Not a mistake in the idea of god per se, only in the one usually used as an argument against its existence by those who have already, rightly, rejected any need to accept the Judeo/Christian version. They are right to have done away with this, for it is a concept designed to keep the uneducated under the control of the few. While it had its place, and is of its time, it hasn't been relevant, aside from these who refuse to let it go, for quite some time now. Good luck to those who decide to stop reading this post here. For the rest, the idea of god, once the anthropomorphic aspects are removed - those jealous, vengeful, petty, egotistic, fearful ideas, that are no longer present, allow its actual reality to be looked at without them always clouding the issue. What is left without the human component then? Something obviously abstract, quite personal, and actually rather wonderful. This is not just another mental construct, not another idea along the lines of those already rejected, so I can't simply tell you something for you to consider. I can only reveal, as those who have felt it themselves can attest, the reality that opens the heart, that ties everything together, revealing synchronicities, that is All That Is. This is where god is to be found - in the heart, and the connection between us. The reality that there is nothing that is not us, nothing that is outside us, for we are and always have been All That Is, whether we know it or not. For those who never use one of the many plants to alter their consciousness (few here I'd wager), those old ideas are much easier to hold onto. After all, many like the idea of having a heavenly father watching over them. But for those who have experienced their own sense of conscious awareness rising, expanding, during an altered state, know only too well that during those times, what has been previously hidden, comes into view. Generally, it is the ego that stops this from happening, so during the altered state, where the ego cannot go, the veil gets removed and the truth more easily experienced. It is not that we can only experience reality while under some mind-altering influence, but we need to learn what it is. To feel it and recognise it, so that when we come across it in our daily life, we recognise it as such. This will happen anyway once the intention to do so is made.
For many, it's all about the mind. What can be known or seen or touched. What the experiments reveal, what their conclusions tell them. But even scientists looking at life through quantum eyes are understanding that what they think they know may not be certain. For no matter how small we're able to go, how many colliders we build to take the fundamental building blocks apart, there will always be something more, even if the instruments tell us otherwise. To make the connection real, as described in the OP, the mind, the egoic mind, will not help in this matter. It cannot know what this is because it is outside its capability. If life is judged from the egoic mind's perspective, then it is easy to rule god out. But find a way to let the ego go, even for a short time, and a space opens. It was never really closed, just covered by all the knowing the ego needs to feel it has. That's why the eastern traditions have had it right in one important way - meditation. The stilling of the mind's incessant noise. To experience actual stillness, presence, in the moment, as it is. Only coming to know what this means will allow reality to be revealed, for without it, the mind will always be thinking it knows or needs to know, something it can never truly know. The egoic mind is a necessary construct allowing us to experience that which is 'outside'. To express ourselves in physical reality. It has a purpose - to bring us towards a time when we will no longer need it, use it, in quite the same way. Once a conscious connection is felt with All That Is, the ego will understand its place in all this. It does not need to be killed off, which is the main cause of its prior resistance, but transformed, changed, allowing it to take its rightful place as part of who we are, having brought us to where we are, but is not who we are, and that allows a new way of being in the world that requires very little of what we thought was needed before.
I agree with all of this, the way people see God, is I believe, probably not the way God wants to be seen. I think what people need to strive for is independence, to believe God, without using the bible as a crutch. Rather to learn its ultimate lesson, love God above all else, and to love your brother, neighbor, enemy, as yourself. I can see what you mean, but I don't think that's what God just is. Why can't God be all of that, and then some? The God above, who watches existence, and only interferes when we have enough faith to ask him to.
Nice. See my second post (you were probably writing your reply when I posted it). God would of course be all that and more, and you are always free to think of him in anyway that works for you. But you see, for convention, I have found myself using the anthropomorphic 'him' in this reply. And as soon as I do, I immediately feel the same old ideas coming through. This is what gets in the way. In the way you just described it: is very anthropomorphic. A heavenly father sitting on high, making judgements and affecting our little human lives when appropriate. I'm not attempting to belittle your faith here when I say this, only to point out how similar this is to the god of religion. It is this way of seeing it that allows the non-believer to rightly interject with an appropriate 'bullshit'! IMHO. They will never accept such a human concept, and rightly so, for it is not like that, but only a way of seeing it, which makes sense to those who have trouble doing so any other way. Better to see it like this than not see it at all, but only as long as you know that this is just a way of doing so that helps to put into words something that is beyond them.
