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God as Energy and Matter

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
You are right. It's experiential, not intellectual. The only time I think about it is in discussions like these. I'm a "village Hindu"... I pray, I do puja, I go to temple, I read the stories (they're quite colorful), I try to be a good man (the kind of man my dogs think I am), and that's it.



I don't. Neither Brahman nor Tao are God. Brahman manifests as 'God'... Allah, Vishnu, Shiva, Yahweh, "the Romulan name is ... unpronounceable" (a little movie humor thrown in). But then, Brahman manifests as everything, because it is everything. Overwhelmingly Hindus don't worship or pray to Brahman. There are no temples or pujas (worship services) for Brahman. That would be like having a temple or puja for an amoeba, because amoebas are Brahman and Brahman is amoebas. What can an amoeba give me, except a really bad case of the runs? I certainly wouldn't thank an amoeba for that. But when Brahman manifests as God, now we're talking.

Hmm. I learned something knew. What do you consider worship if not by prayer and ritual?

I went to a puja, well, I was late, so halfa one. I didnt understand a word but the religious elder was very nice and spoke broken english. There were only I think five or six people. One lady took me around the different statues. They gave me so much fruit before I left. I did post my experience a year or so here on the Hindu DIR. But, I always considered any type of reverence as worship.

Im trying not to think pantheism but Im a panthiest so thats the closest I can think of Braman being everything. I just call it life. Once I make names to life (the what that keeps us living) it becomes a distortion. I know it more through my art. Im getting so much into it, that you can just "feel it" with the mediums used. More than a eurepha but not supernatural. Wholeness. I can see why some religions dont name it. But then saying it or a person is like mediums to art. The paint brush, paint, painting, and the image of whats painted are all one. Its the expression of the soul.

Nice quote: Art is the highest form of human communication

Thats the closest to tao or brahman I can get. Seeing it as a deity is quite not in my vocab (sorry abrahamics :p )
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
Mmmm... yeah, pretty much. I think that's as apt a description as any. The concept of māyā (literally "illusion" & "magic" like a magic show, "power") has a lot to do with it. Māyā is the veil, illusion, that causes us to see things as they are not. Our goal is to break through that veil and experience reality... Brahman.


interesting

i wondered if this isn't the case with some bible verses that basically remove a thing from between two things; so that a whole can be realized.

case in point: in the jewish temple there is a veil between the mundane and the profane. only the high priest was allowed to enter into it, once a year.

another similar idea is the river jordan and it drying up before elisha and elijah.

finally the big one.........


Revelation 16:12
And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water there of was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.


and the king returns and everything is brought to a whole: either regret and sorrow or joy


17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
 

The Anointed

Well-Known Member
It is the eternal energy which has neither beginning or end, that has become this seemingly material universe and has developed a mind that is the compilation of all the information gathered by all the diverse life-forms that it [The Eternal Energy] has become: The collective consciousness of all that exists.

The root to the word “BRAHMAN” originally meant “SPEECH”, much the same as the “LOGOS” is said to mean ‘WORD.

The Greek word “LOGOS” which has been translated as “WORD”, should be seen as ‘The thoughts in the mind which are to be expressed.

The term, “LOGOS” pertains to the very plan from the outset. [The creation of a universal body in which a Supreme mind or personality of Godhead to that body, develops.] In Sanskrit the similar meaning is given in the use of the word 'vach.' Vach means word. But in Sanskrit teachings of the Sanatana Dharma, vach has many levels. Including where the word is first considered as being in the mind as a thought, not as the spoken word or speech.

John 1: 1; In the beginning was the Word=Logos and the Logos was God. And the supreme personality or controlling mind to have developed within the invisible eternal body of ever evolving information, was “THE LIGHT OF MAN” All the information, knowledge, wisdom and insight, gained from the body of mankind, the MOST HIGH in the previous creation, who was the Light and life of that ever growing body of information, which is called God. All things came into existence through him, by him and for him. Without him, nothing exists.

The Logos/word, should be seen as the gathered information of past aeons that is waiting to be expressed. The LOGOS is in fact, the invisible living universal mind, in which is gathered all of the information of every universal body throughout all eternity and should be seen as the essential divine reality of the universe, the eternal spirit from which all being originates, and to which all must return.

Romans 1: 18; God’s anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God himself made it plain. Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly seen in the creation, [which is the expression of all the information that has been gathered to the evolving mind in the eternal invisible LOGOS/BRAHMAN.]

In the Pseudigraphia of the Old Testament, The Lord God says to Adam, “Dust you are and to dust you must return, but when the resurrection comes around again, [The next cycle of universal activity] I will raise you and all of your seed etc.” This is the reality of the resurrection.

