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maculated
Trad climber
San Luis Obispo, CA
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Nov 23, 2005 - 11:48pm PT
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Now, I could be wrong, but I think I know where John is going. He's not talking about simply emptying your mind and vacating existence and just BEING there as you stated, Healyje. That's still a state, is it not?
I think he is asking you to look at yourself, your reactions, thoughts, etc, and remove them from the context you're putting on them. What's the deep down true reason for your motivations day to day?
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Nov 23, 2005 - 11:53pm PT
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Again, trust me as to the non-content experience - been there [not] "done" that as it were. Have spent plenty of time simply "being". While quite something, I'm not sure where you are going with this other than it being quite something...
Closer, but no cigar. The "non-content experience" is just something else to wittness. Remember, this is truly free-soling--do you read me on this--where there is no "me" to "trust" or to have a "non-content experience." And I'm not just parroting Zen no-self stuff.
That's as far as I should push it.
JL
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Nov 23, 2005 - 11:54pm PT
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Come late to the party...
Early on, Lois nailed my whole problem with christianity. I, too would rather be 'damned' than accept christianity's exclusive inside track, etc. To my knowledge,only Asimov ever expressed this better. I quibble with her acceptance of Jesus as a historical figure (my heart tells me he is a necesary amalgam, even if some guy really did bear that name, and I think Karma is more like the golden rule than a physical law.
Then Dingus/Mac hit it on the head again, with the Gravity is god, etc part,
Then when Ding said
"I can sit tomorrow with family and friends and say grace and not feel the slightest bit hypocritical about it. To the contrary, I am proud of it... that I can say grace with Christians, take a bath in the good will of shared community experience and expressions of humility, and walk away feeling as though, for that tiny brief instant, I was serving the greater good.
It took me a long time to arrive at this place where I could do this. I count THAT as spiritual growth."
That too, resonated with something I've wrestled with and only recently come to.
Then largo and the, 'next step-akin to free soloing, thing'. Something I have experienced and am trying to evaluate as well.
This is good stuff!
Many more fine contributions than I have cited.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Nov 24, 2005 - 02:19am PT
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Jody Said.
"K-Rove, the God of Christianity is the only one that asks for NOTHING but faith in Him. ALL other religions in the world, including Islam, require you to DO something to work your way into Heaven. "
That Christian God sounds kinda like a Democrat to me Jody.
But, getting serious for a moment...
No matter how you slice it, there is a higher power that is beyond us. The question is the nature of that power.
After all, even if you believe science only, the world is not as it seems. It's all vibrating energy that only appears to have real substance and solidity. You, me and the trees and rocks are all made of that same energy according to science. We're sitting reading our computer screen and cosmic rays are passing right through our body and hundreds of TV channels and cell conversations are hanging in the air around us unseen.
So is there a conscious power at the root of the mysterious energies that underpin our reality? In my experience there is, but that it transcends the anthropomorphic images that humans have applied to it.
But open your mind and seek for yourself. Just know that, no matter how you slice it, the world is not as it seems.
Whatever we believe, we don't believe it very often. Most of the time we are living, eating, sleeping and otherwise separated from our concepts and ideas. It's who we are in our hearts that we carry around with us constantly.
My experience is that God is a infinite conscious intelligence and that our essential nature, our soul, is also conciousness. Thus we are created in the image of God.
No faith is required for this. Quiet your mind utterly and be deep inside yourself and you will see for yourself. Thus, if you seek (honestly and without prejudging the results) you will find. Beyond your changing mind, beliefs and concepts, you are a pure awareness that is inherently peaceful and fulfilled.
I've seen the light in folks from all religions, all countries, and those without religion as well. Dogma doesn't save anyone. God doesn't know what religion you are. God sees directly to the heart.
Peace
karl
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Nov 24, 2005 - 03:50am PT
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John,
Brass rings and cigars aside, it's possibly a fine line or short plank (depending on one's personality) between the old Ram Dass BHN, simply "being" for more than a finite, short-term basis, and "tuning out" of this life for all practical purposes, i.e. family, children, work, etc. Again, lovely experience, lots of learning, lots to bring back to living this life, but short of jumping ship on life or attempting to foresake this plane of existence I freely admit to missing where you're trying to go beyond the initial conjecture. I like free soloing as much as the next person, but I have to say it's usually for short goes, or to get efficiently between point A and point B.
Feel free to keep after it - my onsight FA ratio isn't terribly high but I can usually manage by a half dozen goes...
-----------------------------------------
Karl,
"So is there a conscious power at the root of the mysterious energies that underpin our reality?"
Energy / power, yes - but "conscious" or intelligent? We definitely part company here. Here I simply see a very deep-seated need within most humans to believe that somehow this is all for a reason and that somewhere someone, or something "more", is behind it all. The idea that it might all just simply be the current permutation of relentlessly random and infinite cycle seems almost universally abhorent to humans. But then again, egocentricity is one of our defining traits and I find no surprise in the idea we might need to project a controlling aspect of ourselves onto the universe around us given that's how we survive what are otherwise hostile environments here on Earth.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Nov 24, 2005 - 10:04am PT
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Healyj
Human emotional needs are no evidence of anything one way or another.
