Source: alchemy-and-alchemists.blogspot.com
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Tuesday, 19 August 2014
Wittgensteinian Metaphysics
Source: alchemy-and-alchemists.blogspot.com
Labels:
european people,
magick,
philosophy
Monday, 11 August 2014
Four Basic Questions About Human Life And Their Answers
By Lt Col R K Langar
The title of this article is based on Hindu philosophy or the Vedanta philosophy. The four basic questions related to a human being are one, 'who am I' two 'where have I come from in this world', three 'what is the purpose of my existence or what is my role' and four 'where do I go when I leave the world'. The answers to these four questions are discussed in subsequent paragraphs.
WHO AM I?
The three major ingredients of human being are body, mind and soul or Atma. Man is essentially an Atma a fraction of God or a ray of Supreme having mind and body. Soul or Atma is the highest component of man's personality. Soul being the energy of God is not destroyed at the death of the body. As we change our worn out clothes with the new ones, similarly at death, the soul with the mind and senses leaves the worn out body and takes a new birth in another body till the soul is released from the cycle of birth and death or when the man attain liberation or God realization. In other words life does not end at death as life is a continuous process the Atma or soul going from one body to anther till it gets liberated. The soul being a fragment of God has three inherent qualities which are truth, knowledge and bliss or Sat-Chit-Anand. The immediate answer to the question 'who am I ' is that I am a soul having a body, mind and intellect and inside me there is truth, knowledge and bliss or never ending happiness which are lying latent in me and which I must manifest with self effort to become a complete man. The knowledge inside me is capable of making me a pure, lovable and a peaceful person who shall ever remain in a state of stability. When I recognize or manifest these qualities inside me, I do not have to look for happiness upon the outer conditions. 'Who am I' teaches me that I am a God like person not in the absolute sense but in relative sense. I must not only manifest God like qualities inside me but use them in my conduct. Hence every one must feel that he or she is potentially divine.
WHERE HAVE I COME FROM IN THIS WORLD?
The very fact that you are born as a human being in this world is by itself a boon. It also means that the karmic load of your past lives has not yet been exhausted and you are given another opportunity to evolve yourself to a higher state of consciousness. In the past life you may have been a human being who had led a normal life not doing too good or too bad to any person. Or you may have come down from heaven where you stayed by virtue of doing good work for your own self and after the merit of good work is exhausted you are reborn in this world. Lastly you may have been cattle or a beast in the past life that has completed the effects of your bad karmas and now born as a human being. Under all these three conditions, your present life is deeply connected to your past deeds and now it is entirely upto you as to how you spend your present life to make or break yourself.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF MY EXISTENCE?
Straight and simple purpose of my existence is God realization or Self realization so that you free yourself from the cycle of birth and death. With this purpose or goal of your life, you have to get yourself attached to God which means being detached to the world. You do not have to leave the worldly life and go to a jungle or forest to realize God. You have to live in the world without being affected by it. It is like sailing in a water of the river without allowing the water of the river to come inside the boat. It looks a tall task but this is the Dharma of every individual who is born in the world. You may not achieve total or absolute enlightenment but when you are on the right path, you shall be enlightened relatively.
Role or goal of human existence is to become reestablished in one's true self or soul by the process of yoga. Human life is offered to us to that we may transform it completely and realize our spiritual freedom. We have to fill up the emptiness in us with the divine qualities which are inherent in us. This is what we call living at the spiritual level of our personality above the body mind complex. Once we become aware of our inner beauties, these outflow in our conduct and behavior. Not only that when we are complete from inside, the outer circumstances do not affect our inner state and we respond to them as per our choice and do not react to them.
