Transcending Theism

[Orbit]

I do believe the Ultimate reality is Love. Most definitely.

Now this is a provocative statement. The question underneath it concerns the nature of reality. How can the ultimate reality be love, since love is a human emotion? Or is this just a human reality? If so, it is not ultimate. Even when I'm in a mystic state and have felt universal love, it's still a human feeling. Or do you mean love transcends humanity (how?) and is defined as something else? To say love is the ultimate reality requires a precise definition of love. This interests me.

 

The boy says, "Indras before you. I have seen them come and go, come and go.... There may be wise men in your court who would volunteer to count the drops of water in the oceans or the grains of sand on the beaches, but no one would count those Brahmin, let alone those Indras."...And so the boy points to the ants and says, "Former Indras all.Through many lifetimes they rise from the lowest conditions to the highest illumination. And then they drop their thunderbolt on a monster, and they think, 'What a good boy am I.' And down they go again.

So is reality a series of universe-bubbles? A cyclic universe? Or is this a metaphor for the wheel of Samsara?

 

While the boy was talking, an army of ants parades across the floor. The boy laughs when he sees them, and Indra's hair stands on end, and he says to the boy, "Why do you laugh?" The boy answers, "Don't ask unless you are willing to be hurt."

This is puzzling. Why would the answer hurt?

 

I like the visualization of universes being created and dying, and then another, and another, and another. The pain of our suffering is to envision ourselves as indispensable as this form, to see ourselves separate, unique, and ultimate, "What a good boy am I". We are loved, because we are Love. Death and life are part of the system of being, but that is not our ultimate reality. That Core is. The eternal. People talk of the afterlife, but I see that there is only Life. And that Life is in this form, this body of mine which changes, grows, flourishes, gives, and dies. But that is not Life defined and when it is gone the universe for me is no more. I am the Universe. So are you. We exist before the Big Bang, before and beyond all time. And this is knowable to us as it is who we are. It is who we are now and always.

That was quite beautiful.

 

I suppose the question of the nature of reality is actually quite central here. What do we apprehend when we meditate? Is that reality? Does each state of consciousness have its own reality? Is this postmodernism writ large, with multiple, overlapping realities? What does it mean to become the Absolute? Is it possible for the intellectual mind to make some sense of this?

[♦ nivek ♦]

 

 

 

 

I posted this on Facebook today, and so I put it up for discussion.

 

"Question: Are you serious? Would you tell a Westerner to repeat 'Om' or 'Ram' or 'Hare Krishna' ceaselessly, though he lacks completely the faith and conviction born of the right cultural and religious background. Without confidence and fervor, repeating mechanically the same sounds,

will he ever achieve anything?

Nisargdatta Maharaj : Why not? It is the urge, the hidden motive that matters, not the shape it takes. Whatever he does, if he does it for the sake of finding his own real self, will surely bring him to himself.

Q: No need of faith in the efficacy of the means?

M: No need of faith which is but expectation of results. Here the action only counts. Whatever you do for the sake of truth, will take you to truth. Only be earnest and honest. The shape it takes hardly matters.

Q: Then where is the need of giving expression to one's longing?

M: No need. Doing nothing is as good. Mere longing, undiluted by thought and action, pure, concentrated longing, will take you speedily to your goal. It is the true motive that matters, not the manner.

Q: Unbelievable! How can dull repetition in boredom verging on despair, be effective?

M: The very facts of repetition, of struggling on and on and of endurance and perseverance, in spite of boredom and despair and complete lack of conviction are really crucial. They are not important by themselves, but the sincerity behind them is all-important. There must be a push from within and pull from without.

Q: My questions are typical of the West. There people think in terms of cause and effect, means and goals. They do not see what causal connection can there be between a particular word and the Absolute Reality.

M: None whatsoever. But there is a connection between the word and its meaning, between the action and its motive. Spiritual practice is will asserted and re-asserted. Who has not the daring will not accept the real even when offered. Unwillingness born out of fear is the only obstacle."

 

NSM

Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

 

 

Interesting read Deva, even if my minor understanding lacks ability to comprehend the most minor portions of quote.

 

kL

[Deva]

Thank you KL. 

 

When I posted that on Facebook, a couple of my friends there said that really what it was saying is that the only thing that really matters is your true intention and motive and the actual form the religious practice takes is unimportant. 

 

That probably sums it up.

[Antlerman]

 

I posted this on Facebook today, and so I put it up for discussion.

