The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity – by Cynthia Bourgeault

Excerpt: The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity – By Cynthia Bourgeault

Published by  Shambhala Publications, July 9 2013.

Introduction:

My first challenge in writing this book will be to persuade you that there is anything here worth considering at all. With so many urgent practical issues facing spiritual humanity, why waste time with the Trinity, a doctrine that most of the world (and even much of Christianity) regards as contrived and irrelevant?  It takes a real stretch of the theological imagination to claim that it was ever a part of the original Jesus teachings or that it does a single thing to clarify or enhance these teachings. In fact, the eminent twentieth century theologian Karl Rahner has claimed that if the Trinity were to quietly disappear out of Christian theology, never to be mentioned again, most of Christendom would not even notice its absence!

By way of a circuitous response, let me offer you a story which was told to me by my longtime friend and teacher, the Abkhazian dervish elder Murat Yagan.

In the years immediately following World War II, Murat recounts, he spent a time ranching in a remote corner of eastern Turkey. There he became friends with an elderly couple, with whom he frequently shared a meal. Life had been good to them, but their one sadness was that they missed their only son, who had left some years before to seek work in Istanbul. Though he indeed had become a successful businessman, they had infrequent contact with him and missed him greatly.

One day when Murat appeared on their doorstep for tea, the old couple were bursting with pride to show him the new tea cupboard that their son had just shipped them from Istanbul. It was indeed a handsome piece of furniture, and the woman had already proudly arranged her best tea set on its upper shelf.  Murat was polite but curious. Why would their son go to such expense to send them a tea cupboard? Why, for a piece of furniture whose ostensible purpose was storage, was there such a noticeable absence of drawers and cabinets?  “Are you sure it’s a tea cupboard?” Murat asked them. They were sure.

But the question continued to nag at Murat. Finally, just as he was taking his leave, he said, “Do you mind if I have a closer look at this tea cupboard?” With their permission, he turned the backside around and unscrewed a couple of packing boards. A set of cabinet doors swung open to reveal inside a fully operative ham radio set.

That “tea cupboard,” of course, was intended to connect them to their son. But unaware of its real contents, they were simply using it to display their china.

To my mind,  that is an unsettlingly apt analogy for how we Christians have been using  the Holy Trinity. It is our theological tea cupboard, upon which we display our finest doctrinal china, our prized assertion that Jesus, a human being, is fully divine. This is not necessarily a bad thing, just as it was not a bad thing for the elderly lady to set forth her prettiest teacups on the new piece of furniture. But what if, unbeknownst to nearly everyone, inside it is concealed a powerful communications tool that could connect us to the rest of the worlds (visible and invisible), allow us to navigate our way through many of the doctrinal and ethical logjams of our time, and place the teachings of Jesus in a dynamic metaphysical framework that would truly unlock their power?

It’s simply a matter of turning the tea cabinet around and learning how to look inside. That’s what this I’m proposing to do in this book.

In a nutshell, I will claim that embedded within this theological formula which we recite mostly on automatic pilot (“In the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit”) lies a powerful metaphysical principle that could change our understanding of Christianity and give us the tools so long and so sorely needed to reunite our shattered cosmology, rekindle our visTrinity symbolionary imagination, and cooperate consciously with the manifestation of Jesus’ “Kingdom of Heaven” here on earth. That principle is called The Law of Three, and the metaphysics that derive from it can be called “ternary metaphysics.”

The Law of Three is, I believe, Christianity’s hidden driveshaft, and its presence so far has been only intuited, never explicitly identified by theologians. It is distinctly different from the speculative formulations of Patristic theology, or even from the well-worn metaphysical roadmaps of sophia perennis (the “perennial philosophy”) in which Wisdom alternatives to doctrinal orthodoxy are nearly always couched.  Comprehensive, profoundly original, and like all driveshafts concerned with forward motion, it is Christianity’s authentic temperament, the key in which theoria and praxis come together, in which all its teachings begin to hang together.

