Is our version of god mostly in-house?

[Baile]

Peoples' version of God is mostly in-intellect. Think of the head as the belief-house in which people lock themselves inside and close the drapes. And then swallow the door key to make sure no other ideas or concepts ever enter. That's the belief-paradigm reality for most when it comes to religion, spirituality, politics, you name it.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by davidsun

Very erudite exposition, Nec. Except for the final 'kick' (IMO) Which reminded me of: "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." (Acts 9) 'Pricks' with many meanings.



http://vedanta.org/yoga-spiritual-pr...ge-jnana-yoga/

Nope, it's more like John 1:23.

Jnana means knowledge. A lot of people on here have knowledge of Brahman, you'll find them all in the Non-Duality forum saying that personal pronouns shouldn't be a part of the English Language.

Chitti or Pundita means wisdom - you'll find them making threads in the Hindu forum that nobody can ever possibly reply to because they have not attained the stage beyond Jnana yet.

There's a reason why I kill threads, I found out. It's because knowledge cannot go there to respond to whatever I say.

It's amazing how much faith man places in his own mental capacity...he even believes he can realise God merely by thinking about it a lot.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by Baile

Peoples' version of God is mostly in-intellect. Think of the head as the belief-house in which people lock themselves inside and close the drapes. And then swallow the door key to make sure no other ideas or concepts ever enter. That's the belief-paradigm reality for most when it comes to religion, spirituality, politics, you name it.

I do that but that's because I am fully happy and satisfied being who I am, worshiping the God I do and nobody can change that, even though they like to try.

So to avoid being totally rude and saying "thanks but no thanks" I just lock myself in, but then again, what I am experiencing is on a 'heart level' and not an intellectual one.

Wouldn't you do the same to an evangelising Christian, my friend? Or are you totally open to what a religious zealot has to say for themselves and let them proselytize you into their faith without question?

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

Nope, it's more like John 1:23.

Jnana means knowledge. A lot of people on here have knowledge of Brahman, you'll find them all in the Non-Duality forum saying that personal pronouns shouldn't be a part of the English Language.

Chitti or Pundita means wisdom - you'll find them making threads in the Hindu forum that nobody can ever possibly reply to because they have not attained the stage beyond Jnana yet.

There's a reason why I kill threads, I found out. It's because knowledge cannot go there to respond to whatever I say.

It's amazing how much faith man places in his own mental capacity...he even believes he can realise God merely by thinking about it a lot.

Amen

Knowledge is fine, but it is not wisdom, nor is it necessarily truth.

In my youth I was far richer in knowledge (at least I thought it was knowledge) but relatively poorer in wisdom. The very idea that human intellect had an upper bound somehow bothered me, and I regretted that I would not live long enough to learn everything there was to know.

Fortunately, life came along and slapped me around enough to teach my thinker some humility. I unlearned many things I thought were knowledge and gained a bit of wisdom from the suffering along the way, much of which I brought about myself. As I get older, I find though I know more and more facts, they start to conflict and contradict, so thankfully, I do not accumulate as much knowledge to weigh me down as I once did, and wisdom can get in without quite as much suffering.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by ketzer

Amen

Knowledge is fine, but it is not wisdom, nor is it necessarily truth.

In my youth I was far richer in knowledge (at least I thought it was knowledge) put relatively poorer in wisdom. The very idea that human intellect had an upper bound somehow bothered me, and I regretted that I would not live long enough to learn everything there was to know.

Fortunately, life came along and slapped me around enough to teach my thinker some humility. I unlearned many things I thought were knowledge and gained a bit of wisdom from the suffering along the way, much of which I brought about myself. As I get older, I find though I know more and more facts, they start to conflict and contradict, so thankfully, I do not accumulate as much knowledge to weigh me down as I once did, and wisdom can get in without quite as much suffering.

Looking at your age, you are two years younger than myself. I was curious.

As I get older, I realise that all personal truths are totally relative. It is what led to the election of the current US president (re: alternative facts).

I also learned that people will believe whatever they want about anything and climate change is the perfect example.

Some can see the immediate effects backed up with a century's worth of statistical data, and others cannot see any change at all, saying "show me the records for 500 years ago!" however, the disbelief has more of a political agenda so as not to ratify any other country's protocols regarding it.

Some believe the earth is flat, some believe and act as if Christianity IS religion and condemn all religion in the name of Christianity, saying "religion is responsible for massive genocide and persecutions" without using the word 'Abrahamic' and so, I say "Hinduism and Buddhism are both religions the last time I looked".

