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What is the meaning of the term “Dharma”, in your faith?
Is it a set of obligations?
Is it a set of teachings?
Is it an abstract set of “natural laws” and phenomena?
How does an adherent of your faith gain knowledge of their Dharma?
(Discussion in ‘Eastern Religions and Philosophies’ started by Cino, Sep 13, 2021)
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It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do you need assistance.
If you are a CEO you bring on accountants, HR people, project managers, marketing…
If a contractor you need those skilled in electrical, mechanical, framing, brick laying..
As we go thru life we gather companions that make us laugh, listen well, and have skills we wish to learn or strengthen.
In Unity we examine the disciples that Jesus gathered and what they brought to the table. We believe that like all relationships it was a trade…not just what they learned from him, but also what he learned from them…and how they helped quicken his understanding of the various traits he must master and overcome.
For me initially studying this was more of a thought exercise, a contemplation. Is it a belief set in stone? Not for me, yet I have gained insight on my reactions and understandings by studying and attempting to trick Filmore’s assertions. Especially the most troubling….Judas represents Life? What?
https://www.unity.org/resources/twelve-powers/twelve-powers
(Discussion in ‘Christianity‘ started by wil, Sep 29, 2021)
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Abdul-Baha was the Son of Baha’u’llah and designated the interpreter of His Father’s Writings. For a brief review of His life see:
Also see the construction of the Shrine of Abdul-Baha:
https://news.bahai.org/story/1497/
Less than five months before His ascension, ‘Abdu’l-Baha had beseeched God for release from this world
The night of July l0th 1921 ‘Abdu’l-Baha was on Mount Carmel by the Shrine of the Bab. There, He revealed a Tablet and a prayer in honour of a ‘kinsman of the Bab’, who had died recently. [He was the father of the Hand of the Cause Balyuzi, who had died in Tihran, on May 6th]. Abdu’l-Baha beseeched God, in that prayer, for His own release from this world. He spoke of His ‘loneliness’, of being ‘broken-winged’, ‘submerged in seas of sorrows’: ‘O Lord! My bones are weakened, and the hoar hairs glisten on My head … and I have now reached old age, failing in My powers … No strength is there left in Me wherewith to arise and serve Thy loved ones … O Lord, My Lord! Hasten My ascension unto Thy sublime Threshold … and My arrival at the Door of Thy grace beneath the shadow of Thy most great mercy .. .’
That prayer was answered less than five months later. He passed away in the early hours of November 28th. The physician, who was summoned to His bedside at that hour, and closed His eyes, was Dr Florian Krug of New York, the same man who once bitterly resented the Faith of Baha’u’llah, and wanted alienists to examine his wife because of her intense devotion to it. He had now come, a pilgrim, with his wife [Grace], and ‘Abdu’l-Baha had allocated them a room in the compound of His own house… Other Western pilgrims present in Haifa at that poignant hour were Louise and John Bosch from California, Ethel Rosenberg from London, and Fraulein Johanna Hauff from Stuttgart were the Western pilgrims present in Haifa at that poignant hour, as well as Curtis Kelsey from the United States, who was in Haifa to attend to electrical installations in the Shrine of the Bab.
– Adapted from H.M. Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Baha The Center of the Covenant of Baha’u’llah’, p. 452-463
‘Abdu’l-Baha knew the time of His passing
We have now come to realize that the Master, (i.e., ‘Abdu’l-Baha) knew the day and hour when, His mission on earth being finished, He would return to the shelter of heaven. He was, however, careful that His family should not have any premonition of the coming sorrow. It seemed as though their eyes were veiled by Him, with His ever-loving consideration for His dear ones, that they should not see the significance of certain dreams and other signs of the culminating event. This they now realize was His thought for them, in order that their strength be preserved to face the great ordeal when it should arrive, that they should not be devitalized by anguish of mind in its anticipation. Out of the many signs of the approach of the hour when He could say of His work on earth, “It is finished,” the following two dreams seem remarkable. Less than eight weeks before His passing the Master related this to His family:
“I seemed to be standing within a great temple, in the inmost shrine, facing the east, in the place of the leader himself. I became aware that a large number of people were flocking into the temple; and yet more crowded in, taking their places in rows behind me, until there was a vast multitude. As I stood I raised loudly the ‘Call to Prayer.’ Suddenly the thought came to me to go forth from the temple. When I found myself outside I said within myself, ‘For what reason came I forth, not having led the prayer? But it matters not; now that I have uttered the call to prayer, the vast multitude will of themselves chant the prayer’.”
When the Master had passed away, His family pondered over this dream and interpreted it thus .
https://www.upliftingwords.org/post/ascension-of-abdul-baha-devotional-program
(Discussion in ‘Baha’i‘ started by arthra, Oct 16, 2021)
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ScholarlySeeker said: ↑
Gershom Sholem, the great Kabbalistic scholar
I recently re-read a book by Chaim Potok which I had read as a teenager: The Book of Lights. In it are portrayed two Jewish scholars, a Qabbalist and a Talmudist, cleverly called “Keter” for the qabbalist and “Malkuson” for the talmudist.
I think the figure of Keter was inspired by Sholem, right down to his looks, just as Saul Lieberman inspired the figure of the talmudist.
Has anyone else read the book? @RabbiO maybe? What do you think of my theory?
The story takes place in the early 50ies of the twentieth century, against the backdrop of the recently ended World War and the ongoing Korean War. It is filled with imagery related to light, from beautiful descriptions of sunlight playing on water, to the “death light” of the atomic bomb which left the shadow of a clerk etched onto the concrete wall of a bank in Hiroshima. Plus copious amounts of Qabbalistic symbolism and a portrayal of the struggle with the problem of evil, as tacked by some schools of Qabbala.
