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Random Spiritual Thoughts


JosephM

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On ocassions there are times when we are at peace in a place that goes beyond the physical and defies description. In that place thoughts seem to manifest from the unseen that are not not owned yet are so personal that we are moved to write them down that we may in wonder regard them again. Such is the thoughts I have recorded or learned of which any or all points are open for dialogue for your personal interest, enjoyment or discussion or sharing of your own similiar thoughts.

 

THOUGHTS

 

By JosephM

 

 

For the most part, thoughts come and go without conscious volition.

 

They are impersonal. ‘You’ can’t stop them. Try and see.

 

They come to awareness but are not a product of that awareness.

 

Thoughts are content.

 

They are processed with the mind and are given context.

 

They take on languaging such as nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs based on prior conditioning as if there is a separate ‘I’ that is the author or thinker of them.

 

This languaging often does not agree with other observers even when they arise of the same subject matter.

 

They are most often not organized and are recognized a rehashing of bits and pieces of the past, fantasies of the future, fragments of music, literature, plans, fears, hopes and general chatter.

 

With effort they can be directed and focused to stay on a particular subject matter for a short time.

 

When watched, they come and go harmlessly.

 

When conscious attention is not paid they become unconscious and awareness seems to be lost in them. They then create emotions and a circle of re-enforcing thoughts that lead to unconscious actions.

 

A man who watches his thoughts can become master to his body and actions.

 

A man who is unconscious is a slave to both.

 

Understanding and comprehension seems to change the general field of thoughts presented to our awareness.

 

Thoughts over time appear to be in an evolutionary process. They seem to be headed toward or away from peace.

 

 

 

The following understandings seem to be a good starting point and more receptive to peaceful thoughts and clearer reception to the innate knowledge that is ‘within’ all humans. Self inquiry into them seems to further increase understanding and comprehensions from that source.

 

· Belief systems are at best partial or limited views of truth and best surrendered completely or taken lightly.

 

· We are all naive and frail creatures in a world we do not fully understand nor seem to know why we are here.

 

· We all have built in limitations of mind and imperfect programming.

 

· Our experiences are diverse and color our reality so that agreements on matters are often made difficult.

 

· All views and opinions are founded in vanity.

 

· Positions separate us from solutions and each other.

 

· Un-forgiveness and guilt are associated and have no useful function in the mind of one on a spiritual path.

 

· Our positions are undermined by belief in the polarity of opposites. They are really make-believe views of a degree of polarity that has no opposite except to the mind. ie: Hot and cold, hot exists, cold does not. There are degrees of heat that you can move to increase or reduce heat but cold cannot be removed because it doesn’t exist except as a definitive term to indicate the absence of heat. An incorrect view of opposites creates positions which creates judgments and measures and views that are colored, relative and subjective but not realized as such because of belief in the opposites as a reality ie: good and bad, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, deserving and undeserving, love and hate, light and dark, etc. Viewing things as choices and consequences, different perspectives, what is and what is not, that which is life supporting and that which is life threatening would be a more compatible view for finding peace and answers.

 

· Resistance or denial to ‘what is’ is attachment and a cause of much suffering.

 

· Desires, wanting more or less or different at one level of consciousness is a positive motivating factor to progress. At higher levels it can be a cause of unhappiness and suffering.

 

· Pain in this life is real, but suffering is make-believe. This is true except to one who remains ignorant of the devices of the mind.

 

· Neither the past nor the future exists. There is only always now. If you wish to learn from the past to make plans for the future that will someday be ‘now’, do it in the now.

 

· God has no name because God is beyond language. Neither is God comprehendible with the mind which cannot see past itself. Nor does there seem to exist a current concept of God that is both all inclusive and can be fully understood with the mind.

 

· God’s knowledge is devoid of religion and teachings are but signposts. At best religions say what God is not.

 

It is the understanding in this mind that evolution is the continuous unfolding of creation. They are one and the same. Everything in the concept of time eventually returns to its source. Existence is certain whether in or out of form. That which is real is not apparent and perhaps life here should be lived in the moment and taken less seriously and acknowledged for the melodrama it is.

 

There are those who are here to make war and are fighters. There are those who will kill and those to be killed. There are farmers who live to make food. There are politicians who make politics and financiers who make money. There are those who live off their labor and those who live off of others. There are those who are hungry and those who are full. There are those who play games and those who are serious. There are those who save the trees and earth; there are those who save the animals. There are those that take and those who give. There are those who speak and those who are silent. There are leaders and flocks; there are priests and the sage. Each according to his appointment it seems. A most wonderful dance is seen of the universe, with nary a dust speck out of place.

