What do you think God wants?

[Jeremy Bong]

Originally Posted by AHIYAH

Holy = Set apart and Spirit = Ruach which is sometimes translated as wind, breath or spirit. So the questions are, is the word Ruach in the feminine or the masculine. As for the spirit being set apart one must ask , set apart from what? And how that lines with the woman mentioned in revelations about growing great wings and flying into the wilderness.
It's only because the bibles has the comforter as a he why you have been thrown off and yes a man can represent the Spiritual mother. Another thing is there's the Father(male) the Son(male) and the Holy Spirit(male) according to Christian thought. Seems the Christian family of God are all male. It's practically a male dominated religion. If you don't get the concept of there being a feminine in Hebrew thought there's nothing I would like to do to change your mind. Btw it wasn't me that said "Wisdom is justified of her children" so you're arguing against the bible. What people don't see about that verse is what wisdom did against the then hypocrites, the offspring of those that caused the kingdom to go into Babylon in the first two places and even now. If you don't understand this concept its probably because of indoctrination.

For those who like to say "wisdom is a she", it implies that God's wisdom isn't a wisdom anymore. Or God has to depend a she to think properly. So are you not realized that you're only think of a she but you've forgotten a he. That's not logical, don't you see that?

When you're told, people are her children. Are people not his children? Maybe the writer of Bible like to write a she (or a he).That's funny, you only think of female in this Bible. why Holy Spirit is a she? Holy spirit is from God, or any high level dharma Deity. And it can be from Creator or from me. So how can anyone asserted that Holy Spirit is a she? You think Holy Spirit is only one?

Do you know what's a Holy Spirit? As long any deity whose "spirit" can go out from God's body that's a "Holy" Spirit. I've seen the Holy Spirit of two female Angels. But that's only that case. He's or She's only another "essence spiritual body" from God's body. This is quite a high level of deity. That's the same shape of that God as if he's the "light-energy" of the God. That's the same as his highest dharma essence. So why it should be a she?

I think you only make assumption. First, you never see Holy Spirit or Kingdom of God. But I've seen both of them.

[mickiel]

Originally Posted by AHIYAH

Oh yes I have one encounter with a binitarian that visited my house with that verse about Jerusalem being the mother of us all so I pointed out that it later goes onto say that all things are an allegory to which she outright ignored and continued on with her preaching.
This is the problem though and its beyond context is that the bibles calls the Father a He and the son a he and the Holy Spirit a he, among some Hebrews is that the spirit of holiness as in the Holy Spirit is actually in the she sense. I know this she as a wisdom/law even from the bible especially what Yeshua says to the hypocrites. "Wisdom is justified of her children"

Yes, the bible has a lot of allegory; I struggle with understanding just what the Holy Spirit is; I don't know. But I agree that wisdom can be spoken of in the female sense. That I can get my head around.

[mickiel]

Originally Posted by davidmartin

Mickiel the Mother in Christian thought can mean the holy spirit which is sort of orthodox but not well known so now appears unorthodox. she's found in early Syrian literature where spirit is a female word and in some of the lost gospels, eg 'my Mother bore me but my true Mother gave me life'
plenty of scope for riffing on this in all sorts of ways
my favourite is the Father represents the timeless, stasis and remoteness of diety, with the Mother the active, generating aspect the flowing out of all creation down to us and revealed by Jesus to attain back to the Father.
Sure, this sounds a bit pantheistic, but it's not exactly pantheism either
That said I can't get my head round the root of the objection to pantheism that more orthodox theologians have....it's as if the idea that things flow from God in the present is dangerous because we might all stop doing what we are doing and stop living our existing lives and become mystics living in solitude, in wonder at the godhead. So for our safety they carefully only allow a taste of it in their doctrines and teachings!

Thank you, the Holy Spirit and things about it is hard for me to get my head around. I could use a true taste of understanding it myself. God can be a difficult study, the deeper you go; 50 years of study, and I feel like I am starting over from scratch. I think its God who is only allowing a taste of it.

[mickiel]

Originally Posted by Busby

'He' doesn't want anything from you. Mankind's assumption that 'he' is looking for followers, praise, adulation and all the rest is at the least human vanity but is really an illusion.

'He' is looking for the chance to experience everything possible. That is why 'he' exists in so many forms and in so many places at so many levels. Everything that we know of belongs to this ONE thing, how each of us makes our way through this universe is left to us.

it's that simple - in my opinion.

I agree that a lot of illusion is birthed by vanity; God is so much, and we need his help so much in trying to make our way through this universe.

[mickiel]

I think knowledge and understanding are so continuous and moving, that we just can't keep up with it. There was a time that we did not know anything, now we think we know everything. But knowledge is spinning and moving, gaining momentum , like a powerful dynamic that we can only grab bits and pieces of. And what we posses can really affect us: we stop and consider what we grab, and the dynamic keeps spinning and moving forward, by the time we learn, its old news really. All we learn will then pass away, and we stand at the threshold of eternity realizing that this process will never end. Is.9:7.

