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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 15, 2009 - 03:54am PT
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Prabhupāda: Yes. Then what is the supreme relative?
The question really isn't "what is the supreme relative?" - the real question of interest is, "how would you know which relative is supreme?"
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 15, 2009 - 04:18am PT
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I think it is wonderful that Karl senses a universal loving presence. I wonder why other people don't. He may say he was more open to the possibility, but that would have been part of his nature, before his experience. What I would like to see is a loving presence that can get into the heads of people who are not open to it and cause them to be more like Karl.
Thanks for the kind words but I look at it like this:
I didn't expect such a loving, and perfect reality. I had been raised on anthropomorphic images of God who, for some reason, wanted to be worshiped while remaining invisible. In other words, a very neurotic one.
What I found was perfect love and acceptance.
It's true that people find what they are looking for. If you pray out to Jesus, a spiritual light or feeling may very possibly come to you and you assume it's Jesus. God comes to you in whatever form you can resonate with because God express through anything. Rarely would someone have a mystical experience when a being comes and says "I'm Lord Jesus Christ" which would be unusual anyway since he never called himself "Jesus" or "Christ" on earth.
But that's beside the point. I think this information about a Loving Divine Being important mostly because you can experience it for yourself with minimum faith. Since we are of the same essence of God (created in God's image, in the Bible) the essence of ourselves is also a great expansive unconditional Love. We spoil it by becoming wrapped up in our egos, personal histories and incessant trains of associative thinking. Learn to shut of the discursive mind and your real nature is revealed as much greater than anything you might have imagined you were.
Then something about God starts to make sense. Not our projection of an authority figure in the sky, but something closer than the closest to us, never separate from us, always understanding and accepting us from the inside.
Believing this does little. The thing is to quiet down and stare down the mind passively (perhaps watching the breath as meditation) until you start to break this decades long habit of thinking yourself to death, and see what peace feels like.
PEace
Karl
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 15, 2009 - 06:27am PT
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Then admit it to God.
Trip, Werner - Who's god? Which god? Jesus? Zeus? Amateras? Vishnu? Ra? Viracocha? Jupiter?
Entire civilizations rose and fell on the absolute truth of these relative supreme gods. The only thing that makes them 'mythology' is time. Given enough time we will be talking about christian mythology. Tell me one thing that makes Viracocha, Jupiter, Vishnu, or Ra any less THE absolute god than today's christian god? How should I weigh your word against the Egyptians? Or the Incas? Or is the absoluteness of god dependent on time and geography? Or is it your claim that they are exactly the same god? Gobee, is your god indistinguishable from Allah or Vishnu?
I think this information about a Loving Divine Being important mostly because you can experience it for yourself with minimum faith.
Karl - Why is a Divine Being - loving or otherwise - necessary for a person to experience a great expansive unconditional Love?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 15, 2009 - 08:15am PT
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healeyje-
Karl - Why is a Divine Being - loving or otherwise - necessary for a person to experience a great expansive unconditional Love?
It isn't. The Buddhist talk about expansive unconditional love as our own inner nature and the way of the universe without focussing on a Divine Being. Maybe you would be more comfortable with that way of thinking.
As for whether the gods you name are all the same God, I would say that they, like the religions in their name, are all glimpses of same God who is so much beyond our current state of evolution, that glimpses is all we get. Even so, most humans are not capable of understanding even these limited views.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Dec 15, 2009 - 08:16am PT
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Marks of the True Christian
Romans 12:9-21, Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 15, 2009 - 08:35am PT
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Mh2-
No X-Files, no classified data.
I was talking about the fact that I work with people from all four services and many specialty occupations, and of all these, it's military intel people who have the most mystical experiences to recount.
The need for confidentiality comes from the prejudice against such experiences by the scientists and social scientists in charge of clearance evaluations. My students don't tell me anything classified, and as long as they talk about a recognized religion their clearance is safe, but if it is discovered that they talk about personal experiences out of the ordinary, then they would definitely be sent off to the psychiatrists and their clearances at least temporarily withdrawn.
Religious prejudice has done a lot of censoring over the ages, but scientists have and continue to do so as well.
Meanwhile, given the attitude of many on this thread, that believers in anything but a material world are some how mentally deficient, I thought it would be interesting to ask, how then are the people who score in the upper 3% of 300,000 IQ tests, the ones who have the most experiences.
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roadman
climber
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Dec 15, 2009 - 11:27am PT
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"There ain't no rules around here! We're trying to accomplish something!"