 

What more can I say of these things seen; who source is not readily apparent. Existence itself will speak of the truth as I sit dumbfounded in awe.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest wayfarer2k
· Belief systems are at best partial or limited views of truth and best surrendered completely or taken lightly.

 

Good thoughts, Joseph. Gave me stuff to think about. So...to keep the conversation going, I'll share a few of mine with you.

 

I agree that belief systems are, at best, partial or limited views of truth. Although I consider myself to be progressive, I don't believe there is no truth. I believe there is Truth (ultimate reality) that does exist but that our perceptions of it should always be, as you say, taken lightly.

 

In Christianese, I would say that God exists and knows what he knows about himself (if he is conscious). But none of us know him like he knows himself and if we claim to, then we have made an idol of our limited knowledge.

 

I've had a number of instances in my life that are like that. And, as you say, have reached the point where I have to "surrender completely" those idols that I have made of God. It is not easy to do, especially in Christianity where the "sacraments" have become, not rosaries, wine, and bread, but belief systems, doctrines, and creeds.

 

I like what Spong says about this. When it comes to God, we are like horses trying to describe humans. There is no doubt that horses experience humans and understand humans in "horse perceptions". But horses don't know humans like we know humans. And for a horse to think that it completely understands humanity is folly.

 

This doesn't imply a completely dichotomy, just the limitations of what we "know". Christians far to often claim to "know" God when what they have is an experience of something of God. It is when they try to impose upon others what they claim to "know" absolutely that relationships break down.

 

I believe that God holds onto me tightly. But I remind myself often to hold to my beliefs lightly.

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Greetings Wayfarer2k,

 

It seems to me your points are valid and I had not heard that Spong quote before. Excellent analogy.

 

And yes there is Truth and it is not found in a book or in words and though it is unreachable with the thinking mind, it is known in the Spirit. For the Spirit knows the deep things of God and reveals them to our spirit so that which is unknowable by the knowledge and wisdom of this world is knowable by Spirit.

 

Best Wishes and much Love on your journey even though the final destination is here now.

 

love in Christ,

Joseph

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Guest wayfarer2k
Best Wishes and much Love on your journey even though the final destination is here now.

 

Thanks for the wishes. To you, too.

 

My next comment:

 

· We are all naive and frail creatures in a world we do not fully understand nor seem to know why we are here.

 

That is a mouthful, isn't it? And the reality. Living in such a world, while seeming wondrous and mysterious, can also lead us to fear and paranoia, search for security.

 

A bit of my own testimony. When I accept Jesus in 1972, I responded, to a large extent, to a gospel message that Jesus was a divine rescuer, someone who could not only protect me from eternal punishment, but protect me here and now from all the things that my young mind could imagine would happen to me. For better or worse, Jesus was packaged as someone who had "a wonderful plan for my life" that implied (at least at the age of 12) that nothing bad would happen to me in the big, wide, scary world if I only placed my faith and trust in him.

 

Needless to say, 36 years later, I know better. I am still a frail creature in a world that I often don't understand, despite Christianity's claim to give me all the answers. ;)

 

What I think I am coming to understand (in the beginning of my old age) is that my faith in God is not about security. Jesus didn't come to offer us security. He came to give us life. And life is almost always messy, risky, potentially harmful, thrilling, without safety nets.

 

The closest I can get to knowing why I am here is to learn to love God and to love others. Easy to say. Hard to do. Of course, there are a myriad ways to do that, but there is no blueprint that I am working from.

 

And maybe that is the essence of true faith in God -- trusting him when I know how naive, frail, and clueless I am. Trusting that, in spite of all that, I still can "live, move, and have my being" in him and share him with others as the opportunity arises. But I no longer present him as a security system or a divine planner who has one particular goal for our lives that we will either unerringly hit or forever miss. Following God is dangerous. But it is life. Who would want to miss that?

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  • 3 weeks later...
Thanks for the wishes. To you, too.

 

(snip)

 

What I think I am coming to understand (in the beginning of my old age) is that my faith in God is not about security. Jesus didn't come to offer us security. He came to give us life. And life is almost always messy, risky, potentially harmful, thrilling, without safety nets.

 

The closest I can get to knowing why I am here is to learn to love God and to love others. Easy to say. Hard to do. Of course, there are a myriad ways to do that, but there is no blueprint that I am working from.

