Religion of not knowing

[Lunitik]

[FONT=&quot]For me the most wonderful thing about Buddhism is the invitation that people go look for themselves. The Buddha never asked people to accept thing on faith. He didn’t create anything new he just pointed at something already there. I don’t do well with any teachings that expect me to accept things on faith – I don’t have that type of mentality. That is why I gave up Christianity in my early teens. [/FONT]

Do you see though that still this is a clinging to Buddha? It means you cannot be a Buddha yourself, which you seem to be on the verge of. Know that which Buddha points to, forget the scriptures that describe it - what use is the description when it is there before you? You have merely substituted one clutch for another, but it seems you are ready to find what is real - you already see it, but have not yet acknowledged it from what it seems. Doubt arises, and so things are experienced as temporary - they need not be.

[FONT=&quot]Despite my increased tolerance for people of different beliefs I do struggle to communicate with those who have strong opinions about what is right for me. I find such an attitude extremely arrogant and patronizing. I no longer get any satisfaction from debating with such people. This is because I have nothing to learn from them, and they are unlikely to care about what I want to say. I have met people who I’m convinced had attained a high degree of spiritual attainment. There were individuals who did not need to use the ‘hard sell’ with their wisdom; they also didn’t seem to have much to say on how other people were ‘doing it wrong’. [/FONT]

It is usually better to provide insights rather than try to discuss a system of belief, in my experience. For instance, why does time move faster when you are having fun, and slower when you are not? Can it remain consistent, or can they even be switched, merely by your perceptions in that moment? This doesn't require any sort of spirituality or religious background, anyone can see it, and there are plenty of opportunities where people are proclaiming themselves bored. It is a seed you need not harvest, why be so greedy? If it sprouts, it is good, but existence will take care.

Some have a strong desire to awaken others, it is very difficult to merely know a thing and not share it. Some are not inclined to share because they see that it is fruitless to even try, it depends on the individual. If you feel the compassion to try, do so, if it is not accepted it is fine. If you feel it is more compassionate to leave them to their own devices, that too is perfectly fine. There is no obligation, it is merely a gift, wrapped in love.

What purpose is there to stay here though if you are not trying to reach back and carry others with you? It is the Bodhisatva issue, to stay and try to help, or leave and be done? These are the only possibilities though, why else will you stay here?

[FONT=&quot]I accept other people’s right to believe; I would never claim to know what is best for them. Personally I choose to view the world as one big mystery. It makes me happy. The more I let go of my opinions and beliefs there is an increase in my state of well-being. It also means that I can be of much more service to other individuals. If I ever start thinking that I know what is best for other people this will be a sign that I’ve gone off track again. [/FONT]

This is the fine line I find myself walking, I wish to share and yet so much nonsense is returned, I try to show it is nonsense but they are firm in their belief - not realizing that belief means you don't really know. I try to instill trust instead, a belief which comes from the heart, it is a different flavor - much as you describe - but how to justify it, how to allow them to see it is all that is necessary? Simply be open and trusting, that is all there is to do, but it is much easier to accept answers that cause the cessation of a question - hence the popularity of religions.

I am still learning to balance this, still trying to pick out what is important of their words to push them in the right direction, still trying to show through their own belief systems what is being pointed at. People debate though, and it leads nowhere, as mind comes in it is only possible that truth leaves.

 

[garro]

Hi Lunitik, I sometimes wonder if the different religions and ideologies are just a trap for truth seekers. Each of these systems may well contain truths, but those who follow them become obsessed with protecting the system rather than finding these truths. Maybe I’m missing something.

 

[luecy7]

If your love is dependent, it is not real love, it is nothing more than dependency.

Like your dependency on drugs and parents? A person does not have to drop the people where love is mutually shared, to share with those where love is not.

 

[Lunitik]

Hi Lunitik, I sometimes wonder if the different religions and ideologies are just a trap for truth seekers. Each of these systems may well contain truths, but those who follow them become obsessed with protecting the system rather than finding these truths. Maybe I’m missing something.

Simply in that they answer the questions for the practitioners, I think they are a type of poison for the seeker, certainly. When you protect anothers awakening so much, when you try to emulate anothers experience, how can you possibly attain yourself? You have to be true to your own experience of the divine, then you can find your own place in truth. When it is forced, you are being utterly unnatural, that will never result in awakening. Even Buddha, when the rules have been instituted as less evolved individuals have come, I think it has made it less possible for anyone to arrive.

