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Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 9:14 am
by toddwayman
Religion is a cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements. However, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 9:21 pm
by Greatest I am
toddwayman wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 9:14 am Religion is a cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements. However, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion
Yes there is. A tribe or any group with a thinking system that they see as having an ideology.

These days, that includes statists and atheism. KIS.

Regards
DL

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Wed May 15, 2019 7:02 am
by Dontaskme
Religion is a human condition.

It's the innate desire to reconnect to Source (Oneness) away from the unavoidable human condition that is the illusory sense of separation.

I'm One; I'm all of this!
Yet I'm undifferentiated, beyond all forms.
How, then, do I regard the Self?
As both the Unmanifest and the manifest world


.

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Wed May 15, 2019 11:44 am
by Walker
"To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. [Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, 1885]"
etymology

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Wed May 29, 2019 3:53 am
by Nick_A
Dontaskme wrote: Wed Jan 30, 2019 12:26 pm A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.

Beliefs are thoughts.

Thoughts are expressions being perceived.

Perceptions are being expressed by nothing, for nothing, for there is no visible perceiver but the invisible thought.

.
DAM

I’d like to ask you from your unique perspective if you find any correlation with how you’ve defined religion with Simone’s observation on what it means “to know.”
The last sentence Simone Weil wrote in the notebook found after her death was: "The most important part of education--to teach the meaning of to know.
What IYO does it mean “to know” and does the essence of religion further or diminish our ability to experience what it means “to know?”

For example I can define the vibrations of the note fa on a C maj scale. But what do I know? Can I know the meaning of fa without knowing the C maj scale? Take away the scale takes away its meaning. Thinking further I see that the C maj scale is not alone but the relationship of notes are the same on all the maj scales of an octave such as C# D Eb etc. Looking further I see that there can be octaves both above and below the one in question. Even though the note fa is small as a part of this universal structure, it still has its significance. So the fullness of “to know” requires facts fitting into a higher whole which is beyond the domain of our senses. Does this fit into your perspective?

I may be wrong but you’ve given me the impression that there is nothing definite to know. Thoughts just appear and disappear but unrelated to an organization of spirit and matter. So what does the concept of “to know” mean for you? Is it restricted to simple matters like you know what time it is or does the concept also have an objective meaning that only exists for us as a human potential?

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Thu May 30, 2019 8:22 am
by Dontaskme
Nick_A wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 3:53 am
Dontaskme wrote: Wed Jan 30, 2019 12:26 pm A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.

Beliefs are thoughts.

Thoughts are expressions being perceived.

Perceptions are being expressed by nothing, for nothing, for there is no visible perceiver but the invisible thought.

.
DAM

I’d like to ask you from your unique perspective if you find any correlation with how you’ve defined religion with Simone’s observation on what it means “to know.”
The last sentence Simone Weil wrote in the notebook found after her death was: "The most important part of education--to teach the meaning of to know.
What IYO does it mean “to know” and does the essence of religion further or diminish our ability to experience what it means “to know?”
Hello Nick_A ..and welcome back. First of all I have no knowledge of who is Simone Weil or of her teachings and ideas, but on what I have read and seen from your mention of her...I do kind of resonate with.

Religion for me is just a human conditioned desire to know itself because it's a condition that has appeared as self-awareness, the human knows it exists as a separate self or so it thinks it does...even though this enity has no actual idea what is a thought or where thoughts comes from. But what I have personally experienced and discovered is that thoughts are the only thing that is creating knowledge.

But knowing and knowledge are two separate dynamics...knowing is innate, it's without knowing...But knowledge is the known and that requires a knower, and that knower is imagination aka thought..because imagination is an appearance within not-knowing knowing...

So what it means ''to know'' in my opinion is to BE ...and that BE is known. But what is not known is WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHERE, is BE

What else is known about being is IT appears as and through a sentient body, in that the consciousness of a new born creature appears upon birth and then disappears upon death...all this is known....but what is not known is how that happens, or why, or to whom or what, or from where this consciousness arises and falls away.

All that is known is this finite window of being alive. Prior to knowing aliveness there is no knowledge of any prior state, and the same goes for death, there is no knowledge of after life state. The only knowing is the finite state inbetween the prior state and after life state of not-knowing...therefore, there seems to be a finite window of knowing between two eternities of not-knowing anything. That finite appearance of knowing between two not-knowings...is all that can be known about anything.

