Dec 31, 2014
Some say the Great Spirit is not an individual being.
"It is not an individual being - it is more like the primal ground or reality of all being and existence."
http://www.world-religions-professor.com/atman-brahman.html
All the evidence to me seems to indicate the Great Spirit is an individual being [there are breakdowns of a deity with three composite personas and two composite personas, both of which seem plausible to me]. Some of those who maintain S/He is not one spirit IMO replace S/He with another concept...World Soul (Animus Mundi), possibly "Over Soul" too. But this World Soul consciousness I believe is not that from which we emanated (not the "Great Spirit"). I believe the concepts or theology tagged on to this particular metaphysical concept (World Soul) were derived from ancient concepts of something Jung wrote a lot about (the collective unconscious), although these ancient allusions and generalizations are in some quarters taken today to equal the whole of what was OTOH before assumed, by some ancients, to be the metaphysical absolute...God. What the World Soul is, however, is better explained IMO by Carl Jung in terms of his "collective unconscious" (Rupert Sheldrake has variations of this, to a point, with his concept of "morphic fields"). Only I'd for-sure include in this...non-human consciousnesses with bodies here on Earth. OTOH, the World-Soul-As-Atman-Idea is represented in definition 3 here for example (which I believe mistakenly assumes the collective unconscious as the end goal of individual souls...IMO they already participate in same)...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atman
IMO it's not that in a Brahman/Shakti godhead, the "Yin" [or Shakti] persona does Her thing only amidst the phenomena of limited dimensions we discuss in everyday conversation (those we understand well in the common parlance of "4 dimensional"...IOW phenomena of the manifest "every day world"). IMO Brahman has a Yang side and a Yin side (Ramakrishna said: Brahman is Kali and Kali is Brahman). The Yin side or nature, for all I know, is perfectly content to sit observing in her time just as quiescently as Hinduism posited Brahman sat [there were views that placed Brahman somewhat apart as observing all...the observer... a view connected to the adjective "impersonal," which the Advaita school pinned on the absolute. There is I think some confusion in the West re what was what in India; and what was what was that there were differing theologies]. I don't conceive Mother God as an aura of a more fundamental Yang Brahman, and I don't conceive "Nature" (Prakriti) as the actual "body" of Brahman's Yin side....but I conceive Nature as a panoply of individual and individuating consciousnesses (or pilgrim consciousnesses if you want to bracket out the sometimes unspecific notion of "individuating"). Jung's collective unconscious concept is both similar to the World Soul concept and my notion of Nature; but in my concept individual souls are tied to physical organisms which are less long-lived though real...as they arguably in turn consist of smaller bodies inhabited by longer-lived souls (cells). In terms of World Soul the collective unconscious concept in some contexts (in some works) seems mostly to refer to past experiences of humans...the past I also think is something Nature participates in (see Rupert Sheldrake's idea of templates). Perhaps Nature's present is enough to delve into for the moment.
Carl Jung's notion of the collective unconscious (what's really behind "World Soul" IMO) is IMO in some moments vastly more tied in with local settings in Earth's portion of Nature...than the Divine Mother. Think of a lynch mob.
The panoply of consciousnesses (constituting the World Soul or Nature) I believe is most significantly a matter of cumulative experiences in the present [conscious human entities are limited in their comprehension of individual consciousnesses other than their own, of course, so there are barriers; but remember Jung termed his version of the World Soul as a collective unconscious]. In the present, as I wrote above, I liken this panoply to Nature, while there's a "memory" storehouse for entities and one for groups of entities [souls, groups of souls, and evidently of biology too, eg of species and of morphological phenomena/developments [I know, if adaptations are derived from templates, then how do new ones develop?]]. It may be true that "Nature" exists predominately in a set of dimensions governed/created by Divine Shakti or Kali...but when I think of "Kali," before and apart from Her creation (a form I prefer to name Mother God or Divine Mother)...She, in such form, to my mind, is not an emanation of the "masculine" Brahman (not some "glory of Brahman" or aura of Brahman in turn creating another aura equaling the physical world or Prakriti). She is instead "half" of what used to be indicated by the word "Brahman"...half of Brahman's nature. God is one IMO, but our perception dictates alternate personas of God. Shakti's nature shares in the nature of the Great Spirit just as Brahman's does. It's Her nature that's unconditioned, not her handiwork [and I heretically embrace the notion that Brahman could inaugurate some handiwork of His own]. No doubt, from Brahman's viewpoint there is a merging or oneness; but for some humans the places of the merging cannot yet be understood (me included).
