Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
On Oct 25, 2007, at 12:06 AM, new.morning wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, matrixmonitor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --Vaj, your'e not being consistent. I just received my Snow Lion magazine today with a cover article on the Green Tara. Devotion to Her is not only a wisdom proposition, but has an objective of ofsetting physical calamaties of all types, from arthritis to zits; snake bites, poverty, disease,...you name it. You seem to be calling the Tibetan Lamas who promote such remedial measures fools. Is that correct? If I may venture in, I certainly would not call the Tibetan Lamas fools. They, or their predecessors, have simply enlivened and infused with love the Tara image /symbol. My point in the prior post is that you (anyone) too can do so to any object or symbol if you do so with adoration, love, caring and attention. Regardless if there is actually a goddess on the other side of the symbol. Dr. John Lilly, who invented the isolation tank / float tank found through his experiments in sensory deprivation induced visions that all one really has to do to have an incredibly detailed mystical vision of ANY idea, is to convince oneself of it and then enter into a state that invokes vision. So, you could convince yourself of the fact that human society was infected by an alien race that sought to enslave us -- or any scenario you can imagine -- and as vision emerged you would see that mythos played out in incredible detail. Love is not a requirement to have these experiences, but given a range of different likely experiences that most humans would choose, there are some that might act as an improvement on the human condition. It could be that love is a theme common to the more evolutionary individual and collective myths which can also positively effect other beings as well. Loving contact with imagined supernatural wisdom beings: gods, dakinis, shaktis, etc. could certainly be of the latter (beneficial) type if one so decides. Various props (mantras, yantras, rituals) just help imprint the idea on finer levels of thought which when encountered in vision will render a more powerful imprint / experience. But really we could just look at these as neuro-psychological placebo scripts designed to invoke a certain response, in this case (presumably) evolutionary. In the case of Tara we have an originally historical being, a female who presumably attained buddhahood, but decided to act as a bodhisattva for sentient beings in this solar system. As part of this she left behind specific props to help anyone who desires to get into that same evolutionary place via her mantra, her image, her dimension or mandala and her practices others have used to imprint her potentialities onto a being. But none of this has to be looked at as having any substantial reality. In fact, it does not. It could be looked at as a carefully and purposely chosen set of placebos, known to give a certain response. The nice thing of course about choosing a human form for your placebo is that in the style of samadhi where vision arises, you meet a being which possesses senses like those all humans have, so it gives your nervous system and your spirit a UI (User Interface). And it's the most natural UI for humans, no instruction manual necessary. Very user friendly. ;-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I wonder if you are using the term in a different way from a Christian evangelist who might use the same words. I guess I might need to understand what you mean by loving God, how that manifests, and how you experience that. I think you may have a more personalized view of God than I thought previously in the discussion where he seemed too abstract to love. I don't resonate at all with evangelic Christians (especially not the more fundamentalist type you seem to have more of in the US than we here). Basically, philosophically I leave a lot of things open, Advaita Vedanta allows me to do so. The general framework of Advaita is, that there is Brahman, an all pervading Being, which IS everything. The world as we see it is a projection of Maya. Within that world, which is unreal and illusiory, there is a personification of Brahman in a personal form called Ishwara, or simply God. According to Vedanta 'God' or rather Brahman, can adopt different forms, or individualities, each ranking supreme giving the respective perspective. Shankara himself was a Smartist, who would acknowledge 5 or 6 different Gods as representative of the Supreme, these are Vishnu (and any of his Avatars like Krishna or Rama), Shiva, Devi (or any of her emanations like Durga, Lakshmi, Kali), Ganesha and (obviously more worshipped in olden times Surya, the Sun. I do have a personal relationship to several of these deities, not all of them in the same way and the same degree. And I have a very flexible way I see them in the whole system. I basically subscribe to the image, I think Ramakrishna describes, that the unmanifest Brahman can give rise to manifest representations of himself for the sake of the devotee, to support his worship or devotion, just like water in the ocean could be frozen to different shapes. So if I feel love for God, it could be all of it, to a personal shape, and that doesn't have to be a figure, and image, it can also be simply a vibration hat I identify to be so, or in a more general unspecified sense. It can be many things. I am not doing any pujas at home, or any chantings, but I do have some pictures, my favorate ones on my altar, and they do evoke feelings when I look at them. But mostly I experience love, a sense of Divine love in my meditations, or at periods outside of meditation when I am 'connected' Usually this 'connectedness' is a force, a shakti I experience which enters my body at specific centers, mostly through the Saharada or the forehead centers or both, and then travels to the heard, or actually permeates me throughout. I don't think this is specific for every bhakta, but thats the way it is for me. So God for me is a very real physical energy, which comes and which I cannot even escape. In my earlier days, I had different phases, like I had a phase were I would listen to a special kirtan every day (I was still in TM and i would do it before meditation) and I would be moved and tears would roll in my eyes. I listened to one Kirtan of Ananadamayi Ma everyday for 4 years. I also had a phase where I would do a self made puja in front of images, and I felt an intense radiation of love coming from them. Likewise I do feel love through my preceptor, being in contact with her, or simply being in her presence. I guess that if there is a God who has thousands of names in Hinduism, calling him life and saying that I love life may be similar. It maybe or it maybe not, I have no idea. Most Hindus would have a chosen deity which they worship foremost among others, this is likely to be Krishna, or Shiva, or other special forms which are connected to them. They usually do feel a personal connection to them, if they are worshipers and religiously inclined. As I wrote already to nwe morning, I strongly resonate with MMY's 'Personal love is concentrated universal love' So I do have a strong sense of personal love. If you mean an ecstatic connection to being alive then I am with you 100% and it becomes a you say tomato, I say tomto kind of thing. I don't exactly know what an 'ecstatic connection' to being alive means, I guess it could mean different things to different people. It may be a formula that suits you, while my formula is more 'directly' religious. If you are having and experience of a personal God mystically or are focusing your energy on an image of God, then I probably got off at the last bus stop. I do have those experiences as I explained, but recently as i explained its more a relationship to an energy pervading me. The energy is less of an image, but it does have a personal connotation to it at times. snip I'm not sure we could know if your words correspond to my reality or vise versa. Words like transcendent whole invoke more of a feeling for me than a clear definition. I don't know if my love of life includes what you are referring to here. Life is pretty deep. I don't know
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
An independent view: why is God necessarily a prerequisite, or an intermediary, to Universal Love -- defined as loving everything intensely. (Including Loving the homeless man you pass -- and doing something with that Love). Can't a pure atheist experience the same intensity of Universal Love as a Devotee? Whats God got to do with it? --paraphrasing Tina Turner. Universal Love is one the esteemed human virtues. If you get there through, or after, finding God, loving God, finding enlightenment in your own view, or by what ever means, That, Universal Love, is the Thing. Not all of the intermediate markers, non-markers, tools, non-tools, side-shows, non-side-shows, deep samahdi, shallow somadhi, (or samadhi what?) etc. No need to posit, or believe, that God, or loving god, is the only way to Universal Love. If loving your god brings intense universal love, then you have a good god -- or at least a good placebo. If loving your god brings a motivation to smite and hate others, you have a bogus god IMO. Is God, and Loving God, perhaps only a placebo getting one to Universal Love. A correlation seen as causality. Same with meditation, yoga, yogis, darshan, etc. Can you, can anyone, clearly demonstrate that these are not simply placebos. Like Marek's and T3rinity's symbols, my experience is that placebos --that is, any object -- a rock or tree -- can evoke the same experiences as you describe from your symbols. If you just Love it intensely. God and Its divine symbols, and messengers. All nice. But you can make your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to do so. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: I wonder if you are using the term in a different way from a Christian evangelist who might use the same words. I guess I might need to understand what you mean by loving God, how that manifests, and how you experience that. I think you may have a more personalized view of God than I thought previously in the discussion where he seemed too abstract to love. I don't resonate at all with evangelic Christians (especially not the more fundamentalist type you seem to have more of in the US than we here). Basically, philosophically I leave a lot of things open, Advaita Vedanta allows me to do so. The general framework of Advaita is, that there is Brahman, an all pervading Being, which IS everything. The world as we see it is a projection of Maya. Within that world, which is unreal and illusiory, there is a personification of Brahman in a personal form called Ishwara, or simply God. According to Vedanta 'God' or rather Brahman, can adopt different forms, or individualities, each ranking supreme giving the respective perspective. Shankara himself was a Smartist, who would acknowledge 5 or 6 different Gods as representative of the Supreme, these are Vishnu (and any of his Avatars like Krishna or Rama), Shiva, Devi (or any of her emanations like Durga, Lakshmi, Kali), Ganesha and (obviously more worshipped in olden times Surya, the Sun. I do have a personal relationship to several of these deities, not all of them in the same way and the same degree. And I have a very flexible way I see them in the whole system. I basically subscribe to the image, I think Ramakrishna describes, that the unmanifest Brahman can give rise to manifest representations of himself for the sake of the devotee, to support his worship or devotion, just like water in the ocean could be frozen to different shapes. So if I feel love for God, it could be all of it, to a personal shape, and that doesn't have to be a figure, and image, it can also be simply a vibration hat I identify to be so, or in a more general unspecified sense. It can be many things. I am not doing any pujas at home, or any chantings, but I do have some pictures, my favorate ones on my altar, and they do evoke feelings when I look at them. But mostly I experience love, a sense of Divine love in my meditations, or at periods outside of meditation when I am 'connected' Usually this 'connectedness' is a force, a shakti I experience which enters my body at specific centers, mostly through the Saharada or the forehead centers or both, and then travels to the heard, or actually permeates me throughout. I don't think this is specific for every bhakta, but thats the way it is for me. So God for me is a very real physical energy, which comes and which I cannot even escape. In my earlier days, I had different phases, like I had a phase were I would listen to a special kirtan every day (I was still in TM and i would do it before meditation) and I would be moved and tears would roll in my eyes. I listened to one Kirtan of Ananadamayi Ma everyday for 4 years. I also had a phase where I would do a self made puja in front of images, and I felt an intense radiation of love coming from
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
TurquoiseB wrote: You believe in God, and I think that's just wonderful. I don't, and I perceive a strong undertone in most of your posts to this thread that you *don't* think that's wonderful. Michael wrote: As a non-belief isn't anything positive in and of itself, I cannot make such a statement of course. This is funny! Barry wants us to post something positive, so he posts a screed decribing how he's a confirmed athiest, a non-believer. This IS ironic considering that Barry once chanted the name of a Hindu God, over and over and over, and for fourteen years recruited others to do the same. Then, Barry went over to another spiritual teacher who once claimed to be either the last incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, or in one case, a teacher who said he was the last incarnation of the Hindu god Rama. Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
TurquoiseB wrote: Imagine you're in a poker game, and you have a royal flush and so do I, but yours is in Hearts and mine is in Clubs. Yours wins because Hearts are a higher suit than Clubs, and thus your hand trumps mine. You are incorrect, Sir! In Texas Hold'em, the most popular game of Poker, if two players have hands that are identical except for suit, then they are tied and they split the pot. An ace-high straight flush such as Ace of Spades, King of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, Jack of Hearts, and Ten of Hearts is known as a Royal Flush, and is the highest ranking the standard poker hand - Ace of Spades high.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: God and Its divine symbols, and messengers. All nice. But you can make your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to do so. Faster? Easier? Make it yourself? New, I don't get you. If you wish, make it as fast and easy yourself as you can - just count me out from this trip.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
Whachoo mean ONLY a placebo? The placebo effect is so-called precisely because no one knows how to account for it. So if I were your opposition (and I'm not) I'd say, Well, how do you know that the placebo effect ain't the God-effect? Also, it says in the Bible plain as day that God is love. So, if you've got love for everything (bums, gorgeous young things, cancer cells, tape worms, terrorists, Nazis, trolls, etc.), you've got God by definition. a new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: An independent view: why is God necessarily a prerequisite, or an intermediary, to Universal Love -- defined as loving everything intensely. (Including Loving the homeless man you pass -- and doing something with that Love). Can't a pure atheist experience the same intensity of Universal Love as a Devotee? Whats God got to do with it? --paraphrasing Tina Turner. Universal Love is one the esteemed human virtues. If you get there through, or after, finding God, loving God, finding enlightenment in your own view, or by what ever means, That, Universal Love, is the Thing. Not all of the intermediate markers, non-markers, tools, non-tools, side-shows, non-side-shows, deep samahdi, shallow somadhi, (or samadhi what?) etc. No need to posit, or believe, that God, or loving god, is the only way to Universal Love. If loving your god brings intense universal love, then you have a good god -- or at least a good placebo. If loving your god brings a motivation to smite and hate others, you have a bogus god IMO. Is God, and Loving God, perhaps only a placebo getting one to Universal Love. A correlation seen as causality. Same with meditation, yoga, yogis, darshan, etc. Can you, can anyone, clearly demonstrate that these are not simply placebos. Like Marek's and T3rinity's symbols, my experience is that placebos --that is, any object -- a rock or tree -- can evoke the same experiences as you describe from your symbols. If you just Love it intensely. God and Its divine symbols, and messengers. All nice. But you can make your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to do so. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: I wonder if you are using the term in a different way from a Christian evangelist who might use the same words. I guess I might need to understand what you mean by loving God, how that manifests, and how you experience that. I think you may have a more personalized view of God than I thought previously in the discussion where he seemed too abstract to love. I don't resonate at all with evangelic Christians (especially not the more fundamentalist type you seem to have more of in the US than we here). Basically, philosophically I leave a lot of things open, Advaita Vedanta allows me to do so. The general framework of Advaita is, that there is Brahman, an all pervading Being, which IS everything. The world as we see it is a projection of Maya. Within that world, which is unreal and illusiory, there is a personification of Brahman in a personal form called Ishwara, or simply God. According to Vedanta 'God' or rather Brahman, can adopt different forms, or individualities, each ranking supreme giving the respective perspective. Shankara himself was a Smartist, who would acknowledge 5 or 6 different Gods as representative of the Supreme, these are Vishnu (and any of his Avatars like Krishna or Rama), Shiva, Devi (or any of her emanations like Durga, Lakshmi, Kali), Ganesha and (obviously more worshipped in olden times Surya, the Sun. I do have a personal relationship to several of these deities, not all of them in the same way and the same degree. And I have a very flexible way I see them in the whole system. I basically subscribe to the image, I think Ramakrishna describes, that the unmanifest Brahman can give rise to manifest representations of himself for the sake of the devotee, to support his worship or devotion, just like water in the ocean could be frozen to different shapes. So if I feel love for God, it could be all of it, to a personal shape, and that doesn't have to be a figure, and image, it can also be simply a vibration hat I identify to be so, or in a more general unspecified sense. It can be many things. I am not doing any pujas at home, or any chantings, but I do have some pictures, my favorate ones on my altar, and they do evoke feelings when I look at them. But mostly I experience love, a sense of Divine love in my meditations, or at periods outside of meditation when I am 'connected' Usually this 'connectedness' is a force, a shakti I experience which enters my body at specific centers, mostly through the Saharada or the forehead centers or both, and then travels to the heard, or actually permeates
