Pam Seeback wrote: ↑Sun Feb 11, 2018 4:46 am
Hi Serendipper, I am very much enjoying our conversation!
Yes, this is fun and I look forward to your comments!
Unless I am misunderstanding your position, it sounds like your stand on truth is that you and I are (only) empirical lens’ for the conscious universe.
It appears a high-fidelity transmission of information has occurred ;)
You asked for evidence to refute this view which I am happy to provide using your very own words :-). I’ll start with the scripture you used to defend your position that repentance is an act of ego:
Well, admittedly, I hijacked it from Alan Watts
https://twitter.com/A_Watts_Quotes/stat ... 2510606337
Of course, "all originality is undetected plagiarism" (William Ralph Inge) so I won't feel too badly about it :)
But I lost the seminar where he said it and I'm left to my own devices in defending it :(
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Last time I checked, there is no empirical evidence for ‘grace’ or ‘faith’ or for any of the other invisible values man holds dear, values such as ‘integrity’, ‘love’ or your personal favourites, 'reasoning' and 'fun' :-).
Grace and faith are concepts that exist within the context of the christian religion. What I meant was that all religion was created for the advancement of the ego, yet even within Christianity, it is not really so (but almost always perverted to that end regardless). It wasn't anything I was hinging my premise upon, but more of an aside... a trivia.
(Technically, Christianity, in its truest sense, is not a religion because there is absolutely nothing you can do to be saved. So, it's just trivia.)
I suppose it's debatable if morality exists, but if there is only one entity, then is it even debatable? Can a person be immoral to their self?
A celestial judge dispensing justice at the end of time doesn't remove the wrong that happened which required the dispensation of the justice. But if everyone is one entity, then there is no wrong to be compensated and discussion of morality is moot. It's just a matter of interesting trivia since I'd first have to prove morality exists before I could use it to insist there is only one entity.
As for the symbolic concept of ‘spirit’, why does it have to be outside consciousness/mind? Why can 'spirit' not be part and parcel of the totality of the thinking process, empirical or non-empirical?
Because then we'd lose the benefits of conjuring the spirit. What's the point of having a spirit if it's simply an artifact of this universe? I need some reason I believe that you would be different if you had my atoms. If the spirit is simply a function of those atoms, then there is no basis to believe you'd be any different and there's no foundation for any higher moral ground.
Since you seem to be comfortable quoting the bible,
I was Christian for many years and still am in some roundabout way.
I shall return the favour to make my point. ‘Spirit’ is mentioned almost immediately in the bible, from Genesis 1: " And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.". I see no dualism in this symbolic statement of ‘how things are’ (i.e., no 'outside') nor do I see any reference to morality. Instead I see a seamless and unconscious (to the empirical eye) I of spirit manifesting what is true and only true.
The way I think about spirit is like the idioms: "the spirit of the wild", "the spirit of the great outdoors", "in the spirit of friendship", "in the spirit of good clean fun", etc. So the spirit of god is like that. And a son of god is not a direct descendant of a monarchical king, but someone having the nature of god. Like when we call someone a son of a female dog, we aren't meaning they were directly descendant from the dog, but that they have the nature of that sort of dog.
John 10:30-38
I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am a Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.
The good news is that we are all sons of god... every person, cat, dog, tree, rock. They are are lenses manifested by the universe, god, what there is, whatever you wanna call it. To get that message out is why Jesus was crucified and in that way, he did die for humanity.
Staying with biblical wisdom (not Christian) morality and the suffering it causes is not suggested until Genesis 2 with the appearance of the manifestation of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
I think the fall of man was preceded by the fall of Lucifer and the angels. And it's always bugged me why god would make a man in the perfect environment, then add a poisonous tree with the instruction not to eat of it and knowing full-well that the man will eat it. They say it's part of the plan... that in order to have free will, some have to be sacrificed. In order to have the saved, there must be some damned. Christians don't like hearing that, though, and insist salvation is meant for all and it's man's choice to refuse it.
Paul makes it clear in Romans 9:11-21
(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
God made Pharaoh to split hell wide open simply to glorify himself. Well, more than that... there has to be some bad apples in order to have good ones.
All religion is egoic
Religion promotes dualism of good and evil, therefore is an expression of ego, however, the mystical aspect of all religions, because they seek to realize the truth of the nondual I is not egoic, at least not in the gross sense of the word.
Isn't that a clever way of one-upping the religious?
Reminds me when Alan said, "Gurus are always putting each other down, so I can say I don't put other gurus down... there, that trumps all of them!" :D
For the mystic (or mystic-philosopher) ego is present during the seeking period but as nondual realization expands and strengthens, the ego of dualism is gradually uprooted until it is no more.
I'm not sure there is a good way out of the game. As long as you're searching, you're getting in your own way. If the point is to become better, to get to some goal, then it's egoic and you're going in circles because the reason you want to be better will always be the reason why you aren't.
Nothinng can be more egotistical than true repentance. I am what I am and I cannot apologize for it because to do so would be setting myself apart from what I am for the purpose of one-upping myself.
The infinite I has no need for apology because it does not know of good and evil.
What is the infinite?
If there is no good and evil then why the desire to improve?
ego is present during the seeking period
Seeking what? Where you going? It seems that seeking, then, is the movement from a perceived evil towards a perceived good. Alright, assuming that point is well-taken, let's suppose the act of seeking is the evil, and so what is good? It's the opposite: not-seeking, which is fun.
Either your motivation is to improve your situation or your motivation is fun. Can there be another motivation? It's a duality of seeking/non-seeking, goal/non-goal and nondual is itself a part of the dual/nondual duality.
So you may say "I'll adopt this new philosophy of fun in order to improve my situation", but then you're still on the hamster wheel thinking you're going to get somewhere. As long as the hamster is trying to get off the wheel, it can't, but when it gets hungry, it mindlessly goes to the food bowl to satisfy the most basic of urges and discovers that it is off the wheel.
Geese flying over a lake have no intention to cast their reflection and the water has no mind to retain it. Everything does its thing and there is no goal in mind and that is the essence of fun.
Like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGoTmNU_5A0
Matthew 18:3
Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.