But this principle is almost entirely unheard of—not because it is particularly hidden or buried, but because the conversation about it has so far gone on within circles that have been considered strictly off limits to traditional academic and theological inquiry. It does not belong to any body of knowledge that theologians generally consider germane to their studies. It is not a part of patristic theology, or the neo-Platonic underpinnings on which that theology rests. It is not a part of classic Christian hermeticism, or of the great tradition of sophia perennis. And while inklings of it can be discerned in certain Christian mystical streams (particularly those flowing through Jacob Boehme and Teilhard de Chardin), it was articulated only in the early twentieth century by the Armenian-born spiritual teacher G.I.Gurdjieff, and until very recently it has been studied and transmitted exclusively within that stream of contemporary esotericism known as the Gurdjieff Work.

That is about as far off limits as one can get.

Admittedly, the times changing. Only a generation ago the term “Gurdjieff Work” would have evoked well-nigh universal blank stares. Now that the Work has finally begun to come above ground (“outed,” to a large degree, by the contemporary enneagram personality typing movement, with which it shares a considerably overlapping body of esoteric material), people are looking with newfound curiosity at the eclectic and wildly original metaphysics that this one-of-a-kind spiritual genius G.I. Gurdjieff  (1866-1949) claims to have synthesized from Wisdom Schools he discovered, after a long search, in Central Asia.

The Law of Three, according to Gurdjieff— together with its companion piece, the Law of Seven—comprise what he calls the foundational “Laws of World Creation and World Maintenance.” The interweaving of these two cosmic laws is depicted in the symbol of the enneagram, whose nine points reveal (to those properly initiated) the direction and energetic dynamism through which the world maintains its forward motion. During the ten years I participated in the Work, we studied these laws assiduously, applied them to the solution of both ordinary problems and cosmic mysteries, and danced their laylines in the famous Gurdjieff movements. We even heard in passing that the Law of Three had had its origins deep within the oral traditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church and that the mysterious prayer “Holy God, Holy the Firm, Holy Immortal, Have Mercy on us” might indeed reflect a vestigial awareness of the primordial forces in the Law of Three. But no one I met in the Gurdjieff Work seemed particularly interested in reintegrating this powerful transformative principle into Christianity (most seemed to feel that Christianity was beyond salvaging), and certainly most the Christians I knew from my daily rounds as an Episcopal priest and retreat leader were totally wary of anything that smacked of esotericism.

So for a long time, I simply kept these two streams separate, allowing the knowledge I’d gleaned from my years in the Gurdjieff work to inform my personal efforts at inner awakening. While I wondered from time to time whether there might really be a connecting link between the Trinity and the Law of Three, it all seemed too tenuous and fraught with difficulty to pursue.

What broke me out of this holding pattern came from an entirely unexpected quarter: a surprising discomfort I noticed myself experiencing around one of the more popular theological initiatives of our time, the effort to reclaim the Holy Spirit as “she.”  Motivated by a sincere desire to recover the “divine feminine” within Christianity, the groundswell has steadily built toward this feminine re-imaging, which indeed has a certain linguistic justification as well as a strong archetypal appeal.  As a woman priest generally identified as being on the progressive end of the theological spectrum, I was surprised to find myself digging in my heels. But something from my days in the Work was evidently clicking in as I kept realizing that the whole notion of a “feminine dimension of God,” belonged to binary metaphysical system, based on the cosmic balance of symmetrical opposites, whereas the Christian metaphysical milieu, by its very Trinitarian lineage, belonged to a ternary metaphysical system. I didn’t know quite what that meant yet, but I knew that in this apparently harmless accommodation to gender equality, contemporary theologians were making a seriously wrong turn, risking the loss of a far greater metaphysical treasure.

