SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Religion thread #58,934

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http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Beyond-All...5424454&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Yourself-...5424454&sr=8-2

I met the author several times, he has had quite an impact in my life, and kicked my butt to make me open my eyes, and offering my own meditation courses for several years. He runs a Zendo in Wiesbaden. When I met him, except the TaoTe King I threw away most literature, if not all, that I had about Zen and Christian mystic and Taoism.

These speeches and books are eye-openers. Pick up a copy, or not. Uncompromsinjg and uncomfortable as they are, they are not for everybody. The simply truth about people is that most do not want to find out a truth by their own effort - they comfortably just want to get confirmation that what they instead simply believe about gods and religions, is the right thing, so that they must not take the effort to rethink and change themselves. Buddha said so repeatedly, and so did Jesus as well repeatedly - most people just prefer to pass on this option, or get lost in their own maze of religious illusions.

Well, heaven and hell are states of minds, and we create them all by ourselves. And it may be that especially keen believers take as heaven what actually is no heaven at all, but is at best a dead end - but it is cosy because they must not leave the warmth of the nest they grew fond of.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird (Post 1664131)

What ever makes you feel good.

Did not know you are spiritual one.
Religion hater he he.:D
If it was for me i would probably run to a Rabi.:03:

The above is not meant in offensive way.

What was the fancy term again for those who believe that it doesn't matter to our life if a deity exists or not?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidslotm (Post 1663813)

"there are no athiests in foxholes"

Really?

Quote:

Check out our Atheists in Foxholes
The old cliché denying atheists in foxholes is most certainly not true. Many MAAF members are decorated combat veterans while many more serve throughout the world as submariners, infantry officers, and in a myriad of other dangerous assignments. Some of our members have published their military profiles here. A recent demographic study conducted by MAAF finds nontheists and others of no stated faith group constitute nearly one-quarter of the military. Those who identify specifically as Atheist outnumber Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews. The density of nontheism within the military exceeds that of the general population. MAAF encourages its members and potential members to take heart in these findings and build communities in their units. There are atheists in foxholes, and to say otherwise is untrue and discriminatory. Journalists and all others are encouraged to simply choose another aphorism to add variety to their comments. Nontheistic service members do not deserve to have their valor besmirched simply for a turn of phrase.

http://www.militaryatheists.org/

People need to be able to differentiate between religion, God, beliefs, faith, formal ritualistic prayer or heart felt prayer, being mindful of motives and conscience or simply adherence to formal religious laws/rituals.

Religion doesn't equal to God. God stands alone from any religion. The experience of God is always personal whether in individual level, family or simply a group of people.

And I just want to TESTIFY that God is REAL and UNIVERSAL whether one admits that or otherwise, whether one knows Him or otherwise. Any one man who claims he or she is enlightened and says that there is no God is either a liar and or a fool. I know this words mean nothing to you but I still write it so that you can remember when the time comes for you to know God.

God may not be for everyone . . . . . . . the fact that most people have no clue about God and that every person who has lived(except Christ) has no natural knowledge of God it is only logical to say that God is not for everyone and not for most to know. So go about your business. God is out of reach to most people. Or to be more accurate, most people have made themselves out of reach(unworthy) of the knowledge of God. We are dust in the wind. We are nothing, undeserving to know pure, greatest love, compassion and mercy. So there is God but you don't have to believe in Him, He doesn't demand that and if he had demanded it, that why do you still not believe? So he must have not demanded faith and even obedience. So there is God but go back to your own business and whatever beliefs you CHOOSE to believe. Life is too short to hate something you don't even know or understand. Go about your business. And most importantly. BE HAPPY whatever the condition is.

So shell be writen so shell be done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MH (Post 1664260)

So shell be writen so shell be done.

:06:
Proper English: So shall it be written and so shall it be done.

Though you must have meant sarcasm somewhat but please write it right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Castout (Post 1664257)

And I just want to TESTIFY that God is REAL and UNIVERSAL whether one admits that or otherwise, whether one knows Him or otherwise. Any one man who claims he or she is enlightened and says that there is no God is either a liar and or a fool. I know this words mean nothing to you but I still write it so that you can remember when the time comes for you to know God.

Ah, but therein lies the paradox and one of the real difficulties here: in terms of REAL and UNIVERSAL, you can only TESTIFY your own experience, but never 'reality' or 'universality' as such. If God is an individual pursuit, then as an individual you can't ever testify outside of your own field of experience, which precludes anything that's universal by default. Human experience can't adequately get at anything universal, and no amount of testimony will do anyone any good. In that sense, I wish that's another thing that I wish religious/spiritual people conceded: there's always a chance that what they see is universal is something that only comes to them, and may come in a very different form to others. If you believe God is something everyone has to have a personal relationship with, then you have to acknowledge that the experience of God can be completely different from one person to the next. If present at all. Otherwise, this becomes not about God universal but about proving your own little version of it as right.

The good news, though, is that a truly universal God can perfectly well speak on his own behalf and doesn't need spokespersons to do his bidding.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CCIP (Post 1664263)

You assumed human experience is needed to know UNIVERSAL God. It takes a divine experience from the part of God to know God. No man can reach God. You don't get to God, God get to you.

I'm not claiming to be a spokesperson and never did. So where did you take that weird conclusion from. You assumed too much. And as a witness I'm obligated to tell anyone my testimony for reason I've stated above.

My own version of God huh so you judged me based on what? based on the words I've written? To prove have I not written that I don't intend what I wrote to convince anyone and for the sole purpose of what I've stated instead. You passed a judgment on me. Okay.

I assumed you appointed yourself to be the judge of another person experience. Well since everybody can do whatever they wish I can't possibly object so I must accept your judgement. I think it is unwise and false but I must accept it nonetheless. After all what has been given cannot be taken back.

I'm not judging at all, just pointing out an argumentative flaw that many people in religion sadly abuse. I'm not saying that you're abusing it in this case, but it's exactly that kind of universalist logic that causes people to force interpretations on others. Everyone has access to the same sort of spiritual stuff, but you have to be wary about interpreting an individual experience of it as the 'right' one. In principle, if you look up my previous post in this thread, you'll see that I more or less agree with your views.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Castout (Post 1664257)

And there you just have head-jumped into the trap again that your dualistic mind has set up for you!

Ease the heavy load in your head so that it becomes much lighter. It improves your balance by lowering the centre of gravity.

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All - probably inadequate - translations by me, from my German copies.

Therefore, I am the cause of myself according to my essential being which is eternal, but not according to my developing appearance, which is temporal. And therefore, I am unborn, and according to that I never can die. By the way of not being born I have existed since all times, and I do exist now, and will exist forever. What I am by the way of my developing appearance will die and will be ruined, because it is mortal; therefore it will be shattered by time. - Meister Eckehard

Letting go all ideas of God and all religious thoughts one is fond of, is an absolute prerequisite for true mystical experience. But experience has shown that the letting go of personal idols and religious symbols is especially difficult for those, whose personality structure shows the strongest egocentricity and focussing on themselves. They are afraid to lose everything, and therefore they cling to their small, mortal self with all their might. When one is looking closer to it, one will recognize that most people are not about a living experience of the divine essence, but are more about a maintaining of their personal ideas of God they are fond of, and about wallowing religious feelings. But true mystic has nothing to do with emotional rapture and inappropriate holiness, these belong to the realm of mysticism, which only is a distortion of true and pure mystic. Man in general tends to fooling himself and looking for a short-cut, a religion of superficial consolation, an ideal world without problems and challenges, where everything falls into its correct place. The clinging to superficial forms and religious practices is one of the greatest dangers on the spiritual way. They are shackles which bind us to signs and symbols which actually should only show us the way inwards. Therefore every symbol shows towards something that is be-yond itself and that cannot be named or displayed. To go beyond religious signs and symbols therefore does not mean to refuse these symbols, but to strive for what they are pointing at. - Zensho Wolfgang Kopp

The law of Buddha does not need endeavours. It consists of the ordinary life and has no goal: to sh!t and to piss, getting dressed, eating and sleeping when one is tired. The simple-minded may laugh about me the wise know about it. My friends, I tell you: there is no Buddha, no teaching, no training, and no insight. What are you chasing for so bitterly? Do you want to put a second head on top of your own, you blind idiots? Your head is exactly where it should be. What are you missing, then? - Lin Chi (jap. Rinzai)

The One Essence that could be known,
Is not the Essence of the Unknowable.
The idea that could be imagined,
Is not the image of the Eternal.
Nameless is the all-One, is inner essence.
Known by names is the all-Many, is outer form.
Resting without desires means to learn the invis-ible inside.
Acting with desires means to stay by the limited outside.
All-the-One and all-the-Many are of the same origin,
Different only in appearance and name.
What they have in common is the wonder of being.
The secret of this wonder
Is the gate to all understanding.
- Tao Te King -

While he entered the assembly hall, master Huang-Po said: The possession of many kinds of knowledge does not compare to giving up searching for them. That is the best of all things. There are no different kinds of mind, and there are no teachings that could be expressed in words. Since there is nothing more to say, the assembly is closed. - Huang Po

As long as we do not have true self-knowledge, our wish to act rightly often creates nothing but problems. Because in our blindness we act within a world that by its appearance we still perceive as a dualistic one, and with our well-meant good deeds we try hard to give expression only to one of the two poles in every pair of opposites. What we consider to be of light, we try to make everlasting, and we reject what we believe is of darkness. But by that we behave exactly like the being that we believe we are: our ego has polarized ourselves as being good, by that it keeps on to increase the dualism and the imagined polarity in the world as we see it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by August (Post 1664081)

Gods message is clear enough Angus and you don't need a three thousand year old book to understand it if your heart is open to hear it.

Then why do people keep hearing different things? You'd think that after so many millennia, and so many listeners, we'd have reached a consensus. But that's not the case.

How do you hear it?

How can you tell that it isn't you saying that? How can you tell that it isn't some other being saying that?

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Originally Posted by AngusJS (Post 1664307)

You must seek those answers from within your own heart Angus.

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Originally Posted by Penguin (Post 1664239)

http://www.militaryatheists.org/

Awesome! :yeah:

I am going to check those guy out. Thanks for posting that. :salute:

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngusJS (Post 1664307)

Religions often have an outer, an exoteric face, and a hidden, more secret, esoteric tradition. On the exoteric level, they seem to differ a whole lot, but on the inner, esoteric level, what is being taught by a Jesus of Nazareth does not differ from what Buddha expressed in different lingual symbols of his different cultural tradition, and Zen/Chan and Christian mystic do not give me the impression of really being two different things. Both have transcended the meaning of the self and of enlightenment/God/Buddha nature.

It's just that when you say "christianity" today, you either mean the church and its dogma, or an understanding of "God" that even when rejecting the church still clings to a personalised conception that makes "God" a subject of its own. Same in Buddhism, many schools got distracted in rites and rituals and ways of practicing that support and foster the hierachic structures of some superimposed organisations claiming to act on behalf of the followers, but in fact acting on behalf of the members of said hierarchy.

This is not what Buddha has taught, and this is not what Jesus has taught.

If somebody thinks he has found the love of "God" or has found Buddhist "enlightenment", he already is dualsiing again, and if he is capable to feel like that only during a church session or a sesshin in a Zendo, but not in the noise and quarrels of the everday life in the everday world, then in fact he has not gained or acchieved anything, and does not own things and ideas, but gets owned them. And a lot of dmaage gets done this way, keeping people stuck in dead ends without them being able to realise it. The best advise I have given students time and again is: do not seek any practicing, do not try to be "spiritual" or "good", just live your life, be determined where needed and be kind were possible, and always put your heart and mind into what you are doing. That is more precious and valuable than any rites and prayers.

Compare this (Huang-Po, Buddhist)

Quote:

Reject all that you have acquired, as if it were only a bed that had been set up for you during illness. Only when you have given up all perception and awareness, only when you have freed yourself from the complete range of dualistic concepts, you will finally gain the name of a supersensory Buddha. Therefore it is written: Your bows are in vain. Dont put your trust into such ceremonies. Give up such false beliefs

to that (Jesus)

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Another disciple said to him, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. But Jesus told him, Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead. (Matthew 8,21-22);

and these two (Christian mystic)

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Man shall see God in all things, and shall accustom his soul to always see God in his soul, in his striving, and in his love. Take care of how you are turned towards God when you are in the church, or in your cabin: keep up the same mood and carry it amongst the crowd, the hustle and the dissimilarity. [...] In all your works you shall have a steady soul, and a steady confidence, and a steady love for God. If you were that serene, no one could hinder you to be aware of God s presence at all times. - Meister Eckhart]

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Before everything else, he shall let go himself, for then he has let go everything. Forsooth, if a man would let go a kingdom or all world, but would keep himself, in reality he would not had let go anything. But if he lets go himself, whatever it is that he keeps then, may it be honour or wealth or whatever, he has letting go everything. [---8230;] We shall own as if we had nothing, but still having all things. The one does not have any possessions, who does not desire and does not want anything, neither for himself nor for all what is besides him. - Meister Eckhart

Who was Huang Po?

Who was Meister Eckhart?

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19th century philosopher Schopenhauer compared Eckhart's views to the teachings of Indian, Christian, and Islamic mystics and ascetics:

If we turn from the forms, produced by external circumstances, and go to the root of things, we shall find that Sakyamuni and Meister Eckhart teach the same thing; only that the former dared to express his ideas plainly and positively, whereas Eckhart is obliged to clothe them in the garment of the Christian myth, and to adapt his expressions thereto.

---8211; Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, Ch. XLVIII

Quote:

Originally Posted by Platapus (Post 1664317)

Awesome! :yeah:

I am going to check those guy out. Thanks for posting that. :salute:

You'd probably like this site too.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/atheists-in-foxholes/