"Question: Are you serious? Would you tell a Westerner to repeat 'Om' or 'Ram' or 'Hare Krishna' ceaselessly, though he lacks completely the faith and conviction born of the right cultural and religious background. Without confidence and fervor, repeating mechanically the same sounds,

will he ever achieve anything?

Nisargdatta Maharaj : Why not? It is the urge, the hidden motive that matters, not the shape it takes. Whatever he does, if he does it for the sake of finding his own real self, will surely bring him to himself.

Q: No need of faith in the efficacy of the means?

M: No need of faith which is but expectation of results. Here the action only counts. Whatever you do for the sake of truth, will take you to truth. Only be earnest and honest. The shape it takes hardly matters.

Q: Then where is the need of giving expression to one's longing?

M: No need. Doing nothing is as good. Mere longing, undiluted by thought and action, pure, concentrated longing, will take you speedily to your goal. It is the true motive that matters, not the manner.

Q: Unbelievable! How can dull repetition in boredom verging on despair, be effective?

M: The very facts of repetition, of struggling on and on and of endurance and perseverance, in spite of boredom and despair and complete lack of conviction are really crucial. They are not important by themselves, but the sincerity behind them is all-important. There must be a push from within and pull from without.

Q: My questions are typical of the West. There people think in terms of cause and effect, means and goals. They do not see what causal connection can there be between a particular word and the Absolute Reality.

M: None whatsoever. But there is a connection between the word and its meaning, between the action and its motive. Spiritual practice is will asserted and re-asserted. Who has not the daring will not accept the real even when offered. Unwillingness born out of fear is the only obstacle."

 

NSM

Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

 

Interesting read Deva, even if my minor understanding lacks ability to comprehend the most minor portions of quote.

 

kL

 

They're valid points that says in a good way what I've been saying about intentionality. What makes the difference is not what one believes in, what object of faith it is, but rather what your own intention is that you put on that. Through symbolic representation, it allows us to engage with our own inner selves and it brings it to the conscious mind for us to get to know. In other words, it's not the object of faith in this or that form, deity figure, believe etc, but engaging faith itself, regardless of the object of faith. The mantra or deity figure becomes something you use to engage the faith itself, which is the point of any religious devotion or practice.

 

For someone having left the Christian system on a negative note those Christian symbols may have become too polluted to be effective to them any more in that regard, and so finding something from another culture to replace that role they served that doesn't have the baggage can be perfectly valid, despite the fact they don't have the cultural significance to them not having grown up where Krishna or Shiva for instance are part of their own cultural psyche. If someone is engaging with them with their own intentionality towards spiritual realization, its not Krishna that is doing it for them as some god outside themselves, but themselves awakening themselves through the object of faith, engaging their own faith (that's how it works in all religious practices). So there is efficacy in other forms, even if they are not those of your own culture.

 

It's really my argument, and frankly what I've done myself in many regards, is to find something I can engaged with that engages that baby from the bathwater of my own religious past. Being a bit wiser these days, they're understood not a literal gods and whatnot who are there to rescue you, but they are understood as tools you use for your own spiritual work. At the point of realizing your own spirituality in its heights and depths, they are no longer necessary tools for that person. That's what he's getting at in that dialog above.

[Antlerman]

I had this come to mind I recalled reading that fits this point of intentionality and function perfectly. It was in this book I picked up at a used bookstore that grabbed my attention on Chanting, by Robert Gass who pretty much introduced the West to chant and mantra a number of decades ago.

 

He relays this story of this old woman he met, I believe living in New York, who was like in her late 80's or something. She was always happy, and fully of energy, rarely sick, and so forth. She told him it was because years ago she had learned a Sanskrit word that she chanted every day for decades. She believed the sacred word had powers. Her sacred "Sanskrit" word? "Cherokee". She chanted it with faith and intention and it had a powerful effect for her, altering her life. Of course the word is not a Hindu Sanskrit word at all, but the name of a Native America tribe!

 

The point is it is what we imbue the symbol with from within us, along with the actual tools of practice, such as mantra chants and rituals, that have a psycho-spiritual effect. It's entirely valid practice, regardless of whether it is literally true or not. It's symbolically true, and that's enough.

 

Interesting story, I felt.

[♦ nivek ♦]

Interesting thought how a single word might change a persons life and perspective. 
Oft repeated, "..if it makes ya happy.." seems what the elderly lady heard as cherokee worked for her rather well.