My attempt to give voice to some of these concerns bore fruit in an article called “Why Feminizing the Trinity Will not Work, ” which appeared in the Christmas 2000 issue of the Sewanee Theological Review. It is essentially the seed of this book. With heart in mouth, I formally introduced the Law of Three into the Christian theological conversation and tried to suggest a strategy by which Christianity’s “missing” feminine might be found simply by loosening our fixation upon the three persons and allowing the Trinity to flow into new configurations according to the inner dynamism of the Law of Three—rather like turning a kaleidoscope. Since then many people have asked me to develop these ideas further. This present book is an effort to draw together the teaching and writing I have done on Trinity and the Law of Three over the past dozen years and hopefully, to create a unified overview of how the Law of Three works, why I see it as the metaphysical driveshaft of the Trinity, and why it is so important to reclaim it.

The book does not intend to be a comprehensive study of the Trinity or an attempt to dialogue with traditional theological understandings. As our exploration unfolds, I will offer a brief survey of some of the more exciting developments in contemporary Trinitarian theology (which might indeed cause Karl Rahner to take heart), but I do not intend to build on them in any formal way. While it is indeed encouraging to see that some of Christianity’s most persuasive thinkers are embracing the Trinity in terms more closely in line with the inherent dynamism of the Law of Three, my task here is to contribute the one piece which is uniquely mine to bring to the table.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever written specifically about the Trinity and the Law of Three, no one has yet attempted to interweave Christian metaphysics and G.I. Gurdjieff, and most certainly, no one has ever attempted to demonstrate how the Trinity, when “rotated” according to the Law of Three, does indeed yield a magnificent roadmap of divine becoming in which mystical vision, cosmology, evolution, history—and yes, Christianity’s missing feminine—all come together in a seamless tapestry, which indeed looks something like the classic archetypal vision of “the seven ages of man,” but on a far vaster scale. That is what I hope to unfold here.

This book is basically in three parts. In the first, I will introduce the Law of Three  (starting from that original article in the Sewanee Theological Review), explore its basic principles with the help from some recognized reference points in the Gurdjieff Work, and show you how to work with it on a practical basis. For the Law of Three is indeed intended first and foremost as a practical tool! Its domain is not just cosmology and metaphysics; it is equally at home solving interpersonal problems, affecting political outcomes, and navigating through impasses of every shape and form.  We will also be learning some of the core principles of ternary metaphysics, which will come into play in the final section of the book.

In the second part of the book I will tackle the more difficult question: Why do I think this Law of Three has anything at all to do with the Trinity? The case is admittedly hard to make from a historical standpoint, since Trinitarian theology predates Gurdjieff’s articulation of the Law of Three by a good sixteen centuries. But I will attempt to flesh out my argument on the grounds of dynamic affinity more than linear causality. My hunch is that Christian metaphysics has always been inherently ternary (precisely because of the Christ event at its epicenter) and that the core notion of the Trinity arose out of the collective imagination of the early Christian fathers to hold the space for this realization until its actual working principles could be more fully articulated. For all its notorious doctrinal sticky wickets, it nevertheless held the line against a certain gnosticising tendency inherent in Christian theology from the start and insisted on the centrality of the incarnation and the spiritual principle of kenosis—self-emptying, or descent— as the fundamental touchstones of Christian self-understanding. In this section I will unpack some of these intuitions in more detail, then call on Jacob Boehme, that most magnificent of medieval visionary cosmologists, to help me build a bridge between the outermost known reference points in traditional Christian mysticism and the Law of Three.

The third part of my book will be the most challenging—partly because it is so very personal, and partly because it is, frankly, a world unto itself. I would probably describe it a “metaphysical prose poem”— more art than theology— and the best way to get into it is the way you get into a turning jump rope: you simply leap into the middle and start jumping to its rhythm. I apologize in advance if this will leave some readers behind in its admittedly eccentric conflation of mystical vision, metaphysical “math,” and quasi-cosmology; you may wonder what realm of reality I think I’m describing here. I wonder the same thing myself. But it is for the sake of this final section that I am really writing this book.

I have to confess that this prose poem, (if that’s what it is) emerged, pretty much “as is,” from a single, very intense spate of visionary seeing not long after I had completed that original essay on feminizing the Trinity. In the final paragraph of the article, as you’ll shortly see, I issued the challenge: “The solution is not to abandon the ternary principle, but to apply it, permitting the Trinity to flow again.”  One afternoon I found myself taking myself up on that challenge. What did it mean to “permit the Trinity to flow again”? What would happen if I applied the basic tenet of the Law of Three—“the interweaving of three separate forces creates a new arising on a new plane “—to set the familiar static triangle of Father-Son-Holy Spirit in motion, generating new patterns of itself?

