Truth or the truth is not something that can be objectified. As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is truth. And so the truth may set you free; but you have to be free to choose. This requires a clarity of mind and not one that is so completely conditioned by television and the Internet in our consumer culture. With the anti-intellectual movement, thought is no longer considered to be elegant and the images of Madison Avenue have determined for us, our idea of visual beauty. We’ve replaced Truth & Beauty with glamour and commercialism.
Please see the sermon video below, and the notes used to deliver the sermon below that.
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Notes on Truth & Beauty
1. Is there truth?
1A. What is truth or ‘the truth’?
1A1. People go in search of the truth, as if there is a correct religion.
1A1a. Often they find a denomination the they feel ‘comfortable’ with; comfort being a form of beauty.
1A2. Plato’s ‘correct opinion.’
1A2a. Perspective can make something true to one & false to another.
1A2b. Truth becomes relative; suggesting science & Einstein’s theory of relativity. And we see that science in the modern world is as important today, as it was to religion in the ancient world.
1B. What then could spiritual truth possibly be?
1B1. It starts with an intuition that often seeks confirmation of some sort.
1B1a. Holy Books, Gurus, Priests, saints & authority figures.
1B2. For the Gnostic, this proceeds with a phenomenological investigtion int ot he nature of consciousness.
1B2a. We evaluate what our observations & experiences show us.
1B2b. We follow this up with education & the development of the intellect in order to better evaluate phenomenon.
1B2b1. Thought becomes attractive when articulation leads to elegance.
1C. Can truth & Beauty be postulated as the body of God?
1C1. Christians will tell you that God is all Good; good being an idealization of beauty, along with such ideals of love & intelligence–consciousness.
1C1a. Even for this, we have suggested that intelligence & consciousness go hand-in-hand.
1C1a1. Consciousness & intelligence become truth & beauty or as Liber AL teaches: pure joy.
2. Beauty is perception; a qualification of consciousness.
2A. We apply beauty as an adjective to everything that is pleasing to our perception.
2A1. We return to relativity & perspective, as one thing may be pleasing to one & repulsive to another.
2A1a. This removes the objectivity from truth.
2A1b. And we might even argue that there is no such thing as objectivity, so that even Plato’s postulate that there only can be ‘correct opinion’ can’t possibly be.
3. What then of the ‘true self’ & is that beautiful?
3A. A problem exists if we postulate a true self: is then the outer self false & ugly?
3A1. Christianity suggests this is so; procliming us all to be sinners.
3A2. This leads those within the Christian paradigm to postulate the true self as an ideal.
3A3. But if we say this outer self is as much part of the true self, as is any inner part of our being, we avoid this conundrum, which must be a false conundrum, as it is an ugly act to denigrate the self.
3B. The phenomenologists postulate three levels of being:
— being in itself
— being for itself
— being for another
3B1. Being in itself would be realized at the deepest level of meditation: Samadhi
3B2. At a less deep level, being for itself is a Dharana on the self.
3B3. Being for another is our outward expression in the phenomenal world.
4. The outer expression of being; being for another joins us into the human community, and indeed, the whole of the phenomenal Universe.
4A. Truth & Beauty as relative concepts, then require some level of mutual understanding in order to become functional tools in our evolutionary development.
4A1. Some may move fast than the pace of the community in the apprehension & comprehension of concepts that then set the bar for community.
4A1a. We call these people prophets or monks; the latter sequestering themselves off in monasteries; the former attempting to bring new Gnosis to the world.
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