Purpose of our life is to flow like a river nourishing all those who come in our contact. Keep the goal of life in view out enjoy every moment of the present without thinking about the past and worrying about future. True and everlasting happiness lies only in the present. Love, care, share and serve all since all of us are capable of doing it. Life is a school with a difference. In a normal school you are first taught and then tested for all you have been taught. But in the school of life you are first tested or you first face the problems of life and then you learn from the difficulties you face. Life is the best teacher and you are your own teacher as well as student. Life is like a ladder. If you act righteously and truthfully you go up the ladder and if you act unrightously with self interest you come down the ladder. It is very appropriately said that where there is righteousness in heart, there is beauty in character. If there is beauty in character there is goodness in your conduct. Bhagavad Gita says that the man of good conduct or the doer of good will not face any misery.
WHERE DO I GO WHEN I LEAVE THE WORLD?
Now we come to answer the fourth question which says 'where do I go when I leave the world'. There are a number of choices before you. If you want to go to heaven; you then worship God and not the Supreme. If you want to get reborn in the world then lead and unenlightened life doing nothing too bad or too good. But these two options are for non spiritual people. For spiritual persons there are good options. If you want instant liberation from the cycle of birth and death, then your entire life has to be Supreme God oriented. But this option is for those who have complete knowledge of yoga, who have spiritual wisdom, who are selfless workers, who love God and remember Him at all times or those who have Nishkam Bhakti of Supreme and for those who are ever meditative. Bhagavad Gita gives two paths, bright and dark paths which are meant for yogis and not ordinary persons. Right path is for those who are enlightened (not to the extent of those who are qualified for instant liberation). And on death such people go to Brahmlok the highest point in the space under the influence of Maya. They do not return to the world and stay there till the Brahmlok itself gets merge with the Supreme. In the dark path people go to the sphere of manes and return to the world when there merit is exhausted. There are the people who have done good works but with some self interest. Then for these who are on the path of enlightenment but could not complete their process of enlightenment, they are reborn in the world in prosperous families or in the families of yogi where they complete their process of enlightenment of get liberation. Lastly there is one more place when you can go and you must avoid is when you do Papkarma, you will be reborn in lower species of animals and insects. Once you understand the purpose of your existence you are not to be told which path you take to go to the place when your span of life is completed in this world.
When you discover that you are a soul or Atma which is an everlasting energy, the fear of death takes a back seat. Then you discover that real life is not based on some achievement or on some competition but life is to stand on your values. When you consider yourself as a body, you consider yourself as living from birth to death. But when you consider yourself you are an indestructible soul then you realize that problem of life are connected with the body and not soul. Things like jealousy, hatred, desire, anger and greed which are body mind connected donot bother you as you are living above them. This is not a simple task since it involves a change in your belief system from being body conscious to soul conscious. Yet nevertheless it is a fact that sooner you realize better it would be for you. Then you shall be ever knowledgeable, pure and peaceful, love full and happy which are the inherent qualities of the soul of which you are aware being soul conscious. This requires working on your inner self to manifest the inherent qualities of the soul to become a complete person remaining unaffected by outer circumstances. Then you well know without a trace of doubt as to Who am I, Who is Supreme God, what is your relationship with him and how to connect with him.
The title of this article is based on Hindu philosophy or the Vedanta philosophy. The four basic questions related to a human being are one, 'who am I' two 'where have I come from in this world', three 'what is the purpose of my existence or what is my role' and four 'where do I go when I leave the world'. The answers to these four questions are discussed in subsequent paragraphs.
WHO AM I?
The three major ingredients of human being are body, mind and soul or Atma. Man is essentially an Atma a fraction of God or a ray of Supreme having mind and body. Soul or Atma is the highest component of man's personality. Soul being the energy of God is not destroyed at the death of the body. As we change our worn out clothes with the new ones, similarly at death, the soul with the mind and senses leaves the worn out body and takes a new birth in another body till the soul is released from the cycle of birth and death or when the man attain liberation or God realization. In other words life does not end at death as life is a continuous process the Atma or soul going from one body to anther till it gets liberated. The soul being a fragment of God has three inherent qualities which are truth, knowledge and bliss or Sat-Chit-Anand. The immediate answer to the question 'who am I ' is that I am a soul having a body, mind and intellect and inside me there is truth, knowledge and bliss or never ending happiness which are lying latent in me and which I must manifest with self effort to become a complete man. The knowledge inside me is capable of making me a pure, lovable and a peaceful person who shall ever remain in a state of stability. When I recognize or manifest these qualities inside me, I do not have to look for happiness upon the outer conditions. 'Who am I' teaches me that I am a God like person not in the absolute sense but in relative sense. I must not only manifest God like qualities inside me but use them in my conduct. Hence every one must feel that he or she is potentially divine.
