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Your writing is excellent, Tereza. I felt your words in my heart. 💗

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Of seeing and inner knowing, you wrote:

"If we get the question right, the answer is ‘self-evident’—the evidence or proof of the answer’s truth is already within us. It has an inner congruence with what we know, beyond our rational mind."

----- This is actually a very powerful statement on Truth being found on the inside and Knowledge being beyond mind. Religions could not exist if most people became this self realized.

Three Delphic Maxims: (I mention them here because you brought up Oracles of Delphi)

The Delphic Epsilon was placed at the top of the pediment of the Temple of Apollo, right at its center. At the lower-left corner, there was the inscription:

“Γνώθι Σαυτόν," English Transliteration: Gnothi sauton (or se auton). Meaning: “know thyself” in Greek, while at the lower-right corner, there was the inscription:

“Μηδέν Άγαν”, English transliteration: meden agan. Meaning: “nothing in excess”.

Ἐγγύα πάρα δ' Ἄτα English transliteration: eggua/egguê para d'atê Meaning: “Give a pledge and trouble is at hand.” This last one says it ALL.

If you Know Thyself, then you know Truth; then you should NEVER give a pledge, never offer Allegiance to a Lie. If you know thyself, you must Honor Thyself.

The irony of these profound inscriptions being right there for thousands of years, while later Religions rose and fell; the ancients who left them had been seeking self realization, or at least upholding it as a virtue.

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20 yrs ago, I think I used the Oracles of Delphi as a glib stand-in for an authoritative answer, I should have known you'd be updating my reference ;-) As you and Geoff suspect, it's not that we've regressed in our learning, our capacity to learn has been repressed intentionally.

These maxims are beautifully put. I remember reading that the Iroquois Federation had no oaths or obligations. To get agreement on any action required going from tribe to tribe and pleading your case before the whole gathering. Warriors had no obligation to serve or be obedient. And yet, once committed, they were the most fearless and indefatigable.

"Mutual defense treaties" are an invitation for false flags. There's no reason for them. Nations or individuals can choose to defend others, like the Lincoln Battalion against the coup in Spain (which shouldn't ever be called a civil war).

I like 'nothing in excess' and hope that includes virtue ;-)

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"Mutual defense treaties are an invitation for false flags." --- Yes, and that's what I have been noticing along most of the progression of history. Especially true with instagation of wars.

That's quite interesting what you say about the Iroquois; they must have had more of a Voluntary Cooperative System instead of a Compulsory Collective one.

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Exactly right. I've spent the weekend clearing out my extremely cluttered library room, which my oldest wants to make into a room of her own when all the daughters are here. So I've been emptying my bookshelves to move them to other rooms and I have several on American tribes that I'm eager to dig into. I think I read that particular account in Ben Franklin's autobiography. He based the original draft for the Articles of Confederation on the Iroquois, I believe.

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Now, that's something important to study. Maybe those accounts could be the basis for some posts.

Ben Franklin had a lot of good insight.

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What a joy to instigate this conversation between your two well-read and expansive minds! More to say later.

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Dec 10, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio

Excellent obbservations there. My first intro to "Gnothi Sauton" was Lucian's "Dialogues of the Dead" which, for me, not only states the right questions, but provides the correct insights, along with Aristophanes, Juvenal and a host of others.

There is nothing new under the sun!

"Me. Well, you scum of your respective nations, let there be no misunderstanding; I am going on just the same. Wherever

p. 110

you are, there shall I be also; worrying, jeering, singing you down.

Cr. Presumption!

Me. Not a bit of it. Yours was the presumption, when you expected men to fall down before you, when you trampled on men's liberty, and forgot there was such a thing as death. Now comes the weeping and gnashing of teeth: for all is lost!

Cr. Lost! Ah God! My treasure-heaps------

Mid. My gold------

Sar. My little comforts------

Me. That's right: stick to it! You do the whining, and I'll chime in with a string of GNOTHI-SAUTONS, best of accompaniments.

-Lucian of Samosata, DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD II, ~150 AD

https://sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl1/wl147.htm

I 💗 Menippus!

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There's one maxim that I didn't expand on above due to how long it can be:

[ “Μηδέν Άγαν”, English transliteration: meden agan. Meaning: “nothing in excess”. ]

When this is taken in the same framework of the others: -- Know thyself and Make no pledges, there is a meaningful connection to what I would describe as awareness of Being within the Movement of Life. The purpose of Works; or the purpose of Action, this is referenced in The Bhagavad Gita. Some of the most powerful teachings can be found in the Gita. It puts ourselves right in front of who and what we really are.

