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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Dec 21, 2009 - 11:33pm PT
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It's because of sin that the world can be a bad place! But you can be at peace with God in your heart through Jesus, what we could not do He did because He was without sin!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 21, 2009 - 11:44pm PT
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Gobee-
Hinduism and Buddhism teach that we can all become without sin if we work at it enough. Certainly, Buddha is considered to have attained the state of being sinless (without karma) at the time of his enlightenment as have all the other masters who became enlightened.
Being sinless does not mean not making mistakes, it means doing whatever you do without sinful motivation. You might see it as the final stage of being born again.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Dec 21, 2009 - 11:50pm PT
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We are not perfect but perfect in weekness, God is the Father!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 22, 2009 - 12:10am PT
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so I have to disagree with Karl on one of his favorite refrains: "how do you know you're not dreaming?"
Everyone has experience differentiating dreams from reality. Even "vivid dreams" are notable for their, well vividness, but we do not mistake them for wakeful reality. It is perhaps were the first inklings of a "mystical state" appear. Things happen in dreams that are apart from the things that happen while we're awake, and we know it.
If these were not different, dreaming and wakeful reality, we would not be able to tell them apart. So in that sense, we might be in a dream like state which we cannot differentiate from reality, but then we wouldn't know it.
We also have the experience that dreams happen "inside of us" and are internal rather than external. This is a common experience.
Another set of experiences is altering what we perceive by some external chemical means or by stressing the body in some way. These are common shamanistic techniques to induce a mystical or spiritual state, the use of ingested chemicals, or fasting, or continuous exertion. Once again, there is no doubt in these experiences that we are affecting something internal.
The primary organ with which we connect to a mystical or spiritual state is the brain, which is the seat of the mind. Even so called "out of body" experiences involve the mind.
When Jan talks about the way we think about these things she emphasizes the bicameral aspect of behavior which is associated with a anatomical asymmetry in the brain. Once again, these characteristics are associated, strongly with the brain, and inferences to mind.
So one can conclude that it is the mind that controls our connection to these mystical and spiritual, and religious awareness and activities. And that somehow the mind is involved with the brain.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 22, 2009 - 12:21am PT
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The primary organ with which we connect to a mystical or spiritual state is the brain ...
No it's in the heart, the seat of the soul.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 22, 2009 - 12:25am PT
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You shouldn't take that dream analogy too literally Ed, nor make too many assumptions about "internal" and "external"
Saying we can't prove the world is a dream is saying that ultimately, our consciousness is our only connection with anything. In a dream, we have it internally but it's VERY common to shift your perspective in a dream to the first person and even to forget you are dreaming. Just take the analogy a bit further and imagine this whole shooting match is taking place within the conceptual consciousness shared between God and all of us.
In a dream, it seems we make up all kinds of characters who seem totally independent, some even wish us ill!
What is matter anyway? Even science concedes the whole earth could compress to softball size in a black hole. The world is not as we see it.
You can't prove the world is not like a dream by nitpicking dreams, anymore than you can prove everything has electromagnetic properties by nitpicking lightening.
The mystical states come when the thinking calms to quiet, not as a result of frenzied wishful thinking. The disturbed and distracted mind is actually the obstacle to mysticism and if people would just get out of the loop in their own heads, they would naturally have a peaceful serenity that would regularly flash on the mystical
Peace
Karl
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WandaFuca
Social climber
From the gettin place
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Dec 22, 2009 - 12:37am PT
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No it's in the heart, the seat of the soul.
In the AV node, the Purkinge fibers, the mitral valve, the epicardium, left coronary artery? How does that work?
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Dec 22, 2009 - 12:43am PT
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Love your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 22, 2009 - 12:53am PT
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I should note that we all have some kind of relationship with "intuition."
This would be considered by mystics to be a spiritual sense but then, it's taken for granted by many of us despite the semi-conscious way we use it anyway.
Of course, it's obvious how our preconceptions, desires and so forth can sully what intuition offers, but it's worth noting that religious faith without some kind of intuitive experience illuminating it is purely blind faith. If you have no inner spiritual feedback, you are just being a spiritual lawyer.
But we all navigate by intuition far more than we're aware of.
Just like we can feel the energetic field "Presence" of another. We know their vibes. This intuition is stronger in some than others and it's often overlooked since our brains combine it with our sense impressions of a persons demeanor, tone, and actions. If you remain objective and observe it, you start to separate the intuitive element out.
