On Emptiness

I may have frightened some of you off when I mentioned the emptiness I found upon remembering myself for the first time. That emptiness was me, myself, my own being. I am empty. However, I believe the Holy Spirit resides there because I sense him. This is after making the differentiation between myself and the Godhead with and/or in myself.

I think that the Holy Spirit could come through even if people were not empty at the core of their being. From what I read in the Bible, the body is like a conduit through which the Holy Spirit flows.

Also, about being a machine--John Godolphin Bennet, author of Making a Soul, says that there is a difference between doing and choice. We do not do--everything in us happens whether we like it or not. Choice is different, because it means possibilities. You can choose to remember yourself (being acutely aware of yourself being present to yourself (as my professor, Dr. Quentin Dinardo, would say)--that you're you, you're in the here and now). This paradox is much like the paradox one finds upon reading the Bible concerning free will--you have a choice, but you're still a slave to sin. I think that what Bennet and Ouspensky (author of The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution) are talking about is at least almost exactly like the paradox found in the Bible. I do not want to make any absolute statements here, since translations of the Bible may be full of errors and I do not know everything.

When you remember yourself, you have more possibilities because you are in a higher state of consciousness. I have been there. Since I am in sleep again, it is difficult to explain it. It's difficult anyway since spiritual things can not be fully tied down in words.

The experience was as if a photograph with a bright lightbulb was being taken. I sensed everything, and everything seemed so clear. Bennet, Ouspensky, and others assert that when we have accidental moments of self-consciousness (self-remembering), we create memories.

I do not necessarily agree with everything Bennet and Ouspensky say. I still believe that Jesus was the Son of God and died as a sacrifice for my sins, but the material from my Consciousness and Spirituality class gave me a better vocabulary for assimilating and organizing my faith in my heart and mind.

"The entrence to the temple is gaurded by two demons; they are confusion and paradox (Q. Dinardo, personal communication, 2007)." This was originally stated by a Sufi mystic, but I do not remember his name.