DUALITY

Concentration camp victims. David C

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said:

"If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. 

"But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. 

"And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"



Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung said:

"Natural history tells us of a haphazard and casual transformation of species over hundreds of millions of years of devouring and being devoured."

Hawks eat doves and humans eat lambs.

However, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung also said:

"But the history of the mind offers a different picture. 

"Here the miracle of reflecting consciousness intervenes."

Walking on hot coals. Detaching oneself from fear and pain.  

Is it possible for humans to enlighten themselves so that they escape from a world of suffering?

"When Jack Schwarz sticks a long sailor's needle through his bicep, he feels no pain, does not bleed and has no infection.

"Why? He uses a detachment visualization technique.

"It is not HIS arm attached to HIS body, but instead it is AN arm away from his body and therefore no feeling is possible.

"Amputees sometimes suffer from the phantom limb 'itch' where they feel an itch on a limb that does not exist."

Superconscious: Pain Control Via Detachment

Consider Duality and Non-Duality.

Duality can mean that we label things as either 'good' or 'evil'.

The problem is that some Nazis labeled the concentration camps as good, vultures label dead humans as good, and some people even like the game of cricket.

The problem is that a pleasant game of golf is always a mixture of plus and minus.

And even 'Suffering' can be positive if it leads to progress on a spiritual path, or if it reminds you that it's time to visit the dentist.


Concentration camps?

Of course concentration camps are 'bad'.

But, the reason we got concentration camps in Germany was because the Nazis labeled Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and handicapped people as 'bad'.

Ideally, we see that "the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being."



What is Non-duality?

There are many different descriptions.

Imagine that you do not label anything as being entirely good or entirely bad.

Imagine you can see some good in your pet cat, which has just killed the bird.

Should we believe in Duality or Non-Duality or both?

In this world it is only natural that some people label things as being entirely good or entirely bad.

But, ideally we should try to understand Non-Duality.


The US military labeled this Asian child as unimportant. The child is a victim of the Pentagon's Agent Orange.  www.documentingreality.com...

If the Nazis had adopted the idea of Non-Duality, they would have seen that they were related to the Jews.

If the Pentagon adopted the idea of Non-Duality, they would stop murdering dark-skinned children all over the world.

There are various descriptions of Non-Duality.

Imagine pure Being, Consciousness and Bliss, which is so enlightened that it is free from suffering.

Imagine that your 'mind' and the universe are, in a sense, One.

The spiritual teachers of the past seem to have had a lot in common.

From Luke 9:48

The one who is least among you is the greatest.

From Taoism:

If you want to be reborn, let yourself die.

If you want to be given everything, give everything up.

Mind over matter. firstwefeast.com

The Taoist Seng T'san wrote:

Don't keep searching for the truth; just let go of your opinions.

For the mind in harmony with the Tao, all selfishness disappears.

With not even a trace of self-doubt, you can trust the universe completely.

c2sees2.wordpress.com...

The Taoist Seng T'san wrote:

All at once you are free, with nothing left to hold on to.

All is empty, brilliant, perfect in its own being.

what-buddha-said.net...

The Taoist Seng T'san wrote:

In the world of things as they are, there is no self, no non self.

If you want to describe its essence, the best you can say is "Not-two."

In this "Not-two" nothing is separate, and nothing in the world is excluded.

The enlightened of all times and places have entered into this truth.

www.abundancetapestry.com

The Taoist Seng T'san wrote:

In it there is no gain or loss; one instant is ten thousand years.

There is no here, no there; infinity is right before your eyes.

The tiny is as large as the vast when objective boundaries have vanished;

the vast is as small as the tiny when you don't have external limits.

Being is an aspect of non-being; non-being is no different from being.

Until you understand this truth, you won't see anything clearly.

Nonduality | Non-duality - Stillness Speaks



Anonymous writes:

May I add - this can also be discussed in graphical terms.

I like to think of it as the triumph of the enso over the taijitu.

For mine, the taijitu is too complicated. Unnecessarily busy.


taijitu.

The enso on the other hand is the simplest symbol that exists.

Which in symbol terms makes it pretty much perfect. (Or is that word bad? How about 'ideal'?)

enso "It symbolizes absolute enlightenment. In Zen Buddhist painting, ensō symbolizes a moment when the mind is free to simply let the body/spirit create."

