|
Post by laughter on Aug 27, 2014 15:34:36 GMT -5
Well, first names are harmless enough, aren't they? Underneath the labels are models - nondualist, diest, etc. - and those are all composed of various ideas and abstractions that ultimately lead back to our primary perceptions and our secondary thoughts about those perceptions. None of these are important, although they might seem so at one time or another. None of them offer any sort of absolute or ultimate truth, and all of them get in the way of what it is that we are. I've seen the film A Man for all Seasons a couple of times, very good film. Thomas More knows the law through and through, backwards and forwards, upside down and right-side up. The King decides he wants a divorce but needs an annulment of the present marriage, England still under the Roman Catholic Church. By this time Thomas More has been appointed Lord Chancellor by the King, probably in the hope he will support the King's request for an annulment. Well, the sh*t pretty-much hits the fan, the King wants his annulment, but Thomas More realizes the only way to remain true to his faith and simultaneously true to his public office, is to remain silent on the matter, remain silent, period, IOW in public and in private. At one point he is talking to his adult daughter, she asks his opinion on the matter. It is here we know how serious the matter is. He says sorry, I will not express any view on the matter. She says, surely you can tell me, I won't tell anybody. Then he says, what if they come for you and asked what I told you? What if they torture you to force you to tell what opinion I gave, would you tell them? If I tell you that I have an opinion on the matter, they can cut my head off. ~Spoiler Alert~! Very good film. Eventually a friend of Thomas More's, a young dude in the justice system was bribed to lie about More expressing his opinion on the matter (played by a young John Hurt). (Earlier in the film someone tried to bribe Thomas More in the presence of the young dude. He let a silver chalice sink in the river not taking the bribe, and warned the young dude about corruption). The lie allowed them to cut off Thomas More's head. This incident resulted in England separating from the Catholic Church and the beginning of the Church of England. The point of the story, one's being always trumps words, but in some instances, words matter. sdp Sure, action speaks louder than words, and sure, words matter. After decades of looking for the truth with intellect what I eventually discovered is that the words that point past both intellect and emotion are the ones that matter the most. If the words are part of a self-supporting structure, instead of the tools for dismantling such structure, then they matter in that they are a hindrance and an obscuration.
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Aug 27, 2014 15:36:17 GMT -5
Does nonduality say that man is made out of God stuff? Well, at least here's something we can disagree on, though I suspect most nondualists would disagree too. (not sure) Does nonduality say that man is made out of God stuff? If all is One and if God is.........what other conclusion could you reach? sdp This is a logical inference made based on the pointer of the absence of separation. It's reason applied where it doesn't belong.
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Aug 27, 2014 15:42:01 GMT -5
Does nonduality say that man is made out of God stuff? If all is One and if God is.........what other conclusion could you reach? sdp Why go the God route at all? Seems complicated. Worship, submission, awe and respecting the sacred appeals to something deep in our nature, and if someone is uneducated or unable or unwilling to follow the complicated facts that result from observation and analysis, then it's sort of a natural way to turn. If you look at the history of religion, they all have their roots in a mass appeal to a population that is extremely unsophisticated by today's standards. For example, at the root of the Protestant movement was a rebellion against centuries of masses in Latin to people who couldn't understand that language based on a book that none of them could ever read.
|
|
|
Post by stardustpilgrim on Aug 27, 2014 16:08:27 GMT -5
Does nonduality say that man is made out of God stuff? If all is One and if God is.........what other conclusion could you reach? sdp Why go the God route at all? Seems complicated. Either consciousness arises out of matter or matter arises out of consciousness. If matter comes first then you have to answer the question of where matter came from. Stephen Hawking thinks he has answered that, merely because of the quantum nature of reality. I don't think this gets us anywhere, you can't get something from nothing. The quantum nature of reality had to come from somewhere. Anyway, Consciousness-first makes the most sense to me, answers more questions. This is in answer to a few other posts as well......... sdp
|
|
|
Post by stardustpilgrim on Aug 27, 2014 16:09:47 GMT -5
Why go the God route at all? Seems complicated. Worship, submission, awe and respecting the sacred appeals to something deep in our nature, and if someone is uneducated or unable or unwilling to follow the complicated facts that result from observation and analysis, then it's sort of a natural way to turn. If you look at the history of religion, they all have their roots in a mass appeal to a population that is extremely unsophisticated by today's standards. For example, at the root of the Protestant movement was a rebellion against centuries of masses in Latin to people who couldn't understand that language based on a book that none of them could ever read. ditto
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Aug 27, 2014 18:17:00 GMT -5
Does nonduality say that man is made out of God stuff? Well, at least here's something we can disagree on, though I suspect most nondualists would disagree too. (not sure) Does nonduality say that man is made out of God stuff? If all is One and if God is.........what other conclusion could you reach? sdp If God is what......? Everything? You could reach the conclusion that God is everything. If you imagine God stuff so that you can imagine stuff that you imagine is not God, is really made out of the God stuff, then there's no way to recover from that imagining. What if you just dropped the whole God stuff idea and look and see what is meant by 'God is everything'? What does oneness really mean? Does it mean that all the parts are made out of the same stuff, or does it mean there are no parts?