“Universe after universe is like an interminable succession of wheels forever coming into view, forever rolling onwards, disappearing and reappearing; forever passing from being to non-being, and again from non being to being. In short, the constant revolving of the wheel of life in one eternal cycle, according to fixed and immutable laws, is perhaps after all the sum and substance of the philosophy of Buddhism. And this eternal wheel has so to speak, six spokes representing six forms of existence.” ---- Mon. Williams, Buddhism, pp. 229, 122.

The days and nights of Brahma are called Manvantara, or the cycle of manifestation, ‘The Great Day,’ which is a period of universal activity, that is preceded, and also followed by ‘Pralaya,’ a dark period, which to our finite minds would seem as an eternity, or but a moment in time.

The “LOGOS=BRAHMAN,” is the essential divine reality of the Universe, the eternal spirit=mind from which all being originates and to which, all must return. The LOGOS is today as it always was, and will be into all eternity. It is the only true constant in that it is constantly evolving. Show to me a mind that has ceased to evolve, and I will show to you a mind that has ceased to exist...

At the close of each period of universal activity, the Godhead or the compilation of all the chosen minds of the Most-High species to have evolved in that period, enters into Brahman or Logos, as the supreme personality of godhead. [The Light of Man, the Most High in the creation] or all the knowledge, wisdom and insight gathered by the androgynous body of mankind, who is the Most High on the ladder of evolution in the physical creation, and is the life or controlling personality in Brahman or Logos.

To the Hindu, it is Krishna, the eighth manifestation of “Vishnu the Saviour”, who enters into Brahman at the close of this particular cycle of universal manifestation as the evolved mind in the eternal evolving Brahman God. To the biblical believer, it is their indwelling Lord, [The Christ] to who is gathered all the spirits of the righteous, who will enter into the Logos God as the supreme personality of Godhead, the LIGHT and Life within the eternal evolving God.

IMHO.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
The root to the word “BRAHMAN” originally meant “SPEECH”, much the same as the “LOGOS” is said to mean ‘WORD.

No it doesn’t. It comes from the root bṛh (pronounced sort of like “bri-h” with the somewhere between the sounds in ’it’ and ‘put’ and a slight aspiration) meaning to expand, grow, enlarge.

Moreover, not all Hindus see Krishna as Supreme, only Vaishnavas do. Krishna nor any other god/dess “enters” into Brahman. They are Brahman. Brahman does not evolve.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
What do you consider worship if not by prayer and ritual?

There is a saying nar seva narayan seva, “service to man is service to god”. That is one form of worship. Keeping in mind that everything is a manifestation of Brahman, and that God dwells within everything, care of the Earth, other people and animals, dāna (charity, giving) in God’s name or with God in mind is worship.

Hinduism is pantheistic and panentheistic at the same time. Sri Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita “... What need is there for all this detailed knowledge, O Arjuna? Simply know that by one fraction of my being, I pervade and support this entire creation.

Krishna had just enumerated everything he is... the ocean, fishes, the wind, all things tangible and intangible, even thought. In this chapter and it’s verses (10.20-42) he declares the universe both pantheistic and panentheistic, because he is in it and he is it.

And yes, sometimes at temple it can seem like trick-or-treat with all the goodies you get. :D It’s prasad, blessed food.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
It is the eternal energy which has neither beginning or end, that has become this seemingly material universe and has developed a mind that is the compilation of all the information gathered by all the diverse life-forms that it [The Eternal Energy] has become: The collective consciousness of all that exists.

The root to the word “BRAHMAN” originally meant “SPEECH”, much the same as the “LOGOS” is said to mean ‘WORD.

The Greek word “LOGOS” which has been translated as “WORD”, should be seen as ‘The thoughts in the mind which are to be expressed.

The term, “LOGOS” pertains to the very plan from the outset. [The creation of a universal body in which a Supreme mind or personality of Godhead to that body, develops.] In Sanskrit the similar meaning is given in the use of the word 'vach.' Vach means word. But in Sanskrit teachings of the Sanatana Dharma, vach has many levels. Including where the word is first considered as being in the mind as a thought, not as the spoken word or speech.

John 1: 1; In the beginning was the Word=Logos and the Logos was God. And the supreme personality or controlling mind to have developed within the invisible eternal body of ever evolving information, was “THE LIGHT OF MAN” All the information, knowledge, wisdom and insight, gained from the body of mankind, the MOST HIGH in the previous creation, who was the Light and life of that ever growing body of information, which is called God. All things came into existence through him, by him and for him. Without him, nothing exists.

