Some religions believe that we are created and that there must be a creator. Others believe that we are all parts or aspects of God. Can they not be the same thing?
A part of the Hindu philosophy, (or religion, depending upon how you view it), is a belief that all beings are a part of Brahma, (the all-encompassing consciousness). In this belief, it is not so much that we were created by an external being, but that the being is all of reality and existence, and we are all aspects of that consciousness. Another part of the aforementioned Hindu belief is that our existence as we see it is an illusion that is not perceivable through our limited five senses. The nearest parallel that I can find in Christianity is that God and eternity are unknowable by us mere physical beings, or the “mystery of faith”. Perhaps some more studied individuals can clarify these aspects if a discussion should develop.
The picture of reality that “feels” the most elegant and natural to me is that some version of that Hindu belief as described is the true nature of things. Although I personally tend to live by the simpler precepts of the Christian New Testament, such as “do unto others”, love others as you love yourself, etc.
It sometimes appears that many self-evident aspects of all world religions are commonly held, with time and translation possibly eroding the specific language. So it seems important to look for ways to integrate the individual agreements and disagreements about the nature of reality that exist between faiths.
The purpose of my query is this:
In discussions with Many Christians, Muslims, and Jews, it seems that there is an important distinction that we must have been physically created by God, with God being an external being. One argument on a discussion thread in Research Gate, (How do you KNOW there is a god), is that we could not have created our bodies, but were, in fact, created. (The statement requires some assumptions).
When you generate a new idea, or a new way of thinking about something in your mind, did you not create that idea or thought? Following from that, if the Hindus say that we are all parts of Brahma’s “dream”, is it not possible that we are creations of the ultimate being in that regard, but believe that we are physical?
Keeping in mind the aforementioned possibility of corruption of time and translation, the question I ask is this: Must God, (however defined), have created us as physical bodies, using physical means, or could it have created us in its image in the same way that an idea or vision is created? Are our bodies physically extant, or illusion? How can we prove either? We cannot use empirical evidence to prove one or the other, because it relies upon the senses. Does one “feel” more ontologically intuitive than the other?
Welcome, Buddhaddy,
It’s a good OP, worthy of discussion. Personally, I do not see created by God and God as reality as contradictory.
More anon.
Welcome!
Right, there is no way to know one way or the other.
I don’t think intuition helps. You developed your intuition while you were within the system and therefore it is biased. For it to be helpful, it would have to access knowledge of the creation process - it would need some external knowledge - which is knowledge not resulting from the experience of living.
Interesting responses Phyllo. I believe that buddhist, and some Hindu meditation is designed to access the ultimate reality by learning to ignore the senses in an attempt to do just what you describe. is it simply that these questions beg answers that are outside of sense/language-based experience, but not outside of reality?
Our subjective experience includes time and cause and effect. These are practical perspectives. We calibrate duration with clocks and calendars; we use cause and effect to predict future events or outcomes. These perspectives are necessary for our survival on this planet. They are possibly responsible for our beliefs in beginnings and endings. They support belief in a creator God and in creation as an event, if not in time, then as the beginning of time.
Certain spiritual masters believe that time and cause and effect are illusions imposed on actual timelessness and unchanging. For these God is the sum total of all that exists. From my POV, I cannot imagine a God who would create us without giving us tools of survival. Time and cause and effect may be scribbles we place on an otherwise blank slate, but they are not illusions. Who is to say that a God who is everything cannot include our tools of survival?
I see no contradiction between God created us and we are a part of God. We are God’s “hands and feet” in this world. (JFK)
Whenever there is a discussion that reality as we perceive it may be an illusion, I find it interesting that we still think about selected perceived phenomena, that are within that illusion, as facts, physical realities, etc. If reality (as I perceive it) is an illusion, then must I not first pierce that illusion, thereby stepping outside of it, before I can say anything definitive about some part of the illusion?
People feel that they need to step outside of one thing and step into another thing as people have a strong desire for division and through this division they imagine themselves as belonging.
I’m generally skeptical of meditation which claims to reach a higher or ultimate reality. How do we that those thoughts are not just inventions of the mind - dreams? How do we know that an ultimate reality has been accessed?
We don’t know.
It also seems to me, that we don’t need to go looking some ultimate reality. We only need to live in harmony with the reality which is accessible to our senses.
