Knowing and Unknowing

[tomspug]

"Thus must the soul, which would know God, be rooted and grounded in Him so steadfastly, as to suffer no perturbation of fear or hope, or joy or sorrow, or love or hate, or anything which may disturb its peace"

So are you ready to "know God"? Why or why not?

This is starting to sound like prostelytizing. I find myself perfectly capable of knowing God more and more every day, thank you very much. I don't need your mystical views to do that.

 

[doppelganger]

This is starting to sound like prostelytizing.

LOL. It's just an exploration of the meaning of a text. That's why "know God" is in quotes. I wanted to get people's ideas about Eckhart's notion of what it means to "know God." If you don't want to participate, then don't. No loss, as far as I'm concerned.

I find myself perfectly capable of knowing God more and more every day, thank you very much. I don't need your mystical views to do that.

Great. Go on about your day then.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

"Different" is dualism, yes.

Unity in diversity--can't get away from either.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

This is starting to sound like prostelytizing. I find myself perfectly capable of knowing God more and more every day, thank you very much. I don't need your mystical views to do that.

This post is for tomspug.

Man is what he is and it is in our nature to differentiate, to make distinctions. “In the infinite nature of God the Father there could not possibly exist duality of reality, such as physical and spiritual; but the instant we look aside from the infinite levels and absolute reality of the personal values of the Paradise Father, we observe the existence of these two realities and recognize that they are fully responsive to his personal presence; in him all things consist. The moment you depart from the unqualified concept of the infinite personality of the Paradise Father, you must postulate MIND as the inevitable technique of unifying the ever-widening divergence of these dual universe manifestations of the original monothetic Creator personality, the First Source and Center--the I AM.”

“Man’s contact with the highest objective reality, God, is only through the purely subjective experience of knowing him, of worshiping him, of realizing sonship with him.” Concepts about God are the interpretations of that experience; our greatest obstacle is a tendency to become devoted to the conceptions we make rather than our religiosity, to our ever-expanding experiential knowingness. In reality, “you can argue over opinions about God, but experience with him and in him exists above and beyond all human controversy and mere intellectual logic. The God-knowing man describes his spiritual experiences, not to convince unbelievers, but for the edification and mutual satisfaction of believers.” Having been burned by a devotion to ideas, to conceptions of God, we might want to escape them entirely by proclaiming our not-knowing, by suggesting the philosophic idea of Universal Unity without further elaboration. But such intellectual maneuvers are evasive; it is pantheism or an attempt to avoid our humanity. For “will is that manifestation of the human mind which enables the subjective consciousness to express itself objectively and to experience the phenomenon of aspiring to be Godlike.”

If I read you right (and I may not), tomspug, I think you will agree.

 

[tomspug]

This post is for tomspug.

Man is what he is and it is in our nature to differentiate, to make distinctions. “In the infinite nature of God the Father there could not possibly exist duality of reality, such as physical and spiritual; but the instant we look aside from the infinite levels and absolute reality of the personal values of the Paradise Father, we observe the existence of these two realities and recognize that they are fully responsive to his personal presence; in him all things consist. The moment you depart from the unqualified concept of the infinite personality of the Paradise Father, you must postulate MIND as the inevitable technique of unifying the ever-widening divergence of these dual universe manifestations of the original monothetic Creator personality, the First Source and Center--the I AM.”

“Man’s contact with the highest objective reality, God, is only through the purely subjective experience of knowing him, of worshiping him, of realizing sonship with him.” Concepts about God are the interpretations of that experience; our greatest obstacle is a tendency to become devoted to the conceptions we make rather than our religiosity, to our ever-expanding experiential knowingness. In reality, “you can argue over opinions about God, but experience with him and in him exists above and beyond all human controversy and mere intellectual logic. The God-knowing man describes his spiritual experiences, not to convince unbelievers, but for the edification and mutual satisfaction of believers.” Having been burned by a devotion to ideas, to conceptions of God, we might want to escape them entirely by proclaiming our not-knowing, by suggesting the philosophic idea of Universal Unity without further elaboration. But such intellectual maneuvers are evasive; they are an attempt to avoid our humanity, or pantheism. For “will is that manifestation of the human mind which enables the subjective consciousness to express itself objectively and to experience the phenomenon of aspiring to be Godlike.”

If I read you right (and I may not), tomspug, I think you will agree.

Excellent post. Frubals.

To summarize, the biggest obstacle between man and God is NOT our perception of God (our experience), but the conclusions of the MIND (man's innate desire to create his own realities based solely on experience). For we know that the mind is a product of experience, therefore it is insufficient as a tool to define and draw close to the Creator of the universe.

