quote:

At the same time, if you can turn your "will" completely over to the "Will" of the Father that which is you ceases to exist. And from that point on you are deeply into "you are in this world but you are not of it." Your spirit body and mind become the Spirit Body and Mind of the Father. All of this world's personality programming and how it is taught to perceive things ceases to exist.

Very busy day, so I can only reply to this part, Tucker, but will get back to the rest.

When we turn our mind and will over to the Father (Son or Spirit, too) what happens is that we lose what is false about who we are and become what God is creating us to be -- an individual human person who is uniquely gifted to manifest love, joy, etc. So I would never say "that which is you ceases to exist" because God does not ever un-create us, but does, instead, use our co-operation to express who we really are. The Christian understanding is that through God's grace we are made able to participate in divine life, which is not the same idea as realizing some kind of innate divinity, which is what it seems the Hindus are saying. Shedding our unhealthy programming is part of the journey, for sure, but that was never who we were in the first place.

The paradigm is Jesus, who is still there even after his resurrection and ascension. God does not destroy human individuality, but perfects it.

Are we on the same page, here?

I will get to the rest of your post later, but wish to say that I appreciate hearing from your inter-religious perspective on things. :-)

quote:

Originally posted by Les:
Tucker wrote:

quote:

In the "self realization" religious approaches to things they do not have that option. The only option that they have is to not fall short of the glory of God. Which is why it take Buddhists and Self Realization yogis years and years of training. And even then only a rare few, if any, ever achieve it in a real sense. Along with that, for the most part, almost all of the masters and teachers that are guiding folks are just teaching a map that they have never been to the end of and they have never experienced the end result of where that map leads. There are people that have achieved true Self Realization in today's world, but you will never hear about them or even recognize them if you meet them. They are very quiet people that for the most part quietly help those around them without those around them even knowing it. If you are a loving person you will recognize them, but other than that you won't. There are also Christians that have totally given their will over to the Father through Christ Jesus, but unless you are a loving person you will not recognize them either and they also quietly help those around them.

Tucker... when you say "Self Realization", are you speaking of "Waking of the Self", or "Enlightenment" (I'm using Evelyn Underhill's taxonomy)?

I like the framework you've painted between the two perspectives. I've experienced both, and quite frankly, have been trying to reconcile the two for decades...

Hi Less and welcome to the problem that folks like you and I have to deal with !

What in the heck is "Enlightenment" and "The Waking of Self"? What am I actually experiencing with these two things?

The problem is reading what others are attempting to explain what these two states of being are. If you read enough of these attempts to explain all you are going to do is get confused because there are so many different explanations. And if you kick in the concept of Nirvana and Bliss things get totally out of hand .

Based on my own personal experience from a Buddhist stand point and from a yogi standpoint, they are basically the same thing. And the main problem with understanding these two states of being is that they happen in levels with each level getting geometrically bigger. I, for lack of any other term, call them "Cognitive Leaps". Now with each "leap" one feels that they now understand it all . That they have now arrived. And if one sticks to it they eventually reach a point where they begin to realize that there is no end to it. From there one reaches a point where they are just on and aware with the information or the understandings that they are receiving being not important. We start out doing it because we want to know and understand, but over time one begins to realize that the "doing it" is what is important, not the knowledge or understandings that one receives when they do it. And at that point one becomes just "on and aware" with no attempt to explore the knowledge or understanding that result from being in the state of being that is "on and aware". And when you are in this state of being just "on and aware" while you are going about your daily things you have reached the pinnacle of the awakening of self or enlightenment. And you can say the you have achieved self realization or enlightenment with the understanding that what you have achieved is just the beginning of it. Now if you reach this "on and aware" state of being through Christ Jesus and love, then you have reached the first stage of having given your will to the Father. The key is to being in the state of being that is "on and aware" and having gotten to the point where you no longer have a need to know and understand.

Les, did any of that help? If not then just through something out there and we, you and I and others if they wish to participate, will start to fine tune things.

Love, Tucker

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:

quote:

At the same time, if you can turn your "will" completely over to the "Will" of the Father that which is you ceases to exist. And from that point on you are deeply into "you are in this world but you are not of it." Your spirit body and mind become the Spirit Body and Mind of the Father. All of this world's personality programming and how it is taught to perceive things ceases to exist.

