Software release out the door, deadline over, and now I have more time to play, so I will...
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Duveyoung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > <snip to> > You seem to be, well, very hair-triggered about certain > concepts. Is that true? You may say no, but then why > that tone? "That tone," if there was one, was the result of three dozen programmers leaving all of their doc input for the software release until the last day. Again. And having to write it all up in 36 sleep- less hours, while they all went on vacation. Again. It's just one of the realities of the software biz, but when you're in the throes of it, it often doesn't leave you a lot of room for long, extended conversations. > Meanwhile, about that "God" thingy. Here's a way that maybe > you can relax about my vocabulary and allow me to use that > word: Deadline over, you're probably onto something about the relaxing thing. Most of the time, whenever anyone starts throwing the God word around, I just tune out and hit the Next key, because they're often using it like some kind of all-powerful mantra, as a mallet with which to squash "lesser" beliefs. You probably know what I mean...people who use the word "God" like a trump card, as if by invoking it they automatically "win" every argument...as if, *by* using it, they had called the Heavenly Host to fight by their side. With the pressure of not worrying about delaying the release of a product that sells for a half-million bucks a pop behind me, I can see that you weren't using it that way, and were just having fun with the concept. > ...think about your nightly dreams. When you dream at night, > how effortlessly do the images, words, furniture, spaces, > people etc. get "built" instantaneously moment by moment. > Your sleeping brain has the talent of Spielberg in these > nightly productions... More like Robert Rodriguez in my case...bloodier, but with far more of a sense of humor than Spielberg. :-) > ...but while in the dream your character feels not the > slightest authorship of the "whole shebang." Actually, that's not entirely true, given lucid dream- ing and being able to "direct" one's dreams consciously, but that's a diversion I'm not gonna get into. > Yet, verily are you not a god for this dream world? And > that's what I'm talking about. I'm a character in God's > dream, and though my core self is doing the actual work > of creation, I'm caught up with a mere speck of it and > calling it "me." Can't you allow me to use the word > "God" for that level of "me-ness" that I am not consciously > "in touch" with? No problemo. Use whatever word you want. > If there is a Krishna, with a brain of biblical proportions, > ahem, a living self-referential holodeck, can't I refer to > Him like I would to that "self" that creates my nightly > dreams? Can't I see that Krishna and my sleeping brain both > have "me" in common, and each one is as "responsible for the > creation that contains me" as the other is? You can see it however you want. Me, I just don't think in terms of Krishna, or gods, or goddesses, or devatas, or whatever. They just don't "map" to my life in any way. So it's difficult for me to identify with them when used as metaphors by someone to whom they *do* mean something. > When I dream, my dream character can be tortured, yet I do > not awaken -- a sort of tell -- but, should I wake up, I > don't hold it "against me" that I was being tortured. > Something in me accepts the bad dream karma -- isn't this > like what we call the compassion of the enlightened? Don't > we expect the enlightened to have the ability to surrender > to "what is" no matter what? Don't we expect that the > enlightened know that this is a dream, and also that the > dreamer cannot be found without destroying the dreamstate? > > If and when I do meet Krishna, I expect Him to be surprised > that He'd thought me up... That's a good line. > ...just like I might be surprised to remember that in the > dream I just woke up from that I had for some reason created > a flaming couch that my dream character was sitting on > nonchalantly but, for reasons never to be known, it was > unnoticed by any character in the dream until "now" after > awakening. Just so when I awaken from my living dream, might > I not be surprised to find my self to be the creator of ALL > THIS and that there is no doubt that it was me, me, only me > what done the dream but still wonder why the flaming couch? > > Can't God be Someone like that -- have the dream emerge > effortlessly with not the slightest sense of doership, no > sense of having created me because He's part of the dream > too, another character that the Absolute created? This last part I can identify with, in a way. I've often wondered, since thoughts obviously do manifest themselves from time to time, whether a whole world of people who believe in God might have actually *created* one somewhere. If so, the sucker is very, very confused, because everyone in human history who has ever imagined him has imagined him differently. So God is like the ultimate schizophrenic. :-) > Turq, go with me here, let me use that word again in a > serious question. When God awakens from the dream of > creation, do you think that "only the Absolute is there" > -- that there'd be no manifest brain to conceptualize > that a dream had occurred? Is that more like your > concept, more a Buddhist kinda voidy thingy? The only issue that I'd have with your question is the assumption that it's based on. That is, that if there were a God, he/she/it would be sentient, and with the consciousness to have its own thoughts and conceptualize things, period. If I were to postulate a God, it would be one that had no sentience of its own, and no ability to perceive the universe around it. The universe IS it. The perceptual abilities of that universe are the cumulative perceptual apparatuses of the gazillions of beings that dwell in it. So I guess my response to your question, if I under- stand it, is that it's basically irrelevant to any- thing I believe or feel about the universe and how it works. It depends on concepts like the universe "awakening from its dream," something I personally believe never occurs -- in my view (which could be complete hokum, of course) Absolute and Relative coexist, have always coexisted, and will always coexist. There has never been a moment when creation "started," and there will never be one in which it "ends." Its nature is eternity. On *one* level of creation (that is, as viewed from one state of attention), yes, I guess I do believe that "only the Absolute is there," and that all the things we perceive as the manifest universe are illusions. On *another* level of creation, all of the things we perceive around us very *definitely* exist. And there is no contradiction between these two positions in my mind. I really don't conceive of there being such as thing as Reality, one way of seeing things that supercedes all others and is more "real" than others. There are millions of different realities, all coexisting peacefully, many of them completely contradictory, *and yet* coexisting peacefully. I'm just rappin' here over my coffee, trippin' on words as I suspect you were doing. I have no answers, only questions. I don't even *seek* answers. I just have fun playing with the questions. At present, the existence of a sentient God is not one of the questions that has any meaning for me, or appeals to me in any way. I can see how it might appeal to others, and they are free to play with that question any way they want. > Like zero is needed for non-existence in math, can't I > have a pet name for the Void? You can call it Bozo The Clown for all I care. In fact, I think I'd be more comfortable with "Bozo The Clown" than "God," because as he has been presented to us by those who claim to know him, he doesn't have much of a sense of humor, and I perceive the universe to be basically ALL sense of humor. It's just an enormous joke, one that is lost on most of the audience. As that great clown Charlie Chaplin once said, "Life is a tragedy in close-up, but a comedy in long shot." May we all live long enough to "zoom out" and take in the Big Picture before we blink out...