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Aug 27, 2014 18:23:23 GMT -5
Does nonduality say that man is made out of God stuff? If all is One and if God is.........what other conclusion could you reach? sdp Why go the God route at all? Seems complicated. He believes in a supreme ordering intelligence, and I would say if we're going to talk about this stuff, we need to refer to Intelligence (or Awareness, or whatever). We do it all the time here, and we sometimes substitute 'God'.
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Aug 27, 2014 18:34:31 GMT -5
I've seen the film A Man for all Seasons a couple of times, very good film. Thomas More knows the law through and through, backwards and forwards, upside down and right-side up. The King decides he wants a divorce but needs an annulment of the present marriage, England still under the Roman Catholic Church. By this time Thomas More has been appointed Lord Chancellor by the King, probably in the hope he will support the King's request for an annulment. Well, the sh*t pretty-much hits the fan, the King wants his annulment, but Thomas More realizes the only way to remain true to his faith and simultaneously true to his public office, is to remain silent on the matter, remain silent, period, IOW in public and in private. At one point he is talking to his adult daughter, she asks his opinion on the matter. It is here we know how serious the matter is. He says sorry, I will not express any view on the matter. She says, surely you can tell me, I won't tell anybody. Then he says, what if they come for you and asked what I told you? What if they torture you to force you to tell what opinion I gave, would you tell them? If I tell you that I have an opinion on the matter, they can cut my head off. ~Spoiler Alert~! Very good film. Eventually a friend of Thomas More's, a young dude in the justice system was bribed to lie about More expressing his opinion on the matter (played by a young John Hurt). (Earlier in the film someone tried to bribe Thomas More in the presence of the young dude. He let a silver chalice sink in the river not taking the bribe, and warned the young dude about corruption). The lie allowed them to cut off Thomas More's head. This incident resulted in England separating from the Catholic Church and the beginning of the Church of England. The point of the story, one's being always trumps words, but in some instances, words matter. sdp Sure, action speaks louder than words, and sure, words matter. After decades of looking for the truth with intellect what I eventually discovered is that the words that point past both intellect and emotion are the ones that matter the most. If the words are part of a self-supporting structure, instead of the tools for dismantling such structure, then they matter in that they are a hindrance and an obscuration. Them's good words.
|
|
|
Post by justlikeyou on Aug 27, 2014 19:06:36 GMT -5
Does nonduality say that man is made out of God stuff? If all is One and if God is.........what other conclusion could you reach? sdp If God is what......? Everything? You could reach the conclusion that God is everything. If you imagine God stuff so that you can imagine stuff that you imagine is not God, is really made out of the God stuff, then there's no way to recover from that imagining. What if you just dropped the whole God stuff idea and look and see what is meant by 'God is everything'? What does oneness really mean? Does it mean that all the parts are made out of the same stuff, or does it mean there are no parts? There are a gazillion apparently separate things in the universe. Apparently separate because in actually everything is interdependent upon everything else. Without oxygen on this planet, for example, there is little life. What lives here without the sun? Without space where would a sun be put? And all these gazillion things share the same enlivening principle of existence (consciousness) without which nothing would have being. They share the same impetus to grow from seed to full maturity. They share the same alotted life cycle...birth, period of existence, and death. In these ways, the apparently separate are actually very much rooted in a fundamental oneness.
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Aug 27, 2014 19:17:25 GMT -5
Either consciousness arises out of matter or matter arises out of consciousness. That's an idea that not only can be questioned but has no basis other than the idea that one must create the other, which really just boils down for a demand for an explanation of something that is inexplicable.
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Aug 27, 2014 19:22:11 GMT -5
If God is what......? Everything? You could reach the conclusion that God is everything. If you imagine God stuff so that you can imagine stuff that you imagine is not God, is really made out of the God stuff, then there's no way to recover from that imagining. What if you just dropped the whole God stuff idea and look and see what is meant by 'God is everything'? What does oneness really mean? Does it mean that all the parts are made out of the same stuff, or does it mean there are no parts? There are a gazillion apparently separate things in the universe. Apparently separate because in actually everything is interdependent upon everything else. Without oxygen on this planet, for example, there is little life. What lives here without the sun? Without space where would a sun be put? And all these gazillion things share the same enlivening principle of existence (consciousness) without which nothing would have being. They share the same impetus to grow from seed to full maturity. They share the same alotted life cycle...birth, period of existence, and death. In these ways, the apparently separate are actually very much rooted in a fundamental oneness. The absence of separation isn't the hyper-connectivity of appearances, although that meaning of oneness is a clue of a sort, similar to the shadows on the wall in Plato's cave.