And then there's the enso's unconnected appearance in mathematics wherein it represents zero. Or is it unconnected? Where's Jung when you need him?

Regardless, zero is interesting - it didn't exist until really quite late in history. It took a long time for people to get their heads around it. I also like the fact that zero is (arguably) the antithesis of mathematics. I never did like maths - it's the language of priests - and zero (qua zero) is pretty much of no use to them.

From maths to religion and back again: zero equals nothingness, and nothingness equals a transcendence of duality. So we've two priesthoods, one embracing numbers, and the other embracing duality, and both find themselves stymied by the simplest symbol in the world.

Which happily brings us full circle.

But then it would, wouldn't it?

best etc. etc.



Nixon Scraypes does not like the idea of NON-DUALITY (the idea that everything is a mixture of 'good' and 'bad' or 'yin' and 'yang')

Nixon Scraypes said...

Oh,come on.

I have a bowl of organic brown rice and a bowl of poison toadstools.

Which shall I eat?

You tell me which is good which is bad?

What we would argue is that poison mushrooms are a mixture of 'good' and 'bad'.

'Fly Agaric' is a poison toadstool.

It is 'good' in that it is used by people to eliminate flies. 

"Medical practitioners in Siberia have used this mushroom to promote the creative conditions of the mind."

Agaricus - Homeopathy - Herbs To Herbs

"As a homeopathic medication, Agaricus is useful for its wonderful curative attributes."

Agaricus - Homeopathy - Herbs To Herbs


Eisenhower. Responsible for a lot of deaths. A mixture of good and bad.

Franz does not like the idea of NON-DUALITY (the idea that things can be a mixture of 'good' and 'bad')

Franz writes:

"DID SAVILE MURDER 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL?"

Do I look for some good in Savile?

Do I look for some BAD in the girl?

What we would argue is that everyone is a mixture of 'good' and 'bad'.

Jimmy Savile left the bulk of his £4.3m fortune to good causes

Someone said of Savile: "You should see him with disabled kids. You should see the pleasure he brings them."

St. Mary Magdalene was a sinner (prostitute and an adulteress) and a saint.



Rudy M comments:

In your example of the uses of a poisonous toadstool, you still are making a dualistic judgment. 

You are saying: "these properties are good." 

You aren't doing away with a binary category, you are just applying it to specific qualities... 

I've always understood non-dualism to be a lot more radical than you are presenting it to be. 

Rudy M is correct in that we are not taking a radical position.

We are still using words like 'good' and 'bad'.

Language is dualistic.

We are saying that we should not label things, such as Poison Mushrooms, as being "all good" or "all bad".

When we describe 'the perfect game of golf' we are forced to describe certain moments in the game as 'good' and certain moments as 'bad'.

But the game overall can be described as perfect.

Some people believe that 'reality at the deepest level' cannot be described easily with words.

Some people believe that "Only the whole of existence itself can be said to be nondualistic, because there is nothing outside the whole of existence to distinguish it from."

