The implications of God's existence or lack thereof

[kaat]

The Baha'i practices can be very brief and well suited to the modern well and busy lifes.

How long to do Baha'i practices take?

Short obligatory prayer - one minute

Reciting a verse from the sacred writings morning and evening - one minute

Reciting the greatest name 95 times - two minutes.

That's less than five minutes each day. If you are looking to build a relationship with God, there's your starting point.

Have you ever enjoyed the company of others?



I think there are about 10 Baha'is currently posting on RF. I don't really think of my self as seperate from anyoen else here. What other sites have you been on?

Well, not to brag, but I can meditate instantly, stop thinking, and all is well.

 

[kaat]

I think we have stumbled into a fundamental disagreement between the two of us about the nature and origin of ethics.

Ethics, it is very clear to me, is applied reason. It makes no sense to trust anything but rational analysis in order to pursue and develop it. It takes active reason to develop and improve any guidelines that might happen to be of ethical value.

(Stifles a laugh) .. Yes, isn't it amazing where human-made religious dogma will take you.

 

[Lyndon]

nonsense i was a buddhist monk and temple boy for a year

 

[kaat]

nonsense i was a buddhist monk and temple boy for a year

Ah. I'll ignore the "nonsense" comment. You see, monks know nothing - they are trying like mad to learn, and to "get it". "It" being ultimate enlightenment; membership in the sangha - that's if they are true bohdisatvas (sp?) - most are not. Not many make it. And as for temples, well, ahem, they have nothing to do with Buddhism. Except throughout the East, where new Buddhists found that they weren't required to give up their old Gods and religions - so they melded them into Buddhism. You see, God and religion, as the Buddha himself said, are completely irrelevant to his ideas. If you don't get this, I certainly will not be pushing you further.

Yours,
Martin

P.S.: Just to further illustrate the point, I'll ask - what do you consider you learned in your year as a monk; that which influences you now? Are you sure you aren't a cherry-picker? You have FOUR spiritual influences listed. I'd recommend choosing one.

 

[Windwalker]

You are one of the lucky ones. Not all of us are that fortunate. I do not believe that personal experiences can be ordered up like a burger at a restaurant.

Well, I'm not so sure about calling that "lucky"! It comes at a cost. As far as ordering it up like a burger, it would be more like ordering a burger and paying for it with a sword thrust through your chest. The price you pay is your own death. But when you realize the gain, you step up to the counter and expose that chest and say, "take my heart".

Like one of the sayings of the Buddha, one should seek enlightenment like someone whose hair is on fire seeks the river. You seek it at all cost.

I do not meet the qualifications to receive and convey the knowledge of God. I am not special.

When you realize none of us are "special" above others, that is exactly the person God gives his Grace to. It is only when you are empty, you can be filled. This is not an accomplishment that sets you heads and shoulders above others, but rather a complete diminishment of yourself. You become nothing, so you can be a vessel of God. This is the teachings of Christ. Not evelvationism, but lowly, humble, and meek. "The meek shall inherit the earth."

For me to think I am that important that God would choose me to speak to would be rather arrogant.

You're darn right it would! This is why I reject the elvelationsim of prophets. It's an ego projection, "I can't be that good!". It's thinking entirely wrong about the entire thing. What you should say is, "I don't know how to be that humble in order to receive God." If God touches you like this, you realize how "nothing" you really are. You see, it's the exact opposite. God's "kingdom" is an upside down one.

So God is not withholding anything from me and I am not barring the door so God cannot get in.

We all block God. The trick is to do that less and less, to become less and less so we don't.

Speaking of barring, this is what Baha’u’llah wrote that He had no direct relationship to God, the “essence of all created things.” I do not believe that God speaks to anyone directly, not even the Messengers, and God only speaks to the Messengers through the Holy Spirit.

Well, we are in agreement. We can have a direct experience of God, however. But not some magical dictation of words, as many imagine about their prophets and the supposed infallibility of the words.

I do not need to have had the God experiences those atheists had in order to believe they were real. I do not question that God communicates in some way to selected individuals, but God sure does not reveal an entire religion to them.

I do not believe God reveals an entire religion to anyone. Religions are created by men inspired to find themselves and a way to relate to God. Jesus did not create Christianity. His followers did that.

The obvious reason God communicated to these atheists is because they were sincerely searching for God and God knew this was the best way to reach them at that time.

Again, to me this is anthropomorphizing God, that he chooses some and not others. God chooses everyone. Not everyone chooses God.

The reason they found something was because they listened to themselves. They came to a place of willingness and openness, and then it happened. Those that are "believers" may often find it harder for them to find God, because they have too many ideas of what God is to start with.

"God make me free of God, so that I may know God". They were freed of God, and found God.

God does not need to do that for me because I am already a firm believer. That makes logical sense.

As I said, the kingdom of God is upside down land.

So why does God not communicate to all atheists? The answer is quite simple. There was something “special” about those atheists, they were chosen in a sense, because they were sincere and deserving.

No. They were not "special". On the contrary. They were open.

Let me share this wonderful story about the Zen master and his student.

Once, a long time ago, there was a wise Zen master. People from far and near would seek his counsel and ask for his wisdom. Many would come and ask him to teach them, enlighten them in the way of Zen. He seldom turned any away.

One day an important man, a man used to command and obedience came to visit the master. “I have come today to ask you to teach me about Zen. Open my mind to enlightenment.” The tone of the important man’s voice was one used to getting his own way.

The Zen master smiled and said that they should discuss the matter over a cup of tea. When the tea was served the master poured his visitor a cup. He poured and he poured and the tea rose to the rim and began to spill over the table and finally onto the robes of the wealthy man. Finally the visitor shouted, “Enough. You are spilling the tea all over. Can’t you see the cup is full?”

The master stopped pouring and smiled at his guest. “You are like this tea cup, so full that nothing more can be added. Come back to me when the cup is empty. Come back to me with an empty mind.”​

I'll finish the rest of my reply later. BTW, thank you for this discussion. I enjoy conversing with you.

 

[Trailblazer]

Okay, I am truly sorry. Just tell me you folks are really serious about all this, and that I shouldn't mock it, and I'll go away. Otherwise, well, it's more fun than taking candy from a baby.

It is fun for me too, too much fun sometimes.

 

[Windwalker]

One thought I wanted to add to this before getting back to my reply. When we were talking about the prophets being "special", or "chosen" this thought occured to me. To God, every star in the universe is equally special, none higher or lower, none above or below. The stars just are, what they are.

But to us, we look to a few out of the trillions that populate the heavens which may stand out to us, and those select one we identified can be useful to help guide our way. But it is us who "chose" that star, not God. God didn't create the North Star, for us. It's just one that stood out to us as meaningful. It is "special" to us. We gave it meaning to us, and choose it for our purposes.

It is far easier in my mind to see us as the ones valuing something and choosing something as special, than to somehow try to reason God did the choosing. Choosing is a human activity. To say God chooses like us, is an anthropomorphism.

 

[Windwalker]

No disrespect Lyndon, but if you are wotsit-wotsit influenced by Taoism and Buddhism, you clearly know nothing of Taoism or Buddhism (these do not influence anything). As a devout Tibetan Buddhist, I might respectfully request that you drop that part of your wotsit.

It's interesting to hear you call yourself a "devout Tibetan Buddhist", and yet feel it's your place to tell people who draw from Buddhist philosophy that they are not allowed to claim that. I don't think the Dalai Lama would find this legitimate, considering he teaches Buddhist thoughts to the whole world. I would celebrate this in others, not berate them as you do. Were you a former fundamentalist Christian in a past lifetime, one who used to deride others who spoke of the teachings of Jesus as not a "true Christian" because they didn't look like how you practiced your version of the religion?

 

[Trailblazer]

Well, I'm not so sure about calling that "lucky"!

