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newbie Registered: 04/20/03 Posts: 4,497 Last seen: 8 years, 4 months |
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We as humans has tremendous creative powers. Our powers are so great we do not even realize them, that is, they remain unconscious and as a result of them being unconscious we unwittingly use them to create things which make us suffer. Then we blame God for our suffering and use it as a reason to believe he doesn't exist.
One of the ways in which our creative powers unconsciously limit our lives, is confirmation bias. Reality presents itself to us, in the way we expect it to be. So for an atheist for example, all the information he gathers is going to appear to support his viewpoint that God does not exist. Even the exact same information, like a passage in the Bible for instance, which strengthens the faith of believers, is going to make the atheist even more convinced that God doesn't exist. If we want to be joyous in our lives and free from all stress and worry, we should believe in the promises made by our Lord Jesus Christ and the prophets. We should believe that ours is eternal happiness and if we believe faithfully enough, work hard enough, trust hard enough and give everything we have to it while humbly accepting everything that befalls us, we WILL realize that happiness. On the other hand, if you expect to be depressed and unsatisfied with life, you will continue to be depressed and unsatisified with life. If you believe that God is unknowable and questions about his existence, answerable, then God will be unkowable for you and questions about his existence, will be answerable. The reason that it all works like this is because that which is (GOD) is a huge (infinite actually) being which for lack of a better term is a non physical substance that is completely pure (meaning the same everywhere) and constitutes the essence of existence. Nothing else exists, except this timeless, limitless being known as God. Where is God? Nowhere. Nowhere and everywhere at the same time. God exists within the infinite void of nothingness which is all there would be if there was no God. Within this vast expanse of being, which is life itself, existence, aliveness, being, feeling, awareness, it is the essence of all of these, within this pure essence appears various forms which together constitute the sensory experience. The sensory experience is nothing other than God experiencing various aspects of itself through what we call the dimension of time. From the enlightened point of view (the Christ Mind) the forms and images of the sensory experience are understood to be simply various aspects of God and thus unreal in the sense of the way most people think of them (as independently existencing objects) but fully real as creations of God. Since the Christ mind sees from eternity, what's on the TV (the sensory experience) is seen in a very different light from how the mind of a carnal man sees it. In fact, the self that most people think they are, is actually nothing more than a thought about the sensory experiencing they've been having. There is actually no entity known as the ego. The ego must recreate itself each moment, like a caterpillar constantly moves but never lets go of one point before making contact with another. The series of points on which the caterpillar steps then become who we identify as the person we are. But how could we be a series of caterpillar steps? For a series of caterpillar steps is nothing at all, it only exists as an idea. When this is realized, it becomes painfully obvious that we are that which is aware of the series of caterpillar steps. It is literally like sitting in your living room watching something really good on TV. You enjoy the program but when things start to go south for the people on the TV, you don't actually fear for your own safety because you know that no matter what happens on the TV, you are safe in your living room. When you are in Christ, you know that you are safe eternally, regardless of what happens in your life. Its like TV also in the sense that most of the people on TV dont act as if they know its just a tv show and similarly, most people in life, all except the truly spiritual ones, act as if they don't know its all an energy play and nothing actually ever happens. They dont know they are safe in their living room the entire time because they've become so engrossed in the TV program. As a note, this is why asceticism and renunciation are valued in religious traditions. These things help one to stop being so engrossed in the TV program of life by making it unbearably boring. That is also why the pleasures of the flesh, especially lust, pose such a problem for spiritual people. They cause the TV show to be so good that one becomes even more engrossed in it, in a selfish way desiring to experience more sexual pleasure. Attachment to unselfish pleasures must of course also be transcended but that is a much easier process. Once it is fully and completely realized that the TV show is not the source of happiness, the pleasures of the world lose their pull and can be enjoyed without sucking one in. The basic problem is when awareness becomes all tangled up in the sensory experience, thus limiting itself unwittingly. Spiritual practices like prayer and meditation help to get it untangled by lessening the influence of one's mental tendencies, which collectively cause the mind to look outward at the sensory experience instead of inward toward God. To keep oneself turned toward God is to worship God (illumination) and to worship God is to become absorbed in God (contemplation). Remaining in God's love at all times leads to the realization that there isn't anything but God. This is eternal life. It is life outside of space and time. It is abiding as