Thomas Alva Edison
That's the point of science. You whose aim it is to limit real science by putting your religious limits on it can go to the hell you so strongly believe in.
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roadman
climber
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Dec 15, 2009 - 11:30am PT
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"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless childish."
Albert Einstein
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 15, 2009 - 12:00pm PT
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Jan wrote
healeyje-
Karl - Why is a Divine Being - loving or otherwise - necessary for a person to experience a great expansive unconditional Love?
It isn't. The Buddhist talk about expansive unconditional love as our own inner nature and the way of the universe without focussing on a Divine Being. Maybe you would be more comfortable with that way of thinking.
As for whether the gods you name are all the same God, I would say that they, like the religions in their name, are all glimpses of same God who is so much beyond our current state of evolution, that glimpses is all we get. Even so, most humans are not capable of understanding even these limited views.
She said it very well. I agree. God doesn't need our brown-nosing. We need to untwist our hearts and minds. Whether we do that with a concept of God isn't as important as people think.
The heart of Buddhism doesn't deny a God, they just don't bother with one. The idea of praying to Buddha is a later affair and not a part of the original path. My feeling (although I'm not a Buddhist) is that Buddha just figured that talking about any God would reduce and confuse such a being into a limited concept that could be abused and anthropomorphized.
For Healyj's question more particularly, it seems to imply that we concoct a divine being to fit in with our philosophy. Nope. If no God was found, no God would be needed. The only reason I include talk of God is because that's a word that people use the suggests what I have found.
Sort of.
The source of this whole universe and beyond is so beyond conception and limited understanding that we can't help but muck up the idea of such a being. Mystics argue whether the nature of the this God is impersonal and completely abstract, or personal in a way we can relate to more humanly. My experience is that Both are the case. The divine is built into us and is able to reflect us at our own level, while simultaneously pervading the entire cosmos.
I definitely don't believe in a God that feels upset all the time at all kinds of people.
I suspect that many of the people hear, who are pissed off at the idea of a punishing, judgmental God and his self-righteous fan club, would breathe a deep sign of relief and bliss if they could taste the Love and Peace that is the spark of the divine within them
Peace
Karl
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Dec 15, 2009 - 12:32pm PT
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Then again, what if this is all just dugout chatter that has no bearing on the real game?
Advertising signs that con you into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meanwhile life outside goes on all around you
Love is real. Compassion is real. Altruism is real. But why do these things need to be attributed to the beneficence of some variously-defined supernatural entity whose reality has never be proven, and whose posited existence has proven so very easy to turn into a ruthless tool of oppression, derision, resentment and spite, opposed to all the goodness and light it supposedly represents?
What if love, virtue, and all that are simply response biases that have, in reality, upped the odds of survival and the passing on of genetic information to new generations?
Is that really so horrible?
The only trump that religion can play is the unverifiable promise that our individual consciousnesses somehow survive the death of our biological bodies. Whatever. Gets. You. Through. The. Night.
Amen.
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jstan
climber
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Dec 15, 2009 - 01:13pm PT
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"Meanwhile, given the attitude of many on this thread, that believers in anything but a material world are some how mentally deficient,...."
If I have said anything that supports that belief, I apologise. What is my central difficulty?
The golden rule posits that it is a central "good" that we learn not to treat others as we would not wish to be treated ourselves. That rule predated christ and, and I think it formed the foundation upon which christ operated. If so the bed rock of christianity would be concern for others
and not the focussing of one's attention solely upon what makes the believer feel good.
If the present organized religions operated to produce this way of looking at life, I would have no criticism to offer on anyone's "beliefs."
I do criticise any belief system that encourages people to pass off to others their personal responsibility to make decisions affecting the common good. History is rife with "devils" who inserted themselves into religious organizations, assumed the role of making decisions, and who did great damage while advancing their entirely personal self-interest.
This very human tendency for "evil" to attach itself to "good" is broached in bible stories but these parts of the bible apparently are not being read. If they were, we would be hearing much more than we do of the "faithful" calling their leaders to account.
I leave with the conclusion there is a immense gap between what christ actually taught and what modern religious organizations are attempting to foster.
If so, the "believers" are not christians, whatever they may claim.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 15, 2009 - 02:00pm PT
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Yeah
Just go the cheap easy way, a pill or something, the lazy cheap way to get cheated.
Just read a book and do 2 pitches and you're now instructor and expert on climbing.
In this lifetime I've been climbing almost 40 years now and still am an idiot.
I've barely touched the the surface .....
