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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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One thing I like about the eastern faiths (and for me I think Hindu teachers have done the best job of explaining the process), is that they emphasize the interior experience of religion rather than outward mandatory beliefs and dogmas.
Yogananda has written, "spiritual laws work like mathematics", and I can tell you from experience that if you practice certain methods with an open mind and a humble heart, certain dramatic events will happen in the interior of your mind just as they describe, and in the same order.
One can alter one's biochemistry through certain ancient practices involving breath and mind, one gains insights and a better character and more happiness as a result, and because that worked, one accepts other teachings that one hasn't experienced personally - or not. Here again, Hinduism is the most open of all faiths. You can think of God as father, mother, husband, wife, friend, lover, or child, a tree, a rock, a cloud in the sky, or whatever else works for your level of consciousness. You can also change your object of veneration as your understanding matures.
The big questions for 21st century thinkers is what all this signifies. Buddha concluded 2,500 years ago that one does this without aid of an outside power, that we all have the capacity to be awakened and the Taoists pretty much conclude the same. The Hindus are more theistic for the most part though they also claim at the highest levels that what happens is that the little egoistic self becomes one with the true Self. Hence, Yogananda named his organization the Self Realization Fellowship.
Scientists like Ed say it's all a matter of manipulating the material world, the physical and chemical processes of the body, and JL and I have reached the conclusion that there is a consciousness that permeates the material and yet exists apart from it at the same time - the Observer as JL puts it.
Some Christians of course have had similar experiences, I just think that the East provides a better methodology, a better blueprint for getting to the same understanding. Eastern methods are more efficient if you like, probably because the interior methods taught by Jesus were seen as a threat to the organized church, were driven underground, and slowly disappeared.
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WBraun
climber
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Jan
You're definitely one of the more rare and eloquently advanced conscious folks around here.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Werner-
Thanks, but I'm still just a beginner. I am fortunate in getting paid to teach courses on Asian religion so I've also had a practical reason to spend a lot of time learning about them.
I dare say you get more good karma from your profession though, than I do mine!
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MH2
climber
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Raymond Smullyan on Brahmanic philosophy:
Obviously I make a distinction between your sensations, feelings, and thoughts and mine. But from this it does not follow that the agent who experiences your thoughts is different from the agent who experiences mine. The question is, Are the agents really the same? It may seem completely counterintuitive that they are. But this intuition really appears to be culturally induced. It seems that the intuition of most Westerners is, "Of course they are not the same. I am I, and you are you, and that's all there is to it." But the intuition of many Easterners really seems to be that you and I are literally the same person.
Is not this the central issue of Brahmanism? It strikes me as far more radical and thoroughgoing than the Hegelian and post-Hegelian ideas of the Absolute, which is something like an "oversoul" that, so to speak, includes your soul and mine but is somehow infinitely greater than both. By contrast, the Brahmanic idea is far more drastic. Indeed, it appears to come close to outraging logic itself. It is that you and I are not parts of some supreme being but that we are the very same being.
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WBraun
climber
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It is that you and I are not parts of some supreme being but that we are the very same being.
Part parcel.
A particle of gold is also gold, a drop of water from the ocean is also salty, and similarly, we the living entities, being part and parcel of the supreme controller, God, have all the qualities of the Supreme in minute quantity because we are minute.
We are trying to control nature, and this tendency to control is there because it is in God.
Thus "acintya bheda abheda tattva"
Simultaneous oneness and difference ........we have all the qualities but not the quantity.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Breathing happens, seeing happens, hearing happens, smelling happens, taste happens, touch happens, the heart beats, with or without us, it's a miracle, nothing we do!
Doing any of those will not forgive your sins.
Just as the stomach is for food, and food is for the stomach, you use it with thanksgiving, one day we won't need it!
Proof is God was always God, we think we can evolve into god? God's ways are not are ways, He is eternal we are but a moment. We are nothing He is everything!
Your inside life and outside life are two sides of the same coin!
Give to God what is due Him!
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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wack-N-dangle
Gym climber
the ground up
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Since immigration may yet again become a polarizing issue during upcoming elections, I thought I would throw this out there.
A Zapatista slogan is in harmony with the concept of mutual aid: "For everyone, everything, for us, nothing" (Para todos todo, para nosotros nada)." I don't know where I heard this but, only god is best. I have also heard that only god is perfect. Also, I have heard that there are no gods (part parcel...?)
Another key element of the Zapatista ideology is their aspiration to do politics in a new, participatory way, from the 'bottom-up' instead of 'top-down.'" - Wikipedia "Zapatismo"// <---Maybe anti rap bolting?, not that there is anything wrong with that, as long as its done right and leaves some adventure for the rest.
The Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona, released by the group in three communiquéés during the final week of June, affirming, "What we are going to do in Mexico and in the world, we are going to do without arms, with a civil and peaceful movement, and without neglecting or ceasing to support our communities. from www.culturalsurvival.org (search Zapatista)
Finally, thanks for the thoughts on finding a way. I believe that if many of the kids I see, know that there is goodness in themselves, and the people that surround them, they might come to appreciate it and nurture it. Still, with the daily poverty, violence, and struggles to make a better life, some become lost.
http://www.npr.mobi/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113704090
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Christ Our Advocate
1 John 2:1, My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I'm sorta getting used to these "Spam for God" posts...
"Enlarge your righteousness in 4 days!"
perhaps Christianity came along at a good time, while Christ abhorred the market, he made sure to make marketing, in the form of proselytizing, a central tenant of his philosophy...
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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As long as we have gobee here to identify our sins, we will always know who we are....
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WBraun
climber
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LOL jaybro
Anyways .....
How does this work?
The Christians say all you have to do is say sorry every time you do bad and your forgiven.
So the mafia offs guys all the time and grinds them up at the butcher shop and sells the meat as sausages and then goes to the priest and says sorry.
Then they go to heaven .....?
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dirtbag
climber
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"YES! YES! JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT! "
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WBraun
climber
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Ed
Ok I read that.
But what happens to the people that never atone for their sins.
Do they go to hell eternally like they say or should I say the "interpretation of Christ".
In real life if you say sorry after offing your competition and grinding them up for sausages the judge doesn't let you go .....
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Werner, dude, slow down on your reading speed. You might have skipped over too lightly "Principle 6: God Blesses Dead Christians As a Reward to Living Christians"
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Werner, clearly all Mafioso are catholic italians from Chicago and New York (also Nevada) if they don't go to heaven, nobody, gets in!
Edit, did Jim Carol got to heaven?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdftnLhRCuQ
Clearly Elwood did, he was "On a mission from Gawd."
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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My friend Don told me about this one;
It Is No Secret
Words and music by Stuart Hamblin
Romans 4:21
"And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised,
he was able also to perform."
The chimes of time ring out the news,
Another day is through.
Someone slipped and fell,
Was that someone you?
You may have longed for added strength,
Your courage to renew,
Do not be disheartened,
For I have news for you!!
Chorus
It is no secret what God can do.
What He's done for others,
He'll do for you.
With arms wide open,
He'll pardon you.
It is no secret what God can do.
There is no night for in His light
You'll never walk alone.
Always feel at home
Wherever you may roam.
There is no power can conquer you
While God is on your side
Take Him at His promise,
Don't run away and hide.
Chorus
It is no secret what God can do.
What He's done for others,
He'll do for you.
With arms wide open,
He'll pardon you.
It is no secret what God can do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t36Ja1HleYQ&feature=related
The Elvis version
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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"Then they go to heaven .....?"
You have to repent! And you don't keep being a bad guy!
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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“I have accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ is truly God."
-Jeffery Dahmer
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