What motivates you to practice your religion (walk your path)? Why this religion/path? What are you hoping to achieve?
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At some point you come to understand that you are a creation of the Creator and, in a very real sense, a part thereof. And - more than this - a creative instrument yourself…a means by which the Creator continues His creation. And so you pick up your brush and you begin to paint because, really, what choice is there?
Ok, so how did you come to understand that you were part of the Creator?
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It was a long, tortuous, exhausting, circuitous journey, the details of which would either bore everybody to death, or invite argument from others which I have no interest in engaging in. Suffice it to say it began in earnest about 12 years ago as I was seriously contemplating atheism.
Ok, I won’t pry any further.
So what are you hoping to achieve with your religion/path?
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Thanks.
Whatever the Creator has in mind. It changes I think as we move through life. One needs to remain still and listen for instructions.
But enough about me.
What about you, angel?
Oi, that’s rude, I’m asking the questions. And you’re not giving me anything.
So what are the Creator’s instructions?
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They’re different with each of us. There’s 10,000 ways to shape the word snow, you know. Things have a feel to them. They either feel right, or they feel wrong. Or as my hero Bagger Vance once said, “Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that’s ours and ours alone. Something that can’t be learned… something that’s got to be remembered.”
We got to find our swing.
Now is it my turn?
(I’ll take the thread by force if necessary…)
No, because I want to know what you are trying to achieve from your path. If you don’t know, it’s ok, you can say you don’t know.
A
But I’ve already said more or less. I’m only looking to project that which the Creator wants projected. This is different by the day, maybe by the hour. Life changes, relationships change, circumstances differ from what they were just moments ago.
But in each moment, in each passing moment, there is something the universe is looking to express. This is our job. To express it. Sometimes it’s the expression of love between myself and my son. Sometimes it’s the expression of love between myself and a friend that I especially connect with. Sometimes it’s in the relationships that form my business. It’s in the noble and it’s in the mundane. We are expressions. How we relate to each other, how we relate to the universe, this is how we express that which wants to be expressed.
This is how we give form and meaning to the underlying intelligence that creates the reality in which we exist.
Each of us has a unique way to do so, a way that nobody else can replicate. It is for us to discover this way, hidden deep within and often lost in the day-to-day noise of the modern world. If you listen, you can hear it. This is what one can achieve. To listen, and to know one’s way.
This is what I am trying to achieve.
Indeed things change Jerry. I’m sorry to question you, but I’m certain that the Creator is absolute and thus is unchanging. So it is not God that changes, it is we who change. Still what will God have of you, given that He is unchanging?
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I’m not certain of this at all. The Creator is the universe. The universe changes. Creativity is a temporal activity, manifesting itself a billion different ways over time.
Exactly. Not much reason to have anything of me if this is the case.
I have no problem that creativity is as you say. But you were talking of the Creator. What do you mean by that? I know that my heart is of God, but I also know that I am not always in my heart. When I am in my heart, I am stable, unmoving, still.
People come, people go, we live we die, we experience a myriad of things, all are changing. I have no doubt about that. But these things are all maya, made of the same stuff as dreams. Maya is translated as illusion. i.e. It is not Real. What is Real is that which is unchanging. What is that?
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jerry,
im very intrigued with what the seemingly very specific new missions god gives you every hour are.
i mean, i would say gods mission can be summed up extremely easily and never changes the slightest bit: do what creates the most happiness for all in the long run, because absolutely nothing else can be referred to as ‘objectively good.’
no choice! you can never purposely cause more people to be unhappy than happy and possibly claim to be doing the right thing. the only difference between people is what they think will cause the most happiness in the long run. but only one set of things is correct.
what else could he possibly change it to? specific illustrations of which things will cause more long term happiness than others? i dont think god is trying to do this for us because i think we would have already accomplished ultimate happiness by now if he was instructing us. or if he wanted to instruct us it would be with fire letters in the sky. i think he needs us to do it on our own.
sacrificing your own welfare for others when you know for sure that its what god wants and what will create the most happiness isnt nearly as impressive or gratifying as taking a risk on doing what you arent sure of.
4x4=16. there are 16 ways to shape the word.
the following is not a capitalism rant, it is a metaphor:
you think certain economic systems and their requisite rules feels right because your previous experience suggests that it is right. it is not god telling you that people need to have the freedom to accumulate infinite wealth, for example, it is your previous experience subconsciously causing you to value personal freedom and fear any sort of stalinesque control. if you really do think it is god causing this feeling, specifically what else has he caused you to feel is correct?
those things you just described, the urge you feel to love your son and create fruitful business relationships, are the exact thing im talking about. you could say that ‘the universe’ told you to do it in that the universe shaped your brain such that you are rewarded with happiness brain chemicals when you acheieve things that result in the most long term happiness for you and your society of people you care about.
i tend to describe as the universe and god talking to me too, but its also my darwinian brain. dont forget that, its just your imperfect machine telling you what to do. it is basing its advice on your previous experience with things that create happiness. it is not some objective system that knows what is best for long term happiness, it is using your past experience with specific actions that caused happiness. you could have had a great time creating a factory in mexico that helped a lot of mexicans and sold products to mexico, but dont let that cause you to think that every time you create a factory in mexico, you are creating more long term happiness.
