Jan F. Brouwer containment thread

[RoundGuy]

Originally Posted by asdfasdf32

11 posts and 7 threads started. RGT is not your personal blog.

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[duffee]

Originally Posted by Jan F. Brouwer

The mystical intrepretation of Christianity, like explained by mystics as Meister Eckhart ea. runs a bit like this: God the father is the transcendent Godhead (the Hindoes call this Brahman), his Son is the incarnate God as it is manifested in the world (or: saguna Brahman, also called the Atman or the embodied Self, living in us all).

This Self is the divine living in us, also known as Christ consciousness or the Holy Ghost. It is different from the personal self, which has indeed its limitations, while the Self (the indwelling Christ) connects us to our source God, the Father (or Brahman).

The mystic identifies with the divine Self and not with the personal self. By becoming the Self she realizes she is imago dei, or 'born in the likeness of God'. 'I and the Father are One', as the Master said.

From Eckhart:

• By virtue of being One, God is primal and supreme. Hence, though the One descends through essence into all things and into every single thing, It always remains One and unifies things that are divided.
• All things are in the One by virtue of its being One, for all multitude is One [in principle], and is in and through the One.
• The One refers by its essence to pure isness itself.

From Aquinas:

• ‘One’ as indicating God in se signifies not only that which is non-twoness, but also that which is perfect.
• Unity as the principle of number is contrasted with numerical multitude, unity as convertible with isness is contrasted with the kind of multiplicity that designates defect. Therefore, taken as a principle of number, ‘oneness’ is not to be predicated of God.
• God, the One, is primal reality, and no part of a whole can be that.

I think one issue is that medieval theologians like Eckhart and Aquinas didn’t consider monotheism as referring to a numerical being. To them, ‘mono’ meant ‘not-two’ and especially Eckhart talked quite a bit about how ‘One’ or ‘not-two’ is the negation of negation or the affirmation of undifferentiated isness.

At any rate, I don’t think it’s purely an issue of mysticism. Aquinas clearly states that “God is Being.” The problem is people read that as “God is ‘a’ being” implying a differentiating numerical essence to God, which Aquinas doesn’t.

[Jibninjas]

All of the Jan F. Brouwer threads are not merged into 1 thread.

[Louis Cyphre]

Thank you.

[ganstaman]

Originally Posted by Jibninjas

All of the Jan F. Brouwer threads are not merged into 1 thread.

Liar!

[Hopey]

So when does Splendour get a containment thread?

[zumby]

Containment threads for all!

[Jan F. Brouwer]

The more tensed and stressed up we feel, the more we are imprisoned in our own self. We may detect this phenomenon in others as well as in ourselves. When a friend of ours is in need, suffering from psychological ailments, (s)he only talks about herself, as if a world outside doesn't exist. For her there are no flowers, there is no beautiful sunset. She cannot hear the merriment of the children playing on the beach. Politics, science, world news, sports, amusement, you name it-, it all doesn't exist for her. She can only see and feel her own suffering.

With healing and enlightenment the self opens up and disappears as the center of attention. The world comes in. The outside becomes the inside. When the suffering is over, it proved to be nothing but a dream, an illusive nightmare, something we believed in for the time being. On cutting the bars we leave our self made prison, laughing.

[Jibninjas]

Originally Posted by ganstaman

Liar!

lol, oops.

[Jan F. Brouwer]

Meditation aims at restoring neurological and psychological homeostasis. It is a mean to become healthy again, (or even beyond mere biology, to become more than healthy, which is what blissful enlightenment is, the aim of religion and spirituality).

Most of us have become, in the course of our lives, unbalanced. We have either too much or too few. We are not in the middle anymore.

The Indian theory of 'the three guna's' makes this clear. There are according to this ancient theory three major forms of energy at work in the universe. The first one is 'tamas'. This is when energy makes everything congeal, stagnant, inert. Rocks, for instance, are extremely 'tamas'. Their energy flow is very slow. In our case, when we are depressed, tired, listless, we are controlled by 'tamas'. The natural flow of our energy is then blocked, stagnated or (in neurological terms: the flow of serotonine in our neuro-synapses is hampered).

