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It is incredible in that way too. There is little difference between the God of Christ as I view it and the Oneness of the Vedanta. The idea of Oneness as espoused by Jesus is what you would call dualistic but I would call it realistic. He was trying to teach carnal-minded primitives about their actual spiritual nature. I experienced the Oneness and my individuality WAS subsumed within it, but NOT erased. Unfortunately, even today I have no way, as you say, to verbally explain it with the science I know which means the sages had zero chance of doing so, IMO. Their definitional workarounds are creative but unconvincing TO ME.
That proves you’ve never read the stuff attributed to Jesus. He was a lot more “fire and brimstone” than “nice Jewish hippy.”
A lot of people don't see the point in a god that is not omnipotent ... and in fact think that omnipotence is part of the definition, otherwise you just have a very powerful but still-limited being. It is hard, due to the longstanding influence of the Abrahamic faiths, to conceive of a god with limitations. Maybe that's because such a being isn't an all-purpose genie; you might need something it can't provide. Similarly if god is all powerful but not all loving, perhaps he could provide, but doesn't care to. Or if he is not omniscient, perhaps he could and would, but simply isn't aware. Also it's hard to imagine how an all-powerful god would know how to wield all power without unwanted side effects if it wasn't also all-knowing. Finally, omnibenevolence allows us to indulge in god-fantasies without concern that god might choose to be cruel to us.
That proves you’ve never read the stuff attributed to Jesus. He was a lot more “fire and brimstone” than “nice Jewish hippy.”
Of course, I have read it and recognized the interpretations were corrupted. Since Jesus's attitude and reactions during scourging and crucifixion match the consciousness I encountered, I believe that is the True Nature of God. I reject and reinterpret the misinterpreted and biased rendering by those who controlled the religious writings after His death and in the intervening "mists of time"!
When will people get hip to the FACT that our ancestors were superstitious primitives who feared a wrathful and vengeful God they believed they must OBEY OR ELSE! The personal and direct attitude and testimony of Jesus could not break their gestalt perception of God despite the extreme and unambiguous evidence of the Cross. Rather than change their belief about God, they just interpreted it consistent with their belief in a wrathful and vengeful God who needed to be appeased!!! We are a perverse species indeed!
I do. Spirituality is about connecting with something greater than yourself.
The "something greater than yourself" is not limited exclusively to god-things and originally it had nothing to do with god-things.
For me, I need to be in the woods or in the water (and I don't mean a swimming pool or a shower.)
The whole point of getting spiritual is to get grounded and the reason to be grounded is that you are in the present: the here-and-now.
Some people are hung up on the future which can generate anxiety and some ruminate in the past which can lead to depression and some do both, so being in the present keeps them out of the past and the future.
When I'm standing on a sand bar off Siesta Key playing with the skates, I'm in the present. The sea is expansive which puts problems into context, and the skates are beautiful docile creatures, but more importantly, I'm experiencing life and enjoying it.
If I'm not near a sea I go to the woods and just sit and listen. You'd be surprised what you can hear, and see: a fox, a badger, chipmunks, all kinds of birds and other critters. It has the same basic effect.
Religious people claim a monopoly on spirituality because that's part of their neurosis.
They falsely believe that a god-thing gives them spirituality which makes them special so if unbelievers are spiritual then they would be special, too, and that generates a lot of angst for the religious.
I am glad for you for your experience, whatever it is, if it gives whatever it is that you are seeking.
The spirituality that Advaita addresses has nothing to do with experience, psychedelics or not. It is about understanding that your true nature, self, is not your body, not your intellect, not your mind and its powerful thoughts, not your ego that drives your action. It is the awareness of these experiences, the understanding that awareness is the only true thing about the self, and this aware witness-consciousness does not act, because of it you, the experiencer, know the changes happening to you. And that what the self is pure existence, knowledge, abundance, always illuminating, here and now, and always.
