Whachoo mean ONLY a placebo?
The placebo effect is so-called precisely because no one knows how to account
for it. So if I were your opposition (and I'm not) I'd say, "Well, how do you
know that the placebo effect ain't the God-effect?
Also, it says in the Bible plain as day that God is love. So, if you've got
love for everything (bums, gorgeous young things, cancer cells, tape worms,
terrorists, Nazis, trolls, etc.), you've got God by definition. a
"new.morning" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: An
independent view:
why is God necessarily a prerequisite, or an intermediary, to
Universal Love -- defined as loving everything intensely. (Including
Loving the homeless man you pass -- and doing something with that
Love). Can't a pure atheist experience the same intensity of
Universal Love as a Devotee? Whats God got to do with it?
--paraphrasing Tina Turner.
Universal Love is one the esteemed human virtues. If you get there
through, or after, finding God, loving God, finding enlightenment in
your own view, or by what ever means, That, Universal Love, is the
Thing. Not all of the intermediate markers, non-markers, tools,
non-tools, side-shows, non-side-shows, deep samahdi, shallow somadhi,
(or "samadhi what?") etc.
No need to posit, or believe, that God, or loving god, is the only way
to Universal Love. If loving your god brings intense universal love,
then you have a good god -- or at least a good placebo. If loving your
god brings a motivation to smite and hate others, you have a bogus god
IMO.
Is God, and Loving God, perhaps only a placebo getting one to
Universal Love. A correlation seen as causality. Same with meditation,
yoga, yogis, darshan, etc. Can you, can anyone, clearly demonstrate
that these are not simply placebos. Like Marek's and T3rinity's
symbols, my experience is that "placebos" --that is, any object -- a
rock or tree -- can evoke the same experiences as you describe from
your symbols. If you just Love it intensely.
God and Its divine symbols, and messengers. All nice. But you can make
your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to
do so.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"
> <curtisdeltablues@> wrote:
>
> > I wonder if you are using the term in a different way from a Christian
> > evangelist who might use the same words. I guess I might need to
> > understand what you mean by "loving God", how that manifests, and how
> > you experience that. I think you may have a more personalized view of
> > God than I thought previously in the discussion where he seemed too
> > abstract to "love".
>
> I don't resonate at all with evangelic Christians (especially not the
> more fundamentalist type you seem to have more of in the US than we
> here). Basically, philosophically I leave a lot of things open,
> Advaita Vedanta allows me to do so. The general framework of Advaita
> is, that there is Brahman, an all pervading Being, which IS
> everything. The world as we see it is a projection of Maya. Within
> that world, which is unreal and illusiory, there is a personification
> of Brahman in a personal form called Ishwara, or simply God. According
> to Vedanta 'God' or rather Brahman, can adopt different forms, or
> individualities, each ranking supreme giving the respective
> perspective. Shankara himself was a Smartist, who would acknowledge 5
> or 6 different Gods as representative of the Supreme, these are Vishnu
> (and any of his Avatars like Krishna or Rama), Shiva, Devi (or any of
> her emanations like Durga, Lakshmi, Kali), Ganesha and (obviously more
> worshipped in olden times Surya, the Sun.
>
> I do have a personal relationship to several of these deities, not all
> of them in the same way and the same degree. And I have a very
> flexible way I see them in the whole system. I basically subscribe to
> the image, I think Ramakrishna describes, that the unmanifest Brahman
> can give rise to manifest representations of himself for the sake of
> the devotee, to support his worship or devotion, just like water in
> the ocean could be frozen to different shapes.
>
> So if I feel love for God, it could be all of it, to a personal shape,
> and that doesn't have to be a figure, and image, it can also be simply
> a vibration hat I identify to be so, or in a more general unspecified
> sense. It can be many things. I am not doing any pujas at home, or any
> chantings, but I do have some pictures, my favorate ones on my altar,
> and they do evoke feelings when I look at them. But mostly I
> experience love, a sense of Divine love in my meditations, or at
> periods outside of meditation when I am 'connected' Usually this
> 'connectedness' is a force, a shakti I experience which enters my body
> at specific centers, mostly through the Saharada or the forehead
> centers or both, and then travels to the heard, or actually permeates
> me throughout. I don't think this is specific for every bhakta, but
> thats the way it is for me. So God for me is a very real physical
> energy, which comes and which I cannot even escape.
>
> In my earlier days, I had different phases, like I had a phase were I
> would listen to a special kirtan every day (I was still in TM and i
> would do it before meditation) and I would be moved and tears would
> roll in my eyes. I listened to one Kirtan of Ananadamayi Ma everyday
> for 4 years. I also had a phase where I would do a self made puja in
> front of images, and I felt an intense radiation of love coming from
them.
>
> Likewise I do feel love through my preceptor, being in contact with
> her, or simply being in her presence.
>
> > I guess that if there is a God who has thousands of names in Hinduism,
> > calling him "life" and saying that I love "life" may be similar.
>
> It maybe or it maybe not, I have no idea. Most Hindus would have a
> chosen deity which they worship foremost among others, this is likely
> to be Krishna, or Shiva, or other special forms which are connected to
> them. They usually do feel a personal connection to them, if they are
> worshipers and religiously inclined. As I wrote already to nwe
> morning, I strongly resonate with MMY's 'Personal love is concentrated
> universal love' So I do have a strong sense of personal love.
>
> If
> > you mean an ecstatic connection to being alive then I am with you 100%
> > and it becomes a "you say tomato, I say tomaaaato" kind of thing.
>
> I don't exactly know what an 'ecstatic connection' to being alive
> means, I guess it could mean different things to different people. It
> may be a formula that suits you, while my formula is more 'directly'
> religious.