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: Imagine you're in a poker game, and you have a royal flush and so do I, but yours is in Hearts and mine is in Clubs. Yours wins because Hearts are a higher suit than Clubs, and thus your hand trumps mine. You are incorrect, Sir! You're splitting hairs, Sir! He was obviously talking about standard poker! :D
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
On Oct 24, 2007, at 11:11 AM, new.morning wrote: An independent view: why is God necessarily a prerequisite, or an intermediary, to Universal Love -- defined as loving everything intensely. (Including Loving the homeless man you pass -- and doing something with that Love). Can't a pure atheist experience the same intensity of Universal Love as a Devotee? Whats God got to do with it? --paraphrasing Tina Turner. Universal Love is one the esteemed human virtues. If you get there through, or after, finding God, loving God, finding enlightenment in your own view, or by what ever means, That, Universal Love, is the Thing. Not all of the intermediate markers, non-markers, tools, non-tools, side-shows, non-side-shows, deep samahdi, shallow somadhi, (or samadhi what?) etc. No need to posit, or believe, that God, or loving god, is the only way to Universal Love. If loving your god brings intense universal love, then you have a good god -- or at least a good placebo. If loving your god brings a motivation to smite and hate others, you have a bogus god IMO. Is God, and Loving God, perhaps only a placebo getting one to Universal Love. A correlation seen as causality. Same with meditation, yoga, yogis, darshan, etc. Can you, can anyone, clearly demonstrate that these are not simply placebos. Like Marek's and T3rinity's symbols, my experience is that placebos --that is, any object -- a rock or tree -- can evoke the same experiences as you describe from your symbols. If you just Love it intensely. God and Its divine symbols, and messengers. All nice. But you can make your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to do so. Really good point, one that was begging to be said. Also, I wonder if we looked at it objectively, is belief in god or gods a good thing overall or a bad thing? From my POV, belief in an ethocentric god or gods is the greatest danger to sentient life on this planet. As we possibly near the latest planetary extinction, how much danger has the injunction in the Genesis/Bereshith, that man was given divine dominion over the earth and to subdue it, caused?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
The God vs Placebo argument begs the question. Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Oct 24, 2007, at 11:11 AM, new.morning wrote: An independent view: why is God necessarily a prerequisite, or an intermediary, to Universal Love -- defined as loving everything intensely. (Including Loving the homeless man you pass -- and doing something with that Love). Can't a pure atheist experience the same intensity of Universal Love as a Devotee? Whats God got to do with it? --paraphrasing Tina Turner. Universal Love is one the esteemed human virtues. If you get there through, or after, finding God, loving God, finding enlightenment in your own view, or by what ever means, That, Universal Love, is the Thing. Not all of the intermediate markers, non-markers, tools, non-tools, side-shows, non-side-shows, deep samahdi, shallow somadhi, (or samadhi what?) etc. No need to posit, or believe, that God, or loving god, is the only way to Universal Love. If loving your god brings intense universal love, then you have a good god -- or at least a good placebo. If loving your god brings a motivation to smite and hate others, you have a bogus god IMO. Is God, and Loving God, perhaps only a placebo getting one to Universal Love. A correlation seen as causality. Same with meditation, yoga, yogis, darshan, etc. Can you, can anyone, clearly demonstrate that these are not simply placebos. Like Marek's and T3rinity's symbols, my experience is that placebos --that is, any object -- a rock or tree -- can evoke the same experiences as you describe from your symbols. If you just Love it intensely. God and Its divine symbols, and messengers. All nice. But you can make your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to do so. Really good point, one that was begging to be said. Also, I wonder if we looked at it objectively, is belief in god or gods a good thing overall or a bad thing? From my POV, belief in an ethocentric god or gods is the greatest danger to sentient life on this planet. As we possibly near the latest planetary extinction, how much danger has the injunction in the Genesis/Bereshith, that man was given divine dominion over the earth and to subdue it, caused? Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Richard J. Williams willytex@ wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: Imagine you're in a poker game, and you have a royal flush and so do I, but yours is in Hearts and mine is in Clubs. Yours wins because Hearts are a higher suit than Clubs, and thus your hand trumps mine. You are incorrect, Sir! Richard J. Williams An ace-high straight flush such as Ace of Spades, King of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, Jack of Hearts, and Ten of Hearts is known as a Royal Flush, and is the highest ranking the standard poker hand. Erik wrote: You're splitting hairs, Sir! He was obviously talking about standard poker! I am NOT splitting hairs, Sir! An ace-high straight flush such as Ace of Spades, King of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, Jack of Hearts, and Ten of Hearts is known as a Royal Flush, and is the highest ranking in the STANDARD poker hand. The Ace of Spades is NOT an Ace of Hearts. A royal flush is Ace of Spades high.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
Erik wrote: You're splitting hairs, Sir! I stand corrected, Sir, I was splitting hairs! But apparently suits have no value in some variants of standard poker: In most variants, if two players have hands that are identical except for suit, then they are tied and split the pot. Source: 'Hand rankings' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_rankings Lee, of Shavano Park, rose to local stardom after placing sixth in 2006 at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, the world's most prestigious poker tournament. Shortly after his win, San Antonio police raided his house as part of a probe into a sports betting Web site that pretended to be offshore. 'Poker star to forfeit millions in plea deal' By Guillermo Contreras San Antonio Express-News, October 16, 2007 http://tinyurl.com/2kcxgn
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
new.morning wrote If loving your god brings intense universal love, then you have a good god -- or at least a good placebo. Maybe so, but it seems to me that one would have to understand human love before one could understand Devine Love. For example, divorcing your wife probably wouldn't bring one any closer to understanding human or a love for your God. If loving your god brings a motivation to smite and hate others, you have a bogus god IMO. Maybe so, but it seems that lots of people love their God, who may be a smiter God, as Barry says. But is it wrong to smite your enemies? Some Gods seem to love those who smite evil-doers, for example. There are no enlightened Gods in heaven - enlightened beings are Siddhas or Buddhas. There are no Buddhas in heaven.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--Vaj, your'e not being consistent. I just received my Snow Lion magazine today with a cover article on the Green Tara. Devotion to Her is not only a wisdom proposition, but has an objective of ofsetting physical calamaties of all types, from arthritis to zits; snake bites, poverty, disease,...you name it. You seem to be calling the Tibetan Lamas who promote such remedial measures fools. Is that correct? - In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Oct 24, 2007, at 11:11 AM, new.morning wrote: An independent view: why is God necessarily a prerequisite, or an intermediary, to Universal Love -- defined as loving everything intensely. (Including Loving the homeless man you pass -- and doing something with that Love). Can't a pure atheist experience the same intensity of Universal Love as a Devotee? Whats God got to do with it? --paraphrasing Tina Turner. Universal Love is one the esteemed human virtues. If you get there through, or after, finding God, loving God, finding enlightenment in your own view, or by what ever means, That, Universal Love, is the Thing. Not all of the intermediate markers, non-markers, tools, non-tools, side-shows, non-side-shows, deep samahdi, shallow somadhi, (or samadhi what?) etc. No need to posit, or believe, that God, or loving god, is the only way to Universal Love. If loving your god brings intense universal love, then you have a good god -- or at least a good placebo. If loving your god brings a motivation to smite and hate others, you have a bogus god IMO. Is God, and Loving God, perhaps only a placebo getting one to Universal Love. A correlation seen as causality. Same with meditation, yoga, yogis, darshan, etc. Can you, can anyone, clearly demonstrate that these are not simply placebos. Like Marek's and T3rinity's symbols, my experience is that placebos --that is, any object -- a rock or tree -- can evoke the same experiences as you describe from your symbols. If you just Love it intensely. God and Its divine symbols, and messengers. All nice. But you can make your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to do so. Really good point, one that was begging to be said. Also, I wonder if we looked at it objectively, is belief in god or gods a good thing overall or a bad thing? From my POV, belief in an ethocentric god or gods is the greatest danger to sentient life on this planet. As we possibly near the latest planetary extinction, how much danger has the injunction in the Genesis/Bereshith, that man was given divine dominion over the earth and to subdue it, caused?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
New.Morning, this what I feel, too. *You* (the understood *you*) is the only one that gets there (or realizes where they've always been) and the only way (IMO) you can get from here to (t)here is to follow what you feel is right; follow what moves you. Follow your bliss, as the man says. ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: An independent view: why is God necessarily a prerequisite, or an intermediary, to Universal Love -- defined as loving everything intensely. (Including Loving the homeless man you pass -- and doing something with that Love). Can't a pure atheist experience the same intensity of Universal Love as a Devotee? Whats God got to do with it? --paraphrasing Tina Turner. Universal Love is one the esteemed human virtues. If you get there through, or after, finding God, loving God, finding enlightenment in your own view, or by what ever means, That, Universal Love, is the Thing. Not all of the intermediate markers, non-markers, tools, non-tools, side-shows, non-side-shows, deep samahdi, shallow somadhi, (or samadhi what?) etc. No need to posit, or believe, that God, or loving god, is the only way to Universal Love. If loving your god brings intense universal love, then you have a good god -- or at least a good placebo. If loving your god brings a motivation to smite and hate others, you have a bogus god IMO. Is God, and Loving God, perhaps only a placebo getting one to Universal Love. A correlation seen as causality. Same with meditation, yoga, yogis, darshan, etc. Can you, can anyone, clearly demonstrate that these are not simply placebos. Like Marek's and T3rinity's symbols, my experience is that placebos --that is, any object -- a rock or tree -- can evoke the same experiences as you describe from your symbols. If you just Love it intensely. God and Its divine symbols, and messengers. All nice. But you can make your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to do so. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: I wonder if you are using the term in a different way from a Christian evangelist who might use the same words. I guess I might need to understand what you mean by loving God, how that manifests, and how you experience that. I think you may have a more personalized view of God than I thought previously in the discussion where he seemed too abstract to love. I don't resonate at all with evangelic Christians (especially not the more fundamentalist type you seem to have more of in the US than we here). Basically, philosophically I leave a lot of things open, Advaita Vedanta allows me to do so. The general framework of Advaita is, that there is Brahman, an all pervading Being, which IS everything. The world as we see it is a projection of Maya. Within that world, which is unreal and illusiory, there is a personification of Brahman in a personal form called Ishwara, or simply God. According to Vedanta 'God' or rather Brahman, can adopt different forms, or individualities, each ranking supreme giving the respective perspective. Shankara himself was a Smartist, who would acknowledge 5 or 6 different Gods as representative of the Supreme, these are Vishnu (and any of his Avatars like Krishna or Rama), Shiva, Devi (or any of her emanations like Durga, Lakshmi, Kali), Ganesha and (obviously more worshipped in olden times Surya, the Sun. I do have a personal relationship to several of these deities, not all of them in the same way and the same degree. And I have a very flexible way I see them in the whole system. I basically subscribe to the image, I think Ramakrishna describes, that the unmanifest Brahman can give rise to manifest representations of himself for the sake of the devotee, to support his worship or devotion, just like water in the ocean could be frozen to different shapes. So if I feel love for God, it could be all of it, to a personal shape, and that doesn't have to be a figure, and image, it can also be simply a vibration hat I identify to be so, or in a more general unspecified sense. It can be many things. I am not doing any pujas at home, or any chantings, but I do have some pictures, my favorate ones on my altar, and they do evoke feelings when I look at them. But mostly I experience love, a sense of Divine love in my meditations, or at periods outside of meditation when I am 'connected' Usually this 'connectedness' is a force, a shakti I experience which enters my body at specific centers, mostly through the Saharada or the forehead centers or both, and then travels to the heard, or actually permeates me throughout. I don't think this is specific for every bhakta, but thats the way it is for me. So God for me is a very real
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
On Oct 24, 2007, at 1:42 PM, matrixmonitor wrote: --Vaj, your'e not being consistent. I just received my Snow Lion magazine today with a cover article on the Green Tara. Devotion to Her is not only a wisdom proposition, but has an objective of ofsetting physical calamaties of all types, from arthritis to zits; snake bites, poverty, disease,...you name it. You seem to be calling the Tibetan Lamas who promote such remedial measures fools. Is that correct? No, my remarks had nothing to do with what you are imagining.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
