………”Cold steel,”
The Master said, “can never solve a dispute.
Put up thy sword. Return it to its sheath.
“Were it His will, could not the Father send
A host of winged legions to my aid?
Not a hair upon my head would suffer.
My foes would all be scattered without trace.
“But in the Book of Life a page has turned,
More sacred and more precious than all else.
That which is written must now be accomplished.
Amen. So let it therefore come to pass.
“The progress of the ages, like a parable,
In mid course may suddenly take flame,
And faced by that dread grandeur, I’m prepared
To suffer and descend into the grave.
“And from the grave on the third day I’ll rise.
Then, like a fleet of barges down the stream,
The centuries will float forth from the night
And make their way before my judgment seat.”
Excerpted from “Gethsemane’s Garden,” Boris Pasternak
To ressurect is the human power of letting ourselves fall into the abyss and then rise anew to the sky. Not all of us are strong enough to digest our pain and turn it into a fertile ground from which future joys will rise. But those of us who are so, are on their own: no one can do it for us. Others can help, but no one can save the other from himself. We are born alone and alone we die and what we leave behind us are memories of one individual life, nothing more.
Agreed.
But the Christian (and Hindu) teaching also allows for salvation by a master…however you construe that.
I am less sure of other faiths.
As for one life or many, I don’t know.
I’ve seen “evidence” that could fit into many forms of belief…or scepticism.
So, I don’t “know” if we live alone or die alone…or not..
I think how you believe on these things has more to do with psychological make-up, early training, and life experience.
My own life experience contradicts what you said – although again, I speak for myself..<
The Master helps, he doesn’t save. By saving I mean saving us from ourselves. People do save other people, like from starvation, from a fire, from drowning, but inner salvation, i.e., refusing evil, keeping the demons under control, I don’t believe anyone can do that for others.It’s a fantasy, at least for me. It takes lots of guts, will and sacrifice to get out of darkness and it’s done solo.
I was being very specific and literal when I said that we all are born and die alone, i.e., unless we’ve got a siamese twin. Sorry for the ambiguity of my speech; it wasn’t my intention to be ambiguous.
I agree…
But it’s also true that some people can raise our own level of thinking, feeling, energetic state.
Others can drain us.
If that’s so, it should be perfectly possible for another person’s action to change us…
that’s the claim made for innocent suffering. And even without bringing religion into it, it’s true at many levels.
Take the death of someone like Rachel Corrie.
Every time I think about it, it gives me a certain strength to plug on, believing that others have sacrificed far more than time or effort. (That is, if you believe as I do that Corrie was not some kind of agitator but there to help and show solidarity with the Palestinians).
Someone talking or encouraging me doesn’t give me the same feeling. It’s the fact that she lost her life, bravely, at such a young age, when she could very well have done nothing – she was not directly responsible for what was happening at all.
So, hasn’t she “saved” me – by her example, or whatever you want to call it?
I believe we’re saying the same, but using different terms.
I agree perfectly with the importance of other people’s sacrifice, heroism and love to make us wake up and change, but we have to want that to happen. It’s a terrible tragedy when we do everything to “save” someone and we are stoned in return. And it happens all the time. Corrie changed you (saved you) because you wanted to change, because you were opened to her example, because you’re not frozen, and evil hasn’t taken over you, thank God. But too many people are simply blind to others, set on their vices, all traces of humanity gone. Those don’t even care if the Corries of this world ever existed. Again, no one can make them change, unless they want to.
Yes, we’re saying the same thing….
That’s the herd/mob inside us..
The mechanical.