Prayer - What is it to you?

[Windwalker]

I've been making more of an effort to see the positive side in these traditions while approaching people as they are rather than just according to their beliefs. Historically, it does seem that the term "God" has carried anthropomorphic connotations, which might also explain why I prefer more neutral terms now.

I think for me it is simpler to free God from literalism, as I did not grown up having concepts of God drilled into my head from an early age. I came into religion opposite of what most do. I had a transcendent experience of the Infinite prior to exposure to traditional dogma. I adopted it because it was at least some framework available at the time I could attempt to understand this experience within. But their teachings, more often than not, conflicted with what that experience exposed.

There were of course truths, but a whole lot of misconceptions as well. Ultimately I had to break free from them and ended up without any real home, though the experiences were still true as the core of who I was. My struggle was to shake God loose from this system that I never really fit it, but worked hard to make it work and fit for me. So reclaiming God and freeing that was a challenge, but relatively easy as it was only for a time in my life where I was looking for answers to what is beyond answers.

I don't know. Won't that just perpetuate adversarial relations with the fundamentalist community? Why does anyone have to claim possession of the symbol? Can't we just create new symbols?

What I mean by that is that God is a perfectly good symbol, and to not use it because fundamentalism beat people over the head with it in their discomfort with the world outside their narrowly defined group membership, does not mean we shouldn't use God. To do that, hands over all the power of what God is to them. I don't see any need to be adversarial to them. I think its better to see them as irrelevant when it comes to understanding the deeper things of God.

Not to sound too patronizing, but it's like giving the kindergarten class the power to define the conversation of something far beyond their range of discussion of highly abstract topics. That's why I criticize those like Dawkins. What a waste of resources going after the equivalent of a Sunday School pop-up Bible-story book. That's too easy. But yet, somehow, we think they define the parameters of the discussion. How they understand God, is what defines God.

Personally, I prefer to have as few abstract beliefs as possible and focus more on living directly in presence instead.

Ultimately in lived experience you are indeed correct. To get too focused on the technical details of all these models can itself leave you with nothing but some externalized God. The value of the models is in having an intelligent, rational discussion of these things, as opposed to picking on literalists and how silly their beliefs are in light of modern science! People need to feel that they are not be irrational in accepting the value of spiritual practices and pursuits, and these complex understanding serve that purpose.

The content of what they are merely maps of the terrain of course, are only gleaned by going to where the maps are pointing to. I recall my first time opening that door and stepping within, how all these complex models were dwarfed by such experiences. These complexes of systems theories, evolutionary theories, social systems, cultural studies, linguistic studies, brain studies, developmental studies, religious studies, etc, etc, etc, are as simple two-dimensional stick models compared to the sort of knowledge that floods you as you enter into that Reality they are mere representations of. You do not need to know all that junk, and it is not what the experience is based upon. It is not a system of belief at all. And as such all these models are totally secondary. In typical religious systems, such as your literalists, the beliefs are primary. That's backward. That's a substitute.

 

[YmirGF]

I think for me, as I moved into that internal realization deeper, part of that internal process was/is to encounter that higher self as what it really is: God. God without becomes God within through that visualization, through that prayer and supplication, through releasing ego into that. At a certain point as I would describe it, "heaven dissolves", it is no longer "higher", with you bowed before it, but it merges into you and all there is is Self. God within.

I’m right there with you all the way up to “god”. I simply don’t label IT beyond simply calling it being. In my view, at that stage, the concept of god becomes practically meaningless.

Here's a beautiful Sufi description, which when I first read it gave a very apt, literal, description of what this is experienced as within meditation:

“There are lights which ascend and lights which descend. The ascending lights are the lights of the heart; the descending lights are those of the Throne. The false self is the veil between the Throne and the heart. When this veil is torn, and a door opens in the heart, like springs towards like. Light ascends toward light and light descends upon light, and it is ‘light upon light’.

When each time the heart sighs for the throne the throne sighs for the heart, so they come to meet. Each time a light ascends from you, a light descends toward you. If their energies are equal, then they meet halfway. But when the substance of light has grown in you, then this makes up a whole in relation to what is in the same nature in Heaven. Then, it is the substance of light in Heaven that longs for you, and is drawn to your light, and it descends toward you. This is the secret of the mystical journey.”