[AHIYAH]

Originally Posted by mickiel

I think knowledge and understanding are so continuous and moving, that we just can't keep up with it. There was a time that we did not know anything, now we think we know everything. But knowledge is spinning and moving, gaining momentum , like a powerful dynamic that we can only grab bits and pieces of. And what we posses can really affect us: we stop and consider what we grab, and the dynamic keeps spinning and moving forward, by the time we learn, its old news really. All we learn will then pass away, and we stand at the threshold of eternity realizing that this process will never end. Is.9:7.

That verse you posted implies a set of house rules. At this present time it seems as though its hard to keep up with it and the bibles go on to say that "they(who is they?) will all know me, from the least(as in number) of them to the greatest(in number) of them that no one would have to teach them".
It's certainly acheivable since Yeshua said that his followers would be one like him and his God. It just comes up to realising it IMO.

[Busby]

Originally Posted by davidmartin

Busby I agree with you but...
there is a problem. there is a sort quasi-religious belief that all spiritual seeking takes place on a fixed stage where God is impassive and the search is personal alone with no bearing on the state of the world as a whole. that there is no communal responsibility but an individualistic playing field exists which is what spiritual people see and this belief is reinforced at every opportunity as if it were unquestionable.
But we could as well be living in a bubble off the back of western culture which temporarily gives this illusion. this would mean the realisation that we are simply belonging to yet another religion or partakers of a mantra that currently holds sway but is being assailed on all sides and subject to change beyond what we think possible?
I see a lot of this stuff, people acting as if the reality of today is immutable and silly are the fools who think differently, when it could all be swept away in a moment, many people are attached to the status quo and haven't broken free of it but dependant on it and don't want it to change.
But what if it does?

This 'bubble' of which you speak is of course exactly the weight bearing down upon the world because many of us, not all, thank goodness, are incapable of refuting the words we have heard for the last twenty centuries delivered in packages wrapped up, for the sake of persuasion, in the word 'love'. We walk with bended backs. This doesn't just have to do with western culture but is a bubble based on an odd sort of logic which puts belief before commonsense.
We all feel safe in the status quo condition, we all have some sort of fear and have had fears since the day we had to get our first breakfast - so to speak. So it's difficult to change - life is too short for most people.
But it will change, maybe wars, maybe a complete destruction, maybe a slow realisation that the surrounding universe is something special, and maybe it will take 50,000 years to get so far in our understanding of awareness. Maybe (as an afterthought) we'll all be on Mars.

Nevertheless, in the background the workings of the universe are becoming clearer, the challenges we see (rather than face) are discernable and our personal responsibility for all that surrounds us is awakening as our potential takes on a visible form.

All the social, political and philosophical processes we take part in serve to let us live in a state of constant observation. (He) - this thing we call God, partakes too - everything is one and the same.

[davidmartin]

ah thanks Busby that makes a lot of sense
one of the strange things about life that I only thought about recently was although we can speak about evolution and progression or regression in a time-based context ... things only actually happen in the present moment. The moment before this one is history, the one that comes next is the future
The Gospel of Thomas makes a big deal of this meditation on the present moment where all things happen. So did the traditions of Matthias another one outside the canon
It like the challenge is to integrate our perspectives of the past and future so they are compatible with the present. I like that.

[davidmartin]

Originally Posted by mickiel

Thank you, the Holy Spirit and things about it is hard for me to get my head around. I could use a true taste of understanding it myself. God can be a difficult study, the deeper you go; 50 years of study, and I feel like I am starting over from scratch. I think its God who is only allowing a taste of it.

that ok i found some of the medieval mystics recently which set me right back at the start again. didn't think anything from that superstitious time would be relevant or worthy of study. was i wrong. Hadewijch in particular had me re-evaluate a ton of stuff with the profoundity of her thought and command of three languages making me feel like a peasant reading it! and there's her poetry.
probably it will happen again as well. maybe that is the path to continually end up at the start again
the only thing that help me regarding holy spirit was the connection to water that always flowing like maybe the initial spiritual instinct came from hunter gatherers watching a stream or similar. must try that myself some time next time I'm out in nature!

[Miss Hepburn]

Too many pages to read, sorry.

Well, some here will scoff and some here will not bat an eye that in one of
my many Divine Visitations, as I am breathless and the room becomes electric....
which may sound weird...but I can't care how it sounds...He told me exactly
why we exist, what He waits for...
us.
(All He is about is love.)
He waits for our human heart to crack open for even a nano-second
and recognize H-i-m.
He wants our love more than any one could ever know.
This entire manifestation of the Absolute, the Divine One, is just about and for more and more love.