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EternalCowabunga
Being of Great Significance



Registered: 04/04/05
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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: palmersc] 1
#7535002 - 10/19/07 11:35 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Jesus was not just a moral or enlightened man... the way I see it he was the embodiment of Compassion itself. So if you became the archetype of Compassion you could call yourself Christ and you would have quite a lot of responsibility because your heart would plead with you to heal the wounded... and there are a lot of wounded on Earth.
To worship Christ is to embody the archetype of Compassion.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: palmersc]
#7535006 - 10/19/07 11:36 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Indiana is the heart of the Bible Belt. Also one of the most polluted states in the Union. Could there be a connection?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Quote:
EternalCowabunga said: Jesus was not just a moral or enlightened man... the way I see it he was the embodiment of Compassion itself. So if you became the archetype of Compassion you could call yourself Christ and you would have quite a lot of responsibility because your heart would plead with you to heal the wounded... and there are a lot of wounded on Earth.
To worship Christ is to embody the archetype of Compassion.
Be careful what you say. You could go to hell and have to deal with Icelander. And I have bad gas.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Clean
the lense


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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Icelander]
#7535025 - 10/19/07 11:39 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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can't be worse than Gary.
that's Gary, Indiana..
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EternalCowabunga
Being of Great Significance



Registered: 04/04/05
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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Icelander]
#7535029 - 10/19/07 11:39 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Ehhh, Jews don't believe in hell
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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You're lucky. Because in fairyland whatever you believe is true.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Icelander]
#7535096 - 10/19/07 11:55 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I used to live in San Francisco, but not all my dreams came true.
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EternalCowabunga
Being of Great Significance



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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Icelander]
#7535099 - 10/19/07 11:55 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Fairyland?... I always thought it was called Imaginationland

The only land where you can make friends with ice-cream shitting tacos
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Maybe you're right. Or intelligent design land. I like to call it fairyland.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Icelander]
#7535862 - 10/19/07 02:56 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Icelander said: God is worshipped by being in Christ.
Right, so you can choose to believe what ever helps you to "be in" the fullness of your being. My only real problem with the common Christian is their belief that theirs is the only path to salvation or whatever. That is just arrogant non-sense and fear based delusion. I was severely abused with this ugliness as a child so now I like to hunt these people down and shoot holes in there non-sense when ever possible. I would prefer that others not endure this crap because no one stood up to their, IMO, self-defeating LIES.
Whereas I agree with you here, I do not agree with the way you're allowing your own pain to poison your response to ZShroom. Regardless of which tradition embodies 'The Way,' whether Christian, Taoist, Buddhist or whatever, compassion, agape (dispassionate love), or altruism characterizes 'The Way.' Your anger is a dark cloud and lightning bolt in the cloudless sky of our Ground of Being. Hurling thunder bolts belongs to demigods like Thor , but not the Ground from which they too are formed. In other words, it too belongs to the egoistic mind in a negative way.
That a Fundamentalist Christian holds the superstitious idea that the compassion of a Taoist or a Buddhist or a Jew cannot be identical to the compassion of a Christian only attests to the incontestable ignorance that underlies the nature of religious intolerance and bigotry. It further illustrates that the mentality of the Fundamentalist cannot understand the subtlety of language in conveying sublime truth.
Fundamentalist mentality is, in a very real way, retarded. It has remained at a developmental level that cannot process metaphor and symbol which point to a dimension of consciousness that cannot be grasped by thought. It cannot perform a "phenomenological reduction" and perceive invariant or universal features in a variety of differing forms. Not only that, when I have affirmed that the uniqueness of Iesus is based on a mythological overlay rather than an actual ontological status, I am often accused of denying the 'Deity of Christ.' In reality, I am affirming the Deity of all human beings as our essential nature, including Iesus of course. Iesus is the archetype, the paradigm for every human who has ever lived. What applied to Him, applies to us. This is what the Truth about Iesus is, as Grace Slick once sang: "...any man's story..." Iesus on a pedestal is worse than useless, it separates and prevents the union which unites humans under compassion. The divinity of Christ Iesus lies in His humanity, in His Compassion.
Peace.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MarkostheGnostic
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Quote:
EternalCowabunga said: Jesus was not just a moral or enlightened man... the way I see it he was the embodiment of Compassion itself. So if you became the archetype of Compassion you could call yourself Christ and you would have quite a lot of responsibility because your heart would plead with you to heal the wounded... and there are a lot of wounded on Earth.
To worship Christ is to embody the archetype of Compassion.
I couldn't have stated it better myself.
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Visionary Tools



