JosephM

You ask the ultimate question that most all seekers have asked. "Why is there anything" and "What is the purpose or meaning of Life?" In Buddhism, ultimately there is no purpose, your life is not a purpose, rather it is a result of a previous cause. If you were to ask me , i would say the question is flawed because while you can choose to give life whatever purpose or meaning you want (to find happiness, peace, to love others, to attain something, etc. etc.), Life itself is in reality its own purpose. The question then remains basically unanswerable. The "Why is there anything question" you as a human cannot know because the physical you is part of creation/the world and impermanent by nature so it falls into the category of here today, gone tomorrow, with no discernable purpose and perhaps may be better categorized in human terms (for lack of a better word) as amusement. On love and loving act as relates to God, define love in detail. Without full understanding i don't believe you can define it as a particular act. Of course that was already addressed in the thread ........

Thomas, I agree Buddhism as i described is a hard pill to swallow. Just as there are many Christian sects you will find differing Buddhists beliefs but what i quoted was based on the oldest recorded known document. (The Pali Canon) About the doesn't matter bit i quoted. That was your quote.. I was just agreeing with my perception of your statement in that one is free to stay in the cycle of delusion or to awake. It's up to the individual to decide to break the cycle . If one is content to live in the cycle of samsara, one will continue. There is no requirement to awaken though i believe as in Christianity "in the fullness of times all will be gathered together in Christ" or in Buddhism "awaken" or attain enlightenment. You say "Also, how can it be the choice of a human being?" Well in Buddhism what continues the cycle is ones attachment to the world or the things in the world. If one chooses to still cling to these things , one is reborn to them until one has had enough. In Christianity it says "be ye not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" And again " For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of God". It is also recorded "All is vanity" It seems to me, in a sense, that both Christianity and Buddhism look for the new creature to awake and renounce the world and the things of the world. Just some thoughts.

Hi thomas, Yes, it seems to me also that "it doesn't matter if some reach enlightenment and others remain delusional". Under Buddhism you will find in general that there is no purpose or point to human life other than just to be. The One has no needs or desires so there is no self-centered action on the part of the One. You are here by choice and experiencing the pleasure and pain and impermanence of it all til you see it and the meaningless of it and decide to come to closure. Until then, one is destined to experience both pleasure and pain and be stuck in the wheel of Samsara as most Buddhists will say. There is no requirement for one to believe or seek to end the cycle. However, it may become a goal to do so when one has suffered enough and seen the pointlessness of it enough to make the decision to awake from it.. So says some of the teachings of Buddhism. 🙂

Thomas, All that is temporal or non-permanent shall pass in the concept of time. Physical life is like a vapor (James 4:14) that appears for a while and then vanishes away. It's not all that dissimilar to a dream. In essence, yesterday i was born, tomorrow i will die. Once pain and even death is truly accepted and seen for what it is it is overcome. The record shows Jesus and Paul willingly accepted both pain and death. Sure there was pain but it is not necessarily suffering when there is total acceptance and no clinging to physical life. (at least in Buddhism) Short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people are considered fiction. Your life is a short story. It is made up of events and people that are impermanent (that change and pass away).In that sense it is fiction (not absolute reality), a state of delusion as we live our life clinging to it and its possessions as if it were permanent. Not unlike a "bad" dream that you will wake up from. Also not a cruel joke as it seems to me, you are a willing participant. You just don't remember at this time.

This seems to me well said!

1 There is no point per se. At night you dream and upon awakening do you think or consider the dream a cruel joke? In Buddhism suffering is caused by attachment and clinging or in other words our tight grip of our grasping at self. Suffering in Buddhism is broader than physical pain, it is some level of "unease" which may be translated into any of these english words... unsettledness, irritation, impatience, annoyance, frustration, disappointment, dissatisfaction, aggravation, tension, stress, anxiety, vexation, pain, desperation, sorrow, sadness, suffering, misery, agony, anguish, and so on etc. 2 "until each decides to come to closure through self-enlightenment and self-awakening" , however long that takes in the concept of time or lives. An analogy in Christian thinking would be .... In Christianity, the Christian life is an ongoing process of "dying to self" . The concept is found throughout the New Testament. Its part of being born again (awakening) . Paul explains to the Galatians the process of dying to self as one in which he has been “crucified with Christ,” and now Paul no longer lives, but Christ lives in him. That is the end to suffering and self enlightenment for the Christian. Christ is that which itself is All in All and alone is and has always been. The self that in Christianity dies is the make believe fiction Buddhism spoke of. Hence "no self" or "non self" or as Wiki relates ... in Buddhism, the term anattā (Pali) or anātman (Sanskrit) refers to the doctrine of "non-self", that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence in living beings. In Christianity ... And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. That's the end of suffering for the Christian and its all about dying (not necessarily physical) and awakening to Christ (not a man). But there is no real death/dying cause its like a dream from which you will awake, howbeit , a most persistent dream.

