soma

Rodge words are not as important to me as they are for you. I can call it fruit or an apple, I really don't care if I just want to eat it and enjoy becoming one with it. After one bite to discuss the apple becomes boring when the sweetness is beyond words. I think consciousness raising involves keeping an open heart, exploring creativity, and being open to mind-expanding ideas. If you want to talk about the Spirit or Divine and their difference I can't answer that because I see them as words pointing to the same thing. I am not about changing the church because I am about being true to myself and expanding myself as a Christian then the Christian Church expands too. I can't speak for Bishop Spong, but I enjoy his writings because they expand the concepts in my mind as a Christian. I can't speak for Progressive Christians because each one is different and is giving me a piece to the puzzle that speaks truth to truth. Chapter 41 When a superior man hears of the Tao, he immediately begins to embody it. When an average man hears of the Tao, he half believes it, half doubts it. When a foolish man hears of the Tao, he laughs out loud. If he didn’t laugh, it wouldn’t be the Tao. Cheers

"Ninth, institutional Christianity should turn away from unprovable claims about the existence and nature of “God” and “Christ,” and instead focus on trying to uncover the significance of the teachings of a man named Jesus. (This does not mean denying “God,” but just testifying about personal experience without projecting it onto others.)" The most fundamental aspect of being a Christian is to follow Christ's teachings and in his time on earth he mainly taught about love and the Divinity Within. We Christians know all the stories, we know about Jesus, but we don't understand his teachings because we don't understand love or the experience Christ was teaching us. "'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?' Jesus replied: '"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself." All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.'" -Matthew 22:36-40 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." -Matthew 6:19-21 "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" -Matthew 16:26 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." -Matthew How wonderful for Christians to know that Jesus Christ speaks to us enabling us to understand our true self so that we may love, be at peace, accept and forgive others, and experience the unity of the Infinite without judging, or trying to persuade others to join our group. Most Christians know all the stories, but they don't know what Jesus was teaching so they promote a cult of personality instead of living the life and bearing the fruit which are the actions we do in this world with love, happiness and peace that is the proof. We don't have to project Christianity or our personal experience on others because everyone is also doing the Lord's work just being themselves. As Christians we need to commune with the Divinity Within so we can learn from others and stop preaching, projecting rules, judgements, damnations and our opinions. It is sad when we Christians talk more about sins than the spirit.

Rodge, Both ancient and modern philosophers have deduced that reality is a dynamic unity if you are comfortable with the word God think of it as that because words are symbols leading to a meaning beyond the word. If you rather not use the word God, Einstein expresses unity in his statement below. "The human being is part of the whole, called by us the ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." — Albert Einstein The word sacred has many meanings so if you have something that you hold sacred you can apply it. I feel is is capitalized to emphasize its importance the same as you posting in bold words that are important to you. Joseph Campbell uses the word sacred to describe what can't be expressed, "Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again."

I like the Eight-Fold Path to Beatific Living. A good slogan is "Spiritual Progress Social Change" or "Social Change Spiritual Progress."

Gunnar, Salutations to the Divinity within you. God and science go well together and they both help us discover who we really are. Fatherman started a good thread that harmonizes God and science very well also the link he put in one post is great. Nice to have you aboard and look forward to your ideas. http://tcpc.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/3641-the-god-user-interface/ Science of Happiness: Why Your Complaining is Literally Killing You

The link to the article "Science of Happiness: Why Your Complaining is Literally Killing You" is brilliant. It made my day to read and savor the science, which is exactly what religion should be about. Thanks fatherman I can't write because I am still savoring the moment.

