DharmaCatLamp
Member
Howdy! I just felt like sharing some thoughts.
The universe started with a divine dance. Not something like a waltz but something more like salsa. Shiva and Shakti came together, and their dance created all things. There was passion, lust, adventure, thrills, horror and so many other things that were a part of that dance, but it was, and it was chaos.
Like any good dance there was order to it but to someone watching it may have looked more like pure passion. The spins and hand gestures are inspired by the raw energy of movement rather than anything orderly but all anyone had to do was look at it from the right angle. If you tilted your head or if you stepped to the beat suddenly it became completely clear. You would not have all the answers, but the rhythm could be found.
All systems created by thinking minds are attempts to order a universe of chaos. They are attempts to take the massive quantities of information and make it useful. We construct narratives so that we can make choices. Without narratives even simple tasks become impossible to perform since we would lack the motivation to perform them.
Therefore, any intelligent species would on some level be a narrative species. Even ants have a narrative it just works in a vastly unique way because of the way they perceive existence. All of this started as a great lusty dance and has now come to this and will continue and on until the dance stops.
What happens when two narratives that disagree with each other meet? Well, there are few things that can happen, sometimes an accord is reached, and two narratives mix. Sometimes if part of the narrative that is disagreed upon is not of the upmost importance for the time and place it can be put aside and two narratives will coexist rather than merge. Other times there is a clash, and two narratives will cause people to try and kill each other.
Individual narratives can be subsumed into group narratives and sometimes we switch narratives mid-sentence. We find the stories behind all of existence and often even when there is not anything there to connect them to us, we will create our own connections.
One might think that given enough time we would form a singular narrative, but the exact opposite is true. With billions of minds stretching back into time immemorial we have uncountable narratives. The proliferation of narratives is the ongoing project of all life. The desire to extend our own narratives and to cut out rival narratives. To impose order over the chaos.
Now with all of this going think back to our divinities dancing. They form numerous roles and little aspects of themselves in the dance become apparent to us or not apparent as they go around. You have people connecting with the divine and for brief moments seeing the sheer vastness of their dance. They see existence spread out before them and they are told truths that were previously unimaginable to them.
Sometimes those truths are simple enough to grasp. You can see clear lines connecting things together and other times it is a sheer mess of chaotic energy. Sometimes you see a billion worlds sprawling out before you with no pattern morphing into ever greater amorphous blobs of celestial bodies. Sometimes it is shown to you as cattle grazing and lots of children.
The divine is there. Divinity can commune with us and show us things. An infinite ocean of love and bliss as well as the strangeness of this creation. We can marvel at all of it but here is where it gets dicey. One might experience the divine and commune with it but then you must go back to your people. You try to tell them about that which cannot be explained with mere words. You might not even utterly understand what you have seen. The dance is so much to take in. So now you try to share the message and try to show people how you saw the divine.
These systems become religion overtime. That single pointed divine step inspired something in someone or a group and now they try to share it. The ephemeral nature of our minds makes it so we can only glimpse the true vastness of the divine for brief time so what do we do? We begin to envision the divine as something we can grasp at.
Divinity may even come down to us in incarnations, Christ, Krishna, Ramakrishna, al-Hallaj etc etc. They become part of the dance on a level we can comprehend easily and can help us to connect with the greater divinity. We are all part of that same divine dance and sometimes we just need someone to point it out to us.
The plurality of it. The sheer proliferation of narratives as well as the ingredients that go into making us what we are make it impossible for us to all follow the exact same narrative. That is why there are so many religious traditions and so many different ideas about what God/Gods are. The truth that we often miss is that divinity will connect to us however it wants to and there is no one path or narrative for all beings.
If you crave structure, you might join a formal religion and follow its tenants. You may find a guru and follow their method because you can see they have achieved a closeness to divinity. You might forgo mentions of God and stick strictly to science or Buddhism. Even those things have their share of the divine within them.
When I pray to MaKali it is not because she is the “true” representation of divinity but because it is the representation of divinity which lights the fire in my heart. I see God as Christ, Krishna, Kali, and so many other forms all of which I smile at.
What is important is that we remember we all have our narratives and each of us approach things in a unique way. We are trying to make order out of this great chaotic dance, and we may take this method or that but there is no one method.
I take elements from everything I see to mix it into a great elixir of divinity. I take a sip and enjoy it and it refreshes me. If you see divinity differently than I do that is great and I would love to hear of it. I am on the no path path because I wish to tread in many directions with love for God in my heart and love for all people in my heart. I am not the greatest when it comes to loving my fellows, but I am working on it.
