Messages

There is no 'release' from the responsibility of personal actions.

There may come a time when a person learns to discriminate at a very fine dimension the results of the actions that they make.  That, however is not the average situation.

What is created is from and part of the creator.  How we perceive it is filtered by what we can understand and what we believe, and sometimes how we want it to be.

which religion speaks to you at this time?

Are you uncomfortable with this 'relationship'?

Perhaps life is inherent.  Whether you call it evolution or anything else.

Forms change but life is constant.  Everything is alive but not conscious.

There are many old documents that have been inscribed by people claiming that they were inspired to do so.  Among those documents are so called religious texts.  What some people do is take those texts and re-create the conditions that brought about the original inspiration.  Some people take those texts and make them fit into a comfortable personal way to deal with the unknown.  Also some of us take those words as face value.  

That does not make those texts false or untrue, just inapplicable or misunderstood by reason of culture and language.   One mistake multiplied by millenia and language differences make for a wide gap in the original idea and the modern day interpretations.  

All of what we call 'Christianity' has gone through many changes over time so much so that many people do not know that what became the 'bible' started long before it was inscribed to paper or stone.

To rant at others over particular BELIEFS can become unfriendly to the point of war as history will bear witness.  

Did Jesus exist the way anyone thinks about it?   Does it matter if the lessons are applied?   Is what is called the 'bible' a complete fabrication without any truth to it?  It is a fabrication.  Is there truth in it?  

Each person, whether you are reading hear or not, is responsible for what the know and what they DO.    Each person has to forge their own relationship with all that is.  If there was not a Jesus, then the stories still teach lessons that can be applied to this day.  If there was not an Abraham then Judaism still teaches lessons that can be applied to this day.
If there were no such person who was named after Buddhism, so what?  There are still lessons and disciplines that benefit people.

And it is still better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

For the most part I find that many groups and forums are overly concerned with phenomena and special experiences that are really only an attempt to bolster the ego with out a real application.    Many of these types of people are really looking for escape from everyday life or a form of entertainment without commitment.  

It is easy to misunderstand what someone may write into one of these forums.  But you can each only start from where you are at and bring what you can communicate.  To take affront or give affront is an exercise in futility.

When you leave this forum you are still who you are, no  more and no less.  From what any one writes here no one can truly judge an others state.

Try the less traveled road.

Is President Bush the President of the United States or is he a religious avatar speaking for the Christians in general?

Perhaps the letter should have been sent to the Vatican or some tele-evangelical.

The Iranians pov is sophomoric.

What difference would it make if President Bush was dyslexic?

What does that have to do with the topic?

There is really only one 'third eye'.  There are lots of myths concerning that function, and the 'opening' per se of the 'third eye'.  

It is not a common experience at all.  

There are some meditations and activities that,depending on the individual, will produce physical sensations between the eyebrows.  
Most of those experiences are not the opening of the 3rd eye.  More properly there are stimulation's of the chakra and the related gland called
the pituitary that are responsible for many of these sensations.

From what I understand it is a good idea to balance the all of the so called chakras and each in turn will bring greater insight and strength of the inherent powers of each of those chakras.

Eventually you  will reach your goal.

I do hope that there that good people who post here will keep an open mind and also take some things stated with a grain of salt.  I do enjoy most of the posting although I do not always agree with what has been stated.  I do hope that mustardseed was not intending to impugn Beth but
trying to add a perspective of his/her own.

Beth is very knowledgeable.


Beth, yes we might be stating the same thing.  If I have misunderstood what you have posted before, then I apologize for misconstruing.

In my earlier post I mentioned the Shema and I was meaning the first statement as an example not the whole of the text.   Hear oh Israel the Lord is One.   That seeming simple statement has had allot of meanings put to it, and I have seen much debate over it.  LOL.

From what I understand of the Pantheistic movement, it leaves somethings out.  

Here is another link to some definitions of the concept.
http://www.harrison.dircon.co.uk/definits.htm

Perhaps I am missing perhaps not.  