~9th Century Sufi mystic, Najim al-Din Hubra

This reminds me of what I have said elsewhere about the “maha-mantra”.

hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa
kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare
hare rāma hare rāma
rāma rāma hare hare

From my experience, it isn’t so much a mantra, in the traditional sense, but rather, it becomes like a beacon that draws attention toward the chanter. Love is the gift you give yourself.

I don't call them the highest realization, but they are extraordinarily important and powerful. The only 'perilous' is to fall back into old, childlike, view that wholly externalizes God. If one is sufficiently developed, it’s usefulness is profound and transformative.

I love Meister Eckhart, who himself was nondualist. He constantly speaks of God, but then says something so wonderful, "I pray God to make me free of God, for [His] unconditioned Being is above God and all distinctions." It is "through" God, we find "God beyond God".

Exactly, so what are we arguing about? :sorry1:

That is why I asked that after a certain stage how meaningful is it to continue with this line of experience? Once one is at or beyond the “beyond god” stage, what point is there in continuing along that line of reason? Again, from my own experience, part of getting through the “beyond god” stage was breaking down the distortions about Being that are superimposed onto it by the various god concepts.

I thought I was being generous by saying we should bear some fondness for the very ideas that led us to our realizations however that doesn’t mean we should continue to shoehorn those ideals onto current experience. Naturally, they will begin to diminish and fade into the background.

In my view, it is much more preferable to simply cozy up to the idea that the inner self is a real aspect of being and its reality and environment(s) are well beyond our limited ideas of god. In effect, I am saying, “Forget about god. That possible reality is nothing like human animals, en masse, can presently imagine. The inner self, however, is well within the range of every human animal's grasp. Get out and play with the inner self for awhile and if one still needs a god concept after romping about for a period, one may be better situated to appreciate a considerably larger view of god than we have currently available on this small planet.”

We are humans, and to dismiss 2nd person relationships in a spiritual context is to call that part of ourselves somehow as "inferior". Higher, does not mean what came before is "inferior". Higher simply means more inclusive of what came before.

I get what you are saying but find allusions to lateral ascension to be distasteful as it gives many the idea of neatly laid out stages where in fact experienced reality is considerably messier. There is no prearranged order that inner evolution follows due to the tremendous “bleed throughs” that exist between “states” of awareness.

Taking a knife and cutting it out of ourselves can itself be "perilous" indeed! It's called repression which itself may seek to overcompensation for that repression into some form of pathology. We have to transcend, but include what comes before. Not gut it out.

I would never seriously suggest that one prune away ideas that are still of some use to them; quite the contrary, really. I do understand the psychological need exhibited by other human animals and respect that - to a degree.

Long ago, I was asked a question during an interview with Comprehend and I stated that I was wrestling with how to explain developing a relationship with the inner self. I suggested that folks phrase questions directly to their inner identity but felt that was perilously close to praying to god. That isn’t what I am meaning. The outer self can develop a very healthy and beneficial relationship with the inner self (or larger identity) without the grandiose dramatics of putting things in theological terms. In many ways, the inner self is your best friend, as you are its emissary here in the physical world, so there is no need for artificial “posing” to get its attention. It isn’t like it is the master and you are its servant. The inner self, for example, isn't very impressed with people weeping on their knees although it might offer a cosmic Kleenex whilst imploring them to relax and speak of what is on their mind.

 

[Windwalker]

I’m right there with you all the way up to “god”. I simply don’t label IT beyond simply calling it being.

Isn't "being" a label too? Don't think you escape the problem of using the word God by using another word. Any word defines "it", even "it". So none of those words, any words can express.................

In my view, at that stage, the concept of god becomes practically meaningless.

And we come straight back to what I have been observing as your problem in all of this. You insist in calling God a concept. I see it more like an expression of inspiration, not a mental idea. You see it as an idea.

