my credo, and how it came to be

In 7th grade, or actually every year on the first day of school, we always fill out our goals, of what we want to accomplish in life. i had all my goals written down. Later on that night, i thought to myself, what happens when i complete all my goals, do i just wait to die? what is the point of life if we all just die? Eventually if our sun is just going to die out, then why even work to improve our earth, when it's just going to die anyway? I found out a lot of suicidal people thought that way. So i changed teh way i looked at things, i thought, "hey, we're here and there's really nothing you can do about it. If you want to leave, then leave, but since we're here, why not have fun in the mean time, and make the best out of things." So that's what i did, but the thought of why and how we're here still lingered there. I I started reading einstein's theories and one of my favorite mystics, Alan Watts. He made me believe a lot of things he pointed out.
The Beginning of the Beginning
I believe that the universe was created by a mind, and "origional consciousness" or you may be more familiar with the word "God" but i don't like to use that word because too many people think of Jesus Christ when they hear God. So i call it the "origional conciousness, or mind" i believe that everything that is here now, was thought about very carefully, before it came to being. Becasue in order for us to live, it is very complex. For instance, the human race, and basically, all living things cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment. Obviously a body requires air, and the air must within a certain temperature range. The body also requires certain kinds of nutrition. So in order to occur the body must be on a mild and nutritive planet with just enough oxygen in the atmosphere spinning regularly around in a harmonious and rhythmical way near a certain kind of warm star or our sun. Now, is all of that just a mere coincidence? i don't think so.
One thing that i read from alan watts, really caught my attention:
Underneath the superficial self, which pays attention to this and that, there is another self more really us than I. And the more you become aware of the unknown self -- if you become aware of it -- the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that is. You are a function of this total galaxy, bounded by the Milky Way, and this galaxy is a function of all other galaxies. You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes. You look and look, and one day you are going to wake up and say, "Why, that's me!" And in knowing that, you know that you never die. You are the eternal thing that comes and goes, that appears -- now as John Jones, now as Mary Smith, now as Betty Brown -- and so it goes, forever and ever and ever.
To gain the happiness we already have -one of Watts paradoxes- we have to alter not only our notion of ego but also our notion of God. For in fact these two concepts are closely related. The authentic self of man is none other than this God. In most religions such a statement would be sheer blasphemy, but nevertheless it is the true religious experience of every true religious person. Watts replaces the old concept of a personalized God with the more abstract concept of "IT", (which i think makes since, because the word IT itself, can mean anything!, ..........and everything) the religious force that works in everything 'death' and alive. This IT is full of consciousness and indeed the life force of the universe.
Watts also says that this "unknown" self can be found through meditaion, yoga, and DREAMING.
But the experience of the Self can grow to ecstatic heights by these techniques, if properly practised with the help and the instruction of a master. Then something happens that's an integral part of the quality of the Self. Then the blissfulness of the Self, opens up in our hearts. This aspect of religion and mysticism is not presented in its fullest impact in the writings of Watts. And that's a pity, because it could have been used as a valid argument for the truth of his philosophy. Once the Self is realized and a connection is (re)established between our soul and the soul of everything surrounding us, then a great jubilation rises up in our hearts underlining the truth of all Watts has written: 'yes, that's it!' our heart then seems to shout (or not to suppress the obvious pun: 'yes, that's IT!'). For truth is not something that's confirmed by the mind alone, but truth is experience of wholeness and is therefore confirmed by the heart also.

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I combined your multiple posts...
-wasup</span>

First the commentary:
While I'm not familiar with Alan Watts, I might suggest that you read more eastern philosophy, as Mr. Watts obviously did. Many of his ideas that you express are directly paralleled in eastern schools of thought. And the something that you wish Mr. Watts had more fully described is also well documented, try reading about nirvana or enlightenment. While some of his thoughts may seem radical to western thought, they actually have thousands of years of history and tradition in Asia.

Now the opinion:
First of all, catrina, please understand that I am not insulting you or your beliefs, merely informing you of what I believe. Personally, I don't believe in any kind of higher power, "God", or collective consciousness. I have found no rational basis to conclude that any of these 'beings' exist. Could they? Certainly. But we have no facts, and so Occam's Razor determines that most likely there are no such beings. As to reincarnation, I do believe in it after a fashion. Matter cannot be either created or destroyed, but it can change form. Modern physics teaches us that what we consider 'solid' is actually just fixed energy which could potentially be turned back into free energy. This is essentially what happens in a nuclear reaction. Since the matter and energy that comprise us cannot ever be destroyed, in some sense we will have immortality, but not true conscious immortality or reincarnation. Our molecules could very well spread out across the world and be included in everything from airplanes to bricks to dogs or even other people. In fact, it is a certainty that everyone one of us bodily contains matter and/or energy that came from another person. In that sense it could be said that we are reincarnated beings. Of course, it could be said with as much truth that we are also cannibals ;)

Finally the conclusion:
In one important respect we do completely agree: in all likelihood, human beings have always wondered and will always wonder about God, the afterlife, and all sorts of other metaphysical brain teasers. I certainly hope so. While I rarely agree with the beliefs of others (I'm a contrary sort of person :P ), I always enjoy hearing them. Thank you for sharing, and I hope someone else reads both our thoughts and disagrees so much that they just HAVE to post. Makes for good reading (and good arguments) that way.