WHERE HAVE I COME FROM IN THIS WORLD?
The very fact that you are born as a human being in this world is by itself a boon. It also means that the karmic load of your past lives has not yet been exhausted and you are given another opportunity to evolve yourself to a higher state of consciousness. In the past life you may have been a human being who had led a normal life not doing too good or too bad to any person. Or you may have come down from heaven where you stayed by virtue of doing good work for your own self and after the merit of good work is exhausted you are reborn in this world. Lastly you may have been cattle or a beast in the past life that has completed the effects of your bad karmas and now born as a human being. Under all these three conditions, your present life is deeply connected to your past deeds and now it is entirely upto you as to how you spend your present life to make or break yourself.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF MY EXISTENCE?
Straight and simple purpose of my existence is God realization or Self realization so that you free yourself from the cycle of birth and death. With this purpose or goal of your life, you have to get yourself attached to God which means being detached to the world. You do not have to leave the worldly life and go to a jungle or forest to realize God. You have to live in the world without being affected by it. It is like sailing in a water of the river without allowing the water of the river to come inside the boat. It looks a tall task but this is the Dharma of every individual who is born in the world. You may not achieve total or absolute enlightenment but when you are on the right path, you shall be enlightened relatively.
Role or goal of human existence is to become reestablished in one's true self or soul by the process of yoga. Human life is offered to us to that we may transform it completely and realize our spiritual freedom. We have to fill up the emptiness in us with the divine qualities which are inherent in us. This is what we call living at the spiritual level of our personality above the body mind complex. Once we become aware of our inner beauties, these outflow in our conduct and behavior. Not only that when we are complete from inside, the outer circumstances do not affect our inner state and we respond to them as per our choice and do not react to them.
Purpose of our life is to flow like a river nourishing all those who come in our contact. Keep the goal of life in view out enjoy every moment of the present without thinking about the past and worrying about future. True and everlasting happiness lies only in the present. Love, care, share and serve all since all of us are capable of doing it. Life is a school with a difference. In a normal school you are first taught and then tested for all you have been taught. But in the school of life you are first tested or you first face the problems of life and then you learn from the difficulties you face. Life is the best teacher and you are your own teacher as well as student. Life is like a ladder. If you act righteously and truthfully you go up the ladder and if you act unrightously with self interest you come down the ladder. It is very appropriately said that where there is righteousness in heart, there is beauty in character. If there is beauty in character there is goodness in your conduct. Bhagavad Gita says that the man of good conduct or the doer of good will not face any misery.
WHERE DO I GO WHEN I LEAVE THE WORLD?
Now we come to answer the fourth question which says 'where do I go when I leave the world'. There are a number of choices before you. If you want to go to heaven; you then worship God and not the Supreme. If you want to get reborn in the world then lead and unenlightened life doing nothing too bad or too good. But these two options are for non spiritual people. For spiritual persons there are good options. If you want instant liberation from the cycle of birth and death, then your entire life has to be Supreme God oriented. But this option is for those who have complete knowledge of yoga, who have spiritual wisdom, who are selfless workers, who love God and remember Him at all times or those who have Nishkam Bhakti of Supreme and for those who are ever meditative. Bhagavad Gita gives two paths, bright and dark paths which are meant for yogis and not ordinary persons. Right path is for those who are enlightened (not to the extent of those who are qualified for instant liberation). And on death such people go to Brahmlok the highest point in the space under the influence of Maya. They do not return to the world and stay there till the Brahmlok itself gets merge with the Supreme. In the dark path people go to the sphere of manes and return to the world when there merit is exhausted. There are the people who have done good works but with some self interest. Then for these who are on the path of enlightenment but could not complete their process of enlightenment, they are reborn in the world in prosperous families or in the families of yogi where they complete their process of enlightenment of get liberation. Lastly there is one more place when you can go and you must avoid is when you do Papkarma, you will be reborn in lower species of animals and insects. Once you understand the purpose of your existence you are not to be told which path you take to go to the place when your span of life is completed in this world.