Perhaps if the definition was more specific in what it referred to as THE UN IVERSE,  and that as such it is a LIVING SOMETHING that creates withing itself.

Pantheism as discussed in that link and others is a relatively new and western concept.  

We, each of us, live within our own limitations of time and culture and personal abilities.  If you share some knowledge that someone else does not have or is not able to understand that 'someone else' will either be uncomfortable or ignore the the message or defend a pre-existing idea and dismiss yours, even thought you are correct.  

An uneducated but devout person may reach a point of inspiration and understanding that an educated person may not have reached by reason alone.  Each may end up disagreeing or dismissing each other out of hand.

I  think that this happens quite often.  

I have seen and read of people stating that the first statement of Shema means not to have other gods or idols.  Which is somewhat of a fundamentalist attitude toward the statement.  I think that is fine if that is what your BEST effort can bring you.  If some one else ponders the same words and come up with the meaning that I mentioned earlier that is fine also.  (To me a better situation to be sure)  


One of the definitions of Pantheism also included reference to the old idea of a pantheon of many gods.  

CU later as time allows

LOL!!

OK.  It is not really to complicated.

Imagine for a moment that EVERYTHING that can exist and has ever existed is the physical manifest ion of the creator.  

There is no possibility of anything being outside of god or the creator at all.  It is not a person.  It is not a humanoid image.  It can have no name.  There is no name that would suffice in any language.  Even the word god is insufficient.  The ONE Wholeness of all of that exists is beyond the grasp of  what words can convey.

That does not mean that this concept is beyond a human experience.

A good example of this is that you cannot talk to a dead person and ask them what death or the afterlife is like.  But, neither of the two experiences rely on BELIEF alone.  

There are persons who have had experiences that are beyond the common uses of most languages.   You cannot see an electron or electricity but you can observe  their cumulative effects.  The normal and average human can only perceive that which is available to the limited capabilities of the eyeball and the parts of the brain that really 'see'.  
You only SEE the visual band vibrations that are referred to as 'light'.
You and all of us do not SEE infrared or  ultraviolet but we can sense its effects.  
Now, multiply that.  There are forms of existence that the average persons cannot perceive.  They are not common experiences and there are not common word for them in most languages.  Hence, each culture utilized what IS common to convey a concept based on what is important to that culture.  

The word 'god' is, in effect, a normalization.  It represents the totality of what science and religion and art and culture can imply and then goes on infinitely.

It is elegantly expressed in the 'Shema'.  But that is by no means a definition.  

No one religion on earth can encompass the reality of what 'god' is.  But, all things on earth and all that are on earth are encompassed by 'god'.

Otherwise, 'god' would not be god, but only a regional Deity invented by a small group of mankind isolated in history, and eventually destroyed by invention and the inventive.

that is not accurate

Recreational drugs are a hindrance.  They are false roads of easy access and convenience, but they are RECREATIONAL.  They serve no other purpose.  Nothing is gained.  They create an illusion and that is all.  There is no real gain in using them

Hello again Beth.

The ALL THAT IS, AND HAS EVER BEEN, AND WILL EVER BE, exists within itself, not outside itself.  

That is not limiting it at all.  It is UN-limiting it/god/'the all'.  

Anything that is created is created within.  The rest is production and re-production.  

I used the words 'nothing' and 'no-thing' not to mean the absence of anything but to mean, nothing as being one definable thing.

The one god is undefinable  and unlimited and is self manifest and also ever changing and infinite.  There is no concept of anything outside of it.

Anyone can take a part of the whole and make a language to describe how it seems to work.  Some of this is belief  and some is science and some is art.  The whole is still the whole and undefinable and essentially UN-nameable.  The effect of this kind of a thought can leave somewhat of an insecure feeling in some people and they are more comfortable in naming something and be done with it as it does not require constant effort after the 'naming' is done.

Food can 'ground' you.  Yes.

On Drugs, it depends on your specific condition.  Is this a medical drug or a 'sporting/lifestyle drug?  