I'm almost reluctant to say this, because things have quieted down and I don't want to stir them up again, but I suspect that the distinction being discussed here was also discussed by Maharishi in the Science of Being. It's been decades since I read it, but didn't he there speak of the notion of a personal God (or personal gods) as a kind of learning aid for those who have difficulty focusing on or expressing love/appreciation for the notion of an Abstract, formless God? Now take that one step further, and imagine some- one who has no difficulty focusing on and expressing love/appreciation for the Abstract and the Formless, with no God attached. *Plus* love/appreciation for all of its forms. That's where I'm at. I see no need to anthropomorphize and personify the Abstract with ideas of sentience in order to love and appreciate it. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Marek Reavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: New.Morning, this what I feel, too. *You* (the understood *you*) is the only one that gets there (or realizes where they've always been) and the only way (IMO) you can get from here to (t)here is to follow what you feel is right; follow what moves you. Follow your bliss, as the man says. ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: An independent view: why is God necessarily a prerequisite, or an intermediary, to Universal Love -- defined as loving everything intensely. (Including Loving the homeless man you pass -- and doing something with that Love). Can't a pure atheist experience the same intensity of Universal Love as a Devotee? Whats God got to do with it? --paraphrasing Tina Turner. Universal Love is one the esteemed human virtues. If you get there through, or after, finding God, loving God, finding enlightenment in your own view, or by what ever means, That, Universal Love, is the Thing. Not all of the intermediate markers, non-markers, tools, non-tools, side-shows, non-side-shows, deep samahdi, shallow somadhi, (or samadhi what?) etc. No need to posit, or believe, that God, or loving god, is the only way to Universal Love. If loving your god brings intense universal love, then you have a good god -- or at least a good placebo. If loving your god brings a motivation to smite and hate others, you have a bogus god IMO. Is God, and Loving God, perhaps only a placebo getting one to Universal Love. A correlation seen as causality. Same with meditation, yoga, yogis, darshan, etc. Can you, can anyone, clearly demonstrate that these are not simply placebos. Like Marek's and T3rinity's symbols, my experience is that placebos --that is, any object -- a rock or tree -- can evoke the same experiences as you describe from your symbols. If you just Love it intensely. God and Its divine symbols, and messengers. All nice. But you can make your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to do so. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: I wonder if you are using the term in a different way from a Christian evangelist who might use the same words. I guess I might need to understand what you mean by loving God, how that manifests, and how you experience that. I think you may have a more personalized view of God than I thought previously in the discussion where he seemed too abstract to love. I don't resonate at all with evangelic Christians (especially not the more fundamentalist type you seem to have more of in the US than we here). Basically, philosophically I leave a lot of things open, Advaita Vedanta allows me to do so. The general framework of Advaita is, that there is Brahman, an all pervading Being, which IS everything. The world as we see it is a projection of Maya. Within that world, which is unreal and illusiory, there is a personification of Brahman in a personal form called Ishwara, or simply God. According to Vedanta 'God' or rather Brahman, can adopt different forms, or individualities, each ranking supreme giving the respective perspective. Shankara himself was a Smartist, who would acknowledge 5 or 6 different Gods as representative of the Supreme, these are Vishnu (and any of his Avatars like Krishna or Rama), Shiva, Devi (or any of her emanations like Durga, Lakshmi, Kali), Ganesha and (obviously more worshipped in olden times Surya, the Sun. I do have a personal relationship to several of these deities, not all of them in the same way and the same degree. And I have a very flexible way I see them in the whole system. I basically subscribe to the image, I think Ramakrishna describes, that the unmanifest Brahman can give rise to manifest representations of himself for the sake of the
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: God and Its divine symbol s, and messengers. All nice. But you can make your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to do so. Faster? Easier? Make it yourself? As I said in this post, and a longer one last week responding to Marek's post on symbols, it is my experience that you can enliven anything with repeated attention,care, respect, love -- and, in turn it, becomes as lively as religious spiritual symbol others have been talking about as having special spiritual impacts and influence on them. This experience has led me to believe that the religious spiritual symbols and objects many hold as sacred -- is a placebo effect. Such effects are real -- but the objects are not causal. The cause is a type of reflective subjectivity, IME. It all comes from oneself. Whether it is a religious, sacred or spiritual object, symbol or teacher. The thing out there is a best a catalyst. New, I don't get you. If you wish, make it as fast and easy yourself as you can - just count me out from this trip. I am not asking any to accompany on this path method and insight. But any one is welcome.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, matrixmonitor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --Vaj, your'e not being consistent. I just received my Snow Lion magazine today with a cover article on the Green Tara. Devotion to Her is not only a wisdom proposition, but has an objective of ofsetting physical calamaties of all types, from arthritis to zits; snake bites, poverty, disease,...you name it. You seem to be calling the Tibetan Lamas who promote such remedial measures fools. Is that correct? If I may venture in, I certainly would not call the Tibetan Lamas fools. They, or their predecessors, have simply enlivened and infused with love the Tara image /symbol. My point in the prior post is that you (anyone) too can do so to any object or symbol if you do so with adoration, love, caring and attention. Regardless if there is actually a goddess on the other side of the symbol.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was not trying to convince anyone that my POV is right or debate it's superiority (as Edg wants me to do) or try to argue that others should adapt it. But evaluating my capacities for love or passion for reality as limited seems to go against everything I value in other people's spiritual perspective. Curtis, thats definitely not what I had intended to say. In the sentence below, to which Judy was responding, ... he cannot love Reality as such the term to be emphasized would be 'AS SUCH', 'Reality as such' would be as opposed to the objects of reality, like the things you love in life. 'Reality as such' or may be 'Reality in itself' would be an attempt to find a substitute word for GOD or BEING in a more common and vague way. What I am saying here is almost redundant: If you do not believe in God, you cannot love him or her. As simple as that. But that is for a religious person one of the main issues at all: To LOVE God. In any metaphysical quest, there may be passion, search for Truth, but loving God doesn't enter the picture. Please be truthful: I had tried to point this out in my original post, saying that you can of course love your wife, your pet, people and so on. But you surely cannot love God. To say 'I love life' is a different issue IMO, as it is more used in the sense that generally you like the things you do in your life etc, it isn't usually seen as a concentrated love towards a transcendent whole. My point really is, that in this discussion about God, the word 'Love' didn't really enter until now, but it is the most important word for any theist. I could easily say, that I believe in God, because I love him, and you would probably say, that this isn't logical. You would say that this doesn't prove anything, wouldn't you? So I propose for you reason, rationality has a greater weight in your personal quest, is so to say the operative factor, while for me it isn't. Reason plays a role for me too, a big role, but in a different way, with different conclusions. In no way was my post an attempt to put you down or anything. I had purposefully used the phrase 'rational atheist' throughout as a concept, and had also made it clear, that I don't know were you stand exactly. So it couldn't have been an evaluation of what you experience. I also like to point out, that much in the post was about choice, the way Kierkegaard defines it, like in the phrase 'Subjectivity is Truth' That I think is a fundamental difference between us two. Realty is subjective to me, while you seem to posit a rational, objective universe (I am not sure here, but it seems to at least play a big role in your views). I simply claim that I live my own truth, my souls truth. (Normally you would now say, we don't know if a soul exists, it could all be an illusion of the mind; there we go again). So, besides all the overlaps of our worldviews (mainly due to the phrase: 'I don't know' and our common human quest) I do see a decisive, fundamental separation line, in the way we approach, I would say subjective vs objective. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: snip An atheist may be in awe, but basically (Unless he is a Buddhist or Taoist)he is just exploring a kind of a metaphysical study. So he may be in awe, yes. But he cannot LOVE reality as such, and he cannot develop a passion about it.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My point really is, that in this discussion about God, the word 'Love' didn't really enter until now, but it is the most important word for any theist. I could easily say, that I believe in God, because I love him, and you would probably say, that this isn't logical. You would say that this doesn't prove anything, wouldn't you? Michael, I can't speculate as to how Curtis will answer, but my answer would be that you can love God all day long if you want (and I think you should do so if that's what makes you happy), but not only does that not prove anything, it's on the same level as little kids loving Santa. The fact that they love him and the fervor with which they love him doesn't make him exist.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: My point really is, that in this discussion about God, the word 'Love' didn't really enter until now, but it is the most important word for any theist. I could easily say, that I believe in God, because I love him, and you would probably say, that this isn't logical. You would say that this doesn't prove anything, wouldn't you? Michael, I can't speculate as to how Curtis will answer, but my answer would be that you can love God all day long if you want (and I think you should do so if that's what makes you happy), but not only does that not prove anything, it's on the same level as little kids loving Santa. The fact that they love him and the fervor with which they love him doesn't make him exist. See, thats what I am implying he would say ;-) One is about reason, putting reason upfront, the other about practice. Religion and spirituality are about practice.I just have been to India where there is a general religiosity pervading, and you can see it in the eyes of the people, you can see it even in the eyes of children. You don't see such liveliness here, people are dull materialists mostly. Now I can see you attempt to belittle or ridicule my beliefs by your little comparison, but it shows where you stand, doesn't it?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: My point really is, that in this discussion about God, the word 'Love' didn't really enter until now, but it is the most important word for any theist. I could easily say, that I believe in God, because I love him, and you would probably say, that this isn't logical. You would say that this doesn't prove anything, wouldn't you? Michael, I can't speculate as to how Curtis will answer, but my answer would be that you can love God all day long if you want (and I think you should do so if that's what makes you happy), but not only does that not prove anything, it's on the same level as little kids loving Santa. The fact that they love him and the fervor with which they love him doesn't make him exist. See, thats what I am implying he would say ;-) One is about reason, putting reason upfront, the other about practice. Religion and spirituality are about practice. I just have been to India where there is a general religiosity pervading, and you can see it in the eyes of the people, you can see it even in the eyes of children. You don't see such liveliness here, people are dull materialists mostly. And that's an *objective* assessment on your part? :-) Isn't it possible that you see things this way because you *value* religiosity more than you value the lack of it? It's just a question. Now I can see you attempt to belittle or ridicule my beliefs by your little comparison, but it shows where you stand, doesn't it? And I think your statement above shows pretty clearly where *you* stand. I was presenting an objective assessment of your stance; you are (as I read what you're saying) suggesting that your subjective assessment of reality is *superior* to any objective assessment. The fact that one believes in God is *wonderful* for those who believe it. The love that they feel for God is *wonderful*, and may bring *tremendous* value to their lives. I firmly believe this. But these beliefs and this love are *subjective*, man. What I think you are saying in these posts is that your subjective experience trumps any possible objective assessment. Right? That is a *perfectly* acceptable point of view in my opinion; it's been the way of mystics for centuries. And I believe that it can have *tremendous* value for those who believe that their subjective experience of reality is more valid and more important than any possible objective assessment of reality. But please don't try to convince me that your subjective experience *is* reality. It's just a different point of view, that's all. You believe in God, and I think that's just wonderful. I don't, and I perceive a strong undertone in most of your posts to this thread that you *don't* think that's wonderful. The feeling that I get, and that I think Curtis gets, is that you feel badly for us, as if we are missing out on some great truth that you are privy to and we are not. In my opinion that is fine for you to believe, if it makes you happy. But when you try to express it as if this feeling on your part were somehow true and something more than *JUST* your belief or feeling, some kind of truth, then in my opinion you have crossed a line. That line is believing that your subjective experience *defines* reality, and is more than just your subjective experience *of* reality. I just can't buy that.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Religion and spirituality are about practice. I just have been to India where there is a general religiosity pervading, and you can see it in the eyes of the people, you can see it even in the eyes of children. You don't see such liveliness here, people are dull materialists mostly. And that's an *objective* assessment on your part? :-) Nope, its totally subjective. Isn't it possible that you see things this way because you *value* religiosity more than you value the lack of it? In this case, looking at people in India in general, and its not only my observation but the observation of friends i happen to agree with, I come up with this impression. Thinking that this has to do with religiosity is of course my interpretation based on my acquaintance with India, and seeing both Hindus and Muslims (in the town I was last 50/50) It's just a question. Its answered Now I can see you attempt to belittle or ridicule my beliefs by your little comparison, but it shows where you stand, doesn't it? And I think your statement above shows pretty clearly where *you* stand. I was presenting an objective assessment of your stance; you are (as I read what you're saying) suggesting that your subjective assessment of reality is *superior* to any objective assessment. Nowhere in fact did I say its superior. Where do you get this from? I just distinguish two approaches and clearly take a stand (unlike other folks here) The fact that one believes in God is *wonderful* for those who believe it. The love that they feel for God is *wonderful*, and may bring *tremendous* value to their lives. I firmly believe this. But these beliefs and this love are *subjective*, man. Sure, thats what I have been saying. What I think you are saying in these posts is that your subjective experience trumps any possible objective assessment. Right? I don't know what 'drums' means in this context. Must be an american expression i don't know. That is a *perfectly* acceptable point of view in my opinion; it's been the way of mystics for centuries. And I believe that it can have *tremendous* value for those who believe that their subjective experience of reality is more valid and more important than any possible objective assessment of reality. To me, Barry, to me. But please don't try to convince me that your subjective experience *is* reality. It's just a different point of view, that's all. What Barry IS reality? Do you think there is one TRUTH everyone has to agree too? That seems to be the implication of what you are saying. You seem to believe there is one objective Truth. You believe in God, and I think that's just wonderful. I don't, and I perceive a strong undertone in most of your posts to this thread that you *don't* think that's wonderful. As a non-belief isn't anything positive in and of itself, I cannot make such a statement of course. I have no objection to you not believing, its more how you react to people who do. Its like, whenever you get a chance, you will point out that every mass murderer in history was so because of his religious aberration. And its only your feeling. Basically I just state my own views. Recently when I said that I am out of the discussion, you strongly urged me to explain myself. You expressed the feeling that we would defend our faith by withdrawal, instead of trying to communicate. Now, when I communicate my own POV, and point out differences, you assume I want to proselytize. The feeling that I get, and that I think Curtis gets, is that you feel badly for us, as if we are missing out on some great truth that you are privy to and we are not. Barry, I don't know what feeling Curtis gets, but if it is ah you are saying, he should clearly express. What Curtis has expressed here several times though, is that he appreciates the dialoque a lot. This is really the only reason I continue. In my opinion that is fine for you to believe, if it makes you happy. But when you try to express it as if this feeling on your part were somehow true and something more than *JUST* your belief or feeling, some kind of truth, then in my opinion you have crossed a line. That line is believing that your subjective experience *defines* reality, and is more than just your subjective experience *of* reality. I just can't buy that. It defines reality for ME, Barry. YOUR subjective truth defines reality for YOU of course.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