 

Simply put from my perspective, "I'll be dammed!"

 

kL

[Antlerman]

Interesting thought how a single word might change a persons life and perspective. 

Oft repeated, "..if it makes ya happy.." seems what the elderly lady heard as cherokee worked for her rather well.

 

Simply put from my perspective, "I'll be dammed!"

 

kL

It works kind of along the lines of positive thinking. If you think with positive thoughts and intentions, it affects your attitudes, which affects your actions, which affects your health and happiness, and so forth. On the opposite side, if you dwell on negative things, repeating them to yourself in your mind over and over like a chant (ruminating - picking at a scab over and over, 'I'm ugly, I'm stupid, I'm not likable, I can't do this, I'll fail, etc.), it will affect you negatively with stress, anxiety, depression, etc. It goes like this thought > emotion > mindset > attitude > behavior.

 

This leads me to bring up the subject of CBT, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and how it is like the fist baby steps of what goes on in meditation. It follows suit, where I describe meditation as CBT on steroids. I'll put some thoughts together for a post on that, either in this thread another one. The one point I'll add here is that at its core it recognizes the above process works as a feedback loop: the negative thought creates a negative emotion, which loops back to reinforce and amplify the negative thought, which amplifies the emotions, which validate the thoughts as reality because you are experiencing them as truth, which amplifies the thoughts, etc, etc. And down you go in a spiralling decent into depression. The opposite is true, that to change how one sees the same thing and interpret it positively, leads to positive emotion, leads to positive reinforcement, etc in an upward spiral. We are what we think. We become what we think.

 

You can see where this really takes off in meditation....

[Neverlandrut]

I haven't read all of this Orbit/Antlerman convo, but what I have read looks like it is running into a problem of language. It's always helpful to keep in mind that when we say something is or is not XYZ, we are attempting a description using words which have multiple meanings and connotations. There is always the question of how accurate our descriptions are. When it comes to questions of psychology and consciousness, we deal in relatively new descriptions based on a very limited understanding (compared to other areas of scientific study).

[Antlerman]

 

I do believe the Ultimate reality is Love. Most definitely.

Now this is a provocative statement. The question underneath it concerns the nature of reality. How can the ultimate reality be love, since love is a human emotion? Or is this just a human reality? If so, it is not ultimate. Even when I'm in a mystic state and have felt universal love, it's still a human feeling. Or do you mean love transcends humanity (how?) and is defined as something else? To say love is the ultimate reality requires a precise definition of love. This interests me.

 

You ask several questions in this. I'll start with the use of the word Love. Note I used the capitalized letter in both cases? I'm distinguishing it from the emotion. I'm using it to describe the experience of the Absolute not in the relative sense, such as the difference between Truth and truth. Love is more than just an emotion, and Truth is more than just an idea or a proposition about a set of data. It is a condition of being, like Peace. One can be centered in Peace, even in the midst of experiencing emotional turmoil. One can know Love even in the midst of rage.

 

I think the best way to describe that is experiencing a dual-reality, the Absolute and the relative at the same time. If all someone ever knows is the relative, then to say Love with a capital L may sound just like a bigger version of the relative state of human emotion, more love, more loving, more emotion, bursting at the seams with happiness, etc (all of which can occur as responses to this). But I mean to convey the unconditional Ground, and Love is that Source, that energetic Womb which brings forth life into the relative, which is itself not an experience, not an emotion, not a response. It is the Creative energy of all realities at its ground. Emptiness.

 

I choose relative words and capitalize them like Love, Life, Peace, Ground, Being, Freedom, Mind, Consciousness, etc to push the relative understandings we hold in our minds as objects we can identify, like emotions or thoughts, and expand them beyond those limited definitions. They are good words to use, because the understanding of the mind in interpreting That after the fact looks for words to express the inexpressible. What is it when someone experiences human love? It is not merely what is experienced within, but from without. It is an expression of the other, it is an outflowing from within, it is the heart of being, it is creativity, life giving, exchange, intercouse, mutual creation, etc.

 

It is Peace, in that it is undisturbed unconditional, unmoved, pure, from which all being bursts forth in an expression of That in ceaseless movement (again, I can find no words). These words are metaphysical. But they are not metaphysical in the sense of speculative thought about the transcendent or the Absolute, but are rather descriptive language after the fact, to express and actual apprehension, not mere ideas. They express Truth itself, of which all relative truths come into being.