Very busy day, so I can only reply to this part, Tucker, but will get back to the rest.

When we turn our mind and will over to the Father (Son or Spirit, too) what happens is that we lose what is false about who we are and become what God is creating us to be -- an individual human person who is uniquely gifted to manifest love, joy, etc. So I would never say "that which is you ceases to exist" because God does not ever un-create us, but does, instead, use our co-operation to express who we really are. The Christian understanding is that through God's grace we are made able to participate in divine life, which is not the same idea as realizing some kind of innate divinity, which is what it seems the Hindus are saying. Shedding our unhealthy programming is part of the journey, for sure, but that was never who we were in the first place.

The paradigm is Jesus, who is still there even after his resurrection and ascension. God does not destroy human individuality, but perfects it.

Are we on the same page, here?

I will get to the rest of your post later, but wish to say that I appreciate hearing from your inter-religious perspective on things. :-)

Yes Phil we are on the same page, we are just approaching things from two different angles. Based on my experience with things, you and the Father (as God) end up playing together, more or less as loving and compassionate children, out on the edges of the new things that the Father is exploring or in other aspects of His creation. But first you have to give your will over to the Father's will and cease to be everything that you ever were. Relative to our this world programming it is a leap of faith thing because your mind is going to tell you that you will die. From there you are reborn as a Divine Being and companion to The Father as an individual. The gift of Lord Jesus is that you do not have to do this while you are living in this physical world. All you have to do in this world is to be a follower of Christ Jesus who is not seeking the Father for "personal power" in this world.

Love,
Tucker

You'd be badgered for some of the way you put things on many Christian forums, Tucker, but I follow what you're saying.

Where you write: "you are reborn as a Divine Being and companion to the Father as an individual," St. Paul says "For you are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then you shall also appear with him in glory." (Col. 3:3)

So there is a death -- to the old life that was self-centered.
There is a re-birth -- to life in God through the Spirit breathed in us by Jesus Christ.
There is persistent individuality -- a "you" that shall appear with him in glory.

Christian teaching would not go so far as to say that this constitutes us as a "Divine Being" in that we shall always be distinct from God at the level of being. We are God-like in the life we experience and the gifts God shares with us, but we shall forever be humans.

quote:

Originally posted by Tucker:
What in the heck is "Enlightenment" and "The Waking of Self"? What am I actually experiencing with these two things?

The problem is reading what others are attempting to explain what these two states of being are. If you read enough of these attempts to explain all you are going to do is get confused because there are so many different explanations. And if you kick in the concept of Nirvana and Bliss things get totally out of hand .

Agreed. I finally gravitated toward Evelyn Underhill's taxonomy/categories in the attempt to map the stages, mostly for purposes of communication with others, and also for my rather brief book (hardest thing I ever wrote... and that includes my doctorate dissertation <wg>.

quote:

Based on my own personal experience from a Buddhist stand point and from a yogi standpoint, they are basically the same thing. And the main problem with understanding these two states of being is that they happen in levels with each level getting geometrically bigger. I, for lack of any other term, call them "Cognitive Leaps". Now with each "leap" one feels that they now understand it all . That they have now arrived. And if one sticks to it they eventually reach a point where they begin to realize that there is no end to it.

Yes... just when one thinks they've reached some level of stasis, another perspective/experience opens things further, tossing one yet again into the world of semantics for want of translation into human translation.

quote:

From there one reaches a point where they are just on and aware with the information or the understandings that they are receiving being not important. We start out doing it because we want to know and understand, but over time one begins to realize that the "doing it" is what is important, not the knowledge or understandings that one receives when they do it. And at that point one becomes just "on and aware" with no attempt to explore the knowledge or understanding that result from being in the state of being that is "on and aware". And when you are in this state of being just "on and aware" while you are going about your daily things you have reached the pinnacle of the awakening of self or enlightenment. And you can say the you have achieved self realization or enlightenment with the understanding that what you have achieved is just the beginning of it. Now if you reach this "on and aware" state of being through Christ Jesus and love, then you have reached the first stage of having given your will to the Father. The key is to being in the state of being that is "on and aware" and having gotten to the point where you no longer have a need to know and understand.