CONCLUSION
When you discover that you are a soul or Atma which is an everlasting energy, the fear of death takes a back seat. Then you discover that real life is not based on some achievement or on some competition but life is to stand on your values. When you consider yourself as a body, you consider yourself as living from birth to death. But when you consider yourself you are an indestructible soul then you realize that problem of life are connected with the body and not soul. Things like jealousy, hatred, desire, anger and greed which are body mind connected donot bother you as you are living above them. This is not a simple task since it involves a change in your belief system from being body conscious to soul conscious. Yet nevertheless it is a fact that sooner you realize better it would be for you. Then you shall be ever knowledgeable, pure and peaceful, love full and happy which are the inherent qualities of the soul of which you are aware being soul conscious. This requires working on your inner self to manifest the inherent qualities of the soul to become a complete person remaining unaffected by outer circumstances. Then you well know without a trace of doubt as to Who am I, Who is Supreme God, what is your relationship with him and how to connect with him.
Labels:
magick,
metaphysics,
philosophy
Saturday, 9 August 2014
God Is A Practical Idealist
When I think about spiritually unhealthiness, it always boils down to one simple thing. We are not allowing God to bring about the reality he wants to bring about in our life, our work, or our church.
An unhealthy church is one that doesn't have life in the Spirit at the center of its being. When we start to make purely human decisions without God's direction, we begin to morph what should be a redeemed entity into a human institution. This is most easily evident in leadership. Some churches do not have the spiritual leaders as the physical leaders of the church. This causes an unhealthy situation in which the spiritual reality is in all-out conflict with the physical reality of what should be the redeemed and beautiful bride of Christ.
In our lives, the spiritual reality is always in conflict with the physical reality. And vice-versa. A healthy spiritual person faces a constant barrage of temptations to taint the physical reality they are beautifying. We, as Christians, crate a healthy physical reality that can help combat the dark spiritual reality of our own and other's souls. Both spiritual and physical can be corrupted. And both spiritual and physical can be redeemed.
To relegate the redeeming power of Christ to just the spiritual or the physical has always been a constant battle in the history of the church. We need to always keep both in perspective. God is always at work trying to redeem everything.
He is an idealist. We just need to get a glimpse of that ideal and allow Him to use us to help bring it about. He doesn't want us to just participate in mental exercises. He wants the spiritual processes to change our physical reality.
Credit: ceremonial-magic.blogspot.com
An unhealthy church is one that doesn't have life in the Spirit at the center of its being. When we start to make purely human decisions without God's direction, we begin to morph what should be a redeemed entity into a human institution. This is most easily evident in leadership. Some churches do not have the spiritual leaders as the physical leaders of the church. This causes an unhealthy situation in which the spiritual reality is in all-out conflict with the physical reality of what should be the redeemed and beautiful bride of Christ.
In our lives, the spiritual reality is always in conflict with the physical reality. And vice-versa. A healthy spiritual person faces a constant barrage of temptations to taint the physical reality they are beautifying. We, as Christians, crate a healthy physical reality that can help combat the dark spiritual reality of our own and other's souls. Both spiritual and physical can be corrupted. And both spiritual and physical can be redeemed.
To relegate the redeeming power of Christ to just the spiritual or the physical has always been a constant battle in the history of the church. We need to always keep both in perspective. God is always at work trying to redeem everything.
