I see no reason why an individual should sink into despair and resignation. Where do you want to transcend? Will this transcending allow you to live for ever? This desire to transcend is the root of the problem. We are social animals. Live the life as it is thrown to you in the best possible social way.
Endorphins aid the strain of running. Hot spices also invite either endorphins or some similar natural “joy juice.” Strain and suffering is a natural part of living as a physical and sentient being. So too is transcendence in order to offset the suffering (as sometimes symbolized by death. The sting of failure and loss is similar to the sting of death, which also represents a removal from the social relationships you rightly value. But a spiritual aspect of self transcends that separation, possibly by a non local means similar to the Communion of Saints or collective unconscious or “Everlasting Group Mind.” I still maintain however that non local does not mean non self, but rather means Greater Self or True Self—the deeper aspect of being that does allow us to be our own guru and prophet.
Oooh, careful! I would rather have thought 'how can I be of use to God?' rather than 'how can God be of use by me?' (That does rather, at face value, smack of pride?) And surely the idea of 'using' God is way off the mark – God is not a utility.
Ah – I see – the two are the same. Your 'work for God' is 'God's work' and, where God's work is, there God is, in that God is actually everywhere.
I think, from an Abrahamic perspective, while God is not separate to the individual self, God is not the individual self.
I do not need any comforter.
Agreed upon..
You should not, dear friend. Islam does not give you authority to make 'unholy' conjectures. Only what was revealed to Muhammad (ṣallā -llāhu ʿalayhī wa-sallam).
We have been given an intelligence to use..
This is wonder-full. Again, two sincere minds disagreeing, but (at least in my case, and probably in yours also ) finding some merit in what each other is saying. I agree that there is risk of ego contamination in my preferred belief/approach about God. Now I can offer something that could be useful both here and in the Do We Choose Our Beliefs thread:
I have no problem with that, as long as it works for you. I don’t like gaps either, but do continue to relate to Ultimate Reality as though a person, or, rather as a Mind similar to my mind that I have as a person. mind to Mind comes closest to what I use to reach out and connect with Everything so that I have a sense of extra resources with which to approximate a mastering of life. But as I am saying over and over again (quite willing to beat a dead horse), it is the “God” Function that I am most focused on. How can I make the Unknown or Ultimate Reality or Deepest Base of Being WORK for me? I was accidentally unfair to Thomas when I reacted to his comment about the risk of selfishly using God (you would probably agree that that is one of the negative side effects of duality, and I don’t totally disagree with that either), since he soon acknowledged that if my use of God was to go towards being a better worker for God, then yes, of course use God. Or it could be use the unknown from which new ideas and strategies emerge. If my desire is to help make a better, more loving, world, then my use of deity (imagined or not) or unknown is more worthwhile than if I use it to get rich or powerful of famous or even comfortable for comfort’s sake (depending on comfort).
I have no such platonic ambitions. I would let the world be like it is.
I've gone through a variety of ways of thinking about God. Where I am now is learning to use not God, but the word "God" in the ways that it is used in my scriptures, to better learn from them and for them to do all they can for me to serve better.
I'm not at all sure of understanding this conversation between the two of you, so I'm not sure how relevant this will be. One way I think of what I'm doing with the word "God," is trying to learn to use it the way it's used in my scriptures, to help me learn more and better from them and for them to do all they can with me, in service to the kingdom. I'm not sure how well or consistently I'm doing that, but I came around to that as the best way of using that word.
An atheist Hindu here. I have a different views.
In my story, there is a part of you that wants to help make the world better for everyone. It's a part of human nature.
I tend to think of praying to God as a “good” thing that bears good fruit, but also realize how judging things good or bad can foster duality and gaps and contradictory emotions and thoughts that move us away from peace. So I also value practicing neutral mind states (“isness”?) in which no judgment of good or bad is taking place. The way I reconcile the two settings is that good and bad is for surface reality, whereas isness is a deeper state.
Same story for me, but I do see the need to relax into a gapless, convergent, nondual, base that helps the efforts to make a better world emerge more gracefully and fresher, fuller—similar to how the mind can create better and think clearer soon after waking up. Hence the saying “I need to sleep on it.” The effort to do good pulls us to the surface and further from the source if we try too much or too hard (which seems to be our tendency, when we are not giving up altogether). The good God is the one we need but if we are stuck on our concept of good, it may not be the Full God. We must truly let go and then strive with a more relaxed grip on our doing of good. But not just let go and let God, because then we introduce the gap/separation that our Hindu friend (and me too) sense to get in the way of full understanding and full living. Perhaps Let go and let God guide our intentional efforts? A fountain flowing through us as us.
People without sufficient resources need to create more resources or make better use of the resources they had. How could one (or a group) do that? Find something that can create. The regular human mind can dream up all sorts of things and then create them. But a yet deeper Mind is needed when the situation seems impossible. More creative ability than we normally have. So they found the Creator/Father from which the mind could create needed resources or ways. Is it a separate being, or the very base of each of our being? Maybe it doesn’t matter as long as it works.