philmeta11

...or is this mankind interpreting through his ignorance and fear?

Nature, including the human, is a unified whole. As such it moves as a whole, evolves as a whole, supports itself as a whole. It sees only it's wholeness and does not recognize man's fear and greed, his need for control and safety.

Is survival of the fittest about rejecting the parts or improving the whole? Is nature brutally indifferent or does it simply not recognize the differences that man is so tragically attached to? Does nature lack harmony because it doesn't fulfill our personal definitions of harmony, namely safety, security and immortality?

Harmony is in the flawless integration of the parts in the interest of the whole, not in the interest of each of the individuals

You're obviously born into a different body with a blank slate for a mind and some 'karmic' personality traits and propensities that are different from your previous life. You're born into a totally different environment and remember nothing about your 'previous life', and so what is it that actually gets reborn, and of what possible significance could it be to the 'you' that you believe yourself to be now? Aren't you just a personality and doesn't that change? Where is this 'you' that moves from one lifetime to another? If it is a soul, how would you know if you suddenly appeared with a different soul? You don't know this soul, do you? You just know this prsonality, and it's going to die for good.

Did you know God is out to kill you? No, seriously, God is Truth, and the Truth is that you aren't the separate, isolated, volitional individual that you think you are, and so Truth seeking is a lot like walking up the steps to the gallows; every step takes you a little closer to the realization that you are not what you think you are, that you were never separate from anyone or anything, (I and the Father are One) and so the human is really the expression of this Oneness (Not really the Father's son so much). Expressions have no independent existence any more than these words do.

Almost everybody turns away before they reach the gallows, and yet the ending of the illusion of you, is the freedom you seek; the Truth that you seek. Love birthed from within, Peace in the eye of the storm, Joy in the absence of any illusions to shake it.

Oneness. You are That. 'We' are That.

Wadayathink?

....or does it challenge your ideas of who you are.....or both?

"We are created in the image and likeness of God."

This is generally assumed to mean humans share the same physical characteristics as God, but what if it's just a metaphor? The Source (God) expresses in the form of creation as a reflection of the Source. How else could it be? What else could humans be but a reflection of the nature of the Source who created it?

When humans are able to step beyond their fears and judgments, it can be seen that there was never anything here that was not a reflection of God. The Source of physical things, however, is not itself physical. The Source of time and space does not, itself, dwell in time and space.

"In the image and likeness" means a reflection/expression of the Source, but not the essence of the Source, and not the physical appearance of the Source, which is formless; timeless.

Wadayathink?

So, if you wanted to explain the internet to your 3 year old, would it be technical or might you translate it into a simple story so that it could be grasped? There's no need to throw out the story of the garden of Eden, but after 2000 years, maybe we don't need stories.

To enter the human experience is to separate from the singularity of God. Experience can't happen without a multiplicity of individuals. This is not a problem by itself just as it's no problem for the innocent child who spontaneously laughs and cries in response to it's experience but doesn't know enough to identify with it all and project it's struggle into the future.

Around age two or three, the thought arises that there is a 'me' who has to do something about these experiences other than react spontaneously and joyfully; a me that is good or evil submersed in a world of good and evil. This is the end of paradise; the knowledge of good and evil. The story is describing your own experience.

Wadayathink?

Some recent comments from our friends here: "only the evidence matters", "we are inside of math". :)~

So's you know where I'm comming from, I'm an engineer and I love science. I also do not subscibe to the personal God idea, nor am I a follower of any religion.

The following questions are from Science magazine-125 questions:What we don't know:

What is the biological basis of consciousness?

How did life arise?

How does memory work?

The nature of gravity?

How do planets form?

Why do we sleep?

Why do we dream?

How did flowers evolve?

How is plant growth controlled?

How does a cell become a plant?

What is the structure of water?

Einstein was a deeply spiritual man. From my perspective, this came about through a deep insight into the miraculous functioning of the universe. He said, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle."

Science is not religion. Please don't turn it into one.

Many belief sytems teach that God created the universe at some 'time' along with it's principles of functioning and it's been running on it's own ever since, but most of these belief systems also see time as an illusion, perhaps indirectly by stating God is eternal. (Not immortal, but 'timeless'.)