 

Does it transcend humanity? I would say of course yes. Our descriptions of it of course are not how the wolf would describe it! They have a different language set. Any words describing it will remain relative to our human form, even if we expand that understanding as far as it can go in our bodies. Anytime we enter into putting thoughts to it, it is no longer That which is the Ground of all Being, in which the wolf the owl, the rock, the tree, the sun, the stars, and all matter share common Source. Resting in Emptiness, is to know Reality without words. And in the sense, we all share that within us, and are that in relative forms. We can know that directly within ourselves.

 

 

This is all I have time for this morning. Feel free to respond, and I'll maybe pick up some other thoughts from the rest later as I come back to look at it again. Don't wait necessarily for that.

[Orbit]

I do believe the Ultimate reality is Love. Most definitely.

I'm using it to describe the experience of the Absolute not in the relative sense, such as the difference between Truth and truth.

So what we have here is a metaphysical definition of reality. If we want to send a rocket to the moon, this definition of reality doesn't help us much. But if we want to describe inner space, so to speak, it is valuable. Remember I talked about having a "two-spheres" epistemology, and you mentioned dual magesterium? This is the reason that I have that framework in my head; it makes what I see as a necessarily practical separation between the physical and the metaphysical.

 

Does this mean that I don't see connections between the two? No. It just means that the epistemologies are less tangled if they are dealt with separately. It's a conceptual convenience.

 

Another interesting idea you bring up is the limits of the use of words. When I am at conferences, say in a session on symbolic interactionism, and the subject of reality comes up, I am often labeled a "Pragmatist" in the discussion. That's because I am not so much concerned with "what is true" as I am concerned with "what is useful". This speaks back to your story about the Cherokee mantra. It didn't need to be true to be real. This is symbolic, relative, reality, and unless we are engaged in a scientific enterprise, this is the level of thinking that we live our lives on.

 

It seems you are saying that when we are in a mystic state that we are experiencing the true Reality. From a metaphysical perspective, that is a nice thought. How indeed to make sense of these experiences? I like your turn of phrase where you say "describing That after the fact" which is exactly what describing a mystic experience is. Approximations are all we get; and as Neverlandrut pointed out, issues with language. It doesn't stop me from trying, however, because these are the most interesting experiences a human can have, and we have to try and describe them to each other, sometimes if only to know that we aren't anomalies.

[Antlerman]

 

While the boy was talking, an army of ants parades across the floor. The boy laughs when he sees them, and Indra's hair stands on end, and he says to the boy, "Why do you laugh?" The boy answers, "Don't ask unless you are willing to be hurt."

This is puzzling. Why would the answer hurt?

 

Because Indra viewed himself as all-important. He was the master of the world, conquering the monster that threatened the earth. "What a great boy am I," he says in his growing view of self-importance. So as he sees the ants parade forth as is curious, he is told by the boy not to ask unless he's willing to be hurt. The reason he would be hurt is because they are all former Indras like him, who became self-important and shown to be but ants in the grand scheme of things. That's why the analogy fits that when we see the events of the world as either for us or against us, we place ourselves as the all-important center. It's a case of mistaken self-identity.

 

I suppose the question of the nature of reality is actually quite central here. What do we apprehend when we meditate? Is that reality?

Of course. I like to give this analogy. Is the state of conscious awareness of a 5 year old the same as a 50 year old in their apprehension of the world as they look out of their eyes? Is it the same reality to them? Is it a different reality they are seeing? Then can it be said that the reality of the 50 year is more inclusive that that of the 5 year old, that it includes but transcends the perception of the 5 year old into his own perception since he once was 5 himself?

 

What we apprehend in meditation, or better stated what reality becomes to us at all times as a result of a meditation practice, we are essentially expanding our awareness through wider and deeper openings of our conscious awareness into life. This is very different than just acquiring head-knowledge, knowing a lot of stuff, learning science and things. It is a perceptual shift that happens as what does through stages of growth. Meditation practice accelerates growth. That shift in perceptual awareness, like that of the 50 year old compared to the 20 year old, compared to the 5 year old, is a new set of eyes that transcend but include the previous modes of awareness. So what happens is, yes we are seeing the same reality. It's just understood through a set of eyes informed through repeated exposure to these higher states of consciousness (higher inasmuch as they include but transcend the previous states).

