Not Speaking

[Bob May]

The scenery is the Creator's scenery. The most important thing about the signs etc. is to know there is a God who made all of this. And that He is alive and aware of us.
When Jesus was coming into Jerusalem on a donkey, The people were calling out Hosanna! This meant Savior. The pharisees told him to make them stop.
His answer was "If these should hold their peace (practice silence) I tell you that even the very rocks would cry out."
By practicing "silence", we experience the world speaking to us or God's Spirit speaking to us through the world.
But, it can be too much to handle at times. We can start up the internal dialog to "ground ourselves" at those times. To take a breather, so to speak.
Ecclesiastes says there is a time to speak and a time to keep silent.
I believe that is what it is speaking about.
Bob

[Guest]

Get offa my ass, will ya!

[Guest]

Hi Bob.
It's great to see you post here.
"Ecclesiastes says there is a time to speak and a time to keep silent."
It seems to me you have a beautiful and poignant interpretation of the Bible verse that inspired the song "Turn Turn Turn" by the Birds.
On one level, it's simply saying that there's a time to speak and a time to listen, and that it's not necessarily about mental quietude.
Do you believe the author purposely hid one idea inside another? Why not simply say "Silence is a fundamental spiritual exercise"? Why do you suppose the author would want to say something so cryptically?
I'm not asking about IF the ideas are purposely couched within each other, I'm asking what it accomplishes to be so arcane.
I am thinking about the story of Elijah, waiting to hear God. God was not in the wind, God was in the "Still small voice".
To me, that's a more purposeful allusion to mental quietude, even though it's also about the difference in what God and men think of as being important. It indicates that the Bible will speak plainly about the subject of silence.
Why would Ecclesiastes be so obtuse?
"Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength"

[Bob May]

Hi Lightly,
"On one level, it's simply saying that there's a time to speak and a time to listen, and that it's not necessarily about mental quietude."
That is true, we tell our children something similar to teach them how to be socially proper.
"Do you believe the author purposely hid one idea inside another?"
It is not hidden. We are just "dull of hearing" as Jesus put it. In fact that was his mission. To give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and life to the dead.
This he did "symbolically" by doing it physically to some people.
The REAL mission of sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf was and is concerning Spiritual sight, hearing and life. Biblically speaking, WE are all deaf, dumb and blind and dead.

Why not simply say "Silence is a fundamental spiritual exercise"?
"Be still and know that I am God." There is one of many verses stating that.
But read it more closely and you will find that it is being very specific. It is telling us how to USE the silence.
One way I look at this verse helps me on my path. I practice silence for a period of time. Everywhere I go in my car or whenever I think of it I turn off the internal dialog. After a period of time, I find that I experience things of a spiritual nature. It may be revelations upon the Bible or I may begin to "see" things more clearly, but something of a spiritual nature happens to me.
Then, I usually have to tell people about it. People on this forum or another forum. Or some friends that I have known for years and know where I am "coming from." Or, I just have to write it down. (a form of internal dialog)
As I speak and share whatever it is, I become more grounded and less happens to me of a spiritual nature.
So, I go back and forth from silence to speaking over a matter of a few months time. Both phases are necessary and at the same time mutually exclusive. You can only do one at a time. If I did not practice silence, I would have nothing to share of a spiritual nature. If I did not share, there would be no purpose for spiritual experience. (that is beyond my own benefit)