words in non-dualism - philodynamics 

~~~

MAGIC BULLET PEOPLE

Aangirfan Alexa Rank in   Suriname 29 in   United Kingdom 23,500

CAN ANYTHING BE PERFECT?

Is perfection possible, either in 'Heaven' or on Earth?

Some philosophers have argued that: "If the world was perfect, it could not improve and so it would lack 'true perfection'".

Imagine a 'perfect' day at the beach, which includes a meal of tasty freshly caught sardines.

It was not a perfect day for the sardines.


By Valery Titievsky

Professor Michael Slote, in The Impossibility of Perfection (2011) says certain virtues cannot be had in perfect measure.

If you are perfect in regard to prudence you may not be perfect in regard to adventurousness.

The Impossibility of Perfection


By Mayank Austen Soofi

A tree would not be a tree if it was perfectly regular.

Imperfection can be perfect, in the sense that irregularity can be useful.

Is a perfect world simply one where there is an avoidance of extremes?


By © Jamie Mitchell

Some Christians argue: "God creates a perfect world, humans choose to sin, and so the world is no longer perfect."

Can perfection and free will coexist in Heaven? - Scholarofgod.com

We could re-write this as "God creates a world, humans choose to sin, and so the world was not perfect in the first place. It is impossible for God to create a perfect world. The most God can hope for is that humans will avoid extremes."



Imagine you get to Heaven.

In Heaven you stop worrying about all the poor suffering people back on earth; so you are not perfect in terms of sympathy and compassion.

In Heaven, you continue to worry about the poor suffering people back on earth; so, life in Heaven is not perfect.

By maria dupovkina

Some Taoists would argue that every 'thing' and every 'action' is a mixture of so called 'good' and so called 'evil'.

"Taoists believe that nature is a continual balance between yin and yang, and that any attempt to go toward one extreme or the other will be ineffective, self-defeating, and short-lived."

What Taoists Believe

In Taoism, the idea is that if an object has a 'front' it must also have a 'back'.

In a created world there are opposites, yin and yang, which are actually part of a whole.

Waves cannot exist without troughs.

In order for 'compassion' to exist, there must be 'suffering'.

In Taoism, yin and yang (+1 -1) arise together from an initial peacefulness or emptiness (0), and continue in existence until peacefulness is reached again.

Imagine a stone thrown onto peaceful water, creating temporary waves and troughs.



Buddhists believe that you cannot have 'nirvana' without its opposite 'samsara'.

'Samasara' is the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

'Nirvana' is a blissful state where one has ceased to exist as an individual, and where one is free from delusion and suffering.

Budhists do not believe in the 'old man in the sky' type of God.

Buddhists believe that we are responsible for what happens, be it 'good' or 'evil'.

Buddhists concentrate on learning ways to end suffering, escape from samsara and enter nirvana.

For some Hindus, human souls have always existed and were thus not created by God at some time in history.

Human souls are responsible for their 'level of enlightenment'.

GOD DOES NOT LIKE REVOLUTIONS

God does not like revolutions.

Sand will settle out of water in time if the water is left undisturbed.

The Czech philosopher Comenius said: "Let all things spontaneously flow; let there be no violence to things".

The Taoists would agree.

Taoists believe we should cultivate "a state of being in which our actions are quite effortlessly in alignment with the ebb and flow of the elemental cycles of the natural world. 

"It is a kind of 'going with the flow' that is characterized by great ease and awake-ness, in which - without even trying - we're able to respond perfectly to whatever situations arise."

Wu Wei: the Action of Non-Action - Taoism

"The trick is to sense one's surroundings, to trust one's intuition, and flow with the will of the collective that we are all part of.

"This does not mean letting go of our free will… far from it.

"It means acknowledging that our free will is part of the universal will - the Oneness.

"For us to play our part all we need do is listen inside to the still, small voice inside that tells us what we need to know (if we are ever quiet enough to let it)."

Taoist 'wu wei', intuition and free will | nick jankel



'The Tao' is a mysterious something which is the source of all things.

The Tao cannot be described in words.

The Tao's substance is 'un-selfish'.

The Tao is 'formless'; it is not 'a being'.

The Tao is some kind of divine presence that individuals can find within themselves.

 Laozi tells us:

The highest virtue is to act without a sense of self
The highest kindness is to give without a condition
The highest justice is to see without a preference

Wu Wei: the Action of Non-Action - Taoism

"As we find our alignment with the Tao - with the rhythms of the elements within and outside of our bodies – our actions are quite naturally of the highest benefit to all..."

Wu Wei: the Action of Non-Action - Taoism

Lao Tzu writes:

The Tao abides in non-action,

Yet nothing is left undone.

If kings and lords observed this,

The ten thousand things would develop naturally.

If they still desired to act,

They would return to the simplicity of formless substance.

