helped to form many of my beliefs. Go figure.....