Tobin wrote:I guess I'm still having trouble with what you are saying and need some common understanding to help me. Are you using soul in the sense of the melding of physical and spiritual? The reason I ask is this: we certainly can physically see God (or the effects of God) so that can't be what you mean by our tiny consciousness. For example, a burning bush, a pillar of fire, Jesus Christ in the flesh, the Holy Ghost as a dove, and so on. And I'd hope you'd agree that we can comprehend God and his judgements upon our death when we are once again only spirits.
Hi Tobin!
Some of the things that you described were not visible with the mundane senses, but only with the spiritual senses or with the expanding of consciousness. Take the burning bush for example. What was perceivable by mundane senses did not burn. It was Moses' expansion of consciousness that allowed him to see the Angel of the Lord, or the spiritual fire within the bush. I offer that it was the same with the pillar of fire and the 'dove' that descended on Yeshua.
And if you take note, it is not God who did the things in the physical, such as the parting of the Red Sea, but a prophet. God working through them. The parting of the Read Sea occurred through Moses.
15 And the Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. 16 But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.Now, IF you are using soul in the sense of the melding of the two, then physical or genetic injury would have an effect on the soul and diminish our ability to perceive God. However, I have a hard time believing that the mentally disabled are even less able to perceive God than we are. In fact, I would argue the opposite would seem to be true and many of them seem more attune to God in their child-like innocence and general acceptance of everyone. This is the dichotomy I see in your view of this matter.
Just to note this is not 'my view on the matter', but reality as expressed by the prophets and apostles living among us past and present.
What you are tugging at is a great question. Those who have mental disabilities in this world are hindered at the development of the soul, at this level of being. You see there are higher aspects of soul within us, deep within us, aspects that are in unity with God. The purpose of creation is to create a lower aspect of the soul in the outer worlds, one that can connect with this higher aspect, so that God can move in and through the outer worlds. And so what we are doing when we expand our consciousness is connecting our lower soul with our higher soul, increasingly as our consciousness expands.
Yes, a disabled person in one sense is more connected with these higher aspects of self, yet hindered at bringing that higher aspect into this world completely. So hindered at a full awakening or expansion of the lower to the higher, or certainly what me might call a melding of all aspects of self, from the higher spiritual all the way down to the mundane or physical.
As our consciousness expands, we come to realize that there is so much more to creation than this physical world, we are so much more than the physical. We experience bits of that so much more each and every day and night, as part of the design to awaken, but because we are so attached to the mundane to the things of this world, we are blocked from being able to unite completely.
One must lose his life (his limited perspective of his self as the physical being living a physical life),
to find Life (recognition and awareness of one self as an Eternal Being, finding and Uniting with our Self in Christ).
So, I hope this helps you see why I am very uncomfortable with this view. I don't think it can possibly be the capacity of our soul that is the problem here in comprehending God, but instead it must be one of choice and willingness instead. And I fully realize that who God manifests and speaks with is a two-way street. First, one must be willing and open to it but secondly, God must appear to us (or as it is often characterized in the scriptures - we must be chosen).
If I might ask, are you willing? Have you made the choice? If yes, have you seen God?
This journey to expand our awareness, our soul, so that we can see and unite with God is a journey that goes way beyond this one life. But if we make the choice and are willing, we will progress much faster.
The stories in the Old Testament, of individuals hearing and seeing God, are telling of experiences that only happened to a few people. I offer that such things are still occurring in the world, the same prophecies, visions, miracles, but as in Biblical days, only a few are experiencing them. These few, as in days past, are called out of the major religious movements or traditions, where the masses gather. Mystics are separated from the masses, this is why one does not typically find them in a major religion. Leaders of major religions are part of this world, are not the messengers, the Holy Ones of the Father, and so one will not find themselves accepted there as a mystic and will have to leave.
The few hence are called out, separated, gathering together in small groups, all around the world, within and behind the major religions.
There are though in today's world more soul's advancing, experiencing such things, with the advent of the Second Coming, than in the past, especially before the First Coming.
May all who chose and are willing be chosen be called into Your Presence, Adonai.
Sheryl
