Life and the destiny of all things from a Christian panentheists perspective

[ZenMonkey]

Correct me if you think I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain we have no choice but to function in the manner in which we have been made. Take a watch for example: A watch cannot function in a manner other than how it was made to function. Likewise, a watchmaker may be in direct control of how the watch is built, but the watchmaker is not in direct control of the watch itself. He may have known and designed the watch to keep time accurately and to function according to his intended purpose, but the watch is not directly controlled by the watchmaker himself. The same is true with God and the "system" that is life. The system that is life functions a certain way, but God is not in direct control of those functions. Kinda like how we are not in direct control our internal organs and how they function consciously.


Life on this planet is a turn key operation in a sense. Release a ball down a hill and it will spin, bounce, and roll until it has reached it's destination. God released the earth on it's course. Like the ball, the earth will keep on spinning until the desired destination has been reached. The same is true for us. We as humans are built a certain way and we have been set on a course. We will make forward movement in the manner and as much as our design allows. I believe that the way life functions is meant to help mankind grow and develop, and to help nudge us to spiritual maturity ... not just on an individual level, but collectively also. God may have purposed life to function as it does, but like the watchmaker, God doesn't force the functions themselves (don't misunderstand my implications). God is still responsible for the the way life as we know it operates..


This may seem like a contradiction, but I am a Christian panenthiest. Being a Christian, I believe that God knows the end from the beginning, even as a man who releases a ball down a hill knows the end from the beginning. God may not know every twist and turn life will take us, but he knows the end destination and the manner in which that destination will be reached. The watch maker knows how the gears of the watch will connect and spin, but not how long or how many rotations before it stops keeping time or needs to be wound again. The man with the ball knows the ball will bounce, spin, and roll, but he doesn't know every bump and turn on the journey down to the valley. I believe the same is true for us. I believe that God has a purpose for all things (we exist as a part of God) as well as a destination for all things to reach. How long it will take may be unknown to us and perhaps God also, but we are all destined to reach our destination based on our inherent design. To me that destination is life in God's heavenly kingdom as alluded to by Jesus. We've been set on a course, but after all the bumps, twists, and turns all things will arrive at a place of rest and peace and serenity (heaven).

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Here...with less words...the destiny of the incarnate soul of man is to realize its inherent spiritual nature and leave the body for reunion with the original omnipresent spirit.

 

[ZenMonkey]

I like that, and I certainly could have been less winded in my thoughts, but then that would not lend the opportunity for others to understand my point of reference. I appreciate the comment. One point of contention, though. My understanding suggests that we are not in need of reunion with the all, only realization that the all is forever present and leading us to a place of peace and serenity.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I like that, and I certainly could have been less winded in my thoughts, but then that would not lend the opportunity for others to understand my point of reference. I appreciate the comment. One point of contention, though. My understanding suggests that we are not in need of reunion with the all, only realization that the all is forever present and leading us to a place of peace and serenity.

Pedantics...while it is true the soul is discontinuous with the omnipresent spirit, its inherent awareness temporarily identifies with the body adopting a time-space dualistic perspective of reality and thus is for the time being, unaware of its underlying non-dual real nature. The word 'religion' literally means reconnect or reunite, and that's the real purpose of serious religious practice.

However you are free to express yourself as you like, and it may be true that verbosity may be more conducive for others to be interested to engage. However life is short and the primary mission is to be liberated from the flesh...spiritually speaking. I like the sophistry of scribes, so very entertaining....but prefer teachers being to the point.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Panentheism isn't foreign to Christianity.

 

[ZenMonkey]

Panentheism isn't foreign to Christianity.

It is foreign to many modern day Christians, however. Panentheism may very well reconcile many apparent contradictions and paradoxes in the scriptures, no?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

It is foreign to many modern day Christians, however. Panentheism may very well reconcile many apparent contradictions and paradoxes in the scriptures, no?

Don't know. Haven't thought about it that much.

 

[ZenMonkey]

Pedantics...while it is true the soul is discontinuous with the omnipresent spirit, its inherent awareness temporarily identifies with the body adopting a time-space dualistic perspective of reality and thus is for the time being, unaware of its underlying non-dual real nature. The word 'religion' literally means reconnect or reunite, and that's the real purpose of serious religious practice.

However you are free to express yourself as you like, and it may be true that verbosity may be more conducive for others to be interested to engage. However life is short and the primary mission is to be liberated from the flesh...spiritually speaking. I like the sophistry of scribes, so very entertaining....but prefer teachers being to the point.

Are you then under the impression that the soul equates to awareness (consciousness)? I'm of the mind that the soul is similar to a hard drive on a PC. It contains our life story. It consists of all we've experienced, all we've learned, and all we have become through those experiences.