This reminds me of what I have said elsewhere about the “maha-mantra”.

hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa
kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare
hare rāma hare rāma
rāma rāma hare hare

From my experience, it isn’t so much a mantra, in the traditional sense, but rather, it becomes like a beacon that draws attention toward the chanter. Love is the gift you give yourself.

It is a tool. Archetype, baby, archetype.

Exactly, so what are we arguing about? :sorry1:

Because you insist you have the definitive notions of what God is in the grand scale of things. I think you're mistaken in thinking you have some special, superior insight on this. I see flaws in your thinking. I hold the same understanding you do, yet I am not hung up in my thinking about God as you are. This discussion is to try to get you to loosen your conceptual stranglehold on things. You say these models of hierarchy suck, and yet you are doing it yourself, as I'll show.

That is why I asked that after a certain stage how meaningful is it to continue with this line of experience? Once one is at or beyond the “beyond god” stage, what point is there in continuing along that line of reason?

Because it's not a hierarchy, just like you argue! And yet here, you are saying once you are at that "stage" (a hierarchical expression), you should be beyond it. And once again, here it is, you call it a "line of reason". You truly do not understand what or how symbols function. they are not signs, which reason looks to. They are "beyond reason".

But to the real point here, besides exposing your inconsistency, there are many lines of development we must go through, and simply having a "state experience" (defined as a temporary peak experience of the transcendent), does not by any means indicate you have now arrived! It's a common misconception that Enlightenment means "That's it! I now understand all and am at complete peace". Enlightenment experiences are not that uncommon, but to me becoming an Enlightened soul, is a permanent stage of development. You have to "go back" and learn all the stages of development toward that, just the way you learned how to be a young adult growing up from being a wee toddler.

These tools, when understood by virtue of a higher realization, take on a significantly different flavor than when understood through the eyes of a child. To assume all of who you are has sufficiently developed now that you've had an Enlightenment experience is a myth in and of itself! Those are the easy part!

One other thing, Enlightenment is not an escape from yourself. Nor a justification of yourself. Enlightenment is the beginning. Not the end.

Again, from my own experience, part of getting through the “beyond god” stage was breaking down the distortions about Being that are superimposed onto it by the various god concepts.

Yes, that was part of your process because you obviously had such stumbling blocks with it. Don't assume your path is now superior to others, as it worked for you. Don't take your transcendent experiences as validation of your ideas about these things. It still takes reason and knowledge.

I thought I was being generous by saying we should bear some fondness for the very ideas that led us to our realizations however that doesn’t mean we should continue to shoehorn those ideals onto current experience. Naturally, they will begin to diminish and fade into the background.

Yeah, but that's a long ways up that ladder friend. Don't mistake your "thinking" about God and find the "concept", as you put it, as wanting, with what it is for others. In no way does my experience or interaction with, or communion with the divine equate to the things I'm hearing you say. This discussion is to hopeful humble your narrow thinking on the matter - which I am hearing you form in your words presented.

I could tell you the sorts of experiences I have on a very personal level, and you'd see they defy your understanding of these things. But I already exposed myself quite a lot early in this thread sharing from my personal journals in response to the fundamentalist InChrist in response to her calling me a "blasphemer". I don't care to expose the depths of my soul for analysis.

In my view, it is much more preferable to simply cozy up to the idea that the inner self is a real aspect of being and its reality and environment(s) are well beyond our limited ideas of god.

To be honest, to me this is child's play. That's the beginning of evolving our use and understanding of all these tools at our disposal. You still see God as "our ideas". There another understanding beyond that one, you apparently don't see yet.

Everything you would say about God, and are in what I've seen, is common sense to me. Where I am going is a bit more esoteric than all that.

I get what you are saying but find allusions to lateral ascension to be distasteful as it gives many the idea of neatly laid out stages where in fact experienced reality is considerably messier. There is no prearranged order that inner evolution follows due to the tremendous “bleed throughs” that exist between “states” of awareness.

