God

tryptych

waiting for a time
Plus I doubt we are going to see any controlled experiments under laborotory conditions which have been peer-reviewed.

Actually, there's quite a bit of interest in doing experiments with experienced meditators in a lab setting - see people like Evan Thompson and Antoine Lutz.

Evan Thompson, Neurophenomenology and contemplative experience

and

Lutz, A., et al. (2004). ‘Long-Term Meditators Self-Induce High-Amplitude Gamma Synchrony During Mental Practice’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 101: 16369-73.
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
if you are interested, you may want to look into the ideas behind Pantheism [think Walt Whitman, maybe even Transcendentalism ] and non-western religions. you'll find that God is not often viewed as some single entity or "intelligent being outside our natural world", and is actually a significant part of the natural world.

Is pantheism nontheistic? Certainly some "non-western" religions are non-theistic, and in their cases I think it's more correct to say that "there is no God" rather than "God is viewed not as a single entity but part of the natural world".
 

budub

la di da
Is pantheism nontheistic? Certainly some "non-western" religions are non-theistic, and in their cases I think it's more correct to say that "there is no God" rather than "God is viewed not as a single entity but part of the natural world".


it is difficult to make any broad ascertions regarding the acceptance of a God in any religion, considering the controversies among the schools of thought within the religions themselves.

i claim no expertise on either eastern religion or Pantheism, though I am, at the most basic level, a curious student of Buddhism and of my own spirituality

these may be helpful readings [gotta love the wiki]
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism

the need to ascertain whether there is or isnt a God seems to be missing the point to me

in this instance, it might be more correct to say that there is God, but maybe not necessarily "a" God [a distinctly separate one at least]

in the case of pantheism, there is agreement that there is God and that it is in all things. but from what i can gather there is a split between the classical pantheists ['spiritual' and more likely to associate with a religion] and the naturalistic pantheists [contemporary individuals who do not place emphasis on a personal God]

regarding deities in eastern religions, youre also likely to find disagreement among the schools

the question of God is largely irrelevant in Buddhism, though some sects (notably Tibetan Buddhism) do venerate a number of gods drawn in from local indigenous belief systems.


i may be talking out of my ass. im exhausted from riding in a car all day and felt the need to form some sort of utterance of a response
 
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rob_giri

Well-known member
Well, my friends, let me explain thusly,



God, the concept that you have in your heads when such a term is used (be it, as you say, an intellgent being existing outside our natural world that JUDGES) of course does not exist - that goes against all the laws of common sense that has been the natural function of the human. The only thing that will cause someone to believe in something like that is of course fear - Fear of being alone in an alien world, being isolated, alienated etc etc etc

so in other words you all are quite justified in not believing in this 'God' - because it goes against your common sense, your reason, and everything of who you are....


However,


This concept of God, is in actual fact completely contradictory to the true origins of that 'Supreme Being' that has been talked about in every major tradition the world over for the past 50,000 years or so...

The reason it has been distorted is quite simple if viewed from hindsight - it is pure ideology that has been coerced and distorted and spat out as a form of Ideological State Apparatus - a term i'm sure you are all familiar with....

Ie. people have walked the Earth and have experienced and understood logically and empirically the true nature of the Universe and Reality (Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Siddartha Gautama, etc), and then there are some fellas down the street who've all said 'Hey! We can use this guys belief system to control people and lock them into a limiting ideological system! That means we can take over the entire of Europe/Middle East/Asia!'

"But how are we going to do that?"

"Well, take out all the parts of this belief system about individual freedom and how we're all the masters of our own reality and replace it with control systems - oh yeah - AND let replace love with FEAR! Then the entire populas will be afraid to do anything without the states consent! Then we can just control people! Fuck yeah!!

Two Thousand years later, people are still getting over it all....

So now that has been covered, we can move on. i'm sure you are all quite aware of how fucked up Dogma is, and how fucked up relgiious oppression is - and i'm sure you are all aware that religious fundamentalism and fanaticism and the very nature of believing too strongly in your own opinion is the scourge of the planet and our mortal enemy....


So, what is God?


God = Great Spirit = Godhead = Void = Source = Wu Chi = Brahman = Ram = Allah = The Beloved = The Supreme etc etc etc

All these concepts, carried by virtually every culture on Earth since the dawn of humanity, are all imaginative METAPHORS for something that has been observed experientially...

It is basically the Infinite Holographic Intelligence of the Universe operating as a singular energetic entity. I, for instance, am made of trillions of subatomic particles, atoms, cells, blood, lymph, organs, veins, arteries blah blah blah - yet, I am a singular human being, am i not? The universe then is trillions of seperate things, yet there is a whole that we can call the universe. Consciousness as we know it, is all made of energy, and there are levels of consciousness - rocks, earth, trees, animals, humans etc etc. What humanity has observed as 'God' or 'Spirit' is the entire universe as a 'singular infinity' - operating harmoniously together.

