soteriology

i wanted to respond to the soteriology thread

somewhere along the way we acquired the idea that there was some great standard that we could fall short of
and the results of this idea led to us to judging each other
but most importantly to us judging ourselves
so we nstarted seeing ourselves as being bad or being good or being righteous or evil

which is hard enough by itself

but then someone had to come up with the even more absurd idea
that the very act of seeing ourselves as good and of seeing that we live up to this nearly impossible standard
has the effect of making us bad all over again

so not only are we bad if we're not good

but now we're also bad for being good

its a bad idea lol

theres no way to win

we're always bad - we always fall short - and theres always something wrong with us

the idea is so ingrained in somany of us and has been for so long
that the result has become that no matter what we do we're always flawed somehow
and we never measure up to the standard

this is a loop that keeps us locked into shame and judgement
and distracts us from our natural noble power as perfect beings

but because the idea of this standard is so completely accepted at so deep a level

to just tell someone
"youre fine.
youre absolutely perfect just the way you are.
theres nothing wrong with you in any way
every thought
every feeling
everything about you
your body
your mind
your spirit
everything
is doing exactly what its supposed to do
and its all in your hands to do with however you wish"


well!
people point to this and they point to that
and they fight like bloody hell for their need to keep their own limitations

which theyre in fact DYING TO GET RID OF ANYWAY

and which again are nothing more than the result of accepting at they exist
a figment of the imagination

and when we choose to keeping them we get to keep them lol

so somebody came up with the idea that if we make "salvation" some grand religious attainment it will allow peoplke to justaccept that theyre perfect
or at least to become open to the idea that they CAN BE perfect
which is a start
and you dont get to BE perfect until youve accepted that already ARE perfect because its constantly chasing perfection and denying our perfection which keeps us separated from our perfection
but people are too stuck on the idea of being flawed and not measuring up to just belive it

so jesus died for our sins and the buddha taught that perfection of the mind is to just let it be what it is without interfering and if youve lived enough lifetimes of karma you can be allowed to accept it

and they knew if they didnt do it in the context of some huge melodrama no one would belive it and they understood that THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO JUST ACCEPT THAT ITS ALREADY HAPPENED ALREADY lol they really understood people very well

thats what i think

jacob if/when you read this i havent yet read the pdf but i wanted to respond to something you said and ive waited for others to speak so now heres my response

i think the answer to
"if we already are -
then then why do we -?"

is basically because we're goofballs

really, thats it

we may be perfect enlightened salvationed goofballs but the point still remains that we were taught to be goofballs before we were taught to be enlighened and salvationed

so we have all these goofball habbits of fear (mostly i think its all fear if we trace it far enough - for me it seems to be fear) and attachment and insecurity and this all breaks our focus on the moment itself

so rather than living the moment we analyse the moment and we "capture" the monent and we freeze the moment and relive the moment and anticipate the moment and on and on because we're goofballs who know more about THINKING ABOUT the moment than just BEING IN the moment

and so the mechanisms of practice and salvation were developed to give us a moment of breathing room from our own goofiness so we could just LIVE just as we are without worrying or caring about anything else besides the simple experience of it

also they serve as functional tools for empowering ourselves to being active in living awesome moments

once we have a mechanism for attaining some semblance of fearlessness - and this is really where salvation specifically comes to fruition of its function

at least we have a sense of purpose which is ultimately undetered by fear, THEN we begin really building a life meaningful and in accord to our genuine natures

as far as i can see - the degree to which any of us are NOT living some version of the "life of our dreams" is the degree to which we are controlled by fear

and while it can be said that pursuing a goal makes us focus on a moment other than the moment we're in

it can also be said that food is a good goal
and if you dont pursue it you will run out of moments soon enough

so we pursue the goals that elevate the richness of our moments
and in this way we are further enriched by experiencing our moments in a simple, open, and mindfull way