Nikolai1

Hi Jetsun, just one more question? Is this because these are the only ones remaining from a dying tradition. Or will today's forty year olds, who don't go to Church now, start going when they reach 70? Is Church like taking up lawn bowling?

Yes, because vicars don't speak the spiritual language of the young. Considering I'm no Christian I almost surprise myself, but it does seem a big shame that the powerful Christian message is lost because of the weak watery middle of the road nature of the Church. Everything you need is there, within the Christian tradition. The writings of Walter Hilton, Meister Eckhart, St Augustine, John of the Cross render the Ramana Maharshis of this world an unnecessary repetition. There are enough instructions on mental prayer to have come out of the monastic orders, to render Zazen unneeded. But it's all just getting lost by the Church, so it seems. And so true seekers, go abroad to find what they could have got at home. Don't get me wrong: I think its wonderful to have core spiritual truths to be confirmed and validated by going overseas. But what happens is that we think our home traditions are spiritually barren when they actually aren't. I like to listen to the BATGAP interviews with Rick Archer and he often makes sarcastic reference to the Advaita Police: those who consider any dualistic splits like person and God to be some kind of heresy. Maybe there is some of that going on? I think for myself, I came to Advaita quite late so I always understood that the Non-Duality transcends both duality and non-duality. I guess this can be hard to understand at first. I guess I'm really seeing in my life the beautiful fruits of the religious life and I want to share them somehow. In a year or so, I'm going to have to start earning again, so I'm wondering what kind of work is best for me. I think I'll find it hard to go back to working in some office. I'd feel like I'm wasted there.

Yesterday afternoon I spent a pleasant hour mooching about the website of Lewis Keiser - thank you Edward M for the suggestion. I read the Gospel of Judas Iscariot, once a widely read Christian scripture but since deemed non-canonical. So the ancient idea was that Judas' betrayal was Jesus' plan. Judas was the only disciple whose vision was broad enough to see that the death of Jesus's body was no loss, but a necessary gain. Early Christianity is interesting by anyone's standard. This is of particular interest to the Daoist mind.

Jetsun, I don't have much experience of Satsang, but I have read many books based on conversations in satsang e.g. Nirmala. What strikes me is how spiritually mature it is. It seems to be that those drawn to Advaita are already well on the way themselves, and just fine-tuning stuff. I'd be interested in whether you agree with this? It's the desperate and the alienated I want to reach! And I think a lot of the desperate in the UK may find themselves visiting Church, or talking to their vicar, and getting in return a very unsatisfying experience.

Yes,well, I'm on a budget of £3500 and I need a 7-seater. Any better ideas, let me know!

Hi Apech No I was born and raised an atheist. My mother used to say 'I'd rather my children get into drugs than religion!'. Now I consider myself completely above the distinction of atheism vs theism. When we realise the truth, the feeling of being, the feeling of identity doesn't go away - it stays. From the perspective of the Ego this new state is God, from the perspective of the new state, the ego is part of the same. God is God, I am God, I am I are all the same statements. I now feel that I have a profound personal understanding of what Jesus tried to teach, but I do not worship him nor elevate him, also I am uninterested in the everyday Church life of cake sales and bell-ringing. I would like to find a way of teaching, very much. I believe that there are probably many Christians who are crying out for a vibrant, living and hopeful spirituality. I simply want people to realise that finding God/higher selfhood is the highest pleasure and a very real possibility in life. It upsets me that organised religion seems to block those with lofty hopes. There's a lot more to being a teacher than juts being kind. In fact, many who don't really understand the heights of truth simply settle for being nice to one another. Not dissing this, but there's a lot more to it than that. .I actually did it out of interest of what they would say. it is not a serious plan of mine. I'm like you though, I though they would give me quite an equivocal reply...'Maybe you need to talk to your vicar, maybe you need to allow time for your faith to deepen, we are a broad church with many different appraoches to God etc' But no, it was a flat rejection wasn't it? Maybe they have more mettle than people think? But it is still an inappropriate rigidity. The CofE is a dying institution, in a time when spirituality is booming. They need to open up to new and original religious thinkers.

Hi Aethereous You are right that this thread is mostly a work of satire, but it's new and fun to become a Christian exegete for a while, so I will defend myself...Jesus says: You then interpret doing the will of the father as not being a sinner... So what is sin? Well one thing that Jesus made very clear throughout his short ministry is that sin has nothing to do with breaking the Law of Moses. He was quite prepared to break the law as he saw fit. Breaking the law,for example, by healing on the sabbath, is how everyone else around him thought of sin, but not him. He had something else in mind. Did he have a new different set of rules and commandments? No, his only requirement is the rather vague suggestion that we 'love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength and all our mind. So how do we 'do the will of our father?' Doing the will of the father is putting yourself in such an attitude of surrender, that you are able, on a moment by moment basis, to know what is required. When such surrender is possible for you, you no longer need any rigid guidance engraved on tablets of stone. The law is engraved upon your heart and you are a law unto yourself, which is being a law unto God. To do the will of the father is pure wu wei, and this is what Jesus taught to his uncomprehending followers. Specific ideas about sin, are the lot of the unregenerate. Only those who do not love and trust God will preoccupy themselves with what is and isn't sin. The one who is beloved of God will adhere to the Law of his people and break the Law as he sees fit. In the words of Jesus: 'I come not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it' Wu Wei is the Law that all the world's laws try to capture. By not capturing the law Jesus captured it, taught it, and lived it.

In numerology what is more important: name or birthdate?

Burn in hell, heathen thou!

Cue image of moles trying to have sex with turnips...

