DharmaCatLamp
Member
Howdy! I just thought I’d share some thoughts while they were fresh in my mind.
I’ve been fascinated with religion most of my life but for a long time it was purely academic. I was an atheist after I left Islam and remained as such for quite a while. I would debate people about the existence of God and numerous other metaphysical things almost nonstop. These days I recognize that I often wanted to be proven wrong on some level but I can get to that later.
There are things that I came to believe after studying various religions and philosophies which shaped the way I viewed said religions and the world itself. For instance studying early Buddhism lead me to believe that the Buddha never claimed to be divine and was far from perfect. Studying early Christianity lead me to believe that Jesus never claimed to be God and that this was a later edition to the religion. Maybe not super late but after Jesus’s life at least.
I also thought Muhammad was at best a man of his time and had plenty of redeemable moments as well as tons of less redeemable moments. Thoughts like this could translate to most religions in some way shape or form.
The thing is after having my mystical experiences and continuing to have them it is neigh unto impossible for me to say “ I don’t think God exists.” I came to recognize that even when I was an atheist I was often longing for God or some kind of relationship with the divine. For awhile I entertained the idea of starting my own religion but the Gita and Tao Te Ching inspired me to move away from that idea.
Here is the thing, coming to believe in God again makes it so I want to reanalyze a lot of my formerly held beliefs. Jesus not claiming to be God isn’t super important when you are an atheist but it takes on a more important role when you start to believe in a universalist God.
Even if Jesus didn’t claim to be God one has to ask the question what he actually was then? Was he a prophet? Was he someone who was just a spiritual teacher who may have been in touch with the divine? Was he merely a fanatical zealot that suddenly took on new meaning after his death?
What about Muhammad? What about Baha’u’llah? Did God use these men? What of the numerous sufi saints and mystics? What is this underlying experience that mystics seem to have and what does it mean? Do you have to believe in “the truth” for the divine to make an appearance?
For example if Jesus didn’t claim to be God why would people who believe he was God be able to experience mystical transcendence and experience the very ground of being if God requires you to have only the correct beliefs to get anywhere spiritually? If Muhammad wasn’t a prophet why are there so many Sufis who seemed to of had mystical and enlightening experiences?
SO far as I can tell God doesn’t really care what you believe and it’s more about longing. Longing for contact with the divine and to put this world behind us. Completely contradictory religions produce mystics with vastly similar experiences. Imply to me that there is a throughline through all of this.
However that just begs other questions, questions like why have a world like this one? Why have a species like humans which are so silly and often so very evil. I mean people just lie and cheat and do ridiculous things all the time. People love to try and make themselves sound great and the world itself is a barely controlled state of constant chaos. Large systems seem to inevitably fail.
I suppose when it comes to the world I am still very cynical. Humans are in many ways defective and prone to doing foolish things. We’re horny, messy, angry creatures in a lot of ways and yet we are also capable of incredibly complex reasoning and morality. Marcus Aurelius stands out among emperors for his morality and philosophy for example.
There is an underlying chaos to all things. Reality is full of this chaos and frequently it makes it impossible to be truly rational is a silly world. Before I would of just said that is just the way things are but coming to believe in God the question now begs an answer.
The only thing I have been able to come up with is that this is all a game on some level. This was the basis for a fantasy setting I wrote and continue to write to this day. Part of the reason I embraced Hinduism was that it fit best with the narrative I had come to see in the world and the concept of the divine play made a lot of sense to me.
Part of the reason I started trying to worship Kali at all was that she represented that chaos and death I saw in the nature of God. She smiled and danced in carnage as well as bliss. This seemed to me to encompass the strange nature of reality. She is there in it and we dance together and laugh. What else can you do except laugh at a certain point?
There is a fundamental absurdity to all of existence that I used to be able to shrug at but now it demands an answer. There answer is to laugh and honk a clown nose. The answer is to help out each individual person and to defy our inner demon to become like the angels of myth and legend. To let that inner light shine unto all things.
The thing that is funny to me is that looking at the world through this lens it has never looked more beautiful. Smiling and mindfully breathing as we watch it all spiral out of control is surprisingly pleasing. Then you get to imagine all of the chaos and silliness out in the universe. The strange beauty of watching the great game unfold time and time again. I kind of love it.
The Tao is in all places, the high and the low. It’s like water and flows everywhere. Maybe we just all take ourselves a little bit too seriously to see how silly our situation is. Maybe if we could laugh at it we’d be a lot happier. Maybe we shouldn't put so much stock in our truths and should just try and embrace God as what God is.
I've gotten results from doing things like praying, dancing, chanting the names of God and so many other things I used to think was pointless. Now I get to revel in it and on some level embrace what I used to think was madness.
