Apech

Is your finger stuck to your keyboard?

You just had to post.

I would too.

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I think that just as most churches are built on old pagan sites so too the jesus story has incorporated a lot of pagan myths. For instance his 'birthdate' of 25th december is the old Roman festival of Saturnalia ... Saturn being the 'Lord of Misrule'. Whether or not this means that there was no historical Jesus is not the same thing of course. It is true that if you look at a lot of Jewish and Christian mysticism then you can trace roots back to the older cultures of Egypt and Sumeria. For instance Genesis is a watered down version of the Heliopolitan creation myth ... I think the Tree of Life from Kabbalah shows some Egyptian influence as does western alchemy and hermeticism generally. So there is a lot of stuff in the mix ... also the theology of people like Thomas Aquinas and St. Anslem is largely rehashed Greek Platonism or Neo-Platonism ... so the idea that Christianity is all new and unique is completely wrong. I cannot offer any evidence but my feeling/intuition is that there was a historical Jesus ... what he was actually like is of course shrouded in the huge edifice of the Church(s) and all the baggage of 2000 years of history.

OK I don't mean this in an aggressive way but I have studied Ancient Egypt for several decades and I do have access to many source texts (many of which are easily available in translation if you google) and I can say that this idea of Horus=Christ is completely bogus. For instance from your first link ... There is no tradition that Isis (the mother of Horus) was a virgin. There is no link between the birth of Horus and 25th December and there were no three kings. Horus was not baptised and if anyone was beheaded it was his mother Isis who was beheaded by Horus who replaced her head by a that of a cow. Horus was not crucified .... and he did not resurrect. The work of Gerald Massey has been completely discredited ... and only lives on in the minds of those who like to post nonsense on the internet. The only real cultural link between Horus and Christ is that there is a similarity between the statues of Isis and the child horus and the representations of Mary and the baby Jesus ... so it is entirely possible that the Christian artists used the iconography of Ancient Egypt. Horus (Hr ... ) means either 'he who is distant' or 'he who is above' and this refers to his original nature as a sky god. Later he was thought of as the son of Osiris and his main role int hat respect was to fight Osiris' brother Set (who had murdered him) for the throne of Egypt ... the battle lasted eighty years and Horus was eventually victorious .... the Egyptian kings saw them selves as incarnations of Horus. In childhood the baby Horus was injured by a scorpion bite and was cured by Isis and Serqet (the scorpion goddess). During the fight with Set his eye was injured and had to be later restored by Thoth the god of wisdom and healing. It is these events which is probably what Massey thought of as resurrection but if anyone was brought back from the dead it was Osiris his father and not Horus. Many Egyptologists are desperate to find links in Ancient Egypt to the Bible and Judeo-Chrstian thought ... but they are not there .... the Egyptian religion was quite different.

Stunning ... thanks for posting.

There is no story from Ancient Egypt which involves Horus and is comparable with Jesus. Perhaps if you would like to list the events or actions which you think are the same and I will be able to demonstrate that they are not. Or perhaps you can show where you got this idea from ... and which 'historical analysis' you mean.

Best wishes Aaron ... you have added a lot to this forum and hope you will find a way to stick around. Prayers and thoughts for a lucky break for you ... A.

Clearly that's who I am now.

Horus was not resurrected. Mithras was clearly a deity. 25 th Dec was Saturnalia i.e. a few days past the winter solstice - taken over by the church as jesus' birth date. I am not a Christian by the way.

I've forgotten who I am. Welcome back.

Right ... so you are trying to say Santa doesn't exist now! No presents for you this year! PS. Just for the record I think there was a historical Jesus. The reasons for the resonances with ancient teachings (e.g. Egypt) could be that he fulfilled them ... as in fulfilled the 'law'. Obviously you have to wade through the censorship of the catholic church and a lot of wishful thinking by believers to get at the truth.

Well I don't mind being told off ... but I said 'it' seemed ark and spacy ... i.e. the sadhana = 'arising in the form of emptiness'. I didn't say he was .... but I take your point ... and would like to see more if there is any ... but maybe wishing for more is like a Streetcar Named Desire and I'm wishing for the comfort of strangers. (lol).

