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The Holy Spirit and the Paramatma
- Thread starter agorman
- Start date
I don't find it a good practice to put spin on other folk's religions and ideas to make them fit into one's own paradigm.
Hmmm. I would like to hear @metis comment on this if it interests him.
Whenever you start talking about God and the Bible you are going to run into allegories and similes and allusions, never concrete definitions. The divine will be assigned aspects, but then God is not those aspects. It seems in the gospels that the Holy Spirit is treated like a special wind, a creative wind and also a searching wind. Its also not 'Wind' but is usually characterized that way and borrows some analogies from wind. It goes everywhere and is everywhere moving and we have zero control over it, and we also need it to stay alive. We can, however, hold our breath. As we need air to breathe, so we need the holy spirit to be in God's world alive. Without it we are dead in our sins, so it is like wind however the lack of it does not drop you dead on the ground physically. There is so much overlapping symbolism between the Holy Spirit and other things, so its not possible for me to ferret out what the Holy Spirit is specifically and separately from other things. It has been called the Spirit of Adoption. The Holy Spirit also appears as flames over some people's heads, and it appears like a dove. Studying 'The holy scriptures' has been characterized as filling ones self with the Holy Spirit, however in this context its compared to imbibing alcohol rather than breathing. The Holy Spirit could be feminine, however nowhere do the gospel writers call it female (as far as I remember).
Whenever you start talking about God and the Bible you are going to run into allegories and similes and allusions, never concrete definitions. The divine will be assigned aspects, but then God is not those aspects. It seems in the gospels that the Holy Spirit is treated like a special wind, a creative wind and also a searching wind. Its also not 'Wind' but is usually characterized that way and borrows some analogies from wind. It goes everywhere and is everywhere moving and we have zero control over it, and we also need it to stay alive. We can, however, hold our breath. As we need air to breathe, so we need the holy spirit to be in God's world alive. Without it we are dead in our sins, so it is like wind however the lack of it does not drop you dead on the ground physically. There is so much overlapping symbolism between the Holy Spirit and other things, so its not possible for me to ferret out what the Holy Spirit is specifically and separately from other things. It has been called the Spirit of Adoption. The Holy Spirit also appears as flames over some people's heads, and it appears like a dove. Studying 'The holy scriptures' has been characterized as filling ones self with the Holy Spirit, however in this context its compared to imbibing alcohol rather than breathing. The Holy Spirit could be feminine, however nowhere do the gospel writers call it female (as far as I remember).
But wouldn't Allah and God the Father be better associated to Brahma the Creator? The famous old god in the sky with the white beard? AFAIK the Paramatma is god within us.
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Though I found Meher Baba's works to be incredibly useful it seems necessary to remind that the map is not the territory.
Much my own thoughts. Who would have guessed?
Yes, I believe the A-brahamic God (the Father) is more closely related to Brahma Creator God of Vedic beliefs. Though if one considers it through the concept o Tri-theism and the Holy Spirit, there may be a similarity somewhere in the Vedic Pantheon.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Well said, imo.
In the Tanakh, the HS shows up as "God's spirit", so I think we can assume it's one and the same. Therefore, the HS would not likely be defined by gender but as some sort of spiritual force emanating from God, which does appear to fit into the trinitarian paradigm as not being a force separate from God.
arthra
Baha'i
The following are a few excerpts from the Baha'i Writings about the Holy Spirit:
"In the human plane and kingdom man is a captive of nature and ignorant of the divine world until born of the breaths of the Holy Spirit out of physical conditions of limitation and deprivation. Then he beholds the reality of the spiritual realm and kingdom, realizes the narrow restrictions of the mere human world of existence and becomes conscious of the unlimited and infinite glories of the world of God. Therefore no matter how man may advance upon the physical and intellectual plane he is ever in need of the boundless virtues of divinity, the protection of the Holy Spirit and the face of God."
(Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 57)
"Therefore the Lord of mankind has caused His holy divine Manifestations to come into the world. He has revealed His heavenly books in order to establish spiritual brotherhood, and through the power of the Holy Spirit has made it practicable for perfect fraternity to be realized among mankind. And when through the breaths of the Holy Spirit this perfect fraternity and agreement are established amongst men, this brotherhood and love being spiritual in character, this loving-kindness being heavenly, these constraining bonds being divine, a unity appears which is indissoluble, unchanging and never subject to transformation."
(Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 79)
whirlingmerc
Well-Known Member
I tend to see the Son as the eternally generated idea of God of Himself who is also a person who the Father loves, the ideal image of the Father
I tend to see the Holy Spirit as the eternally generated love between Father and Son, who is also a person
So three eternal coexisting persons in love and community from eternity with both diversity and unity in the Godhead and strong love that overflows into a strong love for believers who are 'in Christ'
Paraclete is applied to both Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament and I prefer the term Paraclete. Jesus is the believers helper praying at the right hand of the Father in heaven and the Holy Spirit our helper here on earth.
The Crimson Universe
Active Member
The Holy Spirit is NOT the Paramatma.
The holy spirit moves from one location to another.
Luke 3:22 - ... and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove.
Whereas the Paramatma (or 'Atman' as the non-dualists / advaitins calls it)
is present everywhere like the sky or ether. Since IT is present everywhere IT has no need to move from one location to another.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Ch.2 - v.24, (translated by Swami Chidbhava Nanda)
Lord Krishna says- This Self / Atman (as in Paramatma) is uncleavable, incombustible, and neither wetted nor dried. IT is eternal, all-pervading, stable, immovable and everlasting.
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The Holy Spirit in the original teachings of Jesus is indeed the Paramatma or the Parama Purusha (Cosmic Consciousness) because in two versions of the same saying on how to pray, in one version the Holy Spirit is replaced by Rule ("Kingdom") of God which is similar to self-realisation (where the atman is reunited with the Paramatman).
But when the Christians start writing their first gospel story, the idea of the Holy Spirit is already changed to a less philosophical and more extroversive meaning, i.e. something that 'descends on Jesus' and is with the (christian) believer (and not with the disbeliever).
So you have to distinguish between its meaning in the spiritual philosophy of the Jesus teachings and the changed meaning in the Christian religion.