fatherman you have played your hand well with the cards that have been dealt. I feel you are a deep thinker that has a lot to teach Christians still hiding in their illusions.I agree with you and also feel we are not just onlookers in a rite of passage that comes up in our lives, but active regulars, customers and suppliers of the memories and mental accounts in our journey. The unconsciousness is a large pool of information that is composed in patterns of memories stored away so we can draw upon them at a later date. This has a big impression on how we reason, what we believe and how we choose our reactions, but then again we have the component of free will in our activities. If we are aware and not just reacting to the unseen energies that are in and around us, we become aware of the mystery that is beyond the five senses and can tone down the reaction so not to be so affected by our past. Adjusting our perspective we become aware of new ways to deal with our secrets, bringing light to our unconsciousness so it is revealed and we don’t have to react to it. Our inner witness comes from a place of greater awareness with insights to healing and ways to avoid our heavy, slow energy; as a result, we are able to tune into the higher energies of the universe. Awareness and understanding are the ways out of our predicaments and the problems that we have gotten ourselves into, considering that we all have made mistakes, we need the capacity to learn and correct our miscalculations. I am impressed with your thoughts are feel you are heading in the right direction for your well being.

Thanks for the wonder and awe, the joy of living.

I agree we are lucky to have a body and mind to work with on the physical plane and I feel we can utilize their potential if we understand how they work. We are using Christian terminology, but there are many different ways to talk about our being human. I like the analogy that fatherman started so to continue with the computer analogy we can compare the three parts of the mind working together by comparing them to a computer. The keyboard and monitor are similar to the conscious mind because information is inserted with the keyboard and projected on the monitor. Therefore, knowledge detected by the senses in the environment internally and externally is instantly observed in the conscious mind. The subconscious mind is similar to RAM, the most common type of memory found in computers and other devices because it can be retrieved quickly. It collects and rapidly brings to mind names and memories that are recently stored or habits and the things we have to do every day. Our current feelings, worries and fears are also gathered here. Many times we are on autopilot and don't have to think to respond because the subconscious is automatic and instantaneous and carries out these familiar responses for us. Our subconscious mind is simply carrying out our programmed responses as life unfolds so the most vital activities of life are carried out automatically in the silent chambers of the subconscious mind. The hard drive or unconscious is more long term than the RAM or subconscious and contains all our remembrances and agendas of our whole life span. It accumulates all our life’s information from the environment that we are involved in to make certain we are safe. It might come from the unconscious, but the subconscious provides the intuitions or gut feelings we get in our conscious mind to help us in our survival. They don’t just dart in from a nonexistent place, but from our inner reality so we need to trust our inner nature because it doesn’t tell untruths. Intuition doesn’t have to be explained, validated or defended, but just followed as it guides us towards the truth, more often than not it is backed by events picked up by our subconscious and unconscious minds. Every person writes a different story through their thoughts, actions and connections from the external world, so this information stored in our unconscious makes a great impression on who we think we are and our potential. It provides us with intuitions, and understandings of ourselves and our relationship to the universe, but when we are not aware, we stumble and fall and do not even know that we have fallen so we need to make peace with who we are in mind and body to be happy with what we have. We are cultivated, encouraged and sustained by creation not to be good, but to be better so the universe is guiding us, not punishing us for sin because we do that to ourselves by separating ourselves from love. There is no punishment for being bad, but there are effects that are gently teaching us to be better, never putting us in a situation we can’t handle. The Creator and the universe don’t reward or punish, the process is called cause and effect where our actions have consequences. We are responsible for our spiritual growth or limiting ourselves to our mental programing because our consciousness is the only thing that veils or unveils reality. Just like we scan our computers for spyware and viruses we also need to remove harmful mental programing so we have more memory available to see and deal with the present moment. Opening the windows to the Holy Spirit or Cloud with science or other spiritual techniques can help us find truth through the things, actions and people in our universe. This approach using scientific principles makes religion scientific and not dogmatic because to know oneself and the force beyond the mind is at the heart of science and all religions. Science can help us because it is the study and investigation into the opposing energies of God’s creation clarifying our values about ourselves and the environment in which we live. Everything happens for a reason, there are no mistakes so understanding science gives us the tools to reverse negative thoughts, grow out of our past and experience the pure energy in the supernatural. It does not need words to communicate because it is not a religion. It is the experience of different energies that has the power to heal, obstruct, harm, help and bring joy, happiness or humiliation. Energy is the essence of life so if we spent more time loving others instead of fighting the devil, the world would be a better place and the devil would not exist. We need to take responsibility for our energy and love the present moment as it reveals the Absolute spreading energy and love beyond all boundaries. We are not at the mercy of Satan or some unknown mental programing or emotions because we have all the tools within to develop our energy to a higher frequency if we so desire. The first step is to sense our energy as well as the energy around us and to witness our mind and the thoughts and images they produce. The thoughts that we project outward are the vibrations that we attract inward into our beings, the devil is being created in the vision of those who conjure him up in their minds. There is only one energy, force or power we call God, and there is not a God for good and a God for evil as the leaders of the Inquisition made people believe. The force used in their persecutions and executions was an unconscious devil in the leaders’ minds and their own way of seeing things. In the infinite an infinite number of mistakes are made because that is how we discover wisdom, compassion and love, but we have to make them with awareness because that is how we learn. Difficulties are not unspiritual, but trans-formative as we make psychological adaptations and start to understand ourselves; consequently, they become the source of our spiritual development. We will naturally remove negative displays and programs from our system by observing and letting them pass, a cleaning for the simple reason to have more memory to enjoy the present moment that they obstruct. St Francis de Sales a mystic writer noted for his deep faith and gentle approach said, “Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” We are fortunate to have so many spiritual leaders reminding us that we are the witness observing the mind, the computer that helps us function on this plane. It is so easy to think we are the mind, its problems and solutions instead of sitting back and just being human and not reacting, but just observing through the soul.

