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allmakescombined
Boss Man
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 384
Loc: My Office
Last seen: 19 years, 5 months
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A Mountain of Religions
#3240648 - 10/10/04 09:24 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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Inspired by a recent post by MarkostheGnostic, I decided to construct my own "Mountain of Religions" with a concentrated point of Truth/Reality with Paint Shop Pro. It's not perfect, I made it in about half an hour but it illustrates the insightful point that Markos made about different religious ideas and how they essentially all meet at a certain point of Truth. The diagram itself only shows Islam, Christianity, and Judaism - not to discredit the Truth present in other faiths, but I simply didn't have enough room for the others and I am not as learned in those faiths as I am with the High Religions, or Abrahamic Faiths. Besides, there's still the other side of the mountain.
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: The words attributed to Jesus affirm what you wish to believe. The first commandment is part of the Jewish Shema: "Hear O Israel, the LORD thy GOD, the LORD is ONE. Thou shalt love the LORD thy GOD with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy might." The second part attributed to Jesus is "Love thy neighbor as thyself." The first commandment reflects our 'vertical' relationship with GOD, the second reflects our 'horizontal' relationship with others. If we realize that the metaphysical nature of GOD is love (1 John 4:8), or better translated 'Compassion' (closer to the Greek 'agape'), then we know how to BE and what to DO. Where then is your denouncement of GOD and Christ???? It is an affirmation! As to the TRUTH of other faiths: Only the outer, or exoteric 'forms' of religion are different. These are the mere husks, not the kernals of religious TRUTH. The 'fundamentalists' of faiths - Jewish, Christian or Islamic seem to know nothing but the outer forms and differences. They DO NOT KNOW that TRUTH is ONE. The inner, esoteric nature of religions IS the TRUTH. An esoteric (mystic) Christian is closer to a Jewish or Muslim mystic, for example than he is to a fundamentalist Christian. A classic way of looking at the differences between religions was penned by Frithjof Schuon in The Transcendent Unity of Religions. He likened all religions to different sides of a multi-sided mountain. At the base where the sides were widest, the differences were greatest (exoteric religion). As one ascended the mountain, the sides tapered and narrowed and so did the differences. About half way up the mountain, the differences were so much less that they began to become esoteric (inner). At the summit, the peak, all religions merged into a single point - TRUTH - which is ONE.
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allmakescombined
Boss Man
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 384
Loc: My Office
Last seen: 19 years, 5 months
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Birds-eye View
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
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Well done!! I am flattered by the credit, but it was Schuon's The Transcendent Unity of Religions which instructed ME when first I entered the bookstore at Drew University where I began theological studies. Your model aptly describes how divergent views of outer religion narrows to the inner esoteric and unified perspective. If religious leaders the world over spent one night on a heroic dose of Mushrooms, at least THEY would KNOW. Unfortunately, since they are also responsible for the doctrines of the individual faiths, and since Islam and Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy, just to name the bigguns, do not have a 'Pope,' their theoretical good trips would not change things. Enlightenment is not meant to occur (1) globally, (2) in synchronous fashion and (3) via Entheogens. It is going to happen individually, sporadically and with or without Entheogens.
Nirvana may NOT be the same as Jewish Yehudim [Unity], Buddhist Nirvana, Hindu Mahasamadhi, and the Christion Kingdom of GOD ('In my Father's house are many mansions') but by the time the upper part of the mountain is attained, we will all be so similar phenomenologically, that the different 'flavors' of Ultimate Reality won't matter. We will all be saints compared to the evil lying, hating, killing, fear-filled madmen at the base of the mountain (the masses of the world, rich or poor) with little to differentiate us but malas and rosaries, long-hair or shaved-heads, prayer wheels or phallacteries, frankencense or sandalwood, levened or unlevened bread, wine or no intoxicants. Nothing to kill each other about.
My Heart [He Art] aches with metaphysical loneliness. Those of you out there in cyberland, in the Shroomery, who sympathize with these thoughts, though you must settle for comrads who consume the dross of American life: football and McDonalds, Budweiser and Miss America, TV reality shows, and boyfriends and girlfriends whose brainwashing causes you a dread of marriage and procreation (because it reduces you to little more than a salmon who swims upstream to breed and die) - I feel your predicament! There IS more, but the Realization of it requires more solitude than the average person can suffer; loneliness rather than aloneness. Even at a lively party, the metaphysical loneliness can dominate. Anyone else KNOW what I mean? It is lonely at the top [of the mountain of Realization].
