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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 21, 2016 15:23:36 GMT -5
Just can't relate. I don't think Divinity kills millions of people, Divinity doesn't kill pregnant women. The I-dentity of Charlie Manson does not in any way equate to Divinity. Divinity expressing itself as ego can get very ugly. Another way to say it might be that babies aren't born bad, they are conditioned to be bad. Yes, exactly. The biggest reason I left the Protestant (Baptist) church in my 20's, really teens (all the nonsense about original sin). |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 21, 2016 15:28:58 GMT -5
Yea, right, no. Hitler and Charlie are not innocent in any sense.  Yeah they are. They are innocent in lots of senses. One way is that they are both an aspect of the One. I, and you, created Hitler and Charlie. We all created them. Another way is that they were doing the best they could given the context they found themselves in. If I was in their shoes, with their conditioning, and their dna, and their context, I would have done the same thing. I won't try to sort all that out (some right some wrong). They are not innocent in any sense. (I don't know if you got to my metaphysics yet). There is no excuse for their behavior. The Whole didn't force them into bad decisions, there is such a thing as individual responsibility. |
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Post by figgles on Sept 21, 2016 15:31:24 GMT -5
Yeah..? You don't see a fundamental Godliness/divinity inherent in every individuated being...regardless of their behavior? No. My paradigm, briefly. Yes, Source, Life, Absolute, God, Wholeness, Oneness, One, exists in everyone, in all things, as Ground, but not in the sense of Identity. Charlie or Hitler could not exist without this Source. A human being is a ~mixture~ of this Ground, planted in a body. So a human being is ~partly~ Source, partly "dirt". Humans are here to choose to move toward Source and Life, or not. A human being's identity comes-from the ~mixing~. There isn't a real union with Divinity until and when that is chosen. If and when that should occur, in an instance of a Charlie or a Hitler, then Charlie would no longer be Charlie and Hitler would no longer be Hitler. This is why I am adamantly not a non-dualist. (But that's as brief as I can be). Sorry SDP, I keep reading your words, and am not seeing the difference between what you denote as Source and what you denote as ground.....therefore I dont' get the 'partly' bit. Beyond that though, I think I grasp what you're saying. |
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Post by andrew on Sept 21, 2016 15:32:26 GMT -5
I would say that is spirituality, not non-duality. In non-duality, there is no Eckhart and Charles. Spirituality acknowledges the person. Precisely, but there is. Right. So given that there is a person, my belief is that we have to be able to hold evil within the energy of love and compassion. Of course we have to stand up to it as well. But judgement will not resolve evil, because evil and judgement co-exist. There has to be love and the recognition of innocence too. |
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Post by figgles on Sept 21, 2016 15:34:36 GMT -5
Yeah they are. They are innocent in lots of senses. One way is that they are both an aspect of the One. I, and you, created Hitler and Charlie. We all created them. Another way is that they were doing the best they could given the context they found themselves in. If I was in their shoes, with their conditioning, and their dna, and their context, I would have done the same thing. I won't try to sort all that out (some right some wrong). They are not innocent in any sense. (I don't know if you got to my metaphysics yet). There is no excuse for their behavior. The Whole didn't force them into bad decisions, there is such a thing as individual responsibility. To see the innocence, or the divinity or both, the intent focus upon the behavior must shift. |
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Post by andrew on Sept 21, 2016 15:35:53 GMT -5
Yeah they are. They are innocent in lots of senses. One way is that they are both an aspect of the One. I, and you, created Hitler and Charlie. We all created them. Another way is that they were doing the best they could given the context they found themselves in. If I was in their shoes, with their conditioning, and their dna, and their context, I would have done the same thing. I won't try to sort all that out (some right some wrong). They are not innocent in any sense. (I don't know if you got to my metaphysics yet). There is no excuse for their behavior. The Whole didn't force them into bad decisions, there is such a thing as individual responsibility. Yes, individual responsibility is a useful idea, but there is also the recognition that their context was such that there wasn't any other choice available. In the case of Hitler, it is really quite obvious that he thought he was doing the right thing. I take individual responsibility by recognizing my role in creating these expressions, so I heal the Hitler and Charles within me. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 21, 2016 15:37:12 GMT -5