the uncreated. It's what our Lord Jesus Christ called the Kingdom of God and if we trust in Him and obey his every command, he will reveal it to us. All this I speak from direct experience. The truths I describe here are as obvious to me, as the sky being blue is obvious to the average person. The key to getting beyond doubt is to realize that what I am talking about here, that what our Lord Jesus Christ was talking about and what the Buddha was talking about and what all the various saints and mystics throughout the ages were talking about, is something that is real AT LEAST IN THE SENSE THAT IT CAN BE DIRECTLY EXPERIENCED (I know that atheists will concede that it can be experienced but claim it is some sort of delusion because they are not yet able to accept the idea that God is real and eternal happiness is possible). Now, once you have conceded that spiritual happiness can be experienced, even if it is just a delusional feeling, you can decide to seek it out for yourself. If you sincerely seek God and the bliss he gives those who love Him with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength and you persevere no matter what, no matter how hopeless or impossible it might seem at times, you will eventually find peace in God's presence. You will also find that the mind has been absorbed in its source and you will find that when the mind is completely absorbed in something else, it is unable to raise doubts or questions. It is unable to say "could this be a delusion?" "Have I gone mad?" "I can't believe I have actually found God". Your mind will be dead but you will still be fully conscious and alive and very happy to boot! You must experience the dead mind state before you allow yourself to get tangled up by intellectual doubts and confusions about what God is and why he does this or that. All of that will become totally clear in the dead mind state. I come bearing witness to the truth and the truth will set us free. All that is necessary is that you believe in what Jesus promised and desire it. If you have in you, a deep longing to know God and attain peace, you will surely get there. It's only a matter of time and the amount of time is directly proportional to the amount of effort you put in, or the amount of grace you allow God to give you. If there is one thing that saddens me about humanity, it is how many people there are who simply do not understand the spiritual path. They think it is this, or they think it is that and have this problem with it, or this reason why it can't be true or can't be trusted. They don't realize that all of those things are mere thoughts and the whole point of the spiritual path is simply to know being apart from thoughts. What could be simpler? Little children know it, but adults have forgotten it and adults are extremely difficult to teach because they are so stubborn. I can guarantee you than upon reading this post instead of turning inward to search for the bliss of their real being which I am pointing at, atheists will immediately begin thinking (even though I stated the whole point was to stop thinking) about various reasons why I am wrong, how can they argue with me and find excuses for rejecting what I have said and what God has told us through the prophets and through his son our Lord Jesus Christ. Worse yet, they will ask for "evidence", which they will expect to be provided for them in some form. How could you ever provide satisfactory evidence of the formless in form? What is needed is to look beyond form and see that while you are ever aware of form, you have no form yourself. Asking for evidence is like asking me to provide you evidence that you exist. How could I ever do that? You must know your own existence through your own subjective experience, not through anyone else. Similarly, you must discover your own true nature (which is existence-consciousness-bliss) through your own subjective experience and expecting someone to provide evidence of it for you is ridiculous. Evidence is in fact, always available. The trouble is, you don't see it as evidence. You want something new. Unfortunately for you atheists, eternity is in fact, not new. What is now, always has been and will always be. The only thing that changes is the content of the sensory experience, which is constantly in flux. But why spend your life in an unreal world made from thoughts and concepts which are conditioned by your past traumas and cause unhappiness? Why not heed my words and discover for yourself the bliss of being fully conscious without thinking? Atheists will say, but isn't belief in God just another unreal thought or concept? Well, yes in the beginning but only because you don't know the living God. God is not a thought or concept, but the light of consciousness, the all pervading spirit which lives in you right now. That is why Jesus said those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth. If God is just a thought to you, it is because you havent learned how to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Then God will cease to be a dead concept and you will come to know the living God and you will understand why I call him living. I should also note that even if you dont think full enlightenment is possible for a human, any progress toward it is still of immense value when it comes to relieving suffering, but your own and that of others. So confusion about whether one can attain enlightenment or not should be of absolutely no consequence and I actually recommend believing that you can realize the highest Nirvana right now because of the self fullfilling prophesy thing I talked about earlier. God bless. Edited by Deviate (08/18/13 04:32 AM)
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πβπ ’ππ π°π‘ πΌπ⨻ Registered: 09/16/08 Posts: 11,953 |
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Good post!