Why do you suppose the author would want to say something so cryptically?
It is not cryptic at all. The Bible is written on many levels. For some, the obvious meaning of this verse is enough and it is a true statement which can be applied in many circumstances. "A time to speak and a time to keep silent." How about during an argument with your wife?
But for those wanting to grow in spiritual awareness, there is another meaning or "level of meaning" that at some point becomes obvious. It's not that it was written to be confusing. It is written on more than one level.
A person interested in spiritual awakening will understand that further meaning and make use of it.
"I'm not asking about IF the ideas are purposely couched within each other, I'm asking what it accomplishes to be so arcane."
We get to experience the joy of watching the Mysteries unfold. And to learn by experience how the entire Creation unfolds before us.
That is how God teaches us. By revealing the Mysteries to us one at a time. And not just in the Bible, but all around us. It may seem a small thing, but when it happens over and over again, there becomes no doubt that God is speaking to us and teaching us.
I am thinking about the story of Elijah, waiting to hear God. God was not in the wind, God was in the "Still small voice".
And that is exactly what I am talking about. Again the idea of from Death to Life. Elijah was standing in the mouth of a cave when that happened. I began to see a pattern both in scripture and elsewhere of this symbolism.
-Jesus cried "Lazarus come forth" and he walked to the door of the cave (which is what tombs were in those days)And Jesus said loose him...
-An angel stood in the door of Jeus tomb/cave and said "why seek you the living among the dead?
-Plato's cave alegory comes to mind also. When he stood at the door of the cave he saw what the others could not.
The entire Bible and idea of spiritual progression has to do with coming back to life, to waking up.
To me, that's a more purposeful allusion to mental quietude, even though it's also about the difference in what God and men think of as being important.
I agree with that, but like I said a time to speak and a time to keep silence is also alluding to using wisdom in applying the use of silence.
It indicates that the Bible will speak plainly about the subject of silence.
And it does do that too.
"The words of wise men are heard in QUIET more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools."
"It is good that a man should both hope and QUIETly wait for the salvation of the LORD."
"And as they were going down to the end of the city, Samuel said to Saul, Bid the servant pass on before us, (and he passed on,) but stand thou STILL a while, that I may show thee the word of God."
"Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be STILL. Selah."
"Be STILL, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth."
"MEDITATE upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all."Bob

[Bob May]

Hi Lightly,
"I am thinking about the story of Elijah, waiting to hear God. God was not in the wind, God was in the "Still small voice".
To me, that's a more purposeful allusion to mental quietude, even though it's also about the difference in what God and men think of as being important. It indicates that the Bible will speak plainly about the subject of silence."
What is being described here by Elijah is a spiritual experience. A realization.
Most of what the characters in the Old Testament are going through are the same thing. Spiritual realizations. As Paul says; "...these things are Alegory." These stories are about US. Literally.
A good example is the story of Jacob's Ladder. He is traveling and tired. He puts his head on a rock and has a dream of a ladder that stretches from heaven to earth and has angels (messengers) ascending and descending upon it.
When he "awakens", he says; "Surely God is in this place and I knew it not."
This is about us realizing that there is a "Pattern" (ladder)to all of creation. And that it permeates all of existence. (Reaches from Heaven to Earth) That it speaks to us (messengers or messages permeating the entire pattern
of creation).
We "awaken" as Jacob did "in the morning"= enlightenment.
And we say "Surely God is in this place and I knew it not."
This is not a geographical location, it is a Realization that God is HERE, no matter where we are,.. either geographically or spiritually.
But, this realization does not come to everyone. It comes to those who are seeking God or Spirit.
Jacob's name means "Following after God."
To those who are not seeking God or Spirit, it is just a nice story. God does not force anything down our throats, but also does not keep anything from us. Truth reveals itself in layers as veils are lifted.
We can choose to go through those veils or take time to integrate what we have learned. It is up to us.
Bob

[Guest]

Bob, I enjoy your propensity to worhip and worshipfulness. The state of mind that you take from the Bible is said to bear a profound advantage for those who embrace it.
Part of me would like to separate the worship from the religion, but perhaps that's not really important.
I'd enjoy illustrating that not all who worship are monotheists, and offering counter point about "God" with a capital "G", not to disuade you from your understanding of things, but to familiarize you with mine.
Fopr me, the dominant paradigm is always suspect, and thinking outside of the dominant paradigm can be fruitful just because of what it is.

[Bob May]

Hi Lightly,
"I'd enjoy illustrating that not all who worship are monotheists,.."
I would enjoy the illustration. But maybe I'm mistaken in thinking most spiritual viewpoints still point back to some "Causless Cause" or "Beginning" or "Old Gods" so to speak. Even Pantheism implies some kind of over-all order. And order implies intelligence.
"and offering counter point about "God" with a capital "G", not to disuade you from your understanding of things, but to familiarize you with mine."
Like I said, I would enjoy it.
God is a general term. Even in the Bible there are many many names to signify aspects or functions of the One that not only permeates, but goes beyond all of manifest or even potential existence. Pure Consciousness or "I AM."
These are concepts contained in the Qabala which not too many churches understand, teach or even consider.
God is a convenient word. He/It does not care what you call it. But Pure Cosciousness is there to be experienced.

