Rituals and Culture

RexRed,

Your communication problem (and you do have one) is that both despots and "saints" claim to have heard "celestial voices". Every sane person knows that and will treat you as a "case" rather than a reliable source.

So examine why you want to communicate. Is it a celestial point scoring task ?........a means of reinforcing your position by reading your views and applauding them?......it because your voice tells you share your "good fortune" with your neighbor ?

Face it Rex.... nobody listens to a Holy Joe except a Holy Joe .

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fresco wrote:

RexRed,

Your communication problem (and you do have one) is that both despots and "saints" claim to have heard "celestial voices". Every sane person knows that and will treat you as a "case" rather than a reliable source.

So examine why you want to communicate. Is it a celestial point scoring task ?........a means of reinforcing your position by reading your views and applauding them?......it because your voice tells you share your "good fortune" with your neighbor ?

Face it Rex.... nobody listens to a Holy Joe except a Holy Joe .

You raise an interesting question and thank for your inquiry no matter how shallow or genuine your actual intent. Smile

I was also taught by my spiritual teacher that the goals of this life are frivolous compared to the goals of the next life. To set my thoughts on things above rather than things on this earth.

This would be fine but it would in the end be self serving. With this spiritual knowledge I could achieve any discipline that brings the glory of this world and be the best at my field. But I would leave behind so many in my wake. I would look back over my shoulder and see them reaching out for me and the tears in their eyes would kill me and curse me forever. For I would know I had been a success at their expense. It seems more prudent that rather than seek my own vain glory that I stop and ponder at this crossroad of my life's seasons.

Rather than seek the road of self by hoarding this light and never revealing what make me shine so brightly. It behooves one to share the glory so that all may partake of the divine spirit of everlasting life.

For there is the vertical and the horizontal that reveals a certain truth. What is vertical is what pertains to God and what is horizontal is what pertains to this world.

Before one opens their eyes to try and perceive this world they must first perceive God. For it is God who opens their eyes to see the world for what it is... Only God reveals the truth. Only God can take our burdens upon himself and cleanse the soul.

Only God can justify the spirit and only God can open the door to eternity.

The Bridge Builder

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide --
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pit-fall be,
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."

Will Allen Dromgoole

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Quote:

Rather than seek the road of self by hoarding this light and never revealing what make me shine so brightly. It behooves one to share the glory so that all may partake of the divine spirit of everlasting life.

Okay, so you've confimed my "communication motive" type 3

Now consider this, from a philosophical point of view "self" is a "social construct". This means that your perception of "self integrity" depends on your relationship to "others" including "deities". Your vision of "spiritual self transcendence" is flawed because it requires you to "take the others with you". The alternative spiritual mode is "dissipation of self"...a merger with an undifferentiated "whole".....one in which there is no logical place for separate singularities like "selves" or "deities".

Krishnamurti said we would not achieve transcendence by a social act but by examining our own conditioned entrapment within such relationships. This is in essence a real transcendence of a misguided attempt to transcend ! Smile

This is echoed by others like Wittgenstein (no atheist) who famously said of matters spiritual:
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent".
__________________________________________________________

For Wittgenstein By Joseph Duemer

Days are like grass the wind moves over:
first the wind & then the silence-
what cannot be said we must pass over
in silence, or play some music over
in our heads. Silently, a wind goes over
(we know from the motion of the grass).
Days are like grass; the wind goes over:
first the wind & then the silence.

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fresco wrote:

Quote:
Rather than seek the road of self by hoarding this light and never revealing what make me shine so brightly. It behooves one to share the glory so that all may partake of the divine spirit of everlasting life.

Okay, so you've confimed my "communication motive" type 3

Now consider this, from a philosophical point of view "self" is a "social construct". This means that your perception of "self integrity" depends on your relationship to "others" including "deities". Your vision of "spiritual self transcendence" is flawed because it requires you to "take the others with you". The alternative spiritual mode is "dissipation of self"...a merger with an undifferentiated "whole".....one in which there is no logical place for separate singularities like "selves" or "deities".

Krishnamurti said we would not achieve transcendence by a social act but by examining our own conditioned entrapment within such relationships. This is in essence a real transcendence of a misguided attempt to transcend !

This is echoed by others like Wittgenstein (no atheist) who famously said of matters spiritual:
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent".
__________________________________________________________

For Wittgenstein By Joseph Duemer

Days are like grass the wind moves over:
first the wind & then the silence-
what cannot be said we must pass over
in silence, or play some music over
in our heads. Silently, a wind goes over
(we know from the motion of the grass).
Days are like grass; the wind goes over:
first the wind & then the silence.

The self is a construct of the mind where the spirit is a construct of God. The self transcends the mind and soul and is created within the spirit by God. Thus the spirit is the new eternal perfect self.

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...fine, except you have no "evidence" for that. In fact all evidence indicates that it is pure conjecture. You cannot even account for the integrity of self/soul/spirit for most of the time the body sleeps and certainly not after death.

You will resist this point because your own "self perception" relies on it.
Those who see that "self" is a conditioned construct don't have that requirement.

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fresco wrote:

...fine, except you have no "evidence" for that. In fact all evidence indicates that it is pure conjecture. You cannot even account for the integrity of self/soul/spirit for most of the time the body sleeps and certainly not after death.

You will resist this point because your own "self perception" relies on it.
Those who see that "self" is a conditioned construct don't have that requirement.

The change that overcomes the self is the proof of the existence of the spirit.

