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Goodbye Jesus

Transcending Theism


Orbit

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In short then, there is no Godhead and all is symbolic, emanating from ourselves.

Of course Godhead exists.

 

Can you elaborate?  Is this a theistic or deistic Godhead?  Is this the wholly other of of theism, which we might know now in part and in whole after death, or is it the wholly other of Derrida, which cannot ever possibly arrive?  Can you share another source or explanation?

 

We've been defining it as we go along in the thread. We've been using "God" or here, "Godhead" to refer to not to the Biblical God, but to the Ground of Being, or universal life panentheistic force. "God" in the mystic sense. Antlerman please correct me or elaborate  if I'm wrong here.

 

Do you know it now?  Can it be known now?  In part or in whole?  I'm not trying to debate.  I'm trying to understand.

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Yes, now. I'm in the airport, people moving around me, Positive directions, intention, get me to ... Here I breathe, each breath of the now. Being here now.

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The illusion is the separate self. The illusory world sees God or Godhead as wholly other. It is like saying atoms are 'out there', whereas we are atoms. But we don't live seeing ourselves as atoms, do we? On the spiritual level, through meditation and developing constant awareness, you experience yourself and all that is beyond the illusion of separation and see that we are Godhead, we are the Ground of Being, the Source, of everything that is. We are Emptiness, and form. We are God incarnate.

 

To know that of ourselves, the nature of who and what we are, is to break that illusion of separateness. But then there is realizing that eternal nature - and by eternal I mean the ever-present beingness of all that is - realizing that in the body in which my mind inhabits. This is the nondual. I am the incarnation of Godhead. There is no line of separation between the infinite and the finite, between the eternal and the temporal. Everything arises and falls within that moment of now, which is always and ever who and what we are.

 

It is not something outside of us. It is us. How we see or don't see who we are is the only question.

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To try to put some time frame for myself, it's ongoing. But the feeling uneasy part of it passed pretty quickly. A couple months or less, I guess? I don't know. I guess I trusted the process and wasn't too concerned about jumping back into nonsense. That would be like saying I'm worried I might become 16 again, but I suppose there were moments of "what the hell is this!?" at first. smile.png Now I get it.

I appreciate this. For me, I think part of it is that on one level, my intellect just won't quit. I want to know the answers, I want to solve it. That's the nature of who I am, it's why I'm an academic. But the musician and the mystic are equally strong in me, and want to know in their own way. I'm in an odd position, I suppose.

 

Probably not as odd as you suppose. I have some thoughts to share with this which may hopefully help. That intellectual side, that analytical, systematic thinker in us is actually enhanced and made stronger by developing the non-rational feeling-intuitive awareness part of ourselves. As we develop that, the intellect become much more clear and focused, much more insightful, and so forth. The reason is in my opinion is that we are not asking it to do everything for us, putting all our emotional hopes and expectations, our existential questions upon it to 'figure it out' through analytics. The mind becomes overburdened, distracted, asking it to process equations that it is not suited to the task for. It's like asking the mind to understand love. All that will result are feelings of anxiousness and despair.

 

So when you take the burden off of it a little, you let the mind do what it does best, and suddenly your mind is more efficient. I've always described my earlier experience in meditation that it felt like my IQ shot up 15 points. The analogy I gave is that of driving your car around all season looking through the windshield as dust and dirt layer gradually upon it. You acclimate to it, not realizing you are straining to look through the extra noise. The dirt is just 'filtered out' by the mind where you don't consciously see it. And then you drive your car through the carwash one day. Suddenly as you look out the windshield the world becomes clear and vibrant! You are amazed at how little effort you need to make, how much more relaxed you are in a clean car! The reason is you removed what was causing strain on your eyes having to do extra work in order for you to function seeing. Your previously expended energies are now available for enjoyment and more efficient work!

 

To this day, I feel I am becoming smarter all the time, but it's not in the sense of I've learned more junk from book and whatnot, but in the sense of clarity and efficiency of thoughts. The knowledge I gain of my existential self, my spiritual self, my awareness of my being before and beyond the ego-self, the more I rest in that knowledge, the freer my mind is to really serve me - and others. I am calmer, so the mind doesn't need to 'figure out' everything all the time, causing those nasty emotional/mental feedback loops of vicious circles. The potentials for work are in greater reserve when called upon. You learn to rest in your being, not in how you've created a conceptual map you can 'believe in' and trust.

 

As a musician you understand the place of 'flow', where you connect. This is taking that and knowing and developing the source of that within yourself, prior to picking up a musical instrument. You are the Source of that music, and the work is to spend time getting to know it directly in your being. Then everything you do becomes like music and flows, even your academic or in my case technical efforts. It is still the mind engaged, but not as the absolute center of your being! It is not the sole command central hub of all your self-knowledge and problem solving. It is the development of both the mind and spirit that make someone truly efficient and effective, finding your genius that is uniquely yours in whatever ways that manifests.