I agree with almost everything you say Eseff, and I believe as you pointed out that our inability to grasp the concept of "God" without antromorphic implications is what is holding us back for so long. We project ourselves in God as we do in everything around us. Here is where "ego" comes along to mess with us. I also believe people who are aware of the concept of "ego" doesn't really understand the deep implications attached to it. There is a major difference between being consciouss of "ego" and letting it truly go. Few things are as important in human life as the act of killing our "ego". The hardest thing is that it comes back but after killing it so many times it will need more time to come back.
One of the problems people have is this idea of killing the ego. As if it is the enemy that needs vanquishing before the light of enlightenment will appear. Again, this idea to get rid of, destroy, something that is a fundamental part of who we are, actually interferes with this process. It's not that we have to sneak up on the otherwise too wise ego by creating a subterfuge around the word 'kill', but we really have to acknowledge the ego as a valid and conscious being in its own right. It has to understand that without it we would not be in a position to know any of this, and the journey to where we are now needed it to be. In the same way that the ending of conflict comes through negotiation not more fighting, the end to the ego's dominance is through understanding what it is, allowing it to step back without fear of annihilation, and transcending it. It becomes a willing participant, not something to be turned away from. It too is on its own evolving journey.
"Killing" was a bad way to express what I truely meant but that's always as it is with our language. I also intertwined different concepts together with my definition of ego. "Ego" as the voice inside our head and "ego" as what gives us a feeling of superiority, those are very different concepts of a same word. "Killing" refered to the second one. Communication is something very difficult for the time being.
Whats an ego without that sense of superiority though? I'd like to think that I've transcended to a higher awareness, but occasionally I feel my ego subtly creeping back throughout the day.
There is no such thing as a set definition of what "ego" is. Some can state our "ego" is the opposition between human need and human want without being intrensically false but without being absolutely right through the perspective of "absolutely" carrying any real meaning at all.
Even though you have feelings of transcendence, the ego persists as long as you do. But as long as you recognise that, and understand that a higher awareness will never eliminate it entirely, eventually that creeping feeling will be there less and less.
I think I'm defining ego as that which we usually feel we are, which represents the way we express ourselves and interact with the world, and which of course, can feel superior, as it can humble. The temporary letting go of it (I believe in some ways this is all that we can do for now) allows a glimpse into what lies behind, beyond, it. These glimpses are all we need to start a process that allows a change in our life that lets the light shine through. As long as we're alive, we're gonna need some kind of egoic structure, but it doesn't have to be anything like the form it usually manifests as, and so would effectively become spiritualised.
You have to come to the realisation that human beings have no way to know anything about reality around us.Reality as how things are regardless of how they may appear to be. The only way we perceive anything is through our senses which are flawed and utmost limited. The only way we can gather valid information is true scientific inquiry disconnected from any preconceived ideas. That's where a man as Einstein fell short hence his famous quote: "I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it." While he was finally proven wrong on quantum level. We not only have flawed senses on the most basic level. But we only see things through patterns that are deemed acceptable to us aka logic, reason,common sense, culture and so on. When someone says the moon is white and nothing will change that, well the moon is not anymore white than everything else, it's the frequency of light we perceive that makes us see it as white. We also need to keep in mind that science gives us the best of results for acquiring knowledge at this time, and as we improve our ways of measuring our knowledge will be constantly updated. We are really dumb but that's alright nothing wrong with that, it leaves us a chance to improve who we are. We are not able of true communication hence all conflicts are based on personal interpretation, one of the many shortcomings of our language. We are not capable of inventing anything new, we only put known elements together in a new way while we recently started to gather information in a scientific way. We are all so beautiful but we fail to see this, we are the ones shaping the world around us and I say this from a scientific point of view not a personal nor poetical one. What I liked most in your initial post is the veracity of the things you say on a scientific level. We share a very similar feeling about the state of things.
OMG can you say intellectual? I, for one, will not worry about God until I am dead. Then I will know the facts. Until then, pass me the bong please....
