L
Lunitik
Guest
To what end?
To what end?
FutureHumanDestiny
Active Member
the end is unknown to me.
L
Lunitik
Guest
Yet you have accepted it is worthwhile?
FutureHumanDestiny
Active Member
yes. are you curious why or what are your preconceptions about me?
L
Lunitik
Guest
I will assume the questions here are because simply replying "yes" is not permitted on this forum. I think you simply are fooling yourself though, you strive to please a factitious character with no reason for doing so, apparently... it makes no sense.
At least the Christians are aiming towards heaven, it is basically pure greed, they want absolute pleasure and are convinced whatever is available on earth is not to the same peak and lacks its longevity. Muslims are much the same, still it is basically a beautiful fantasy that they are working towards. Again, both Hindu's and Buddhists expect bliss and unwavering happiness when they achieve enlightenment...
You will not even permit that doing the right thing brings happiness as its natural consequence - strange.
FutureHumanDestiny
Active Member
i felt it was the most appropriate answer since it's important to get any preconceptions out of the way. that way, i don't seem to be hijacking the thread. i simply hoped to hear what your insights were regarding my honest opinions i shared: that throughout my life, happiness has only rarely been my motive. thanks for opening up and sharing those.
fair enough! i renounce religion and God (as He is thought of and taught on Earth) if it makes you feel better about my intentions.
perhaps that is why the Christians are called hypocrites (in general) (forgive me if i offend anyone here i'm just opening up here), Muslims can be called the same (or fanatics for simply believing what's in the Qur'an), and why so few achieve enlightenment. God does not reward greed or debauchery.
agreed. such is the obstacle of maya: the impure nature of the flesh, that decay is it's natural and inevitable result, and that the mind clings to pleasure.
forgive me.
-dale
L
Lunitik
Guest
Do you think it is necessary to cling to pleasure to enjoy it?
If your goal is pleasure, there will be some obstacles, but if you allow pleasure to be the natural arising in your activities, what is the problem?
For me, your approach is basically against life, just because you know it is false, it doesn't mean you should not enjoy it. You are in this place for a reason, and that reason is to experience it. Experiencing fully, naturally bliss and happiness arise, will you then chastise the body for this?
It is as much maya to believe flesh is impure as it is to think you are the flesh.
Flesh is as divine as your soul, they are not made of something different.
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
For some things pain is unavoidable.
radarmark
Quaker-in-the-Making
child-birth? getting older? learning not to bungie jump?
Whoever said that? Happiness marks the difference between you and what is.
It's just a compensatory movement in the emotional faculty. 'Bliss' is the same, only moreso. It's the effect of an imbalance.
One's goal does it rest in notions of 'happiness' or 'bliss' any more than it rests in 'misery' or 'pain'.
Life is about living.
Looking for rewards in this life or the next is a distraction.
God bless,
Thomas
radarmark
Quaker-in-the-Making
When one is at-one-ment with the D!vine, one has little choice but to respond to the Voice by living in the Light. Emotions and goals have, as Thomas says, very little to do with it. Living is the goal for anything alive. Living now in the presence of Chr!st Jesus is a natural goal once one meets H!m.
L
Lunitik
Guest
Does pain happen to your being?
L
Lunitik
Guest
When you realize you are not the emotions, not the mind, and not the body, when that fundamental shift of perspective happens for you, these layers are merely part of the scenery. Why will you not try to make all the scenery you are observing as beautiful as possible?
L
Lunitik
Guest
Why have you identified the divine with Christ Jesus?
You should be looking for Christ Radarmark.
This question is still self-oriented, reward-based and materialistic, and still fundamentally confused.
Shift of perspective from what to what? What actually constitutes 'you' in your opinion?
If no mind, no body, where does the desire to do anything arise? if no mind, then no observation; if no sensorium, then no beauty.
If we're not of this world, why bother with it at all?
A god that put us here for the sole purpose of getting away from here seems pretty capricious to me.
Thomas
L
Lunitik
Guest
Why has God in the Old Testament destroyed two cities, tried to have a man kill his own son, if not to bring about more beauty? Why has Jesus erupted in the Synagogue if it is not because there is no beauty in this religious place? You seem to be the one confused if you do not comprehend that being detached does not mean things should not be beautiful, that you will not try to create more beauty.
