I am a reincarnated Druid who was somehow absorbed into the Roman Empire– I mean American Empire, and I am forced to shave my beard and explain to people what the Druids knew, but instead of listening ears it’s a void I’m talking to. I guess a yawning chasm is better than a yawning audience.
Really there is no audience, and no author for that matter, there is only the possible intentions of the words themselves, which seek to order themselves in a certain sequence. My job is to set the rhythm so the intentions of the words can emerge, can be discovered.
To have intentions is to have a soul, whether it’s a body of words or a physical body. The Druids didn’t just believe in souls, they knew that everything has a soul. The art of prophecy and healing was in discovering how the world of souls worked, to listen for the intentions of Nature herself.
The Druids knew that everything has a soul: plants, trees, animals, bodies of water, places, human beings. Different types of souls and levels of souls each one of them, but none which is the Oversoul, the Soul of the World, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the giver of souls, the spark of souls, the light of souls, the origin of souls, the place of the reintegration of souls.
The Druids knew that everything has a soul, because shape is the container of souls. A tree-body has a shape, an animal body has a shape, a human body has shape, a built, engineered body (say, a wooden chest or tent structure) has shape. The soul of these things is not only an exemplar that comes from some Platonic world of forms. Each individual tree has its own singular, infinitely unique, growing and changing shape, every inch of a hollyhock has its own particular shift of shape, its own contours, which contain the kinetic energy within. The kinetic energy animates the shape. The soul guides the intention: the soul of the species at the lowest level, the soul of the individual at the next level, and the soul of the world at the highest level. All three inform the intention, which informs the action, which informs the movement of the shape.
You see where I’m going with this. . .the Druids knew that to discern the soul is to examine both the shape and the intention, you must read the aura as well as hear the words, look at the wider generation as much as the specific individual. The Druids knew that. . .they would be back.
Anarcho-spiritual discourses and upbuilding speeches 
All this, and you still believe in a god, Tristan. You were right when you said I didn’t have to take a look, but I came anyway. You are a study in opposites, but I will avoid by not returning. Enjoy your life. Be safe.
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Thank you sir. I am indeed a study in opposites, see my essays “All this world is dual” and “You is a dual who.” So thank you for recognizing that.
Now, as for you not wanting to return to my work, I understand. Some people do not care to study the polar nature of reality, they have no need for a study in opposites. I say good for you my friend.
Original work always forks, requiring both those who understand the work, and those who do not. What would I be without those who have the wrong ears? I welcome both those who see the path I am laying out, and those who do not want to see it.
God bless you for being among my divided audience. And since it is my goal to see goodness in all things, I will try to put a positive spin on losing a first reader: good riddance!
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There is the problem right there. You do not have the right to give me a god’s blessings when there is no god in my universe. We could probably have some very good conversations, you and I, we see a lot if things similarly. But the original premises of our outlooks are polar opposites. I am actually sad about this.
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Well you can still have good conversations even if you don’t agree about everything, right?
The question is then: what would we have a conversation about?
I’m genuinely curious about what other people want out of the life. Maybe you could talk about that.
Maybe if you could propose an inspiring goal for humanity I could forget that you wanted to stop talking to me because I believe in God.
The floor is yours sir, mi blog is su blog. Propose a naturalistic goal for humanity right here and now, and I will believe that you have seen beyond all gods.
Thanks for writing in again!
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A naturalistic goal for humanity, that puts unnecessary boxes around what I see as a progression for life.
To start, I hate the word goal. So many humans are goal-oriented, but what does that really mean? Does life have to have a goal, like heaven, to spur them on to do good deeds? Would it not be more honest to just do good deeds because you can, not because you want to earn brownie points with a myterious guy-in-the-sky? When I do good deeds, they are never premeditated. I see someone or something that needs help, and if I have the ways or means to provide that help, I do or give it. I see a beetle lying on its back, unable to get back onto its feet. Rather than crush it under my foot as many people would do, I simply turn it over and send it on its way. If I see a homeless person who is hungry, I will buy him or her a meal, and sit and talk with them while they eat it. Or if they do not want to sit with me, even if I suspect they are scamming me for the price of a bottle of cheap booze, I will help them towards that bottle because to them it is more important than food at that moment. I do not need goals to help me do good deeds, I just do them when they are in my power to accomplish. So, a goal for humanity, I cannot go there.
But I can give you the direction to which I aim my life, and that is to help people better themselves in whatever way they might want to proceed. And I will not do it for any price, other than a smile or a genuine thank you. You see, my idea of better is not always another person’s idea if better, so I try to learn their idea and help them towards that. For myself, I want to end my life as a more loving and compassionate and understanding person than I was when I arrived here. And for me that does not just involve human beings, but animals and plants too. We are all living beings, evolved from the same single-celled beings that came to life in the primordial soup about 4.5 billion years ago here on earth. Scientists talk about the sharing of DNA working backwards from where we are to where we came from. I prefer to use reason and intuition to move forward from those single-celled beings who began this whole physical life thing, and move forward to humans and beyond simply by learning my own body, mind, and spirit and how they operate in comparison to how other living beings and how their bodies operate. But that is just physical evolution, and speaks not at all to my supreme direction, which is helping my spirit to become a better being too. Spiritual evolution is the process of starting from being the driving force from being a blank slate to a spirit full of life wisdom. The thing is, I can only see as far as living in the third dimension can allow me. My spirit will need to move on to other dimensions to-be able to see and understand more. So, if there is a goal for life as we know it, it is to move on to the next level of life. Reincarnation is the vehicle that allows us to do that by living life over and over again while learning what it takes to be wise about all life, not just human life.
