1 result for (book:notp AND session:774 AND stemmed:god)
[... 8 paragraphs ...]
Dominance and submission have often been used in religious literature in periods when love and devotion were separated from sexuality. They became unified only through religious visions or experiences, for only God’s love was seen as “good enough” to justify a sexuality otherwise felt to be animalistic. Instead, the words “domination” and “submission” have to do with areas of consciousness and its development. Because of interpretations mentioned earlier in this book, you adopted a prominent line of consciousness that to a certain extent was bent upon dominating nature. You considered this male in essence. The female principle then became connected with the earth and all those elements of its life over which you as a species hoped to gain power.
(9:47.) God, therefore, became male. The love and devotion that might otherwise be connected with the facets of nature and the female principle had to be “snatched away from” any natural attraction to sexuality. In such a way, religion, echoing your state of consciousness, was able to harness the powers of love and use them for purposes of domination. They became state-oriented. A man’s love and devotion was a political gain. Fervor was as important as a government’s treasury, for a state could count upon the devotion of its lieutenants in the same way that many fanatics will work without money for a cause.
[... 4 paragraphs ...]
The span of a god’s love can perhaps equally hold within its vision the existences of all individuals at one time in an infinite loving glance that beholds each person, seeing each with all his or her peculiar characteristics and tendencies. Such a god’s glance would delight in each person’s difference from each other person. This would not be a blanket love, a soupy porridge of a glance in which individuality melted, but a love based on a full understanding of each individual. The emotion of love brings you closest to an understanding of the nature of All That Is. Love incites dedication, commitment. It specifies. You cannot, therefore, honestly insist that you love humanity and all people equally if you do not love one other person. If you do not love yourself, it is quite difficult to love another.
[... 8 paragraphs ...]