I guess we all have our own suit of armor that is shaped for us.

Eta, I have no problem with my God, sometimes the caress of her shadow is not enough for me, but that is just me having a momentary bout of selfishness.

@SScot

I hope you don't mind me asking, and I might've missed it, but who is your god?

hard to say exactly what she is, putting together the many truths of all the religions of the world, with a hard base of Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, math and science.

And i have found her, she is distant, ever-watching, but i see her, there is a term the far east known as "The Great Mother"

as fitting a title as any other, read the OP first, along with these historical posts, you will get a picture, i am keeping many of my posts saved so i can never forget, many of them are responses to other people, so none are directed towards you.

@RSR556

===

Eta, I was selfish in my outburst, I was selfish for wanting to be different, because I see her, along with the others that have seen her aswell, I forgot my place, she only Embraces those when there time is ready.

Only when your time is ready will you be back to the void, I am just hopelessly impatient.
----
you know, i hate it, i have read so much yet so little, religion after religion, non belief to no belief, science and math, i cant learn all that is currently known, its impossible, our life span is too short to amass such a large amount of knowledge, all the books, all the scientists and philosophers, i only see pieces of it, the damned truth, with more answers comes more questions, and more questions and more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more, no closer, no farther, neither here, or not here, all around, but unseen, so close, yet so far, and a life to short to find it.

the truth, Truth is what drives me to such spiritual insanity
Tao Te Ching 14
Look, and it can't be seen. Listen, and it can't be heard. Reach, and it can't be grasped. Above, it isn't bright. Below, it isn't dark. Seamless, unnameable, it returns to the realm of nothing. Form that includes all forms, image without an image, subtle, beyond all conception. Approach it and there is no beginning; follow it and there is no end. You can't know it, but you can be it, at ease in your own life. Just realize where you come from: this is the essence of wisdom.

when i dream, i stand naked in a sea of white sand, with the sun to the left, moon to the right, and a black hole in the center of the sky, with light dots of distant stars, i see a single black egg with the words "truth is beyond this shell", the word are in Ancient Chinese, but for some reason, i know that is what it says, i hold it in my hands, i try to brake the egg, but it is a strange metal, no tools around, only my hands, nothing but sand as white as rice, i break my teeth, i break my bones, i pull out my left eye and stuff the egg in the socket out of sheer frustration, nothing, dead silence, with only gentle winds to brush the sand.

i know you are there damn it.
i scream but you do not respond.
you see and hear all that is your creation.
but you dont let me touch you.
i need it, i need you desperately, all of humanity needs you.
but you cant be held.
you are our shadow.
i see you cast on the ground by the sun.
i try to grasp but all i feel is dirt, grass or concrete.

and others dont see it.
they dont see and not see, what i know and dont know.
i have some family, and a husband.
but its not enough.
i drown my misery in material things and relationships with people.
but you are in the distance.
always watching always hearing.
grand gentle mother of all things, of all creation.
a creation so great that no matter how far we get in science and math we will never discover all your mysteries.
and they dont see not see it.
they either believe in something else.
or are totally blind, and say that their is no evidence of your existence.
im all alone with you in this sea of white.
your in my hands but i cant touch you.
so clear with your black metal finish.
words perfectly carved.
i can only assume the fetal position, and hold you close to my heart.
in this sea of sand.
here but not here.
heres not here.

all i what is sleep.
with you gently stroking my head.
as i lay my head on your lap.
to be a child, something i never got to be.
at the end of all things.
but i guess i have to wait 60 more years.

why wont you hold me?
why wont you hold anyone?
please let me see you hold someone.
you barley caress me with your shadow.
please hold me.

please.

===

Laozi: in thinking keep to the simple.

I just never knew how to stop, if found that the more you learn the more you will learn about yourself.

Yet.

If you read too much you will lose your self, fly to close to the sun, or read a elder scroll, it is madness, i just know now that i will never know more than what i do now, to pursue it further is pointless, I just know enough to not be blind

I'd like to clarify a little by what I meant by the black egg in the desert

The egg contains god and understanding.
But you have no tool which to try to break her container.
Even if you find a wood branch "math and science" in a sea of sand.
The egg is metal, the branch will brake.
All you can do is hold her in your hands.
She is inside and you can never get to her.
She might as well be as far away as a unknown galaxy.
But she sees beyond the eggs shell and sees me, sees all.
It is just my duty to carry her around and show her everything.
Siddhartha found the egg and found it great but unpleasant so he dragged it with dead vines.
Cunfusis found it pretty and interesting but kept it hidden in a wood box.
Laozi found it beautiful and wonderous, so he placed it in his wicker basket for all to see.
But I will hold it with at least one hand at all times untill the end of my days.
I will have that burden willingly.

