What is the essence of all religions?

This is how much a Linux distro would have cost to develop 3 years ago - today it would be perhaps as much as double this because of all the new projects relating to virtualization and cloud, not to mention the plethora of hardware which has come out since.

No startup can afford this out of the gate, yet this is the building blocks Open Source gives away... in the cloud space, Open Source is truly innovating and the entire proprietary industry is playing catch up because they haven't even foreseen the cloud as something useful - really, it is unique to Linux, it is just clustering made super easy, grids of affordable hardware configured almost automatically. This has always been the selling point of Linux, and over time people have simply started doing this infinitely smarter - now there are companies like Rackspace and Amazon whose biggest business today was pioneered by Google and Facebook back in the day where they'd just throw on new hardware as needed to meet their demands. They contributed that work and now anyone can support these huge loads - for instance, Cassandra is a NoSQL database which Facebook developed and released, now Twitter is using it to manage all their users. Competition should not be at the infrastructure layer, it should be in what is provided as a product.
 
I am sorry... is this some SW site? I grok bhaktajan's plea. What do any of Lunitik's posts after #352 have to do with 1) interfaith, 2) Religion, Faith & Theology, 3) Belief & Spirituality and 4) "What is the essence of all religions"?

Can anyone besides Lunitik tell me?

Last and confused.

They are examples of how society can function together, providing information about how this enabling of each other can benefit everyone. It is absolutely related to all the above, because it is showing a community that acts as one towards innovation, towards bettering each other.

It is not really about software, it is about the underlying philosophy, and actually many of the links relate to "Ubuntu" which is an African word meaning "humanity to others" or "I am what I am because of what we all are", how can this not be related in your mind? In fact it is as a religion in some parts of the world...

Through this movement, millions of kids in Africa, India, China, and Brazil have been provided technology to keep them up to date, they are giving them all internet access, and teaching them about programming. What do you think is more useful? Giving them food so they remain dependent on you, or giving them the means to make money themselves so they can buy their own food?

This is a fundamental difference between charity and service when compared to genuine helpfulness, and throughout I relate it to general human behavior but use this as an example. It is because without the real world example, my ramble would seem idealistic, but the example shows it is realistic if you can get enough people on board. It shows people do not need to be so greedy to accomplish their desires.
 
I am not really surprised people on this site cannot put two and two together though, my apologies, lets get back to theorizing and not causing any change.

That is much better.
 
I get it, the penguin brotherhood. yes yes that's it, the penguin brotherhood!
 
An intercessor, a self anointed person who attempts to tell you about your god. Quite a distraction and a nuisance..
All religions have this....just the name changes - priest, rabbi, mufti, reverend, vicar, lama what did I miss?
The problem is that this is an artificial hierarchy often the person anointed is has an intelligence of a doorknob, or he molests children or tells you lies.
What is the essence of all religions?
 
I get it, the penguin brotherhood. yes yes that's it, the penguin brotherhood!

Well, that's not really the point, the point is that when greed is overcome man can do some awesome things...

Have you ever heard of why the penguin became related though? :p
 
What have I fabricated?
What haven't you fabricated? You even fabricated my gender.

What actions have I denied responsibility for?
Everything. You have said you are just watching, or at best: an actor.

I have not repressed myself at all, and why you have been repressed is of no consequence, the effects of your repression are plain and clear in everything about you.
Lipstick.

I do not forget history, it simply is no longer relevant at all.
As you don't use your mind, you don't use it.

Again, you misunderstand me, I do not cling to relationships, but I enjoy them while they are there.
I believe you, that you focus on what you can get out of others.

I have said acquiring knowledge isn't going to help finding truth, but this only shows you don't know what education means.
I paid for college and studied to become an engineer. If you apply your mind, every day is potentially a day in class.

Have I been rude in your house? I say rules are not necessary because these things should arise naturally.
Your natural behavior was a bit rude.

A lack of dealing with your cheating on your wife: obvious.
Enough about you then, lets talk about me.