"For me, the dominant paradigm is always suspect, and thinking outside of the dominant paradigm can be fruitful just because of what it is."
If you don't think outside the box, you'll never get outside of the box.
Bob

[Guest]

Thanks Bob,
It's an honor to talk with you. For me, monotheism is reflective of the human ego, and is not represented in nature.
there are at least two forms of reasoning against monotheism, the first being from within monotheism, and the second from the outside looking in.
In the parlance of comparitive religions, the religions of "the book" are said to be "revealed". It might be more accurate to say "necessarily revealed".
That is, without the revelation from deity, there can be no recognition of the deity. This is usually considered to be a logical inference from the assumption that man and nature are fallen.
It is written that "the heavens declare his handywork" but earthly nature is fallen. You cannot deduce God (capital "G") from nature. He must be revealed through middlemen.
Then, looking from the outside in, there is the fascist tendency of monotheism, born of the idea that a single truth rules over everything.
It is like the ultimate Republican government. Republicans like small governments. Maybe they'd like a VERY small government with just one person (or being) in charge of everything. It works for Islam.
I hope I don't seem argumentative.
Order, within itself, may not infer intelligence, and even if it should, why would it infer only one intelligence?

[Guest]

That the "religions of the book" must be revealed rather than deduced, doesn't that beg the question, "what can be deduced"?

[Bob May]

Hi Lightly,
I am going to bed right now, but I see from your post that you are under a few common misconceptions about what I call Christian belief. Not that it is anything you have done to create these ideas, but more likely from what you have heard from religions purporting themselves to be Christian.
I rely on Jesus' words as written in the N.T. to be my guide. That is what I call Christian.
In consequence of that, I have not attended a church for over 15 years.
I'll give what you said some thought and get back to you tommorrow.
BobBob

[Guest]

I look forward to it, Bob.
Thanks for your friendship.

[Bob May]

Hi Lightly,

"It's an honor to talk with you."
Don't go there. I am just a guy. No honor to talk with me.
"For me, monotheism is reflective of the human ego, and is not represented in nature."
No, because God is one and you are looking at nature as a bunch of disconnected events or details. But Nature itself is ONE system. Looking at the Ego as a model for God is like looking at a spark and trying to get an idea of fire.
I look at Ego as a symbol of separation from God.
If you are looking for a more applicable symbol for God you could look at the Cosmos as a whole, but better to look beyond it because Cosmos and Nature are manifest and God is not.
"there are at least two forms of reasoning against monotheism, the first being from within monotheism, and the second from the outside looking in.
In the parlance of comparitive religions, the religions of "the book" are said to be "revealed". It might be more accurate to say "necessarily revealed".
That is, without the revelation from deity, there can be no recognition of the deity. This is usually considered to be a logical inference from the assumption that man and nature are fallen.
It is written that "the heavens declare his handywork"

Which they do if looked at as manifestations of God after His/It's own Nature which is perfect Order. A reason for everything and everything in it's proper time and place. A perfectly running machine.
But at a deeper level, both the heaven and the earth show us signs and wonders. Omens and messages etc. Seemingly given to individuals at specific times and places to mean something only to them. Don Juan called them Affirmations or agreements from the world around us Carl Jung called them "Sychronicities."
Sceptics call them "Coincidences", thinking that that means there is no connection between such events. No intent from a higher intelligence which can guide such things. They are mistaken. The word coincidence means and has always meant two things happening at once. It is an engineering term. If certain teeth on two gears of a watch mechanism mesh because of the rotation of those gears, that meshing or meeting of those teeth have been designed to do that. In other words some one or some thing had to design it to do that. So, for some one to use the word coincidence is just another reaffirmation that the designer speaks and gives signs to those who are watching.
The believer and the sceptic are both living in the same world, but the believer is living "in the world, yet not of the world." While the sceptic is living in the world AND of the world.
"..earthly nature is fallen. You cannot deduce God (capital "G") from nature.
This is a world/universe of Death and decay. I'm not sure that it is fallen. It seems to run just fine within those parameters. Leaves fall and rot and fertilize the ground for next years trees. Trees die and make rom for another crop of trees. People die and make room for a new generation.
It is not nature that has fallen but Mankind which has fallen. We were not created to live on this plane, but chose "cause and effect" thinking over pure awareness symbolised by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The fruit of that tree is Death. We (Adam; which means mankind, not an individual) were warned but not prevented.

