--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Stanley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Stanley" > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > > > Awareness of and identification with our infinite nature > > > does not require that the infinite carry a deity label. > > > > Or that that infinite be considered sentient. > > Yeah, that too. Having grown up in an atheist/agnostic household, > that's my cultural conditioning, and I'm more comfortable relating > to that "is-ness" in atheistic terms.
Conceptually, I am too, but it doesn't bother me to use deity labels in discussion, because it's all metaphorical anyway; the words can't encompass, let alone limit, the reality. Nor can the concepts, for that matter. "Sentience" is just another concept with a word attached to it; different people, moreover, have different concepts to which they attach the "sentience" label. For some it implies *a being*, for others it's the nature of Being, the abstract quality of Intelligence rather than *a being* who is intelligent. But beyond that, if Brahman is One without a second, you can't say Brahman is or is not sentient (or is or is not anything else either), because then you'd have "a second," Brahman *plus* whatever Brahman is not. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