I disclosed to you, with my wife present, that I had made mistakes. One of those mistakes was that I had cheated on my wife. I had sex with two women, while married, without my wife ever knowing about it. I was a hypocrite, a criminal before the golden rule, dishonest before God, and I had successfully hid that from my wife. I would not have appreciated it if my wife did the same as I did, especially without my knowing it.

I know my dad had educated me once on the golden rule when I was young, but I lived a large portion of my life missing out on using the freely shared software.

I had also served in the military, as a reservist in the US marine corps. For a time I believed in the lie: "We the people". I ended up in Saudi / Kuwait during the movement to oust Saddam's military from Kuwait. As a result, I saw a glimpse of a different culture, including men praying from their towers. Shortly after 9/11, I studied the qur'an. I wrote a program to compare 4 or 5 of the english translations. At that point in time I thought I knew something about the bible and christianity, having been to sunday school and church a few times. As I studied the qur'an, I started reading and studying the bible for comparison, especially the words of Jesus. Upon thinking about it, I started doing a moral review of my history, and I was embarrased and a bit ashamed to have had a few large black spots in my history of actions. What to do?

I'd say the golden rule is software... it is a software algorithm. It presents answers, and it presents a lifestyle. At the time, I really didn't like the answer that it provided. By the golden rule, my wife should know the truth, and have the opportunity to leave me if she wished, to find someone more worthy of her time and affection. I confessed it. If you think I did that for a reward, you are mistaken. My history, and I were naked, and our future vulnerable. She verbally forgave me, which helped, but I just knew that something would change as a result, and at the time I wasn't expecting anything positive. I was further wrong. For a bit we actually seemed to have some good fortune. Things just lined up, and we saw things more clearly. I had some other dark spots in my history, which I also worked on in a similar manner.

It is not from those actions alone that I had the privilege of seeing a relationship with God, but it broke the ice. I recognize how it changed my way of thinking, and I like the results. With the golden rule, I essentially grade my own homework, and it is a tool to grow and expand the mind, and the actions.
Still with her because you lack any spine: yup, despite how unhappy you both are.
I think you wish us to be unhappy. Sorry to disappoint you. I welcome you to call her to get her viewpoint. She met you, and we have talked about you and your behavior.

Do you have any freedom? You barely know your own children. I would rather starve to death doing something I love than waste my life doing what you do.
How well do you know your children? How well do your children know you?
You think it is respectable, but you have no life at all, you do nothing for fun. You really think you are an example for how to live life? You don't live, you just survive, and it is because of your utter lack of love.
I have told you the software that I am running, which I regard to be important. If you wish to run it for yourself, you have that freedom.
 
What haven't you fabricated? You even fabricated my gender.

Your whole approach to life is that of a female, you define yourself through others, my assumption was valid - you are not masculine.

Everything. You have said you are just watching, or at best: an actor.

Consequences are part of the watching, I do not avoid consequences.

I believe you, that you focus on what you can get out of others.

Wrong, this is what I go on saying to you: it isn't about what I can do for you or what you can do for me... it is about simply enjoying each others company for a time, walking together through life for a while.

I paid for college and studied to become an engineer. If you apply your mind, every day is potentially a day in class.

Ok... but colleges are not education, they are learning institutions.

Your natural behavior was a bit rude.

Elaborate, because other than your tweaking about my smoking, I do not see how you can draw this conclusion.

I disclosed to you, with my wife present, that I had made mistakes. One of those mistakes was that I had cheated on my wife. I had sex with two women, while married, without my wife ever knowing about it. I was a hypocrite, a criminal before the golden rule, dishonest before God, and I had successfully hid that from my wife. I would not have appreciated it if my wife did the same as I did, especially without my knowing it.

Yet you think you are one to talk about morals.

I know my dad had educated me once on the golden rule when I was young, but I lived a large portion of my life missing out on using the freely shared software.

