Links

I've had to re-write this post because I thought that "Son of God" isn't a Jewish term, but a Greco-Roman Pagan one: there were numerous demigods and demigoddesses born with mixed parentage of divine & human. Eg Hercules, Achilles, Aeneas, Helen of Troy. However I just found out that "Son of God" appears several times in the Old Testament (Genesis 6:2, 4; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Hosea 1:10) . But how to reconcile being a Son of God and God at the same time? And 'God the Father' wasn't his father in the nativity story anyway, it was the Holy Spirit which came to Mary. My amateur guess would be that the early church leaders wanted to attract both Jews and Pagans into their new religion, and were creating a hybrid theology to appeal to both.

Hi, and sorry to hear about the argument. I hope it's over now? To be honest, when I've had a row I can't think about powerful spiritual things, if it's a bad argument I just want to get out of the house. Outside for a walk where the wide open space, the sky, the trees and nature have a way of absorbing the furious turbulent energy, and allows the knot of angry thoughts to unwind and relaxation and calm energy to slowly return. Then I'll probably end up in a cafe, maybe at the local garden centre and I can get distracted looking at the gardening stuff (my hobby) plants, tools, seeds, etc. That's what works for me because it aligns with my interests like walking, nature and gardening so maybe won't copy across for others. My spirituality is also to be found immersed in nature, so I find that 'being there' does it for me.

I think so. Pettiness is usually what we use as the distraction, like watching TV or some other entertainment or comfort to fill the mind. So something healthy is a better alternative. Most of us can't be intensely spiritual and mindful all the time 😀 I guess if I'm filled up with pettiness I like to get up and do something practical. DIY on the house, play with the kids, get out in the garden, go for a run or a walk in nature. Takes me out of my petty thoughts.

Phil, you've found the gateless gate !!

I don't understand. I would've thought powerful spiritual words are pointing towards what we want to be distracted from. As in, helping us face the resistance. Distraction is avoiding our wounds. Is that powerful or spiritual?

So it's not telling myself "now I'm going to love X" and then trying to change what's already happening into something else. It's hard to avoid talking like that though. 'Allowing love' suggests that love is already present except there's some resistance to it. So what to do? Maybe just observing the whole process of love & resistance unfolding, giving it space to happen and trusting that it's ok.

You've got a good point, this is about way more than just religion, although religion and politics are clear examples. It could be a primal survival instinct of wanting other people to be like 'us' so we feel safer and there's less threat from 'them'. The world feels safer when our pack, our tribe is stronger than theirs.

This is taking a while for observing. It looks like Inside & Outside are labels, so they're secondary thoughts and interpretations. Pointing to the primary experience of when attention is focused on sensation (the inner world of subjectivity) or sense-perception (the outer objective world) respectively. So we believe/think that sense-perceptions are information coming in from the outer world to the inner.

Powerful is a adjective to describe the quality of a thought. Some of these are individual thoughts, like 'the original thought'. Some are thoughts about thoughts, like 'my cognitive mind' or 'my thoughts' ie modelling a collection of thoughts and their interactions. 'Observer' and 'thinker' are thoughts about an imaginary point of reference, so also a thought about thought. In short,all are thoughts. But some thoughts are associated with an "inwards" pointing attention, like the Thinker, the Observer, Me, I am. Thoughts about sense perceptions eg sights have an "outwards" pointing attention, like "that's a tree over there".

Yes, I wouldn't have an issue with saying these are all specialised forms of sensations either.

I can't find a gap between "awareness" and "experience". Or, "awareness" and "objects of awareness". In that sense I agree with those who say that everything is consciousness. But the opposite is also true.

Thoughts are powerful and take over my cognitive mind, but they just seem to arise out of emptiness or unconsciousness, so I struggle to observe the actual creation of a thought, and its creator. Also, my thoughts appear in sequence, one by one. "I am" is a thought, but it only occurs by itself, therefore I only exist when having that particular thought. If I'm thinking "this is a nice cup of tea", then "I am" is absent. The thought "I am thinking about my cup of tea" is misleading because it uses the memory of the thought, not the original thought.

