In transcendent meditation;
In the early years of his teaching, Maharishi used “Being” as a synonym for
Brahman. More recently the term “unified field,” drawn from physics, has taken
over that role. Consciousness, understood not as thought but as pure unmediated
awareness, is roughly equivalent to Atman. Enlightenment, or liberation, comes
from the experiential realization of the non-dual state in which Atman and
Brahman (consciousness and the unified field) are one. Maharishi starts with
this basic understanding, often expressed in scientific-sounding language, and
develops his scheme of spiritual evolution from it. [Lowe 2014]
Science and meditation have certainly come a long ways from the Himalaya
Mountains,
-Buck in the Dome
turquoiseb wrote :
Well, having penned my obligatory First Button-Pushing Post Of The Week to
give the Barry-haters something to feed on :-), I am free to write more
seriously about this whole belief in God / atheism thang. Be warned.
I am always fascinated when a believer trots out the "well, the atheists can't
PROVE that there is no God" argument. It always reminds me of "The Emperor's
New Clothes." The believers are all gaga about this new suit of clothes they
believe exists, and this non-believer pipes up and says, "Hey guys...just LOOK.
There ain't no suit of clothes (God). This guy is butt nekkid."
In the fable, the brainwashed believers get the message, and wake up. In
modern life, it's more likely that the believers would start shouting
"Atheist!!! Non-believer in the Holy Garment!!" and try to run the kid out of
town or burn him at the stake. :-)
From: "Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... [FairfieldLife]"
Barry usually stops posting at about 20:00±1 hour GMT.
True. At that point Barry either goes out to spend the evening with friends, or
watches TV or a movie, or does both at the same time. :-)
So I will pipe in until he returns to the light of European day. There are
three scenarios:
the universe created itself
the universe did not create itself
the universe is here, but was never created in the first place
(And because we are here, it probably is not true that it never existed in the
first place.)
As you know, I'm a fan of Door Number Three -- the universe was never
created...it is currently present, both in its manifest and unmanifest forms,
has always been present, and always will be present. Therefore there is no need
to postulate a "first creation" because one never took place. Since there was
no "first creation," there is also no need to postulate a "Creator." (more
below)
We do not know why the universe is here, or how it came to be, we have certain
scenarios that correspond to observation. We have books written in the past
that tell us things about the beginning of the universe, but these books have
no supporting evidence. The beginning of the universe is something of a
mystery. Logic cannot be applied until there are some ideas and facts to reason
with. A beginning which has not been directly observed has no real facts to
argue upon.
Looked at from a spiritual viewpoint, it is also a mystery. If, for example,
being is an eternal present, there is no past and the universe cannot have been
created, even though it is here now, and were this to be an 'experience'
resulting from spiritual practices revolving around the concept of
consciousness, we also have a problem in that there is nothing to test, because
the only fact is first person, and cannot be experienced by another awareness,
there is only a person's description of that experience, there are no direct
facts. Further, being is often described as being 'undefined', that is, we give
names to it, but these are simply tokens, not the actual being, so we are
logically manipulating tokens, and logic cannot touch the real thing, were it
to be this way. If being is regarded as transcendental, then it is beyond the
manipulation of logic and its conclusions.
Science assumes for the present the universe had a beginning based on various
factors relating to the background black body radiation, cosmology, general
relativity and quantum mechanics. What came before that scientifically, if
there was a before, is unknown. If you have ever seen Hawking's eyes, they are
clear and without anguish. Atheism is not necessarily the result of anger, most
atheism is simply the lack of belief in fairy tales that seem to lack evidence
and appear ridiculous in the light of common sense. Atheism is basically the
absence of certain ways some people look at and understand their lives. In its
place is another way but it is not somehow empty or removed from meaning. I do
not have a belief in the tooth fairy even though when I was very young this
myth seemed to have reality. That that belief is no longer a reality does not
result in anger or disappointment; other experiences more than made up for the
revelation that the story
