Religion doesn’t have to be something that takes you away from God Posted in: Belief and Truth
Just saying …
Just saying …
Many religions consider freedom from judgement of others a saintly quality. But how attainable is it for a person of faith? Especially when at the foundation of their existence are a number of huge personal judgements. For example
How is it possible to maintain such convictions, and at the same time whole heartedly celebrate the divinity and perfection of others – and especially when their life paths are opposed to your chiselled in stone truths? …
Continue readingSo we are faced with three different truths about the shape of an object seen by three separate people. The object is a either round, square or a strange shape … surely they cannot all be correct?
You say it’s round I say no, it’s a square, another says it’s a strange shape. But imagine our seeing ability is restricted to just one eye … i.e. …
Continue readingAnyone who embarks on an adventure with eastern thinking cannot help but come across the notion of the ‘Four Defects of the Conditioned Soul’.
… and the argument that these defects prevent determination of dependable truth, especially in the matter of the meaning and/or purpose of human life.
But the widely recommended solution – submission to infallible authority of guru-sastra-sadhu* – to my mind does not automatically remove one’s personal limitations from their truth-equation. …
Continue readingIf you accept the idea of reincarnation, then you can easily explain the natural flare and talent people have for certain things … this is simply not the beginning of their cultivation, they are picking up from where left off in previous life.
Rather than becoming disheartened … I’m just no good at such and such (i.e. compared to someone else) … instead think ‘anything is possible if I choose it’ … those who I look up to are not at the beginning. …
Continue readingA follower of religion might fear that by admitting any uncertainty they risk losing their faith. Easier and safer (and certainly more cosy) to just pretend I know rather than I choose to believe … and bury deep any doubting thought as the work of a devil. That somehow it is a fundamental to maintaining and cultivating faith that one never entertains any type of doubting. …
Continue readingAchintya-Bheda-Abheda is a school of Vedanta representing the philosophy of inconceivable one-ness and difference. In Sanskrit achintya means ‘inconceivable’, bheda translates as ‘difference’, and abheda translates as ‘non-difference’.
Achintya-Bheda-Abheda, as explained at Wikipedia
The big difficulty for me with this philosophy is how to overcome the inconceivable part. That there is a simultaneous one-ness and difference between/with God and everything (us included) that emanates from God. …
Continue readingOne often finds the sanskrit word karma translated as action or work. But sometimes, and especially in the western mind, people take it to mean reaction rather than action, or something subtle that binds one to the cycle of birth and death (samsara) — administered by some sort of unseen cosmic debt collecting task-force requiring balance in the universe be restored. …
Continue readingWhat if life is not something that comes about because a body in a womb has reached enough maturity to survive outside the womb? What if life exists even prior to conception? If this is true, how does it change the way we understand termination of pregnancy? Let us not cloud the discussion with religion. Let us neither cloud with rape, nor liberation and equal rights for women. …
Continue readingAt least this idea feels compatible with the notion of self-divinity. Compatible in the sense that there be no out of bounds, no area that cannot be explored, no experience that cannot to sought. Everyone at all times is simply expressing their divine. Contributing automatically to the completeness of God. Perfectly. And regardless of judgement imposition of worthy vs. unworthy desire choices. …
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