If not the mind, then what? THE HEART. For within the heart there is a warmth of life that longs to be reunited not just with truth but with the unattainable HOME that we have longed for since birth. This is what we strive for above all else, not a god that we seek to fit into our own perception (as if this will give us satisfaction), but to find our way back home: to peace, to love.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

Excellent post. Frubals.

To summarize, the biggest obstacle between man and God is NOT our perception of God (our experience), but the conclusions of the MIND (man's innate desire to create his own realities based solely on experience). For we know that the mind is a product of experience, therefore it is insufficient as a tool to define and draw close to the Creator of the universe.

If not the mind, then what? THE HEART. For within the heart there is a warmth of life that longs to be reunited not just with truth but with the unattainable HOME that we have longed for since birth. This is what we strive for above all else, not a god that we seek to fit into our own perception (as if this will give us satisfaction), but to find our way back home: to peace, to love.

Exactly! (I couldn't give you frubals)

"The philosophic elimination of religious fear and the steady progress of science add greatly to the mortality of false gods; and even though these casualties of man-made deities may momentarily befog the spiritual vision, they eventually destroy that ignorance and superstition which so long obscured the living God of eternal love. The relation between the creature and the Creator is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith, which is not subject to precise definition. To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none."

We can still live from the heart using the mind and conceptions as tools. “To deny the personality of the First Source and Center leaves one only the choice of two philosophic dilemmas: materialism or pantheism.” With materialism no longer tenable and the concept of God carrying so much baggage, many flee from common sense into pantheism, seeking to achieve union with Ultimate Reality the way a drop of water achieves union with the ocean. Rather than progressively extending themselves into the cosmos from within (the heart) through the medium of mind, pantheists retreat from their universe-environment and the difficulties of mind, seeking a state of pure awareness or mystical bliss. But, “The observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of [or separation from] the thing which is evaluated.” Ideas are limiting, but free will can arise only if the agent is separate from its surroundings. Freedom and “True cosmic self-realization results from identification with cosmic reality and with the finite cosmos of energy, mind, and spirit, bounded by space and conditioned by time.” “Man attains divine union by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will. Such a sublime relationship can exist only between personalities.”

 

[tomspug]

Exactly! (I couldn't give you frubals)

"The philosophic elimination of religious fear and the steady progress of science add greatly to the mortality of false gods; and even though these casualties of man-made deities may momentarily befog the spiritual vision, they eventually destroy that ignorance and superstition which so long obscured the living God of eternal love. The relation between the creature and the Creator is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith, which is not subject to precise definition. To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none."

We can still live from the heart using the the mind and conceptions as tools. “To deny the personality of the First Source and Center leaves one only the choice of two philosophic dilemmas: materialism or pantheism.” With materialism no longer tenable and the concept of God carrying so much baggage, many flee from common sense into pantheism, seeking to achieve union with Ultimate Reality the way a drop of water achieves union with the ocean. Rather than progressively extending themselves into the cosmos from within (the heart) through the medium of mind, pantheists retreat from their universe-environment and the difficulties of mind, seeking a state of pure awareness or mystical bliss. But, “The observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of [or separation from] the thing which is evaluated.” Ideas are limiting, but free will can arise only if the agent is separate from its surroundings. Freedom and “True cosmic self-realization results from identification with cosmic reality and with the finite cosmos of energy, mind, and spirit, bounded by space and conditioned by time.” “Man attains divine union by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will. Such a sublime relationship can exist only between personalities.”

I must be an intellectual masochist because I enjoy reading your post even though I have to re-read every sentence. Are you quoting from a source or is this all your own philosophizing?

 

[Rolling_Stone]

I must be an intellectual masochist because I enjoy reading your post even though I have to re-read every sentence. Are you quoting from a source or is this all your own philosophizing?

I'm not that bright. The sentences in quotes are from The URANTIA Book. Those not in quotes are my own comments. I've spent a lot of time thinking about much of what it has to say even if some of the stuff in the book is, in my view, either nonsense or superfluours. When I say "thinking," it's really more like feeling/tasting for the truth. Know what I mean?

 

[Orontes]

Seung Sahn said:

The Buddha taught how to go from opposite worlds to absolute world. Absolute world means the world before thinking. What is before thinking? Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." If I am not thinking, then what? Descartes did not explore this question...

Hello,

The rub of Descartes' stance impacts both knowledge and being claims: insofar as there is a posit then by definition there must be a positer. Therefore knowledge necessarily entails being. Further, any knowing entails a knower and a thing known. Thus the subject-object distinction is epistemically fundamental.

 

[doppelganger]

Since there's been discussions about "not knowing" and Hume recently, I thought this thread was worth reviving.

