soma

I like Meister Eckhart too and his teachings. I feel for the Christians confined or imprisoned in Christianity today afraid to venture out and the sad part is the leaders of the faith have sentenced them to years of tension with fear and anger for no reason except power over them. tariki I get the same Satan and anti-Christ crap all the time, but feel obligated to share presence with them in their confinement because I like them just not their soul crushing mean mindedness. I don't try to change them, but I find laughter is very healing when they are so angry. A good thing Trump has done is expose the Christian anger, racism and mean mindedness in our society. Hopefully, we correct it before it brings us down or I get shot.

Our mind separates, but also takes us on the path that connects all things using words, labels and concepts to guide it in either direction. To have the experience one must go beyond the mind, but since we have one we can use it to bring us closer so we can have more moments connected beyond it. My mind has taken me to Christian Mysticism, but I see the value in Buddhism, Hinduism, the Tao and other paths, which have enriched my Christianity. We don't need religion, but the different scriptures do offer time saving tips to heighten our experience.

I agree that all is interconnected and that is one reason why we need a Christian Reformation. The institution is exclusive and not inclusive so Christians are not only ill informed but suffering and angry because of their division. Christian Reformation Christianity through its institution of churches has taken advantage of its congregations by giving them weekend visits but not full custody of the spirit because it blocks people by putting limits on what they can do and how they think. They proclaim certainty in rules and confidence in a rigid theology to gain trust, but they don’t trust or give confidence to the people who trust the church more than they trust themselves, which is more than the church deserves. The evidence is not determined by the theology Christians preach, or the prayers we recite, but by our active goodness in helping people in distress. We say we are a Christian Nation under God, but we don’t want our tax dollars to help the poor? One predisposition put on our youth is to ask them to be conservative when Christianity is not conservative, but innovative, progressive, developing and a supporter of reform. There have been reformations, but morality is not all about rules, laws and commandments or taking the Bible literally, but by taking the Spirit seriously. Without the Inner self we can do nothing because we are like a sail boat that is useless without the wind as we are useless not being in touch with our life force, the energy that gives us vitality and meaning in life. We need another Christian reformation where we are not setting the rules, putting limits on everything we do, but helping people realize they can make up their own mind and design their own life. Tolerance at this time in Christianity implies a belief in the inferiority of other religions when we should respect other faiths and admit our own imperfections rather than pointing out the faults in others. Christianity blocks the spirit by waging war with sermons and arguments against other beliefs, politics or theology to build superiority in our own mind, reaching a mental plateau, but no way to go beyond it. “We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity. Our movement is Christian.” (Adolf Hitler October 27, 1928) The plants, birds and bees do their separate, distinct, everyday activities to make the world stable and peaceful, but we Christians are not willing to do the task that nature requires for us to be human. There is no good reason why Christians should be perceived as special especially when we now endorse torture, injustice and inequality instead of speaking about religion, we need to demonstrate spirit by how we treat others. We need to plug in the church’s inner light by putting the Holy Spirit on the rules committee by trusting our own free spirit to be able to walk on our own when the assembly or multitudes are going in the wrong direction. Christianity is uninspiring when it tries to suppress our free spirit, to take our breath away because it is like telling the wind to stop blowing. We believe in the sun not only because we can see it, but because it helps us to see everything else, Christianity needs to help us see and accept ourselves and others so the spirit inside will wake up.

I like to read different texts from science, philosophy, psychology and the different religions. The method I use is if the passage rings a bell, sometimes I will reread a passage seeing the bell, but not hearing it and it will ring, but many times there is nothing there. It is like poetry where the passage opens a flood, trickle or does nothing.

PaulB, Salutations to the Divinity within you. " As for my beliefs I have looked at other faiths (Buddhism , Hindu) and have come to the conclusion that no one faith has all the answers." I agree with you and Burl that no one faith has all the answers. They and science can help us to understand ourselves though. They have made me a better Christian. \ Great to have you a board.

Christmas for me is the birth of Christ consciousness, a consciousness in its infancy beginning to search for the rationale upon which it is established. It is a time for reflection, travel and being with people and family usually traveling to a new location.

DaveSamsara salutations to the Divinity within you and the peace you radiate from this core. I feel you have insight in the ark of a peaceful consciousness that can help us all in the nervous, mental and physical tensions in modern life. Please feel free to give survival tips,so we all grow more relaxed, calm, less inclined to agitation, frustration and a bad frame of mind.

Acdc, Welcome and it is nice to see an activist. We live in tumultuous times, but it is a good time to know our self and what we are capable of in times of need. It is sad to observe our Christian society falling further and further away from basic morality and that it is lead by the church in some cases. The first commandment is “I am the Lord thy God and thou shall not have strange Gods before Me.” This is the basis for the conviction that there is only one God, a belief that leads to the knowledge of unity, which once accomplished influences and helps us in our daily lives. We are all children of One God or energy and Jesus said that we should love our neighbor as our self, but the church through its leaders push that our God is better than others. This is the spark to racism, "We are better." No we are not, we all are made in the image of God, there is no need to judge because unity provides an effective answer to the many problems of modern life. Love tells us that we are united and that no other person is separate or apart in God’s spiritual consciousness so recognizing that we are all one in God’s consciousness integrates our individual life with the world around us and providing a basic harmony and equilibrium in our heart and mind. This is a kind of insurance from the flood of negativity surrounding us because a relaxed mind and body is positive, priceless and an indestructible way to receive successful ideas and results. When one is open and receptive, one receives ideas that guide us in morality because positive ideas attract while negativity repels. Leading with rules, laws, fear and hate is the same manipulation dictators use to control the masses and sad to say the church uses them to control its congregations. I feel as a white Christian I need to ground myself in the unity of the universe and act from this point to balance the injustice that is perpetuated today without adding to it. We all have special needs and talents so individually one first communes and balances in the One Consciousness, which is not functional, but it helps one to focus like a laser on the physical plane when applied to racial injustice embedded in our economy, institutions and churches. We all can't be involved in a policy agenda that reconnects economic growth with a shared prosperity, but for now, each one of us has to do what we are driven to do to stop the money-driven politics that block a unity agenda while demagogic candidates stir up more hatred. Some will do social service helping the downtrodden, others will try to stop people from trod-ding on others, some will educate, but we need to be grounded individually in the unity so not to be manipulated with fake morals, laws and rules made by people, not God.

