God is with form or without form?

seattlegal said:
Repent as used at Matt 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Repent: Strong's Greek #3340

metanoeō

1) to change one's mind, i.e. to repent
2) to change one's mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one's past sins
"Repentance (metanoia, 'change of mind') involves a turning with contrition from sin to God; the repentant sinner is in the proper condition to accept the divine forgiveness." (F. F. Bruce. The Acts of the Apostles [Greek Text Commentary], London: Tyndale, 1952, p. 97.)

From μετά (G3326) and νοέω (G3539) or "with mindfulness" (understanding)
meta
1) with, after, behind


noeō
1) to perceive with the mind, to understand, to have understanding
2) to think upon, heed, ponder, consider

​
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Except Jesus never preached in Greek.

The actual word used is probably: Teshuvah - it is not something unique to Christianity at all, and thus the Greek meaning is utterly irrelevant... just displaying the flaw in translations. I say Jesus and John intended it literally, but the whole Jewish context has been brought in. Jesus has died for your sin - committed and not-yet-committed - he goes beyond the simply law.

The law was perfectly good in creating the society, but now there is deliverance, now the burdens and punishments are taken away. Now it is simply to live in love, that is his whole law now, to grow your love, to be bursting with love to the extent you cannot help sharing it. Now what will the priest do though? No, there has to be a way to keep you coming, you are paying his bills, keeping him fed and roofed, his trade is at stake - same root as tradition, he is in the business of delusion, he needs you to depend on him, so he finds a way.

Jesus goes on cursing the priests, yet now the priests simply switched teams because there are more people willing to line his coffers if he discusses Jesus. The best way is to serve for confession, you tell them they have to confess to you and so they must come.
 
Lunitik said:
Except Jesus never preached in Greek.

The actual word used is probably: Teshuvah - it is not something unique to Christianity at all, and thus the Greek meaning is utterly irrelevant... just displaying the flaw in translations. I say Jesus and John intended it literally, but the whole Jewish context has been brought in. Jesus has died for your sin - committed and not-yet-committed - he goes beyond the simply law.

The law was perfectly good in creating the society, but now there is deliverance, now the burdens and punishments are taken away. Now it is simply to live in love, that is his whole law now, to grow your love, to be bursting with love to the extent you cannot help sharing it. Now what will the priest do though? No, there has to be a way to keep you coming, you are paying his bills, keeping him fed and roofed, his trade is at stake - same root as tradition, he is in the business of delusion, he needs you to depend on him, so he finds a way.

Jesus goes on cursing the priests, yet now the priests simply switched teams because there are more people willing to line his coffers if he discusses Jesus. The best way is to serve for confession, you tell them they have to confess to you and so they must come.
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The word used in the Aramaic Peshitta is twbw, which they have translated as "repent."
 
"but it is a rather solipsist argument (could be true, who cares, indifferent to comment)."

Lunitik said:
It is strange you say this, yet try to explain through your knowledge how what is perceived is actually a cosmos. Mind has made sense of it, thus it seems like a cosmos to you, but bring mind out and look at the randomness of everything. There are things which can be explained in a calculation, and yet what can genuinely be calculated? Once an asteroid has been observed, we can see what it is going. Can we say why it is going there? What has caused this projectory, why this asteroid even has occurred? It is all utterly random, but if we look backwards we can make sense of it - it has become involved in this gravitation, it has encountered this force, this is its weight, thus this is its destination. If we look it seems to make sense now, we forget that simply in this happening at all there is no logic - the presence of gravitation, the forces creating momentum, the mass accumulated along the way, none of it needed to be at all.
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See, you do not grok what I say at all. I am using “Kosmos” as a shorthand notation for everything that there is (was and will be). But these are neither physical nor mental things. The Kosmos is the sum total of all actual occasions or experiences. That’s all. It is your mind that cannot see the difference between that and your ideas of “knowledge”, “perception”, “mind”, and “sense”.

I take Kosmos as a given. Gravity and momentum and mass are experienced. No they do not have to be there, but given that they are I am glad that I can, oh, get out of the way of a toppling tree (gravity), can use an arm-swing to get out of a deep chair (momentum), and duck the greeting of a really obese friend (mass).

What I was referring to as solipsist was your comment that “the universe could still be in the big bang”. Yep, I cannot disprove it. Nor could Russell disprove an elderly lady’s claim that the world was made up of tortoises “all the way down”. Neither is falsifiable, but yet both make claims about the world which make them (a) pseudo-science (see Popper) and (b) the product of a mind willing only to admit it’s own version of reality (see solipsism).