Goswami critiqued UVA http://faculty.virginia.edu/consciousness/Word%20Consciousness.pdf
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=&as_epq=the+relevance+of+the+tangled+hierarchy&as_oq=departed+souls+afterlife+nde&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&tbs=&as_filetype=&as_rights=&gws_rd=ssl
Ingrid Fredrikksson https://books.google.com/books?id=QbL2XvWc_RkC&pg=PA184&lpg=PA184&dq=massless+OR+aspect+%22tangled+hierarchy%22&source=bl&ots=Mp1Jn7CMK0&sig=emGpE0lA4S6qKdLBHidDDQu3k8w&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Kd75VMLwMYzmsAT5zoKwBQ&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=massless%20OR%20aspect%20%22tangled%20hierarchy%22&f=false
massless
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=Particles+massless&as_epq=tangled+hierarchy&as_oq=massless+aspect&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&tbs=&as_filetype=&as_rights=&gws_rd=ssl
standard
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=particles&as_epq=tangled+hierarchy&as_oq=massless+aspect&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&tbs=&as_filetype=&as_rights=&gws_rd=ssl
THE INTEGRATIONALISTS AND THE NON-DUALISTS http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Andrew%20Powell%20Past%20Life%20Memory%20%E2%80%93%20a%20Key%20to%20Understanding%20the%20Self.z.pdf http://intentblog.com/enlightenment-and-rebirth/
Google Advanced Search finds 406K citations for "spirit being." Maybe Father Richard was attempting to emphasize what Advaitins call the "impersonal" aspect of Brahman. I could never go with Advaita (try as I have), sticking with qualified non-dualism myself. I do go with what humans perceive as a feminine quality and a masculine quality...or corresponding personas. But those are our "perceptions." Two of the three people I am closest to at times I suppose might think God is not a "being," which at times causes me sadness. There are concepts like Jung's of the "pleroma"...the pleroma being a collection of phenomena not conscious of itself. I tried to get into it, but I can't accept a Great Spirit not conscious of itself or constituent parts. Pascal inspired awe theorizing about God's level of awareness; but that we can't imagine it...to me doesn't mean it's so different that S/He's not a "being."
I was impressed that Oprah remembered something from Zukav (pleasantly impressed), another guy unfortunately I can't go along with on everything.
While I'm spouting off, I hope Father Rohr will sometime differentiate between legalistic dualism and metaphysical dualism. During a few moments in this sojourn of mine it seemed to me that "energy monism" eg made sense, but humans get carried away with concepts. At some level the energy of an aura and the energy possessed by one photon are the same; but since some haven't even thought about it (and don't respect the difference), I believe I will continue paying the difference respect.
Dec
Lao Tzu
http://terebess.hu/english/tao/gia.html
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2007/01/voice-of-scapegoat-series.html
Paradigm Wars (book), Mark Woodhouse
Nov 2014
http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=7651
http://www.sacredweb.com/online_articles/
http://marikablogs.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2013-01-01T00:00:00Z&updated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00Z&max-results=1
"There is a great danger, especially when one reads certain modern studies of Buddhism in the West, in failing to recognise that the notion of 'emptiness' about which one hears so much is not an emptiness or lack of reality as is sometimes curiously supposed but an emptiness of limitations, relativity and delusion."
http://www.sacredweb.com/online_articles/sw3_paraskevopoulos.pdf
Pat folks, perma dude, Pat https://www.facebook.com/ernestoalfredo.santamaria?fref=nf
http://www.bmeacham.com/whatswhat/TaoTeChingOntology.html
Dec 31, 2014
Some say the Great Spirit is not an individual being.