Yes, yes. But this is a conceptual discussion, and as such to use models of development are practical. Just because someone may take them as literal 'facts' is not my problem. It's theirs, or yours. I agree with what you say about these things being far "messier". You're preaching to the choir here. These, as any academic models are basically laying out patterns to discuss. There are not magic, "Oh, you're five now. According to developmental theorists, you should now exhibit the following in order.... What's wrong with you!? Why aren't you doing what they said!?" The problem is not the models. It's the parent.

I would never seriously suggest that one prune away ideas that are still of some use to them; quite the contrary, really.

Again, to point it out "ideas" "ideas" "ideas". You see God as a conceptual idea. You are not in this discussion I am having.

I'm going to leave it here.

 

[Straw Dog]

There were of course truths, but a whole lot of misconceptions as well. Ultimately I had to break free from them and ended up without any real home, though the experiences were still true as the core of who I was. My struggle was to shake God loose from this system that I never really fit it, but worked hard to make it work and fit for me. So reclaiming God and freeing that was a challenge, but relatively easy as it was only for a time in my life where I was looking for answers to what is beyond answers.

I'm glad that you were able to reclaim the symbol and utilize it upon your journey.

What I mean by that is that God is a perfectly good symbol, and to not use it because fundamentalism beat people over the head with it in their discomfort with the world outside their narrowly defined group membership, does not mean we shouldn't use God. To do that, hands over all the power of what God is to them. I don't see any need to be adversarial to them. I think its better to see them as irrelevant when it comes to understanding the deeper things of God.

I agree that we should be free to use whatever symbols we find to be meaningful within whatever context is appropriate. I can understand how "God" works as a poetic expression. I've played around with it myself. If we are referring to the same reality, I'm more likely to refer to it as the primordial potentiality, which I find to be a more useful description devoid of historical baggage.

You do not need to know all that junk, and it is not what the experience is based upon. It is not a system of belief at all. And as such all these models are totally secondary. In typical religious systems, such as your literalists, the beliefs are primary. That's backward. That's a substitute.

Yeah, especially in the U.S., everybody seems so proud of their beliefs. It's strange. Fortunately, I can't be bothered trying to reform other people. I'm content simply to reform myself.

This is why I follow the way of Zen. Instead of chasing after map markers, I simply abide in that which is and seek nothing. I suppose that I use a stop sign for that, however.

 

[Me Myself]

Comunion

 

[YmirGF]

Isn't "being" a label too? Don't think you escape the problem of using the word God by using another word. Any word defines "it", even "it". So none of those words, any words can express.................

Language is not without its problems, Windwalker.

And we come straight back to what I have been observing as your problem in all of this. You insist in calling God a concept. I see it more like an expression of inspiration, not a mental idea. You see it as an idea.

I think I finally see the problem here. When I equate "god" as being an idea or a concept, you believe that I am minimizing "god". Would this be correct?

Because you insist you have the definitive notions of what God is in the grand scale of things.

No, I somewhat clearly state, or so I thought, that I no longer feel I have the authority to discern what god is. It is because of that that I am skeptical of other definitions of god.

I think you're mistaken in thinking you have some special, superior insight on this.

No, not superior, in any way. Different, however, is indisputable.

I see flaws in your thinking. I hold the same understanding you do, yet I am not hung up in my thinking about God as you are. This discussion is to try to get you to loosen your conceptual stranglehold on things. You say these models of hierarchy suck, and yet you are doing it yourself, as I'll show.

I blame language on that one. It's very hard to get away from such terms in discussions such as these as long as the reader understands that the differences between "states" are not set in concrete.

Because it's not a hierarchy, just like you argue! And yet here, you are saying once you are at that "stage" (a hierarchical expression), you should be beyond it. And once again, here it is, you call it a "line of reason".

If you can think of away around such terms, I'm all ears and would be deeply indebted to you.

You truly do not understand what or how symbols function. they are not signs, which reason looks to. They are "beyond reason".

Ah, that explains quite a bit actually. :flirt: I take a different track. I don't personally believe anything is beyond reason however given reasons may often eclipse current understanding giving the illusion of being "beyond reason".

