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When You Say You Love God, What does it Mean?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
DawudTalut
Peace be upon you.
Peace be on you.
Respectfully, I disagree with that person.
According to Ahmadiyya-Muslims' understanding of real Islam, to love God means, follow God's directives to pay rights of God and rights of humanity.
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YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
For me, this is a tricky point. One the one hand, he does have a point in that a great many people have no real connection to the object of their adoration. It's a mechanical relationship between them and their highly idealized vision of reality devoid of any reciprocal interaction. But... on the other hand, a good many people do sense a distinct presence that literally radiates and envelopes their entire being. There is an genuine interaction that takes place between the mortal self and the object of their devotion and it is a reciprocal relationship that covers a range of emotions and is often accompanied by intense clarity of thought and consciousness - of heightened awareness and an expansion of consciousness well beyond usual experience. Fobbing the 2nd type off as a mere projection isn't especially insightful or particularly helpful even though there is more afoot than the observer is generally aware.
(Not too shabby for an avowed atheist, I'd say.)
@Windwalker @Vouthon Comments, gents?
(Not too shabby for an avowed atheist, I'd say.)
@Windwalker @Vouthon Comments, gents?
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For me, this is a tricky point. One the one hand, he does have a point in that a great many people have no real connection to the object of their adoration. It's a mechanical relationship between them and their highly idealized vision of reality devoid of an reciprocal interaction. But... on the other hand, a good many people do sense a distinct presence that literally radiates and envelopes their entire being. There is an genuine interaction that takes place between the mortal self and the object of their devotion and it is a reciprocal relationship that covers a range of emotions and is often accompanied by intense clarity of thought and consciousness - of heightened awareness and an expansion of consciousness well beyond usual experience. Fobbing the 2nd type off as a mere projection isn't especially insightful or particularly helpful even though there is more afoot than the observer is generally aware.
(Not too shabby for an avowed atheist, I'd say.)
Krishnamurti elsewhere states (time and again) that the only way to "know" god is to experience god. So, I think what he's referring to here is loving an unexperienced ideal or idea of god.
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Then there is experience well beyond all notions of god and that's where the fun really begins.... but that's for a different thread, methinks.
Then there is experience well beyond all notions of god and that's where the fun really begins.... but that's for a different thread, methinks.
It might not be for a different thread. It's pretty much close to the core of Krishnamurti's views that god is beyond all notions of god. In fact, I'm not even sure "god" is a word Krishnamurti used as other than a placeholder for some kind of mystical experience that he didn't have a better word for.
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
What can I say? (Pun intended.)
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
I disagree that "When you worship God you are worshiping yourself - and that is not love."
It means that you love a projection of your own imagination, a projection of yourself clothed in certain forms of respectability according to what you think is noble and holy
I don't understand how a projection of oneself in forms of respectability that one would think noble and holy would not be defined as love. Even if god were a placeholder for love for oneself, the key is that the believer experiences, gives, and perceives that he receives love with himself and he does so by naming this unexplained experience, god.
That's kind of like saying that believers aren't experiencing the same affects from their placebo than a non-believer does with the same medication. Regardless if there is a source or not, believers feel it is real, they experience it, and they receive love from these experiences. Maybe you can say the source of their love is based on their imagination but not the love itself.
I don't know if believers can see that even if it is true. I believe god is a placeholder for life itself. We experience, receive, and give love in many ways in life and how we interpret those experiences (that doesn't need a god nor a buddha to experience) based on our beliefs, makes that love real. It's not nonesense.
I just find it odd that one needs a placeholder to experience the same things he would if he focused on his relationship with life itself rather than defining and looking at other people's definitions of the placeholder and trying to find them and their teachings as a mirror of himself and his actions. Once we depart from this attachment, then we can see god as a placeholder and that is okay. We know our place, how we perceive things, and can say "I benefit from seeing god in this way. It is not my imagination. I accept the source is from my mind; and, whatever experiences outside myself that's projected from my mind, is real. It is not nonsense. It is how I experience love."
Is that not a logical way of seeing things?
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Can one actually feel love from a ideal or idea of god or, like a placebo, they get the same side-affects as someone who feels love without that ideal or idea (taking the right medication)?
Does it matter what the source is to experience god?
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Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
If it were the ideal of god and that ideal let's you know god's directives to pay rights to god and humanity, how would that be different (rather than wrong) than how the prophets of the Quran see their ideal of god (for a minute, looking at their view as an ideal rather than literal to the believer)?
Does it devalue god when we know that what we experience regardless the time period comes from our minds, our perceptions of reality, and how we interpret things whether indoctrinated in that interpretation or adopted later in life?
If you exchange god and placed the word "life" in its place, it would still be the same. Life has directives and our purpose is to help others as well as ourselves. We get a sense of this purpose when we have empathy for others and so forth. If god is actually a placeholder, why is it needed to experience these directives that exist without there needing to be a god or an ideal of one?
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Let me ask, what is the difference between being enchanted by an idea of god and being enchanted by an entity (Hindu belief?) or brahma (?) himself? Does a placeholder for "him" devalue the love you feel for him?
That, and if it is not real love, as the OP's quote assumes, if it were a placebo affect of real love (if there is such a thing), how would that devalue your experience of enchantment?
BSM1
What? Me worry?
I think you've (and Krish baby) pointed out the problem. Once you try to define "God" you haven't. To try to place a human concept on this Divine Concept is the ultimate cosmic "Catch-22". So what is meant by "loving God"? To me it's realizing that your true self is a small manifestation of the Divine Spark that runs the whole show. The greatest "love" (again, a man-made definition) that one can have to such a Deity is realizing that one is being allowed to experience such an ineffable being within the restrictions of a corporeal reality. Having said this the obvious follow up statement should be: "Do you want fries with that?"