Is "self" actually just perceptions themselves into which a ghostly subject is imagined? Is it the collective perspective by which perceptions become perceptions and are assimilated into my conscious reality? Is the experience of "self" merely the product of confusing perceptions with identity? In David Hume's A Treatise Of Human Nature, he suggests exactly that:

We are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self; we feel its existence and its continuing to exist, and are certain - more even than any demonstration could make us - both of its perfect identity and of its simplicity. The strongest sensations and most violent emotions, instead of distracting us from this view ·of our self·, only focus it all the more intensely, making us think about how these sensations and emotions affect our self by bringing it pain or pleasure. To offer further evidence of the existence of one’s self would make it less evident, not more, because no fact we could use as evidence is as intimately present to our consciousness as is the existence of our self. If we doubt the latter, we can’t be certain of anything.
​

But "self" is a process subject to endless change as new perceptions are assimilated and existing relationships between perceptions are changed. As Hume explained:

I am willing to affirm of the rest of mankind that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions that follow each other enormously quickly and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes can’t turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions; our thought is still more variable than our sight; and all our other senses and faculties contribute to this change in our perceptions, with no one of them remaining unaltered for a moment. The mind is a kind of stage on which many perceptions successively make their appearance: they pass back and forth, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of positions and situations. Strictly speaking, there is no simplicity in the mind at one time and no identity through different times, no matter what natural inclination we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity.​

Is there a way to capture a head turning glimpse of "selflessness", a momentary loss of self that, because of its nature, cannot be assimilated into thought and language? This creates a sense that the self I imagine as the center of the web of relationships recognized as perceptions is not a "true" self. There is a sense that it is a construct of language and thought, one necessary to communication and for "existence" in social reality, but a construct nonetheless. But the experience of absence of self cannot occur within the framework of thought and social reality. Is it an aesthetic feeling, a sense of intimate oneness with an "other" that often gets labeled "love"?

Because I have self awareness I will have mystical experience, regardless of how I interpret it. Mystical experience and self-awareness are necessary compliments to one another. Without both there is neither. The message of myth, art, science and love is finding that ever elusive crossover point from the social reality of words and ideas to the poetic "ultimate reality" outside of the social reality of language.

But can I really have an experience outside of language and thought? I can't, because the self is hard-wired into language and thought, and it's only because I ordinarily function within a world constructed in thought that I can have a glimpse of mistake of conflating my perspective (the ceaseless ebb and flow of perceptions) with being and identity. More from Hume:

That action of the imagination, by which we consider the uninterrupted and invariable object, and that by which we reflect on the succession of related objects, are almost the same to the feeling, nor is there much more effort of thought required in the latter case than in the former. The relation facilitates the transition of the mind from one object to another, and renders its passage as smooth as if it contemplated one continued object. This resemblance is the cause of the confusion and mistake, and makes us substitute the notion of identity, instead of that of related objects. However at one instant we may consider the related succession as variable or interrupted, we are sure the next to ascribe to it a perfect identity, and regard it as enviable and uninterrupted. Our propensity to this mistake is so great from the resemblance above-mentioned, that we fall into it before we are aware; and though we incessantly correct ourselves by reflection, and return to a more accurate method of thinking, yet we cannot long sustain our philosophy, or take off this bias from the imagination. Our last resource is to yield to it, and boldly assert that these different related objects are in effect the same, however interrupted and variable. In order to justify to ourselves this absurdity, we often feign some new and unintelligible principle, that connects the objects together, and prevents their interruption or variation. Thus we feign the continued existence of the perceptions of our senses, to remove the interruption: and run into the notion of a soul, and self, and substance, to disguise the variation.​

Short of losing the "I am" that is the perspective by which sensation becomes perception, what else is there besides a mythology of "souls" and "spirit" pointing to an experience that cannot be brought into conscious thought or captured in language?

 

[Willamena]

"However at one instant we may consider the related succession as variable or interrupted, we are sure the next to ascribe to it a perfect identity, and regard it as enviable and uninterrupted... we feign the continued existence of the perceptions of our senses, to remove the interruption: and run into the notion of a soul, and self, and substance, to disguise the variation."

Short of losing the "I am" that is the perspective by which sensation becomes perception, what else is there besides a mythology of "souls" and "spirit" pointing to an experience that cannot be brought into conscious thought or captured in language?

This is a personal response to the question, but when I was young I used to frequently get lost in daydream. Literally lost; literally "I". I could let my mind free and summon up the most realistic fantasies that completely displaced my present circumstances, be it sitting at a school desk, riding in the back seat of the car, or supposedly paying attention when other people talked to me. Eventually it became my bain, and I trained myself to stop.

I don't know if that's the sort of thing you had in mind.

 

[doppelganger]

Bump for pertinence to "Tat tvam asi" discussion.