Gretchen wrote: On the other hand, in reference to the point you make, there are probably many simple-minded folk who want to be spiritual and pure, but aren't capable of the level of abstract thought needed to understand profound truths and open themselves to the Infinite […] These kinds of people invariably lack the capacity to go beyond the middlemen and access God directly. Not much we can do about that, short of a genetic overhaul.
Well, I’m stuck in no man’s land…having just enough abstract thinking abilities to have broken ties but not enough to be well-adapted.
Perhaps you're simply going through a transitional phase. It takes stength and courage to break free of a religion that one grows up in, particularly for someone like yourself who is bright and honest and has a personal sense of God. You do have a personal sense of God, don't you?
Funny thing is that my father thinks abstractly and agrees with many of the ideas here, and yet, he indoctrinated us in Catholicism. It is only now that he and I can have discussions about such things. I can see the pain in his eyes because I think he thinks he failed me somehow as I didn’t turn out to be a good Catholic.
Or perhaps, in your intellectual honesty, you reflect his own irrationality back at him and he doesn't like what he sees.
Gretchen wrote:We can't really call a bird egotistical because its self-awareness and capacity for abstract thought are minimal, if indeed they exist at all. They are like robots programmed to behave in certain ways, sometimes to be curious, sometimes not. They don't really have a choice in the matter.
You have described some people I know.
Tell me about it. Living in this world is a bit like living permanently in that Hitchcock film, "The Birds". :)
The more I talk to you the more I think that religion has turned from an effect into a type of adaptation. So one has to be curious enough to question, but once they know the truth, destroy the curiosity?
I notice that you use the word "they", even though you use "one" in the earlier part of the sentence. Is this a freudian slip or just a typo? Does it mean you can't really envisage yourself one day knowing the truth?
The more I talk to you the more I think that religion has turned from an effect into a type of adaptation. So one has to be curious enough to question, but once they know the truth, destroy the curiosity?
No, not at all. Nothing so contrived.
Curiosity is a wonderful thing, but it can also be a double-edged sword.
There are many people who allow themselves to be so curious about everything that they spend their days reading zillions of books and endlessly exploring theory after theory, only to lose sight of the bigger picture. Their curiosity is, in fact, a form of fear. They seek to lose themselves in the world's details so they don't have to face the core truth of their existence.
So, curiosity combined with intelligence and courage and spiritual purpose is the way to go. And when you finally do understand the truth, you will find that all these traits remain with you, honed and refined.
Here is an interesting observation from Ramakrishna:
"Two men went into a garden. The worldly-wise man no sooner entered the
gate than he began to count the number of the mango-trees, how many
mangoes each tree bore, and what might be the approximate price of the whole
orchard. The other went to the owner, made his acquaintance, and quietly
going under a mangoe tree began to pluck the fruit and eat it with the owners
consent. Now who is the wiser of the two? Eat mangoes, it will satisfy your
hunger. What is the good of counting the leaves and making vain
calculations? The vain man of intellect is uselessly busy in finding out the
"why and wherefore" of creation while the humble man of wisdom makes
acquaintance with the creator and enjoys the supreme bliss of this world."
How do we know we have ever reached the truth – because it is logical and has a rational explanation?
You will know it when you discern that your understanding cannot be any simpler, cannot go any deeper, cannot be any more universal, cannot be logically contradicted, and cannot be separated from the world in any way.
Or to say the same thing more subtlely, you will know it when you discern that it is a truth which can only be understood by living it.
Gretchen wrote:The yearning for wisdom and truth can still be considered virtues, even though they are egotistically motivated.
So, wisdom and truth as ideals are not the problem, but the want and need to attain them are.
On the contrary, you should strive for wisdom and truth as single-mindedly and energetically as possible. The egotistical underpinnings of this endeavour will fade away naturally as your understanding develops.
Some more Ramakrishna:
"'I must attain perfection in this life, yea, in three days I must find God, nay,
with a single utterance of his name I will draw him to me'. With such a
violent love the Lord is attracted soon. The lukewarm lovers take ages to go
to Him, if at all."
Gretchen wrote:In the end, everyone who is not a perfect buddha is egotistically motivated. So, ideally, we should egotistically strive to cultivate those strands of egotism which will lead to the eventual destruction of all egotism.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by this statement. It may be my lack of knowledge in Buddhism that hinders me.
By a perfect buddha, I simply mean an enlightened sage - someone who is permanently beyond all delusion.
The spiritual path is not one of trying to be as inactive as possible and hoping that the ego will just go away. Rather, it's a matter of stengthening the ego's desire for wisdom and actively developing one's understanding. It is through understanding that the ego loses its foundations and crumbles away.
So, do you think in order to be wise this search for a better understanding of God, that which is uncertain, should be abandoned because it is something we can never know?
It depends on what you mean by God. The God of the sages can be known with certainty and forms the centre of all wisdom. It is only those strange Gods of the religionists - wherein God is turned into some kind of alien being - which are uncertain and not particularly relevant to wisdom.
In the eyes of religionists, a sage appears to be the very embodiment of atheism. They have no inkling of just how God-filled he really is.
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