Some believe the new era of spiritual salvation is upon us, when there's no real global evidence of it apart from "people are more disenchanted with organised Christianity than ever before" as a basis for that belief.

Then, there are those who will say "non-duality" is the true path and "duality" is the false one as if the two were somehow mutually exclusive and 'true' and 'false' is a dual dichotomy within itself.

Then others will say "your God is yours and my God is mine" when God is God and how can there be a 'my God" and a "your God?" so, is our version of God mostly in-house? while ever there exists a 'version' of God, then It is in-house, however, when there's an invariant concept of the omniscient and omnipresent almighty, it's pretty much a universal nomenclature.

The aspect of variability can lead to invariability and then according to others the version is 'in-house' because it's experiential, but according to the experiencer, it is absolutum in toto and can be anything and everything it presents itself to be.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by ketzer

Yes, there does seem to be a bit of a language difference here. I did not mean to imply a state of nothingness as a state of no existence. Just because the container is empty of things, does not mean it does not exist, even if the container itself is without form. In fact the fewer things the container holds the greater it’s potential to hold them, with an empty container being filled with potential.

I do like your conceptualization of god as love with the other emotions as colors of the spectrum. I suppose it works better or worse depending on the meaning one holds for the word love (that language thing again). I suspect that ultimately all dualities are illusions.

Again, all of the above, is 'in my view'.

Of course, as it is with all of us.

We are on 'the same page' (in more ways than one! ).

The reason for my being a 'stickler' language-wise is that (I think) many interpret 'nothing' not just to mean no 'thing' (i.e. form) but also as having no essence-ial quality/ies or 'nature'. As in the Gita (from the translation I have): "Beyond the senses, It yet shines through every sense perception. Bound to nothing, It yet sustains everything. Unaffected by the Qualities, It still enjoys them all." and "He who understands God and Nature along with her qualities, whatever be his condition in life, he comes not again to earth."

Many therefore attempt to (I say this because I believe such attempt is ultimately, albeit sometimes only after several lifetimes, doomed to fail) 'detach' from the Love and Joy of incarnational Living. They attempt to unite with what they 'see' as a transcendent God, ignoring the Presence and Activity of the God that is always already everywhere and in everyone, both potentially and actually, impellingly imminently-present.

That kind of 'separation' (of what they think of as 'God' and what they think of as 'Nature') is a kind of unwitting boondoggle which many otherwise well-intentioned people get 'eddy' caught up in, resulting in the Flow of Life (theirs as well as of others) being 'poorer' than it otherwise could/would be IMO.

My sense (based on what you say) is that you know this. As I said, I am just being a stickler for purposes of (possible) clarification in relation to readers in general.

One is always 'affected' by the Flow of Love and Experience of Joy (however convoluted these may get and at any point in time be) 'in' oneself. In terms of Flow and Experience, though one may render oneself unconscious (imagining on has 'extinguished' oneself) in relation to these for periods of time, there is always the Presence of Love and Joy, never complete 'emptiness', i.e. never 'nothing'.

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

Looking at your age, you are two years younger than myself. I was curious.

As I get older, I realise that all personal truths are totally relative. It is what led to the election of the current US president (re: alternative facts).

I also learned that people will believe whatever they want about anything and climate change is the perfect example.

Some can see the immediate effects backed up with a century's worth of statistical data, and others cannot see any change at all, saying "show me the records for 500 years ago!" however, the disbelief has more of a political agenda so as not to ratify any other country's protocols regarding it.

Some believe the earth is flat, some believe and act as if Christianity IS religion and condemn all religion in the name of Christianity, saying "religion is responsible for massive genocide and persecutions" without using the word 'Abrahamic' and so, I say "Hinduism and Buddhism are both religions the last time I looked".

Some believe the new era of spiritual salvation is upon us, when there's no real global evidence of it apart from "people are more disenchanted with organised Christianity than ever before" as a basis for that belief.

Then, there are those who will say "non-duality" is the true path and "duality" is the false one as if the two were somehow mutually exclusive and 'true' and 'false' is a dual dichotomy within itself.

Then others will say "your God is yours and my God is mine" when God is God and how can there be a 'my God" and a "your God?" so, is our version of God mostly in-house? while ever there exists a 'version' of God, then It is in-house, however, when there's an invariant concept of the omniscient and omnipresent almighty, it's pretty much a universal nomenclature.

The aspect of variability can lead to invariability and then according to others the version is 'in-house' because it's experiential, but according to the experiencer, it is absolutum in toto and can be anything and everything it presents itself to be.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
Isaac Asimov

Sounds true enough, and yet

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
Albert Einstein, Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

Hmmmm... perhaps what is true is more difficult to discern then I thought.