"When I read about recent findings in quantum physics and astrophysics -- with all the things we don't know and all the things we can't understand (even when we spend billions of enormous particle accelerators) -- I have to shake my head and wonder why people are so darned scared of the idea of the soul. As far as I can tell, the soul is "built" from energy particles that have little or no measurable mass. Since most of the energy in the universe also has little or no measurable mass, I can't see what the big deal is." I share you feeling about the soul and Christians' and non Christians' fear of it. I feel many people talk about the soul without a solid experience with it because it is beyond the mind, but some people in the religious and non religious realms are having this experience and expressing it in diverse ways from science to spiritual bliss, but the majority will put it down as new age or blind faith. The mystics in Christian communities were always put down, but the way people treated them was their karma and how the mystics reacted was their karma given the fact that the stress caused by gossip did not kill them, only shows us that how react to gossip is our karma. The problem is gathering our strength together to quiet the mind, not denying the pain, but letting go of past hurts by forgiving others and our mistakes because we can’t start something new carrying yesterday’s baggage. It is a lot easier being a survivor rather than suffering as a victim because as pain manipulates our body, guilt manipulates our mind keeping us from the soul. This does not mean we need to accept things on blind faith because we don’t have to believe or not believe, but just be receptive to what is communicated as the experience arises and not afraid. Scientific spiritual knowledge is to be repeated in the laboratory of our own being and should not be followed unless the direct experience is replicated in the experiment. The mystic Ralph Waldo Emerson stated, “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” The spiritual energy of our soul is latent and unexpressed because the mind’s influence is so strong it blocks energy from the soul so we need to release the mental obstructions. A good path for intellectuals is to travel the path of knowledge to understand the mind and its relation to the universe. It is always better to go to the source for information to eat the fruit instead of the candy that is manufactured. The fruit at the source is free and it is always there even if we do not take it into account; for that reason, we just have to experience it to realize the value and validity it has in our lives. We can choose to appear on the physical plane and to ignore the soul, and when we have learned enough from the physical teacher called “Cause and Effect”, we will probably decide to deal with the large pool of negative energy stored in our unconscious mind. We are the cause of the sorrow in our life so when we are tired of the pain, we will work to transform our lives to accept the joy that we deserve. The universe, is gigantic, bigger than our mistakes, and it will make us better if we don’t let it make us bitter. Saint Augustine another mystic said, "This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections."

