Spontaneous Arising
I find such masters helpful in the process of testing my own inclinations in the understanding of God. For example, when master M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen notes that God has no form, the comment immediately brings up my Christian formation in which God takes human form and "dwells among us." One of my favorite philosophers describes this deity as "the God who shits," pointing out that he/she experiences the full range of human existence.
Issues like this make me aware of my own spiritual and intellectual laziness that limits both my understanding of my inherited concepts and those of great masters from other traditions. Thanks for expanding my thought world.
No problem, Hawk.
I didn't post his entire essay, which is worth the read, as there's more to the story. For myself, there's a resonance with the idea that God is both formless and with form, simultaneously -- two aspects of the same Oneness. Omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscient -- the all and everything, as well as the Void. The Kashmir Shavists, from what I've read over the years, seem to have this combination of potentialities embedded most firmly in their conception of God. I'll find a good quote from that tradition when the time is right....
"God has no form. He has no shadow. There is nothing in comparison to Him. He has neither wife nor child. He is neither darkness nor light. He is not like the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars. God is one power, a power which is able to control and subdue all other powers. From the single atom to all of the universes, this is a power which is intimately mixed within all things. It has nothing, no shadow, no aid. It is the One who is alone, the Original One. It is a point, a power, which has neither beginning nor end. There is no language for it, nor does it have a religion. It does not possess a race; there are no colors in it, no black or white. It is a power, a point which is within every creation..."
Mystical, meaningless bullshit. If you really believe that, then you believe in something so meaningless that you may as well believe your god is anything it pleases you to believe. When you define a thing in such a way that it can mean anything, then it means nothing.
"What is god? Why, it is nothing and everything. It can't be touched or smelled or seen or heard, but it's everywhere at once and it is everything. It cannot be perceived by the senses, but it controls everything else and you must acknowledge it." That's frickin' hysterical. I can write a definition in just a few seconds that is the equal to your Suffi master's definition and just as meaningless. I don't get the reference to light, though, since light can be perceived by the senses and that's just bad work on Suffi master's part to include it there. Light is a particle as well as a wave. It has form and can be captured. Don't want to say that anything to do with a god has a form or can be captured. That's just too confining when you're working out meaningless drivel.
Parsing meangingless drivel is dry work. I'm gonna go get some water now.
Nice of you to drop in, old friend.
My pleasure, Mike.
I am amazed at the silliness that impresses you. Manipulating words to create illusory profundity really seems to get your cowbell ringin'.
You know, DBK, I really do like you, which is why I've always put up with your smug and jaded bullshit. You don't need me to tell you how you come off as a bitter and miserable human being when you think you're pointing out something helpful, because you know it's true and you do it anyway.
If you were really a friend, you'd find a way around being such an insulting asshole. Not that you care about something as silly as friendship.
Mike, it just cracks me up so much is all. Seriously, that definition of "god" is such fluffy, meaningless drivel, and you were so serious in how you praised it, I couldn't help myself. You can define anything that way and it would be mean just as much...or as little. As religious philosophy goes, that citation didn't provide a worthwhile definition of...anything...actually, so much as define precisely why so much of religious philosophy is meaningless drivel that couldn't convince anyone who wasn't already convinced. It is absolutely as solipsistic as you can get without actually reading it underneath a bell jar with a cannister of oxygen at hand.
Oh, and I already applied for a refund from that sensitivity training course I took. Didn't seem to take.
"I couldn't help myself."
No excuse.
"I already applied for a refund from that sensitivity training course I took. Didn't seem to take."
Sorry, man, but the fact that you can become so abusive over something as subjective as the concept of "God" -- and manage to piss on a gentle Sufi mystic who happened to express himself (through a third or fourth language) in ways that obviously trigger your issues -- a man whose loving presence helped thousands of people during his 100+ years on the planet (as opposed to people like you, who only get off on spreading their misery at every opportunity) -- only goes to show that you really are a bitter and jaded human being.
I've really missed you around here, but I don't need this shit. I'm not asking for perfection out of you, but do us all a favor by working out your adolescent rage somewhere else.
Helped how? By offering them illusions and drivel? Definitions that remove meaning from words rather than clarify?