He is an idealist. We just need to get a glimpse of that ideal and allow Him to use us to help bring it about. He doesn't want us to just participate in mental exercises. He wants the spiritual processes to change our physical reality.
Watch out for the potholes.
Credit: ceremonial-magic.blogspot.com
Labels:
magick,
metaphysics,
philosophy
Wednesday, 23 April 2014
Quote Of The Day By Papalinton On Debating Creationists
Origin: my-spiritual-path.blogspot.com
Labels:
critical thinking,
magick,
philosophy
Thursday, 31 January 2013
Why Former Conservatives Become Atheists More Often Than Liberals Do
Source: wizard-notes.blogspot.com
Labels:
magick,
philosophy,
religion
Saturday, 24 April 2010
A Poor Substitute
.... The casual reader...would be forgiven for thinking that the leading lights of premodern Christianity were essentially liberal Episcopalians "avant la lettre".
In reality, these Christian sages were fiercely dogmatic by any modern standard. They were not fundamentalists, reading every line of Scripture literally, and they were, as Armstrong says, "inventive, fearless and confident in their interpretation of faith." But their inventiveness was grounded in shared doctrines and constrained by shared assumptions. Their theology was reticent in its claims about the ultimate nature of God but very specific about how God had revealed himself on earth. It's true that Augustine, for instance, did not interpret the early books of Genesis literally. But he certainly endorsed a literal reading of Jesus' resurrection - and he wouldn't have been much of a Christian theologian if he hadn't.....
This explains why liberal religion tends to be parasitic on more dogmatic forms of faith, which create and sustain the practices that the liberal believer picks and chooses from, reads symbolically and reinterprets for a more enlightened age. Such spiritual dilettant-ism has its charms, but it lacks the sturdy appeal of Western monotheism, which has always offered not only myth and ritual and symbolism (the pagans had those bases covered), but also scandalously literal claims - that the Jews really are God's chosen people; that Christ really did rise from the dead; and that however much the author of the universe may surpass our understanding, we can live in hope that he loves the world enough to save it, and us, from the annihilating power of death.
Such literalism can be taken too far, and "The Case for God" argues, convincingly, that it needs to coexist with more mythic, mystic and philosophical forms of faith. Most people, though, are not mystics and philosophers, and they are hungry for myths that are not only resonant but true. Apophatic religion may be the most rigorous way to go in search of an elusive God. But for most believers, it will remain a poor substitute for the idea that God has come in search of us.Book Review - 'The Case for God,' by Karen Armstrong - Review - NYTimes.com
Labels:
magick,
philosophy,
religious philosophy
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Religion Belief Every Knee Shall Bowgaye Frances Willard
Source: magical-poetry.blogspot.com
Labels:
ethics,
magick,
philosophy
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Mental Models For The Social World
In a think this is Kant's solution query in the Piece of writing of Agreeable Reason: what academic wake (concepts, categories, frameworks) does a cognitive agent inquire in order to make think of the please of consciousness, the terse experiences and atmosphere that life brings us? And his shot is sooner well known: we inquire concepts of secure possessions in space and time, release to causal laws. The precipitation of experiences we shut in is make plans for around a set of strong-willed possessions positioned in time and space with specified causal properties. Hiatus, time, dramatist, and mind are the solution categories of cognition since it comes to understanding the natural world. This line of rumor leads to an esoteric accepting method, the tenet of transcendental metaphysics. (P. F. Strawson's work on Kant is punctiliously helpful; The Boundary of Sense: An Piece on Kant's Piece of writing of Agreeable Target.)