I think that people often fall into a monoperspective creating their reality, which is independent of actuality. Ownership is at the root of bias. This is because people get attached to thing that are theirs, thinking it somehow represents them. ![]() I think ownership has been plaguing humanity all along by separating from the nature which is all of our planet.
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SaαΉsΔra Registered: 12/28/12 Posts: 2,769 Loc: Interdependent C Last seen: 6 years, 8 months |
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Unless you believe your ownerships to be temporary addition to your temporary existence. These things are mine but they don't have to define me and I wouldn't allow myself to be upset by the happening of anything I possess/created. Things come and go just like everything else.
I own some books but I don't have to be attached to the owning of the book, they are in my possession, purchased by me. If someone stole a book I would confront them and say sir that is my item there, here I have the receipt, those are my marking on the pages, could you please return my property? Ownership to me is just a way of expressing that this is my possession. No bias it's just like writing my name in a copy of a book that is mine so that things don't get confused or mixed up. If we were apart of a community sharing everything in harmony, I would still value the concept of ownership because I would image there would be certain things that I would like to be known as my own. One thing I could think of is my tooth brush. -------------------- "Springs of water welling from the fire" "Life may seem to flee in a moment, but when the mind is freed of the veil of ignorance, and illusion that comes between the mind and the truth, life and death are only opposite sides of the same coin - "water welling from the fire." "Within us, we carry the world of no-birth and no-death. But we never touch it, because we live only with our notions." -Thich Nhat Hanh instant "Experience always goes beyond ideas"
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πβπ ’ππ π°π‘ πΌπ⨻ Registered: 09/16/08 Posts: 11,953 |
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What do you think would happen if there was no such thing as ownership?
In our society we make it necessary to own something to use it, (in many cases) but in actuality it isn't that way. It is a constraint that has been put upon us, that evolved greed and power. You can condone ownership if you change it's definition to suite your purpose, but that does little to address the concern. Why would you say you are owning something if your really just changing the word owning to mean using, just to condone owning? What do you have to protect . . lol
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SaαΉsΔra Registered: 12/28/12 Posts: 2,769 Loc: Interdependent C Last seen: 6 years, 8 months |
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well in the grand scheme I am just using these items, just like I am just in use of this body.
If I don't label these items as mine in the here and now then where would they be when I turn my back? Someone would come up and say oh this house isn't being used, ownership doesn't exist so I will use it. Then I come back home to find the dwelling I was using being used by someone else... now I am out of a dwelling and will have to use a freezing gutter to lay my infant child down in for the night. If ownership didn't exist then all the hard work put in to buying this residence would be pointless. I would go around looking for a place to sleep in that isn't being used currently... who knows what conditions I would be subjecting my child to day after day. Would I even be able to claim the child is mine? Instead we have the concept of ownership to separate what I am currently in use of and what I've worked hard to be able to obtain/care for and keep in the condition that I see fit for myself and my family. I don't have to be controlled by my possession or hold bias but it is useful to me to be able to claim something as my own. -------------------- "Springs of water welling from the fire" "Life may seem to flee in a moment, but when the mind is freed of the veil of ignorance, and illusion that comes between the mind and the truth, life and death are only opposite sides of the same coin - "water welling from the fire." "Within us, we carry the world of no-birth and no-death. But we never touch it, because we live only with our notions." -Thich Nhat Hanh instant "Experience always goes beyond ideas"
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πβπ ’ππ π°π‘ πΌπ⨻ Registered: 09/16/08 Posts: 11,953 |
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Useful to whom? An individual perspective?
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SaαΉsΔra Registered: 12/28/12 Posts: 2,769 Loc: Interdependent C Last seen: 6 years, 8 months |
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Lets say ownership doesn't exist and therefore currency doesn't exist. Wouldn't there still be a place for the idea of owning something? I've created this place for myself and my children, I've built it and put time and effort into making it fit for my necessities. I have grown accustom to this place and my family is happy here. I understand and teach them that everything is just temporary and eventually we will all be swallowed up by mother nature. However a pack of marauders come along and decide that they will stay there now and since there is no concept of ownership what right would I have to dispute? Nothing I can claim as my own, so now I will be forced to fend for myself and rebuild. Perhaps it's the dead of winter... what could I do? I guess instead of being able to go to an authority figure and prove that I am being wrongly kept out of my property then I will have to fight for use of this place that I've been using my whole life, perhaps it goes back many generations. If it's the dead of winter, it doesn't give me much option but to use excessive force on these individuals due to my infant child being put in a possibly deadly situation.