I always looked at it as the fixed energy that creates an individual came from the free energy (that is God), and at death the fixed energy once again becomes part of the source. The fixed energy is attached to a physical form, the physical form stores and retrieves memories, memory creates the individual. Memory also creates the sense of time and space. In religious experiences, there is no sense of time and space, and the memory of a religious experience is a pale comparison to the event because it's contrary to the idea of an individual. I believe there can be self awareness without memory, so for me the big question is if the free energy is self aware. If it is, that means God exists, and we become God at death, when our individual memory ceases to exist along with the physical form. One of the goals of meditation is to stop the internal dialogue, which in effect temporarily severs your connection to memory, thus religious experience, as the fixed energy, lacking memory, briefly resembles the free energy it once was/will be.

So, it's not whether we know if God exists, it's whether God knows God exists.

I believe, Rev. Pastora, that the experiences that we have in the material world become part of the collective consciousness, the Self, upon physical death. True Self realization is merely becoming aware of the fact that you, I, and everything else are God, without needing to die to discover this truth. All of us being God, equally, helps even the playing field by destroying the illusion of individual being projected by the ego. NAMASTE - The Spirit in me sees the Spirit in you. You are truly lucid dreaming when you become the dreamer and the dream.

I don't care if people agree or disagree with me. I just know (like you said) that everyone wonders about ''God" and a higher power. I just like to talk about this kind of stuff and i like to know what other people think, how they think we got here, what our purpose is. I think we're just here to expand our consciousness. what happens after that, i don't know. I think after we die, there really isn't anything except our mind. I think we then live agian, just because we have a want to learn...to expand. Thanks for sharing your ideas. What do you guys think of the dream?

Some fascinating ideas, thank you everyone for sharing them.

Catrina, it sounds like you've really connected with this idea; it's an idea I can certainly believe contains some quantity of truth, possibly even quite a large quantity.

The difficulty when trying to calculate the quantity of truth is that we can only put these things into human terms, using terminology and ideas we can comprehend such as a consciousness and matter. We don't know about how our existence, or the existence of the material universe in general, manifests in other dimensions to which we are not privy, or what implications this might have on our understanding of things.

For instance, I certainly think there is strong evidence to suggest that all matter affects and interacts with surrounding energies in as yet unknown ways. It is not unreasonable to suggest, based on the evidence, there may be some dimension solely concerned with energy.

Maybe if we understood how such a hypothetical energy dimension worked it would make the IT concept undeniably true, or maybe it would make it undeniably false?

In line with your post, IT would also have to have planned rules and such for all of the other dimensions too. Following this line of thought, it's not unreasonable to suppose that IT would not be a consciousness as we understand it at all and it would be 'thinking' in a completely different manner to a consciousness that only understands the 4* dimensions we recognise.

*or 3 if you don't believe in time.

This leads me to my point ("at last!" you cry)...

Scenarios such as your dream can convey ideas far more powerful than the words we can use to describe them. I can certainly see metaphors in your dream with regard to the concept you describe, it's just very difficult (impossible?) to express them adequately because we don't have the language to do so. The way you have talked about it makes me think you can see at least some of these metaphors too.

The upshot of this leads to my more fundamental view of the universe. Many apparently contradictory theories could be true (Quantum Physics anyone?) Maybe they're all true. Some people believe that simply by thinking something it becomes true in a metaphysical way, maybe that's true too? There's a lot of sense in your theory and if it works in your head then no one can tell you you're wrong.

Great post Catrina, very thought provoking.

Scenarios such as your dream can convey ideas far more powerful than the words we can use to describe them I completley understand that!! i love writing and talking in metaphors because sometimes our own language just doesn't cut it, the way i want to describe a subject. I do believe that ALL of our dreams are metaphors in some way and depending on our experiences throughout ife, will determine how we interpret them. I don't really believe in time, not in........well this is one of those cases that i just can't explain because i don't know the words. I only rely on time in our earthplane because it is our organization. But after death, what's really out there, the "secret" or whatever words i can use to explain this, i don't think IT has anything to do with TIME.

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POST #2

i've come up with something kind of clever that i'd like you to think about.

First: We as humans are the most highly evolved species in the world...that we know about. Everything in this world all revolves around humans. Everything from food to a doorknob. All of it is for us...everything (consciouss or unconscious) everything works for us. everything revolves around humans. So in a way, we are like our own god. We are god, in a sense because we don't have anyone to work for except mankind in itself. (we can work for earth, or whatever, make it all nice, but it's benefitting us, so agian, we work for ourselves.)
Who do we work for?
Take a cow for example. A cow may think to itself, "what is my purpose in life? i know i'm supposed to mild and some day give birth, but why?" She doesn't know that we drink the milk, that we benefit from it. Sure, we could show her us drinking the milk, and she could know but she'd never be able to understand.
Now what if there is something more evolved than us, call it an alien or whatever you want, but everyonce in a while, they look and say "look at those humans, they work for us. They don't know why, and sure, we could show them, but they'd never be able to understand."

