If You Were God Part I: The Time to Come

Dauer,

A beautiful image indeed!
This post of yours brings up an interesting struggle I have in seeing the world the way God must see it. A difficult enough task for a human, but the sages and mystics of the world have told us that everything is unfolding as it should, that "All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well" Even the Buddha is depicted as smiling though he has seen behind the veil of maya.
So why do I still perceive unrest? Why do I see suffering? This world that I percieve, (admittedly my vision is limited) so full of horrors alongside visions of pure bliss is far from being perfect.
I must have a lot of growing to do before I can see what the spiritual masters have seen.

Peace

Mark
 
dauer said:
Alright, well, it's time for me to answer my question I think. What follows is not what I believe will happen or what I believe is ultimately the best possible reality or even necessarily what I hope will happen. Rather it is meant to convey a more subtle sentiment beyond the literal words, the heart, that I think can be found to some degree in all of these "time to come" prophecies if one looks hard enough, and the way in which I describe it right now is simply the image which speaks to me most strongly at this moment in time.

First, I want there to be some sort of figurehead to this change, even if this individual is only a mascot. And I want this person to tell a lot of good jokes (nothing too dirty) and stories, and hug everybody immediately. I want this person to listen, to really listen, when people talk, instead of waiting for an opportunity to speak. And I want this person to hear too. And I want this individual to be like a chiropractor of the soul. You go talk to this person, they make a few adjustments, give you some exercises to do, and you're in a better state, but not without work on your part of course.

And I don't want there to be anything magical or miraculous or supernatural about this person, because I think that would make all of their traits and behaviors that much less miraculous.

Edited to add (I also would want this person to have flaws, just like everybody else, so that this individual would be coping with what we all cope with. Maybe the person could even openly struggle with some things, even serious things.)

I want there to be as much variety as there is in religion now, if not more. But I want everybody to agree on one thing: no religion is wrong, although we may not want that religion for ourselves, and its system of ethics may even be a little different from our own, or the purpose it purports. And from that I want everyone on Earth to be able to respect and honor each other's belief systems.

I don't want anymore war. I want instead that humanity should be a true global community. And instead of a penal system, I want a rehabilitative system that recognizes a criminal is really someone suffering from dis-ease. And I do want there to be places too, for those who cannot be rehabilitated, but I want them to be more humane, because if someone can't be rehabilitated back into society, I don't think we can blame them for that.

And I don't want physics to change. I want there to be cures to all of the really terrible diseases though, the ones that take away those we love young, or cause us to live with crippling disabilities, or that turn our parents and grandparents into people who no longer recognize us, or no longer remind us of the able figures of our youth.

And people I would want to spend their time doing whatever they delighted in most, so long as they did no harm to others. Some might spend their time in meditation, others studying, others at the beach. I don't think it would be good if we no longer had obligations, to family, to community, and I don't think it would be good if there was no need to learn. But I would like technology to be advanced enough that we can all manage a four day work week, and money to be balanced enough that everyone is able to devote their three days off to what they find meaningful and/or enjoyable.

And I still want children to be children, to live in familial structures with parents, to go to school in order to learn, and progress until adulthood. It feels like that growth that happens is something essential, that shouldn't be traded away.

And I'd like that people live where they want to live, in isolation or with a community, and that all have the means to live in comfortable environments.

And I really don't think that this would come to pass overnight. But I think that when it did happen, it would be like the final hammer blow, the finishing touch that completes things, not that the world would be finished and we would no longer grow, but that at that time it would be recognizable and people across the globe could say, "We did it. We made it. We achieved it. We're here."

So those are descriptions that are really a snapshot of one way that at this moment I might want to picture it as, intended not to place emphasis so much on the specifics, but instead to point beyond the words at what is being related emotively. I hope it can serve as some inspiration or encouragement for those who have held back from sharing, but if not that's okay too.

Dauer
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Isn't dreaming special. :)
 
Isn't dreaming special.
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Indeed it is. I don't believe it is coincidence that in the arrangement of the 13 articles of Jewish faith of Maimonides included in the siddur we find

"I believe with a complete belief in the coming of the Messiah and even though he may tarry I will wait for him, whenever he comes" To me for a while now it's seemed apparent that the reason this was stated so explicitly and so strongly is because of the power having faith in a utopian future for humanity can have, especially for a people who have undergone so much persecution. Personally I have no eschatological beliefs of my own, but as I say in my post, it's not about the literal language I use, but about the emotions it conveys. While specifics like "what food will we eat" and even more abstract notions are not always agreed upon, I think that the emotions, the wants, the needs, the drives, are much more universal.