I am enchanted by his form and his pastimes, and his golden mercy. The idea of a God is not the issue here; it is his personality. See, take away the 'him', and you are left with a formless impersonal God. This is not conductive to love of god, and i suppose yes, it would devalue my love, as i do not know his attributes, let alone his activities. I love hearing and learning about Him, so i do not find this a 'placebo effect'; are you asking me if i found my love to be not real love, would that devalue my love for Him? Well, in this hypothetical situation, yes, i would, as my love would not be real.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Hmm. If it were a placebo affect, I would assume that you would not know it is and the love you feel from him not be real. I don't understand how this devalues love regardless the hypothetical situation is true or not. Just something I thought about reading the OP.
Think of it, though. The idea of god would also include his personality, who he is, what he is, and how he is defined. It is part of that ideal.
I don't understand. If you take away the "him" it doesn't make him less of god than if you said she or it. It sounds more language thing. Maybe attachment to language and using it to define an idea or literal god that, in and of itself, cannot be defined by pronouns, nouns, and proper nouns.
Maybe god wouldn't be impersonal if you take away the him, but how you relate to god would feel impersonal without calling him, him?
If it's a placebo affect, it (the effect such as love) is still real but the source is not. If two human beings are given two pills, one placebo and the other not, there are still the same psychological, physiological, and biological affects in both regardless of what pill they took.
So, if your love is real, that wouldn't mean that the source is real. It could be (according to the OP) an idea of something you think is real based on your real experiences/affects. Which in and of itself isn't wrong, just a different and more direct way of seeing our relationship with life rather than attaching to an ideal of it.
This is hypothetical in general, but in how I see things everything comes from the mind. So, I wouldn't call it imagination but then I wouldn't displace god being an idea rather than literal (however defined). It just means a more indepth way of experiencing god.
Call me a poet. That's just me.
I just called you a poetHmm. If it were a placebo affect, I would assume that you would not know it is and the love you feel from him not be real. I don't understand how this devalues love regardless the hypothetical situation is true or not. Just something I thought about reading the OP.
Think of it, though. The idea of god would also include his personality, who he is, what he is, and how he is defined. It is part of that ideal.
I don't understand. If you take away the "him" it doesn't make him less of god than if you said she or it. It sounds more language thing. Maybe attachment to language and using it to define an idea or literal god that, in and of itself, cannot be defined by pronouns, nouns, and proper nouns.
Maybe god wouldn't be impersonal if you take away the him, but how you relate to god would feel impersonal without calling him, him?
If it's a placebo affect, it (the effect such as love) is still real but the source is not. If two human beings are given two pills, one placebo and the other not, there are still the same psychological, physiological, and biological affects in both regardless of what pill they took.
So, if your love is real, that wouldn't mean that the source is real. It could be (according to the OP) an idea of something you think is real based on your real experiences/affects. Which in and of itself isn't wrong, just a different and more direct way of seeing our relationship with life rather than attaching to an ideal of it.
This is hypothetical in general, but in how I see things everything comes from the mind. So, I wouldn't call it imagination but then I wouldn't displace god being an idea rather than literal (however defined). It just means a more indepth way of experiencing god.
Call me a poet. That's just me.
God would be impersonal if i took away his personality; the 'him'. The reason he has a form is for us. I cannot properly love something that has no form. This whole conversation is assuming my love for God is not real. I don't understand the point of your argument. A true folly is trying to understand God.
Yes, I think Krishnamurti makes a very good point. He is coming from the non-dual (God and creation are not-two) perspective which I believe is a more accurate, sophisticated and intellectually satisfying view than the traditional Abrahamic dualist view. In this non-dual view, God's spirit is in everyone and love of God then becomes love and compassion for all embodied beings.
I think the 'Love God' idea served man in his earlier development as a good and loving father image was a concept understandable by the masses at a time when knowledge and learning was very limited among the average person. Today, with the explosion of learning and information in the last century, the dualist view is found to be increasingly unsatisfying to many.
Very much so. The only thing that is clearly established by claims of love towards God is that one sees fit to call his or her own conceptions of sacredness by that name.
I think that the writer is making some pretty heavy assumptions about what "god" is that limit the applicability of what they are saying. It sure doesn't apply to my religion. I am not anywhere near narcissistic and arrogant enough to suppose the entire universe is a projection of my imagination and myself.
"Hey guys! Did you know that the sun is a projection of my imagination! I AMZ THE ONE TRUE GOD!"
"Hey guys! Did you know that the sun is a projection of my imagination! I AMZ THE ONE TRUE GOD!"
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Not that you need my help, @Terese ... but you are pointing at something that was abundantly obvious about the Vaisnava experience. It is a PERSONAL relationship with what certainly seems to be a very real external entity that had its own distinct personality. In a way that it is quite difficult to describe, there is a distinct separation, but there is, at the same time, a genuine union. The observer is perceiving something that is both outside themselves and yet forms their very being, thus it is also the height of an internal experience. That explanation might confound the reader due to what will seem like an open contradiction, but this is a whole new order of Oneness that cannot be lightly dismissed. I hope that makes sense. It is from the bird's eye view (or a flying caped mouse's view).I just called you a poet
For example, I never once sensed the depth of this deeply personal relationship in any other religion. Not even close. Some sound like they have a personal relationship but their experience and personal understanding does not seem to reflect this. Ok, ok, OK.... I'm an elitist snob... a "spiritual" 1%-er!
(But... ... the unbounded bliss helps to ease the pain of that admission.)
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