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 15, 2009 - 02:13pm PT
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I hear two votes for all gods are the same god; couldn't tell if Gobee thinks Allah, Vishnu, and his god are the same god. Is that the consensus, that all gods are the same god? It would seem if that's the case, then throughout our history a lot of folks have died over some pretty crass distinctions.
Karl: The source of this whole universe and beyond is so beyond conception and limited understanding that we can't help but muck up the idea of such a being.
Maybe part of the problem is that the constant projection of an anthropomorphic being as THE source of this whole universe and beyond is what mucks up our chances of understanding.
cintune: What if love, virtue, and all that are simply response biases that have, in reality, upped the odds of survival and the passing on of genetic information to new generations? Is that really so horrible?
I asked that before. Gradations of the range of human behavior has been evidenced in animals - that suggests the survival advantages of social behavior rooted in emotional experience evolved as a natural expression of the size and complexity of mammalian brains. That, as opposed to the rigid, rule-based social structures of insects. Why is the thought of our emotional experience being completely organic so abhorent? I mean, the only reason anyone is having any spiritual experiences is because a bunch of proteins folded appropriately to begin with - something I at least consider a pretty spiritual experience to begin with.
In this lifetime I've been climbing almost 40 years now and still am an idiot.
You've been thinking for longer than that, but from your posts here you project having living absolutely figured out.
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jstan
climber
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Dec 15, 2009 - 02:56pm PT
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OK
I go to the dictionary and see a lot of meanings to "spiritual" involving religion. One does not however.
Spiritual - of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena
I don't think Karl is talking about anything supernatural. I also get the feeling he is not speaking in a religious context.
Isn't this discussion being hampered by the use of an inapplicable word?????
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 15, 2009 - 02:57pm PT
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One God who can appear and display unlimited forms.
The different forms are attributed to the different activities, just like a climber dresses one way and then becomes a stock broker and dresses in a suit, (crude example).
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 15, 2009 - 03:19pm PT
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What does one say to the deeply devout and orthodox who vehemently believe the other gods are false gods and not simply different visions of their god? Wouldn't a god attempt to referee all this religious debate given how many people are regularly slaughtered over just who god is and what he said?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 15, 2009 - 03:54pm PT
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"I go to the dictionary and see a lot of meanings to "spiritual" involving religion. One does not however.
Spiritual - of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena
I don't think Karl is talking about anything supernatural. I also get the feeling he is not speaking in a religious context."
What' supernatural? Everything that exists, including God is natural.
I AM talking about a Spiritual nature that science doesn't yet acknowledge and whose laws are not yet commonly known to science.
If that's supernatural, yup.
Just because our spirit nature is within us, doesn't mean it's not connected with great power.
While answering HealyJ, I noted that the idea of "God" isn't required but it would be remiss for me not to not that prayer can be powerful, or at least setting an intention to know and discover followed by an openness to listen to life
Peace
karl
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 15, 2009 - 04:23pm PT
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healyje -- "Wouldn't a god attempt to referee all this religious debate given how many people are regularly slaughtered over just who god is and what he said?"
You guys are slaughtering each other over money, resources and anything else to do with "I, me, mine" right now.
You're stuck and rotting in a religion rut, that has nothing to do with true spiritual consciousness.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 15, 2009 - 04:23pm PT
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[Sorry, 'TinySalami' was my one-post avatar for Ana's thread.]
You're stuck in a religion rut, that has nothing to do with true spiritual consciousness.
Karl: I AM talking about a Spiritual nature that science doesn't yet acknowledge and whose laws are not yet commonly known to science.
Main Entry: law - pronunciation: \ˈlȯ\
(1) : a binding custom or practice of a community : a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority (2) : the whole body of such customs, practices, or rules
How would one percieve, deduce, or infer 'laws' for a 'spiritual nature', 'spiritual consciousness', or 'transcendent reality' if no one can agree on the nature of the 'spiritual nature', consciousness, or other reality? How would such 'laws' be conferred such that any two persons would agree on them?
I find it interesting that science speculates on other realities (universes, dimensions, quantum states, dark matter, etc), yet never simply states they exist and demands everyone to accept that as fact..
And Werner, I could be stuck in that rut because billions on this planet claim [their] religion is THE way of spiritual consciousness. How can you discount their view as wrong or insufficient?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 15, 2009 - 04:35pm PT
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I don't know, at the moment I would consider string and multiverse theories to be both "alternate" and "transcendent" realities - semantics I suppose.
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