From head to heart, and then from heart to being, or what you would call Spirit perhaps. I am the watcher of all which is observed, yet I have no attributes, no desires, no dreams, other than to make this painting as beautiful as possible before it is thrown away.
I observe the body, and have control over it. I observe the mind, and have control over it. I obverse the emotions, and have control over them. Can I be any of these? As this becomes clear to you, there is a basic separation which is experienced between yourself and these things, they become as much objects as anything outside you in normal experience. As you decorate your house and your body, so I decorate the emotions and thoughts, yet as you do not call yourself the house, I do not call myself the emotions or thoughts or body. The difference is perhaps that you call the house yours, for me, this is merely a temporary lodging.
It arises through awareness, through me, that there is something which is not as beautiful as it can be. It is exactly why we take a body though, to experience this place, and because we are in the body, there is the ability to see. In this seeing, there is a basic need to make it more beautiful, but that I call it a desire is not really correct. If you are not making your time as something distinct as beautiful as you can, there is no reason to be distinct - it would be better to kill yourself and start fresh with a new body.
It is more a compelling, a directing of my being, where my love shall be spread. It is not a judgement per se, it is a sensing that here lacks beauty, lacks love, and so I try to infuse some there. It is difficult to express in language, it seems to be reading like a desire but there is no attempt to find something wrong, there is no plan about sharing beauty, only refusal to allow that ugliness remain.
By this is meant beauty is an influx of life, and ugliness is a tone of death.
It is enjoyable to be something distinct for a time, getting lost so that you can find yourself once more. It is an interesting game, but just as with the games here, some take it a little too seriously.
The point is not to get away from here at all, I am sorry if this is what you have deciphered from my words. It is that once you awaken to the truth of this place, there is nothing else to do but try to create a little more beauty. It is ignorance which creates all ugliness.
L
Lunitik
Guest
Most important is to align the body, mind and emotions that energy can flow through you efficiently, that no energy is wasted because they are out of line. These are only three of the bodies which man has access to, but there are other even more subtle bodies which must also fall into alignment. When there is absolutely no conflict at all, you find the source of beauty, of life as a by-product. This must be shared, it is not even a choice, the only real choice which remains is where to share it, but if you do not direct it still it pours out of you. There is no shortage, and as you share so still more comes to you, you become simply an agent of beauty.
You are the hollow bamboo through which existence plays its song, but only when all blockages are cleared can the music come. There is no music there in the Churches, they seem basically filled with death. Always they simply wait to be saved, they do not see they are the agents of salvation themselves. They go on making this earth the Hell because their fantasies paint such beautiful images of Heaven that this place cannot compare. It is a lot easier to dream than to look at reality, but if you look at reality you will see it can be Heaven. People long to die in this world based solely on the promise of a text, how to forgive these fools this? Even those that say they are pro-life, they are hypocrites because they do not have any life themselves, they believe they will have life eternally in some other place if they permit themselves to suffer here.
If this is the way God has set up creation, then I say your God is worse than any Devil, you cannot even see that this is God's creation, you are running from what he created so that you can have something else he created. If he has created life, he must want life to be enjoyed, he must thrive on seeing it celebrated, but in the Churches I am simply confused - did I walk into a funeral by mistake? I cannot even fathom why death is so depressive, why those around are crying out of their own selfishness that they will not have this person in their lives any more. According to all scriptures, now that this person is dead they will be going to Heaven, everything will be infinitely better for them and you will them again in the future, it should be a happy time. Instead, even the remembrance of the "God of life" is depressing, let alone the remembrance of the dead.
Life has come almost to the brink of death because of the priests, now you are promised that through all the strife of this place you will earn merit in Heaven, everything you desired here will be given there if you can repress it long enough. It seems simply stupid, why is there need for a testing ground? We are creatures of God, yet it seems he is doing QA testing on us? There is no dignity at all in what these people are teaching, yet still people follow because at least there is now the possibility they will not have to die, or that they will live on beyond death. You have not been able to live before death because of these beliefs, yet you want it after?
