Do we all pray to the same God?

[RJM]

I think a lot of people experience that. Kenosis ...


... and metanoia.

It's then we see such terms as 'kenosis' and 'metanoia' as more than abstract concepts.

Thank you. Interesting that there are single word/terms for these ideas: the horos and the nexus -- expansion and contraction -- the cross, of suspension, transition ...

Beyond a point of words, these metaphysical ideas are expressed in universal symbols?

Symbols for 'spiritual' as opposed to natural processes of seasons, day-and-night, etc?

 

[Thomas]

Abused that way? You don't think ...

As a matter of interest, d'you think all the world's sacra doctrina are written from that perspective, or just the Bible?

 

[Thomas]

Beyond a point of words, these metaphysical ideas are expressed in universal symbols?

Yes, undoubtedly. I'd say the Incarnation is the archetypal symbol. All Christian symbolism, or rather Christian symbolic reading, flows from that, the unity of spirit and matter.

The symbols themselves may well be anthropogenic, washing, bread and wine, etc., or natural, seasons, the moon, etc., but in Christianity is revealed an implicit spiritual dimension. Really Christianity starts with the Incarnation and ends with the Eucharist, they are the alpha and omega of the cosmos.

 

[RJM]

Yes, undoubtedly. I'd say the Incarnation is the archetypal symbol. All Christian symbolism, or rather Christian symbolic reading, flows from that, the unity of spirit and matter.

The symbols themselves may well be anthropogenic, washing, bread and wine, etc., or natural, seasons, the moon, etc., but in Christianity is revealed an implicit spiritual dimension. Really Christianity starts with the Incarnation and ends with the Eucharist, they are the alpha and omega of the cosmos.

Thank you.

Yes, you have understood exactly. I express it like this: that the greater wheel of spirit turns the lesser wheel of nature, but is not turned by it. Whatever happens in nature, happens first in spirit. Spirit 'weaves' nature.

There are libraries full of words trying to verbally explain the mystery of the Cross, etc.

Nature is limited by time. Spirit is outside of and beyond time. Spirit contains and permeates nature.

Something like that?

It also explains the difference between 'spiritual' sacrifice (the 1st commandment) and the simple (logical) charity (love your neighbour) of modern atheists and humanists, who are usually good and giving people?

 

[qaz]

How about
And Moses said to God, "Behold I come to the children of Israel, and I say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?"
God said to Moses, "Ehyeh asher ehyeh (I will be what I will be)," and He said, "So shall you say to the children of Israel, 'Ehyeh (I will be) has sent me to you.'

compared with

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things


My early education was in an orthodox Jewish school and when I first heard the I will be what I will be/I am what I am I took it that God was so beyond understanding that it cannot be named.
Some 20 years later when I first came across the Tao Te Ching, I immediately thought of Moses's conversation with God.
So, for me they were talking about the same God.

"tao" means "way", that is the "way" reality is. a conception quite close to the baudelairean "analogie universelle".

yahweh instead - even if we interpret it as an allegory of "being" - remains "other" compared to the world , transcendent over the "creation".

 

[RJM]

"tao" means "way", that is the "way" reality is. a conception quite close to the baudelairean "analogie universelle".

yahweh instead - even if we interpret it as an allegory of "being" - remains "other" compared to the world , transcendent over the "creation".

In the I Ching, there are two arrangements for the trigrams: the Primal Arrangement, and the Inner World arrangement. The main vertical Heaven/Earth (spiritual) axis of polarity in the Primal Arrangement, becomes, in the Inner World (natural) arrangement, the natural polarity between fire and water.

The greater wheel of Spirit turns the lesser wheel of nature, but is not turned by it. My Father's house has many mansions. Nature -- all 'The World' we know, a room (dimension) defined by walls of time, contained and surrounded and permeated by the greater house of Spirit.

And what surrounds Spirit? Some dimension even greater?