Dauer
 
Paladin said:
Dauer,

A beautiful image indeed!
This post of yours brings up an interesting struggle I have in seeing the world the way God must see it. A difficult enough task for a human, but the sages and mystics of the world have told us that everything is unfolding as it should, that "All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well" Even the Buddha is depicted as smiling though he has seen behind the veil of maya.
So why do I still perceive unrest? Why do I see suffering? This world that I percieve, (admittedly my vision is limited) so full of horrors alongside visions of pure bliss is far from being perfect.
I must have a lot of growing to do before I can see what the spiritual masters have seen.

Peace

Mark
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Hi Paladin,

Dauer's post, yes and yes, except......... this thing of advocating that God should have flaws..... I'd say the God known has had many flaws, perhaps has been too human, a God of perfection would surely enable more bliss to flow...

Maybe we could help create a more loving, compassionate, perfect God by our own perfections of same.

- c -
 
Ciel,

I wasn't suggesting God should have flaws. I said that the figurehead of a time-to-come, who I stated I didn't think should be supernatural, would feel more right with flaws, more relevant and real.

Dauer
 
dauer said:
Ciel,

I wasn't suggesting God should have flaws. I said that the figurehead of a time-to-come, who I stated I didn't think should be supernatural, would feel more right with flaws, more relevant and real.

Dauer
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Hi Dauer,

But as representative is there any difference?

But your post is beautiful, whatever way because it goes beyond the "me".
It is outside it's self, it is subtle sentiment beyond words.

- c -
 
Ciel,

But as representative is there any difference?
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I think there is, yes. But I come from a tradition that typically sees its prophets and leaders as human, and tends to point out the ways in which they were human, the ways in which they stumbled, that we might learn from them. David, for example, and Batsheva.

But your post is beautiful, whatever way because it goes beyond the "me".
It is outside it's self, it is subtle sentiment beyond words.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I am glad you see beyond the particulars.

Dauer
 
Dauer..I am identifying with your utopian image of the future. But there were lots of utopianist groups in the mid 19th century in America that came to naught, Fourierists, Harmonists, etc., not to mention those who founded and fought for Israel as a homeland only to watch it mostly become a fortress in the midst of hostility.

The universe has a way of turning dreams into mixed realities. IMO that's because the universe is 95% darkness and 5% light. Dreams come from the light I believe. But keeping this all in mind, it has been true until now that the dreamers and believers on Earth have always succeeded more often than those who intermittently come out of the darkness to kill dreams and progress. As a creative dreamer I choose to identify with your dreams and any others that dream the best for their fellow humans who fervently wish to progress together into a better future.

flow....:)
 
Rumi's -How can we be polished if we can't take the rubbing?

I don't think G-d sees any evil, man's version of G-d at times is evil, but not G-d.

I've gone through as all of us many deaths in my family. Many bad times, debilitating illnesses, forclosures, divorce, losing everything, fires, floods, starting over...

I can never see the good in it all while I am in it. G-d can. Our souls are growing, learning, moving forward. Post script, I am alive and breathing. Post script for my loved ones that have transitioned...I don't know. Are they headed to a heaven, or reincarnated on earth, or back to ashes. I don't know. But I believe thier souls are still learning, and learned a lot from their time here in 3d and their passing to the next phase.

I can't see the good while I'm in it. But I know it is there, and I know we all grow from it, and in time I realize it is that very path that got me here, and with any changes to that path, things would not be as they are.

I think spirit is doing fine...that your beautiful utopian world is but a choice, and one for us to choose. Truth is we choose differently all the time, but the more we, the more I choose tolerance, the more I choose peace, the more I choose health, the more I choose love, the more I glorify breath, each breath, sight, each sight....

The closer we are to the utopia G-d intends for us, the closer we are to the utopia you describe...but if it were given...without effort, without choice...like a lottery winner we would lose it...we need to know that we have choice and choose it...every day, every minute, every second...

And we need all those around us to know we are making that choice..so when we wander off our path...we can be nudged back on...

You are G-d, in the image, with the power....just need to be aware of that our perceptions, thoughts, words and actions are constantly creating our world that our choices are either choosing the Utopia G-d has for us or as we condemn others we are maintaining the status quo.
 