That seems a pretty accurate statement to me.

If you use the Pali Canon as a reference i think you will find the essence of the Buddhas teaching to say .. Essence Buddha's Teachings a short explicit explanation of Buddha's discourses based on the Pali Canon recognized by Buddhist scholars as the oldest record of what the Buddha actually taught Absolute changeless permanent reality, the unconditioned, itself alone is, all else has always been, is, and always will be just a state of make-believe fiction, a state of delusion worn like a costume with multiple fabricated viewpoints, with each self-sustaining itself in a self-perpetuated state of self-ignorance, until each decides to come to closure through self-enlightenment and self-awakening

I also believe ( from reading the gospels) that imagery was never meant to be understood literally in the first place. I think it is evident in the frequent use of parables and also Jesus's claim that his words were not his own and that his words were spirit and truth. That which is flesh is flesh and that which is spirit is spirit and as Paul later attests to in his 1st letter to the Corinthians when he says in effect .... that the natural man cannot understand because the words must be spiritually discerned.

It seems to me that although God is beyond the senses or "more" , at times a conscious connection is made that indeed triggers sense perceptions or feelings that resemble words or phrases such as 'perfect peace', a feeling of 'at homeness', a 'mental image or knowingness' that sometimes takes the form of words in our mind using our own limited vocabulary, a sense of 'non-locality', a feeling of 'love', 'joy' , etc. Perhaps it could even be described as an "aha" moment as you say or "something more". Yet in my experience, the senses are definitely involved in that connection. Joseph

Thormas, What makes you believe that "God provides information to select individuals of his choosing" ? In my view, i do not see God as a respecter of persons. All of creation seems to me to be acceptable to that which creates and sustains it. The potential is in and through All. If in God you have your 'being' and God is in and through all things, and you are aware of such.... then in that sense, one could say as Jesus is recorded saying ... "I and my Father are one." It seems to me, the part of you that is created will surely perish along with your unique story and the rest of the earth in the concept we refer to as time. Only that which is not created is eternal and remains. There are a multitude of stories but in my view of reality there is only God. Joseph is destined to die as his life is an illusion of the thinking mind. In my view, and in many religions including Christianity, we come as embodied beings who have a life story and mental activity as you say, but not to live as thus but to die to that self that we may again live in God as One. Otherwise, Why are we embodied in nature? you ask. In my experience, find your deeper Self and the question will disappear.

The experience , however, information is known in the experience and one can oscillate between the shift in consciousness/identity from ones being in God (ones deeper self) to ones conditioned sense of self (who you think you are from your life story and mental activity) so that information can be verbalized limited by the extent of ones conditioning and vocabulary. At least that is my experience in words.

You can withhold payment but what is " a legitimate right to be a bit upset " You can be upset or not. It's your choice. If he is ill informed or not that is his problem. You can be upset or laugh at the experience and calmly find an alternative to your destination. Why legitimize your being upset? Upset is a cloud i mentioned in my last post. Getting hung up in the dichotomy of right and wrong, in my view, is also a cloud . Of course , you have that right but in my view, it is not expedient to revelations if they interest you. 🙂 So, you are not in agreement. on this topic of Warsaw .... nothing wrong with that. 🙂 Perhaps you gleamed something else from the discussion

My understanding of revelation is ... the divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence or the world. Privileged information only in the sense that not all are aware of their connection to experience such though the experience is available and present to all. Most religions speak of it. It seems to require a "stillness" that excludes thinking, labeling or judgement of any kind. Some use meditation techniques, some use physical techniques, for some it just seems spontaneous when conditions are right. Personally for me it has been spontaneous triggered by conditions of imminent danger where extreme calmness presented itself, or during times of consciously watching my mental activity and sensing a shift in consciousness where i am just a witness of that activity, or during moments of extreme concentration on an object or person without labeling or judging, In most cases there has been a strong or burning desire in my heart to connect to that which is my source of my being (God). I do not see intelligence as a requirement and it seems to me it is often a deterrent. Nothing 'special status' about it. The words in revelations , in my experience, only point, they don't have revelations in themselves. The revealing may be triggered by them but it is like seeing for the first time what you already knew or in other words remembering what you already know but weren't aware of because of clouds that were obscuring your vision. (clouds being things like anger, hate, unforgiveness, obsessive thinking, judgement , etc.) For me, unforgiveness, measuring and judging were the greatest obstacles to removing many of the clouds. The teachings of Jesus speak volumes concerning this.

Even the definition of fact is a fact only because there is agreement by English speakers on how to use the term. Nothing is beyond dispute. If you deny this it doesn't make you "in the wrong" it only makes you disagreeable or more respectfully said "not in agreement" or "not recognizing it as such". 🙂😄 It seems to me , it is easier to understand what something is not rather than what it really is.

Rom, I agree that it "does not seem to fit the God is Love bill" but perhaps your view of Love , God, and cause and effect ie...and cancers and starvation etc are incomplete and can only be 'understood/known/seen' through revelation that is presently beyond description in words? It might be similar to trying to describe the taste of sugar to a person without a sense of taste or smell or even a sunset to a blind person. It seems to me, in my experience, it requires a non-duality experience to begin to grasp.

Thormas, But agreement or disagreement does change the fact as defined (copious evidence) on such matters. The US recognizes Jerusalem as the capital but the United Nations does not. So which is the capital, Jerusalem or tel Aviv? It seems to me agreement has more to do with what one would consider fact than most might suppose.

That is what you were taught or read and it is considered true or fact but in essence is only an accepted opinion/belief by the people. It may be copious evidence accepted by an abundance of people or writings as the capital but that may be temporary as was Krakow, Poland prior to 1596. ie. What is now the capital of Israel? Is it Tel Aviv or Jerusalem? The world is flat, no the world is round, no the world is oval, no the world is an illusion ... etc. Copious evidence / abundant belief ? 😊 Now on God is Love. You can read it and you can hear it expounded by Christian teachers and preachers and admittedly that doesn't make it so but it might be considered a Christian accepted fact by Christians or those who strictly believe what is taught and written in the Bible. In my personal experience, one can experience God personally and reason a biblical understanding of Love and equate one with the other. To those that 3rd opinion might be considered true and those lacking that awareness or experience cannot disprove it as it is based on personal experience and reasoned logic of the definition of Love in the Biblical sense. Therefor there is nothing to argue about except maybe definitions. What do we really know? Is knowing merely accepted belief/opinion at the time?

That goes without saying. Don't we all have that right ? Even you?

On the deep side of the unscientific ...... One could say emotions arise from the conditioned human and associated chemical reactions. Love/God arises from the unconditioned awareness of being in which is hid all knowledge and wisdom. In my experience, we, as the conditioned human often confuse love with emotion, admiration, passion, desire, needing, lust or a feeling founded in the limitations of conditioned knowledge. On the other hand Love is not limited by the boundaries of time or conditioned knowledge. It is innate, forever present and the very substrate that allows or sustains the created conditioned human to appear to be. My 2 cents, Joseph

If God is not Love then i would agree love is an emotion. To me , believing God is Love is neither an attractive or unattractive option. It is merely my experience that it is so and can be experienced even though it is near impossible to prove nor state as a concept, a concept which the thinking mind finds it near impossible to grasp. Connectiveness and awareness of the relationship as One of all things is to experience Love/God but it is not an emotion although a chemical reaction most consider an emotion may or may not be present at that time. It's a view, as i said not provable. It' may appear as a circular argument to you but there is no argument to me as i am just expressing my view of the opening post , reading others, and sometimes responding to clarify on a forum that discusses such matters of a spiritual nature. Not at all looking for an argument circular or not. 😊.

Well, in my view, in a spiritual sense , if God is Love, then Love is not an emotion but rather a state of being. This state of being includes an awareness of our connectiveness and actions or inaction's that flow from knowledge hidden within that state. And yes it is difficult to understand mentally or put in words.

I guess i am trying to say that Love is accompanied by unconditional acceptance of the 'other'. Love is not the action itself but rather the action or inaction is a product of Love that flows from that acceptance and awareness of the connection. In similar words, Love to me is not a thought process nor is it the action taken itself. Therefor, It is unpredictable to the mind. That is the best i can do at present in words. I understand, this is not the way most would define Love but this is what i have come to see as Love.

It seems to me that we do not know the action to be taken in advance and any action in itself cannot be construed in itself as Love. Therefore it is in a sense unpredictable (the action) in advance of the awareness that initiated its flow. Perhaps one could say it is more "instinctual" than thought out but that would not be my assessment as it is not a fixed pattern as instinct implies. In my experience, one time Love may call for a particular action and in another seemingly similar situation inaction or a different action.

To me, Love is a non-judgmental acceptance of the other. It is not an emotion or particular action in itself but rather an awareness of the connectiveness and interrelationship of all things. It seems to me, any actions that take place in Love flow from the expression of the that awareness and for the most part are unpredictable to the thinking mind in advance.