Soul-Life, Kundalini, and Watchman Nee

[aron]

Originally Posted by Jo S

If we let go of our individuality before coming to true knowledge and faith in Jesus Christ, that unoccupied space that is created through practices of mysticism will definitely be filled with something but I'm most certain it won't be the Holy Spirit of God. (Matt 12:43) .

Since I was the one who started this ball rolling on another thread, with my 'soul-life' remark, I'll start the response chain here. What I meant by "he who loses his soul-life will gain it" was not an emphasis on 'soul-life' per se, but that our human orientation is toward the things of self. But God's orientation is that we lose the self (fallen, alienated from the life of God) by letting go of things in space and time and heading towards the eternal things. Jesus continually pointed us to the things which were above.

If someone strikes your cheek, offer the other.
If someone asks for your coat, give them your shirt.
If someone wants you to go with them for the mile, you should go two.

It is better to give than to receive.
When you invite people to your banquet, don't invite the well-heeled who can repay you but those who can't, and your reward will be great in heaven.

The focus was not on cheeks, coats, shirts, miles or even souls but rather on loss. Lose that in this age which holds you back and holds you down. So I offered 'soul-life' in that vein, not as something to be examined in and of itself but something to be let go of as detrimental to the cause (that of returning home to the Father). My immediate context was Matthew 16

23 But Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get out of my way, Satan! You are tempting me to sin. You aren't thinking the way God thinks but the way humans think."

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Those who want to come with me must say no to the things they want, pick up their crosses, and follow me. 25 Those who want to save their lives will lose them. But those who lose their lives for me will find them. 26 What good will it do for people to win the whole world and lose their lives? Or what will a person give in exchange for life? 27 The Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory. Then he will pay back each person based on what that person has done.

I know someone will say, "What profits a man that gains the whole world but loses his soul" as showing the soul is worth the world. But we don't know what the soul is. So we create our concepts, our imaginariums. Which Watchman Nee did, and you point out. It is a construct.

In the LC, people are taught to trust their "supernaturally-enhanced intuition", as I'd put it. I had a feeling, they say. I had a leading for such-and-such. This means that the Holy Spirit in their human spirit was telling them to take a left at Miller and Vine streets, and they didn't know the bridge was out. So they use this as proof that they are "in the flow". But they can't even say anything when the Church Leader sins, or when the Bible is suborned. So their conscience is burned as with a hot iron. It is calloused. So where is this intuition from? Not anything that I want.

All of which is to say that I think you are onto something.