From the creator's standpoint, then, there is no past in which He created anything. There is only the eternal moment of now, out of which the illusion of time and space are being formed now. The entire universe is created in each moment of now, out of infinite potential. The only reason the next moment will look much like this one is because your mind insists on that continuity. All things are possible Now. Creation is happening now.

Wadayathink?

I'm not much for assigning the cause of life to a personal God who waved his hands and made everything, but at the same time, rational, scientific explations are going to bump into walls until mind can get a glimpse of it's own source. Science is very fun and practical, but there comes a point when it's much like the dream character trying to understand the source of the dream from within the dream.

The universe is 'happening' within consciousness, and so the world is a subjective phenomena. As such, all scientific principles are formed in consciousness (the one Consciousness) rather than discovered objectively. The evolution of science roughly parallels the evolution of consciousness as it moves from a 'magical' perspective to a rational, practical one (Newtonian) to a broader, abstract perspective (Einstein) to the exploration of the formation of matter where it inevitably stumbles upon consciousness itself (Quantum physics).

Science happens 'inside' Divinity.

Wadayathink?

The individual is only aware of a small portion of the contents of his own mind, out of which his world is created. All that we are aware of, by definition, is our conscious thoughts/feelings. Beneath that, it's clear that there are unconscious thoughts since we often become aware of some of them.

There is one Consciousness from which all individual consciousness arises in the form of individuated perspectives on 'creation'. Therefore, beneath your conscious and unconscious thoughts your 'individual' mind is rooted in Consciousness itself where it becomes inseparable from the minds of all other individuals.

The irony is that, although your world is entirely created from the contents of your mind, you can never be fully aware of those contents, and therefore cannot have control over that which you create. However, the more aware you become of the contents of the subconscious, the more your experience will correlate to your thoughts/feelings.

Wadayathink?

Ahh, a trick of light, eh? What we call spirit is Awareness within which Consciousness arises, within which the human experience arises, along with thought. Humans are, in a sense, Consciousness experiencing and thinking, but that which is present for that experience, that which never changes, that which we call spirit, is Awareness, and is therefore 'prior to' thought.

So, Awareness is 'aware of' thought through consciousness, but it is not, itself, thinking. The thought is happening within it, but the Awareness that is You is not a separate thinking thing.

The delicious irony is that the human (illusion) seeks Self Realization through it's thinking mind, but the Self it seeks (Awareness) is not thinking and desiring and has no interest in it's own illusion realizing it's Source. And so Awareness dreams a dream from which it cannot awaken until it has ended itself through it's own dream. Is that cool or what?

Wadayathink?

We usually assume human consciousness either arose spontaneously from matter or was created along with the world by some higher power, but what if consciousness came 'first' as an expression of what we call Divinity, and everything (the entire universe) is arising within that consciousness as the expression of Consciousness?

This would mean that perception and creation are the same; ongoing in the present moment, but that there are not really objective physical things being created outside of consciousness. Rather, the entire human experience is created subjectively within Consciousness as a kind of dreamscape.

There is a level at which each individual consciousness is united as one singular Consciousness. The world of experience forms within this Consciousness and is experienced from innumerable individual perspectives, each one being the experience of an individual human.

That which exists is Consciousness itself, or the Awareness in which Consciousness arises.

Wadayathink?

How would it be possible for you to watch yourself come and go and change? What is it that is watching this happen? Wouldn't THAT have to be what you are?

What is it that watches thoughts and feelings come and go, and the body change? Cannot be a thought, feeling or body, eh? What about consciousness? Doesn't that come and go? And yet you don't cease to exist in deep sleep. You awaken to a life in which the same 'you' seems to be present.

What if what you are is the awareness within which consciousness comes and goes, and within this consciousness thoughts and feelings come and go? You know that you are aware right now, and that awareness is always present. When consciousness happens, you are 'aware of' things. When consciousness is absent, you are simply awareness itself.

What if Awareness is all that ever existed; that which we call Divinty, and which some call 'God'? What if it's just that simple?

Wadayathink?

Without thinking about it....Can you get a sense of a 'you' that has been present throughout your life, through all the stages and events and growth and ups and downs: a 'you' that hasn't changed at all? It's the same as it was when you were a child.