When I first experienced Self ("Awakening of Self", "Non-reflective Self") I was 17 years old driving down I-5... rather unnerving. But yes, just "on and aware" with "no-mind" (the mind had gone asleep). Over time, I experienced it more and more, but after a few years realized that aside from expansion of perspective, it really meant little if no "doing" or even "non-doing" wasn't occuring. It's one of the things that always fascinated me about Yogi's who essential sit their life away. One can be "on and aware", present in the moment, with little or no mind chatter, while still "doing".

quote:

Les, did any of that help? If not then just through something out there and we, you and I and others if they wish to participate, will start to fine tune things.

It does. I only started "coming out" a few years ago, mostly in the effort to reconcile the experiences.

One question though... when I experienced merging with/being God, then emerging from THAT as the Self/"I" which is God/Not-God, I was left with a disconnect between God the Absolute, and the Christian Father. You seem to imply that they are not one-and-the-same, or maybe just different paths to God the Absolute. One through Jesus/HS/Father, the other _direct_ ("Enlightenment"). As I mentioned earlier, that's an interesting perspective I hadn't heard/considered before, but do have a difficult time getting my head around.

Peace

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
You'd be badgered for some of the way you put things on many Christian forums, Tucker, but I follow what you're saying.

Where you write: "you are reborn as a Divine Being and companion to the Father as an individual," St. Paul says "For you are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then you shall also appear with him in glory." (Col. 3:3)

So there is a death -- to the old life that was self-centered.
There is a re-birth -- to life in God through the Spirit breathed in us by Jesus Christ.
There is persistent individuality -- a "you" that shall appear with him in glory.

Christian teaching would not go so far as to say that this constitutes us as a "Divine Being" in that we shall always be distinct from God at the level of being. We are God-like in the life we experience and the gifts God shares with us, but we shall forever be humans.

How about this Phil just for conversational purposes, "Have you ever had Christ Jesus take you to have a look at the place that He has prepared for you and others in His Fathers really big house?" "We shall forever be Humans." If that is your desire then that is what you will be. There is no problem with that and it is ok.

We as humans have the ability to transcend that which makes us human if that is something that we would like to do. Most folks are comfortable with what they know and they do not want to explore what they do not know. Which is perfectly all right. Others not so much. They thirst for a closer and closer relationship with Christ Jesus and the Father. And a path is available to them that will transform them into something that is totally beyond our human ability to comprehend. Yes we are never actually the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit, but we can become like Them and They are not human. But only if we thirst for this closer and closer relationship with Them. Otherwise this transformation into something that is beyond comprehension does not happen. And this is ok and it is not a problem.

"According to Christian belief.", is a statement that divides Christians into factions that generally are at odds with each other to one degree or another. Yes Phil I am generally at odds with a lot of these Christian factions in one or more ways if I say anything . But I do not judge them as not being Christian because they do not believe like I do. And there is no way that they could because they have not had the experiences that I have had. To me they are all Christians and in the hands of Lord Jesus. I do believe though that those that claim to be Christians that are actually leading others away from Lord Jesus and the Father are not Christian and it is really hard for me to not judge those people. At the same time we do live in Satan's world and the Son will straighten things out eventually. So in truth it is really not there for me to judge.

Love, Tucker

@Les

Les you are a fellow mystic and you have been up the pike a bit to say the least . And I am one of those mystics and yogis that has sat their life away, I have thousands and thousands of hours of meditation and meditative prayer experience. And Les I would like to read some of the other things that you have written if that is possible. And this is with the understanding that what a mystic writes one moment can become written different the next moment because of the constantly expanding cognitive leaps in understanding .