Whoosh! That’s really all I can say. In less than an hour the conventions governing this “turning” of the Trinity all fell into place with that a kind of mathematical elegance that confirmed I was on the right track. What emerged over the next couple of weeks was a breathtaking glimpse of the journey of divine Love into time, through time, and out of time—from Alpha to Omega, from origin to final “Consummatum est.” In the vastness of that canopy I could finally taste the spaciousness out of which had emerged that profound Pauline hymn of Colossians 1:12-20:

He is the image of the unseen God

And the firstborn of all creation,

For in him were created

All things in heaven and on earth:

 

Everything visible and everything invisible

Thrones, dominations, sovereignties, and powers—

All things were created through him and for him.

 

Before anything was created, he existed

And he holds all things in unity;

He is, moreover, the head

Of the body, the Church.

 

As he is the Beginning,

He was first to be raised from the dead,

So that he might be first in every way;

For in him the complete being of God

By God’s own choice came to dwell.

 

Through him God chose to reconcile

The whole universe to himself,

Everything in heaven and everything on earth,

When he made peace by his death on a cross.

 

At long last I could see how this great cosmological hymn was not merely an ecstatic raving or an antiquated Christocentric hymn now relegated to the status of “mythology” after the Copernican revolution six centuries ago knocked Christianity off its cosmological footings. It is our Christian charter and birthright. For truth, real truth, is seamless and indivisible. Christianity is either Christocentric or it is not; Christ is either literally the one in “whom all things hold together,” or he is not. A claim that fundamental must be consistently and reliably true; it cannot be true in one realm (the realm of “faith”) and false in another (the realm of empirical reality.)  Modern and post-modern Christianity’s schizophrenic attempt to live in both realms has gradually sapped its strength and blurred its vision. But how in the name of intellectual integrity could one do otherwise? Suddenly I could see the resolution to that impasse.  It simply required the full wingspan of Trinitarian space/time—unlocked by the Law of Three—to assign each of Paul’s visionary truths to their proper cosmic domain so that faith and cosmology could reunite in a single visionary whole. My map was showing me how to do it. I emerged from that period of intense “download” with my Christian mystical imagination rekindled and my confidence renewed.

For the next dozen years that vision percolated beneath the surface as I gradually found my place as a spiritual writer and teacher. It was with me as I wrote my other books: The Wisdom Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, Chanting the Psalms.  It was there as I led workshops and established Wisdom Schools; it was in the back of my mind whenever I found myself quoting that marvelous quip from G.K. Chesterton: “Christianity isn’t a failure; it simply hasn’t been tried yet.” But I could never see any way to speak directly about what I was seeing; it was so far outside the usual stream of theological conversation. Who would ever have the patience as I wove the pieces together? Among my Wisdom students, we began joking about it my “posthumous book.”

And if truth be told, I was content with that verdict.  But a glimmer of hope that I might yet live to see the sprouting of this vision was rekindled last year when a group of my most senior students volunteered themselves as guinea pigs to see if the material could actually be taught. So the grand experiment began, in a three-session Wisdom School following more-or-less the layout of this book. In the first two sessions we laid the groundwork with a thorough study of the Law of Three and the basic ternary predisposition of Christian metaphysics (including a crash course on Jacob Boehme.) Then, in the third session, we began to unpack the vision.

Cynthia with Holy Trinity bookThat session will long remain in my heart, not simply as an accomplishment, but as the gift of a life task fulfilled. And it is at the urging of these dear friends and intrepid wisdom seekers that I have returned to the task of putting the material in publishable form. “If thirty-five of us can get it,” one of them said, “Why not the whole world?”