Lunitik said:
We perceive cosmos where there is none because it feels better to find an answer, now we can rest in our knowledge. It is a trick of the mind, it never goes beyond what it cannot explain - it just is that way, or God made it that way - then we leave it alone. We never question our conclusions, we never ask why suddenly this makes sense to us. We feel we are no more a victim of randomness and that creates a comfort. Religiousness is to embrace that discomfort, to understand deeply that it is ok as it is, that there is no need to create a sense of security - and it is to know why there is no need.
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What you say is tautologically true if one accepts your premises that nothing exists. I do not, experiences are… in fact are all there are. There is no need for the kind of “monkey-mind” you exhibit (or at least appear to create to exhibit to do away with). You seem to be repeating a learned heuristic thus creating some strawman you can pull down. I do not believe in what you say is “cosmos” or “answer” or “knowledge” or “mind” or “explain” or “question” or “conclude” or “sense” or “comfort”. These are all words you are using to indicate something I never said.

What I have continually said is that I beleive but do not know (hence agnostic) that the Kosmos is given to us (the sum of all actual occasions including mine, yours, assuming you exist, my great-grandchildrens', Jesus', this atom's) so that we can redeem it (reunify all, including ourselves or our experiences) with it's source (that which is beyond, hence panentheistic). We (the Kosmos) are all boddisattas awakening ourself.
 
seattlegal said:
The word used in the Aramaic Peshitta is twbw, which they have translated as "repent."
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This doesn't even make sense "Straight, the kingdom of God is at hand".

Return, for me, is more meaningful because when combined with sin, it paints an accurate picture of truth. People go on missing the way home, and Jesus simply says Return! Do not go slowly, go this moment, return to the Source of your being.

I am not sure how your translation fits better, or whether you have even encountered truth and instead are letting the head come too much in.
 
radarmark said:
See, you do not grok what I say at all. I am using “Kosmos” as a shorthand notation for everything that there is (was and will be). But these are neither physical nor mental things. The Kosmos is the sum total of all actual occasions or experiences. That’s all. It is your mind that cannot see the difference between that and your ideas of “knowledge”, “perception”, “mind”, and “sense”.
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Then Kosmos is the name of your God.

For me, it is clear you have not encountered it directly, it is a concept.

radarmark said:
I take Kosmos as a given. Gravity and momentum and mass are experienced. No they do not have to be there, but given that they are I am glad that I can, oh, get out of the way of a toppling tree (gravity), can use an arm-swing to get out of a deep chair (momentum), and duck the greeting of a really obese friend (mass).
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Why are these things a given, why do you simply accept it is so? You have not stepped out of the normal experience, you have not tasted of the beyond, you accept what science says on the matter because it provides an answer for your mind. This is a blind belief, it is worse because it seems to match your experience - what if I told you that you are not, that you are an arising in something else, and that you are that something else in fact, you have merely forgotten and identified with this role? Things make sense here, but you are not of this place, I point to what you actually are... that is all I am concerned with.

Science is starting to enter something outside the normal experience, but up until now it has focused entirely on what you too experience so it is bound to agree with your experience. It has tried to explain the ordinary experiencing, and calculated the patterns of this place - that is all well and good, but now they are realizing it is all useless, and I agree with them.

radarmark said:
What I was referring to as solipsist was your comment that “the universe could still be in the big bang”. Yep, I cannot disprove it. Nor could Russell disprove an elderly lady’s claim that the world was made up of tortoises “all the way down”. Neither is falsifiable, but yet both make claims about the world which make them (a) pseudo-science (see Popper) and (b) the product of a mind willing only to admit it’s own version of reality (see solipsism).
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I have brought an example, intended to show how different the reality might be compared to what you perceive.

radarmark said:
What you say is tautologically true if one accepts your premises that nothing exists. I do not, experiences are… in fact are all there are. There is no need for the kind of “monkey-mind” you exhibit (or at least appear to create to exhibit to do away with). You seem to be repeating a learned heuristic thus creating some strawman you can pull down. I do not believe in what you say is “cosmos” or “answer” or “knowledge” or “mind” or “explain” or “question” or “conclude” or “sense” or “comfort”. These are all words you are using to indicate something I never said.
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I have never said nothing exists, all exists, I merely point out the nature of it - it is arising in your true mind, as are you as you currently perceive yourself. I simply say you can wake up, but you can remain sleeping too.

radarmark said:
What I have continually said is that I beleive but do not know (hence agnostic) that the Kosmos is given to us (the sum of all actual occasions including mine, yours, assuming you exist, my great-grandchildrens', Jesus', this atom's) so that we can redeem it (reunify all, including ourselves or our experiences) with it's source (that which is beyond, hence panentheistic). We (the Kosmos) are all boddisattas awakening ourself.
Click to expand...

