Death is an illusion

[otherbrother]

The Death of this Forum is NOT an Illusion

Something I don’t know about? It’s not about to be terminated is it? That would make me sad, even though my visits here are sporadic. But I seldom only dip into the waters. I like to dive deep when I do visit. A good way to process thoughts and feelings about the spiritual/connective aspects of my being. Where could I dive this deep if this forum dies?

 

[Alif Balaam Yashin]

Something I don’t know about? It’s not about to be terminated is it? That would make me sad, even though my visits here are sporadic. But I seldom only dip into the waters. I like to dive deep when I do visit. A good way to process thoughts and feelings about the spiritual/connective aspects of my being. Where could I dive this deep if this forum dies?

I don't think the Forum is going anywhere, I was just commenting on the lack of activity the past several days . . .

 

[talib-al-kalim]

Quantum Theory Proves Consciousness Moves To Another Universe After Death

The headline is wrong.
1. Quantum theory does not prove any of the claims made. If we are exact, quantum theory cannot prove anything because it is a theory, and a theory can only postulate or predict. But it's a well-based theory that explains many observations, so that one could also accept it as a physical law.
2. None of the postualted content is supported by quantum theory.
3. Quantum theory is physics. Physics axiomatically supposes that general laws and processes are not subjective but objective; i.e. it opposes diametrically to the theory that "our consciousness that creates the material universe".

I don't see any reason to assume that our conciousness has a major impact on the universe; there's no proof for that.

The observation that quantum states of related parts remain coupled even if they are distant from each other opens the door to speculations that our action might have an impact somewhere else, but it doesn't state that all processes have an impact somewhere else; rather, correlated quantum states manifest with their first interaction and vanish at the same time, so that correlated quantum states are an exception rather than normality.

The article is not based on science, it just mimics it.

 

[TheLightWithin]

The Death of this Forum is NOT an Illusion

Hunh?

 

[TheLightWithin]

Something I don’t know about? It’s not about to be terminated is it? That would make me sad, even though my visits here are sporadic. But I seldom only dip into the waters. I like to dive deep when I do visit. A good way to process thoughts and feelings about the spiritual/connective aspects of my being. Where could I dive this deep if this forum dies?

The forum isn't going anywhere in the foreseeable future AFAIK.
See the thread "Interfaith is doing fine" or ask @iBrian if unsure.

 

[Thomas]

Thomas, thanks for playing in my sandbox with me.

Always a pleasure. Sometimes I worry if I'm a bit 'severe' or unfriendly? Please give me a dig in the ribs if so. I can be combative ... I blame my Gaelic genes.

I have used terms like Mind Itself to describe the apparent boundless character of mind (as opposed to its mere projections, thoughts). Theos might be more like than not like “Mind Itself” or Pure Mind.

I am of the impression that we are revolving around some point, be it an Infinite Point (whatever that might be; my mind has yet to inform me) ... no, park that one for the moment ... we are each one part of a binary star, and when you say mind I mean theos, and vice versa.

I suppose my reaction to mind is initially a protection against a purely mechanistic view of mind as emerging from some organic process, tending as I do to regard mind as the first principle in all things – the Logos of all things.

We can dance together on the head of this pin, but I found this quote from David Bentley Hart
"There is a point then, arguably, at which being and intelligibility become conceptually indistinguishable. It is only as an intelligible order, as a coherent phenomenon (sensible or intellectual), that anything is anything at all, whether an elementary particle or a universe; perhaps it is true that only what could in principle be known can in actuality exist."
(The Experience of God — Being Consciousness Bliss, David Bentley Hart. My copy has escaped my bookshelf, so Ill need to track it down for a page reference, but in the meantime, there's a host of subsequent references to be found here which might spark something off.)

Theos would be pure in the sense that nothing could grasp it. But suggested in the Word, which would be like a thought from Theos? One might call Theos “Mind”’behind's all other minds.

Indeed, theos is pure in the sense of undifferentiated – it's the 'void' that is not a vacuum, but the totality of all possibility and which is above all forms, which is why I always hesitate to give Mind priority because Mind suggests Form to me, although I see, even as I type, that Mind must transcends its content, therefore Mind is above and prior to all the Forms it contains ... which is a roundabout way of saying yes, I agree ... I think.