Just can't relate. I don't think Divinity kills millions of people, Divinity doesn't kill pregnant women. The I-dentity of Charlie Manson does not in any way equate to Divinity. ...conversations heard at the torch lighting party. If God is all powerful we gotta give him some credit for Charlie Manson, don't we? Oh no, that was all Satan. Yea that's the ticket. One solution to this conundrum is to just throw that whole model out. (My preferred solution.) All moral questions are clearly conceptual, eh? So right there you are in dual land. Leave those poor nondualists out of it. On acting morally -- aka appropriately -- a 'nondualist' just acts. Unfettered by conceptually created clumsiness. There isn't a Satan, that's nonsense too. Neither is God (directly) to blame for Charlie. Yes, SOCI formed a universe where "evil" would be possible, and even inevitable. In creating such a world God necessarily had to limit his power, within that world. The consequences of forming beings with the ability to choose, in the end nasty choices would be made and nasty results world occur. Our world today is a result of millions of nasty decisions. |
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Post by andrew on Sept 21, 2016 15:37:28 GMT -5
Divinity expressing itself as ego can get very ugly. Another way to say it might be that babies aren't born bad, they are conditioned to be bad. Yes, exactly. The biggest reason I left the Protestant (Baptist) church in my 20's, really teens (all the nonsense about original sin). Yes. So we can see that there is an innocence within all humans. It is conditioning that makes us act bad, it is not that they human is intrinsically bad. |
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Post by andrew on Sept 21, 2016 15:40:24 GMT -5
I won't try to sort all that out (some right some wrong). They are not innocent in any sense. (I don't know if you got to my metaphysics yet). There is no excuse for their behavior. The Whole didn't force them into bad decisions, there is such a thing as individual responsibility. To see the innocence, or the divinity or both, the intent focus upon the behavior must shift. yeah. You have to want to see it first, and then find a new focus. The hard bit is the first bit really. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 21, 2016 15:45:35 GMT -5
No. My paradigm, briefly. Yes, Source, Life, Absolute, God, Wholeness, Oneness, One, exists in everyone, in all things, as Ground, but not in the sense of Identity. Charlie or Hitler could not exist without this Source. A human being is a ~mixture~ of this Ground, planted in a body. So a human being is ~partly~ Source, partly "dirt". Humans are here to choose to move toward Source and Life, or not. A human being's identity comes-from the ~mixing~. There isn't a real union with Divinity until and when that is chosen. If and when that should occur, in an instance of a Charlie or a Hitler, then Charlie would no longer be Charlie and Hitler would no longer be Hitler. This is why I am adamantly not a non-dualist. (But that's as brief as I can be). Sorry SDP, I keep reading your words, and am not seeing the difference between what you denote as Source and what you denote as ground.....therefore I dont' get the 'partly' bit. Beyond that though, I think I grasp what you're saying. OK, sorry, using to many words (Source = Ground [of Being]). Picture three levels (the famous three-layer cake). Top layer, Source. Bottom layer, the physical universe, which includes physical bodies. Source is ~planted~ in a physical body (conception occurs). A human being is born. The human being is not wholly Source (God), not wholly physical (an animal). A human being is a third ~thingy~/being with its own identity. The identity of a human being does not equate to God/Source. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2016 15:51:11 GMT -5
...conversations heard at the torch lighting party. If God is all powerful we gotta give him some credit for Charlie Manson, don't we? Oh no, that was all Satan. Yea that's the ticket. One solution to this conundrum is to just throw that whole model out. (My preferred solution.) All moral questions are clearly conceptual, eh? So right there you are in dual land. Leave those poor nondualists out of it. On acting morally -- aka appropriately -- a 'nondualist' just acts. Unfettered by conceptually created clumsiness. There isn't a Satan, that's nonsense too. Neither is God (directly) to blame for Charlie. Yes, SOCI formed a universe where "evil" would be possible, and even inevitable. In creating such a world God necessarily had to limit his power, within that world. The consequences of forming beings with the ability to choose, in the end nasty choices would be made and nasty results world occur. Our world today is a result of millions of nasty decisions. |