 

It comes from freedom of self to allow the mind to be what it is and do what it does for us, without burdening it to be our savior. We already have the answers, but we need to relax enough to allow them to come through this without distracting ourselves from the real work of letting go by trying to figure it all out mentally. And it is my believe that we already know that, but we do what we do in trying to figure it out through thinking about it, because we are avoiding ourselves. We fear looking into that face of fear, buried deep beneath all our projects. It is the fear of death, the fear we don't have control of our lives. Mentally created 'truths' can stand in as an illusory 'answer' that we 'believe in' in order to temporarily tell ourselves we are at peace, and thus avoid the actual work we need to do.

 

I try to let go in meditation and just let it come, but it's like it's not happening fast enough for me; I want the mental struggle to be over.

Are you sure you're really letting it go? wink.png It sounds like your trying to make it happen, which is not letting go. It's a form of subtle avoidance. It's a near enemy. Are you familiar with the Buddhist teachings of the far enemy and the near enemy? It's a very powerful and useful understanding to have. The far-enemy is obvious. It the exact opposite contrary position that destroys the good. The far enemy of compassion is indifference. It is obvious and easy to see. But the near enemy masquerades itself as the desired quality allowing you to think you are doing it. The near enemy of compassion is pity.

 

Here's a good list I found just now of examples this:

  • Lovingkindness, good-will (metta): Near enemy – attachment; far enemy – hatred
  • Compassion (karuna): Near enemy – pity; far enemy – cruelty
  • Sympathetic joy, Appreciation (mudita), joy at the good fortune of others: Near enemy – comparison,hypocrisy, insincerity, joy for others but tinged with identification (my team, my child); far enemy – envy
  • Equanimity (upekkha): Near enemy – indifference; far enemy – anxiety, greed
The work I do in meditation, and which is a constant refocus for me is to check exactly the quality that is going on at the moment. Even if we are there with the intention to let go, what are the motives? "I want to get rid of this", is in fact not letting go. It's very subtle, because it looks like we're letting go, but the fact we become frustrated is because we aren't letting go. This is where that abandon comes in, "Guide me". At that moment you have chosen to no longer try. But beware, if you come to that technique and your motives aren't pure, that you really aren't in a place of self-surrender, it still is self-seeking, to help the ego and its anxieties, and it will fail into frustration. We are in a battle with ourselves to truly let go, and our near enemy comes when we aren't ready to, to try to tell us we actually are doing the work. It's a subtle avoidance.

 

This is work. It's hard work. It is the exact opposite of what we do normally which is seek to accomplish, seek to achieve, seek to succeed, seek to attain. The only thing you need to seek is to do not do any of those. This takes time and commitment. But you will learn yourself, and that flow will become your conscious state of being, in time.

 

And intellectually I know I need to just stop struggling, but this is difficult. Talking here really does help, though.

Yes, it's pressure valving. I know this more well than you could imagine. Just ask my partner!! smile.png Sometimes its useful for smaller things, but the big questions, the one's you're struggling with aren't going to resolve this way.

 

Lots to sort through....how am I doing for 6 months into deconversion? I know there's no timetable, but you've been on this site a long time and have a better handle on the stages people go through...

OMG, are you me! smile.png You'll get it, in time. I'm still getting it. My partner has been an enormous help as 'spotter' for me in my work. She doesn't let me find solace in my self-distractions when she sees me turning to them.
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In short then, there is no Godhead and all is symbolic, emanating from ourselves.

Of course Godhead exists.

 

Can you elaborate?  Is this a theistic or deistic Godhead?  Is this the wholly other of of theism, which we might know now in part and in whole after death, or is it the wholly other of Derrida, which cannot ever possibly arrive?  Can you share another source or explanation?

 

We've been defining it as we go along in the thread. We've been using "God" or here, "Godhead" to refer to not to the Biblical God, but to the Ground of Being, or universal life panentheistic force. "God" in the mystic sense. Antlerman please correct me or elaborate  if I'm wrong here.

 

Do you know it now?  Can it be known now?  In part or in whole?  I'm not trying to debate.  I'm trying to understand.

 

When you connect with your inner self, with the Ground of being, then yes you do know it, deeply. In whole. You become one with the universe, which means becoming one with yourself--that's the experience of the Godhead.

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When you connect with your inner self, with the Ground of being, then yes you do know it, deeply. In whole. You become one with the universe, which means becoming one with yourself--that's the experience of the Godhead.

Isn't this pantheism?  Am I not distinct from God in panentheism?