I'm just curious, and coming into the discussion some time after it started. Before arguing about whether or not God exists, did you establish some consensus on who or what God actually is? Tubingen is a university famous in Europe for many centuries for its department of theology. They had a conference not too long ago in which the existence of God was the topic for discussion. After learned dudes from all over the world had presented their arguments in learned papers for three days, an old guy got up and said, Gentlemen, the Lord is so great, He doesn't have to exist if He doesn't feel like it. a TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: My point really is, that in this discussion about God, the word 'Love' didn't really enter until now, but it is the most important word for any theist. I could easily say, that I believe in God, because I love him, and you would probably say, that this isn't logical. You would say that this doesn't prove anything, wouldn't you? Michael, I can't speculate as to how Curtis will answer, but my answer would be that you can love God all day long if you want (and I think you should do so if that's what makes you happy), but not only does that not prove anything, it's on the same level as little kids loving Santa. The fact that they love him and the fervor with which they love him doesn't make him exist. See, thats what I am implying he would say ;-) One is about reason, putting reason upfront, the other about practice. Religion and spirituality are about practice. I just have been to India where there is a general religiosity pervading, and you can see it in the eyes of the people, you can see it even in the eyes of children. You don't see such liveliness here, people are dull materialists mostly. And that's an *objective* assessment on your part? :-) Isn't it possible that you see things this way because you *value* religiosity more than you value the lack of it? It's just a question. Now I can see you attempt to belittle or ridicule my beliefs by your little comparison, but it shows where you stand, doesn't it? And I think your statement above shows pretty clearly where *you* stand. I was presenting an objective assessment of your stance; you are (as I read what you're saying) suggesting that your subjective assessment of reality is *superior* to any objective assessment. The fact that one believes in God is *wonderful* for those who believe it. The love that they feel for God is *wonderful*, and may bring *tremendous* value to their lives. I firmly believe this. But these beliefs and this love are *subjective*, man. What I think you are saying in these posts is that your subjective experience trumps any possible objective assessment. Right? That is a *perfectly* acceptable point of view in my opinion; it's been the way of mystics for centuries. And I believe that it can have *tremendous* value for those who believe that their subjective experience of reality is more valid and more important than any possible objective assessment of reality. But please don't try to convince me that your subjective experience *is* reality. It's just a different point of view, that's all. You believe in God, and I think that's just wonderful. I don't, and I perceive a strong undertone in most of your posts to this thread that you *don't* think that's wonderful. The feeling that I get, and that I think Curtis gets, is that you feel badly for us, as if we are missing out on some great truth that you are privy to and we are not. In my opinion that is fine for you to believe, if it makes you happy. But when you try to express it as if this feeling on your part were somehow true and something more than *JUST* your belief or feeling, some kind of truth, then in my opinion you have crossed a line. That line is believing that your subjective experience *defines* reality, and is more than just your subjective experience *of* reality. I just can't buy that. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: What I think you are saying in these posts is that your subjective experience trumps any possible objective assessment. Right? I don't know what 'drums' means in this context. Must be an american expression i don't know. Trumps. It's an expression from cards. Imagine you're in a poker game, and you have a royal flush and so do I, but yours is in Hearts and mine is in Clubs. Yours wins because Hearts are a higher suit than Clubs, and thus your hand trumps mine. What I'm suggesting is that you've been giving the impression that your subjective belief that a God exists is more important than any kind of objective proof that God exists. Subjective trumps objective. Right? Nothing wrong with this, I'm just trying to establish common understandings. That is a *perfectly* acceptable point of view in my opinion; it's been the way of mystics for centuries. And I believe that it can have *tremendous* value for those who believe that their subjective experience of reality is more valid and more important than any possible objective assessment of reality. To me, Barry, to me. But please don't try to convince me that your subjective experience *is* reality. It's just a different point of view, that's all. What Barry IS reality? Do you think there is one TRUTH everyone has to agree too? That seems to be the implication of what you are saying. You seem to believe there is one objective Truth. I do not for a moment belief that there is one Truth, objective or not. Or one reality. I believe the exact opposite, in fact. You are *choosing* to believe that that's what I'm saying. What I'm really saying was in the use of Santa Claus as a parallel for God. The fact that children believe in him and love him does not make him exist; Santa's existence can *never* be proven by any objective standards. Santa's existence can never even be proven *subjectively* to someone who doesn't already believe in him. Same with God. This is *not* saying that there is some objective reality in which Santa/God either exists or does not. It's just saying that *as a preference*, I take my subjective experiences and then measure them against *also available* objective standards, and then try to come to a conclusion as to what I believe based on *both* subjective and objective measurements. The conclusion I come to does NOT equate to reality or truth. It is only what I have chosen to believe. Do you get it now? You believe in God, and I think that's just wonderful. I don't, and I perceive a strong undertone in most of your posts to this thread that you *don't* think that's wonderful. As a non-belief isn't anything positive in and of itself... In the parts of your response I snipped (because I had nothing to say about them), you claim that you aren't saying that belief in God is superior. Look at the above phrase and try to convince me of that. The part that you *continually* miss in these discus- sions is that untheism is NOT a non-belief. It's a belief in the value of something *else*. I'm sorry, but you seem to be *incapable* of hearing this. ...I cannot make such a statement of course. I have no objection to you not believing... I neither believe nor disbelieve. The existence of God is completely *irrelevant* to me. The entire *question* of whether there is a God or not is of no interest to me. I got into this only because you and others for whom it seems to be *very* rele- vant were making some weird statements about those for whom it *isn't* relevant. ...its more how you react to people who do. Its like, whenever you get a chance, you will point out that every mass murderer in history was so because of his religious aberration. Weird statements like this one. I never said this. You *imagined* it. I said many. You heard every. You mishear a LOT, Michael. That's how YOU react to people who believe differently than you do. And its only your feeling. So is everything you say here. Everything. Basically I just state my own views. Basically, so do I. I have not ONCE in any of these discussions attempted to convert you to my views or even that my views were right, or true. But you're reacting as if I had. Recently when I said that I am out of the discussion, you strongly urged me to explain myself. I asked you to explain your need to announce that you were out of the discussion. You could have simply not replied, and I would have said nothing. I prob- ably wouldn't have noticed that you never replied. You didn't do that. Instead, you chose to make a *big deal* out of being out of the discussion. I wondered why, when I had said nothing, as far as I could tell, derogatory or insulting in any way, and you were making some kind of announcement about being out of the discussion as if you
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As a non-belief isn't anything positive in and of itself... In the parts of your response I snipped (because I had nothing to say about them), you claim that you aren't saying that belief in God is superior. Look at the above phrase and try to convince me of that. Okay, nothing simpler than that. A positive statement is when I say: 'My sweater is red' When I say: 'My sweater is not red' its not a positive statement' If I say: 'My sweater is not red but green' Its a negative statement combined with a positive statement. Pls note that here positive and negative are not value statements, but only regard the nature of the statement itself. How you get anything about 'superiority' in this must be one of the mysteries I don't understand The part that you *continually* miss in these discus- sions is that untheism is NOT a non-belief. It's a belief in the value of something *else*. I'm sorry, but you seem to be *incapable* of hearing this. Yes, I still don't understand. If un-theism is not a non-belief, what is it? If you mean agnosticism, why don't you say it? ...I cannot make such a statement of course. I have no objection to you not believing... I neither believe nor disbelieve. The existence of God is completely *irrelevant* to me. Which means that you don't believe. Because to a believer it is of course relevant. So you are basically saying you are a practical atheist, an apatheist: In practical, or pragmatic, atheism, also known as apatheism, individuals live as if there are no gods and explain natural phenomena without resorting to the divine. The existence of gods is not denied, but may be designated unnecessary or useless; gods neither provide purpose to life, nor influence everyday life, according to this view.[43] A form of practical atheism with implications for the scientific community is methodological naturalismâthe tacit adoption or assumption of philosophical naturalism within scientific method with or without fully accepting or believing it.[44] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism snip So believe *exactly* what you want. I don't CARE. You forgot one thing: I don't KNOW. It goes like this: I don't know and I don't care ;-) And now I run.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm just curious, and coming into the discussion some time after it started. Before arguing about whether or not God exists, did you establish some consensus on who or what God actually is? Angela no we didn't. Thats part of the problem. I usually use the word God in a very generic and abstract way, and I think thats greatly misunderstood. In TM we used to have all kinds of substitute words, like CI, or Being (impersonal God), or unified field, When I left TM I felt I didn't want to relate to TM lingo anymore, and adopted the more general word God. For me the word God could comprise any of these ideas. So, when I say, We are not in control of our thoughts, but God is, God could mean any cosmic force or intelligence outside of our I sense. Tubingen is a university famous in Europe for many centuries for its department of theology. They had a conference not too long ago in which the existence of God was the topic for discussion. After learned dudes from all over the world had presented their arguments in learned papers for three days, an old guy got up and said, Gentlemen, the Lord is so great, He doesn't have to exist if He doesn't feel like it. a Great!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
Michael, this (below) really helps me understand what you're speaking about and that equivalency among the concept labels fits my feeling and understanding as well. Thanks for the question, Angela. Marek ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander mailander111@ wrote: I'm just curious, and coming into the discussion some time after it started. Before arguing about whether or not God exists, did you establish some consensus on who or what God actually is? Angela no we didn't. Thats part of the problem. I usually use the word God in a very generic and abstract way, and I think thats greatly misunderstood. In TM we used to have all kinds of substitute words, like CI, or Being (impersonal God), or unified field, When I left TM I felt I didn't want to relate to TM lingo anymore, and adopted the more general word God. For me the word God could comprise any of these ideas. So, when I say, We are not in control of our thoughts, but God is, God could mean any cosmic force or intelligence outside of our I sense. Tubingen is a university famous in Europe for many centuries for its department of theology. They had a conference not too long ago in which the existence of God was the topic for discussion. After learned dudes from all over the world had presented their arguments in learned papers for three days, an old guy got up and said, Gentlemen, the Lord is so great, He doesn't have to exist if He doesn't feel like it. a Great!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I do not for a moment belief that there is one Truth, objective or not. Or one reality. I believe the exact opposite, in fact. You are *choosing* to believe that that's what I'm saying. What I'm really saying was in the use of Santa Claus as a parallel for God. The fact that children believe in him and love him does not make him exist; Santa's existence can *never* be proven by any objective standards. Santa's existence can never even be proven *subjectively* to someone who doesn't already believe in him. Same with God. This is *not* saying that there is some objective reality in which Santa/God either exists or does not. It's just saying that *as a preference*, I take my subjective experiences and then measure them against *also available* objective standards, and then try to come to a conclusion as to what I believe based on *both* subjective and objective measurements. The conclusion I come to does NOT equate to reality or truth. It is only what I have chosen to believe. Do you get it now? Not quite. The last sentence somehow suggests that you still there is an 'Objective Reality' independend of yourself. But that is according to kierkegaard, and I follow him in this a virtually non-existing abstractum. I found this whic sums it up: http://tinyurl.com/32sx3d 'So, Kierkegaard posits that subjectivity is truth (and truth is subjectivity). He argues that any attempt at objectivity amounts to an abstraction of existence. In other words, objectivity is an illusion as, for example, I have no way of knowing that the way an apple tastes to me is anything like the way it tastes to you. We could come to an undestanding using language that might approximate our experiences as similar, but ultimately, we are tasting the apple differently. Further, trying to objectively refer to history (Christian or evolutionary it seems to me) to explain existence is an abstract, speculative, and pointless venture. In Kierkegaard's own words; The positiveness of historical knowledge is illusory, since it is approximation-knowledge; the speculative result is delusion. For all this positive knowledge fails to express the situation of the knowing subject in existence. It concerns rather a fictitious objective subject, and to confuse oneself with such a subject is to be duped. Every subject is an existing subject, which should receive an essential expression in all his knowledge. Particularly, it must be expressed through the prevention of an illusory finality, whether in perceptual certainty, or in historical knowledge, or in illusory speculative results. In historical knowledge, the subject learns a great deal about the world, but nothing about himself. He moves constantly in a sphere of approximation-knowledge, in his supposed positivity deluding himself with the semblance of certainty; but certainty can only be had in the infinite, where he cannot as an existing subject remain, but only repeatedly arrive. Nothing historical can become infinitely certain for me except the fact that of my own existence (which again cannot become infinitely certain for any other individual, who has infinite certainty of only his own existence), and this is not something historical. The only answer then (according to Kierkegaard) is the subjective (inward) experience of the individual, and that individual's relationship with the eternal within the finite to frame it in religious terms. In this way, existence is dialectical in that it requires infinite faith and infinite doubt simultaneously. Without these things, existence is an abstraction. Whether one subscribes to a religious viewpoint or an atheistic one, this viewpoint is no viewpoint if it claims to lay claim to an objective truth. Truth is strictly subjective, and Kierkegaard would say religious in so much as it involves one's subjective relationship with the infinite within the finite.'
