Spirituality within the context of Philosophy

I might try and work on it ... involves a trip across the pond.

But I am pursuing membership of the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies (SPES), which has been mordant for some time ...

God bless,

Thomas
 
I understand. I spend most of my time at work (financial and program management in US defense acquisition) or reading (physics, metaphysics, and fiction). My only real outside interests are 1) a crazy notion that Whitehead can solve some of the problems with modern philosophy and physics and 2) a dedication to my Meetings (weekly, monthly, quareterly and yearly Quaker activities).

I amy well go catch this though.
 
Originally Posted by bhaktajan
The subtle difference between jiv (atma) and God (Paramatma), according to this philosophy, is that quality wise jiv and God are identical but quantity wise jiv is infinitesimal whereas God is unlimited.


If the divine is divine then by its nature it is not subject to any order order of limitation. That's why we argue the soul is not the same stuff as God, for were it so, it would be God, absolutely and unconditionally ...

Just wondering on that point ...
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The divine is whole & complete & free to all things.
Limitations are our lot. The soul is 1/1000’s the size of the tip of a hair and as bright as a 100 Suns ---the soul is infitestimally tiny ---yet we are a spark “Part and Parcel” of the Godhead’s Supreme Personality.
Our “Physical Separation” and distance from Godhead absolutely limits the qualifications & Conditions that allow for interpersonal face-to-face exchanges. Our Spirit-spark of a Soul must “Serve Godhead in Seperation”.
We heal ourselves so as to enter the Manor house with the ettiquette conmenserate with association being sought.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bhaktajan
This can only be experienced through Bhakti-yoga ...


It's almost an axiom with the trads that Christianity is a Bhakti-yoga, somewhat erroneously, I think. As one theologian said, how can a theology of the Logos/Word be anything but a jnani-yoga? Then again, a theology of the name is bhaktik ... in my own view, all traditions comprise all yogas in various organic and mutable arrangements.
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Yoga (to link; ergo, re-ligio, to re-link) culminates with the path of Bhakti.
After years of hard-study and training ---the path of Devotion is open to us.
Krishna already delineates the three progressive steps of the yogic ladder of spiritual disciplines of the Vedas:
1st Karma yoga via avoiding Bad-works and seeking to do Good-Works.
2nd Intellectual Scholarship
3rd Devotion to the ultimate object of Moksha –Bhagavan Shree Krishna, aka, the Supreme Persona of Godhead.
So the lessons learnt by “Human Species of life” revolve around Actions & Intellect so as to reform ambitions toward the Original-First Person (Adi-Purusha). For it should be known that the Original-First Person is the reservoir of Persona ---God Almighty is that Personification of Person-hood.
God Almighty is absolute ---We Souls in the material world are simply lust mongers that canabalise eachother rather than promising the mass of our grandchildren a life of high-living & high-Thinking. We are cheaters and stealers and covetors of the supremely mundane here in the temporal world that we no not how it mercifully sustains us nor do most people care.
We are bon into ignorance and most are happy for a morsel of daily pleasure while rushing past the rest of the ocean of humanity.

Originally Posted by bhaktajan
... which maintains that the Supreme Lord is simultaneously one with and different from His creation. Lord Caitanya taught this philosophy through the chanting of the holy name of the Lord.


So do we. But I would not say the above infers panentheism?
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A name is a name by any other name?
The argument that God “is simultaneously one with and different from His creation” ---is a concern for debating any posited differring opinion ---that is all.
Coining nomenclatures (nick-names) does not make for specificity ---esp when the singular topic is “absolute”. It becomes an individual’s need to see himself lost among oceans of the multitudes--- whilst the Lord is absolutely His own Supreme Autocrat and thus obtaining the Audience of the Lord can ONLY be achieved by His Revelation ---this is understood via the 3 progressive phases to gain moksha, known as 1st Karma (mundane works), 2nd Jnana (honest intellectual investigation), and, 3rd Bhakti (devotion to apply karma & Jnana in daily life for the goal of Moksha) ---compare these 3 steps to he successful methods & mechanisms of a Happy Marriage.