Realspiritik, It is so true what you said about the soul not being in favor in our society. The good thing is it gives us something to do making the spiritual journey adventurous and a little dangerous. The church tyrants give rules and punishment so we obey them and echo their words, but the soul amplifies the voice of God so we break the chains and dance with joy.

When I taught ESL at an at risk middle school, I had two Vietnam students who were brother and sister. The father was killed during the Vietnam War and because of his death the mother committed suicide. After the take over the two students told me they tried to escape on boats so filled with refugees the water was close to the rim. They told me how they had to hang over the boat to go to the bathroom and had nothing to drink or eat for days. They were caught twice, but the third time made it to a refugee camp run by people from Malaysia. It must have been tough the brother was a comedian so I think that was his coping mechanism while the sister was tough. When the Chinese or Mexican students were talking in their language she thought they were talking about her and wanted to fight. We had a multicultural fair and she tied a cord to a tennis ball which she draped from the ceiling and challenge anyone to be able to kick higher than her. No one could beat her. Even her cousin couldn't beat her and he won a fight just with his legs, he never used his hands. Ten years later I go to the public tennis courts with my friends and they were full, but Phong who was playing on one court tried to give me his court, his friends thought he was crazy. I could not accept. In Iran they have a custom when you go to someone's house and say, "I like your vase" by custom they say "I give it to you." It is amazing the filters we look through observing our diverse experiences in life. This April my wife and I are going to Korea, Cambodia and Vietnam for a month to taste some of that diversity. When I went through Afghanistan the Russians were in their occupation, but you would not know it because you never saw them in Kabul. They had a midnight curfew so no one was on the streets and that is when they did their maneuvers. Many people said, make sure you make it to Kabul before dark because the bandits ruled the night. The homes in the mountains had overhangs over the front gate where they could see who was there or shoot first. In Hong Kong I stayed at Chung King Mansion which was an inexpensive way to find lodging in a high rise. The Mujahideen stayed there when they went to negotiate weapons from the US. Osama Bin Laden was one of their heros and what our leaders called a freedom fighter, but was called a terrorist when those weapons were turned on the US. The Mujahideen became the Taliban. I had ESL students who in the US were friends from Pakistan and Northern India which are the Sikhs and they told me we are friends here, but if we go home we are enemies. The Sikhs and Pakistanis are enemies at the Northern border, the two countries are separated by a kilometer so when you leave one country you have to walk through the DMZ to get to the other one. Emotions and ignorance create wars, murders and death. When 9/11 happened Americans were killing Sikhs who are the enemy of Muslims, but Americans saw their turbans and thought they were Muslim. The emotions get stirred up by the ignorance spread by all the major religions so people are willing to kill, knowing it is wrong, but justified with god on their side. This world would so much better if religion was used to raise the consciousness of individuals instead of manipulating the masses.