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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: palmersc]
#7536361 - 10/19/07 05:00 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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palmersc said: The communication that takes place between a true believer and God is entirely spiritual. The love and communion that takes place is what I yearn for more than anything else. It is a love which has no bounds.
Except to gays and non believers. Oh well. And women! The Bible is a nasty, hateful book, with less coherance than meine kampf. If I want spirituality, I don't need some book that says I can't eat shellfish for it, I just need to go out into the woods.
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jonathanseagull
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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Icelander]
#7537228 - 10/19/07 08:54 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Icelander said: My only real problem with the common Christian is their belief that theirs is the only path to salvation or whatever. That is just arrogant non-sense and fear based delusion. I was severely abused with this ugliness as a child so...
I agree completely with that this belief is based in fear. It is a defense mechanism against death-terror, as you commonly state. (I also was severly abused as a child with fundamental Christianity.) My entire problem with these missionary-type religions is that they perform missions.
Leave people alone. There is no need to push your own (are they truly even your own?) views onto people who have not sought out those views. You aren't spreading the love of God. You are forcing it upon people to validate your beliefs which hide you from your own fears of death and eternal damnation (an utterly ridiculous concept that a child's logic can reduce to nonsense in a matter of minutes). True Christianity of the likes I've seen in the writings of San Juan de la Cruz is amazing. It's true transcendental communion. This spouting off of bible verses of assumed authority and inability to recognize or comprehend symbolism is a sure sign of a stunted psyche, seemingly safe in its closemindedness and indulgence in "Eros" as Ken Wilber would use it. They need a nice dose of Thanatos followed by Agape expansion.
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Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain.
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Rahz
Alive Again


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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: palmersc]
#7537897 - 10/20/07 12:40 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I've never understood the draw of zen. It's nice, but I want some action. Nothingness just doesn't seem that exciting, and I know there is something more to experience. Adyashanti practiced zen for 15 years before realizing he was trying to hard to find something through nothing.
To me, I see spirits more as untruths which I have allowed myself to believe. They carry an energy with them. All beliefs carry an energy. Wrong beliefs create dark energy. Allowing spirit/kundalini/holy ghost to enter my body opens me up to gods light, which is cast down upon me. These are just words I can choose to use in describing my experience, but all I know is what I experience. This light illuminates my beliefs and energies and allows me to see the darkness for what it is and let it go. When I quit giving a belief weight, it begins to loose it's power over me and I become more free.
The thing I don't do is to try and give god form. The less belief in God I entertain, the better off I am. There are many interesting things in life I cannot explain, but as my understanding grows, I'm not being led anywhere closer to knowing a god of form. Giving god a name feels like I'm trying to make something that is very real, more real than it already is. If I name god, it is because I don't believe and seek to give it form to make it more believable.
Also, while I am concerned with dull repressed Christians, I'm also concerned about Christians who are hopped up on the holy ghost. I like the holy ghost as much as the next guy, but if I create a division between me and god (I am me, the sinner, and god is God), there's no telling what God is going to have me do. And if God tells me to infringe on someone else's liberty, hey, I'm just following the orders of the big guy. What am I going to do, say no to God? Naming god creates separation. Believing I am not god creates separation and can result in a loss of personal responsibility.
The difference is that most Christians are identified with their beliefs, and God is what is not their beliefs. I believe I am not my beliefs, and I am that which is not belief. I am an energetic expression of what god is, and as far as I can tell god is the expression in totality. I don't restrict myself to belief systems developed by other humans, but I find them highly interesting because they are mirrors of myself in many ways.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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Lion
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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Rahz]
#7538406 - 10/20/07 07:04 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Awesome posts, js and Rahz. Reading those was a very cool way to start my day.
Quote:
Rahz said: I've never understood the draw of zen. It's nice, but I want some action. Nothingness just doesn't seem that exciting, and I know there is something more to experience. Adyashanti practiced zen for 15 years before realizing he was trying to hard to find something through nothing.
In my very limited understanding it's more about no concepts than no-thing. Adding no concepts to what is, one sees whether there is nothing or something (and whether there is one seeing). Paradox.
-------------------- “Strengthened by contemplation and study, I will not fear my passions like a coward. My body I will give to pleasures, to diversions that I’ve dreamed of, to the most daring erotic desires, to the lustful impulses of my blood, without any fear at all, for whenever I will— and I will have the will, strengthened as I’ll be with contemplation and study— at the crucial moments I’ll recover my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
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Rahz
Alive Again


