What are Your Significant Insights? (Jesus, ritual, Creator, mystic)

[Rolling_Stone]

If you believe matter-energy is the bottom line, this thread in not for you. But if you do and think your insights show that consciousness exists and does emerge from unconscious matter-energy, go for it. Just be aware that all you are really showing is that the potential for consciousness is intrinsic to matter--that unconscious matter isn’t the bottom line after all, but rather enfolds a state of consciousness not recognized as such.

Relative to the number of posts I’ve made, there are very few things said that are of any real significance to me. The ones I can think of off hand are rather recent (I have an old man’s memory and am too lazy to go through my old posts). They include:

• I should be able to accept the way things are in my life without being drawn into a debate about its validity.
• Religion (myth/theology) is the story of the way human beings relate to the world. It may not be factually correct, but it gives us something the cold, hard facts of science do not: guidance about how to live with a sense of being at home in the universe.
• Time is the movement between the birth of an idea and its fulfillment.
• We all stand at the center of the universe.
• We become outcasts if we relate to the universe as something apart from it.
• “I” is both the truth and the consequence of the aggregate of existence: consciousness, thought, form and perception (thought-form). There is nothing else. (Random deserves credit for this insight.)
• Every seeker of truth understands that if consciousness exists at all, its potential is intrinsic to the nature of reality itself--that unconscious matter isn’t the bottom line after all, but rather enfolds a state of consciousness not recognized as such.

Share what you think are your view your significant insights.

[Mr. Peanut]

May not be original, but to me it is significant: The fact that although God knows my every thought, word and deed, he still loves me unconditionaly.

Jesus loves me this I know,
For the Bible tells me so,
Little ones to him belong,
They are weak, but he is strong!

Yes, Jesus loves me...(3x),
The Bible tells me so!

[MysticSang'ha]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

If you believe matter-energy is the bottom line, this thread in not for you. But if you do and think your insights show that consciousness exists and does emerge from unconscious matter-energy, go for it. Just be aware that all you are really showing is that the potential for consciousness is intrinsic to matter--that unconscious matter isn’t the bottom line after all, but rather enfolds a state of consciousness not recognized as such.

Relative to the number of posts I’ve made, there are very few things said that are of any real significance to me. The ones I can think of off hand are rather recent (I have an old man’s memory and am too lazy to go through my old posts). They include:

• I should be able to accept the way things are in my life without being drawn into a debate about its validity.
• Religion (myth/theology) is the story of the way human beings relate to the world. It may not be factually correct, but it gives us something the cold, hard facts of science do not: guidance about how to live with a sense of being at home in the universe.
• Time is the movement between the birth of an idea and its fulfillment.
• We all stand at the center of the universe.
• We become outcasts if we relate to the universe as something apart from it.
• “I” is both the truth and the consequence of the aggregate of existence: consciousness, thought, form and perception (thought-form). There is nothing else. (Random deserves credit for this insight.)
• Every seeker of truth understands that if consciousness exists at all, its potential is intrinsic to the nature of reality itself--that unconscious matter isn’t the bottom line after all, but rather enfolds a state of consciousness not recognized as such.

Share what you think are your view your significant insights.

These are very good, RS. I'm assuming you're asking for significant insights that are significant to us in our responses?

My answer so far is two fold.........the nature of change (impermanence/anicca):

According to the teachings of the Buddha, life is comparable to a river. It is a progressive moment, a successive series of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow. It moves from cause to cause, effect to effect, one point to another, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression that it is one continuous and unified movement, where as in reality it is not. The river of yesterday is not the same as the river of today. The river of this moment is not going to be the same as the river of the next moment. So does life. It changes continuously, becomes something or the other from moment to moment.

The Buddhist Concept of Impermanence

And the Law of Karma:

I am the owner of my karma.
I inherit my karma.
I am born of my karma.
I am related to my karma.
I live supported by my karma.
Whatever karma I create, good or evil, that I shall inherit.

-Shakyamuni Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya V.57 - Upajjhatthana Sutra


Usually one of these two insights will give me pause when I need to contemplate on a previous action by myself or another, or when I need to contemplate on an impending situation where action is necessitated.