You want to control, you are not interested in sharing. Even when you give, you have some ulterior motives behind it, you do not share just to share.

I had also served in the military, as a reservist in the US marine corps. For a time I believed in the lie: "We the people". I ended up in Saudi / Kuwait during the movement to oust Saddam's military from Kuwait. As a result, I saw a glimpse of a different culture, including men praying from their towers. Shortly after 9/11, I studied the qur'an. I wrote a program to compare 4 or 5 of the english translations. At that point in time I thought I knew something about the bible and christianity, having been to sunday school and church a few times. As I studied the qur'an, I started reading and studying the bible for comparison, especially the words of Jesus. Upon thinking about it, I started doing a moral review of my history, and I was embarrased and a bit ashamed to have had a few large black spots in my history of actions. What to do?

Have you ever looked into Buddhas notion of Karma? It is the very clinging to the past which affects your present karma - if you do not cling, if you practice no-mind, then Karma is no longer a factor for you. It is quite plain you are not exposed to Eastern thought though, yet I tell you it is far deeper than the Abrahamic line.

I'd say the golden rule is software... it is a software algorithm. It presents answers, and it presents a lifestyle. At the time, I really didn't like the answer that it provided. By the golden rule, my wife should know the truth, and have the opportunity to leave me if she wished, to find someone more worthy of her time and affection. I confessed it. If you think I did that for a reward, you are mistaken. My history, and I were naked, and our future vulnerable. She verbally forgave me, which helped, but I just knew that something would change as a result, and at the time I wasn't expecting anything positive. I was further wrong. For a bit we actually seemed to have some good fortune. Things just lined up, and we saw things more clearly. I had some other dark spots in my history, which I also worked on in a similar manner.

I tell you it is utterly unrelated to your actions, and simply about the fact you unburdened yourself from these actions. Yet I do not say you have forgiven yourself fully because it still comes up so much for you.

I would also say that the enlightened man drops all questions, thus your provided answers are irrelevant to him. You live your life by a particular methodology and it is exactly for this reason that I say you are not really alive - you don't respond to the present, you respond from ideas formed in the past.

You say you live by the Golden Rule, yet you will not greet anyone that you cross paths with in life, you just look at the floor and ignore everyone... for me this is an example of your hypocrisy.

It is not from those actions alone that I had the privilege of seeing a relationship with God, but it broke the ice. More importantly it changed my way of thinking, and I like the results. With the golden rule, I essentially grade my own homework, and it is a tool to grow and expand the mind.

You have no relationship with God, you just have an inventive imagination. I can say this with certainty because you deny every hint I give about finding God in your life.

I think you wish us to be unhappy. Sorry to disappoint you. I welcome you to call her to get her viewpoint. She met you, and we have talked about you and your behavior.

I do not wish you to be unhappy, I see you as being unhappy and want to do something to help the situation. I feel like that pointing at the problems, you will work on that, but I honestly felt no ties between you and your children. You and your wife were utterly separate and lacked basic flow of communication which would be expected in marriage. There is nothing like a family atmosphere in your home, although to be fair, Jesus says even that you must hate your family and yourself - you seem a good disciple.

How well do you know your children? How well do your children know you, Lunitik?

Uhh, I don't have children, I am not sure I am comfortable with being responsible for the death of another being, even if I have given them life. I am not against it, but I would not be angry if I do not have children at all.

I have told you the important software that I am running. If you wish to run it for yourself, you have that freedom.

I have no desire at all to use your software, it is utterly bug-riddled and a resource hog. I go on discussing something far more efficient, compile optimizations that would overcome your poor code quality and you ignore them all.

You do not yet have a soul, it is what is born in the second birth, the spiritual birth. This is all I go on trying to give you, but instead you try to give me ways of killing mine. I know you probably believe you have a soul already, but I sensed none in you at all. You can simply shrug off my words and go on believing, but the whole reason I went to Nashville was to enlighten you - it became obvious early on you would not be willing though, you only care about arguing. I blame myself, going there when already you had decided we are utterly different was stupid. You simply went on trying to prove how different we are...