The Logos/word, should be seen as the gathered information of past aeons that is waiting to be expressed. The LOGOS is in fact, the invisible living universal mind, in which is gathered all of the information of every universal body throughout all eternity and should be seen as the essential divine reality of the universe, the eternal spirit from which all being originates, and to which all must return.

Romans 1: 18; God’s anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God himself made it plain. Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly seen in the creation, [which is the expression of all the information that has been gathered to the evolving mind in the eternal invisible LOGOS/BRAHMAN.]

In the Pseudigraphia of the Old Testament, The Lord God says to Adam, “Dust you are and to dust you must return, but when the resurrection comes around again, [The next cycle of universal activity] I will raise you and all of your seed etc.” This is the reality of the resurrection.

“Universe after universe is like an interminable succession of wheels forever coming into view, forever rolling onwards, disappearing and reappearing; forever passing from being to non-being, and again from non being to being. In short, the constant revolving of the wheel of life in one eternal cycle, according to fixed and immutable laws, is perhaps after all the sum and substance of the philosophy of Buddhism. And this eternal wheel has so to speak, six spokes representing six forms of existence.” ---- Mon. Williams, Buddhism, pp. 229, 122.

The days and nights of Brahma are called Manvantara, or the cycle of manifestation, ‘The Great Day,’ which is a period of universal activity, that is preceded, and also followed by ‘Pralaya,’ a dark period, which to our finite minds would seem as an eternity, or but a moment in time.

The “LOGOS=BRAHMAN,” is the essential divine reality of the Universe, the eternal spirit=mind from which all being originates and to which, all must return. The LOGOS is today as it always was, and will be into all eternity. It is the only true constant in that it is constantly evolving. Show to me a mind that has ceased to evolve, and I will show to you a mind that has ceased to exist...

At the close of each period of universal activity, the Godhead or the compilation of all the chosen minds of the Most-High species to have evolved in that period, enters into Brahman or Logos, as the supreme personality of godhead. [The Light of Man, the Most High in the creation] or all the knowledge, wisdom and insight gathered by the androgynous body of mankind, who is the Most High on the ladder of evolution in the physical creation, and is the life or controlling personality in Brahman or Logos.

To the Hindu, it is Krishna, the eighth manifestation of “Vishnu the Saviour”, who enters into Brahman at the close of this particular cycle of universal manifestation as the evolved mind in the eternal evolving Brahman God. To the biblical believer, it is their indwelling Lord, [The Christ] to who is gathered all the spirits of the righteous, who will enter into the Logos God as the supreme personality of Godhead, the LIGHT and Life within the eternal evolving God.

IMHO.

Just.

download (9).jpeg
Just.

No.
 

The Anointed

Well-Known Member
No it doesn’t. It comes from the root bṛh (pronounced sort of like “bri-h” with the somewhere between the sounds in ’it’ and ‘put’ and a slight aspiration) meaning to expand, grow, enlarge.

Moreover, not all Hindus see Krishna as Supreme, only Vaishnavas do. Krishna nor any other god/dess “enters” into Brahman. They are Brahman. Brahman does not evolve.

I believe that my statement was, "The root to the word 'Brahman' ORIGINALLY meant 'Speech.'

Brahman is expressed by the monosyllable OM, pregnant with the meaning of eternal words, within which all other sounds are contained.

According to Jan Gonda In verses considered as the MOST ANCIENT, the Vedic idea of Brahman is the "power immanent in the sound, words, verses and formulas of Vedas"

Gavin Flood states that the Vedic era witnessed a process of abstraction, where the concept of Brahman evolved and expanded from the power of sound, words and rituals to the "essence of the universe", the "deeper foundation of all phenomena", the "essence of the self (Atman, soul)", and the deeper "truth of a person beyond apparent difference"

However, the original sense of Brahman as meaning sound, Speech, etc, has evolved and expanded in ancient India.

It is also said the Brahman means 'Silence,' [Thought]
 
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Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
I believe that my statement was, "The root to the word 'Brahman' ORIGINALLY meant 'Speech.'

No it didn’t.

Brahman is expressed by the monosyllable OM, pregnant with the meaning of eternal words, within which all other sounds are contained.

The pranava, i.e. om or aum (there are times when grammatically it is transcribed om instead of aum), is the sound of creation; it represents tha atman and Brahman; it is the sound of creation.

However, the original sense of Brahman as meaning sound, Speech, etc, has evolved and expanded in ancient India.