It comes at a cost. As far as ordering it up like a burger, it would be more like ordering a burger and paying for it with a sword thrust through your chest. The price you pay is your own death. But when you realize the gain, you step up to the counter and expose that chest and say, "take my heart".

Like one of the sayings of the Buddha, one should seek enlightenment like someone whose hair is on fire seeks the river. You seek it at all cost.

When you realize none of us are "special" above others, that is exactly the person God gives his Grace to. It is only when you are empty, you can be filled. This is not an accomplishment that sets you heads and shoulders above others, but rather a complete diminishment of yourself. You become nothing, so you can be a vessel of God. This is the teachings of Christ. Not evelvationism, but lowly, humble, and meek. "The meek shall inherit the earth."

You're darn right it would! This is why I reject the elvelationsim of prophets. It's an ego projection, "I can't be that good!". It's thinking entirely wrong about the entire thing. What you should say is, "I don't know how to be that humble in order to receive God." If God touches you like this, you realize how "nothing" you really are. You see, it's the exact opposite. God's "kingdom" is an upside down one.

Well, we are in agreement. We can have a direct experience of God, however. But not some magical dictation of words, as many imagine about their prophets and the supposed infallibility of the words.

I do not believe God reveals an entire religion to anyone. Religions are created by men inspired to find themselves and a way to relate to God. Jesus did not create Christianity. His followers did that.

God chooses everyone. Not everyone chooses God.

The reason they found something was because they listened to themselves. They came to a place of willingness and openness, and then it happened. Those that are "believers" may often find it harder for them to find God, because they have too many ideas of what God is to start with.

Let me share this wonderful story about the Zen master and his student.

“Finally the visitor shouted, “Enough. You are spilling the tea all over. Can’t you see the cup is full?”

The master stopped pouring and smiled at his guest. “You are like this tea cup, so full that nothing more can be added. Come back to me when the cup is empty. Come back to me with an empty mind.”

I'll finish the rest of my reply later. BTW, thank you for this discussion. I enjoy conversing with you.

I am all for the death if it means death of the lower self and death of attachment to the material world of dust. Who wants those?

The Buddha was wise. In the Tablet of the True Seeker Baha’u’llah said something similar about the sacrifices the true seeker has to make to attain his goal. This is only “one” of the requirements:

“He must purge his breast, which is the sanctuary of the abiding love of the Beloved, of every defilement, and sanctify his soul from all that pertaineth to water and clay, from all shadowy and ephemeral attachments.” Gleanings, p. 264

But, as you said,when you realize the gain, you step up to the counter and expose that chest and say, "take my heart".

“They that valiantly labor in quest of God, will, when once they have renounced all else but Him, be so attached and wedded unto that City, that a moment’s separation from it would to them be unthinkable.” Gleanings,p. 269

In Baha’i parlance…….

“Oh, God, make me a hollow reed, from which the pith of self hath been blown so that I may become as a clear channel through which Thy Love may flow to others. I have left behind me impatience and discontent. I will chafe no more at my lot. I commit myself wholly into thy hands, for thou are my Guide in the desert, the Teacher of my ignorance, the Physician of my sickness. I am a soldier in my King's army. I have given up my will to Him and my life to dispose of as He may please. I know not what fate Thou deignest for me, nor will inquire or seek to know. The task of the day suffices for me, and all the future is Thine. Thou changest weakness to strength, doubt to faith, perplexity to understanding. When I am fit to bear the burden, Thou wilt lay it on my shoulders. When I am prepared to take the field, Thou wilt assign me a place in the Army of Light. Now I have no other duty than to equip myself for Thy Service. With eagerness and patience, with hope and gratitude, I bend to the task of the hour, lest when Thy call comes I be found unready.”https://bahai-library.com/uhj_hollow_reed_prayers
Prayer "Make me a hollow reed," Source of

Prophets have two stations, the divine station and the human station. Jesus and Bahaullah both spoke for and as God.That is how Christians came to believe He was God, when in reality He was a Manifestation of God, a Messenger and a Servant of God.

“Were any of the all-embracing Manifestations of God to declare: “I am God,” He, verily, speaketh the truth, and no doubt attacheth thereto. For it hath been repeatedly demonstrated that through their Revelation, their attributes and names, the Revelation of God, His names and His attributes, are made manifest in the world. Thus, He hath revealed: “Those shafts were God’s, not Thine.” And also He saith: “In truth, they who plighted fealty unto Thee, really plighted that fealty unto God.”” Gleanings, p. 54

All Prophets also spoke as humble men… They realized how they were as nothing compared to God, just as you described. However, the difference between them and us is that they speak for God and we don’t.

“And were they to say, “We are the Servants of God,” this also is a manifest and indisputable fact. For they have been made manifest in the uttermost state of servitude, a servitude the like of which no man can possibly attain. Thus in moments in which these Essences of Being were deep immersed beneath the oceans of ancient and everlasting holiness, or when they soared to the loftiest summits of Divine mysteries, they claimed their utterances to be the Voice of Divinity, the Call of God Himself.

Were the eye of discernment to be opened, it would recognize that in this very state, they have considered themselves utterly effaced and non-existent in the face of Him Who is the All-Pervading, the Incorruptible. Methinks, they have regarded themselves as utter nothingness, and deemed their mention in that Court an act of blasphemy. For the slightest whispering of self within such a Court is an evidence of self-assertion and independent existence. In the eyes of them that have attained unto that Court, such a suggestion is itself a grievous transgression.” Gleanings, pp. 54-55

I am glad we can agree that we cannot have a direct relationship to God, the “essence of all created things.” It is a lot different to say we can have a direct experience of God. How we do that is unique to every person. My direct experiences have come through songs or even what people call in and say on Christian radio, or in reading Gleanings… We humans are all different, like no two snowflakes that are alike.

So was Jesus just a man inspired to find himself and a way to relate to God? That makes no sense in light of this verse: John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” I mean if Jesus was “the way” do you think He just found himself and then became “the way” for all men to come to God. That makes no logical sense to me, nor does it make sense that an entire religion grew up around a man who was nothing more than you and I.

I guess what you are saying is that there is no such thing as a Manifestation of God or a Messenger of God and that those who made such claims were simply inspired men? Essentially what you are saying that the New Testament is all a lie fabricated by men, and not inspired by the Holy Spirit as Christians and Baha’is believe. How then can you make sense of verses wherein Jesus says He speaks for the Father? How could He do that if he was no more than a man?

(Continued on next post)

 

[Trailblazer]

You said regarding those atheists who had a God experience that “the reason they found something was because they listened to themselves. They came to a place of willingness and openness, and then it happened.” You also said: “God chooses everyone. Not everyone chooses God.” You are implying that everyone who does not have a God experience is not choosing God. I may be wrong but I think that you are assuming that everyone can be like you and others who have had these experiences if they only try. Maybe you do not mean “try” as a willful thing, but you are implying that they can “do it” if they will only open their heart. I have to disagree with that because not everyone has the same capacities to let God into their heart, and they are not blameworthy because they lack those capacities. There has to be another way to “come to God” about God and I believe the best way is the Messenger. John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

I agree those atheists were open but that does not mean that everyone can just decide to be open and then have the same experiences. It would be nice for them, but it is just not reality. It is good to care about people and want the best for them and tell them they can do more than they realize, but the other side of that coin is that it can make people feel diminished if they cannot live up to that expectation. This is related to free will and something I wrote on this thread. Substitute the word “capacities” for desires and preferences.

“Our desires and preferences come from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. I believe we have the will/ability to make choices based upon our desires and preferences. How free they are varies with the situation. Certainly what we refer to as “free will” has many constraints. However, I still think we have the ability to make moral choices. For example, a person can choose to murder their husband or not. Regarding choices that relate to physical needs, we are compelled to eat and sleep, but we can chose what we eat and when and how long we sleep.”

