echi wrote:IFF wrote:God is the eternal, unmanifested consciousness that all of us can glimpse within ourselves. God is the intelligence, the organizing principle behind the arising of form. God, as consciousness, has been preparing forms for millions of years so that it can express itself through them. God is formless. Form and formless inter-penetrate. The unmanifested flows into this dimension as awareness, inner Presence. How does it do that? Through the human form that becomes conscious and thus fulfills its destiny. The human form was created for this higher purpose.
If I asked you to explain what you mean by all this I suspect you would begin by assuming that I am clueless, much like you assumed (in one of our first exchanges) that I was some sort of religious type. Next you might tell me, as you have done already, that your beliefs are not easily expressed in words and that one must experience these things first-hand in order to fully grasp their true meaning. You might say that I would also benefit from taking into account the many similar experiences had by others. There are many books written on these subjects, so I suppose you might also decide to flood my screen with bits of those. I am only making an educated guess, of course; maybe you will surprise me (the skeptic).
To the point that I think rosborne was aiming at?-
If you don't believe in an "egoic", creator god, an intelligent intercessor, then what sort of god do you believe in? Why do choose to call it "God"?
To be honest, I prefer to avoid the use of the word "God" because of all of the cultural and religious connotations the word brings. It is not necessary to use the word God in talking about spirituality. (Buddhism is a good example.) However, on a spirituality & religion forum where a lot of people are talking about God, it is impossible to avoid the word. Also, when I address another person, I try to talk in the language they are familiar with. If they use the word God, I will too.
That said, what do I believe in? I believe in the radical transformation of human consciousness. In Hinduism and Buddhism this is called
enlightenment or
liberation. In Christianity it is called
salvation. What I am implying is that the historical originators of those teachings (Buddha, Krishna, Christ) actually had valuable insights. However, they had the difficulty of trying to communicate their insights to an unenlightened and largely uneducated populace. To varying degrees, but particularly so in the case of Christianity, those teachings were so altered and misunderstood over the years, that what is being practiced today is but a pale reflection of the original teachings. All sorts of wrong ideas have crept in. That's the problem with using the word God. It brings in all of the misunderstandings that have become part of modern religion.
What do I mean when I use the word God? I mean absolute eternal being or consciousness. It is impersonal. It is not a personal God who is your imaginary companion. Since your fundamental identity is consciousness, you are God, literally. God is found in you as you. However, God, or the state of pure consciousness, has to be realized through the radical transformation of consciousness. This is the an evolutionary process that is the culmination of the evolution of biological life on this, and probably other, planets. Consciousness is the intelligence, the organizing principle behind the arising of form. Consciousness has been preparing from for millions of years so that it can express itself through those forms. The unmanifested consciousness flows into this world as awareness or inner Presence. It does this through the human form that becomes conscious and thus fulfills its destiny. The human form was created for this higher purpose.
Consciousness incarnates into the dimension of form. When it does so, it enters a dreamlike state. Intelligence remains, but consciousness becomes unconscious of itself. It loses itself in form. It becomes identified with form. This is traditionally known as
ignorance or
ego. At this stage of evolution of the universe, consciousness is in a dreamlike state. Glimpses of awakening come at the moment of death. Then begins the next incarnation. When the lion tears apart the body of the zebra, the consciousness incarnated into the zebra body detaches itself from the dissolving form and for a brief moment awakens to its essential immortal nature as consciousness and then falls back into sleep and reincarnates as another form. The human ego represents the final stage of the identification of consciousness with form. Through the human form, consciousness is able to know itself. This reaches its highest expression when the individual attains the state of enlightenment. That is the ultimate purpose of human existence and of the evolution of the universe.
I may have been thinking about "delusion" in the wrong way. I suppose the term is concerned with beliefs that are unconventional rather than those that are simply illogical.
