According to Jewish thinking, there is a difference, however. The tree will indeed flourish again, but there is very little change in its repeated cycle of nature. The human spiritual cycle, on the other hand, does not merely go round and round, but advances from one stage to another. IOW, we achieve a heightened spirituality in the course of our human development.
I was noting the fact that although it looks like the end for the tree and the couple on the last picture - it’s not. The tree will flourish again and the couple enters into eternal life.
Matthew 24:46: “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
I should have been more careful in how I expressed myself - but that is not knew.
The use of the word ‘cycle’ could be mistaken to mean that the human beings are in a cycle of existence as are trees. Of course, this is not the case neither for the humans nor for the tree. The tree is in a cycle within it’s nature but it’s existence is finally linear in time. We can imagine a ball rolling on a line, it’s spinning but it is also advancing on the line. Sooner or later the tree will die and that will be the end for it. Humans on the other hand do not necessarily exist within their nature cyclically (although there are cycles within our nature). So we advance from conception to our last breath and the stages of life do not start again. However, different from the tree, the humans do not stop existing at the end of this life but enter into eternal life. I thought this would be clearly understood and this is why I was a little abandoned in my writing.
In regards to stages of spiritual development, well, I personally do not see them as so clear cut. Personally, I do not understand them as a ladder or stairway sort of speak. I think that there are different aspects of the spirit that can develop and xyz may be advanced while abc may be at rock bottom, and generally speaking God blesses us in His on way and time and as He sees fit but, this is not necessarily earned or signalizes the commencement or achievement of a stage. It’s pretty complex and not so simply. In my personal spiritual journey there are times that I experience let’s say an advancement and then as if tested by God or challenged by Him I am faced to recognized how little I am and utterly dependent on the Love and Mercy of Our Lord. To say that, I do not neccesarily understand the spiritual stages as steps of spiritual advancement or progress.
Anywho, ‘speaking of everything all at once’ (A Dominican saying
Hablando de todo un poco - como los locos); what is the Jewish understanding of Solomon’s statement:
Ecclesiastes 1:9
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
This seems to resemble Hindu thought, but there are differences as well.
Does it resemble Catholic thought with less differences?
