Post by Rogier van Vlissingen on Oct 12, 2006 3:12:27 GMT -5
PGoTh:
quote
J said, "If your teachers say to you, 'Look, God's Divine Rule is in the sky,' then the birds will precede you, 'It's in the sea,'then the fish will precede you. Rather, God's Divine Rule is within you and you are everywhere. When you know yourself, you will be known, and you will understand that we are one. But if you don't know yourself, you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."
unquote
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Some notes on the differences in the Pursah form vs. the "best"
translation from the historical text:
1) Leaders vs. teachers - this is easy to imagine as a typical translation problem of choosing the right word, where "leaders" is a very ego-bound word, looking at us as sheep who need to be let, whereas "teacher" keeps the emphasis on our capacity to learn, and our responsibility for learning.
2) "God's Divine Rule" as a modern English equivalent of "the Kingdom of Heaven" is certainly interesting, and may bypass the association with the Messiah/King which was certainly one of the "bitter idols" the world made of Jesus. Most helpfully the expression "God's Divine Rule" has perhaps a more abstract quality to it.
3) "is within you and you are everywhere" seems to shift the focus to the fact that like in the Course Jesus speaks to us as Spirit as sons of God who know who they are. Thus the version "is inside you and it is outside of you" seems to be spoken to bodies, whereas the Pursah version seems to be spoken to the Son of God.
4) Like wise the "that we are one," is more forceful and direct than the "you are children of the living father." The former emphasizes the oneness of the sonship, again, as spirit, whereas the latter is a lovely reflection of our dependence on our father, but lets the illusion stand that we are bodies.
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The comment about the birds and the fish are to me a reminder of the Course's statement that the path to Salvation is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. I.e. whenever we think that the Kindom, or God's Divine Rule, is elsewhere, and is somewhere we have yet to get to, we are again choosing for the separation, thinking we could ever be outside of God's Divine Rule. So there are no saviors in the world, there is no place to get to, and the only journey is the removal of the blocks to "the awareness of love's presence," which we ourselves have erected. So this is a beautiful image to remind us of the fact that there
is nothing but our own fear that keeps us from remembering that God's Divine Rule is within us, right here, right now, and it never was otherwise to begin with.
For the rest, the last line is rather interesting, and I think it could be paraphrased as follows:
If you know who you are as the Son of God, others will recognize that in you.
If you don't know who you are (i.e. by believing you are an ego), then you live in lack (of the love of God), obviously by virtue of the fact that we ourselves chose to flush it down the toilet, and not because God would be withholding it from us.
quote
J said, "If your teachers say to you, 'Look, God's Divine Rule is in the sky,' then the birds will precede you, 'It's in the sea,'then the fish will precede you. Rather, God's Divine Rule is within you and you are everywhere. When you know yourself, you will be known, and you will understand that we are one. But if you don't know yourself, you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."
unquote
-------------------------------------------
Some notes on the differences in the Pursah form vs. the "best"
translation from the historical text:
1) Leaders vs. teachers - this is easy to imagine as a typical translation problem of choosing the right word, where "leaders" is a very ego-bound word, looking at us as sheep who need to be let, whereas "teacher" keeps the emphasis on our capacity to learn, and our responsibility for learning.
2) "God's Divine Rule" as a modern English equivalent of "the Kingdom of Heaven" is certainly interesting, and may bypass the association with the Messiah/King which was certainly one of the "bitter idols" the world made of Jesus. Most helpfully the expression "God's Divine Rule" has perhaps a more abstract quality to it.
3) "is within you and you are everywhere" seems to shift the focus to the fact that like in the Course Jesus speaks to us as Spirit as sons of God who know who they are. Thus the version "is inside you and it is outside of you" seems to be spoken to bodies, whereas the Pursah version seems to be spoken to the Son of God.
4) Like wise the "that we are one," is more forceful and direct than the "you are children of the living father." The former emphasizes the oneness of the sonship, again, as spirit, whereas the latter is a lovely reflection of our dependence on our father, but lets the illusion stand that we are bodies.
---------------------------------
The comment about the birds and the fish are to me a reminder of the Course's statement that the path to Salvation is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. I.e. whenever we think that the Kindom, or God's Divine Rule, is elsewhere, and is somewhere we have yet to get to, we are again choosing for the separation, thinking we could ever be outside of God's Divine Rule. So there are no saviors in the world, there is no place to get to, and the only journey is the removal of the blocks to "the awareness of love's presence," which we ourselves have erected. So this is a beautiful image to remind us of the fact that there
is nothing but our own fear that keeps us from remembering that God's Divine Rule is within us, right here, right now, and it never was otherwise to begin with.
For the rest, the last line is rather interesting, and I think it could be paraphrased as follows:
If you know who you are as the Son of God, others will recognize that in you.
If you don't know who you are (i.e. by believing you are an ego), then you live in lack (of the love of God), obviously by virtue of the fact that we ourselves chose to flush it down the toilet, and not because God would be withholding it from us.