Good read, compelling story, and (I think) accurate portrayal of the subject matter.
Oh, and there are a few physicists in the story as well. What’s not to like?
(Discussion in ‘Books‘ started by Cino, Oct 18, 2021)
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Pope Francis reverses Benedict, reimposes restrictions on Latin Mass | Fox News
Frankly the details are lost on me, something to do with the Latin Liturgy. Apparently in the Catholic world it is a big, newsworthy deal.
(Discussion in ‘Christianity‘ started by juantoo3, Jul 16, 2021)
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Here’s the thing – BTW – This isn’t a request for health advice.
Just to set the scene:-
I’m a lazy old grumpy s*d who could definitely do with losing thirty or forty pounds.
This obviously gives me the body and physique of Adonis as he is now, some two millennia after his prime.
As a result I suffer from nightly Sleep Apnea events.
Coincidentally (As the pounds have increased) I’ve begun to experience increasingly long dream events.
These take the form of dreams in which I live alternative lifetimes. I’m not just talking about odd scenarios and weird adventures.
No, I’m talking about dreams in which I live for forty years. In these dreams I experience days, months, years of an alternative existence. Waking and sleeping and going to a jobs/companies I’ve never done. Dreams in which I’m driving around going on holidays to places I’ve never been to (though mostly places I have been to). Sometimes these dreams are extremely weird – space adventures, aliens wars and the usual phantasmagorical stuff.
This has resulted in my developing a theory :-
It’s well known (or so I believe) Sleep Apnea can cause the sufferer to have a lower level of oxygen in the blood and a corresponding higher level of CO2 which can cause deliriousness.
Given my experiences with my extended dream sequences could it be that at the end of life – As all these things come together in the fateful last moments – these effects give the dying the illusion of life after death.
I’m not saying that there is a life after death, but that the illusion of the long dreams could be the focus of such beliefs.
As in, someone recovering from a near death experience might (if they remembered) report that they had been to heaven/hell* and so give force to the idea such places exist. (as of course they may do if that’s you’re particular belief)
So my question is :- Has anyone else experienced what I have – extremely long length dreams?
*(trust me I’ve been there in some of my dreams)
(Discussion in ‘Lounge‘ started by TheEndIsNigh, Oct 10, 2021)
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There is a concept that what we dislike in others is often a trait within ourselves that we dislike when it wells up and comes to the surface.
I see that often in visitors here and wonder while we think they came to try to elevate themselves (as prophets, authors, knowers of truth, to proselytize etc) but maybe they came to elevate us!?! By identifying our buttons, issues, and willingness to listen, understand, and realize we all have value?
Side note, I thought I had brought up the mirror before but in searching found not that but this, enjoy.
https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/2119/
(Discussion in ‘Belief and Spirituality‘ started by wil, Oct 17, 2021)
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The Gospels, Acts, and some of the Epistles mention Jesus’ extended family.
There was of course Mary, his mother. Joseph, his (step-)father.
James the Just is mentioned as a brother of Jesus.
John the Baptist, his cousin.
Who else is there? More uncles and aunts and cousins?
Are the “Sons of Thunder” related to him, cousins?
How about Jude, the author of the epistle of the same name? He identifies himself as the Brother of James.
(Not primarily interested in any “Davinci Code” type speculations, rather, what is known, what do the Christian members of the forum know?)
(Discussion in ‘Christianity‘ started by Cino, Oct 12, 2021)
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Today is the Catholic feast of the Holy Guardian Angels.
The Universalis app says:
“The doctrine that every individual has a guardian angel has never been defined by the Church and so is not an article of faith but is the “mind of the Church” as expressed particularly by St Jerome and St Basil. It is present in both the Old and New Testaments.
As Jesus says: See that you never despise any of these little ones, for I tell you their angels in heaven always gaze upon the face of my Father in heaven.
Thus even little children have guardian angels, and these angels remain in the presence of God even as they fulfil their mission on earth.
Anciently all angels were celebrated together on the feast of St Michael. A separate feast of the Guardian Angels began in Valencia in 1411. At the reform of the Breviary in the 16th century it was included among the local feasts, and it was raised to the status of a feast in the General Calendar in 1608, placed on the first free day after the feasts of saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.
One of the benefits of this feast is that it reminds us that God cares for us each individually. We all know this in theory, but it is easy – in times of depression or temptation – to convince ourselves that we are too small to matter, for good or ill.
Let us use this feast to remind ourselves that each of us has an angel of our very own looking after us; and also to pray to God for our own Guardian Angel.”
The reading at mass is from the Book of Exodus 23:20-22
The Lord says this: “I myself will send an angel before you to guard you as you go and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Give him reverence and listen to all that he says. Offer him no defiance, he would not pardon such a fault, for my name is in him. If you listen carefully to his voice and do all that I say, I shall be enemy to your enemies, foe to your foes. My angel will go before you.”
I find it inspiring …
(Discussion in ‘Abrahamic Religions‘ started by RJM Corbet, Oct 2, 2021)
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muhammad_isa said: ↑
Again, as the majority of people see Muslims as “non-Christians”, I am not particularly welcome in this section.
Interesting…so are you indicating that Muslims see themselves as Christian? (Believing Christ is G!d/Allah?
This counters my understanding of what i often hear. “We are all Muslim, most just don’t know it yet.”
I thought a main belief of Islam is that they honor Jesus specifically not as Allah, but as a prophet, a Jewish prophet along with the rest…and Muhammad (pbuh) is the last and supercedes the rest (as far as changes to laws and understandings go)
(Discussion in ‘Islam‘ started by wil, Jun 9, 2021)
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