Ramakrishna said...I want to taste sugar, not be sugar..

[Shivani Devi]

Please allow me to elaborate:

If Self is consciousness...if consciousness is Shiva, this means Self = Shiva and we're back to square one with 'why the hell do I worship myself?"

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

What is consciousness?

To me consciousness is related to the common thing we all can say we know, and that is that we exist. We know we exist.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

Please allow me to elaborate:

If Self is consciousness...if consciousness is Shiva, this means Self = Shiva and we're back to square one with 'why the hell do I worship myself?"

I've struggled with this as well and concluded that I don't know except that it comes naturally to worship, to love, to do good.

[sky]

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

Please allow me to elaborate:

If Self is consciousness...if consciousness is Shiva, this means Self = Shiva and we're back to square one with 'why the hell do I worship myself?"

Drop the worship and add 'Love '. If you can't love yourself you can't love another

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by Self

I've struggled with this as well and concluded that I don't know except that it comes naturally to worship, to love, to do good.

Namaste:

Thank you for everything. I received the answer in Spirit today.

If you taste the sugar with every single taste bud and with your whole awareness, you become the sugar...then, you can have your sugar-cake and eat it too...no love is lost in the process and you can either 'taste sugar' or 'be sugar' whenever you want. All it takes is a slight change in perspective.

Right now though, it feels like my heart's gonna explode...so I'll leave it there.

Aum Namah Shivaya

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by sky123

Drop the worship and add 'Love '. If you can't love yourself you can't love another

Oh boy...unconditional love was added ages ago and worship = ego surrender.

[sky]

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

Oh boy...unconditional love was added ages ago and worship = ego surrender.

Ignore my ramblings
Worship to me is different from love, worship is for deities, love is for humans.

[Miss Hepburn]

This 'worship and what is self' thing belongs here.
Just sayin'.

My gosh it's the whole, 'Being sugar or tasting sugar' thing.

I was going to start a thread just on worship, funny huh?
Where to place it ...Spiritual Dev?
But we're discussing it here!
The Hindu sec doesn't draw everyone, tho, so we'll see...
Or one of you could?

Let me give my 2 cents on worship.
When one experiences the Divine...in whatever way...could be
a vision, a voice, the Holy Spirit, a Presence (as in a feeling)...in some way
has a supernatural experience, an altered state of awareness that transcends
our everyday mind set....there is a natural result....

That being a transformative state of awe...reverence, humility and gratitude follow;
usually worship, which is a form of adoration and love...it is
an outpouring of the heart...boy, is it ever.

This is all my take only. You do not have to agree, ha!

[Shivani Devi]

Namaste.

Humility is an emotion I just can't seem to feel.

I feel all the other ones, reverence, awe, devotion, gratitude, love, respect, insignificance and I'm not an egotistical person either...I've just never been able to feel this emotion due to my own emotional makeup which differs from about 99% of people out there -

I am autistic.

Fortunately, Siva has taken this into account. Yessssss!!!!

Rudra Granthi untied...gone back to 'Sweet and Low' to watch my waistline...everything is right with the universe.

Aum Namah Shivaya

[Miss Hepburn]

Maybe this could help from Meher Baba. I often post it.

God is love. And Love must love. And to love there must be a Beloved.

But since God is Existence infinite and eternal there is no one for Him to love but Himself.

And in order to love Himself, He must imagine Himself as the Beloved whom He
as the lover imagines He loves.
Beloved and lover implies separation.
And separation creates longing; and longing causes search.
And the wider and the more intense the search, the greater the separation and the more terrible the longing.
When longing is at its most intense, separation is complete, and the purpose of separation,
which was that love might experience itself as Lover and Beloved,
is fulfilled; and union follows.

And when union is attained, the lover knows that he himself was all along the Beloved, whom he loved and desired union with;
and that all the impossible situations that he overcame were obstacles which he himself had placed in the path to himself.
To attain union is so impossibly difficult because it is impossible to become what you already are!