Genesis 3:22 said:
22 And Jehovah God went on to say: “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take [fruit] also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,—”
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I would like to let humans eat also from the tree of life. In the beginning Adam and Eve had the choice - it was one or the other. This time I'd let people pick both.

[quote="Genesis 11:6]6 After that Jehovah said: “Look! They are one people and there is one language for them all, and this is what they start to do. Why, now there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be unattainable for them. 7 Come now! Let us go down and there confuse their language that they may not listen to one another’s language.”
[/quote]

I would like humans to have one language. I'm not going to force a particular language on anyone, just "make it so" that everyone can understand everyone else - like the universal translator on Star Trek. I would like to see what humans will attain now bearing in mind that nothing will be unattainable.​

I would like to roll out the Earth so it becomes flat, and everyone will see the same sky and actually see God's cozy slippers tapping on his footstool. Then we would all be conscious that he is watching us.​

I would like the Earth to be like CR, using the walled-garden approach. If anyone has violent tendencies, they can go in that corner. If anyone has peaceful tendencies, they can go in this corner. People will be automatically transported to different areas for acting out of character in any particular area.​

I would like God to write his own Bible using his own hands, just like the writing on the wall in Babylon, or the commandments on the stone tablets. Everyone would get a copy and we won't have to rely on human scribes to accurately transmit the info to us.​

I would like Satan to write his own side of the story, I'm pretty sure that he has been libelled or slandered a few times by some of us humans - I mean, he can't be that stupid to openly challenge an omnipotent being. I wouldn't challenge the UFC featherweight champion, pretty sure Satan wouldn't really challenge God unless God was 'up for it'.​

That's enough for now. Might post some more later.​
 
I was thinking about this: If I were God, would I set things up so there was no death, disease, or bad stuff in general? I read Genesis allegorically. It would seem that man needed to fall in order to become human. Surely if God is as smart as we all think It is It wouldn't have set things up so that man fell without it being necessary. Would It? But I don't like the answers I get from eastern thought: like, it's all karma. It has to be simpler yet more complex than that. I like the Jewish version where we work our way out.

Chris
 
wil said:
Rumi's -How can we be polished if we can't take the rubbing?

I don't think G-d sees any evil, man's version of G-d at times is evil, but not G-d.

I've gone through as all of us many deaths in my family. Many bad times, debilitating illnesses, forclosures, divorce, losing everything, fires, floods, starting over...

I can never see the good in it all while I am in it. G-d can. Our souls are growing, learning, moving forward. Post script, I am alive and breathing. Post script for my loved ones that have transitioned...I don't know. Are they headed to a heaven, or reincarnated on earth, or back to ashes. I don't know. But I believe thier souls are still learning, and learned a lot from their time here in 3d and their passing to the next phase.

I can't see the good while I'm in it. But I know it is there, and I know we all grow from it, and in time I realize it is that very path that got me here, and with any changes to that path, things would not be as they are.

I think spirit is doing fine...that your beautiful utopian world is but a choice, and one for us to choose. Truth is we choose differently all the time, but the more we, the more I choose tolerance, the more I choose peace, the more I choose health, the more I choose love, the more I glorify breath, each breath, sight, each sight....

The closer we are to the utopia G-d intends for us, the closer we are to the utopia you describe...but if it were given...without effort, without choice...like a lottery winner we would lose it...we need to know that we have choice and choose it...every day, every minute, every second...

And we need all those around us to know we are making that choice..so when we wander off our path...we can be nudged back on...

You are G-d, in the image, with the power....just need to be aware of that our perceptions, thoughts, words and actions are constantly creating our world that our choices are either choosing the Utopia G-d has for us or as we condemn others we are maintaining the status quo.
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Wil,

Was that really you writing those first few paragraphs, or the very same God of the status quo?

- c -
 
wil said:
Is that a nudge I am contemplating? Was I too condemning of myself and society, help me out with your thought and questions.
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Wil,

Dare I say, not condemning enough of a "something" that would put you and others through such measures. I do believe God does see good and evil, but sometimes through the weight of the balance the power, God has been unable to sway the lower realms that gain their manifestations through the hardships of humanity. Giving them all gratefulness gives them power to produce more.