Being able to know something is also amazing ☺️

Ha ha, I'm a boomer myself (just in that bracket). It's always fascinated me how bands have an early formative creative period when their distinctive style is formed, and then many seem to rest on their laurels after their muse matures. Or perhaps it's just me getting older! But like, I'm going to see Bryan Adams next year and I prefer his older songs more than the recent ones. It's the same with most bands from my youth. Ah thanks, I never looked into the background of that song except that he was making some social and moral commentary. Perhaps I'll reconsider it,

Hi, yes I learned the TM technique, it was a long time ago when I was a beginner and well before you could look it up in the internet for free! But yes, it's a mantra technique essentially the same as other mantra techniques imo. A bit later I became a Buddhist (for a while) and one of the many techniques I learned there was the mantra "buddho" which had a stronger resonance because of its religious connection. But mantras don't "work" so well for me, I think because mantras being words, activate a part of my mind associated with language, thought, conceptualisation etc. So I incline towards non-verbal methods now which allow my thinking to switch off more easily. Breath works well when I need an anchor, ie when my mind is a bit restless like at the start of a sit. But I can often let go of that too and simply rest in awareness. But that's just me, imo this is all very personal and subjective so don't rely on what I say but try them out for yourself, that's where the differences actually exist.

Me too, Aqualung was one of the first albums I bought as a teenager, 70s style folk-rock is one of my favourite genres. You've brought back awesome memories seeing Jethro Tull and some other legends at the Nostell Priory festival in Aug 82. https://www.setlist.fm/festival/1982/nostell-priory-music-festival-1982-7bd60244.html https://www.ukrockfestivals.com/nostell-priory-1982.html I agree with you about Songs From The Wood, but when I grew up a bit more the lyrics to the Aqualung title track sounded creepy so I skip that one now.

Thanks Phil, and I like that he has a beer on the side! I'm thinking of journalling about my practice which may help motivate me, at least till I get over this 'hump'.

Making it into a daily routine is what I try to do, but I find it difficult to maintain. Somehow the lure of 'doing' practical stuff pulls me away from the practice of sitting and simply 'being'. I have thoughts interfering such as "I'm not a morning person," or "I'll meditate last thing at night when I've finished doing everything else", or "meditation takes me away from spending time with my family" etc. Then 'last thing at night' means I'm tired and my awareness is sleepy and drifting off. So my meditation is rather sporadic and I'm not seeing the full potential benefits. I don't have any problem with techniques, I have over time settled into a selection which work well for me. Maybe I could try and use will power on myself: just sit down and whatever thoughts and emotional resistance comes up, use that as part of the meditation. Starting low with 5-10 minutes should be achievable without too much inner conflict.

Ok, it's all a construct I get that, this is all on the relative level and there's an Absolute which hugs all these relativities in its loving embrace. However I don't go with the notion of detachment either. What am I really? As David Icke put it "Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion". But love expresses itself, appears as, these constructs, we are still limited humans as well as being infinite. I dunno, perhaps when I'm dead I'll just be the infinite, until then I'm also the finite and proud to stand up for my limited part of the world. Letting go is a more subtle form of the same suffering. Holding on and letting go both require believing in two things. Well, not just suffering, also pleasure and pain, they go together. I'm tired now, need to finish for tonight.

Hmm, I guess it depends on the context. If you're living a good life and external circumstances (ie those beyond your control) stay the same then it's not really an experiment to stay the same. But the complication is, the outside world is always changing and we have to adapt and change just to conserve what we've got. Do we want to conserve? Are Americans fundamentally happy with what they've got? It doesn't quite look like they are, they keep criticising themselves and try to improve and change themselves. Yet they've been the richest country and most powerful superpower for the last century or so. I'm just wondering aloud if there's a correlation there, between having that dissatisfaction and inner conflict, and their material success. Yet some other powers are rising in the East like China who don't broadcast all their insecurities to the rest of the world (tho must surely have them hidden away). Their "communist" model for being a super power looks rather different to the US.