Without form there is no desire.

Without desire there is tranquillity.

In this way all things would be at peace.

"Both ... the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, and ... the Tao Te Ching, have similar things to say about the world and the humans who occupy it...

"In order to create beauty and harmony within one’s experience, one must of necessity create beauty and harmony, to the best of one’s ability, in the world...

"In this effort, success lies in deference and humility.

"There is far greater wisdom in the movement of the whole pattern than in any attempt to impose one’s own will on events...

Tao Te Ching 

~~

FIDEL CASTRO OF THE CIA

A LITTLE STRESS IS GOOD FOR YOU

Short-term stress, the fight-or-flight response, stimulates immune activity, says Professor Firdaus Dhabhar.

According to researchers at Stanford University in the USA, short bursts of stress can be good for your health, warding off infection, helping wounds to heal and speeding up recovery from illness.

Stanford study explains how stress can boost immune system ...

A very long period of stress is not good for you.

Imagine that each and every time time you play golf you get stuck in a bunker for several hours; or imagine that you live in Iraq and bombs are going off every day.

A little stress does you good. Website for this image

However, a little bit of stress can make you healthier, and make life more fun.

A game of golf would be no fun if you always got a hole in one.

Homeopathy involves giving you a tiny amount of 'poison' to stimulate your body into making you well.

The Taoists say that everything contains a bit of plus and minus, and that the minus is good for you, so long as it is in moderate doses.

A little stress can be good. But avoid extremes.

When a hospital patient is temporarily a little stressed, helpful hormones are released, to help heal the body.

The patient who feels virtually no stress will have fewer hormones released.

The 'tough guys' often lead shorter lives than the 'careful guys'.


Tough guys who feel no stress may live shorter lives.

At Stamford University in 2009, there was a study of 57 patients who were due to undergo knee surgery.

Several days before the operation, researchers counted the number of immune cells in each patient's system.

Then, on the morning of the operation, they counted again.

The researchers identified which patients had the biggest increase in immune system cells as a result of being a bit stressed about the surgery.

For the next year, the patients were studied, to check the speed of their recovery.

The results showed that those who were relatively more stressed, on the day of surgery, recovered more quickly, had less pain, better knee function and greater mobility than those with the weaker stress response.

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2201256/Always-ill-Its-vitamin-C-need-dose-stress.html#ixzz268oygPP0

A few stresses in life can make one a stronger person. Website for this image

In their latest research, the Stanford team has worked out how stress helps the immune system.

The researchers, using rats, monitored three hormones released when the brain feels the body is under threat.

They found that when the rats were stressed, the brain immediately ordered the release of each hormone.

Each hormone appeared to have a specific role in sending disease-fighting immune system cells to different parts of the body.

According to Professor Firdaus Dhabhar, who led the research: "Mother Nature gave us the fight-or-flight response to help us, not kill us." 

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2201256/Always-ill-Its-vitamin-C-need-dose-stress.html#ixzz268oygPP0


A little of the 'negative' can make life fun.

It should be noted that extreme stress is not good; and long periods of stress are not good.

Professor Dhabhar says: "You don’t want to keep your immune system on high alert at all times.

"But the evidence does suggest that putting oneself under short-term stress during procedures like vaccination or surgery can boost immune defences.

"The key is that the stress really has to be short-term, lasting only for minutes or hours.

"It involves a rapid activation of the biological stress response followed by a rapid shutdown soon after the challenge is over."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2201256/Always-ill-Its-vitamin-C-need-dose-stress.html#ixzz268oygPP0

THINK 'HAPPY TEAM'

aangirfan: RELIGION AND SCIENCE

WHY HITLER?

"The eight-year-old Hitler sang in the church choir, and entertained thoughts of becoming a priest." (Adolf Hitler - Wikipedia)

1. What makes one person turn into Adolf Hitler, and another person turn into Mother Teresa?

People answering this question start off with certain 'premises' or assumptions, which may be wrong.

For example:

A. the atheist starts off with the premise that life is an accident and that no one has a spirit or soul.

But,"the first scientific study of 'near-death' experiences has found new evidence to suggest that consciousness or the 'soul' can continue to exist after the brain has ceased to function."
(Soul-searching doctors find life after death - Telegraph/FREE WILL?)

"The best that neuroscience can do is to show that behavior X is neurally correlated with activity in brain structure Y.