I also believe you would have got to the place you are now anyway. Because it was already there for you in your own divine plan, part of the contract of why you are here on this planet at this time. And there could have been so many more tears of laughter and joy instead of the tears of trials of a life for you and every one.

love - c -
 
Ciel said:
Dare I say, not condemning enough of a "something" that would put you and others through such measures. I do believe God does see good and evil, but sometimes through the weight of the balance the power, God has been unable to sway the lower realms that gain their manifestations through the hardships of humanity.
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hmmm..."something", now this is where I always got in trouble with my first wife, trying to discern what she meant as I was to daft to decipher the riddle while she insisted I read her mind. Now this "something" see I don't know if you are referring to my inadequacies, 'the devil' or whetehr I should be shaking my fist at the heavens.

I've done that, shook my fist at the world, the heavens, at people...all in vain realizing now that it is me that needs to change. Everyone is doing the best with the knowledge they currently have... I remember quite clearly when my sister went blind (diabetes, the same thing that killed her at the age of 39) She was in the hospital, she must have been around 34 at the time, while she was in the hospital there was fire in the building her flat was in, so while her space was not damaged the building was condemned. So my mom and I flew in, rented her another place for her and moved her in. So she was to be leaving the hospital, blind, to a new apartment that she'd never been in, and we arranged all her furniture, her kitchen, her closets... We went to the hospital to pick her up. The doctor told her what she could expect as far as recovery in sight, time frames, potential each eye etc. He then motioned for my mom and I to go out into the hall and told us the odds were high she'd never see again.

I lit into him, told him what I thought of him leading a patient on and leaving it to the family to tell her the truth. My mom told me to calm down, (she was a nurse) and be reasonable, I told her I was reasonable, my fingers were not around this idiots throat. That was the old me.

My sister lost her job (she did fundraising for Greenpeace, and groups like them) I thought that was ridiculous, that this so called liberal, caring organization dumped her once she was blind. She took it all in stride, completely all in stride. Greenpeace went to her and dumped the other marketing consultant and said they wanted her, Lighthouse for the Blind hired her when she informed them what she could do for them in direct mail. She slowly went through her apartment asking where stuff was, drawer by drawer, hanger by hanger, through every cupboard. She didn't move anything we put in, she accepted it and moved on.

I started out this post thinking I was going to say how much I learn from my issues, my trauma. In writing it I learned how much influence my sister's trauma and her reaction to it made in my life. I live my life now, much as she did then, realizing there are some cards in my hand, and I need to play them, and play them well, to get dealt the next hand, or reshuffle the deck. Nothing that she encountered phased her, she took it in, made some adjustments and moved on.

She had tons of stories about her not being able to see, asking folks in grocery stores to read labels to her, we laugh today as her most common phrase was holding something up saying, "What's this?" She loved to cook and find new recipes, which made her have to go to new shops and find the products for herself...this didn't stop her. She lived in San Francisco, taking buses and trolley cars around town. Hollering at people who crossed before the light changes "What are you trying to kill me? I rely on your movement to know it is safe to cross, and the light didn't click! (she stood by the pole listening for the traffic to stop, the people to move, and the light box click all to coincide). She learned to ask in a line if she was in the right line, when she once waited an hour in the wrong line at the post office...and thought she was in line to check out at a store and was headed into the ladies room...

I'm not saying G-d intentionally puts these trials out there for us. I do believe things were set in motion, and we are playing out that motion. And we'll all end up in the same place on our various and sundry paths... That our job is to understand how powerful we are, and learn from our choices.

And also in writing this, it was just nailed home, how people watch our actions, and learn from them as well.

thank you Lu for the lessons, Ciel for the contemplation and peace and blessings all.
 
wil said:
hmmm..."something", now this is where I always got in trouble with my first wife, trying to discern what she meant as I was to daft to decipher the riddle while she insisted I read her mind. Now this "something" see I don't know if you are referring to my inadequacies, 'the devil' or whetehr.
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Wil,
I promise you the "something" is nothing personal to you.
To rephrase it, I would say neither is it personal to God

peace - c -
 
Ciel said:
Wil,
I promise you the "something" is nothing personal to you.
To rephrase it, I would say neither is it personal to God

peace - c -
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ah...if I am understanding you correctly that is exactly what I've grown out of. I accept responsibility for causing, attracting or asking for that which goes on around me.
 
wil said:
ah...if I am understanding you correctly that is exactly what I've grown out of. I accept responsibility for causing, attracting or asking for that which goes on around me.
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Hi Wil,

Yes, responsibility, always...........

.......mmm, but, completely different wavelengh.:)

- c -
 
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