 

[Thomas]

"tao" means "way", that is the "way" reality is. a conception quite close to the baudelairean "analogie universelle".

yahweh instead - even if we interpret it as an allegory of "being" - remains "other" compared to the world, transcendent over the "creation".

Yes, but simultaneously immanent to it, and this is highlighted, to a greater or lesser degree, in all religious traditions.

 

[RJM]

In the Jewish Kaballah: the Universal Kether (The Crown) divides as it devolves downward into Chokma (Knowledge) and Binah (Wisdom) denoted male and female: like the Yin/Yang -- and then continues devolving downward through 7 other 'sephorith' into the world of matter, Malkuth. And each upper sephotith contains (surrounds/permeates) all those below it.

 

[qaz]

In the I Ching, there are two arrangements for the trigrams: the Primal Arrangement, and the Inner World arrangement. The main vertical Heaven/Earth (spiritual) axis of polarity in the Primal Arrangement, becomes, in the Inner World (natural) arrangement, the natural polarity between fire and water.

The greater wheel of Spirit turns the lesser wheel of nature, but is not turned by it. My Father's house has many mansions. Nature -- all 'The World' we know, a room (dimension) defined by walls of time, contained and surrounded and permeated by the greater house of Spirit.

And what surrounds Spirit? Some dimension even greater?

Everything outflows beyond time. And yet, does anything lay behind the One? Child's question, the taoist answers - not bent over the fields of this greedy God of ours, the "Because".

 

[RJM]

Everything outflows beyond time. And yet, does anything lay behind the One? Child's question, the taoist answers - not bent over the fields of this greedy God of ours, the "Because".

Thank you. You understood.

If 'Time' is the law of nature, perhaps 'Love' is the law of Spirit -- Love in the knowledge all is one (body) -- damage anything, i hurt me?

 

[RJM]

Yet I must eat to live, taking life to sustain my own. Where my feet walk, they must crush other creatures. With each breath I must inhale and destroy tiny, invisible airborne creatures. The meaning of 'original sin', the descent (of Adam)? It's all in symbols?

 

[RJM]

In a sense, Christ cut a way through all the nonsense and complication, with a new sacrifice and knowledge

 

[RJM]

He was truth, so they killed him, of course. So he embraces all pain, and death as well ...

 

[Craz]

"tao" means "way", that is the "way" reality is. a conception quite close to the baudelairean "analogie universelle".

yahweh instead - even if we interpret it as an allegory of "being" - remains "other" compared to the world , transcendent over the "creation".

I can only claim my own experience. The " I am what I am" thing, I understood to mean that 'Truth' is absolute, whatever a person may think.
The Tao says the same to me as do many many other great writings, all of which inspire, imo,inspire a person to seek.

I suppose their are lots of levels of understanding in most writings, which are either intentional or not.
I heard a comment of Bob Dylan recently where he said that all those early songs of his had no special meaning for him, yet people derived much from his writings.

 

[qaz]

I can only claim my own experience. The " I am what I am" thing, I understood to mean that 'Truth' is absolute, whatever a person may think.
The Tao says the same to me as do many many other great writings, all of which inspire, imo,inspire a person to seek.

I suppose their are lots of levels of understanding in most writings, which are either intentional or not.
I heard a comment of Bob Dylan recently where he said that all those early songs of his had no special meaning for him, yet people derived much from his writings.

be specific, please. which resemblances did you trace between the tao te ching and the torah?
as to the "bob dylan issue", i agree with you. the exegeses will draw you up to the text, but can't go further. so, allegory is much more than a reader's elaboration , it emerges from the capacity of the text itself. just to say , if the exegeses were coats , the text would be the hanger , if the comments were fishes , the verses would be the ocean. the whole point is that religion (not theology!) is not meant to examine causes, but analogies.