 

[Lunitik]

Like your dependency on drugs and parents? A person does not have to drop the people where love is mutually shared, to share with those where love is not.

I have no dependency, not even on this body at all - I accept what has been provided that I might stay in this place, but if I died tomorrow, I would leave this place with a grin on my face.

You can share with a person for a time, but if you really love, you will not engage in compromises so that you can stay together. If you love a person, you want them to be total, you will not want to divide them so that you too are only partial.

 

[Lunitik]

Again, I remind you of the meaning of Holy: whole, integrated, undivided.

Your belief system is utterly unholy, you say people should divide themselves among everyone they know, that compromise is always better than being yourself. Your whole approach is to create partial people out of everyone you know. It is exactly what spirituality is not about, your whole approach is that of a pack of wolves, it is to lose yourself to the crowd. This is not at all what religion tries to accomplish...

Your God is the dollar, your Lord is your government, it is dialectic to religion. You say God talks to you, it is impossible. There are many beings that are not in a body, some believe themselves to be God, but how have they come to be? They are not God, although they have such abilities as to convince you they are...

If you can talk to it, it is not God, because with God there is no possibility of other. There is communion, you can merge and know it, but anything distinct and separate is on the same journey as you should be.

 

[luecy7]

I have no dependency, not even on this body at all - I accept what has been provided that I might stay in this place, but if I died tomorrow, I would leave this place with a grin on my face.

According to you, whether or not you smoked depended on whether or not I spoke some words.

You can share with a person for a time, but if you really love, you will not engage in compromises so that you can stay together. If you love a person, you want them to be total, you will not want to divide them so that you too are only partial.

I witness that many people compromise by parting ways, and dividing themselves from others. I am not a 'total' freak, having to have everything totally my way.

 

[luecy7]

Again, I remind you of the meaning of Holy: whole, integrated, undivided.

So you divide yourself from others?

Your belief system is utterly unholy, you say people should divide themselves among everyone they know, that compromise is always better than being yourself. Your whole approach is to create partial people out of everyone you know. It is exactly what spirituality is not about, your whole approach is that of a pack of wolves, it is to lose yourself to the crowd. This is not at all what religion tries to accomplish...

Your God is the dollar, your Lord is your government, it is dialectic to religion. You say God talks to you, it is impossible.

Your diatribe is amusing.

There are many beings that are not in a body, some believe themselves to be God, but how have they come to be? They are not God, although they have such abilities as to convince you they are... If you can talk to it, it is not God, because with God there is no possibility of other.

You are the only person I have ever seen say that they know themselves to be God. Maybe it is the time to review some of the things you have said over the year?

 

[Lunitik]

According to you, whether or not you smoked depended on whether or not I spoke some words.

Nothing I do depends on the other, I simply asked you to stop and you refused. You still refuse... you are utterly obsessed with something utterly irrelevant.

I witness that many people compromise by parting ways, and dividing themselves from others. I am not a 'total' freak, having to have everything totally my way.

Parting ways is not a compromise, it is an assertion of individuality.

 

[Lunitik]

So you divide yourself from others?

No.

Your diatribe is amusing.

I am simply pointing out how far from spirituality you are.

You are the only person I have ever seen say that they know themselves to be God. Maybe it is the time to review some of the things you have said over the year?

It is perfectly true, I am, and I could have shown you that you were as well if you weren't so adamant you know anything of the spiritual world.

You know nothing, and yet you think you do.

 

[Lunitik]

Allow me to expand...

When there are two candles lit, it is clear there are two distinct flames.
What if you put the candles together, how many flames?
If you put a billion candles together similarly, has the number of flames increased?
No, it is still just one flame, it is only that you identify with the candle, you do not realize you are the flame.
What use is the candle? It manifests the flame, but as the flame continues burning it will evaporate.
As one candle evaporates and another takes its place, does the flame decrease?
Can it be said the candle is really relevant?
It is like this, eventually the candle must be exhausted, but you know the flame stays alight.
Can we say who was the first candle? Does it even matter?
We are all as moths, attracted intrinsically to the flame thinking it is something other than us.
Even the moth, if it gets too close, becomes part of the flame though.

 

[radarmark]

I am new to the forum and just happened upon this site from a random web search. I would say that I’ve always been a bit of a spiritual person. I grew up in a Catholic country (Ireland) but have lived in a Buddhist country (Thailand) for well over a decade. For most of my adult life I would have classified myself as a Buddhist. My thinking is still grounded in Buddhism but my thought processes have taking a strange turning in the last few months. I’ve reached a point in my life where I just have to say that life is all just one big mystery that can’t be solved. The strange thing is that it just feels so right to take this new path. It is like the more I admit to not knowing the more I feel at peace.