If so you see how very close 'God' has always been, and how even now what you seek follows you everywhere like a shadow. It's the only thing in your life that has never changed. While thoughts and feelings come and go, and memories are colored, clouded and forgotten, and the body grows up and grows old, this 'something' has always been there in the background, watching, experiencing, but fundamentally unaltered by any of it.

What you're doing is looking backward from the dream of life and sensing the dreamer's presence. The dreamer must be here always, or the dream cannot be. The dream of the human is happening INSIDE the dreamer, and You are That. It cannot get any closer, or be any simpler, or any more obvious.

Wadayathink?

From a spiritual perspective, everything that 'we' experience is an illusion of Consciousness. Time, space, physicality are all products of mind and are formations within mind rather than 'outside' since there is no outside in the absence of objective space.

Many spiritual belief systems are down with that, but sonmething we're not eager to notice is that the human is also illusion. It's just another part of the universe that forms in mind, and so what is mind. Beyond the individual concept of mind, mind is the one Consciousness itself, from which and within which all things arise and fall. Some would call this God since it is the source of creation.

Individuality is an illusion that forms in Consciousness. You are That Consciousness.

Wadayathink?

I thought I'd try responding to some answers from the first time I asked since there's still a huge difference in perception here.

"The ability to choose can happen."

Yes, but it's not a choice as to whether or not it does.

"You can choose to be anything you want."

Yes, you can stand on a tall building and scream it out, but you can't make it happen. If you could choose to be happy all the time, you would. Since you can't, you don't.

"Continual happiness would be reflective of stagnancy."

That could be, but since spiritual evoilution is all about finding Joy, why would that be a problem? You choose to be unhappy so that you can evolve to be happy?

"I can choose to be happy but I keep forgetting my choice."

And so it should be clear that the choice is being overlaid on whatever your state of being really is, and is not causing that state. It's not a matter of forgetting to choose, simply that you cannot always be.

It's simple, if we could choose to be happy, we would.

Most will see doing as a matter of choice, but are qualities of being something you can choose. Can you choose to BE loving if you are not already, or can you only choose to do loving things in spite of the fact that you may not feel loving?

(Not questioning whether the doing is 'good' or 'bad' here, just whether it's possible to choose to be something)

Can you choose to be joyful, peaceful, compassionate, understanding, hopeful, courageous, fearless, etc, or can you merely act out these roles based on whatever your motivation? If the latter, can it affect your state of being (fake it til you make it)? Is it often done as a pretense of being that quality as an ego benefit? Can it become a self deception that slows the evolutionary process of becoming that quality?

If you can choose to be happy all the time, why would't you?

Based on a previous question, this seems to be a common belief.

If so, how much knowledge is needed before falling off a cliff won't hurt anymore? What's the possibility that fear is not a problem and doesn't need to be ended, but just accepted for what it is? Is the end of fear what brings peace or is it acceptance? When's the last time you went to a scary movie and why would you do that if you want to end fear?

As a follow up from a previous question, the answers are divided on which comes first. (Not counting those who think self love is masterbation. Hehe.)

How can you give to others something that you don't have yourself? Self love is self acceptance. How could you accept a quality in others that you judge harshly in yourself? If you explore yourself deeply, you'll find that everything outside of yourself that you judge is a reflection of something you are rejecting within. This is how you recognize it in others. As the saying goes, "It takes one to know one."

If you find something distasteful in another, look within and you'll find it there. Accept absolutely everything about yourself, and you will find no fault in other. Love and compassion are found within and spontaneously expressed. Everything begins within as a quality of being. Don't do love, BE LOVE.

Wadayathink?

Life is a game in which all perceptions arise out of nothingness in dualistic pairs that define each other. There is nothing absolute about either good or evil. You decide what is good based on what you fear and what is evil based on what you desire. The polarites are forever bound to each other as two sides of a coin or as the two ends of a stick, without which there is no stick.

One result of this is that, as you increase your experience of one polarity, your experience of both increases. Increase good and you increase evil. Increase evil, and you increase good. They must balance each other in our perception. Given that, what is there to be done?

Another result is that eliminating one polarity is to eliminate both. To put an end to evil is to abolish goodness from our experience. To put an end to fear....is to destroy love.

There was never a problem to begin with. Let it be. For God's sake, let it be.