At the other side of the scale there is 'rajas' . This is the high aggregation of energy, when energy works in high voltage, say, when a cheetah is about to run for her victim. Things become highly charged, when in this energy mode. In us rajas is the cause of our emotions, our fears, our passions, both negative and positive, like when we are excited for something.

Tamas and rajas are natural states of energy. There is nothing wrong with them in themselves. Sleep is tamas, running is rajas. Neither sleep nor running is good or bad. They are simply modes of energy flow in our minds and bodies.

But it goes wrong when the homeostasis becomes lost, when we have too much of tamas in us (we then feel depressed, tired, listless, burned out) or when we have too much of rajas (we then feel aggressive, edged, irritated all the time).

Fortunately, there is a third tendency within the flow of energy, which the Indians called 'sattva'. This is the natural inclination within forces to become stable and harmonious again, finding an equilibrium between tamas and rajas. Quality of life is at its highest when forces are sattvic. Sattva is the cause of lucidity, rationality, goodness etc. in us.

Meditation enhances sattva as the predominant energy force operating is us. It makes us harmonious, lucid, rational and effective in what we want to achieve. It restores our neurological homeostasis.

[Splendour]

Very interesting Jan.

I'm starting to lean back towards theistic evolution. If you study chimpanzee behavior and social structure it seems to me that religion is a great improvement on those behaviors.

Chimp behavior/social structure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimp

Then if you study the theological principles of headship and complementarianism it's almost like something is adjusting the physical dominance proclivities of human nature. In a state of nature people would tend to accentuate physical strengths but not in a more civilized co-operative society. Each person has more value/worth in a more civilized society and religion enables that change in values to occur.

http://www.biblicalfoundations.org/w...bout-headship/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementarianism

If the reductionists are right then there shouldn't even be a women's rights movement.

Women should all shut up and let the men rule. A lot of men still like it when a woman shuts up. It's far less threatening to the male ego when women do that.

[zumby]

Originally Posted by Splendour

If the reductionists are right then there shouldn't even be a women's rights movement.

Women should all shut up and let the men rule. A lot of men still like it when a woman shuts up. It's far less threatening to the male ego when women do that.

This is the exact opposite of the truth. On a reductionist view sexism makes no sense. It's Christianity that denigrates women in almost every single book of the Bible.

[Splendour]

Originally Posted by zumby

This is the exact opposite of the truth. On a reductionist view sexism makes no sense. It's Christianity that denigrates women in almost every single book of the Bible.

From wiki on chimps:

Chimpanzees live in large multiple-male and multiple-female social groups called communities. Within a community, a definite social hierarchy is dictated by the position of an individual and the influence the individual has on others. Chimpanzees live in a leaner hierarchy in which more than one individual may be dominant enough to dominate other members of lower rank. Typically a dominant male is referred to as the alpha male. The alpha male is the highest-ranking male which controls the group and maintains order during any disputes. In chimpanzee society, the 'dominant male' does not always have to be the largest or strongest male, but rather the most manipulative and political male which can influence the goings on within a group. Male chimpanzees typically attain dominance through cultivating allies who will provide support for that individual in case of future ambitions for power. The alpha male regularly displays by making his normally slim coat puffed up to increase view size and charge to look as threatening and as powerful as possible. This serves to intimidate other members in an attempt to hold on to power and maintain authority, and it may be fundamental to the alpha male's holding on to his status. Lower-ranking chimpanzees will show respect by making submissive gestures in body language or reaching out their hands while grunting. -end quote


Sexism is inherent in human nature as is xenophobia.

[zumby]

What makes you think chimps are naturalists? And how do you explain bonobos matriarchal societies (we are as closely related to bonobos as we are to chimps)?

[Splendour]

Originally Posted by zumby

What makes you think chimps are naturalists? And how do you explain bonobos matriarchal societies (we are as closely related to bonobos as we are to chimps)?

As far as I can tell they aren't.

Chimps are ritualistic.

Aren't rituals closely related to religion?

Some people, like carlo on this board, pointed out that earlier primitive men were much more spiritual than modern men today are.