"This has precisely nothing to do with determinism because non-deterministic effects could be present at much more physically fundamental levels than those dealt with by neuroscience and never show up on the neuroscientist’s radar." (http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/free-will-roundtable.html)

B. The believer in God may start off with the premise that at some point in the past 'God' decided to create various spiritual creatures.

But some people believe that spiritual creatures have always existed.

The Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyah claimed that 'created things have always existed'. Mormons believe that we have always existed.

"The death of his younger brother, Edmund, from measles on 2 February 1900 deeply affected Hitler. He changed from being confident and outgoing and an excellent student, to a morose, detached, and sullen boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.... After his father's sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's behaviour at the technical school became even more disruptive, and he was asked to leave in 1904."

C. Westerners tend to think of people as individuals.

But, according to the Taoists, everything in the universe is single, whole, but composed of opposites.

According to the scientists, "under certain circumstances subatomic particles are in some form of intimate connection with one another no matter how far apart they may be." (Quantum interconnectedness - Economic Times)

D. Some people do not believe in 'acts of God'.

Life magazine reported (The Mystery of Chance):

On 1 March 1950, all the fifteen members of a church choir in Beatrice, Nebraska, due at practice at 7:20, were late.

For example, one couldn't start her car; and one mother and daughter were late because the mother had to call the daughter twice to wake her from a nap.

At 7:25 the church building was destroyed in an explosion. The members of the choir, Life reported, wondered if their delay was "an act of God."

"The Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna rejected Hitler twice, in 1907 and 1908, because of his 'unfitness for painting'... After being rejected a second time by the Academy of Arts, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909 he lived in a homeless shelter, and by 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men... He was a frequent dinner guest in a wealthy Jewish home; he interacted well with Jewish merchants and sold his paintings almost exclusively to Jewish dealers."

2. One could argue that neither Hitler nor Mother Teresa had achieved full 'enlightenment' (Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith)

To Carl Jung, God may be an evolving being.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) said in Memories, Dreams, Reflections:

"Natural history tells us of a haphazard and casual transformation of species over hundreds of millions of years of devouring and being devoured...

"But the history of the mind offers a different picture. Here the miracle of reflecting consciousness intervenes."

French theologian and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) also sees God as an evolving thing. De Chardin argues that all things are evolving and the unity of the universe is grounded not in matter or energy but spirit.

"Hitler became fixated on warfare after finding a picture book about the Franco-Prussian War among his father's belongings."

3. If we do have 'free will', it could be seen as a burden. (Existential Primer: Fyodor Dostoevsky)

Dostoevsky points to characters who do bad things, knowing that they are bad, in order to assert their uniquness and independence.

Some might say that God does not have this burden, as, presumably, he is incapable of choosing evil?

Dostoevsky, and others, seem to suggest that all creatures go through a long learning process, which can involve suffering, in order to achieve enlightenment.

Hitler was 'lucky' enough to survive a number of assassination plots.

4. Eastern thinking often has less of a problem with the question of 'free will' and 'good and evil'.

"When you are aware of the Tao and feel it, you can flow with it, and the right action appears for itself, spontaneously."

Henry C K Liu wrote in the Asia Times about Taoism. Where does evil come from? There can be no ‘good’ without ‘evil’.

"Controlled quantities of the bad can be good. Excessive amounts of the good can be bad. Poison kills. But when handled properly, it can cure diseases. Without poison, there can be no medicine. To employ poison to attack poison is a Taoist principle, which is validated in modern medical the practice of vaccination, the use of antibiotics and chemotherapy treatments." - (Consider the lilies)


5. Is there a bit of God within Hitler?

According to The Upanishads, the Hindu New Testament (Life And Death Explained?):

God is within all the created world (immanent) and outside all the created world (transcendent).

God becomes immanent (within all) until the end of evolution when the immanent has all again become transcendent (outside the created world). The created world evolves into the transcendent God.

Why? For the joy of creation.

Why is there evil? For the joy of good arising from it.

Why darkness? That the light may shine more.

Why suffering? For the instruction of the soul and the joy of sacrifice.

Why the infinite play of creation and evolution? For pure joy.

The more the lower self is forgotten in good works, and in the realisation of the beautiful and the true, the quicker becomes the process of evolution.