"Let me clarify the meaning of this for you: it means nothing and everything. It is both light and dark. It is wide and narrow. It is cold and hot. It contradicts its own definition. It cannot be defined or understood or grasped by the human mind." That sort of thing clears nothing up, but it pretends to be meaningful, and some people really gravitate to it, finding in their own inability to understand that which cannot be understood, because it has no meaning, a kind of comfort that says more about what they think of themselves than what the "definition" offers. I'm no psychologist, but I suspect that there is some sort of external validation thing going on there. It validates your own confusion and your (not you, necessarily, but "one's") belief in magic if you don't understand something because it's all kind of mystical. with special mystical music playing in the background.
I really gotta work on that refund.
The fact is, I don't need you to like Bawa or any other spiritual personage I post about. I don't need you to understand it outside of your smug and bitter comfort zone.
I just need you to back off and let it go.
You sure do make it personal, Mike. I don't like or dislike Bawa. I just thought that definition was meaningless drivel. You came back at me with "miserable, bitter, smug" etc. I did say that I was amazed at the silliness that impresses you, but only because I am genuinely amazed...for the reasons I stated. But it's not personal so I don't see why you went down that road.
And I'm sure the gentle Sufi mystic didn't mind. He's a gentle Sufi mystic, after all. He would probably have smiled gently and mystically at me and said something all gentle and mystical. I don't think he'd have even felt metaphorically pissed on.
Dude, of all the friends I've met online, you have the singular ability to piss me off. Badtux doesn't hold a candle to you.
Yes, I do take it personally when someone takes a shit in my comment section the way you have a tendency to do. I take it personally when I'm making an effort toward posting something positive with some frequency, amidst all the bad news and general misery out there -- and sure enough, someone like Froggy comes along to tell me how pathetic I am for being "impressed" by such things.
It's just baffling to me that you think it's okay to be such a jerk. But hey, if you're finding happiness in it, more power to you.
That said... we can both be thankful that I haven't made my blog a megaphone for the Jehovah's Witnesses... 
Dude, if you think I'm rude to you, you should see how I treat the Witnesses. It embarrasses Mrs DBK. Last time they came to the door, I opened it, took one look at them, and said, "Get the fuck out of here with that shit and don't ever come back to my home."
I am admittedly a bit on the blunt side.
I hear you -- I usually just shut the door in their face without saying anything. My ex-wife's mother was a JW -- spent 20 years in hospitals with various cancers, refusing blood transfusions all the way -- and she still found a way to push her religion on anyone who visited her.
They do make good dirt clod targets with their Blues Brothers suits on their 10-speeds, don't they?
Wow! It seems that DBK's frame of reference is simply boxed in to exclude huge groups of human beings who see the world's polarities as one piece, much more encompassing than the dualistic straightjacket often seen in the modern scientific world.
Revealing discussion.
Um, yeah, that's it. I don't even know what that whole "frame of reference" double-talk is supposed to mean. I've spent enough time describing that meaningless drivel of a god definition, but rather than deal with that, you decide to make it about me. "DBK does this and that. He's trapped. He's in a straightjacket." But you studiously avoid writing, "This is what it means and here is why it isn't meaningless drivel." No, what I get for a response (previously, but it's of a piece with this latest comment) is, "You pissed on the Bawa, a gentle, humble mystic with doe-like eyes and the ability to levitate jars of borscht. How dare you?" I don't get anything along the lines of, "It isn't meaningless drivel, and here is why." And, of course, we get the nonsense of amateurs pretending to psychoanalyze me, as if somehow what I said about the meaningless drivel posted here invested you guys with psychoanalytical powers, like maybe all your navel-gazing gave you these miraculous skills to take a couple of paragraphs and magically explain the personality of the person who wrote them. "Oh, he's bitter and miserable, and he's stuck in a dualistic straightjacket."
Deal with the argument, Hawk. Gee, gosh, golly, Hawk, I think what's happened here is that you're trapped in a solipsistic, and somewhat narcissistic (because you believe you can analyze me and my views from afar, a skill you haven't shown yourself to possess...when did Bill Frist join the discussion?), framework of analyzing the person who makes the argument rather than the argument itself. Must have something to do with your childhood. Tell me, did you have a good relationship with your mother, Dr Hawkins, Medicine Man? Did she radiate light and was also dark? Was she both tall and short? Have you touched the face of god and, if so, was he wearing eye liner?
I agree that the discussion is revealing. It reveals that you cannot defend your beliefs, but like cultists and mystics and others who open their empty hands and announce that "There's magic beans in these here hands if you'll just believe in magic beans," you attack the person who says, "Those hands are empty" rather than showing me the beans.
