To all who are hurting - revisited

by poppers 16 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  poppers

  yes or an attribute of Tao.

  We as forms are manifestations of Tao, an expression of Tao; our true essence, however, is the formlessness of Tao itself. In that there is no separation, only oneness. When we recognize this within form there arises a great love for everything.

  Spinoza also taught one substance in opposition to Descartes duality of mind and body.

  Yes, Descartes really personifies the dualistic viewpoint that the Westerner especially has adopted. It's that dualism that dooms people to suffer.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  Yes, Descartes really personifies the dualistic viewpoint that the Westerner especially has adopted. It's that dualism that dooms people to suffer.

  What's funny is that Spinoza's philosophy grew out of Descartes, a he was a big student of his stuff; he called himself a Cartesian at one time. He also went through an experience very similar to many X-JWs, he got kicked out of the synagogue and the Jewish community he belonged to for being a free thinking apostate and had to go live out in the world. The rule there fore readmission was to lie on the floor and let the entire congregation literally walk over you, like a piece of trash. . A member of that synagogue that had repented of his apostasy in prior years did just that and later committed suicide, he was a very bright fellow too. A lot of the people Spinoza knew from that community there ended up as props in Rembrandt painting of Biblical scenes, he lived right around the block or so from where Spinoza grew up.

  BTS
• 

  poppers

  That's interesting, BTS.
• 

  Satanus

  I see kind of duality between 'spirit' and body/animal/socalled evil in humans. Does that make me a cartesian? I haven't read descartes. Of course, on a deeper level, it's all tao/brahmin/god/whatever. How do you handle this dualism that i describe?
  
  S
• 

  quietlyleaving

  Descartes could not explain how interaction between an immaterial mind and a physical body is possible and he was aware of this difficulty and decided that mind/body interaction occurred in and through the pineal gland. But this does not explain how something non physical can bring about changes in the physical world. Spinoza's monism (one substance) overcomes this difficulty.
• 

  Satanus

  Thankyou, quietlyleaving.
  
  S
• 

  poppers

  I don't know Satanus. What I do know is this: anytime your world is seen through the lens of "me" you are living in a dualistic world because that "me", by virture of its very existence, sets itself apart from everything else. Does that automatically make you a Cartesian? I don't really know - would it really matter one way or the other? I only know for certain that when the me is found to be nothing more than a mentally created entity that doesn't exist except as a thought-form there is a shift away from identifying with it. With that shift one consciously returns to the underlying awareness as the reality of one's being - that is the abode of unconditional peace and of wholeness. There is no need to seek peace in some religion because it already exists as your very Being. There is no need to seek wholeness through some philosophy because it already is here as the underlying awareness that is your true nature.

  That's when it is seen so clearly how religion and philosophy make it so difficult to wake up to the truth of what you are. To dwell in ideas about the future and regretful thoughts of the past only serve to keep you bound in delusion, oblivious to where life actually is lived, the here and now. People tend not to live fully conscious of now, and instead dream of idealized futures that only hold hope for some kind of "salvation" if prescribed holy traditions and saviors are followed. This keeps one on the treadmill like some gerbil, never really getting anywhere.

  While abiding in your real nature, however, thoughts of me and other don't arise, thoughts of "spirit" versus body don't arise - there is just the simple realization that all, just as it is, is "it", and that "you" are that which sees it, you are that in which it all arises. This is the wholeness where ideas of fear and separation evaporate - the "light" of awareness/You allows it all, and because there is nothing that can harm or threaten You there is a deep and unshakeable peace that permeates everything. "I am, therefore I think" is closer to how things actually are..