You do not understand that all is utterly one in essence, you have missed the opportunity to know that oneness through me, I hope you find someone else you can trust.
 
Well, that's not really the point, the point is that when greed is overcome man can do some awesome things...

Have you ever heard of why the penguin became related though? :p
I'm still working on this. I like the idea behind the common thing, a worldwide group coming together to make something happen. Why couldn't the world religions work in the same manner, come together to work on a common thing. So I think your example of Linux is valid, though only in some sort of extremely distant vaguely hardly related way. Nice.
 
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I'm still working on this. I like the idea behind the common thing, a worldwide group coming together to make something happen. Why couldn't the world religions work in the same manner, come together to work on a common thing. So I think your example of Linux is valid, though only in some sort of extremely distant vaguely hardly related way. Nice.

They are kinda working on that over on this thread
 
You seem to have dodged my statement, have you ever considered it? You are going to be responsible for both your girls dying no matter how they die, and all because your wife decided you're going to get her pregnant... yet you have the nerve to discuss responsibility with me? You have not even had enough responsibility to say no to your dogs, let alone children, yet you're going to talk about responsibility?

I am not concerned with responsibility at all, not as a synonym for duty, no. I enjoy being alive while I'm here on this earth, how my enjoyment affects others is of no concern to me, I am only concerned with creating a little more enjoyment in my life. That often entails trying to make others happy, but only because I will not stand for ugliness around me, and it is for this reason I have asked to leave early - you are an ugly person pretending to be something good.

You will call this last paragraph selfish, it certainly is, but how much more selfish to bring life into this world when you know it will die? Everyone looks at their children and recognize they are obligated to make the best life for this child, that they are responsible for the childs safety, but ultimately the child is certain to die eventually. You are the reason, your lack of spine has created the slowest possible death for two lifes... this is why the Golden Rule is foolish: you want to be alive, and so you create more life... now the child will have to watch you die, and then die itself. Yet, somehow life is sacred, if it were so sacred it would last a little longer. It is only sacred because we fear death, and it is the same reason you have created life, to carry on your gene pool, to remain here a little longer in some way.

No one chooses to live, and no one chooses to die, our only opportunity for freedom comes between these two points. Who are you to comment on how another spends that time? You are not a role model, you are an example of what is wrong, not what is right in the world.
 
The only responsibility I am concerned with is response-ability, the ability to respond to the moment, to live in the moment totally without wasted energy elsewhere. Without consideration for past or future because neither are alive - one is dead, the other is not yet born. I trust existence to watch over me, and so I am not concerned with what will happen to me. Ultimately I know full well that this life will be temporary and so I do not try to create a strong foundation in it, I do not try to accumulate things during it, I simply live it as fully as I possibly can, and when it is my time to leave I am ready.

In this, life itself is my prayer, I do not miss any opportunity to live fully, to experience what existence has to offer here and now. Every person that crosses my path I consider an opportunity to create a little more beauty, but I have no desire at this time to create another life. There are already enough human beings on this planet, there is no need for any more as far as I see. We are doing enough damage here already...

You know nothing of responsibility because your outlook does not go beyond your immediate family and friends, your vision is too clouded to even look at the world. You're concerned with good and evil, but everything you've tried to do for good has been absolutely evil from what I see, yet you cannot see it. My evil has noticeable affects on those around me in a positive way, rarely do I leave a conversation with a stranger without feeling their being lighter and more happy. You can't even create happiness in your own home, you're too busy flying around the world avoiding them, this you call love... it is absolutely sickening you even talk on the subject.

Do not talk to me about responsibility, yes, I am a financial burden on the woman that brought me into this world, but I do not create a burden on society at large at all. My footprint in this world is extremely small, and for me it would be ideal if when I leave it is as though I was never here. I do not want to contribute to a world that is this screwed up, people do not want to be pointed in the right direction, and so it is certain things will only get worse - I do not want to have any part in it.

