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phishphish2
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'You are God'
#5517790 - 04/15/06 01:02 AM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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I hear/read this statement all the time on this forum..but what exactly does it mean? How could I be God? God has been described as 'all-knowing' and 'perfect.' I am certainly none of those! I am interested....
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spudamore
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Registered: 06/12/03
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another description of god is "All" and we are apart of that all which could make us a fragment of god
-------------------- suicide a permanent solution to a temporary problem
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Birds_Can_Swim
Fish Can Fly

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Re: 'You are God' [Re: spudamore]
#5517817 - 04/15/06 01:15 AM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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I usually take it to mean you make your own decisions
By doing so, you shape your own environment and thus become God
However, there's always some sort of outside force that proves this statement wrong
-------------------- There is no valid reason why you should be reading this
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peace_n_love
Soldier of Knowledge


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I think what that is trying to say is that supposing God is something that our brain has just somewhat "made up" then we also made up all the "answers" that "God" gave us. That's perhaps the reason of different religions and perceptions of spirituality and religion.
Peacefulness.
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Cherk
Fashionable


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If you follow vedic philosophy:
"The feature of the lord by which He is present everywhere is called the Paramatma. Atma means the individual soul, and paramatma means the individual supersoul(god). Both atma and paramatma are individual persons. The difference between them, however, is that the atma, or soul, is present only in one particular place, whereas the paramatma is present everywhere."
taken from "The Science of Self Realization" by A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
I interpret "atma, or soul, is present only in one particular place" to mean our own soul. From my limited studies I believe that becoming god does not mean that we loose every aspect of ourself, but that a perfect dovetailing or union takes place. In this way of thinking, we cannot become god until we are only the part of us that is god.
I have gotten a lot out of this book. IMO Prabupada can come across as dogmatic in certain chapters if you do not take into effect the context of the chapters. In some chapters consisting of dialogue he will suddenly interupt and steer the conversation in a direction not consciously intended by the interviewer, but I reason that this is because of the context in which the interview is taking place, i.e on a radio show where the point must be made in an alloted set of time. In reality the vedic system is a very straightforward philisophy, I highly reccomend studying the bhagavad gita.
Through my meditation and studies I have come to realize that each person contains a "personality" that exists within god, I call this my soul or atma. This realization is helpful in accepting what people often call your shadow, or the part that you say is not all knowing and perfect. It is silly to get down on ourselves because of wrong doings of our past, these wrong doings are just part of being human. We are not god(yet!), otherwise we would not have to question what god is. But we are part of god and this is the part we must come to through liberation (meditation and yoga).
Even more, when you get down to it as long as we exist on this material plane we are existing as a shadow. A metaphor to god and light can be made in material existence, in that light travels freely through the vaccum of interstellar space as god pervades all of existence. There is nothing to see unless light has something to reflect off of, as there is nothing to experience unless there is something for god to reflect off of(i.e us).
We all exist in the here and now, but we each experience the here and now in a different way. Therefore atma can be considered our own individual state of here and now.
Anything out of quotations is my own writing.
That will mean different things to different people
Edited by Smoker For Peace (04/15/06 02:42 AM)
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Basilides
Servent ofWisdom


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Obviously, to be at one with God we have to also be made of God ourselves. I think of this as a re-established identity. It took me awhile to articulate it properly, but our egoic selves are drawn out moment versus moment with each experience, while our divine selves are singular somewhat.
Think of yourself as amphibious, as either the egoic personality can shine through you, or the Divine personality. When you donate food to the poor, or buy a homeless man a hot meal, these actions are Pure as the Divine, for it is the Divine reality that manifests in such actions. There is nothing egoic about allowing compassion to flow through you.
The idea is, let your entire self decrease, to the point where you even forget yourself and all that is present is the Divine reality. By letting the ideas of God shine through every action, we in effect become God.
I would not think of God as isolate, as something so caught up in His-Her perfection that He doesn't allow anyone to enter Him. Rather, God is trying to make all of us a part of Him.
When we fall in love with God, this very love itself is a Divine Eye, an Awareness. It is a substance that rises above the temporal ego. It is the love for God that is the true self, and it is this love for God that survives the test of time, while our egoic selves become dust. There is no need really for individuality in this provision since all that is required for ecstasy is Awareness.
Simply let God swallow you whole, let Him consume your being so you become Him.
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    "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."
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Gomp
¡(Bound to·(O))be free!


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Quote:
phishphish2 said: I hear/read this statement all the time on this forum..but what exactly does it mean? How could I be God? God has been described as 'all-knowing' and 'perfect.' I am certainly none of those! I am interested....
""I am certainly none of those!""
how would you know, if you weren't all knowing?
Being interested, .. in being perfect, is it!
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-------------------- Disclaimer!?
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The_Hobbit
Bilbo Baggins


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Re: 'You are God' [Re: Gomp]
#5519200 - 04/15/06 02:03 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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I know what you guys are talking about with letting God shine through and connecting with him, but I cannot assume that it is God.
Why do people insist on coming up with the idea of God? Some higher power that is all knowing, or even that the universe itself is necessarily interconnected in every way possible.
Why can't it all be chaos? Why can't we just know that there is this physical universe and that's that?
I say I understand you because I realize that there is a higher form of thought and that it is possible to connect with the world around us. I just don't necessarily beleive that things are meant to happen in any certain way. It could just be that the chaos is interconnected in certain ways. Those chance connections are what make up the framework of our lives. I understand how they could be seen as meaningful, but really they are only meaningful to you. There is only what's right and wrong to you. You relate to everything else, not the other way around.
So in that sense, we are not Gods. Gods have power over things other than themselves. We do not. When we seek to control, that will only hurt us because that is not the right way. The only control we have is to do what we feel is right. That will work in conjunction with everything, rather than working against it. Gods are omnipotent and have the choice to decide. When we view ourselves in that light, we lose touch with our true feelings and become manipulated.
-------------------- Smoking my hobbit leaf... Please keep in mind that I am just a human being. Please read my posts carefully and interpret their meaning for yourself.
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phishphish2
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""I am certainly none of those!""
how would you know, if you weren't all knowing?
Being interested, .. in being perfect, is it!
Genius!
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Shroomerious
OO