So there you have it. I will do my best to make the ride as smooth as possible. But in the end, my commitment is to getting there, because I know beyond all personal doubt that there is indeed a ham radio concealed inside this Trinitarian tea cupboard. And in the midst of this long winter of our Christian discontent, when spiritual imagination and boldness are at an all-time low and the church itself hovers at the edge of demise for lack of an animating vision, perhaps now more than ever the time is ripe to remove the packing boards from this tea cupboard and release its contents.

Copyright © Cynthia Bourgeault

27 replies
  1. Owe Whel
    Owe Whel says:

    I think the concept of the “trinity” is actually hidden within duality. In duality you have sets of polarities, but they are opposed (at odds with each other) rather than perfectly complementary. Not hard to figure out either why the “love” between man and woman, though intense, is the most conditional/breakable of all – vs. say parent/child or even best friends. But within a dualistic framework, it’s easy to see why the “trinity” is the covert missing link. Take black and white – two sovereign individual aspects that are polar opposites of the same one essence. But what’s missing that links them back together? Perhaps the GRAY?

    I’ve always felt like Christianity’s explanation of the trinity’s applicability in our human lives was a copout – that mankind is a triune being of mind, body, and soul (or heart). That is murky philosophical gobbledygook that cannot explain how the person of Jesus as God-incarnate is both similar to and different from “all the rest of us”……

  2. Peter
    Peter says:

    Trinity is an advance concept in science. What make us person is the Mind not the body. Every person has a single mind or personality that make us a unique. No two persons can have same personality or mind. But wait have you really stretch your imagination? What if an individual has two mind or two personalities in him ? That is the two mind shares same body. Have you ever thought of an individual moving about with 3 minds? A being having the mind of 3 persons. What if an individual can swap his mind with that of a celebrity or mother Teresa? can 2 or more human sharing same mind?
    mind cloning and uploading is a futuristic concept in science that could explain multiple minds in shares body, or multiple bodies sharing same mind.
    Presently , we do mind copying and cloning but we mimick the process. often, we imitate the personality of our role models.

    “I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

    The concept of Trinity is a futuristic ‘individual’ moving about with 3 minds: that is the 3 minds shares one body. He can not described as an individual or person because multiple minds or 3 personalities inhabit his body.

    characteristics of such “individual ” will be intriguing.. The 3 minds will certainly feel pain, if the body is afflicted. The “individual ” will notice 2 other persons are within him. The trinity is out worldly and the science behind it is mind boggling

  3. George Thale
    George Thale says:

    Please ad me to your posts. I am a senior Pastor of a small church in Olympia. My wife met you in Seattle 12 years ago. I am proud of your trasfer into the missing link in Church.

  4. Enoch
    Enoch says:

    .
    God is not a Trinity. Man is not a trinity. From Taylor’s book:
    .
    According to the Word of God, God formed Man’s body from the dust of the ground, breathed God’s breath of life (spirit) into Man’s body, and Man came alive, became a living soul; that is, Body + Spirit = Soul. Genesis 2:7 shows that The Trinity is a false doctrine. The Trinity, or any trinity, has 3 equal parts. This equation accurately reflects Genesis 2:7, and it demonstrates that body, spirit, and soul are not 3 equal parts. This equation says that body and spirit are two parts each by itself, but the soul is not a part by itself, for the soul is dependent on the other two parts, body + spirit. Can a body exist by itself? Yes. Can a spirit exist by itself? Yes. Can a soul exist by itself? No. A soul needs both body and spirit in order to come into existence, as this verse explicitly says.
    .
    Copyright © 2016-2017 Arthur Rain Taylor. All Rights Reserved.
    Body, Spirit, Soul – An Exposition of Genesis 2:7
    ISBN-10:0-9985753-1-3; ISBN-13:978-0-9985753-1-5
    20-pages essay, $2.99 at iTunes, Barnes & Noble, etc.
    .