We can look further into this by saying that ''knowing'' has appeared out of ''not-knowing'' and becomes known and then disappears back into ''not-knowing'' ...and the fact that this ''knowing'' is possible at all and is self evident of BEING KNOWN means that the state of ''not-knowingness'' cannot be death because life is appearing from out of that state and is also returning to it endlessly without any KNOWN beginning nor ending. And that to me is what is meant by INFINITY FOR ETERNITY ..INFINITY is the ''Not-knowing'' and ETERNITY is the KNOWN appearance of infinity within infinity ..which is in -finite appearing eternally.

Eternity therefore, is always NOW ...So there can only be knowing because there is not-knowing...so they must be the same knower that always is was and ever will be NOW.

Does that make sense? ..it makes sense to me.

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Thu May 30, 2019 9:35 pm
by Nick_A
DaM

First I agree that most thoughts are just meaningless repetition of expressions of our personality. I think you will appreciate. “Pouring from the empty into the void.” It is one of my favorite expressions of all time. Can you imagine what will happen to some poor kid in school if he says the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble? Anyhow, Dostoyevsky may be right

“Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.”― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
Have you noticed that threads on a site as well as in life have no common element that is evident and unites them? My primary interest is in establishing the complimentary relationship between science and religion but the idea in these times goes over like a lead balloon. That is why Simone’s observation interests me.
The last sentence Simone Weil wrote in the notebook found after her death was: "The most important part of education--to teach the meaning of to know.
For the sake of the next generation, how could the field of education agree on what it means to know and how to teach it? I would agree with you that in order to truly understand it is first necessary “to be.” But can you imagine trying to explain this idea to advocates of progressive education? For Man “to be” it requires consciousness which we lack since we are dominated by imagination. Imagination and consciousness are mutually exclusive.

As you can see the question of what it means to know and how to teach it is far more involved than we normally believe. An advocate of progressive education wouldn’t have a clue and dogmatists of all types would be equally misleading.

So as odd as it appears, educating what it means to know requires the integration of science and religion – facts and meaning. Only a few would be capable of it and would be rejected by the majority. What IYO would it take to become capable of more than pouring from the empty into the void

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2019 8:26 am
by Dontaskme
Nick_A wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 9:35 pm DaM

First I agree that most thoughts are just meaningless repetition of expressions of our personality. I think you will appreciate. “Pouring from the empty into the void.” It is one of my favorite expressions of all time. Can you imagine what will happen to some poor kid in school if he says the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble? Anyhow, Dostoyevsky may be right
Nick_A
''Words'' which are just invisible thought forms, aka in-form-ation... are actually this invisible emptiness pouring from the empty into the void indeed. There is no way to avoid the void, it's HERE. This is IT
From source to source an ever cascading bubbling / babbling never ending imagined story. And yet the power we give to words is enormous. Foolish as we are to allow words to have such power, just a sound, just letters strung together to form meaning from nothing. Such is the power of the Mind..aka emptiness...because emptiness appears full of itself therefore it's just got to be real...eh?
“Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.”― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
Nick_A wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 9:35 pmHave you noticed that threads on a site as well as in life have no common element that is evident and unites them? My primary interest is in establishing the complimentary relationship between science and religion but the idea in these times goes over like a lead balloon. That is why Simone’s observation interests me.
Nothing unites man because nothing separates man but their unconscious empty belief in the word to be something OTHER than the word itself. And words are not going away, therefore man lives in a constant state of delusion. What a lesson and huge shift would happen if we realised the powerlessness of things and did not give those tangible words power that they do not have.
The last sentence Simone Weil wrote in the notebook found after her death was: "The most important part of education--to teach the meaning of to know.
Nick_A wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 9:35 pmFor the sake of the next generation, how could the field of education agree on what it means to know and how to teach it? I would agree with you that in order to truly understand it is first necessary “to be.” But can you imagine trying to explain this idea to advocates of progressive education? For Man “to be” it requires consciousness which we lack since we are dominated by imagination. Imagination and consciousness are mutually exclusive.
Oh but let them (humans) have their beliefs, what else have they got ? What am I without my belief?
Nothing will ever change while the consciousness that is man is believed to be a man and not consciousness itself.
Nick_A wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 9:35 pm As you can see the question of what it means to know and how to teach it is far more involved than we normally believe. An advocate of progressive education wouldn’t have a clue and dogmatists of all types would be equally misleading.
But then maybe consciousness wanted this experience of being separated. Maybe it's just an experiment it's experimenting with itself, surely it must already know that if it fucks up,it can just go back to the drawing board and just start all over again.
Nick_A wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 9:35 pmSo as odd as it appears, educating what it means to know requires the integration of science and religion – facts and meaning. Only a few would be capable of it and would be rejected by the majority. What IYO would it take to become capable of more than pouring from the empty into the void
The ironic thing is Science is the discovering of the tangible to be the evidence of what Religion is saying, and religion is discovering there is no substance behind anything tangible, so religion and science seem to be working in collaboration in discovering absolutely nothing in the sense that reality is actually empty ..and when religions talks about their Gods, they are actually referring to the emptiness of the fullness aka imaged appearances.