It is also said the Brahman means 'Silence,' [Thought]

Yeah, uh... no.
 

godnotgod

Thou art That
lila is movement, action. maya is the forms that arise/fall from lila

.

The missing element to lila as action is divine play, without which it is not lila. Lila is action that is play with unintentional outcome, that is to say, spontaneous, for the pure sake of play, or sport. .


Lila (Sanskrit: लीला, IAST līlā) or Leela can be loosely translated as the "divine play".....

...Brahman is full of all perfections. And to say that Brahman has some purpose in creating the world will mean that it wants to attain through the process of creation something which it has not. And that is impossible. Hence, there can be no purpose of Brahman in creating the world. The world is a mere spontaneous creation of Brahman. It is a Lila, or sport, of Brahman. It is created out of Bliss, by Bliss and for Bliss. Lila indicates a spontaneous sportive activity of Brahman as distinguished from a self-conscious volitional effort. The concept of Lila signifies freedom as distinguished from necessity....

....Let those who suffer from the toils of samsara seek release: the perfect devotee does not suffer; for he can both visualize and experience life and the universe as the revelation of that Supreme Divine Force (shakti) with which he is in love, the all-comprehensive Divine Being in its cosmic aspect of playful, aimless display (lila)—which precipitates pain as well as joy, but in its bliss transcends them both...

..The basic recurring theme in Hindu mythology is the creation of the world by the self-sacrifice of God—"sacrifice" in the original sense of "making sacred"—whereby God becomes the world which, in the end, becomes again God. This creative activity of the Divine is called lila, the play of God, and the world is seen as the stage of the divine play. Like most of Hindu mythology, the myth of lila has a strong magical flavour. Brahman is the great magician who transforms himself into the world* and then performs this feat with his "magic creative power", which is the original meaning of maya in the Rig Veda. The word maya—one of the most important terms in Indian philosophy—has changed its meaning over the centuries. From the might, or power, of the divine actor and magician, it came to signify the psychological state of anybody under the spell of the magic play. As long as we confuse the myriad forms of the divine lila with reality, without perceiving the unity of Brahman underlying all these forms, we are under the spell of maya. (...) In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid and ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play. The world of maya changes continuously, because the divine lila is a rhythmic, dynamic play. The dynamic force of the play is karma, an important concept of Indian thought. Karma means "action". It is the active principle of the play, the total universe in action, where everything is dynamically connected with everything else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_(Hinduism)

*Not exactly:

https://www.discovervedanta.com/downloads/articles/brahman-and-maya.pdf

The whole performs no action and all action is 'as though' it were real. For this reason, Brahman is referred to as 'The Changeless'.
 

godnotgod

Thou art That
There are no temples or pujas (worship services) for Brahman. That would be like having a temple or puja for an amoeba, because amoebas are Brahman and Brahman is amoebas. What can an amoeba give me, except a really bad case of the runs? .

But amoeba is just form, so no, worship would not apply, but Brahman, the formless, is manifesting itself as the form 'amoeba', so in that sense, Brahman is none other than all forms known as 'the world'. So it is important to be conscious of the fact that underneath,or behind, all forms, is Brahman.

"The Universe is [none other than] The Absolute (ie 'Brahman') as seen through the glass of Time, Space and Causation" (ie 'maya')
Vivekenanda
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
is the brahman, el, allah god a specific physical form of matter, or an energy?

isn't god infinite change and constant?
The terms physical, form, change, constant, matter, and energy all create duality ("not" versions of themselves). The term Brahman expresses non-dual.
 

The Anointed

Well-Known Member
But amoeba is just form, so no, worship would not apply, but Brahman, the formless, is manifesting itself as the form 'amoeba', so in that sense, Brahman is none other than all forms known as 'the world'. So it is important to be conscious of the fact that underneath,or behind, all forms, is Brahman.

"The Universe is [none other than] The Absolute (ie 'Brahman') as seen through the glass of Time, Space and Causation" (ie 'maya')
Vivekenanda

Correct! And no worship should be given to the LOGOS, who is the divine reality of the universe, the eternal spirit from which all being originates and to which all must return.

The LOGOS, which is the gathered information of the aeon, the God who is no respecter of mankind, who sends his blessings of the righteous and the wicked alike and sends his disasters upon the wicked and the righteous alike.

But 'The Son of Man' the MOST HIGH to develop within the LOGOS [The Creation] who warns those who are prepared to listen, of coming disasters, and rains down his blessings on the righteous, is deserving of our worship and obedience.
 

dfnj

Well-Known Member
is the brahman, el, allah god a specific physical form of matter, or an energy?

isn't god infinite change and constant?