|
|
|
Post by stardustpilgrim on Aug 27, 2014 19:59:42 GMT -5
This addresses E above also. Pantheism says that the whole of God equals the whole of the universe, both are made of the same ~substance~. Panentheism says that God exists outside the universe, is not confined to the universe. IOW, there is part of God that does not touch the universe. This negates non-duality. More in next post. sdp what were you before you became something else sdp? Intelligence has the capacity to see that thought is limited and creative intelligence lives life in the moment. (sorry for the edit) This is theory, as far as I've gotten. Our true self as essence, a seed, is incarnated. Essence as attention and awareness as baby explores the world and takes in information, grows. At the same time this information is stored in the neural structure of the brain. By about the age of two baby is learning language, learning how to abstract. From an earlier thread I noted language comes from the left hemisphere of the brain in most people, probably 97% of everybody. Personality/ego is forming and by about the age of six will almost completely replace essence as our means of encountering the world. When this happens then personality/ego takes all the incoming energy and essence ceases to grow. Attention and awareness are captured and function through abstraction, at least once removed from reality, through cultural self/ego/persona. Ego/persona is active, essence passive. As stated in the other thread, as far as I can tell essence is still there, in the silent right hemisphere of the brain, but essence is now passive, ceases to grow FAIAP. We consider ego/personality/cultural self/zombie to be self and most people live this way the rest of their life. For some people essence is still functioning, right brain, enough to initiate the spiritual search (we have all come by it by various explorations). As the primary means of encountering the world for essence is through attention and awareness, interior spiritual practice is about reclaiming our true self/essence and making ego/personality passive and true self/essence active, again, as from birth, as a baby. If this transpires then essence can begin to grow again, being in direct contact with reality instead of being at least once removed from reality through ego/personality. Through practices of the ATA-MT type, we can reclaim our true nature. Eventually, the left brain ceases chattering away. I think that's a good sign we have accessed essence. Now, whatever happens, ego/cultural self/personality/zombie is going to eventually become passive and/or die. It happens in the process described above, or when the physical body dies. This process is described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead as the bardo, actually bardos. In the process described above, you are actually taking the energy out of ego/cultural self. Completing the process brings liberation, freedom. All of this can be taken care of in one life. However, you can insert here the process of re-incarnating (and if you do it also reaches into a past life and probably multiple past lives). If you die with ego still intact not having taken the energy out of ego, the energy passes into essence in a seed form, a sort of spiritual DNA. If essence reincarnates, the energy that constituted the former cultural self becomes the core around which a new cultural self/ego/persona is formed, and the whole process continues. Originally, I consider essence as created by SOI as a seed of potential. Essence is sent into the world to activate its fullest potential. So there was a point where sdp did not exist. Now, this is probably not a big deal for most non-dualists, because for them there is no self anyway, self is the whole, but a full mature essence is what can unite with SOI. sdp
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2014 20:50:40 GMT -5
Has Sharon gone for a facial? How 'bout I give you one? You want one? sure. I loved it when she appeared in my face.
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Aug 27, 2014 20:51:55 GMT -5
If God is what......? Everything? You could reach the conclusion that God is everything. If you imagine God stuff so that you can imagine stuff that you imagine is not God, is really made out of the God stuff, then there's no way to recover from that imagining. What if you just dropped the whole God stuff idea and look and see what is meant by 'God is everything'? What does oneness really mean? Does it mean that all the parts are made out of the same stuff, or does it mean there are no parts? There are a gazillion apparently separate things in the universe. Apparently separate because in actually everything is interdependent upon everything else. Without oxygen on this planet, for example, there is little life. What lives here without the sun? Without space where would a sun be put? And all these gazillion things share the same enlivening principle of existence (consciousness) without which nothing would have being. They share the same impetus to grow from seed to full maturity. They share the same alotted life cycle...birth, period of existence, and death. In these ways, the apparently separate are actually very much rooted in a fundamental oneness. To be blunt, that's not what oneness is. Interdependence is not the demonstration of oneness, but simply an artifact of oneness. Oneness is not the working together of parts. The parts themselves are merely an appearance. If oneness is the case, there are no parts. The word refers to the literal absence of twoness.
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Aug 27, 2014 20:55:29 GMT -5
Either consciousness arises out of matter or matter arises out of consciousness. That's an idea that not only can be questioned but has no basis other than the idea that one must create the other, which really just boils down for a demand for an explanation of something that is inexplicable. Just for fun, we could say consciousness is it's content.
|
|