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
You're welcome. Defined in the way you have done, God is the equivalent of the tiger in an analogy that represents a consensus in the field of psychology to the effect that the small self can be likened to a monkey riding a tiger. The monkey is desperately inventing all kinds of stories about being in control, but, of course, the tiger decides where the pair is going, and, possibly, even how long the tiger will tolerate that monkey on his back. Analogies go a good distance, but in the end, they all break down. Did that tiger create the universe and himself? Or is that tiger riding a tyranosaurus rex in a kind of infinite regression back to the Big Bang? a Marek Reavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Michael, this (below) really helps me understand what you're speaking about and that equivalency among the concept labels fits my feeling and understanding as well. Thanks for the question, Angela. Marek ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander mailander111@ wrote: I'm just curious, and coming into the discussion some time after it started. Before arguing about whether or not God exists, did you establish some consensus on who or what God actually is? Angela no we didn't. Thats part of the problem. I usually use the word God in a very generic and abstract way, and I think thats greatly misunderstood. In TM we used to have all kinds of substitute words, like CI, or Being (impersonal God), or unified field, When I left TM I felt I didn't want to relate to TM lingo anymore, and adopted the more general word God. For me the word God could comprise any of these ideas. So, when I say, We are not in control of our thoughts, but God is, God could mean any cosmic force or intelligence outside of our I sense. Tubingen is a university famous in Europe for many centuries for its department of theology. They had a conference not too long ago in which the existence of God was the topic for discussion. After learned dudes from all over the world had presented their arguments in learned papers for three days, an old guy got up and said, Gentlemen, the Lord is so great, He doesn't have to exist if He doesn't feel like it. a Great! Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
First Michael, thanks for keeping the ball rolling. We are discussing abstract topics across language and cultural barriers and I really dig the way you are keeping the discussion very respectful. I hope you sense my own respect for you in my attempt to understand your POV and get a chance to articulate my own for my own understanding. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: I was not trying to convince anyone that my POV is right or debate it's superiority (as Edg wants me to do) or try to argue that others should adapt it. But evaluating my capacities for love or passion for reality as limited seems to go against everything I value in other people's spiritual perspective. Curtis, thats definitely not what I had intended to say. In the sentence below, to which Judy was responding, ... he cannot love Reality as such the term to be emphasized would be 'AS SUCH', 'Reality as such' would be as opposed to the objects of reality, like the things you love in life. 'Reality as such' or may be 'Reality in itself' would be an attempt to find a substitute word for GOD or BEING in a more common and vague way. What I am saying here is almost redundant: If you do not believe in God, you cannot love him or her. As simple as that. But that is for a religious person one of the main issues at all: To LOVE God. In any metaphysical quest, there may be passion, search for Truth, but loving God doesn't enter the picture. I wonder if you are using the term in a different way from a Christian evangelist who might use the same words. I guess I might need to understand what you mean by loving God, how that manifests, and how you experience that. I think you may have a more personalized view of God than I thought previously in the discussion where he seemed too abstract to love. I guess that if there is a God who has thousands of names in Hinduism, calling him life and saying that I love life may be similar. If you mean an ecstatic connection to being alive then I am with you 100% and it becomes a you say tomato, I say tomto kind of thing. If you are having and experience of a personal God mystically or are focusing your energy on an image of God, then I probably got off at the last bus stop. Please be truthful: I had tried to point this out in my original post, saying that you can of course love your wife, your pet, people and so on. But you surely cannot love God. To say 'I love life' is a different issue IMO, as it is more used in the sense that generally you like the things you do in your life etc, it isn't usually seen as a concentrated love towards a transcendent whole. I'm not sure we could know if your words correspond to my reality or vise versa. Words like transcendent whole invoke more of a feeling for me than a clear definition. I don't know if my love of life includes what you are referring to here. Life is pretty deep. My point really is, that in this discussion about God, the word 'Love' didn't really enter until now, but it is the most important word for any theist. I could easily say, that I believe in God, because I love him, and you would probably say, that this isn't logical. You would say that this doesn't prove anything, wouldn't you? I don't think it is meant to prove anything is it? It seems to describe a subjective state for you and your statement proves that you have that feeling well enough for me. If you are trying to use your feeling to prove an external God because of how strong the subjective experience is then no, I would probably not interpret that subjective experience as proof of anything beyond your internal state. (my own internal experiences are evaluated the same way) So I propose for you reason, rationality has a greater weight in your personal quest, is so to say the operative factor, while for me it isn't. Reason plays a role for me too, a big role, but in a different way, with different conclusions. This may be so. I think that this difference is more evident in this area then the rest of our lives though. I also believe that these separate words, useful as their are in context, are a bit misleading when we get to how we approach our experiences. Humans seem to use all their faculties all the time especially when things really matter, so it would surprise me if it was all one way or the other for us. Perhaps part of our individuality is the mix of faculties we use in each context. As a blues musician, the idea that I am dominantly functioning from rationality rather then heart isn't a good match. Floating in subjectivity for hours at a time is literally my job. Looking at rationality another way, it refers (for me) to how we weigh the value of our supporting evidence for beliefs. I don't think your belief in God is inherently irrational. You probably have good reasons for believing in a version
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
Not to interrupt a good discussion with Michael but to start a tangential thread: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I get that you aren't trying to put me down. Inherent in this discussion are our beliefs that we are correct in our view. Ok, not to criticize in any way or put anyone down, but when I present a view, I do *not* hold the belief that it is correct. I hold only the belief that it is a view that has passed across my attention field. It would be crazy for us not to believe this. Then crazy I am. :-) They are mutually exclusive in one sense, which is why some discussions like this break down and become Edg-like. I can *handle* mutually-exclusive concepts. I *get off* on mutually-exclusive concepts. It's what being a Tantric is all *about*, man. This can be seen as just a token post to show that Curtis and I do not necessarily always agree, even if we are both heretics doomed to the seventh level of Hell. We'll probably argue about nitpicks like this there, too. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not to interrupt a good discussion with Michael but to start a tangential thread: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: I get that you aren't trying to put me down. Inherent in this discussion are our beliefs that we are correct in our view. Ok, not to criticize in any way or put anyone down, Your good will credit card is nowhere near its limit bro, charge away with no fear that I'll get Edgy. but when I present a view, I do *not* hold the belief that it is correct. I hold only the belief that it is a view that has passed across my attention field. Glad you picked that up. I was actually thinking you might when I wrote it. I think this is on a continuum, which is my new favorite word for the week. I don't suspect that you are ambivalent about the God of the Old Testament as a man made creation rather then an actual angry asshole in the sky. When we get down to more abstract conceptions of the ground of all being I get less sure about how correct I am. I still may choose a side but am open to being proven wrong. I am not a complete relativist though. I believe there are methods of thinking that deliver more reliable knowledge. Here we may differ. It would be crazy for us not to believe this. Then crazy I am. :-) First let me start with the gratuitous: who didn't know that! I guess what I mean is that we choose our POVs with good intention that we are doing the best we can to distinguish our view from a less worthy one. Just by choosing one expression over another we are assigning a value on it. So I'm not sure if you are expressing a quality of a flexible mind or a position of absolute skepticism concerning knowledge here. As a pragmatist I do choose beliefs by weighing evidence and change them when other more compelling evidence comes in. I know better than to be too sure of my self (due to repeated humbling experiences of being completely wrong) but I have confidence in my best effort at upholding beliefs based on good evidence and reasons. I definitely function on the assumption that I am right for now. They are mutually exclusive in one sense, which is why some discussions like this break down and become Edg-like. I can *handle* mutually-exclusive concepts. I *get off* on mutually-exclusive concepts. It's what being a Tantric is all *about*, man. This can be seen as just a token post to show that Curtis and I do not necessarily always agree, even if we are both heretics doomed to the seventh level of Hell. We'll probably argue about nitpicks like this there, too. :-) I am probably not in the A is both A and not A camp. I beleive that certain rules of epistemology help us sort out beliefs with a higher probability of being true. I liked Main's presentation of this range. I suspect we would have a blast on this topic for a good part of eternity. As we have discussed before you are basing your POV on experiences that I have not had so given that we may both be being rational in our conclusions. Both you and Marek have PsOV that are different from my own, but our attention on what perspectives we share has built a nice trust platform to explore where we differ. It is a tricky dance here to balance the two and I am only successful with certain people here. I suspect it has to do with how much a person values rapport and mutual respect as a baseline goal in discussion.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: ...when I present a view, I do *not* hold the belief that it is correct. I hold only the belief that it is a view that has passed across my attention field. Glad you picked that up. I was actually thinking you might when I wrote it. I think this is on a continuum, which is my new favorite word for the week. Good word. Continuums keep continuing. I don't suspect that you are ambivalent about the God of the Old Testament as a man made creation rather then an actual angry asshole in the sky. I think we're safe with that assumption, even given that the continuum keeps continuing. :-) When we get down to more abstract conceptions of the ground of all being I get less sure about how correct I am. I have no clue. I am without clue. And I'm content -- and even comfortable -- with that. I still may choose a side but am open to being proven wrong. I tend not even to choose sides, except in the moment. If you've followed my posts here, you have probably noticed how variable my sides can be. I am not a complete relativist though. I believe there are methods of thinking that deliver more reliable knowledge. Here we may differ. Indeed we may. :-) It would be crazy for us not to believe this. Then crazy I am. :-) First let me start with the gratuitous: who didn't know that! Hey, I'm a firm believer in Being crazy in a crazy world is a great way to be inaccessible. :-) I guess what I mean is that we choose our POVs with good intention that we are doing the best we can to distinguish our view from a less worthy one. Just by choosing one expression over another we are assigning a value on it. If you include the phrase, in the moment, I am down with what you are saying. If you extend the value to anything more than the moment of writing, I am not sure I agree with it. There may be recurring themes in the things I write here, but each and every one of them were written in -- and believed for -- only the length of the moment it took me to write them. So I'm not sure if you are expressing a quality of a flexible mind or a position of absolute skepticism concerning knowledge here. I *am* unconvinced that any knowledge is knowledge. That is, I am unconvinced that any of it has relevance outside the moment and the circumstances in which it is first expressed, and believed -- for a moment. As a pragmatist I do choose beliefs by weighing evidence and change them when other more compelling evidence comes in. As an ex-hippie, I believe in the moment and its specific ecstasy. If that ecstasy consists of a finger pointing to the moon over here, in the South, I go with it. If a little later that day the ecstasy of the moment points to the moon as being in the West, I go with that. Really. I know better than to be too sure of my self (due to repeated humbling experiences of being completely wrong) but I have confidence in my best effort at upholding beliefs based on good evidence and reasons. I have almost zero confidence in basing beliefs on good evidence and reasons. Whereas I have almost complete confidence in basing beliefs on the moment, and on where my intuition finger seems to be pointing. I definitely function on the assumption that I am right for now. I function on the assumption that now is now. Later is later, and has no relationship to now. They are mutually exclusive in one sense, which is why some discussions like this break down and become Edg-like. I can *handle* mutually-exclusive concepts. I *get off* on mutually-exclusive concepts. It's what being a Tantric is all *about*, man. This can be seen as just a token post to show that Curtis and I do not necessarily always agree, even if we are both heretics doomed to the seventh level of Hell. We'll probably argue about nitpicks like this there, too. :-) I am probably not in the A is both A and not A camp. I beleive that certain rules of epistemology help us sort out beliefs with a higher probability of being true. I had my rules of epistemology blown away the first time I went out into the desert with Rama. They have never returned. I liked Main's presentation of this range. I suspect we would have a blast on this topic for a good part of eternity. While whistling in Hell, I hope: http://www.bardos.net/images/WhistlinginHell.jpg As we have discussed before you are basing your POV on experiences that I have not had so given that we may both be being rational in our conclusions. I hope not. I *hate* being perceived as rational. ;-) Both you and Marek have PsOV that are different from my own, but our attention on what perspectives we share has built a nice trust platform to explore where we differ. It is a tricky dance here to balance the two and I