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Shroomerious
OO
Registered: 07/27/03
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I am somehow opposed to this.. I think that the true reality can not be found like that, especially when using such stereotypes. Different religions, all really mean and lead to the same thing but for me that isn't the true source,"god", it is just the feeling of lonelyness and wish for a greater power we all humans have. So I would agree if actually this image was viewed not like this is a pyramid but more like a long infinetely streching road named "feeling I am lost street". I feel that if the ending point is still "God The True Source", this is the same as one of it's roads. Again a singularity. Our mind can't go beyond that concept and this is why we end up with such images for our life. Now I can fully agree with that picture but only when accepting it as one of an infinite amount of truths, really equal in power as telling that an apple, an orange and a banana are all fruits. But I understand that from the maker's and people who agree with that perspective as the "one" Truth, and I'm sure there will be many, it really isn't compared in power and importance with that simple sentence with the fruits. For that occasion it can subjectively be transformed to a living truth with no optical or other common reference but still it can change life quite radically. Sorry, I mixed my thoughts together a bit unsuccesfully...
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kaiowas
lest we baguette
Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 5,501
Loc: oz
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at NE gathering last year I was tripping on about 4 grams of these awesome shrooms (don't remeber the type ) and there was a while where I just got up and left for a little bit to get away from noise and enjoy the stillness of the trees and the lake. i couldn't help myself but to wonder around and enjoy everything that is. the air, the birds, the fungus and it definately brought back the awe in everything that is existence.
though I was by myself, I wasn't lonely.
my experiences have shown me that a moderation of liveliness and solitude is the best.
-------------------- Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.
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Moonshoe
Blue Mantis
Registered: 05/28/04
Posts: 27,202
Loc: Iceland
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Re: A Mountain of Religions [Re: kaiowas]
#3249355 - 10/12/04 09:11 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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"and it definately brought back the awe in everything that is existence. "
i honestly have this experience like every time i go outside at my cabin (my future home!) that place is just pure power for me
-------------------- Everything I post is fiction.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 1 month
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Re: A Mountain of Religions [Re: kaiowas]
#3249574 - 10/12/04 09:44 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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That's lovely, 'fer sure,' but that glorious solitude was a choice you made, an option, in the middle of plentiful social opportunities. It is different when one lives in a social milieu of people who are focused on buying a Jaguar as a High point of their entire existence. Miami is full of people like this: cars, status-name communities, in fact social status and the money to support it are the twin pillars of the idolatry that characterize Miami mentality. I don't want to complain, but I have too many years vested in a system to leave now. I'm security-bound by Root Chakra concerns, and must look 12 years to the future for possible retirement in a cool locale that I can afford. Social life has been a spiritual wasteland since the days with my childhood friends ended. Perhaps this is the case for everyone but perhaps Sundays in some church fills the need for most people that I require much more to fulfill. My Lady is not tormented by this and she is my only solace. This is why I tarry at the Shroomery.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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fireworks_god
Sexy.Butt.McDanger
Registered: 03/12/02
Posts: 24,855
Loc: Pandurn
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: My Heart [He Art] aches with metaphysical loneliness...... There IS more, but the Realization of it requires more solitude than the average person can suffer; loneliness rather than aloneness. Even at a lively party, the metaphysical loneliness can dominate. Anyone else KNOW what I mean? It is lonely at the top [of the mountain of Realization].
Hehe, I KNOW what you mean.
But then again, I don't really tend to feel lonely much of the time. It's strange.... I've been sitting here thinking, trying to decide if I prefer being alone or having people around, or if I feel lonely or not, and the impression I am getting is that it isn't something I even think about, because nothing is coming up to the surface. But I do know that I do prefer sometime to myself now and then, but if I don't get it, I don't suffer or anything.
I definitely know what you mean, though, the feeling of some metaphysical center seperate from everything else going on around you... it can't really be shared directly, and perhaps this is where the loneliness thing is coming from, just from being an unexpressible, silent core detached and observing... nurturing its substance and our awareness of it does tend to suck focus away from the external circumstances....
And when one has so much understanding and realizations, sometimes one might wonder what the point of doing so much explaining, so many different actions, thinking so many different thoughts is when one can simply listen to the wind or the silence..... Why seperate oneself from their most true state of being?
I'm not really sure where I'm heading with this, or if anything can be picked up from this... states of being just aren't as easily communicated as simple words or ideas, eh?
Like you said, the Shroomery certainly serves as a way to connect with others and focus on more of the inner, as we are far and few between... there aren't exactly Zen temples everywhere nowadays...
Peace.
-------------------- If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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