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When you connect with your inner self, with the Ground of being, then yes you do know it, deeply. In whole. You become one with the universe, which means becoming one with yourself--that's the experience of the Godhead.

Isn't this pantheism?  Am I not distinct from God in panentheism?

 

Pantheism and panentheism are two different things. Pantheism is scientific, an appreciation for the laws of physics and nature. It is the "God" of Einstein, a sense of awe and reverence for the universe, and we are not separate from this universe, we are part of it. Pantheism does not involve anything supernatural.

 

PanENtheism incorporates an element of the supernatural on top of this, and I'll have to hope Antlerman sees this to respond to that part of it. I'm more familiar with pantheism, he knows about panentheism.

 

Both of these terms are just partial descriptions, shorthand, for what we experience in ourselves when we connect to the inner self and experience "God" or "The Godhead" or "The Ground of Being". Don't get blocked by the terminology; it's all approximation for experience. It's more mystic than anything. To use the shorthand, God is the universe, and since we are part of the universe, we are God. It's all one field that encompasses you and the universe simultaneously. You are an expression of the universe, part of it, one with it.

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I don't care for the term supernatural, and I don't think I would agree with it. It suggests magic, like some otherworldly sphere of reality of super-beings, outside this reality. I don't accept that. The transcendent is simply a matter of awareness in this reality, to the nature of what this reality actually is. This is an important distinction to make. To say what we see with the five senses, what we can measure and examine as objects is what qualifies as "natural", is only a perception of reality. And subsequently anything that seems outside that understanding is seen as supernatural.

 

The traditional thiest may see God as supernatural. The pantheist sees God as the sum total of the material universe. The Panentheism sees God as transcending our understanding of the natural, as being before the material universe as well as within the material and immaterial realities that constitute our reality. It's all one big expression of the natural that is not limited to a materialistic reductionism. Whatever created the Big Band is That which is this. If anything, it's not supernatural, but trans-universe naturalism, encompassing and embracing and expressing all material and immaterial realities beyond our own universe, yet fully immanent within this, and all realities, as the objects of all that arises in all gross, subtle, and causal realities.

 

Words suck. They box the mind in and constrict the spirit when trying to define what is undefinable. But they also liberate the spirit from the mind when they sing from the soul.

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I don't care for the term supernatural, and I don't think I would agree with it. It suggests magic, like some otherworldly sphere of reality of super-beings, outside this reality. I don't accept that. The transcendent is simply a matter of awareness in this reality, to the nature of what this reality actually is. This is an important distinction to make. To say what we see with the five senses, what we can measure and examine as objects is what qualifies as "natural", is only a perception of reality. And subsequently anything that seems outside that understanding is seen as supernatural.

 

The traditional thiest may see God as supernatural. The pantheist sees God as the sum total of the material universe. The Panentheism sees God as transcending our understanding of the natural, as being before the material universe as well as within the material and immaterial realities that constitute our reality. It's all one big expression of the natural that is not limited to a materialistic reductionism. Whatever created the Big Band is That which is this. If anything, it's not supernatural, but trans-universe naturalism, encompassing and embracing and expressing all material and immaterial realities beyond our own universe, yet fully immanent within this, and all realities, as the objects of all that arises in all gross, subtle, and causal realities.

 

Words suck. They box the mind in and constrict the spirit when trying to define what is undefinable. But they also liberate the spirit from the mind when they sing from the soul.

The part in bold is intriguing. If God transcends our understanding, does this mean God is ultimately unknowable?  Or is God experienced but never understood?

 

What exactly is it that is before the material universe? Is that God? (If you don't mind engaging in a bit of philosophy here)

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The part in bold is intriguing. If God transcends our understanding, does this mean God is ultimately unknowable?  Or is God experienced but never understood?

Depends how one is trying to understand. http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-apprehension-and-comprehension/ smile.png

 

What exactly is it that is before the material universe?

You already know the answer to that. wink.png

 

Is that God? (If you don't mind engaging in a bit of philosophy here)

Sure. You could use that word to describe yourself.
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The part in bold is intriguing. If God transcends our understanding, does this mean God is ultimately unknowable?  Or is God experienced but never understood?

Depends how one is trying to understand. http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-apprehension-and-comprehension/ smile.png

 

What exactly is it that is before the material universe?

You already know the answer to that. wink.png

 

Is that God? (If you don't mind engaging in a bit of philosophy here)

Sure. You could use that word to describe yourself.

 

Uncle.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I love that thought from Antlerman's meditation walk:

"I contain 14 billion years' worth of evolution ..." it's true. It's magnificent. It's wonderful.

Very insightful stuff on this thread, especially the part re: consciousness.

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