"He must be revealed through middlemen."
And who told you that? The middlemen? By "middlemen" I assume you mean religious leaders and clergymen.
Jesus had nothing good to say either to or about them when he was here. He called them liars and hypocrites.
He also warned of the ones to come (those here now) saying;
"And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many."
I read this verse many times assuming that it spoke of guys like Koresh and Jim Jones who claimed to be Christ. But it is talking about Christian Ministers who say that Jesus is Christ, but are never-the-less decieving people.
And as far as middlemen goes, Paul clearly states;
"But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in YOU, and ye NEED NOT THAT ANY MAN TEACH YOU: but as the same anointing TEACHeth YOU of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught YOU, ye shall abide in him."
Your so called "middlemen" do not teach this verse in most churches. Mainly because it states that they are not needed. If all Christians realized this, all christian ministers would have to go out and get real jobs.
"Then, looking from the outside in, there is the fascist tendency of monotheism, born of the idea that a single truth rules over everything."
I'll agree with the Facist tendancy thing, but it is a lack of understanding of the book or a complete lack of honor by the person doing and teaching these things.
Jesus had no use or respect for Religion and neither do I.
He said;
"Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition."
I don't know what single Truth you are talking about here.
"It is like the ultimate Republican government. Republicans like small governments. Maybe they'd like a VERY small government with just one person (or being) in charge of everything. It works for Islam."
It is not Republican or Democrat or Islam or "so called Christian."
These are all people wanting what people want. There own ****! Looking out for number one. They are all wrong.
You cannot judge God's wisdom by people who have misused it to their own ends. Politicians are actors. We need Government to protect us from ourselves and others, but politics and politicians are a friggin' cartoon as far as I am concerned.
At least the founders of this country recognized that men are evil and selfish, so they established three branches with somewhat equal power to counteract each other's selfish desires.
"I hope I don't seem argumentative.'
I view it as a discussion, not an argument.
"Order, within itself, may not infer intelligence,.."
I don't know the science of it, but has something to do with systems naturally tending toward chaos.
But I don't need science to back up what I believe, so I haven't looked into that particular aspect.

"..and even if it should, why would it infer only one intelligence?"
You ever experience any sustained order coming out of a committee?

Bob

[Guest]

Quoteon't go there. I am just a guy. No honor to talk with me.
Just as I wrote that, I was getting weary of the "variety" of personalities one can meet on the internet.
"It's good to talk with you" would have been more accurate.
Quote:No, because God is one and you are looking at nature as a bunch of disconnected events or details..
The issue as I see it, is that things can be interconnected without having to be all one unit.
If a stream of water flows through a forest, and then a city, it does not mean that the city and the forest are one, even if there is a mutual dependence on the stream.
Even if the stream and the forest are "one" it's not their unity that defines them, but their differences.
The term I prefer can be misleading. It is "discrete" used in an uncommon way to mean that something has a specific end and a begining spatially.
"The natural world" is a catch all phrase for a lot of discrete, but interconnected systems.
Ultimately, within our current understanding of the way things are, there are four fundamental powers that run the universe.
Two are hidden within the atom, two are electricity and gravity. There is no indication that these fundamental forces have a common source.
Then in another vein of thought:
It is thought that gods do not appear in the mythology of cultures that are preagricultural. Once agriculture begins, then gods are created.
Before then, and in areas such as jungles and deserts where agriculture is problematic, there are only spirits such as you find in animism.
Further, it's been suggested that monotheism spontaneously occurs only in societies that have specialized industries. It's is a relatively modern idea in context of human prehistory.
Strictly agricultural societies creat large pantheons, as diverse cultures are unified around the crops.
It's thought that the early Phoenecians might be the ultimate source of the Biblical gods that we are familiar with. These gods would have entered the semetic world through trade and cultural exposure, being unified into a single monolithic deity in the time of David.
Much of this thinking relies upon a definition of "god" as opposed to tribal spirits we find in animism.
Animism and totemism arise spontaneously in all tribal societies. Those are not "revealed" religions, but deduced religions that American Indians have in common with Aborigine and Ainu populations.
The details differ, but the principle is always present.
I have a lot more to say, and some of this might seem disjointed, but I've run out of time for now.
It may be late tonight or tomorrow before I can tie these ideas tofgether and add more.
Perhaps it's a good thing to hear your comments on these ideas before heading down roads that are not interesting to you.