Peace,
Mystic

[Rolling_Stone]

Thank you, folks. Here's two more:

• Looking outward we see only the reflection of our soul.
• I am, am not, and yet I am that which is in all things.

[Super Universe]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

Religion (myth/theology) is the story of the way human beings relate to the world. It may not be factually correct, but it gives us something the cold, hard facts of science do not: guidance about how to live with a sense of being at home in the universe.

"...how to live with a sense of being at home in the universe" Yes. This is it. There is something more than just "I", something much more. And it is what matters. I should help it, I should increase it because it is the only thing lasting, the only thing of real value. It is like a dying man who works tirelessly to finish a beautiful house and surround it with a garden that he knows he won't live to enjoy for very long.

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

"I" is both the truth and the consequence of the aggregate of existence: consciousness, thought, form and perception (thought-form). There is nothing else. (Random deserves credit for this insight.)

I would trim those three down into one, consciousness, of which thought, form, and perception are. Thought is the birth of intelligence and in this universe thought is also form, it creates.

In primitive human terms thought can lead to a person creating a beautiful piece of art. In universal terms, thought is like running through a large universal warehouse that stores everything. You don't create the art, it already exists in the universal warehouse that you accessed. For you to imagine it it has to already be. Human's are not capable of truly original thought, what you are capable of is random thought. Try it. Try thinking of a truly original thing...

What you did was take things that already exist: objects, names, or numbers, and mix them into something that previously did not exist to you. Still, you did not create the object or the name or number. They already existed.

Now let me ask you this, why are humans not capable of original thought?

Evolving thought causes perception, to wonder, to use limited knowledge and limited sensory input to logically solve a problem.
So, if God exists and knows everything because He created everything, why would He create humans with limited problem solving ability?

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

We become outcasts if we relate to the universe as something apart from it.

Outcast from what?

[lunamoth]

From the theology of Paul Tillich:

"God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."
This Tillich quotation summarizes his conception of God. He does not think of God as a being which exists in time and space, because that constrains God, and makes God finite. But all beings are finite, and if God is the Creator of all beings, God cannot logically be finite since a finite being cannot be the sustainer of an infinite variety of finite things. Thus God is considered beyond being, above finitude and limitation, the power or essence of being itself.
Tillich stated that since things in existence are corrupt and therefore ambiguous, no finite thing can be (by itself) infinite. All that is possible is for the finite to be a vehicle for revealing the infinite, but the two should never be confused. This leaves religion in the situation where it should not be taken too dogmatically, because of its conceptual and therefore finite and imperfect nature. True religion is that which correctly reveals the infinite, but no religion can ever do so in any way other than through metaphor and symbol. Thus the whole of the Bible should be understood symbolically, and all spiritual and theological knowledge cannot be other than symbol. This idea is used by theologians as an effective counterpoint to religious fundamentalism. Tillich argued that symbols are immensely important to faith because "faith is the state of being ultimately concerned."[2] Faith without symbols is a form of idolatry. It is faith in something finite, something that can be expressed without symbols, and something that is fundamentally less than the ultimate.

Source: wiki

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Super Universe

..

Outcast from what?

Outcasts in the universe by denying thier unity with the whole.

[methylatedghosts]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

Thank you, folks. Here's two more:

• Looking outward we see only the reflection of our soul.
• I am, am not, and yet I am that which is in all things.

For me personally, the first one here would be

Looking outward I see the reflection of Who I Am.
Looking inward I see Who I Really Am.

Subtle difference, but kinda the same

[Aasimar]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

Outcasts in the universe by denying thier unity with the whole.

That didn't answer the question, he asked outcasts from you, you replied outcasts in the universe. They are still in it, so from what are they outcast?

[Jayhawker Soule]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

If you believe matter-energy is the bottom line, this thread in not for you. But if you do and think your insights show that consciousness exists and does emerge from unconscious matter-energy, go for it. Just be aware that all you are really showing is that the potential for consciousness is intrinsic to matter--that unconscious matter isn’t the bottom line after all, but rather enfolds a state of consciousness not recognized as such.

That is easily one of the more sophomoric pieces of silliness I've encountered in a long time. One might just as accurately assert that cotton candy is intrinsic in quarks with the latter 'enfolding' the former not recognized as such.