http://www.world-religions-professor.com/atman-brahman.html
All the evidence to me seems to indicate the Great Spirit is an individual being [there are breakdowns of a deity with three composite personas and two composite personas, both of which seem plausible to me]. Some of those who maintain S/He is not one spirit IMO replace S/He with another concept...World Soul (Animus Mundi), possibly "Over Soul" too. But this World Soul consciousness I believe is not that from which we emanated (not the "Great Spirit"). I believe the concepts or theology tagged on to this particular metaphysical concept (World Soul) were derived from ancient concepts of something Jung wrote a lot about (the collective unconscious), although these ancient allusions and generalizations are in some quarters taken today to equal the whole of what was OTOH before assumed, by some ancients, to be the metaphysical absolute...God. What the World Soul is, however, is better explained IMO by Carl Jung in terms of his "collective unconscious" (Rupert Sheldrake has variations of this, to a point, with his concept of "morphic fields"). Only I'd for-sure include in this...non-human consciousnesses with bodies here on Earth. OTOH, the World-Soul-As-Atman-Idea is represented in definition 3 here for example (which I believe mistakenly assumes the collective unconscious as the end goal of individual souls...IMO they already participate in same)...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atman
IMO it's not that in a Brahman/Shakti godhead, the "Yin" [or Shakti] persona does Her thing only amidst the phenomena of limited dimensions we discuss in everyday conversation (those we understand well in the common parlance of "4 dimensional"...IOW phenomena of the manifest "every day world"). IMO Brahman has a Yang side and a Yin side (Ramakrishna said: Brahman is Kali and Kali is Brahman). The Yin side or nature, for all I know, is perfectly content to sit observing in her time just as quiescently as Hinduism posited Brahman sat [there were views that placed Brahman somewhat apart as observing all...the observer... a view connected to the adjective "impersonal," which the Advaita school pinned on the absolute. There is I think some confusion in the West re what was what in India; and what was what was that there were differing theologies]. I don't conceive Mother God as an aura of a more fundamental Yang Brahman, and I don't conceive "Nature" (Prakriti) as the actual "body" of Brahman's Yin side....but I conceive Nature as a panoply of individual and individuating consciousnesses (or pilgrim consciousnesses if you want to bracket out the sometimes unspecific notion of "individuating"). Jung's collective unconscious concept is both similar to the World Soul concept and my notion of Nature; but in my concept individual souls are tied to physical organisms which are less long-lived though real...as they arguably in turn consist of smaller bodies inhabited by longer-lived souls (cells). In terms of World Soul the collective unconscious concept in some contexts (in some works) seems mostly to refer to past experiences of humans...the past I also think is something Nature participates in (see Rupert Sheldrake's idea of templates). Perhaps Nature's present is enough to delve into for the moment.
Carl Jung's notion of the collective unconscious (what's really behind "World Soul" IMO) is IMO in some moments vastly more tied in with local settings in Earth's portion of Nature...than the Divine Mother. Think of a lynch mob.
The panoply of consciousnesses (constituting the World Soul or Nature) I believe is most significantly a matter of cumulative experiences in the present [conscious human entities are limited in their comprehension of individual consciousnesses other than their own, of course, so there are barriers; but remember Jung termed his version of the World Soul as a collective unconscious]. In the present, as I wrote above, I liken this panoply to Nature, while there's a "memory" storehouse for entities and one for groups of entities [souls, groups of souls, and evidently of biology too, eg of species and of morphological phenomena/developments [I know, if adaptations are derived from templates, then how do new ones develop?]]. It may be true that "Nature" exists predominately in a set of dimensions governed/created by Divine Shakti or Kali...but when I think of "Kali," before and apart from Her creation (a form I prefer to name Mother God or Divine Mother)...She, in such form, to my mind, is not an emanation of the "masculine" Brahman (not some "glory of Brahman" or aura of Brahman in turn creating another aura equaling the physical world or Prakriti). She is instead "half" of what used to be indicated by the word "Brahman"...half of Brahman's nature. God is one IMO, but our perception dictates alternate personas of God. Shakti's nature shares in the nature of the Great Spirit just as Brahman's does. It's Her nature that's unconditioned, not her handiwork [and I heretically embrace the notion that Brahman could inaugurate some handiwork of His own]. No doubt, from Brahman's viewpoint there is a merging or oneness; but for some humans the places of the merging cannot yet be understood (me included).
http://www.hinduism.co.za/maya-sha.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timaeus_(dialogue)
http://montalk.net/gnosis/171/corruption-of-the-demiurge
"How he [Godel] gets there I don't yet fully understand but his conclusion seems to be that our individual consciousness is not exclusive to us, and that bits of our consciousness also reside in the brains of others whom we know. Conversely, bits of their consciousness reside in our own brain, perhaps as influences* on our thinking (my interpretation). If we extend this concept to the current thread, I suppose you could argue that we live on through the minds of others whom we know."
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?p=63977946
I can believe the "bits" may reside in other's fields, and/or that given cells or neuron arrays can access such. Guess from the POV of another tradition, you could look at these "bits" as fragments or "samskara"s, but that these are all that's left of us further along doesn't tally up with writings that have impressed me. Aurobindo's idea, for example, of the "psychic body" (soul) returning as a "seed" makes sense to me, and (combined with Sheldrake's ideas on morphological development) how it re-develops [grows] in each sojourn. "Monad" in a way lends too much simplicity to the reality of what a soul is, but in another sense (don't ask me which) it seems appropriate. My sense is that care of my soul seems to mean insuring that it continues travelling where it is supposed to go. Burn up as much karma as possible to get there (to that end, even walking into a bonfire too big demonstrates good intentions). Burn up enough so your perception isn't clouded when the Ground Luminosity appears. If the bonfire's a shortcut...alright by me.
June 2014
https://www.google.com/search?lr=&as_qdr=all&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=yRqTU-ypOdWxyATl1YGwBw&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=685&q=images%20causal%20etheric%20karma%20OR%20samskara%20%22planes%20of%20existence%22
https://www.google.com/search?lr=&as_qdr=all&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=KR6TU72TE5ezyATu-oDoAw&ved=0CCEQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=685&q=images%20causal%20OR%20etheric%20OR%20karma%20OR%20samskara%20%22tangled%20hierarchy%22
http://godmindhyperspace.weebly.com/
"tangled hiearchy" image
http://marianlansky.typepad.com/
http://www.markwoodhouse.com/parawars_toc.html
Paradigm Wars (book), Mark Woodhouse
http://books.google.com/books?id=dejmdCWwEHsC&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=woodhouse+%22energy+monism%22&source=bl&ots=BxuFNtubX_&sig=OwYjf_BwcuhzGuk5hKe8-p4btPY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DXsxU9ijFoSiyAHMm4DgDA&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=woodhouse%20%22energy%20monism%22&f=false
1. http://daveatch.blogspot.com/2013/12/listening.html
2. http://daveatch.blogspot.com/2013/10/disappeared-care-of-facebook.html
3. music links, Return to Spirit, & other items to read
http://daveatch.blogspot.com/2013/01/google-advanced-serach.html
Wherever and however you found the following two paragraphs elsewhere, yes, I wrote them...with the links.
I wonder how quickly an era or an incoming zietgeist can fixate on a particular archetype [especially the paranoid-look-for-victims-archetype]. In the 50s and 60s there was evidently the "glass teat" thing (teat). At the same time in the sphere of science there was the reductionist thing (a legalist archetype, Apollinian, paradoxically...Yang). It seems Jung maintained the conscious mind can become in a given era...too conscious...with respect to an overemphasized archetype. So, does individuation simply round out influences of many archetypes, or bring them back into play with respect to an individual? I remember reading Sri Ramana Maharshi advising seemingly a somewhat different path wherein consciousness needs to avoid too much input from the unconscious [where in the bk I don't know, but I'll link same]. Same re Aurobindo.
That Jung embraced reincarnation at the end of his life would seem to imply he accepted that the individuation process required much, much more "living" experience. I don't remember reading any such reflections on his part, but I also wonder if it changed any of his previous ideas regarding individuation's qualitative goal.
"A JUNGIAN RESPONSE TO KEN WILBER"
http://www.integralworld.net/erkelens1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individuation)
Jung vs Assagioli
the book, "Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi"
somewhat rearranged comment for truthout article on QM & capitalism, around 7/29/12
Like hundreds of millions of other humans, I combine whatever science-to-philosophy extrapolations according to what makes sense to me. What makes sense to me is that the "many worlds" theory holds true somewhat at the atomic and subatomic level [as the double slit experiment indicates], but not at the macro level...that is that there is no new universe created with every decision [or I guess "measurement"] my consciousness makes. To me it just doesn't correspond to how nature is "economic" in terms of using limited amino acids and enzymes to create the near infinity of life forms we observe. Why all the extra universes? And which one of all the new me's am I?