I suppose it would be possible to say that I’ve become an agnostic but that doesn’t feel right. I have this strong sense that there is something more to the world than the material. For many years I’ve felt driven to look for spiritual answers that will allow me to transcend my current life. Now I’m starting to suspect that such a yearning is a big ungrateful. After all, if the universe is putting on this wonderful show the least I can do is enjoy it without having to know how it all works. I now strongly suspect that nobody really knows what is going on, and that is about as good as it gets.

I sort of feel a bit excited by new religion – the religion of not knowing. As I say in many ways I’m still in the Buddhist camp, but...

I wonder is there other people who have taken on not knowing as the key to their belief system? Is it possible to not know and still be considered a spiritual person? Where would I find fellow believers? I’m looking for a group of people who dismiss any claims of knowing for sure how the world works (that would include claims made by atheists). People who are willing to except the mystery for what it is. Does such a group of people exist?

Wow, another seeker of a way of not-knowing! As far as communities go you are in the best (Buddhist), though after a sojourn in Laos I would say the Northern School may be better suited (Ch'an, Zen). Ehere the bast place to start (IMHO) is The Platform Sutra of Hui-Neng. Try looking at "process theology", especially Hartshorne. He was a disciple of Whitehead, but not being the brainiac Whitehead was ("the last philosopher to know everything" is but one moniker), Hartshorne uses the terms "truth" and "knowledge" very seldomly. Third, look up George Fox or Ham Sok Hom, the first the founder of the Religious Society of Friends and the second a Korean disciple. Lastly (because you may glean something because of your sojourn in the East) Hajime Tanabe and his metanoetics (a radical Buddhist bent on philosophy based on the limits of knowledge).

Other than that, look around. write to me. While I claim to be an agnostic panentheist (and am happy in not knowing but thinking that G!d is both immanent and transcendent), I "feel" (grok?) G!d's existence as you do.

 

[Lunitik]

I don't understand, his path is to leave everything out, to wonder at the miracle of all... so you give him more knowledge to soak up?

Existence itself will reveal if you are open to it, and he is going in that direction.

Please do not pull him back!

 

[radarmark]

Ah, poor one. Not knowledge, a connection to what he asked for, a community. See the beyond or G!d is a house on a hill with an infinate number of sides and and infinate number of front poarch lights and an infinate number of paths to an infinate number of doors. One size fits all is very poor tailoring in my humble opinion.

 

[Lunitik]

The house isn't everyones home?

We can discuss the hill all we want, but there is no shelter until we enter the house.

Further more, what is a hill other than a mound of mud? If it keeps raining, we will simply sink into it like quicksand and suffer-cate.

Let us continue the conversation in the living room, it is cold and dirty out here. We can start a fire, relax in the comforts there, and simply enjoy all the house offers.

Why waste time outside? There is no need... all that we need is there, all we want, but we remain out here. Continuously, we look at the different paths, neat, but it is only because everyone wants to enter the house. I wish for a party in the house, you are still watching the paths to see if more are coming, who has been there before, all sorts of nonsense to delay going in.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Not all find pleasure in comfort, some find it in the journey.

 

[Lunitik]

There are 80,000 doors, but still only one home.

We keep insisting that we should all choose our own door, why? It doesn't matter how you get in, no door is superior, and I am holding this door open for you, the others you do not seem to be able to find...

 

[Lunitik]

Not all find pleasure in comfort, some find it in the journey.

What is the point in the journey if you do not intend to arrive? If you have no destination in mind, you should stay home. You have already arrived though, you just refuse to leave the plane.

Eventually it will be refueled and head back, you will not even realize you were there.

 

[radarmark]

There are 80,000 doors, but still only one home.

We keep insisting that we should all choose our own door, why? It doesn't matter how you get in, no door is superior, and I am holding this door open for you, the others you do not seem to be able to find...

Again, you try to use logic to try to think your way out of the conundrum you find yourself in. "One way" is someting for ideologues and solipsists.

All the post did was answer a question. You have one. I have another. What is your issue? Can you proove your way is the only way?

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

You and I come from so different ways of thinking, what you say is not applicable on who I am and choose to be. It might be that I will never be enlightened from your point of view, but that's fine with me. The journey is the only thing that has had any value for me and I can't see that that will ever change.