But please don't sell Logos short, as Word can unintentionally reduce its ambiguity... but in that sense Theos is unintelligible, incomprehensible, whereas Logos is just intelligible, even if undifferentiated.

And perhaps our own minds are, in fact, too limited to perceive Theos.

In Theos is the absolute fullness but nothing to perceive ...

God by definition must remain unknowable in the way we think we understand things, get a handle on it, figure it out. But perhaps we can sense the action of Theos, in the form of Logos? And even that requires a lot of clearing cobwebs from our heads/minds.

Oh, for sure. God (Theos) is always the Invisible God, always transcendent, or rather, being infinite, there is no boundary, no horizon. Logos is God Visible in act.

Logos always invites to that boundless horizon ...

 

[Thomas]

Another citation from DBH (linked above):
"The ecstatic structure of finite consciousness – this inextinguishable yearning for truth that weds the mind (nous) to the being (ousia) of all things – is simply a manifestation of the metaphysical structure of all reality. God (ho theos) is the one act of being (ousia), consciousness (nous), and bliss (eudaimonia) in whom everything lives and move and has its being; and so the only way to know the truth of things is, necessarily, the way of bliss."

 

[otherbrother]

Believing in supernatural.
Chat GPT: "Religious woo" is a colloquial term that often refers to beliefs, practices, or claims associated with religion that are considered to lack empirical evidence or scientific support. It can imply a sense of skepticism or criticism towards certain religious ideas that are viewed as irrational, superstitious, or based on faith rather than

 

[otherbrother]

Always a pleasure. Sometimes I worry if I'm a bit 'severe' or unfriendly? Please give me a dig in the ribs if so. I can be combative ... I blame my Gaelic genes.

I am of the impression that we are revolving around some point, be it an Infinite Point (whatever that might be; my mind has yet to inform me) ... no, park that one for the moment ... we are each one part of a binary star, and when you say mind I mean theos, and vice versa.

I suppose my reaction to mind is initially a protection against a purely mechanistic view of mind as emerging from some organic process, tending as I do to regard mind as the first principle in all things – the Logos of all things.

We can dance together on the head of this pin, but I found this quote from David Bentley Hart
"There is a point then, arguably, at which being and intelligibility become conceptually indistinguishable. It is only as an intelligible order, as a coherent phenomenon (sensible or intellectual), that anything is anything at all, whether an elementary particle or a universe; perhaps it is true that only what could in principle be known can in actuality exist."
(The Experience of God — Being Consciousness Bliss, David Bentley Hart. My copy has escaped my bookshelf, so Ill need to track it down for a page reference, but in the meantime, there's a host of subsequent references to be found here which might spark something off.)


Indeed, theos is pure in the sense of undifferentiated – it's the 'void' that is not a vacuum, but the totality of all possibility and which is above all forms, which is why I always hesitate to give Mind priority because Mind suggests Form to me, although I see, even as I type, that Mind must transcends its content, therefore Mind is above and prior to all the Forms it contains ... which is a roundabout way of saying yes, I agree ... I think.

But please don't sell Logos short, as Word can unintentionally reduce its ambiguity... but in that sense Theos is unintelligible, incomprehensible, whereas Logos is just intelligible, even if undifferentiated.


In Theos is the absolute fullness but nothing to perceive ...


Oh, for sure. God (Theos) is always the Invisible God, always transcendent, or rather, being infinite, there is no boundary, no horizon. Logos is God Visible in act.

Logos always invites to that boundless horizon ...

Like an inspirational “word?” Perhaps inspiration as a resource is why Jewish founders chose the word word!?

 

[powessy]

We are "time", everything that comprises us is time, and all things that are visible to us is time. All things that become nothing here will lose time until no time remains, this loss in time creates new timelines that many refer to as dimensions. When this universe has become significantly nothing here it can then big bang itself into time again.