6. Timothy Conway has written of (3 Levels of Reality) "the old, largely forgotten Christian idea of ... universal salvation taught by Origen and Clement of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa: God's love is so powerful that no creature can exile itself from this Love forever."

"Chhotu is an intelligent boy who belongs to a poor family in Rajasthan. Born into poverty, he is forced to find work at a roadside food stall."

7. If we do not have 'free will', and everything is determined by such things as our genes, is that going to lead to the elite 'choosing' fascism?

According to Professor Philip Adey of King’s College London, a child's IQ can be raised by the right stimulation

"If general intelligence was indeed largely in the gift of the genes .... then we would be driven towards the deterministic and racist scenario of eugenics.

"Fortunately, all of the recent evidence points to the plasticity of general intelligence, the fact that a child’s IQ can be raised by the right kind of stimulation."

"The best that neuroscience can do is to show that behavior X is neurally correlated with activity in brain structure Y. This has precisely nothing to do with determinism because non-deterministic effects could be present at much more physically fundamental levels than those dealt with by neuroscience and never show up on the neuroscientist’s radar." (http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/free-will-roundtable.html)

8. The following makes use of an article entitled 'Free Will' at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

Most of us think that we have free will.

But, what is free will?

According to philosopher David Hume, the 'nature of free will' is the big question.

1. We can talk about 'Free Action', 'Free Will' and 'Moral Responsibility'.

If Hitler had been kept in jail, he would not have been free to invade Poland.

While in jail, Hitler may have felt that he still had 'free will'.

Hitler, once in power, was free to invade Poland.

If, as some scientists and philosophers suggest, there is no such thing as 'free will', then Hitler may not be 'morally responsible' for invading Poland.

2. Plato and Aristotle believed that if we have an intellect or brain, then we have free will.

Hitler used his intelect and decided that invading Poland was 'good'.

He had the 'free will' to invade Poland?

We use our 'free will' to do what we consider is 'good'?

3. 'Determinism' is the opposite of 'free will'.

A determinist would say that Hitler's actions were the result of such things as 'being beaten by his father', 'having inherited a disturbed character', 'having, met certain people'...

Website for this image

4. Discoveries in 'Quantum Physics' suggest that 'determinism' may be wrong.

The movement of 'particles' cannot always be predicted.

And every particle, every thing, may be connected.

We may all be part of God or linked to God?

And the concreteness of reality may be an illusion.

Consciousness may create the brain, the body and everything we interpret as physical. (Life And Death Explained?)

5. Some people, called 'compatibilists', believe that people can have free will, even if determinism is true.

Hitler may have been affected by his past and by his nature, but, over the question of Poland, he still had a range of options and it was not innevitable that he would choose to invade when he did?

6. When we use words such as 'gratitude', 'resentment', 'forgiveness' and 'love', we tend to assume that people are responsible for their actions.

7. Some religious people claim that God is ultimately responsible for everything that happens.

But, this suggests that people have no free will and are not responsible for their actions.

If 'theological determinism' is true, then whether or not people repent is ultimately up to God, not to the people themselves.

Why does God not will that everyone is saved?

We might conclude that 'God' may not necessarily be as described by certain fundamentalists.

So, what about free willy?

9. "Do you believe that you have control over your destiny?

"If you do not, then you are more prone to bad behavior."

This is according to findings from studies by experimental philosophers and psychologists, reported by John Tierney in the Times." (If You Don't Believe In Free Will, You Are Likely to Be a Cheater ... / Changing belief in free will can cause students to cheat.)

RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Bomjon, aka Palden Dorje

In 2006, Discovery Channel showed a 45-minute documentary about Ram Bahadur Bomjon.

Ram was filmed continuously for 96 hours, day and night, "during which time he did not change his position and did not drink any fluids or eat any food."

Discovery Channel's commentator concluded: "After 96 hours of filming, Ram has defied modern science by continuing his meditation and remaining alive."


Buddha Boy

The Christian mystics, and Buddha, and some scientists who study quantum physics - all have had similar ideas about consciousness.

According to 'Quantum physics' a solid-looking wall is nothing but empty space, held together by 'a string of energies'. (Syntagma)

If you bang your head against the wall, you will get hurt.

Unless you are able to have an out of body experience, and are in the form of a spirit or ghost?

According to Buddha, everything is of one substance.

