Oneness (ritual, mysticism, experience, atheist, spiritual)

[autonomous1one1]

Originally Posted by michel

I would have thought folk would be fed up with hearing my beliefs...... I believe that God is "The sum total of everything that there is".

In the way that I believe in the Trinity (where there is God the Father, the son, and the holy Ghost), I believe that all that we know is a part of God; we humans have souls that originally were part of God, and that will return to oneness with God at the end of time. I believe in reincarnation; - the method by which we are to progress to get to the stage when we may rejoin God.

LOL, we couldn't get fed up with your statements, Michel, we love you too much. Just for my understanding then, I would conclude that although a 'consciousness of God' (from another thread) you view us as finite beings separate and distinct from others within a subject-object structure.

[autonomous1one1]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

How do you know that?

Good thought, Halcyon, and I will look forward to doppelgänger's response. I always find his thinking challenging. In my own case, I am sure of everything except the ability to function or fend for myself in a social reality.

[Random]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger

If one actually entered in a state of Oneness permanently, they wouldn't be using language to tell us about it. They'd cease to be conscious of self and could no longer use language and couldn't function or fend for themselves in a social reality.

I picture a yogi in the grip of unending bliss, frozen in time with an ecstatic smile on his face, staring @ the heavens with his arms spread wide and never coming out of it until he wastes away and dies of starvation. But I digress...

For you, Dopp, "Oneness" might be a linguistic trick of words but kindly remember for those of us starved of terms to describe our esoteric experiences, it is a blessing to have even ONE simple word to define something we have in common. For me, Oneness will do to describe the blissful, indivisible Unity of Belonging, which is what its really all about (IMO).

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

How do you know that?

By logical deduction.

Oneness as an experience requires a subject/self fixed in language. So an actual "experience" of loss of self would have nobody to experience it and hence no language to express it with, or a self to desire to express it, nor an "other" for that non-self to express it to.

In mythological form, Jung hits the point quite well in his essay "A Psychological Approach To The Trinity."

"The world of the Father typifies an age which is characterized by a pristine oneness with the whole of Nature, no matter whether this oneness be beautiful or ugly or awe-inspiring. But once the question is asked: 'Whence comes the evil, why is the world so bad and imperfect, why are there diseases and other horrors, why must man suffer?' - then reflection has already begun to judge the Father by his manifest works, and straighway one is conscious of a doubt, this is itself the symtpom of a split in the original unity. One comes to the conclusion that creation is imperfect - nay more, that the Creator has not done his job properly, that the goodness and almightiness of the Father cannot be the sole principle of the cosmos. Hence the One has to be supplemented by the Other, with the result that the world of the Father is fundamentally altered and is superseded by the world of the Son."

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by Godlike

For you, Dopp, "Oneness" might be a linguistic trick of words but kindly remember for those of us starved of terms to describe our esoteric experiences, it is a blessing to have even ONE simple word to define something we have in common. For me, Oneness will do to describe the blissful, indivisible Unity of Belonging, which is what its really all about (IMO).

Don't get me wrong - the experience is all too real and in the present. It's just than no word adequately marks it - including Oneness. "The Tao that can be spoken is not the Eternal Tao."

The experience is sort of being and non-being at the same time. It's a paradox created when social reality is momentarily shattered.

[Random]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger

Don't get me wrong - the experience is all too real and in the present. It's just than no word adequately marks it - including Oneness. "The Tao that can be spoken is not the Eternal Tao."

Would you consider the Tao (the Way) and the Word (of God) co-equal and Eternal, Dopp, or dissimilar in some way..? Is the Tao the Word? Are they ONE?

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

The experience is sort of being and non-being at the same time. It's a paradox created when social reality is momentarily shattered

Quite yes, there is no-significant-Other in the experience, to put it in marital terms.

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by Godlike

Would you consider the Tao (the Way) and the Word (of God) co-equal and Eternal, Dopp, or dissimilar in some way..? Is the Tao the Word? Are they ONE?

I don't think so. Tao is closer to "the Father," while "the Word" (logos) is more like te, which means something akin to "power," but also "virtue."

Tao Te Ching, verse 38 (Mitchell trans.)

The Master doesn't try to be powerful;
thus he is truly powerful.
The ordinary man keeps reaching for power;
thus he never has enough.

The Master does nothing,
yet he leaves nothing undone.
The ordinary man is always doing things,
yet many more are left to be done.

The kind man does something,
yet something remains undone.
The just man does something,
and leaves many things to be done.
The moral man does something,
and when no one responds
he rolls up his sleeves and uses force.

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.

Therefore the Master concerns himself
with the depths and not the surface,
with the fruit and not the flower.
He has no will of his own.
He dwells in reality,
and lets all illusions go.

[Scarlett Wampus]

I think doppelgänger has it right. The word Tao is not Tao, and this is the very first thing one reads when picking up the Tao Te Ching. Whatever the Tao is understood to be, it is not, and that negative definition is presented for a reason.

When reading the Tao Te Ching descriptions of the Way of the Tao are like an observation from the outside of the influence of the experience of oneness as a state of mind or stage of development. That has its interrelated subjective value but it cannot transmit the experience itself. When it isn't positively described in the Tao Te Ching it is being negatively defined in relation to what we normally find in the contents of our thought. To strip away ideas for the experience of Tao-that-is-not-Tao to re-emerge is also seen in particular effect in the practices of Zen Buddhism a great deal.

Rinzai said, "If I were to demonstrate the Great Matter in strict keeping with the teaching of the Patriarchal School, I simply couldn't open my mouth."

No where in the above quote can the Tao to be found in exclusion of where it is not. How could Rinzai demonstrate that through words rather than use words to appeal to silence? The influence of oneness as an experience can be described but always such descriptions cannot directly communicate the experience. The best they can do is transmit some kind of mood.

"Calm and serene in the moonlight,
Lo! A deserted boat on the water,
not tossed by the waves or drawn by the breeze,
bathed in the pale light
of the moon!"
- Dogen

I find the above beautiful. As a description of what Dogen is feeling it has impact. I also get a similar mood from listening to certain techno songs but I couldn't expect anyone to associate those with the post-meditative state of mind unless they were already familiar with it and had a liking for techno. They might have a liking for techno with little