But to the real point here, besides exposing your inconsistency, there are many lines of development we must go through, and simply having a "state experience" (defined as a temporary peak experience of the transcendent), does not by any means indicate you have now arrived! It's a common misconception that Enlightenment means "That's it! I now understand all and am at complete peace". Enlightenment experiences are not that uncommon, but to me becoming an Enlightened soul, is a permanent stage of development. You have to "go back" and learn all the stages of development toward that, just the way you learned how to be a young adult growing up from being a wee toddler.

That's a tad extreme, but in principle we agree.

These tools, when understood by virtue of a higher realization, take on a significantly different flavor than when understood through the eyes of a child. To assume all of who you are has sufficiently developed now that you've had an Enlightenment experience is a myth in and of itself! Those are the easy part!

I don't really believe in so-called "enlightenment" anymore. It gets old pretty fast.

One other thing, Enlightenment is not an escape from yourself. Nor a justification of yourself. Enlightenment is the beginning. Not the end.

I wish I had a dollar for each time I have said much the same thing.

Yes, that was part of your process because you obviously had such stumbling blocks with it. Don't assume your path is now superior to others, as it worked for you. Don't take your transcendent experiences as validation of your ideas about these things. It still takes reason and knowledge.

Superiority complex much, Windwalker?

Yeah, but that's a long ways up that ladder friend. Don't mistake your "thinking" about God and find the "concept", as you put it, as wanting, with what it is for others. In no way does my experience or interaction with, or communion with the divine equate to the things I'm hearing you say. This discussion is to hopeful humble your narrow thinking on the matter - which I am hearing you form in your words presented.

How would I know about what is such "a long ways up the ladder" if I hadn't crawled up the rungs to understand that point, Windwalker? Lucky guess? Riddle me that and I'll give you a cookie.

To be honest, to me this is child's play. That's the beginning of evolving our use and understanding of all these tools at our disposal. You still see God as "our ideas". There another understanding beyond that one, you apparently don't see yet.

And yet, I am able to point to a reasonable "stage one". Oy vey... To be fair, Windwalker, there is much beyond that.

Everything you would say about God, and are in what I've seen, is common sense to me. Where I am going is a bit more esoteric than all that.

I know and that is what I do find somewhat intriguing. You are, far and away, the most eloquent speaker I have encountered, and though I am sure you get frustrated with me, I do find our conversations quite stimulating.

Yes, yes. But this is a conceptual discussion, and as such to use models of development are practical. Just because someone may take them as literal 'facts' is not my problem. It's theirs, or yours. I agree with what you say about these things being far "messier". You're preaching to the choir here. These, as any academic models are basically laying out patterns to discuss. There are not magic, "Oh, you're five now. According to developmental theorists, you should now exhibit the following in order.... What's wrong with you!? Why aren't you doing what they said!?" The problem is not the models. It's the parent.

Hehe. This is cute.

Again, to point it out "ideas" "ideas" "ideas". You see God as a conceptual idea. You are not in this discussion I am having.

You yourself have said we share the same understanding, which is not quite correct, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. It sounds like you are automatically thinking because I use the term "ideas" and "concepts" that I am somehow minimizing a given thing. Little could be further from the truth. I well understand the power and scope of ideas and how they impinge on the day to day reality of personal experience. An "idea" really can change the world and that is how I see "ideas".

I'm going to leave it here.

I won't beg you to continue, but I am thoroughly enjoying our conversation. I'm more of a long haul person and don't expect immediate rewards for my efforts. If I'm not worth your valuable time I'll probably learn to cope with the loss - eventually ...

 

[Windwalker]

Language is not without its problems, Windwalker.

Exactly. And so with my use of God, cut me that same understanding I extend to you. We are talking on the same plane here when it comes to this aspect of our discussion.

I think I finally see the problem here. When I equate "god" as being an idea or a concept, you believe that I am minimizing "god". Would this be correct?

I think a better term would be miscategorizing it in all applications. In that sense it unduely minimizes it. I agree with you that God, when acting as a sign, embodies mental concepts appropriate within a given framework of understanding. But this is not the role of a symbol on a psychological level. To apply the sign function to a symbol function, essentially guts a symbol and reduces it to a mere sign.