No problem on the impermanence of the "material world" AFAIC. And it cannot be stressed enough imo. However, this seems an example [by which I am not offended] of Western broad stroke blurbs...that extract one take...out of an involved series of views down through history elsewhere. Scroll down to Visishtadvaita and Dvaita just below "Advaita Vedanta." Apart from seeing truth in the saying Ramakrishna passed on to us "Kali is Brahman, and Brahman is Kali" [that is, with respect to gender elements germane to the following]...I find elements of sense in both Visishtadvaita and Dvaita http://www.kheper.net/topics/Vedanta/Vedanta.htm#Schools
At the above site the "reality" of matter is mentioned under Dvaita, and also here in the third paragraph of another of its articles: "...whereas Panentheism, such as the monistic Tantra of Kashmir Shaivism affirms the Reality of both the Unmanifest Absolute and the Phenomenal World in all its diversity." http://www.kheper.net/topics/worldviews/panentheism.html
"Husserl declares that mental and spiritual reality possess their own reality independent of any physical basis, and that a science of the spirit ('Geisteswissenschaft') must be established on as scientific a foundation as the natural sciences have managed:
'It is my conviction that intentional phenomenology has for the first time made spirit as spirit the field of systematic scientific experience, thus effecting a total transformation of the task of knowledge.' [3]
Professor Husserl was denied the use of the library at Freiburg as a result of the anti-Jewish legislation the National Socialists (Nazis) passed in April 1933. His former pupil and Nazi Party member, Martin Heidegger, informed Husserl that he was discharged. Heidegger (whose philosophy Husserl considered to be the result of a faulty departure from, and grave misunderstanding of Husserl's own teachings and methods) removed the dedication to Husserl from his most widely known work, Being and Time, when it was reissued in 1941." http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Edmund_Husserl
Lebenswelt Whitehead process http://www.google.ca/search?as_q=alfred+whitehead+husserl+process&as_epq=&as_oq=lifeworld+lebesnwelt&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&tbs=&as_filetype=&as_rights=
Lebenswelt, Whitehead, process, 12 Step http://www.google.ca/search?as_q=alfred+whitehead+husserl+process&as_epq=12+step&as_oq=lifeworld+lebesnwelt&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&tbs=&as_filetype=&as_rights=
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/en-labs/b/bb/Consciousness_studies.pdf
lifeworld whitehead alfred husserl (taoism or tao) process, 12 step http://www.google.ca/search?as_q=lifeworld+whitehead+alfred+husserl+process&as_epq=12+step&as_oq=tao+taoism&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&tbs=&as_filetype=&as_rights=
Ethics of Vedanta http://www.robwaxman.com/id5.html
http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Ebooks/Ramana_Maharshi_Books/talks_with_sri_ramana_maharshi_complete.pdf
above is Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi
Integral Psychosynthesis, a comparison of Wilber and Assagioli http://www.psykosyntese.dk/a-198/
back up intro
This blog is a ramshackle thing. Basically for years it was just my notes in "the cloud." Didn't even know how to open up public comment! I tried to begin it with an intro to overarching frames to which I sort of subscribe...ones that "march to a different drum" for sure. In the beginning of my days I was plugged into mainstream mindsets (with extra love received), and now it seems from some kind of middle excursion I can return and at least appreciate certain streams amidst rituals of the ten-thousand-things-watershed. One makes it through, and other stones do polish one back somewhat to "everyday consciousness"...polishing one into a smoother pebble...or plopping one in the ferryman, cabbie, or DSP role. Getting closer to one's "original face" (all in all a curriculum it seems planned to provide lots of opportunity). Anyway, by now there are some general views (or one or two very focused quotes which for me have very general importance) that remain at the tail "end" of all these "posts" if one thinks of this one as the "beginning"...though I keep trying to transfer key ones to the "top." I don't really know how yet to create an intro message that will stay at the top. So, some "general" things important to me may still be remaining at the "beginning" when you read this.
I am satisfied to start off referencing a John Heider interview. Heider had involvement with the 12 Step domain. Sorry the link at the end of this post only streams an excerpt of an interview. Heider mentions the "Higher Self" somewhere in the full interview.
In her 70s and 80s my mother liked to plug the feminine side of God. It was a real insight she had. Granted, aspects of this viewpoint remain hard to grasp at times for others of us who got pretty much the same religious training she had. But now in my 60s I see it too. Proceeding from this view of hers, and, according to what John Heider's breakdowns of "Tao Te Ching"means to me --------> Feminine and masculine...yin and yang...came out of the Great Spirit, so it follows they were part of the Great Spirit to begin with.
http://www.humanmedia.org/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?search_in_description=1&keywords=Heider&x=0&y=0
More hairs split here http://philrockstrohforidiots.blogspot.com/2013/01/arriving-singing.html