===

You could always start with physics, see how everything is pieced together a very complicated web that is unsustainable when pushed either edge of the extreme, gravity, temperature, how hardly anything seems to be much faster than light, how atoms seem to slow down if you get them cold enough, the peculiarity of it all, to take vast intricate system that's difficult to totally comprehend with a singular mind, the fuzziness of its laws doesn't help either.

The only thing that seems to run true throughout the universe is that everything is mortal, stars do not last forever, atoms decay, someday even the universe will die, who knows maybe at the end of that another big bang? though we will probably not be around to see that as a species.

What you will start to see is the holes, the void, the unknown, the gaps, and some contradictions.

And that's why some, myself included, think the universe is an experiment, a really complicated one.

And that's where you start to get very different ideas with a concept of God.

Now what I'm about to say is probably going to insult a lot of people, and I do not mean to insult them directly, from all the indications that I can see, is that God is all-powerful, but not all knowing, good, evil, and time having absolutely no meaning to whoever created this Grand spectacle.

Here and not here, neither one or many, a esoteric enigma she is, mother of all things.

The universe is nothing but numbers, but too many of you don't think about why maybe those numbers are there in the first place.

For too many of you the numbers is all you will ever see, their is nothing that can be said to change your absolutism in things you can only touch.

.

You know what is even the point talking to any of your kind? So dull, boring, and limited, in the end it matters not if you are blind to the obvious, god dosent care so why should I?

===

A single word can have more than one meaning

Science and math are the same way

Many people like them to be a solid a tungsten steel composite, or a mountain.

But I like to see them as more like non-Newtonian fluids

You hit them with a hammer and you will always get the same reaction, and that is the way most people approach it.

However if you approach it differently you will soon see that you can be surrounded by it.

===

He he he he.

I accept the physical reality as much as you do, unlike most of the other religions.

I just happen to see a lot of other stuff attached to it.

I will not close my eyes to it.

===

What evidence would you like me to provide?

Most of the evidence that atheists provide is my evidence as well.

Our prospective happens to be quite different.

To me, you see the wall, but you don't see Beyond it, the wall is all you will ever see, the fact that you can be at peace with just the wall itself is baffling to me.

And I have not been able to find a way to show you how to remove one of the bricks and see through to the other side.

===

No i havent, this last weekend was the first weekend in a long while my wife and i didnt have stuff going on. We ended up taking a Thia Yoga class and getting sushi afterward. Hopefully mid August i will have time to start reading some more.

Find the weak, help them become strong.

Do you mean to seek out those who may need help, or wait for those who want help to approach and then instruct and help?

Both you could say.

But I was referring to my last post on the previous page near the bottom read it if you wish

@dillonivik

I think I get where you are coming from. What I get is essentially, be forthcoming but don't force it. I would agree 100%. I love engaging and sharing, but I would never dream of forcing my ideas on another. Another one of the reasons I left Christianity.

Tag

@littleponey

Guess I should apologize for leaving you hanging.

I must ask for your forgiveness on not being able to respond to our previous discussion. And have kept you waiting. I have started studying but time is not on my side.

I wish not to go into great detail but I am just not able to devote the necessary time as of right now to be worth your time to answer.

Please accept my apologies and know that I am praying for you.

Jarem08

No problem some of them are on audiobook though, so that could help Tao Te Ching is on youtube



Buddhist and Confucian text however will just require a lot of reading, the Tao Te Ching is relatively short compared to the others

@Jarem08

He was so close, so close, he had it in his hands in the desert, he understood it almost completely, perhaps better then me, but he could not see it's black finish, it's like he was holding it yet it was an invisible object, like he tripped over a invisible Rock, cloaked in obscurity, so he just placed it in his basket, and if any passerby saw the shadow that cast inside it and asked about it he would tell them, he was so close ... to have all of it, stare at you in the face ... and miss it ... what can be said of that?

Or maybe he really wasn't a singular person, but a collection of people, who had Collective wisdom overtime, who knows, it was far too long ago to know about now.

I have but one hope.

For humanity to survive.

Till the end of all things.

To Bare Witness.

To see the last Star Fade.

And be embraced by the darkness.

Such a long time to wait.

Who knows if we will ever exist long enough to see it.

Wait.

He did not need to see her

he got all that he needed

He did not need to see her black finish of her wall, or her white hair, or marble colored eyes.

He did not need it, he already knew it was there.

I may have seen the rest of which that he did not see, I saw her face, but he did not need to see her face, there was no reason to.

Unbelievable.

How indescribably beautiful

Wait

He did see her there's no way he could not see her.

His teachings would have not have been written the way they are if he did not see her

He hid her, Why? So that we could find it if we ask more questions?

No that's not it.

We're not supposed to see her, she is supposed to be invisible to us

He he he

What a clever old man, he might have not been 100% but he did not have to be in the first place!