In other words God is the “Pouring from the empty into the void.”

Nick_A wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 9:35 pmWhat IYO would it take to become capable of more than pouring from the empty into the void
But of course don't take ANY of my words for IT...for i too have no idea what the heck is going on. Nothing ever made sense.
My opinion is that there will never be anything more than pouring from the empty into the void.

Nothing is ultimately happening ..but what can emptinness do with itself but imagine and believe in happenings.

.

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:55 am
by Nick_A
DaM, do you believe in the reality of fractions or are they just figments of our imagination? Can the vibrtory frequency of white light be divided into lawful fractions of the whole which we perceive as colors? White light and colors simultaneously exist.

Are the processes taking place within the Alpha Centauri system and the star system nearest to our sun or is this star system just a figment of what we believe is our sensory perception?

Why is it not more reasonable to begin with the premise of pure consciousness and by the process of involution create the virtual infinity of lawful fractions of the whole? Does it really have to be one or the other or can fractions exist within the whole but on a lower level of reality?

Where science must function by dualistc reason. The essence of religion offers the means to reconcile duality from a higher conscious perspective. You seem to be saying that only the higher perspective truly exists. Where the lower depends on the higher for its existence this doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Nothing is ultimately happening ..but what can emptinness do with itself but imagine and believe in happenings.
This means that the Source has a need which can only be met through imagination. This is weakness. It makes far more sense to begin with the premise that everything is happening in accordance with the complimentary cyclical processes of involution and evolution. The Source as a whole then is both absolute potential and actualized potentials

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 7:30 am
by Dontaskme
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:55 am DaM, do you believe in the reality of fractions or are they just figments of our imagination? Can the vibrtory frequency of white light be divided into lawful fractions of the whole which we perceive as colors? White light and colors simultaneously exist.
Nick, from my perspective, all conceptual knowns aka (words describing other words) is imagination which is formless information realised appearing actualised. In other words, we can only use words to describe other words...we cannot use words to describe ACTUAL BEING EXISTENCE which incidentally, doesn't require a concept to BE ...Being is inconceivable because you are it. Any conception of being is a fictional overlay upon it aka imagination.

Concepts are known appearances aka images of the imageless. Known concepts are formless''thoughts'' appearing actualised within formless Being...aka Consciousness.

There are no such ''things'' as real concepts as every concept is formed of ''formless thought'' given meaning, and definition which is more ''thought''..in other words concepts are formless imagination. Why imagined? because is there anything known of the knower/seer of ''thought''?
Do you know what you are seeing, or do you know the seeing? Similarly, Do you see what you are knowing, or do you see the knowing?

The answer is..YOU only know yourself as the seeing and the knowing and NOT what you are seeing and knowing.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:55 amAre the processes taking place within the Alpha Centauri system and the star system nearest to our sun or is this star system just a figment of what we believe is our sensory perception?
From my perspective(opinion) there is only sensory perception as this direct experience of being...there is nothing known outside of that arena...sensory perception is known by infinite awareness only...aka source aka you.