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Originally posted by catrina
I once had a dream that my sister found this very weird video game. When you turned it on, there were gray planets, (can't be certain if that's what they really were,) but they were balls, and they were gray, no color, no life. And they just sort of floated radomly. If you did not do anything, and just watched it, the balls would get bigger, coming closer to the screen, untill they filled the whole screen with gray, and then it was game over and you lost.
There were no paddles with the game, so we had no idea how to play it. Well my sister found out we had to say \"ahhhhh\" like we were singing a note. And when she sang \"ahhh\" the planets slowly gained color, and they started to spin around the sun, in harmonious rhythm. And when i joined her (singing ''ahhhh'') the planets did this process even faster. They would gain color and spin faster.
Then in my dream, my dad came in and i said \"hey dad, look at this\" and while me and my sister sang the notes he watched the screen. Then i said to him, \"what does this remind you of\" like we both knew something. Kind of like i was winking inside, like i had discovered a huge clue to a huge secret.
Right after i asked him that, i woke up.

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Cool! You played a different Video Game then what I usually play in my LDs. Can you tell me how to play it w/a paddle/touchscreen? I Love video games, especially in LDs! :D

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Originally posted by catrina
Now what if there is something more evolved than us, call it an alien or whatever you want, but everyonce in a while, they look and say \"look at those humans, they work for us.

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Excellent concept, really good, it twisted my head as soons as I read it.

I've been thinking about it all night and will think about it some more tommorrow, if I try really hard I might even think of something useful or insightful to say about it :lol:

Ever read 'The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy'?

If not, I'm sure you've heard people say that the answer to the great question of life, the universe and everything is 42. That comes from this book.

As the answer doesn't make any sense they start a project to work out what the actual question is. They design a computer the size of a planet, and the creatures living on the planet are a part of a neural network designed to (eventually) work out the question. The name of the computer is Earth.

Now obviously this is just a book and I'm not saying that is the case here, but it's certainly one theory that would fit with right in your idea.

If you haven't read HHGTTG, it's well worth taking the time. There's some really deep philosophy and some really important questions addressed throughout, but more importantly it's a really funny and entertaining read. (I would suggest going to see the movie that's coming out soon, but I haven't seen it so I don't know if it's any good)

nesgirl, the video game didn't have paddles and it didn't have a touch screen. You had to use your voice to play. Now how my sister found that out in my dream i have no idea. But if you didn't sing a note, the game was over. so she figured out that she had to sing and then we won the game. it was weird.

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POST #2

yogi bare, i have seen teh previews for the HHGTTG and as soon as i saw the previews i got excited and said to myself "OMG! i have to see that!" as for my little "mind twister" i always think about that stuff and i love telling it to people just to make them think. Another thing i didn't add in there, was this:

I said the phrase, now what if there's something more evolved than us, that, every once in a while they look at us and say "look at those humans. They work for us, they don't know why, we could show them, but they would never understand" Now think about those aliens, this whole scenario just keeps going up the ladder, who do they work for? What if they think that they don't work for anyone but themselves, but they really do.

Think about a single cell in our body, like a red blood cell or something, that may think to itself, "who do i work for? what is the purpose in my life?" Do you think a blood cell, (if it could think) could ever comprehend what it does for us? What if we as humans are like a cell for an extremly evolved species. That's something we can't even imagine.

I believe after we die, after we learn what we came here to learn, we evolve into those higher evolved things, (whatever you want to call them) and if you didn't learn enough, then you reincarnate as a human agian.

Quote:

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Originally posted by catrina
nesgirl, the video game didn't have paddles and it didn't have a touch screen. You had to use your voice to play. Now how my sister found that out in my dream i have no idea. But if you didn't sing a note, the game was over. so she figured out that she had to sing and then we won the game. it was weird.

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So it was like Mario Party 6, using your voice in a microphone! So cool! I wish games in real life were more like that!

ha, i really like that last post i put. I re-read it today, and i think i put it into very good words.
::takes a bow::

I'm surprised noone picked this up.

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i believe that everything that is here now, was thought about very carefully, before it came to being. Becasue in order for us to live, it is very complex. For instance, the human race, and basically, all living things cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment. Obviously a body requires air, and the air must within a certain temperature range. The body also requires certain kinds of nutrition. So in order to occur the body must be on a mild and nutritive planet with just enough oxygen in the atmosphere spinning regularly around in a harmonious and rhythmical way near a certain kind of warm star or our sun. Now, is all of that just a mere coincidence? i don't think so.
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Coincidence....I guess you could call it that, but it eventually will happen somewhere. Think about all the stars in the universe (which you really cant, just bceause of the sheer number), do you think that eventually one of those stars will be able to support life? The reason we think of a God is because we are the only intelligent life forms within our knowledge. That is because of teh tiny chance that a solar system could support life. This is know as the Weak( or strong, cant remember) Anthropic Principle(correct me if I'm wrong)There are other intelligent life forms, they are just too far away for us to ever reach (the chance that they would be is extremely small).