Walking on Water

[Technosoul]

In this post I am not personally interested in debating if Jesus was able to walk on water or not, but rather I will explore the phychology and philosophy about the symbolism involved in the story telling and how that might become appplicable to our self.

Nonetheless, other ideas about the topic are welcome.

In my viewpoint water was used biblically to represent judgement. That is because the story of the great flood of Noah was said to be a judgement upon an non-believing generation.

Now the same water used during the flood was likewise used by John for his baptism of Jesus and other people. Now if we submerge our self inwardly into the indwelling spirit of truth the first truth we see is the truth about our self, aka the conscience. We become baptised inwardly in our own consious knowing about our many faults and shortcomings which motivates the emotions of repentence and a desire to live a life with better attitudes.

Such was called the dark hour of the soul, etc. A breaf time of depression that is also illuminated with a ray of hope.

Judgement will not always result in punishment but can be as a corrective influence known as mercy and/or forgiveness. But basically is designed to let us know we are not better then anyone else and so we can likewise understand others and not be judgemental of them as well. The humbling of our ego.

The walking on water is symbolic of the next step as we rise out of that depression and the repremands of self-reflection. Then the revelations of that indwelling truth becomes the foundation of our being, we walk on top of the waves of truth because they are now the pathway that supports us.

As first we fear being still and confronting the truth about our self, it is like a scary stromy sea, but if we have faith in the blessings of the knowing we find that such is user-friendly. We find great calmness and peace of mind and can say "be still" to the stormy seas of our thought-system. Be still anger, be still hatred, be calm, be patient, relax, be meditative.

And so the judgements become the Ark of Noah instead of us drowning in the waters of the baptisms of truth, and we can walk on the waters of our consciousness, uplifted by it like a floating log from a Budha tree.

Because the faith is founded upon those revelations, and those inner revelations become as a rock (as a peter) upon which to stand, such that the outer self is founded upon the inner self.

Such the stories are done in the terminolgoy of those symbolisms which paint for us a vision of peace and calmness.

Be still oh stormy sea and know that god is the revealed turims of the indwelling spirit of our being.

And so from my soapbox that is my teaching of philsophy concerning the biblical story about walking on water and how we can connect the dots in the total context relative to the flood, the baptism, and the rivers of thought.

More later.

Whatcha think?

Technosoul.

[macnpat]

You may have something there. The whole make up of salvation is "faith". That was the same requirement for walking on water and moving a mountain and other things.

And when you think of the ultimate goal, to live eternally, you simply trust Jesus and keep the faith. But, at the same time, Paul said faith is a gift from God. Didn't he?

[Technosoul]

For a large part Paul is the founder of the Christian church, rather then Jesus. I did not agree with all his ideas, especially his anit-philosophy rants.

However faith that gets results does seem to be something more of a discovery and a gift, rather then the product of learning it from a book by following some "how to" instruction.

It is like the last of the four attitudes discribed when Jesus was on the cross. "I command my spirit into your hands". As said for us and not for his self.

That attitude of "lettinng go" of self-effort results in the attitude called faith.

That same message was related in the Buddha story, he had searched the world over and studied all the religions of his time, but could not learn the truth he was seeking, so he sat down under this tree and gave up self-effort, and in that moment he got his first revelation and the answer he was seeking.

And so faith is about re-connecting to the inner knowings and depending on that inner source rather then just external knowledge.

Technosoul.

[orgaelin]

Finally, here is my version of what happened when Jesus “walked on water”.

When considering Jesus’ own religious faith, one has to remember that it is entirely based upon the religion that is outlined in the Old Testament, and thus events of the OT were as important to Jesus as NT events are to Christians.

This is why one of the most important rituals acted out by Jesus and his followers was a dramatisation of the Flood Story. The idea was that people would enter the water and then be hoisted aboard the boat, as though they were being brought aboard the original Noah’s Ark. In doing this, they would receive their salvation, being baptised aboard the boat.

This is where the Christian symbolism of the fish originates. The men were brought aboard as though they were fish in a net, and the priest was thus referred to as the ‘fisherman’.

Now the priest had some pretty heavy flowing robes, and it would not have been good for him to have to wade through the water to the boat. Thus there was a jetty reaching from the shore to the boat that was exclusively for the priest to walk upon. Thus when it was said the Jesus walked on the water (on the jetty) it was miraculous only because Jesus was not a priest, but was claiming the right to priesthood by his actions.

Now the event with Peter having a lack of faith and thus sinking is clearly symbolic as well. He did not literally sink, but merely had doubts about whether or not Jesus could actually get away with acting as a priest in this manner.

Remember to also read my "Empire of the Jews" thread if you liked this one!

~ Org.