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  6. Jason Gosnell
    Jason Gosnell says:

    I agree…I think that Paul is speaking of the Nondual Presence Itself to put it in IT terms. I think it is better that Christians let go of the Nondual formula though and just say the Trinitarian Realization or Presence. I don’t thin they are the same exactly. When the subtle-energetic is disowned, Holy Spirit, we lose the dance…the movement. Paul recognized all of this in Jesus…as such, he personalized it to Jesus, but he is also right on a cosmic scale…it’s The Way of It. For Buddhists, the Buddha is the living embodiment of the Trinitarian Reality, but they don’t have a place to fit subtle-energy exactly unless the energies of mindfulness and loving kindness are fit in in this way.

  7. Chris Huff
    Chris Huff says:

    an exerpt from a blog post…describing a time of contemplating God through Cynthia’s book:

    “And where my angst of separation in my usual post-preaching spiritual brown-out finally was banished from my soul was in the re-affirmation from Bourgeault that God is indeed in both, the sacred AND the profane. Most of us believe this in our heads, but fear in our hearts that it isn’t true. And fear brings the urge to control. And controlling is trying to be God. And trying to be God puts a person in a world of hurt.”
    Thanks for the work…
    Chris Huff, Episcopal Priest in South Carolina

  8. David Orth
    David Orth says:

    Ok. Just closed the book. Such a gem. Such a brain-bomb. If anyone is inclined to give up or roll their eyes, just skip to chapter 19 – read and then reconsider. Praise God – the Holy Trinity – the Lawful – the Flowing.

  9. Pat Meadows
    Pat Meadows says:

    Hi Cynthia (and all): The book is now ‘IN STOCK’ at Amazon too! I just ordered my copy. I’ll be delighted to receive and read it. 🙂
    Pat Meadows (Way Downeast, Maine)

  10. David Orth
    David Orth says:

    I’ve pre-ordered on Amazon. So glad for another book of Cynthia’s Synthesis! I was in the Gurdjieff Work for 10 years and now am active in the Episcopal church. You can sense the esoteric dimension right there just barely under the surface of the creeds and liturgy – at once tantalizing and frustrating. Looking forward to a book which excavates these strands and weaves them back together for us. Looking forward to hearing more about Jakob Böhme (I’ve long expected he was a link between classical theology, esotericism, early protestantism, hermeticism – and I’m happy to note that he was a craftsman – I wonder if this was an element for him somehow – esotericism is so much about the body and awareness – of which the mind is only a piece). I read Dorothy Sayer’s book on the Trinity many years ago (Mind of the Maker) and while I would criticize it, it was maybe the first place I heard an esoteric take on a doctrine. Also Charles Williams, friend of Sayers, Lewis, and Tolkien had an esoteric voice which I appreciated early on. So this territory has always been there right under the surface enlivening us and frightening us away at the same time. Anyway, glad we are moving on into the clear and deep work of Gurdjieff and hopefully bringing this latent material into the theological/liturgical discussion where it has always belonged. What a gift. Just the idea of it. Holy cow.

    David Orth
    Orth Furniture & Sculpture

  11. Lainie Petersen
    Lainie Petersen says:

    As a bi-vocational clergyperson and student of Gurdjieff’s 4th Way (and a tea drinker), I can barely contain my excitement about this book. The topic itself intrigues me, but I am even more pleased that Gurdjieff’s teachings will be getting some attention from a Christian theologian. Thank you!

  12. Carole Pentony
    Carole Pentony says:

    Cynthia, thank you for once again creating a community from which your work can go forward, and thanks to the 35 that you mentioned in the Introduction, as well as many others, I’m sure. It reminds me of the story you related in Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening regarding how that book came about as “the product of many hearts and minds.”

    I join you in rejoicing that you have received the “gift of a life task fulfilled” with this book. I hope to reply more extensively later on the content, (about all I can say now is, “Hoo boy” in amazement) and am happy to report that Shambhala e-mailed today that my copy is on it way!

    Blessings,

    Carole Pentony

  13. George Carpenter
    George Carpenter says:

    As a 79 year old, retired Episcopal priest, I confess that I have been dipping into the writings of Gurjieff over many years, tho I have not been a part of The Work. I am excited that someone else in our church has discovered him and I look forward to your book.