In my mind, I imagine a box. This box has my name written on the top of it and it contains all the time in it that I am, in this physical body. The box can only contain the things that are my physical parts and nothing else. So into the box I place my body and into my body I go and within it I find twelve boxes, these boxes contain all my bodily systems. I then enter into one of those systems and I find the cells of that system. You keep doing this until there is nothing left and there is nothing left to figure out. This is how you teach your time who you are. I always think of it as writing my name in the atoms that comprise me, this is my time and it can be used to become me again and again.

Is time inside of light or is light inside of time?

Powessy

 

[Thomas]

Like an inspirational “word?” Perhaps inspiration as a resource is why Jewish founders chose the word word!?

Well the Septuagint uses the Greek term 'logos', which embraces more than the term 'word' commonly implies.

Furthermore the Aramaic speaking Jews use the Aramaic memra, and that has an even greater implication.

There was an understanding that the One God of Israel was a transcendent God Above All, and that between God and the world was a series or succession of divine orders in, by and through which God acted in the world. There was God (ho theos), gods (theos), angels and archons, powers and so on ... but increasingly it was understood that as there was Oner God, there was one Mediating Principle, and in the Aramaic world this principle was the 'word' or Memra of God. Every manifestation of the Divine, from the creation of the world onward, was through this intermediary who was with God before the world was made, and was indeed the instrument of its creation.

From the Jewish Encyclopaedia:
In the Targum the Memra figures constantly as the manifestation of the divine power, or as God's messenger in place of God Himself, wherever the predicate is not in conformity with the dignity or the spirituality of the Deity.

Where Moses says, "I stood between the Lord and you" (Deuteronomy 5:5), the Targum has, "between the Memra of the Lord and you"; and the "sign between Me and you" becomes a "sign between My Memra and you" (Exodus 31:13, 17). Instead of God, the Memra comes to Abimelek (Genesis 20:3), and there are numerous other examples.

Like the Shekinah, the Memra is accordingly the manifestation of God.

The Memra shielded Noah from the flood and brought about the dispersion of the seventy nations; it is the guardian of Jacob and of Israel; it works all the wonders in Egypt; hardens the heart of Pharaoh; goes before Israel in the wilderness; blesses Israel; battles for the people. As in ruling over the destiny of man the Memra is the agent of God, so also is it in the creation of the earth and in the execution of justice. So, in the future, shall the Memra be the comforter: "My Shekinah I shall put among you, My Memra shall be unto you for a redeeming deity, and you shall be unto My Name a holy people".

The Memra as a cosmic power furnished Philo the corner-stone upon which he built his peculiar semi-Jewish philosophy. Philo's "divine thought," "the image" and "first-born son" of God, "the archpriest," "intercessor," and "paraclete" of humanity, the "arch type of man", and all this paved the way for the Christian conceptions of the Incarnation ("the Word become flesh") and the Trinity.

 

[powessy]

Well the Septuagint uses the Greek term 'logos', which embraces more than the term 'word' commonly implies.

Furthermore the Aramaic speaking Jews use the Aramaic memra, and that has an even greater implication.

There was an understanding that the One God of Israel was a transcendent God Above All, and that between God and the world was a series or succession of divine orders in, by and through which God acted in the world. There was God (ho theos), gods (theos), angels and archons, powers and so on ... but increasingly it was understood that as there was Oner God, there was one Mediating Principle, and in the Aramaic world this principle was the 'word' or Memra of God. Every manifestation of the Divine, from the creation of the world onward, was through this intermediary who was with God before the world was made, and was indeed the instrument of its creation.

From the Jewish Encyclopaedia:
In the Targum the Memra figures constantly as the manifestation of the divine power, or as God's messenger in place of God Himself, wherever the predicate is not in conformity with the dignity or the spirituality of the Deity.

Where Moses says, "I stood between the Lord and you" (Deuteronomy 5:5), the Targum has, "between the Memra of the Lord and you"; and the "sign between Me and you" becomes a "sign between My Memra and you" (Exodus 31:13, 17). Instead of God, the Memra comes to Abimelek (Genesis 20:3), and there are numerous other examples.

Like the Shekinah, the Memra is accordingly the manifestation of God.