 

Our understanding of truth and reality becomes something beyond where we began. I can definitively say there is a radical shift for me in just the last 5 years and how I live in my mind and body and how I see and experience the world. It can simply be summarized as a radical growth for me, and I make a clear distinction between that and just learning more stuff, getting smarter about things through study and all that. It's not just more knowledge, but a different mind, an operating system upgrade to a new version, not just a version update, to use a technology metaphor.

 

But I want to make a point here that what can be encountered in meditation may seem magical, or 'other worldly' (hence was someone operating at the mythic level sees these very literally, a literal encounter with an angel, and whatnot). Those are not reality, but a symbolic representation of reality. At a certain point in meditation those no longer arise, or are less important to the path.

 

All of the stages in meditation are about exposing the greater mind of awareness we already have and teaching us what I'd call a familiarity with ourselves, beyond the masks we put on every morning when we look into the mirror. We are becoming familiar with this, and learning to integrate that, putting off the old, growing beyond the face of that child in the mirror we see as ourselves. Eventually, we wake up. We integrate, we mature, we get an OS upgrade. The point is all such phenomena are part of the process, not reality itself. And in fact, the same can be said of all of 'normal' reality we think we can know by analyzing the data with the mind, which itself is part of the illusion. All such phenomenal experience is about self-awakening. Not getting stuck in the illusion is key.

 

Does each state of consciousness have its own reality?

It has its own framework within which it interfaces reality to the person. Is there an ultimate state of consciousness? Ultimately, potentially not. But the highest state known today in human experience is the nondual. Experiencing that and living in that at all times are two different things.

 

Is this postmodernism writ large, with multiple, overlapping realities?

This is what I love about postmodernism, is that it comes much closer to seeing this just by virtue of rational understanding. I love postmodernism in that it touches against what the mystics have said for ages. It deconstructs the illusions created by modernity (though it can be argued it is itself part of modernity in reaction to itself). But it can't take the next step by reasoning alone. I think I'd like to hear more of an explanation of what you mean by overlapping realities before I dig deeper in a response. The question intrigues me.

 

What does it mean to become the Absolute?

To become Self aware.

 

Is it possible for the intellectual mind to make some sense of this?

Yes, to some limited degree. But the map of the terrain is not the terrain itself.

[Orbit]

 

Is this postmodernism writ large, with multiple, overlapping realities?

This is what I love about postmodernism, is that it comes much closer to seeing this just by virtue of rational understanding.... I think I'd like to hear more of an explanation of what you mean by overlapping realities before I dig deeper in a response. The question intrigues me.

 

I actually mean it quite literally. Because our truths are partial, the only way to see the Truth is too look at all those overlapping partialities. Reality is a mosaic of subjective truths, at least the metaphysical reality that we can know.

[Antlerman]

 

 

Is this postmodernism writ large, with multiple, overlapping realities?

This is what I love about postmodernism, is that it comes much closer to seeing this just by virtue of rational understanding.... I think I'd like to hear more of an explanation of what you mean by overlapping realities before I dig deeper in a response. The question intrigues me.

 

I actually mean it quite literally. Because our truths are partial, the only way to see the Truth is too look at all those overlapping partialities. Reality is a mosaic of subjective truths, at least the metaphysical reality that we can know.

 

Well, I half agree with that. I don't believe we see Truth with a capital T, as that would imply it is an objective point of view. You cannot exclude the subject. And knowledge of the Subject informs all points of view from that set of eyes. The dimmer the eyes, the dimmer reality. I do not believe it is solely a matter of taking another person's perspective and trying to find yourself within those through your views, even though that approach is highly desirable and informative. It's more than that.

[Orbit]

 

 

 

Is this postmodernism writ large, with multiple, overlapping realities?

This is what I love about postmodernism, is that it comes much closer to seeing this just by virtue of rational understanding.... I think I'd like to hear more of an explanation of what you mean by overlapping realities before I dig deeper in a response. The question intrigues me.

 

I actually mean it quite literally. Because our truths are partial, the only way to see the Truth is too look at all those overlapping partialities. Reality is a mosaic of subjective truths, at least the metaphysical reality that we can know.

 

Well, I half agree with that. I don't believe we see Truth with a capital T, as that would imply it is an objective point of view. You cannot exclude the subject. And knowledge of the Subject informs all points of view from that set of eyes. The dimmer the eyes, the dimmer reality. I do not believe it is solely a matter of taking another person's perspective and trying to find yourself within those through your views, even though that approach is highly desirable and informative. It's more than that.