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
Curtis, et al, To me, this refining an atheistic stance is merely a waste of time like having a discussion about where's the best place to stand in a cesspool. Oh, stand over here, cuz the puke stench is easier to bear than than the doo-doo stink over there. Oh, I'm being haughty, don't bother smacking the me-ego on this, but atheism's appreciation of ALL THIS can, at best, be but a hollow and lifeless POV which can yield but scant awe. Proof? Look into the night sky. Such majesty, right? Boggling, glory. Bored yet? Getting your shoes on to make a run down to a Spanish Bar? The average person but glances at the night sky's display despite knowing that one is peering as deeply as thirteen billion years into the past, or that there's two hundred billion stars next door and that there's two hundred billion other galaxies with their two hundred billion stars, or that perhaps the eyes of hundreds of millions of ancient god-like civilizations are peering back. That's the rub. All that, right there for the looking at, and, I'm bored, say most folks. So much for the inspiration and passion that relative majesty can trigger. Major AWE can only come from seeing Pure Being's manifested diversity as ALIVE, not MERELY an almost infinite, glorious, incredible clockworks a'tickin'. It's all the difference between looking at the Mona Lisa, and looking at the Mona Lisa and understanding that she's actually there looking back at you -- and her smile now blazes at one. That's the difference between an atheist's awe and enlightenment's awe. Despite many here supporting Advaita, it's hard to find many posts that keep on the front burner the concept that the EXPERIENCE of Pure Being is relative and merely a symbol of silence (cuz the gunas are balanced and no diversity is manifesting during the EXPERIENCE.) It's a brain buzz though -- an activity. Something a robot can do. I don't see anyone here being a very good proponent of Advaita -- myself included -- because though I think I know some stuff, it is all secondarily acquired by mere intellectual study of Advaita. I'm not a knower of reality -- I am a not-very-humble parrot trained by Ramana. Pure Being is the noise OM. That's the sound that contains all sounds -- perfectly harmonized. But what/who receives/listens to this sound? Most posters here stop conceptualizing at this point. So many write confusingly about transcending and consider the experience of Pure Being to be the end-state of enlightenment -- a sustained samadhi seems to be the best that many here can imagine, whereas, Ramana Mahrishi contends that Pure Being is merely God, and to transcend is a ACT of unification with one's oversoul, God, Pure Being, but, THOUGH GOD IS PERFECT, it is still an act of WRONG IDENTIFICATION to think so small. The word act here is poetic since the Absolute cannot have any qualities, including the dynamic identification. But we are forced to use words, so keep yer poetry alert warning light flashing. Pure Being DOES have qualities -- in fact, it has ALL QUALITIES. Pure Being is a mote in the vastness of the Absolute, but if the Absolute wants to comb its hair, it has to look in the mirror of Pure Being. While combing, the Absolute can be imagined saying, Yeah, that looks like me, but where's all the missing vastness? Pure Being is defined as relative vastness. No brain can conceive of anything vaster or more complete, so of course brains think that they've found the Absolute when they transcend, unify, and pretend to be silent while experiencing OM. The ego is merely saying to itself, I'm perfect as long as I don't do anything but hum this tune. And it's true. Transcending ordinary thinking and residing in amness is as quiet as an ego can get, but who merely wants an obedient ego? As beautiful as a soul can be, it's prison. The ego thinks it's the sentience that receives experiencing. When it finally gets over itself, then, this assumption of identity, this assertion of sentience, ends. Now, get this part, study this: When the ego stops thinking it is alive instead of being merely one sound in Pure Being's chorus, all identifications, except one, end. Saturating one's robot with this experience of Pure Being eventually gets the brain to be experiencing this home of all the laws of nature as an all time reality. This is an achievement of saintliness. But being a saint is still an identity -- but now, not the robot's ego, but GOD'S EGO is doing the identification. The head is now THE HEAD, and the aura becomes A HALO. BillyG says it like this: TM is Samyama! Effortless Dharana, leading to Dhyana (sublime spontaneous contemplation on the Divine), and finally Samadhi (actual merging into oneness with the object of contemplation, pure consciousness or the Divine). Residing in this state of saintliness, this perfection, this balance, finally gives even God's Ego a chance at seeing OM for the noise it is. Then, a longing
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Curtis, et al, To me, this refining an atheistic stance is merely a waste of time like having a discussion about where's the best place to stand in a cesspool. Oh, stand over here, cuz the puke stench is easier to bear than than the doo-doo stink over there. Wow I'm impressed. Your contribution to the discussion is doo doo Ka ka. You just read enough of other posts to fly off into your own world don't you? I am tempted to just dismiss you as a person without the capacity to understand any POV but his own, but you are being such a dick about it I think I will hang for the humor factor. Oh, I'm being haughty, don't bother smacking the me-ego on this, but atheism's appreciation of ALL THIS can, at best, be but a hollow and lifeless POV which can yield but scant awe. I wonder what your mind conceives as atheism. You are not only being haughty, you sound like every fundamentalist of every religion I have ever talked to. Proof? Look into the night sky. Such majesty, right? Boggling, glory. Yes the natural physical world is a wonderful place. Glad you noticed. Atheists can see it and enjoy it too. Bored yet? Getting your shoes on to make a run down to a Spanish Bar? Oh, a dig at Barry. How clever. The average person but glances at the night sky's display despite knowing that one is peering as deeply as thirteen billion years into the past, or that there's two hundred billion stars next door and that there's two hundred billion other galaxies with their two hundred billion stars, Yes we know this from science. This is another area that the world's scriptures are clueless about. or that perhaps the eyes of hundreds of millions of ancient god-like civilizations are peering back. Could be. That's the rub. All that, right there for the looking at, and, I'm bored, say most folks. So much for the inspiration and passion that relative majesty can trigger. WTF? Are you imagining a person bored by the beauty of the night sky Never met such a person. Sure would make your post make some sense if there was one right? Major AWE can only come from seeing Pure Being's manifested diversity as ALIVE, not MERELY an almost infinite, glorious, incredible clockworks a'tickin'. It's all the difference between looking at the Mona Lisa, and looking at the Mona Lisa and understanding that she's actually there looking back at you -- and her smile now blazes at one. That's the difference between an atheist's awe and enlightenment's awe. You don't have a clue about atheist's awe for two reasons. One, you don't understand atheism and two you can't imagine another person's POV that differs from your own. Despite many here supporting Advaita, it's hard to find many posts that keep on the front burner the concept that the EXPERIENCE of Pure Being is relative and merely a symbol of silence (cuz the gunas are balanced and no diversity is manifesting during the EXPERIENCE.) It's a brain buzz though -- an activity. Something a robot can do. I don't see anyone here being a very good proponent of Advaita -- myself included -- because though I think I know some stuff, it is all secondarily acquired by mere intellectual study of Advaita. I'm not a knower of reality -- I am a not-very-humble parrot trained by Ramana. False humility, does that work for you? Pure Being is the noise OM. That's the sound that contains all sounds -- perfectly harmonized. Wow, you read an intro to a yoga book. Me too. But what/who receives/listens to this sound? Most posters here stop conceptualizing at this point. Because you are not making sense. So many write confusingly about transcending and consider the experience of Pure Being to be the end-state of enlightenment -- a sustained samadhi seems to be the best that many here can imagine, whereas, Ramana Mahrishi contends that Pure Being is merely God, and to transcend is a ACT of unification with one's oversoul, God, Pure Being, but, THOUGH GOD IS PERFECT, it is still an act of WRONG IDENTIFICATION to think so small. The word act here is poetic since the Absolute cannot have any qualities, including the dynamic identification. But we are forced to use words, so keep yer poetry alert warning light flashing. Pure Being DOES have qualities -- in fact, it has ALL QUALITIES. Pure Being is a mote in the vastness of the Absolute, but if the Absolute wants to comb its hair, it has to look in the mirror of Pure Being. While combing, the Absolute can be imagined saying, Yeah, that looks like me, but where's all the missing vastness? Pure Being is defined as relative vastness. No brain can conceive of anything vaster or more complete, so of course brains think that they've found the Absolute when they transcend, unify, and pretend to be silent while experiencing OM. The ego is merely saying to itself,
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
Curtis, Shame on you. I gave you a chance to really dig in and try to pony up a defense of atheism (your brand) but you've just continued the personal attacks on me instead of addressing the incredible concepts I tried to convey. I thought you were a cut above Barry, but, like Barry-as-Judy-just-recently-described-him you're running away from a debate when it gets subtle and hard. I stand by every word I've written below. Show me, and show this community where you think you've got better proofs or logic that your POV has more power to explain ALL THIS better than Advaita's story. Atheism is an outlander, rogue, arrested development, personality disorder. I just erased a bunch of questions aimed at nailing down your POV, cuz, given you below, you've proved to me that you're just set on flaming my ass -- no real chance of discussion with you from this point on. I may be many things, and I've confessed my weaknesses here more than most, but you are a moral coward -- a runner like Barry. And to hell with the concepts I've presented being mine -- this is Advaita as I understand it, and if you cannot counter Advaita, don't bother showing where I may need more clarity about Advaita, cuz it'll just be non-sense if you can't debate the concepts in general. I'm calling you out, Punk. I don't think you have the guts for a true dialog. It's okay if you are addicted to flaming, but could you for for once use your brain for something other than playing music and kissing Barry's ungodly ass? Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Curtis, et al, To me, this refining an atheistic stance is merely a waste of time like having a discussion about where's the best place to stand in a cesspool. Oh, stand over here, cuz the puke stench is easier to bear than than the doo-doo stink over there. Wow I'm impressed. Your contribution to the discussion is doo doo Ka ka. You just read enough of other posts to fly off into your own world don't you? I am tempted to just dismiss you as a person without the capacity to understand any POV but his own, but you are being such a dick about it I think I will hang for the humor factor. Oh, I'm being haughty, don't bother smacking the me-ego on this, but atheism's appreciation of ALL THIS can, at best, be but a hollow and lifeless POV which can yield but scant awe. I wonder what your mind conceives as atheism. You are not only being haughty, you sound like every fundamentalist of every religion I have ever talked to. Proof? Look into the night sky. Such majesty, right? Boggling, glory. Yes the natural physical world is a wonderful place. Glad you noticed. Atheists can see it and enjoy it too. Bored yet? Getting your shoes on to make a run down to a Spanish Bar? Oh, a dig at Barry. How clever. The average person but glances at the night sky's display despite knowing that one is peering as deeply as thirteen billion years into the past, or that there's two hundred billion stars next door and that there's two hundred billion other galaxies with their two hundred billion stars, Yes we know this from science. This is another area that the world's scriptures are clueless about. or that perhaps the eyes of hundreds of millions of ancient god-like civilizations are peering back. Could be. That's the rub. All that, right there for the looking at, and, I'm bored, say most folks. So much for the inspiration and passion that relative majesty can trigger. WTF? Are you imagining a person bored by the beauty of the night sky Never met such a person. Sure would make your post make some sense if there was one right? Major AWE can only come from seeing Pure Being's manifested diversity as ALIVE, not MERELY an almost infinite, glorious, incredible clockworks a'tickin'. It's all the difference between looking at the Mona Lisa, and looking at the Mona Lisa and understanding that she's actually there looking back at you -- and her smile now blazes at one. That's the difference between an atheist's awe and enlightenment's awe. You don't have a clue about atheist's awe for two reasons. One, you don't understand atheism and two you can't imagine another person's POV that differs from your own. Despite many here supporting Advaita, it's hard to find many posts that keep on the front burner the concept that the EXPERIENCE of Pure Being is relative and merely a symbol of silence (cuz the gunas are balanced and no diversity is manifesting during the EXPERIENCE.) It's a brain buzz though -- an activity. Something a robot can do. I don't see anyone here being a very good proponent of Advaita -- myself included -- because though I think I know some stuff, it is all secondarily acquired by mere intellectual study of