Let me guess,..you were just reading the funnies, but your eye was suddenly drawn to the tiny print in the bottom banner

Ill try and answer this in a different thread. I'll call it 'Come gather round people, and hear the Good News!

Aethereous, Do you think so? For me, this insight has come at the end of a lot of searching, and has itself been a kind of breakthrough. When you actually look into all the religions they seem, at first glance, to be absolutely poles apart. I always imagine that this 'first glance' view of things is what most people take; they then see the confusion and potential for conflict, and then want nothing more to do with it. Understanding first hand the true nature of God, and knowing and feeling just how God transcends all the different approaches is a sublime view. Its gorgeous. It beings the whole world together in the very subject that they all hold dear. Sectarianism just seems so backward in comparison! Yes, and I'm sure that many Christians would consider me very puffed up with spiritual pride. Humility for me has taken on a different meaning, I guess. Humility is knowing for yourself the absolute necessity for surrender. It is direct insight into your own nothingness. But who had this insight? Me! And I'm immense and glorious and sublime! Yes I think you're right. There's no career as a UK Unitarian: just being a volunteer at a back-street meeting house. But there is a structure and a network of congregations and a history. There is a thing in the real world that I can participate and which can provide me with a vehicle to talk and share all that I've learned. Actually many modern Unitarians aren't even Christian, they just see Jesus as a wonderful example. In the email I didn't share my views on the Trinity (then I would have been the anti-Christ!) but Unitarians are named because of their rejection of the Threeness. Since then they've come to reject scriptural or theological authority in toto. Thanks for your thoughts

Hi Spotless - thanks for all your advice. I looked up the Universalist Church and I discovered that here in the UK they are called the Unitarians. Their approach to the religious life is absolutely spot on with me. I didn't know anything about them, but apparently there are two small congregations near to where I'll be going in Devon. Soaring Crane - Well, I think if you are wanting to join the ministry you are wanting to be a teacher. So in terms of your views on things, you aren't starting at the bottom but should already have some pretty robust opinions. For the C of E its clearly important your opinions are strongly held and orthodox.

If you have any career advice for someone who wants to spread the Good News but doesn't want o make it all about Jesus then please let me know

You know SC and Brian, the analogies don't quite hold because here have always been antinomian Christians like me.

Different dimensions are just part of the multiplicity. Also the duality of oneness and multiplicity are both part of the oneness.

Yes I agree. There is either wholeness, or multiplicity. When we have multiplicity we have separate things interacting causally. Yin and yang refer to the patterns we see in these interactions.

Considering that Jesus himself said that prayer is 'the one thing needed' I wondered if there would be some recognition that my experience is quite clearly based on contemplation rather than the acceptance of dogma. But this person clearly had no doubt that that the way I am is inappropriate.

I do think that the same thing has happened to Buddha as has happened to Jesus. Most everyday Buddhists, and there are hundreds of millions of them, do not all believe that enlightenment is a possibility for them and probably don't even think of enlightenment. Instead, they simply turn Buddha into a de facto deity, and then take flowers to his statue in the hope that prosperity will continue to be theirs. This is Buddhism as practised by the average Buddhist and it is as far from true religion as Christianity is. Do you really think that the Buddha and Jesus had perfect spiritual clarity? Or is it possible that you've just absorbed the narratives from the everyday adherents of the religion? I think in the case of Jesus, there have been occasional attempts to make clear that he was a man in flesh and blood. In the Passion he felt pain, bled and died like a man and meditating on the brutal reality of the Passion has been used a meditation, particularly in the female orders as a way of growing close in spirit to the Bridegroom. The trouble is, even this goes way over the top. The attitude seems to be: if Jesus was a God-man then ergo his sufferings were on Godlike proportions. O, the blood and the anguish, the wailing and the breast beating this meditation inspires...! Man! (slaps forehead) The reality is: Jesus's death was probably a subdued, even tranquil affair. The awakened soul suffers LESS at death not more. But no, old Granny was tranquil at her death, so was the stable boy who got crushed by the bull, and Jesus can't be at all like these common folk... People will not identify with Jesus! Its a big shame to call him perfect!

Actually one of the situations I see this is on the trip meter in my car which reads 111.1. The same thing happens: my eyes are, it sems deliberately, pulled off the road to the instrument panel, and it is only there for 100 metres, a few seconds. This has nothing to do with an internal clock, in the time sense.

Do you find the blue feather experiment hard to believe?

He got pretty annoyed sometimes " you unbelieving and perverse generation. How long shall I stay here and put up with you?"

Hi rainbow vein I have no real reason to supposeJesus was perfect at anything, not perfect perfect. It is only when we assume he's perfect that we find ourselves asking confused questions like in the OP. Jesus was undoubtedly a great master. The religion that has formed in his name is only partially derived from himself. The rest has come from a huge variety of thinkers, starting with Paul the Apostle. The political success of Christianity was also due to many factors, most of wihich have nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus the man. You asked about how I cultivate spiritual peace and security? Nowadays my only practice is to constantly check in to the peace. It is absolutely always there, either strong or less strong. For me now, just checking in to the peace is meditation. I no longer sit formally at all. In the past I have combined meditation with philosophy and a great deal of reading of the scriptures etc. Ethically, I consider raising a family and being in a relationship with someone of quite different temperament as being part of my practice. Thanks for asking! Edit: perhaps you were asking what Jesus's key strengths were. I would say surrender to the Dao is something that he seemed uniquely able to do. Nothing was therefore impossible for him. He was able to totally remove himself from the picture. I don't think there are many masters to show this in the same way, not even Buddha.

Well I can't deny that I practised.