Excellent questions TI. I hope to come back to them later when I have more time. However just quickly now I would say that in some of these descriptions there seems to be a mixture of formal description and experiential description. I think that part of the initial learning for practice is to learn to focus one pointedly without effort ... but that can be misleading because effort of some kind or energy expenditure is needed to move from a scattered, busy mind to a quiet focused one. But the actual achievement of dharana or eka-citta/eka-grata is not effortful but more a kind of resting or complete engagement perhaps. In terms of mind-content there is a letting come letting go process ... but in terms of the dharana there is a complete absorption in the meditation object. So if you were to say what you are doing it would be single pointed focus ... but if you were to describe the general state you might say that you are not holding on to anything. Maybe. I would say ... as you seem to be an experienced practitioner ... trust your own experience and its validity. Failing that go with the authentic original ... i.e. Patanjali ... because some teachers like to sell easier paths ... (?). A.

I don't wish to offend but I kept thinking of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now ... it seemed very dark and spacey to me ... not my cup of tea these days ... but I hope it helps those who practice this.

When you say God does not exist - you must have an idea about what you mean - otherwise the words are meaningless. It's just that people seem to mean a whole lot of different things when they say God. My Dad is an atheist (although being strict rationalist he would say you cannot disprove what you don't know so he calls himself agnostic ... but he doesn't really mean it ... he's just being super cautious in a strict rationalist sense). So I was brought up with only 'cultural' religion in my life - and that was pretty sparse. So I am naturally an atheist but am drawn through personal experience to spirituality ... so I tend to think in terms of 'energy'/'consciousness' or whatever term you might like to use. I don't naturally talk about God because the term means very little to me. But I find most people are reacting to the 'sunday school' term ... an old man somewhere who knows everything about you and issues moral guidelines written in stone ... and I would wholeheartedly agree that this God does not exist. However if someone prefers to use God as meaning the origin and source of everything ... I don't have a problem with that. Logic suggests to me that since I know I am conscious ... then that consciousness must have an origin or source ... and that could be terms God by some. I can't accept that consciousness arises in 'dead' matter ... it doesn't make any sense to me logically and my experiences suggest otherwise. Materialism is a kind of dualism ... since matter is only one state of energy (which I think we established earlier) ... so i can't believe in the fundamental reality of something which is only an effect caused by something else. All very interesting anyway .... and I appreciate the chance to discuss ... I am sure we will return to this again and again .

Define God please. By which I mean the way in which the word can be applied.

I predicted you would say that! Seriously ... if the TTC speaks to profound truths about nature and human nature then what it says will be universally true and so would predict in a way what will happen in specific circumstances.

You made me think of this .... <h2></h2> ... what's a raock by the way ... did I miss a geology lesson ... or did you mean ruach ... Hebrew for spirit (?) lol

As with everything we have define what we mean by gods. I find most people are confused by the Judeo-Christian concept of God where as there is only one god he/it stands for Absolute reality. So we get the idea that this God, a person or supreme being is equivalent to the Absolute ... which creates all kinds of problems. Monotheism is really a kind of concealed duality. The ancient view of gods is that they are nothing but power or energy concealed in forms. Polytheism such as you find in the ancient world and in Hinduism is very different to monotheism. As there is no limit placed on the Absolute then it is conceivable that it can manifest in many forms and 'levels' as intelligences of all kinds ... not just plants, animals and humans. Worshiping such intelligences becomes very different from going to church on Sunday and can be more about remembering that energy (or whatever we want to call it) or consciousness is at the root of all we perceive and that the variety of its forms is an expression of its total creativity. There are different perspectives to be had is all I am saying.

Well yes. The act of observation has some effect on not just the observed particle but its 'twin' .... suggesting particles are not separate entities but modalities of a continuum which interacts with itself ... thus I am suggesting that this is the basis for consciousness. The transfer of information from place to place in space. Light is one aspect of this. Consciousness in some form or another (perhaps not immediately recognizable as such) is fundamental and not an epi-phenomena ... this makes sense to me. If only that rock could speak or write a book.

A very interesting admission! Unless you agree those stones were actually self-conscious beings I may have to report you to: The Department of Natural Resources' Environmental Protection Division (EPD) under the statute: "Any activity which may result in soil erosion from water or wind and the movement of sediments into state water or onto lands within the state, including, but not limited to, clearing, dredging, grading, excavating, transporting, and filling of land but not including agricultural practices as described in paragraph (5) of Code Section 12-7-17." River Basin Center - North Georgia (PS isn't google great!!!!)

Maybe he just looks like he knows something about particles and all that stuff: