Friendship, Love and God
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Kim H. Veltman Friendship, Love and God Becoming Human through Body, Mind and Spirit Twinscorp/VMMI Press 1 Flying Birds Kim H. Veltman Friendship, Love and God Becoming Human through Body, Mind and Spirit Twinscorp/VMMI Press 2017 Copyright Kim H. Veltman Formerly published by VMMI/Twinscorp Press No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior, written consent of the author. ISBN: Autobiography, Humanities, Philosophy, God Printed by 2 To my friends behind the veil. This is a positive book about a quest, about seeking, rather than about negative persons or things. All persons who are my intellectual and moral superiors, who have helped me in my quest are gratefully thanked. Indeed, I have sought them them out. Throughout my life I have tried to find the absolute best in any field that interests me in order to learn from them. This led me to Sir Ernst Gombrich in Art History, Kenneth Keele in Leonardo Studies, to Ingetraut Dahlberg in classification. It also led me to meet Douglas Engelbart, Ted Nelson and Tim Berners Lee in Internet studies and so on. Throughout the book I offer verbal portraits of mentors, teachers and friends, who have helped me, attempting to identify their essence; their special qualities, and what I learned from them. These portraits range from a few lines to a few paragraphs and in five cases to a full page. I am grateful to each of them. Acquaintances whom I do not know well, about whom I have nothing positive or original to say are named, but not discussed. Those who consider their intellectual or moral superiority as grounds for not helping me, and those who consider themselves enemies, are not named, nor are their stories told. My view of Christianity is concerned with trying to help all who seek: e.g. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13) and "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7).3 If we refuse to help our fellow humans, who ask us for help, then we love ourselves more than our neighbours and we cannot fulfill his commandment that we love god with our whole heart and soul and our neighbours as ourselves. Such persons may call themselves Christians, but if they refuse to help us on our quest, if they respond to questions and prayers with silence, then they have no place in this story or indeed in all stories of seekers. Disdain, and rejection of seekers miss the point. Christianity in its deeper sense, like all true religion, like the Sanatana Dharma, is about going beyond our petty ego, beyond ourselves, helping others and moving towards the infinite. Only truth and spiritual love are true guides.4 Flying bird Table of Contents 0. Preface 1. Introduction Body Other 2. Beginnings 3. Corporeal Inner-Outer 4. Within Boundaries 5. Mirror and Mask 6. Timeless 7. Animal Symbolism 8. Personal Doodles 9. Culture Mind Order 10. Body, Mind, Spirit 11. Define Boundaries 12. Mental Inner-Outer 13. Space-Time 14. Knowledge 15. Imagery of Creation 16. Choice 17. Charioteer 18. Truth 19. Conversations 20. Domains of Study Spirit Beyond 21. Spiritual Frameworks 22. Tripartite World 23. From Metaphysical to Physical 24. Spiritual Inner-Outer 25. Beyond Boundaries 26. Friendship 27. Earthly Love 28. Divine Love 29. God 30. Conclusions Appendix 1. Birds Appendix 2: Why I am not really a Chameleon. Appendix 3: Christmas Thoughts on having Turned Thirty Appendix 4: Introduction to Vita Activa Vita Contemplativa Appendix 5: What is a Man? Appendix 6: Origins of Christianity Appendix 7: Tokyo I Lectures Appendix 8: Friendship (2107) Appendix 9: Table of Figures "If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trial." — Heraclitus (544 — 483 BC) La personalité ressemble à un parfum de qualité: celui qui le porte est le seul à ne pas le sentir.5 0. Preface On the surface, I live an ordinary, normal life. I live on a quiet street in a quiet town. I ride a bike to the market and shops. On the weekend, I go for long walks with a friend. Once a week Nel6 collects my wash. Once every two weeks that friend comes to dinner. His name is Nino (Lord Ninus).7 Sometimes other friends come to visit and sometimes I travel. That is my façade (mask, persona) and that is how most persons know me. Below the surface, behind the invisible veil, is a person with no interest in the normal, who is concerned instead with wonder, magic, the memorable, the remarkable, the incredible, with genius, heroes, angels, gods, goddesses; with the miraculous, the eternal, the infinite, with friendship, love, joy, bliss, especially with God. If my neighbours met this person behind the façade, they would almost certainly call me unusual, unnormal, abnormal, even mad. Veils have their uses, even if burkas are forbidden. This is a portrait of ideas behind the façade. Some stories of this genre are quite famous. For instance, the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, tells a story of a man who leads a boring outside life and an immensely adventurous inside life. But, alas, it is ultimately an egocentric story about a man with an overactive imagination, with no real interest in others. Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist is better. It tells a parable of a man’s quest for something precious. But it is much more. Part one of his book begins with the line: “The boy’s name was Santiago”, and is an homage to Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, where the old man’s name was Santiago.8 It is also a reference to his walks in Northern Spain on the pilgrimage route to Santiago da Compostella. Coelho’s genius is to tell his story in the manner of the mediaeval Everyman stories. It happened to him but it could have happened to any of us. It is: “a fable for following your dream”. We read the book, not to learn how he won the jackpot, but to learn how we might become winners ourselves. In the lives of the rich and famous, autobiographies are a matter of course. They are used to assert their importance on the world stage. In the case of politicians, autobiographies are often a chance to express views that were not possible while they were in office, or a need to tell their side or view of a complex story. In our case, this is not an autobiography of the outer life. This one leads away from a seeming path of outer fame and glory, to an inner path, towards core values, and underlying motivations of life: away from the physical world of the flesh, towards the spiritual and God. It uses me as a case study, but is not really about me at all. It is a series of pointers towards the other, order, and the beyond. If the key to the outside is often inside; a key to the inside is ultimately in helping outside; in going beyond the ego to love others. There are early reflections on the development of personality using sketches, some reflections on knowledge, teaching and culture (the role of art, music, literature). The leitmotifs are three: truth, friendship, spiritual love (agape), and the three theological virtues (faith, hope, love) Ultimately the three leitmotifs explore one question: how can earthly friendship and love take us to a love of God? The jackpot, in this case, is not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but an exploration of what it really means to be human. It is not, in the manner of Frank Sinatra, to tell you about how I did it my way. True confessions and a full list of failures are largely omitted. For as Nelson Mandela said:it is not in the falling that makes a man, but in the getting up. If you like playing God, you are free to judge whether I am worthy. Ultimately, the book is an invitation and a challenge to ask: what will your way be? If you succeed, then your ordinary, everyday lives could well be transformed into encounters and meetings with remarkable men,9 extraordinary and memorable men, a meeting with yourself behind your own veils and masks: the greatest miracle of God ‘s creation, and perhaps even a personal meeting with God himself. Figure 1. Ladder of Intellect and Great Chain of Being.10 1. Introduction The Mediaeval world had its own explanation for everything. There was a scale of nature, also called a ladder of the intellect (figure 1a) that led from a stone to God, a kind of Jacob’s Ladder of natural creation. It was also called the Great Chain of Being (fig.1b), the history of which was masterfully studied by Lovejoy.11 The ancient ladder was organized according to consciousness. Aristotle, for instance, identified three kinds of souls: vegetative soul, animal soul, human soul. The Chinese have 3 huns. Vegetables have only 1 hun, animals two huns and humans 3 huns. Our story looks at this ladder or chain in a new way, in terms of relation to the other, inner- outer and space-time. A stone is complete in itself. It has height, width, depth, size, weight, colour. However, it is not conscious of its own properties.