[Bob May]

"Perhaps it's a good thing to hear your comments on these ideas before heading down roads that are not interesting to you."
These things are interesting. In fact, I am one of the biggest fans of the History channel and Discovery, not to mention archeological findings and archeologist's conclusions on those findings. Though I may differ in my interpretations of those findings.
That there are gods is not at issue. In fact, the Psalms says that we are gods. Native cultures can call on gods and yet believe in a Great Spirit. Catholics pray to saints. In the Don Juan system there is the "Unknowable". In the Bible it is called "I am that I am." In Qabala it is the "Ain" or nothingness.
If cultures from the past believed in a "Unknowable", "First Cause" or "Causless Cause" archeology would have no way of knowing except by description and their is no way to describe it except maybe by the symbol of a circle. Which is zero, nothing, no thing. The point within a circle would then be number 1 symbolic of the "First Manifestation" of God.
Those symbols are in very old paintings and stone carvings.
"Even if the stream and the forest are "one" it's not their unity that defines them, but their differences."
To define something is not necessarily a good thing spiritually speaking. When we analyse we break things apart in order to understand them with our rational brain/mind.
I would rather "experience" (to know in the Biblical sense) the forest/stream than "learn" facts about the forest and the stream.
"The natural world" is a catch all phrase for a lot of discrete, but interconnected systems."
Or it is a term that attempts to capture the belief that it is one system. This is one of those things that seem to border on belief. Our beliefs define our reality. If I believe a thing to be true, it is true for me and everything I see will serve only to confirm my belief. The same goes for everyone. Rare is the individual that will take such a "quantum leap" of faith to see things completely opposite to their accustom way of seeing things.
This is the meaning of the often misused term of "repentance". It means to turn as a door on a hinge. To change your mind.
"Ultimately, within our current understanding of the way things are, there are four fundamental powers that run the universe.
Two are hidden within the atom, two are electricity and gravity. There is no indication that these fundamental forces have a common source."
Neither of which Science has any idea as to what they are.
Issaac Newton believed the closest power to that of gravity was love. Science, not knowing how to understand gravity invented a "graviton" to help explain how it works. But no one has ever seen a graviton.
"Animism and totemism arise spontaneously in all tribal societies. Those are not "revealed" religions, but deduced religions that American Indians have in common with Aborigine and Ainu populations.
The details differ, but the principle is always present."
How would Science know whether or not some dieties from thousands of years ago are revealed or not? They don't even believe in revelation. Not that they are wrong or right about this, but it is a reasoning that is "stacked against" anything supernatural ever existing.
Science only accepts evidence that can be seen, measured, catagorized, and quantified. That leaves them completely inappropriate judges of these things.
The ancient Hebrews believed in a God that commanded them to make no graven images. If they had had no written language to convey this idea, what would archeologists have been able to tell us about the ancient Hebrew's belief in their God? That they were atheists?
I'm not against archeology, in fact I sometimes think I would have been very happy to have been one. But when dealing with the concept of an unknowable God there are too many ways to misinterpret or ignore symbols left to us by the ancients.
"It may be late tonight or tomorrow before I can tie these ideas tofgether and add more."
I have just been offered two jobs (when it rains it pours) so I will not be able to post as often in the near future, but I will try to check in once a day or two.
I am not trying to be argumentative either. I do enjoy our discussions.
My post also may seem disjointed. That is because they are and also because I sometimes begin to approach a subject in one way and then something else occurs to me. And I'm too lazy to go back and delete the first thing I wrote down.

Bob

[Guest]

Great!!

[Guest]

Quote:Great!!
--WakullaSo, Wakulla finally makes a comment. I've laid farts smarter than this guy

[Guest]

Great about the jobs, Bob.
Friends with money are better than the other kind.
The technique is not to conjecture about prehistoric people so much, as it is to make obervations of modern humans in natural environments.
Genuinely feral human beings still dot the globe in isolated communities, even though they've been diminished.
We set a standard for defining a feral community. That standard is that they have to live directly from nature.
They have to eat what they find or kill, and build their shelters from naturally occuring materials.
Then we look around the globe and see what we have.
No one can know for sure whether prehistoric man believed in spirits and had magical relationships with animals.
What we know, is that when modern people live directly from nature, they unanimously practice animism and totemism. Which is a belief that everything has a literal spirit and the practice of entering into magical identification with animals.
The spirits of tribal animism are not energetic abstractions. They're components of the natural world, and they have to be worked with and around.
When they say a tree has a spirit, they don't mean a Christian styled soul. Or like "the spirit within you" They mean there's a sprite that haunts the tree. They might leave it food. It might steal their soul.
If there's a conjecture about prehistoric people here, maybe it's this; That if it were possible to live from nature without animism and totemism, someone would have done it by now.

