Asking God some questions

22

If you want to become whole,
let yourself be partial.
If you want to become straight,
let yourself be crooked.
If you want to become full,
let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn,
let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything,
give everything up.

The Master, by residing in the Tao,
sets an example for all beings.
Because he doesn't display himself,
people can see his light.
Because he has nothing to prove,
people can trust his words.
Because he doesn't know who he is,
people recognize themselves in him.
Because he has no goal in mind,
everything he does succeeds.

When the ancient Masters said,
"If you want to be given everything,
give everything up,"
they weren't using empty phrases.
Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself.

Tao Te Ching

Yes, LTK, that is precisely what is happening, but not for Entertainment -- for evolution. That is how it works.

If one takes a thorough look at not only literature, but recorded history over the past 40 000 years (well, only 5000 or so here), one finds struggles - and some really fierce ones. Most of those are rather inconceivable to experience for us. We have the war, famine, poverty - global warming, multi-national corporations and financial chaos - in our paragraph of it. But still, when we have surmounted those difficulties, our progeny will struggle all the same with theirs.

And the story will continue. And as Proteus has reminded us, we shall continue to tell stories of that story ...

And I'm with you there. I understand (as far as I can) that evolution.

The whole topic was started because of an image about a god that cares about the world enough to do something about the problems.

I think yours and Proteus' posts (while appreciated and profound even) are taking us in a different direction. A more Jedi way of looking at things. (Which I subscribe to.)

A personal god that's supposed to be like a father is what I'm against believing in due to the lack of attention he gives the world.

The history that you speak of, to me, is logically following the evolutionary path an intelligent species might follow that had no god to direct or lead them (or steer them from terrible parts).

This is what is.

Brenna wrote:

Learn_To_Know wrote: If he does as much as they claim he does, why are the big problems avoided so neatly by him?

Because hes busy running the entire universe? of which we are a very very small part? Maybe they arent big problems when youre looking at things on a grander scale...

I don't know. My problems, truly, are inconsequential.

Famine for millions, poverty for more millions...if those are small to god, I don't know why people continue to call him god.

Maybe he/she needs a new name, like creator. God, for the most part to me, denotes benevolence. But I don't see that benevolence for those that can't help themselves. I see indifference from god.

But alas...

Rorschach: You see, Doctor, God didn't kill that little girl. Fate didn't butcher her and destiny didn't feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn't seem to mind. From then on I knew... God doesn't make the world this way. We do.

Someone here posted this quote on the wall a short bit ago, but I thought it was appropriate for this topic.

Learn_To_Know wrote:

Brenna wrote:

Learn_To_Know wrote: If he does as much as they claim he does, why are the big problems avoided so neatly by him?

Because hes busy running the entire universe? of which we are a very very small part? Maybe they arent big problems when youre looking at things on a grander scale...

I don't know. My problems, truly, are inconsequential.

Famine for millions, poverty for more millions...if those are small to god, I don't know why people continue to call him god.

Maybe he/she needs a new name, like creator. God, for the most part to me, denotes benevolence. But I don't see that benevolence for those that can't help themselves. I see indifference from god.

But alas...

Let's see if we can get a view of this famine and poverty for millions closer to this god's perspective...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw#at=225

It isn't gods job. That's really all there is to it. "It" gave us all we needed - each other.

From the day we were born we've relied on other human beings for absolutely everything. Without each other, we would not have survived to be having this conversation. We didn't know how to pray - to ask for help - to blame someone when we were hurt or got hungry. We just relied on others. Completely. As infants - we cried - as children we used the language we hardly understood to point, grunt, or somehow ask other people for what we wanted or needed. It seems the "smarter" we get - the more we "understand" the more we move away from knowing that simple fact - we need each other. We depend on each other. We have since the day we were born and we will until the day we die. There hasn't ever and will never be a time when we aren't somehow dependent upon another person - by choice or not.

We've forgotten it. We haven't stopped needing each other, we've just forgotten it. We don't want to believe it for whatever reason. Therein lies one of the biggest problems.

Reliah wrote: It isn't gods job. That's really all there is to it. "It" gave us all we needed - each other.

From the day we were born we've relied on other human beings for absolutely everything. Without each other, we would not have survived to be having this conversation. We didn't know how to pray - to ask for help - to blame someone when we were hurt or got hungry. We just relied on others. Completely. As infants - we cried - as children we used the language we hardly understood to point, grunt, or somehow ask other people for what we wanted or needed. It seems the "smarter" we get - the more we "understand" the more we move away from knowing that simple fact - we need each other. We depend on each other. We have since the day we were born and we will until the day we die. There hasn't ever and will never be a time when we aren't somehow dependent upon another person - by choice or not.

We've forgotten it. We haven't stopped needing each other, we've just forgotten it. We don't want to believe it for whatever reason. Therein lies one of the biggest problems.

Our nature of relying on others the way we always have, plays a role in many people looking to that god in the same way. One of the aspects of Christian belief is that people are "gods children", essentially teaching followers that they cannot provide for themselves and that they need "the father" or else they will die (spiritually), and end up in "hell". It creates quite an insecurity in humanity's self-esteem.

I would go so far as to say we don't just need each other, but everything. All of it. Forgetting that causes problems too.

You used the word Being. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. However, Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally. To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of "feelingrealization" is enlightenment.

When you say Being, are you talking about God? If you are, then why don't you say it?

The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse. I use it sometimes, but I do so sparingly. By misuse, I mean that people who have never even glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or they argue against it, as if they knew what it is that they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions, and egoic delusions, such as "My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false," or Nietzsche's famous statement "God is dead." The word God has become a closed concept. The moment the word is uttered, a mental image is created, no longer, perhaps, of an old man with a white beard, but still a mental representation of someone or something outside you, and, yes, almost inevitably a male someone or something. Neither God nor Being nor any other word can define or explain the ineffable reality behind the word, so the only important question is whether the word is a help or a hindrance in enabling you to experience That toward which it points. Does it point beyond itself to that transcendental reality, or does it lend itself too easily to becoming no more than an idea in your head that you believe in, a mental idol? The word Being explains nothing, but nor does God. Being, however, has the advantage that it is an open concept. It does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite entity. It is impossible to form a mental image of it. Nobody can claim exclusive possession of Being. It is your very essence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own presence, the realization I am that is prior to I am this or I am that. So it is only a small step from the word Being to the experience of Being.

~Eckart Tolle, The Power of Now~