Quote:
Originally Posted by bhaktajan
He taught that the holy name of the Lord is the sound incarnation of the Lord and that since the Lord is the absolute whole, there is no difference between His holy name and His transcendental form.
"But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name: John 1:12.
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The mystery herein harkens to the very nature & physics of How God Expands his “Material & Spiritual energies” to creat the cosmos and Heaven.
“In the beginning there was the word . . . “

Quote:
Originally Posted by bhaktajan
... one attains the most coveted position--the stage of loving God. Lord Caitanya taught that this is the highest stage of perfection for human beings."

Amazing.
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“Prema Bhakti”
The 5-Rasa(s) of mutual interpersonal reciprocal pastimes with Godhead in the Kingdom of God is:
Neutrality,
Servanthood,
Faternal,
Parental,
Amourous.

Here in the Material world: repeated births & deaths since time-immemorial in pursuit of enjoyment we witness mundane pursuits in a temporal world that can be summarised as a Fool’s errand of collecting Fool’s gold ---just so as to be enamored even more with with the same itenerary life after life in a Place Where Time Exists. Remember, God says directly in your faces, “Time I am destroyer of all”.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bhaktajan
The Vaisnavas following Lord Caitanya stress the doctrine of acintya-bhedabheda-tattva, which states that the Supreme Lord, being the cause and effect of everything, is inconceivably, simultaneously one with His manifestations of energy and different from them."

As do we ... I could split hairs over 'manifestations of energy' bit I'm sure it all boils down to terminology.
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I like to think that world scriptures are historical documents ---either you know what occurred at far away times & places or you do not.
 
"I like to think that world scriptures are historical documents ---either you know what occurred at far away times & places or you do not."

I like that, the difference between them and fiction is that we are pretty certain to very certain the fiction did not occur. The differences between them and history and philosophy is that the former are explanatory while mere reporting does not.
 
Let me introduce a set of "Spiritual exercises" written by Nikos Kazantzakis. This is the Prologue to his "Saviors of G!d":
PROLOGUE
WE COME from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life. As soon as we are born the return begins, at once the setting forth and the coming back; we die in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of life is death! But as soon as we are born we begin the struggle to create, to compose, to turn matter into life; we are born in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of ephemeral life is immortality! In the temporary living organism these two streams collide: (a) the ascent toward composition, toward life, toward immortality; (b) the descent toward decomposition, toward matter, toward death. Both streams well up from the depths of primordial essence. Life startles us at first; it seems somewhat beyond the law, somewhat contrary to nature, somewhat like a transitory counteraction to the dark eternal fountains; but deeper down we feel that Life is itself without beginning, an indestructible force of the Universe. Otherwise, from where did that superhuman strength come which hurls us from the unborn to the born and gives us - plants, animals, men - courage for the struggle? But both opposing forces are holy. It is our duty, therefore, to grasp that vision which can embrace and harmonize these two enormous, timeless, and indestructible forces, and with this vision to modulate our thinking and our action.
His vision is quite similar to Rosenzweig's comment beginning Star of Resemption "All knowledge of the universe [das All] begins with death, with the fear of death" (I think, I do not have it here). The similarity is that they (K & R) share a profoundly existential bent towards theology (and spritualism, as you will see in subsequent posts.

Pax et amore omnia vincunt!
 
radarmark said:
Life startles us at first.
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This is all predicated on an individual vector point of individual existence . . . striving for a goal.

The goal is a persona
or
The goal is a non-persona

Aside from striving for a goal . . . there is existing "without want".

According to my school of philosophy:
There is never a cessation of striving for a goal even if it is supre-mundane & trivial and/or just stupid.

This is called "Life".

All living things strive for four catagories of goals:
1 food
2 shelter
3 sex
4 defense

I have wondered how it is that a long-living creature ie., a Turttle never goes insane due to shear boredom?

Does not boredom affect lowly creatures?
 
Hey, guy, glad to see you back!

bhaktajan said:
This is all predicated on an individual vector point of individual existence . . . striving for a goal.

The goal is a persona
or
The goal is a non-persona

Aside from striving for a goal . . . there is existing "without want".

According to my school of philosophy:
There is never a cessation of striving for a goal even if it is supre-mundane & trivial and/or just stupid.

This is called "Life".

All living things strive for four catagories of goals:
1 food
2 shelter
3 sex
4 defense

I have wondered how it is that a long-living creature ie., a Turttle never goes insane due to shear boredom?