So what do yogis do when they spend their life sitting? Yogis that are following a tradition are doing mind exercises with each tradition having, for the most part, a different set of mind exercises and these mind exercises lead to a goal of some sort. Because I was a "cave yogi" so to speak and did not follow a tradition I spent time doing all kinds of things and exploring all kinds of things . I spent a lot of time exploring the mind's relationship to the body and the effects of different mind exercises on the nervous system of the body. And I did all of this as a Christian mystic who wanted to know what the yogis know with Lord Jesus as my master and teacher. And basically what my Master taught me was Yoga Science, the foundation science that is behind the meditations of all traditions. When I asked Lord Jesus to teach me what the yogis know and where do I start He told me to gaze into a candle flame until He said it was time for the next part. So I spent hours and hours for the next two years gazing into a candle flame. From there we went to exploring mind exercises which I call "mind gymnastics". And because He would answer questions if I asked them we also explored a lot of things because I was full of questions. Anyway Les I really enjoyed those days, they were a lot of fun. And I never did much physical stuff other than go to work when I had to. I did care take a small farm so there was physical exercise with that and most of the temporary jobs that I had were also physical. But other than that I spent most of my time in meditation exploring things and I loved every minute of it. Nowadays I don't have to sit to meditate because I am in a constant state of meditation while I am doing other things.

"Left with a disconnect between God the Absolute, and The Christian Father?" and "One through Jesus/HS/Father, the other direct "Enlightenment"?" Les the entity that I know as Lord Shiva was originally a human yogi that achieved perfect "Enlightenment" a perfect union with God the Absolute. Because I know Lord Shiva personally and he did do this, I know that it can be done. And he can approach you at whatever level you want to be approached at up to and including becoming God the Absolute. With this side note which is what makes him different than Lord Jesus, if you do not approach him through love he is a handful .

About the disconnect, I also experienced that. The way that I solved that was to come to the understanding that was that the God of the Old Testament, the God of Moses that the Jewish folks worship is not he same God as the Father. Originally the God of Abraham was El and the God that Moses made a covenant with was Yahweh. Nowadays they say that they are both the same, but originally they were not. I can't worship the God of Moses, He is too mean. But I can worship El the God of Abraham and He was the Father of the Heaven folks. The Jewish folks do not believe in Heaven because they worship Yahweh who was not a member of the Heavenly host. The reason that there is confusion in the Old Testament is because there were two Gods with El being the loving God and Yahweh being a war God that Moses made a covenant with. So to me the Father that are in Heaven, the Father of Christ Jesus, is the God of Abraham, not the God of Moses. Once I came to that understanding the transition from God the Absolute to God the Father no longer created a disconnect. Because, God the Father and God the Absolute are loving.

Anyway Les that is not Christian. It is just my way of solving the disconnect problem. The God Yahweh is not the Father of Jesus that Art in Heaven and with the God Yahweh, the God of Moses, there is no Heaven, there is no afterlife. Which also means that there might have been a deeper conflict going on between Lord Jesus and the Jewish religious leadership than what is usually speculated as the conflict. Their God had no Heaven (when you died you died) and Lord Jesus came from the Father who art in Heaven and He went to make a place for us in His Father's house. The only one in ancient Jewish history that was the Father in Heaven was El the God of Abraham.

Love, Tucker

The last couple of pages have been an epic threadjack, and have given me a lot to think about. Thank you.

quote:

Originally posted by Jonitus:
The last couple of pages have been an epic threadjack, and have given me a lot to think about. Thank you.

Hi Jonitus, this your topic and you are welcome to lead it in the directions that you would like to go. Nobody minds.

Love, Tucker

quote:

Originally posted by Tucker:
@Les

Les you are a fellow mystic and you have been up the pike a bit to say the least . And I am one of those mystics and yogis that has sat their life away, I have thousands and thousands of hours of meditation and meditative prayer experience. And Les I would like to read some of the other things that you have written if that is possible. And this is with the understanding that what a mystic writes one moment can become written different the next moment because of the constantly expanding cognitive leaps in understanding .

LOL... true. The only thing I've written on this subject is a concise recollection of my own journey to date...