Peace
Karl
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MH2
climber
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Dec 22, 2009 - 01:07am PT
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The third big question that religion attempts to answer is what happens after we die.
Thanks. I forgot that one.
I think both of your cases however, are covered by existing law and ethics.
So in order to know what you ought to do, do you need anything more than existing law and ethics? And they are not connected to religious belief or spiritual insight?
Now here's a case I encountered as a teenager working in a county nursing home. A bed ridden woman in her 80's prayed loudly from morning to night that she die that day. The only time she was quiet was when we fed her liquids.
Money being a factor, we accomplished this by holding her nose so she had to open her mouth to breathe (automatic reflex) and then sticking the long spout of a teapot into her mouth and pouring so she was forced to swallow it or choke. If she didn't want to eat, and wanted to die after a long life, should we have let her?
Personally, I came to the conclusion at the age of 16, that there are fates worse than death and we have the fundamental human right to make our own decisions in that regard.
Was the woman's decision-making capacity compromised? Maybe by dementia? Maybe by a urinary tract infection? Etc.
In order to make a good decision you need all the facts you can get ahold of. Then you run those facts through the mill of values that you and your society hold.
One of those values is the right of an individual to make decisions for themselves. Another value, at least in the medical field, is to do no harm. By giving in to someone's wishes and withholding food or other treatment you could be violating that very important principle.
Another of the real cases we were asked to consider was a terminally ill woman with multiple organ failure and terrible pain. Her judgment was thought to be sound, or as sound as it could be under the circumstances. She asked to be taken off the ventilator. Some in the class were perfectly ready to do it but our MD lab supervisor pointed out that if you did that you would be marched straight off to jail.
Generalizations about being good and doing good can help, but in order for them to do so they need to be tied back into real events. It is fine to say that God loves us, that religion accomplishes a lot of good, or that mystical or spiritual experiences connect one to a different reality, but if they don't tie back to this world, how are they more than a pleasant curiosity?
In the other 2 cases I described above it isn't quite true that law and ethics handle them, because people differ on what the right answers are. Either of those cases could go either way. Some would give the old bugger the ice cream while others would not. Some would go to resuscitate the healthy father while others would stick with the institutionalized dim bulb. No one would go to jail for either decision in either case.
But there are ways to sort out what is best to do. They take an effort to understand but at least they buy you something worth the effort. If something beyond our world can help, bring it on. Otherwise it seems that religion and mysticism are fine for personal solace but not much real help beyond that important but limited realm.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 22, 2009 - 01:09am PT
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Love your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength
I don't have anything against that Gobee but tell me.
How do you go about choosing how much and fully to Love? How do you direct this Love at God?
If you find your heart dry, how do you open it?
Peace
Karl
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 22, 2009 - 01:32am PT
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Mh2
There are no easy answers in these situations for sure.
I felt that the woman I dealt with was mentally competent, others could disagree.
Meanwhile, how I think that meditation and mysticism can help is in making people more aware of the moral implications of their judgements, more compassionate. What might be the most logical decision may not be the most humanitarian one. I think most individuals who have a spiritual practice look more closely at such decisions than they would have before.
I think we also have to be aware of hidden motivations. In saying "do no harm" are we sure that saying always comes from humanitarianism or also from the desire not to be sued? Or is it just a mantra repeated over and over like some religious formula?
In deciding to preserve and prolong life as long as possible, would the medical staff make different decisions if they truly believed in an after life that was better than the present suffering? Or would they preserve it longer as God's mysterious will?
And then there is the bigger picture that nobody in our society has the courage to face. Does it make sense to spend 50% of all medical money and effort on elderly people in their last two years of life? For those of us who work in the Third world and know what the same money could do for children there, the answer has to be no.
Bottom Line: We should all have our wishes in these matters in writing on legal documents long before we think we will need them. It is only compassionate to spare our loved ones and the medical staff the agony of taking those responsibilities onto themselves. Religious or non religious we can all do that much.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 22, 2009 - 01:34am PT
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I don't know Karl
Maybe Gobee is fully surrendered onto jesus Christ and just loves him unconditionally and doesn't really need all this psycho babel.
Just like mom loves her child and the child loves mom.