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Post by andrew on Sept 21, 2016 15:54:21 GMT -5
Sorry SDP, I keep reading your words, and am not seeing the difference between what you denote as Source and what you denote as ground.....therefore I dont' get the 'partly' bit. Beyond that though, I think I grasp what you're saying. OK, sorry, using to many words (Source = Ground [of Being]). Picture three levels (the famous three-layer cake). Top layer, Source. Bottom layer, the physical universe, which includes physical bodies. Source is ~planted~ in a physical body (conception occurs). A human being is born. The human being is not wholly Source (God), not wholly physical (an animal). A human being is a third ~thingy~/being with its own identity. The identity of a human being does not equate to God/Source. One other way that evil can be seen. Those that demonstrate the most evil, and most intensity of ego-separation, are giving humanity the contrast so that we can move towards love. Another example of this... in this day and age, the exacerbation of ridiculous warfare is pushing humans to KNOW that they want peace. Sometimes intense contrast can encourage us to look closely at our values and what truly matters to us. In this sense, evil can be seen to be a gift to humanity...it says...'is this what you really want??!!' |
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Post by figgles on Sept 21, 2016 15:59:33 GMT -5
Sorry SDP, I keep reading your words, and am not seeing the difference between what you denote as Source and what you denote as ground.....therefore I dont' get the 'partly' bit. Beyond that though, I think I grasp what you're saying. OK, sorry, using to many words (Source = Ground [of Being]). Picture three levels (the famous three-layer cake). Top layer, Source. Bottom layer, the physical universe, which includes physical bodies. Source is ~planted~ in a physical body (conception occurs). A human being is born. The human being is not wholly Source (God), not wholly physical (an animal). A human being is a third ~thingy~/being with its own identity. The identity of a human being does not equate to God/Source. As I see it, regardless of layers, IF there 'a ground of all being' referenced, no matter how many layers are in between, none of them can be fundamentally anything other than that. Do you see ground of being as giving rise to all of it? |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 21, 2016 16:02:07 GMT -5
I won't try to sort all that out (some right some wrong). They are not innocent in any sense. (I don't know if you got to my metaphysics yet). There is no excuse for their behavior. The Whole didn't force them into bad decisions, there is such a thing as individual responsibility. Yes, individual responsibility is a useful idea, but there is also the recognition that their context was such that there wasn't any other choice available. In the case of Hitler, it is really quite obvious that he thought he was doing the right thing. I take individual responsibility by recognizing my role in creating these expressions, so I heal the Hitler and Charles within me.
That's just nonsense. Sure, Hitler thought he was doing right, but what does that have to do with anything? All this is why non-volition is nonsense. A human being is a point of decision, a maker of decisions, that's what a human being is. We are here to learn to make good decisions, and for that accountability is necessary, for that karma is necessary. Life is a school. The idea of non-volition removes accountability. The earth is in pretty bad shape right now, ecologically and psychologically. But it's not because it's inevitable because of the natural flow of All That Is. It's because people fork up. Charlie and Hitler get healed by changing, by ceasing to be what they are. But yes, we all have to clean up our own stuff. But this is not easy. It is very easy to go with the flow. It's not so easy to go against the flow of the nasty stuff in ourselves and the nasty stuff in the world. To say it's all just a flow is to escape our responsibility, but yes, "We are the World", but that doesn't remove our accountability. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 21, 2016 16:05:04 GMT -5
Yes, exactly. The biggest reason I left the Protestant (Baptist) church in my 20's, really teens (all the nonsense about original sin). Yes. So we can see that there is an innocence within all humans. It is conditioning that makes us act bad, it is not that they human is intrinsically bad. Yes, but many terrorists start training at birth, so they don't have much of a chance, but they are still not innocent. |
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