The Making of a Christian Mystic: On Awakening and Enlightenment
https://www.amazon.com/Making-...-ebook/dp/B06WWD2QJJ

I left a great deal of the journey out, simply because I didn't want the reader to get lost in the detail, but rather just the message. Everything else I've written has been professionally focused, primarily on "Implicit Negation" and "Non-linear Logic", some of which I came away with because of the enlightenment experience. It allowed me to visualize and codify in both printed form and applied form as a database architecture. I simply now see things in 'sets' as 'objects', which is very difficult to teach because most think in linear terms vs. non-linear.

quote:

About the disconnect, I also experienced that. The way that I solved that was to come to the understanding that was that the God of the Old Testament, the God of Moses that the Jewish folks worship is not he same God as the Father. Originally the God of Abraham was El and the God that Moses made a covenant with was Yahweh. Nowadays they say that they are both the same, but originally they were not. I can't worship the God of Moses, He is too mean. But I can worship El the God of Abraham and He was the Father of the Heaven folks. The Jewish folks do not believe in Heaven because they worship Yahweh who was not a member of the Heavenly host. The reason that there is confusion in the Old Testament is because there were two Gods with El being the loving God and Yahweh being a war God that Moses made a covenant with. So to me the Father that are in Heaven, the Father of Christ Jesus, is the God of Abraham, not the God of Moses. Once I came to that understanding the transition from God the Absolute to God the Father no longer created a disconnect. Because, God the Father and God the Absolute are loving.

Anyway Les that is not Christian. It is just my way of solving the disconnect problem. The God Yahweh is not the Father of Jesus that Art in Heaven and with the God Yahweh, the God of Moses, there is no Heaven, there is no afterlife. Which also means that there might have been a deeper conflict going on between Lord Jesus and the Jewish religious leadership than what is usually speculated as the conflict. Their God had no Heaven (when you died you died) and Lord Jesus came from the Father who art in Heaven and He went to make a place for us in His Father's house. The only one in ancient Jewish history that was the Father in Heaven was El the God of Abraham.

Thanks! It fills in the gaps from your other posts. It's interesting for a number of reasons based on my own experiences and things I've considered along the way. Have you read what I consider to be Sitchen's opus?

The Lost Book of Enki
https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...ef=kinw_myk_ro_title

Based on what you've shared, you really need too if you haven't, especially with corroborating evidence uncovered since 2002 (Iraq). I mean you REALLY need to read it

Namaste'

quote:

Originally posted by Jonitus:
The last couple of pages have been an epic threadjack, and have given me a lot to think about. Thank you.

LOL. I thought about that numerous times, but you had expressed interest in theological issues so I figured you were OK with it. Glad to hear that's the case.

quote:

The God Yahweh is not the Father of Jesus that Art in Heaven and with the God Yahweh, the God of Moses, there is no Heaven, there is no afterlife. Which also means that there might have been a deeper conflict going on between Lord Jesus and the Jewish religious leadership than what is usually speculated as the conflict. Their God had no Heaven (when you died you died) and Lord Jesus came from the Father who art in Heaven and He went to make a place for us in His Father's house. The only one in ancient Jewish history that was the Father in Heaven was El the God of Abraham.

It's all the same God, Tucker, just different names. What's going on in Jewish religious history is an ever-deepening revelation of God, which culminated in Jesus' revelation of Abba and the Trinity. From everything we know about Jesus, he was thoroughly Jewish and frequently quoted the Jewish scriptures in his teachings.

Some of the religious leaders of his day did believe in an afterlife, but the revelation of heaven as we know it today came through Jesus and the teaching of the early Church. One strain of belief holds that prior to Jesus' death and resurrection, there was no heaven; when a person died, they went to Sheol, a realm of shadows. Jesus opened all that and made heaven available to all.

Re. The Lost Book of Enki.

Les, I don't follow.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
Re. The Lost Book of Enki.

Les, I don't follow.

Have you read it? It’s the translation of some 14 tablets found in a box during an excavation dated back to around 2500+ B.C.

The interesting thing, besides some correlations with Genesis, is that it indicates a nuclear engagement, one of the locations being in the Sianai (sp) desert. Scientists believe that such an event occurs around that timeframe based on physical evidence of what a nuclear event does to sand (turns into glass). The tablets discuss the event and what led to the war.

It does cause one pause as to the discoveries in that area in the last 75 years, and provides some possibilities for answers to the 300,000 yr old “missing link” in human evolution... though even that theory (of evolution) is put to the test by the translation.

IOW, it does shed an interesting light on Genesis.

Phil...

BTW, the tablets author is EN.KI, and his half brother is EN.LIL... which is what led me to make a possible connection re: Tucker’s post...