JustGeorge
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That's interesting...
When I'm able to get to a temple(which is rare), it seems a pretty mixed age affair.
Your religious/spiritual journey
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When I'm able to get to a temple(which is rare), it seems a pretty mixed age affair.
TheLightWithin
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It's a longstanding trend really in denominational decline, and to some extent and overall decline of Christianity in proportion to overall population.
In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace
The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip, with both Protestantism and Catholicism experiencing losses of population share.
www.pewresearch.org
medividedbyyou
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Heyyy. The website is: Explore the Philosophical Framework of ORIANO | ORIANO if you're using a mobile phone please note that you have to scroll down the menu in order to reach all the pages! The website won't be up much longer as I've not renewed my hosting! Let me know what you think.
m
TheLightWithin
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Just glancing at it this is very intriguing?
Darn, sorry to hear it will not be up longer.
Why did you decide not to renew it?
** Edit**
Is this referring to an actual church with rituals living individuals actually practice?
Or based on historical precedents like mystery religions of old? I notice the use of Greek.
Or is it theory? Or a work of imaginative literature?
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Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
For Hindus. a temple is like grandpa's place, everyone part of the family, everyone welcome. Children play, women gossip, elders engage in their rituals.
JustGeorge
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I do love how the children play nearby while the adults are more focused on the puja...
otherbrother
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Great idea for a discussion thread. To be honest, a frequent impression I have after philosophizing/theologizing here is that we are all just making this stuff up. And by all, I include the originators of all religions.
One participant here successfully nudged me back to a position of knowing that Ultimate Reality is to us an unknown, at least in the sense of clearly defined knowledge. But even so, I still believe that we are connected to that Unknown and it is not outside of what we would call our “self,” that is if we can sense the depths of self or being.
What seems to have taken hold in my spiritual beliefs is similar to the old “fountain flowing deep and wide” that I encountered in my upbringing as a Christian, but it does not seem particularly Biblical.
Also my dabbling in (reading about) quantum physics offered me a depth view of overall reality. Even physically, things operate in a more overlapping and dynamic (spiritual?) way at the subatomic level. And David Bohm and Basil Hiley, in their book The Undivided Universe, concluded that there is a layered overall reality— explicate order (on the surface where “classical objects” exist), a quantum layer deeper in (that they referred to as “implicate order”), and they surmised/deduced that there must be a deeper yet layer/order that allows for the “active information” between subatomic particles (electrons?). The thought there must be a “super-implicate order” . One can only imagine that the superimplicate order is akin to Universal Mind (if it is behind active “information.”
This theoretical view of depth levels/layers in overall reality seems to match the ancient (Veda/Vedic?) distinction of gross body, subtle body, and causal body.
While philosopher Ken Wilber maintains that it is a mistake to equate psycho/spiritual “depth” with physical depth, I tend to think that deeper spirituality actually DOES involve going physically/literally deeper.
What I most believe to be truest, both metaphysically and in terms of psychological usefulness/functioning, is what I call “Depth-dynamic Being.” I trust that an abundance of good stuff comes from a really deep zone that we manage to somehow integrate with surface/physical reality. I think we can learn to maximize the “ fountain flowing” from a very deep zone and into an outermost surface zone. This metaphysical belief seems to work well with Christian concepts (with some translation), and I strongly suspect it is adaptable to other faith traditions as well.
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Is that because you assume the process they follow is the same as the process you follow?
You're not obliged to believe the processes they follow, you're not obliged to believe in Revelation, but if the foundation and source of religions are true – and by foundation I would day the discernment between the real and the illusory – then clearly they are not 'making it up'...
Well it's unknown because, in my Book, it transcends the faculties ... God is not a thing as other things are, therefore God is not knowable as other things are known.
But that doesn't mean one can know nothing ... or that there is not a different order of knowing.
I whole-heartedly agree ... where problems arise is when people project an exemplary view of 'self' from the standpoint of their own selves.
Oh, but it is ... in a few places, probably notable in Jesus' dialgue with the Samaritan woman at the well:
"Jesus answered and told her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks from the water that I shall give him will most definitely never thirst ..." (John 4:13-14)
From the religions viewpoint, we would say the overall reality of this cosmos, or this universe ... but the stuff of which they speak transcends that.
OK, but these are three veils ...
Why, when the spiritual has no physicality?
Can you say anything about where the content of the 'really deep zone'?
I wonder why you believe your Depth-dynamic Being' is 'truest', when the same thing is same in all traditions?
I don't dispute your findings, and applaud the effort it took you to get there, and I would say it does work with Christian concepts, and Hindu concepts, and Hermetic concepts, because such concepts have been expressed in those traditions in their own language and lexicon.
I think if you really grasped the idea of the Logos as spoken of in Christianity, you'd see what you're looking for.
