One
If I think I am God … then, looking at my experience of life and the world around me, I might question Why am I doing this to myself? … How does it serve me? … etc.
Different
If I think I am not God … then my questioning might be more along the lines of Why is God doing this to me? …
Continue readingImagine no religion … or a religion where there is no presumption of a single ultimate goal.
There would be:
I propose that we are always perfect. Perfect and prefectly situated. Seeming imperfection is always the result of erroneous assumption as to who we are and what we are about. After all we are part of God. We are God in that sense. So how could it be otherwise?
Consider for a moment the case of Dorothy, the sweet and innocent young girl who gets lost in a storm, survives miraculously … only to be pursued by a nightmarish green skinned woman and an army of flying monkeys … wait a minute, isn’t that a film? …
Continue readingI propose that death, and for that matter birth, old age and disease as well (sometimes dubbed the fourfold miseries of material existence) are there to serve us. They are there in support of our purpose. Indeed they are necessary to our purpose.
But how? And do they really need to be so extreme and harsh? I propose they are actually no more or less graphic than necessary, in fact just dramatic enough to make entirely believable the notion that we are mortal/temporary, limited … and so on. …
Continue readingIt is not so much that God is getting something that He wants from what is going on here in the material world, but more that He is simply manifesting something He is: the Supreme Enjoyer. His supreme enjoyment includes ‘enjoyment’ of the myriad of pleasures, including those ghastly and horrific, facilitated by self-ignorance in the material world. Without them His enjoyment would not be complete! …
Continue readingWe all enjoy reading a good book. A book with a well-conceived plot, rounded characters that we can relate to and empathise with, an eventual triumph againts all odds of the protagonist, and so on. And with a good book we get to enjoy a huge range of emotions from the comfort and safety of our living room. And those emotions can seem every bit as instense and vital as their real-life counterparts. …
Continue readingWhat I mean by ‘real life’ is our living in ways fully consistent with who we are at the most fundemental level.
Consider a life experienced in a dream: It seems very real while asleep, but upon waking we realise it is not our real life. Even though the range of emotions experienced while sleeping are tangible, perhaps just as tangible as those experienced in our waking life (for example, we may cry and feel sorrow intensely, or feel the ecstasy of being in love), still we readily step back from our dream … which, after all, is only a dream. …
Continue readingIn a theatre the stage is often decorated with props and screens. At least enough to create a context for the drama, a believable backdrop, so that the audience can easily enter into, and enjoy the performance.
I propose that this is exactly what the material world is to us. Something we can readily accept as real, so we can get on with exploring the variety of sensual and emotional enjoyments facilitated by our existence in this world. …
Continue readingWe human beings seem to have an extraordinary ability to suspend disbelief. Especially when it serves our enjoyment.
For example, whenever we watch a film we suspend our awareness that the film is not real … that we are in fact watching actors represented by coloured pixels on a screen. We suspend disbelief in order to enter into and identify with what’s going on. …
Continue readingWho are you, and why?
Typical answers to this question might include:
A Hare Krishna answer would probably be I am servant of the servant of the servant … I know because I was one! …
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