You got no beans, Hawk. You're beanless.
Sorry if that was harsh. I was trying to be light and funny, but I can see it can be read as harsh. However, I am disappointed that nobody here seems prepared to deal with the arguments, but instead points fingers at me. I feel like I just said, "The Emperor has no clothes" and everyone said, "Shame on you for saying that. You must have psychological problems for saying that. What kind of person would say such a thing? And why did you say it so bluntly, so rudely? There's something wrong with a person who says something so bluntly and rudely", meanwhile, the Emperor is standing there naked. Which is embarrassing. Although it could be instructive for people who have never seen the Emperor's...um...little emperor.
Thank you for your wise analysis, DBK. Whether you realize it or not, you have revealed yourself, while, at the same time, demonstrated that you do not grasp anything that has been said by others in the preceding conversation. You don't want dialogue. So be it.
One more thing. DBK. You know that you are the one who started the downward spiral by your juvinile name calling. You got exactly what you asked for. But you don't even grasp that. You wonder why no one will "deal with the arguments." There is a world that goes far beyond your "frame of reference" that is profoundly true to much human experience. And you simply demonstrate that you have not explored that world. Nor do you plan to expore it. That's fine. No problem. But don't turn around and insult folks who are exploring it and who are open and eager for conversations about what is there. "You've got no beans, Hawk." What the hell kind of childish foot stomping is that? I don't give a shit what you think about me. Your profound insight simply talks about you. Have a good life, DBK.
Oh no! I am revealed!
Interesting conclusion. I say, yet again, that nobody has addressed my argument and you keep saying that I am this and that, ignoring the argument, and conclude that I "don't want dialogue". What's your notion of a dialogue?
You wrote:
"It seems that DBK's frame of reference is simply boxed in to exclude huge groups of human beings who see the world's polarities as one piece, much more encompassing than the dualistic straightjacket often seen in the modern scientific world."
Is that a dialogue? I ask questions in my version of a dialogue, seeking to get a bit of discussion going. Your version of a dialogue is to declare that I'm something or other and not engage the arguments at all.
What's your problem with discussion? Has Bawa actually said anything in his definition of gods or is it meaningless drivel as I say it is? What does it mean? Anything? Anything? Bueller? Bueller? Can you defend that mystical froo-froo at all, or do you just want to go on telling me that you've got my number while never examining what you find so compelling to see if there's any substance to it? There's no substance to it, you know. It's just double-talk and mumbo-jumbo. If I were to go by your version of a dialogue, I would be writing about you and why you have hallucinations (seeing meaning in mumbo-jumbo), but I am interested in seeing if you can defend the drivel or, at least, explain it such a way that it isn't drivel. So far, you can't do it. Nope, just keep coming back with insults for me. Check out the "discussion" so far. I've addressed the Bawa's definition of god, not the Bawa. I've addressed the "arguments" (such as they are) that you and Mike presented. You and Mike? "You're a miserable person and you don't want to talk about this and that and you're stuck in this or that frame of reference and yadda yadda yadda and I'm going to stick my tongue out at you now." Come on back and tell me again about how I'm not interested in a dialogue.
At the sound of the chortle it will be well past 26 hours since you've made any sense.
Where did I call anyone a name? I said some very disparaging things about the positions taken, but not about the people taking them. I expressed surprise that such silly and meaningless drivel was taken for compelling, but again, didn't call anyone any names that I can find. Care to show me where I called someone a name?
Oh, and you are waaaay off base with your analysis of what I have and haven't explored. I've taken philosophy classes and studied several religions. I just don't believe the bullshit and you clearly, really, deeply believe in fantasies. If someone doesn't agree with you, that means they didn't examine the question? Kind of narcissistic that is.
Hawk: You're correct to just ignore DBK. I'm glad he doesn't know who you really are, or anything else about you.
DBK: A discussion of the merits of Bawa's few words here may have been possible, had it not begun with your unbelievable display of disrespect. I am ashamed to have yet again fallen for your baiting skills. It sucks even more, knowing that you and I go back several years and have managed to work through several such episodes along the way. The fact is, you are worth the effort -- I know that you are a good man whose head is generally screwed on straight -- but this conversation never had a chance, and I'm not up for "going there" with you on this one.