 

And maybe that is the essence of true faith in God -- trusting him when I know how naive, frail, and clueless I am. Trusting that, in spite of all that, I still can "live, move, and have my being" in him and share him with others as the opportunity arises. But I no longer present him as a security system or a divine planner who has one particular goal for our lives that we will either unerringly hit or forever miss. Following God is dangerous. But it is life. Who would want to miss that?

 

Bill,

 

Sorry I didn't catch this post til today....

 

Yes, it seems to me that Jesus didn't come to offer us security but rather to testify of Life that we already had but had forgotten. That life is not the same as the life you refer to as messy and risky and harmful. That is more of our life situation which is temporal and impermanent and has little to do with the Life he spoke of.

 

The warfare of the Christian is in his mind and not the flesh. It seems to me it is the mind that makes life frail, heavy, messy, fearful and harmful. To become as a little child is to renew (erase the conditioned mind) the mind. It is the carnal minds proclivity to past and future that make the problems and conflicts we seem to have. It seems to me that when the mind is stripped of time, we enter the Life of the spirit where all things are already known. Here intellect takes a back seat and we enter the kingdom of God which is here in this very moment of always. Perhaps, in this place I speak of you will find you are not so frail and naive as as our life situation suggests and I have previously written.

 

There is of course no real danger in following God. After all, you are already and have always been in God's hand so to speak even when you were not aware of it. Were you not?

 

Love in Christ,

Joseph

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There is of course no real danger in following God. After all, you are already and have always been in God's hand so to speak even when you were not aware of it. Were you not?

 

An very Islamic statement. I enjoyed you 'thoughts'.

 

I could not help but think of Ecclesiastes as I was reading your post.

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Beautiful thoughts, I love this thread.

 

The soul is not removed from us nor is it beyond us because we are the soul. It is within us, behind our minds and behind everything that we do, it just has to be recognized. The soul is true knowledge and one will know this without a doubt when the love and splendor of the Father grows within. The soul is not identified with any of the five layers of the mind because it cannot be misused or terminated. It is eternal; therefore, the body is also not the soul for it is exposed to sickness and death. It usually takes prolong suffering in the experience of life to burn away the enormous attachment to the body, the layers of the mind and the telepathic elements concealing it. One or many profound inner experiences of the soul occur at least once in our lifetime in order to inspirer us to discover it. This unique phenomenon is the purpose of our life, which consists of many efforts to discover and keep in tune with the soul. It then becomes an inner partner to whom our attention can be continually directed.

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Guest wayfarer2k
There is of course no real danger in following God. After all, you are already and have always been in God's hand so to speak even when you were not aware of it. Were you not?

 

I'm not sure I understand this, Joseph. What about the twelfth chapter of Hebrews? What about for the Old Testament prophets or for Jesus or for the apostle Paul? I'm probably obtuse, but it seems to me that all these people suffered danger and died following God. And, as far as I can tell, there is no real promise of an afterlife. Paul told Timothy that God alone is immortal. So how do you understand "no real danger"?

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  • 4 weeks later...
I'm not sure I understand this, Joseph. What about the twelfth chapter of Hebrews? What about for the Old Testament prophets or for Jesus or for the apostle Paul? I'm probably obtuse, but it seems to me that all these people suffered danger and died following God. And, as far as I can tell, there is no real promise of an afterlife. Paul told Timothy that God alone is immortal. So how do you understand "no real danger"?

Sorry I missed this question from a month ago...

 

Yes, The Bible says a lot of things that appear contradictory. Obviously, they can't all be true. Yet, How can one such as Paul feel in danger? He willingly gave up his physical life. he was warned in dreams and could have avoided it if he wanted according to the NT.

 

If there is no safety in God then you tell me....whom can you trust? Reason for yourself. Are you in good hands with God or not? What is the alternative?

 

Aren't we all going to die? (speaking physically) so whats the big deal? Will one resist the inevitable? There is no danger in death. It is a most natural phenomena.

 

As far as the afterlife, biblically speaking, if you have been given eternal life then is eternal not forever? The afterlife is a favorite question of many but speaking about it and words won't get one any closer to understanding it. As I have said in another post, when one finds ones true nature, who they are in Christ the question and answer become mute. If all knowledge is hid in Christ then it is available now. How?

As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

Psalms 17:15 (KJV)

 

When one 'awakes' with God's likeness. AS it was written "Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead" and Christ shall give thee life. This was not written for the benefit of those who have physically died. It is a metaphor for the living. It seems to me that you are already in the process of awakening or you wouldn't even be reading this.

 

Just something for you to consider concerning your question.

Joseph

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