Nick_A wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:55 amWhy is it not more reasonable to begin with the premise of pure consciousness and by the process of involution create the virtual infinity of lawful fractions of the whole? Does it really have to be one or the other or can fractions exist within the whole but on a lower level of reality?
From my perspective (opinion) I AM source, aka infinity right now peering out of the lens that is this '''mind body character'' (DAM) from the unique perspective of that particular view point. (is that what you mean by fraction?..otherwise I don't know what you mean by lawful fractions.

For me there is no higher or lower anything, there's just Empty Conscious Awareness filling itself up via the mind body mechanism aka the awareness of ''thought''
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:55 amWhere science must function by dualistc reason. The essence of religion offers the means to reconcile duality from a higher conscious perspective. You seem to be saying that only the higher perspective truly exists. Where the lower depends on the higher for its existence this doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I'm saying only Infinite Consciousness exists. . lower and higher perspectives are all known concepts within that which is already Consciousness.
Nothing is ultimately happening ..but what can emptinness do with itself but imagine and believe in happenings.
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:55 amThis means that the Source has a need which can only be met through imagination. This is weakness. It makes far more sense to begin with the premise that everything is happening in accordance with the complimentary cyclical processes of involution and evolution. The Source as a whole then is both absolute potential and actualized potentials
For me from my perspective, from my own personal direct experience as BEING... everything is happening within that which never happens, THAT which never happens is INFINITE SOURCE and you are THIS.

Source which is just another word for Awareness is aware of a happening, as in being in association with itself, via being aware of thought, but awareness is not actually happening.

.

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 8:07 pm
by Nick_A
Let me try to understand you by beginning with an essential question: if our species were to become extinct, would mathematical relationships still exist or are they just expressions of our imagination? Lawful fractions are mathematical relationships. Is the division of two halves of the same object possible as a mathematical relationship? To me, objective concepts cannot be confused with words unless we assert that mathematics is an illusion. If that is the case there is no complimentary relationship between science and the essence of religion since both are imagination lacking any logical basis.

I cannot believe I am God. Simone Weil explains why. Have you experienced anything differently?
We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2019 7:18 am
by Dontaskme
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 8:07 pm Let me try to understand you by beginning with an essential question: if our species were to become extinct, would mathematical relationships still exist or are they just expressions of our imagination? Lawful fractions are mathematical relationships. Is the division of two halves of the same object possible as a mathematical relationship? To me, objective concepts cannot be confused with words unless we assert that mathematics is an illusion. If that is the case there is no complimentary relationship between science and the essence of religion since both are imagination lacking any logical basis.
I'm not really sure about what you are seeing or saying Nick. Honestly I can only speak from my own direct experience of BEING.
For me, from my perspective there is nothing outside of human language, in that there is anything known beyong language itself, because all knowledge ever does is inform the illusory nature of the conceptual world we believe to exist...the conceptual world being any ''thing'' conceived via ''thought''

Same goes for 'thoughts' there is no 'thing' without 'thought' and 'thought' is nothing...that's the illusion, but it's a real illusion which is in my opinion magic. For me, the whole of existence is one huge magic show that I know nothing about except what I imagine. I cannot give any more information than that for that's all I know.
I'm just not understanding what you mean by ''Lawful fractions are mathematical relationships''
For me, the only relationship is knowledge aka a known concept, formed via conceptual language, which is a fiction, aka imagined. What's even more bizarre, imo, is no conceptual known thing has ever been SEEN, it's only KNOWN via the imagination. What I mean by that is there is no hand on the end of your arm..these known concepts are just labels imagination puts there, aka empty ideas. We think we are seeing an idea but all we are seeing is emptiness in-formation...all that is ever seen and known are the images of the imageless consciousness. The 'hand' is a total apparition within the emptiness of consciousness...which is pretty magical to say the least...it's similar to a movie on the tv screen, there is no thing behind any image seen, there is no person or character inside the beleived characterised image ..but what the mind aka imagination puts there.

You ask ''if our species were to become extinct'' ....I'll respond by saying if we become extinct then in my logic the energy that expressed itself as and through the human mind body mechanism will transfer to another vehicle, all that will happen is a transference of energy from one form to a completely different other form, or maybe appear as a similar form, who knows?...does nature ever repeat exactly ? I doubt it.