Registered: 11/10/05
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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Lion]
#7538584 - 10/20/07 08:54 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
bug said: Awesome posts, js and Rahz. Reading those was a very cool way to start my day.
Quote:
Rahz said: I've never understood the draw of zen. It's nice, but I want some action. Nothingness just doesn't seem that exciting, and I know there is something more to experience. Adyashanti practiced zen for 15 years before realizing he was trying to hard to find something through nothing.
In my very limited understanding it's more about no concepts than no-thing. Adding no concepts to what is, one sees whether there is nothing or something (and whether there is one seeing). Paradox.
That's a good way to put it. Perhaps as time goes by it is something I will do, and is not so much a "thing" I try to do.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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DimensionX
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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Rahz]
#7538688 - 10/20/07 09:40 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I think also, the idea is that nothing holds the potential for all things, so nothing is like the ultimate creative force.
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jonathanseagull
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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Rahz]
#7538757 - 10/20/07 10:11 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Nothingness isn't about "nothingness" as is commonly misunderstood. It's a term referring to the not-self, not only of the person, but of everything in the universe, which is referring to the dependent arising of everything, meaning everything depends on everything and is interrelated. It's not talking about a void of nothingness. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
Adyashanti didn't realize he was searching too hard and not getting anything out of Zen. He realized he was searching too hard, and Zen is what eventually led to his enlightenment (according to his story). The fault wasn't in Zen, it was in him.
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Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain.
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Icelander
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I do not agree with the way you're allowing your own pain to poison your response to ZShroom. Regardless of which tradition embodies 'The Way,' whether Christian, Taoist, Buddhist or whatever, compassion, agape (dispassionate love), or altruism characterizes 'The Way.' Your anger is a dark cloud and lightning bolt in the cloudless sky of our Ground of Being. Hurling thunder bolts belongs to demigods like Thor , but not the Ground from which they too are formed. In other words, it too belongs to the egoistic mind in a negative way.
I already am aware of all this. I was just stating fact. Thor used to be one of my favorite superheros. I have tons of unexpressed anger from childhood. I figure it's better to verbalize it where it cannot do major harm rather than getting a gun and blow some dumb fuck away. See what I'm sayin? I work with what I got and I'm not better than I am. I change at whatever pace I am able and accept unconditionally what I am right this very moment.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Icelander
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Re: Christianity is Spiritual [Re: Rahz]
#7538926 - 10/20/07 11:12 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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The thing I don't do is to try and give god form. The less belief in God I entertain, the better off I am. There are many interesting things in life I cannot explain, but as my understanding grows, I'm not being led anywhere closer to knowing a god of form.
Dude were we separated at birth?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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