I guess in this utopia of no ownership, it would also create a population of people who freely share everything? I guess then there would be the possibility of waking up to a household full of unknown strangers at any given time and a cupboard stripped of all the food could be a regular occurrence. Doesn't sound like a very stable situation for raising a family. -------------------- "Springs of water welling from the fire" "Life may seem to flee in a moment, but when the mind is freed of the veil of ignorance, and illusion that comes between the mind and the truth, life and death are only opposite sides of the same coin - "water welling from the fire." "Within us, we carry the world of no-birth and no-death. But we never touch it, because we live only with our notions." -Thich Nhat Hanh instant "Experience always goes beyond ideas"
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SaαΉsΔra Registered: 12/28/12 Posts: 2,769 Loc: Interdependent C Last seen: 6 years, 8 months |
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Life itself
sustenance. -------------------- "Springs of water welling from the fire" "Life may seem to flee in a moment, but when the mind is freed of the veil of ignorance, and illusion that comes between the mind and the truth, life and death are only opposite sides of the same coin - "water welling from the fire." "Within us, we carry the world of no-birth and no-death. But we never touch it, because we live only with our notions." -Thich Nhat Hanh instant "Experience always goes beyond ideas" Edited by Sse (08/18/13 03:58 PM)
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newbie Registered: 04/20/03 Posts: 4,497 Last seen: 8 years, 4 months |
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Quote: Yes, you are right. In fact, we know that there is nothing wrong with ownership because in the Bible God tells us "thou shalt not steal". This means that God recognizes ownership and has no problem with it. To those who think ownership is a bad thing, how would you feel about using the communal toothbrush? Ownership makes practical sense. It's only a problem when we start wanting to own things for selfish reasons, which is what our society has done. That's not to say communal is bad. Again in the Bible if you read Acts chapter five, it describes how for the early followers of Christ, everything was communal and they all treated each other as equals and loved each other. This is good because it diminishes ego, communal is good but ownership is not the problem, ego is.
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newbie Registered: 04/20/03 Posts: 4,497 Last seen: 8 years, 4 months |
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Quote: Owning something is simply a special case of using. You can't "own" anything in any objective way, its just an idea. The meaning behind the idea is that you have an exclusive relationship with a thing that others are not to interfere with. That is what the concept of ownership is really about. It is practically useful because there are certain things which are not practical to share, like tooth brushes. Of course that doesnt mean we should build a society around owning as we have done. I think a communal, co-operative society could be a beautiful thing. But even in a society like that, I still would not mind owning my own tooth brush and clothing.
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left β right Registered: 03/02/11 Posts: 1,952 Loc: IL Last seen: 2 years, 1 month |
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i didn't read all of it, but confirmation bias can definitely be limiting. it's so easy to trick yourself into seeing something only one way because of your beliefs.
that's why it's so important to be flexible. to ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS challenge your own rigid idea of self. the easiest way to do this is to put yourself in situations which challenge your own idea of self, from time to time. if you're "against something" for example, go do it! and be open-minded about it. don't go in thinking "this is going to suck, i hate this!" go in open-minded and CHALLENGE your rigid opinion about it. see the other half to everything. see the potential in all the things you hate. it's basically putting yourself in someone elses shoes...literally. and it's the only way to grow as a person and fully experience life. it's so easy to get suck in a narrow-minded view of the world...no doubt. --------------------
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newbie Registered: 04/20/03 Posts: 4,497 Last seen: 8 years, 4 months |
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Sorry, I know this post was way too long. I intended it to be about confirmation bias but as I was writing, I felt inspired and wrote down many more ideas in addition to my thoughts on confirmation bias. Then I didn't edit it and just posted the whole thing.
I still feel like this was a good post, perhaps one of my best, if people would take the time to read it but I know that is a lot to ask.
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Registered: 05/08/04 Posts: 13,679 |
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Quote: I usually see a post with this structure and simply won't feel to read it, it doesn't attract me at all, but i kept coming back to this one, something was telling me read it, read it, and im glad i did
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