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In Defence of Nitya-baddha Souls Posted in: Freedom From Judgement, Seeing the Divine, The Self Divine

For a westerner embracing the dharmic tradition, the concept of nitya-baddha (sanskrit) – often translated as ever-conditioned or eternally conditioned soul – is routinely confused with the idea of fallen soul prominent in Abrahamic religions. A fallen soul, in simple terms, being one who has rebelled against God, and has thus been cast out of / banished from the kingdom of God. …

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Misconception Of The Role Of Guru Posted in: The Spiritual Journey

I joined the Hare Krishna movement (ISKCON) in the early 1980s, shortly after the passing of founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta swami (aka Srila Prabhupada), and lived through the turmoil of several fallen ‘successor’ gurus. I was a member for 15 years and therefore feel entitled to opinion on the subject matter of Guru misconception. At the same time, please note that all that follows is just my personal opinion, and as such I am not going to hide behind cherry-picked quotes from guru/sadhu/shastra, as if I am not just expressing my personal subjective insights. …

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Perfect And Complete Posted in: Perfection in Seeming Imperfection

Premise:

God exists. God is perfect and complete. Everything that emanates from God is likewise perfect and complete. Us and this world included. Seeming imperfect/flaw points to misunderstanding of purpose.

How are we and this world perfect?

Possible Purpose:

  • We are all looking at God
  • We are all experiencing God
  • We are all attracted to some aspect or another of God
  • We are all appreciating some facet or another of God
  • All from our individual points of view
    • Sometimes through the lens of atheism
    • Sometimes through the lens of belief in the existence of a God-person
    • Sometimes through the lens of belief in the existence of God-impersonal
    • Through senses and minds appropriate to our current species of life birth
    • Flavoured by association with the modes of material nature
  • God can rightly claim our experiences as his experience by dint of us being his part and parcels
  • Our material situation blinkers and focuses our experiences adding further to their uniqueness
  • Fundamentally our lack omniscience opens the doors to a huge new range of appreciations of God that would otherwise remain out of reach to God (being consciously omniscient).
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The Parades (movie) Posted in: Films

The Parades

Minako waking up on a rubble-strewn beach. As she searches for her son, Ryo, she stumbles upon an assorted group, including a young man named Akira, former yakuza Shori, and ex-film producer Michael. She soon realizes the shocking truth that she has died. Her new companions are also stuck between worlds, unable to move on due to unfinished business with the living.

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Fear vs Love Posted in: The Spiritual Journey

If I’m pursuing a spiritual path, a reasonable question is why? What is my motive? What are my motives? For example, am I motivated primarily by fear or love, or by something else? Perhaps I’m in a state of transition between fear and love, and if so, is that a comfortable experience?

Although I believe choosing to embark upon a journey of spiritual awakening is always a divine prerogative – I suspect in the early stages it may be that faith in beliefs centred around fear serve one ‘better’ than those centred around love. …

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Yesterday’s Children (movie) Posted in: Films

Yesterday’s Children

Jenny Cole lives with her husband and son in middle America. She is pregnant and starts to have very vivid dreams about a small city that has a big church. She starts talking to her mother about it and her mother shows her some drawings she made when she was a child. To her amazement they are identical to the drawings from the dreams Jenny is now having.

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All Hallows’ Eve (novel) Posted in: Books

All Hallows’ Eve is the last of the seven novels of the supernatural written by Charles Williams.

Charles Williams had a genius for choosing strange and exciting themes for his novels and making them believable and profoundly suggestive of spiritual truths. All Hallows’ Eve is the story of a man and woman whose love was so great it could bridge the gap of death; of evil so terrible as to be unmentionable, of a vision so beautiful it must be true.

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Abortion Debate – First Principles Posted in: Pro Life, Social

In my opinion this most important of topics must not be hijacked by religious dogma or women’s rights issues. Views on all sides of such things are passionate, fiercely defended, and for me, paradoxically, they simply cloud and distract.

Instead I suggest invested parties step back … way back … and review their personal convictions about who/what we are, and what life is? …

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Suffering By The Will Of God? Posted in: Aggressor-Victim, Suffering and an all-powerful benevolent God

That God is benevolent and completely in control, yet at the same time bad things happen in this world is a problem for logical and rational thinkers. I think. If we embrace any idea that artificially distances God from something he/she is absolutely in control of, i.e. to explain the suffering of this world without implicating God … as most religions tend to do in one form or another (law of karma, natural law, punishment for sin, our fault, the devil) … even though at the same time believing not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of God aren’t we deceiving ourselves and turning our backs on logical and rational thinking? …

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