Nick_A wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 8:07 pmI cannot believe I am God. Simone Weil explains why. Have you experienced anything differently?
We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.
The God idea can be interpreted many many many different ways...(Many of the ONE) hence the multitude of religions....but ultimately it's still a concept no concept is knowing because a concept doesn't have a mind to know...the concept is already known within the mind which is unknowable. I know that sounds rather complicated but it's actually quite easy to grasp once we let go of all conceptual ideas about anything and just BE in what's actually HERE.

For me, from my direct experience God is Nothingness and Nothingness is the same as EVERYTHING.

But it'll be difference for each of us because we can only speak from our own unique direct expreriences.

When people speak of being made in the image of God...for me, that means we are the conceived conceptual imageless image) aka (duality) of the imageless consciousness aka (non-dual self) we already ARE ..We can be dual (two) and non-dual (One) at the same time. . and it's not even like we can be that...We are ABSOLUTELY that.

There is nothing really wretched about that, because that's just more separation, it's just fictional story, imagination. What we are and always will be is PURE PRISTINE EVER SHINING BRILLIANT INTELLIGENT INFINITE AWARENESS.
complimentary relationship between science and the essence of religion since both are imagination lacking any logical basis
Nothing wrong with imagination, because without it, you wouldn't even exist at all. YOU first have to exist to even be aware of yourself existing in the first place, and that is why there can only be God... God is the first the last and everything in between, you are THIS absolute source right here and now.
Everything is within you (source) there is nothing outside of Source but more Source. You are Infinity Now.

But this is just my opinion Nick.

.

.

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2019 7:20 am
by Dontaskme
How to see that YOU are already enlightenment.

Sit comfortably and quietly, still your mind, and become aware of direct experience.

Try to think of another person, such as a loved one, parent, child, or spouse.

Make sure that the person you're thinking of isn't in the room with you.

Now, notice what they actually are: they are a thought

Notice that what that person literally is, is an image arising in your mind. Nothing more.

Notice that you've never actually directly experienced anything other than your direct experience.

Become deeply conscious that other people do not exist.

Become so deeply conscious of this, that you feel alone in the universe.

There is no one here but you. You are all that's ever existed and will ever exist.

You are completely alone. You imagine others to make yourself feel connected.

When you see your loved ones face-to-face, you are STILL ALONE! That's you looking at your own direct experience. Nothing more.

.

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2019 5:16 pm
by Arising_uk
:lol: Now shut your eyes and let someone sneak up and slap you around the head to disabuse you of that notion. If not think about how sad one must be to need to be hit to feel connected.

Re: Religion Is .....

Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2019 10:18 pm
by Nick_A
Dontaskme wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 7:20 am How to see that YOU are already enlightenment.

Sit comfortably and quietly, still your mind, and become aware of direct experience.

Try to think of another person, such as a loved one, parent, child, or spouse.

Make sure that the person you're thinking of isn't in the room with you.

Now, notice what they actually are: they are a thought

Notice that what that person literally is, is an image arising in your mind. Nothing more.

Notice that you've never actually directly experienced anything other than your direct experience.

Become deeply conscious that other people do not exist.

Become so deeply conscious of this, that you feel alone in the universe.

There is no one here but you. You are all that's ever existed and will ever exist.

You are completely alone. You imagine others to make yourself feel connected.

When you see your loved ones face-to-face, you are STILL ALONE! That's you looking at your own direct experience. Nothing more.

.
I understnd where you are coming from but just do not agree. It is true that my perceptions of another become thoughts but that doesn't make the other unreal. My thoughts do not create their reality. Our thoughts, emotions, and sensations do not create the other but just our interpretations of what they are.

This is why my appreciation for religion must differ from yours. In Christianity for example the ideal is for a church to be an esoteric school in which a person can become able to be a Christian. It is one thing to want to be a Christian and quite another to be able to be a Christian.

The ideal for the inner part of the church is an esoteric school while the outer side should serve as a meaningful influence in society. But of course these are ideals so by definition are rare in practice. But the bottom line is that a true church recognizes the existence of a human being both as they are and in the potential for their being. To say they are a figment of my imagination just seems to add an element of egoism which denies the value of the perennial teachings.