Sporting/lifestyle drugs will eventually hinder you even though they might sometimes SEEM to advance you.

Hello Beth.

One with out definition.  Not one who or one gender or one any one thing but ONE as in more that anyone human can imagine.  You might also use the term NOTHING as in NO-THING or not any definable something, at least the way most people think.  

Some one once discussed the idea that god was outside the universe and just observing what happened.   I asked 'how can this be?'  How can a creator be outside of its creation.  

How many people have lived on this earth?  God encompasses all of them and all who will live on this earth and more.  

From reading your posts, I can see that you are an educated and a thoughtful person.   Congratulations.  

God is not a 'something' that any one person can put a name on.  The concept of the 'holy unspeakable name of God' has a purpose.  To name something is to assume knowledge of it.  How can one person know ALL THAT IS OR EVER WILL BE and presume to make that a personage and give it a gender?  People try to humanize god to make the idea approachable.  

When you were a baby you ate baby food.  When you were older you ate other food and started to read and write.  But you no longer eat baby food and talk like a toddler.  You learned and built on that.  We also have to learn not to rely on the 'primer' lessons on god that come from religions that started when much of humanity was illiterate.

Milk for babies, meat for strong adults.  And so it goes with all things including our ideas about god.

Not to imply that you have a toddlers concept about god but a general statement about religions and how we look at things.

Thank You Beth!  

Most of the time we look at things from a personal and convenient perspective that is also comfortable for ourselves.  We all do it.  It is rare and difficult some times to step outside of ourselves (whoever and where ever) and try a different kind of sight.  

What some people do not think of is that if there is truly a god that created the universe, then there is not such a thing as supernatural only the supra natural.  There is,that which we have not discovered or created a science or a language for.  Most language can only represent common experiences and events and ideas.  The more uncommon and event or idea or experience the fewer the words to represent it.  This is why that some people have a hard time describing their personal experiences regarding the religious and spiritual nature.  

When you know that 'god' is one, it may be hard to put it into common enough language for others to easily grasp.  Each persons experience will be different enough, but it will also be the same.  (not there is a contradiction for you)  LOL..

Mono theism does not define god but describes a form of a religion.

Religion is definable.  Its forms come from  the properties of the cultures from whence they originated.  Most religions are tribal in origin, hence those religions use terms that are meaningful to that particular tribe and its context in place an time.  

Cultures and languages change to meet the way people in those cultures change and adapt.  

For some people  to have an idea of god, they have to isolate the powers and functions of god, just as they to other  things in their life to make them somewhat understandable and meaningful and practical.

There are many divisions or forms amongst those who follow Judaism and Christianity.  But they still do follow the concept of those forms to be monotheistic, even though the practices that they adhere to are different.

If we change the term god to some thing like, ALL THAT EVER WAS AND EVER COULD BE IN ALL SPACE AND TIME, you would still have the concept that the new name meant ONE.

It is interesting that you use my last quote.  Does not matter.

'Argue for your limitations and you will keep them'

Cultures are many and change.  People are many and their languages are too and they change to reflect new ideas and inventions.  That happens on many levels.  

The references to the powers of god are not god but human ideas of what those powers are.  The WORDS we use do not define god, which is why in some forms of Judaism there is the 'holy unspeakable name of god'.  ONE person using one word in one time of human history cannot possibly define god.  

In ancient times the concept of god was largely a tribal definition that held meaning for THAT tribe, at that time.  That in no means that Judaism is not monotheistic.  Monotheism goes beyond the restraints of one cultural concept or definition.  

'...within whom we live and move and have our being....'

Leyla, conceptually there is only one creator with 7 faces.  An individuated power is not god but A power of god.  Christianity is a monotheistic religion.

yes

1,800 centuries?   Ummm...  that would be 180,000 years.  

Oh well, but lets not exagerate.  OK?  

Maybe "life' comes before the big bang.  Maybe 'life' is inherent if the effect of 'the big bang'.    LOL.

Keep your query short, and not too complicated.  You can make many queries.  Make them specific.

sorry not or but of