Christianity is the big, real mystery religion 2

Part 1 here.

We hear and ultimately read the Bible, and if it regenerates us really it is an experience of seeing the truth. Truth is like light in this sense. We see the light.

Now as one who sees the light we are at odds with our surroundings because most people are in the darkness, yet they can vaguely discern when somebody has crossed the threshold into the light. The spiritual landscape is an analogue to this physical realm we live and breathe in. People can vaguely sense the spiritual realm. Not via senses - knowingly - yet vaguely sense it nonetheless.

So as now an initiate into this big, real mystery religion called Christianity, the true mystery religion, we develop more and more in the way of being able to see truth. More and more truth. It's painful at times. It goes against all we use to think, perhaps what we've held dear. It goes against all the old songs we've always sung about ourselves and the world. Truth strikes me as hard. Clear yet hard and perhaps sharp.

Seeing the truth about man's condition or state in general; and about the great plan being played out in historical time, is one thing. I think it is more common for initiates to see those things. But to see truth about ourselves, to shine light into the inner recesses of our fallen being...that, I believe, is the more difficult and more rare development. It is why religious figures (leaders, educators) come across as shallow. They aren't all that different in terms of self-knowledge as anyone else.

And yet the New Testament - the very teachings of Jesus Himself - are all about this shining of light on the darkness of our inner fallen being and nature.

Jesus doesn't just talk about truth in this sense, but also love. Another difficult, basic, thing we often neglect to focus on to the same degree and in the same manner as we focus on other things like justification. It's because love involves how we act. Not in a sanctimonious or moralizing sense, but in the sense of a soldier of Christ on a real spiritual battlefield. Loving our enemy doesn't make us 'good' it makes us effective. Effective soldiers. It also is a sign of inner command and control.

Seeing truth and acting in love. Whenever I am thinking of terms and I can't find three of them (like goodness, truth, and beauty; or like understanding, consciousness, and will) but only two as is the case now with truth and love it usually means they are representative of things we do. Like what some call sacraments. Or like the Two Great Commandments of Jesus to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. Or prayer and fasting.

A language I've adopted to sort out and see clearly these neglected teachings of Christianity is the esoteric, or practical language known as the Work, or Fourth Way (mainly as Ouspensky explicated it). It's used by cults (just as the Bible is used by cults). My rule has always been: exploit everything, join nothing. It keeps you alone, but it frees you to climb continuously to the summit of the mountain, and to even go beyond summit. Other people stay on the valley floor or get stuck at Base Camp #1 or Base Camp #2 or 3 because that is where the group is. Or that is where the world says it is OK to be.

The part of the Work language that would sync with what I've written above is conscious shocks. Specifically two conscious shocks. They correspond to Jesus' great commands, when you know both the Bible and the Work to a great enough extent, which pretty much nobody does. Work people tend to be New Age shallow, and Bible people tend to be scared of the open sea. Or easily dissuaded by the world from going into certain directions and areas of influence. Which is called fearing the world. The Bible says fear God, it is the beginning of wisdom. Because when you fear God alone you don't fear man or the world or their opinion of you.

I believe a thoroughly initiated Christian needs three pillars of understanding:

1. The Bible and doctrine derived from it. Hard doctrine. Doctrine that our fallen nature is not comfortable with. Calvinism. Reformed Theology. Doctrine that says what the Bible says.

2. Worldview analysis. This brings in philosophy in a practical way to a Christian's understanding.

3. What I might call biblical psychology, which is ancient psychology and not what has passed for psychology since the turn of the 20th century. Psychology as most people know it is the study of the sub-normal (and it is worse than that as well, it is making the sub-normal the normal). Real psychology begins with the normal (the good householder, to use the metaphor of the Bible) and explains what is possible above that and what is holding everything back. The idea is nature only develops us so far, then only effort to gain understanding and control gets us to further plateaus. In doctrinal terms this is progressive sanctification, and involves God-reliant effort (because really only the regenerated can engage in such effort). It studies difficult things like all the types of lying we engage in (which highlights truth by contrast). See in the Bible where truth is mentioned with lying numerous times. The only language I know of for this third pillar of understanding is the Work, or Fourth Way, in the main books by Ouspensky. It is a sophisticated language, worthy of a discerning Christian (and I emphasize discerning because no influence other than the word of God is all wheat and no chaff).