Great points in the original post. The mental/anthropomorphic concept of God has been obsolete for a while and does the real thing almost no justice. Just what this God is, well, can only really be known by feeling it. I can only say it is a thing of infinite compassion and harmony.
This is why I mentioned altering conscious by plant means earlier. For while you are right about the way we perceive reality through our normal egoic mind, this changes completely when we find a way to transcend it. As long as we continue to experience the ego the same old way, we will always be limited in what we're able to imagine and understand by what we see of what's around us. Try as we might, all we'll succeed in doing is quantifying it further, dissecting it more. We may understand it better, but better is a very subjective thing. If we can't ever understand it completely, then on some level, we may be fooling ourselves into thinking that the scientific method is the only way to approach it. It is the only way that makes sense for most, but it is not the only way.
Infact, it's much easier to say what it ISN'T that what it is. It is NOT: -A superior overlord -A separately placed entity -Petty, jealous, angry In my opinion, at least
I agree with the vast amount of what the OP has posted. A couple of comments. Selah posted "There is no such thing as a set definition of what "ego" is." This is not true. Our contemporary understanding of the Id, Ego, and Super Ego comes from Freud who gives us that definition. People use the term in all sorts of ways but the usage is incorrect. There is a definition of the word no matter how we decide to use it. The problem, for me, with any construct involving non-quantifiable hypothesis simply can not be proven by any rational or logical construct. As we ask ourselves these huge questions about existence and our place in it, IMHO it is imperative that we use rationality and logic as the foundation upon which we build our world view. The reason I believe this is because I believe that the mind is incredibly adept at self deception. Perhaps this has to do with our mortality. Examples of the truth of this concept would be the many various religions, or the various political parties all claiming to have "truth." Many people involved in these various different world views MUST be living in self deception. Given the above, my rational mind must conclude that there is no quantifiable evidence that there is anything beyond the material existence. So why do I agree with what the OP has posted? Because I seem to be more than just my rational mind. Something deep inside of me, and from what I have seen we must all be like this, reaches out to touch SOMETHING. I have no idea what that is or even if it exists but I can not deny the phenomena. So at this point in my life I am open, simply open.
What you are saying is really interesting. And I may need some time to formulate answers while our previous communication was already partially incomplete. Your last post may well be the most important post of the thread not solely based on it's content but more in it's implication. I will first adress the error we made in our previous communication.
What I was implying in my post was that we must come to a point where our perception of things collide with scientific evidence. Otherwise everything we come up with stays a pure mental construction regardless if you feel so. I was not implying science is the only way to come to a meaningful conclusion but as the only way to prove if our conclusions are meaningful. I realise this may seems vague at first read and that was my second point. Being that while there may be a common definition to a certain word there is no such thing as a common interpretation, that's what basically creates conflict otherwise people who would receive the same information would all come to the same conclusion. I agree it's more subtle than that but think about it when we read the same novel, have we read the same book? Basic answer: Yes, we had the same words before our eyes. And will we all have interpreted the same way? I don't think so. That's why you have Protestants, Christians, etc... I don't want to attack you in your beliefs but saying you are open is in direct contradiction of you need of rationality and logic. Logic doesn't apply to nature, logic is a man made concept, the idea that what applies to us applies to everything else. And our basic need of it is but a reflection of our personal projection. It's not different from the idea of an antromorphic God, think about it. When you are talking about groups of people claiming they know the truth. The answer is they are all mistaken because they have no clue about a damn thing, they don't know what makes us who we are, what makes us behave as we do, they have no idea to solve any practical problem encountered by men. I don't want you to take my word on it but go step up to every politician or religious pinhead you want and ask them. How do we produce more food faster without exhausting our soil? How do we make cars who don't collide with each other? and so on. Those are real problems. Not killing, war, money, fossil fuels, fiscal cliffs and all this other sort of bullshit, those are all false problems. Men need clean water, clean air, healthy food, warmth, positive interactions with other human beings, relevant education, all others things are dissolved into the "want". Do you realise a lot of things you say have no base at all and are actually disproven by science. But don't misunderstand me I also feel something deep inside. A feeling that makes me love everything in life, which makes me don't care about death, which makes me study and think for hours a day. Everything and everyone is worth knowing.