I have found my answers to some of my last questions

I have found peace now

i have to thank you for making me continue my train of thought at the time, i have found the truth.

@Jarem08

... I am baffled, I have found my answers ... I thought I would never find them ... amusingly they were there when I first discovered them 10 some odd years ago ... they were there from the beginning, but I just couldn't see it at the time.

Find the truth within yourself, for you might not find it anywhere else.

Some days are sure as hell harder than others

That is the funny thing about questions of the spirit. The answers are almost always there, we just lack the maturity of the soul to see them. I have run into this many times, I will read something or hear a lecture, then years later come back to it and have an "ah ha" moment. It is for this reason we must never stop looking and learning, even in the familiar there is more to learn.

Indeed

arfcom has been quite touchy today

vacation is nice

The great mother never does anything,
Yet through her all things are done.
If powerful men and women could center themselves in her essence.
The whole world would be transformed.
By itself, in its natural rhythms.
People would be content with their simple, everyday lives.
In harmony, and free from their own chains.
When they are free from themself.
All things are at peace.

That book is well regarded as the bible for film screen writers and fictional storytellers.

Your avatar is amusing

Tomorrow you will know more, or at least believe you do, and as death draws nearer still you will know even less.

I take comfort in the impossibility that impossibility even exists.

True knowing is not knowing.

Knowing you do not know is knowing, yes?

If you decide to put some more time into understanding the teachings of Jesus might I recommend that you focus on his words as they were recounted? I believe the Bible to be an invaluable book of understanding; however, the apostles were not preaching from the Bible, because it didn't exist obviously, or even the Tanakh. They were teaching and preaching what Jesus said and did. That is Christianity. The Church as a set of rules, traditions, buildings and the Bible are not Christianity imo, those are what man does and always has done.

But I know exactly squat so there's that.

Best of luck on your quest and if you do find the gate please remember we the squirrel people who have decided to stop and look at the flowers.

I'm finally going to write a book, it might take quite a while though.

Oh boy what a day

I saw her face, she was just only a few feet away, I never thought I would get that close, always so distant

What can be said about a non-union blue-collar man that tries his hardest yet still has his job shipped overseas?

What can be said about the leech that decides to live comfortably on welfare?

What can be said about person that built a company that provides jobs for tens of thousands but is never present for their family?

All three are unfair, try to keep things balanced, if at all possible.

Yep, keep it simple.  @LittlePony, you are a chronic over thinker. Some things we will not learn in this life, so don't be in such a hurry to get to the answers.  Organized religion is important for structure and control, and contains many inputs from those who simply had that end in mind.  That knowledge base has also been garnished by those simply intent on self enrichment over the centuries.  Nature is the purest guide, we are one element of an incredibly complex interrelationship.  Stay in nature's favor, and enjoy the ride.  The next chapter will come soon enough.

True that

George Lucas used Campbell's ideas to create the Star Wars universe. Those two held each other in quite high regard...

What is a father that never spends enough time with his family?

What is a mother that never allows her children to leave the nest?

So much more can be asked and answered.

What can be said is that responsibility of parents is to prepare their children for the world.

Most parents fail at this, try not be like them.

And by all creation please teach them basic finances.

Nice day

If a country is governed wisely, its inhabitants will be content.
They enjoy the product of their labor and don't waste time with nonsense and gossip.
Since they dearly love their homes, they aren't interested in travel.
There may be a few cars, airplanes and boats, but they never go too far.
There may be a rifle in every home, but they are rarely needed.
People enjoy their food, take pleasure in being with their families, spend weekends working their property, delight in the doings of the neighborhood.
And even though the next country is so close that people can hear protesters jeering and cars honking, they are content to pass away of old age.

Without ever having gone to see it.

Huh.

When narcissism becomes a religion.

God is not dead despite what has been said.

It is us, humanity, that is dead.
Humanity is dead and we have killed ourselves.
For all our greatness with technology.
For all our gleaming towers of glass and steel.
We sit lifeless in our cubicles.
Walk like the Dead in grocery stores.
Speak like machines in conversation.
And embrace love with no conscience.

Behold, us, the great ignores of all around us, Creation's most unknowingly miserable of creatures.

And the few that see the truth those things are cursed with loneliness.

Great Mother help us.

Can you take from the land, without stripping it bare?
Can you be at peace with animals, without making them pets?
Can you ride upon the ocean, without polluting its purity?
Can you rule a nation, without asserting your will?
Can you love your family, without seeing them as possessions?
Be like the Great Mother and her process the Tao.
Then you will find the balance.

Wat in the hell are you taking? Attached File

It's just 2500+ year old East Asian religious stuff

Although I will say it is definitely foreign to most westerners in terms of thought

@Iamhere