I believe a persons soul (inner self) is ethereal, intangible, immaterial, yet able to store everything we ever experience. We [are] living souls as i understand it. When we die, I believe our brains cease to function and as a result we are no longer conscious of anything. We are no longer "living" souls, but become "sleeping" souls until given another body.


My view is that consciousness is a product of the brain. However, I also believe our soul (inner self) moves on after our body dies to be judged or rather tested for its level of maturity (purity). From that judgment the soul (according to my beliefs) will move on to occupy another body becoming a 'living' soul again.


Depending on the souls maturity, I believe the soul will continue its education until it reaches an acceptable level, whereby the soul will be given a spiritual body in God's heavenly kingdom to live out the rest of eternity in complete peace, joy, and serenity.

 

[Sees]

Are you then under the impression that the soul equates to awareness (consciousness)? I'm of the mind that the soul is similar to a hard drive on a PC. It contains our life story. It consists of all we've experienced, all we've learned, and all we have become through those experiences.


I believe a persons soul (inner self) is ethereal, intangible, immaterial, yet able to store everything we ever experience. We [are] living souls as i understand it. When we die, I believe our brains cease to function and as a result we are no longer conscious of anything. We are no longer "living" souls, but become "sleeping" souls until given another body.


My view is that consciousness is a product of the brain. However, I also believe our soul (inner self) moves on after our body dies to be judged or rather tested for its level of maturity (purity). From that judgment the soul (according to my beliefs) will move on to occupy another body becoming a 'living' soul again.


Depending on the souls maturity, I believe the soul will continue its education until it reaches an acceptable level, whereby the soul will be given a spiritual body in God's heavenly kingdom to live out the rest of eternity in complete peace, joy, and serenity.

Good to see, I was wondering if you were part of the soul camp or not...some people try to take Christian mysticism or philosophy over into the monistic God-only camp and stir it all together.

 

[idav]

It is foreign to many modern day Christians, however. Panentheism may very well reconcile many apparent contradictions and paradoxes in the scriptures, no?

It think it does reconcile the trinity concept rather nicely.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Are you then under the impression that the soul equates to awareness (consciousness)? I'm of the mind that the soul is similar to a hard drive on a PC. It contains our life story. It consists of all we've experienced, all we've learned, and all we have become through those experiences.


I believe a persons soul (inner self) is ethereal, intangible, immaterial, yet able to store everything we ever experience. We [are] living souls as i understand it. When we die, I believe our brains cease to function and as a result we are no longer conscious of anything. We are no longer "living" souls, but become "sleeping" souls until given another body.


My view is that consciousness is a product of the brain. However, I also believe our soul (inner self) moves on after our body dies to be judged or rather tested for its level of maturity (purity). From that judgment the soul (according to my beliefs) will move on to occupy another body becoming a 'living' soul again.


Depending on the souls maturity, I believe the soul will continue its education until it reaches an acceptable level, whereby the soul will be given a spiritual body in God's heavenly kingdom to live out the rest of eternity in complete peace, joy, and serenity.

You use different language, but express in general terms roughly the same understanding as myself, however in terms of religious practice, it would seem we are different.

You see while I understand reincarnation and karma are the lot of human souls until they are ready and worthy for immortality, my religious practice has no purpose other than realizing human destiny in the present life.

So long as an aspirant uses the conceptual mind as a means to an end, the soul is doomed to reincarnate until the error is corrected. Just to be clear, the conceptual mind is a natural development for the establishment of self-awareness, but after the ego has reached an appropriate degree of selfishness, its purpose has been served and it is time for the practicing selflessness, destiny demands it, and karma creates the incentive...I mean who like endless suffering.

When the mind is still and free from thought, then and only then will the self awareness developed as a result of all incarnations begin to merge with the omnipresent spirit of God to form a perfect spiritual self-aware angelic entity.

 

[ZenMonkey]

In religious practice, my aim is to gain spiritual knowledge and understanding, then to attain enough wisdom to apply that spiritual knowledge and understanding in life, which oddly enough defines my religion. I'd go even further and suggest that it isn't selfishness that we are to relinquish, but rather the lack of knowledge. Our ignorance is the result of being born into a strange world with a newly developed brain that has yet to be fed with any kind of substantial information relating to the way life (God) operates.


Knowledge is power to change our depth of understanding, to change our degree of wisdom, and to change the way we make our choices. We are at the mercy of our design, our conditioning, genetic makeup, life, and the information processed by us. It comes down to learned behavior based on the consequential experiences of our actions. The longer we live and the more we experience, the more our behavioral patterns become attuned to our spiritual and physical reality. This physical world ultimately prepares us for the spiritual world to come (imo).