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I agree with everything you said before that:
"So in that sense, we are not Gods. Gods have power over things other than themselves. We do not. When we seek to control, that will only hurt us because that is not the right way. The only control we have is to do what we feel is right. That will work in conjunction with everything, rather than working against it. Gods are omnipotent and have the choice to decide. When we view ourselves in that light, we lose touch with our true feelings and become manipulated. "
We are the gods of ants for one thing and they the gods of breadcrumb! :-) Everything has to be related to some other thing to describe it. But many people use god as a very narrow-minded term because of organised religion sayings.
We are god really means, we don't need god.
first "god" is using relativity, second god is the narrow-minded term.
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The_Hobbit
Bilbo Baggins


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Quote:
Shroomerious said: I agree with everything you said before that:
"So in that sense, we are not Gods. Gods have power over things other than themselves. We do not. When we seek to control, that will only hurt us because that is not the right way. The only control we have is to do what we feel is right. That will work in conjunction with everything, rather than working against it. Gods are omnipotent and have the choice to decide. When we view ourselves in that light, we lose touch with our true feelings and become manipulated. "
We are the gods of ants for one thing and they the gods of breadcrumb! :-) Everything has to be related to some other thing to describe it. But many people use god as a very narrow-minded term because of organised religion sayings.
We are god really means, we don't need god.
first "god" is using relativity, second god is the narrow-minded term.
We are stronger and smarter than ants, but we are not God to them. They would not listen to us. We cannot manipulate them in anyway. And if we killed them with a magnifying glass or something, it would hurt us because we know that they have every right to live just like us.
-------------------- Smoking my hobbit leaf... Please keep in mind that I am just a human being. Please read my posts carefully and interpret their meaning for yourself.
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Shroomerious
OO


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You missed the point. The point was relativity. Anyway what you are saying is wrong too.
"They would not listen to us"
Is that the definition of god..well....
"We cannot manipulate them in anyway.And if we killed them with a magnifying glass or something, it would hurt us because we know that they have every right to live just like us. "
Do you like eating burgers?
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The_Hobbit
Bilbo Baggins


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There's a difference, though, because eating a burger is justifiable in my eyes.
From your post before: we agree that we are not justified in calling ourselves Gods. I don't exactly understand how relativity ties into your point, but atleast we agree. =D The descriptive word for what we are is free because we don't need a god. That's a better way of looking at things than saying that we are gods because we are free.
-------------------- Smoking my hobbit leaf... Please keep in mind that I am just a human being. Please read my posts carefully and interpret their meaning for yourself.
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Shroomerious
OO


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Justifying eating a burger is subjective.
"From your post before: we agree that we are not justified in calling ourselves Gods. I don't exactly understand how relativity ties into your point, but atleast we agree. =D The descriptive word for what we are is free because we don't need a god. That's a better way of looking at things than saying that we are gods because we are free. "
Relativity kind of ties in as in how can there be an ultimate god? What would be "above" that god? The concept of infinity which we can not grasp is the problem. So we are all smaller gods. And there are smaller and bigger, not small and big. But true, as you said, in the sense of being free and also in the sense that we don't need a single god to rely on. We can learn to rely on ourselfs. It's a different definition of god in each time, so yes I think overall we agree :-)))
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The_Hobbit
Bilbo Baggins


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Tbh I am really confused by this whole conversation and I don't feel that it was contstructive for me. =x "What we have here is a failure to communicate." Or.. I just fail to understand your point.
But about the burger thing: I wrote this in an above post. "There is only what's right and wrong to you. You relate to everything else, not the other way around."
So.. if you opinion is based on logically considering your reality by using intellect and some intuition based on gut feeling (as is often-times necessary), then obviously you won't be thinking that eating an animal is Ok for no reason. We need to survive after all. If some better race of organism ate me to survive, I would think it sucked, but I wouldn't be angry about it because atleast they used my body. =)
-------------------- Smoking my hobbit leaf... Please keep in mind that I am just a human being. Please read my posts carefully and interpret their meaning for yourself.
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Lakefingers

Registered: 08/26/05
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Loc: mumuland
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Quote:
phishphish2 said: How could I be God?
How could you be the creator? You are always in the creative position -- in all action, thought and experience. You are god, because you make it all, because you are the first and last.
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Octavius
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No, I'm the devil.
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MarkostheGnostic
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You are referring to your individuality, your ego. The 'I' which is God, is the Transpersonal Ground of Being from which our individual being derives, moment-to-moment.
Each individual wave comes into being, endures in time, and goes out of being. Each wave derives from the Ocean - is one with the Ocean. We are each waves, and we can identify with the specifics of our individual 'wavehood,' or we can endeavor to identify with the Ocean in which we "live and move and have our being." In one sense, our experience is God's experience even though God's experience is not our experience.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Ettin
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Theirs no point in argueing your godhood if you do not understand what god is.
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RedNucleus
Causal Observer


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They just mean that everything is god. In my opinion it's just like saying, "there is no god in the yahweh or allah sense, yet everything is interconnected and it makes me feel like I'm part of something majestic, which i'll call god." I hate this usage because it makes people like me and you confused.
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Namaste
Edited by RedNucleus (04/20/06 06:28 PM)
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