Does not boredom affect lowly creatures?
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Yep! The problems of goal-oriented behavior or "fear of death" are (I believe) uniquely human problems (or at least problems for entities with self-awareness). Those first four categories work for all living creatues. In addition there is a pretty well-documented need for nurturing amongst primates (at least). An ape raised in a skinner box goes pretty nuts. And I would claim there is a pretty well-documented need for meaning amongst self-aware beings. This last need is what Katzanzakis and Rosenzweig (and Zoroaster and Mahavir .... you get it) are addressing.

Good point, my friend!
 
radarmark said:
Let me set the stage. Three of the greatest influences on me are A.N. Whitehead ("the last man who knew everything"), Nikos Kazantzakis ("the novel theologian"), and Rufus Jones ("the quaker mystic"). All three of these gentlemen wrote a great deal of philosophy that includes analysis of the Divine. There are many, many others (from Wilber to Aurodindo to Lovejoy to Meher Baba to Osho to Huxley to James).

Try this as a first step:

Nikos Kazantzakis' "Askitiki": The Saviors of God

and let the forum know if you think it is worthwhile
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Another one of respectful retutation was the great Moses Maimonides, aka Rambam, who, in his "Guide for the Perplexed," considered the study of Philosphy as the highest degree of Divine worship, surpassing even the study of the Law and the practice of its precepts. He was a Philosopher, Theologian and the greatest Medical Doctor of his time.
Ben
 
radarmark said:
Primarily a philosopher (IMHO) who was spititual within the context of philosophy, yep!

Panta Rhei! Everything Flows
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Yep; which is perfectly possible to be spiritual within the context of Philosophy. And so was Heguel, as he demostrated in his answer to a question about the possibility to know God, as he said that God is not to be known but felt.
Ben
 
Philosophy without Religion is mental speculation and Religion without Philosophy is fanatacisim
 
"Hollow'ed be Thy Name"

Ipso facto, sound vibration penetrates through all the layers of interference.

That is why the sages have "Done their Rosaries".

Where is one's beloved? Yearning, during the span of a long and winding road that passes quickly, for the person that is un-changed as kalpas pass . . . is known as the noble pastime of "Declaring one's love". How else to plan one's retirement?

"Hollow'ed be Thy Name"
 
OS-jbug said:
Actually ...
sound does not penatrate some frequencies
nor does sound penetrate some frequencies
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Actuality = The first "Speaker of the Field"

sound = frequencies
sound = all frequencies

"Penetrate" ---?

Sound Prevades and constitutes all startum(s) or 'Density(s)' of frequencies ---Otherwise, it's like saying,
"I spell it out in plain English ---using no English language".

Sound comes before all stratum of elemental structure.

Sound is the mathematical circuit and common thread in all Algorithms.

Sound is subtile.

Earth,
Water,
Fire,
Air,
ether

From gross matter to subtile matter ---note where on the spectrum that frequencies are discernable?

More Subtile:

Mind,
Intelligence,
Ahankara (present bodily ego)

More Subtile:
Time,
Space

More Subtile:
Soul

behind all the paraphenalia is "Persona"
 
OS-jbug said:
Bhakajan i think ... Sound is ...frequencies associated with ... Sonics ... vibrations ... beyond sound and sonics
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Sound = frequencies.

Everything = frequencies.

Entropy = Non-Existence.
 
OS-jbug said:
Entropy tends toward least energetic existence and that is why it is labled as heat death scenario i.e. the finite Universe has become very cold but cold does not equal death.

In fact many marine animals survive much better in colder waters. There are bow whales that live year round under artic ice that are alledged to be 200 years old.
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Chemistry 101: a liquid's capacity to dissolve gasses decreases with heat, while its capacity to dissolve solids increases with heat. Colder water = more dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide and less dissolved solid pollutants, = richer food chain and healthier environment.
 
OS-jbug said:
"Sound" is a very narrow set of frequencies associated with what humans can hear with their ears.
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Yes, Human senses are limited.

"OM" is the humming vibration of the Whole Cosmic Creation.

The notion that "All-is-One" never earned anyone a Patent-Right.

The conclusion of advaita-monism is moot.

Any and all mystic insights & hightened preceptions ---are gained ONLY through Classic Silent Mantra Meditation.

All else is poetry and arm-chair philosophy ---not that there is anything wrong with that ---it's just that, such monistic poetry, does not lead one to peace of mind; but rather, to increased grandure of passion(s).
 
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