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Why is it Only those who "Walk with God" have Encountered Satan?

It's not something that concerns me.
People have all kinds of views.

There are even biblical views that witness my assertion.
(of course those views would be my own--
and they're no longer important, even to me.)

You wrote the previous post and I assume if you take the time write it out in a specific thread, then it has some meaning or concern to you. I'm just curious as to how the view you provided works. Could you explain how using the bible, Satan is god, god is Satan and people are god?
 

blackout

Violet.
You wrote the previous post and I assume if you take the time write it out in a specific thread, then it has some meaning or concern to you. I'm just curious as to how the view you provided works. Could you explain how using the bible, Satan is god, god is Satan and people are god?

I am my own Oracle.

I read and interpret word and life by my own (Self Inspired) "means".

People will only argue my views and interpretations
by foriegn standards,
yet I have no desire to argue anything.

There is little point.

People see what they are inclined to see.

I have poured myself into posts re. my own interpretations
only to be glossed by, as if invisible.
Not that it matters,
but my "way" is not seen by others as something... "valid" or "scholarly" or "legitimate".
So that is fine.
It is my* way.

Sorry if this is not the answer you were seeking.
(which of course it was not)

*My way ALSO, is the way of the Self Inspired Individual.

ie... I Am the way, the truth, and the life.

we are each the christ.

(and the devil's got my back)
 
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Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
The Doctrine of the Origin of Evil in Lurianic and Sabbatian Kabbalah and in the awakening of Faith in Mahayanistic Buddhism « Prayers and Reflections


Therefore, it can be said that Enlightenment stops the winds of ignorance from blowing under the surface of calm by its intrinsic nature of water. Water (which is an image of the self-nature of the Absolute Mind) does not change, its nature remains just the same, and only the accidental and substantially unreal waves (cyclic existence of samsara), produced by the wind of ignorance (avidya, bu jue) rooted in the depths of One Mind itself, cease to appear. It means literally that for the Enlightened mind all spheres of objects cease to be. And for this perfectly Enlightened Mind the ‘black dot’ of the aspect of non-enlightenment does no longer exists. This is a ‘correction’, or ‘catharsis’ of Suchness. It becomes what it really is from the very beginning: non-dual, self luminescent, absolute One Mind possessing innumerable good and excellent qualities of the Buddha as Dharmakaya. This is presented in the Awakening as follows:


In fact, there are no corporeal objects, because all objects are original from the mind. And as long as there are no corporeal objects at all, ‘empty place’ can not be maintained. All objects are of the mind alone; but when illusions arise, [objects which are regarded as real] appear. When the mind is free from its deluded activities, then all objects [imagined as real] vanish of themselves. [What is real,] the one and true Mind, pervades everywhere. This is the final meaning of the Tathagata’s great and comprehensive wisdom.
Examining in brief all the most important teachings of the Awakening related to the roots of samsaric evil and the liberation from them, we can now to analyze and compare the typologies of the Mahayanistic and Kabbalistic approaches to these subjects.


In the attitude of the Awakening towards the problem of evil we can find a number of features which are comparable to the attitudes expressed in Lurianic Kabbalah.


  • Both teachings support the view that the roots of evil lie in the Absolute itself. According to Lurianic Kabbalah these roots are the potential force of din (Stern Judgement) which can find its overdevelopment and isolation from the power of Mercy as qelippoth, or ’shells’. Therefore, the dark side of being is latently immanent to the Absolute. According to the Awakening, the cause of evil and of the samsaric cyclical existence with all its sufferings originates from the unenlightened aspect of Absolute (Suchness as luminous One Mind), which has a secondary and accidental nature but nevertheless is responsible for all defilements and attachments of the empirical consciousness of the sentient beings.

  • The very process of creation is seen as an objectivization, or explication of the roots of evil. In Lurianic Kabbalah the first point of the creative activities of the Original Unlimited Light of Absolute (‘Or En Sof) is its contraction (zimzum) — that is, its limitation. And every limitation can be seen as the manifestation of the powers of din which are the root of evil as well. Therefore, the explication of evil is the primary characteristic of the process of creation as such. In Awakening the first point of the emergence of samsara is ignorance originated from the unenlightened aspect of the Absolute. This ignorance manifests itself in the discriminating thought which erroneously takes itself to be different from the substance of Suchness. The development of this process results with the mental constructing, or appearance, of subject-object oppositions and different kinds of attachments.


  • The process of creation is not only the process of the explication of evil, but also a means for the liberation of the Absolute from the potential roots of evil, and can be understood as a kind of cathartic activity of the Absolute. In Lurianic Kabbalah this process of the Divine catharsis results in the tiqqun, or restoration of being. (In some kinds of Lurianic Kabbalah the powers of evil, qelippoth, devoid of the forces of the Light, must be eliminated as a ‘waste product’ from the essence of the Godhead, in others they must be transfigured into the powers of holiness worthy of restoration in the realm of the Divine Lights). In Awakening the samsaric beings, because of the influence of their substantial original Buddha nature, attain Enlightenment which leads to the complete elimination of the non-enlightened black dot inside the Absolute, and its complete Enlightenment. The text does not speak explicitly about the cathartic character of the emergence and empirical existence of samsara but it can be easily supposed because of the very structure of the process of the movement from the Original Enlightenment through unsubstantial nonenlightenment to the empirical Enlightenment resulting with the complete Enlightenment as the absolute elimination of the shadow of ignorance.

Nevertheless, there are also very important and theologically substantial differences between the understanding of the nature of evil and the ways of its elimination in these two kinds of the mystical theosophies. And they are also important for an understanding of the essential specific features of the soteriological attitudes of Lurianic Kabbalah, as rooted in the Biblical world-view, and those of Mahayanistic Buddhism which is closely related to the traditional Indian ways of thinking.


First of all, it must be noted that the end of the world-process in the Lurianic Kabbalah is tiqqun that is, the restoration of the purified creation to its perfect and undefiled state, or even its inclusion into the sphere of the Divine pleroma. In the Awakening, Enlightenment is seen as the state of elimination of all subject-object relations and the extinction of the manifold world as such: mind returns to its own intrinsic nature, and the waves (i.e., the world) caused by the wind of ignorance cease to appear in the phenomena, revealing the true calm self-nature of the Mind as the plain surface of the Ocean of the Absolute. Therefore the Lurianic attitude toward the creation (manifold world produced from the depths of the Absolute) is ontologically optimistic, while that of the Awakening is pessimistic.
 
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Student of X

Paradigm Shifter
Why is it always those who "walk with god" who have some sort of personal experience with Satan? Why doesn't he ever present himself in any way to Atheists? If I'm on his team, why doesn't he ever show up to kick my *** for slacking off on my duty to persecute christians? Shouldn't your personal relationship with jesus protect you from Satan? I've been an atheist for over 15 years and I've never encountered even the slightest evidence for satan.

To put it in Jungian terms one must deal with the shadow-self on the path of individuation. Satan could be thought of as the shadow in symbolic form.

Basically it consists of four parts. The first part is "becoming conscious of the shadow. The shadow is our dark side, containing those things that we have repressed or ignored for one reason or another. It usually manifests to us in dreams as an archetypal figure who is dark and ominous. Just as the persona is that part of us that we want to present to the world, so the shadow contains those things that we want to hide from the world, and from ourselves. This dark side of ourselves must be confronted and accepted, at least in part, as the first step in the individuation process. Johnson (1991) emphasizes the need to acknowledge and accept our shadow in order to become a whole and complete person."

Think of Luke Skywalker in the Tree/Cave of trials...fighting against that which he brought with him.
 
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