Just a few thoughts.
I’ve been fascinated with religion most of my life but for a long time it was purely academic. I was an atheist after I left Islam and remained as such for quite a while. I would debate people about the existence of God and numerous other metaphysical things almost nonstop. These days I recognize that I often wanted to be proven wrong on some level but I can get to that later.
There are things that I came to believe after studying various religions and philosophies which shaped the way I viewed said religions and the world itself. For instance studying early Buddhism lead me to believe that the Buddha never claimed to be divine and was far from perfect. Studying early Christianity lead me to believe that Jesus never claimed to be God and that this was a later edition to the religion. Maybe not super late but after Jesus’s life at least.
I also thought Muhammad was at best a man of his time and had plenty of redeemable moments as well as tons of less redeemable moments. Thoughts like this could translate to most religions in some way shape or form.
The thing is after having my mystical experiences and continuing to have them it is neigh unto impossible for me to say “ I don’t think God exists.” I came to recognize that even when I was an atheist I was often longing for God or some kind of relationship with the divine. For awhile I entertained the idea of starting my own religion but the Gita and Tao Te Ching inspired me to move away from that idea.
Here is the thing, coming to believe in God again makes it so I want to reanalyze a lot of my formerly held beliefs. Jesus not claiming to be God isn’t super important when you are an atheist but it takes on a more important role when you start to believe in a universalist God.
Even if Jesus didn’t claim to be God one has to ask the question what he actually was then? Was he a prophet? Was he someone who was just a spiritual teacher who may have been in touch with the divine? Was he merely a fanatical zealot that suddenly took on new meaning after his death?
What about Muhammad? What about Baha’u’llah? Did God use these men? What of the numerous sufi saints and mystics? What is this underlying experience that mystics seem to have and what does it mean? Do you have to believe in “the truth” for the divine to make an appearance?
For example if Jesus didn’t claim to be God why would people who believe he was God be able to experience mystical transcendence and experience the very ground of being if God requires you to have only the correct beliefs to get anywhere spiritually? If Muhammad wasn’t a prophet why are there so many Sufis who seemed to of had mystical and enlightening experiences?
SO far as I can tell God doesn’t really care what you believe and it’s more about longing. Longing for contact with the divine and to put this world behind us. Completely contradictory religions produce mystics with vastly similar experiences. Imply to me that there is a throughline through all of this.
However that just begs other questions, questions like why have a world like this one? Why have a species like humans which are so silly and often so very evil. I mean people just lie and cheat and do ridiculous things all the time. People love to try and make themselves sound great and the world itself is a barely controlled state of constant chaos. Large systems seem to inevitably fail.
I suppose when it comes to the world I am still very cynical. Humans are in many ways defective and prone to doing foolish things. We’re horny, messy, angry creatures in a lot of ways and yet we are also capable of incredibly complex reasoning and morality. Marcus Aurelius stands out among emperors for his morality and philosophy for example.
There is an underlying chaos to all things. Reality is full of this chaos and frequently it makes it impossible to be truly rational is a silly world. Before I would of just said that is just the way things are but coming to believe in God the question now begs an answer.
The only thing I have been able to come up with is that this is all a game on some level. This was the basis for a fantasy setting I wrote and continue to write to this day. Part of the reason I embraced Hinduism was that it fit best with the narrative I had come to see in the world and the concept of the divine play made a lot of sense to me.
Part of the reason I started trying to worship Kali at all was that she represented that chaos and death I saw in the nature of God. She smiled and danced in carnage as well as bliss. This seemed to me to encompass the strange nature of reality. She is there in it and we dance together and laugh. What else can you do except laugh at a certain point?
There is a fundamental absurdity to all of existence that I used to be able to shrug at but now it demands an answer. There answer is to laugh and honk a clown nose. The answer is to help out each individual person and to defy our inner demon to become like the angels of myth and legend. To let that inner light shine unto all things.
The thing that is funny to me is that looking at the world through this lens it has never looked more beautiful. Smiling and mindfully breathing as we watch it all spiral out of control is surprisingly pleasing. Then you get to imagine all of the chaos and silliness out in the universe. The strange beauty of watching the great game unfold time and time again. I kind of love it.
The Tao is in all places, the high and the low. It’s like water and flows everywhere. Maybe we just all take ourselves a little bit too seriously to see how silly our situation is. Maybe if we could laugh at it we’d be a lot happier. Maybe we shouldn't put so much stock in our truths and should just try and embrace God as what God is.
I've gotten results from doing things like praying, dancing, chanting the names of God and so many other things I used to think was pointless. Now I get to revel in it and on some level embrace what I used to think was madness.
Just a few thoughts.