The Touch of the Masters Hand

Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
thought it scarcely worth his while to waste much time on the old violin,
but held it up with a smile; "What am I bidden, good folks," he cried,
"Who'll start the bidding for me?" "A dollar, a dollar"; then two!" "Only
two? Two dollars, and who'll make it three? Three dollars, once; three
dollars twice; going for three.." But no, from the room, far back, a
gray-haired man came forward and picked up the bow; Then, wiping the dust
from the old violin, and tightening the loose strings, he played a melody
pure and sweet as caroling angel sings.

The music ceased, and the auctioneer, with a voice that was quiet and low,
said; "What am I bid for the old violin?" And he held it up with the bow.
A thousand dollars, and who'll make it two? Two thousand! And who'll make
it three? Three thousand, once, three thousand, twice, and going and
gone," said he. The people cheered, but some of them cried, "We do not
quite understnad what changed its worth." Swift came the reply: "The touch
of a master's hand."

And many a man with life out of tune, and battered and scarred with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, much like the old violin, A
"mess of pottage," a glass of wine; a game - and he travels on. "He is
going" once, and "going twice, He's going and almost gone." But the Master
comes, and the foolish crowd never can quite understand the worth of a soul
and the change that's wrought by the touch of the Master's hand.

Myra 'Brooks' Welch

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....no, it is "proof" of our intolerance of "the void". We have wired in perceptual mechanisms which "see" the stars as a flattened ceiling and from this comes the "moon illusion" of it appearing different sizes at horizon and overhead. The evocation of "a deity" or "spirit" is a psychological "solution" for closing "the void of the eternal". We are embraced/comforted/back in the womb/blissful.....

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fresco wrote:

....no, it is "proof" of our intolerance of "the void". We have wired in perceptual mechanisms which "see" the stars as a flattened ceiling and from this comes the "moon illusion" of it appearing different sizes at horizon and overhead. The evocation of "a deity" or "spirit" is a psychological "solution" for closing "the void of the eternal". We are embraced/comforted/back in the womb/blissful.....

The natural solution provides natural wisdom (finite) and the spiritual solution provides wisdom beyond our own ability to rationalize. (infinite).

1 Corinthians 1:25
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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You will continue to attempt to "close the void" by appealing to the attempts of others. It is the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and humming,which is fine but fails to convince anybody else.

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fresco wrote:

You will continue to attempt to "close the void" by appealing to the attempts of others. It is the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and humming,which is fine but fails to convince anybody else.

I draw a distinction between the wisdom of "others" (including my own) and the wisdom of God.

I do not believe that others are capable of the wisdom of God as I also do not believe that man/woman are capable by nature of knowing on their own the essence of God.

The essence of God is known only by God and those who God reveals it to. God's essence is not at all what we would ever think or even dream by our own fanciful imagination. The only way we will know the nature of God is to learn this nature from God and not rely on "others" or ourselves to impose our five senses logic upon God's own divine will, design and purpose.

Not knowing the wisdom of God would make me more susceptible to the "wisdom" of others.

1Corinthians 12:8
For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;

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Draw a distinction=draw a line =CLOSURE !

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fresco wrote:

Draw a distinction=draw a line =CLOSURE !

Closure with God? Do you have it?

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No...you need closure, not me.

I need no origins. no causes, and no direction because the "I" I speak of is a temporary wave ...a node of inter-relationhips within a continuous dynamic flux which extends in space-time beyond our observational limits.
There is no "alpha" and "omega". These are figments of human segmentational thinking driven by the influences of linguistic categories on cognition.

Contrary to your view: In the WORD was the BEGINNING and the word was with MAN.

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fresco wrote:

No...you need closure, not me.

I need no origins. no causes, and no direction because the "I" I speak of is a temporary wave ...a node of inter-relationhips within a continuous dynamic flux which extends in space-time beyond our observational limits.
There is no "alpha" and "omega". These are figments of human segmentational thinking driven by the influences of linguistic categories on cognition.

Contrary to your view: In the WORD was the BEGINNING and the word was with MAN.

The soul is much like the body, it accumulates waste and that waste has got to go somewhere... It is the spirit that purifies the soul. Without the spirit there can be no closure.

Denying this reality only puts off the inevitable accumulation of refuse. God is the only instrument that can justify the solitary existence and it's inherent predicament.

Mathematically the love greater than self cannot exist if God is not part of the equation.

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"Existence" is "relationship".
"Solitary existence" is an oxymoron.

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fresco wrote:

"Existence" is "relationship".
"Solitary existence" is an oxymoron.

That is exactly my point, solitary existence does not exist. For there are powers that be in high places that provide a battery of resources both good and evil.

Love is an energy source and the law of energy is that you cannot get a greater yield of energy than what is put in, that is unless energy is added from and external source. Two humans who love each other cannot rise above selfishness unless they can tap into a source of energy that is greater than their own.

This is why the Greeks had two (or more) words for our one English word "love".

Phileo = human love

Agape = the love of God in in action

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"Where the self is, love is not" (J krishnamurti)

Self dissipation involves disolution of boundaries between "self" and "others" (including "gods").
Whence "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts." (Principle of Gestalt)

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fresco wrote:

"Where the self is, love is not" (J krishnamurti)

Self dissipation involves disolution of boundaries between "self" and "others" (including "gods").
Whence "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts." (Principle of Gestalt)

You are possibly underestimating the power of God's love versus the capacity of humans to love on their own...

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No Rex. You are in denial. There is blatantly no evidence of a "loving God". All evidence indicates the absolute opposite.

The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 struck on the morning of Sunday Nov 1st ( "All Saints Day" )killing thousands in packed churches, whilst the prostitutes sunning themselves on the hill survived unscathed.

Whatever "love" is, it is an infantile irrationality to assign it as a property or the embodiment of "a deity".

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