“The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is also true.”
Niels Bohr

Sounds like quite a mystical pickle to me!

"The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all
art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of
wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for
us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose
gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is
the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself
among profoundly religious men." Albert Einstein

Perhaps this uneasy mysticism is not so bad after all.

“He had started to suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, that the wise Brahmans had already revealed to him the most and best of their wisdom, that they had already filled his expecting vessel with their richness, and the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was not calm, the heart was not satisfied. The ablutions were good, but they were water, they did not wash off the sin, they did not heal the spirit's thirst, they did not relieve the fear in his heart. The sacrifices and the invocation of the gods were excellent—but were that all? Did the sacrifices give a happy fortune? And what about the gods? Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not the Atman, He, the only one, the singular one? Were the gods not creations, created like me and you, subject to time, mortal? Was it therefore good, was it right, was it meaningful and the highest occupation to make offerings to the gods? For whom else were offerings to me made, who else was to be worshiped but Him, the only one, the Atman? And where was Atman to be found, where did He reside, where did his eternal heart beat, where else but in one's own self, in its innermost part, in its indestructible part, which everyone had in himself? But where, where was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part? It was not flesh and bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest ones taught. So, where, where was it? To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman, there was another way, which was worthwhile looking for? Alas, and nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the father, and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs! They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much—but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing?”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Perhaps, when all is said and done,

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Oh well,

“Namaste Necromancer”, Ketzer

[Shivani Devi]

In the term 'common sense' what is 'common' about 'sense'? yet, in my hubris, that's the standard by which my ego judges the world in which it finds itself.

Of course my awareness of Chitta exists totally beyond this and according to it, all relative truth proves, is that any perceptual or conceptual awareness is only mithyatva anyway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithyatva

However, I also know full damn well that if I exist in 'God-awareness' all the time, I wouldn't be able to even post on this forum.

...and of course the Divine, who laughs at me, also doesn't want me to be here on SF either and makes that clear in no uncertain terms, but my ego ignores it.

As for 'truth quotes'? I did that the other day...and I can go no further than William Blake:


I must read Siddhartha again (it has been many years) - but I loved Steppenwolf MUCH more! <3

“Man is an onion made up of a hundred integuments, a texture made up of many threads. The ancient Asiatics knew this well enough, and in the Buddhist Yoga an exact technique was devised for unmasking the illusion of the personality. The human merry-go-round sees many changes: the illusion that cost India the efforts of thousands of years to unmask is the same illusion that the West has labored just as hard to maintain and strengthen.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

There are words borne from the processes of thought and words borne from the processes of a heart experience, both may be 'knowledge' because human language is being sought to express them, but they are as different as chalk and cheese.

Namaste ketzer.

[davidsun]

Whether one regards what follows as 'mere' knowledge or 'profound' wisdom, or neither, or both, or something in between:

I regard any and all concepts (words, word-sequences, ideas, idea-constellations) to just be mental abstractions (i.e. 'constructions'), navigational tools whereby an intelligent (knowing? seeing?) person may use for positively creative purposes (goals, ends, etc.) or a fool (one in whom intelligence either hasn't developed yet or one in whom developed intelligence has become 'delusionally' 'blinded') may bunglingly use to just make a ('circular' going nowhere) game to play around with - that is until/unless a process-stopping 'ditch' comes along.

Some tools are better suit/used for certain tasks. Those who are potential adepts know (sense?) which one's will best serve which purposes, as well as how and when, and learn from (experimentally) using them how to better use them to 'make' better and better creations, 'better' of course also just being a conceptual abstraction.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by davidsun

Whether one regards what follows as 'mere' knowledge or 'profound' wisdom, or neither, or both, or something in between:

I regard any and all concepts (words, word-sequences, ideas, idea-constellations) to just be mental abstractions (i.e. 'constructions'), navigational tools whereby an intelligent (knowing? seeing?) person may use for positively creative purposes (goals, ends, etc.) or a fool (one in whom intelligence either hasn't developed yet or one in whom developed intelligence has become 'delusionally' 'blinded') may bunglingly use to just make a ('circular' going nowhere) game to play around with - that is until/unless a process-stopping 'ditch' comes along.

Some tools are better suit/used for certain tasks. Those who are potential adepts know (sense?) which one's will best serve which purposes, as well as how and when, and learn from (experimentally) using them how to better use them to 'make' better and better creations, 'better' of course also just being a conceptual abstraction.

For one who has realised Brahman, what use is a spiritual forum?