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It is not difficult to catch the PBS Frontline program of how Jesus became the Christ. They've had innumerable reruns of it at all times of the day and night. There is nothing much on network TV that interests me. I don't get cable out here in the country. I can't afford a satellite dish setup, and so, I am is stuck with over-the-air TV reception. If I watch television at all, it's usually on PBS, and not much of that.
It's interesting to me how the various academic pundits try to get at the truth of the roots of Christianity, and how they divide their efforts into two parts in order to conquer it. They appear to set forth Jesus as an ordinary religious seeker who left his parent's home for a decade or so, and came back ready to fight with them about what's wot in regard to God.
This is not that unusual a story. It's the story of Everyman's puberty, and how children attempt to gain their own individual identity in order to be able to stand as an equal (or better) before their parents and their ancestral gods. In my own opinion, not many people are able to handle the trials and tribulations that seems to be required for making such an almost impossible effort. People soon reach for the domestic life as their savior, and their own spirit has to take what leftovers their family life leaves over for it.
There are ways to pursue this goal after the thrill of pubescence recedes into the duties of adulthood and bringing home the bacon. Since their seeking is all over now in order to feed the brats who are obligated to hate them, this backsliding, in the past, could be addressed through submission to shamans. It only makes sense that previously sha-me-d persons who have mastered the hopelessness of shame, know how to teach a born loser to cope with the pain instituted by their own spirit.
It is very shameful to have to do what is required by one's own spirit to be-co-me with it. The shameful part has much to do with trying to keep your childhood caretakers happy enough to continue to feed you or at least not kill you or abandon you, because in more ways than one they are you and you are them, and each of you want the other to not be such a fucking hassle. No blame.
Becoming a shaman amounts to be-co-me-ing your own spirit. "Aye, and thar's the rub!" It's your own spirit that you have to appease, and not any other source of authority. Like Santa Claus, "It knows when you are sleeping. It knows when you're awake. It knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake."
This is a tough gig, man, since your own spirit is as invisible as any other spirit, it is tough to use as a model in order to imitate it. The first of The Ten Commandments becomes prime in this sojourn. "Thou shalt have no other God before me." In my opinion that "me" (quoted from the preceding quote) IS your own spirit.
If your own spirit is like Santa Claus and gnows when you've been naughty or nice, you can bet yo' ass it gnows when you've been worshiping other spirits as if they were God... to it's own detriment. Why on Earth would any reasonable person deliberately piss off their own spirit by knowingly chasing after somebody else's spirit in it's stead? Particularly dead people's spirits, how rude is that?
When there is nothing left to lose but your soul, and every gift your own spirit has provided you with to prepare a place for it has been bartered off, there is trouble in River City. Your sha-me-d soul is not what so-me spirit would wanna brag about to the other pearls in the neighborhood, so the desiccated you will probably be abandoned by your former own spirit because it has become ashamed of you. Why would it not? Dumb ass!
This description is a turning point for me. Defining my true goal as that of becoming one with my own individual spirit seems simpler, and more directly to the point of self-abnegation.
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