[Bob May]

"The spirits of tribal animism are not energetic abstractions. They're components of the natural world, and they have to be worked with and around."
They can work with it. I don't see that they have to.
"When they say a tree has a spirit, they don't mean a Christian styled soul. Or like "the spirit within you" They mean there's a sprite that haunts the tree. They might leave it food. It might steal their soul."
I don't doubt the existence of such spirits. I have seen certain types and felt others. These are what Don Juan calls inorganic beings which covers a whole lot of territory and is just a general term.
"If there's a conjecture about prehistoric people here, maybe it's this; That if it were possible to live from nature without animism and totemism, someone would have done it by now."
Prehistoric people may have and I have no doubt did worship nature spirits. They left offerings at springs and painted pictures in rocks and that went on through the ancient Celts and Greeks.
It is natural for man to appeal to gods of the wind, water and sea etc. If they had no other recource. Nature can seem capricious and changeable like the emotional nature of mankind.

"That if it were possible to live from nature without animism and totemism, someone would have done it by now."
Someone did. John the Baptist lived alone in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey.
To be a monotheist does not mean you do not believe in the existence of gods, it just means you do not worship them.
It is a question of power.
"What is your source of power?",.. was a question my teacher used to ask of people claiming to be witches or magicians etc.
Most did not know what to say.
Why go to a lesser source of power when you can go right to The Source?Bob

[Guest]

It's interesting, Bob.
We have differences as to how we get there, but I infer that we both value worship.
That's a specialized attitude. A sense of reverence can be a source of well being.
It's a distinct feature of the road I've been down, that worship is extended to 3D physical objects in the world. I worship things. It's the opposite of the instructions that came with God.
It's as though a sense of reverence was the optimum way to engage the the day to day world.
Correct me if I get a detail wrong, but I believe it is a distinct feature of your road that reverence is only properly directed to God.
Now to my way of thinking, worship is a specialized attitude that allows us access to hidden parts of ourselves.
When I can shine that light onto a feature of the world, it's magic. To my way of thinking about these things, to limit one's sense of reverence to God is like only allowing your eyes to open in a dark room.
I believe worshipful reverence is a psychic event.
Some suggest spiritual ecstacy is within itself, a tool.

[Bob May]

Correct me if I get a detail wrong, but I believe it is a distinct feature of your road that reverence is only properly directed to God.
"Now to my way of thinking, worship is a specialized attitude that allows us access to hidden parts of ourselves.
When I can shine that light onto a feature of the world, it's magic. To my way of thinking about these things, to limit one's sense of reverence to God is like only allowing your eyes to open in a dark room."
This may just be a matter of semantics. I can feel a sence of reverence for Beauty. For a piece of music or a sunset or my wife or the smile on a child's face or the music that sometimes the sounds in forest make. I also have felt complete Awe at some of the spiritual experiences I've been fortunate enough to have had.
But I also, in the back of my mind, know that there is an intelligence behind and above all of this that caused me to be able to experience any and all of these things. When I bring that awareness to the front of my mind I am immediately aware of an energy that comes down over me as if to say, "You're welcome."
"I believe worshipful reverence is a psychic event."
Again semantics maybe, but I believe it is a spiritual event and spiritually discerned.
"Some suggest spiritual ecstacy is within itself, a tool."
A tool and an experience.
My teacher used to say, and it is true, that if you want to repeat a Spiritual experience, remember the feeling.
It is also possible to have a "greater" or "higher" experience in the same way.
There is a sound that occurs when our vibrations increase.
Some say it is like bacon frying in a pan or leaves in the breeze. Others may call it "White Noise."
This is a common experience that I and friends would have and agree upon for many years running. We were all having the same sound happening at the same times.
One day while doing the "point meditation", (keeping my consciousness above my scull just above the spine) I decided to follow that sound to it's source.
To make a long story short, I was pulled upward and wound up immersed in and spread out within a sea of what I have come to call "Blue/White Liquid Lightening." The sound had become a roaring so loud that if I was still in my body, I was sure it would have torn me apart and shattered my eardrums.
It was pure heat and at the same time pure extacy.
And at the same time I was aware that I had been pulled up only to a specific point and that there was more "above" me so to speak.
I experienced and felt what that "sea" experienced and felt. Both It and Whatever/Whoever pulled me up were conscious intelligent beings.
That is a spiritual experience in my understanding of the term and the way I use it. I had no body either astral or physical and no limitations except as far as what plane I had leveled off at. I had no desire to go "higher", though I knew there was a higher.
I would have been perfectly happy to spend eternity there.