 

[Ben Dhyan]

However there is a limitation to knowledge based on the conceptual mind, for concepts when one meditates on them, turn out to be mere symbolic representations of the real, not that they are the real...for the real is forever on the other side of the concept.

Real understanding otoh is non-conceptual and direct, no brain neuron firing is permitted if the real is to be apprehended. In fact, it is the conceptual chattering of the mind that obscures the apprehension of the real....but to still the mind to prove this teaching is the most difficult of practices to complete. Ironically it requires first the aspirant conceptually understand that reality itself is non-dual, and therefore it can't ever be apprehended by a mind that uses a dualistic (conceptual) approach.

Having said that, this conceptual teaching that conceptually teaching is an erroneous one wrt to apprehending reality, will only make sense to those who have the prerequisite intuitive understanding. This prerequisite intuitive understanding will have come from a vast amount of conceptual effort to understand...so all is well with all on the path..just that aspirants are at different levels.

 

[ZenMonkey]

I agree (for the most part), but then life in the physical is not w/o worth. I suggest that we (our entire body) is a living - breathing receptor, or rather we are an organism that simply acts and reacts according to the information (signals) received from the world around us. Our five senses send information to our brains, which in turn births an awareness of self (identity). Our conscious perception of the world around us is fueled by our five senses, which in turn allows us to experience life in an intimate way. Our awareness allows us to experience the beauty, the joy, the happiness, the wonder, and the magnificence of life. Awareness enables us to live and offers us a realization that we are alive, that we are individuals ... that we exist. Our awareness allows us to gauge where we are as living beings in life. It allows us to understand through conscious thought our moral and/or immoral standing.


Conversely, we may find life as we perceive it unpleasant at times, but then we are still learning how to live effectively in this school called life. I never enjoyed high school or college consistently either, but then I'm now a more knowledgeable and capable man for the time spent. With that being said, I believe knowledge is power to help our brains make better, more informed decisions. We as humans choose according to our strongest desire, but then our brains, our senses, and our bodies may very well tell our consciousness what those desires are. Our conscious awareness and/or perception of self causes us to think we have control over self. In other words our perceived control is an illusion caused by self awareness. I truly believe that it comes down to learned behavior based on our experiences and the type of exposure we've been subjected to in life. In short, conscious control and/or free will is an illusion, so I say seek understanding above all else, and allow your conscious self enjoy the ride.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

And I agree with what you have said for the most part, life in the physical has an essential part to play in the journey from formless pure spiritual un-self-aware perfection, to incarnate ego self-aware imperfection, and finally to spiritual self-aware perfection as an angelic non-physical entity.

Now this last step occurs in the last incarnation, and since the present humanity on planet Earth is just a little past the half way mark, this ultimate destiny is still far in the distant future for most. But the planetary evolutionary wave always needs leaders to 'light' the way ahead for the rest, those aspirants worthy and ready to volunteer join the immortals to act as guides.

That is all, except for interest's sake, I may add that this accelerated evolution is not without great sacrifice as the karmic lessons required to be learned prior to ego self awareness translations to spiritual self awareness are absolute, so the suffering (and joys) that would otherwise take place over many lifetimes, are endured in one...a most difficult ordeal and considered a sacrifice.

 

[ZenMonkey]

... but then no man's life in this physical realm is without great sacrifice. Consider that we are born with an intimate connection to the goodness of life, but also that we are later tainted by worldly influence. We are born pure and innocent, but then the inherent goodness known at birth is mingled with the knowledge of evil as we continue to live in this physical realm. The knowledge of evil and mankind's social acceptance of evil practice confuses the goodness that we are inherently born with, just as it can all but sever our innate connection to that goodness. But then that's the price we pay and the sacrifice made in every mans journey through this life. As you suggested, and I think I agree, this (circular?) cycle of accelerated evolution thrusts upon us great trial and tribulation as we continue to progress, but also great joy and peace once we have developed an accurate understanding and enough wisdom to observe the spiritual laws that govern our existence.


Btw, I'm loving your insight, ben ...


Namaste :bow:

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Yes so true. The biblical fall due to the metaphorical eating of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil equates with the loss of non-dual awareness of reality and subsequent reliance on conceptual dualistic perception. From a state of being one with the unity of reality, to a state of perceiving the one reality as divided into two parts..there is me, and all other in existence is not me. Without the loss of innocence, the ego would not arise to initiate the differentiation of perfect spiritual awareness into the dualistic 'I' subjective awareness and 'not I' objective perception. The call to return to the unity will be 'heard' when the prerequisite level of worthiness has been realized.....so yes, cherish the joys and give gratitude, soldier on through the pain and keep the faith, wisdom beyond the ken of man awaits.

Thank you ZenMonkey. :namaste