I am awake.
 
radarmark said:
Learn some Aramaic...."sin" is to "stray", "repent" is to "straighten". Makes lots of sense. Use your head.
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It may make sense, but it loses any spiritual meaning, now it seems to say that you must return to the law...
 
seattlegal said:
Hey, admitting that you don't know my experience is a big improvement over your former assertions! :)
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I am quite certain you have not because you consistently miss things of value, always disputing things and trying to make them meaningless.
 
You are well read, but for me this is the very barrier currently to your attainment.
 
Lunitik said:
I am quite certain you have not because you consistently miss things of value, always disputing things and trying to make them meaningless.
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I question just about everything. It must be my scientific bent. Don't mistake my trying to find holes in theories as trying to make them meaningless. It's the scientific method of perfecting theories.
 
seattlegal said:
Good thing there are 88,000 dhamma doors! ;)

btw, you seem to have better resources than me for translating Aramaic. Would you mind sharing? :)
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Still, you must take off your shoes before entering - it is symbolic of worldly things, worldly learning, ego, it says to leave yourself outside.

I have no particular resource as it is not a particular interest of mine. I will link you to something that is very valuable though, instead. It contains many words of enlightened beings, it is a great source of beauty on the internet.
 
seattlegal said:
I question just about everything. It must be my scientific bent. Don't mistake my trying to find holes in theories as trying to make them meaningless. It's the scientific method of perfecting theories.
Click to expand...

Doubt will not assist in your spirituality, only trust can help.

You can find my words wrong according to this and that, but I am not trying to create a scholar in you, I am trying to show you truth. Facts are harmful to the truth, for instance, you can see a flower is beautiful, but nothing of the facts will tell you why.

Religion is something which integrates the brain, it means you have to have a flavor of poetry and logic. It is not a philosophy, it is not a theology, it is not a psychology; it is also not imagination or creativity. It is a perfect balance of everything, realizing how it is all linked perfectly, how it is all pointing in the same direction, and then it is to find what that direction points... it is the culmination of it all, but if you go in this direction or that, you have missed, you are heading away from it. It seems impossible, but all of the directions must be walked at once, only then do they converge, and that convergence is the "goal".

I put that in quotes because it is not a goal, it is merely to realize what has actually always been the case. It is more like remembering, just dropping all distractions and seeing what was all along, you cannot attain it, and it is not something gained, it is just that you have committed too much to the actor, you forget that it is just a movie.
 
God has convinced itself it is seattlegal, simply stop and look around...

Are you really just this body?
What of this thought? Do you not see you are the one listening to it?
Why continue giving thoughts you like any power, let alone the ones you don't?
You are all, just look and see, quiet the nonsense and realize what you are!
 
A prison is absolutely secure, but still it remains a prison.
Your identifications are that prison, but the door is not locked.
Break out, it is you who have created the prison, it is not real.
It will lack anything like security, you will be utterly vulnerable.
Still I say: leave it behind, see what you are.
Then what? Then you can rejoice in what you have done.
You can play in the garden you have created.
You can enjoy all that you have provided to make the experience rich.
Nothing is missing, you just celebrate with a new fragrance.
You drop automatically what is not important, you see they are obstacles you placed there.
You see how great the game is, how fun, but how many are unskilled?
The rules are there, but no one has mastered it.
What fun is the game when everyone is bad?
Now it is time to teach, dancing alone is not so much fun.
So many wrapped up in this and that, distracted.
Nothing is as fun when you are not so good, it is easier to stop at a square.
It is easy to understand, but still the game is fun and worth it.
Join in the dance.
 
Originally Posted by radarmark http://www.interfaith.org/forum/god-is-with-form-or-7816-post260200.html#post260200
See, you do not grok what I say at all. I am using “Kosmos” as a shorthand notation for everything that there is (was and will be). But these are neither physical nor mental things. The Kosmos is the sum total of all actual occasions or experiences. That’s all. It is your mind that cannot see the difference between that and your ideas of “knowledge”, “perception”, “mind”, and “sense”.

"Then Kosmos is the name of your God. For me, it is clear you have not encountered it directly, it is a concept."

I am not the one with the hang-up on words here. I believe that I stated Kosmos is the sum of all experiences. But pointed out G!d was more.

Originally Posted by radarmark http://www.interfaith.org/forum/god-is-with-form-or-7816-post260200.html#post260200
I take Kosmos as a given. Gravity and momentum and mass are experienced. No they do not have to be there, but given that they are I am glad that I can, oh, get out of the way of a toppling tree (gravity), can use an arm-swing to get out of a deep chair (momentum), and duck the greeting of a really obese friend (mass).

"Why are these things a given, why do you simply accept it is so? You have not stepped out of the normal experience, you have not tasted of the beyond, you accept what science says on the matter because it provides an answer for your mind. This is a blind belief, it is worse because it seems to match your experience - what if I told you that you are not, that you are an arising in something else, and that you are that something else in fact, you have merely forgotten and identified with this role? Things make sense here, but you are not of this place, I point to what you actually are... that is all I am concerned with."