So I believe that we all have different capacities so not everyone is able to be as close to God as others and not everyone is even able to believe in God… That is why I would never judge an atheist, besides the fact that it is not my place to judge anyone.

Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

That is rather odd that you cite the same Zen master and his student story that a Baha’i cited on the Baha’i Forums forum a couple of months ago.

This man had just become a Baha’i after studying it for a while. As I recall, the context in which he cited the story was that his cup was so full of everything he had learned from Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity that he had no room for the Baha’i Faith. Thus he has to empty some of what he learned from those other religions from his cup to make room. Hid cup was very full but he was also a bit confused by teachings some of which were conflicting with each other. However, he later pointed out that he was very happy he did not have to throw those other religions away because they contained the same spiritual truths as Baha’i… He just had to make room.

Thanks… I am also enjoying my discussion with you and even though we do not agree on everything I think we are in the same ball park. If we did agree on everything it would be a rather boring conversation and we would have nothing much to discuss.

 

[Trailblazer]

One thought I wanted to add to this before getting back to my reply. When we were talking about the prophets being "special", or "chosen" this thought occured to me. To God, every star in the universe is equally special, none higher or lower, none above or below. The stars just are, what they are.

But to us, we look to a few out of the trillions that populate the heavens which may stand out to us, and those select one we identified can be useful to help guide our way. But it is us who "chose" that star, not God. God didn't create the North Star, for us. It's just one that stood out to us as meaningful. It is "special" to us. We gave it meaning to us, and choose it for our purposes.

It is far easier in my mind to see us as the ones valuing something and choosing something as special, than to somehow try to reason God did the choosing. Choosing is a human activity. To say God chooses like us, is an anthropomorphism.

Please read this excellent post that explains the true nature of Prophets and how they were different from ordinary men. I did not even know some of this till I read it.

#218 loverofhumanity

After a while, I do not think you are going to like me anymore because I keep saying the same things about Prophets/Messengers/Manifestations of God over and over……

Humans did not designate the Prophets as Prophets.

Choosing is not only a human activity but maybe “choose” is not the best word. God appoints Prophets. They do not “want” to be appointed but they take it on because they know it is God’s Will and theyare Servants of God. I am sure Jesus said that and I know Baha’u’llah wrote it. For example:

“God is My witness, O people! I was asleep on My couch, when lo, the Breeze of God wafting over Me roused Me from My slumber. His quickening Spirit revived Me, and My tongue was unloosed to voice His Call. Accuse Me not of having transgressed against God. Behold Me, not with your eyes but with Mine. Thus admonisheth you He Who is the Gracious, the All-Knowing.” Gleanings. pp. 91-92

“What! Believe ye in your hearts that ye possess the power to extinguish the radiance of the Sun, or to eclipse its splendor? Nay, by My life! Ye will never and can never achieve your purpose, though ye summon to your aid all that is in the heavens and all that is on the earth. Walk ye in the fear of God, and render not your works vain. Incline your ears to His words, and be not of them that are shut out as by a veil from Him. Say: God is My witness! I have wished nothing whatever for Myself. What I have wished is the victory of God and the triumph of His Cause. He is Himself a sufficient witness between you and Me. Were ye to cleanse your eyes, ye would readily perceive how My deeds testify to the truth of My words, how My words are a guide to My deeds.” Gleanings, pp. 256-257

God appoints Manifestations represent Him in the contingent world. I will never run out of passages just from one book. Here is one that came to mind:

“…From that which hath been said it becometh evident that all things, in their inmost reality, testify to the revelation of the names and attributes of God within them. Each according to its capacity, indicateth, and is expressive of, the knowledge of God. So potent and universal is this revelation, that it hath encompassed all things visible and invisible……. Man, the noblest and most perfect of all created things, excelleth them all in the intensity of this revelation, and is a fuller expression of its glory. And of all men, the most accomplished, the most distinguished, and the most excellent are the Manifestations of the Sun of Truth. Nay, all else besides these Manifestations, live by the operation of Their Will, and move and have their being through the outpourings of Their grace.” Gleanings, pp. 178-179

Somewhere in the New Testament, Jesus said that we live by His grace and here Baha’u’llah is reiterating that. We live by the operation of Their Will… This is a big subject and I do not even fully understand it…

If for one moment God’s mercy and grace were to be withheld from the world, it would completely perish. That mercy and grace is bestowed upon mankind by means of the Manifestations that God who bring the Holy Spirit and a “message” mankind needs for its present-day situation in order to survive and thrive. Whether people believe in them or not, no one has ever escaped these Messengers and they have never been hindered from achieving their purpose. They have been sent from eternity, and they will continue to succeed each other for eternity. The Grace of God can never cease from flowing.

“From the foregoing passages and allusions it hath been made indubitably clear that in the kingdoms of earth and heaven there must needs be manifested a Being, an Essence Who shall act as a Manifestation and Vehicle for the transmission of the grace of the Divinity Itself, the Sovereign Lord of all. Through the Teachings of this Day Star of Truth every man will advance and develop until he attaineth the station at which he can manifest all the potential forces with which his inmost true self hath been endowed. It is for this very purpose that in every age and dispensation the Prophets of God and His chosen Ones have appeared amongst men, and have evinced such power as is born of God and such might as only the Eternal can reveal.” Gleanings, pp. 67-68

 

[kaat]

nonsense i was a buddhist monk and temple boy for a year

Lyndon, I'm terribly sorry. I realize how rude I've been. I was having a bad day, but there's no excuse. I didn't even really mean what I said, and you had to endure it. I beg your forgiveness.

Spending any time in a temple, or as a monk, is always totally valuable. I was full of guff. I value RF way too much to mess up like this.

Humbly Yours,
Martin

 

[kaat]

It's interesting to hear you call yourself a "devout Tibetan Buddhist", and yet feel it's your place to tell people who draw from Buddhist philosophy that they are not allowed to claim that. I don't think the Dalai Lama would find this legitimate, considering he teaches Buddhist thoughts to the whole world. I would celebrate this in others, not berate them as you do. Were you a former fundamentalist Christian in a past lifetime, one who used to deride others who spoke of the teachings of Jesus as not a "true Christian" because they didn't look like how you practiced your version of the religion?

I know. I made a bad mistake there. I've apologized to Lyndon.

 

[Windwalker]

Prophets have two stations, the divine station and the human station. Jesus and Bahaullah both spoke for and as God.That is how Christians came to believe He was God, when in reality He was a Manifestation of God, a Messenger and a Servant of God.

This point of "two stations" is where I want to focus for this post and will pick up the remainder of your other points in another post as time permits the next few days.

So was Jesus just a man inspired to find himself and a way to relate to God? That makes no sense in light of this verse: John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” I mean if Jesus was “the way” do you think He just found himself and then became “the way” for all men to come to God. That makes no logical sense to me, nor does it make sense that an entire religion grew up around a man who was nothing more than you and I.

You pointed out that when these "Manifestations" of God speak thusly as above, that they are speaking in essence, as God. It is not their human part that is. In Christian parlance, this "dual nature" ("two stations"), is referred to as the hypostatic union, which means "the combination of divine and human natures in the single person of Christ." So Jesus the man is the human who, like any of us, had to find his way to understand his human life, and who like anyone of us also had to develop and grow in that human nature in his relationship with God.

This is where it gets interesting in how I relate to this. This dual nature, or "dual citizenship" of the human and divine nature, is something we all have. You cannot think of these things in strict dualistic thinking of 1+1=2. That is helpful if you want to look at these aspects of ourselves as "domains", but that is just a mental separation, not the actuality of this. Rather, it is a Whole that is indivisible that the line where the divine ends and the human begins does not exist, except in our minds, or rather in our perception of ourselves, God, and Reality.

Where Christians, and yourself run into problems recognizing this is because of this "elevationism", this deification of sorts, this "kicking Jesus upstairs", this "above us" sort of view of these spiritual masters. It says to you, and you've used these words, they are "not like us". I disagree. They are exactly like us, and we are exactly like them. The difference is, they are masters, and for the most part we are apprentices, or students, or those who just haven't begun the path of knowing the divine in their lives. But like each of us, where our conscious, mental awareness is falls somewhere on that spectrum of focus being totally on the flesh and the world, totally in heaven, or BOTH - which I would call the Awakened mind, or Enlightenment, or salvation.

So when Jesus said, "I and the Father are One", that is an Awakened mind, understanding that God is Present in him, and as him. We all have the potential in us to have that Awareness, as he did. We all, with and through that Awareness can legitimately speak from and through that Divine radiating within us, when and if we in fact are Realizing this nondual Reality of ourselves.

But as I said, to say they are "not like us" is to with your mind, create a wall between you and God, a barrier that you tell yourself exists, and therefore, like the dog trained to not cross a boundary where there is no actual fence, we stop at this "invisible fence line" because of the conditioning of our minds in which we just tell ourselves, "It can't be done". Yes, that perception will stop you. But that perception is an illusion of the mind, reinforced by the language and concepts of reality we project forth from ourselves, born out of our un-awakened ignorance.

This Realization of our "dual nature" (which is actually a whole), is not an achievement, accomplishment, or attainment of the egoic mind, lest anyone should become puffed up, but rather a simple recognition and acceptance of God in us, and our own Union with the divine in our human state. There is nothing to be boastful of. To do so would be idiotic, like me sounding like a three year old proudly telling you I have lungs! So do you. There's nothing you need to do to have them. There's nothing you need to do to have God. You already do. You just need to learn how to breathe properly with them. That's all, and everything.

Essentially what you are saying that the New Testament is all a lie fabricated by men, and not inspired by the Holy Spirit as Christians and Baha’is believe. How then can you make sense of verses wherein Jesus says He speaks for the Father? How could He do that if he was no more than a man?

No, it's not a "lie", rather it is an expression of certain realizations individuals were having about this relationship of God and humans, using the language of their systems of thought in the context of the cultures they lived within. Is this an inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Yes. All what we do to express God is.

 

[Windwalker]

You said regarding those atheists who had a God experience that “the reason they found something was because they listened to themselves. They came to a place of willingness and openness, and then it happened.” You also said: “God chooses everyone. Not everyone chooses God.” You are implying that everyone who does not have a God experience is not choosing God.

No, that was not my intention to imply that. I don't believe that to be true. However, I do believe that anyone who truly chooses to pursue God, is responding to something in them that makes that the choice. That "something" itself is an experience, even if it is a gentle whisper and not the Ocean swallowing them whole. They have an experience of faith, and that is from God.

I may be wrong but I think that you are assuming that everyone can be like you and others who have had these experiences if they only try. Maybe you do not mean “try” as a willful thing, but you are implying that they can “do it” if they will only open their heart.

No, I don't think everyone is going to have the same experiences because they are not the same person as me. What my experiences are are dependent upon being me. Not everyone has Damascus road types of experiences, or need to have them. But everyone can grow spiritually by letting go of the ego and being "open" to God. What experiences may or may not happen is completely dependent on their unique individuality.

But the measure of good is not the experiences, but growth. None of us should be seeking experiences. We should be seeking God. Chance are however, that as you experience growth, you will have experiences of this; release, gratitude, faith, joy, and so forth. Depending on what is going on in you, what is released, how much you've carried around in your soul for decades on end, will factor into it.

Not everyone is going to have an experience of blinding light on the road to Damascus and hear a voice booming from heaven. Others may just simply open their eyes one morning and see the world alive like it never has before. Others may just gently fall back into the arms of the divine and release all cares. Others may go on for decades wondering where God is - and that too is an experience of God because it is an experience of Life. And so on and so forth. All is as it needs to be for that person.

I have to disagree with that because not everyone has the same capacities to let God into their heart, and they are not blameworthy because they lack those capacities.

I wouldn't view anyone as "blameworthy". There are many factors in ones lives which can create blockages, that are not a matter of faults or choices or "sins", etc. That's just the body we have. But as far as capacities to receive God, I'd say everyone does by virtue of being alive, but we all have obstacles in our lives that block that, to one degree or another. Overcoming obstacles however, is possible, even if seemingly impossible to us. Making the choice to work with those however has to come first. We are such complex creatures.

There has to be another way to “come to God” about God and I believe the best way is the Messenger. John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

That particular quote I take as the Divine Christ speaking, not the man Jesus. I think I would need to explain in more depth how I understand that to be. I'll pick that up in another post.

I agree those atheists were open but that does not mean that everyone can just decide to be open and then have the same experiences.

That is correct. What happened to me at 18 was because of who and where I was in my life at that time. What happened was because I was in a state of existential crisis. If you have read anything about peak experiences, this is fairly common. Gladly, I can see God in simple things now too, and not need that blinding light to rend open heaven and earth and stop time every day of my life! I've learned if you go about looking for that to happen, you miss what is happening right now.

It would be nice for them, but it is just not reality. It is good to care about people and want the best for them and tell them they can do more than they realize, but the other side of that coin is that it can make people feel diminished if they cannot live up to that expectation.

I would agree. "By their fruits you shall know them," not by their experiences. But I should point out that the response I may be having hearing someone speak of their experiences would be of my own choosing.

For instance, if I were to experiencing feeling diminished hearing of someone else's experiences they shared, I would have to look at something in myself first to see why I might be feeling that way, as well as considering how the other person may be communicating. I could tell you of countless times in my life how I am hearing my own fears or rejections of myself being projected into the words of others.

There is this great old saying I heard years ago. "We are not who we think we are. We are not even who others think we are. But we are who we think others think we are."

So I believe that we all have different capacities so not everyone is able to be as close to God as others and not everyone is even able to believe in God… That is why I would never judge an atheist, besides the fact that it is not my place to judge anyone.

I would agree with this. I often say that becoming an atheist may in fact be a spiritual move, because the concepts of God that are put out there by other people or religions are not something one can legitimately wrap their minds around. That is not a case of a lack of faith, but instead an exercise of faith to reject something that doesn't work, that would not be functional for you if you weren't at that place in life.

As far as being close to God, well as you say, that really depends on the factors of someone's life; where they are at, in other words. Devoting 2 hours a day sitting on a meditation cushion may not be the right thing for someone when they are struggling with just surviving dealing with raising a family and putting food on the table. Their closeness to God, would be found in the love they show to their family.

Thanks… I am also enjoying my discussion with you and even though we do not agree on everything I think we are in the same ball park. If we did agree on everything it would be a rather boring conversation and we would have nothing much to discuss.

Cool. On to the next reply....

 

[Windwalker]

Please read this excellent post that explains the true nature of Prophets and how they were different from ordinary men. I did not even know some of this till I read it.

#218 loverofhumanity

I just read through this, and while I have many thoughts to share, I'm unsure how to best to approach them. You recall from what I just said in my last post before this one, how that becoming an atheist may be a spiritual move because of how some conceptions of God may not be compatible with how their minds work? For instance, the rise in neo-atheism, I sincerely believe is because the image of God they are presented with demands of them sacrificing rational thought at the altar of religious belief systems. In other words, if they are expected to imagine that God magically created the earth and all living creature in it in six literal days, that all of the stories of the Bible were historical and scientific facts, that God is magically sending frogs down from the skies to punish sinners, and so forth, then in order to be sincere in themselves and others they will have to reject God.

The reality of things are however, that what they are really rejecting is not God, but ideas about God. Now while they then don't turn around and find another idea of God to pursue, they just shove the whole monkey into a cage and stick it down in the basement or out in their garage where they don't have to listen to the chatter while they try to get on with their lives. In other words, they end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater. They end up tossing out the baby of spirituality, with the bathwater of myth.

And the reason for this, is because, as I can see it, that the meaning of the symbol of faith is inextricably bound and fused together with the symbol itself for them. They cannot, at that place in their lives (or stage of faith development), separate the meaning from the symbol. And so, the meaning gets ejected right along with the symbol that caused the tension in the first place. At another place on that trajectory one might in time be able to redeem that baby from the bathwater through understanding that the meaning of the symbol transcends the symbol and can be found in other symbols. And then in time, they may be able to come back to the original symbol sets, but held in a very different light of understanding. Their faith at this point would not look like or function as it did when they "believed" in the mythic language as literally true. The symbol now becomes a finger pointing to the moon, rather than the moon being found in the finger can't exist without the finger.

There is a great deal to unpack in what I just said, but that understanding is foundational to how I have come to see and understand these things, such as what was expressed in that post by Loverofhumanity. These understanding of the Universe are symbolic of something far deeper, and not limited to that understanding or of its metaphysical suppositions. I'll see if I can't explain this more simply in time and apply it to what we are discussing. Sorry if this just got all heady here.

After a while, I do not think you are going to like me anymore because I keep saying the same things about Prophets/Messengers/Manifestations of God over and over……

LOL! Yes, I've been worried about the same thing in my counters to them. I find this a pleasant discussion and I appreciate hearing how you see these things. It help enrich my understanding and appreciation of the meaning you find in them. What I find is a common heart that is communicated using different language systems and modes to thought. Let's see where this keeps going...

Humans did not designate the Prophets as Prophets.

What is happening here is as I've been trying to say before in so many words, that this is all simply a way to talk about what is a "natural" occurrence in terms of magical causation. Don't get me wrong, I am not being a reductionist materialist here! Not at all. I think there is a "magical" quality to reality, but that magic is not supernatural in the sense of an outside agent acting upon creation. That Agent is what creates and holds all things together in a holistic web of life and reality. Life is an expression of that Itself, like our bodies are an expression of a universe of living cells.

I'll see if I can't keep trying to tease this apart better as I continue....

God appoints Manifestations represent Him in the contingent world.

The system of nature, including its spiritual components, naturally create an emergence of higher ordered systems. These occurrences are not supernatural, not caused by a God outside of creation, but are 'organic' in that they unfold as part of this entire system, which is far, far more than just what the eye of our sciences, or the eyes of our religious systems can conceptually imagine. When you say God "appoints" these people, that is ascribing their occurrences within the system to a magical agency. It's like looking at the flower and claiming that God put it there. In a sense, yes, in that all of creation is an expression of the divine, but no in the sense that it didn't occur naturally but rather some supernatural cause.

Somewhere in the New Testament, Jesus said that we live by His grace and here Baha’u’llah is reiterating that. We live by the operation of Their Will… This is a big subject and I do not even fully understand it…

Jesus did not say this. It's something the Apostle Paul said in Hebrews. "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power."

If for one moment God’s mercy and grace were to be withheld from the world, it would completely perish.

It is not possible it could be withheld for God is Love. If God ceased to Be, then there would be nothing anywhere. The entire universe would not be.

That mercy and grace is bestowed upon mankind by means of the Manifestations that God who bring the Holy Spirit and a “message” mankind needs for its present-day situation in order to survive and thrive.

That Grace, is bestowed upon the whole of creation by means of the existence of God's being. That Grace is manifest of Itself through the whole of creation as an expression of God's being. I'll share with you one of my earliest experiences of this, and perhaps it may help you to understand the context from where I am speaking what I do from.

Several decades ago, as I was walking outside lost inside my thoughts, abruptly, without any indication or warning, like a bolt of lighting instantly coming out of nowhere, the entire universe ripped open exposing the world which I had moments before been looking at like any other day.

Everything radiated pure, absolute, infinite, utter Love. I was seeing Life itself as it is, pure, seamless, and radiant from every molecule of air, every blade of grass, from the sky, from the earth. This Living Love, this Radiant Light flowing from everything, to everything.

Then suddenly as I was taking this Pure, Infinite Beauty into my being, that same Power and Energy began rising up from depths inside of me that were unfathomable to my mind. It burst forth from every fiber of my being, body, mind, soul, and spirit, and that very Wellspring of Life itself began flowing forth from an unimaginable depth from within me, in a pure and flowing exchange with the whole of Creation. I was utterly One with everything, in an exchange of this Radiance of utter, pure, limitless, absolute Joy.

As I was so wholly one in this Stream of Life, I saw others walking towards me, and I saw that same Light of being in their bodies, radiating from them as in everything else I beheld. That pure Light in everything, radiated with an indescribable Beauty. But when I looked into their eyes, I could see that none of them could see, or were aware of this in themselves, or anywhere else which surrounded them everywhere.

They were living inside a world of their own thoughts, isolated within the imaginings of themselves in their own minds. It appeared to me like a certain darkness in them, where that Light was not seen. But that darkness was not who they really were, but only what they imagined the world was to them and themselves to the world; isolated and separated in their own individual worlds of their own minds.

I was feeling at the time this unspeakable, absolute Love and Compassion for them. There was no pity, nor judgement of them, but a certain sadness and confusion of how they could not see or experience both who and what they were and what the world is, which was fully right there in plain sight; who they were, and everything in the world surrounding and embracing them in this Infinite, Boundless Glory.

All of this happened before I knew anything about religion. It was because of this I began my path to "come Home" as it were, to once again taste that Living Wellspring of Life that is the being of God, so flowing through me, bringing that Love up from the Deep that is the Eternal.

So when I don't agree that we need to have these prophets to manifest God, now you may understand a little of why.

 

[Trailblazer]

This point of "two stations" is where I want to focus for this post and will pick up the remainder of your other points in another post as time permits the next few days.

You pointed out that when these "Manifestations" of God speak thusly as above, that they are speaking in essence, as God. It is not their human part that is. In Christian parlance, this "dual nature" ("two stations"), is referred to as the hypostatic union, which means "the combination of divine and human natures in the single person of Christ." So Jesus the man is the human who, like any of us, had to find his way to understand his human life, and who like anyone of us also had to develop and grow in that human nature in his relationship with God.

I am not a Christian so I do not believe in the hypostatic union of Christ. Jesus never spoke of this; it is Christian doctrine. I do not believe Jesus had a divine nature, but rather He had a divine station and a human station. These two stations of Jesus were not united, they were separate. That is why Jesus sometimes spoke as a Servant of God, with complete humility, and at other times He spoke as God , with great power and authority; Baha’u’llah did likewise.

“Know that the Holy Manifestations, though They have the degrees of endless perfections, yet, speaking generally, have only three stations. The first station is the physical; the second station is the human, which is that of the rational soul; the third is that of the divine appearance and the heavenly splendor.

The physical station is phenomenal; it is composed of elements, and necessarily everything that is composed is subject to decomposition. It is not possible that a composition should not be disintegrated.

The second is the station of the rational soul, which is the human reality. This also is phenomenal, and the Holy Manifestations share it with all mankind.

The third station is that of the divine appearance and heavenly splendor: it is the Word of God, the Eternal Bounty, the Holy Spirit. It has neither beginning nor end, for these things are related to the world of contingencies and not to the divine world. For God the end is the same thing as the beginning.”
Some Answered Questions, pp. 151-152

This is where it gets interesting in how I relate to this. This dual nature, or "dual citizenship" of the human and divine nature, is something we all have. You cannot think of these things in strict dualistic thinking of 1+1=2. That is helpful if you want to look at these aspects of ourselves as "domains", but that is just a mental separation, not the actuality of this. Rather, it is a Whole that is indivisible that the line where the divine ends and the human begins does not exist, except in our minds, or rather in our perception of ourselves, God, and Reality.

I do not believe any human has a divine nature; we have a physical nature (body) and a human nature (soul). Only God has God’s nature. We have the ability to reflect the “attributes” of God since we are all made in the image of God. Likewise, the Manifestations of God reflect God’s attributes, but they also “manifest” God, because unlike us they are perfect mirror images of God. Ordinary humans cannot be “Manifestations of God.” Only Manifestations of God have the third station, the divine station which manifests God. They do not have the nature of God. The third station is not the nature of God but rather it is the divine appearance and heavenly splendor: it is the Word of God, the Eternal Bounty, the Holy Spirit.

Where Christians, and yourself run into problems recognizing this is because of this "elevationism", this deification of sorts, this "kicking Jesus upstairs", this "above us" sort of view of these spiritual masters. It says to you, and you've used these words, they are "not like us". I disagree. They are exactly like us, and we are exactly like them. The difference is, they are masters, and for the most part we are apprentices, or students, or those who just haven't begun the path of knowing the divine in their lives. But like each of us, where our conscious, mental awareness is falls somewhere on that spectrum of focus being totally on the flesh and the world, totally in heaven, or BOTH - which I would call the Awakened mind, or Enlightenment, or salvation.

I do not believe that I kicked Jesus upstairs; I think that Jesus came down from upstairs, since His soul was preexistent in the spiritual realm before His body was born on earth. In that pre-existence His soul was given the ability and capacity to receive direct revelations from God. No ordinary human has that ability and that is what differentiates us from Them.

So when Jesus said, "I and the Father are One", that is an Awakened mind, understanding that God is Present in him, and as him. We all have the potential in us to have that Awareness, as he did. We all, with and through that Awareness can legitimately speak from and through that Divine radiating within us, when and if we in fact are Realizing this nondual Reality of ourselves.

I do not believe that God is in anyone, not even in Jesus. That is a Christian belief. Again, ordinary humans can potentially reflect God’s attributes, Manifestations of God perfectly reflect God’s attributes and manifest God to humanity, but both are forever separate from God.

“Jesus emphatically claimed to reveal God, Whom He called Father, but continually differentiated Himself from the Father. In many such references as “Him that sent me,” “my Father is greater than I,” John xiv 28. “I go to the Father,” John xvi 16. “I will pray the Father,” John xiv 16. “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me,” John vii 28. He made this abundantly clear, and even stated specifically that the Father had knowledge which was not possessed by the Son. “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” Mark xiii 32. He referred to Himself as the Son, and as a Prophet, Matt. Xiii 57, Luke xiii 33 and was so regarded, Matt. xxi 11, Luke vii 16 and related His Mission to those of Moses and Abraham before Him, and to others to come after Him, specifically “he, the Spirit of truth, “who would reveal the things which Jesus did not. John xvi 12, 13.” (George Townshend, Christ and Baha’u’llah,” pp. 25-26).

But as I said, to say they are "not like us" is to with your mind, create a wall between you and God, a barrier that you tell yourself exists, and therefore, like the dog trained to not cross a boundary where there is no actual fence, we stop at this "invisible fence line" because of the conditioning of our minds in which we just tell ourselves, "It can't be done". Yes, that perception will stop you. But that perception is an illusion of the mind, reinforced by the language and concepts of reality we project forth from ourselves, born out of our un-awakened ignorance.

There is a wall between us and God in the sense that there is a point beyond which there is no passing... We cannot get closer to God than what God allows, the Manifestation of God. That is referred to as the Sadratu’l-Muntahá, the “Tree beyond which there is no passing”

“Give ear unto the verses of God which He Who is the sacred Lote-Tree reciteth unto you. They are assuredly the infallible balance, established by God, the Lord of this world and the next. Through them the soul of man is caused to wing its flight towards the Dayspring of Revelation, and the heart of every true believer is suffused with light. Such are the laws which God hath enjoined upon you, such His commandments prescribed unto you in His Holy Tablet; obey them with joy and gladness, for this is best for you, did ye but know.” The Kitáb-i-Aqdas. p. 73

“The “sacred Lote-Tree” is a reference to the Sadratu’l-Muntahá, the “Tree beyond which there is no passing” (see note 128). It is used here symbolically to designate Bahá’u’lláh.” The Kitáb-i-Aqdas. p. 236

This Realization of our "dual nature" (which is actually a whole), is not an achievement, accomplishment, or attainment of the egoic mind, lest anyone should become puffed up, but rather a simple recognition and acceptance of God in us, and our own Union with the divine in our human state. There is nothing to be boastful of. To do so would be idiotic, like me sounding like a three year old proudly telling you I have lungs! So do you. There's nothing you need to do to have them. There's nothing you need to do to have God. You already do. You just need to learn how to breathe properly with them. That's all, and everything.

I do not believe we can ever be united with the divine because that implies that we can be on the same level with God, a “partner” with God. Baha’is believe that God is forever separate from His Creation and that differs from Christian belief, since Christians believe that the Holy Spirit lives inside of them and that they are God’s Children who have a relationship with God, like being part of a God’s family. How do you think anyone can have a “relationship” with an entity that is incomprehensible, exalted beyond all that can either be recounted or perceived?

“And now concerning thy reference to the existence of two Gods. Beware, beware, lest thou be led to join partners with the Lord, thy God. He is, and hath from everlasting been, one and alone, without peer or equal, eternal in the past, eternal in the future, detached from all things, ever-abiding, unchangeable, and self-subsisting. He hath assigned no associate unto Himself in His Kingdom, no counsellor to counsel Him, none to compare unto Him, none to rival His glory.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 192

 

[Trailblazer]

No, that was not my intention to imply that. I don't believe that to be true. However, I do believe that anyone who truly chooses to pursue God, is responding to something in them that makes that the choice. That "something" itself is an experience, even if it is a gentle whisper and not the Ocean swallowing them whole. They have an experience of faith, and that is from God.

I agree that everything people do arises from some kind of experience they had because we are all a product of our heredity and life experiences... I guess you are taking that one step further and saying that “experience of faith” is coming from God to them? Well, this is congruent with my Baha’i beliefs that God chooses to guide certain people.

No, I don't think everyone is going to have the same experiences because they are not the same person as me. What my experiences are are dependent upon being me. Not everyone has Damascus road types of experiences, or need to have them. But everyone can grow spiritually by letting go of the ego and being "open" to God. What experiences may or may not happen is completely dependent on their unique individuality.

I fully agree that one has to let go of ego to be “open” to having any real God experiences, but those experiences are individualized because we are all so unique. But if one has closed the door on God before He has any chance to walk through then obviously there is no chance. Regarding self and ego, that reminded me of these Hidden Words, interesting to ponder #8.

7: O SON OF MAN! If thou lovest Me, turn away from thyself; and if thou seekest My pleasure, regard not thine own; that thou mayest die in Me and I may eternally live in thee.

8: O SON OF SPIRIT! There is no peace for thee save by renouncing thyself and turning unto Me; for it behooveth thee to glory in My name, not in thine own; to put thy trust in Me and not in thyself, since I desire to be loved alone and above all that is.
The Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah

But the measure of good is not the experiences, but growth. None of us should be seeking experiences. We should be seeking God. Chance are however, that as you experience growth, you will have experiences of this; release, gratitude, faith, joy, and so forth. Depending on what is going on in you, what is released, how much you've carried around in your soul for decades on end, will factor into it.

I agree, we should not be seeking experiences but rather seek God... To seek experiences is to seek something for self, but when one empties oneself of self then there is room for God to enter in...How much release, gratitude, faith, joy, and so forth one experiences is highly variable and depends upon one’s past and present life situation... To whom much is given much is expected... all this God knows because God knows us better than we know ourselves...

Not everyone is going to have an experience of blinding light on the road to Damascus and hear a voice booming from heaven. Others may just simply open their eyes one morning and see the world alive like it never has before. Others may just gently fall back into the arms of the divine and release all cares. Others may go on for decades wondering where God is - and that too is an experience of God because it is an experience of Life. And so on and so forth. All is as it needs to be for that person.

All is as it needs to be for everyone because whatever is predestined will be played out by each and every one of us. Only God knows what is in our scripts. Some of us are destined to get closer to God, some not so much or at all, but we have an eternity to get close to God, so if not in this life opportunities await us in the next life... Some fruits only ripen after they fall from the tree.

I wouldn't view anyone as "blameworthy". There are many factors in ones lives which can create blockages, that are not a matter of faults or choices or "sins", etc. That's just the body we have. But as far as capacities to receive God, I'd say everyone does by virtue of being alive, but we all have obstacles in our lives that block that, to one degree or another. Overcoming obstacles however, is possible, even if seemingly impossible to us. Making the choice to work with those however has to come first. We are such complex creatures.

You are agreeing with Baha’u’llah when you say we all have the capacity to receive God, because if we did not, it would not be just for God to hold anyone accountable for belief.

“Suffer not yourselves to be wrapt in the dense veils of your selfish desires, inasmuch as I have perfected in every one of you My creation, so that the excellence of My handiwork may be fully revealed unto men. It follows, therefore, that every man hath been, and will continue to be, able of himself to appreciate the Beauty of God, the Glorified. Had he not been endowed with such a capacity, how could he be called to account for his failure?”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 143

That particular quote I take as the Divine Christ speaking, not the man Jesus. I think I would need to explain in more depth how I understand that to be. I'll pick that up in another post.

Regarding John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” I am surprised to hear you “differentiate” between the man Jesus and the Divine Christ. I thought that was my line.

That is correct. What happened to me at 18 was because of who and where I was in my life at that time. What happened was because I was in a state of existential crisis. If you have read anything about peak experiences, this is fairly common. Gladly, I can see God in simple things now too, and not need that blinding light to rend open heaven and earth and stop time every day of my life!

I've learned if you go about looking for that to happen, you miss what is happening right now.

I too had an existential crisis, but it lasted for many years, and it finally led up to a crisis of faith where I had to choose which way I would go... That happened in June 2014... I made that choice and after that there was no turning back.

I would agree. "By their fruits you shall know them," not by their experiences. But I should point out that the response I may be having hearing someone speak of their experiences would be of my own choosing.

For instance, if I were to experiencing feeling diminished hearing of someone else's experiences they shared, I would have to look at something in myself first to see why I might be feeling that way, as well as considering how the other person may be communicating. I could tell you of countless times in my life how I am hearing my own fears or rejections of myself being projected into the words of others.

There is this great old saying I heard years ago. "We are not who we think we are. We are not even who others think we are. But we are who we think others think we are."

No, we do not always hear what others are trying to say because we project our own thoughts and feelings onto their words and interpret them according to our own experiences, and this goes on unconsciously. But by being willing to listen and seeking further clarification and not insisting we know then we can eventually understand more about the other person. It is always a red flag for me to look at myself if I see something negative in another person.

I would agree with this. I often say that becoming an atheist may in fact be a spiritual move, because the concepts of God that are put out there by other people or religions are not something one can legitimately wrap their minds around. That is not a case of a lack of faith, but instead an exercise of faith to reject something that doesn't work, that would not be functional for you if you weren't at that place in life.

If one cannot wrap their mind around a belief they should not accept it because then they are betraying their own innate ability to recognize Truth. That does not mean that what they cannot see is not Truth, but unless it rings true for them they should not accept it. The faith of no man can be conditioned by anyone except himself, Baha’u’llah wrote.

As far as being close to God, well as you say, that really depends on the factors of someone's life; where they are at, in other words. Devoting 2 hours a day sitting on a meditation cushion may not be the right thing for someone when they are struggling with just surviving dealing with raising a family and putting food on the table. Their closeness to God, would be found in the love they show to their family.

True, everyone is at a different place in their lives and for everything there is a season. When there are too many material concerns it is difficult to focus on God; although many people integrate the two that is a matter of strong faith, and not all people have that. Closeness to God can be shown in many ways, but one common feature it has is that it means putting self aside. That generally shows in our interactions with others.

 

[Trailblazer]

#218 loverofhumanity

I just read through this, and while I have many thoughts to share, I'm unsure how to best to approach them. You recall from what I just said in my last post before this one, how that becoming an atheist may be a spiritual move because of how some conceptions of God may not be compatible with how their minds work? For instance, the rise in neo-atheism, I sincerely believe is because the image of God they are presented with demands of them sacrificing rational thought at the altar of religious belief systems. In other words, if they are expected to imagine that God magically created the earth and all living creature in it in six literal days, that all of the stories of the Bible were historical and scientific facts, that God is magically sending frogs down from the skies to punish sinners, and so forth, then in order to be sincere in themselves and others they will have to reject God.

The reality of things are however, that what they are really rejecting is not God, but ideas about God. Now while they then don't turn around and find another idea of God to pursue, they just shove the whole monkey into a cage and stick it down in the basement or out in their garage where they don't have to listen to the chatter while they try to get on with their lives. In other words, they end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater. They end up tossing out the baby of spirituality, with the bathwater of myth.

And the reason for this, is because, as I can see it, that the meaning of the symbol of faith is inextricably bound and fused together with the symbol itself for them. They cannot, at that place in their lives (or stage of faith development), separate the meaning from the symbol. And so, the meaning gets ejected right along with the symbol that caused the tension in the first place. At another place on that trajectory one might in time be able to redeem that baby from the bathwater through understanding that the meaning of the symbol transcends the symbol and can be found in other symbols. And then in time, they may be able to come back to the original symbol sets, but held in a very different light of understanding. Their faith at this point would not look like or function as it did when they "believed" in the mythic language as literally true. The symbol now becomes a finger pointing to the moon, rather than the moon being found in the finger can't exist without the finger.

There is a great deal to unpack in what I just said, but that understanding is foundational to how I have come to see and understand these things, such as what was expressed in that post by Loverofhumanity. These understanding of the Universe are symbolic of something far deeper, and not limited to that understanding or of its metaphysical suppositions. I'll see if I can't explain this more simply in time and apply it to what we are discussing. Sorry if this just got all heady here.

I understand about the atheists throwing out the baby (God) with the bath water (religion) and I have used this analogy many times. What they are rejecting is not God as much as it is the ideas about God that come from religious beliefs. The problem is, that is where ideas about God come from; more specifically revelation from God to Messengers which becomes religious scripture is the only way to know anything about God. This is my position and the position of all Baha’is. It is illogical to imagine there is any other way to know about God because anything we might imagine is coming from us; so unless God revealed a message to us, there would be no way for us to know anything about God. It all goes back to that message. Anyone can imagine anything about God but the fact that different people imagine different things is enough to know that they cannot all be right, because that is logically impossible if what they believe about God is contradictory. By contrast, if we really understand scriptures, there is no contradiction between the ways God is described, which is a good reason to believe all scriptures were revealed by God, One God.

LOL! Yes, I've been worried about the same thing in my counters to them.

I find this a pleasant discussion and I appreciate hearing how you see these things. It helps enrich my understanding and appreciation of the meaning you find in them. What I find is a common heart that is communicated using different language systems and modes to thought. Let's see where this keeps going...

Funny you would be worried about the same thing. But rest assured, I never from beliefs or ideas that differ from my own and I never abandon people. Besides that, I am a very curious sort and I still have not gotten to the bottom of what you are trying to say so I have to keep going. An atheist poster on another forum kept thinking I was going to stop talking to him because of how he came down so hard on my beliefs, and it took a long time to convince him otherwise. We are now good friends.

What is happening here is as I've been trying to say before in so many words, that this is all simply a way to talk about what is a "natural" occurrence in terms of magical causation. Don't get me wrong, I am not being a reductionist materialist here! Not at all. I think there is a "magical" quality to reality, but that magic is not supernatural in the sense of an outside agent acting upon creation. That Agent is what creates and holds all things together in a holistic web of life and reality. Life is an expression of that Itself, like our bodies are an expression of a universe of living cells.

I'll see if I can't keep trying to tease this apart better as I continue....

I am a bit lost now. What I am able to parse out is that there is nothing supernatural about Prophets?

The system of nature, including its spiritual components, naturally create an emergence of higher ordered systems. These occurrences are not supernatural, not caused by a God outside of creation, but are 'organic' in that they unfold as part of this entire system, which is far, far more than just what the eye of our sciences, or the eyes of our religious systems can conceptually imagine. When you say God "appoints" these people, that is ascribing their occurrences within the system to a magical agency. It's like looking at the flower and claiming that God put it there. In a sense, yes, in that all of creation is an expression of the divine, but no in the sense that it didn't occur naturally but rather some supernatural cause.

I agree that the system of nature creates an emergence of higher ordered systems, but I do not believe that Manifestations of God are part of nature ... In their physical/human station they are, but in their divine station they are supernatural, not anything our limited human mind can grasp. What I am able to parse out from this is that you think God is a deist God that does not have a personal nature, a mind or a will of His own, and does not interact with humanity.

It is not possible it could be withheld for God is Love. If God ceased to Be, then there would be nothing anywhere. The entire universe would not be.

I cannot disagree with that.

That Grace is bestowed upon the whole of creation by means of the existence of God's being. That Grace is manifest of itself by through whole of creation itself. I'll share with you one of my earliest experiences of this, and perhaps help you to understand the context from where I speaking from.

As I was walking outside lost inside my thoughts, abruptly, without any indication or warning, like a bolt of lighting instantly coming out of nowhere, the entire universe ripped open exposing the world which I had moments before been looking at like any other day. Everything radiated pure, absolute, infinite, utter Love. I was seeing Life itself as it is, pure, seamless, and radiant from every molecule of air, every blade of grass, from the sky, from the earth. This Living Love, this Radiant Light flowing from everything, to everything. Then suddenly as I was taking this Pure, Infinite Beauty into my sight, that same Power and Energy began come up from the depths inside of me that we unfathomable to my mind. I became that Light, and it flowed forth from unimaginable Deep within my body and mind and soul into a current in exchange with all of the world. I was utterly One with everything, in an exchange of this Radiance of utter, pure, limitely Joy.

As I was so wholly one in this Stream of Life, I saw others walking towards me, and I saw that same Light of being in their bodies, radiating from them as in everything else I beheld. They were pure Light. But when I looked into their eyes, I could see that none of them could see, or were aware of this in themselves. They were living inside a world of their own thoughts inside their own minds. It appeared like darkness in them, but that darkness was not who they were, but what they imagined the world was, isolated and separated in there personal individual worlds. I felt unspeakable joy, and love, and compassion for them. Not pity, but a certain sadness and confusion of how they could not see or experience what they were and what the world is.

All of this happened before I knew anything about religion. It was because of this I began my path to "come home" as it were, to once again taste the Living Wellspring of Life that is the being of God. So when I don't agree that we need to have these prophets to manifest God, now you may understand a little of why.

Thanks for sharing that awesome experience. It sounds more like an NDE experience than a life experience. I hope you realize that is not going to happen to everyone, or hardly anyone. That is one reason religion is necessary for the majority of people to have a connection to God, but also so we can know the will of God that comes through revelation. The primary attribute of God, which is Love, was manifested to you, so because you had that experience you realized you did not need religion to gain near access to God. But that does not mean everyone can do that. How and for whatever reason you had your experience is a mystery of God. You yourself said “I felt unspeakable joy, and love, and compassion for them. Not pity, but a certain sadness and confusion of how they could not see or experience what they were and what the world is.”

Likewise, I feel unspeakable joy to have recognized the Revelation of Baha’u’llah, but you can no more understand why than I can understand why you feel joy from your personal experience. I also feel sadness that not everyone can recognize Baha’u’llah because I believe that what He revealed IS the Will of God, and this has great implications for individuals and humanity collectively. Moreover, the biggest implications for individuals won’t be fully known until after we die physically.

 

[Windwalker]

I do not believe Jesus had a divine nature, but rather He had a divine station and a human station. These two stations of Jesus were not united, they were separate.

I think what I would like to explore would be this idea of stations and the "dual nature" a little more deeply. Something you said here makes me realize that "united" to you may imply sameness. It does not, actually. What I am referring to in this "dual nature" completely allows for distinction and "seapartness". This is what the nature of nonduality is. And this is a difficult subject for most people to fathom, or follow. Let me explain this a little more, which may hopefully point us in the direction of what I really mean by this, and why the doctrine of the hypostatic union makes sense to me, but not that this is just about Jesus alone, but all of us.

But first before I dig into that a little, "unity" is not the same thing as not separate or not distinct. Not separate and distinct suggests uniformity. Unity and uniformity are not the same thing. Unity requires distinctiveness and separateness.

Think of it like a Venn diagram of two overlapping circles. Let's say one is blue and the other is red. If you lay them completely over each other, you now have a purple circles, and blue and red cease to exist as distinct colors. But if you overlap them, blue and red remain distinct and separate, but in the middle of the overlap and new color emerges as the result of these two distinct colors. You have a purple middle. That unity of red and blue together create a new color the result of both. This is unity. No separateness is uniformity.

Now onto nonduality. I have a very clear idea that how your religion views God is firmly dualistic. This means that everything is distinctly different from one another. I am me, and you are you. Humans are humans, and God is God. God is Creator, and creation is an object outside of God. This and not that. We are all separate from one another, and separate from God. This is not how I perceive this.

Dualism is a reality of perception of reality. It's really real to us. We can touch objects and understand them as "not me". That mountain is not me. The person over there is not me. God in the heavens above, is not me. And so forth. And so everything we think about ourselves and reality are reflections of that perception. Our very language is structured in these terms, and their continual usage reinforces that perception, and hence our sense of self as distinct and other to everything, and, to God.

Now on the other side of the street you have monsim. The view that everything is in actually all made of the same stuff. Atoms or strings, for instance. In reality, our bodies are an illusion. This sense of distinction is an illusion. We are not separate from one another, and from God. God is not distinct from us. God is us and we are God. We are not who we think we are, but are only a mask of Spirit, so to speak.

Neither of the above is how I see Reality. What monism does is essentially what others have observed is actually create another form a dualism. Dualism says, "It is this, and not That.". And Monism, subtly is saying the same thing by saying there is no "us" it's all just God and all that other stuff is an illusion of the mind. So they are saying in effect "It is This, and not that.", just in reverse.

Nonduality on the other hand says both are equally, and paradoxically, true. Both dualism and monism are flip sides of the same "this and not that" coin. Nonduality looks at both and says both and says, "Yes" to both. What may seems mutually exclusive to the dualistic mind, is seen as unproblematic to the nondual mind. A different way to look at it I would say is to call it the paradoxical mind. It doesn't render a problem between the opposites, as it can perceive both neutrally as true, not choosing one side or the other as truth, but holding each as equally and completely true, as well as completely not true. It doesn't divide of itself, but merely sees the divisions as what they are, and how they can be held by the perceptive mind.

Now, that is a lot to digest if you've never even heard of, let alone attempted to penetrate rationally. But all of to say this, that God and man, are dualistic, yet true separations in a dualist world of our minds. But God and man are also not-dualistic, but indivisibley one. And it is also valid to say from a nondualistic, or paradoxical mind, that God is God and man is man, and yet we are also both distinct, and not-distinct, and yet two, and yet one, and so forth, and language begins to trip over itself as it can only speak in terms of distinctions. So the theological concept of the hypostatic union is non-problematic in understanding, not just the Nature of Jesus, but also of our own. To understand what Jesus was, is to understand what we are.

I'm to go post this for right now for some digestion before I continue on in my response to the rest of your thoughts. Again, I thank you for this discussion. You're a kind soul.