AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
Upon occasion, in human affairs, it becomes necessary to remind functionaries that they are not proprietors. This observation has reference to that Euro-American mélange of colossal dummies who self-identify as the foreign policy establishment (FPE) as well as to their tools, practitioners, who call themselves the intelligence community (IC).
You are here to exercise authority over the body to thereby promote welfare of the world.
Sathya Sai Baba – Prema Vahini, Ch 4
Arguably, nothing Biblical has inspired less understanding than Genesis 1:26-28, the famous imago dei and dominion verses. A companion of these verses in the Old Testament is I Kings 18, where, upon his challenge, Elijah and the Priests of Baal summon divine power to their respective altars built on Mount Carmel. New Testament parallels to Genesis 1:26-28 include Matthew 17:1-8, Luke 9:28-36 and John 20.
All make the point that man is not just to get along with nature, starting with his own body, he is in fact to have authority over nature in order to promote the welfare of the world. Total authority in the sense of dominion, standing over or sitting before as an exercise of divine power. Succinctly here and at some length here are elaborations on the original Hebrew (radash, standing over) and Jerome’s Latin for it (praesit, sitting before). These are the words customarily translated to English dominion in Genesis 1:26-28.
Nature, starting with one’s body, makes demands. Those demands have legitimacy but not authority. Their purpose is to promote the welfare of the world, but they cannot and therefore should not rule the world and must not be allowed to chance a run at that condition. From his own divine nature (imago dei) and not from any external deity or God, man, alone in the world, IS authority to determine how the world’s welfare is promoted. The world does not run the show it is. The world serves man, period, end of story. Dominion means just that: to have the power of life and death over something or someone, and in this case the very powers of being. Furthermore, man is obliged (Matthew 25: 14-30, Luke 19:11-27) to deploy the authority inhering in his divine nature, the authority he IS, to promote the welfare of the world. Punishment awaits the man who does not promote the welfare of the world, the man who, in other words, betrays his own divine nature and destiny by letting his body rule him.
Man and God are not separate. They are inseparable. The One is indivisible. What man is called to do God is calling Himself to do. And do he must. Action is unavoidable. It should be of the light, happy, and easy kind — even when arduous, heartbreaking, and apparently pointless — that kind which proceeds effortlessly from man’s absolute authority over the powers of being, aka the body, aka nature, aka the world. Subdue, by his own divine authority, efforts by his own body to rule him and a man draws to himself the favor of fellow creatures and the gratitude of those in need of self-confidence.
Man does not create climate or any other change. He creates the world, which includes climate, and he has authority over the whole perishing-replenishing thing. Man throws the whole world into existence along with all its processes. Some ancient Americans are said to have asserted that man is made from everything. If that is true — and it is — it also is true that everything is made from man. It is all his. It is all him, in fact, straight up directly verifiable fact. This simple truth pronounced by Genesis 1:26-28 and parallel Biblical passages referenced here is arguably the most obscure of all truths because it is hidden in the most plain sight. Genesis 1:26-28 has to be lived because it cannot be understood. Credo ut intelligam, wrote the great North African.
Do we use the clothes worn during winter in summer too? Likewise, as long as the gales of worldly attachment blow and till we are unable to withstand such gales, this dull and dirty human vesture is essential. Once this gale does not affect one’s mind, body or words, then one can assume a subtle body. “This Supreme Divine is repeatedly offering me newer instruments to do service and getting loving acts of service done through me; He is conducting this beautiful play through me and engaging me in a variety of useful endeavours” – if one were to journey through life with this feeling, would it not be one filled with immense joy?
Sathya Sai Baba – Prema Vahini, Ch 4
Βασιλεία του Θεού
Update 1: Jonathan Chadwick: Ancient Israelites burned cannabis to ‘stimulate ecstasy’ as part of ‘cultic ceremonies’, remnants at 2,700-year-old Jewish shrine reveal