    I am also familiar with the monks at Immaculate Hermitage where I have been privileged to visit.

    I only regret that it is at this very late date that I have just discovered you, Cynthia, and your work. Bless you, and I look forward to reading and studying your work.

  14. Regina Roman
    Regina Roman says:

    So excited to see the connection made with the work of Gurdjieff. As I am drinking my cup of tea I can not wait to unpack that tea cupboard! Thank you for you hard work and willingness to stay with the initial hunches and sensations.

  15. Joris Heise
    Joris Heise says:

    At 76, now a former theologian, Scripture scholar and Franciscan priest, I consider myself less a Christian than a Trinitarian, less a religion person and more a follower of Jesus. Here are my current premises:
    1) The Trinity are not “out there.” the “Father” is the creator whom Jesus identified as fatherly, the timeless (NOT ETERNAL) source (aitios) of physics, evolution, free will and time. His life gives me life–the same continuous life since that amoeba-like crittur long ago. Jesus is the Son of man who is the Son of this Father–archetype from the timelessness that exists (existed) before the Big Ban and somehow is part of every human being, and realized that. He called and call us on us LIVE deliberately, gratefully, in awe and acceptance. (There is a Duns Scotian element here.) He not only represents us but, in some mysterious way, IS us. Their Spirit (ruah/pneuma) is more the nonverbal attitude of loving and growing (yes!) and creating that goes on in our world–both under (and permeating) my consciousness, my id and ego, and my awareness and out there shaping and being involved with evolution and developments of politics, biology, etc.
    2) Religion and its structures are necessary to convey these elelments–the way rain and sun are necessary for seeds to sproud, the way a catapult is necessary for a boulder to fly, the way DNA structures enable new life to develop. A specific religion is necessary for specific people–Parental and societal pressures enable us to pluck what is necessary and make free choices. Our ignorance of other religions (e.g., Jainism) may free us from complexity that make no sense in this society of mine, but are life-giving in another environment. My Catholicism has served me well, aware as I am of its evils.
    3) The role and meaning of life is to discover Life–transcendence, a life of gratitude, a sense of the every-day miracles–call it what you will. Heaven is what Jesus called it–not an after-death, but the poetic vision [poienn means to “make”], the insight, the lived thrill of LIVING! What happens after death is a mystery left to God. This day, Jesus said to his fellow on the next cross, you will be with me in paradise. I get that. He was talking about Now–not after death. Hanging on the cross can be “paradise” once you “get it.”

    Some thoughts.

    • don salmon
      don salmon says:

      Joris, your articulation of your vision of the Trinity is one of the clearest I’ve heard. I’m studying Cynthia’s “The Heart of Centering Prayer,’ but hope soon to look at her book on the Trinity. I studied a short while with William Nyland’s Gurdjieff group in NYC back in the early 1970s, and came across the Law of Three then. But it wasn’t until I came across Sri Aurobindo’s “Indian-inflected” description of the Trinity that it first made sense to me:

      The Father – the Transcendent Self, the Shanta Atman
      The Son – the Cosmic Self – the Mahat Atman
      The Holy Spirit – the Jivatman – the individual Self.

      We as individual souls or selves participate in the Cosmic Christ when we empty ourselves, but in doing so only lose our non-existent or “false” selves and become for the first time true individuals, but individual foci of the Father, not inherently separate “selves.”

      Thank you!

      http://www.remember-to-breathe.org

  16. Teresa Benedett-Farmer
    Teresa Benedett-Farmer says:

    YIPPEE! As a great writer once said, “The has come! The is now! I said “Go!” I don’t care how!

  17. SusanThornett
    SusanThornett says:

    After reading your Trinity teaser I am hyperventilating with excitement for the rest.

  18. Wilda Dockery
    Wilda Dockery says:

    ” To reunite faith and cosmology in a single visionary whole…” Yes! As a 76 year old Christian, I am aware of a deep longing to “know” Christ as the Heart of the Trinity and the Heart of the Cosmos. Thank you for nurturing this vision and now offering it to the world. I believe the time is ripe.

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