So when people refer to 'God' or 'Spirit' - they are really refering to subatomic particles interracting - the same as how when i refer to 'I' i am referring to subatomic particles. Every is energy in vibration, and there are differing levels and different 'dimenions'.

I could keep going but i'll leave it as that for now. Let it been known that this is what one observes when one studies the ancient Esoteric traditions of Yoga, Taoism, Sufism, Kaballah, Gnosticism, Alchemy, tribal 'Shamanism' and then looks at modern quantum physics. There is an underlying unity - all these things were dealing with the same reality that you and i are experiencing right now. The next installment maybe concerned with this: How does one quantify emotions, feelings and what we call 'Love' in this light? That fits into the picture too. You know many cultures had figured it all out for their simple ways - but this day and age we are incredibly complex beings with very well developed left-cerebral hemispheres and we NEED the rationale behind all this stuff.


Interesting, hmm?
 

swears

preppy-kei
I'm a very strict atheist, none of this pantheist malarkey for me. Or discussing "Jesus the philosopher."
 

sherief

Generic Human
In an early Christian tradition the story goes that when Christ was born there was a deep groaning heard throughout Greece as Pan died.

I was under the impression that said groaning was a collective groan in anticipation of all the nonsense in store for the next 2000 or so odd years.
 

swears

preppy-kei
There was a born again Christian loudly preaching in Liverpool yesterday lunchtime, and various cheeky Scouse teenagers were shouting abuse, calling him a "knobhead" and a "meff" amongst other things. But I suppose these sort of hardcore Jesus fans are immune to critisism, they can always tell themselves that the devil is working in the minds of the non-believers, persuading them to reject Christ and shout "bellend" at a man of God.
 

Martin Dust

Techno Zen Master
I once spent 6 month worshipping a garden gnome, totally got into it and long story short it worked. Also used one of the fortune fish to answer all questions for a couple of weeks as well, that fucked with my head a lot :) I think it hated me...
 

zhao

there are no accidents
books on my to-read list:

the goddess and the alphabet

the magic mushroom and the cross
 

ome

Well-known member
books on my to-read list:

the goddess and the alphabet

the magic mushroom and the cross
I have mm&x(1st print - found it in Watkins Bookshop 15 years ago), but found it a bit heavy going with the ancient language translation stuff.
Whats the goddess and the alphabet like - anyone read it? It seems to have mixed reviews online.

---

Last night I had some Shri Mataji friends over and I hooked them up to HRV(heart rate variability) & GSR(galvanic skin response) monitors.At first they were suspicious, but as soon as the bio-feedback sensors (specifically the HRV) showed that they had far more control and stamina to sustain more 'relaxed' states (as opposed to others in the room that had little medative experience) they got quite into it. I was impressed how their techniques (variation of kundalini yoga) got the more experienced meditators into medatitive states in less than 10-30 seconds, where others with more traditional Vipassana styles took 3-5 minutes. After the session the Shri Mataji lot expressed their envy at those people that achieved 'thoughtlessness' without being dependent on a technique.

What forms of medative practice do people use here?
I like drawing from real life.. really switches me on and my HRV drops.
 
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tryptych

waiting for a time
^ I'm sure you realise that pretty much any "flow" state, i.e. skilled practice of a discipline can produce physical states very like meditative mindfulness - sport, art, even working out math problems or digging the garden.

Did you look at those links I posted about the lab work done with meditators above?
 

budub

la di da
ome, whether you realize that any sort of disciplined practice produces meditative states or not, i think its pretty sweet that you have the HRV and GSR monitors

tryptych has a point about the biofeedback, ive just never known anyone personally other than researchers to possess these machines

ome, may i ask what business you have with the monitors other than personal use?
 

ome

Well-known member
^ I'm sure you realise that pretty much any "flow" state, i.e. skilled practice of a discipline can produce physical states very like meditative mindfulness above?
Yes,a medative state is not a special thing or place but part of ordinery life particularly when applied in a outwardly directly pratical manner like drawing.

ome, may i ask what business you have with the monitors other than personal use?
just personal use, and wanted too see if my disabled sister-in-law wanted to use it.
-previous exposure to bio-feedback: my old man joined some cult in the 70/80 and had to use a GSR monitor and had i had some contact with doctors into the whole lilly/shulgin thing who liked putting EEG electrodes on your head. lol
-you can get a cheapish(100ukp) HRV/GSR monitor from 'wild divine'. The software is ok if your a child (my kids like it) or enjoy a Deepak 'i'm so light i cant see my own shadow' Chopra enema. There is openSource and 3rd party software to use with it, and i've also noticed people trying to intergrate it with SecondLife for online avatar meditation gaming, but dont know how far that project got.

The Evan Thompson / Lutz links were great, but by there own addmission lacking in context of a bigger picture in the varieties of medative experience. The only non- 'wisdom tradition' stuff i've read that has tried to create a comparative study of 'other' experience is ken wilbers Spectrum of Consciousness or Stanislav Grofs Realms of Human Unconscious that are not a 'scientific' studys, but inspiring nevertheless.
--
ome
 
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