Even here on a faith based site, a site talking about men who understood how to overcome these problems, still it is impossible to drive them home in people - I do not see any point to even hoping. Instead, I simply bring in as much beauty as I can, not even exchanging names because I do not need to be remembered. If I can change a few, it is good, but if I don't still I enjoy - for me, that is enough.
 
Oh, and before you say something: I do not tell people how to live, I try to show people how to recognize their own essence so they can live more abundantly. I am not interested in directing how they use the energy they find, I am only interested in their getting the most out of life while they're here. For me, that isn't accomplished by having things or the people you come in contact with, it is simply the result of living every moment to the absolute fullest, by being total in every moment. Only then will you lay on your death bed and smile at your life, when you are certain you have held nothing back. When death is certain, nothing that cannot come with you matters, death is always absolutely a solitary encounter - even if you die in an accident with 100 other people, every death will be totally alone.

I live knowing I will die, it seems to me most people live thinking they will live forever. The things you own, the people you meet, none of them will last very long on this earth in the grand scheme, why sacrifice your own enjoyment to satisfy these things? Gradually, allowing each moment to come to its peak, you find the peak of life. Once that is found, you are fulfilled, there is nothing more that is necessary at all, everything else is just a bonus. Already, you feel existence has done too much for you.

There is gratitude, wonder that still you are here, but there is no more clinging. It is because all clinging is ultimately futile - all of it will eventually be gone, why suffer unnecessarily when you can simply drop it now, stop giving it any value for you this moment?

That which remains free of clinging is eternal, infinite... find that.

This is all I go on saying.
 
Live like you will die tomorrow, and you will never go to sleep feeling you missed something today. Instead, people live like death is something for other people, there are twenty year olds worrying about their retirement plans already.

Tomorrow is not promised, and in fact it never comes, there is only this moment. Even if you insist on scheduling, still the task is completed in a future now, but your planning has taken away all excitement. Now you are on a mission in everything you do, you will not even notice the beauty around you because it is taken for granted.

Life is a beautiful thing, but too many squander it, yet there are people who become angry at others for refusing to squander theirs...
 
Come here you big nonsense!

Come here now! Right Now, oh no you don't! Don't you move, stop trying to run away, or we'll start grapling on the floor!

Here's a hug. Stop bleeping squirming!

I am not gay, so stop fighting me.

Lay your head on my shoulder.
... feel my patting you on your back? Feels nice, right?

Okay. Now I kiss you on both cheeks, like those Europeans do.

And . . . Okay now step away ---were done here.

your Hare Krishna nuzzio,
Bhaktajan

Now for a teaspoon of Ego:
http://www.interfaith.org/forum/ego-13077.html#post231860
 
Correction:

your Hare Krishna nunzio,
Bhaktajan

<pardon, just my anal retentive tendancies flaring up again>
 
Goooooolly, dude! Yoga and enlightenment and maya defined quite generically--fits the Jain and Buddhist and Sikh usages as well. Funny just how bright those Indian sages were, eh?
 
Come here you big nonsense!

Come here now! Right Now, oh no you don't! Don't you move, stop trying to run away, or we'll start grapling on the floor!

Here's a hug. Stop bleeping squirming!

I am not gay, so stop fighting me.

Lay your head on my shoulder.
... feel my patting you on your back? Feels nice, right?

Okay. Now I kiss you on both cheeks, like those Europeans do.

And . . . Okay now step away ---were done here.

your Hare Krishna nuzzio,
Bhaktajan
That is usually how the parenting cycle goes: Cling for a number of years and then either hold the ladder or kick the bird out of the nest. Perhaps somewhere in between?

If mom is working away at Walmart though to support a ~30 year old, who has found the internet a haven to... enlighten people... failure to launch?

Is this what religion does to people, or do people do this by twisting a religion to justify themselves?
 
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