Just some thoughts I have been having recently.
The universe started with a divine dance. Not something like a waltz but something more like salsa. Shiva and Shakti came together, and their dance created all things. There was passion, lust, adventure, thrills, horror and so many other things that were a part of that dance, but it was, and it was chaos.
Like any good dance there was order to it but to someone watching it may have looked more like pure passion. The spins and hand gestures are inspired by the raw energy of movement rather than anything orderly but all anyone had to do was look at it from the right angle. If you tilted your head or if you stepped to the beat suddenly it became completely clear. You would not have all the answers, but the rhythm could be found.
All systems created by thinking minds are attempts to order a universe of chaos. They are attempts to take the massive quantities of information and make it useful. We construct narratives so that we can make choices. Without narratives even simple tasks become impossible to perform since we would lack the motivation to perform them.
Therefore, any intelligent species would on some level be a narrative species. Even ants have a narrative it just works in a vastly unique way because of the way they perceive existence. All of this started as a great lusty dance and has now come to this and will continue and on until the dance stops.
What happens when two narratives that disagree with each other meet? Well, there are few things that can happen, sometimes an accord is reached, and two narratives mix. Sometimes if part of the narrative that is disagreed upon is not of the upmost importance for the time and place it can be put aside and two narratives will coexist rather than merge. Other times there is a clash, and two narratives will cause people to try and kill each other.
Individual narratives can be subsumed into group narratives and sometimes we switch narratives mid-sentence. We find the stories behind all of existence and often even when there is not anything there to connect them to us, we will create our own connections.
One might think that given enough time we would form a singular narrative, but the exact opposite is true. With billions of minds stretching back into time immemorial we have uncountable narratives. The proliferation of narratives is the ongoing project of all life. The desire to extend our own narratives and to cut out rival narratives. To impose order over the chaos.
Now with all of this going think back to our divinities dancing. They form numerous roles and little aspects of themselves in the dance become apparent to us or not apparent as they go around. You have people connecting with the divine and for brief moments seeing the sheer vastness of their dance. They see existence spread out before them and they are told truths that were previously unimaginable to them.
Sometimes those truths are simple enough to grasp. You can see clear lines connecting things together and other times it is a sheer mess of chaotic energy. Sometimes you see a billion worlds sprawling out before you with no pattern morphing into ever greater amorphous blobs of celestial bodies. Sometimes it is shown to you as cattle grazing and lots of children.
The divine is there. Divinity can commune with us and show us things. An infinite ocean of love and bliss as well as the strangeness of this creation. We can marvel at all of it but here is where it gets dicey. One might experience the divine and commune with it but then you must go back to your people. You try to tell them about that which cannot be explained with mere words. You might not even utterly understand what you have seen. The dance is so much to take in. So now you try to share the message and try to show people how you saw the divine.
These systems become religion overtime. That single pointed divine step inspired something in someone or a group and now they try to share it. The ephemeral nature of our minds makes it so we can only glimpse the true vastness of the divine for brief time so what do we do? We begin to envision the divine as something we can grasp at.
Divinity may even come down to us in incarnations, Christ, Krishna, Ramakrishna, al-Hallaj etc etc. They become part of the dance on a level we can comprehend easily and can help us to connect with the greater divinity. We are all part of that same divine dance and sometimes we just need someone to point it out to us.
The plurality of it. The sheer proliferation of narratives as well as the ingredients that go into making us what we are make it impossible for us to all follow the exact same narrative. That is why there are so many religious traditions and so many different ideas about what God/Gods are. The truth that we often miss is that divinity will connect to us however it wants to and there is no one path or narrative for all beings.
If you crave structure, you might join a formal religion and follow its tenants. You may find a guru and follow their method because you can see they have achieved a closeness to divinity. You might forgo mentions of God and stick strictly to science or Buddhism. Even those things have their share of the divine within them.
When I pray to MaKali it is not because she is the “true” representation of divinity but because it is the representation of divinity which lights the fire in my heart. I see God as Christ, Krishna, Kali, and so many other forms all of which I smile at.
What is important is that we remember we all have our narratives and each of us approach things in a unique way. We are trying to make order out of this great chaotic dance, and we may take this method or that but there is no one method.
I take elements from everything I see to mix it into a great elixir of divinity. I take a sip and enjoy it and it refreshes me. If you see divinity differently than I do that is great and I would love to hear of it. I am on the no path path because I wish to tread in many directions with love for God in my heart and love for all people in my heart. I am not the greatest when it comes to loving my fellows, but I am working on it.
Just some thoughts I have been having recently.
