I found myself this morning facing yet another paradox or conundrum in my life. For me, in some ways it would be as serious as if someone said that the historical Jesus was a pedophile. Of course no one has said this of him, rather I'm citing what it would be like if this happened and you were raised Christian.
On the other hand, since History is written by only the winners of battles, it could be said that one is never completely sure that a figure such as Jesus or even Buddha even existed at all (let alone have done any of the things that they said or did). And then there is the old Buddhist saying, "If you meet the Buddha on the street, kill him." Which is a very zen way of putting this ongoing conundrum we all face with ourselves if we are honest enough with ourselves. Of which my own personal translation would be: 'Both Buddha and Jesus are an ideal for us to try to achieve as well. Whether either of them existed or not or whether either or both are fairy tales or not is not really our problem here on earth in the past, present or future.' Our problem rather is to survive our lives while being kind to ourselves and others, so that we can actually live with what we do with our lives and have peace when we give the world to our children and grandchildren when and if we pass away.
I have been studying about King Henry the VIII of England. When I was in Glastonbury, England and there to visit Glastonbury Tor (the original Ilse of Avalon of King Arthur fame) I had found quite by accident Glastonbury Abbey, which is kind of hidden in the middle of town and I found it to be a historical treasure. There an older actress who talks like a cook and herbalist of the 1500s speaks to the tourists about how life was like in one of the restored ancient buildings there. She told my wife and I the story of how King Arthur's grave was desecrated by King Henry VIII and how he had the old Abbot and two of his head monks drawn and quartered in order to accuse them of something in order to steal the wealth of the oldest and richest Catholic Abbey in England. It was popular among the people of England because they knew of King Arthur's grave there and many people for around 1000 years had come to pay their respects to the legendary King Arthur. However, this all ended with the sacking of Glastonbury Abbey, and the execution of the Abbot and two of his head monks. Many of the people there starved after this because their livelihoods ended with the sacking of the Abbey. After I heard this story it made me want to know more about King Henry VIII. After seeing the resting place of his daughter Queen Elizabeth I in Westminster Abbey in London and experiencing many of my past lives during that experience for the first time in this lifetime I was pretty overwhelmed from it all. I had had my first taste of remembering more in full European lives that I had lived when I visited Versailles, just outside of Paris in France. I began to feel what I felt then which was sort of being trapped with enough money and food but without much freedom like we have now here in the U.S. I experienced an even more extreme feeling of what my lifetimes were like in England where duty and honor have always meant everything to the noble people of that Aristocracy since the times of King Arthur of legend. And I once again experienced the onerousness of what my lifetimes there in England were like then. I understood better why I hadn't remembered before because those lives were sort of like being a part of a machine, where you knew your place but you only did one thing until you died. You never married who you wanted to. You never completely did what you wanted to unless you went to some place like South America, North America, the Caribbean or Pacific Ocean or someplace like India or something like that. But if you stayed in England or France back then it was ONLY "Duty Honor country" that was all there was. Though it built good cultures that would stand the test of time, being a part of it all before about 1700 was like being a part of a machine like a wheel in a clock or something like that and not at all something romantic like we might experience watching "The Three Musketeers" or the life of "Elizabeth I". Only the most healthy and most adventurous lived lives worth living. The rest mostly just suffered and died early deaths from various diseases and ailments.
Today I was watching "Anne of a Thousand Days" starring Richard Burton as King Henry VIII and Geneviève Bujold As Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII's 2nd wife and mother of Queen Elizabeth I. I was interested to find out that she was offered to leave the country with Elizabeth and to travel in France but Anne Boleyn chose to die and be beheaded rather than to have Elizabeth disinherited of being the next Queen of England. I found this pretty interesting. Then Elizabeth I as a child went to live with Anne Boleyn's sister who also had had an illegitimate son by King Henry VIII. Life obviously was very different then in England.
However, as I watched the movie on netflix starting last night and then woke up this morning and finished it on my computer, I also found myself stopping the movie various places to do research about the historical characters in the movie like King Henry VIII's first wife "Catherine of Aragon" and Elizabeth I's possible illegitimate son, Francis Bacon, who was raised by Sir Nicolas Bacon.
However, because my parents brought me up to believe that Francis Bacon eventually became the Comte de Saint Germain and Francis II Rakoczi (Prince of Transylvania) who has eventually become known just as Saint Germain in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries I found I had to deal with an issue like a child just told that there is no Santa Claus, which I suppose is inevitable for all of us as we travel through life.
Here is a quote under the heading "relationships" under the heading "Francis Bacon" from wikipedia:
At the age of forty-five, Bacon married Alice Barnham, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a well-connected London alderman and MP. Bacon wrote two sonnets proclaiming his love for Alice. The first was written during his courtship and the second on his wedding day, 10 May 1606. When Bacon was appointed Lord Chancellor, "by special Warrant of the King", Lady Bacon was given precedence over all other Court ladies.
Though the well-connected antiquary John Aubrey noted among his private memoranda concerning Bacon, "He was a Pederast. His Ganimeds and Favourites tooke Bribes",[17] biographers continue to debate about Bacon's sexual inclinations and the precise nature of his personal relationships.[18] Several authors[19][20] believe that despite his marriage Bacon was primarily attracted to the same sex. Professor Forker[21] for example has explored the "historically documentable sexual preferences" of both King James and Bacon – and concluded they were all oriented to "masculine love", a contemporary term that "seems to have been used exclusively to refer to the sexual preference of men for members of their own gender."[22] The Jacobean antiquarian, Sir Simonds D'Ewes implied there had been a question of bringing him to trial for buggery.[23] This conclusion has been disputed by others,[24][25] who consider the sources to be more open to interpretation. end quote from Wikipedia
So, for me this is the first time I was exposed to Francis Bacon as a Pederast. Having been molested by my cousin who was molested by a pederast in my church when I was 8 this was not a happy occasion for me to discover this. Of course, any enemy of Francis Bacon at that historical time might want to spread such rumors so that he would be executed or put in jail, so this also is something to think about when trying to figure out such things as to whether they were true or not.
So, interestingly enough, we all encounter these paradoxes in life and the real question is: "Can we contain these paradoxes without them eating us up and destroying us?" My own method is to realize that truth as I encounter it is an always evolving thing. I realize that God or Life has his or its own reasons for showing me what I am shown and when I am shown it. It is my job therefore, to try to make some sense out of what I am shown rather than to "Kill the messenger". So, what keeps me going always is: "I wonder what life is going to do or to show me next?" Life and God never cease to amaze me and keep me constantly entertained thereby. "And you can survive to 105 if you're young at heart" -Sinatra
No comments:
Post a Comment