Developing an analogy I would venture to say more than half of us Americans would say we never use cloud computing, but we do use it through banking, shopping, storing media and networking. The cloud is nebulous resembling a nebula, a cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases that is why our images and words about God are just metaphors for the real thing. The words cloud computing explain a host of different online based services just like God explains different dynamisms, strengths and weaknesses we can’t explain with words. “The heavens declare the glory of God.” (Psalm 19:1) We are a combination of forces held together like a nebula made in the image and likeness of God. These energies, powers, influences and intensities that hold us together can’t be seen, but they can be felt pushing and pulling us in a direction, we call evolution. Our scars demonstrate that we are free and more extensive than our problems, more resilient than our pain and that we go beyond our past to discover that everything is worked out even if we are not aware of it. Many people think the word cloud is weather related and that cloudy interferes with the sun shining upon us demonstrating that people in a cloud, disconnected from the truth or just pretending to know it will vocalize their nebulous definition as the truth. As a Christian I notice many priest, ministers and individuals preaching a truth they can’t grasp and are not aware that people don’t trust them because they don’t see Christ residing in them. Some may polarize energy and manipulate the masses with tension, fear and division, but that is their choice between the energy of love and the energy of fear. Freedom of choice means we have the free will to center in whatever energy we choose. We have the power to make our own choices to act on our preferences with the conditions presented to us. For example, I am given the energy to play the sax or go for a walk. We can’t blame God if I make horrible noises and bother my neighbors with the sax, it is my choice. God might have preferred for me to go for a walk because of the disturbance of my neighbors so they would be right to blame me and not God. It is logical that there are many situations and activities that God does not intend but he intends freedom so the energy is there. Our soul is freedom, being our self is freedom and happiness is freedom because God is the pure energy or consciousness that lights the room. We can forge checks or read the Bible the choice is up to us and we are responsible for the choice that we make. We make our own drama forming dark clouds if we choose so why do we get upset when it rains? “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” (Albert Einstein) “But the reality is that it is a network of computers with a front loader which routes our requests to the individual server which is freed up to handle it.” The Mystics are well versed in Christian inwardness as they dive continuously deeper and deeper into the terrain of the soul where the Divinity within is encountered. In the process of sorting out life they open up many resources such as energy, steadfastness and the guts to face life with all its warts and weaknesses. It takes a true disciple’s heart to face oneself directly and listen whole heartedly to the Divine intelligence of the soul. The highest point in the soul is similar to a mountain peak that has been hidden in the clouds, but when the sun melts the clouds away, the mountaintop receives the full light of the sun. Our focus on the present moment illuminates the mind with unity and the presence of a pure consciousness that gives rise to a mind that is capable of seeing a totally new dimension. On the mountain peak we can see a new horizon in the clear, upper, rarefied air of pure consciousness where our soul is the witness of everything inside and outside interconnected and working together. The Christian mystics through the centuries have explained this truth about the soul, but it is a shame that the church has ignored it; ridiculing, oppressing and excommunicating mystics because the church is connected to religion and not the soul. The soul knows how to sooth, heal and rock our experience, but the mind is too busy to know this so we need to quiet the mind and listen to our soul, immersing ourselves in its splendor. The living God is present now and not in the clouds for us to visit later because it is a state of being, an inner state of happiness. The universe is a never-ending medium of well-arranged relationships and interactions where we learn to love and develop into just being ourselves. We don’t have to wait to die to go to heaven because heaven is at this moment available to us in the same way as are all states of consciousness. The heaven within is timeless with endless possibilities and is always there; we only have to set it in motion starting at our level of reality by tuning into our stillness and stabilizing our vibrations The perfect happiness is being who we are in the present moment because we are already at the intensity of mindfulness that we are capable of undertaking and believing. We can’t buy the experience or entry to the Kingdom of Heaven and no one can give it to us because it comes naturally just being our self. When we take responsibility for our thoughts, our actions and become conscious that we are co-creating our life with God, we don’t have to make things good because when we are conscious of the moment good things happen automatically.

I think it was Notting Hill Gate where I saw a thousand Buddhas.

Derek thanks for the story. It was buddha-ful you making contact with so many Buddhas. A long time ago in the late sixties or early seventies my most prized possession was an over coat I bought at a thrift store can't remember the subway stop, but there were so many different, independent creative shops offering their blessings. It was the overcoat the people wore who went around the neighborhood warning people to turn off their lights in London because the Germans were flying over with bombs. I finally gave it up in India. Thanks for the memory that brought me the energy and experience of a young idealistic wanderer.

Faterman, I like your picture centered in nature, you being natural so nature is centered in you. This is a great thread that can only be termed crap if you are referring to it fertilizing the vast insights people have graciously volunteered. I like your analogy of our mind being the computer, the applications being our beliefs that allow us to perform specific tasks. It seems once we open an application, it runs inside the operating system of our mind until we close it or upgrade it. The symbolic apps of religion work if our ego-centric consciousness is directed from the external contemplation of God as a separate object to the interior of our being where we become conscious that we are inside God. The app I like and am getting use to is the one that lives in the cloud not installed in my mind so I don't have to install anything the soul came with my being. The cloud of pure consciousness in which we are involved is composed of energy, frequency, vibration, light and color, consequently our soul is a rainbow of colors in God’s ocean. From the soul’s perspective it is not words that communicate, but the vibrations behind them that are felt and if the frequency is sympathetic the souls dance making available the feelings of peace and harmony. In our soul I feel we can find all the secrets of the universe, the vibrations in God’s cloud of pure consciousness because the soul strives to understand the multitude of vibrations while our ego consciousness uses words to be understood. It is our choice to identify with the awesome reality deep within or with our mind that creates short-lived realities as it submerges sorrows below the surface. We all have different operating systems put together at different locations with different histories and experiences so we can help each other, but we can't tell someone the way to the cloud and beyond, only relate our experience. Thanks for starting this topic............

Tanakh, I look forward to reading your post and comments. Thanks for an interesting introduction.

I remember Filmjölk a milk very tasty and good for you, 2 hours only of sunlight in winter and 2 hours only of darkness in spring. In winter we had to go out of the house through the roof because of the snow, but in spring the streams and flowers changing every week was fantastic. The people were gracious and the machinery and cars were all up to date. I think the Norwegian countries are called the Japan of Europe because of their high standard of living.

"When I say tree, I might be pointing to concept or perhaps an individual tree. Regardless that tree is made up of a huge number of atoms and that tree is doing all sorts of things. It is bringing in carbon dioxide through its leaves, nutrients and water through its roots. It is photosynthesizing light, carbon dioxide and water in to sugar. Which in turn gets converted in to a variety of products which are used for growth and replication. The tree is fighting off parasites and infection. In the roots there is a huge symbiotic community that help take part in helping the tree do its thing. There is not single "tree bit" within the tree. We treat trees as a noun, Whereas in reality they are a collective verb. They are a bit of the universe unfolding in unison." I really enjoyed this explanation of duality in unity. Romansh, Thank you for the gem.

Jack of Spades, Salutations to the Divinity within you that is shining light on your journey. Are you a one eyed Jack or two? You are blessed even if you have 3 eyes and especially for living in Finland. I spent almost a year in Sweden and loved the people from Finland, Norway and Sweden, who have a very sincere, deep presence. We truly know others by their behavior and actions and not so much by their belief because for some it is easier to fight for what they believe in than to live up to it, in contrast, Christian mysticism lives the truth instead of claiming and declaring it. Thomas Merton a Christian Mystic said the same thing in another way, “To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, it is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.” I enjoy your post and hope to read more.

Thank you may you continue to enjoy Christmas and its light as it shines to other through your works.

I agree with Joseph and Fatherman that The Kingdom of Heaven is not just in the sky, but always present so when a person discovers the Divinity within they start to see God in everyone and everything else in the kingdom. It is not only with the cruder forms of life that we are linked, as human beings, we are moving together with other spiritual beings in a long continuous ascent that is not in ourselves a finality. Where animal life consummates humanity starts, and when humanity concludes divinity starts where it is activated in our self-assurance to detach us from earth and elevate us to the higher realms of life. This can be found in Christ's words, "My kingdom is not of this world", also in the phrase, "Keep your treasure where no man can take it." Above and beyond our basic drives lies our inner psychic reality manifesting a living world that artist can only try to express in their creative endeavors. These spiritual experiences represent the mystical experience that is beyond the mind body experience and merges all our hopes and dreams in one final climax. This is a transformational consciousness where change takes place at the center of our being is hard to describe so we Christians use the symbol of the pearly gates of heaven. There is an ancient proverb that says, “To everyone is given the key to heaven; the same key opens the gates to hell.” Definition: Repentance means a sincere turning away, in both the mind and heart, from self to God.

Realspiritk, Thank you. You gave us history, science, philosophy and religion spun in a great narrative that speaks volumes. You should get a volume of your writings like this and get them published. Thanks again.

Greeting follow-just-j It is exciting to see you discovering and exploring Christ, yourself and the teaching of your church in a new light. I hope we help and you share your knowledge with us.