 

[Craz]

be specific, please. which resemblances did you trace between the tao te ching and the torah?
as to the "bob dylan issue", i agree with you. the exegeses will draw you up to the text, but can't go further. so, allegory is much more than a reader's elaboration , it emerges from the capacity of the text itself. just to say , if the exegeses were coats , the text would be the hanger , if the comments were fishes , the verses would be the ocean. the whole point is that religion (not theology!) is not meant to examine causes, but analogies.

There was no trace. It just so happened that I became a seeker/searcher after studying some Torah.(had I been born into a different religion, I am sure I would have started there). The search led me to look into many many belief systems where I found a common thread. The journey included many texts regarded a sacred by many people. so for me , all these things are connected, in that they are attempts to describe Truth.

 

[qaz]

There was no trace. It just so happened that I became a seeker/searcher after studying some Torah.(had I been born into a different religion, I am sure I would have started there). The search led me to look into many many belief systems where I found a common thread. The journey included many texts regarded a sacred by many people. so for me , all these things are connected, in that they are attempts to describe Truth.

physicists do try to describe truth, and still physics and hebraism are two different things.
"to search truth" is too vague to assert that tao and yahweh are the same thing.

 

[Craz]

physicists do try to describe truth, and still physics and hebraism are two different things.
"to search truth" is too vague to assert that tao and yahweh are the same thing.

Thanks for the new word 'hebraism'. I had to check with with google that it is a real word :>).
"to search truth" is too vague to assert that tao and yahweh are the same thing"

Well, I would never debate that, other than to myself. I was just sharing a part of my life journey.
one of the many meanings given to YHVH is 'that which was is and will be'. To me that is the same as the Tao or Brahman or The Word or SatNam or PakNam or Allah or Krishna and the myriad of other names people have used to describe what cannot be described in words. Also we have artists and poets that do the same in their realms.
So , when I read the Tao Te Ching and indeed the BagavadGita, Granth Sahib Ji, NT etc, I concluded that all these writings were, at least in part, coming from the same place(of consciousness).

 

[qaz]

Thanks for the new word 'hebraism'. I had to check with with google that it is a real word :>).
"to search truth" is too vague to assert that tao and yahweh are the same thing"

Well, I would never debate that, other than to myself. I was just sharing a part of my life journey.
one of the many meanings given to YHVH is 'that which was is and will be'. To me that is the same as the Tao or Brahman or The Word or SatNam or PakNam or Allah or Krishna and the myriad of other names people have used to describe what cannot be described in words. Also we have artists and poets that do the same in their realms.
So , when I read the Tao Te Ching and indeed the BagavadGita, Granth Sahib Ji, NT etc, I concluded that all these writings were, at least in part, coming from the same place(of consciousness).

actually you said that "we are talking of the same god".
nevertheless,i'm not going to disvalue syncretistic experiences, as well, incompatibilities can't be denied.
i suggest you to take a look at jan assmann's essay "moses the egyptian". he coined a brilliant expression, concerning monotheism: " the mosaic distinction".

 

[Craz]

actually you said that "we are talking of the same god".
nevertheless,i'm not going to disvalue syncretistic experiences, as well, incompatibilities can't be denied.
i suggest you to take a look at jan assmann's essay "moses the egyptian". he coined a brilliant expression, concerning monotheism: " the mosaic distinction".

yes I said
My early education was in an orthodox Jewish school and when I first heard the I will be what I will be/I am what I am I took it that God was so beyond understanding that it cannot be named.
Some 20 years later when I first came across the Tao Te Ching, I immediately thought of Moses's conversation with God.
So, for me they were talking about the same God.

What I mean by this is that I surmised that the writers of the Torah and Tao were describing the same thing that some cultures call God, or rather making an effort to describe their concept of the said thing/God. I don't think any set of words can be absolute

Regarding " the mosaic distinction", I am not unfamiliar with the concept. I only take the Abrahamic books as allegory.
Personally I am more comfortable with the Dharmic writings. I just cannot deny that Torah, NT & Quaran made me look further.