The Gita says: "Do your allotted work but renounce its fruit—be detached and work—have no desire for reward and work." This is the unmistakable teaching of the Gita. He who gives up action falls. He who gives up only the reward rises. In life, we must view ourselves as being in the exact right place at the exact right time; in the "dharma of the moment," the true warrior takes his action without any passion attached to it.

Tereza really nails the central points about the experiential differences between Religion and Spirituality, "A House for the Soul in the Land Beyond Faith" -- the name says it all.

Religion was always a tool to "Centralize" what know from our inner Spiritual Experience, and was used to extract "Obedience" from people everywhere it sprang up.

Know Thyself First. ----- Because you are Sovereign.

Make NO Pledges. ----- You owe NO allegiances.

Seek Nothing in Excess. ------ You are Not bound by your actions, do them without attachment to the fruits. Nobody rules over anybody. There is nobody above you, there is nobody below you. All is One.

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Dec 10, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio

Your comments and substack are astounding in every way and this is yet another gem.

"The Gita says: "Do your allotted work but renounce its fruit—be detached and work—have no desire for reward and work." This is the unmistakable teaching of the Gita. He who gives up action falls. He who gives up only the reward rises. "

I know nothing of the Gita, but that concept fits with what I have found and have led to my conclusion that the purpose of our existence is not to achieve happiness, but to struggle or, in other wrds, to be a link in the chain of life. However I could be wrong about all that, except for the fact that I've found that there is joy in creation.

I wish I could communicate how much I appreciate the likes of you, TC, and many others.

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You have my heart felt appreciation too.

What's most important is that right now, we and all those who are paying attention to the doings in this world, are having a dialog; exchanging ideas as to how to relate concepts that provide inner insights. These insights are a great start in finding real solutions.

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Fully agree. And this is great space for just that.

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"The truth resonates the same way in our deepest Self. It’s not discovered, but remembered."

Exactly. We've been essentially hostages, and yet as you eloquently point out, we each have all the answers we seek contained within us.

I could pick so many lines from this to re-quote. My heart swelled listening to you.

The referencing back to each Self, because we are, Self-referencing when we are connected makes me happy. A message that is so needed, especially now.

Thank you, Tereza. Loved this.

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Thank you, Kathleen. It was interesting to be reading this aloud without having read it for over a decade. I felt like it was a message to my future self that I'd unearthed in a time capsule. And so I got that sense of being, not the speaker, but the recipient. I did feel like this was something that came through me and not from me. Which is why I didn't edit, even though I don't use loaded words like privilege anymore. Thanks again for your kind words and for giving me someone to post to, who I know will appreciate this level of awareness.

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I'm so glad you didn't edit it!

I can imagine revisiting would be odd. When I've done that with older stuff I often think - who the hell wrote that? I barely recognize it. (Except when it comes to certain threads that run through decades - I suspect those speak to our essentialness - we can't seem to escape them! )

Twenty years ago maybe - but the message is certainly timeless.

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I am going to take a hot bath now and float into my life in calm grace. ❤️

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Excellent plan!

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Am I the only one here who wants the book? or at least some of the questions?? You totally hooked me with the intro, Tereza, and I loved that you are following up on Kathleen's outstanding essay. I'm too scattered to make any useful commentary, but happy to marinate in the brilliant, heady soup of my SS friends... xox

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Mary, you make my heart sing ;-)

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Ditto ❤️

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Hi Tereza, After listening to you today I feel like I have known you for a long time even though that is not the case. You are just that person that is a true friend to me and the world. I also take the meaning of "nothing in excess" to be the opposite of selfishness. The opposite of selfishness is sharing and that is what you do with all of us in this world. Thank you for sharing.

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I am so very honored to be considered a true friend to you, Helene. I was a little bit surprised, on rereading this, how long I've been something consistently resembling myself. My daughters were young when I wrote it and I don't think I knew about A Course in Miracles. I certainly didn't suspect that Jesus was a Roman Empire con job. But there's certainly a direct thread that can be traced from there to now in my willingness to question everything, except my dogma that I'm no better than anybody else.

I'm grateful that you stumbled into my world, however that first happened.

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Dec 10, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio

Speaking of religion, centralized control, and oaths, this supports views expressed above…

“Religion too, and the oath soldiers took when they were enlisted, greatly contributed to making them do their duty in ancient times; for upon any default, they were threatened not only with human punishments, but the vengeance of the gods.*5 They also had several other religious ceremonies that had a very good effect on all their enterprises, and would have still in any place where religion is held in due reverence. Sertorious knew this well; he used to have consultations with a hind that he said was sent by the gods to assure him of victory.4® Sulla pretended to converse with an image he had taken out of the temple of Apollo,*”

-Niccolo Macchiavelli, The Art of War (Farneworth translation of 1775), p128, originally published 1521

https://archive.org/details/artofwar0000nicc/page/128/mode/2up?q=religion

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