Back at ya. But, see, I realized in the past couple of years that I'm lousy at social convention, so I don't even bother to try sometimes. I just argue the merits and don't concern myself with the manner in which things are expressed. If there's an idea of which I am contemptuous, I tend to sound contemptuous. I'm not at all concerned about respecting other points of view. I don't even care that you went and made this personal. I think making it personal exposes the bankruptcy of your belief, and that claiming you "won't", rather than "can't", argue the merits because I was disrespectful is a dodge. I can conceive of an argument in favor of both the existence of gods and the nature of that concept that has merit, but I don't hear it very often at all. In fact, the only ones who make that argument are the ones who aren't concerned with putting some gloss of intellect over their idea and state their understanding simply and sincerely. Your regard for the Bawa's definition is misplaced, I think. It's as crappy a definition as can be made. It's an attempt to invest the definition with all manner of poetry and mysticism...far from being unique, it's a variation on the theme of "miracle and authority".
Now, why would I care who Hawk really is? What do you think I would do if I knew? As long as he doesn't turn out to be my next door neighbor (Jeff? Is that you? Sorry about the oak tree, but there wasn't anything I could do), I'm not too concerned.
You got me thinking about who Hawk might be. Catholic priest? Is that it? Did you think I would start riffing on child molesting priests? Oh honey, I went to a Catholic high school. We had child molesting priests. That's not a big deal to me. The RCC has much more to answer for than just that. Genocide is just a small piece of the RCC trip.
"I think making it personal exposes the bankruptcy of your belief...."
If you expect perfection from a spiritual seeker, while at the same time hiding behind an unwillingness to bow toward the most basic norms of social convention, you really can't expect anyone to continue to fall for your baiting tactics.
I'm sure you have actual friends to whom you show more respect than you've shown me. Please go spend time with them.
If you want respect, then you are bound by ego. Kill the ego to find what you seek. If what I have written makes you unhappy, it is because there is something you want, and that is because of your ego. Until you shed your desires, you will never find what you seek. If you look at me and don't see yourself, you are not really seeking anything.
Coming from you, DBK, those words could not be more hollow.
Goodbye, amigo.
P.S.,
Puke actually came up in my throat when I read that last response. My ego is definitely at the wheel -- and anyone who says they're "free" from "ego" is lying.
Getting "rid" of the ego is a fool's errand. Ego cannot get rid of itself -- it can only make itself stronger, and has an infinite supply of strategies for doing so. Meditating to give rise to absorption (jhana, samadhi) is the way to melt-away the personality fetters that constitute what we in the West call "ego" -- but no matter what, there's still a sense of "I" that allows the body-mind to navigate life in human form, without which there is no person. Melting the fetters requires commitment to a rigorous, skillful contemplative practice, even while carrying the fruits of meditation out into the world, remaining as mindful as possible of how the fetters are operating. I know that my reactivity shows that mine is a work in progress -- very hard, humiliating and persistent work. As an actual friend recently told me, having someone like DBK show up to spew in my comment section is good practice -- a good opportunity to witness just how entrenched the fetters have become over the course of a life (or many lives, for that matter).
So I thank you for that, DBK... even while rejecting your sanctimonious bullshit.
Over and out.....
You're welcome.
Good thing your friend saw what was going on here.
I am surprised that you cite "eastern versus western" understanding, as if there were such a thing. It is emblematic of the dualistic straightjacket often seen in the modern scientific world. You should accept that all thoughts are one thought and one thought is all thought. As I said, when you see me, you should see a mirror and embrace me as yourself.
And again, O Ânanda, for those beings who have been born in that world Sukhâvatî, there is no idea of others, no idea of self, no idea of inequality, no strife, no dispute, no opposition. Full of equanimity, of benevolent thought, of tender thought, of affectionate thought, of useful thought, of serene thought, of firm thought, of unbiassed thought, of undisturbed thought, of unagitated thought, of thought (fixed on) the practice of discipline and transcendent wisdom, having entered on knowledge which is a firm support to all thoughts, equal to the ocean in wisdom, equal to the mountain Meru in knowledge, rich in many good qualities, delighting in the music of the Bodhyangas, devoted to the music of Buddha, they discard the eye of flesh, and assume the heavenly eye.
-Section 3 of The Larger Sukhâvatî Vyûha
I had a friend who used to sanctimoniously quote sutras to me. He had no practice, but he felt free to lecture me as though he was coming from a place of experience. There is nothing more nauseating than that.
You need help.
And I do hope someone helps you get that help.
Am I still banned?
Only God knows....
Who's that?
God is what's left when everything else is let go.
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