Modelling God onto Quantum Physics follows a long line, between the Ancient's modelling the Divine Temperament onto the weather, the Hellenists' idea of the Transcendentals – by no means a wasted effort, and certainly not wrong, but it can only ever be analogous, and no bad thing it that. It's when we take a step to far and say 'this is what God is' or 'this is how God does', then we're into the alchemists' search for the Philosopher's Stone as a material substance or the Holy Grail as a material cup.
otherbrother
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Truest FOR ME, as in “it works best for me.” Partly because it seems a simpler way of conceptualizing our connection to God. A single flowing fountain with different aspects according to what depth level it is experienced and/or interacted with, is easier to grasp (to me, that is) than the three in one. With a fountain model, each of the three can be located.
The deepest level is where the Father is, and as far as we can tell, it is like an immaterial “mind.” Perhaps home of “logos?”
The Holy Spirit or Ghost is in the intermediate depth location of the fountain. It seems like the quantum realm that is not limited to “simple location,” is highly interactive, interwoven/entangled.
Behaves more energy than matter, because it is less defined and closer to potential than actuality, but still has some matter like characteristics (packets of energy, blotches of being).
The Son is the outmost, surface area of the fountain where much vitality/potentiality is lost, and yet still mages to shine through, is not totally lost or kept separate from the deeper parts of the fountain. The surface area of the fountain behaves like matter. Has the appearance of “simple location.” Rocks here, trees over there.
And yet, because the fountain flows throughout its depth extension, all three designated levels are in contact with each other. God has not lost touch with Creation. And as created entities we have access to the deeper parts of the fountain.
By “being,” I mean the act of being, verb form. A way to intentionally exist. And if we intend to exist in a manner that is rooted in a deeper reality, we improve the quality of that existence.
Early on when I said “making things up.” I only meant taking a stab at. Some of our imaginings come closer to the truth than others. Not just arbitrarily made up. Many of our beliefs are quite meaningful and useful myths. But still mythical. I make up a lot of poetry and songs, but I intend them to match true human experiences and to impart some degree of insight and wisdom. Some of my made up things come closer to truths than others. But they are all made up.
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OK, I can go along with that.
OK, but then that three-level concept is not really applicable to the Christian Trinity, in that explaining the Trinity that way misses certain essential aspects.
Ah, gotcha.
Ah ... I understand myths differently, I'd say our realities carry the greater 'but' than our myths, in the sense that myths speak of greater truths than are easily accessible.
otherbrother
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“Metaphors” may be better word for what I meant by myth. Clearly, I use words loosely. You differentiate better.
BTW, I’m fairly sure you knew it was YOU I was talking about when I said a participant nudged me back to humility about discerning God’s nature. I appreciate your willingness to dialogue with an impressionistic thinker like me. You refine but don’t reject. An admirable quality.
It's a myth if it ain't metaphor you yet...once it is it becomes allegory.
otherbrother
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To my more or less way of thinking it is applicable. You might have to point out ways it isn’t, before I can appreciate the distinction you are making. That is, if you don’t think it will fall on deaf ears or fail to get through my thick head (and, of course, if you want to take the time and effort)!
otherbrother
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The way I see it "your spiritual journey" is written.
But it is beyond space and time, you bio is not in chronological order, nor is location and character specific to your "real" events (past, present, and future). But it has been written.
We may read it many times before we realize it was talking about us, describing the situations we have been (and will be) involved in...providing hints to the right and wrong way...various perspectives and outcomes....
For me the Bible is the book I grew up with so I find my story most often described there in the lives of Biblical characters fighting with themselves or other Biblical characters...
For others it could be the Gita or Quran, whatever holy book resonates with you most...they are all full of lessons for us, which will definitely make our lives easier and save us many mistakes, should we choose to find meaning in them....
If we choose not to find meaning and allegory and lessons....there is always Disney and StarTrek. Now folks often think me heretical, but I am serious...the allegory and parables and mythology and fiction are what we make of it imo.
TheLightWithin
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Doesn't every effort to explain it miss something? What is missing here?
otherbrother
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The notion of more divine aspects at the base of a fountain flowing up/out into its outermost areas seems analogous to the resurrection story because deadened stuff that is plagued by entropy because it is materially existing is rejuvenated, as though brought back to life—often in new and improved forms. Exotropy/negentropy wins out over entropy/death.
Short poem:
Actuality is bound to die,
But potentiality frees it for another try.
otherbrother
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Re: It's a myth if it ain't metaphor yet...once it is it becomes allegory.
I finally grasped what you meant. The typo was throwing me off. Yes, once you understand the pattern behind the picture is more true than the picture itself—understand it abstractly instead of literally/concretely, it has the power of a truth.
talib-al-kalim
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It's not the same in my community. Maybe because it's a community of immigrants, many refugees, and only the younger have the power and the motivation to emigrate and seek a better and secure life somewhere although high fences and administrative obstacles try to hinder them.
I'm 58 years old now and I'm one of the four oldest regular members, so that my help, support and sometimes mediation is often requested (and I assume it with satisfaction although responsibilities tend to grow over my head).
Maybe, it's just a phenomenon of continuous change that established majority communities tend to grow old whereas small minority communities grow.
talib-al-kalim
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I think this discussion thread already exists: