Science 'versus' God?

[melanie]

THE HEART OF THE YOGI

You cannot see the Seer of seeing.
You cannot hear the Hearer of hearing.
You canot think the Thinker of thinking.
You cannot understand the Understander of understanding.
He is your Self, which is in everything.

~Yajnavalkya, Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad.


Creationist, The Scientist (Study) of God.


The quest is to be liberated from the negative, which is really our own will to nothingness.
And once having said yes to the instant, the affirmation is contagious.
It bursts into a chain of affirmations that knows no limit.
To say yes to one instant is to say yes to all of existence.

-- Waking Life

[austintorn@aol.com]

Before declaring a winner, we are trying to arrive at a common definition for what "God" even means.

The term "God' is so overloaded with definitions now that we might as well refer to it as XYZ, for all we can know of its vagueness of differing interpretations.

The term has to be defined for it to be able to even enter the contest.

Is it person-like? has a will? all good? created Itself? always was? intercedes in life? gives us a test in life? are we special or just like any other [unspecial] species? did it make the universe and just go away? is reality real or just a dream? heaven/hell? Jesus was of God? we have past lives? a soul? purpose of life? which bible right/wrong? which prophets right/wrong?

(You know, an actual definition of "XYZ")

[melanie]

"Yoga has a purpose unlike other fields of learning and practrice; We delve more deeply into our yoga...not just for the sake of knowing more about yoga, but really for the sake of knowing the onewho is doing the yoga - our own Self - all the more deeply and profoundly, and in a way inlike any other form of self-knowing. The subject matter of yoga is the Self (as it is called in the texts of yoga) not as an object to be described or explained, ut as a pure, unmediated, lived experience."

The Self is not the ego but rather the 'higher Self,' the quiet voice and presence within the heart that speaks to and guides us when we look beyond our own narrow interests. In yoga the Self is not revealed or illuminated by the mind or any other intellectual process; nor is it enough simply to believe in it...The Self is known by its own shining forth, Self revealed in all that we do and are. This Self-revelation of the Divine comes in a moment of recognition that is a gift freely given. The moment when the scales fall away from our eyes and we recognise inwardly the presence of the God within our hearts is the moment of Grace in its purest sense.



There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us. When our life feeds on unreality, it must starve. It must therefore die. There is no greater misery than to mistake this fruitless death for the true, fruitful and sacrificial "death" by which we enter into life.
The death by which we enter into life is not an escape from reality but a complete gift of ourselves which involves a total commitment to reality. It begins by renouncing the illusory reality which created things acquire when they are seen only in their relation to our own selfish interests.

Thomas Merton Thoughts in Solitude

[melanie]

Before declaring a winner, we are trying to arrive at a common definition for what "God" even means.

The term "God' is so overloaded with definitions now that we might as well refer to it as XYZ, for all we can know of its vagueness of differing interpretations.

The term has to be defined for it to be able to even enter the contest.

Is it person-like? has a will? all good? created Itself? always was? intercedes in life? gives us a test in life? are we special or just like any other [unspecial] species? did it make the universe and just go away? is reality real or just a dream? heaven/hell? Jesus was of God? we have past lives? a soul? purpose of life?

(You know, an actual definition of "XYZ")

Seems you got it figured out, ask your self, "who", wants to know?

"Master, I have a troubled mind.?

Bring me your mind Lanoo, and I will fix it for you.

But master I have looked everywhere and I cannot find my mind?

There Lanoo, you see, I have fixed it for you." ~Buddha

[melanie]

Good Morning


ONE: Good Morning. How are you?

THE OTHER: I am. And you?

ONE: As cross as two sticks.

THE OTHER: Who is cross? And how can there be two sticks? Is one not enough?

ONE: Who is cross? I am, of course.

THE OTHER: Impossible. Of what are you speaking?

ONE: My ego.

THE OTHER: Your what?

ONE: My ego.

THE OTHER: Whatever is that?

ONE: The ego, e-g-o, the confounded thing that keeps us all imprisoned, the identification No. 1, the cause of all the trouble.

THE OTHER: I know of no such thing. Does it exist,
and if so - where? I have never seen anything of the kind.
You are suffering from hallucinations.
You shouldn't let yourself imagine things.

ONE: Hang it all, we all have an ego.
It may be an illusion and all that, in fact we know that it is, but,
living as we do, we are cross and offended and this and that,
and what is it that feels all that sort of thing but our ego?

THE OTHER: You are as firmly tied up in your dualistic verbiage as a kitten in a ball of wool.

ONE: Well, then, unwind me, like a good fellow.

THE OTHER: That would be a laborious process; let's cut the wool.
The ego is a concept, as you well know, a notion,at the very most a working hypothesis, a supposition, an algebraic symbol like pi,
something posited in order to serve as a basis for the explanation of the inexplicable.

ONE: Quite unreal and all that. Yes, yes, well do we know it!

THE OTHER: Well do you know it - and yet you go on behaving exactly as though you still believed it to be reality.
You go on attributing your reactions to something you say you know to be imaginary.
And you go on being indignant with other people for being subject to a thing you know to be imaginary.
In short you know it to be only a notion, a concept, and yet you continue to think of it as real.

ONE: But if I am cross, and I am, what is it that is feeling like that if it is not my ego that is still there is spite of my knowledge that it is not?

THE OTHER: Face facts, face facts! If it is not there - how can it be cross? Or offended? Or anything else imaginable?

ONE: But I am cross, furious.

THE OTHER: Nonsense. You are not anything.
That is only an act you are putting on. You are playing a part -
and attributing your reactions to an imaginary ego.
Crossness, or any other emotional reaction,
is only colouring-matter you add to affectivity.
You are blowing bubbles and giving them names and attributes.
When they burst you will know them for what they are - just passing deflections of reality in your mind.

ONE: Although I know the ego is not a reality, I am still behaving as though it were.
Still assuming it, still thinking of it, still attributing my reactions to it.
Yes, yes, I am. But do not we all? What does it add up to?

THE OTHER: The number you first thought of; zero.
Intellectual understanding without assimilation is the frame without the picture.

ONE: How does one insert a picture?

THE OTHER: I said the picture.
The canvas is now covered by your highly-coloured emotional imaginings.
Perfection is attained, as St. Exupéry pointed out,
not when there is nothing more to add,
but when there is nothing more to discard.

ONE: We should suppress our emotional reactions?

THE OTHER: If you could, it would only produce the effect known as psychic traumatism.

ONE: So what?

THE OTHER: We are now discussing the elementary confusion between mental vacancy and the void that is plenitude.
Correct attention, supra-sensual affectivity,
are uncoloured by emotional reactions.
That is the picture which is no picture,
within the frame that is no longer a frame.

ONE: Can any ordinary chap do that?

THE OTHER: Why not? There is nothing to do.
It is there already, always,
the only permanent and immutable aspect of what you are.

ONE: But how does one get at it?

THE OTHER: You say that you are cross.
As the Maharshi told you to do - ask yourself, who is cross?
And what is 'cross' anyhow?
You will see at once that there is nothing anywhere that could be cross,
and no such thing as crossness.
Bubbles calling one another names! Prick them.
Bang, (imaginary bang of imaginary bubbles),
they have vanished! What is left?

ONE: Correct attention, supra-sensual affectivity, pure as light, transparent as light, just - awareness!

THE OTHER: At last you have understood! Let us start afresh: - Good Morning. How are you?

ONE: I am. And you?

THE OTHER: As cross as one stick!


from the book .. "WHY LAZARUS LAUGHED" .. by WEI WU WEI

[melanie]

Before declaring a winner, we are trying to arrive at a common definition for what "God" even means.

The term "God' is so overloaded with definitions now that we might as well refer to it as XYZ, for all we can know of its vagueness of differing interpretations.

The term has to be defined for it to be able to even enter the contest.

Is it person-like? has a will? all good? created Itself? always was? intercedes in life? gives us a test in life? are we special or just like any other [unspecial] species? did it make the universe and just go away? is reality real or just a dream? heaven/hell? Jesus was of God? we have past lives? a soul? purpose of life?

(You know, an actual definition of "XYZ")

ANAMNESIS II

__The Secret Doctrine offers the ancient analogy of the Sun to the individual emerging out of the cave of avidya in search of Universal Good (SAT). Though difficult to exemplify, a talismanic exercise in practical instruction is conveyed. Close your eyes, and from the depths of inmost consciousness travel outward to the extremist limits in every direction. You will find equal lines or rays of perception extending evenly in all directions, so that the utmost effort of ideation will terminate in the vault of a sphere. Think of yourself as within a numinous golden egg, a divine sphere. Close your eyes, draw within, behind and beyond your own shadowy conception of yourself, behind the superficial and self-limiting images of the mind's surface, cast there by the lunar activity of the world, and eclipse your own restless lunar self. As you withdraw behind your five senses, focus upon the place between your eyes and see that point as only a representation in the physical face of a field of consciousness where there are innumerable points, each of which is at the centre of a radiant sphere formed by a reflection of the fiery substance of the dark ocean of space. From the standpoint of your own self-conscious ray of light, try to think outward to the extreme limits of boundless space in every direction. You will find that equal lines or rays of perception will terminate in all directions in the invisible vault of a macrocosmic sphere. The limit of the sphere will be a great circle, and the direct rays of thought in any direction must be right-line radii from a common centre in an immaterial, homogeneous medium. This is the all-embracing human conception of the manifesting aspect of the ever-hidden Ain-Soph, which formulates itself in the geometrical figure of a circle with elements of continuous curvature, circumference and rectilinear radii. This geometrical shape is the first recognizable link between the Ain-Soph and the highest intelligence of man. The rule proclaimed at the portals of the Pythagorean School and the Platonic Academy limited entry to those who had deeply reflected upon divine geometry. At this stage of the Seventh Impulsion, the qualifications for initiation are naturally stringent.

__According to Eastern esotericism, this great circle, which reduces to the point within the invisible boundless sphere, is Avalokiteshwara, the Logos. It is the manifested God, the Verbum of the Gospel According to St. John, unknown to man except through its manifested universe and the entirety of mankind. The One is intuitively known by the many, although the One is unthinkable by any mode of mere intellection. Reaching within consciousness means going behind and beyond every possible perception and conception, beyond every possible color and form. Form corresponds to knowledge on the lower reflected lunar plane; color corresponds to the knower at the level of the reflected ray. The objects of knowledge are merely modifications of a single substance. These do not yield any simple triadic diagram, but involve a gradual ascent within consciousness, in a tranquil state of contemplation, towards the greatest parametric conception of the One. The Logos sleeps in the bosom of Parabrahm – in the Abstract Absolute – during pralaya or non-manifestation, just as our individual Ego is in latency during deep, dreamless sleep. We cannot cognize Parabrahm except as Mulaprakriti, the mighty expanse of undifferentiated cosmic matter. This is not merely a vesture in cosmic creation through which radiate the energy and wisdom of Parabrahm. It is the Divine Ground.



~

Awakening is a flowering of your innermost being.
It is a revelation of your essence,
hidden by long eons of self-delusion,
ignorance, unbounded desires.

Enlightenment is an ending as well as a beginning:
the ending of the old, veiled, dark ego,
its longings, illusions, frustrations;
the beginning of a vast expanse,
an infinite field of the Unknown,
an adventure in consciousness.

It is a revolution:
it represents danger to the old way of life,
to old ways of thinking and living.

It is freedom from the known and the unknown;
from the real and the unreal;
from any appearance of division between you and Truth.

It is the abandoning of beliefs, dis-beliefs,
presumptions and stances,
self, ego,
call it what you will,
or call it nothing,
what it is.

It is the Path of the golden Dawn,
the Path out of the Night of Time
into the Bursting daylight of Eternal Now...

- Petros

[austintorn@aol.com]

Thanks, Mel,

I am just trying to be fair to other's definitions of "God", too, so that we can know just what it is that is in the contest…

There might be some ideas in common, such as "God" created the [real] universe…

[Profpat]

The TAO that can be defined is not the TAO. Somethings, Austin, just can't be defined, only experienced and accepted ( or rejected if that is your pleasure ).

Why are you looking for a definition Austin? Definitions limit, are you attempting to limit God to a definition?

[austintorn@aol.com]

An ill-defined or unknown or vague 'XYZ' or 'TAO' does not qualify as it cannot be talked about in any way; just trying to see if there is an 'XYZ' that could be enough defined to go versus Science, otherwise what would it be that is going versus.

From what I see elsewhere on ToeQuest are many conflicting definitions, so I suppose that we might have to disqualify 'XYZ' as being too nebulous for us to know what we are opposing Science with.

How about that 'XYZ' is a Great Mind of Intelligence and Emotions that created the Universe or at least attached a soul to homo sapiens at some point (still can't quite pin down a definition, but what do people vote for?)

[austintorn@aol.com]

ATTENTION! ALERT!

Uh, oh, I have discovered some fraud in this Science vs. God contest. It seems that no one really knows the nature of the origin of the universe, and if there even was one, not to mention that if there was, it is long gone now.

Now, as some people really really feel that they HAVE TO know things, BUT CAN’T, this becomes like the unstoppable object meeting the unpassable wall, and so, the only resort left is to make things up! Gasp.

Yes, yes, I know. How could humans do this? Well, maybe they didn’t want to, but they had to.

This making up is all the more apparent since I have noted all manner of conflicting “God” definitions here at ToeQuest, telling me for sure that all these inventions of the imagination have introduced a great fraud into our “versus” contest.

Therefore, with a heavy heart, I have no alternative but to disqualify “God” from this contest and declare Science as the winner.