Tell them all this stuff about the Universe, science, DNA, math, brain this and that they just smile and love you anyway.
He's a sweet guy, that gobee no matter what does here.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 22, 2009 - 01:41am PT
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I guess my question is: why do thought, perception, consciousness, awareness, etc. take such a center stage when discussing mystical, spiritual and religious activities?
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 22, 2009 - 01:47am PT
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In order to write the post you just made you just went thru ....
thought, perception, consciousness, awareness
That's the symptom of the real you, your soul.
Point to yourself and say "I"
We don't point to our head when we say "I" or "Me"
We point to the heart (the seat of the soul our true real self), chest area.
When we fuk up we point to our head, (brain, mind) .....
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 22, 2009 - 02:06am PT
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Werner wrote
I don't know Karl
Maybe Gobee is fully surrendered onto jesus Christ and just loves him unconditionally and doesn't really need all this psycho babel.
I wasn't making any statement or judgement in my question. I didn't want to assume that we felt differently or alike. Just wondering how to do what he recommends.
Ed writes
"I guess my question is: why do thought, perception, consciousness, awareness, etc. take such a center stage when discussing mystical, spiritual and religious activities?
Is that really your question? You'd be welcome to just make a statement. Using the word "Activities" is almost cheating. Are you really saying
"..why do thought, perception, consciousness, awareness, etc. take such a center stage when discussing mystical, spiritual and religious perceptions and awareness?"
To which the answer would be....Duh!
Thought, perception, consciousness, and awareness are the whole of our experience no? Important stuff..
and science doesn't have instruments fine enough at this stage to make significant differences in our religious or spiritual path. Someday we might have EGG and life force energy apps for our Iphone v64.5. We'd be able to biofeedback ourselves into a state of maximum lucidity and perceptiveness and we could compare numbers. Just a matter of time really
The Spiritual level is not hiding from us, it's just on a higher frequency that we aren't very open to.
Peace
Karl
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 22, 2009 - 04:59am PT
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Well you and Jesus could always visit the synagogue together. As for the difference between Christ and Christianity, we've already discussed that a few time on here.You're right in the mainstream with that one.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 22, 2009 - 05:15am PT
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Rox writes
Its no wonder I can't quite bring myself to post up about my brief visit from Jesus. Who'd want to put themselves through all this?
Dude, your neck is already out there on the 9-11 threads. At least posting on Jesus might help somebody.
plus, you already put it out there so you're half nuts already.
Jesus did say not to cast pearls inappropriately but hey, we all bend the rules a little
Peace
Karl
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 22, 2009 - 05:22am PT
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No it's in the heart, the seat of the soul.
Werner, the absolutes just keep on coming - now you are an authority on where a soul resides. It absolutely couldn't be that the heart is the principle moving organ / engine / pump of the body such that primitive cultures gave it precedence over limp, gelatanous brain tissue.
Mysticism as some sort of 'perception' outside of our senses? Many would simply call that imagination and creative thought, given it doesn't otherwise sensorially manifest itself.
And, again, why is it so important that anything at all happen after the moment of death? What exactly is wrong with that simply being it - finito, done, perfectly complete in every sense of the word?
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Dec 22, 2009 - 12:20pm PT
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"If you find your heart dry, how do you open it?"
Sometimes the dry and waterless places in life help us to see our need for God, to see what is choss and what is gold and that we can depend on Him! God is able to bring water out of a rock, and a heart of stone!
Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength!
We will sing and praise your power.
Why Have You Forsaken Me?
To the choirmaster: according to The Doe of the Dawn. A Psalm of David.
Psalm 22, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried and were rescued;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
8 ***“He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him***!"
9 Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.
10 ***On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother's womb you have been my God***.
11 Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.
12 Many bulls encompass me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and *my tongue sticks to my jaws*;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16 ***For dogs encompass me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet—
17 I can count all my bones—
they stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots***.
19 But you, O Lord, do not be far off!
O you my help, come quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog!
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!
You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!
22 I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who ear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 ***For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him***.
25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear him.
26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord!
May your hearts live forever!
27 ***All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.
28 For kingship belongs to the Lord,
and he rules over the nations***.
29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
even the one who could not keep himself alive.
30 Posterity shall serve him;
it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
that he has done it.
The Bronze Serpent
Numbers 21:4-9, From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
John 3:13-15, No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
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