A lot of people don't see the point in a god that is not omnipotent ... and in fact think that omnipotence is part of the definition, otherwise you just have a very powerful but still-limited being. It is hard, due to the longstanding influence of the Abrahamic faiths, to conceive of a god with limitations. Maybe that's because such a being isn't an all-purpose genie; you might need something it can't provide. Similarly if god is all powerful but not all loving, perhaps he could provide, but doesn't care to. Or if he is not omniscient, perhaps he could and would, but simply isn't aware. Also it's hard to imagine how an all-powerful god would know how to wield all power without unwanted side effects if it wasn't also all-knowing. Finally, omnibenevolence allows us to indulge in god-fantasies without concern that god might choose to be cruel to us.
Excellent explanation of the human wishful thinking that created the "Omnis" mordant. Ironically, you and other atheists seem to recognize the unwarranted attribution of the Omnis to God and prefer a basically unknown seemingly random, indifferent, deterministic, cause/effect source of our Reality. I can understand the preference over the Omnis but not the acceptance of a middle-of-the-road nihilism a la Nietzsche.
The UNWARRANTED expectations about God from religious wishful thinking and beliefs have been and frequently still are the prime source of significant human suffering and misery (not to mention disbelief in God). Theodicy and the "red in tooth and claw" nature of Reality certainly caused me significant angst and confusion during my decades-long efforts to understand the God I encountered. Our experienced physical Reality is so incongruent with the God I encountered.
So, on one hand God is not objective and on another it is state of being (I don't involve state of non-being b/c it is incoherent), which is objective.
Thus, god is objective and not objective at the same time?
This is as perfect contradiction as it gets.
It is as incoherent as "state of non-being".
How would you explain that?
Not objective because as Consciousness, God is not an object, not a "being" but a Conscious energy that is the platform of all matter. Cohesion is a false argument, because God is the state of cohesion.
Not objective because as Consciousness, God is not an object, not a "being" but a Conscious energy that is the platform of all matter. Cohesion is a false argument, because God is the state of cohesion.
Did you just make that up? Or did you mean confusion?
Sounds like a hallucination to me. It’s a known phenomenon.
If you said the sky is blue and I said that sounds like a hallucination would it mean anything to you? Would it shake your confidence in what you experienced as the sky's color? Would it make even less sense if I was blind?
It is incredible in that way too. There is little difference between the God of Christ as I view it and the Oneness of the Vedanta. The idea of Oneness as espoused by Jesus is what you would call dualistic but I would call it realistic. He was trying to teach carnal-minded primitives about their actual spiritual nature. I experienced the Oneness and my individuality WAS subsumed within it, but NOT erased. Unfortunately, even today I have no way, as you say, to verbally explain it with the science I know which means the sages had zero chance of doing so, IMO. Their definitional workarounds are creative but unconvincing TO ME.
Perhaps it's just a difference between knowing and explaining? The Rishis claimed knowledge of God with explanation through analogy and metaphor because God eludes direct and objective explanation. Back to the OP God is subjective experience, in fact the One and only Subject. God is not a thing. As Swami Vivekananda said "Everything is not. God alone Is".
For me this verse from the Kena Upanishad is particularly pertinent.
II. The disciple said: I do not think I know It well, nor do I think that I do not know It. He among us who knows It truly, knows (what is meant by) "I know" and also what is meant by "I know It not."
This appears to be contradictory, but it is not. In the previous chapter we learned that Brahman is "distinct from the known" and "beyond the unknown." The disciple, realizing this, says: "So far as mortal conception is concerned, I do not think I know, because I understand that It is beyond mind and speech; yet from the higher point of view, I cannot say that I do not know; for the very fact that I exist, that I can seek It, shows that I know; for It is the source of my being. I do not know, however, in the sense of knowing the whole Infinite Ocean of existence." The word knowledge is used ordinarily to signify acquaintance with phenomena only, but man must transcend this relative knowledge before he can have a clear conception of God. One who wishes to attain Soul-consciousness must rise above matter.
Last edited by JustASimpleGuy; 05-25-2023 at 01:43 AM..
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