>
>
> If
> > you are having and experience of a personal God mystically or are
> > focusing your energy on an image of God, then I probably got off at
> > the last bus stop.
>
> I do have those experiences as I explained, but recently as i
> explained its more a relationship to an energy pervading me. The
> energy is less of an image, but it does have a personal connotation to
> it at times.
>
> <snip>
>
> > I'm not sure we could know if your words correspond to my reality or
> > vise versa. Words like "transcendent whole" invoke more of a feeling
> > for me than a clear definition. I don't know if my love of life
> > includes what you are referring to here. Life is pretty deep.
>
> I don't know either, and yes.
>
> > If you are trying to use your
> > feeling to prove an external God because of how strong the subjective
> > experience is then no, I would probably not interpret that subjective
> > experience as proof of anything beyond your internal state. (my own
> > internal experiences are evaluated the same way)
>
> Probably a person being connected to the energy I describe is not
> really so much interested in proofs. Its all really about the
> intellectual processing of what you experience. Me, I don't feel I
> have a choice in this. It is simply something that happens the way
it is.
>
>
> > Humans seem to use
> > all their faculties all the time especially when things really matter,
> > so it would surprise me if it was all one way or the other for us.
> > Perhaps part of our individuality is the mix of faculties we use in
> > each context.
>
> Thats exactly how I see it as well! There are many layers of
> personality, and the rational mind, with which we relate to most of
> the material things in life, is just one layer, there are others, and
> it would be a pity if one layer would dominate the other.
>
> > As a blues musician, the idea that I am dominantly
> > functioning from rationality rather then heart isn't a good match.
> > Floating in subjectivity for hours at a time is literally my job.
>
> I can understand this. In my pre-meditation day, but still reaching
> into my Movement period, from the age of puberty I used to make up
> small melodies in my head. Sometimes I would walk around in
> trance-like states, making up tunes. I still remember some of them,
> but they are usually too short for whole songs ;-) They are nice,
> touching, but too short, and I would have to post-process them to make
> real songs and that I cannot do, I am not professional like you. So, I
> think I can somehow relate to what you are saying.
>
> > When I believed in God it was rational even though I
> > re-evaluated my reasoning and concluded that I had premises that I no
> > longer accept. But given those premises and experiences it was
> > perfectly rational for me to conclude the existence of God as I
> > suspect it is for you.
>
> I think so yes. Mostly i think the rational against God is more
> directed to a specific idea of a Creator God I guess.
>
> > If you can answer the question "Why do you
> > believe in God" (for yourself I am not challenging you here) then you
> > are using you rational faculties to weigh the value of your
> > experiences and coming to a conclusion.
>
> I can of course. I believe in a Being, a state of existence which
> includes and anticipates consciousness essentially. Without
> anticipating 'consciousness' (which could be very abstract), I could
> not imagine anything existing, because everything existing is also an
> information, something with the potentiality of 'being made aware of'
> Therefore existence IMO presupposes consciousness, or at least the
> 'idea' of it. I think thats a logical thought, very abstract, but its
> as far as I can think. I think this is finally what we are, and that
> there is a way to 'get in touch' with this.
>
> > It can't be all heart. You
> > have reasons for concluding that you "love God" but they are personal
> > reasons that may not be useful to prove it's reality to someone else.
>
> Sure, I would ask, how you define God, and I would question the
> absolute validity of our world perception. (Pls note 'absolute', I of
> course give relative validity to it)
>
> <snip>
>
> > You may be right here. I am more of a philosophical pragmatist and do
> > no subscribe to the extreme skepticism concerning objective reality
> > that you seem to suggest. Again I suspect that this is very situation
> > dependent for you and doubt that you would function in this mode in
> > the emergency room making decisions for a loved one, but I could be
> > wrong. Although I accept that people's world views can be radically
> > different, I do believe in a physical world outside my mind that will
> > continue to exist when I die.
>
> Sure, I am not denying this, and I think no Advaitis would either. But
> whatever we know of the physical world isn't what it appears to be.
> Whatever we perceive is just our image of the world, and not the world
> as it is. According to an Advaitist the world 'as it is' is also a
> Maya, just of a more general nature.
>
> > But if you put the duality of functions at heart and mind rather then
> > objective and subjective I would argue that I am cranking the same
> > level of full heart as any lover of God. So far I haven't seen any
> > relationship between a person's love of God and their ability to love
> > people so it seems to be irrelevant to my life.
>
> Whatever is relavant to your life is up to you to decide. I would
> subscribe to what you ay, but not in the same absolute way. The way
> you state it is for me too exclusive.
>
> > There are God lovers
> > with big full hearts and atheists also in my experience. If someone
> > says they love God but hate people, then I suspect what they are
> > feeling for God may be something else. I'm a "by there fruits ye
> > shall know them" kinda guy.
>
> Again I agree, but you are putting it too absolute. For example,
> people may have personal defects and still love God. Or people are
> prone to hating someone occasionally, but then simultaneasly have a
> capacity for love. To me this is a too vague relativating statement,
> because love to God is more in view of a relationship to the
> transcendent. A Bhakta will for example consecrate his life to God, or
> he will try to do it. Could you say the same thing about the objects
> in life that you love? Could you say: I consecrate my life to the
> essence of love that I perceive? Could you 'surrender' to the love you
> are talking about? Remember that the whole discussion came about
> through my challenging, you or any atheist about the belief in a
> separate ego entity - which I think most people take for granted, but
> which I think is just another belief. So, surrendering the ego is
> something important to a believer, but I think its not important to an
> atheist loving life or loving nature.
>
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