Strange.
You are the hollow bamboo through which existence plays its song, but only when all blockages are cleared can the music come. There is no music there in the Churches, they seem basically filled with death. Always they simply wait to be saved, they do not see they are the agents of salvation themselves. They go on making this earth the Hell because their fantasies paint such beautiful images of Heaven that this place cannot compare. It is a lot easier to dream than to look at reality, but if you look at reality you will see it can be Heaven. People long to die in this world based solely on the promise of a text, how to forgive these fools this? Even those that say they are pro-life, they are hypocrites because they do not have any life themselves, they believe they will have life eternally in some other place if they permit themselves to suffer here.
If this is the way God has set up creation, then I say your God is worse than any Devil, you cannot even see that this is God's creation, you are running from what he created so that you can have something else he created. If he has created life, he must want life to be enjoyed, he must thrive on seeing it celebrated, but in the Churches I am simply confused - did I walk into a funeral by mistake? I cannot even fathom why death is so depressive, why those around are crying out of their own selfishness that they will not have this person in their lives any more. According to all scriptures, now that this person is dead they will be going to Heaven, everything will be infinitely better for them and you will them again in the future, it should be a happy time. Instead, even the remembrance of the "God of life" is depressing, let alone the remembrance of the dead.
Life has come almost to the brink of death because of the priests, now you are promised that through all the strife of this place you will earn merit in Heaven, everything you desired here will be given there if you can repress it long enough. It seems simply stupid, why is there need for a testing ground? We are creatures of God, yet it seems he is doing QA testing on us? There is no dignity at all in what these people are teaching, yet still people follow because at least there is now the possibility they will not have to die, or that they will live on beyond death. You have not been able to live before death because of these beliefs, yet you want it after?
Strange.
Hi radarmark —
I also think the 'becoming as a child' points to this, losing oneself in the now ... it's not a case of engagement, so much as immersion.
Speaking spiritually, He (or It, however you determine the Deity) is the Light, which is why I always challenge the 'Christ in me' attitude, again indicates a sense of ownership or possession, a materialist/consumerist attitude, rather than 'Me in Christ' which offers everything and asks for nothing. Thus he who seeks shall lose, he who does not seek shall possess all/ he who holds on to shall lose, he who loses shall have ... a dictum in Christianity and, I think, of other traditions as well ... it's the Beatitudes, really, which are common to all traditions.
1 Corinthians 3:2-3
I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not able as yet. But neither indeed are you now able; for you are yet carnal. For, whereas there is among you envying and contention, are you not carnal, and walk according to man?"
Hebrews 5:8, 11-12
"And whereas indeed he was the Son of God, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered ... Of whom we have much to say, and hard to be intelligibly uttered: because you are become weak to hear. For whereas for the time you ought to be masters, you have need to be taught again what are the first elements of the words of God: and you are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat"
One could argue that St Paul, for instance, was chastising the Church in Corinth which had fallen into factions about who was better than whom, as he was to chastise them elsewhere about their tendency to create a 'pecking order' of spiritual gifts. It's material/consumer attitude again, a rewards-based attitude.
Hebrews is even more blunt in its way. Christ learned obedience (thy will not mine), when will you? And when you are grown up enough, you will realise that job is to work for no reward whatsoever ... the gift of life, your very being, is reward enough in itself ...
The simple fact is, if you ask people to love their neighbour, for no other reason other than it's the right thing to do, and for no reward, then how many will ever bother?
As consumers we are inculcated with the idea, not of 'no pain, no gain', but rather 'no gain, no pain' — people will only do the hard thing if there's a reward for doing it. Even if the hard thing is the right thing.
The true path is getting on with the nitty-gritty of 'loving thy neighbour', or the practice of 'compassion', or 'mindfulness' ... but then loving they neighbour is quite mundane, unappealing, and sheer bloody hard work. That's why many so-called spiritualists say 'I'm spiritual, but not religious', which simply means it's all on their own terms, they don't do what they find distasteful or unappealing.
But we want something extra, something special, really, we want a sign to say 'I see you'.