"That substance ...is sometimes known as spirit or, in modern times, consciousness." (Syntagma)

"When we see houses and fields in dreams, we think of them as being external objects that are not created by the mind, even though they are nothing other than projections of our mind.

"All that we see when we are awake is also nothing other than a creation of the mind." [xviii]

According to the Buddhists, "things ultimately have no independent substance."

Things with no independent substance cannot have "conflicts or antagonisms" - Śūnyata.

This may sound weird.

But, according to the Buddhists, "describing this non-dual experience in words is not really possible, as language is based on duality and contrasts." - Buddhism)

According to the Taoists, everything in the universe is single whole, but composed of opposites.

Taoists try to avoid the extremes and attempt to balance yin and yang in everything they do.

GOD

Did God create mosquitoes?

Is there an old man in the sky who created the universe?

Su writes in her blog about "the child in a burn ward screaming, screaming, screaming."

Su refers to Eastern religions and the value of 'Stepping out of mind.....god willing'.

Nina refers to the cruel 'plantation owners' of this world.

Nina refers to the Taoist view of things in 'a select destiny'.



Is there an old man in the sky?

The Jewish, Christian and Moslem religions think so.

The Jewish, Christian and Moslem religions have their origins in Zoroastrianism, which began in Iran, around the 6th century BC .

(Influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism and Christianity - (CAIS)©)

In Zoroastrianism (Zoroastrianism)a:

There is a God who is the Creator and who is all good.

There is an evil force who will ultimately be destroyed.

There is a saviour who will save the world.

In Zoroastrianism we find the equivalents of baptism, communion, guardian angels, heaven, worship on Sunday, the celebration of Mithras' birthday on December 25th, celibate priests who mediate between man and God, and the Trinity.

(Influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism and Christianity - (CAIS)©)

People in countries influenced by Buddhism, such as Thailand and Indonesia, often seem happier than most.

BUT, what if the Zoroastrians have not got it quite right?

The Buddhists believe in some kind of life after death, but they keep a noble silence on the idea of God.

The Taoists refer to some kind of divine force called the Tao, but they say that it cannot be described in words.

It is difficult to imagine an old man in the sky designing this world on his design board.

It is difficult to imagine him designing a world in which one creatures survives by eating another creature.

So, maybe there was no Bible-style creation.

Maybe things have always existed.

Maybe there is a mysterious something which nourishes us.

Maybe we reap what we sow.

Maybe what we are now is due to what we thought in the past.

Maybe what we will become is what we are thinking now.



We quote from: 'a select destiny' (Deep Into Artlife West - blogspot)

"Something we cannot define with science and logic is happening here, a grand design, some not-of-this-world intention we are simply not at the rightful stage of development to comprehend regardless of our effort.

"I believe this makes us a unique product of evolution to remain invincible in the face of pure unadulterated evil where vast and continuing material loss strips us to the lowest category of Earthly life and it has no influence at all, we go on in trust, always looking forward, accepting each test as triathlon athletes determined to pass and not just well, but intact, because in spite of the incessant repeats, it makes the good, the pure, the honest, the natural reverent and holy, gifts from somewhere else reminding us the world we desire really does exist and one day we are destined to reach it."

~~

Reincarnation, the story of a scottish child, Part 2 - YouTube

Reincarnation, the story of a scottish child, Part 3 - YouTube

Reincarnation, the story of a scottish child, Part 4 - YouTube

Reincarnation, the story of a scottish child, Part 5 - YouTube




Old man in the sky?

Anonymous comments:

In both Islam and Judaism, the Creator is neither male nor female, neither begets nor is begotten.

Is not corporeal in the human sense, but rather is the all-encompassing and all-pervading sentience and ultimate creator of things. Any corporeal references are purely metaphorical.

~~

Religions that believe in God?

Anonymous comments:

There are obvious similarities with certain aspects of Buddhism and Vedantic Hinduism.

In particular, Nirvana and Samsara are analogous to Paradise and the unenlightened worlds (this world, various hells).

Also Brahman patently shares the same properties as the One Creator of Judaism, Islam and Christianity: eternal, self-sustaining, transcendent, the Ultimate Reality, the Supreme Consciousness.

Even the concept of karma has analogues in monotheism.

All good eminates from the Creator; evil is what we ourselves create and inflict upon ourselves. As you sow...

Reincarnation is also not so simple.

The scriptures of the monotheistic religions mention instances in which prophets are returned to this world subsequent to their exit from it.

The prophet Yeshua is the canonical example.

As for the pains and evil of this world, they are not inflicted for sadistic reasons but as a trial. To separate the wheat from the chaff...

~~