Think of God as Time when thinking about matter and energy. It's all a Unity of opposites for the semantics of our language to have any meaning:

Dirt = Yin = mass = body-of-Christ
Water = Yang = energy = blood-of-Christ
Mud = Tao = Time = Holy-Ghost

Think of it as a metaphor for the idea of Unity of Opposites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_of_opposites

"The term is also used in describing a revelation of the oneness of things previously believed to be different. Such insight into the unity of things is a kind of transcendence, and is found in various mystical traditions. The idea occurs in the traditions of TantricHinduism and Buddhism, in German mysticism, Taoism, Zen and Sufism, among others."
 

dfnj

Well-Known Member
The terms physical, form, change, constant, matter, and energy all create duality ("not" versions of themselves). The term Brahman expresses non-dual.

Here's probably the best talk I've seen on non-duality and dissolving the boundaries between our own consciousness and all of existence:


I just love the way she presents what she's thinking.
 

dfnj

Well-Known Member
Mmmm... yeah, pretty much. I think that's as apt a description as any. The concept of māyā (literally "illusion" & "magic" like a magic show, "power") has a lot to do with it. Māyā is the veil, illusion, that causes us to see things as they are not. Our goal is to break through that veil and experience reality... Brahman.

You know just talking about the "veil" is what gives it substance in our minds. Your idea of a veil reminds me of a story about a "rock". Sometimes language is the barrier:

One day two monks were in a garden arguing subjectivity versus objectivity. The Zen master hearing them arguing approached the two students. The Zen master asked, "that rock over there, does that exist inside your head or outside your head?". One of the monks looked up at the Zen master and replied, "Well, our religious bible tells us that all truth is subjective so that rock over there only exists inside my head." At which point the Zen master replies, "Then it must be pretty heavy all day walking around with that rock in your head!"
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
The terms physical, form, change, constant, matter, and energy all create duality ("not" versions of themselves). The term Brahman expresses non-dual.

non-dual is simply another word for single, or singularity vs duality. absolute expresses non-dual.

thanks for sharing
 
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Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
Think of God as Time when thinking about matter and energy. It's all a Unity of opposites for the semantics of our language to have any meaning:

Dirt = Yin = mass = body-of-Christ
Water = Yang = energy = blood-of-Christ
Mud = Tao = Time = Holy-Ghost

Think of it as a metaphor for the idea of Unity of Opposites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_of_opposites

"The term is also used in describing a revelation of the oneness of things previously believed to be different. Such insight into the unity of things is a kind of transcendence, and is found in various mystical traditions. The idea occurs in the traditions of TantricHinduism and Buddhism, in German mysticism, Taoism, Zen and Sufism, among others."

unity can only be manifested by the binary. the idea of unity and unity itself are already two. - freemasonry


i liken the idea of spirit moving on water; which creates a wave. this is a buddhist idea too. as another poster told me. the wave is water, the ocean is water, so consciousness mind is moving on water.

mind movement water

or mind spirit body


i like the video and her promotion of meditation. people seem to question their outer reality more so than their inner reality.

thank you for sharing
 
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The Anointed

Well-Known Member
Think of God as Time when thinking about matter and energy. It's all a Unity of opposites for the semantics of our language to have any meaning:

Dirt = Yin = mass = body-of-Christ
Water = Yang = energy = blood-of-Christ
Mud = Tao = Time = Holy-Ghost

Think of it as a metaphor for the idea of Unity of Opposites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_of_opposites

"The term is also used in describing a revelation of the oneness of things previously believed to be different. Such insight into the unity of things is a kind of transcendence, and is found in various mystical traditions. The idea occurs in the traditions of TantricHinduism and Buddhism, in German mysticism, Taoism, Zen and Sufism, among others."

Think of Time as the god Kronos, and Space as his goddess wife Rhea, the Parents of six universal children, who Kronos swallowed shortly after their birth before they were able to develop within those universal bodies, a
 

godnotgod

Thou art That
maya is illusion that is a result of lila. energy cannot be created/destroyed it can only be constantly transformed.

brahman is not just brahma creating, nor exclusively shiva destroying, but some form of vishnu transforming.

brahman has one formless, changeless state but that doesn't make it inactive.

OK, so do we agree that lila is the action of divine play, and maya the result of lila? The key word here is 'play', and not just action. I believe action alone is called karma. Perhaps one of the resident Hindus can clarify this for us. Anyone?

Brahman, Pure Abstract Intelligence, is dreaming this world. Is dreaming an action? When you awaken from a dream, nothing has changed as per the dream.

I cannot address the other content of your post as it has crossed over into notions of gods.
 
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