I'm not a businessman so don't have direct experience to offer. But businesses must need a lot of teamwork internally to get good results, even if the employees are also competing against each other for promotion and bonuses etc. Companies also cooperate with their suppliers for their own inputs to build up good relationships. Similarly socialists surely employ a mix of cooperation and competition, tho with less need for competition anyway. I'm retired now, but used to work in the public sector and we were the only organisation in the country doing what we did so there wasn't anyone else to compete with. Some things are naturally socialist and no point privatising. It's nonsensical to have several armies or police forces competing for the same jobs. I never said I'm a capitalist apart from where I invest some pension money. But then it's pretty stupid to have state ownership of everything too, so private ownership is good as well. Capitalism and socialism both have their place - for example my family life is very much like a socialist system; we share the family income in a joint bank account and spend it on where it's most needed. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. And that's as a traditional married couple. But I have a preference for my own family rather than having personal equality with other families, beyond the taxes I have to pay plus a bit of charity donation. My "right wing" mentality is to extend that family circle outwards in stages. Just as I prioritise my nuclear family, I'll also prioritise my extended family over others. I'll prioritise my local community over others, my tribe, my nation, my race , my religion etc. I'm rejecting the idea that there has to be some enforced equality by everybody. Surely that's a caricature of socialism? It's circles within circles. I accept that there's a lot of "me" identification in that, a lot of ego: my family, my tribe, my nation. But that's the glue which holds things together isn't it? I've got a little project to map out these circles of identification, I wonder if anyone else has done anything like it before? Like a venn diagram of circles with me at the centre , my family, my friends, my extended family, my tribe etc etc.

That pretty much sums up my point - the left progressive wing involves a lot of social experimentation with uncertain outcomes often based on theory more than historical data. If we're being prudent shouldn't we limit the experimentation to a few pilot examples and see how those go before deciding whether to expand them elsewhere? Thanks, that's a good example to share. But how long do we let the experiment run before deciding whether it's a success and is copyable elsewhere? America hasn't exactly settled down into a steady state yet. Let's give it a few more hundred years imo.

Ha ha, you try going to Scotland or Wales and tell them they aren't a nation! You'd possibly get away with it in England because we've been occupied by the imperialists for so long that many of our people can't tell the difference. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own devolved governments now and what's the point of being a separatist if you don't intend to have your own independent nation? If you believe in having sovereign nations then of course they're all going to look after their own interests above the interests of foreign nations. It's a bit like having separate companies or separate families. Your responsibility begins at home. What does 'nation' mean? From the Oxford dictionary too for consistency: "a country considered as a group of people with the same language, culture and history, who live in a particular area under one government"

I was just looking this up yesterday on wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate According to that data, the top 102 countries have replacement rate of 2.1 or above. The other 102 have below replacement. This graph from the UN shows a variety of scenarios for total world population, the median graph peaking later this century about 2090. https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900 So I guess this comes back to what you value and want to preserve: culture, economics, and do you identify with a particular group which you want to survive. If you don't identify with an ethnicity then what keeps it all together, is it just government presiding over a large collection of individuals? I guess the world population and national populations will eventually peak and start to decline which isn't a bad thing. But western capitalism doesn't seem to have a business model for this situation, the approach of the ruling classes here has been to raise immigration to keep the population increasing because that is how it keeps the growth curve operating. But maybe we need a new economic theory for declining populations. Some far eastern countries are holding out with an ageing population and limited immigration like Japan and South Korea so we'll see what happens there.

Yes I've spent most of my life in cities, and yes we get ethnic neighbourhoods. Also I've been on holiday to the Spanish costas where there's neighbourhoods of British ex-pats doing the same thing. Why do you think many people do that? Is it to do with people wanting to live within their own familiar culture rather than give it up and create a new kind of fusion? Not everyone lives in a segregated way, there's usually minorities within minorities and layers of complexity within cultures. Phew, I've not posted here for months and now I'm inundated! Oh well.