This universal energy clearly has an aspect of consciousness or intelligence, since, of course, all consciousness and intelligence is a subset of it and cannot exist independently of it, so the question narrows to "is it aware of Us?" or "Is it intelligent in the way that we think of intelligence?"
Earlier in the thread you said you didn't see the physical basis for something like God.
Actually, I don't see the basis for the physical universe as we assume it without God. Did it have a beginning? What existed a trillion trillion years before that? Does it have an outer limit? What exists a Trilliion light years beyond that?
To me, it seems more likely that all this exists within the consciousness of ultimate being, just like we create our own dreams at night with seemingly real worlds and people that are solid relative to other dream worlds and people. Think about it.
The problems of the limits and timeline of the universe resolve nicely if it exists with the mind of God. And even science has discovered the relativity of time and space, the implications of which are just as hard to swallow and conceive as the existence of God itself.
In fact, it is frustratingly true that the only evidence that you have of your existence, or of any experience of this world, comes through your own consciousness. Period.
But hey, the only reason I bother to type this is because it is my experience that you don't have to take any of it on blind faith. If you make an openminded inquiry using tools like meditation, you can find out for yourself via experience, not blind faith.
Peace
Karl
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Hootervillian
climber
the Ponderosa, NV
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Nov 24, 2005 - 10:58am PT
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egocentricity is one of our defining traits and I find no surprise in the idea we might need to project a controlling aspect of ourselves onto the universe
thank you
the universe or Supertopo, whichever. anyone else 'feel' the irony of putting an ineffable concept into 'words'. as much hardwired as we are to our limited sensory receptors, so too are we hardwired to our supporting system, breathing is not just an 'active' process.
Is it not just plain hubris that would allow us to concieve of 'being' outside of that realm?
Free-soloing and other 'edge of conciousness' activities present a temporal case for 'nothing else matters', yet we are hardly outside of or removed from our 'consciousness' in the process. we can tease this for a bit whilst free-soloing, praying, waxing self-important, yet we continue to 'breath' a common medium.
for me, symbiosis does not include an individual quest for conciousness but a search for a collective reasoning based upon simultaneous perception of consciousness; implicitly interactive.
or not. i'm going to go put a dry cleaning bag over my head, be back with the 'team' in a minute or two, i believe.
ps. So the 'being process' is like a cigar? How do you know if someone else is 'describing the ineffable' incorrectly?
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Degaine
climber
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Nov 24, 2005 - 11:23am PT
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Largo wrote :
Let me put it another way: Is it possible for you to imagine a reality beyond your own genetic/biological processing and the visions of witch doctors and saints?
No.
Spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, we can not go beyond who we are and what our senses (be it physical, spiritual, mental or emotional) allow us to perceive or experience.
I think of it as the typical “humans only use 10% of their brains.” I imagine that we only perceive very little of the “reality” that is out there (10% for argument’s sake). So, while I believe it is possible to imagine or experience more of what is really out there, I don’t think we can imagine or experience anything beyond which we as human beings are capable of imagining and experiencing.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 24, 2005 - 11:30am PT
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The thread title says “There is no God”
Many say there is no God.
But nobody here can explain "why" there is no “God”
Therefore God exists!
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
boulder, co
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Nov 24, 2005 - 12:28pm PT
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Lois...have you read "the Book of Hopi" by Frank Waters??
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Nov 24, 2005 - 12:33pm PT
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"using tools like meditation, you can find out for yourself via experience, not blind faith."
Very tue, in my experience. Still, I'm just trying to know what it is I 'know' from that.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
boulder, co
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Nov 24, 2005 - 12:35pm PT
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Werner wrote: The thread title says “There is no God”
Many say there is no God.
But nobody here can explain "why" there is no “God”
Therefore God exists!
Goes both ways...Nobody here can explain "Why" there is a God.
Therefore...there is no God.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 24, 2005 - 12:40pm PT
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God has been explained Bob, you missed it.
Thus God exists ......
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
boulder, co
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Nov 24, 2005 - 12:46pm PT
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Werner wrote: God has been explained Bob, you missed it.
Thus God exists ......
Not to my liking.
He has been speculate.
Speculate... To engage in a course of reasoning often based on inconclusive evidence.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 24, 2005 - 12:55pm PT
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I don't speculate, but you do.
Now silly wabbits I will prove God exists!
The transcendental sound vibration of the lord is non different from him.
Chant hamburger for one hour and you will not be able to do it. You will become disgusted hearing that same mundane material sound vibration.
Chant the transcendental sound vibration of “OM” and you will not get tired.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
boulder, co
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Nov 24, 2005 - 01:02pm PT
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Werner wrote: I don't speculate, but you do.
No I use too...Not anymore. I have moved on to a higher consciousness on this subject.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Nov 24, 2005 - 06:35pm PT
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It was written, "Spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, we can not go beyond who we are and what our senses (be it physical, spiritual, mental or emotional) allow us to perceive or experience."
How do you know that?
JL
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