Why do so many people NEED to believe in a greater purpose?

by gringojj 110 Replies latest jw friends

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  Narkissos

  Tetra,

  I read and reread your posts. And find "nothing" to say in reply. I could quote and highlight and applaud at many of your phrases. No use.

  Just feel like waving at you from another spot, neither better nor worse, on the infinite scene of the theatre of nonsense.

  You wear the mask of Dionysos. Somebody has to. You play it wonderfully, as you should. I'm not sure which part I play but I know it's mine. Even if it is the part of a poor actor I play it perfectly like everybody else.

  We are the actors, and the audience, and the playwright and the play. It is the theatre of cruelty, as Artaud put it, and the theatre of compassion.

  We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. (Paul, Romans 14:7)
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  JamesThomas

  Why a need for a greater purpose?

  Not having read through the posts I am just giving why sense of what I am discovering within myself. Within the deep sense of existence and being which we all have most intimate.

  I once felt an agonizing sense of lack and incompleteness, and it was due to this that I sought greater purpose in hopes it would somehow fill the void. In this search I discovered there is no lack, and we are whole, already.

  It was my ignorance of this fullness -- and so my identifying with lack -- that motivated a need for a greater purpose.

  We have lost touch with and have become blind to our innate and natural perfection and unity, and so we seek for a greater purpose as a surrogate. We seek unneccessarily; for there are no missing pieces, no greater purpose, we are already whole; we are already home. We just need see what IS, already.

  j
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  AuldSoul

  Ah, but James Thomas, if everyone suddenly snapped into that mindset who'd make the English muffins that I buy from the grocery? Who'd check me out at the grocery? Everyone would starve within a few weeks. The world might be better off, but augh! The stench of it all! Rotting people lying everywhere. Tsk.

  AuldSoul
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  Seeker4

  Have really enjoyed this discussion. James Thomas - nice to hear from you, as always.

  Marsh - I appreciate your words and obvious concern, but I'm not really seeing Tetrapod as "lost" or in need of being "saved."

  The hymns, the repeated scripture citations, the platitudes - all seem so empty. I frequently think of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15:14-19, where he said that "if Christ has not been raised up, our preaching is certainly in vain, our faith is in vain,..we are also found false witnesses of God...If Christ has not been raised up, your faith is useless...If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied."

  That sums up much of Christianity - a belief system based on something that never happened (Christ's resurrection) and composed of the people most to be pitied, by their own confession.

  The greatest, most consistently used Scriptural metaphor for a Christian is a sheep, and it seems oh so fitting - helpless, not very bright, needing to be taken care of, constantly tended and frequently saved from their own stupidity, always following and going exactly where the shepherd tells them - and those are the Biblical descriptions! Tetra will not die a sheep. He will have faced life as squarely and honestly and completely as he knew how. It won't be a painless life, but at least it will be authentic and honest and fully lived.

  S4
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  JamesThomas

  Sorry, AuldSoul, I don't understand.

  On a phenominal level, in an outside way, things need not change. We continuing "toting water and cutting wood" as the zen folks say. The transformation is an inner one as you see, honor and acknowledge the same oneness in all eyes, and even in the noble presence of a tree. If anything it simply adds a sweetness and holiness to the simplest things of life. A wholeness with no remaining sense of brokenness or fragmentation.

  Though you may continue to have preferences for certain things and people, there is nothing left separate to hate....which doesn't mean I may not kick the shit out of you if you break into my house.

  j
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  AuldSoul

  JamesThomas, I understand what you are saying. I was only having a bit of fun carrying your post to an illogical conclusion.

  We still have needs without as well as within, as your last post allows. The only way to entirely get rid of self is to die. It is enough for me to see the beingness of everything. I am content with that.

  AuldSoul
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  JamesThomas

  if everyone suddenly snapped into that mindset who'd make the English muffins

  I would like to add, that our true being is not a "mindset", it is free of all mind sets, systems, beliefs and paradigms. it, is very much a flowing freedom with this moments actual and vibrant expression of life. It's as if you are not a person free of all confining ways of thought, judgment and identifying, but rather FREEDOM, itself.

  j
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  JamesThomas

  The only way to entirely get rid of self is to die

  yes, in a way, but it is not necessary to die physically. As said it is an inner shift of identity.

  That said, nothing need die, all is included in the infinite reality of your being. For example, I was a very depressed person before I had a deeper and vaster sense of Self, and there still is times of depression and darkness. I just no-longer identify with them as who and what I am. I know better.

  Nothing changes. Everything changes.

  j
• 

  peacefulpete

  I like having something constructive to do, I like having time to fish or read, I like sex when it's mutually enjoyable, I like having people care about me and respect me, I like making others smile. That's about all there is to me. I never felt that there was any higher purpose.
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  Midget-Sasquatch

  Maybe the "need to believe in a greater purpose" is a byproduct spawned by the interplay of different facets of our psychology. I'm thinking about 1) our own increasing self-awareness as a species and of our condition 2) our relatively high creativity and intelligence and 3) as social animals the pragmatic emotive and behavioural thought patterns that move us (most of us anyway, I'm an apathetic bastard) to consider others. #1 has made many come to the conclusion that our only evident purpose and function is to be mere replication machines, acting as vehicles for genes, with the genes running the show. A kind of nihilism would likely set in with that outlook. But at the same time a chimera of #2 and #3 could be antagonistic to #1, pushing the person to think not only about self, and creatively coming up with a nobler "purpose". Maybe even self-awareness of one's potential to shape their world works along with #2 + #3 feeding the drive to accomplish even more.