 

Of course we can never see all those partialities, so it is indeed impossible. But we can get closer to the Truth by taking into account as many subjectivities as possible. It's a matter of approximation. All models are imperfect.

[Orbit]

he said stuff...

To revive this, if it will stand a revival, I'd like to introduce a new direction. As I navigate the post-God terrain, I find that the God concept has some negative baggage, but also some extremely positive baggage. But if all I know about God comes from a Bible that I reject, how do these mental conceptions survive? How can I simultaneously believe and not believe? Because if I accept the positive aspects of the God legacy, that's still God legacy. Thoughts?

[TrueFreedom]

I still get a kick out of the decontructive double entendre of continental philosophy, pyrotheology, and death of god theopoetics.  Your mileage may vary. 

[Orbit]

I still get a kick out of the decontructive double entendre of continental philosophy, pyrotheology, and death of god theopoetics.  Your mileage may vary. 

It is a singular joy.

[TrueFreedom]

I still get a kick out of the decontructive double entendre of continental philosophy, pyrotheology, and death of god theopoetics.  Your mileage may vary. 

I should have been more specific.  I'm not qualified to summarize or explain their ideas, but I will attempt to provide an oversimplification which might spark your interest in the sources.  Derrida used theological language in clever ways to describe post-enlightenment ideas.  John D. Caputo has expanded and provided some clarification for some of those ideas.  Though I find the poetry inspiring, it asks more questions than it answers.  It feels to me a bit like an extension of Nietschze's death of God speach from The Gay Science:

 

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

 

Caputo's response is to propose "God, perhaps" and a reconfiguration of what is meant by God.  He proposes religious language to describe the temporal and material, a grace of the world, a temporary salvation by a faith that does not keep us safe, a momentary resurrection.  "....transcendence happens as the immanence of transcendence in immanence, on this side, this life, this mortal life."

[TrueFreedom]

I'm trying to embrace the world loosely and approach it's traditions and established ideas as comforting but temporary entities worthy of both appreciation and deconstruction.  It's a choice for me at the moment between nihilism and artistry.  I'm not sure whether or not I would be happier to find a resting place.  For now, I feel that I need to keep moving.

[Orbit]

I should have been more specific.  I'm not qualified to summarize or explain their ideas, but I will attempt to provide an oversimplification which might spark your interest in the sources.  Derrida used theological language in clever ways to describe post-enlightenment ideas.

I'm not aware of Derrida using theological language. There is one publication "On Spirit" but that is spirit "geist" in the philosophical, not theological sense. I'm afraid I need a summary, or a quote to respond to.

 

Caputo's response is to propose "God, perhaps" and a reconfiguration of what is meant by God.  He proposes religious language to describe the temporal and material, a grace of the world, a temporary salvation by a faith that does not keep us safe, a momentary resurrection.  "....transcendence happens as the immanence of transcendence in immanence, on this side, this life, this mortal life."

What does he mean by "God, perhaps"? That there is perhaps no God? Or that what he describes is perhaps God? I need more detail to respond as I'm not familiar with him. What exactly is his reconfiguration of God?

 

It sounds like there are some interesting ideas here if we can tease them out.

 

Now this is interesting. Is this what you were talking about? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction_and_religion

[TrueFreedom]

 

Now this is interesting. Is this what you were talking about? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction_and_religion

 

Yes, and they have no intention of making it more accessible.  "Why is it the philosopher who is expected to be easier and not some scientist who is even more inaccessible?" - Jacques Derrida

 

I wish that I could summarize Caputo's "God, perhaps" concept.  He spent an entire book on it but never simplified it.  My oversimplification is that it's a posture of inclusive humility and deconstructive reinvention, awaiting what future generations will mean when they use the term.

[Neverlandrut]

What's interesting to me about the whole god concept is that it represents an urge in humanity to be on a journey, to reach for a goal. But the irony is that our fulfillment does not come from achieving the goal, but from pursuing it. God is an ideal that we can never achieve. If we ever did, it would cease to be god. The joy, the eternity, the salvation is in the chase, and never catching it.

[Neverlandrut]

We have a primal need to reach for that which is just beyond our grasp. There is virtue in accepting the world as it is, but we grow bored with that all too quickly. We are not satisfied with what is. We must know more, seek more, and be more. We will never get there, because the point is not the destination. The point is the journey.

[Antlerman]

What's interesting to me about the whole god concept is that it represents an urge in humanity to be on a journey, to reach for a goal. But the irony is that our fulfillment does not come from achieving the goal, but from pursuing it. God is an ideal that we can never achieve. If we ever did, it would cease to be god. The joy, the eternity, the salvation is in the chase, and never catching it.

There are truths in this, but I think it can be refined a little. God does represent the goal, a return to Source that we strive towards as it were, and a great deal is unmasked within us through that effort which of course has its benefits and rewards. It is also true that one can never achieve God. But one can never achieve what you already are, you simply come to a place where you realize it. At which point God does cease to be God to us as the goal, but becomes us and we God. It is not that there is no God anymore, but that yourself and God are no longer subject and object, but the very same. God as external object becomes both the subject and object of yourself. So it is God as solely an object that ceases to be your perceived reality. There is both God and no-God simultaneously, and terms like theism and atheism are no longer relevant. It is no longer the same question, no longer the same playing field. The answer is 'of course'. You could call this trans-theism, and trans-atheism both.

 

I find the expression, "I and my Father are one", to say exactly this dual realization. That's something anyone can say, not by saying God doesn't exist because it doesn't fit with rational ideas, but in realizing we are God in our Being. We are the eternal, and the eternal us. We are form and formlessness, and at that realization these become both indistinct and distinct at once. One does not exist without the other, just as music does not exist without silence. But if all we ever look at is the notes, we do not see the field upon which they are played, even though it is there the whole time. Becoming both the notes and the backdrop of no-notes is what makes us the music. Emptiness and form. This is the nondual.

 

I would disagree that the joy and the salvation is in the chase. Rather it is in letting go of the chase and simply relaxing into what you already are. The saying, "seek and you shall find" is paradoxically fulfilled in seeking to not seek, at which point we find what was there the whole time. It when the looking ends that you become what you have been all along, that God you seek. It's is ceasing to strive and falling into yourself that you find what you were seeking. This is not the same as just giving up in the sense of apathy or disbelief in becoming more that what we've got in what we already have. It's not in just resigning to our ego-self and trying to get by. That's not what is meant by ceasing our strivings. It is active in seeking to move beyond ourselves and our strivings to achieve a goal seen as outside ourselves, and it is also passive in letting go and becoming who we truly are before and beyond the masks we put on which we self-identify with by allow what is already there to become known to us. It is the action of seeking non-action. We seek to not seek. The effortless effort.

[Orbit]

I would disagree that the joy and the salvation is in the chase. Rather it is in letting go of the chase and simply relaxing into what you already are. The saying, "seek and you shall find" is paradoxically fulfilled in seeking to not seek, at which point we find what was there the whole time. It when the looking ends that you become what you have been all along, that God you seek. It's is ceasing to strive and falling into yourself that you find what you were seeking. This is not the same as just giving up in the sense of apathy or disbelief in becoming more that what we've got in what we already have. It's not in just resigning to our ego-self and trying to get by. That's not what is meant by ceasing our strivings. It is active in seeking to move beyond ourselves and our strivings to achieve a goal seen as outside ourselves, and it is also passive in letting go and becoming who we truly are before and beyond the masks we put on which we self-identify with by allow what is already there to become known to us. It is the action of seeking non-action. We seek to not seek. The effortless effort.

Just a quick response. This is all beautifully put, but the part about not striving really connects with me today. To borrow a phrase from Alan Watts, it's like beating a drum in search of a fugitive. To do it right is like playing music; you can't do it if you try. It's wu wei, doing-not doing. It's then that you're in the flow, and nothing has to make sense, because everything is *right*. Stop looking, and you will find it.

I need to get back to trusting myself more in this area.

 

EDIT: Adding to this here after meditating on wu-wei:

 

I have this presence in my consciousness,"the watcher" as some call it who write about these things. I have always defined this as God for lack of a better term, but it operates as pure instinct, guiding and protecting me. It is my inner self, unknown to me, but knowing more than me. It knows what to do when I don't, and I listen to it without reservation. It has more than once saved my life. When I am in tune with it, all is wu-wei.

 

See how that hooks into the Christian God? How can I rescue "God" from Christianity, as you put it? This is something that has always been a part of my consciousness, by whatever name it should be called. I feel like I need to destroy the association between this and Christianity, but I'm not sure how.