"I believe knowledge is an ongoing process and that process is currently being limited by the assumption that traditional categories, vague as they may be, somehow exhaust the possibilities. It is time, I think, to creatively challenge tradition and stop asking traditional questions." Thanks great statement to continue the journey.

Paul and Burl that is a great way to make it a positive like a laser.

This trip is reminding me that home and community is where we are. When open to the present moment, I feel I am one with people in a group consciousness call it what you will. No age gap, National, religious or sexual differences just a lot of smiles, learning and growing.

How does less false narrow our views, we would be in the store age without it.

"More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy." Does science narrow our views or open us up to possibilities? There are models with and without, so can we know something observing with different brains with different qualifications, limits and defects? We can think we know something, but that doesn't mean we know it.

The myth of free will empowers us because we investigate the causes of our behavior, instead of saying that the supernatural caused our actions. Understanding why we behave increases our ability to control ourselves as we seek peace in our life and society . It creates a situation where we are not exempt from influences so we guard our selves against manipulation and become free from outside control. Rudolf Steiner explores the nature of human freedom by agreeing with the statement, "that an action, of which the agent does not know why he performs it, cannot be free," but when a person becomes conscious of the motives for acting, for example Buddha then freedom is obtained, enlightenment. He says through introspection we become come conscious of our motivations through observation; therefore' we have the possibility of freedom. Steiner explains by observing nature's manifestations within our subjective nature we can see the unity in duality and become free because we renounce the autonomy of free will as B.F. Skinner said. Science is showing us to ourselves, but is up to us to become aware of the natural enlightenment and freedom from free will as we are propelled towards freedom beyond our group thinking to become free to meet the world directly beyond religion, family, country and other limits to experience the freedom of our potential as unique individuals.

What Is Dark Energy? More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn't be called "normal" matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the universe.https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy

I also vote better even though sometimes is looks worse so solutions can be applied and we can put our finger on the problems holding us back.

Imagination, love and compassion builds upon rather than destroys human nature so we can live with the needs, problems and demands of our time and find solutions. Freedom is immaterial, but I think understanding the material restraints can help us with the immaterial.

Burl thank you for the video. Construct, deconstruct and then construct or organize, deorganize and organize again. It looks like many on this forum came here from a construction that they formed about life then there was a deconstruction because the box was not big enough or could not explain everything and now they are reconstructing again with different tools.Dr. Louis seems to be happy with a small box and is trying to sell a God or god outside of nature pulling the strings with the argument of Divine purpose that he would expect God to give value to our life. That did not prove his point with the statistics that Christianity has killed more people than other religions or atheism. We can say others are using religion for their hate, racism and sexist values as in our election today, but he couldn't explain that or evil. One of the questions was what don't you like about Christian faith and the moderator changed it, but he didn't address the issue, which is again happening today as Christianity seems to supporting issues that are not Christian. We need the courage to speak with what is wrong with our faith so it can be reconstructed personally and socially. Christianity is not the end point it is the process just like evolution so needs to reorganize from time to time. I liked what he said about science, but then he went on that science was not an equal partner in the marriage, which is why the church divorced itself from science before. It seems he can't explain evil and is okay with the civil war of opposites. It would be nice if he looked at science to show that opposites are dancing and not fighting good against bad.

Bill I feel you are sincere and your path is different than mine, but we are in the same place, planet earth. I feel I have a personal relationship with a personal God because it is hard to communicate with an abstract energy that is all encompassing. I guess it is my way to detox and relate to the abstract experience in my meditation.

"Science without Religion Is Lame, Religion without Science Is Blind" Einstein I have been meditating for almost 50 years and I do not have supernatural visions or inclinations more than anyone else. I feel other people have similar experiences as I do accessed in another way, which is good because meditation has made me a better person and a better Christian than I was before I started to meditate.

thormas I feel diversity comes from unity as waves come from the ocean. I am on the crest of my wave and see you on the crest of yours so we see two different waves, but when we go deep into our ground of being we find unity deep in the ocean as Jesus said, "I and the Father our One."

Being color blind I sometimes see a red chair as brown. I feel I vacillate between being a wave and a particle so to incorporate both I see Christianity, science, Buddhism and other beliefs as myths, not necessary as false but ways to throw light on the journey. The candle of Christianity I use and use science to explain the phenomena that Christ was trying to describe, other religions also throw light on the infinite, its patterns and laws that I observe. I have thrown out the law maker and see God as an Infinite Subtle Energy I call consciousness. If beliefs are myths to help us form images then there is no better or best, just different.

I agree life is a process and we are not at the end of the journey or evolution. I am meeting people who don't speak English and objects that communicate transformation. It is like living in a retreat.

I agree we can't grasp God with a closed mind or fist so why not open to everything at our disposal.

I am don't hold any person as authority, but I respect that they point the way so I can experience it in someway. I love the scientist and philosophers who convinced me to follow their words and gain some experience, but now I am traveling and not reading so respect the people who allow me to be because they are just being themselves. Nature has also taken my breath away on this trip.