I believe that when I defined Kosmos as” the sum total of all actual occasions "... I think that says I accept them. It is you judging that I have not “stepped out” and you postulating that I am somehow subservient to it. I certainly do not blindly accept science, as you intimate. My experience with science is much, much vaster yours. My experience is beyond science and the mundane you tend to get all wrapped around the axle with.

Science is starting to enter something outside the normal experience, but up until now it has focused entirely on what you too experience so it is bound to agree with your experience. It has tried to explain the ordinary experiencing, and calculated the patterns of this place - that is all well and good, but now they are realizing it is all useless, and I agree with them.

First of all, I challenge your use of “normal experience”. As the Tathagatha said, it is our experience that is normal and our understanding that is flawed. And (again) I said nothing of science in my post, it is you hung up on it. Science has its place as a model for what there may be physically and as a tool to develop physical solutions to experiential problems (medicine, genetics, environmental science, information science, quantum-enabled technologies). But isd does not address experience, what is, the Kosmos.


Originally Posted by radarmark http://www.interfaith.org/forum/god-is-with-form-or-7816-post260200.html#post260200
What I was referring to as solipsist was your comment that “the universe could still be in the big bang”. Yep, I cannot disprove it. Nor could Russell disprove an elderly lady’s claim that the world was made up of tortoises “all the way down”. Neither is falsifiable, but yet both make claims about the world which make them (a) pseudo-science (see Popper) and (b) the product of a mind willing only to admit it’s own version of reality (see solipsism).


I have brought an example, intended to show how different the reality might be compared to what you perceive.

The shortcoming is in your approach, which is what I meant with the term solipsist. I do not claim truth, but I know if what I experience is experience (“bare”, “unmediated”, “immediate” are words I have used elsewhere) then what you perceive as a “different” reality” from “what perceive”, neither can your claim be true.

Originally Posted by radarmark http://www.interfaith.org/forum/god-is-with-form-or-7816-post260200.html#post260200
What you say is tautologically true if one accepts your premises that nothing exists. I do not, experiences are… in fact are all there are. There is no need for the kind of “monkey-mind” you exhibit (or at least appear to create to exhibit to do away with). You seem to be repeating a learned heuristic thus creating some strawman you can pull down. I do not believe in what you say is “cosmos” or “answer” or “knowledge” or “mind” or “explain” or “question” or “conclude” or “sense” or “comfort”. These are all words you are using to indicate something I never said.

I have never said nothing exists, all exists, I merely point out the nature of it - it is arising in your true mind, as are you as you currently perceive yourself. I simply say you can wake up, but you can remain sleeping too.

"Chaos and cosmos are also a perception, your mind seeks to make sense of chaos and creates a cosmos - science has shown expectations of the observer affect the behavior of particles. What if we're actually still in the big bang and everything going on is merely a result of the explosion? Can you prove it is not so?" Is what you said. Hence, you are saying we could still be in the midst of the big bang. In the midst of a big bang (not that any of us has experienced that) no thing exists: only free energy and quarks in what is called a real hot plasma. That is pretty close to nothing. You can believe it. I believe in actual occasions, which no one besides you in this question ever said included being nothing.

What I was saying is that while it is possible that that could be the case (logically, just like logically gravity, momentum, and mass do not have to exist), I doubt it. Why? Well, if we still in plasma the temperature would be tens of thousands of degrees and there is no indication of that. If gravity is not an actual occasion, why do we not fly off into space or the Earth just rocket out away from the sun? If momentum is not an actual occasion why do we feel a curve as a result of centripetal force caused by changing the direction of our momentum? If mass is not an actual occasion why is it harder to lift a full-grown man than a just-born kitten? Seems to me that logic has lead you astray, and I cannot correct the error given what you say (solipsism) you believe is true.


Originally Posted by radarmark http://www.interfaith.org/forum/god-is-with-form-or-7816-post260200.html#post260200
What I have continually said is that I beleive but do not know (hence agnostic) that the Kosmos is given to us (the sum of all actual occasions including mine, yours, assuming you exist, my great-grandchildrens', Jesus', this atom's) so that we can redeem it (reunify all, including ourselves or our experiences) with it's source (that which is beyond, hence panentheistic). We (the Kosmos) are all boddisattas awakening ourself.

I am awake.

I do not claim that for myself and forgive me for not accepting that declaration of Divinity from yourself about yourself at face value.
 
The following question & Answer
is a Maxim that expresses
how knowledge is
passed down through the generations:

Q. "How do you KNOW who your real father is?"
A. "Ask your Mother"

IOW, knowledge is passed down through an unbroken chain of authorites, person to person.
 
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