[macnpat]

Originally posted by Technosoul, For a large part Paul is the founder of the Christian church, rather then Jesus. I did not agree with all his ideas, especially his anit-philosophy rants.

I do not believe that "everything" Paul said was inspired. Especially when he set up the Church. Jesus is the one who said that we would worship God in spirit and in truth and not at some location. Paul, being a conforming Jew had his own ideas for outward behavior. I do not espouse them.

The rest of your post was nice reading, Tech.

Thanks.

[Technosoul]

Well that is new to me as I was never told about such the ritual using a dock or jetty to re-enact the Ark. However, it sounds just like something people would think of to do.

And so in the eyes of those who doubt him he was in violation of Jewish eitguette for making his opinion (of his self) sound like an authority without direct links to the mainstream Temple to confirm that authority.

When we place faith in what might be revealed to us from within we are basically setting sail upon the seas of our imagination and if we know not what is out in that sea we do not know where to set our compass for, so we become as wanderers of the wind and current. But having faith that we will catch those fish or that we will discover a new land of logic in which dock at and set up camp.

As we drift upon the stormy seas of our imagination it floods the world of logic but then when we do discover our land of logic at least it will be the highest peak of logic in the world, a mountain top would be symbolic of the that.

In Rome they would build a gaint building by imitating the flood concept. They would build the foundation, then add sand so they could construct the next level and add more sand as a foundation to build another the next highest level, etc. At each level they would burry some gold coins, then when they complete the top of the structure it was covered in sand, and the workers could be hired cheap to remove the sand as they all wanted to find the gold coins that were burryed near the foundation. The gold coins being the "fisherman's catch of the day".

In any case, one could climb to the top of the mountain like Moses or if you had a boat then a flood of water could just lift you up to the top of the mountian with ease.

Here we see how the tide would be important in the Ark Ritual you mentioned, Because if the tide was high the boat might be a little bit above the dock and the dock would be covered in water but just by a few inches or less then a half foot of water. Not being able see the dock under water you would be testing your faith to reach the boat because you could acciently walk off the peer or step off the end of the jetty if the boat was not close enough at that moment.
A stormy sea with waves pounding over rhe jetty would make it more of a faith trip to the boat, and if you did it at night that would make it even more difficult. And so "walking by faith" on a jetty covered in water to reach the boat, at night time in choppy water, would be something few would want to adventure doing.

Technosoul.

[orgaelin]

I read a book that you just reminded me of. It's one of those fictions presented as 99% true, but still not true enough for it to be a historical account, like The Da Vinci Code. This one was called "The Gold of Exodus", and is an account of two men who sneaked into Iraq a few years back and found the original, real Mt Sinai. There are even photos in the book of rock carvings that suggest someone had been worshipping bulls there (as in the bible at Mt Sinai) They also claimed to have seen a massive Iraqi operation under way to remove a load of gold found there.

Another interesting thing was that they said they crossed a giant lake, but there was a platform like you described, just a foot or so under the water, and it went right across the lake. The implication is thus that the 'sea' didn't 'part', but they walked across the lake on a platform of some sort.

It all seemed a bit far-fetched, even though it was credible in some areas. They settled upon a mountain in Iraq called Jabal el Lauz, but I disagree on whether this was Mt Sinai, and thus find myself unable to believe almost anything in the book.

But it's a good read!

[Technosoul]

I was reviewing another idea about the parting of the red sea (which no doubt was a wide river) on one of those skeptic webpages. The person reported that this river mentioned in Moses is located on land where it the waters can part during an earthquake and then the water comes back to it's normal flow. If Moses had arrived just when that rare event took place they could have time to get across before the tide returned the waters. Sort of like when we have an earthquake in the ocean the water can suddently rush out to sea exposing more ocean floor and then come crashing back in with gaint waves. According to the skeptic that sea, or river, was located in a spot where that can happen more often because it is right on the fault line and perhaps a slight hill under the river is a factor.

Also as evidence of that theory we have reports from the pioneering days of America that they had a big but rare earthquake in Ill. (north eastern USA) that caused the mississippi river to flow backwards for a short time because the earth can lift up and then go back down during such an event. So if part of a river flowed backwards in a earthquake and the other half did not then you would have an opening to walk across it on the waterless bed.

My only doubt about such a theory is would they have enough time to make it to the otherside before the water returned to normal "flat" ground? In the Moses story they did but the army close behind them did not. However I would wish to remain just open-minded about that possible reason as stated in that theory.

[orgaelin]

Just a thought: even if the original account of the parting of the 'sea' were correct, how would they have gotten across the very wet sea bed? If they even tried they would likely sink right into it.

[Technosoul]

If it had a muddy bottom, but I guess some rivers have sand and small pebbles which might provide more stable footing? Just a guess.