Individuality in oneness.

[charly233]

Originally Posted by Maisy

It's funny because a lot of humans love the idea of punishment and revenge and get a lot of pleasure from the idea.

Yes it seems to me that some people project their own ideas of punishment and revenge onto God.
I think some of the bible writers were doing this in their depiction of the wrathful Jehovah.

[eezi-ulgen]

Originally Posted by sky

Love it

Hi sky,

In my mind I equate duality with the "tree of knowledge of good and evil".
So I tend to see the "tree of Life" is the transcendence of duality into contentment and equanimity which is "Home" or Peace, Joy and Love...

Peace

[vortex]

Originally Posted by sky

Individuality in oneness

just drop into the oneness and let the energy flow in a deep connectedness with all that is
an awesome way of being to experience as long as your mind dosnt brings you back to being individual

it fascinates me you can experience these awesome ways of being while being human and individual cant wait to discover more

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by charly233

[/list]
I am not sure if I get it. There's nothing impure about a woman's menstruation. The passage seems very sexist to me.

Those bible writers sure had a lot of hang ups.

Sin, in that example, dealt with a health issue. By segregating the individual from others, the person would have time to them self. Some other health conditions were treated very similarly and were tied to sin.

We might think this was a sexual bias issue but I suspect it was a way to minimize health issues. Jews took precautions dealing with blood and this was just another aspect of how to deal with blood issues.

Also, bathing was part of the 'ritual'. If you look at baptism that the Jews were practicing, it appears to be an extension of what to do with these health conditions. If you look at The Didache: it goes in to great detail on the various ways a baptism can be conducted. It seems those details were 'lifted' from Jewish writings on the subject.

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by sky

I've read some nonsense in the Bible, that particular verse has to be high up on the stupidity list.... Imo...
God help them, they knew no better.....

If you look, placing people in quarantine and taking precautions minimized the transfer of diseases, especially those diseases transferred in blood.

Sure they might have gone overboard in taking precautions, but then, is it better to be 'safe' or 'sorry'?

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

I suspect you are speaking about the the seven lampstands mention in Revelation. Jesus explained to John what they represented. How you got karma out of that...... I do not know. Can you further explain yourself?

ok well it may not make sense to anyone but me though lol.... seven lampstands stand (to me) for seven types of knowledge, as I heard somewhere that in ancient times lamps were symbolic of knowledge, perhaps because they 'light the way'... IOW this is 7 ways of organizing the 'facts' about reality into a coherent pattern that we can work with.

You've also got 7 'churches' which is another way of looking at knowledge, this time from the point of view of reverence for a way to behave....

One of the known patterns about reality is karma, wherein what you do gets certain results.... this is so well known that even statements like 'the definition of insanity is to continue what you are doing and expect different results' have popped up in popular culture.... it also seems to be the basis of the science that has brought us much of what we have in the modern world, when taken in respect to physical objects instead of interpersonal relationships... so I figure we've got seven lamps, standing for different types of knowledge, different ways of organizing facts, different ways of looking at the world... and we've got 'karma' which most definitely is at least part of a type of knowledge, a way of organzing facts, a way of looking at the world... putting the pieces together I get that one of the 'lamps' shines on how karma and the related physical activities work. One of the churches would be similar....

i edited this, because, there is talk of buddhism on this thread, and guess what, buddhism is a type of knowledge, a way of organizing facts, a way of looking at the world, a church, something lit by a lamp. At least that is how I see it...

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by sky

I like the way you've used 'automated'

i dunno, that just seemed to be the thing to say at that point

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

If karma is now 'part' of Christianity, does that mean Jesus no longer plays a role in 'salvation'?

it was expressed this way for one of the other lamps:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

in karmic terms I would guess that would mean, the karmic results of such behaviors are likely to be 'good'.

So I think if you can do that without jesus then you don't need him????? Up to you and jesus whether you want to try that though....

[FallingLeaves]

by the way i've been talking here about the 'descriptive' sense of lamps/churches, rather than in the sense of taking what one knows as a basis for activity. IOW of course christianity doesn't promote either karma or buddhism or anything else one might think a light shines on... just to say that (to me) within the confines of christian belief there is ample space to describe the role of other beliefs.

[sky]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

i dunno, that just seemed to be the thing to say at that point

And that moment