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Curtis, et al, To me, this refining an atheistic stance is merely a waste of time like having a discussion about where's the best place to stand in a cesspool. Oh, stand over here, cuz the puke stench is easier to bear than than the doo-doo stink over there. Well I don't know about the way you put it Edg, but basically, principally I agree with you. Out of reasons I have already tried to point out, and that particularely directed at a 'Rationalist Atheist'. The moment you deny an ultimate ground / being / mystery at the basis of creation which cannot be rationally contained (for a rationalist its only a matter of time till science will understand it all), you have no way of attaining anything, or evolving towards a 'higher goal', like the mystic would do. All the fine-edging on yur intellecual POV will be mute, as it is clear what becomes of you in the end: A dissipation into the inconsciousness. I am not sure though, if Curtis is really in this category. It seems he is still on his quest. snip Major AWE can only come from seeing Pure Being's manifested diversity as ALIVE, not MERELY an almost infinite, glorious, incredible clockworks a'tickin'. It's all the difference between looking at the Mona Lisa, and looking at the Mona Lisa and understanding that she's actually there looking back at you -- and her smile now blazes at one. That's the difference between an atheist's awe and enlightenment's awe. I think thats the bottom line for me: Religion /spirituality is all about living it and practising. An atheist may be in awe, but basically (Unless he is a Buddhist or Taoist)he is just exploring a kind of a metaphysical study. So he may be in awe, yes. But he cannot LOVE reality as such, and he cannot develop a passion about it. (maybe some out there regard or sense this passion as something dangerous) There is no one there to love, except of course his spouse, his children etc. He can love everything in the objective world, but of course he cannot love the WHOLE Essence in a personified way. Similarely, a Buddhist, being an atheist (soft one)can have all the detachment in the world, but whatever awe Curtis or barry may have, it cannot translate into love - not at least in a unfified way towards the essence of everything. A believer to the contrary is more interested in loving God than proving him/her. An atheist is under the dictate of th mind - he can gauge what the mind can know and what the mind cannot know. A believer does not trust the rationale, he trusts his heart only. He is not interested in the truth of his mind, if he/she is practising, he will trust the truth of his heart/soul. This is completely internal and has no relationship to external reality. I am very much a fan of Kierkegaard when it comes to his views on subjectivity and choice: We cannot think our choices in life, we must live them; and even those choices that we often think about become different once life itself enters into the picture. For Kierkegaard, the type of objectivity that a scientist or historian might use misses the pointhumans are not motivated and do not find meaning in life through pure objectivity. Instead, they find it through passion, desire, and moral and religious commitment. These phenomena are not objectively provablenor do they come about through any form of analysis of the external world; they come about through inward reflection, a way of looking at one's life that evades objective scrutiny. Instead, true self-worth originates in a relation to something that transcends human powers, something that provides a meaning because it inspires awe and wonder and demands total and absolute commitment in achieving it. Johannes Climacus, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, writes the following cryptic line: Subjectivity is Truth. To understand Climacus's concept of the individual, it is important to look at what he says regarding subjectivity. What is subjectivity? In very rough terms, subjectivity refers to what is personal to the individualwhat makes the individual who he is in distinction from others. It is what is insidewhat the individual can see, feel, think, imagine, dream, etc. It is often opposed to objectivitythat which is outside the individual, which the individual and others around can feel, see, measure, and think about. Another way to interpret subjectivity is the unique relationship between the subject and object. Scientists and historians, for example, study the objective world, hoping to elicit the truth of natureor perhaps the truth of history. In this way, they hope to predict how the future will unfold in accordance with these laws. In terms of history, by studying the past, the individual can perhaps elicit the laws that determine how events will unfoldin this way the individual can predict the future with more exactness and perhaps take control of events that
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
Good stuff, T, good stuff. I wanted to use the word love, but I was afraid I'd come off as even more new age, but yeah, I've posted here that true love is consciousness, and thank you for helping me come back to that. More later, no time to reply-enjoy your words right now. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Curtis, et al, To me, this refining an atheistic stance is merely a waste of time like having a discussion about where's the best place to stand in a cesspool. Oh, stand over here, cuz the puke stench is easier to bear than than the doo-doo stink over there. Well I don't know about the way you put it Edg, but basically, principally I agree with you. Out of reasons I have already tried to point out, and that particularely directed at a 'Rationalist Atheist'. The moment you deny an ultimate ground / being / mystery at the basis of creation which cannot be rationally contained (for a rationalist its only a matter of time till science will understand it all), you have no way of attaining anything, or evolving towards a 'higher goal', like the mystic would do. All the fine-edging on yur intellecual POV will be mute, as it is clear what becomes of you in the end: A dissipation into the inconsciousness. I am not sure though, if Curtis is really in this category. It seems he is still on his quest. snip Major AWE can only come from seeing Pure Being's manifested diversity as ALIVE, not MERELY an almost infinite, glorious, incredible clockworks a'tickin'. It's all the difference between looking at the Mona Lisa, and looking at the Mona Lisa and understanding that she's actually there looking back at you -- and her smile now blazes at one. That's the difference between an atheist's awe and enlightenment's awe. I think thats the bottom line for me: Religion /spirituality is all about living it and practising. An atheist may be in awe, but basically (Unless he is a Buddhist or Taoist)he is just exploring a kind of a metaphysical study. So he may be in awe, yes. But he cannot LOVE reality as such, and he cannot develop a passion about it. (maybe some out there regard or sense this passion as something dangerous) There is no one there to love, except of course his spouse, his children etc. He can love everything in the objective world, but of course he cannot love the WHOLE Essence in a personified way. Similarely, a Buddhist, being an atheist (soft one)can have all the detachment in the world, but whatever awe Curtis or barry may have, it cannot translate into love - not at least in a unfified way towards the essence of everything. A believer to the contrary is more interested in loving God than proving him/her. An atheist is under the dictate of th mind - he can gauge what the mind can know and what the mind cannot know. A believer does not trust the rationale, he trusts his heart only. He is not interested in the truth of his mind, if he/she is practising, he will trust the truth of his heart/soul. This is completely internal and has no relationship to external reality. I am very much a fan of Kierkegaard when it comes to his views on subjectivity and choice: We cannot think our choices in life, we must live them; and even those choices that we often think about become different once life itself enters into the picture. For Kierkegaard, the type of objectivity that a scientist or historian might use misses the pointhumans are not motivated and do not find meaning in life through pure objectivity. Instead, they find it through passion, desire, and moral and religious commitment. These phenomena are not objectively provablenor do they come about through any form of analysis of the external world; they come about through inward reflection, a way of looking at one's life that evades objective scrutiny. Instead, true self-worth originates in a relation to something that transcends human powers, something that provides a meaning because it inspires awe and wonder and demands total and absolute commitment in achieving it. Johannes Climacus, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, writes the following cryptic line: Subjectivity is Truth. To understand Climacus's concept of the individual, it is important to look at what he says regarding subjectivity. What is subjectivity? In very rough terms, subjectivity refers to what is personal to the individualwhat makes the individual who he is in distinction from others. It is what is insidewhat the individual can see, feel, think, imagine, dream, etc. It is often opposed to objectivitythat which is outside the individual, which the individual and others around can feel, see, measure, and think about. Another way to interpret subjectivity is the unique relationship between the subject and object. Scientists and historians, for
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip An atheist may be in awe, but basically (Unless he is a Buddhist or Taoist)he is just exploring a kind of a metaphysical study. So he may be in awe, yes. But he cannot LOVE reality as such, and he cannot develop a passion about it. Boy, Michael, I don't think that's true. Some of the most passionate expressions of love for reality-as-such that I've ever encountered have come from atheists. One of my favorite passages is from the end of atheist physicist Heinz Pagels's Cosmic Code, a book for the general reader about physics and quantum mechanics: Science is not the enemy of humanity but one of the deepest expressions of the human desire to realize that vision of infinite knowledge. Science shows us that the visible world is neither matter nor spirit; the visible world is the invisible organization of energy. I do not know what the future sentences of the cosmic code will be. But it seems certain that the recent human contact with the invisible world of quanta and the vastness of the cosmos will shape the destiny of our species or whatever we may become. I used to climb mountains in snow and ice, hanging onto the sides of great rocks. I was describing one of my adventures to an older friend once, and when I had finished he asked me, 'Why do you want to kill yourself?' I protested. I told him that the rewards I wanted were of sight, of pleasure, of the thrill of pitting my body and my skills against nature. My friend replied, 'When you are as old as I am you will see that you are trying to kill yourself.' I often dream about falling. Such dreams are commonplace to the ambitious or those who climb mountains. I dreamed I was clutching at the face of a rock but it did not hold. Gravel gave way. I grasped for a shrub, but it pulled loose, and in cold terror I fell into the abyss. Suddenly I realized that my fall was relative; there was no bottom and no end. A feeling of pleasure overcame me. I realized that what I embody, the principle of life, cannot be destroyed. It is written into the cosmic code, the order of the universe. As I continued to fall in the dark void, embraced by the vault of the heavens, I sang to the beauty of the stars and made my peace with the darkness. I don't think it gets much more passionate than that. There is a huge tragic irony in the last two paragraphs, however. Not long after this was written, Pagels died in a fall while mountain climbing. Not only does that make the dream rather eerie, but even more so the paragraph above it about mountain climbing involving a subconscious death wish. It's almost as if Pagels had become impatient with human progress toward the infinite knowledge he refers to in the first paragraph, and his subconscious mind had prodded him to let go of the struggle to climb the mountains of ignorance and instead experience directly his oneness with the order of the universe.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
T3rinity, what you've written (below) is way over my present mental acuity to grok but I do agree with you that Curtis is not the rational atheist Edg is railing against. Basically, I don't get what Edg's problem is; if Curtis just said he believed in a God then that's cool, but if he follows his true feelings and interior muse and continues to investigate those feelings for their continued validity against what he learns and in the light of other new experiences, somehow that's standing in a cesspool? Furthermore, from what I've read of Curtis and the personal experiences he has alluded to, I would wager that his interior life as well as his appreciation and awe of the manifest universe is something most folks would give their right arm for (that is, if they could even appreciate or comprehend it). And Curtis isn't denying an underlying ground or basis or mystery to the universe, quite the contrary, he appears to be marveling and enjoying the mystery that can't be explained (either by religion or science or rational thought). As I understand it, he's qualifying all the mystical experiences he has had (with the admission that they carried all the self-evident authority that such interior experiences convey) with the caveat that they may all be just mechanisms within the physiology of the species. For that matter, didn't Maharishi first explain the concept of the siddhis as just tweaking the inner physiology such that the desired (siddhi) experience was produced from the side of the experiencer without having to resort to an experience outside the experiencer? It just doesn't seem to me that Curtis or Turq is engaged in a superficial metaphysical study or that they are under the dictates of the mind or that an atheist can't truly LOVE what IS. The ability to Be and to Love cannot be circumscribed by whether or not you subscribe to a belief in God. If you fall through the rabbit hole you're not required to label it by any particular name to know that you've fallen. Anyway, mostly rambling, but it doesn't compute with me that these guys or atheists in general are somehow excluded from anything and it puzzles me that so much energy is spent attempting to knock them off their own internal gyroscope. Marek ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Curtis, et al, To me, this refining an atheistic stance is merely a waste of time like having a discussion about where's the best place to stand in a cesspool. Oh, stand over here, cuz the puke stench is easier to bear than than the doo-doo stink over there. Well I don't know about the way you put it Edg, but basically, principally I agree with you. Out of reasons I have already tried to point out, and that particularely directed at a 'Rationalist Atheist'. The moment you deny an ultimate ground / being / mystery at the basis of creation which cannot be rationally contained (for a rationalist its only a matter of time till science will understand it all), you have no way of attaining anything, or evolving towards a 'higher goal', like the mystic would do. All the fine-edging on yur intellecual POV will be mute, as it is clear what becomes of you in the end: A dissipation into the inconsciousness. I am not sure though, if Curtis is really in this category. It seems he is still on his quest. snip Major AWE can only come from seeing Pure Being's manifested diversity as ALIVE, not MERELY an almost infinite, glorious, incredible clockworks a'tickin'. It's all the difference between looking at the Mona Lisa, and looking at the Mona Lisa and understanding that she's actually there looking back at you -- and her smile now blazes at one. That's the difference between an atheist's awe and enlightenment's awe. I think thats the bottom line for me: Religion /spirituality is all about living it and practising. An atheist may be in awe, but basically (Unless he is a Buddhist or Taoist)he is just exploring a kind of a metaphysical study. So he may be in awe, yes. But he cannot LOVE reality as such, and he cannot develop a passion about it. (maybe some out there regard or sense this passion as something dangerous) There is no one there to love, except of course his spouse, his children etc. He can love everything in the objective world, but of course he cannot love the WHOLE Essence in a personified way. Similarely, a Buddhist, being an atheist (soft one)can have all the detachment in the world, but whatever awe Curtis or barry may have, it cannot translate into love - not at least in a unfified way towards the essence of everything. A believer to the contrary is more interested in loving God than proving him/her. An atheist is under the dictate of th mind - he can gauge what the mind can know and what the mind cannot know. A believer does not trust the