your experiences can get jumbled up by comparing past expriences to present ones that are slightly different. you can fail to acknowledge that creating a mexican factory that sells goods also made in america will hurt american workers in that industry more than it helps the mexicans. but your brain will only refer back to the part of your previous mexican factory experience that was enjoyable. because of that, you will think that ‘god’ is telling you to continue building factories in mexico because your previous experience remembers that doing so caused happy brain chemicals for you. but if you create the wrong kind of mexican factory, your brain might not notice, and it might still ‘tell’ you to build it, even though it wont be creating more happiness, which is the only objective way to measure what god or anything wants.
im not specifically talking about capitalism at all. this is a big idea with a fun, familiar metaphor.
the things that make people unique are ONLY their previous experiences and the mental faculties that allow them to record, analyze and recall those memories. everyones decisions are always the exact same one: what makes more happiness for me (including through empathy). the unique way that people go about answering that question is what you describe here. the only thing that is actually unique is the specific set of experiences that causes people to think that mexican factories are good for mexican workers and also that taking away american factory jobs is good for american quality of life, or tax revenue, or that the corporate profits from the american owner of the mexican factory will be spent nicely.
the person’s unique opinion regarding the specific happiness-creation outcome of any specific decision is determined entirely by their unique previous experience. but the decision is always exactly the same.
the decision is always the exact same objective look at your own previous experiences for relevant information regarding what parts of the current situation will create happiness and what parts wont.
the moral of the story: absolutely everyone already agrees that happiness is better and that all decisions need to be aimed directly at this and nothing else, ever. if only everyone had the same experiences, everyone would agree on how exactly we need to go about achieving this happiness. people do not have unique desires and unique missions from god, they have unique brain contents that merely need to be educated to agree with everyone else on the objectively best, most efficient way to obtain that happiness.
there is an objective way to achieve more happiness. there is one path that all should follow (which may include different people filling different parts of that path). everyone has the same exact mission and it never changes.
I mean us. We are the Creator. If the heart is unchanging as you say, then how is creativity explained? Do things change and become created only when we are outside of the heart? Is all change non-heart activity, that is to say not of God? Is change and creativity then, by this reasoning, un-Godlike? Is the universe as we see it, full of change and direction and transformation, an inadequate representation of God?
Or is it possible that change and creativity – the very things, after all, that comprise existence as we know it – are attributes of God, reflected and made manifest by us?
I don’t get the question… I mean what else would I do?
The answer to this question was spoken by you in Mastrini’s sig if I remember correctly.
why does this sound way loftier than i would ever describe?
its explained because coming up with new solutions to problems is a survival technique. monkeys lure ants onto sticks to eat them without licking the ground. is that god? or normal brain activity?
am i missing some esoteric bible scholarship? i thought science finally taught us that the heart is a blood pump, and everything happens in the brain. for example, there is a specific part that causes us to desire the most comfortable brain state, free from fear and full of happiness. this is what used to be called the heart. the only thing that this section of your brain thinks of is achieving the optimal brain state. finding solutions to problems (creativity) happens in a different section of the brain.
why does it seem like we are talking about entirely different things. what do you think is so magical about creativity? i think its just a robotic piecing together of previous experiences that have never been put together before. its not ‘creating’ its ‘recombining’.
its not un-heart/god-like if it is used purely to achieve those things that your heart/section of the brain focused on achieving happiness wants.
its inadequate because it looks like a bunch of particles bumping around according to concrete laws with no purpose. god is elsewhere, his machine is here and its still beautiful just like you say. i just dont see any reason to link the universe directly to god like you do. he created it and is watching or interacting in some way, but he is something that isnt composed of protons and electrons.
whats with all the fancy talk? do you see the contrast between the way the two of us are talking?
actively rebel against the things that make you happy. wait no you wouldnt, you would pursue them to the best of your abilities under all circumstances. and this is what you believe to be the greatest purpose for yourself. the only purpose. (i dont mean masturbation and heroin, i mean what makes you most happy, including pride and empathy.)
edit: i keep forgetting to point this out: i mean evolutionarily selected brain rewards when i say happiness. dopamine. we satisfy our survival instincts in complex ways that recreate the specific sensory inputs and decisions of cavemen and monkeys.
Truth is the expression of divine love outside the sphere of the temporal reality, the manifested.
Sometimes even an angel can forget that it is the journey of the spirit, not the form.
What we believe changes, are in the manifested, and it is the manifest that allows the spirit to play in a vessel … for a time. But that does not change the virtue of spirit, nor the journey of such.
We practice as form, to see if we can uncover the memory of spirit, which is the truth we seek, that we have forgotten, because we are form.
isnt “divine love outside the sphere of the temporal reality” really just those feelings that we indescribably describe as “good”? like happiness, relaxation freedom from fear or guilt? isnt that the manifestation of whatever divine greatness we can claim to ever have had knowledge of?
and when the angel forgets that its a journey of the spirit and not the form, that would be like people trying as hard as they possibly can to achieve as much wealth or power as possible, while forgetting that while those things may have been necessary to achieve ultimate happiness, they have already been obtained as much as is necessary and the continued pursuit of them is a waste?
why does it sound so fancy when you guys say it and so simple when i say it? are we discussing the same thing?
Hi Jerry,
Welcome to the wall. Explaining the pathless path is like chewing air. Lots of commotion, but… In being, not as being.
FM,
No, it isn’t the same thing, but yours is as close as words are likely to get.