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Post by hftwo on Sept 4, 2018 19:26:55 GMT
Immanuel, Greetings,
If You are willing of course when You have the time can You tell me why did Esau say the following (if the Matthew Gospel is correct of course) :
Matthew 18:2-4
He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
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Post by Immanuel on Sept 5, 2018 7:46:03 GMT
Hello,
I have been puzzled myself about what he meant by the comparison. Children have less conscious resistance to instincts and they shine through even more clearly in them, so this was not the aspect he meant.
What I can think he meant is that children are not tainted by the world yet, and despite that the surroundings gradually pervert their minds, they have the greatest potential to change into what is required for reaching "the kingdom" as they have not yet acquired the useless and meaningless aims of adults. Children are exposed because they imitate and take after people in their surroundings without reflecting themselves upon the habits, this is the instinctive learning, but with good parents in a utopian environment they are most responsive to teaching. Adults have got beliefs which restrict their ability to absorb new insights and thinking-patterns, their worldview may become a problem against thinking logically.
I would expand upon what Eysua said, that this has to do with something which may be called to unlearn what you have learned, and in this regard the little child is in a better seat because it has no earlier bias to let go of. But Eysua said that they should be like the little child, which is inexperienced in this world and eager to learn and does not claim to know things (when they do not). Many adults believe they have knowledge, they are perverted by disinformation and their worldview is a copy of others, they imitate and follow stereotypical thinking-patterns. An adult has most issues to let go of all the falsehood they have acquired while the child has not.
Eysua did surely not mean they should surrender their conscious acquisition and become a helpless imitating child which is easily perverted by the harsh world in which they live. But in order to embrace Eysua's teaching they had to let go of what they thought they knew about life and this is what he refers to by his expression, they should be like young small children who seek a model to follow without mixing it with what they previously knew, their lifelong experience of habits and so.
When they leave a lifelong acquisition of habits and stereotypes behind and start from scratch, much like the little child, then they can enter "the kingdom". This world is not a good teacher, it ruins our minds and when we discover what is true, then we must purge ourselves completely, or else we do not do enough in order to become ascended. This purging is in the parable of the child.
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Post by hftwo on Sept 5, 2018 8:31:00 GMT
It makes sense Immanuel ! Thank you for elaboration!
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Post by Immanuel on Sept 5, 2018 13:09:38 GMT
You are welcome!
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Post by cerulean on Sept 5, 2018 13:14:01 GMT
Hey this reminded me of something I read from this very difficult to read book 'Thus spoke Zarathustra'
"Innocence is the child, and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self propelling wheel, a first movement, a sacred Yes. For the game of creating, my brothers, a sacred "yes" to life is needed: the spirit now wills its own will; the one who had lost the world now attains its own world. Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I told you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child. - Thus spoke Zarathustra."
If you can make sense of any of it lol.
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Post by Immanuel on Sept 5, 2018 13:23:17 GMT
Zartosht (Zarathustra) is an interesting topic, it is included in my Persian studies.
I think that much of the mainstream interpretations are lackluster and need better definitions for words and a better grammatical structure and better sentence rendering.
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Post by cerulean on Sept 7, 2018 21:53:53 GMT
Probably, I have not read anything from him but 'Thus spoke Zarathustra' is Friedrich Nietzsche's interpretation of Zarathustra's teachings.
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