But we can ask disapprovingly the incredibly amiable of query about the unadorned person's command to make think of the expansive world around him or her. Every person revelry is unacceptable to a determined precipitation of experiences of the expansive world, at varied levels. We shut in unadorned exchanges -- with friends, bus drivers, postal carriers, students -- and we want to interpret the action that we stare at. We read hearsay gossip and tweets about goings-on in the wider world -- riots in Athens, suicide attacks in Pakistan, source of revenue statements about fate sales,... -- and we want to know what these moments mean, how they aplomb together, and what might shut in caused them. In unhappy, we inquire to shut in a set of mental wake that arise us to clasp these experiences into a representation of a thought through expansive legitimacy.
So is it that you can think of to commit a transcendental metaphysics for unadorned expansive experience? Can we begin to list the kinds of concepts we inquire to shut in in order to cognize the expansive world?
We might say that a very basic stock fling of expansive cognition is a set of scripts or schemas into which we are eager to fit our commentary and experiences. Guess we stare at two strain stop each other on the avenue, switch words, bow heads unimportantly, and part. This dealings in the company of two strangers might be categorized as "discretion" fashionable a hopefulness day. But it might be construed in other ways as well: desiccated harm, sexual innuendo, or turn your nose up at from classy to regretful. Every person of these is an departure interpretive get to your feet, a way of conceptualizing and "seeing" a thorny series of behaviors. So the scripts or frames that we bring to the commentary palm off a form of group on the commentary.
Or yield the extant rioting in Greece: we might expertise these commoners of familiar action as articulately directed productive bicker, acceptably gun emplacements, or opportunistic anarchism. Every person departure has noticeable implications, and each corresponds to a vaguely noticeable set of milieu assumptions about how expansive exchanges share out. Every person corresponds to a noticeable expansive metaphysic. Marked observers bring a noticeable set of assumptions about how the expansive world works to their commentary. And these frameworks lead to noticeable constructions of the procedures.
Or give a ruling the query of the expansive "items" around which we clasp our expansive perceptions: nations, fiscal markets, cities, parties, and ideologies, for sculpt. How significantly chance is impart in the ontological schemes into which we clasp the world? May perhaps we shut in done trade event as well at making think of our liking with a well noticeable ontology? Is impart a record basic ontology that underlies each of these and is a plan that cannot be dispensed with?
We might try a "solution" ontology consume these lines: we condition let the cat out of the bag populate as purposive, conscious agents; we condition perceive associations among populate -- giving us expansive networks, knowledge turn over, and groups; and we condition perceive expansive processes with causal powers, constituted by populate within specified expansive associations. And we condition perceive the leave of consciousness -- beliefs, requests, values, and ideologies. And, we might consider, we can build up all other senior specified expansive entities out of aggregations of these simple items.
This is one that you can think of way of formalizing a expansive ontology. But impart are others. For sculpt, we might deputize position to associations comparatively than individuals; or we might deputize position to processes comparatively than structures. So it is spiky to let off the tenet that impart is a being mainly best way of conceptualizing the realm of the expansive.
An attention-grabbing deposit query has to do with the possibility of systemic error: is it that you can think of that our metaphysical presuppositions about the expansive world sometimes lead us to construe our expansive commentary in ways that methodically feint reality? For sculpt, would a "metaphysics of impression" (the method that strain typically conceal their true motives) lead us to a worldview consume the ramparts of Jerry Fletcher, the fundamental air in Plan Theory?
Abundant items grow ecological. In the early hours, impart is no being and characteristic set of ontological "simples" for the expansive world. Impartially, impart are ecological to be complex starting points, all of which can answer in a effectively elucidation of the expansive world. So impart is no transcendental metaphysics for the expansive world -- plus the hopeful sketched above.
Glimmer, it seems that the required constraint of having a set of causal, semantic, and outing schemata does not guarantee decency. Our schemata may methodically lead on us. So the schemata themselves segregate to a major empirical hypothesis; they may be superseded by other schemata that minister to larger to clasp our experiences. The schemata are not determined by either apriori or empirical considerations. And from now our expansive cognitions are interminably a work in acquire, and our conceptual frameworks are senior covet a copy than an ineluctable conceptual institute.
Labels:
kantianism,
magick,
philosophy
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