The Memra shielded Noah from the flood and brought about the dispersion of the seventy nations; it is the guardian of Jacob and of Israel; it works all the wonders in Egypt; hardens the heart of Pharaoh; goes before Israel in the wilderness; blesses Israel; battles for the people. As in ruling over the destiny of man the Memra is the agent of God, so also is it in the creation of the earth and in the execution of justice. So, in the future, shall the Memra be the comforter: "My Shekinah I shall put among you, My Memra shall be unto you for a redeeming deity, and you shall be unto My Name a holy people".

The Memra as a cosmic power furnished Philo the corner-stone upon which he built his peculiar semi-Jewish philosophy. Philo's "divine thought," "the image" and "first-born son" of God, "the archpriest," "intercessor," and "paraclete" of humanity, the "arch type of man", and all this paved the way for the Christian conceptions of the Incarnation ("the Word become flesh") and the Trinity.

Interpretation, I think the biggest problem within the bible is the interpretation. In the veil I will encounter a mind with thousands of Eyes or I's. Each I/eye is a yourself. A yourself could also be said to be a Memra as you describe it here. Each eye/I, tells/teaches several things and these questions then either open another eye/I if you answered correct or it returns you to the beginning. Next time you find yourself asking a question over and over again in your mind try to ask something that does not make sense to you, and you might find more questions. If you teach the I/eye something that makes sense to it then you will find only answers that make sense to you. If you ask questions that make no sense to the eye it will use minds/marians to find out, if the marians find the next mind it will open the eye to teach you something new. Each question opens another route through the mind, leading you forward or nowhere at all. I would say since religion has found not the right questions then it will never find you new eyes/I or move forward.

A "yourself" is all the time it can figure out or it has become. Moses stands between you and the lord, He is only saying he has more time then you here. In the veil the pounding on the drum goes like this, I have many more minds then you, I can figure myself out many more times then you can, I can teach you many more minds then you can teach me, I am many more times myself then you are yourself. To win is to teach the other something that it cannot figure out. As you can see in my profile image the minds on my mind they contain my tool box of time collected in the veil, this image was drawn at the beginning of my time figuring things out. If I were to draw my image today you would not be able to recognize a person sitting there or understand this as the tendrils are many times longer then I am and ten times as densely matted, they are through out many timelines as we teach each other things.

Powessy

 

[Thomas]

A yourself could also be said to be a Memra as you describe it here.

Inasmuch as all creation is 'spoken' into being ... in that sense everything points to its source and origin, which is Memra.

The veil, as you say, the world of forms, the multitudinous 'I's, the multitudinous instances of contingent selfhood, and in that sense is a theophany which, in the Hindu Tradition, is referred to as Maya.

I would say since religion has found not the right questions then it will never find you new eyes/I or move forward.

I would say religion speaks to humanity from above the veil.

A "yourself" is all the time it can figure out or it has become.

I think that you, I and every other instance of self is always becoming, and always a mystery to itself ...

 

[Aupmanyav]

I think that you, I and every other instance of self is always becoming, and always a mystery to itself ...

Not to me, Thomas. What mystery? A collection of 'skandhas'.

 

[Thomas]

Not to me, Thomas. What mystery? A collection of 'skandhas'.

What is it that sees the skandhas for what they are, in relation to some other more desirous or beneficial state?

 

[powessy]

Inasmuch as all creation is 'spoken' into being ... in that sense everything points to its source and origin, which is Memra.

The veil, as you say, the world of forms, the multitudinous 'I's, the multitudinous instances of contingent selfhood, and in that sense is a theophany which, in the Hindu Tradition, is referred to as Maya.


I would say religion speaks to humanity from above the veil.


I think that you, I and every other instance of self is always becoming, and always a mystery to itself ...

God did not just speak all creation into being, but I would say that maya was some of the first forms of life though. Minds tried to become many things before all was here, things whisped out in the dust of time.

The veil is nothing here, it is the reason you ask questions it is your dreams and it is your gods. I would say it is also maya for those that do not see clearly. The layers of the veil were meant to test mankind and to judge them, so we can eventually exit genesis.

