Quote:
Originally Posted by craig1120
Accessing and using hatred to fast from the status quo and kill the counterfeit meaning is analogous to eating the forbidden fruit in the Genesis story. That means, just like in the story, we have to first disobey the tyrant and then deal with him when he shows up after our rebellion.
As we kill the meaning using hatred, we will more often encounter nihilism and feel meek and impoverished. We will also feel shame, guilt, and, from time to time, suicidal ideation. This will cause a recoil back into re-absorption with the external and unconsciousness. When we next become jolted back to awareness, we are to use the self-hatred resulting from our sin to kill more counterfeit meaning. This sends us back toward the nihilism, shame, etc that we escaped from before. A feedback loop.
To continue to consciously participate in this feedback loop requires that we sacrifice our victimhood and our identity as a good person. Still, we will get stuck. We will guard against getting sucked back into unconsciousness, but at the same time, we won’t be capable of dealing with the intensity of the nihilism, shame, and suicidal impulses.
Advancing beyond this point requires that we sacrifice our atheism at the level of personal, direct experience (our intellectual beliefs are irrelevant). As we slide down into the nihilism, we also have access to the cosmic, contemplative mindset. This is where we are to re-establish our connection to the personal God, put him on trial, and judge him negatively.
As previously mentioned, when we judge God, judgment gets flipped back on us. More specifically, self judgment becomes more conscious. However, there is now some space between our awareness and the judgment; space and distance that was previously nonexistent. People who bring up mindfulness and watching your thoughts have gotten to the point in which they have created this space.
So, kill counterfeit meaning -> descend into nihilism -> judge God. Again, God will judge us back for our un-actualized potential. We are to try to take away that defense which begins the quest for status and moral perfection. That sends us back into the external world where we achieve, find it unfulfilling, and are back to killing counterfeit meaning - the beginning of the cycle.