Bob

[Guest]

Hello Bob
[quote}I can feel a sence of reverence for Beauty. For a piece of music or a sunset or my wife or the smile on a child's face or the music that sometimes the sounds in forest make [/quote]
I accept that, but wouldn't you normally say that it was the recognition of the divine in these things?
Not the things in themselves that you revere?

[Bob May]

Hi Lightly,
I'm going to answer that in a round about way because I have been thinking of something the last few days.
I am a fisherman and have been since I was a very young boy. when you plan on eating the fish they are put on a stringer and tied to a stake stuck in the earth to keep them from swimming away with the stringer.
Invariably some of them die on the stringer. It is both a disappointing and interesting thing to see. The color is gone at death. They are literally gray and lifeless looking where minutes before they glowed with irradescent colors.
When I was about 30 years old my father died and my mother called to tell me. I went to the hospital to see his body and meet with my sisters and mother and brother.
I went into his room and he lay on the bed with his eyes open, which I thought was very strange. I would have thought someone at the hospital would have closed his eyes.
But, I saw the exact same thing in my father's body, especially in his eyes, that I saw in the dead fish on the stringer. I had never before seen a dead body that was not embalmed. But there was a light that was gone from the eyes that I never realized was there before. The difference was like night and day.
I felt no reverence for that body that used to contain my father.
Both my father and the light were not there anymore.
So, yes it is a recognition of something behind the appearance that we reverence and something Divine that we worship. I think it has to be something larger than ourselves for me to use the word worship.
I think I wrote of this before that the word worship has the meaning; "As a dog at his master's feet." This sums it up for me. Others use the word differently. To me, worship is a quiet longing for something or someone greater than ourselves. And a need to be nearer to that. It is magnetism or gravity or love. Or all of the above.Bob

[charlila]

in aghurah - the language of my ancient tribe assembly, the saraf - worship is hallel.(like in haleluya.)
meaning prase, yes. also meaning something like vibrate with joy. hallelis the job one is created to do, like dancing for me, like inventing for Edison, which doing it is his best fulfilment.
Shurul, on the other hand, is other jobs that has to be done. both concepts cover our "work".

[Bob May]

Hi Lightly,
Sorry, somehow I missed this post. I was not ignoring your question.
"Sorry I haven't been around. I think we need to define "worship"."
Not something I have done in the past choosing rather to take it in context. Some things are difficult to define.
But now, looking into it a bit further I found 10 separate Greek words for worship in the four Gospels. In Strong's concordance the word proskuneo seems to fit nicely as is used in the following verses from Matthew.
"...Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve..."
Some might say it means to venerate and revere.
So, this word translated as worship in English has these definitions. To kiss like a dog licking his master's hand. To fawn or crouch to. To prostrate oneself in homage to. To do reverence to. To adore.
"Some might say it means to venerate and revere."
That is part of the definition above.
"How would you define "worship" so that you can revere nature without worshipping it?"
I would define worship as holding a sentient being as if they were above me. Nature is a creation. So are holy places and people and music and the cosmos. And angels and fallen angels. We are directed not to worship them in scripture.
I can hold these things in highest regard but not above humanity which is the pinacle of creation. (Even though we do not act like it.)
"Must "worship" be ritualized? I doubt you'd think so."
Of course not. I don't even think we need to physically kneel or any of that. Our minds and hearts are an open book to God. (whatever you might call Him.)
"Is it proper to worship something besides the creator?"
I don't think so. Not according to my idea of what worship is. But like I said I can certainly revere and hold these things in high regard and hold people in great respect.
"Is there necessarily a moral component to our choice of what to worship?"
I try not to look at the bible as a moral book, though there are those elements within it. It is more like trying to figure out the reality we are living in by the truths offered in the books. Teachers are fellow students like us. Angels are fellow servants. We can respect their offices but not allow ourselves to put them between us and the One God.
Worship of men leads to cultism. Worship of angels can lead to worse. Especially since even Satan can appear as an angel of light. Worship of nature spirits is literally shooting in the dark.
I don't believe creatures should worship other creatures I guess would be the best way to put it.
I look at worship as being a looking upward, not a looking across.


Bob

[charlila]

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