Sunday 23 July 2017

Life as learning not being: the significance of Peak Experiences for Final Participation

We tend to think of consciousness or thinking as a state of being; and notice that we fail to attain and sustain this state of being. For example that our peak experiences are infrequent and brief - normal life is lived at a lower level...

However, this is an incorrect inference based on a false assumption based on a misunderstanding of the nature of life, and what we are supposed to be gaining from it. The (divinely) desired purpose of life is not to achieve a state but to experience a process of learning.

Life should be a process of learning, of transformative learning. What ought to happen in a peak experience is that we are having an experience during which we are learning about life; being transformed by life in a positive way (in the kind of way that our creator intends; tending to cause theosis or making us become more-divine, more god-like).

And, in this age of Man, we should be aware of this process and its consequences. It is good if we know-about peak experiences, when they are happening, that we are learning-from them and what we have learnt...

The perspective is that this kind of aware experiencing of our selves in the moment - the state of being as instead a dynamic thing - this is the vision of life as experience, learning, 'education' towards divinity which is primarily aimed-at fulfilment after mortality (i.e. in our resurrected life that comes after mortal death).

In this era of Man, the aim is especially of greater consciousness; therefore we should strive to be explicitly aware of the process of incremental, developmental change of our consciousness that comes from serial experiences, expanded learning, awareness, reflection.

Life brings us the necessary experiences; or role is mainly to be aware of them and make the best of them. And repentance  (always vital for Christians) can be understood as explicit knowledge of when our response to experience has been beneficial - and when not.

 

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