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--Heinz R. Pagels, died on July 23, 1988, in a mountain climbing accident on Pyramid Peak in Aspen, Colorado. His death had an enormous impact on a wide and disparate range of individuals who, each in their own way, were affected by his inquiring mind. Heinz, a physicist, was Executive Director of The New York Academy of Sciences, adjunct professor of physics at Rockefeller University, and president of the International League for Human Rights. He was the author of three books: The Cosmic Code (1982)Perfect Symmetry (1985), and Dreams of Reason: The Rise of the Sciences of Complexity (1988). He was also a founding member, and, at the time of his death, president of The - In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: snip An atheist may be in awe, but basically (Unless he is a Buddhist or Taoist)he is just exploring a kind of a metaphysical study. So he may be in awe, yes. But he cannot LOVE reality as such, and he cannot develop a passion about it. Boy, Michael, I don't think that's true. Some of the most passionate expressions of love for reality-as-such that I've ever encountered have come from atheists. One of my favorite passages is from the end of atheist physicist Heinz Pagels's Cosmic Code, a book for the general reader about physics and quantum mechanics: Science is not the enemy of humanity but one of the deepest expressions of the human desire to realize that vision of infinite knowledge. Science shows us that the visible world is neither matter nor spirit; the visible world is the invisible organization of energy. I do not know what the future sentences of the cosmic code will be. But it seems certain that the recent human contact with the invisible world of quanta and the vastness of the cosmos will shape the destiny of our species or whatever we may become. I used to climb mountains in snow and ice, hanging onto the sides of great rocks. I was describing one of my adventures to an older friend once, and when I had finished he asked me, 'Why do you want to kill yourself?' I protested. I told him that the rewards I wanted were of sight, of pleasure, of the thrill of pitting my body and my skills against nature. My friend replied, 'When you are as old as I am you will see that you are trying to kill yourself.' I often dream about falling. Such dreams are commonplace to the ambitious or those who climb mountains. I dreamed I was clutching at the face of a rock but it did not hold. Gravel gave way. I grasped for a shrub, but it pulled loose, and in cold terror I fell into the abyss. Suddenly I realized that my fall was relative; there was no bottom and no end. A feeling of pleasure overcame me. I realized that what I embody, the principle of life, cannot be destroyed. It is written into the cosmic code, the order of the universe. As I continued to fall in the dark void, embraced by the vault of the heavens, I sang to the beauty of the stars and made my peace with the darkness. I don't think it gets much more passionate than that. There is a huge tragic irony in the last two paragraphs, however. Not long after this was written, Pagels died in a fall while mountain climbing. Not only does that make the dream rather eerie, but even more so the paragraph above it about mountain climbing involving a subconscious death wish. It's almost as if Pagels had become impatient with human progress toward the infinite knowledge he refers to in the first paragraph, and his subconscious mind had prodded him to let go of the struggle to climb the mountains of ignorance and instead experience directly his oneness with the order of the universe.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
Thank you, Judy, this is excellent and such a better expression of what I was trying to write about in reply to t3rinity's post. ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: snip An atheist may be in awe, but basically (Unless he is a Buddhist or Taoist)he is just exploring a kind of a metaphysical study. So he may be in awe, yes. But he cannot LOVE reality as such, and he cannot develop a passion about it. Boy, Michael, I don't think that's true. Some of the most passionate expressions of love for reality-as-such that I've ever encountered have come from atheists. One of my favorite passages is from the end of atheist physicist Heinz Pagels's Cosmic Code, a book for the general reader about physics and quantum mechanics: Science is not the enemy of humanity but one of the deepest expressions of the human desire to realize that vision of infinite knowledge. Science shows us that the visible world is neither matter nor spirit; the visible world is the invisible organization of energy. I do not know what the future sentences of the cosmic code will be. But it seems certain that the recent human contact with the invisible world of quanta and the vastness of the cosmos will shape the destiny of our species or whatever we may become. I used to climb mountains in snow and ice, hanging onto the sides of great rocks. I was describing one of my adventures to an older friend once, and when I had finished he asked me, 'Why do you want to kill yourself?' I protested. I told him that the rewards I wanted were of sight, of pleasure, of the thrill of pitting my body and my skills against nature. My friend replied, 'When you are as old as I am you will see that you are trying to kill yourself.' I often dream about falling. Such dreams are commonplace to the ambitious or those who climb mountains. I dreamed I was clutching at the face of a rock but it did not hold. Gravel gave way. I grasped for a shrub, but it pulled loose, and in cold terror I fell into the abyss. Suddenly I realized that my fall was relative; there was no bottom and no end. A feeling of pleasure overcame me. I realized that what I embody, the principle of life, cannot be destroyed. It is written into the cosmic code, the order of the universe. As I continued to fall in the dark void, embraced by the vault of the heavens, I sang to the beauty of the stars and made my peace with the darkness. I don't think it gets much more passionate than that. There is a huge tragic irony in the last two paragraphs, however. Not long after this was written, Pagels died in a fall while mountain climbing. Not only does that make the dream rather eerie, but even more so the paragraph above it about mountain climbing involving a subconscious death wish. It's almost as if Pagels had become impatient with human progress toward the infinite knowledge he refers to in the first paragraph, and his subconscious mind had prodded him to let go of the struggle to climb the mountains of ignorance and instead experience directly his oneness with the order of the universe.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Marek Reavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thank you, Judy, this is excellent and such a better expression of what I was trying to write about in reply to t3rinity's post. Thanks for your post Marek. I don't think any claim about what another person can or cannot experience could be valid. How could anyone know this? I certainly don't think that people who believe in God can't be rational people who have good reasons for the things they choose, or are limited in any other way. One of my goals in this discussion has been to make a case that as far apart as atheists and theists seem on that one issue (and for one version of God), they share much more humanity. I set myself up a bit making this point on a spiritual board where my POV has a high cootie factor. I was not trying to convince anyone that my POV is right or debate it's superiority (as Edg wants me to do) or try to argue that others should adapt it. But evaluating my capacities for love or passion for reality as limited seems to go against everything I value in other people's spiritual perspective. Spirituality may aspire to explain the ultimate reality of life, but at the very least I would expect it to be able to summon a good Kumbaya vibe around the human campfire. ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: snip An atheist may be in awe, but basically (Unless he is a Buddhist or Taoist)he is just exploring a kind of a metaphysical study. So he may be in awe, yes. But he cannot LOVE reality as such, and he cannot develop a passion about it. Boy, Michael, I don't think that's true. Some of the most passionate expressions of love for reality-as-such that I've ever encountered have come from atheists. One of my favorite passages is from the end of atheist physicist Heinz Pagels's Cosmic Code, a book for the general reader about physics and quantum mechanics: Science is not the enemy of humanity but one of the deepest expressions of the human desire to realize that vision of infinite knowledge. Science shows us that the visible world is neither matter nor spirit; the visible world is the invisible organization of energy. I do not know what the future sentences of the cosmic code will be. But it seems certain that the recent human contact with the invisible world of quanta and the vastness of the cosmos will shape the destiny of our species or whatever we may become. I used to climb mountains in snow and ice, hanging onto the sides of great rocks. I was describing one of my adventures to an older friend once, and when I had finished he asked me, 'Why do you want to kill yourself?' I protested. I told him that the rewards I wanted were of sight, of pleasure, of the thrill of pitting my body and my skills against nature. My friend replied, 'When you are as old as I am you will see that you are trying to kill yourself.' I often dream about falling. Such dreams are commonplace to the ambitious or those who climb mountains. I dreamed I was clutching at the face of a rock but it did not hold. Gravel gave way. I grasped for a shrub, but it pulled loose, and in cold terror I fell into the abyss. Suddenly I realized that my fall was relative; there was no bottom and no end. A feeling of pleasure overcame me. I realized that what I embody, the principle of life, cannot be destroyed. It is written into the cosmic code, the order of the universe. As I continued to fall in the dark void, embraced by the vault of the heavens, I sang to the beauty of the stars and made my peace with the darkness. I don't think it gets much more passionate than that. There is a huge tragic irony in the last two paragraphs, however. Not long after this was written, Pagels died in a fall while mountain climbing. Not only does that make the dream rather eerie, but even more so the paragraph above it about mountain climbing involving a subconscious death wish. It's almost as if Pagels had become impatient with human progress toward the infinite knowledge he refers to in the first paragraph, and his subconscious mind had prodded him to let go of the struggle to climb the mountains of ignorance and instead experience directly his oneness with the order of the universe.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: snip An atheist may be in awe, but basically (Unless he is a Buddhist or Taoist)he is just exploring a kind of a metaphysical study. So he may be in awe, yes. But he cannot LOVE reality as such, and he cannot develop a passion about it. Boy, Michael, I don't think that's true. Some of the most passionate expressions of love for reality-as-such that I've ever encountered have come from atheists. Yes, and only fools think that theists and atheists exist. Neither exists. Love exists. OffWorld (as usual way ahead of the crowd)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Marek Reavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: T3rinity, what you've written (below) is way over my present mental acuity to grok but I do agree with you that Curtis is not the rational atheist Edg is railing against. Basically, I don't get what Edg's problem is... Edg isn't railing against atheism; he's just panicky because he thinks that folks here on FFL have figured him out and now automatically consign his posts to the same trash bin they put Willytex's posts in. And he's right. And instead of looking into the why of that, he's taking the Willytex path and trying to insult people into giving him the attention he's so desperate for. Doesn't work for Willytex, and it won't work for Edg. Actually, most people probably read more lines of Willy's posts before hitting NEXT than they do Edg's because Willy's not as pretentious a writer. As I've suggested before, try to have some compassion for Edg. He's melting down, and for some reason has chosen Fairfield Life as the place where he wants to do it.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Identification and saturational clarity
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As I've suggested before, try to have some compassion for Edg. He's melting down, and for some reason has chosen Fairfield Life as the place where he wants to do it. Lol ! I don't read much of the Turqey's posts these days, but he's still good for a laugh once in a while. He compassionately wants to publicly announce that (as he's so wisely said before, as he so humbly points out) that someone is melting down, therefore have compassion upon the poor fellow...as if no-one can plainly see what the Turqey really means is: I now want to shaft the Edg fellow in the ass, and you can watch me, but I don't want to say it out loud because I don't want to state to the world openly what a turqey I am And he thinks this is a clever manouvering on his part to send a stabbing jibe to the man, and thus bolstering his standing among the masses. Turq...this is not an episode of Survivor. Everyone sees right through your remarks that backfire upon you, and then recoil and hit you once again. but alas...The Turq is a Turqey. OffWorld (always way ahead of the crowd) .