We stopped loving God (loving the gift of life), but we sure as hell demand that God shows His love for us.
We're a bunch of ungrateful bastards, really.
A monk I know once said Christ likened us to sheep because we're stupid, wilful, smelly and prone to accident and disease ... but he was smiling at the time!
Abba John of the Desert said, "A monk is toil. The monk toils in all he does. That is what a monk is."
God bless
Thomas
Good point. Makes me mindful of 'not my will but thy will be done'.
I also think the 'becoming as a child' points to this, losing oneself in the now ... it's not a case of engagement, so much as immersion.
Speaking spiritually, He (or It, however you determine the Deity) is the Light, which is why I always challenge the 'Christ in me' attitude, again indicates a sense of ownership or possession, a materialist/consumerist attitude, rather than 'Me in Christ' which offers everything and asks for nothing. Thus he who seeks shall lose, he who does not seek shall possess all/ he who holds on to shall lose, he who loses shall have ... a dictum in Christianity and, I think, of other traditions as well ... it's the Beatitudes, really, which are common to all traditions.
One could say this is what Paul and the author of Hebrews was getting at in their milk/meat analogy:
1 Corinthians 3:2-3
I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not able as yet. But neither indeed are you now able; for you are yet carnal. For, whereas there is among you envying and contention, are you not carnal, and walk according to man?"
Hebrews 5:8, 11-12
"And whereas indeed he was the Son of God, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered ... Of whom we have much to say, and hard to be intelligibly uttered: because you are become weak to hear. For whereas for the time you ought to be masters, you have need to be taught again what are the first elements of the words of God: and you are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat"
One could argue that St Paul, for instance, was chastising the Church in Corinth which had fallen into factions about who was better than whom, as he was to chastise them elsewhere about their tendency to create a 'pecking order' of spiritual gifts. It's material/consumer attitude again, a rewards-based attitude.
Hebrews is even more blunt in its way. Christ learned obedience (thy will not mine), when will you? And when you are grown up enough, you will realise that job is to work for no reward whatsoever ... the gift of life, your very being, is reward enough in itself ...
The simple fact is, if you ask people to love their neighbour, for no other reason other than it's the right thing to do, and for no reward, then how many will ever bother?
As consumers we are inculcated with the idea, not of 'no pain, no gain', but rather 'no gain, no pain' — people will only do the hard thing if there's a reward for doing it. Even if the hard thing is the right thing.
The true path is getting on with the nitty-gritty of 'loving thy neighbour', or the practice of 'compassion', or 'mindfulness' ... but then loving they neighbour is quite mundane, unappealing, and sheer bloody hard work. That's why many so-called spiritualists say 'I'm spiritual, but not religious', which simply means it's all on their own terms, they don't do what they find distasteful or unappealing.
Absolutely. If one lives, one is in the presence, don't you think? The very fact that we draw our next breath says we are infused with the presence of the Divine that sustains creation from moment to moment.
But we want something extra, something special, really, we want a sign to say 'I see you'.
We stopped loving God (loving the gift of life), but we sure as hell demand that God shows His love for us.
We're a bunch of ungrateful bastards, really.
A monk I know once said Christ likened us to sheep because we're stupid, wilful, smelly and prone to accident and disease ... but he was smiling at the time!
Abba John of the Desert said, "A monk is toil. The monk toils in all he does. That is what a monk is."
God bless
Thomas
radarmark
Quaker-in-the-Making
I so appreciate the post... the 'becoming as a child' is very important, as are the Pauline examples.
If one continues to breathe, then tacitly one is either in the processes of creation-revelation-redemption (I do like "Sar of Redemption") else one is lost in the shadow (lost to the light).
In friendship, radarmark
If one continues to breathe, then tacitly one is either in the processes of creation-revelation-redemption (I do like "Sar of Redemption") else one is lost in the shadow (lost to the light).
In friendship, radarmark
radarmark
Quaker-in-the-Making
I thought you were all for gurus and masters, at least you said so at one time. Given that, what is the difference between what you meant and what I meant. For me Chr!st Jesus (some D!vine spark within which illuminates my dark eyes) is with me always.