But is this naturalistic? I have to admit I am not sure what you mean in the context of a naturalistic goal for humanity? You will have to explain that for me, if you care to extend this conversation.
By the way, I did not say I won’t talk to you because you believe in God, but from experience I have found that it is difficult to carry on a conversation in which the person I am talking to has a goal of saving me from myself, despite my telling them I have no need to be saved. That has been tried many times by many people, and each one has failed and fallen by the wayside. If that is your purpose, and I sincerely hope it is not, conversation will become I creasing difficult. If we can both respect the other’s position and not try to change anyone, then communication is welcome.
Being as you profess to have knowledge about primitive religions, and a respect for the process of reincarnation, I am intrigued how you still see God in the cosmos. For me, that is a conundrum.
Peace be with you.
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Well, you can be sure I’m not trying to convert you to my religion, because I don’t have a religion. I’m an anarcho-spiritualist, remember?
As far as trying to “save” you, although that’s not really a word I use, I will say that it is certain no one who doesn’t want to be saved, like yourself, possibly could be. So nothing to worry about there.
What is “a naturalistic goal for humanity?” This is something I took from Nietzsche. In short, if the religious/ascetic ideal does not orient a life, as also Nietzsche claimed, then an ideal, a purpose, an aim, a goal for humanity beyond religious striving must be articulated. Nietzsche asked, What is the opposing ideal? What is a naturalist ideal, purpose, to escape nihilism?
That’s where I got that question.
As for how karma and a creator God are not incompatible, I cover this in multiple episodes of my broadcast. Should I link to a specific reference?
You say that the goal is to “move to the next level of life.” Do we just keep going through reincarnated lives over and over again forever? Is one level the same as the other levels, or is there a progression?
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I am presuming there is a progression, or why would we seem to be progressing here. In the prehistory of humanity we believe people saw spirits everywhere, in the threes, the clouds, the seas, etc. As time passed, the spirits became personified with Uranus and Gaea being the main gods in Greek history, which is the best European story we have. Then came the Titans, the children of Gaea and Uranus who were given names like Oceanus, Chronos, etc. They were overthrown by their children, the gods as led by Zeus and Athena. This is the progression I am most familiar with, having been born in Canada. In Asia, particularly India, other pantheons came into being, probably even earlier than the Egyptians and the Greeks. Unfortunately, the Upanishads are a tough read for me, but it seems those gods progressed also.
The progression became obvious to me while reading James A. Michener’s The Source. I doubt that he intended what I found in it, but to me it was very obvious. Anyway, historical humans needed superhuman beings to help them cope with the mysteries of the world. The Bible progressed that even further by suggesting the One True God to rule over all the others. But where can one progress from a top God. Only one direction we can go, which is to topple the God and realise there is no need for spernatural beings. We are the ones who we need to rely on. We are in charge of our own lives, as affected by the chance happenings of chaos. For as much as we want to order the universe, we cannot control it at any level. Accidents and disasters happen, and as far as I can see, they always will.
But these are all conditions of the level we–you, I, the rest of the living beings in this dimension–have to cope with. What the next dimension or level will hold is unseeable to us, as far as I can tell. But as far as I can see the line of progression, there has to be something else there, based on our history. We are forever changing, so what would make us stop.
Ideals, goals, these are all just radar fluff. Our purpose, if we can said to have one, is to live to be the best people we can be, and let life happen to us. We make our own way. There is no one in charge, nor do we need anyone in charge. While there seems to be a direction, we have no idea where it will lead. We are making it up as we go. And barring us committing genocide, we will someday get to a point where we will learn how to guide ourselves towards something we can see as attainable. But that is way far in the future, in a dimension we cannot even imagine from here.
Yes, I am a dreamer. I prefer to call myself a visionary, but that is just semantics. And there is way too much to cover in a conversation such as this. I tried on my original blog, but it is not possible to put everything into flawed words in a non-spiritual language such as English. But English is all I have in this incarnation, so I must deal with it.
Enough for now. My daily life calls to me.
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Thanks for your thoughts. I recorded an episode which used this thread as the launching off point. You should subscribe to the podcast! All the best, Tristan
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You got me there. How do I find the podcast? How do I listen to it? The only podcasts I ever hear are on the radio. I really know nothing about them.
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Well you can just click into the post and listen to the audio directly if you would like.
Or, if you have Spotify, you can find it on there, by searching for The Anarcho-spiritual Broadcast.
Soon the podcast will be on Apple Podcasts. All the best,
Tristan
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I clicked into the post, but saw nothing there beyond the expected. You said this thread, so by that I presume you mean the original post, More about me. All I saw were words.
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A podcast is an audio file posted to a blog. Steaming services such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and many others collect podcasts and allow you to play them on their platform.
So for this blog, when I want to create a new podcast episode, I post the audio as the newest entry in the blog. You can find the newest entries by going to http://www.anarcho-spiritualism.com, which also happens to be the domain in which you’ve been commenting, although you’re only looking at one, older blog post.
You can also click “Home” from within a specific post and reach the home page, which is where the new blog posts, and their audio files, show up. Click into the newest post and find the audio there.
Or get Spotify and search for “the anarcho-spiritual broadcast.”
Good luck navigating the internets sir!
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Nah, I have no need to navigate the internets. I did well without them for 50 years. They do make some things easier, but better to do things the way one best understands. I will look on your blogsite.
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