And don't tell me that Nothingness negates all this understanding. That's irrelevant while we are addressing things like this. That comes into play in another context.

I blame language on that one. It's very hard to get away from such terms in discussions such as these as long as the reader understands that the differences between "states" are not set in concrete.

Nor are any categories we come up with to talk about these things. The problem with people looking at these models as reflecting actual reality goes far beyond this discussion of ours! It's pandemic, actually. Philosophical materialism exemplifies that fallacy, IMO.

As far as states go, I like the use of states and stages Ken Wilber lays out. States are temporary conditions of conscious awareness, and stages are developmental shifts which are basically permanent, as in shifts from concrete-operational cognition to formal-operational. At any given point in our lives we may have a state of consciousness far beyond our stage of development. We have to be careful therefore not to say that just because you or I have had nondual states of consciousness, that this constitutes that we are developmentally now functioning at that stage! At best, these states expose us to what is technically "higher" than our current developmental stage. And so on. And as with any model, these stages are not set in stone. They are ways of talking about general trends.

If you can think of away around such terms, I'm all ears and would be deeply indebted to you.

A symbol is not a line of reason. A line of reason is a mental model. A symbol goes to a much less cognitive-based function. It strikes at the nonverbal, the subconscious mind. The subconscious does not use "lines of reason".

Here's where its going to get really "messy", as you point out. Within these meditative states, the cognitive, reasoning mind with all its mental models where we spend most of day living within and navigating our way through, assuming it reflects reality, is not the only thing at play here - even though it is the one we hear all day not recognizing its just a 'brain function'. There is also the subconscious mind, always aware, always observing, that 'sees' what the so-called 'conscious' mind does not. It is always communicating, but in ways our 'reasoning' minds don't directly understand.

In meditation you still the linguistic centers of the mind and the subconscious mind is seen more directly. What happens is you literally are letting your waking state of conscious mind directly aware of your subconscious mind. What arises is a series of symbols that represent things that carry information to us, images, various phenomena, etc. The "normal" waking mind in its reasoning centers is being asked by you in meditation to suspend its activities and simply allow this to float by as you observe.

What arises is two-fold. First are those things in our own psyches of things in our lives, repressed memories, anxieties, fears, etc, taking on various cultural symbols. This can be to say the least terrifying to some people. Which is why those who don't have a relatively stable psyche should not go there except under guidance or direction of qualified teacher. These are healing. I remember saying when I first started practicing meditation that "I feel healed. I feel like I've just gone through five years of intense psychotherapy in five weeks." That's the first part, the first thing I encountered. The first necessary step, healing what you didn't even know needed to be healed. All this was self-guided for me.

The second aspect of this is where the symbolic forms really come into play. Symbols are transformative in nature. They represent what is not yet realized within you. They do not translate the known, familiar surrounding world or current self-understandings, but take that yet unrealized potential and puts a face upon it. It is the yet unrealized true Self, that you and I agree upon. It is the Nature of our Being. It is both the Ground of our Being, and the Goal of our potentials. This is where Archetypes come in.

Archetypes point to what we are unfolding to, that Goal. This is where deity forms come in, or any number of other forms. When someone experiences that Ineffable in a meditative state (which can occur at any moment, deliberately created, or spontaneously occurring), the symbolic mind puts a "face" upon it in order to take that experience and take what is inside and reach up to it. It is through the symbol, that potential reaches into what is not yet immediately known in our lives. Symbols are transformative, whereas as signs are translative.

Where I say symbols are important, even to those who have had states of consciousness beyond symbols (which I have as well), is that because we are still on that path of transformation into stages of our growth, into that Light, to those highest states of conscious mind, they play a role in helping realize all those many aspects of our lives that need to be integrated. Integrated is the operative word here.

This is why I can say that though I recognize that Truth is beyond the symbols, Truth is within the symbols as well. And to interact with them, even though I've seen them dissolve into realized Self, is to help integrate those aspects of my life into that higher realization. It is a process, and I think those who see spending all their time in Casual states, are bypassing something important developmentally. I see it as an important ingredient to a well balanced diet towards our spiritual development.

Anyway, I'm out of time here......