Religion is a trap of the mind it is a question/problem that creates and generates time for minds to figure you out and steal your time. In the veil religion is found on the side of virtues and not sins or ourselves. Only one path allows you to remain yourself and that is the center path or ourselves the other two paths allow other minds to become your time.



Powessy

 

[TheLightWithin]

There was an understanding that the One God of Israel was a transcendent God Above All, and that between God and the world was a series or succession of divine orders in, by and through which God acted in the world. There was God (ho theos), gods (theos), angels and archons, powers and so on ... but increasingly it was understood that as there was Oner God, there was one Mediating Principle, and in the Aramaic world this principle was the 'word' or Memra of God. Every manifestation of the Divine, from the creation of the world onward, was through this intermediary who was with God before the world was made, and was indeed the instrument of its creation.

This concept is helpful. I haven't seen anything spelled out like this before. Interesting and useful.

 

[Thomas]

God did not just speak all creation into being,

I'd say God is the ground of all being.

but I would say that maya was some of the first forms of life though.

I regard Maya as theophany, not as form as such. All life is maya. All being is maya.

Minds tried to become many things before all was here, things whisped out in the dust of time.

The One transcends the many ...

The veil is nothing here ...

I tend to see it otherwise. I see everything other than God is a 'veil of the Divine', if you like, as the Divine is the ground of all being.

As long as one talks 'minds' one is in plurality, contingency and conditional being.

... it is the reason you ask questions it is your dreams and it is your gods.

But the dream realm and the Divine are not at all the same thing. Dreams belong to minds, the Divine transcends all states.

Religion is a trap of the mind ...

No, not the case at all. 'Mind' is a state. Religion is a way to that which transcends all states.

Only one path allows you to remain yourself and that is the center path or ourselves the other two paths allow other minds to become your time.

I don't seek union with other minds, I seek union with the transcendent source of all.

 

[otherbrother]

We are all the universe experiencing itself. When cells develop and grow into new life, they draw some of the energy from the universe to it, and self-sustains it for a while. But once that physical form dies away, the energy held there is released back to rejoin the universe.

I like that channeling/conduit of energy concept. It even fits with experiences I have had both in dream state and (one time) in wake state of astral projection. The dream state experiences were less defined, more suggestive, based on dream imagery and feelings. Nonetheless, there is a consistent pattern of those experiences, enough to convince me that our soul or spirit wanders about and then returns into the physical body/self.

 

[otherbrother]

I'd say God is the ground of all being.


I regard Maya as theophany, not as form as such. All life is maya. All being is maya.


The One transcends the many ...


I tend to see it otherwise. I see everything other than God is a 'veil of the Divine', if you like, as the Divine is the ground of all being.

As long as one talks 'minds' one is in plurality, contingency and conditional being.

But the dream realm and the Divine are not at all the same thing. Dreams belong to minds, the Divine transcends all states.


No, not the case at all. 'Mind' is a state. Religion is a way to that which transcends all states.


I don't seek union with other minds, I seek union with the transcendent source of all.

Regarding Thomas referring to what Powesee said (in another thread? I couldn’t find in preceding comments) : “Religion is a trap of the mind.”:

Transportation for Transformation

Religion is just a horse we ride
to change the way we are inside,
to go back to the way we were at the start,
to give and live with a happy heart.
If that’s not what you happen to learn,
get off the horse, and don’t return.
Take a walk in the woods, slow and with care,
in a manner that God may find you there.
Whether riding or walking,
the goal is the same.
Transformation alone glorifies God’s name.

My poem indicates that I side with Thomas on this one, in terms of religion’s potential. Unfortunately, superficial use of ritual and dogma can result in a need to get off of the horse. So, I don’t disagree totally with Powesee either. Religion can either stunt or assist spiritual growth. It’s according to how deep the practice and understanding runs. I tend to emphasize both depth and flow (energy) as general spiritual practices, such that going deep and sensing subtle energy becomes part of my “religion.” There are metaphors within Christianity that seem to support this depth/flow practice (fountain flowing deep and wide).